The stupid should stay at home and other Viking wisdom

(Photos by your humble blogkeeper)

If the first bloom of this fellow's youth seems to have faded, consider:

— He has sixteen visible wounds.

— The wedge-shaped wound on his upper leg was caused by an ax.

— The cut on his jaw and the blow under his nose would have caused severe bleeding.

— Injuries to his arms suggest he defended himself against sword blows.

— He has two execution-style wounds to the back of his head.

— He probably was not wearing a helmet.

— He's almost a thousand years old.

Take all into account, and I should look so good.

The young man probably died around the time of the Battles of Fulford and Stamford Bridge or during the Norman takeover of England, which followed shortly thereafter (1066, and all that). He sleeps today at the Jorvik Viking Centre in York, a museum and educational center at the site of spectacular archaeological finds in the 1970s that laid bare the history of Viking York and that today includes both traditional and "living" displays.

I studied the rich artifacts. I rode through an impressive recreation of how Jorvikers might have lived in the eleventh century. And I bought a small copy of the Old Norse collection of wisdom poetry, the Hávamál, which I left in the York train station before I had the chance to read it.

Happily, I found another copy, and initial reading suggests the Vikings were, indeed, wise. A few examples:

"Who travels widely needs his wits about him,
The stupid should stay at home"

and

"Less good than belief would have it
Is mead for the sons of men:
A man knows less the more he drinks,
Becomes a befuddled fool"

I showed the second example to the bartender at my local, where I was doing my reading, and her reply proved her as practical as her Scandinavian predecessors a thousand years ago: "I think two drinks, you know more; three drinks, you know less."

© Peter Rozovsky 2012

A good name is better than precious ointment *

Unn the deep-minded. Thorun the Horned. Men's Wit-Breaker. And those are just the women.  The Laxdale Saga proves that if Old Norse sagas have nothing on hard-boiled crime novels when it comes to male characters' nicknames, they take the prize when it comes to distaff monikers.

Not that their male character were slouches either. Those three women are the daughters of Ketill Flatnose and the granddaughters of Bjorn the Ungartered in the  great Icelandic saga, which also mentions in passing one Ulf the Squinter. Those are right up there with Itchy Maker and the Whosis Kid.

Here's a list of Viking names and nicknames (and here's one that concentrates on the sagas). You'd probably want to cross the street if you saw Horse gelder or Blood axe coming your way, but you have to feel sorry for the Scandinavian schlemiel nicknamed Awkward poet.

***

Translator's note: Bernard Scudder, who translated crime novels by Arnaldur Indriðason and Yrsa Sigurðardóttir from Icelandic into English before he died in 2007, also translated Egil's Saga from Old Norse for the selection available in Penguin's The Saga of Icelanders. Arnaldur has said that the sagas influences his terse prose style, so if you like his work, why not grab yourself some sagas?

***

* Ecclesiastes 7:1

© Peter Rozovsky 2011

The trouble with Harald

I've posted from time to time about elements of the Icelandic sagas and other world literature that would be at home in crime fiction.  Few, if any, are as noir as a short section from the middle of King Harald's Saga. Here are a few chapter titles from that section: "Murder." "The Mission." "Death in Denmark."

King Harald Hardrada of Norway lures a political enemy into a dark room, where he has him stabbed and hacked to death. Hated after the murder, he enlists a strong warrior to help him win back the people's favor, promising to allow the warrior's brother back from exile as the price of the warrior's cooperation. He sends the warrior on a diplomatic mission, where he wins a truce from the dead man's friends.

The exiled brother then returns to Norway but Harald, having in the meantime achieved his aim of a truce, sends the man out to his death at the hands of an enemy army. It may be the most treacherous act since King David said: "Uriah, would you mind dropping this note off for me?"

Moralists who want the good guy to win in the end will be happy to know that before the story ends, Harald gets his from King Harold Godwinson of England at the Battle of Stamford Bridge, bringing the curtain down on the Viking era, by traditional reckoning. Of course, Harold's forces lose the Battle of Hastings three weeks later.

History. It's a tough game.

© Peter Rozovsky 2011