John lindow
By ethics we mean constraints on behaviour imposed by notions of what is socially accepted, or socially valued or scorned. since in our view PCRN per-meated all aspects of human life — that is, the religious view was ever-present
— notions of ethics were always imbued with the religious. While such a view might not hold in a modern or post-modern world, there is a far more fundamental difference. Today we think of ethics as involving decisions made by individuals when faced with various kinds of choices of behaviour within some sort of implicit or explicit notion of what is right and what is wrong. Ethical decisions are made by individuals, and ethics is an individual matter. in the pre-Christian and almost certainly medieval and even early modern North, ethics was a public matter, a matter that was socially and publicly enforced,1
and that had religious overtones. Consistent with this notion is the basic legal distinction that what is done in secret is done in an ethically unacceptable way and therefore is legally branded as a more severe crime than that which was done publicly. This notion reveals itself most clearly in the laws: theft is secret appropriation of another person’s property and is a more serious offence than public seizure. all the Nordic languages make a lexical distinction (for example, old Norse-icelandic þjófnaðr ‘burglary’ vs *rán *‘robbery’),2 and the extant 1 This notion is emphasized for the world of the sagas of icelanders by Preben Meulengracht sørensen (1992: 187–212).
2 for individual treatements, see Jørgensen (1940) and Jørgensen (1975), langseth (1975), sigurður líndal (1975), Vilkuna (1975), and Wallén (1975).
John Lindow, Professor Emeritus of scandinavian, University of California, Berkeley The Pre-Christian Religions of the North: History and Structures, Volume ii, ed. by Jens Peter schjødt, John lindow, and anders andrén, PCRN-HS 2 (Turn hout: Brepols, 2020) pp. 479–507
BREPols
PUBlisHERs
10.1484/M.PCRN-EB.5.116948
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laws make it plain that theft, carried out as it was in secret, was a far more serious offence; indeed, theft was often punishable by death or outlawry. Narrative materials make of the thief a despicable figure with no ethical standing (summary in andersson 1984). Killings, too, must be publicly acknowledged, lest they be taken for murder: ‘náttvíg eru morðvíg’ ( Egils saga ch. 59) (killing at night is murder). This sentiment is widely found in the sagas.
as a corollary to its public nature, ethics was strongly gendered. What was or was not ethical was played out in the public arena, to which ordinarily only men had access.3 Women had access to this arena for the most part only through the influence they had on the male members of their household;4 they could act within the private sphere to affect the behaviour of their husbands and sons in the public sphere. The hvǫt or whetting scenes in eddic poetry and the sagas of icelanders offer ample evidence of this gendering narrative.
as a further corollary, it follows that ethics applied only to free men. slaves and children did not act within the arena of ethics. Nor, perhaps, did outlaws; in the sagas of icelanders, outlaws commit some deeds, such as theft and deception, that would be ethically equivocal if they were free men.5
in what follows we address certain categories that relate closely to the presentation elsewhere in these volumes and for which there is sufficient source material to permit treatment.
The Ethics of * Hávamál * and the Sagas
as we have it, in the poem or poems found in Codex Regius of the Poetic Edda and known as Hávamál, one finds numerous stanzas of an ethical nature. The conceit of the poem, named in the final stanza (and in stanza 111) is that these words of Hár were spoken in the hall of Hár (an Óðinn name), and since Óðinn is clearly the speaker in certain sections, we are invited to take the ethical stanzas too as Óðinn’s words, although there is no other evidence, let alone from the pre-Christian period, to see Óðinn as associated with ethics in general.
3 like all generalizations, this one obscures a complex and rich set of data. There is no doubt that in certain cases women did act in the public sphere, and that women functioned as cult specialists, but that was, in our view, an exception to the usual gender rules. see further (è22).
4 Consider the etymology of german heimlich (secret): what is inside the household is confidential or secret from the outside world. While this semantic narrowing is restricted to german (the continental scandinavian forms, Danish/Norwegian hemmelig, swedish hemlig, are borrowed from Middle low german) and may not be old in german, it is instructive.
5 on outlaws, see ahola (2014).
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although most of the gnomic stanzas in Hávamál are quite mundane, older observers drew special attention to stanzas 76 and 77.
Deyr fé,
deyja frœndr,
deyr siálfr it sama;
enn orðztírr
deyr aldregi,
hveim er sér góðan getr.
Deyr fé,
deyja frœndr,
deyr siálfr it sama;
ec veit einn,
at aldri deyr;
dómr um dauðan hvern.
(Cattle die, kinsmen die, the self must also die; but the glory of reputation never dies, for the man who can get himself a good one.
Cattle die, kinsmen die, the self must also die; i know one thing which never dies: the reputation of each dead man.) (pp. 22–23)
on the basis of these stanzas, these older observers postulated a ‘germanic ethics’ of heroism and honour in the medieval icelandic literary tradition (e.g., gehl 1937; Kuhn 1938; van den Toorn 1955). according to this view, honour was not just the primary but the only motivating force in germanic heroic poetry and in the Íslendingasögur, which were thought to be the direct heirs of heroic poetry. This view began to crumble with Bjarni guðnason’s reasoned discussion of the ethics of the sagas (1965) and was completely dismantled by Theodore M. andersson (1970), who showed that an ethics of moderation prevailed not only in the sagas but also in the ethical precepts of Hávamál. in the context of the entire first section of gnomes, andersson shows, the famous stanzas about one’s honour surviving one’s death can be read as indicating that even a dead person may take some comfort in a reputation that survives him, just as a lame man may take comfort in the fact that he can still ride a horse, a one-armed man in the fact that he can still drive a herd, and a deaf man that he can still take part in battle (st. 71).
Today’s scholarly paradigms now accept that Christian ethics are everywhere in saga literature. Nevertheless, it seems that it may be possible to recapture some data concerning ethics in PCRN, and we believe that Hávamál st.
76–77 may contribute to this endeavour.
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*Warrior Bands/Honour * 6
The study of indo-European poetics has revealed a common poetic formula first identified by adalbert Kuhn as far back as 1853, when he juxtaposed greek kléos áphthiton with Vedic akṣiti śrávaḥ / śrávo […] ákṣitam ‘imperishable, unfailing fame’ (Watkins 1995: 173; cf. schmitt 1967; West 2007: 402–10).
Watkins has placed the old English expression dom unlytel ‘no little fame’, used of sigemund in Beowulf 885b, in the context of this formula and its system (Watkins 1995: 415).7 although of course neither dom nor unlytel is cognate with the greek and Vedic terms, the fact that sigemund’s fame survived his death suggests that it was imperishable.
sigemunde gesprong æfter deaðdæge
dom unlytel,
syþðan wiges heard
wyrm acwealde,
hordes hyrde […]
(for sigemund there arose after the day of his death no little fame, after the one hard in battle, the guardian of the hoard, killed the dragon […]).
furthermore, Watkins indicates that an optional addition to the formula was the notion that the fame was everlasting, or lasting for all eternity (Watkins 1995: 177), and West points out that indo-European imperishable fame was lofty or high and could reach up into the heavens (West 2007: 407–08). Both these notions suggest a connection with the sphere of religion, and West points out the obvious: imperishable fame confers a kind of immortality (West 2007: 409).
in Chapter 3 of Germania, Tacitus seems to draw on this trope, conjoining songs memorializing and praising a hero and the enterprise of battle.
fuisse apud eos et Herculem memorant, primumque omnium virorum fortium ituri in proelia canunt. sunt illis haec quoque carmina, quorum relatu, quem barditum vocant, accendunt animos futuraeque pugnae fortunam ipso cantu augurantur.
(They further record how Hercules appeared among the germans, and on the eve of battle the natives hymn ‘Hercules, the first of brave men’. They have also those cries by the recital of which — ‘barritus’ is the name they use — they inspire courage; and they divine the fortune of the coming battle from the circumstances of the cry. (pp. 267–69)
6 see also (è24).
