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ICELANDIC SAGAS, Vol. III THE ORKNEYINGERS SAGA

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Nichole Lusk
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« Reply #45 on: December 01, 2009, 03:21:04 am »

Finally, before we land on Caithness, we must mention "Svelgr" a dangerous whirlpool or "maelstrom," which may, perhaps, be identified with the eddy off Swelchie or Swilchie Point in the island of Stroma.  It was in this famous whirlpool that Grotti the mill of the mythic king Fróði, which could grind all things, was sunk by the sea rover who carried it off;  a story which still lingers in the Norse popular tale, "Why the Sea is Salt," and there at the bottom of the "Swelchie," Fróði's mill is supposed still to lie and to grind all the salt in the sea.

      Landing in Caithness we shall not be suprised to find the Northmen simultaneously with their colonization of the Orkneys established on various parts of the north of Scotland.  On jutting headlands and in deep bays and along the winding dales and straths of the rivers, Northern names still linger to witness their ancient occupation by this stirring race.  Of Caithness, the ancient Katanes or more shortly Nes, the Naze or promontory par excellence, it may be said that it was in those times purely Norse.  It seems always to have been held by the Orkney earls, and notably by earl Harold Maddad's son, as a fief from the Scottish king, who, even when most exasperated against his vassal, gave vent to his wrath rather on the population and freemen than on the earl (Saga, p. 230).  When there were joint earls in the Orkneys and they were good friends, they went annually over to Caithness to hunt deer, as when earls Rognvald and Harold set out on that hunting party which ended in Rognvald's death (Saga p. 214-5).  Sutherland, too, the ancient Suðrlönd took its name from the Northmen.  It was south to them though north to almost all the rest of Scotland.  Over both these counties, which, by the conformation of the coasts east and west, form as it were a promontory by themselves, for a long period the Northmen held more sway than any other rulers in Scotland.  In the time of the earls their power naturally varied on the Mainland as they were strong and aggressive, or weak and peaceful at home.  The power wielded by a Sigurd or a Thorfinn differed much from that claimed by a Brúsi or a Paul.  Speaking generally, we may say that the rule of the Northmen in early times extended as far as the Dornoch Firth and the Oikel;  and on the banks of the latter river it is expressly said of Sigurd, one of the earliest earls, that he was buried under a "howe" (19) there (Saga, p. 6).  The Torfnes, where earl Einar first cut turf as we are told, and whence he took his nickname, is supposed to be the same as Tarbetness which divides the Dornoch from the Moray Firth.  Arnor Earlskald sings of it as south of Oikel, p. 35.  That this influence of the Northmen existed in later times, is shown by the account of the route pursued by Sweyn Asleif's son when he went out to take vengeance on the carline Frakok.  He sailed from the Orkneys east of the Swelchie in the Pentland Firth to the Moray Firth, the ancient Breiðafjörðr, and on to Elgin and the valley of the Oikel, (20) and so up the country to Athole, where he got guides, and then fell on his enemy by a back blow in Sutherland, where he wreaked his vengeance to the full.

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« Reply #46 on: December 01, 2009, 03:21:21 am »

