The Black Viking

You can see the video about this subject here: [The Black Viking]


This is a story about a man named Geirmundur Heljarskinn, born in Rogaland (Norway), between the years 850-950 AD. He was one of the first explorers to settle in Iceland, going with the early Viking expedition teams. This is not a fictional character from Norse mythology or the Sagas. This person is in fact an historical figure and nowadays in Iceland people can still trace their bloodline through genetic tests to this ancestor of theirs (and such tests have been performed). He was a "black" Viking, but not in the way you might think; not black because he was of African ancestry, nor because he was so evil that he gained this seemingly ominous title of being "dark" when darkness is associated with evil, mystery, death and even magic. He was black/dark according to the perception of the people of those times. The reactions people had in relation to this man, are really interesting and makes us wonder about certain attitudes society has towards people who are physically different. 

The rather short story of Geirmundur Heljarskinn is present within the Landnámabók, which is “The Book of Settlements”, a medieval Icelandic written record which describes the settlement of Iceland by the Norse between the 9th and 10th centuries. If you research the story, it's called Geirmundar þáttr heljarskinns, and this story is about Geirmundur and his brother Hámund. This account comes in great detail about the lineage of Geirmundur, which I will not write it here so we can go straight to the point. Suffice it to say that there was a man called Hjör, doing the regular raiding and pillaging to obtain wealth. This Hjör went raiding in Bjarmland, the westernmost part of Siberia, where there was a great trading activity between the natives and the Norse. Hjör took as a hostage of value a young Siberian woman called Ljufvina, the very daughter of the "king" of Bjarmland. Hjör ended up marrying this woman. Now, in Siberia there were no kings, these were nomadic people, so it's quite possible that this whole story of her being a princess was made up to have a royal justification for her to become a queen in Norway, otherwise, without a royal lineage, she would have no claim to the throne. 

The majority of Siberians are of Mongol origins - with dark hair and skin - and Ljufvina was no exception. Now, speaking of genetics, we know that when two people, both having different skin-colors from one another, the darker pigmentation tends to thrive and be more visible. But this is nowadays that we have this knowledge, back in medieval times people expected their sons to follow their father's lineage, therefore more prone to look like their fathers. Hjör was a man with Nordic features, so people were surprised when Ljufvina gave birth to two boys with dark hair and skin. To the ancient Scandinavian societies, people with darker skin-colours were considered to be, well, back. But being “black” during these times, at least in ancient Scandinavia, wasn't necessarily a motive for prejudice, intolerance. The only problem here was the fact that the father was white, tall, fair of hair, and the social belief that children should look like their fathers. These were patriarchal societies. Another problem, was that the children looked nothing like the royal lineages of the kings and queens of Norway, they looked much more like Thralls - slaves - and this was absolutely unconceivable for nobles. 

This isn't a case of racism in ancient societies. The problem wasn't directly due to their skin, the problem was breaking the royal lineage. 

The secret of the two brothers, Geirmundur and Hámund, was kept by the family and a few trustworthy people. A white slave woman had given birth to a son, and so they replaced the two brothers for this white-skin baby from a slave. The two brothers lived as slaves within their own father's household. As I have said, it didn't matter at all if the boys had light-skin or dark-skin. The only thing that mattered was the fact that they were sons of the king and carried within themselves many of the noble and royal virtues of this great lineage, independent of the dark skin. The two young boys grew up and became healthy, resilient, strong and intelligent - all the characteristics associated with royalty - while the young white prince grew up weak, cowardly and not very clever - a verdict of his slave ancestry according to this account. When the boys reached the age of four, it was clear to those who knew the secret that no one could hide the truth any longer, that the slave boy who looked like a prince had no nobility at all, he only had the colour considered "right" because it was closer to the colour of Hjör, and nothing more. 

Well, finally, the mother brought forth the two brothers and told the truth to the king (yeah, he had no idea about the swapping-babies-scheme). The king was only surprised by the colour of their skins because he had never seen before such darker skins, but he believed the boys were his sons. Thereafter the boys gained their nickname - "heliarskinn"(dark-skin). The boys grew up to be great warriors and raiders, accumulating wealth and honour, and perfectly accepted by the society they lived in. 