7 Baker (2013) argues the importance in Beowulf of an ‘economy of honour’ tied up closely with acts of violence.
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Hercules is of course part of the interpretatio Romana, but the choice of Hercules can only support the idea of imperishable fame and its association with battle. and Tacitus suggests that the opposite of imperishable fame could also be gained in battle ( Germania ch. 6).
scutum reliquisse praecipuum flagitium, nec aut sacris adesse aut concilium inire ignominioso fas; multique superstites bellorum infamiam laqueo finierunt.
(To have abandoned one’s shield is the height of disgrace; the man so shamed cannot be present at religious rites, nor attend a council: many survivors of war have ended their infamy with a noose.) (pp. 273–75)
The man who abandons his shield, who flees in battle, who loses a chance at imperishable fame, forfeits his access both to ritual and to society. He may indeed end his life by means of a noose, that is, marked off with those who are sacrificed to Wotan/Óðinn; this detail also accords with some of the iron age bog bodies. This suicide does not and cannot earn imperishable fame, and while it is intended to put an end to the infamy, Chapter 12 of Germania reports that traitors and deserters are hung from trees.
The glory of the warrior was, according to Tacitus, an important aspect of the comitatus (see è24). Germania ch. 13 reports that a chieftain’s fame might dissuade others from warring against him, but Chapter 14 seems to have the clearest connection with the ethical notions of behaviour within the warrior band.
Cum ventum in aciem, turpe principi virtute vinci, turpe comitatui virtutem principis non adaequare. iam vero infame in omnem vitam ac probrosum super stitem principi suo ex acie recessisse: illum defendere, tueri, sua quoque fortia facta gloriae eius adsignare praecipuum sacramentum est.
(When the battlefield is reached it is a reproach for a chief to be surpassed in prowess; a reproach for his retinue not to equal the prowess of its chief; but to have left the field and survived one’s chief, this means lifelong infamy and shame: to defend and protect him, to devote one’s own feats even to his glorification, this is the gist of their allegiance.) (pp. 283–85)
The dishonour of surviving one’s chieftain would result, to use the sense of the indo-European formula, in imperishable infamy.8 insofar, then, as the warrior 8 it is important to stress that we are dealing here with an ideal (as indeed with all ethics), or to put it another way, with a literary trope, on the ground there must almost certainly have been ways for a survivor to affiliate with a new chieftain without loss of honour.
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figure 21.1. Rune stone from about 1000, later
built into the medieval church at Hällestad
in skåne. according to the text: **Æskel satte **
**sten þænsi æftiR Toka ¤orms sun, seR **
**hullan drottin. SaR flo ægi at Upsalum. **
**Sattu drængiR æftiR sin broþur sten a **
**biargi støþan runum. þeR ¤orms Toka **
gingu næstiR (Áskell placed this stone in
memory of Tóki gorm’s son, to him a faithful
lord. He did not flee at Uppsala. Valiant men
placed in memory of their brother the stone
on the hill, steadied by runes. They went
closest to gorm’s Tóki) (DR 295, *Samnordisk *
runtextdatabas). This inscription offers an early
example of warrior ethics. Photo: Roberto
fortuna, Nationalmuseet, Copenhagen.
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band was embedded within a religious system, relating to the warrior and other aspects of Wotan/Óðinn, these ethical notions have a religious connotation.
indeed, this general sphere constitutes an important arena for notions of ethics. in the passage quoted above from Beowulf, a bard is singing the praises of Beowulf after he has killed grendel and likening it to the famous dragon-slaying of sigemund.9 similarly, the songs about ‘Hercules’ that find mention in Chapter 3 of Germania are sung before battle. These instances indicate not only that the germanic reflex of imperishable fame was, as in indo-European, celebrated in poetry, but also that the context of the performance of that poetry could have been the warrior band. Here the use of the general Nordic term for warrior band as the first component of the term for the main skaldic metre, dróttkvætt or dróttkvæðr háttr, takes on additional meaning (lindow 1976: 31).
Battlefield fame lived in verse, and verse lived in the warrior band.
indeed, we have in the old Norse textual record an instance of poetry recited within the warrior band (in this case an army) prior to battle. according to the versions of Óláfs saga helga, Óláfr Haraldsson asked one of his skalds, Þormóðr Kolbrúnarskáld, to recite a poem to the troops on the morning before the battle of stiklestad (at which Óláfr would be killed). Þormóðr chose Bjarkamál in fornu, a poem about the last battle of Hrólfr kraki ( Óláfs saga helga ch. 208). only seven whole or partial stanzas are extant in old Norse, from a variety of sources. These stress the munificence of the leader toward his men. However, a long version of the poem in latin hexameters is found in saxo grammaticus, Gesta Danorum, 2.7.4–28. after presenting it, saxo states the existence of a shorter, well-known Danish poem, which may have been similar to the old Norse poem. saxo’s version of Bjarkamál stresses very clearly the ethical bond between retainers and king, according to Óláfs saga helga, the army at stiklestad termed the poem Húskarlahvǫt (incitement of retainers); the term húskarl was a technical term for a member of the warrior band (see è24). Thus the traditions about the last day of the life of st Óláfr play explicitly on the ethical theme of the bonds between king and warrior band. indeed, Óláfr rewards Þormóðr with a gold ring for reciting the poem, and Þormóðr expresses his desire never to part from his leader.
saxo’s poem explicitly invokes notions of honour and shame within the group of the king’s retainers, in the very first words, spoken by Hialto to Biarco (that is, Bjarki, after whom the title Bjarkamál is styled).
9 in light of the warrior band and notions of small-group initiation (see è24 and è32), it is worth noting that sigemund is attended by fitela, his son or nephew, although fitela is not present at the actual dragon-slaying.
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ocius euigilet, quisquis se regis amicum
aut meritis probat aut sola pietate fatetur.
Discutiant somnum proceres, stupor improbus absit,
incaleant animi uigiles: sua dextera* quenque
aut fame dabit aut probro perfundet inerti. (2.7.4)
(Rise swiftly, whoever through his deserts is proud to be
the king’s friend, or is such from loyalty alone.
Princes, shake off your sleep, away with vile stupor;
heat your minds to alertness, for each right arm
shall bring fame or steep your lassitude in disgrace. (p. 123).
When Biarco has awakened, Hialto adds: ‘Dulce est nos domino percepta rependere dona, | acceptare enses fameque impendere ferrum.’ (2.7.6) (sweet it is to repay the gifts of our master, to grip the sword and devote our weapons to glory) (p. 125).
When he is mortally wounded, Biarco is prepared to see Óðinn but defi-antly says he would kill the war god if he could. His final speech, addressed to Hialto, clearly encapsulates the ethical obligation of the retainer to fight for his lord, die for his lord if necessary, and above all to seek fame. it is worth quoting in full.
si potero horrendum frigge spectare maritum,
Quantumcunque albo clypeo sit tectus et altum
flectat equum, lethra nequaquam sospes abibit:
fas est belligerum bello prosternere diuum!
ante oculos regis clades speciosa cadentes
Excipiat: dum uita manet, studeamus honeste
Posse mori clarumque manu decerpere funus.
ad caput extincti moriar ducis obrutus, ac tu
Eiusdem pedibus moriendo allabere pronus,
Vt uideat, quisquis congesta cadauera lustrat,
Qualiter acceptum domino pensarimus aurum.
Preda erimus coruis aquilisque rapacibus esca,
Vesceturque uorax nostri dape corporis ales.
sic belli intrepidos proceres occumbere par est,
illustrem socio complexos funere regem. (2.7.27–28)
(if i should set eyes on the fearsome husband of frigg,
though he is protected by his white shield, and manœuvres
his tall horse, he shall not go unhurt from lejre;
it is right to lay low the warrior god in battle.
let a radiant doom overtake those who fall before
the face of their king. While life lasts may we strive
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to perish with honour and our hands reap a fine end.
struck down i shall die at the head of my slain leader,
while you will drop face-foremost at his feet,
so that one who views body on body may see
how we made return for the gold received from our master.