In both Caithness and Sutherland a glance at the map will show from the names the prevalence of Northern settlers in the country.  Along the coast, Cape Wrath is a distortion of cape Hvarf, that is Turnagain Point, because after it the coast trends away south.  Close to it was a Djurnes or Dýrnes, not to be confounded with the headland of the same name in Hrossey.  Then there is Force or Fors, the "waterfall" at the mouth of the river which runs down from Loch Caldell, the ancient Kalfadals-vatn, through the side dale of the same name, in which Earl Rognvald-Kali met his death by the hands of the unruly Thorbjorn Clerk (Saga, p. 215).  Next comes Thurso, the ancient þórsá, mentioned in the Saga, p. 130, as the abode of earl Ottar Frakok's brother and afterwards of his kinsman, earl Harold Maddad's son.  Not far off is Staur, supposed to be Broom Ness.  At Scrabster, Skarabólstaðr, they had a castle.  Not far from Scrabster lies Murkle, the ancient Myrkholl, where Ragnhilda, Eric Bloodaxe's bloodthirsty daughter, caused her husband earl Arnfinn to be murdered (Saga, p. 11).  Dunnet Head is probably the Rauðabjörg or Red Head of the Sagas.  Between it and Duncansby Head is the Dungalsbœr of the Saga, in which it is mentioned often as one of the possessions of Sweyn Asleif's son, and on the east coast was Lambaborg, Lamburg, the strong castle whence he and Margad escaped when besieged by earl Rognvald.  It is clear from the Saga, pp. 186, 191, that this castle was close to Freswick, the ancient þrasvík.  Further down the coast is Víkr the modern Wick.  It is uncertain where Skidmire, the ancient Skiðamýri, lay, where the rival earls of Northern and Scottish or Pictish race met to settle their quarrels in staked lists.  It was probably in the interior of Caithness, in the district called the Dales. (21)  There in the Dales at one time dwelt the treacherous and intriguing Frakok till her designs against earl Paul made both Caithness and Sutherland too hot to hold her, and she retired to Athole, where her niece Margaret had married earl Maddad.  Afterwards she returned to Helmsdale, Hjalmundalr, in Sutherland, and there it was that her implacable foe, Sweyn Asleif's son, fell on her after a circuitous expedition, and burnt her and all who were in the house (Saga, p. 139, 140).  Besides these and many others in Caithness and Sutherland, which last was the border country between the Northmen and the Scottish races, numberless names of places along the coasts east and west attest the extent to which their expeditions reached when they were bent on conquest or sea roving.  Not to speak of the invasions both of Scotland, England, and Ireland by earl Thorfinn, the life of Sweyn Asleif's son, so graphically told in the Saga, proves how wide a flight the old Viking took in his private wars.  Sometimes he is harrying and burning either alone or in partnership, in the Southern Isles and Scotland's Firths, that is the Firths on the west coast, where dwelt the great race of which Somerled was the chief, whom Sweyn was said to have slain.  Sometimes he is on an expedition into the heart of Scotland as far as Athole, bent on vengeance in a blood feud.  Now he is plundering monks or merchants in the Firth or Forth, and seizing, in company with Anakol, on the goods of Canute, a merchant of North Berwick;  for it is plain from the context that it is North Berwick, and not Berwick-on-Tweed, which is meant when the Saga in several places talk of Beruvík.  At another time he is in the Scilly Isles at Port St. Mary's, or off Ireland robbing English traders of their broadcloth.  Going regularly out to rob and plunder twice in each year, in spring after he had sown his crops, and in autumn after he had reaped them, he dies at last in Dublin, the victim of treachery;  and so ended the career of one who may be called the last of the Vikings.  Wherever the Northman went he left his mark, and one of his marks was giving names to places which to his day all over Scotland and the West bear witness to his enterprize and power.
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« Reply #47 on: December 01, 2009, 03:21:37 am »

