Vikings (39 page)

In many ways it was a perfect location for Vikings. The five buildings – three longhouses and some associated smaller structures – sit on a terrace of level ground overlooking the sea in Epaves Bay. Close by is a little freshwater stream, known to locals today as the Black Duck Brook. Excavation has revealed evidence of workshops, metal-working and boat repair.

But the fact remains that Vikings living in Newfoundland were a long, long way from home. Supply lines connecting them to Greenland would have been stretched thin – and Iceland and Norway must have felt like the far side of the moon. In addition
to the isolation there was the presence, as testified in the sagas, of unfriendly natives. The discovery of an ‘arrow-shaped object’ made of Eastern White Cedar wood has been interpreted by some as proof of war with Indians, or Inuit; but even without physical evidence of conflict it is easy to see why Newfoundland would simply have felt, in the end, like a step too far.

Furthermore, most archaeologists doubt that Newfoundland was the ‘Vinland’ reported by Leif Eiriksson. Instead L’Anse aux Meadows is usually interpreted as a sort of way station, a staging post used by people in transit to and from a more fruitful settlement further south. It seems Vinland itself still awaits discovery.

Although Greenland was abandoned by the settlers at the end of the Middle Ages – apparently as a result of the southwards advance of Inuit peoples originating from Canada – it appears to have supported a thriving community throughout the Viking Age. There has been much speculation about whether the Inuit people, the ancestors of all modern Greenlanders, might have inflicted upon the Vikings the kind of genocide they themselves have been accused of in Orkney and Shetland. In any event, some misfortune overtook them. Perhaps it was an epidemic of disease, or too many harsh winters in succession, but eventually the ships from Greenland stopped arriving in Iceland. When a Christian mission was sent out from Norway in the early seventeenth century, it found not a single man or woman of Viking descent.

When reading and thinking about Vikings I continually have to pause and remind myself that so many elements of their grand adventure were unfolding almost simultaneously. Many of the books – particularly of the specialist, academic kind – concentrate on single facets. Such an approach is right and proper of course, indeed a necessity if any meaningful attempt
is to be made to get to grips with the detail of any one fragment of the bigger picture. The story of the Vikings in Iceland, the Rus in the East, the Danes in Ireland, or in England, the earls of Orkney – any of these and dozens more besides deserve lifetimes of consideration. It is precisely because the Vikings were so
busy
– that they achieved so much, travelled so far and affected the destinies of so many people and peoples – that it is almost impossible to grasp the whole of it, the depth of it.

I try to remember that around the time Gunnbjörn Ulfsson was gazing out at the coast of Greenland from the deck of his storm-tossed ship, the Viking Oleg of Kiev, prince among the Rus, was contemplating the invasion of Constantinople. I think about how Leif Eriksson laid plans for his voyage to North America while a strange little girl in a red dress ran along the wooden walkways of Birka, back in Sweden. And while Arab writers like Ibn Fadlan wrote about meeting unwashed Swedish heathens on the banks of the Volga, Danish and Icelandic Vikings were helping decide the fate of Britain on the lost field of Brunanburh.

The scale of their endeavour is breathtaking. Their willingness to keep going further, reaching out beyond every horizon, meant they were even instrumental in stretching the limits of the known world. In ways that no other Europeans had properly contemplated, they made that world a bigger place. Strangely enough – especially given their proudly pagan heritage – the restless voyaging of the Vikings helped transport Christianity as well. Like a seed carried on the sole of a traveller’s shoe, it hitched a ride.

Eirik the Red was a good pagan and seems to have stayed true to the old gods of his fathers. Thjodhild, however, was a Christian. According to the sagas, the discovery of North America and pioneering new routes to Scandinavia were hardly the limit of Leif Eriksson’s achievements. Sometime before the
westward voyage that made him a legend, he travelled east to meet Olaf Tryggvasson, King of Norway. Olaf was a Christian by then and, before accepting Leif as his man, he had him converted to his faith. Olaf also tasked him with converting the Greenlanders and on his return to his parents’ home Leif made a Christian of his mother. Although Eirik preferred to follow the old ways, he built a little turf and stone church for Thjodhild.