We shall be the carrion of ravens and nourish gluttonous
eagles, our bodies a banquet for birds of prey.
it is proper that jarls, though fearless in war, should fall,
and embrace their illustrious king in a common death.) (pp. 139–41) The poem makes explicit the notions of honour and the proper behaviour of retainers, to die if necessary for the king, but above all to win fame. The last lines even draw upon the trope of the beasts of battle, which is common in old English and old Norse poetry.
Here it is worth noting that the root of kléos and śrávah can be reconstructed as meaning ‘hear’. its cognates in germanic are all associated with modern English loud, although the semantics range from noise to silence. The old Norse cognate hljóð (neuter) must be mentioned here, in connection with poetic performance, as in the famous opening stanza of Vǫluspá: ‘Hlióðs bið ec allar | helgar kindir’ (i ask all the holy families for a hearing ).10 Men’s fame lives in poetry, and the recitation of poetry required hljóð. indeed, R. schmitt and, especially, Watkins and West, make clear that imperishable fame was a trope of indo-European poetry. This fame was won on the battlefield.
as was mentioned above, Watkins adduced the old English expression dom unlytel in connection with the indo-European formula for imperishable fame, with litotes ( unlytel). in old English prose, dom ordinarily occurs in religious or institutional contexts, in translations rendering such latin nouns as judicium, sententia, decretum, jus, lex, and censura (Bosworth and Toller 1898–1921: s.v.
dom). in poetry, however, it does seem to have the sense of ‘reputation’, and this usage accords perfectly with the second of the two famous stanzas in Hávamál cited above that appear to invoke the trope of imperishable fame.11 Collocation of the English and icelandic verses may well suggest usage that goes back into the germanic past, in which a hero’s fame could survive his lifetime.
10 We quote the version from Hauksbók, which includes the adjective helgar (missing in Codex Regius) and thus fulfills the demands of alliteration.
11 While we accept T. M. andersson’s reading of these stanzas in the context of the extant Hávamál, the background of the gnomes in oral tradition is wholly unknown and must remain so. it is certainly possible, if not probable, that the various gnomes of Hávamál could have been used situationally as proverbs.
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stanza 76 uses as a parallel to dómr in stanza 77 the compound orðstírr.
old Norse tírr and old English and old saxon tīr are probably the most common words in germanic for the glory of the hero (the compound orðstírr in Hávamál 76 provides the required alliteration). The word descends ultimately from a root meaning ‘shine’ or gleam’, and this semantic development (‘shine’
or ‘gleam’ to ‘glory’ or ‘honour’) it shares with other germanic words for the same concept, heiðr, vegr, tígn, mærr in their Nordic forms). However, tírr/ tīr share the same root as the god Týr and the plural tívar ‘gods’ and numerous indo-European cognates for gods (Zeus, Diana) and heaven (lindow 1976: 130–36). insofar as divine gleaming is implied, we have another connection between battlefield glory and religious ethics.
We can infer from Tacitus that ethical matters, at least as they may have related to gradus within the warrior band, were marked upon the body (see also è24). The passage in Germania ch. 31 about the Chatti warrriors certainly places the conduct of individuals in battle within an ethical sphere.
Et aliis germanorum populis usurpatum raro et privata cuiusque audentia apud Chattos in consensum vertit, ut primum adoleverint, crinem barbamque sub-mittere, nec nisi hoste caeso exuere votivum obligatumque virtuti oris habitum.
super sanguinem et spolia revelant frontem, seque tum demum pretia nascendi rettulisse dignosque patria ac parentibus ferunt: ignavis et imbellibus manet squalor. fortissimus quisque ferreum insuper anulum (ignominiosum id genti) velut vinculum gestat, donec se caede hostis absolvat.
(The ceremony, practiced by other german peoples only occasionally, and by individual hardihood, has with the Chatti become a convention, to let the hair and beard grow when a youth has attained manhood, and to put off the facial garb which is due and delicate to manliness only after an enemy has been slain: standing above the sanguinary spoil, they dismantle their faces again, and advertise that then and not before have they paid the price of their birth-pangs, and are worthy of their kin and country. Cowards and weaklings remain unkempt. The bravest also wear a ring of iron — the badge of shame on other occasions among this people — in token of chains, until each man frees himself by the slaughter of an enemy.) (p. 309) again, these provisions can be understood in connection with the warrior band and thus have religious connotations (see è24). To the ring may also be compared the chain or fetter worn by the worshipper who entered the sacred grove among the semnones ( Germania ch. 39).
The formulaic system of Beowulf suggests a linking between what is heard (that is, men’s reputation) and what is ethical (that is, what men ought to do).
The first formula appears as early as in the very opening lines of the poem:
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‘Hwæt, we gardena in geardagum | þeodcyninga þrym gefrunon’ (lo, we spear-Danes have heard of the might of the kings of peoples in days of old) The key here is the verb frignan ‘hear’. sometimes we hear of battlefield glory directly, but on other occasions, as here, the poet hears of it. The other formula is the swa sceal ‘thus shall’ formula.12 stanley greenfield linked these formula systems together as an aspect of the ‘authenticating voice’ of the poet, which was ultimately a Christian voice (greenfield 1976); we draw attention to them as comingling battlefield glory, ethics, and a religious point of view. The poet was aiming at Christian morals, but he was drawing on pre-Christian formulas.
When, according to Germania ch. 12, traitors and deserters were hung on trees, that is part of what we might term ethical gradation within the death penalty.
licet apud concilium accusare quoque et discrimen capitis intendere. Distinctio poenarum ex delicto. Proditores et transfugas arboribus suspendunt, ignavos et imbelles et corpore infames caeno ac palude, iniecta insuper crate, mergunt. Diver-sitas supplicii illuc respicit, tamquam scelera ostendi oporteat, dum puniuntur, flagitia abscondi.
(at this assembly it is also permissible to lay accusations and to bring capital charges. The nature of the death penalty differs according to the offence: traitors and deserters are hung from trees; cowards and poor fighters and sexual perverts are plunged in the mud of marshes with a hurdle on their heads: the difference of punishment has regard to the principle that crime should be blazoned abroad by its retribution, but abomination hidden. (p.281))
This passage has elicited a good deal of discussion about the possible sacral nature of the death penalty among the older germanic peoples. in the twentieth century, this position was articulated most pervasively by the german legal historian Karl von amira (e.g., von amira 1922, published when he was an almost legendary figure in germanic legal history; throughout his long and productive career, von amira operated from the position that germanic law and germanic religion were inextricable).13 folke stöm (1942) argued that 12 This formula is most closely associated with battlefield glory in lines 1534b–36: ‘swa sceal man don | þonne he æt guðe | gegan þenceð | longsumme lof; | na ymb his lif cearað’ (so shall a man do when in battle he intends to gain long-lasting praise; he does not care about his life).
13 following von amira’s study, we can mention Ólafur láruson (1928; threat of the ‘germanic’ death penalty in a verse directed against the missionary Þangbrandr in iceland; but cf. Weber (1968) and almqvist (1965–74: ii, 88–112), Weiser-aall (1933; death penalty and warrior band), and ivar lindquist (1940: 131–35; thinks he can trace related formulaic language on the sparlösa stone (Vg 119, Samnordisk runtextdatabas)).
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there was no evidence that the death penalty had any sacral connection, a position which Dag strömbäck (1942) argued might be somewhat extreme, at least as regards sacrilege (cf. the useful summary of this discussion, with appeal to archaeological finds, in sandklef 1944). later Donald Ward (1970) attempted a Dumézilian classification of death penalty and human sacrifice, associating hanging with the first function, death by weapon with the second function, and drowning with the third function; hanging clearly goes with Óðinn, but the other assignments are more difficult to maintain (on law in general, see è20).
