Abstract
Despite the popularized image of the raping and pillaging Viking warrior, the culture of sexual violence in Old Norse society has remained surprisingly understudied. This article uses skaldic verses, a literary genre produced in Iceland and Norway, mainly from the ninth through the fourteenth centuries, to suggest a reconsideration of sexual violence in the Old Norse world. It suggests that skaldic verses can help scholars discern a spatial and cultural geography of sexual violence against free men, women, and slaves, which suggests it was widespread and multidimensional and had ties to a pan-north Atlantic slave trade in the Viking Age.
Keywords
Introduction: Prudes or Pillagers?
The twelfth-century writer Snorri Sturluson described the following scene in his Haralds saga gráfeldar (The Saga of King Haraldr Greycloak), a part of Heimskringla, his history of the kings of Norway: Sigurðr konungr sleva kom til bùs Klypps hersis…Klyppr var þá eigi heima, en Álof, kona hans, tók vel við konungi, ok þar var veizla góð ok drykkjur miklar…Konungr gekk um nóttina til hvílu Álofar ok lá þar at óvilja hennar. Síðan fór konungr í brot. [King Sigurðr the Lisper came to the home of Hersir (Lord) Klyppr…Klyppr was not at home, but Álof, his wife, entertained the king well and there was a great feast and much drinking…the king goes during the night to Álof's bed and had sex with her there against her will. Then the king left.]
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This jarring episode, presented in the opaque, verb tense-shifting style characteristic of the saga genre, taps into a much larger motif in Old Norse literature: the depiction of rape and sexual violence perpetrated against women, men, and slaves. 2 However, to date, these issues have largely escaped scholarly attention and exploration, and no comprehensive study of this topic exists at this time. 3 It has been suggested that the popular vision of the raping and pillaging Viking warrior popularized in the nineteenth century gave rise to the trend of reading rape into the surviving literary production of twelfth and thirteenth-century Icelanders, which does not document many such instances. 4 However, this argument overlooks the bountiful textual attestations of sexual violence throughout the older, oral tradition of skaldic verses and the saga corpus that records them. Thus, this article examines a simple question: what can skaldic poetry and other textual sources tell us about occurrences of, and attitudes towards, sexual violence in the Old Norse world? 5 This article argues that these textual artifacts can help historians to discern a spatial and mental geography of sexual violence which necessitates two major shifts in how we think about this practice in medieval Iceland and Norway: first, sexual violence in Old Norse society was much more widespread than previously believed; second, the literary corpus is not quite as prudish when it comes to sexual violence as some scholars have argued. 6
So, why should skaldic poetry be considered a source base from which to undertake this exploration? Named for the Old Norse word for “poet,” skáld, these typically eight-lined stanzas are generally considered to be older than the saga corpus that brings many of them down to us: composed in the ninth through fourteenth centuries, they were written down between the twelfth and the sixteenth centuries. On the whole, they can be attributed to individuals we know to have lived (about 250 poets are named); since poetry was valued highly in Old Norse society, there were social and financial rewards for its composition and preservation. Thus, as Diana Whaley observes, skaldic verse can be considered “approximately historical” to realities in the Viking Age. 7 However, we should not consider skaldic verse as indicative of everyday language and experiences without corroborating evidence: the verses are composed in the complex dróttkvætt meter, which translates literally as “composed for/at court,” meaning it remains at its core a reflection of elite values and anxieties. The problem of these verses’ communication through written sources composed sometimes hundreds of years after their supposed origin also requires careful consideration. For the purposes of this article, though, the question of whether or not skaldic verses clearly reflect everyday life in the Viking Age is not as germane as the fact that they do point to the social systems and concerns of peoples reflecting back on their own past and recording their historical memory. Therefore, while the skaldic verses (and the sagas that relate them) may tell us something about how the tenth- and eleventh-century Norse encountered and understood sexual violence, they can reveal how their twelfth- and thirteenth-century descendants thought about and chose to document these issues.
Sexual Violence Against Women in the Sagas
Violence against women is by far the most discussed aspect of sexual assault and rape that we see in the saga and skaldic poetic corpus. It takes on many forms, sometimes explicitly described, but more often presented in not-so-subtle allusions. Contrary to previous considerations of this topic, which seem to take the position that the elite and monastic authors who recorded the sagas were prudish and avoided discussions of sex or sexual violence, the authors and poets discussed below seem to have been quite comfortable recording examples of the issue, sometimes in very graphic detail. More often than not, they do tend to veil or allude to it; however, as we shall see, they also make a point of highlighting the feelings of women on the matter, if we pay attention to how they describe these violent episodes.
Perhaps the most explicit and most detailed scene of sexual violence comes from the fourteenth-century Grettis saga Ásmundarsonar (The Saga of Grettir Ásmundarson): En er á leið morgininn, stóðu heimamenn upp ok kómu konur tvær í stofu fyrst. Þat var griðkona ok dóttir bonda. Grettir var við svefn, ok höfðu fötin svarfazt af honum ofan á gólfit. Þær sá, hvar maðr lá, ok kendu hann. Þá mælti griðkona: “Svá vil ek heil, systir, hér er kominn Grettir Ásmundarson, ok þykkir mér raunar skammrifjamikill vera, ok liggr berr. En þat þykki mér fádœmi, hversu lítt hann er vaxinn niðr, ok ferr þetta eigi eftir gildleika hans öðrum.” Bóndadóttir svarar: “Hví berr þér svá mart á góma? ok ertu eigi meðalfífla, ok vertu hljóð.” “Eigi má ek hljóð vera um þetta, sæl systirin,” segir griðkona, “því at þessu hefða ek eigi trúat, þó at nökkurr hefði sagt mér.” Fór hon yfir at honum ok gægðist, en stund um hljóp hon til bóndadóttur ok skeldi upp ok hló. Grettir heyrði, hvat hon sagði; ok er hon hljóp enn yfir á gólfit, greip hann til hennar ok kvað vísu:
Síðan svifti hann henni upp í pallinn, en bóndadóttir hljóp fram. Þá kvað Grettir vísu:
Griðka œpti hástöfum, en svá skildu þau, at hon frýði eigi á Gretti um þat (er) lauk. 8
[And as the morning came on, the household got up and two women came into the living room first. It was a slave-woman and the daughter of the farmer. Grettir was asleep, and his clothes had slipped off of him onto the floor. They saw that a man lay there and recognized him. Then the slave-woman said “It is as I say, sister, Grettir Ásmundarson has come here and it seems to me fully true that he is lying there naked. And I am shocked to see how little endowed he is down there, as it does not match the rest of him.” The farmer's daughter says: “Why do you care so much? You are not an average fool, so be quiet!” “I can't keep quiet about this, blessed sister,” says the slave-woman, “because I wouldn't have thought this true if someone had told me about it.” She went over to him and took a peek and ran back to the farmer's daughter bursting with laughter. Grettir heard what she said, and when she ran again across the floor, he grabbed her, pulled her to himself and sang this verse:
Then he yanked her onto the bed and the farmer's daughter ran out. Then Grettir spoke this verse:
The slave-woman shrieked and cried loudly, and when it was over, she no longer made fun of Grettir.]
