Vikings Read online

  Although not written down until the 1100s, the description in the Orkneyinga saga of the activities of one Svein Asleifsson provides the perfect example of what might have been typical behaviour at the start of the Viking Age:

  In the spring he had more than enough to occupy him, with a great deal of seed to sow which he saw to carefully himself. Then when the job was done, he would go off plundering in the Hebrides and in Ireland on what he called his ‘spring trip’, then back home just after midsummer where he stayed till the corn fields had been reaped and the grain was safely in. After that he would go off raiding again, and never come back till the first month of winter was ended. This he used to call his autumn trip.

  In stark contrast to much of the eastern Europe encountered by Swedish Vikings, Ireland by the end of the eighth century was a mostly Christian country. Christianity had arrived in much of western Europe under the influence of the Roman Empire, which had accepted the new religion during the fourth century. Having remained outside the Roman Empire, however, Ireland came relatively late into the fold. It was not until the fifth century that missionaries like the famous St Patrick began the process of converting the Irish — subtly accommodating, as they did so, elements of the old Celtic religion, key dates and feasts, so as to minimise any upset or sense of dislocation from the past.

  As it happened, the Roman Church did not like this at all. Irish priests tolerated divorce among their flock, and often had wives and families themselves while the Pope demanded celibacy, so that churchmen would have no one to whom they might leave their worldly goods except the Mother Church herself. During the eighth century Ireland was the target of Roman propaganda that portrayed the place as a home to barbarians and all manner of heathen behaviour.

  By the middle of the sixth century Christianity — Gaelic, Celtic Christianity — was nonetheless deeply imbedded within Irish society. It was from there that the faith would be transported first of all to the west of Scotland and then throughout the whole country. Ireland was a land of little kings and kingdoms, and the monasteries — presided over by Church leaders who were themselves aristocrats, often drawn from the same families as the kings — were the religious, cultural and economic centres of society. As well as providing spiritual leadership the abbots were also warriors, often with their own armies and well practised in leading their forces into battle in support of one side or another in the endless, endemic dynastic wars. Columba himself was a scion of the Uí Néill clan and left Ireland to bring Christianity to Scotland, via Iona, only because his warlike style of conversion had culminated in a bloodbath that could not go unpunished. It was therefore as an aristocrat in exile, a zealot, that he set out upon the mission that would make him a legend.

  By the eighth century the dominant Irish dynasty was that of the Uí Néill clan, but everywhere there were other families and other loyalties, vying for a say. Every petty king wanted to be the High King, with power over all the others, and the ceaseless warring had given rise to a dizzyingly complicated pecking order that dictated just who owed loyalty to whom. The American writer P. J. O’Rourke summed it up when he imagined meeting one the minor monarchs in ‘the Ireland of Zero AD’: ‘I’m the king — from this rock down to the creek and from that cow to the tree. And this is my wife the Queen and our dog Prince.’

  So while it is often tempting to imagine helpless monks cowering in the face of heathen Vikings, in Ireland the churchmen were more than capable of giving as good as they got. In truth they faced just as great a threat from each other as they did from any foreigners. While the Irish chroniclers recorded some 26 Viking attacks on monasteries during the first quarter of a century of the Viking Age, nearly 90 more were inflicted upon various religious communities by the Irish themselves.

  Norwegian Vikings attacked a stretch of the Kerry coastline in the deep south-west of Ireland in 812 — and were messily butchered for their troubles. It was far from being the only setback the incomers experienced at that time. Apart from anything else the raiders learnt during the early years of their Irish adventure, they were made to understand that the local population was far from helpless. Still they persevered and the chroniclers reveal that by 821 the Vikings had circumnavigated the whole island — so that by then they were picking off targets on both the east and south coasts. In that year they attacked Howth, in County Dublin, and carried off ‘a great prey of women’ for use and sale elsewhere as slaves.