Ignavos must refer to men by grammatical gender and imbelles by context, but corpore infames could refer either to men or women. Because bog bodies are both male and female, scholars have thought of women for corpore infames (adulteresses? prostitutes?) (Much and others 1967: 214–17). if so, to be executed in a bog was for a man to be classified as a woman, a concept that must have carried ethical connotations, as the contrast between the words scelera and flagitia indicates. given the possible connection of hanging with Wotan/
Óðinn and of bog bodies with ritual sacrifice, the ethical sphere once again impinges quite obviously on the religious and suggests a hierarchy within ritual practice. if bog deposits represent sacrifice of defeated foreign armies, men who were no longer free and were thus without status, the cowards and women buried in bogs are in effect removed from the social order, like those warriors who abandon their shields and are thus cut off from ritual and society.14
Here we are in the arena of honour, not of battlefield glory. While glory represents a positive state and lack of winning it a neutral state, those who lose it are in a negative state. since this state is best termed dishonoured, it is clear that honour and glory operate within the same semantic realm. Men cast into the bog had lost their honour. Here, too, it is worth recalling that his followers in the warrior band contributed to the prince in two different ways, according to Tacitus. They confer: ‘in pace decus, in bello praesidium’ (splendour in peace, defence in war) ( Germania ch. 13).
These sentiments may be seen in operation in the old English poem The Battle of Maldon, which describes the encounter between the forces of alderman Byrhtnoð and a group of Viking invaders in 991.15 While the crux 14 some individuals seem to have been dishonoured in grave practice. for these ‘deviant’
burials, see gardeła (2011, 2013; see also è33).
15 The circumstances of the composition of the poem are unknown, and guesses have ranged from eyewitness account to some distance both in time and space. although we find appealing the argument for an early dating advanced by Niles (2002), the notions of retainer-ship, honour, and glory in battle are equally valid whatever the provenance of the poem.
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of the poem is the expression ‘in his ofermode’ (line 89; probably a reference to excessive pride), describing Byrhtnoð’s decision to allow the Vikings to cross the tidal flat and join battle, the tropes of leader and followers, brave and cowardly, play out very clearly. Thus as Byrhtnoð exhorts his followers as the battle starts, the poet tells us that warfare was near, glory in battle (‘tir æt getohte’; l. 104), and paraphrasing Byrhtnoð he tells us the dom is at stake (l. 129). The conceit of the poem is that Byrhtnoð falls, and his forces are defeated because of the defection of the cowardly sons of odda (‘earh oddan bearn’; l. 238),16
and the poet underlines the betrayal by noting that godric, who rides away on Byrhtnoð’s horse, had previously received gifts of horses from Byrhtnoð (l. 188), thus making explicit the patron-client relationship. after Byrhtnoð’s death, his retainers make speeches about their obligations to Byrhtnoð their lord, before dying honourably (‘þegnlice’; l. 294).
The Battle of Maldon is a Christian poem, and it is clear that for the poet and his audience there was no contradiction between Christianity and the obligations between lord and retainer. indeed, in one passage the Christian god is invoked alongside the retainer relationship.
se eorl wæs þe bliþra,
hloh þa, modi man,
sæde metode þanc
ðæs dægweorces
þe him drihten forgeaf.
forlet þa drenga sum
daroð of handa,
fleogan of folman,
þæt se to forð gewat
þurh ðone æþelan
æþelredes þegen. (ll. 146–51)
(The earl was the happier,
he exulted then, the brave man, thanked god
for his day’s work, which the lord granted him.
Then one of the warriors loosed a spear from his hand,
let it fly from his palm, so that it went forth
through the noble thane of the lord.)
The most straightforward way to understand the invocation of the Christian god in this context is as the continuation of a thematic that prevailed in PCRN.
The names for god in this passage, metod and drihten, ordinarily ‘fate’ and
‘lord’, might themselves carry over from the pre-Christian period. Certainly the latter term applies the vocabulary of the warrior band to the relationship between god and man.
16 old English earh (cowardly) is cognate with old Norse-icelandic argr and the ethically charged word family to which it belongs; see below.
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indeed, the portrayal of Christ and his disciples in the old saxon Hêliand has long been understood as a palimpsest of the pre-Christian warrior band (e.g., Vilmar 1862; Murphy 1989). Thus the crucifixion can be understood in terms of the obligation of the retainers to stand by their lord: the disciples do not, and Christ’s defeat (on the cross) is sealed (Murphy 1989: 95–115).17
Ergi * and * níð
a connection between the offences set forth in Germania ch. 12 and the vocabulary and social system of old Norse culture was suggested by Natanael Beckman (1920, 1936): namely, the pervasive honour-shame system that employs such terms as ergi and níð and related words. These concepts have been extensively studied by Erik Noreen (1922), Bo almqvist (1965–74), folke ström (1972, 1974), and (in the most thorough — if short — synthetic treatment) Preben Meulengracht sørensen (1983). Unpacking the semantics of ergi, Meulengracht sørensen finds three components: perversity in sexual matters, being versed in witchcraft, and being cowardly or effeminate (1983: 18–20).
The entire complex depends upon a hyper-attenuated sense of the difference between the masculine and the feminine. Thus as regards sexual perversity, a man who is argr or ragr is one who is penetrated by another man in homosexual intercourse,18 while a woman who is ǫrg is ‘immodest, perverse or lecherous’
(Meulengracht sørensen 1983: 18). Seiðr is especially unsavoury if practised by men, even if the medieval literary sources offer us roughly equal numbers of magicians of each sex in iceland (Dillmann 2006: 143–60; è26). This concept was activated within the honour-shame system, specifically in accusations of ergi; such accusations went under the blanket name níð, and a person accused 17 according to gerald Murphy: ‘Woden and Thor are nowhere explicitly cited in the Heliand, yet they are present’ (Murphy 1989: 75). He argues considerable sympathy on the part of the Hêliand author for the old gods, now to be replaced. He does not, however, emphasize the similarity between Christ and Óðinn as chiefs of warrior bands, and although he titles the chapter about the crucifixion ‘The final Battle’, he pursues only in the previous chapter, on Woden (‘The lord of the Runes’), a potential parallel with Ragnarǫk.
18 The basic form of the root is found in the adjective argr. *Ergi * derives from it as an abstract noun, and the adjective ragr from it via metathesis of the first syllable. it is possible that ragr has a more strongly sexual component, as it is found in the compound rassragr (arse- ragr), which is presumably parallel to the adjectives sorðinn and stroðinn (used sexually — penetrated anally — by another man) and especially the compound adjective sannsorðinn (demonstrably thus used by another man; discussion in Meulengracht sørensen 1983: 17–18).
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figure 21.2. The runic monument at Björketorp in Blekinge from the seventh century (DR 360, Samnordisk runtextdatabas). The monument consists of three tall erected stones, one of which contains an inscription written in the older fuþark.
The text is partly obscure, but it includes one of the earliest examples of the negative idea of ergi. Photo: Bengt a. lundberg, Riksantikvarieämbetet, stockholm.
or convicted of misbehaviour could be termed a níðingr (coward, scoundrel, miscreant).
The etymologies of both words, argr and níð, are uncertain (de Vries 1962a: 13 for argr, 409 for níð), but the cognates are telling. The cognates of argr in other germanic languages are without exception negatively charged. Cognates of níð, however, can mean not only ‘enmity’ but also ‘battle’ (de Vries also offers an irish cognate with this sense), thus illuminating the aggression that is inherent in the practice of níð: it is directed toward another person, with the exclusive aim of shaming that person, of defiling that person’s honour.
