UNIVERSITY OF YORK

MEDIEVAL MONOGRAPH SERIES

THE BATTLE GOD OF THE VIKINGS

the first G. N. Garmonsway Memorial Lecture

delivered 29 October 1971

in the University of York
by Hilda Ellis Davidson, PH.D., FSA.,
Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge

Professor G. Norman Garmonsway

Professor George Norman Garmonsway (1898-1967) retired in 1965 after
35 years in the Department of English Language and Literature at King's
College, London.
Born at Hartlepool. Co. Durham, he was educated at the Henry Smith
School from where he took a scholarship to St. Catharine's College, Cambridge, returning there after two years as a lieutenant in the R.G.A . during
W orld W ar L He did brilliantly in both parts of the English Tripos. Upon
graduating, in 1921, he was appointed to an A ssistant Lectureship at University
College, A berystwyth, moving on to a Lectureship at King's College, London,
in 1930, where he became a Reader in 1946 and Professor in 1956.
Professor Garmonsway twice spent periods in the U.S.A . as V isiting
Professor, at U.C.L.A . (Los A ngeles) in 1955 and the University of North
Carolina in 1962. W hen his approaching retirement was known, he was invited
to the University of Toronto for the 1965-66 session, where he endeared himself so much to his Canadian students and colleagues that he was asked to
return for another session.
A s a student, he was one of a select band trained by Hector Munro
Chadwick, who did so much to foster the study of Old English in relation
to A nglo-Saxon archaeology, Old Icelandic, and kindred fields. A t various
times he was president of the V iking Society for Northern Research, a
member of the A dvisory Committee for the Promotion of Scandinavian
Studies, and on the committees of the Philological Society and the English
A ssociation. He was not a prolific writer, but his publications were marked
by impeccable scholarship. Outstanding were his lfric's Colloquy (1939),
his translation of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (1954), in its several forms,
with an introduction which is a model for the lucid handling of intricate
material. His best selling Penguin English Dictionary (1965) in which he
was assisted by an ex-student, Miss Jacqueline Simpson, was a triumph of
economy and thoroughness with its 45,000 main entries and its inclusion of
colloquialisms and slang. Several articles on his medieval discoveries and his
essay on `A nna Gurney: Learned Saxonist' in Essays and Studies (1955)
show his interest in the post conquest period.
A s a colleague he was exemplary, ever helpful, and quite `unflappable'.
He did many little acts of kindness, unremembered no doubt by him, but
never forgotten by their recipients. He had a wide experience of examining
at all levels for schools and universities all over the country.
In administration Garmonsway was efficient and speedy, preserving a
calm which was doubtless fostered by some remarkable experiences throughout the Second W orld W ar in the A ncillary Materials Division of the Ministry
of Food. He never shirked the drudgery of work on boards of studies, and he
was a splendid chairman, unobtrusive, but firm when need be.
He will long be recalled as a teacher and encourager of young scholars
and is remembered all over the world as `one who loved his fellow men'.
Reproduced from The Times of 4th March 1967 by permission.

Illustrations
PAGE

PLATE

1 Andreas Cross Fragment

Rock carving from Litsleby, Bohusln, Sweden

Fragment of Memorial Stone from Stenkyrka Church, Gotland

Memorial Stone, Lrbro St. Hammers, Gotland

Gilded bronze buckle from Anglo-Saxon Cemetery, Finglesham, Kent 12

Helmet plate from Grave 8, Valsgrde, Sweden

14

Front panel from the Franks Casket

16

Top panel of Memorial Stone, Alskog, Gotland

17

Panel from Memorial Stone, Lrbro St. Hammers 111

17

10

Panel from Memorial Stone, Lrbro St. Hammers 111

18

11

Helmet plate from Cemetery at Vendel, Sweden

19

12

Stone from Ziatna Panega, Bulgaria (2nd.-3rd. century A.D.)

20

13

Stone from Halle Broa, Gotland, of Viking Age Date

21

14 Votive stone to Heros Manimazos, from Tomis, Romania

21

11

THE BATTLE GOD

OF
THE VIKINGS
I N 1899 HECTOR MUNRO CHADWICK , among whose pupils both Norman

Garmonsway and I were included, published a small book called The Cult
of Othin (Cambridge U.P. Warehouse, London), which characteristically
broke new and exciting ground. Chadwick took from Greek and Latin
sources references to sacrifices made by the Germanic peoples to their god
of war, and then showed how the traditions associated with Odin in Old
Norse literature continued the same pattern. He brought together evidence
from myths, legends, poems, chronicles and sagas for religious customs
in the pre-Christian period and drew widely on little known passages in
Anglo-Saxon, Old High German and Old Norse literature. He used also
the evidence of philology, and even at this early date included archaeological material, for his attention had been drawn to the possibilities of
this by the two fascinating volumes of the explorer Du Chaillu, The
V iking A ge (London, 1889). When Norman Garmonsway brought out his
first book, the Early Norse Reader, in 1928, he included some of the
passages from Old Icelandic concerned with the cult of Odin, and I have
reason to be grateful to him, since it was his book which first gave me a
glimpse of the possibilities of northern mythology studied in the original
Icelandic sources.
Now, some seventy years after Chadwick wrote, we still have the literary
sources much as when he used them, although plenty of critical work has
been done since. The archaeological evidence on the other hand has
i ncreased to what would then have appeared an incredible extent, while
the evidence from two new disciplines, iconography and the history of
religions, now needs to be taken into account. Thus it is time for a new
appraisal of the Viking god of battle, built on the sure foundations which
Chadwick laid, and with the realisation that only by bringing together

THE BATTLE GOD

evidence from many different fields are we likely to gain fuller understanding
of this once powerful cult. I am going to use this opportunity to suggest
some directions in which future work on the battle god might prove fruitful.
The precise nature of the relationship between Wodan, the god of the
early Germanic tribes, and the later Scandinavian deity Odin is not perhaps
as simple as we tend to assume, but we know that Odin inherited many of
the traditions belonging to the earlier Germanic concept of the deity.
However it seems that the Germanic god particularly associated with the
giving of victory in the first centuries A.D. was not Wodan but Tiwaz.
According to Tacitus1 two Germanic tribes, the Hermundari and the Chatti,
did battle midway through the first century for a holy place on the river
Saale, N.W. Germany, where salt was obtained, and where it was believed
that there were special opportunities of access to the gods - possibly a
supposed place of entry to the Other World. Before the battle both tribes
vowed sacrifices on a huge scale to `Mars' and `Mercury' in return for
victory. Mercury is the name which Roman writers used for Wodan,
the god who conducted the spirits of the departed to the Other World,2
but Mars seems to have been equated with Tiwaz, the ancient sky-god.
Tiwaz was the power giving victory, and also supporting law and order
in the community, as is indicated by the title Mars Thingsus in inscriptions
of the Roman period, associating him with the Thing or general assembly
of the people to settle disputes. 3 He lived on in Norse myths as the shadowy
god Tyr, long after he had yielded up his attributes as the god of war to
Wodan/Odin, and Tyr is best remembered for his binding of the wolf
which threatened the existence of the gods, and the loss of his right hand
thereby. It may therefore be from Tiwaz that Odin inherited the wolf as
his antagonist, the creature which in poetry and carvings of the Viking
Age was represented as waiting to devour him at the final destruction of
the gods at Ragnarok. A Christian monument of about A.D. 1000 from
Andreas, Isle of Man (a cross fragment, now in the Museum at Ramsay),
shows the god with the devouring monster, together with a bird of prey,
the special knot which was one of his symbols, a spear turned downwards
and another bent into a knot (Plate 1) - this last of some interest in view
of the practice of bending up weapons in the bog sacrifices in Denmark.4
The tradition of the wolf is found again, even if no more than a faint echo
of the old pagan legend put to decorative use, in a carving from the choir
stalls of a thirteenth century stave church at Torpo, Halling, Norway,
now in the Historical Museum, Oslo.