But this geographical account would be incomplete were we to pass over in silence those expeditions by the Northmen which went beyond the Narrow Seas away from Norway and the islands of the West, and entered what to them was the ocean of the Mediterranean.  Such were the fleets fitted out by king Sigurd for a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, whence he got his nickname "Jewryfarer," and by earl Rognvald-Kali expressly in imitation of that monarch.  Those pilgrimages followed the Crusades and the establishment of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem, and as in the days of the earlier earls, such as Thorfinn and Hacon, a pilgrimage to Rome followed by absolution from the Holy Father for direful sins was looked on as the fitting end of an earthly career too often debased by ambition;  so in the days of their successors it was thought that to visit Jerusalem and to see the Holy Places in that city and in Palestine was a voyage which might atone for many crimes.  In those days the northern pilgrims, like the modern Syrians and Copts, swam across the muddy Jordan in token that their sins were washed out by the waves of that holy stream, and not one of the least curious facts recorded in the pilgrimage of earl Rognvald is his swimming across that river with Sweyn Asleif's son's stepson, the dashing Sigmund angle, and twisting the knot of shame in the hoary willows on the opposite bank as a brand of disgrace for the false Eindrid who had deserted them on the way.  These expeditions in another way were connected with the Crusades.  As the Crusaders had often lingered at Constantinople sometimes aiding, sometimes expelling, the emperors of the East, so king Sigurd and earl Rognvald after him thought it right to show themselves and their trim ships and bold crews at the Byzantine court, and as they neared the imperial city, which to their eyes was greater and richer far than any capital in the world, they strained every nerve and put on all their bravery of apparel to present themselves as great kings and mighty earls before the eyes of the Greeks and their master.  Nor, assuredly, was it without a flush of pride as they sailed through the Dardanelles and across the sea of Marmora that those hardy children of the North remembered that the mainstay of all the pomp and pride of the empire of the East was that chosen band of Varangians, on whom, of all their legions, the emperors most relied, and to whom the most exclusive rights and the most sweeping privileges were granted as the reward of their unflinching allegiance.  With regard to these expeditions the Orkneyingers' Saga affords the most curious information.  In it we can follow such a design through every stage from its very conception to its perfect accomplishment.  Here we see how Eindrid the young, who had served long among the Varangians, first incited earl Rognvald to gain glory by deeds in the East;  then how earl Rognvald's friends and relations rallied round him as soon as he had made up his mind to make the pilgrimage;  next how the ships were built and how long they took to build, how jealously earl Rognvald's rights as leader of the expedition were guarded in the stipulation that no one but he was to have a gaily painted and decorated ship, no one but he one of more than sixty oars; (22)  both of which conditions were broken by the ambition of Eindrid, whose ship alone of all the squadron rivalled in burden and beauty the longship of the earl.
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« Reply #48 on: December 01, 2009, 03:21:48 am »

At last after the ships had been built and his plans matured, earl Rognvald started, late in the summer of 1151 --- for they had to wait for the traitor Eindrid's new ship --- for his voyage to the east.  Besides bishop William, who, as a clerk of Paris, was supposed to know all things, and whom they took with them as an interpreter, the earl was followed by his Orkney chiefs and his Norse kinsmen and friends.  In all they had a fleet of fifteen ships, as well built and fitted out as ships in that age could be.  Our purpose here is only with the geography of their voyage, --- the places they passed  rather than the feats they performed are what we wish to describe.  As they passed the Vesla-sands off the Northumbrian coast, that is, the northeast coast of England, as far as the Humber, one of the skalds who accompanied the earl burst out into song, the words of his verse fix the spot as off Humber-mouth, and perhaps one of the many shoals which fringe the mouth of that estuary and the Wash may be the sand meant. (23)  After this we hear of them sailing south along the coast of England till they come to Valland, that is, France, or some country peopled by a Romance race;  and next we find them at Nerbon, according to all the best MSS.  That this Nerbon is the same as Narbonne in the Gulf of Lyons, in the south of France, seems impossible, for that city is just the last spot on the shores of the Mediterranean in which we should expect to find these adventurers, as it lay entirely out of their course.  That, however, it was some place in the wine-growing country is clear from the fact that Ermingard pours out wine to the earl and his captains rather than mead or ale;  and, on the whole, it seems not unlikely that "Nerbon" is the river Nerbion or Nervion, and that the sea burg is the modern Bilbao in the north of Spain;  but wherever it was, that lovely lady received the Northmen most hospitably, and whatever might be the case with her, it is plain from earl Rognvald's verses, long after their parting and when much of that salt water which proverbially washes out love was between them, that she made a great impression on him.  But their aim was the Holy Land, not to make love in Nerbon, and so earl Rognvald tore himself away and we next hear of him as sailing west off Thrasness, which may mean Capes La Hogue, Ortegal, or Finisterre in Spain, according to the position of the doubtful "Nerbon" on the map of Europe.  Next they came, still sailing west, to Galicia in Spain, and there they wintered, spending part of it, till the weather allowed them to sail in the spring of 1152, in ridding the inhabitants of the district of a tyrant named Godfrey who oppressed them terribly.  Having taken his castle, they sailed thence west along the shore of heathen Spain, that is, along the districts possessed by the Moors, landing and harrying the country, and encountering a violent storm before they could beat through the Gut at Gibraltar.  As soon as they had passed it the treacherous nature of Eindrid was revealed.  He sailed away with six ships for Marseilles, while earl Rognvald and the rest lay to in the Straits.  After that the earl sailed along the Barbary coast till he came off the island of Sardinia, where he fell in with a huge Dromond, or ship of burden, which had been driven to sea from Tripoli, Tunis, or Algiers, having on board of her a Moorish chief and untold wealth in wares and gold and silver.  The Northmen took her after a sharp struggle, and then, after a custom not uncommon in those times, put into a port in Barbary to dispose of the prisoners they had spared, and some of the goods which they had taken out of their prize.  Thence they sailed south to Crete, again encountering heavy weather, and there they lay under the lee of the island till they got a fair wind for Acre in Palestine, where they arrived early on a Friday morning. (24)
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« Reply #49 on: December 01, 2009, 03:22:02 am »