Visitors to Brattalith today will find a fine church among the complex of buildings that make up ‘Eirik the Red’s Farm’. It post-dates Eirik and Thjodhild by centuries but is close by the slight remains of ‘Thjodhild’s Church’.

Just as the Vikings changed every part of the world that they touched, so they were changed in return. The same pragmatism that enabled them to blend easily into new circumstances made them appreciate useful ideas wherever they encountered them. As intelligent observers of the countries beyond the borders of their Scandinavian homelands, they could hardly have failed to appreciate the potential of Christianity. On their eastern and south-eastern borders there were pagan Balts, Finns and Slavs, and there were Muslims in southern Spain and in the eastern Mediterranean, but the countries of western and southern Europe were Christian. The Christian presence was most obvious to the Danes, who looked across their border and seaways at Franks, Frisians and Saxons. Throughout the latter part of the eighth century and the early years of the ninth, Charlemagne was bludgeoning his way north, east and west with a Bible in his pocket and a sword in his hand. If nothing else, the Danes and their neighbours would have learnt early on that Christianity inspired a ferocious need to spread the Word.

The more astute among them might have noticed something else as well: that the loudly declared imperative of converting the heathen was a perfect excuse for invasion. For Christian kings, any territory populated by non-Christians was fair game.

Gift-giving had always been key to the success and longevity of Viking chieftains. Leaders handed out swords and other valuables and those in receipt of the gifts repaid the debt with loyalty and service. The chief who gave most, and most often, was the man around whom would gather the bravest and the best. So when Viking kings in the making observed the riches of the Christian kings – the things that might be acquired and passed on to their own followers – it was the religion itself that soon appeared like the brightest bauble of all. For a start, Christian kings were usually victorious kings. Fighting beneath their banners emblazoned with the Cross, they invariably triumphed over their foes.

It was also a faith that was proving itself over time, showing it could last. Ireland had been Christian since the fifth century at least; the Anglo-Saxons were growing wealthier by the day and they had converted no later than the seventh century.

From the moment the Vikings began to venture beyond their borders, they were aware that Christianity was not a contagion to be feared, but a passport to power and wealth.

‘There is a tide in the affairs of men

Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;’

William Shakespeare,
Julius Caesar

Gorm the Old – generally recognised as the first king of a united Denmark – had three sons. Canute was the eldest, then Harald and then Toke. To the south, beyond the Danevirke, lived the Christian Germans under their great emperor, Henry the Fowler. Gorm is said to have despised his own Christian subjects and to have tormented them at every opportunity. Since he seemed always to be gnawing at the supports of the Church, he was known by some as ‘Gorm the Worm’ or ‘the Worm of the Church’. Emperor Henry was enraged by Gorm’s behaviour and sent an army north, to warn him that if he did not change his ways, his kingdom would be invaded.

Of the three princes, Canute was Gorm’s favourite. Cut from the same cloth as his father, he was an enthusiastic Viking and the pair had many adventures together. Harald preferred to stay close to his mother the queen, who was called Thyre. Although a pagan herself, she was kind to the Christians in the kingdom and, with Gorm’s blessing, she even had Harald blessed with the sign of the Cross. Gorm kept to the old ways, the worship of Odin, Thor and Frey, as did Canute.

The king had little time for Harald and he began to fear he
might be plotting to challenge him for the throne. Fearing for Canute’s safety, Gorm swore an oath that he would kill anyone who threatened the life of his heir. There would even be a death sentence for anyone obliged to tell the king that Canute was dead.

So when it came to pass that Canute was murdered, while on campaign in Ireland on his father’s behalf, everyone at court was at a loss as to how to pass on the news without attracting the death penalty. Gorm was absent when the the story broke so Thyre had the king’s hall draped with dark colours, a sign of mourning. She ordered everyone to sit in silence and await the king’s return. When Gorm finally entered the hall, he knew at once what the darkness and silence must mean.

‘My son, Canute, is dead!’ he cried.

‘You have said it, and not I, King Gorm,’ Thyre replied.

Because none but the king had pronounced Canute dead, all were spared. Within two days Gorm was dead too, apparently of a broken heart. Harald – known as Harald Bluetooth – was made king but there were many who whispered that he had always been cruel – and crafty – and that surely Canute’s blood was on his hands.