Finally, Geirmundur, like his father before him, travelled to Bjarmland (Siberia) and returned with another Siberian wife - Illþurrka. Together they settled in Ireland and then in Iceland, where they became a very powerful family. The truth of this story has been confirmed by DNA tests of living Geirmundur's descendants living in Iceland, who have mitochondrial (maternal) DNA which indicates their mother's Asian/Mongolian ancestry. 

Norway’s First Coin

Currency has been around for quite some time, but in the cold northern European countries it took some time to arrive. In truth, everything from the south took long enough to reach the north and vice versa.

In the year of 995, of the Common Era, when Olav Tryggvason became King of Norway (some call him Viking King but that isn't the correct title), silver coins changed their appearance and the king's own name started to be carved in coins. "Onlaf Rex Nor", meaning "Olav, King of the Norwegians", this started to be printed in coins. Of course coins were not something invented by Tryggvason, particular these coins with religious (christian) motifs.

During Tryggvason's time, Ethelred II was the king of England. Viking raids were still common, but things were changing, and not only landlords and nobles were going "viking", but also kings. Raiding became a great source of income to the northern peoples of Europe, which arose their economy imensily. Raiding was also to show one's power and right to rule, so above everything else, raiding was the legitimate claim to govern. So king Ethelred II had to face both the armies of King Olav Tryggvason and King Svend Tveskæg of Denmark. Suffice to say that the king of Englad had to pay a large amount of money to sue for peace. In the spring of the year of 995, Olav Tryggvason returned home with a great amount of Anglo-Saxon Crux coins in his luggage; a lot of coins already with the christian motifs well printed, marking the faith of those people.

Olaf/Olav Tryggvason was King of Norway from 995 to 1000 A.D.. Olav was the major "character" in the conversion of the Norse to the new faith (Christianity). He is known for this and somehow exalted by historians for being the key to the converstion of the northern pagans into christianity. However, such conversion was brutal, horrible even, with many gruesome accounts of torture and the most abominable, enduring and painful ways to kill in the name of religion and forceble convertion. Nonetheless, he was the reason for the first christian coins in Norway, and probably the introduction of hard currency, because before that cattle was the measurament of wealth.

The Viking Priests and Priestesses of Sandvika

In the year of 1963, a burial ground with 24 graves inside the bay of Sandvika on the eastern side of the island of Jøa, in Central Norway, were discovered. The bodies were buried in a sitting position, and after a close analyses the dating  of the remains go back to the years 650 to 1000 AD. The unusual burial caracteristics showned that these northmen belonged to a specific group of people within the Viking society.

Unlike other graves from the Viking Age, this graveyard was unknown to the human sight, because the bodies were not placed inside a burial mound that is could be clearly visible in the terrain, or marked in any other way but rune stones or anything of that kind. These Vikings were lowered into funnel-shaped shell sand holes. This burial ground is unique in Scandinavia, and these people are the only ones to have ever been found like this - in a  sitting position. So why were they placed like this?

Lets make a quick analyses of the bodies. The people in question must have been dead for at least twenty-four hours so that rigor mortis has made it possible to shape the body into a sitting position. Also, it must have been very difficult to dig out chairs in the porous shell sand, so to go into all this trouble these people were not common folk amongst their community. There is another aspect which must be taken into consideration. In 14 of the 24 graves there were found skeletons and skeletal remains; the other 10 graves were simply empty. The remains were identify has belonging to 7 women and 4 men. Analysis shows that the women in question reached an average age of 47 years. (It has only been possible to determine the age of one of the men, and he died at the age of 40.)

The women had an average height of 157.2 centimeters (5ft 2in), and the men 162.6 centimeters (5ft 4in), which is much lower than the normal height for this period. The men were as much as 10 centimeters (3.9in) lower than the average for the Viking Age (172.6 cm / 5ft 8in).

The dating of the artifacts found here, shows that these Vikings were buried fully clothed in the period between 650 and 1000 AD, (from the Merovingian period to the end of the Viking Age), and it seems like the burial custom ended when Christianity was forced with swords upon the Norse society.

Today, on the other side of the small river Hovselva (the Hof River) is the Hov (Hof) farm located in the northeast – indicating that there was a pagan temple located close to the burial ground. In all of the 24 graves there were found remnants of bonfires, so it is natural to assume that there must have been some kind of ritual that includes bonfire in connection with the funeral.