There they landed after their long voyage, but sickness as was not unlikely, broke out among them, and many died.  From Acre earl Rognvald and his men visited all the "halidoms" or holy places in Jewry, and as we have already seen bathed in Jordan, and swam across it, as it seems on St. Laurence's Day, August 10th, 1152.  Soon after that they left the Holy Land and completed their adventures by a visit to the city of cities, Constantinople.  On their way thither they came in the autumn to a place which is in its way as puzzling as Nerbon.  This was "Imbolum," which some have thought to be the island of Imbros, while the late Gudbrand Vigfusson thought it to be only a distortion of "ej tan polin."  In the account of their stay at this place, another puzzling word occurs in "miðhœfi," which the inhabitants called out to one another when they met in a narrow place.  This, too, Mr. Vigfusson explains in the Icelandic Dictionary by the Greek metabhqi, "get down," or "get out of the way," and whatever it was, ignorance of it caused Erling, the second in command of the expedition, a fall and roll in the mud.  A more tragical event happened there in the murder of John Peter's son, the earl's brother in law, who seems to have been slain by some of the inhabitants after he had missed his way when drunk at night.

      Leaving "Imbolum" they passed "Engilsness," or Cape St. Angelo, though another reading is Ægisness, said to be the point at the end of the Thracian Chersonese, at the mouth of the Dardanelles, where they lay some nights waiting for a fair south wind to carry them across the sea of Marmora to the great city.  As soon as it came, they sailed up with great pomp, just after the pattern of king Sigurd, and when they came to Constantinople they were made much of by the emperor Manuel and the Varangians, though the traitor Eindrid, whom they found there in great favour, did everything in his power to set men against them.  About winter the earl began his voyage home, sailing first to Bulgaria and Durazzo, and thence across the Adriatic to Apulia.  There he left his ships, and with the noblest of his company ended his journey home by land, clearly leaving the rest of his force to bring the ships home by sea.  From Apulia he took horse and rode to Rome, where, though it is not mentioned, he no doubt got absolution for his sins.  From Rome he went "Rome way," that is, by the usual route of pilgrims to that city, and so passing through Germany he came to Denmark and to Norway.  No wonder after such a voyage and such exploits men were glad to see them safe back, and thought that their voyage had been most glorious, and they were much greater men then than they had been before.  This must have been early in 1153.  Many things kept earl Rognvald most of that year in Norway.  When the winter was far spent he reached his realm in a merchant ship with a great train.  Ships of war were being built for him in Norway, and his old ships seem never to have returned from the Mediterranean;  at least they are never heard of.  During his absence there had been many changes in the Orkneys, and he found a new pretender to the earldom in Erlend, the son of earl Harold smooth-tongue.  Whatever they might have thought of him in Norway, earl Rognvald must have felt that to come home in a merchant ship, after having sailed from the Isles with such a goodly fleet, and to return to find strife where he had left peace, was a downfall in his position and power which it would require all his skill and tact to retrieve.  How he did this and kept his predominance in the Orkneys till his death will be seen in that Story of Earl Rognvald which forms the third portion of the Orkney Sagas.
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« Reply #50 on: December 01, 2009, 03:22:18 am »

