THE RAIDERS

Chapter 1

The Vikings at Home

“One’s home is best, small though it may be…” 

-Edda of Sæmund the Wise

The most frightening thing about the Vikings was that almost nothing about them was known. In the eighth century, their homelands were at the fringe of the known world, a cold and inhospitable place that the civilizing hand of the Roman Empire had never touched. Scandinavia – the land divided today into the modern countries of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark – is a place of extremes. It stretches 1,243 miles from Jutland in the south to Knivskjellodden in the Arctic Circle, a distance accounting for half the length of Europe. It contains one of the continent’s most mountainous countries, Norway, as well as one of its flattest, Denmark, whose highest point rises only five hundred and sixty one feet above sea level. 

Of the three countries – none of which existed at the start of the Viking Age – Denmark, covering the Jutland peninsula and more than five hundred small islands, has the most favorable climate. Warmed by the Gulf Stream and the North Atlantic current, the country is a patchwork of rocky beaches, green fields, and forests of oak and elm. Since it shares its western coast with modern Germany, west was a natural direction for its young men to explore. Vikings from Denmark fanned out across the Low Countries and France, eventually crossing the Channel into Britain, and from there conducting raids as far as Spain and even Italy.⁶ Although England was first attacked by raiders from what is now Norway, so many Danes infested their waterways that the Anglo-Saxon sources took to referring to all Vikings as ‘Danes’ regardless of where they came from. 

The main Scandinavian peninsula – covered today by the modern countries of Norway and Sweden – has a much less hospitable climate than Denmark. Of the two regions, what is now Sweden has the better farmland. Its shores look east towards Russia, and most of its Vikings travelled in that direction, although largely to trade instead of raid. Their exploits are arguably the least well known, but some of the most lasting since they founded the first Russian state in Kiev. 

The most rugged of the Viking lands is Norway, almost a third of which is above the Arctic Circle. The long western coast is protected from the icy battering of the Atlantic by a barrier of rocky islands and dramatic fjords which provide the ‘northern way’ – a navigable coastal route to the Arctic Circle – that gave Norway its name.⁷ Unsurprisingly, when they ventured into the North Sea, the Norwegian Vikings pushed west, sometimes raiding and sometimes colonizing. This group founded settlements in Greenland and reached the New World around AD 1000. 

In the Viking Age, both Sweden and Norway were thinly settled and largely unable to sustain large populations. Norway’s available farmland was broken up by long narrow fjords, which led into the mountainous interior, while vast, impenetrable forests, bogs, and lakes closed off much of southern and western Sweden. A surprising amount of game was available in the summers – including reindeer, elk, wolves, bears, wolverines, and foxes – but the long winters punished those who failed to plan ahead. Perhaps because of this scarcity, hospitality was highly valued, and failure as a host could start bloodfeuds lasting generations.

To pass the time they invented a number of games including Knattleik, a ball game similar to hockey, which attracted both large crowds and frequent injuries. Several less violent board games did exist, but the Vikings primarily valued physical fitness.⁸ Their most popular activities were usually tests of strength – wrestling, sword fighting, and trying to dunk each other; endurance – climbing fjords, skiing, skating and distance swimming; or agility – throwing spears with both hands at the same time, or leaping from oar to oar outside the railing of a ship while it was being rowed. 

Winners of these contests were not shy in broadcasting the fact. A Norwegian king named Øystein boasted to his brother (and co-ruler) Sigurd “I was so good at skating that I didn’t know anyone who could vie with me; but you weren’t better than a cow.” 

When not fighting themselves, the Scandinavians would occasionally pit animals against each other. The most popular of these blood sports involved horses. Two stallions would be led in sight and smell of a fenced-off mare, and allowed to fight, often resulting in the death of the weaker one. Indiscriminate killing was frowned upon, but mercy was not a quality that befitted a warrior. One Icelandic man was apparently mocked as a ‘child-lover’ because he refused to participate in the sport of tossing captured babies into the air and catching them on the point of a spear.⁹ 

These pursuits sound brutal to our ears, but in other ways the Vikings were surprisingly modern. Unlike the usual stereotype of a rude barbarian, they were very conscious of their appearance and had excellent hygiene.¹⁰ They carefully groomed themselves and generally bathed at least once a day with a lye-rich soap that both bleached their hair and cut down on lice. Highly prized tweezers, razors, combs, and even ear cleaners have all been found in Viking excavations. 