Another peculiarity is that about half of the bodies were facing north-northeast (facing the Hof itself) and half to the south-southeast. No one was facing directly east and only one body was facing directly to the west. As many as ten knifes were found in 9 different graves. They vary in length, but none of them has a blade more than 20 centimeters and consequently have not been used as Viking combat weapons. The individuals they belonged to must have used these knives for a very specific purpose. There were no other weapons found inside the graves, which is unusual for the Viking Age. However, there were also found beads, brooches, finger rings and keys, but there is no repeating pattern.

Summarizing: these people were buried in a small area close to a heathen Hof, and the dead were put down in a sitting position. There was no marking of the graves but they may have been marked with ornamental shrubs or flowers; almost all of the graves contain remnants of bonfire, and there are no traces of weapons. However, there were found many “regular” cut knives; the bodies were facing north-northeast and south-southeast. No one was facing directly towards the east.

So who were these Vikings? They might have been “hovgydjer” - pagan priests and priestesses. The knives might have been used for sacrifice, or were the tools of these priests and priestesses. If thise is the case, it is very important for the understandment of the people who practiced the magical arts. It was common in Viking Age society that the only ones to practice sorcery, witchcraft, spell-work, divination and so on, were only women. But in this community it might have been different; it's quite plausable that men also did this kind of work.

We also have to take into consideration that these specific men were very small, and possibly very fragile. So it may have been that the community found a way to give them a purpose, a trade, a way to help the community since they might have been to fragile for other harduous works. Or maybe we are in the presence of an old Shamanic custome, where men who had certain feminine qualities were revered and worked as spiritual guides. Well, this remains a mystery.

Archaeological Find in Iceland - The First Settlers?

Archaeological excavations in Stöðvarfjörður, the East Fjords, reveled interesting signs of human presence dated 74 years before the official settlement in the area by the first humans who came exploring the country. It seems the country was inhabited as early as the year 800 which means the first Viking explorers were not the ones who came to settle in 874 but there were people before who made the preparations for an official colonization of the area.

However, this is not the first time that signs of human presence from a similar time have been discovered. Excavations in Kvosin, Reykjavík, Hafnir, Reyjanes and in Húshólmi, had already given the hint of older settlements in the country. But now this one in Stöðvarfjörður came to cientifically prove the previous thought that Vikings settlers had been here way before the official historical record.

The Stöðvarfjörður is a strategic location, because the fjord has a good harbor and is the country’s closest location to sail to and fro Norway and the British Isles.

The first structure to be detected was a longhouse-shaped building with thick floor layers. The long-fire structure which was usually at the very center of the house is missing, but a fireplace can be seen by the wall. This structure is typically Nordic. The items are of the same kind as the ones which had been found in the whole Nordic area (including the Scandinavian Peninsula and all the way to the British Isles). This first settlement probably wasn't the type of farm-settlement, but an outpost that served as a predecessor to a real settlement.

The lack of animal bones in the area suggests that these settlers did not keep animals here, but used this place as a seasonal residence in order to exploit the natural resources the area offered.

Several tiny items of great importance to this finding, and a link to the first settlers, have been found. For instance, a sharpener, pearls, washers, a ring and a silver coin. A chalcedony discovered at the site proves that these first norsemen made utensils out of stone. This might give us a clue from where these people came from. In Northern Norway, during the medieval ages, it was still common for people to make tools out of stone. It became a sort of a costum to make stone tools in that area, while in other places these techniques had been put aside for a long time and in most cases had been forgotten. These first settlers were skilled in making stone tools, which suggests they were used to do it and this might indicate that they probably came from the northern regions of Norway.

Pagan Temple Unearthed in Norway

Archaeologists have discovery something truly amazing in Norway, something to give light to the pre-christian scandinavian religion. It seems it's the first of its kind to be found in norwegian soil, but it is so unique for a reason - it was deliberately hidden to avoid its destruction by christian hands.

This archaeological finding is located at the site of Ranheim, to the north of Trondheim. It seems the area where the temple was found had been occupied since the 6th-5th centuries BCE until the late 10th century CE (common Era). There are traces of animal sacrifice obviously, which isn't something that outstanding, for it was a common practice in many cultures of antiquity. This temple was dismantled and covered by peat a 1000 years ago more or less, to protect it from christian invaders as told before. The people of this place fled from the christians but not before safeguarding their place of worship.