OF THE VIKINGS

1. ANDREAS CROSS
FRAGMENT.
Copyright,
Manx Museum.

Certainly it seems probable that Tiwaz was the original owner of the
mighty spear Gungnir, which in the Old Norse myths is counted among
the treasures of the gods and in the possession of Odin. At Bohusln in
west Sweden there is a carving of the Bronze Age of a huge figure brandishing a spear,5 which it seems reasonable to interpret as an early representation
of the sky god who ruled over the battlefield as well as the rain and thunder,
bringing fruitfulness to the earth (Plate 2). The spear may also have been
used to represent the protective aspect of the god, without any visible

THE BATTLE GOD

hand to brandish it, and linked in some way with the creation. A number
of rock-carvings from the Bronze Age in Sweden show spears set up as if
for worship, gigantic spears carried by tiny men, and in one case a group
of spears flying through the air, one as much as twenty feet in length.6
A similar treatment of the spear may be noted in Ancient Egyptian iconography, for in the Ptolemaic temple at Edfu there is a representation of a
spear being worshipped, and in accompanying texts this is declared to be
the protection of the god Horus;7 it emerged from the primeval waters to
be the first resting-place of the god in his hawk form at the creation of the
world, and ensured the safety of the sacred place and its divine occupiers.
The idea of the spear called into existence at the beginning for defence of
the gods apparently goes back to very early times in Egypt, while it was
later seen as the likeness of the invisible Protector god. Some similar
conception may have been the basis of the sacred spear called Mars,
preserved in the god's temple in Rome and other Latin cities,8 and such a
conception may have led to the gradual emergence of a god of war in the
North. This helps us to understand the traditions behind Gungnir, the
spear of Odin which according to the Eddic poem Vlusp he flung in
the beginning, causing the first war in the world.9 By the time of Vlusp
however, towards the end of the heathen period, the spear had come to
evoke the picture of Odin as the god who stirred up strife and set kings
a-warring, distributing victory or defeat by the direction of its flight.
Among the pagan Anglo-Saxons, the same pair of deities, Woden and
Tiu, were worshipped in the fifth century, to judge from the evidence of
place-names.10 We know little of the symbolism used to represent them,
but the spear certainly possessed some religious significance at this period.
The widespread Anglo-Saxon custom of laying a spear in the grave, even
though the length of the shaft rendered this highly inconvenient, could
have been based on no more than the general principle that clothes and
equipment must be left in the possession of the dead, but it may be noted
that spear-heads have also been found in graves of children too young to
use them, while in some cases small model spears have been put into the
grave.11 There are examples of tiny spear amulets from graves in Kent,
along with the little hammer amulets which seem to be an early example
of the Thor's-hammers of the Viking Age,12 and while the hammers
would be associated with the sky-god Thunor, one would expect the spear
to be the symbol of either Tiu or Woden. Indeed I suspect that the large
number of spears found in graves of the Germanic pagan period both in

OF THE VIKINGS

2.

ROCK CARVING FROM LITSLEBY, BOHUSLN, SWEDEN

(Peter Gelling, The Chariot of the Sun)

THE BATTLE GOD

England and on the continent indicate that it was more than the mark of a
fighting man, and that it may originally have been a sign of dedication to
the spear-god. Snorri Sturluson in Ynglinga Saga (ch. 1X) makes the somewhat surprising statement that Odin died of sickness and had himself
marked with a spear when at the point of death, claiming to himself all
those who died of weapons; such a tradition, in obvious contradiction to
the myth of Ragnarok, suggests that at one time the spear, symbol of
violent death and the god's protection, may have been an essential part of
funeral ritual, included among the gravegoods of such followers of Odin
as died peacefully in their beds.

3.

FRAGMENT OF MEMORIAL STONE FROM STENKYRKA CHURCH, GOTLAND.

Copyright, Gotlands Fornsal, Visby.

The dedication of an enemy host to Odin by flinging a spear over them

with the words ' Odin has you all' was long remembered in Old Norse
literature13 and there is evidence also for this practice symbolising the
winning of new territory in battle; in an early Danish Latin chronicle it is
stated that the northern tip of Jutland bore the name Oddaesund because
Otto I threw his lance into the sea there to perpetuate the memory of his
victory over Harald Bluetooth of Denmark in the tenth century.14 It is

OF THE VIKINGS

particularly interesting to find an early example of this use of a spear on a

memorial stone from the island of Gotland, off the east coast of Sweden,
dating about A.D. 500; here it can be seen passing over a ship (Plate 3),
the conventional symbol of the journey of the dead to the Other World;
the dead man is departing, it would seem, into the power of Odin.15
Another clue to the importance of Odin's spear is offered by the survival
of a number of richly decorated heads of long spears or lances which are
marked by runes, or by the pictorial symbols which preceded runes; these
come for the most part from eastern areas of Germanic occupation from
the Roman to the Merovingian periods. The importance of the lance as
the symbol of the leader in battle has been made clear by Peter Paulsen
in his masterly study of weapons in the graves of Alamannic warriors,16
and it continued to be an important religious symbol in the Christian
period, when the Holy Lance of Longinus was venerated in Constantinople
from 614 onwards, and became the subject of many legends. In Alamannic
cemeteries great care was taken to insert the long spears with elaborately
decorated heads into the graves of warrior leaders, even if this necessitated
breaking the shaft; they seem too decorative for ordinary use in battle,
and Paulsen came to the conclusion that they were intended to carry small
banners. There is plenty of pictorial evidence for the lance equipped with
a pennant; Paulsen gives examples from Germany, Hungary and Norman
England, dating from the eight to the thirteenth century. The standards
of gold mentioned in Beowulf among the funeral treasures of kings could
well have been of this kind, pennants of gold or silver thread or bright
silk fixed to a long spear, and this would explain the fact that we have
l ooked in vain for examples of such standards in Anglo-Saxon graves.17
The bright spear with its glittering pennant would stand out in the confusion
of battle as a sign for men to follow, and its popularity may have been
partly due to the use of legionary symbols and banners in the Roman and
Byzantine armies. The symbol on a banner must be one to invoke luck
and protection from the appropriate power, and Paulsen has noted the
frequent use of twisted patterns, net-work and knots, which he explains
as protective devices to ward off evil; in this connection it is worth remembering that Odin was the god with power to loose and to bind,18 one of
whose familiar devices was the three-fold knot or valknut.19 There are
stories from the Viking Age also of raven banners carried by Odin's
followers, with birds which presaged victory or defeat by the movement
of their wings, and of a banner which brought victory, but whose bearer

