IV. BOOK inherited by their offspring. It is mentioned to have been their practice to command their gold, silver, and other property to be buried with them, that their offspring might be driven by necessity to engage in the conflicts, and to participate the glory of maritime piracy." Inherited property was despised. That affluence only was esteemed which danger had endeared. 18 It was therefore well said of the Northmen by one of their contemporaries, that they sought their food by their sails, and inhabited the seas. 21 20 19 EVEN the regular land-kings addicted themselves to piracy. It was the general amusement of their summer months: hence almost every king commemorated by Snorre is displayed as assaulting other provinces, or as suffering invasions in his own. With strange infatuation, the population of the day welcomed the successful vikingr with the loudest acclamations; although, from the prevalence of the practice, domestic misery became the general lot. The victors of one day were the victims in the next; and he who was consigning without pity the women and children of other families to the grave or to famine, must have often found on his return but the ashes of his paternal habitation, and the corpses of those he loved. THE name by which the pirates were at first distinguished was Vikingr, which perhaps originally 17 Vatzdæla ap. Barth. 438. 18 Ibid. 19 Nigellus, who lived about 826, has left a poem on the baptism of Harald, in which he says, "Ipse quidem populus late pernotas habetur, Lintre dapes quærit, incolitatque mare." 1 Lang. 400. 20 Verel, in Got. et Rol. p. 75. 21 Yngl. c. 26. p. 31, 32. 40. Hence Snorre marks the autumn as the season of their return. 22 II. meant kings of the bays. It was in bays that CHAP. they ambushed, to dart upon the passing voyager. The recesses of the shores afforded them a station of safety as to the perils of the ocean, and of advantage as to their pursuit. Our bolder navigation, which selects in preference the middle of the ocean, was then unusual. The ancient merchants coasted wherever they could, and therefore naturally frequented bays in the progress of their voyage. In hopes of prey, the bays were also full of pirates, ever ready to dart upon their object. 23 THESE fierce bands of robbers appear to have been kept in amity with each other by studied equality. It was a law, that the drinking-vessel should pass round the whole crew, as they sat, with undistinguished regularity." Their method of fighting was the offspring of their fearless courage; they lashed their ships together, and from the prows rushed to mutual battle. 25 THE ferocity and useless cruelty of this race of beings almost transcend belief. The piracy of the vikingr, who were also called hernadi", was an exhibition of every species of barbarity. Besides the 22 Wormius says, viig means a bay. Mon. Dan. 269.; and Bartholin favours the derivation, 446. 23 Wormius, 269. And see the dissertation annexed to the Gunnlaugi Saga, 303. 24 Snorre, Yngl. Saga, c. 41. p. 50. This custom is stated to have prevailed among the predatory Britons; "circa modium cerevisiæ ordinatim in modum circuli, illud circumdando discubuerunt." Vita Cadoci, MSS. Cotton Library, Vesp. A. 14. 25 Snorre, Haralld's Saga, c. 11. p. 85. 26 These words were at first promiscuously used. The Brandkrossa thetti, and the Svarfdalensium historia, cited by the editors of the Gunnlaugi Saga, p. 305., evince that they had some difference of meaning, but I do not think we understand the distinction. They who are curious may read the dissertation above quoted, p. 305. IV. 28 BOOK Savage food of raw flesh and blood", which, however, the Greenlanders of our times are stated to have used, as also the Abyssinians 29, to tear the infant from the mother's breast, and to toss it on their lances from one to another 29, is stated in several books to have been the custom of many of these pirates, from which, though at a late period, their civilising chiefs at lest alienated them. It was a consistency of character in such men to despise tears and mourning so much, that they would never weep for their deceased relations.30 The ONE branch of the vikingr is said to have cultivated paroxysms of brutal insanity, and they who experienced them were revered. These were the berserkir, whom many authors describe. These 31 27 See the Saga Gothrici et Rolfi, and also the Helgaquida of Sæmund, in Barthol. 456. One of the laws of Hialmar mentioned in the Orvar Oddz Sagu, was, ne crudam carnem comederent. Ibid. 28 That the Greenlanders eat raw flesh, and drink the rein-deer's hot blood, see 2 Crantz, 28. And as to Abyssinia, see Bruce's life, p. cvii. 2d edition. 