106. Burial of the Dead

Finally, the moment we've all been waiting for!  This is the episode with the duel between Ragnar and Jarl Haraldson, with the implication that whoever wins will be the new Jarl.  Still not entirely historically accurate... but until restrictions were placed on duels (holmgang) it was possible for the winner to ask for absolutely anything the loser had.  So.. I guess if he demands all his lands and wealth and I guess if everyone leasing that land agrees and I guess if killing the Law Speaker suddenly leaves the rules open to a bit of interpretation... it could happen.  But in any case, this isn't how a Holmgang is supposed to work.

Holmgang is a Norse word for 'Island Walk'.  So called because duels would either take place on small islands, or the fighters would put down a large hide that was staked in the corners.  Leaving the hide would be thought of as cowardice and automatically losing.

To start, the challenger would give a formal challenge, usually in front of people.  Floki provides the challenge in the show, as Ragnar is unable.  If Ragnar and Floki appeared but the Jarl did not, then any insults Ragnar attacked the Jarl with would be immediately thought of as true and the Jarl would be the loser of the battle.  Sometimes he would even lose legal status as a citizen, or some rights.  If Ragnar failed to show, the Jarl would say three times that he was honourless (Niðingr) and make a mark on the ground.  Ragnar would be declared the loser and he would lose respect and legal rights.

It could be worse.  According to Gisla saga, if someone didn't appear, the opponent would carve a runestone with images of the no-show being sodomized.  It would commemorate the shame that they brought upon themselves for being cowardly.

Skeggi had come to the isle and staked out the lists for Bard, and laid down the law of the combat, and after all saw neither him nor any one to fight on the isle in his stead. There was a man named Fox, who was Skeggi's Smith; and Skeggi bade Fox to carve likenesses of Gisli and Bard: "And see," he said, "that one stands just behind the back of the other, and this laughingstock shall stand for aye to put them to shame."

Luckily for the show, both combatants appeared and were ready to kick some major Viking ass.  The Law Speaker recites the rules for this combat--which is true.  While the rules we have recorded in sagas are very different from the ones in the show, it was possible for them to be altered a bit as long as the Law Speaker and both fighters okayed it.

In real life, they would stand on this hide.  Each man would be given three shields.  Then, they would take turns hitting each other.  The first man to get blood on the hide loses!

Hold still!  This next one's only going to suck a lot.

Wait, what?

Yeah.  Duels weren't this action-packed fight to the death like the History Channel wants you to think.  The challenged man would be allowed to strike first, then the challenger, then the challenged again and so on and so forth.  Rather dull, but at least it was fair.  Ducking, dodging, moving out of the way or running were absolutely not allowed and thought of as cowardly.  After your three shields broke, you were expected to parry the blows away with your sword.  The Kormakksaga describes such a battle.

So the hide was taken and spread under their feet. Thorgils held his brother's shield, and Thord Arndisarson that of Bersi. Bersi struck the first blow, and cleft Cormac's shield; Cormac struck at Bersi to the like peril. Each of them cut up and spoilt three shields of the other's. Then it was Cormac's turn. He struck at Bersi, who parried with Whitting. Skofnung cut the point off Whitting in front of the ridge. The sword-point flew upon Cormac's hand, and he was wounded in the thumb. The joint was cleft, and blood dropped upon the hide. Thereupon folk went between them and stayed the fight.

Then said Cormac, "This is a mean victory that Bersi has gained; it is only from my bad luck; and yet we must part." 

He flung down his sword, and it met Bersi's target. A shard was broken out of Skofnung, and fire flew out of Thorveig's gift.Bersi asked the money for release, Cormac said it would be paid; and so they parted.

Booooooriiiiiiing.  Right?  One of those situations where I can completely understand why the History Channel decided to ignore real history.  Of course, it would be nice if the Law Speaker said something like, "Ordinarily the Jarl will have the first blow, then Ragnar, and they will fight in turns.  But due to the nature of the complaint, both parties have agreed to fight more traditionally."  .