The author of this saga paints a tragic picture: Grettir speaks an obscene verse about his genitalia to the screams of a woman he is raping. This episode points to a larger trope in the saga literature, identified by Henric Bagerius: the most gruesome and unambiguous scenes of sexual violence against women in the sagas are often described as a way of putting women in their supposed place.
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This is especially true in one episode from Snorri Sturluson's Haralds saga Sigurðarsonar (The Saga of Haraldr Sigurðarson), which describes the revenge Haraldr harðráði (Harald Hard-ruler) takes on two women who mock his fighting prowess: Þá brendu þeir bœ Þorkels geysu; hann var höfðingi mikill; váru þá leiddar dœtr hans bundnar til skipa. Þær höfðu gert spott mikit áðr um vetrinn um þat, at Haraldr konungr mundi fara til Danmerkr með herskipum; þær skáru or osti akkeri, ok sögðu, at slík mundu vel halda skipum Noregs konungs. Þá var þetta kveðit:
Svá segja menn, at njósnarmaðr mælti, sá er sét hafði flota Haralds konungs, við dœtr Þorkels geysu: Pat sögðu þér, Geysudoetr! at Haraldr konungr mundi eigi koma til Danmerkr. Dótta svaraði: Svá var í gjárna. Þorkell leysti út dotr sínar með úgrynni fjár. Svá segir Grani:
[Then they burned the steading of Þorkell geysu (Þorkell Dash); he was a great warlord; then his daughters were taken as captives to the ship. They had made a great joke the winter before that, about how King Haraldr should come to Denmark with warships. They made an anchor sculpture out of cheese and said that it should do nicely to hold back the ships of the Norwegian king. Then this was said:
So men say, that a spy said, who had seen King Haraldr's fleet, to the daughters of Þorkell geysu: “You said this, Geysu-daughters, that King Haraldr would not come to Denmark.” Dótta replied: “So it was, yesterday.” Þorkell ransomed his daughters at great cost. As Grani says:
In return for their mocking of the king of Norway, Dótta and her unnamed sister are forcibly taken to King Haraldr's ships and presumably raped (hence the never ceasing tears), leading their father to pay a large ransom for their release.
These levels of candid description of acts of sexual violence are unique in the sagas and skaldic verses, and almost always coincide with the more explicit episodes of violence against women. Otherwise, Old Norse literary artifacts tend to take a much more description-adjacent position to most actions, sexual violence included. An example of this can be seen in Örvar-Odds saga, where we meet a character named Guðmundr who brags of his sexual exploits while traveling throughout Finnmörk: “ok hefi ek þat svá gørt, at mér þykkir mest gaman at grœta Finnurnar” [and I went along as such, that it seemed to me great fun making the Sámi women cry].
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Similarly, Egils saga Skalla-Grímmsonnar (The Saga of Egill Skalla-Grímsson) contains another such example. While attending a feast with his brother Þórólfr hosted by Jarl Arnfiðr in Halland, Egill draws a lot to spend the evening with the Jarl's daughter. The scene goes as follows: Jarl átti dóttur allfríða ok þá vel frumvaxta; svá sagði hlutr til at Egill skyldi sitja hjá jarlsdóttur um kveldit; hon gekk um gólf ok skemmti sér. Egill stóð upp ok gekk til rúms fless er dóttir jarlsins hafði setit um daginn. En er menn skipuðusk í sæti sín þá gekk jarlsdóttir at rúmi sínu; hon kvað:
Egill tók til hennar ok setti hana niðr hjá sér; hann kvað:
Þá drukku þau saman um kveldit ok váru allkát. 12
[The Jarl had a beautiful and sexually attractive daughter; it is said that Egill drew a lot to sit with the Jarl's daughter for the evening; she goes around the hall and entertains herself. Egill stood up and goes over to the spot where the jarl's daughter had sat during the day. And when the people took their seats, then the Jarl's daughter went to her place; she recited:
Egill yanked her to himself and set her down on top of him; he recited:
Then they drank together that evening and got on well.]
Whether or not this episode depicts sexual violence is unclear; at the very least, the saga writer does want us to know that the Jarl's daughter is not interested in having sex with Egill and would rather spend the night by herself; yet, he forces her to sit on his lap and, the saga implies, have sex with him.
