The “Viking” Misnomer
“Viking” is a word I dislike. It might carry an aura but in my opinion it has in English also sown confusion, an inaccurate intertwining of three eras and therefore a distortion of history that is significant. And I stress the English-ness, or more accurately the Angle-ness of the confusion. It does not exist in the Gaelic languages where the word for foreigner, gall, is simply used with two descriptors, “fair” and “black” roughly to distinguish not so much civic origin in its modern iterations, Norwegian and Danish, but perhaps more accurately allegiances generated in the final analysis by geography.
If Viking can be taken at face-value etymologically then “ing” means people and “vik” is a name of person, thing or in this case most obviously place. As of 1st January 2020 the county of Viken came into existence and in modern Norway. It consists of three former regions, Akershus, the capital of which was Oslo, now excluded, neighbouring Buskerud and Ostfold to the Swedish border plus small portions of Vestfold and Oppland. How long it will last as an entity is open to doubt. Fierce objections have been raised. Its disestablishment has been declared for 2021.
However, modern Viken takes its name from a region of far greater antiquity and size. In the Middle Ages as Viken or Vika it politically included the areas to the west, north and east of Oslofjord plus what is now the Swedish, border province of Bohuslan and earlier still, in what we just now call the “Viking” age it was the entire coast of that same Oslofjord, with its myriad inlets and creeks with its capital not Oslo itself at the head of the fjord but Borre at its mouth and almost on the open sea. In fact “vik” itself means inlet or creek, of which there are myriad in Viken, and Vika is thought to have consisted of the provinces, formally sub-kingdoms and before that independent kingdoms cum almost tribal areas of Vestfold, Ranrike, Vingulmark, Grenland and Bahuslan.
But as they say. That is history. In the meantime Viking, “people of Vika” has come to be understood as a blanket term for violent raiders of Scandinavian origin active in the last two centuries of the first millennium and the first of the second. In itself that is not a problem but equally it has to be recognised that with perhaps emerging evidence the term, as such, is being misused, referring to a group of migrant Scandinavians not just from a far more specific source but also with an alternative chronology.
The “Viking” era has until now been considered to have begun in 793 AD with the attack on Lindisfarne by raiders from the north, Norse, whether they were from what today we know as Scotland or Norway itself. However, whatever their base the motivation at least initially of these raiders seems to have been booty. It may soon enough have morphed into booty and land and finally, and ultimately, albeit largely unsuccessfully, land alone but both it and booty suggest the same, if short-term in the case of the former and longer-term in the latter. And that is a short-fall in the means of sustenance that needed to be bridged either financially by buying the difference with surplus wealth, however it is acquired, or by better productivity, specifically agricultural, from better land.
There seems little doubt that the Northern Isles of Britain, Shetland and Orkney, followed perhaps quite rapidly by Scotland’s Western Isles and finally by the northern mainland were the places of initial Nordic contact and settlement. However, anyone, as I do, who lives in those parts of the World knows the summers can be fruitful, if sometimes only marginally so, and the winters harsh with even the necessities in short, immediate supply. This is fine, if in those months there are summer reserves to call upon or more benign places to go; what today might be called the bank account and Tesco for the former and the Tenerife Alternative for the latter. But for the then Nordic newcomers the first had not yet been invented and bridges to the latter, the Norwegian mainland, had by many, because the unification of what was then its habitable, i.e. southern and western, coastal strip was in progress, seemingly been burned. Furthermore, where there are political and martial events there will always losers or disaffected as well as winners and there seems little doubt that Scandinavian Scotland became the refuge of some at least of the former.