"Law Speaker!!! He's cheeeeeaaating!"

Also, along with all the death that goes on here, I was a little sad to see the terrible Swede guy get killed.  Part of me thought that Thyri might go on to be Queen Thyra, sister of Aethelstan (lolwut?) and mother of Harald Bluetooth.  Looks like it might not be meant to be.  :(

Ragnar is now the Jarl of Kattegat and there's a funeral to plan.  A BADASS FUNERAL OF BADASSERY.  The show has it pretty right, according to the few sagas and one good, historical account we have of a ship cremation.

In the Ynglingsaga, Odin decrees all men should be burned with their possessions.

 Odin established the same law in his land that had been in force in Asaland. Thus he established by law that all dead men should be burned, and their belongings laid with them upon the pile, and the ashes be cast into the sea or buried in the earth. Thus, said he, every one will come to Valhalla with the riches he had with him upon the pile; and he would also enjoy whatever he himself had buried in the earth.

Then in Ahmed ibn Fadlan's Risala, which he wrote while spending time with the Rus Vikings, we have a beautiful account of a real ship burning.

§ 87. I heard that at the deaths of their chief personages they did many things, of which the least was cremation, and I was interested to learn more. At last I was told of the death of one of their outstanding men. They placed him in a grave and put a roof over it for ten days, while they cut and sewed garments for him.If the deceased is a poor man they make a little boat, which they lay him in and burn. If he is rich, they collect his goods and divide them into three parts, one for his family, another to pay for his clothing, and a third for making intoxicating drink, which they drink until the day when his female slave will kill herself and be burned with her master. They stupify themselves by drinking this beer night and day; sometimes one of them dies cup in hand.§ 88. When the man of whom I have spoken died, his girl slaves were asked, "Who will die with him?" One answered, "I." She was then put in the care of two young women, who watched over her and accompanied her everywhere, to the point that they occasionally washed her feet with their own hands. Garments were being made for the deceased and all else was being readied of which he had need. Meanwhile the slave drinks every day and sings, giving herself over to pleasure.

Aethelstan is brought to the tent where the slave girl is prepared, and watches as she goes to have sex with his men so that they might give messages or support to their dead friend.  All accurate.  ibn Fadlan seems to focus more on the role of the slave girl in the funeral, though I think that might have been because the treatment of slave women in regards to sex really horrified him.

Trust me, dude. As a slave in Viking society, this is not the worst way you could go.

The slave would then be lifted over a door frame where she would describe what she saw in the world of the dead.

"Behold, I see my father and mother."

"I see all my dead relatives, seated."

"I see my master in Valhalla, where it is beautiful and green.  He has men and servants with him.  He beckons me, take me to him!"

At that, she would be killed and placed in the boat next to her master and all of his possessions.  A family member would bring the torch to set the boat aflame (nice one, Ragnar, pissing Siggy off by refusing it to her) and the ship would be pushed out to sea.  I... I would like to quote another passage from ibn Fadlan.

91. Then the closest relative of the dead man, after they had placed the girl whom they have killed beside her master, came, took a piece of wood which he lighted at a fire, and walked backwards with the back of his head toward the boat and his face turned toward the people, with one hand holding the kindled stick and the other covering his anus, being completely naked, for the purpose of setting fire to the wood that had been made ready beneath the ship. 

Oh, and by the way?  Viking funerals are illegal in most parts of the world.  Except Minnesota*.

*As long as your body is pre-cremated and you've got permission to be on the lake.

Next we get to move to my favourite part of Viking culture.  More lore, yaaay!

Have I mentioned Valhalla yet?  I should talk about Valhalla.

An old man approached Ragnar once he's Jarl and says that all of his friends have died in battle.  He's the only one left and he's terrified he'll die an old man's death and never reach Valhalla.  But what in the world is Valhalla?