  This is the period regarded by historians as the first phase of Viking attacks upon the Irish. Whether or not the raiders in question were operating from bases elsewhere in the British Isles, they brought only brief interludes of violent drama before disappearing once more. It is not until the second phase, starting in the early 830s, that there is evidence of much larger-scale operations — and of Vikings putting down roots on Irish soil. In 836 there was a wholesale slaughter of Christians in County Meath and the rounding up of ‘many captives’. The following year a fleet of 60 ships sailed up the Boyne River with 1,500 warriors aboard; a similar force appeared on the Liffey around the same time. The kingdoms of the east coast were the targets and the warriors of the Uí Néill kings fell ‘in a countless slaughter’. For the first time the raiders began appearing during the short days of winter and those attacks — almost always focused upon the capture of slaves — reveal it was no longer necessary for them to return to Norway at the end of autumn. Somehow they had found a way to remain in enemy territory for as long as they wanted.

  Far from home they had to develop ways of making themselves — and at least as importantly, their ships — secure against retaliation by hostile locals. During a day spent with Irish archaeologist Eamonn ‘Ned’ Kelly I learnt just how the Vikings went about making all of that possible for themselves.

  While the chroniclers began to describe the appearance, during the ninth century, of Viking fortifications they called longphorts — long ports, or ship camps — no archaeological evidence for such sites has been recorded in the modern era. But at Vicarstown in County Laois, where the Barrow River is joined by a tributary called the Glasha, Kelly has been investigating a site he believes fits the bill.

  Known as Dunrally Fort, it has long been classified as an Iron Age ring-fort — typically Irish fortifications built, in the main, between 800 BC and AD 400. This understanding of the site is based on the presence of an oval enclosure measuring 50-odd yards along its long axis and 40-odd along the shorter, and comprising an earthen rampart within a water-filled ditch. Kelly, however, together with local journalist John Maas, has recently re-examined the site. They now identify the enclosure as just the central ‘citadel’ within an enormous area enclosed on one side by a curving water-filled ditch and bank and by the Barrow and Glasha rivers on the other.

  Modern dredging has significantly altered the character of the Barrow River in particular, and in centuries past there would have been a wide and deep pool close by the southern end of the great rampart — ideal for mooring ships. Taken together — a huge fortress, with central citadel and defended by rivers that also provided access to the site from the sea — these features are surely suggestive of a long port of the sort described by the chroniclers. Kelly and Maas are certainly convinced, and while their claims were initially the subject not just of controversy but also of out and out ridicule, many of the country’s foremost archaeologists and historians are now persuaded.

  A visit to the site confirms it is on a breathtaking scale — 370 yards long by 160 yards wide. In recent times the archaeological features were obscured by trees and scrubby undergrowth, but the present landowners have recently embarked upon a project to clear the site and open it up for visitors. As we stood together on the rampart, looking out across the still impressively wide and deep ditch, Kelly described how the surrounding landscape would have looked in the ninth century. Rather than the regular field systems produced by modern drainage, it would have been a combination of impenetrable forest and partially flooded marshland. During winter and spring esp
ecially any approach towards the Viking stronghold, which occupied the only naturally occurring high (and therefore dry) ground for miles around, would have been over forbiddingly treacherous terrain. Behind us lay the Barrow River and, just within sight, the point where it was joined by the Glasha. In the mind’s eye it was easy to visualise armed sentries patrolling along a walkway on top of a timber palisade constructed on the highest ridge of the rampart. Long ships would have been moored together along the river frontage, forming another formidable line of defence, while other vessels were out of the water altogether for maintenance and repair. ‘The Vikings would have spotted the location from their ships, as they sailed up and down river,’ said Kelly. ‘They were great tacticians and the strategic value of an area of slightly raised and dry ground so close to the river would have caught their eyes right away.’