The temple may have been built somewhere around the year 400 AD. It was thus used for hundreds of years until the people emigrated to avoid Christianity's oppressive religion. The temple consisted of a stone-set, commonly known as "sacrificial altar", and also traces of a "pole building" that probably housed idols in the form of sticks with carved faces of the gods. Deceased relatives of high rank were also portrayed in this way. Not far from there, the archaeologists also uncovered a procession route.

Being covered by layers of peat the temple was very well preserved. Such places covered by stratigraphic layers of turf and a very wet soil, tend to preserve whatever lies beneath. The altar for instance, where one worshiped the gods and offered animal blood, was preserved and we can have an idea how it was. It consisted of a circular stone setting around 15 meters in diameter and nearly a meter high. The pole building a few meters away was rectangular, with a floor plan of 5.3 x 4.5 meters, and raised with 12 poles, each having a solid stone foundation. The building may have been high and it is clear that it wasn't used as a dwelling. It had no fireplace. Inside the "house" were found traces of four pillars that may be evidence of a high seat where the idols stood between ceremonies. The processional road west of the temple headed straight towards where the pole building was marked with two parallel rows of large stones, the longest sequence at least 25 feet long. 

When archaeologists began their excavations two glass beads were found, and also some burned bones and traces of a wooden box that had been filled with red-brown sand/gravel and a cracked boiling stone. Among the bones, it was found a part of a skull and several human teeth.

The latest dating of the temple is between 895 and 990 CE. Precisely during this period Christianity was introduced by heavy-handed methods into Norway. Probably the people who used the temple were among those who chose to emigrate, either to Iceland or other North Atlantic islands. Posts for pole building were in fact pulled up and removed. The whole 'altar' was carefully covered with earth and clay, precisely at the transition to Christian times. Therefore, the cult site was completely forgotten. There are indications that the people who deliberately covered up the temple at Ranheim took the posts from the stave house/pole building, in addition to the soil from the altar, to the place wherever they  had settled down and raised a new temple. 

The sacrificial altar, a fire pit was found, which lay directly on the prehistoric plow layer. The charcoal from this grave is now dated to 500-400 BC/BCE. Thus, the place could have been regarded as sacred or at least had a special status long before the stone altar was built.

The goodbye to Scandinavian paganism

In the countries of Norway, Sweden and Denmark, people worshiped a set of deities belonging to two different tribes of gods - the Aesir and the Vanir. The Aesir were the deities associated with the arts of war and were ruled by Odin, the god of wisdom, war and death. The Vanir were the deities associated with the fertility of animals, humans and the land itself. The latter, in time, became a subclass of gods within the Aesir and vs versa, all gods were important. By the 10th century, Christianity came into these countries and brought an end to the polytheistic worship of the Northern European peoples, thus creating three new realms unified under one faith, under one god.

The Christianization of Scandinavia wasn't held in one day. It was a process which took time, and a long and painful time it was indeed. It is obvious that the Scandinavians had their own conflicts, and battles were common between them, but with the coming of Christianization war took a whole different meaning. Wars in great scale, murdering for no purpose, solely for the new faith, the new god and the hatred which was spread by lies that poisened the minds of monarchs. Denmark was the most easily transformed country. The Viking raids slowly introduced the new religion, due to the christians brought as war prizes. The Danes were often in contact with England and Normandy, allowing them to continued exposure to the new religion via political interactions. At first, there was little struggle in assimilating the two faiths, and they were able to coexist under the individual decrees of the Danish tribal leaders. This assimilation began around the 930s of our common era. The baptism of war leaders and kings built a new path for the christian faith to spread, for the kings and warchiefs demanded that their subjects had to be converted as well, since the new faith was now part of their culture. The danish tribes were united under the flag of this new god. The canonization of Canute IV in the 12th century, the Christian ruler of Denmark in the late 1000s, declared Christianity as Denmark's official religion.