THE BATTLE GOD

was doomed to death, that of Jarl Sigurd of Orkney who fell at Clontarf.20
It now becomes understandable why Odin's weapon was the spear and
not the sword. The sword we know to be an aristocratic weapon of great
symbolic power, carried by kings and fittingly adorned, handed out to
favoured warriors by the battle-god himself,21 yet the spear with its ancient
background as a symbol of divine protection and its close link with the
leader on the battle-field possessed an even stronger claim to be the
war-god's main attribute.
It has been noted that the elaborate spear-heads from the Germanic
pagan period sometimes bear runic inscriptions. One of the earliest comes
from vre Stabu, Toten, in Opland, Norway and dates back to about the
third century A.D., being possibly of Marcomannic origin; others come
from Kreis Kowel on the Russian border and from Dahmsdorf in Germany.22 If the inscriptions have been rightly interpreted, some are in the
form of descriptive words, such as Assailant, or One who puts to the test.
These have been taken as personifications of the weapon, but it is possible
to regard them as titles of the god of battle symbolised by the spear.
Other uses of runes may be seen as relevant to a study of Odin. The runic
letters in early times were probably used for the casting of lots, and
Tacitus emphasises the importance of this practice among Germans of
the first century A.D.23:
Their method of casting lots is a simple one; they cut a bough from
a fruit-bearing tree and divide it into small pieces; these they mark
with certain distinguishing signs and scatter at random over a white
cloth. Then after invoking the gods and with eyes lifted up to heaven,
the priest of the community, if the lots are consulted publicly, or
if privately the father of the family, takes up three pieces at a time
and interprets them according to the signs previously marked on
them.
Caesar knew of this practice, but had heard that it was the older women,
the matrons, who did the consultation, even before battle.24 By this time,
as Ralph Elliott has pointed out, we would expect the signs on the twigs
to be runic symbols, 25 and the fact that each rune bore the name of something - S for sun, M for man and so on - would have been convenient
for this method of divination. Before battle lots were cast to discover
whether the omens were favourable, and again after a victory, to mark
out certain prisoners for sacrifice. The picture of the Hermundari and

OF THE VIKINGS

Chatti vowing that all living things as well as booty taken in battle should
be sacrificed in return for victory, a vow which Tacitus states was carried
26
out in all its frightfulness by the successful Hermundari, is presumably
to be taken as exceptional, because the rewards of that particular battle
were unusually high. We have indeed archaeological evidence from bog
finds in Denmark and Sweden from about the second to the sixth centuries
A.D. for the practice of deliberately damaging weapons, equipment and
booty after battle by bending, breaking or burning, and then either
depositing them on marshy ground, as at Illerup27 or throwing them into
a lake, as at Ejsbl.28 The evidence carefully collected at Ejsbl is particularly impressive, since here large deposits of weapons and wargear were
made on several occasions, and about 600 objects recovered in all; the
small gleanings of battle such as arrow-heads and scabbard-mounts and
strap-ends were apparently emptied into the water from sacks and baskets.
Bones of horses were sometimes included among the deposits, and we have
literary references to prisoners of war hanged on trees,29 but it seems probable that the normal procedure was to sacrifice certain prisoners only,
according to the will of the gods as declared by the casting of lots. After
his victory over the Germans in 58 B.C., Julius Caesar was much relieved
to recover his friend Valerius Procillus unharmed; he had sent him on an
embassy to Ariovistus, but the Romans had been treated as prisoners of
war, and Procillus told him that lots had been cast three times to decide
whether he should be burned to death immediately or reserved for execution later, and that he owed his survival to the way in which the lots had
fallen.30 A similar escape is ascribed to St. Willibrord in pagan Heligoland
in the eighth century; he was liable to execution because he had baptized
converts in a holy well of the pagans and killed cattle sacred to the gods,
but he escaped three times when lots were cast, although another man in
his company was put to death.31
The practice of offering up extravagant sacrifices after battle seems to
have been increasingly associated with Wodan, the chthonic god of the
realm of the dead, from the Roman period onwards. He seems to have
steadily ousted the sky god, Tiwaz, as the power to whom men appealed
for victory, and certainly in the Viking Age such offerings formed part of
the cult of Odin. This may have been the reason why Odin's name was
closely linked with runes, though their connection with the other deity
was not entirely forgotten, and in the Edda poem Sigrrfuml men are
told to name Tyr's name in carving runes of victory. The Anglo-Saxon

10

THE BATTLE GOD

riddle dialogue of Salomon and Saturn declares that letters were first
established by Mercurius the giant, whom we may assume to be Woden.32
In a powerful passage (verses 139-40) in the Edda poem Hvaml the god
claims that he hung upon the world tree for nine days and nights,
pierced with a spear
and given to Odin,
myself given to myself. . . .
The passage ends:
They cheered me neither
with bread nor drink.
I peered downward,
I took up the runes,
lifted them screaming then I fell back.
Here the implication is that Odin is being offered as a sacrifice in the
manner in which it was customary to offer to the god of battle. Such a
sacrifice is described in detail in Gautreks Saga, in the collection of
Fornaldar Sgur.33 A tree is pulled down, a rope fastened to it and looped
round the victim's neck, so that when the tree is released he is lifted up
among the branches and strangled, while at the moment of release he is
stabbed with a spear with the words: `Now I give you to Odin'. Such a
hanging is depicted on one of the memorial stones from Lrbro Store
Hammars i n Gotland (Plate 4), which goes back to the Viking Age.34
When Odin bends to pick up the runes, it is to be presumed that he is
selecting the lots which determine life and death, and I think it is possible
that when a battle sacrifice was carried out in this way, the man hanged
was deemed to be re-enacting the terrible initiation ordeal undergone by
Odin i n the beginning. By means of such a re-enactment, contact was
established with the divine world and the hidden knowledge associated
with runes brought to men. Among the many titles of Odin was Lord of
the Hanged, and elsewhere (157) in the same poem Hvaml he claims
that when he desired to know the future he consulted a hanged man for
guidance. It seems as if the one-eyed god himself appears as a hanged
victim in a wood carving from a stave church at Hegge in Norway.35

OF THE VIKINGS

4.
MEMORIAL STONE,
LRBRO ST. HAMMERS,
GOTLAND.
Copyright, A TA Sweden.

12

THE BATTLE GOD

We find the spear in a prominent place in the imagery of warrior ritual

in the sixth century, when it is held in the hand of dancing warriors. One
figure which appears many times, usually on war-gear such as helmet,
scabbard or the buckle of a sword belt, is that of a youth who may wear
armour but is more often naked except for a belt and a helmet with curved
horns, and who carries in his hands either spears or a spear and sword.
He is seen alone on a gilded buckle (Plate 5) recovered in 1967 from an
Anglo-Saxon sixth century grave at Finglesham in Kent;36 or he may be