  He also explained how the Glasha was once the boundary between the territories of the Loigis and the Ui Failge clans. The Barrow was the border for the Ui Muiredaig and so the Vikings would have been doubly attracted to a location that enabled them to cause mischief between three groups of belligerent clansmen, playing them off against one another for their own benefit. ‘The choice of site may have been aimed at taking advantage of rivalries between these kingdoms — a common Viking strategy,’ said Kelly.

  With the locals in disarray the Vikings were able take advantage of the monasteries situated all along the Barrow valley, sallying forth from their long port whenever they wanted while also secure in the knowledge that the enclosed interior of their fort meant they were safe, themselves and their fleet, from any kind of surprise attack.

  According to nineteenth-century documents, local word of mouth held that the Dunrally fort was associated with a Viking leader called Rothlaibh, or Rodolf. The Annals of the Four Masters, also known as The Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland, record the destruction of a ‘Longphort-Rothlaibh’ in the year 862: ‘The destruction of Longphort-Rothlaibh by Cinnedidh, son of Gaithin, lord of Laighis, on the fifth of the Ides of September; and the killing of Conall Ultach and Luirgnen, with many others along with them.’

  The Frankish Annals of Fulda describe the destruction in AD 891 of a Viking fortification on the Dyle River, at Louvain, in Belgium, defended by a ditch on one side and the river on the other. Just as at LongphortRothlaibh, the Frankish fort was taken by locals in the autumn when, as Kelly points out, the surrounding marshland might well have been completely dried out and hence no obstacle to attack. He says that in the end, the strategic significance of the site — as exploited by its Viking builders — was the cause of its demise.

  Kelly believes the chronicles are accurate and suspects that Rothlaibh — or Rodolf — may have been a thorn in the side of the local kings for as much as a decade. Kelly and Maas have also identified what they believe to be another long port, close to Waterford harbour, and have argued that this coastal location may have been Rodolf’s main base of operations. ‘The choice of Dunrally as an inland fortified base appears to date to a late phase of activity, extending and consolidating the range of Rodolf’s forces in a fashion very similar to the manner of Vikings active on the Loire, Seine and elsewhere in the Carolingian realms,’ he said.

  After the destruction of Longphort-Rothlaibh in 862, Rodolf’s name disappears from the Irish annals. But in January 863, just four months later, the Rhine valley was targeted by a Viking fleet. By 864 the Frankish King Lothar II was paying tribute to a Viking leader called Rodolf in order to make him desist from causing further havoc in the area. ‘The sudden appearance of the fleet suggests that it arrived from beyond the land of the Franks and the coincidence of the name and the timing of these events suggests that the Rodolf involved is the same man named in the Irish annals,’ said Kelly. ‘If this is so then the Frankish annals enable us to identify Rodolf as the son of Harold, a former King of Denmark who had settled in Frisia after being expelled from Denmark in 827. Harold was murdered by the Franks in 852 around the time that Rodolf’s career in Ireland began. After his return, Rodolf continued to be active in the area until his death in 873.’

  Kelly and Maas are convinced that study of the Irish annals makes it plain the Vikings constructed many long ports in Ireland — at both coastal and inland locations. This tactical precaution was a game-changer. Instead of heading for home at the end of each summer, now they were able to dig in. The long ports were quintessentially Viking, making use of water and ships to protect themselves, and enabled their builders to take up residence even in the heart of enemy territory.

  The long ports were of necessity large and impressive creations, but still they have proved resistant to discovery by archaeologists. It is assumed some of the most important were eventually developed into towns, and therefore that the largest urban centres in Ireland — Dublin, Cork, Waterford, Wexford and Limerick — began life as long ports.