The scene from Egils saga references a repetitive trope in Old Norse prose and poetic sources: the lines between consent and coercion are thin indeed. Other examples of this trope include three instances from Áns saga bogsveigis (The Saga of Án Bow-Bender), Gautreks saga (The Saga of Gautrek), and Ketils saga hængs (The Saga of Ketill Trout). In Áns saga bogsveigis, a man named Ketill arrives at a farmhouse while traveling with King Ingjaldr hinn illráði (Ingjaldr the Unready) and is taken in for the night by an old farmer's family. Wasting no time, Ketill addresses his host: “Gestrinn tók til orða: er sjá dóttir þín, bóndi?…Ek ætla mèr at byggja rekkju með henni í nótt, ok mun yðr eigi betr boðit; karli kveðst ekki mikit um þat” (The guest said these words: “Where is your daughter, farmer?…I will have her in my bed tonight, and you will get no offer better than this one; the old man does not say much about it). 13 Regardless of her father's sullen protest, Ketill takes the girl to his bed. In Gautreks saga, King Gauti spends the night with a farmer's family after he loses his way in the woods. In the midst of a conversation with the farmer's daughter, the king says: “þikjumzt ek sjá, at þú munt mær vera, ok skalltu sofa í hjá mér í nótt.’ Hun bað konung því ráða” (I think it is clear to see that you are still a virgin, and you shall sleep with me tonight. She bid the king do as he willed). 14 Finally, in Ketils saga hængs, the titular Ketill spends the night at a farm owned by a man named Brúni. After arranging the stay, Brúni offers Ketill his daughter, Hrafnhildr: “Bruni spurði, hvort hann vil liggja hjá dóttur hans eðr einsaman; hún hét Hrafnhildr … Ketill kveðst hjá Hrafnhildi liggja vilja” (Brúni asked whether he would lie with his daughter or by himself; she was called Hrafnhildr…Ketill said he would sleep with Hrafnhildr). 15 In each of these situations, women are forced into sexual encounters with men of greater power than them, either by the will of the man involved or their father. Brúni offers Hrafnhildr to Ketill hœngr and the other Ketill and King Gauti demand to sleep with the daughters of their hosts. Though the women acquiesce, it is implied that it is not of their own free will; Hrafnhildr does as she is commanded and neither the unnamed daughter who is forced to have sex with Ketill or the girl who King Gauti desires to have sex with is in any position to refuse the order of a strong warrior or powerful king, backed by the threat of violence and authority.
Such situations crop up again and again in the textual sources: a woman is forced into a sexual relationship with a man because he wields overwhelming force. Several examples of this appear in Egils saga. In an early scene in the saga, a man named Björgólfr meets a woman named Hildiríðr Högnadóttir at a feast. He sets out soon after with 30 armed men and goes to the homestead of Högni, the woman's father. He and 20 of his men go into Högni's hall, where Bjorgolfr says: “erendi er þat hingat at ek vil at dóttir þín fari heim með mér ok mun ek nú gera til hennar lausabrullaup.” En Högni sá engan annan sinn kost en láta allt svá vera sem Björgólfr vildi. Björgólfr keypti hana með eyri gulls ok gengu þau í eina rekkju bæði (“My reason for coming here is that I will take your daughter home with me and will now have an informal wedding to her.”) And Högni saw that he had no other option than to agree to all that Björgólfr wished. Björgólfr tossed an ounce of gold over for her and they had sex). 16 In this depiction, we see that Björgólfr forces Högni to acquiesce to a marriage between Björgólfr and Hildiríðr, helped along, no doubt, by the presence of 20 armed men staring down the father. This scene is re-enacted several times in Egils saga. After Skalla-Grímr (Bald Grímr) and his father, Kveld-Úlfr (Night-Wolf), emigrate to Iceland, their kinsman, Björn Brynjólfsson, falls in love with a woman named Þóra hlaðhönd (Þora the Embroidered-Handed) and asks her father, Þórir, for permission to marry her: his suit is refused. Following this, Björn goes “með skútu alskipaða…ok kom tils Þóris ok svá at hann var eigi heima. Björn nam Þóru á brott ok hafði heim með sér” (with a boatful of men…and came to Þórir's place when he was not at home. Björn stole Þóra away and carried her home with him). 17 This act causes a stir in the community, but we once again see the use of force (in the form of a party of men) employed to force women into sexual relationships with men who desire them.
The abduction of women as form of sexual violence emerges from several prose sources, because the difference between outright rape and abduction is vague.
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Legally speaking, some scholars, such as Lizzie Carlsson, have noted that Icelandic and Norwegian law codes do not make a distinction between rape and abduction, instead viewing both crimes as essentially two sides of the same coin.
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One skaldic verse from Plácitusdrápa (The Lay of Placitus) alludes to this practice:
This poem brings up the notion of “will,” which we have seen before in relation to sexual assault in the saga corpus. The Old Norse phrase generally used to articulate this is “að óvilja hennar,” literally translated “against her will/against her wishes.” In the episode from Haralds saga gráfeldar that began this piece, this phrasing is used to denote the rape. Assault, abduction (and subsequent assault), and rape all fall into this category of “að óvilja hennar.” Other small instances of a woman forced to have sex, or be abducted for that purpose, “að óvilja hennar,” can be found in Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar (The Saga of Óláfr Tryggvason), Finnboga saga ramma (The Saga of Finnbogi the Strong), Gyðinga saga (The Saga of the Jews), Alexanders saga (The Saga of Alexander the Great), the Stjorn (Icelandic translation of Old Testament materials), and Trójumanna saga (The Saga of the Men of Troy). 21 Though some of these texts represent translations into Old Norse/Icelandic from continental European sources, the recorders of the texts nonetheless chose to use the familiar formula of “að óvilja hennar” in rendering the idea of sexual violence against women into their indigenous language.
The intersection of raiding and sexual violence, most notable in the modern association of Vikings with “raping” and “pillaging,” are few and far between in prose sources (the above story of Dótta being an exception), but skaldic verses are filled with potential allusions to the practice. Several verses depicting the aftermath of battles could imply that sexual violence against women is a natural reward for the valor shown by a victorious army. One verse from Krákumál (The Lay of Kraka) demonstrates this sentiment:
Could this reference to weeping maidens be an implication of sexual violence? Discerning whether or not a verse refers to an act of violence against a woman, or is a mere poetic device is sometimes difficult. As Roberta Frank observes, skaldic verse emerged primarily as a male-centric space intended for a male audience, so oftentimes the invocation of women serves as a poetic apostrophe, or perhaps a repetition of a literary trope from heroic poetry, the elves’ grief (a great example being from the first few lines of Hamðismál [The Song of Hamðir]).