5.
GILDED BRONZE BUCKLE FROM
ANGLO-SAXON CEMETERY,
FINGLESHAM, KENT.
Copyright, Institute of Archaeology,
Oxford.

OF THE VIKINGS

13

accompanied by a mirror-image twin, as on a helmet plate from Sutton

Hoo and another from one of the royal graves at Old Uppsala i n Sweden,37
but in all cases the figures appear to be dancing. The type of horned
helmet is that used by Germanic troops serving in the Roman army,
known as the Cornuti, and this helmet was officially adopted by the army
together with the Germanic battle-shout.38 The placing of horns, a symbol
of power, on a helmet goes back to the Bronze Age in Scandinavia, for
two fine examples were found in a peat bog at Vikso in Denmark during
the last war;39 in the helmets of the Cornuti the horns curve towards one
another and terminate in the heads of various creatures such as goats,
rams, wolves, or, as in the case of the Finglesham man, beaked birds of
prey. The dancing of these helmeted men recalls the account of the wardance in Tacitus, performed by naked youths, dancing and leaping between
swords and upturned spears;40 we know too that dedicated followers of
the battle god would fight without armour or even naked,41 and that this
tradition continued in Scandinavia among the berserks, followers of Odin
carried away by battle ecstasy so that they were impervious to wounds; they
too used no armour but fought in the skins of bears or wolves and howled
like wild beasts.42 Paulsen43 discusses the evidence for a ritual dance of
warriors forming part of the funeral ceremony, and claims that the funeral
rites of pre-Christian times among the Germanic peoples included the
bearing of weapons belonging to the princely dead to the grave or funeral
pyre. He suggests that the dancing man on a mould from Gutenstein and
another from Obrigheim accompanied by a figure in a wolf-mask are
taking part in such a ceremony, personifying the powers of war and death,
and the two same figures occur on the well-known mould from Torslunda
on the island of land in the Baltic.44 I have myself suggested 45 that the
little naked warriors represent messengers of Odin, his special champions
known as the einherjar i n the Edda poems, who lead his forces at Ragnarok
as the berserks were said to fight in the van of earthly armies, and who in
one Edda poem, V afrnisml (41), are said to choose the slain, the same
expression used of the valkyries who worked the will of the god on the
battle-field and granted victory or death at his behest. The scene which
supports this view is found on the Sutton Hoo helmet and again on a
helmet-plate from a ship-grave in Valsgrde in Sweden (Plate 6) and on a
brooch from Pliezhausen in south Germany.46 Here the little helmeted
dancer is seen perched behind a warrior on horseback, with his hand on
the spear the rider holds; meanwhile the horse is being stabbed by a man

14

THE BATTLE GOD

lying beneath it on the ground, suggesting that in this case the decision has
gone against the man on horseback and that he is being summoned to
Valhalla. Thus the conventional scene of Roman tombstones, showing a
triumphant rider trampling down a barbarian, is given new significance
and brought into the heroic imagery associated with the cult of Odin,
giver of victory and summoner of the slain.

6. HELMET PLATE
FROM GRAVE 8,
VALSGARDE, SWEDEN
(G. Arwidsson,
Valsgrde 8)

There is indeed every indication that the symbolism used in the Roman
army influenced the imagery of the god of battle among the Germanic
peoples. At first they were the unfortunate victims of the mighty war
machine, even though from time to time they inflicted grievous defeats on
the Romans, but later they were welcomed into the army among the
Numeri, barbarian troops of exceptional fighting power with their own
leaders, and won honour for their achievements. We see the eagle, image
of the Emperor and symbol of imperial power, becoming along with the
more ancient raven the bird of Odin. Eagle brooches were popular throughput the Germanic world47 and there is an eagle on the great ceremonial
shield of Sutton Hoo and on others of the same period from Uppsala,
while the carving of the blood-eagle on the back of an enemy slain in
battle was one of the more gruesome rituals attributed in the literature to
followers of Odin.48 The flying dragon, known from its use as a standard

OF THE VIKINGS

15

in the Roman armies, where it was borne through the air like a wind-sleeve,
was identified with the more familiar serpent and associated with burial
mounds and the dead.49 The figure of the winged Victory in helmet and
armour as seen on a sword of the Roman period found at vre Stabu in
Norway along with one of the runic spear-heads mentioned above,50
obviously executed by a barbarian craftsman, came to be associated with
the protective spirits who helped young heroes, and with the fierce and
terrible spirits of the battlefield who devoured the dead and who formed
part of the retinue of the early Wodan.51 From such mingling of traditions
emerged the complex figure of the Valkyrie, the messenger of the god who
haunted the field of battle and led back the dead to Odin's realm.
Professor Karl Hauck believes that scenes on the Franks Casket, the
little box of whalebone believed to have been made in Northumbria at
the close of the seventh century, show early examples of such Valkyrie
figures connected with Woden's cult in Anglo-Saxon England.52 On the
lid of the casket we have a woman seated behind a warrior who is defending
himself from attack with his bow, and she sits in what might be a shrine,
with the same symbol above her head as that on the horned helmet, an
arch terminating in beaked heads.53 On the right side of the casket, the
one which has proved most difficult to interpret, a woman appears again,
and she seems to be beside a burial mound, and holding a cup (Plate 7).
This scene must be connected with the god of battle, for we have a warrior
carrying a spear and wearing a helmet with an eagle crest, attended by
ravens; he has the characteristic knot of Odin beside him, for this is set
twice under the horse which stands with bent head.54 There is also a figure
sitting on a mound, which has an animal head and wings, and might
represent the Valkyrie in her terrible aspect, as in some of the stories in
the Fornaldar Sgur.55 Indeed it is possible that even the scenes with a
foreign background on the casket, the discovery of Romulus and Remus
fostered by wolves and the sack of Jerusalem by Titus, could have been
deliberately chosen because of their relevance to Woden's cult: the famous
heroes and followers of the battle-god, Sigmund and Sinfjtli, learned their
craft as warriors among the wolves of the forest, while the sacking of
cities and taking of plunder was the besetting ambition of all who owed
allegiance to the god of battle. This little ivory box, along with the
tapestries recovered from the ninth century ship-burial at Oseberg in
Norway, serve to remind us how easily a tradition of narrative art mainly
expressed in wood-carving and woven pictures, sadly perishable media,

16

THE BATTLE GOD

could vanish almost without trace. The delicate skill and effectiveness of
the work on the casket and the tapestries implies the existence of such an
art, and it may well have played an important part in preserving the tales
of the heroes of Odin, familiar to all well-born youths who followed his
cult.

FRONT PANEL FROM THE FRANKS CASKET.

Courtesy, Trustees of the British Museum.

Indeed we find one splendid series of narrative pictures from the Viking
Age carved in stone, although the colours which once brightened them
are gone. This is in eastern Scandinavia, on the memorial stones of Gotland.
Stones were raised as memorials from about A.D. 500 to the end of the
pagan period, and those belonging to the Viking Age have a wealth of
scenes from heroic story and myth, vividly portrayed in narrow strips like
the scenes from the Oseberg tapestries.56 Here indeed we find ourselves in
the realm of the Viking god of battle. We see the eight-legged steed of
Odin himself with his rider, who is either a god or the dead man carried
by Sleipnir, welcomed into Valhalla by a woman bearing a horn, the valkyrie of the Norse poems (Plate 8). We see this scene of welcome many

OF THE VIKINGS

17

H. TOP PANEL OF
MEMORIAL STONE,
ALSKOG, GOTLAND.
Copyright,
A.T.A. SWEDEN.

9. PANEL FROM
MEMORIAL STONE,
LRBRO ST. HAMMERS III.
Copyright,
A.T.A. SWEDEN.

times repeated (Plate 9), and sometimes associated with other scenes of
battle and sacrifice, while the ship of the dead, an established symbol on
some of the earliest stones, continues to appear below. We see the god
himself in eagle form entering the realm of the gods (Plate 10), as in the
myth of Odin bringing back the mead of inspiration from the giants.57
Moreover the figures on the stones, the woman with the horn and the rider,
together also with the warrior in the horned helmet mentioned above,

18

THE BATTLE GOD

were all used as amulets in the Viking Age and have been found in graves
in Sweden.58
Odin is remembered in the literature as the god who rode over land and
sea on his horse Sleipnir, leading the dead to Valhalla and appearing also
to stir up mischief among kings, to protect or admonish warrior leaders,

10.

PANEL FROM MEMORIAL STONE, LRBRO ST. HAMMERS III.

Copyright, A.T.A. Sweden

to give weapons and horses to young warriors, and to grant victory to those
whom he desired to keep on earth for a while. The pictorial symbol of a
rider with a spear became very popular in the Germanic world, and when
we find such a rider accompanied by ravens on a helmet mount from Vendel
in Uppland, Sweden, it must be assumed to be Odin (Plate 11). He is seen
here threatening a serpent, and this motif is derived from Mediterranean
and eastern European sources, particularly from riding saints like St.
George and St. Theodore in Coptic and Byzantine art.59 The openwork
buckles found in western Europe from the sixth century onwards originally
showed a steed without a rider, and appear to have been copied from

19

OF THE VIKINGS

II.