  Any traces of the long port in a population centre like Dublin are likely to have been completely erased by the subsequent centuries of development and ironically it is those that were abandoned early on — like Dunrally — that remain to be found today. But while the precise location of Dublin’s long port evades detection, the Viking DNA of the city is all around. Walking along Grafton Street, among the buskers, mime artists and shoppers, it can be hard to accept Dublin as a city with Scandinavian roots. But having grown on both banks of the Liffey River, Viking Dublin became in time the capital of a sea kingdom. The Irish annals make plain the settlement was a focus for activity by Scandinavians from around the middle of the ninth century. The first record of an encampment there was made in AD 841 when a long port was established close by a preexisting Christian monastic community. The churchmen called the place dubh linn, in reference to a ‘black pool’ of deep, dark water on the Liffey, and the name stuck. The annals record that, having arrived in 841, the Vikings were still there the following year, having over-wintered in their ship camp. History shows they were content to retain the Irish name of the place instead of replacing it with one of their own, their more usual habit.

  Firmly rooted, the place began to attract more and more adventurers and traders from back home in Norway, and since they became permanent residents they gradually became part of the political scenery as well. The bellicose Irish kings living all around them were quick to see the potential of having such warriors onside, and soon the Dublin Vikings were augmenting their income by serving as mercenaries for whichever local monarch offered the best terms of employment.

  Such activity, swords for sale, was clearly high-risk and from time to time the incomers paid the price. In 849 the High King of Tara attacked and destroyed the long port. Undeterred, the Vikings returned to carry on from where they had left off. The kings of Leinster and Brega joined forces in 902 to drive the squatters out of Dublin altogether, but within 15 years they were back once more to establish an even bigger defended settlement on the south bank of the river.

  What is most impressive of all is just how populous Viking Dublin must have been, right from the beginning. According to the annals, well over a thousand Dublin Vikings were killed during the year 847 alone — 200 defenders of the long port itself, during an attack by Cerball, King of Osraige; 700 in a battle near Skreen in County Meath, against Máel Sechnaill, King of Tara and leader of the southern Uí Nञill, and hundreds more at Castledermot in County Kildare. That the garrison could absorb such losses and remain in place suggests there might have been ten times that number within the defences at any one time.

  Perhaps the most compelling evidence of Dublin’s popularity with Scandinavians during the second half of the ninth century is the sheer volume of identifiably Viking burials. Close to half of all the Viking burials with weapons found so far in the British Isles have been found in this one city. In 2003 archaeologists uncovered four warrior burials during excavation of a site behind the Long Hall pub on South Great George Street. The Dublinia Viking exhibition centre sits in the heart of the city, at the junction of St Michael’s Hill, Patrick S
treet and the High Street, and it was here that I came face to face with the best-preserved of the quartet. I say ‘face to face’ but in fact the warrior’s skull was largely absent, apart from part of the lower jaw, and it was the rest of his remains — and particularly his grave goods — that revealed his origins.

  I defy anyone to confront a human skeleton and not be stopped in their tracks, made to think. It has been well reported over the years that elephants appear transfixed by the remains of their own kind. When a herd encounters an elephant skeleton, they often stop to spend time touching and moving the bones — clearly recognising a fellow traveller and being preoccupied with the leftovers. Human bones are surely as compelling for us. A specialist had carefully laid out the Viking warrior’s skeleton for me and, though I have no expertise in the field of bone analysis, I could see that they were the remains of a large and powerful man. The long bones of the arms and legs were massively made, the ends marked by the striations left behind by powerful ligaments and muscles. The osteologist who completed the first assessment of the remains recorded the bones were noticeably thickened, suggesting their owner had cut an impressive figure. His right arm appeared especially strong, likely developed over many years of ‘rotation and swinging movements such as those used frequently in battle’.

  His legs, too, bore the signs of hard and sustained physical exertion, possibly due in part to many years spent rowing — and even just balancing — aboard a ship as it made its passage through heavy seas. The same kind of mass would have been the result also of lengthy training for, and experience of, hand-to-hand fighting with sword and axe.

  Close examination of his spine revealed the warrior had a congenital defect that resulted in an extra vertebra. It was a condition that would have given him back pain in later life — except that he probably lived to be no more than 25 years old. Analysis of the spine of another of the four skeletons revealed the same abnormality, giving rise to the possibility the two young men were related, brothers-in-arms.