The late Mr. Vigfusson having elaborately described in the preface to the Norse text, of which the translation is contained in this volume, the process whereby he was enabled to build up from various sources the structure of the Orkneyingers' Saga, and having also most carefully examined and estimated the value which, in point of historical credibility, attaches to each fragment, it is unnecessary for the translator to add anything to the information which has already been laid before the student of this period of English History.  It may, however, be pointed out that this volume and the translation of the Hacon Saga and its Appendices should, with the Norse text and Mr. Vigfusson's laborious introductions, be treated as a whole, as between them they contain nearly all that is known from northern sources as to the dominion claimed and exercised by the Northmen over portions of Great Britain from the reign of Harold Fairhair, in the latter half of the ninth century, until the collapse of King Hacon's great expedition to Scotland in 1263.

 

 

1.      It is described in Hibbert’s book on Shetland, p. 544, as built of stones, without cement.  In the walls, which are thirteen feet thick, are eleven small round rooms, each five feet in diameter, with a separate entrance from the inner court, which is 31 feet in diameter.  This “burgh” seems to have differed from that at Moussa in having single, and not double walls.
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« Reply #51 on: December 01, 2009, 03:22:35 am »

2.      The lines in Juvenal, II. 159-161 ---  “Arma quidem ultra...... Littora Juvernæ promovimus, et modo captas Orcadas, ac minimâ contentos nocte Britannos.”  were written after A.D. 84, when Agricola sailed round Britain and discovered the Orkneys.  They are also important as marking the quantity Orcades with a short pen- ultimate like Strophades, Pleiades, and Symplegandes.

3.      The meaning of this word is a portage, or place where boats and ships are dragged across a narrow isthmus from sea to sea.  Any one acquainted with Scotland, will recall several Tarbats, or Tarbets, as for instance, that across the neck of the Mull of Cantire, that at the head of Loch Lomond, where a narrow neck of land separates it from Loch Long, and another on the east coast in the Dornoch Firth.

4.      See Munch’s essay in the Annals:  and Introduction to Burnt Njal, Edinburgh, 1861.

5.      Great confusion has arisen between these two islands from the custom in MSS. of using the abreviation R-ey for both of them.  This abreviation when expanded under the pen of a careless scribe often turned Rinansey into Rögnvaldsey, and vice versa.

6.      It is remarkable that the Horæ for the Feast of St. Magnus (p. 311) as found in the Aberdeen Breviary contain the form Eglissei and not Egilssei, as though the name of the isle on which the Saint was martyred were derived from a church and not from Egil.

