Vikings (44 page)

Four of the plates are decorated only with stones and pearls while the other four bear scenes and inscriptions from the Bible, rendered in cloisonné enamel and bordered with sapphires and pearls. Of the images, the one likely to have impressed Cnut the most is that of Christ enthroned as Lord of Hosts. Above the picture are the words PER ME REGES REGNANT – By Me, Kings Reign.

There is a lofty grandeur about the Imperial Crown that somehow makes the British regalia in the Tower of London seem gaudy by comparison. Perhaps it is the great age of the piece that makes the difference. The original British Crown Jewels, some of which dated back to the time of Edward the Confessor, were destroyed in 1649 on the orders of Oliver Cromwell. Determined to obliterate all symbols of royalty and monarchy, he saw to it that the gold in them was melted down and the precious stones sold off. Given that none of the items on display now dates back any further than the late seventeenth century, when set alongside the thousand-year-old Imperial Crown of Otto I and his successors, they seem to smack of new money.

In any event, the image of the thing stayed with Cnut long after he departed Rome for his return journey. He had walked side by side with the new Holy Roman Emperor and by the time he got home he understood that he too was more than just a king. Back in England he commissioned his own ‘imperial crown’ – as befitted his conception of himself as nothing less than an emperor.

He was also very much a Christian ruler, having accepted baptism at some point before his kingship began, and always at pains to show his support for the Church and its
monasteries. The
Liber Vitae
– ‘the Book of Life’ – written in 1031 for Winchester Cathedral, begins with an illustration of Cnut. He is shown together with his wife, Emma, and he is presenting the cathedral with a gold altar cross. Looking on are some of the monks and also Christ in Majesty, flanked by Mary and St Peter. Cnut has one hand on the cross and the other on the hilt of his sword, a reminder that while his power was a gift from God, it had taken a warrior to claim it in the first place. The Book of Life was basically one kept by a religious house and listing the names of all those guaranteed entry to heaven. What makes the
Liber Vitae
in Winchester so fascinating is that since it was made during Cnut’s reign, we can be confident the artist of the illustration knew what the king looked like. It therefore provides us with a very rare likeness of a Viking king.

In the
Knytlinga
saga, written in the thirteenth century, Cnut is described as ‘exceptionally tall and strong, and the handsomest of men, all except for his nose, that was thin, high-set, and rather hooked. He had a fair complexion nonetheless, and a fine, thick head of hair. His eyes were better than those of other men, both the handsomer and the keener of their sight’

Cnut the Great was the most successful Viking of them all. He ruled England for the best part of 20 years and when he died, in 1035, he was entombed in Winchester Cathedral. When the present building was completed in 1093, Cnut’s bones and those of other ancient kings of England were placed in specially made mortuary chests. Winchester was Royalist during the English Civil War and held out determinedly. When Cromwell’s Roundheads finally gained control of the city, they vented their frustrations on the cathedral, among other places. The ‘idolatry’ of the great stained glass window above the western doorway was especially offensive to their eyes and they used the bones from the mortuary chests utterly to destroy it. Later the good citizens of Winchester gathered up all the fragments and used
them to create the stunning, abstract window that glorifies the building today. The old bones were gathered together too – but it was impossible to tell who was who. The jumble was simply split between the various boxes, so that the mortal remains of Cnut the Great are now mixed with those of everyone else. Someday genetic science may allow Cnut’s bones to be identified and gathered together in one place, but for now he and his fellow kings are a royal muddle.

Cnut the Great had ruled an empire. All of England, Denmark and Norway, and part of Sweden besides, had been answerable to him in his day. But it was a creation held together by the ambition and personality of the man himself. His son Harthacnut was proclaimed King of England and Denmark in 1040, but died during a drinking session two years later. Thereafter the English throne was occupied by Edward the Confessor, son of Aethelred and Emma of Normandy.