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However, the similarity of this imagery to other verses, wherein women must flee an oncoming army or face being brought to grief does not preclude the possibility that these verses refer to impending sexual violence. While obscure, this verse's reference to weeping maidens could be read as an allusion to sexual violence, as similar imagery is repeated in several, less-ambiguous verses. Another way to describe sexual violence after a battle comes from a verse from Einarr Skúlason's poem Geisli (“Light Beam”):
Two smaller stanzas from Útfarardrápa (a poem about Sigurðr Magnusson's participation in the Norwegian Crusade, ca. 1107–1111) and a small verse by the skald Valgarðr about Haraldr harðráði Sigurðarson are far clearer about this after-battle practice:
As the above verses demonstrate, bringing “grief” upon women through sexual violence post-battle was a celebrated aspect of the martial ethos espoused in these poems. These verses are encomiums; they are intended to applaud the exploits of their subjects and the poets considered the grief brought on women to be a matter worthy of praise. A far more explicit verse written by Haraldr harðráði Sigurðarson himself from his Gamanvísur (a collection of poems written around 1043–1044) reinforces this reading of the texts:
Finally, a slightly different perspective is given in Hálfs saga ok Hálfsrekka (The Saga of Hálfr and his Men), in which one part of the titular character's extensive rules for his soldiers includes the following proscription:
The need to forbid the practice could be indicative of just how widespread it was. In the saga, Hrálfr's rules are considered draconian and stifling, so his stance against raping female captives or abducting other men's wives or daughters is, in this context, seen as an inhibitor to the natural order of things, implying that such acts were acceptable enough for their prohibition to be seen as unorthodox. If these instances are read as examples of sexual violence against women, when taken together, these verses imply that the skaldic poets accepted, and even celebrated, sexual violence against women as an innate part of life for warriors and worthy of song.
This discussion is not to say that women only passively accepted rape, though the saga writers only give us a few explicit examples of resistance. The most indicative of these comes from Króka-Refs saga, where we are told of how a man named Grani attempts to rape the wife of Refr, named Helga, when he sees her alone in a hut: “Grane kuezt mundu vera ecke færa-vandr og tók til Helgu. Hon sprettr upp og verst; slær þar í glímu…” (Grani said it would not be so bad and forced himself on Helga. She jerked to attention and fought back, they smacked and wrestled each other…). 29 Helga is eventually saved from rape when her husband comes home at just that moment and kills Grani, due in no small part to Helga's brawl to defend herself. The lack of an active retelling of acts of resistance from women led Fredrik Charpentier Ljungqvist to conclude that the sagas view rape and sexual violence as a mere extension of the male-dominated honor system, where the true offense for rape lay with a woman's male relatives. 30 However, the incorporation, as in a majority of the examples above, of the impact of sexual violence on women is highlighted by the saga authors. We see women shrieking, fighting back, weeping, taking revenge, and more often than not, the saga authors make sure we know that these acts are done “að óvilja hennar.” 31 While the honor system and feuding cycles of the overall saga narratives are certainly part of this story, there is also ample evidence to suggest that saga writers also thought about sexual violence against women as being to some degree about the victims themselves.
Sexual Violence Against Men in the Sagas
Old Norse literary sources approach the issue of sexual violence against men quite differently than acts against women. Most of the time, we only see oblique references to the act, mostly in the form of threats and accusations of dishonor, which Preben Meulengracht Søresen identifies with the practice of níð, or the ritualistic insulting of one's opponents.
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One exception to this “rule” of sorts comes from Guðmundar saga dýra (The Saga of Guðmundr Þorvaldsson). In one episode, Guðmundr goes to take revenge on a supporter of his recently deceased rival, Ǫnundr Þorkelsson, a priest named Björn: “Ok svá kom hann á Öxnahól til Bjarnar prests ok hafði hann í brott með sér ok svá Þórunni Önundsdóttir, fylgjukonu Bjarnar prests. Ok var þat við orð at leggja Þórunni í rekkju hjá einhverjum gárungi, en gera þat við Björn prest, at þat þætti eigi minni svívirðing…” (And so he came to Öxnahól to the home of the priest Björn and had him brought with and also Þórun Önundsdóttir, the concubine of Björn the priest. And it was brought up to lay Þórun in bed with every cocky man and do the same with Björn the priest, that would cause no less dishonor…)
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The saga author leaves little to the imagination here, though this passage has been the subject of much speculation. Guðmundr (before he is talked out of it) plans to subject Þórun Önundsdóttir to a gang-rape from a collection of men, an act Björn will also be subject to himself.
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Another example comes in a rather complicated skaldic verse preserved in Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar, concerning the Danish king Haraldr Gormsson (Harald Bluetooth) and his steward, Birgir:
In this verse, King Haraldr is accused of forcing himself on his courtier, Birgir; the implication here is that both are shamed, Haraldr for impotence (varð…vax eitt), and Birgir being “unmighty” (úríkr) enough to allow himself to be the passive partner. These passages introduce the idea of the great insult and shame being the receiving partner of a same-sex sex act can be for men, an aspect of medieval Norse culture that David F. Greenberg argues has roots in earlier models of sexual mores common in several Iron-Age Germanic societies. 36 Bearing this fact in mind will help us understand the more oblique references to male–male rape in the saga corpus, with often takes the form of insults and thinly veiled threats.
Any discussion of male–male rape and sexual violence must engage with the complex and multifarious system of ergi (adj. argr or ragr) in the Scandinavian world. On one hand, the word seems to denote a man who performs the passive role in same-sex sex acts (usually textually marked as “playing the woman's part”); yet, it also encapsulates adherents to a complex honor system and those who defy it. If any modern English word could come close to encapsulating the interwoven meanings of cultural taboo and potential for social ostracization, yet subversive and transgressive power of the adjective argr, it would be “queer.”
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If we look, for instance, at the following skaldic verse from Krákumál, the multivalent meanings of this work, and its place within a complex relationship to personal honor and warrior culture, come into view:
The poet makes a point to describe cowardice in two different ways “Hugblauðum” (“of a cowardly man”) and “argan,” or argr, though both iterations seem to describe a man who refuses to fight in battle, to his great shame. The translator chooses to use “coward” for both of these instances; yet, the argr accusation goes beyond merely cowardice: its inclusion connotes that the man in question should be subjected to severe social ostracization, because his cowardice goes beyond fear of battle and makes him “queer.” So, “ilt kveða argan eggja” here could also be translated as “they say its bad to incite a queer,” which better encapsulates the latent sexual undertones of this insult. If we follow Preben Meulengracht Søresen's reading, insinuating a man is argr means assuming he would be willing to be the passive partner in same-sex sex acts, and if he would do that, then he could not be expected to protect his community. 39 As this verse shows, there was immense shame in being considered argr, so much that even the accusation of such bore with it social consequences. However, Neil Price has suggested that a certain subversive power could be found in embracing being argr; male practitioners of magic, for instance, could create a space of social power for themselves through the recognized and accepted practice of divination magic, even though practicing divination magic as a man made one argr. 40 Such contradictions can be considered an integral part of pre-Christian Scandinavian belief systems; even Odin, chief god of the Æsir, and the father of the battle-slain, was recognized as the greatest practitioner of divination magic, leading some scholars to name him a “queer” god. 41 The concept of argr remains an intricate and debated aspect of Old Norse studies, but its full picture cannot be understood without considering its connections to níð and threats of past or imminent sexual violence.