The earliest recordings of Christianity in Sweden were in the 700s. In the 830s, Saint Ansgar (a monk with the mission to bring Christianity to Northern Europe), came to the northern shores to spread word of the new faith at the bid of the Swedish king of that time. However, his church at Birka was highly rejected, so it was not until Olof Skötkonung, (the first Christian king of Sweden), agreed to a toleration of the two faiths in the late 900s that Christianity found a place in Swedish culture. He established the first episcopal center in Skara rather than near Uppsala in Uppland, as there is written documentation that the largest worship center to the Norse gods existed at Uppsala. This might have been a wise choice of the king, to avoid war between the followers of the two faiths. It was King Inge later, in the 1080s, who disregarded the risks of war and ended the sacrifices at Uppsala, ultimately serving as the moment of transition between Paganism and Christianity in Sweden. Although, the result of this instance was Inge's temporary exile by his brother- By the year 1130 Christianity gained a permanent stronghold in Sweden and spread to become the foremost religion in the land. 

Norway was the most difficult to transform from polytheism to Christianity, as its history was filled with rulers who constantly dictated the religion. Most of the conflict was seen during a fifty year period (from 950 to1000 CE), under King Haakon. Haakon's method was simple: temples were left to the pagans with churches built right beside them, and though he refused on his own part to sacrifice to the Aesir and Vanir, he also refused to punish those who continued this practice. Haakon was able to begin the spread of Christianity throughout this region by showing kindness to the established polytheistic religion.

King Haakon was one of a kind, unfortunately, a rare sort of man in this period of great changes. After his death, Jarl Haakon replaced him, himself being a pagan man. All the Christianization that King Haakon had established was utterly destroyed. In acting this way, not only did Jarl Haakon create a stricter war against Christianity, but in the years to come he forged a reason for the Norwegian Christians to detest the Aesir and Vanir followers. With the end of the 10th century, the Christian king Olaf Tryggvason was very much ready to eliminate every pagan follower of the old religion. King Olaf had had a very strict christian education, and pagans were seen as the evil sort of "creatures" which worshiped the devil.

However, Tryggvason only ruled for five years, (from 955 to 1000 CE), but he made certain that they were prolific years. He travelled all over Norway to enforce the Christian faith, destroying pagan areas of worship, including temples and everyone we could find. Those who refused to submit to the new religion were tortured and severely punished, ending up dead anyway. By the end of the 12th century, Tryggvason's successors saw Christianity dominating Norway.

With the rise of the new religion, there came a need for building structures linked to the faith. The first church buildings were modelled most specifically from the longships, towering structures that loomed toward the sky like the future Gothic cathedrals with dragon heads on the roof reflecting the strength and power. These churches, called stave churches because of the stars at the heart of their post and lintel structure, were the highlight and symbol of the new religion that had swept through Scandinavia and became a symbol of the unification between the three lands at the cost of many wars, bloodshed and suffering.

Iron age horse found

As the global warming advances every year it melts glaciers and ice sheets, leaving perfectly preserved relics behind, to be found by archaeologists. This was what happened in the past August at Norway. At the high alpine zone, it seems that Iron Age people used hourses to travel from one place to another, or to trade with the near by villages, but going over the mountain passages, which is something extremely difficult. At the Lendbreen glacier near Lillehammer, archaeologists are working fast against the environmental changes, deep in the ice, it might hold ancient relics and preserve them, but once the ice melts and these same relics are exposed to the weather outsider, archaeologists have little time to try to conserve the relic as much as possible in its original state.  It is important to keep the melting ice under constant observation as once an artefact defrosts, archaeologists have just days to begin preserving it.

In this area it is believed that Iron Age people all the way to the  early medieval period, used shortcuts in the mountains to go from village to village and also this might have been the hunting grounds, because when it gets hot in the summer, the reindeer will get pestered by horseflies, and when that happens they move up to the ice to avoid such insects, and this fact made the ice excellent hunting grounds. The horse whose bonés were discovered was probably used to carry reindeer carcasses back off the mountains to the villages below. Along with such discoveries. other items were found, because these people from time to time, going to hunt or trading, they droped personal objects once in a while.

The team of archaeologists have previously found perfectly preserved 1000-year-old horse manure, and horse shoes dropped in the ice. Earlier this year of 2013, they made headlines across the world when they found a 1,700-year-old woollen tunic, fully intact apart from the two patches sewed into it by its iron age owner.