The Norwegian Harald Sigurdarsson – known as ‘Hardrada’ or ‘Hard-ruler’ – was the last true Viking to attempt the invasion of England. A warrior of unequalled skill and guile, he earned his spurs during years of service in the Varangian Guard, before returning to Norway in 1045 and seizing the throne of his homeland a year later. If anyone had the ambition to rival Cnut, it was surely Harald Hardrada, and when Edward the Confessor of England died without issue in 1066 he scented blood in the water once more. In the confusion and uncertainty that followed Edward’s death, Harold Godwinson, one of the royal advisors, had been made king. Hardrada, egged on by Harold’s exiled brother Tostig, amassed a huge army and fleet and launched a surprise attack. Landing at Riccall, on the River Ouse, he was soon joined by yet more men and ships commanded by Tostig, who had been exiled by Edward on Harold’s advice, and also the Earl of Orkney. There may have been as many as 9,000 men and by September, after some
early successes on the ground, they were encamped at Stamford Bridge, eight or so miles from York.

After a four-day forced march, Harold Godwinson was ready to confront his challenger by 25 September. Legend has it that he rode out to see the enemy for himself. Hardrada asked the king how much of England he might be given in return for peace. Harold is said to have replied, ‘I will grant you seven feet of English ground, or as much more as you are taller than other men.’

The slaughter that then ensued was nightmarish. All day long they fought, in blazing sunshine, and by the end the invaders had been all but annihilated. Hardrada himself, who had fought from one end of Europe to the other and ruled whole swathes of Scandinavia in his day, was felled by an arrow through the throat.

The English success was famously short-lived, however, and word reached Harold of the arrival of a second invasion, this time on the south coast. William, Duke of Normandy, was a descendant of Rollo, the Viking who had gained the territory from the Frankish king in
AD
911. Emma’s marriages to Aethelred and Cnut persuaded William of his own right to the English throne and he arrived with his own force just two days after Hardrada’s destruction at Stamford Bridge. A second forced march, this one lasting nine days, enabled Harold and his exhausted men to confront the Normans near Hastings, in Sussex, on 14 October 1066.

For a while on the day it looked as though Harold would secure his second, luminous victory – but in the end the superiority of the combined Norman cavalry, infantry and archers wore down the English resistance. Whether or not Harold was killed by an arrow to the eye can never be known for certain, but his death sealed the fate of England’s defenders. In the aftermath of the fighting the teenage Edgar the Aetheling, grandson
of Edmund Ironside, was declared king by what remained of the English government. It was little more than a futile gesture, however. Though proclaimed king, Edgar was never actually crowned, and when he was eventually brought before William in early December, he agreed to step quietly aside. William the Conqueror was duly crowned, in Westminster Abbey, on Christmas Day.

William’s arrival on the throne of England is regarded by many historians as marking the end of the Viking Age. It was certainly over in spirit by then, if not in fact. A people who had thundered onto the world stage as pirates and raiders two and a half centuries before had steadily and relentlessly reinvented themselves. The Vikings were never defeated; rather they allowed themselves to be assimilated. They had begun by envying their neighbours and in seeking to grow rich and powerful in their own right they had altered and shaped the economics, politics, languages and religious identities of every other country they touched.

The Vikings have haunted my imagination since childhood. In hopes of properly understanding them I went in search of unicorn horns, dragon-headed ships, battleaxes and runes carved into the marble of a Byzantine church. But although I found all those things, I find at the end that I am beguiled most of all by the little girl from Birka. Rather than warriors and mariners, my abiding image of the Viking world is that of a strange little girl in a red dress, skipping along the boardwalks of her hometown. I saw her bones and her few possessions in the museum in Stockholm and I stood by the site of her grave, on the high ground overlooking the sleeping remains of Birka.

In the scheme of things, the period of time we call the Viking Age was brief, a sudden flame that burned brightly and went out. Birka Girl’s time was also brief, but in her few short years she captivated all who encountered her. She has that power
even now. When she died she was granted burial in a place of honour, in the shadow of the town’s ramparts. For all who had known her, she was unique and unforgettable. A burst of flame leaves a ghost that lingers on the retina long after the light itself has gone. I cannot forget Birka Girl and the world will never forget the Vikings.

Aase
A Ynglinga queen, mother of Halfdan the Black, King of Norway and founder of the Norwegian royal dynasty, and grandmother of King Harald Fairhair. The Oseberg ship found in a huge burial mound by Oslo Fjord has been suggested as her resting place. The trees used in its construction were felled in the autumn of
AD
834.