There is something biblical, even Old Testament, about the Icelandic saga’s account of the death of the favourite, the grief of the father and of the guilty triumph of the wronged son. The writer, working in the thirteenth or fourteenth century, seemed to be lamenting more than just the deaths of Gorm and Canute; and the suggestion of Harald’s treachery may well be no more than a literary device. The authors of the sagas were Christians too by then, but perhaps they grieved the passing of some of what the old religion had meant. Belief in the brave life, well lived, may have lingered long after the Scandinavians had learnt to say they believed the best life was that promised after death.

Christianity changed everything for the Vikings, just as it
changed the lives of everyone else who encountered it. It completed the transformation of the Scandinavian countries into modern states ruled by kings. It brought them fully into the European fold, into the future. But by becoming Christians, they cut the thread connecting them to all that had gone before. In every way that mattered, they would cease to
be
Vikings.

When Vladimir the Great ordered his Rus to turn their backs on their old pagan gods and follow Jesus Christ instead, in
AD
988, it was hardly
fear
of the Cross that motivated his decision. If he had been looking to appease his nearest (and most bellicose) neighbours, then he might have done better to adopt the Muslim faith of the Bulghars or the Jewishness of the Khazar Empire. As it turned out, Vladimir chose the Orthodox Christianity of the Byzantine Empire.

The primary source of detail about the life of Vladimir – Nestor’s Chronicle, also known as The Tale of Bygone Years – gives an amusing, if fanciful, outline of his thinking at that time. When the Muslims said they avoided pork, he thought the restriction ridiculous. Apparently he found the idea of circumcision disgusting. But when they said they were teetotal, he was frankly appalled: ‘For Russians, drinking is their joy,’ he said. ‘They cannot be without it.’ On the whole, he felt, the Muslim faith was simply joyless.

Next he entertained the emissaries of the Jewish Khazars and after listening to their sales pitch for a while he asked after their homeland. When they told him about Jerusalem he asked if all was well there. When they told him their forefathers had so angered God that he had caused them to be driven from their lands, and scattered across the face of the Earth, he was outraged. How dare they, he asked, lecture others about the true path to God when they themselves had been cast out by him?

Life without pork and alcohol (not to mention a foreskin)
had sounded unappealing to Vladimir; the risk of losing the lands he had fought so hard to hold, however, was unthinkable. As the chronicle would have it, the Muslims and Jews were shown the door and Orthodox Christianity was welcomed with open arms.

All of that makes for an entertaining read, but what Vladimir really wanted of course – what all men of Viking blood wanted – was unfettered access to the wealth of the Byzantines’ markets. If by taking on their religion they might oil the wheels of commerce, then so be it. As it was for Vladimir and the Rus of Kiev, so it would be for Vikings in the West.

The Danes were well aware what their Christian neighbours were capable of – having faced the likes of Charlemagne – but neither the Norwegians nor the Swedes were ever in any real danger of being coerced into swapping their old faith for a new one. In each case – Denmark included – the conversion to Christianity was a calculated political move, a step taken primarily because it was good for business. The Vikings were happy to fight and to mete out gruesome violence when it was strictly necessary, for self-aggrandisement, but what they really wanted was money – with which they could simply
buy
and sustain power. If they could obtain that wealth in the marketplace rather than on the battlefield, then all well and good.

Christianity was also a religion that transformed power into authority. By abandoning pagan ways and accepting Christ, kings protected themselves from Christian neighbours who might otherwise have used their faith as an excuse for invasion. All Christian kings drew their power from God. Since their power rested ultimately in God’s hands, it could hardly be snatched away by mortal men – even mortal men who sat on thrones.

Because Christian Europe was just across their border, it is perhaps no surprise that the Danes were the first Scandinavians
officially to convert to the new faith, around
AD
965. Their first historically recognised king had been Gorm the Old. As befits the king acknowledged as ‘first’, he emerged during a dynamic period in European history. Just a year after he was made King of Denmark, the fate of the British Isles would be shaped by the Battle of Brunanburh. The modern states were not yet fully formed, but the process of crystallisation was well under way.