Thanks to the absence of sugar in European diets, cavities were virtually unknown, and although half of their children died before age ten, those who survived could expect to live into their fifties, a very respectable age for the time. The average height for males was five foot eight, and females five foot three, not towering, but certainly taller than the peoples to the south with whom they came in contact. 

Women, although by no means equal, probably had greater rights in Viking culture than anywhere in Western Christendom. Many girls married as young as twelve, but when the husband was away, the wife ran every aspect of the home and made all important decisions.¹¹ If she remained married for twenty years – and either partner could dissolve the union at will – she had a legal right to half of the wealth her husband had accumulated.¹² Unlike in the rest of Europe, she could inherit property, divorce her husband, and reclaim her dowery when the marriage ended. Several touching rune stones have been found raised in women’s honor – from the Danish king Gorm the Old who praised his wife as ‘the ornament of Denmark’ to an anonymous carving proclaiming that there was ‘no better housewife than Hassmyra’.¹³ 

Children were encouraged to help their parents with the running of the household. Girls were taught the arts of brewing and dairy production, while boys were instructed how to hunt while skiing, and to work with wood or metal. The games they played were designed to prepare them for adulthood. A favorite exercise of boys was jumping while carrying weight and swimming while armed; a fully-grown Viking was expected to be able to swim for several miles. 

Order in society was kept through harsh punishments. Men caught in adultery were hung or trampled by a horse, arsonists were burned at the stake, and, according to the Danish historian Saxo Grammaticus, those who killed their brothers were hung by their heels next to a live wolf. Rebels who flouted the community’s – or later the king’s – decisions were tied to horses and torn apart, or bound to an enraged bull. 

Surprisingly for such violent times, the Vikings also believed that a cultured man should be musical. A popular saga told of the Norwegian king Godmund who employed a musician that played with such vigor that even the knives and dishes started to dance. Indeed, no Viking court was complete without its poets, musicians, and dancers. The thirteenth century Orkneyinga Saga tells of Rognvald Kali Kolsson, a political mover who counted the king of Norway among his friends, who listed harp playing among the skills he was most proud of. 

Viking celebrations were probably rowdier than elsewhere in Europe. Feasts could last for quite a while – the Danish king Sven Estridsson held one for eight days – and always involved drinking. The appropriate form at these celebrations was to imbibe without inhibition, and contests were frequent, usually battles of wit where both sides tried not to show any effects of the alcohol. This was made more difficult since it was considered a grave breach of hospitality to refuse an offered horn of ale or mead unless you were old or sick.¹⁴

Feasting and hospitality were important because for nearly six months a year the Vikings had to endure freezing, snowy winters on land and foul storms at sea. The imposing landscape and harsh conditions produced a population that was brutally capable and independent. They valued courage and despised weakness. The custom, at least among those Swedes who went east, was for a father to place a sword in his new-born son’s crib and say ‘I shall not leave you property to inherit. You have nothing but what you can acquire for yourself with this sword.’ This attitude, that life, glory and wealth must be seized, characterized the Norse throughout the Viking Age. When asked what faith he subscribed to, one tenth century Viking responded “I believe in my own strength.” 

