Seamen
Jo Gnmond
The Orkneyinga Saga translated by Hermann Palsson and Paul Edwards (The Hogarth Press £7.50) Considering its importance to their own history, the British pay singularly little attention to the history of the Vikings or the lives of their Norse ancestors. All three of the commandeis at the crucial battles of Stamford Bridge and Hastings were of Norse origin: Harald, King of Norway, Harald Godwinson King of England and Duke William. The last was descended from Hrolf, the Viking conqueror of Normandy, the son of Earl Rognvald to whom Harald Fair Hair, King of Norway, gave Orkney and Shetland in the ninth century. The Orkneyinga Saga is the story of the Earls of Orkney from then until the end of the twelfth century. Two earls of Orkney and a contingent of Orkneymen fought at Stamford Bridge with the Norwegian forces.
For over three hundred years Orkney was one of the ,great earldoms of the Scan
dinavian empire. Since it was annexed to Scotland in the late fifteenth century as surety for the dowry of a Danish princess (those forty thousand florins of the Rhine which Orkney has never forgotten), the islands have made only fitful appearances in British history, as a base for the fleet or the landfall for oil. But long, long before Jellicoe or Beatty, the Vikings sailed from Scapa Flow to raid Scotland, England, Ireland and Wales and under the great Earl Rognvald Kali to take part in the Crusades. One of the most evocative of the many prehistoric monuments in Orkney is the beehive tomb broken into by the Norsemen on their way to the Holy Land. Round it they cut with their axes the largest surviving collection of runic writing and the Maeshowe dragon which decorates the title page of this book. The writings seem to harp upon one of the main themes of all such graffiti — women; but considering they were inscribed with battle axes, they are of extraordinarily delicate execution.
The saga was written down in Iceland, probably in the thirteenth century, but the tales of which it is composed were presumably told and sung through the Norse world long before. It is largely composed of stories of pillage and death interspersed with poems attributed to its heroes. Raiding was important to the Viking economy as well as being enjoyable. From my house I can see the island of Gairsay, the home of Svein Asleifarson, one of the most famous and destructive of Orkney Vikings who was killed in Dublin after capturing the city. Gairsay is an island of perhaps two hundred not very good acres. It has never in my time supported even one native-born family. Svein, however, built a hall in which nearly a hundred men were regularly feasted. Obviously they could not live off the agriculture of Gairsay. So just as their descendants in Shetland go fishing or whaling in the summer while the women work the crofts, so in the old days the men went looting.
But it is clear from the saga that even in those days farming in Orkney was flourishing as it is today. Nor were most of the earls and their henchmen oppressive to the farmers, indeed the Vikings themselves were part-time farmers. When at home they indulged in much jollification. Considering the violence in which they indulged and the constant feuds, made worse by the habit of sharing out Orkney between two or three earls, it is strange that they did not even fortify their houses, much less build castles. They were frequently burnt alive by their enemies and when Earl Rognvald under.
took to reduce a castle in Spain, he was at a loss how to proceed. It was not that theY could not build, or get buildings constructed for them: in Kirkwall there stands one of the most beautiful small cathedrals in the world erected in the twelfth century by Rognvald — himself a saint — in honour of St Magnus. the earl treacherously murdered by Hakon his colleague on the island of Egilsay. The miracles of St Magnus take up a whole chapter of the saga.
This dislike of castles throws a rather sym• pathetic light on the northern Vikings as against the Normans. For all their faults they came out of these stories as open, generous. even democratic. They were constantly Conferring at the tings, or rudimentary parliaments — long before Westminster was thought of. If you called on them you were magnificently feasted, even if your skull might later be cracked, and they in turn seem to have been well received as far away as Novgorod and Byzantium when travelling peacefully. I detect these traits in the modern Orkneymen. Now that the economy no longer depends on loot they have become an extremely genial, uncensorious people, laughing at the aggression and prestige-seeking of their Scottish neighbours. Indeed even in the saga ponlr ous and incompetent plunderers are treated with amusement. Perhaps this pleasant latter-day community is doomed to be des° troyed by oil. But having survived the Scotch I daresay we shall come up from under the Americanised English oil-men. Incidentally, it is also significant that the Scotch landlords who settled upon the islands like locusts were much more unpopular than the most barbarous of the native pirate chiefs.
It was of course their extraordinary genius on the sea which was the glory of the Scandinavians. Think of setting out in a boat perhaps some thirty or forty feet long, largely undecked, to row and sail to Iceland, the Black Sea, or even to Norway or Ireland, Yet the characters in the saga thought nothing of popping over to see the king ill Bergen and there are extremely few accounts of losses at sea. This seamanshill gave them a mobility which enabled their constantly to surprise their victims. Their fleets appear to have been small. Ten long' ships were an armada, but one can imagine the consternation caused by the appearance, on a dark stormy night when one might suppose no boat could live at sea, of sonic fifty axe-waving Vikings at the door. TodaY Orkneymen are farmers rather than seamen, but the Shetlanders retain their skill in boats' And it is in boats and in the names of sea' places and sea-birds that the great age lingers on most clearly. Orkney and Shetland look with some dismay on the prospect of rule from the Clyde valley. They may feel that It too late for Scandinavia to pay up those forty thousand florins, but they are girding themselves to protect their Norse heritage from oil and Edinburgh. I hope they sue' ceed. This new translation of the saga InnY help though it is not as fully documented as Taylor's edition, now I suppose out of print.
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