HELMET PLATE FROM CEMETERY AT VENDEL, SWEDEN.

Copyright, A.T.A. Sweden.

figures of winged griffins from eastern Europe, which gradually changed

to a horse with a burden on its back and finally to a horse with a rider
carrying a spear, which came to be identified with Wodan.60 Yet another
source of inspiration was that of the Emperor on his horse, as shown on
gold medallions of the Roman period. This figure of imperial power was
adapted with enthusiasm by the barbarian North and transformed into a
powerful pagan symbol, which incorporated much of the imagery associated with Wodan/Odin. Professor Hauck has recently produced a
monumental study of a number of these gold bracteates.61 He interprets
some of them as representations of Odin as a creator figure and a shamanmagician with the gift of healing, while some he believes to show Odin
with his spear in company with a young warrior, whom he identifies with
Balder. This subject is too complex to be discussed here, but there is no
doubt that the message of the bracteates, studied with the aid of muchenlarged photographs which make the amazing detail of these tiny pictureamulets visible, is an important source of evidence for the character of the
versatile northern god in the period before the Viking Age.

20

THE BATTLE GOD

12. STONE FROM

ZIATNA PANEGA,
BULGARIA
(2nd-3rd century A.D.).
Copyright, National
Archaeological
Museum, Sofia.

When Odin appears as a rider in the barbaric setting of the Gotland

stones, it seems as if new influences have also come in from the eastern
regions visited by the Vikings for trade and plunder. In Russia and south
eastern Europe in the ninth and tenth centuries they lived a life under
aristocratic warrior-leaders very like that of the earlier heroic age in the
west, the time when Wodan's cult developed into vigorous life and left
its mark on heroic literature. In Bulgaria, Yugo-Slavia and Romania there
is a vast number of stones raised to commemorate another god of the dead,
the mysterious Thracian Rider or Hero God.62 We see him there as a rider
on his horse (Plate 12), either standing motionless or galloping with
his cloak streaming out behind him, and on many of the stones he is
greeted by a female figure who holds a cup. In this we have close parallels
with the Gotland scenes (Plate 13), particularly as the Hero, like the warrior

21

OF THE VIKINGS

13.
STONE FROM HALLE BROA,
GOTLAND, of Viking Age date
(Lindqvist, Gotlands Bildsteine).

14. VOTIVE STONE TO HEROS

MANIMAZOS, FROM TOMIS, ROMANIA.
Copyright, Institute of Archaeology,
Academy R.S.R., Bucarest.

figure on the Gotland stones, also appears in hunting scenes with dogs,
while on a stone from Tomis in Romania (Plate 14) we even have the
welcoming scene, as in Gotland, combined with the ship which symbolises
the journey to the Other World.63
It seems to me very probable that one of the inspirations behind the
Gotland stones may be sought in this region of south-eastern Europe,
where surviving representations of the Thracian Rider can be numbered
in four figures, and where almost every village seems once to have possessed
his likeness. We know that Scandinavians, and particularly those from
eastern Scandinavia, were in this region as traders and fighters in the
Viking Age, serving as mercenaries in the Byzantine forces and also fighting
under the leadership of men like Svyatoslav of Kiev. The Thracian god
whom they must have encountered on these memorial stones, which date
from about the second to the fourth century A.D., is something of a mystery, but he is known to have been a chthonic deity, who conducted his

22

THE BATTLE GOD

followers to the Other World. Kazarov, the Bulgarian scholar who is the
authority on this subject64 claimed that the rider sometimes represented
the god and sometimes the dead man - in one case at least a dead woman
- so that we have the same ambiguity here as seems to prevail on the
Gotland stones. Sometimes the inscriptions on the stones identify him
with the dead whom the stone commemorates, but sometimes he is clearly
regarded as a divine figure, given the titles or attributes of Ares, Apollo,
Dionysius or Asklepius, so that we have association with war, inspiration,
ecstasy, healing and the underworld, as in the cult of Odin. Pettazoni
traces the Thracian deity back to the god identified with Hermes whom
the earlier Thracians are said to have worshipped,65 and Hermes is equivalent to the Roman Mercury, who in turn was identified by the Romans
with Wodan. The Thracian deity was the divine ancestor of kings, but by
the time the memorial stones were raised he seems to have developed into
a figure of popular worship.
Whether there was ever a direct link between the early Germanic
Wodan and this Thracian god is a question I cannot venture into here,
but I do claim a link between the iconography of these monuments and
those in Gotland which represent Odin entering Valhalla. This could be
due to the fact that the Scandinavians themselves realised that the riding
deity whom they saw in so many places in the Balkan countries resembled
their own god of the dead, so that they were inspired to new representations
of Odin conducting the dead to his realm on the memorial stones of
Gotland. This island lies on the direct route between Scandinavia and the
south-east through Russia, and many of the men to whom memorials
were raised probably died in the eastern region or returned from travels
there to die at home.
Up to now I have been largely concerned with questions of symbolism
and iconography, because I feel that it is important to realise that the
conception of the god of battle in the Viking Age has changed and developed as a result of outside influence, and that representations in metal
and stone, wood and tapestry, were as necessary for the spread of his cult
as the literary traditions which they help us to understand. But how much
did all this mean to the ordinary Viking who followed a career of fighting
and plundering and trade in the Viking Age?
There seems little doubt that individuals had their own favourite cults,
as Hrafnkell is represented as worshipping Freyr in Hrafnkels Saga and

OF THE VIKINGS

23

Thorolf Mostrarskegg Thor in Eyrbyggja Saga, and that the chosen deities
would be called on to protect them in battle, while their symbols would
be carried as amulets to give protection and ward off ill-luck. But the existence of a separate battle-cult among warrior leaders in particular,
associated with the god Odin, seems to have continued with some vigour
until late in the Viking Age, and there is evidence from eastern Europe to
support this.66 We have the accounts of those who met the Vikings on
their eastern expeditions, particularly Arabs and Byzantine Greeks,
which in some cases are practically contemporary with the events described
or based on the work of earlier authors who are reliable witnesses. Such
are the very detailed accounts of the lightning campaign in the neighbourhood of the Caspian Sea in the mid tenth century, of which Norse and
Russian literature has preserved nothing, and of the account by Leo the
Deacon of Svyatoslav's campaign in the Balkans in 971. As well as the
impressive account of the fighting qualities of the Scandinavian invaders,
the more significant because it comes from what were in the main hostile
witnesses, of their loyalty to one another in spite of tendencies to quarrel,
their determination to win glory, and their reluctance to accept defeat,
their reliance on their swords and their ships, we learn something also
from these outside observers as to how their religious beliefs affected their
behaviour as fighting men.
There is general agreement that their method of fighting was ferocious,
and that it was the fury of their onslaught and their utter fearlessness that
made them such formidable opponents. Leo the Deacon, who accompanied
the emperor John on the expedition into Bulgaria, strongly disapproved
of their methods on their first meeting with the Byzantine forces outside
Perejaslavec; they fought, he tells us, like wild beasts, howling in a strange
and disagreeable manner.67 On another occasion68 he declares that they
seemed driven on by ferocity and blind madness, and fought furiously,
howling the while; he scornfully compares them with the Byzantines, who
relied on the arts of war, by which he means their skill in technology, their
trained cavalry and war machines, splendid organisation and ample
supplies. However for all this his honest account of the campaign makes
it clear that these well-trained and equipped Byzantine troops came very
near to a terrible defeat.
One of his most interesting comments is that the followers of Svyatoslav
beseiged in Dristra were never taken prisoner, since when they found
their position hopeless they would plunge the sword into the breast and