However, whilst the creation of Norway saw, as a result of his victory at the Battle of Hafrsfjord in about 870 AD, some say 868 AD, others 872 AD, completion under Harald Fairhair, who lived from about 850 to 930 AD and it was a process of not one but at least three stages. Furthermore, at about the same time, as the Danes moved south from Central Sweden, the era of the Great Migration also saw people of similar stock for similar reasons, quite probably pending starvation due to increased population and cumulatively worsening climatic conditions, move westward from that same region. Contrary to what is usually thought even today the Swedish population consists of three elements. In the far north are the Sami, the Lapps, in the middle-north are the Kvenn, a Finnish people, now assimilated, with the Germanic Swedes to the south. And at the start of the Great Migration, i.e. in about 375 AD, the hilly and heavily-forested lands between the Swedes and what is now Norway seems to have been populated by the then southern Kvenn. And it was into this land that some Swedes gradually moved and eventually through to the mountains beyond in way that is somewhat reminiscent in a compressed form of the white settlement of the USA. Stavanger and Bergen can be seen as the equivalent of San Francisco and Los Angeles, the coastal Scandes, the mountains of Norway and Northern Sweden, the Rockies and the Sierras, Oslo Fjford the Mississippi Delta and Varmland, the hill-country, the equivalent of the Appalachians.
And beyond Varmland a series of small kingdoms, in reality tribal or clan areas, the equivalent of Arkansas or Texas, came into being. Furthermore, if the sagas are to be believed Harald Fairhair’s mother was the daughter of the ruler of one, Agder, centred around Kristiansand, his father king of Vestfold, part of Vika, in the late first half of the 800s and he had had as a first wife the daughter of the king of Alfheim, aka Bahuslan, another part of the same. In turn his father before him had also been king of Vestfold and of Romerike to the north-east of Oslo and had married the daughter of the king of Grenland, yet another Vika element. In fact Harald Faithair’s grandfather had been the one to fully take Vestfold, which he considered his through his mother’s father being king thereof and having no sons. Moreover his great-grandfather had been the one to have crossed from Varmland into Norway, where he gained influence through marriage of Oppdal and Hedmark and control through conquest of Hedmark itself, Toten and Hadeland, all just to the north of Oslo, and inherited on his brother’s death Varmland itself.
It meant that over a period of at least one hundred years and quite probably more the Vika area and just beyond had been in state of flux, winners and losers, whilst west, coastal Norway remained as yet unruffled. It also meant at the same process of displacement of some that would take place in south and west, coastal Norway in the 9th Century had been taking place in Vika from perhaps 650 AD onwards. Alternative sources of income were required. Raiding perhaps inhibited by ship technology was known to be taking place coast-ally and it may explain why modern archaeology seems to pointing to Nordic settlement of Unst, the most northern of the Shetland Isles as early as the mid 7th Century, i.e. much the same time. Some displaced Vika-ings, in spite of boat limitation but in the same way that Irish monks were doing, had been able to navigate to pastures new. In fact increasing numbers of them on Shetland and then perhaps onto Orkney might explain the attack from Pictish Fortriu, i.e. the Moray and Cromarty Firths, on Orkney in 681 AD. It might have been an attempt to push back early encroachment from from Vika-ing, Vikings, but which stopped neither a continuing, inward drift of settlers, possibly as far as the Hebrides, over the next seventy years to 750 AD probably from much the same source nor the new, still more powerful, flow for two hundred years from 800 AD that has been assumed to be from the same source when it was not and has wrongly inherited and continues to this day to given a “Viking” appellation when its should be “Norse” only. Or put more simply firstly the age of emigration of southern Norwegian “Vika-ing”, the true “Viking Age”, in fact preceded Fairhair by the best part of a century. Consider these excepts from St. Olaf's Saga and Eyrbyggja Saga respectively.
"It is related that in the days of Harald Haarfager (‘Fine-hair’) the king of Norway, the islands of Orkney, which before had been only a resort for Vikings, were settled."
Secondly, his consequence was, in spite of both being considered Fingal by the natives, the replacement or at least over-writing/absorption, with the far more wide-spread repercussions at least for Scotland, Ireland and North-West England, of those same Vika-ing by western Norwegians, “Norse” or the “Norse Age”.
"Just about that time King Harald Fine-Hair was forcing his way to power in Norway. During the campaign many men of high standing abandoned their estates in Norway, some emigrating east, some west over the North Sea. Others used to winter in the Hebrides or in Orkney, then spend the summer raiding in Harald’s kingdom, causing plenty of damage."