Although they had gods, the Vikings had no word for ‘religion’.¹⁵ There was no ‘official’ way to worship, no universal doctrine, and no central church. Instead they had a set of general beliefs with extensive local variations.¹⁶ They saw the universe as one of concentric circles. There were nine worlds, most of them invisible, in three distinct realms. The outer one – Utgard – was populated by giants and monsters who circled like wolves in the darkness, held back only by the watchful eyes of the gods. The middle circle was Midgard – literally ‘middle yard’ – where humans and gods lived. The former shared the land with dwarves and dark elves, who were capable of producing magical gifts but guarded their hoards jealously. Across the Bifrost, a rainbow bridge that no human could cross, the two tribes of gods – Aesir and Vanir – lived in fabled Asgard, the Hall of the Slain, where the dead heroes feasted, waiting for the last great battle. The highest honor a warrior could receive was to be chosen as one of that number. The brave who fell in battle were scooped up by the Valkyries, shield maidens of Odin whose job it was to fill his feasting hall of Valhalla before the end of days. 

The innermost circle was Niflheim, the world of the dead. There, in a colorless twilight watched over by the goddess Hel, were the souls of the men, women, and children who had died. This grim place was not a punishment for the wicked, rather it was the fate of most humans. The exceptions were the brave who went to live with the Aesir, and the outcasts – those guilty of adultery, murder, and oath-breaking – who were doomed to become evil spirits haunting their barrows.¹⁷ 

Connecting the three main worlds was an immense ash tree called Yggdrasil. At its roots sat the Norns, three spirits (‘prophesy’, ‘being’, and ‘necessity’) spinning out the fates of gods, giants, and men. Their task was to guard the tree from the Nidhogg, a great dragon who feasted on the corpses of the wicked and chewed on the roots of the tree. 

Of the thirteen major gods of Valhalla, Odin and Thor were the most important, but there was no agreement as to who was more powerful. The upper classes, especially those in Denmark and southern Sweden, tended to worship Odin, while farmers preferred Thor.¹⁸ 

Odin the ‘All-father’, was the god of poetry, madness, battle, and magic, who could grant men courage or deprive them of their wits. By hanging himself from a sacred tree for nine days he had learned the secret runes, which allowed him to see the future, and more than the rest of the gods he pursued wisdom. He had sacrificed an eye for a drink out of the well of knowledge, and had two pet ravens – Huginn and Muninn – who circled the globe each day, returning to whisper their discovered secrets into Odin’s ear.¹⁹ He was a formidable god in battle – his magical spear, Gungnir, never missed its target, and his eight-legged horse Sleipnir could speed across air, water, or land equally well – but he usually depended on his wisdom to win battles.²⁰ 

Thor by contrast, was a slowwitted god who depended on brute force to overwhelm his enemies. A red-haired deity with frightening eyes, he wielded the mighty hammer Mjolnir which could level mountains or resurrect the dead. He served as mankind’s protector, constantly fighting the ice giants who threatened to overwhelm Midgard. Where Thor walked – or flew in a chariot pulled by two magical goats – storms followed, and his battles could be seen in the flashes of lightning in the mountains 

Although he was always popular – particularly with those who ventured out onto the open ocean – Thor’s popularity grew at the end of the Viking Age, probably because he was seen as the most able defender against encroaching Christianity. 

Viking beliefs about the future were not overly cheerful. In the long, icy dark of a northern winter, it must have been easy to believe that all warmth would eventually fail. The wolves could only be held at bay for so long. Even the Viking gods were not immortal. Ragnarok – the last battle – was coming when all of them – gods, heroes, Norns – and the great tree Yggdrasil were doomed. The shadowy dragon Nidhogg would rise from his feast of corpses, unleashing a winter lasting three years. Brother would fight brother, and plunge the world into chaos. The monstrous wolves chasing the sun and moon would catch them and snuff them out. The fire demons and ice giants would breach the walls of Asgard and the dead in Hel would break free, overwhelming the gods and heroes assembled to fight them. There was a glimmer of hope, however. Two children each from Odin and Thor would survive the ‘axe, wind, and wolf age’ and form a new earth. 