One reason for this suggestion is that the practice of níð was highly regulated in early Scandinavian law codes. The Norwegian gulaþing law codes (compiled probably in the twelfth or early thirteenth centuries) specifically laid the threat of outlawry (útlagi), a severe penalty that meant complete excommunication from the community, if any man, “kveðr hann væra kono niundu nott hveria. oc hever barn boret. oc kallar gylvin. þa er hann utlagr,” (said [another man] was a woman every ninth night, or says he bore a child, or calls him a werewolf. Then he is an outlaw.) 42 Grágás (lit. Grey Goose), an Icelandic law collection dating from the tenth century but not written down until the thirteenth, mirrors this proscription by codifying three unutterable words: ragr (metathesized version of argr), stroðinn (participle of streða, which means to take the active role in a sex act), and sorðinn (past participle of streða); a man could kill another for using these to describe him. Grágás also includes a denunciation of the carving of “tré-níð” (tree-níð), which may be a reference to pornographic material, as we shall see below. 43 Generally speaking, when laws are so specific, they are a reaction to a very specific action, so it may be safe to assume that the explicit references to “a woman every nine nights” or the “níð carvings” that we see particularly described in the sagas would have been an easily recognizable image to the saga and skaldic verse audiences.
Examples of these proscribed actions appear again and again in prose sources. The insults designated in the law codes often feature between men in battle or contesting at the þing assemblies. For instance, in Brennu-Njáls saga (The Saga of Burnt Njáll), a disagreement at the Icelandic alþing leads to one character chastising another: “Skarpheðinn mælti: Því þá—ef þú ert brúðr Svínfellsáss, sem sagt er, hverja ina níunda nótt ok geri hann þik at konu,” (Skarpheðinn replied: because, it is said that you are the bride of the troll on Svínfell every ninth night and he makes you the woman).
44
A similar instance arises in Völsunga saga, when before a battle, Sinfjötli, depicted as the half-brother of Sigurðr the Dragon-Slayer through their father Sigmundr, taunts his opponent, Granmarr: Sinfjötli svarar: “Eigi muntu glöggt muna nú er þú vart völvan í Varinsey ok kvazk vilja mann eiga kaust mik til þess embættis at vera þinn maðr. En síðan vartu valkyrja í Ásgarði, ok var við sjálft at allir mundi berjask fyrir þínar sakar, ok ek gat við þér níu varga á Láganesi, ok var ek faðir allra.”
45
[Sinfjötli answers: “You probably don't remember now, when you were the völva in Varinsey and decided you wanted a mate and chose me for this role, to be your man. And then you were a Valkyrie in Ásgarðr and they were all getting ready to fight for your sake, and I made nine wolves with you in Láganess, and I was father to them all.”] 46
The idea of tré níð is also heavily represented. In one episode from Bjarnar saga (The Saga of Björn), we see: Þess er nú við getit, at hlutr sá fannsk í hafnarmarki Þóðar, er þvígit vinveittligra þótti; þat váru karlar tveir, ok hafði annar hött blán á höfði; þeir stóðu lútir, ok horfði annarr eptir öðrum. Þat þótti illr fundr, ok mæltu menn, at hvárskis hlutr væri góðr, þeira er þar stóðu, ok enn verri þess, er fyrir stóð.
47
[This is now how it goes, that something was found by Þorðr's landing place, which many thought disagreeable; there were two men, and one had a black hat on his head; both stood bending, one behind the other. It was an unpleasant find, and people said, that it was not good for either of them that stood there, but the one in front had it worse.]
Similarly, in Gísla saga, another instance emerges when the title character takes the place of a man named Kolbjörn in a duel against Holmgang-Skeggi. When Gísli is late for the duel, the following occurs: Refr hèt maðr, er var smiðr Skeggja. Hann bað, at Refr skylde gjöra mannlíkan eptir Gísla ok Kolbirni— “ok skal annar standa aptar enn annarr; ok skal níð þat standa ávallt, þeim til háðungar” (A man was named Refr who was Skeggja's carpenter. He ordered that Refr should make a wooden carving in the likeness of Gísli and Kolbjörn—“and one shall stand behind the other; and so shall this níð stand always as a dishonor to them.”) 48 Thus, we see that the law codes match specific episodes in the saga corpus, implying that such practices had roots in Viking-Age realities, or at least that the saga writers believed they did.
Such moments are numerous in the saga and skaldic poetic corpuses and have before now been read solely within the framework of the ergi and níð debates, but I would suggest they point to the threat of sexual violence, or allude to the fact it has already occurred. As we saw with Björn the Priest and his threatened rape and King Haraldr and his steward, some of the same motifs of power in depictions of sexual violence against women also hold true for men. Differences in power represented by a crown or a group of armed men staring them down often led to the rape of women: perhaps the same could be said here? Could the pre-battle insults imply the fate that awaited the vanquished if they surrendered? And could the pornographic images set up by Refr (at Skeggi's behest) and found near Þorðr's home be a threat of rape to come? Bearing in mind the ergi system and the severe dishonor it represented, it is not much of a stretch to assume that the dishonor was bound up in a physical threat in addition to an abstract one. Other examples of níð point to this possibility. During the heat of a battle depicted in Ljósvetninga saga (The Saga of the People of Ljósavatn), a man named Guðmundr trips over a pail full of milk, leading his rival, Þorkell hákr to chide him: “Nú kveð ek, [at] rassinn þinn hafi áðr leitat flestra lœkjanna annarra, en mjólkina hygg ek hann eigi fyrr drukkit hafa” (I now say, that your ass has already quenched its thirst from other streams, but I do not think it has drunk milk before).