The pre-Christian (seventh century ce) inscriptions on the stentoften (DR 357, Samnordisk runtextdatabas) and Björketorp (DR 360, Samnordisk runtextdatabas) rune stones in Blekinge, sweden, show the negative valence of ergi. Both attest a formula ‘ærgiu hearma-lausR’ (restless with ergi) to be visited upon the person who ‘breaks’ (violates) the monument (grave). The connections with magic and with perverse sexuality are found on two later stones from northern Jylland, Denmark, that have been dated to *c. * 1000 ce. skærn 2 (DR 81, Samnordisk runtextdatabas) wishes that the man who breaks the monument may engage in seiðr (‘siði sa mannr’), and sønder Vinge 2 (DR 83, Samnordisk runtextdatabas) goes farther and perhaps clarifies siði: may he become ‘særði ok
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seirðrati’. The first term appears to be a noun related to the adjective sorðinn (penetrated anally by another man; discussed below), and the second means something like ‘one possessed or made mad by seiðr’. according to Margaret Clunies Ross (1973), the first skaldic poem we possess, the Ragnarsdrápa of Bragi Boddason, also has a reference to ergi in the form of implied anal penetration, which would put the concept in ninth-century Norway and at the very heart of West scandinavian poetic tradition.
The power of níð is shown in medieval laws from Norway and iceland, recorded during the Christian period and under Christian impetus. The Gulaþing Law states that the penalty for verbal níð (old Norse tungu-níð) or
‘timber- níð’ (old Norse tréníð) is outlawry. The same paragraph refers to a form of libel called ýki (exaggeration), so-called because it cannot be true: a man is a woman every ninth night,19 has borne a child, or takes the form of a monster (old Norse gylfin).20 in addition to ýki, there were fullréttisorð, expressions for which one could seek full compensation. These include accusations of having given birth to a child, been demonstrably penetrated anally by another man, or called a mare, bitch, or whore ( Gulaþing Law, p. 70). other fullréttisorð are calling a free man a slave, a troll, or a witch (old Norse fordæða). Thus the law conflates out-group membership (slave, troll) with ethical behaviour.
Grágás, the old icelandic law code, has similar terms and provisions, but with a more explicit prohibition on certain kinds of verbal abuse. Most níð and ýki, described as they are in the Gulaþing Law, lead to lesser outlawry, but use of three words can lead not only to full outlawry but also entitle the person so insulted to kill in retaliation. These words are ragr, stroðinn, and sorðinn. in this context ragr joins stroðinn and sorðinn as a vulgar word for having being penetrated sexually by another man, although it probably never lost its ethical sense.
The old swedish Västgötalagen (the law of the People of Västergötland) from the early thirteenth century contains similar provisions about insults that 19 Nine is of course an extremely prevalent number in PCRN, and it would not be surprising if notions of shapechanging were attached to it. in the context of this Christian law, it would appear that the insult (becoming a woman) is increased by associating it with a number that was charged under paganism.
20 The word gylfin(n) (manuscript gylvin) is a hapax legomenon. The Dictionary of Old Norse Prose indicates correctly that we cannot even be certain about its form (aldís sigurðardóttir and others: s.v. gylvin). an apparently related feminine noun gylfra seems to mean something like ‘ogre’ or ‘beast’. The tentative translation ‘werewolf ’, found in some dictionaries, strikes us as unlikely, since werewolves were part of later folk belief and probably were not considered impossible in the Middle ages. from a semantic perspective, it would be likely that gylfin should refer somehow to the female sphere.
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matter: calling a man a bitch puppy (old swedish bikkjuhvælp), or a coward, or one penetrated by another man. similar insults of a sexual nature involve unnatural intercourse with a cow, or mare, or with one’s mother (almqvist 1965–75: i, 61–62). Hednalagen, a fragment of a now lost manuscript of Västgötalagen, contains a ritual verbal exchange that is associated with duels: giuer madher21 oquueþins ord manni, þu er ei mans maki, och ei madher i brysti, Jach er madher sum þu, þeir sculu mötas a þriggia wegha motum, Cumber þan ord hauer giuit, och þan cumber ei þer ord hauer lutit, þå mun han wara sum han heitir, Er ei eidganger och ei witnesbeer, Er hwarti firi man ella kunu, Cumber och þan ord hauer lutit, och ei þan ord hauer giuit, þå opar han try niþingx opp, och merkir han a iorþu, þå se han madher þes værri þet talaþi han ei halla þorþi, Nu mötas þeir baþir, med fullum vapnum, faller þan ord hauer lutit, gilder med haluum gieldum, faller þan ord hauer giuit, glöper orda werster, tunga houudbani, ligger han i ogil-dom acri. (p. 50)
(if a man insults another thus: ‘you are not like a man, and no man at heart.’ ‘i am as much a man as you.’ They shall meet where three roads converge. if the one who gave the insult arrives, and the insulted one does not, he shall be what he was called.
He cannot swear oaths or give witness, either for man or woman. if the one who was insulted arrives and the one who gave the insult does not, then he shall shout three shouts of niþing [= níðingr, i.e., scoundrel] and make a mark on the earth, and let him be the worse man for having spoken what he did not dare defend. if they both arrive, fully armed, and the one who received the insult falls, the fine shall be half a wergild. if the one who gave the insult falls: insulting words are worst, the tongue [is] the death of the body, let him lie without compensation [literally ‘in uncompensated soil’].)
Here the insult (old swedish oqäþins ord) concerns bravery and cowardice, although a statement ‘you are not like a man’ might be understood to imply
‘you are a woman’. in any case, what is interesting about this provision is that a demonstrated coward cannot participate in the legal system. similarly, a man who cannot back up an insult loses face and can be excluded from the system of compensation.
a passage in Chapter 33 of Vatnsdæla saga, one of the sagas of icelanders and probably a product of the thirteenth century in its written form, contains an extremely interesting passage set in the imagined past in Húnaflói in northern iceland and touching on the matters raised in the passage from Hednalagen.
as compensation for a blow received when he had insulted Þorsteinn, goði of 21 Throughout the fragment, the long-branch and medieval m-rune (m) is used instead of the old swedish madher (man).
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the men of Vatnsdalur, Bergr asks his assailant Jǫkull to go under three strips of turf. This was a terribly degrading ritual (see è32), and Jǫkull refuses, saying that he would prefer to be taken by the trolls. Þorsteinn, however, agrees to undergo the ritual, but when he bends to go under the first strip of turf Bergr exults that he has made the foremost of the men of Vatnsdalur bend like a pig.
at this insult Þorsteinn breaks off the ritual, and finnbogi, Bergr’s supporter, challenges him to a duel. Bergr offers a second challenge, to Jǫkull. Jǫkull’s response ends with the following words.
…fór Bergr lútari, bikkjan, er ek sló hann svá at hann fell við, enda kom þú nú til hólmstefnunnar, ef þú hefir heldr manns hug en merar; en ef nǫkkurir koma eigi, þá skal þeim reisa níð með þeim formála, at hann skal vera hvers manns níðingr ok vera hvergi í samlagi góðra manna, hafa goða gremi ok griðníðings nafn.
(Bergr, the dog, bent lower when i hit him, so that he fell down. you must now turn up to the duel if you have a man’s heart rather than a mare’s, and if anyone fails to show up, then a scorn-pole will be raised against him with this curse — that he shall be a coward in the eyes of all men, and will never again share the fellowship of good folk, and will endure the wrath of the gods, and bear the name of a truce-breaker.) Here we have three animal insults (pig, bitch,22 mare), two of them female animals, and an apparent implicit insult based on being in a position making one vulnerable to being used sexually by a man (pig, bent over). The verb reisa (raise) appears to suggest sculptural níð, although it may well be metaphoric: when something is ‘up’, it is remembered. The formula proclaiming the coward who fails to show up for a duel to be an outcast includes not only being cast out of human society but also of incurring the wrath of the gods. We have no way of knowing whether this is the invention of a Christian tradition-bearer or scribe, but it would certainly be appropriate within PCRN. a similar notion turns up during the epiphany in Grímnismál, both when the still masked grímnir tells geirrøðr that he has lost the good graces (old Norse-icelandic hylli) of Óðinn and all the einherjar (st. 51), and when he announces ‘úfar ro dísir’ (the dísir are angry).