And then, finally, fifty years or so later still came the stirring of the Danes, a third group, the Dugal, the overlapping “Danish Age” with few repercussions for Scotland but an already three hundred year-old twist and an impact on southern and eastern England that might be said to last to today as the North-South Divide.
But let us avoid present-day politics and look at the twist. By the middle of the seventh century the Danen, the Danes, in the course of their trek from central Sweden were quite possibly on Zealand in what now is Denmark, excavation at Lejre indicates just that, and therefore without the necessity of a crossing of the Oresund had almost certainly reached the southern coast of what we now call Sweden a time before. But they had not and did not stop.
Already around 450 AD they had been interacting with Frisia on the North Sea to the south. There had been conflict with the small but indicative Battle of Finnsburg, Danes on one side and, it is said, Frisian and notably Jutes on the other, resulting in the apparent deaths of both the Danish and Frisian chieftains, a settlement but with Danes returning for afters. At the same time there seems to have been not so much pressure but consolidation amongst the Frankish tribes to the south. Between the middle of the fifth century and 509 AD the Merovingian Empire was forming, blocking movement from the north, whilst to the east there were encroaching Slavs.
And finally there were the Danes themselves, pushing not south now but west. Excavation at Lejre also suggest that it foundation was still Northern Iron-Age, 500-800 AD, but pre-Dane by perhaps a hundred and fifty years. The Danes merely took it over, made it their own and continued beyond. The result was in addition to the known climate changes, the cooling that had caused the Great Migration in the first place, a still greater squeeze on the peoples caught between. It was first on those of Zealand itself, the original Lejre people, and then Fyn, the Heruli or whoever they were, who at least had the possibility to move with only short water crossings north, south and west onto Jutland. Then it was on those on Jutland itself; most northerly the Jutes, perhaps their involvement in Finnsburg being an early manifestation, at its southern base the Saxons, insulated perhaps for the moment but with Frankish pressure, and most of all the Angles firmly wedged in-between.
What was said to be the last of the Continental Angles, some 1,500 men, sixty ships, twenty-five a ship plus families, decamped, embarked on a far more difficult sea-crossing and arrived in Britain in about 549 AD, some seventy-five to one hundred years or three or four generations after the first of their kindred. What remains of their former homeland lies in what was until comparatively recently Denmark but is now Germany. The change was decided by plebiscite, which is in itself perhaps an indication of anti-Danish folk-memory. That remainder is even today called Mitte-Angeln, Middle-Anglia, which suggests, firstly, there was once Angeln, Anglias, on either side, which with the North Sea to the west and the Baltic to the east can only be north into today’s Jutland, perhaps as far as today’s Haderslev even Kolding, and south, to the Elbe and, secondly, that these were either at best absorbed and assimilated, at worse overrun and wiped out or cleared, with the England, East, Anglia, Lincolnshire and Deira, East Yorkshire, the place of refuge for the earlier departures. And as to the pressure that caused all the departures, old and new, from the south it would have been by Saxons, the south-facing Danewirke, the “Danish Works”, another misnomer, just to south of Mitte-Angeln and begun at some point before 500 AD indicating precisely that, and from pretty well elsewhere not by Jutes, because they were also fleeing, but by Danish advance perhaps already directly but otherwise by proxy.
And there might even be an indication from the Danish side and in today’s Denmark of that same movement and pressure. The east-west channel between central Jutland and the nearest Danish island, Fyn, is called the Middelfart, the Middle Passage. Again it implies others on either side, once more one to the north and one to south. To the north the shortest passage is directly from Zealand via Samso. To the south it is from Fyn once more, but the south of the island to Als and beyond, beyond being the operative word. The north passage strikes into what would have been Jutish territory with from place-names indications of abandonment just as there are Danish islands themselves. The Middle Passage would have been into a Northern Anglia with every indication of the same, whilst for the southern passage is Mitte-Angeln itself. It seems therefore that combined with climate change early Danish pressure may have been reasons for Jute, Angle, even other and eventually Saxon emigration. Moreover, once Jutland was cleared and as subjugated as required, it left the Dames to look further still, beyond the beyond, if you like.