When someone dies, there are two places they could go.  The first is Helheim, which is ruled over by Hel.  She is the daughter of Loki with a very... interesting affliction.  Half of her is on of the most beautiful women you've seen.  Flowing hair, pale skin, bright eye.  The other half is mottled and black, flesh hanging from the bone and skin as cold as ice.  Sometimes she's half and half, like some sort of sexy Two-Face.  Other times, she's described as sexy on top, but corpse-y on bottom.  I lovingly refer to that version as a trap.

The land she rules over is cold, and none of the dead can remember their lives.  And... that's about it.  No torture, no pain, you can't even remember how you died and you're mostly mindless, so you don't remember to be sad about it.  It's kinda boring, but it doesn't suck as much as the Christian Hell, which takes it's name and concept from the Norse.  If you died as an evil man, there are beings that could torment you.. but the real punishment is being unable to sit in the halls of the gods or Valhalla.

Valhalla is where the heroes go after they've died in battle.  Valkyrie choose which of the battle-slain are cool enough to come party with them, which we saw this happen in the beginning of the first episode (also I think the lady in the water during the theme might be a Valkyrie as well?)  They were servants of Odin and bodyguards who would decide the outcomes of battles.

Um.  Sure.

Many of the Valkyrie had their own stories and sagas.  Some say that Lagertha was a Valkyrie.  Later, when we meet Aslaug, we find out that her mother was the most famous one, Brunhilde.  Her story went on to inspire the Ring Cycle opera, which in turn went to inspire Lord of the Rings (and most sword-and-sorcery fantasy).  Have you ever heard the phrase, "It ain't over until the fat lady sings"?  Brunhilde is the fat lady.

To be fair, I'm intimidated.

The chosen men are brought to the hall of Valhalla.  The Kevin Crossley-Holland translation of the Poetic Edda describes it thus:

Valhalla stands near by, vast and gold-bright.  Odin presides there, and day by day he chooses slain men to join him.  Every morning they arm themselves and fight in the great courtyard and kill one another; every evening they rise again, ride back to the hall, and feast.  That hall is easily recognized: its roof is made of shields and its rafters are spears.  Breast-plates litter the benches.  A wolf lurks at the western door, and an eagle hovers over it.  Andhrimnir the cook, smutty with soot, boils the boar Sarhrimnir's flesh in a great blackened cauldron.  That is the finest of all food, though few men get to taste it.  The War Father feeds his wolves, Freki and Geri, with hunks of meat; but wine alone is always enough for Odin's own needs...

Behind Valgrind are the sacred inner doors; and although the gate is age-old, few know how to bolt it.  Valhalla itself has five hundred and forty doors, and when the time comes to fight against Fenrir, eight hundred warriors will march out of each door, shoulder to shoulder. 

 These men, known as einherjar train every day in order to be strong enough to defend the gods during Ragnarok.  Which Aethelstan inquires about, in one of those moments where he wants to display how much tact he has.

Last post, I told you how the world was created.  Now I'm going to tell you how it will be destroyed.  (Really, the show got it right.  It's just more fun to pepper in other details around their base.)

First there will be three years of terrible winters.  They will be full of war and hopelessness, and there will be no summer between them.  This is called the Fimbulvetr.  Winds will come from all directions.  Families will fight, mothers will lie with sons, fathers will slay sons, brothers will bed with sisters.

Basically, it'll snow in Kentucky.

The wolf Skoll will swallow the sun and his brother, Hati, will mangle the moon.  The wolf Fenrir, evil son of Loki, will break free of his unbreakable bindings and run free.  Three roosters will crow, waking the Gods, the einherjar and the dead in Hel.

Jorgunmandr, the Midgard Serpent, will leave the sea, causing the ocean to pummel the shore with waves.  He will spit poison across the land, staining all the earth and the sky.  The ship Naglfar will bring giants to fight the gods.  The ship is created from the nails of dead men, and that's why the dead must be well-groomed and their nails trimmed before being laid to rest.