The term griðníðingr used by Jǫkull refers in its component parts to the breaking of a truce and ultimately, therefore, to the breaking of oaths. The icelandic Grágás is explicit:
22 ‘Dog’ is certainly an idiomatic translation; the original has ‘bitch’, which accords with the female sex of the mare in the next sentence.
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sa er griðniðingr er griðum spillir rækr ok rekiN fra guði oc avllom guðs mönnum.
En sa er griðum helldr oc settum friþi. Hafi guðs vingan oc goðra manna. vtan enda.
Hafim allir guðs hylli oc havlldum vel griðu.
(The one who breaks a truth settlement is a true griðníðingr, driven from god and all god’s men. But he who keeps the truces and settlements in peace; may he have the friendship of god and of all good men, without end. let us all have god’s grace and keep the truces well.) ( Grágas, Staðarhólsbók, ch. 383, p. 404) The passage is in the Vígslóði (manslaughter) section of this particular redaction of the icelandic law. although the references are wholly Christian, it is not difficult to imagine that formulas for putting an end to bloodfeuds in the pre-Christian period invoked powers of the other World.
Griðníðingar were sometimes equated in the laws with thieves, murderers, outlaws, the excommunicated, and betrayers of their lords.23 The semantic realm would probably also cover the coward who ducks a duel according to Hednalagen, and thus may not swear an oath.
To judge from the extant medieval scandinavian law codes, the legal system depended on oaths and the bearing of witness. To be excluded from the category of those who could swear oaths was to be excluded from society. as the obverse of this coin, the icelandic ritual for manumission of slaves, as presented in Grágás, requires the swearing of an oath — the sign of being a good and true man. Thus the swearing of oaths was symbolically coded as positive, and the obverse as negative.
We know very little about wood- níð. it may have comprised carved images or figures, perhaps of two men in a compromising position, as occurs in Gísla saga and Bjarnar saga Hítdœlakappa.24 or perhaps it refers to poles raised in connection with níð and insult, denoted in some texts with the term níðstǫng ( níð-pole). These were raised and directed toward an enemy. in the famous case in Egils saga (ch. 57), Egill puts a horse’s head on the pole he raises against 23 see the attestations in the entry in the Dictionary of Old Norse Prose (aldís sigurðardóttir and others) s.v. griðníðingr. as regards betrayal of one’s lord, the version of Óláfs saga helga in mesta in the manuscript sKB 2, 4to, contains an interesting passage. after the battle of stiklestad and the demise of Óláfr Haraldsson, when finnr Árnason assails his brother with harsh words, this version says: ‘callaði hann griðníþing oc drottins svica’ ( Great Saga of St Olaf, ch. 229, p. 577) (called him a griðníðingr and betrayer of his lord). The accusation plays on the tropes of the warrior band, but in context the word dróttinn (lord) edges toward the meaning it took under Christianity, namely, the Christian god.
24 as Bo almqvist notes, the provisions about wood- níð are mentioned in connection with verbal níð of a sexual nature (1965–74: i, 43).
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Eiríkr blóðøx. This might be termed a crisis ritual, and Egill certainly makes an appeal based upon forces from the other World.
sný ek þessi níði á landvættir þær, er land þetta byggva, svá at allar fari þær villar vega, engi hendi né hitti sitt inni, fyrr en þær reka Eirík konung ok gunnhildi ór landi. (ch. 57)
(and i turn its scorn upon the nature spirits that inhabit this land, sending them all astray so that none of them shall find its resting place by chance or design until they have driven King Eirik and gunnhild from this land)
This is not Egill’s first attack upon Eiríkr and gunnhildr calling upon forces from the other World. The others were in verse. according to the saga, Egill spoke the first just after Eiríkr terminated Egill’s suit for his inherited property.
svá skyldu goð gjalda
gram reki bǫnd af lǫndum,
reið sé rǫgn ok Óðinn,
rǫ́n míns féar hǫ́num;
folkmýgi lát flýja,
freyr ok Njǫrðr, af jǫrðum,
leiðisk lofða stríði
landǫ́ss, þanns vé grandar. ( Egils saga ch. 56, p. 163)25
(let the gods banish the king,
pay him for stealing my wealth,
let him incur the wrath
of odin and the gods.
Make the tyrant [Eiríkr blóðøx] flee his lands,
frey and Njord; may Thor
the land-god be angered at this foe,
the defiler of his holy place.) (p. 109)
according to the saga, Egill utters the second when he learns that he has been made an outlaw by King Eiríkr.
lǫgbrigðir hefr lagða,
landalfr, fyr mér sjǫlfum,
blekkir brœðra søkkva
brúðfang, vega langa;
25 as Volume v of Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages, which will contain this and the following stanza, has not been published yet, we use the Íslenzk fornrit edition and the Sagas of Icelanders translation of Egils saga as per the Primary sources list.
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gunnhildi ák gjalda,
greypt’s hennar skap, þenna,
ungr gatk ok læ launat,
landrekstr, bili grandat. ( Egils saga ch. 57, p. 165)
(land-spirit [Þórr], the law-breaker [Eiríkr blóðøx]
has forced me to travel
far and wide; his bride deceives
the man who slew his brothers.
grim-tempered gunnhild must pay
for driving me from this land.
in my youth, i was quick to conquer
hesitation and avenge treachery. (p. 110)
Both these stanzas are about place and the ability of the otherworldly powers to enforce presence or absence. The first has a large list of powers, both collective ( bǫnd, rǫgn) and individual; the second calls only upon one landálfr, who is probably parallel to the landáss in the first; the latest editor of these stanzas, Margaret Clunies Ross, regards both these compounds as referring to Þórr.
Calling upon these powers to drive off the king who has spoiled the hallowed space ( vé) constitutes a curse and should be regarded as the verbal component leading up to the erection of the níð-pole.
as these verses suggest, verbal níð seems often to have been in verse, and certain kinds of poetry were themselves legally constrained. Bo almqvist has pointed out that there is an artistic component to both the forms of níð as articulated by the law (almqvist 1965–74: i, 60), and the practice of verbal níð would fit with the semantic core and frame of reference of Óðinn, attached as that god was to the warrior band and its precepts of honour and shame.
it is in this context that we should view provisions against skaldic poetry in Norwegian and icelandic law.26 The provisions refer specifically to verse about another person in the same social space and must exist because of the possibility of concealing níð in ostensibly innocent verse (Meulengracht sørensen 1983: 70).
Perhaps it is not coincidental that níð was directed against missionaries.
When the saxon missionary bishop friðrikr and his follower Þorvaldr víðfǫrli (widely travelled) attended the alþingi (national assembly) in iceland in the 980s, an anonymous ditty was directed toward them.27
26 These provisions are in the Frostaþing Law and both main manuscripts of Grágás.
27 The episode and verse are also found in Þorvalds þáttr víðfǫrla.
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Hefr bǫrn borit
byskup níu
þeira er allra
Þorvaldr faþir. ( Kristni saga ch. 12)
(The bishop has borne nine children; Þorvaldr’s father of them all.) (pp. 37–38) This is a conventional níð verse, and Þorvaldr executed his right to vengeance and killed two men; but the saintly friðrikr points out that it may have a double meaning, in that he might have stood godfather to Þorvaldr’s children. almqvist has treated this episode in detail (1965–74: ii, 26–54), and he observes that resistance to the missionaries might have been triggered not only by possible perceptions of clerical clothing and Christian teaching as feminized, but also because the new faith represented a threat to the social system.
Not quite two decades later (998–99), numerous sources report that the Norwegian king Óláfr Tryggvason sent the missionary Þangbrandr to iceland.