49
This insult differs significantly from the more concretely ritual “woman every nine nights” or fathering “nine wolves” that we saw earlier. A similar instance occurs in Ölkofra þáttr (The Story of Ölkofri), when a man who loses a case at the Icelandic alþing insults six chieftains who moved against him. His insult for the sixth, Guðmundr, the same from Ljósvetninga saga, goes as follows: Broddi segir: Efna skal þat, eða ætlar þú, Guðmundr, at verja mér skarðit? Allmjök eru þér þá mislagðar hendr, ef þú varðar mér Ljósavatnsskarð, svá at ek mega þar eigi fara með förunautium mínum, en þú varðar þat eigi it litla skarðit, sem er í milli þjóa þér, svá at ámælislaust sé.
50
[Broddi says: “It shall be so, but do you intend, Guðmundr, to defend the pass against me? You are quite misled, if you would defend the Ljósavatn pass against me, so that neither I nor my men could go through, but you will not defend that little pass, which lies in between your buttocks, so as to bring shame.”]
Both of these instances differ in form and substance than the earlier descriptions of níð, coming across as grittier and far more explicit than their counterparts. Perhaps the undercurrent of these insults is the very real possibility of rape, even though they infer that Guðmundr might enjoy it, to his shame.
If we keep these episodes in mind and expand our definition from the most explicit references to sexual violence against men, insinuation of the act persists throughout the sagas. This is most true in the case of the klámhögg (shame-stroke) delivered on a man's buttocks.
Grágás associates the klámhögg with castration and ascribes heavy compensation for it (Sua er oc ef maðr gelliðr mann eða havggr klám havgg um þio þver). 51 We see many instances of this act across the sagas. In Fóstbrœðra saga, a farmer mocks wounded warriors for shrieking at their wounds, so the poet Þórmóðr Bersason Kolbrúnarskáld slices the man's buttocks with a sword. 52 Again in Bjarnar saga Hítdœlakappa, the title character dies on his knees when his enemy, Þórðr, delivers such a stroke: “ok beit af honum þjóhnappana, ok fellr Björn þá” (and he struck off his buttocks and there Björn died). 53 Another case comes from Vatnsdœla saga, where Jökull slashes off the buttocks of the sorcerer Þorgrímr in the midst of battle (sverðit tók til hans ok af þat, er nam en þat váru þjóhmapparnir báðir alt við bakhlut). 54 While these episodes may specifically refer to a literal wound to the buttocks, it is made clear in the texts (and Grágás) that such a wound is greatly dishonorable and puts a man into argr territory. Could the shame arise because these swords to the buttocks represent an act of sexual violence, rather than an actual blade stroke? In Old Norse studies, the interplay of argr and níð are usually read as a pretext for legal disputes or battlefield violence, yet the confluence of skaldic verse and prose sources do not preclude the possibility that such acts went beyond mere words in verse. The legislation against níð and its ties to the argr system demonstrate the social and cultural consequences of, and importance attributed to, insults of this type because they merely insinuated the act of being the passive partner in a same-sex sex act. The threat alone was enough to bring shame on the accused—perhaps this was because such words had a menacing connotation of the intent to perpetrate sexual violence in order to humiliate the accused.
Yet, there is some evidence in the saga and skaldic corpuses that male–male same-sex acts were not uniformly condemned. In the old Icelandic poem Grettisfærsla (The Handing-Off of Grettir), a poem concerning the same Grettir from Grettis saga Ásmundarsonar, the anonymous author leaves little room for interpretation regarding the title character's embrace of same-sex sexual partners.
55
In addition to numerous women, we learn that Grettir:
This poem is truly unique in the saga corpus, as one rarely finds anything more unambiguous, and frankly more vulgar. However, despite its flagrant lack of opacity, the poem celebrates the hero for, unabashedly, taking the active role in all sexual encounters, even those with other men. A similar instance comes down in Sneglu-Halla þáttr (The Tale of Sarcastic-Halli). Throughout this short tale, Sarcastic-Halli, an Icelandic skald serving as an entertainer in the court of Haraldr Sigurðarson, has a number of bantering exchanges with the king where they joke about men having sex with men. In their first encounter, King Haraldr stops a trading vessel that Halli is traveling on and asks where they came from and Halli responds they came from Agðanes (Agði's Ness). Then, King Haraldr replies: “Sarð hann yðr þá eigi hann Agði?” “Eigi enn þá,” sagði Halli. Konungrinn brosti at, ok mælti: Er nökkurr til ráðs um, at hann muni enn síðar meir veita yðr þessa þjónustu? “Ekki,” sagði hann Halli, “ok bar þó einn hlutr mest til þess, er vér fengum enga skömm af honum.” “Hvat var þat?” sagði konungr. Halli vissi gerla, við hvern hann talaði. “Þat, herra,” sagði hann, “et yðr forvitnar at vita, at hann Agði beið at þessu oss tignari manna, ok vænti yðar þangat i kveld, ok mun hann þá gjalda af höndum þessa skuld ótæpt.”
57
[“Has Agði not already banged you?” “Not yet,” said Halli. The king grinned and said: “But has something been agreed on, that he will sometime later do this service for you?” “No,” said Halli, “and there was a crucial reason for this, why we did not suffer any disgrace from him.” “What is that?” said the king. Halli new exactly with whom he was speaking. “It, my lord,” he said, “if you must know, is this: that Agði is waiting for more suitable men in this matter, and knows you will arrive this evening, and he will then fully pay you this debt.”]
Later in the text, Haraldr brings Halli along when he goes to buy a horse. After observing the animal, Halli jokes with the king about his fate if he buys the steed:
Towards the end of the tale, we see another example of this banter: Konungrinn hafði öxi í hendi, ok öll gullrekin, en silfrvafit skaftit ok silfrhólkr mikill á forskeftinu, ok þar í ofan steinn góðr. Þat var ágætr gripr. Halli sá jafnan til öxar innar. Konungr fann þat ok brátt, ok spurði, hvárt Halla litist vel á öxina. Honum kveðst vel á lítast. “Hefir þú sét betri öxi?”. “Eigi ætla ek þat,” segir Halli. “Viltú láta serðast til öxarinnar?” segir konungr. “Eigi,” segir Halli; “enn várkunn þykki mér yðr, at þér vilit svá selja sem þér keypt ut.”