24

THE BATTLE GOD

bring life to an end; the reason he gives for this is that they believed that if
killed by their enemies they would be forced to serve them in Hades, and
as they could not endure the thought of such servitude they gave themselves
willingly to death, on account of the belief prevailing among them. This
attitude to capture is borne out by another account, that of the Arab
writer Ibn Miskawaih,69 who describes the eastern Vikings as men of
` vast frames and great courage', who refused to acknowledge defeat but
fought on until they had slain the enemy or were themselves slain. This
writer in his vigorous chronicle of the events of the ninth century gives a
detailed and apparently reliable account of the capture of Bardha'a in the
Caspian region by these people whom he knew as the Rus. He describes
their exploits in raiding and plundering from their ships, which they had
brought from Kiev down the Dnieper and then across the Black Sea, up
the Don and down the Volga to the Caspian. Finally he gives a graphic
account of their final retreat after a siege, when a serious epidemic had so
weakened them that they could no longer hold out against increasing
attack by local forces. Before they left the town there was furious fighting,
and Ibn Miskawaih recounts an incident which was described to him, he
says, by a number of those who witnessed it. Five of the Rus were surrounded in an orchard and defended themselves magnificently against an overwhelming attack, steadfastly refusing to surrender and killing many times
their own number. Four of them fell, and the last survivor was a handsome
beardless boy, son of one of the leaders; the Moslems were most anxious
to take him alive, but when he saw that he could not resist capture he
climbed a tree and slashed at himself with his sword until he fell dead to
the ground.
It is hardly surprising that the Rus were unwilling to be captured, since
if taken by the Moslems, their fate would be slavery, and they themselves
were accomplished slave-traders and knew exactly what indignities that
entailed, particularly for handsome aristocratic boys. The fate of those
taken by the Byzantines might well be mutilation or blindness, as after the
attack on Constantinople in 1043, when a number of their Slav allies met
with this treatment.70 I think it possible that Leo the Deacon misunderstood his informants when he stated that the religion of the Vikings
taught them that they must serve their slayers in the next world, but that
he was right in attributing their readiness to slay themselves rather than
fall into enemy hands to their religious beliefs; such a deed would give
them into the power of Odin as a battle sacrifice, and would mean a

OF THE VIKINGS

25

splendid entry into the Other World, as well as enduring glory in this one
when the tale of their exploits was recounted at their funeral and told
among their countrymen at home.
The importance of funeral rites for those who fell in battle is stressed
by both Arab and Greek chroniclers. After many men had died in Bardha'a,
the survivors were careful to bury them with their weapons before leaving
the town by night; we know this because it is recorded that many of the
local inhabitants opened their graves after the army had left in order to
get hold of the swords buried with the dead, which were in great demand
for their sharpness and excellence and which Ibn Miskawaih stated were
still in use at the time when he was writing.7l Even more impressive is
Leo the Deacon's description of a great funeral ceremony outside the
walls of the ill-fated city of Dristra on the Danube,72 where the Rus put
up a heroic defence. Their leader Ingmar, second in command to Svyatoslav, had been slain along with many others fighting outside the walls,
and Leo tells us that by the light of the full moon they came out of the
fortress the night before the battle to search for their dead. They made
piles of logs near the wall and lit great fires, on which they burned the
bodies of the slain; they then sacrificed a number of their prisoners, both
men and women, and also killed young animals and cocks, which they
threw into the Danube, while they made drink-offerings to the departed,
` according to their own manner', and he comments once more at this
point on the wildness and ferocity of this strange people. Cedrenus,
drawing his information from an earlier historian, John Skylitzes,73 also
mentions wild, spine-chilling wailing of the Rus, heard mourning their
dead, which was more like the howling of beasts than the lamentation of
human beings.
From the descriptions of Greek and Arab writers it is thus possible to
gain a vivid glimpse of tenth century Vikings in their adventures on the
eastern road through Russia to the Black Sea, the Caspian and the Danube.
We have the famous account of the ship-burning on the Volga in 921 by
Ibn Fadlan, a writer of acknowledged reliability, who left an account of
his journey from Bagdad to the court of the King of the Bulgars on the
Middle Volga, and what he saw of the Rus there. The complete manuscript
of this was discovered in 1938, since when much scholarly work has been
done on it.74 Ibn Fadlan describes the burning of a Rus chief on his ship,
and the slaying of a young slave girl who volunteered to die at his funeral.
She was despatched according to the rites of Odin, for she was stabbed

26

THE BATTLE GOD

and strangled at the same time, and before her death she took part in a
strange ceremony where she was lifted to look over a kind of door, which
seems to represent the door to the Other World. She declared that she
could see her kinsfolk feasting there, and that her master was calling her
to join him. Other Arab writers mention that the Rus were accustomed
to the death of wife or concubine at the funeral of a leading man amongst
them, either burning her body with his on the pyre or burying her alive in
the grave.75 This is of considerable interest in view of a number of stories
of the voluntary death of a wife or a betrothed, either by burning or entry
into the burial mound, which are found in Old Norse literature associated
with the heroes of Odin.76 There is also some archaeological evidence
from graves of the western Vikings, in particular from the Isle of Man and
Orkney,77 for sacrifice of a woman at a warrior's funeral. John Skylitzes
claims that after one of the desperate battles in Bulgaria in 971 the Greeks
found the bodies of women in armour among the slain.78 I have found
no confirmation of this in Leo the Deacon or elsewhere, but it is of interest
i n view of the accounts of princesses who were said to put on armour like
a man and take part in battle in a number of the Fornaldar Sgur (such as
Hervbr in Hervarar Saga and Brynhild in various versions of the Vlsung
legend).
There are other scattered pieces of evidence which are in keeping with
what we know of the cult of Odin in Scandinavian sources. One of the
Byzantine emperors, Constantine Porphyrogenitus, gives an account of
the hazardous journey of the Rus down the Dnieper, and tells us that when
they had safely passed the rapids and escaped attack by the Pechinegs
they would stop to make sacrifices on St. Gregory's Island, setting up a
ring of arrows round an oak, and killing a number of cocks, casting lots
to decide which birds should die.79 This recalls the evidence for sacrificing
prisoners according to lot, with the emphasis on birds as symbols of Odin,
and with archaeological evidence for bird sacrifice in a number of the
great ship-funerals of Scandinavia in the Viking Age.80 Thus it is possible
to find confirmation in sources outside Scandinavia for practices associated
with Odin's cult in the tenth century, together with a vivid picture of
Viking warriors as strong and fearless fighters, untiring in the pursuit of
glory - and also, it must be confessed, of riches by plunder and pillage;
the evidence is the more convincing because it seems unlikely that the
Greek and Arab writers concerned could have been familiar with the
traditions of the heroic literature of the North.