His mission famously failed, but the next year the conversion took place. Two skalds involved themselves in níð directed at Þangbrandr, Vetrliði sumarliðason (who also left a verse praising Þórr), and Þorvaldr veili. Vetrliði’s verse did not survive, but several sources report the níð and the vengeance taken on him by Þangbrandr and guðleifr arason. a stanza from a hypothetical anonymous poem (possibly by one ljóðarkeptr or Óðarkeptr; see almqvist 1965–74: ii, 72) about guðleifr describes the incident. it is far from completely clear, but all readings confirm that the killing of Vetrliði by guðleifr caused his ax ( morðhamarr ‘killing-hammer’) to resound or ring ( gjalla) against the skull of Vetrliði.
The section on fullréttisorð and níð in Grágás also gives a man the right to kill another man ‘on account of women’ ( um konur). The degree of kinship relationship required for this provision is set forth elsewhere and involves a man’s wife, daughter, sister, and mother (including foster-daughter and foster-mother) ( Grágás, Vígslóði). The provision goes on to imply that both rape and adultery are permissible grounds for killing another man. in either case, what is at stake is a man’s honour, rather, apparently, than the woman’s virtue or body.
Here again we see the gendered nature of the ethical system.
The Ethics of Moderation and Social Utility
above we alluded to T. M. andersson’s article showing that there exists in the sagas of icelanders an ethics of moderation that may be more powerful than the ethics of honour, with negotiators and moderates such as Njáll and snorri
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goði being presented as a positive alternative to the warrior ethic. Jón Viðar sigurðsson’s emphasis on friendship in the Viking and medieval Norway and iceland (2010) supports this analysis (and see the essays in Helgi Þorláksson and others 2001). on the basis of vocabulary and etymology, lindow advanced a similar argument: alongside martial honour, ‘adherence to the social standard was elevated to an ethical norm’ (lindow 1976: 136).
Viking age runic inscriptions refer to a sizeable number of men as ‘good’, an adjective that seems to have an ethical dimension.28 according to Birgit sawyer (2000: 101–11), most of these men were retainers of the Danish king.
sawyer understands them as equivalent to the boni homines known elsewhere in Europe: ‘These were men acknowledged as trustworthy members of their communities who had a leading role in local affairs — for example, in assemblies, in making legal decisions, and as witnesses’ (sawyer 2000: 111). The noun used for these men is frequently drengr or þegn, and these nouns may have involved ethical notions, given the semantic range within which the old Norse-icelandic noun drengskapr operated: valour, but also noble behaviour (classic treatment in sigurður Nordal 1990: 138–51). The famous snatch of poetry in the inscription on the gripsholm stone, södermanland, sweden (sö 179, Samnordisk runtextdatabas), also invokes the semantics of drengskapr, through the related adverb drengila (valiantly).
Þeir foru drængila
fiarra at gulli
ok austarla
ærni gafu.
(They went valiantly far off after gold and to the east they fed the eagle.)29
Hübler (1996: 127–34) catalogues the qualities ascribed to persons who are praised in the verses on swedish runic inscriptions from the Viking age, many of which have clear ethical implications. for example, three inscriptions have the formula ‘manna mæstr oniðingr’ (greatest of men, not a níðingr), thus inverting the negative ethical connotations of níðingr. This formula seems to belong to the ethics of honour and níð. But the inscriptions also highlight 28 Herschend (1998) devoted a monograph to the notion of the good, primarily on the basis of textual analysis, but interestingly tied it in with the archaeology of the hall.
29 While the trope of feeding the beasts of battle usually refers to killing enemies, here it may just as well refer to the disastrous outcome of ingvar’s expedition and to the Haraldr who is commemorated on the stone.
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figure 21.3. Rune stone at Rörbro
in Nöttja in finnveden (south-west
småland) from *c. * 1000. according to the
inscription assur made the monument
after his father Eynd a ‘góðr þegn’ (good
thegn). ‘Hann vaR manna mestr óniðingr,
var yndr matar ok ómunr hatrs’ (He was
the most unvillainous af men, was liberal
with food and oblivious to hate) (sm 37,
Samnordisk runtextdatabas). in this text,
several aspects of an ethics of moderation
were summarized. Photo: Pål-Nils Nilsson,
Riksantikvarieämbetet, stockholm.
many other positive qualities beyond bravery in battle. sawyer mentions the categories of the ‘wise’ (i.e., eloquent, quick-minded) and the generous (e.g., with food) (sawyer 2000: 102). Hübler isolates a possible poetic formula relating to generosity with food: ‘mildr matar / mildastr matar’ (generous / most genereous with food).
a possible reflection of an honour or ethics of social utility is the positive valence of the winning of wealth, a by-product of Viking valour as it is usually conceived. as Ketill raumr put it to his son Þorsteinn in Vatnsdœla saga ch. 2: Ǫnnur gerisk nú atferð ungra manna en þá er ek var ungr, þá girntusk menn á nǫkkur framaverk, annattveggja at ráðsk í hernað eða afla fjár ok sóma með einhverjum atferðum, þeim er nǫkkur mannhætta var í, en nú vilja ungir menn gerask heimaelskir ok sitja við bakelda ok kýla vǫmb sína á miði ok mungáti, ok þverr því karlmennska ok harðfengi, en ek hefi því fjár aflat ok virðingar, at ek þorða at leggja mik í hættu ok hǫrð einvígi.
(The behaviour of young men today is not what it was when i was young. in those days men hankered after deeds of derring-do, either by going raiding or by winning
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wealth and honor through exploits in which there was some element of danger.
But nowadays young men want to be stay-at-homes, and sit by the fire, and stuff their stomachs with mead and ale; and so it is that manliness and bravery are on the wane. i have won wealth and honour because i dared to face danger and tough single combats.)
Ketill juxtaposes an honour associated with valour to the honour associated with wealth. Wealth is, of course, required for generosity with food. in the larger world of germanic heroic literature, wealth is associated with kings, who give it away, but on the ground it seems to have been associated with the ethics of goodness.
The Ethics of the Gods
Mythological poetry explores a number of ethical issues through the behaviour and statements of the gods.
Before reaching the cataclysmic physical events and the last battle of gods and giants, the end of the world as described in Vǫluspá is cast to a certain degree in social terms. The social norms that break down give a clear indication of ethical values. These begin in stanza 39:
sá hon þar vaða
þunga strauma
menn meinsvara
oc morðvarga,
oc þannz annars glepr
eyrarrúno.
(Theres he saw wading in turbid streams the false-oath swearers and murderers, and the seducer of another man’s close confidante.) (p. 9)
oath-breaking, murder, seduction, and/or adultery: these are categories of the disruptive, of behaviour that, in the logic of the poem, leads to the end. it is worth noting that within the mythology as we know it the gods themselves, regarded objectively, have violated these norms. They have broken oaths with fenrir and the Master Builder;30 they have murdered numerous giants, beginning with ymir; Óðinn and loki (according to Lokasenna) have engaged in numerous seductions.
30 Vǫluspá st. 26 is explicit on this point: ‘á genguz eiðar | orð oc sœri | mál ǫll meginlig |
er á meðal fóru’ (oaths were rescinded, words and things sworn, all the mighty agreements that had gone between them).
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Beyond these, there seems to be an escalation, in stanza 45:
Brœðr munu beriaz
oc at bǫnum verðaz,
muno systrungar
sifiom spilla;
hart er í heimi,
hórdómr mikill,
sceggǫld, scálmǫld,
scildir ro klofnir,
vindǫld, vargǫld,
áðr veriold steypiz;
mun engi maðr
ǫðrom þyrma.