59
[The king had an axe in his hand and it was all inlaid with gold, and its handle was wound in silver and had a great silver band on the upper part of the handle, and there was inlaid a precious gem. It was an excellent thing. Halli often looked at the axe. The king soon noticed this and asked whether Halli well-liked the axe. It seemed well-likeable to him. “Have you seen a better axe?” “Not that I recall,” says Halli. “Would you let a man screw you for this axe?” says the king. “No,” says Halli; “but I think it understandable that you wish to sell it for the same price you bought it.”]
These instances are few, yet they nonetheless insinuate that not every joke or insult of a sexual nature was universally frowned upon: both Grettir and Halli are praised for either their role as the active partner, or for their banter about ergi, even when speaking to a king. Trying to decipher the world of male–male sexual violence in the sagas is, oftentimes, a guessing game fueled by contradictory depictions of insult, insinuation, and outright examples of rape and sexual violence. However, it is worth noting that without exception, those authors who do condemn a man taking the passive role in same-sex sex acts, be they willing or coerced, want to communicate that those men face shame and ridicule, a position quite different than the one we see in violence directed against women.
Sexual Violence Against Slaves
There is one aspect of depictions of sexual violence in the sagas that has heretofore escaped any major scholarly attention: the problem of slavery. Up until now, this article has focused mainly on examples of contact between free people (one notable exception being the slave woman that Grettir rapes). However, another dimension of sexual violence that the sagas ruminate on is the fate of numerous women sold into sexual slavery, likely as a result of widespread raiding during the Viking Age. 60
A scene from Laxdœla saga (The Saga of the People of Laxardal) depicts what this practice might have looked like on the ground. The episode takes place when an Icelander named Höskuldr attends an assembly in Norway. It goes as follows:
Ok einn dag, er Höskuldr gekk at skemta sér með nökkura menn, sá hann tjald eitt skrautlegt fjarri öðrum búð um. Höskuldr gekk þangat ok í tjaldit, ok sat þar maðr fyrir í guðvefjarklæðum, ok hafði gerzkan hatt á höfði, Höskuldr spurði þann mann at nafni. Hann nefndist Gilli— “en þá kannast margir við, ef heyra kenn ingarnafn mitt; ek em kallaðr Gilli enn gerzki.” Höskuldr kvaðst oft hafa heyrt hans getit; kallaði hann þeira manna auðgastan, sem verit höfðu í kaupmannalögum. Þá mælti Höskuldr: “Þú munt hafa þá hluti at selja oss, er vér viljum kaupa,” Gilli spyrr, hvat þeir vilja kaupa, förunautar. Höskuldr segir, at hann vill kaupa ambátt nökkura, — “ef þú hefir at selja.” Gilli svarar: “Þar þykkist þér leita mér meinfanga um þetta, er þér falið þá hluti, er þér ætlið mik eigi til hafa, en þat er þó eigi ráðit, hvárt svá berr til.” Höskuldr sá, at um þvera búðina var fortjald. Þá lyfti Gilli tjaldinu, ok sá Höskuldr, at tólf konur sátu fyrir innan tjaldit. Þá mælti Gilli, at Höskuldr skyldi þangat ganga ok líta á, ef hann vildi nökkura kaupa af þessum konum. Höskuldr gerir svá. Þær sátu allar saman um þvera búð ina. Höskuldr hyggr at vandlega at konum þessum; hann sá, at kona sat út við tjald skörina; sú var illa klædd. Höskuldi leizt konan fríð sýnum, ef nökkut mátti á sjá. 61
[And one day, when Höskuldr goes to the festival with some of his men, he sees a decorated tent a little ways away from the others. He goes there and into the tent, and there set a man before him in resplendent clothes and with a Russian hat on his head. Höskuldr asked the man his name. He was called Gilli—“but many know me by my nickname; I am called Gilli the Russian.” Höskuldr said he had heard him spoken of often; they called him of all the men gathered there the richest in merchandise. Then Höskuldr said: “You should have anything here that I wish to buy.” Gilli asks, what he and his men wished to buy. Höskuldr says, that he wishes to buy a slave woman—“if you have one to sell.” Gilli replies: “It seems that you are trying to embarrass me in this, when you ask me for something that you think I do not have, but it is not advisable, to show one's mind on such a thing.” Höskuldr saw that a curtain was drawn across the tent. Then Gilli lifted the curtain, and Höskuldr saw that twelve women sat beyond the curtain. Then Gilli said, that Hökuldr should go there and decide if he wished to buy one of these women. Höskuldr so goes. They sat lined up across the tent. Höskuldr thinks carefully about these women; he saw that one woman sat out towards the edge of the tent; she was poorly dressed. The woman seemed fair to Höskuldr, at least to look at.]
The two men go on to haggle over the price of the woman, whose name is Melkorka, and eventually Höskuldr purchases her and takes her back to his tent and, “Þat sama kveld rekti Höskuldr hjá henni” (that very same evening Höskuldr had sex with her). 62 While we eventually learn that Melkorka is the daughter of an Irish king and she comes to have high regard from Höskuldr, the core imagery of this passage, a man casually happening upon a merchant who traffics women for sex, is visceral. Scholars who have looked at rape in the Old Norse literary corpus have constantly overlooked this passage and the underworld of sorts it imagines. Höskuldr goes to this merchant and immediately insists that he is looking to purchase a sex slave. The issue is not that such merchants are rare, only that he does not expect this merchant to have the merchandise he seeks. Thus, he is pleasantly surprised when the Gilli reveals his enslaved stock of women and takes his time inspecting each one to find which one he desires most. From a legal standpoint, such an arrangement was institutionally supported. Grágas explicitly named a man's right to purchase a slave woman for sexual purposes (til karnaðar). 63 Taken collectively, these discourses point to a pertinent question: how common (or truthful) was this practice as described in Laxdæla saga?