I have always found it curious why in 865 AD the Great Heathen Army arrived in England. My curiosity is threefold. The army itself was in the main Danish but with some elements said to be Swedish and Norwegian but why were the Danes bothered, firstly to mount a force at all and secondly such a large one proportionate to then populations, beginning with perhaps 1,000 men but reinforced over the thirteen years of its activities. Then there was where they landed and where they initially campaigned. And thirdly there was sequencing.
The reason given for the invasion was to revenge the reported killing by Northumbrian Angles, the descendants of the very Angles, who had been the last to flee Continental Anglia, of Ragnar Lodbrok, a Dane/Swede, who was raiding their territory. And, although the leaders of the army were initially Lodbrok’s five sons, it looks every inch a pretext. The response was, shall we say, disproportionate. But they chose not land their force in Northumbria directly but in the Anglian territory that predated it, East Anglia. It was certainly militarily weaker and also required first easier coastal sailing and a shorter crossing so there was some sense in it. Then they again understandably attacked Northumbria but continued the fight to the third Anglian territory, Mercia, which had no obvious place in the scenario apart from being, well, Anglian. Only then was there an attempt take on Saxon territory and somewhat half-heartedly. An accommodation was found in 878 AD with the Treaty of Wedmore. The Danes stepped back. Danelaw was established comprising certainly Anglic territory and perhaps some settled by Jutes and others with job done. It was as if there had been an intention to extend control over the part of Britain that had been settled by the tribes the Danes had either subjugated in Denmark itself or otherwise driven out and that was enough. A parallel, with, of course, the opposite result, is perhaps The American War of Independence, if it can bee seen as what it was, an attempt by England, actually Germans, to exert control over a population that was to a large extent dissident English and non-English British that for diverse reasons had found leaving preferable to remaining in the British Isles.
And then there is the timing. History regards Harold Bluetooth, who reigned from about 950 AD as the king to have unified the whole country of Denmark. His father, Gorm, had established the centre of power at Jelling, not as today’s centre, Copenhagen, and the then centre, probably still Lejre, on Zealand, but in central Jutland, in fact not too far from the Middle Passage. And Gorm could do that because by the end of his reign, i.e. in about 950 AD, if quite not all then most of Jutland had been secured.
In fact it was, since Harold still had some work to do, probably most with the likelihood that whilst Gorm had achieved control of southern Jutland and perhaps some neighbouring islands ruled separately from then Danish Schleswig or rather Hedeby founded in 808 AD, the north of the peninsula and beyond was still a little marginal. Gorm’s father in 915 AD or so is said to have inherited the island of Zealand plus Scania and Halland now both in southern Sweden. It seems likely he or Gorm were also able to absorb Fyn en-route, which leaves one area, over which there remained a question-mark. It was specifically excluded from the list of areas under his father’s control at the beginning of his reign, therefore at some point earlier had, peacefully or otherwise, become part of the family fiefdom and had broken away with the questions when and why left hanging. And it was Viken, then the region north of Halland, starting therefore immediately north of present-day Gothenburg and extending around the coast across the water from Jutland’s possibly errant northern tip.
In fact the response to both questions of the when and why of Viken seems to be stirrings of “Norwegian” independence. We are precisely at the time of Harald Fairhair. The Battle of Hafrsfjord had been 872 AD or thereabouts. He would died about 932 AD. Moreover, he had been born part Vika-ing, had become by location Norse, his royal seat being Avardsness across the fjord from Stavanger. Moreover, by his actions, his successes, he had effectively given the same option to all other Vika-ing, the alternative being to be Danish, with the caveat, whether the choice was made or imposed, as in fact, if temporarily, it was by the Danes, that with it, albeit after three hundred years, the age of the real “Viking” would be subsumed and thus come to an end in all but misuse as a misnomer of the word itself.