7.      So holy was this church considered, that the first reformed minister could scarcely prevent his parishioners from saying their prayers in the ruins before they came to the parish church.  St. Tredwall is the Scottish form of St. Triduana, a saint once much revered across the border.  She was said to have come from Achaia with Saint Regulus, to Scotland;  in the course of her journey her beauty so inflamed a Gaulish chief, that to escape his advances, she cut out her own eyes.  After this mutilation, she came to Scotland and died, and was buried at Restalrig near Edinburgh.  Many miracles were wrought at her grave, and she was especially sought for diseases and injuries of the eyes.  At p. 229 of our Saga will be found a proof of this in the case of Bishop John of Caithness, whom earl Harold Maddad’s son, mutilated both in eyes and tongue, who when brought to the shrine of St. Tredwall, it is uncertain whether at her chapel in Papey Meiri, or her shrine at Restalrig, recovered both sight and speech.  In Norse utterance, St. Triduana or St. Tredwall became Trollhæna, pronounced Trodlhæna.  Barry says, p. 63, that St. Tredwall’s chapel in Papey Meiri was built over an old Pict’s house;  and in all probability, the chapel was in existence as a place of worship, like the church at Egilsay, long before the arrival of the Northmen in the Orkneys.
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« Reply #52 on: December 01, 2009, 03:22:48 am »

8.      The text of the Saga, p. 111, says that Thorstein Havard’s son Gunnis son was to have charge of the beacon on Rínansey, but this probably arises out of a confusion between the two Thorstein’s, for at p. 121 it is said that Thorstein Ragna’s son fired the beacon on Rínansey.

9.      This seems to be the meaning of the words (p. 221), “Þeir (his sons Olaf and Andres) gjörðu hit næsta sumar eptir er Sveinn var látinn gaflhlöd í drikkjuskála þann hinn mikla er hann hafði áttan i Gareksey.”  Munch says that the meaning of the words is that Andrew and Olaf built an upper story to the house when their father died, but the sense of the context plainly is that the hall which Sweyn built was too long for them, they therefore cut it in half and divided it between them.

10. Munch has shown that the strange name, Pomona, identical with that of the Roman goddess of Fruit and Plenty, which Buchanan gave to the mainland of Orkney when he says, “Orcadum maxima multis veterum Pomona vocatur,” arose out of a mistake in some MS. of Solinus, who, in speaking of the Orcades and Thyle, says, “Secundum a continenti stationem Orcades præbent .... vacant homine, non habent silvas, tantum junceis herbis inhorrescunt.  Cætera eorum nudæ arenæ.  Ab Orcadibus Thylen usque 5 dierum ac noctium navigatio est;  sed Thyle larga et diutinâ copiosa est.”  In this passage both diutina and pomona have been taken as local names at various times, as when Torfæus tells us that Hrossey or the Mainland was called Diutina by Solinus, and when the MS. which Fordun and Buchanan preferred read Pomona.  In the one case, the passage in Solinus would have run, “Sed Thyle larga, et Diutina pomonâ copiosa est,” and in the other “Sed Thyle larga et diutina Pomona copiosa est.”  Solinus was as Munch well says, a geographical oracle all through the middle ages, but it is clear that in the passage in question he says nothing whatever about the Orkneys, but only that “Thyle, which was distant from that group by a voyage of five days and nights, was fruitful and abundant in the lasting yield of its crops.”  It follows, therefore, that “Pomona,” of which Barry says “This appellation has been traced, ridiculously enough to a word in the Roman (i.e., Latin) language, that implies the core or heart of an apple, an allusion to the situation of this with regard to the rest of the islands,” should be banished from the geography of the Orkneys, as well as the Celtic derivation from “po,” little, and “mon,” country.  It is remarkable that Solinus describes the Orkneys as uninhabited in his day, but when he flourished is very doubtful;  about the middle of the third century of the Christian era seems the most probable date.
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« Reply #53 on: December 01, 2009, 03:22:59 am »

11.  In this parish the old Norse dialect seems to have maintained itself a long time.  John Ben, as quoted by Munch and Anderson, found it in full force there in 1529.  “Utuntur idiomate proprio,” he says, “veluti quum dicimus ‘guid ‘day, guidman,”  illi dicunt ‘goand da, boundæ.’”  That is, “godan dag, bóndi.”

12.  The name of this parish is probably derived from the word herad, which forms the last part of the compound Birgis-herad, now Birsay.  In old times both the parishes of Harray and Birsay were united in the district called Birgis-herad.  Munch thinks that Birsay does not come from Birgis-ey, the isle or brock of Birsay, but Birgis-á, the stream which falls into the sea at that spot.