The identification of Gilli as a “Russian” in Laxdæla saga could be more than mere coincidence, as numerous outside observers viewed the Rus’, Scandinavian traders from what is now Sweden and Denmark who traded along the Volga River and into the Black Sea region, as primary traffickers in women as sex-slaves. 64 Such outside observers remain our single greatest source of information on slave trading and the roles that unfree individuals faced in Viking-Age Scandinavia. The Byzantine emperor Constantine VII (r. 919–959), for one, described a band of Rus’ traders ferrying captives up and down the Dnieper river in his De Administrando Imperio. 65 Arabic sources are more fruitful here, especially for details about the capturing and transportation of women. Ahmad ibn Fadlan, an emissary from the Abbasid Caliph in Baghdad to the Volga Bulgars, famously described the burial of a Rus’ chieftain and the ritualistic sacrifice of one of his concubines to serve him in the afterlife (ca. 921). 66 In another part of his description of the Rus’, Ibn Fadlan recorded that numerous Rus’ merchants he encountered trafficked enslaved women: “They are accompanied by beautiful female slaves for trade with the merchants. They have intercourse with their female slaves in full view of their companions. Sometimes they gather in a group and do this in front each other. A merchant may come in to buy a female slave and stumble upon the owner having intercourse. The Rus does not leave her alone until he has satisfied his urge.” 67 Other Arabic sources elaborate on this theme: Ahmad ibn Rustah, a geographer from Isfahan, recorded (ca. 903–913) that the Rus’ had a proclivity for raiding for slaves, taking the women for concubinage and keeping the men for labor and Ali ibn al-Athir (ca. 1231, though likely drawn from much earlier exemplars), from Mosul, described a Rus’ raid on the city of Barda’a which resulted in the massacre of the populace, after which, “The Rūs then took the valuables of the people and enslaved the remaining prisoners, and took the women and enjoyed them.” 68 While these sources come from outside Scandinavia, Stefan Brink notes that their descriptions tend to correlate with archaeological finds in Sweden from around the tenth century. 69 Thus, the image of Gilli in Laxdæla saga may have strong correlations to the trafficking of women as sex-slaves in the eastern Baltic, as it is presented in surviving textual evidence.
Such taking of war captives as sex slaves was likely quite widespread in the Viking age and after. While the study of concubinage is an old avenue of research in Old Norse studies, Ben Raffield has recently demonstrated that archaeology supports the siting of slave markets in Denmark and the Baltic Sea region, which are likely, he thinks, based on the written observations of Byzantine and Arab observers, places where young women were sold into sexual slavery. 70 One possible explanation for this phenomenon, put forward by Raffield, Price, and Mark Collard, is that combined factors of concubinage and polygamy and an increasing wealth stratification in the Viking Age created a pool of unmarried, poor, young men who turned to raiding for war captives and sexual slavery to “acquire” women. 71 Far from being unsupported by archaeological and literary sources, the practice of sexual slavery is quite well-documented and perhaps even more widespread than Raffield, Price, and Collard believe.
Skaldic verses are ripe with examples of women taken as booty after a battle and insinuate a practice of sexual slavery was commonplace in the centuries before the sagas were written down. Such was the fate of Dótta and her sister, guilty of carving the cheese anchor, which has already been described in verses from Haralds saga Sigurðarsonar. More unambiguous examples come down in Snorri Sturluson's Magnúss saga ins Góða (The Saga of Magnús the Good). For instance, one verse about the aftermath of a battle between Magnús and the king of Denmark demonstrates the assumed reaction of those left unprotected by a retreating army:
And another poem elaborates on this theme:
Finally, a stanza from Haralds saga Sigurðarsonar leaves little to the imagination about the aftermath of one of the titular king's raids:
Women flee before the armies of Magnús, for good reason it seems, for the stanzas make no secret of the soldier's desire to acquaint themselves with the wives of the slain. The stanza from Haralds saga Sigurðarsonar confirms that the fate of captured women was to be led in chains to ships: would this mean an entrance into the slave trade to follow? The taking of women as booty after a battle was, according to these stanzas, a sign of honor and the expectation of victorious warriors after battle. It is therefore likely that this practice fed into the slave trade highlighted by Raffield and described in Laxdæla saga. The story of one of the early settlers of Iceland, Geirmundr Heljarskinn (Geirmundr the Dark-skinned), preserved in Landnámabók (The Book of Settlement), provides another indicative example of this practice. The compiler of Landnámabók tells us that Geirmundr's mother was taken as a sex slave during a raid and forcibly married to his father, Hjör: “Hjör herjaði á Bjarmaland; hann tók þar að herfangi Ljúfvinu dóttur Bjarmakonungs. Hún var eftir á Rogalandi, þá er Hjör konungur fór í hernað; þá ól hún sonu tvo…” (Hjör raided in Bjarmaland; he from took there as booty Ljúfvina, daughter of the king of Bjarmaland. She was afterwards in Rogaland, where King Hjör went to raid; then she gave birth to two sons…) 75
Conclusions
This article has endeavored to demonstrate that through an analysis of skaldic verses, augmented by the prose sources that record them, historians can discern a spatial and mental geography of sexual violence in and around Viking-Age Scandinavia. The enduring image of sexual violence in the literary production of Icelanders and Norwegians is that it was widespread, multifaceted, and affected people from all walks of life, noble to slave. Inuendo and insinuation makes up a large chunk of the instances of sexual violence we see in the literary corpus; however, in numerous instances the authors of the sagas explicitly name sexual violence “against the will” of the victim (að óvilja). The belief that the saga writers were somewhat reserved or restrained in talking about sexual violence just does not hold up in relation to the sheer number of examples we see in the texts themselves. While the ambiguity (or not) of descriptions varies from text to text, the practice seems to have been something that the saga writers had to contend with, and they adapted a variety of strategies to do just that.
Beneath the literary representations of sexual violence lies an underworld of sorts that the sagas and skaldic verses gesture to, but rarely elaborate on: the sexual slave trade resulting from raids and warfare throughout the north Atlantic world and the sheer amount of women (primarily) this system moved around and subjected to cycles of abuse and rape. The stories of Melkorka, Dótta, and Ljúfvinu point to this reality, but it seems to be a stone the saga authors would prefer to be left unturned. In way of a conclusion, this preliminary study suggests that the future of studies of rape and attitudes towards it in Viking-Age and medieval Scandinavia must take seriously the existence and proliferation of sex slaves and their travels. Only by telling their stories can we truly come to understand the full extent of sexual violence in the Old Norse world.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.
