Currently Reading: Egil's Saga
Tuesday, May 6th, 2003 19:52![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kittiwakeAlthough the chronology is a bit skewed, this is a saga that includes historical characters (such as the kings of Norway & England) and the events that happen are realistic. The Norsemen are not just violent and barbaric Viking raiders; the same men who spend some summers on Viking raids across Europe, spend other summers on respectable trading expeditions and yet others as mercenaries for foreign kings, whose
territories they may well have raided previously. Viking raids and trading expeditions are summer activities, with winters being spent at home on their farms, or staying with friends. In the Vinland Sagas, some of the traders spent the summers on trading expeditions and alternate winters in Iceland and Norway.
There is a strong tradition of hospitality in the sagas. Norwegians emigrating to Iceland often turn up at the farm of a settler (whom they may not even have met before) in the autumn and are invited to spend the winter there along with all their followers, before setting up farms of their own in the spring. There are settlers from Scandinavia on all the islands of the North Atlantic. Iceland, the Faeroes, Shetland, the Orkneys, the Hebrides, Scotland, Dublin in Ireland, northern England and the Isle of Man (where a Viking parliament, the Tynwald, still meets after more than 1000 years!) were linked together by ties of blood and trade.
Interestingly, when the pagan Thorulf and Egil go to England as mercenaries for the Christian King Athelstan, they are given preliminary baptism. The saga says that this allows them to mix with both Christians and heathens, but that they can still follow whatever beliefs they like. I have never heard of this practice before, but it's a very pragmatic way of going about things. Apparently it was common for viking merchants and mercenaries to undergo this preliminary baptism, as it allowed the Christians to salve their consciences about trading with heathens.
The Althing made a similarly pragmatic decision in Iceland 50-odd years later. In the year 1000 the Althing ruled that in order to stop the bloodshed between those who wanted Iceland to be Christian and those who wanted to remain pagan, the whole of Iceland would convert to Christianity, but people could still follow the old traditions in private if they wanted to.
territories they may well have raided previously. Viking raids and trading expeditions are summer activities, with winters being spent at home on their farms, or staying with friends. In the Vinland Sagas, some of the traders spent the summers on trading expeditions and alternate winters in Iceland and Norway.
There is a strong tradition of hospitality in the sagas. Norwegians emigrating to Iceland often turn up at the farm of a settler (whom they may not even have met before) in the autumn and are invited to spend the winter there along with all their followers, before setting up farms of their own in the spring. There are settlers from Scandinavia on all the islands of the North Atlantic. Iceland, the Faeroes, Shetland, the Orkneys, the Hebrides, Scotland, Dublin in Ireland, northern England and the Isle of Man (where a Viking parliament, the Tynwald, still meets after more than 1000 years!) were linked together by ties of blood and trade.
Interestingly, when the pagan Thorulf and Egil go to England as mercenaries for the Christian King Athelstan, they are given preliminary baptism. The saga says that this allows them to mix with both Christians and heathens, but that they can still follow whatever beliefs they like. I have never heard of this practice before, but it's a very pragmatic way of going about things. Apparently it was common for viking merchants and mercenaries to undergo this preliminary baptism, as it allowed the Christians to salve their consciences about trading with heathens.
The Althing made a similarly pragmatic decision in Iceland 50-odd years later. In the year 1000 the Althing ruled that in order to stop the bloodshed between those who wanted Iceland to be Christian and those who wanted to remain pagan, the whole of Iceland would convert to Christianity, but people could still follow the old traditions in private if they wanted to.