Loki will also break free of his bonds and sail to the fighting grounds, bringing all the dead from Hel with him.  The rainbow bridge will crack and break as fire giants from Muspell march across it.

  Go ahead and break it.  You'd be doing me a favour.

Heimdall will blow the horn Gjall, which will be heard in all nine worlds.  Earthquakes will rock all nine worlds as Odin leads the Aesir and the einherjar out the doors and into battle.  This is the part where everybody dies.

Loki and Heimdall will kill one another in battle, as will Thor and Jorgunmandr.  Frey will be slain by the giant Surt because he gave his good sword to his servant.  Tyr will be eaten by the hound Garm.  Fenrir will open his jaws wide and swallow Odin, killing him.  Odin's son, Vidar, will grab Fenrir's jaws and tear them apart to avenge his father.  I'm going to quote the Poetic Edda again because the translation is less poetic and more succinct.  Comedically so.

Then Surt will fling fire in every direction.  Asgard and Midgard and Jotunheim and Niflheim will become furnaces - places of raging flame, swirling smoke, ashes, only ashes.  The nine worlds will burn and the gods will die.  The Einherjar will die, men and women and children in Midgard will die, elves and dwarfs will die, giants will die, monsters and creatures of the underworld will die, birds and animals will die.  The sun will be dark and there will be no stars in the sky.  The earth will sink into the sea.

Then the world is supposed to come back to life, but honestly, I don't trust this part.  It basically goes on to describe how the world turns into earth with a very Christian-like heaven and Hell.  Adam and Eve (or Lif and Lifthrasir) come from a tree and repopulate the earth on their own while the gods retire to their now golden halls in the sky, waiting to judge men on good deeds.  Here is where I run into my least favourite problem ever.... many Viking legends were written by Christians who wanted to put in their two cents in order to make the sagas less Pagan.  There are some places where it's easy to pick apart something that probably wasn't a Viking belief, but not all of them are this obvious.  So, like with all things, what you read here and elsewhere should always be taken with a grain of salt.  The Vikings themselves never wrote down their history, instead devoting their lives to memorizing the sagas.  A few things do get lost in translation.

Alright.  Last time I said I'd talk about King Aella, and I will, but not much.  Only because he's very heavily tied into the show and I don't want to mention some of his deeds and end up spoiling something that might happen in a later season.

He was the king of Northumbria in the 9th century, as well as being the main villain in the Saga of Ragnar's Sons.    Unfortunately, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle tells a different story of how he met his end.

A.D. 867. This year the army went from the East-Angles over themouth of the Humber to the Northumbrians, as far as York. Andthere was much dissension in that nation among themselves; theyhad deposed their king Osbert, and had admitted Aella, who had nonatural claim. Late in the year, however, they returned to theirallegiance, and they were now fighting against the common enemy;having collected a vast force, with which they fought the army atYork; and breaking open the town, some of them entered in. Thenwas there an immense slaughter of the Northumbrians, some withinand some without; and both the kings were slain on the spot.

Boring!  The vikings needed a bad guy, and so does The History Channel.  The Ragnarsaga talks about how Ragnar became bored with ruling and wanted to raid England again.  So he got his ships together and started attacking.

Then Ragnar held course in his ships to England, as he had planned.  He received a bitter wind, so that he broke both his merchant-vessels against England, but all his troops came to land and they kept their clothes and weapons.  And there, whenever he came to farms and towns and castles, he conquered them.  And there was a king called Ella, who then ruled England.  He had heard reports when Ragnar had left his own land.  Ella had sent forth men, so that he might know as soon as Ragnar came to land.  Then these men journeyed to meet with King Ella, and told him war-tidings.  Then he had a summons sent throughout all his land and commanded every man come to him who could wield a shield and ride a horse and who dared to fight.  He gathered so many together there that it was a wondrous thing.

And, honestly?  That's about all I can say before I get into spoilers.  So I leave you until next time.  Don't be afraid to comment!