OF THE VIKINGS

27

It may well be that journeys among tribes and peoples more barbaric
than themselves and the continuous fighting which they encountered in the
East encouraged the Vikings to return to the worship of the god of battle
with greater fervour than before, and that some of this tenth century
enthusiasm has found its way back to Scandinavia, to inspire the literature
and art of the late Viking Age. Certainly the cult of the battle god appears
to have been very much alive towards the close of the heathen period,
probably for as long as the heroic conditions of life which had first inspired
it continued.
In the picture of certain aspects of Odin's cult given here, I am very
conscious of having only touched on the fringe of an immense subject,
on which a great deal remains to be done. It is encouraging however to
realise that as one type of source evidence seems to have been exhausted,
a new approach may throw light on work done years before.
The cunning god of death and battle who urged men to strife, gave luck
to his chosen warriors, and conducted them to his own abode after death,
honouring courage and an heroic end, has long been remembered because
Odin was also the god of poetry and eloquence. The exploits of the heroic
dead were remembered at funeral ceremonies and celebrated in poetry,
and the evidence of the literature and of the Gotland memorial stones
implies that it was obligatory among his followers to rehearse and commemorate the exploits of past heroes; thus it is due to the power that he
once possessed over the minds of men that we have been left with such
abundance of heroic tradition from Anglo-Saxon England and Scandinavia,
even if this only forms a very small part of what flourished in pre-Christian
times.
We may give him thanks for this, for the heroic world of the North is
worthy of remembrance, and without some understanding of the cult of
the god of battle we shall comprehend little of the art and literature of
the Viking Age.

28

THE BATTLE GOD

Editors' Acknowledgements
The costs of the G. N. Garmonsway Memorial Lecture are defrayed
from a fund set up in the University of York by Mrs. Patricia Garmonsway
in memory of her husband, the late Professor Norman Garmonsway.
The publication of this first lecture is made possible by a grant from
the Sessions Book Trust of York, (established in 1966 to assist educational,
religious and charitable publications), by gifts from friends of the late
Professor Garmonsway and from the Pilgrim Trust, made in response to
the Garmonsway Appeal.
The Editors are glad to record their gratitude for these various acts
of generosity.
Grateful acknowledgement is also made to the Dean and Chapter of
York Minster for granting permission to use the medieval tile design on
the front cover.

Author's Acknowledgements
My thanks are due to the Gulbenkian Trust for the award of a Calouste
Gulbenkian Fellowship at Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge, for work
on the Eastern Vikings, and to the School of Oriental and African Studies,
University of London, for the award of the Louis H. Jordan Travelling
Fellowship, which enabled me to study material in S.E. Europe.
I am grateful for the help I have received in obtaining illustrations from
the following: J. M. Dent and Sons Ltd.; Paul Hamlyn; the Trustees of the
British Museum; the Manx Museum, Douglas; Antikvarisk-Topografiska
Arkivet, Stockholm; Gotlands Fornsal, Visby; the Bulgarian Archaeological Museum, Sofia; the Romanian Institute of Archaeology, Bucarest;
and Mrs. Sonia Hawkes, the Institute of Archaeology, Oxford. I should
like in addition to acknowledge the help which I have obtained from
discussions with Professor Karl Hauck of the University of Munster
( Westf.) and Professor Peter Paulsen of the Wrttembergische Landesmuseum, Stuttgart, on the symbolism of the Germanic Battle-God.
Finally it gives me much pleasure to thank Mr. S. A. J. Bradley of the
Department of English and Related Literature in the University of York
for assistance and encouragement throughout, and Mr. William Sessions
and the staff of The Ebor Press for their efficiency and courtesy.

OF THE VIKINGS

29

NOTES
1 Tacitus, A nnals xiii, 57 (A .D. 58).
2 Evidence from the names of the days of the week and from inscriptions
of the Roman period can be found in J. A. MacCulloch, Mythology
of A ll Races 11 (Eddic), London 1930, and more fully in J. de Vries,
A ltgermanische Religionsgeschichte 11, Berlin 1956 under the sections
on the various gods.
3 On an inscription at Housesteads on the Roman Wall, of third
century date (De Vries, op. cit., 11 ff.)
4 H. R. Ellis Davidson, Pagan Scandinavia, London 1967, 69 ff.
5 P. Gelling and H. R. E. Davidson, The Chariot of the Sun, London
1967, 31 ff.
6 Ibid. fig. 14 (i).
7 E. A. E. Reymond, `The Primeval Djeba', Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 48 (1962), 81-88 and `The Origin of the Spear', ibid. 49 (1963),
140-46, 50 (1964), 133-38. I owe the references to Mr. Rundle Clark.
8 Plutarch, Romulus xxix. G. Dumzil, A rchaic Roman Religion,
Chicago 1970, I, 23 ff. makes clear the controversy between those
claiming that the sacred lance preceded the anthropomorphic image
of the war-god and those who insist that the lance was originally the
weapon of an unseen deity. I think it possible to steer a middle course
between these two conflicting theories, and here the Egyptian evidence
is helpful.
9 Vlusp 24; Gungnir is not mentioned here by name, but we are told:
' Odin let fly, and shot over the host: that was the first great war in
the world'.

10 M. Gelling, 'Place-names and Anglo-Saxon Paganism,' University

of Birmingham Historical Journal 8 (1961), 7-25.
11 E.g., T. C. Lethbridge, A Cemetery at Shudy Camps, Cambridge
Antiquarian Society (N.S.5, 1936), 12. He suggested that a bent
spearhead beside a small child might be due to the keeping up
of an old custom in children's burials after it had lapsed for adults.
Cf. Proc. Suffolk Institute of A rchaeology 13 (1959), 3; Hollingworth
and O' Reilly, The Anglo-Saxon Cemetery at Girton College, Cambridge,
Cambridge 1925, grave 58, 8.
12 B. Faussett, Inventorium Sepulchrale, London 1856, pl. xii, 6, 7. For
the hammer amulet, H. R. Ellis Davidson, 'Thor's Hammer' Folklore
76 (1965), pl. 1.

30

THE BATTLE GOD

13 In Flateyjarbk 11, 61 Eirik is given a rod by Odin to fling over his

enemy's host, and it becomes a spear in the air. In Eyrbyggja Saga
xliv the custom is remembered as a lucky action before battle, although
Odin is not mentioned.
14 A nnales Ryenses, Scriptores 16, 398; cf. P. Paulsen, A lamannische
A delsgrdber von Niederstotzingen, Stuttgart 1967, 120.
15 A stone found at Stenkyrka Church, see S. Lindqvist, `Bildstensfynd
vid Kyrkorestaureringar', Gotlndskt A rkiv 28 (1956), 21 ff.
16 Paulsen, (note 14 above). Paulsen has also written on the spear as
a Christian relic: `Flgellanzen.Zum archeologischen Horizont der
Wiener sancta lancea,' Frhmittelalterliche Studien 3 (1969), 289-312.
17 I suggested the metal stand from Sutton Hoo as a possible example in
`Archaeology and Beowulf', (Beowulf and its A nalogues, Garmonsway,
Simpson and Davidson, London 1968, 354) on the basis of its original
reconstruction in the British Museum (R.L.S. Bruce-Mitford, The
Sutton Hoo Ship Burial, B. M. 1968, 20-21. More recently however
further work has made it probable that the figure of the stag does not
belong here, but was originally on the whetstone `sceptre'.
18 M. Eliade, `The God who Binds', Images and Svmbols, trans. P.
Mairet, London 1961, 103-5.
19 This is roughly formed from three triangles linked together (with
variations). It is set beside figures of Odin on the Gotland stones of
the Viking Age, and can be clearly seen on the stone from Andreas,
Isle of Man. The term valknut survived in Norway as a weaving term
for this device (G. Gjessing, `Hesten i forhistorisk Kunst og Kultur,'
Viking 7 (1943), 81.
20 Njals Saga, clvii; cf. N. Lukman, `The Raven Banner and the Changing
Ravens,' Classica et Mediaevalia 19 (1958), 140 ff.
21 H. R. Ellis Davidson, The Sword in A nglo-Saxon England, Oxford
1962. References to the gift of a sword by Odin are in V lsunga Saga
iii and Hyndlulj 2.
22 W. Krause, W as Man in Runen ritze?, Halle-Saale, 1935, 48; G.
Marstrander, ' De Gotiske Runeminnesmerker', Norsk Tidsskrift f:
Sprogvidenskap 3 (1929), 35 f.
23 Tacitus, Germania x.
24 Julius Caesar, De Bello Gallico i, 54.
25 R. Elliott, Runes: an Introduction, Manchester 1963, 66. See also
C. L. Wrenn, `Some early Anglo-Saxon cult symbols, ' Medieval and
Linguistic Studies in Honour of F. P. Magoun, Jr., ed. J. B. Bessinger
and R. P. Creed, New York 1965, 40 ff.
26 See note 1 above.