13.  See Farrer's beautiful book, Maes Howe, 1862.  Compare also this translation of the Saga, p. 190.

14.  The conjecture of Munch is no doubt right that for "Kjarrekstöðum,"  p. 185 of the text of the Saga, we should read "Hnarrarstum" Knarstead.  Arni could never have run so far with his shield on his back without being aware of it.

15.  Hacon Hacon's son's Saga, p. 352, new ed.

16.  The Saga, p. 92, expressly says of Kirkwall, before the translation of the relics of St. Magnus, from Christ Church in Birsay, that it "had few houses."

17.  This "or" or "ere" forms the ending of many names of places in the British Isles, as Upn-or, Bogn-or, Walm-er, in each of which there is a natural bank of sand or shingle protecting a low tract of land, sometimes, as in the case of Walmer, below high-water mark;  compare also Ravensere, the old Hrafuseyrr, Saga, p. 63, near the Spurn Head at the north of the Humber.

18.  Hacon Hacon's son's Saga, p. 333-4, 352, new ed.

19.  Mr. Anderson in Hjaltalins translation of the Saga, p. 107,has identified Sigurd's Howe through Siward hoch, and Siddera with the modern Cyder hall "near the ferry on the north bank of the Dornoch Firth into which the Oykel runs."  Mr. Skene, however, does not agree with this view.

20. This route by the Oikel is a stumbling block to Mr. Anderson, who proposes to read "Atjöklabakki" for Ekkjals-bakki;  but there seems no good reason for the alteration.

21.  Mr. Anderson places it at Skitten.
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« Reply #54 on: December 01, 2009, 03:23:23 am »