There may have been no escape from the icy cataclysm to come, but that didn’t stop the Vikings from appealing to the gods for their aid – especially at sea. The Viking world, after all, was one of water as much as land. When game was scarce, gifts from the sea – seal, whale, and walrus meat – sustained them. Travel along Norway’s dramatic fjords, Sweden’s coasts, and Denmark’s islands, could only be made by sea. In many ways the ocean knit the Scandinavian world together, and as a result the Vikings viewed their world through the prism of the ocean. They called the spine of mountains that split their great peninsula ‘Kjølen’ – the Keel – as if Scandinavia itself were an upturned boat. Babies were laid in cradles shaped like ships, children played with toy boats, and adults designed houses like ships – at times from discarded bits of ships. Women wore clasps and brooches in their shape, and some men even rode with stirrups fashioned with dragon-headed prows. Even in death they refused to be parted from their ships. Great men and women merited fully fitted, ornamental vessels, complete with slaughtered animals, weapons, wealth, and slaves – voluntary or not – all interred beneath a great mound.²¹ Lesser warriors were laid in simple ships, functional vehicles to carry them into eternity. Those too poor to afford the real thing were buried in pits, covered in stones arranged in the shape of a boat.

Thanks to this emphasis on the sea, the Vikings were well aware of the world to their south. Scandinavia had vast natural resources, including pelts, high quality amber and enormous iron deposits, and by the ninth century the northerners had been carrying out a brisk trade with the lands to their south and east for centuries. 

The word ‘Scandinavia’ was in fact coined by the Roman geographer Pliny the Elder in the first century A.D. He mistook the southernmost tip of Sweden for an island and called it ‘Scania’ after a tribe that lived there. His contemporary Tacitus, writing at the end of the century, described its inhabitants with the word Suiones – from which we get ‘Swedes’  – as ‘well-armed, acquisitive, skilled in sailing curious ships with a prow at each end…’ 

In those first centuries of contact with the Romans, the ‘strange ships’ came to trade not rob. Their wares, especially the fine horses and black fox skins, were highly valued in Roman markets. The reverse was also true. Roman goods, most often weapons, glass, and jewelry, filtered up through Germanic intermediaries and are sometimes still found in early Scandinavian grave mounds. This trade also brought with it knowledge of the Latin and Greek alphabet which – slightly adapted for carving on hard surfaces – formed the basis of the first Runic script.²² 

When they did interact directly, the Romans learned to respect northern prowess. Writing from Constantinople in the sixth century, the historian Jordanes described the Scandinavians as ‘ferocious’ opponents who were of ‘extraordinary’ stature. In part this was attributed to their harsh climate which, he informed his readers, was one of perpetual darkness during the winter, and unbroken light during the summer.²³ This made it necessary for the inhabitants to live off birds eggs and the flesh of animals since wheat could not grow in the extreme north. The frozen landscape was a mass of shifting tribes, uncivilized by a single guiding hand like that of the Roman Emperor. Jordanes mentions more than thirty different ‘nations’ within what is now modern Norway and Sweden, and tells how one in particular – the Goths – entered the Roman Empire. 

This first “Viking” invasion came by land and took several centuries. The Goths migrated from southern Sweden to the Black Sea, crossing into Roman territory in the third century. They secured a great victory in 378, killing the emperor Valens in the Balkans at Adrianople, and within a hundred and fifty years had conquered Italy, southern France, and most of Spain. 

Procopius, the historian who chronicled the Roman recovery of much of these lands, described the northern tribes in a kind of awe, calling them ‘superior to all who dwelt about them.’ Further migrations followed in the Gothic wake. Angles, Jutes, and Saxons, tribes originating from Denmark and northern Germany, invaded Britain, and, by the time Procopius wrote, were well on the way to pushing the native inhabitants into Wales. 

This early period, known appropriately enough as the ‘Age of Migrations’, were movements largely by land, not water, and aside from the Goths didn’t affect the majority of the population in Scandinavia. What made the great Viking raids possible was a revolution in shipbuilding at the end of the eighth century. 