(Brother will fight brother and be his slayer, sister’s sons will violate the kinship-bond; hard it is in the world, whoredom abounds, axe-age, sword-age, shields are cleft asunder, wind-age, wolf-age, before the world plunges headlong; no man will spare another.) (p. 9)
Brothers killed brothers when Hǫðr killed Baldr and Váli killed Hǫðr.31 only the destruction of affinal kinship by maternal cousins cannot be aligned with actions of the gods, unless perhaps ‘maternal cousins’ is meant metaphorically.
in the eddic poem Lokasenna, loki insults the various gods at a banquet given by Ægir (whose servant loki slays to begin the action).32 loki’s insults offer insight into notions of accepted and unaccepted behaviour, set in the divine community. The clearest indicator in the poem is the accusation, addressed toward all the females, of sexual misconduct of one sort or another.
loki accuses both iðunn and frigg of being vergjǫrn (eager for a man) and indicates that each chose an inappropriate sexual partner: iðunn slept with her brother’s killer (st. 17), and frigg with her husband’s brothers (st. 26). We know nothing of iðunn’s brother or the slayer of that brother, but the accusation puts coupling into the realm of vengeance and bloodfeud. frigg’s indiscre-tion is, however, known from other sources. Ynglinga saga, ch. 3, reports laconi-cally that when Óðinn had been travelling for so long that his return seemed 31 Vǫluspá 32 (R33; the stanza is lacking in H), apparently refers to Váli, Baldr’s half-brother, as ‘Baldrs bróðir’.
32 in the following, we do not take up Heimdallr, the insult to whom must lie in the hitherto unexplained expression aurgo baki (with a wet/muddy/dirty/perverse/straight back). Nor do we take up Byggvir and Beyla, who remain obscure; see Dumézil (1952) for an attempt at interpretation (è54).
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inconceivable, his brothers Vili and Vé divided his inheritance, and they both married frigg. Upon Óðinn’s subsequent return, he took her back. saxo has a more ethically charged version of the story (1.7.1–2). successfully setting himself up as a god, othinus receives from other kings a statue embellished with gold. frigga has smiths remove the gold for her usage, and othinus hangs the smiths and has the statue, which he has now imbued with speech, decorated with more gold. frigg sleeps with a slave (another inappropriate sexual partner), and they strip the statue of its gold. at this double affront to his honour, othinus withdraws into exile and is replaced by a wizard, Mithothyn. When othinus returns, Mithothyn flees to fyn, where the people put him to death, but it is only after frigga’s death that othinus regains his reputation. The story is complex, but there is a constant in the bad behaviour of frigg/frigga.
loki does not use the term vergjǫrn when insulting freyja (st. 29–32), but the charge is the same: every male there has been her illicit lover ( hórr), and she was interrupted in bed with her brother. for skaði (st. 49–52) and sif (st.
53–54), loki explicitly identifies their illicit lover: himself. gefjon is accused of ‘laying her thigh’ over sveinn inn hvíti (the white boy), whom scholarship will probably never succeed in identifying. in the context of the poem it must be an inappropriate sexual partner, and in that light the semantic sense ‘cowardly’ for hvítr (white) would make sense (von see and others 1997: 422–23).
Taken together, these insults suggest that society exerted considerable pressure on married women against adultery.33 since concubinage was common and accepted, according to the written sources, the pressure seems not to have been reciprocal, and the insults in Lokasenna and underlying social constraints must in the end have to do with the honour of the husbands or other males associated with the targets of the insults.
The insults toward the males are far more mixed. Based on the association of honour and glory in battle, we would expect accusations of cowardice, and there is one such explicit accusation, directed against Bragi (st. 11–15). for Týr the insult addresses his physical flaw, lacking a hand, and from this one might infer a sort of ethical status of the intact body. But the way loki phrases the insult implies loss in battle: ‘handar innar hœgri | mun ec hinnar geta, | er þér sleit fenrir frá’ (st. 38) (your right hand will i mention, which fenrir tore from you), and of course there may be implicit reference as well to the oath that was broken when the wolf was bound. But with the insult in stanza 40 loki is back on familiar ground: he slept with Týr’s wife, and Týr never got compensa-33 To this may be compared the prohibition on mansǫngr (maiden poetry), addressed to unmarried women.
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tion. Here the insult may best be described as weakness, and weakness as a concept covers many of the other insults to the male gods:34 Njǫrðr was a hostage abused by giantesses (st. 34) (and as a vanr he commited incest, as did freyja); freyr lacks a sword, and so how will he do battle at Ragnarǫk (st. 42)? finally, the insults directed at Þórr, the harping on his helplessness when travelling with skrymir, also suggest weakness. Weakness ultimately shades into ergi. Notions of strength and weakness could help explain why Óðinn is immune to criticism both for his missing eye and his engaging in ergi: these confer strength, not weakness.
Ergi is at the core of the central exchange between Óðinn and loki in the poem (st. 23–24): loki was eight years underground, milking a cow — or was a milk-giving cow — a woman, giving birth. Óðinn was going about like a seereess or witch. in this light one might view loki’s insult to Óðinn, to the effect that he gave victory to the less keen (st. 22); that is, he aligned himself with the weaker and actually upset the honour-glory paradigm. Note too that Þórr begins his stanzas addressed to loki with ‘Þegi þú rǫg vættr’ (shut up, you ragr creature).
Perhaps the most ethically charged sequence in snorri’s Edda is the story of the binding of the wolf fenrir in Gylfaginning. fenrir easily breaks the first two fetters the gods bind him with but is suspicious at the third, thin as a ribbon but made from magic.
svá lízk mér á þenna dregil sem ønga frægð munak af hljóta þótt ek slíta í sundr svá mjótt band, en ef þat er gǫrt með list ok væl, þótt þat sýnisk lítit, þá kemr þat band eigi á mína fœtr. (p. 28)
(it looks to me with this ribbon as though i will gain no fame from it if i do tear apart such a slender band, but if it is made with art and trickery, then even if it does look thin, this band is not going on my legs.) (p. 28)
When the æsir tell him that they will release him if he cannot break the fetter, he responds:
Ef þér bindið mik svá at ek fæk eigi leyst mik þá skollið þér svá at mér mun seint verða at taka af yðr hjálp. Ófúss em ek at láta þetta band á mik leggja. En heldr en 34 on weakness as a concept in old Norse culture, see Clover (1993). Here we may note loki’s insult to skaði, to the effect that he was foremost among the æsir who killed Þjazi; this insult makes most sense if it is read as an allusion to the fact that skaði’s marriage to Njǫrðr and laughter at loki’s antics with the goat did not constitute serious compensation for the death of her father (è44 è53).
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þér frýið mér hugar þá leggi einnhverr hǫnd sína í munn mér at veði at þetta sé falslaust gert. (p. 28)
(if you bind me so that i am unable to release myself, then you will be standing by in such a way that i should have to wait a long time before i got any help from you.
i am reluctant to have this band put on me. But rather than that you question my courage, let some one put his hand in my mouth as a pledge that this is done in good faith.) (pp. 28–29)
There is a good deal going on here. in the first instance, fenrir makes decisions based upon the honour-shame paradigm, and lest his courage should be called into question, in effect he challenges the courage of the æsir: someone must be knowingly maimed. also, fenrir calls on the notion of a pledge and on things being done honourably, that is, not falsely. The binding of the wolf constitutes the breaking of an oath and thus proves to be impermanent (è48).
Concluding Remarks
The notion of ethics therefore represents an inevitable move from the individual to the social. actions that could be regarded ethically were those that could be regarded socially, and vice versa. While many classic twentieth-century formulations of the importance of honour in old scandinavian society were undoubtedly exaggerated and simplistic, the roles of honour and shame and the gradations of public notions of behaviour were certainly embedded in a calculus of ethics involving those concepts. This held not only for men but also for gods. We note that the gods do not participate in the ethics of social utility, which may perhaps be under-represented in eddic poetry but is very clearly present in the sagas of icelanders and, most importantly in our view, on Viking age runic inscriptions.