22. The longships, that is, the warships of the Northmen, were vessels with one mast and one sail of a lug shape;  they must also have carred a jib or foresail.  Aft there seems to have been a half deck, on which was a poop, lypting, where the cabin of the captain was.  In the waist, they were undecked, and here on benches, sessur, sat the rowers two on a bench.  Hence, when a ship is said to be a twitugsessa, or twenty benches, that means she had forty oars, halfþritugt, like earl Rognvald's ship fifty oars, and so on, some ships being said to have had 100 oars on each side, though that, no doubt, is a fabulous number.  The way in which the rowers sat is not clear, though it is not quite such a puzzle as the position of the oarsmen in the ancient trireme.  It is not improbable, if the oars were long and the longship high out of the water, that the rower who pulled the oar on the starboard side sat over to larboard and his mate on the bench who pulled on the larboard in his turn over to starboard, so that each might have more purchase and control over his oar.  Across the undecked part of the ships were thwarts or planks, þoptur;  whether these were the benches on which the rowers sat is uncertain.  Passing on to the forepart of the ship, that, too, was decked, and under the deck, in what would now be called the forecastle, some of the crew were lodged at night.  The rest found shelter under the awnings, tjöld, with which the ships of the Northmen seem always to have been covered at night when strife was not looked for.  See Saga, p. 192, and Sweyn Asleif's son's advice to his companions.  The word "forecastle" exactly implied what the bow or forepart of the Northmen's ships were.  It was raised like the poop, and on it stood in action the picked men of the crew who were called stafnbúar that is, stem-men or bowmen.  On either side of the prow or true bow, where the bowsprit projected, were two cat heads, brandar, which were often, together with the figure-head of the ship, much carved and decorated, and hence often taken as trophies and erected at the doors of the conquerors' houses as signs of victory;  just as was the case with the prows of galleys in ancient times, and even among the Anglo-Saxons, as when earl Harold Godwin's son sent similar trophies to Edward the Confessor after he had slain Griffith and taken his ship.  As the waists of the ships were low compared with the stem and stern means were taken to raise the sides before action by temporary bulwarks, this "clearing the decks for action" was called víggyrðla skipit.  At other times this waist of the ship was decorated with the shields of the crew which were hung along them on a rail which is even found in trading ships or býrðinger, see the account in the Saga, page 54, of the surprise of earl Rognvald's men in Kirkwall by earl Thorfinn.  In shape and look these longships or warships were long and narrow, and so less seaworthy than the byrðings, in which the ordinary traffic of the time was carried on.  t is also a question whether the true byrðingr or trading ship, also called Knörr, was ever rowed unless in very exceptional cases.  Sometimes a warship was called Snekkja, a snake, or Dreki, a drake or dragon;  a ship of this name probably differed in nothing from the mould of other warships, except that it had, as in Eindrid's ship, which is expressly called a Drake, a figurehead carved like a dragon, and that at the taffrail at the sterm, it was carved into coils resembling the folds and tail of a serpent.  Besides the thirty, forty, fifty, or more rowers that each longship carried, her crew consisted of a greater number, some to fight while the oarsmen rowed the ship into action, some to relieve the rowers when they had rowed a certain time, Thus, to take one instance out of many, earl Harold's ship, mentioned in the Saga, page 184, was one of forty oars, and yet her crew was made up of eighty men;  and again, page 48, seventy dead are mentioned as having been taken out of earl Thorfinn's ship, though it had been said before that his ships were not large.  One hundred and twenty men was no unusual number for a longship to carry.  It seems to have been an invariable practice when Northmen fought against Northmen that the attacking side rowed up to their adversaries, who awaited them, having first lashed their ships together in line.  As soon as the attacking ships came close enough to begin the action, they too were lashed together, and after a struggle which lasted some time with missiles, in which stones were largely and constantly employed, the two lines closed together by the action of wind or tide, and then when the decks of either side had been sufficiently cleared to allow them to board, those who had the best of it boarded, gengu upp, much in our old English way, and then cleared the enemy's deck by a struggle hand to hand.  All round the ship on both sides a gangway seems to have run, and when these and the poop and forecastle were cleared the ship was said to be "hroðit," and the conquerors passed on from her to the next ship in the enemy's line to which she was as has been said, lashed.  In this way action went on, till one side had so much the best of it and had cleared or captured so many of the enemy that the day was won.  The sign of this stage was the contest was the signal  given on the beaten side to cut away the lashings, höggva tengslin, and to fly.  Then as the line was broken every ship of the worsted party rowed or sailed off and shifted for itself.  This was followed by a similar sundering of the lashings in the conqueror's line, which then ship by ship chased the flying foe.  Very graphic accounts of such actions will be found in the Saga, page 33, fol., where the sea fight near Dyrness between earl Thorfinn and king Karl of Scotland is described, and also at page 47, fol., where the action between earls Thorfinn and Rognvald off Dunnet Head in the Pentland Firth is minutely detailed.  Compare also the account of the battle at Hjoring voe, in the Iomsvíkinga Saga.  These were the fights of Northmen against Northmen, but an action very nearly resembling a boarding expedition in large boats against a galleon of great size will be found at page 173, fol., where earl Rognvald with his seven ships attacked the Moorish Dromond, which was so huge that she loomed through the fog like an island, while her sides were so tall and round that they could not board her when they closed with her broadside to broadside, and at last had to hew their way into her through her ironbound sides.  This combat with the Dromond reminds one much of Drake or Hawkins or Cavendish capturing the huge galleons or carracks of the Spaniards off the Spanish Main.

23. The Flatey Book reads for Humrumynni Hverumynni, that is, "Wearmouth."  If so, the sand in question must be sought for off the mouth of the Wear in Durham;  and as even the Flatey Book may have sometimes a good reading, this may be one of the exceptional merits of that text.

24. The text says only Föstumorgin snemma, "Friday morning early," but it was probably Good Friday morning, as that was the day by which all pilgrims desired to be in the Holy Land.

 

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