29 This is stated by the English annalists, as Osborn, in his life of Elphegus, 2 Langb. p. 444. Matt. West. p. 388., and Henry of Huntingdon, lib. v. p. 347. After citing these, Bartholin records from the Landnamâ, the name of the man who abolished the horrid custom. The Landnamâ says, "Olverus Barnakall celebris incola Norvegiæ, validus fuit pirata, ille infantes ab unius hasta mucrone in aliam projici, passus non est, quod piratus tunc familiare erat; ideoque Barnakall (infantum præsidium vel multos habens infantes) cognominatus est. Bartholin, p. 457. 30 Adam Brem. states this fact of the Danes, p. 64. 31 The berserkir were at first honoured. The Hervarar Saga applies the name to the sons of Arngrim, as a matter of reputation. Omnes magni berserkir fuere, p. 15. Snorre, in mentioning one who fought with Haralld Harfragre, calls him a berserkir mikill, a mighty berserkir Haralld's Saga, c. 19. p. 94. The scalld Hornklofi says, fremuere berserki bellum eis erat circa præcordia, p. 95. In another place, Snorre says, Haralld filled his ship with his attendants and berserkir; he says, the station of the berserkir was near the prow, ibid. p. 82.; he mentions them also, 69. It was in allusion to their ferocity, that the Harbarz lioth of Sæmund applies the name berserkir to signify giants. Edda Sæmundar, p. 107. 33 II. men, when a conflict impended, or a great under- CHAP. taking was to be commenced, abandoned all rationality upon system; they studied to resemble wolves or maddening dogs; they bit their shields they howled like tremendous beasts 32; they threw off covering; they excited themselves to a strength which has been compared to that of bears, and then rushed to every crime and horror which the most frantic enthusiasm could perpetrate. This fury was an artifice of battle, like the Indian warwhoop. Its object was to intimidate the enemy. It is attested that the unnatural excitation was, as might be expected, always followed by a complete debility. It was originally practised by Odin.35 They who used it, often joined in companies.36 The furor Berserkicus, as mind and morals improved, was at length felt to be horrible. It changed from a distinction to a reproach, and was prohibited by penal laws. The name at last became execrable. 34 WHEN We consider the calamities, which the 2 Hervar. Saga, p. 35. Saxo describes the berserkir fury minutely twice in his seventh book, p. 123, 124. Torfæus also, in Hrolfli kraka, p. 49., mentions them. 33 Annotatio de Berserkir added to Kristni Saga, p. 142. See the Eyrbyggia Saga, ibid. p. 143. So the Egills Saga ap. Bartholin, p. 346. 34 Hervarar Saga, p. 27. So the Egills Saga ap. Bartholin, p. 346. 35 Snorre, Ynglinga, c. vi. p. 11. In the Havamal of Sæmund, See the ode in Barthol. 347. Odin boasts of it as a magical trick. 36 So they appear in the Hervarar Saga. 37 Thus the Vatzdæla. Thorus furore Berserkico nonnunquam corripiebatur, quod in tali viro probrum ducebatur, neque enim illud ipsi gloriosum erat. Barthol. 345. This man is made to say of himself, that it disgraced him, and he asks advice how to overcome it. Ibid. 346. 38 The code of Icelandic law says, "furore berserkico si quis grassetur, relegatione puniatur." Ann. Kristni Saga, p. 142. So the Grettis Saga mentions of Eric, the earl of Norway, omnes Berserkos Norvegia exulare jussit. Ibid. 142. BOOK IV. course of nature every where mixes with the happiness of man, we should, from theory, expect a general union of sentiment and wisdom to mitigate the evils which none can avoid. Experience however shows our species to have been engaged at all times in exasperating every natural affliction, by the addition of those which human agency can create. Mankind appear from history to have been always attacking each other, without the provocation of personal injury. If civilisation, science, and Christianity have not allayed the spirit of political ambition, nor subdued the love of warlike glory, we cannot be surprised that the untaught Northmen delighted in the depredations to which they were educated, from which they derived honour and fame, and by which they subsisted. Pity and benevolence are the children of our disciplined reason and augmented felicity. They are little known to our species in those ages, when general misery licenses and produces the most tyrannical selfishness. Hence the berserkir, the vikingr, or the sea-king, felt no remorse at the sight of human wretchedness. Familiar with misery from their infancy, taught to value peaceful society but as a rich harvest easier to be pillaged, knowing no glory but from the destruction of their fellow-creatures, all their habits, all their feelings, all their reasonings were ferocious; they sailed from country to country, to desolate its agriculture, and not merely to plunder, but to murder or enslave its inhabitants. Thus they landed in Gothia. The natives endeavoured to escape. The invaders pursued with the flame and sword. So in Sweden, part 39 Snorre, Ynglinga Saga, c. xxi. p. 24. |