Bjarni Herjólfsson
A Norwegian who, according to the Saga of the Greenlanders, was the first Viking to sight North America in 985 or 986. He had set out to follow his parents from Iceland to Greenland but bad weather blew him past Greenland to the coast of Labrador which he named
Markland
(‘Wood Land’) and then, turning northwards, he reported
Helluland
(‘Stone Land’), probably Baffin Island, before making landfall at last in Greenland.

Björn ‘Ironside’ Jarnsida
A chieftain who, together with his brother Hastein, in 859 sailed down the River Loire with a fleet of 60 ships and via the French and Iberian coasts and the Straits of Gibraltar entered the mouth of the Rhône. From there they raided settlements along the coasts of France and Italy and the Balearic Islands, returning to Brittany, depleted by Muslim attacks on the fleet, by the spring of 862.

Cnut the Great King
of England 1016–35, Denmark 1018–35, Norway 1028–35 and parts of Sweden, who had earlier converted to Christianity. Son of Svein Forkbeard. Exiled from England at his father’s death in 1014 and the return of
Aethelred. At the end of 1015 with the support of his elder brother King Harald II of Denmark he invaded England with 200 ships and 10,000 men. At the battle of Ashingdon in Essex in October 1016 he routed the army of Aethelred and his eldest son Edmund Ironside. The land of England north of the Thames was surrendered to the Danes – a return of the Danelaw – leaving Edmund with a territory approximating Alfred’s Wessex. Edmund died shortly afterwards and Cnut assumed control of his territories and was crowned King of England in January 1017. His brother Harald died in 1018 and with a predominantly English force he returned to Denmark to claim the throne. By 1028 he was recognised as King of Norway and parts of Sweden too. He standardised the currencies of England and his Scandinavian territories. His daughter Gunnhild married the Holy Roman Emperor, Henry III. He died in 1035 and is entombed in Winchester Cathedral.

Domalde
An unfortunate Ynglinga ruler whose reign coincided with a severe famine. His chieftains agreed, according to the
Ynglinga
saga, that he should be sacrificed ‘for good crops’.

Egil Skallagrimsson
A Viking chieftain from Iceland whose men fought for Aethelstan at the Battle of Brunanburh in 937 and whose exploits prompted one of the finest of the sagas, Egil’s saga.

Eirik Bloodaxe
King of Norway and latterly last independent Viking king of the Northumbrians. One of the reputedly twenty sons – and favourite according to the sagas – of Harald Fairhair, King of Norway. On the death of his father he apparently set about murdering his siblings (a Latin text describing his life refers to him as
fratris interfactor
– ‘brother-killer’) in order to succeed his father as King of Norway. His reign was so unpopular he was overthrown
by his last surviving brother Haakon and fled to England. According to The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle he was ‘taken as king’ by the people of Northumbria in 947 or 948. From his capital in York he continued to raid Scotland and territories bordering the Irish Sea. It is thought he died in battle in Stainmore in Cumbria in 954.

Eirikur Thorvaldsson
Or Eirik the Red. The subject of the Saga of Eirik the Red, written in the thirteenth century. Around 982, an outlaw with a price on his head, he sailed west from Iceland and explored over several seasons the more hospitable west coast of Greenland. In the spring of 986 a party of settlers between 500 and 1,000 strong left Iceland aboard 25 ships of which only 15 survived the crossing. Eirik became accepted as their leader and by 1000 archaeologists calculate there was a stable population of as many as 5,000 people. His achievements in opening up a direct route – some 2,000 miles – between Greenland and Norway became legendary. Hearing of the exploits of Bjarni Herjólfsson, Eirik’s son Leif Eiriksson headed west sometime between 995 and 1000 with a crew of 35. Historians agree that what they discovered and named ‘Vinland’ was Newfoundland, off the coast of Canada. They wintered there before returning to Greenland.

Farulk
One of the five named negotiators of the trading agreement between the city of Constantinople and the Rus at the beginning of the tenth century. The others were Hrollaf, Karl, Steinvith and Vermund.