OF THE VIKINGS

31

27 A. Anderson, `Det femte store mosefund,' Kuml 1 (1951), 9-22.

28 M. rsnes, `The Weapon Find in Ejsbl Muse at Haderslev,' Acta
Archaeologica 34 (1963), 232-47.
29 H. R. Ellis Davidson, Gods and Myths of Northern Europe, Harmonsworth 1964, 51 ff.
30 Julius Caesar, De Bello Gallico I, 54.
31 Alcuin's Life of St. Willibrord, trans. C. H. Talbot, The Anglo-Saxon
Missionaries in Germany, London 1954, 10.
32 Suggested by Kemble in his edition of The Dialogues of Salomon and
Saturnus, London 1848, 192, 197. For comment on this source, see
C. L. Wrenn, A Study of Old English Literature, Oxford 1967, 162 ff.
33 Gautreks Saga vii.
34 S. Lindqvist, Gotlands Bildsteine, Stockholm 1941, fig. 81.
35 H. R. Ellis Davidson, Scandinavian Mythology, London 1970, 29.
36 S. C. Hawkes, H. R. E. Davidson and C. Hawkes, `The Finglesham
Man', A ntiquity 39 (1965), 17-32.
37 R. L. S. Bruce-Mitford, `The Sutton Hoo Ship Burial,' Proc. Suffolk
Institute of A rchaeology 25 (1949), 49 ff.
38 A. Alfldi, `Cornuti, a Teutonic contingent in the service of Constantine the Great,' Dumbarton Oaks Papers xiii (1959), 171 ff.
39 A cta A rchaeologica 17 (1946), 98 ff.
40 Tacitus, Germania 24: translation from Loeb edition from the Latin
`inter gladios se atque infestas frameas saltu iaciunt.'
41 Ibid. 45.
42 Davidson, Gods and Myths, 66 ff.
43 Paulsen (note 14 above), 140 ff.
44 Davidson, Pagan Scandinavia, 99-100.
45 `The Finglesham Man' (note 36 above), 25.
46 Bruce-Mitford (note 37 above), 47 ff.
47 J. Werner, `Adlersymbolik und Totenkult,' Beitrge zur Archaeologie
des Attila-Reiches, Munich 1965, 69 ff.
48 Orkneyinga Saga viii; Ragnars Saga Lobrokar xviii; Saxo Grammaticus i x, 463; Reginsml 26.
49 G. Webster, The Roman Imperial Army, London 1969, 136; J. S. P.
Tatlock, `The Dragons of Wessex and Wales' Speculum 8 (1933),
223 ff; H. R. E. Davidson, `The Hill of the Dragon', Folklore 61
(1950), 179-80.

32

THE BATTLE GOD

50 M. Olsen, Norges Indskrifter med de ldre Runer, Christiania 1914-24,

111, 6, fig. 2. The two figures of Mars and Victory are found together
on a sword from a Vandal grave in Poland: see R. Hachman, The
Germanic Peoples, trans. J. Hogarth, London 1971, figs. 62-3.
51 Davidson, Gods and Myths, 64 ff.
52 H. R. Ellis Davidson, `The Smith and the Goddess' Friihmittelalterliche Studier 3 (1969), 216-26. Professor Hauck's work on the interpretation of the casket, discussed at the symposium at Munster at
which this paper was given, has not vet been published in full.
53 The interpretation of the runes on this side of the casket by Hertha
Marquart (accepted by Krause) begins with the word Herh-os,
` goddess of the shrine or sacred place': W. Krause, `Erta, ein anglischer
Gott,' Zeitschrift fur Sprachwissenschaft 5 (1959), 46-54.
54 A comparison may be made with the Gotland stone from Alskog,
Tjngvide, Sweden (Lindgvist, note 34 above, fig. 137), where the
knot is shown twice, in one case under the belly of the eight-legged
horse.
55 H. R. Ellis Davidson, `The Sword at the Wedding,' Folklore 71
(1960), 9 ff.
56 Most of the stones are included in Lindqvist's two volumes (note 34
above) but some discovered since that publication have appeared in
Gotlndskt A rkiv.
57 Skldskaparml (second section of the Prose Edda of Snorri Sturluson),
i.
58 Davidson, Pagan Scandinavia, 130.
59 W. Holmkvist, 'Zu Herkunst einiger germanischer Figurendarstellungen der Volkwanderungszeit', IPEK 12 (1938), 78-95.
60 H. Khn, ' Die Reiterscheiben der Volkwanderungszeit', ibid. 95-115.
61 K. Hauck, Goldbracteaten Gus Sievern, Munich 1970; another study
of the bracteates is to appear shortly.
62 G. I. Kazarov, Die Denkmler des thrakischen Reitergottes in Bulgarien, Budapest 1938.
63 On a stone in the National Museum, Bucarest, from Tomis, dedicated
to the Hero Manimazos.
64 G. I. Kazarov, `Zum Kult des thrakischen Reiters in Bulgaria,'
W issenschaftliche Zeitschrift der Karl-Marx Universitdt, Leipzig 3
(1953-54), 135 ff.
65 R. Pettazzoni, Essays on the History of Religions, Leiden 1954, 81 ff.
66 I hope to publish a detailed account of this evidence shortly.
67 Leo the Deacon viii, 123.

OF THE VIKINGS

68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77

78
79
80

33

Ibid. ix, 5151-52.

Ibn Miskawaih, The Eclipse of the Abbasid Caliphate, trans. Amedroz
and Margoliouth, Oxford 1921, v, 67 and 73 ff.
Cedrenus, Niebur, Bonn, 759 D, 553.
Ibn Miskawaih, op. cit. 73.
Leo the Deacon ix, 553.
Cedrenus (note 70 above).
H. M. Smyser, in Medieval and Linguistic Studies (note 25, 114-15
above), gives the main editions of Ibn Fadlan's work.
Hudud al-Alam, Regions of the World, trans. Minorsky, Oxford 1937,
8, 428; Birkeland, Nordens Historie i Middelalderen etter Arabiske
Kilder, Oslo 1954, 17 (Ibn Rustah); 33 (Al-Masudi).
H. R. Ellis, The Road to Hel, Cambridge 1943, 50 ff.
G. Bersu and D. M. Wilson, Three Viking Graves in the Isle of
Man (Society for Medieval Archaeology Monograph Series 1 1966),
51; the example in Orkney was excavated by a Norwegian archaeological expedition in 1968.
Cedrenus (note 70 above).
Constantine Porphyrogenitus, De Administrando Imperio, trans.
Jenkins, Budapest 1949, 61.
Gelling and Davidson (note 5 above), 174-76.