The earliest Viking vessels were copied from Roman or Celtic designs and powered by oars instead of the usual paddles.²⁴ Like all ships of the time they were slow and prone to capsizing in rough seas, appropriate for short trips that hugged the shore. Sometime in the eighth century, however, the Vikings invented the keel. This simple addition is among the greatest of nautical breakthroughs. Not only did it stabilize the ship, making it ocean-worthy, but it provided a base to anchor the mast. A massive sail, some as large as eight hundred square feet, could now be added as the major source of propulsion. The impact was immediate and stunning. In a time when few Europeans ventured far from land, the Vikings criss-crossed the Atlantic with cargoes of timber, animals, and food, covering distances of nearly four thousand miles. 

To aid steering on these long voyages, the Vikings used a special oar which they called a Styra bord, or ‘steering board’. In deference to the dominant hand of most sailors it was placed on the right side of the ship near the stern to make the ship easier to control. From this we get the nautical term ‘starboard’, which refers to the right side of a vessel. The opposite term also owes its existence – albeit more indirectly – to the Vikings. When ships reached the port they would usually be docked on the left side to avoid damage to the steering oar. Over time, ‘port’ was used as a shorthand for ‘left’. 

A number of different ships were developed – cargo vessels, ferries, and fishing boats – but the warships, or longships, in particular were a brilliant combination of strength, flexibility, and speed. Built to glide over the surface of the water, the longships could be made from local materials, without the specialized labor needed for Mediterranean vessels.²⁵ The ships of the south were both costly and clunky, held together with multiple rivets and braces, and several decks. The Viking ships, by contrast, were clinker-built with overlapping planks of oak – always green instead of seasoned for greater flexibility – which allowed them to bend with the waves.²⁶ 

Viking ships were mostly undecked, unless made to stow cargo, which made the long Atlantic crossing a brutal affair. During rough seas, the waves would frequently break over the sides, and there was little protection against the lashing rain or sleet other than a simple tent pitched on the deck. 

But what they lacked in comforts, they more than made up for with lethal simplicity. Viking longships lacked the keels of the larger ocean-crossing ships, and their relatively shallow drafts allowed them to be beached virtually anywhere instead of just the deep-water ports required by other vessels.²⁷ This made it possible for a longship to navigate up rivers, and some were light enough to be carried between river systems.²⁸ 

The Viking poets called the longships ‘steeds of the waves’, but they were more like prowling wolves. The hapless victims of Viking attacks took to calling the northerners ‘sea-wolves‘, after the predators that roamed the darkness outside of human habitation. The longships could accommodate up to a hundred men, but could be handled on the open sea by as few as fifteen. They were agile enough to slip past coastal defenses, roomy enough to store weeks of loot, sturdy enough to cross the stormy Atlantic, and light enough to be dragged between rivers. 

But the most frightening thing about them was their speed. They could average up to four knots and reach eight to ten if the winds or currents were with them. This ensured that the element of surprise would nearly always be with the Vikings. A fleet in Scandinavia could cover the nine hundred miles to the mouth of the Seine in three weeks, an average of over forty miles per day.²⁹ Under oar they were nearly as fast. One Viking fleet rowed up the hundred and fifty miles of the Seine – against the current and fending off two Frankish attacks – to reach Paris in three days. The medieval armies they faced, assuming they had access to a good Roman roads, could only average between twelve and fifteen miles per day. Even elite cavalry forces pushing hard could only manage twenty. 

It was this speed – the ability to move up to five times as fast as their enemies – that made Viking attacks so lethal. With shallow draughts that could pass under bridges or up shallow rivers, fierce dragon prows, and brightly painted shields fitted onto the sides that glittered like scales, they must have been psychologically unnerving. In a single lightning attack, they could hit several towns and disappear before their opponents could even get an army into the field. Nor was there any hope for the victims of challenging Viking supremacy at sea. Between 800 and 1100 most major naval battles fought in the North Atlantic involved Vikings fighting each other. 

As the ninth century dawned, all the pieces of the Viking Age were in place. The Scandinavians had an advantage at sea that was impossible to defend against, knowledge of the major trade routes, and an unsuspecting world in full view. The only thing that remained was to select a suitable target.