The Religion of the Northmen
JUDGMENTS OF THE GODS
Chapter XXIII
Page 2
It is easily seen in the foregoing descriptions, that there was a great difference in the hólmgangs, the two first-mentioned being quite simple, and the latter one being attended with more difficulties. We also see in the latter that there was a distinction made between the einvígi and the hólmgánga, and that it was the duels of the latter sort that were attended with such complicated difficulties.
The Einvígi being the simplest, was probably also the oldest form of single combat. It was gradually made more and more complicated, so that the combatants might have better opportunities for displaying their strength and skill. The duel, however, appears to have been always called Hólmgánga, when it was resorted to for justice, whether it was of the simpler or more complex kind. Therefore, the two forementioned hólmgangs, taken from Egil's Saga, may be considered to approach more nearly the einvígi.
The peculiarities of the einvígi, in its more limited sense, were doubtless these: that the space allotted to the combatants for action was not so limited, that they had liberty to use more kinds of weapons than the sword alone, and that they held their own shields. But the peculiarities of the complicated hólmgang were: that the combat should take place upon a Felld or a kind of mantle, that the combatants were allowed to use three shields apiece, and in general did not themselves bear them, but each one had one of his friends to hold the shield before him, who was thence called his Shield-bearer (skjaldsveinn), that they fought with swords only and those of a certain length, and that they regularly exchanged blows.
Both kinds of duel, when resorted to for justice, were regulated by certain laws, which were recited by the challenger before the fight began; both conveyed the right of the challenged to strike the first blow, and to appoint a man in his stead, if he himself should feel any hesitation to meet his antagonist; both were accompanied with the sacrifice of one or two oxen, which the victor butchered; and finally, the hólm-fine or ransom of the vanquished for a certain sum fixed beforehand (three marks of silver, or more), appears to have been common to both. Sometimes the challenger, when the duel was to decide the possession of property, in order to show his disinterestedness, would stake as much value in money as was risked by the party against whom he made his claims.
It may, doubtless, be considered to have been a departure from the usual custom when sometimes each of the combatants stood upon his own felld, beyond which he was not to move so much as a finger's breadth; or when one fought against several, one after the other, in the same engagement.
Another kind of hólmgang, or duel, was the so-called kergánga, in which the contending parties were inclosed in a covered tub or vessel, and there in the dark exchanged cuts or thrusts, while they fended with batons which they held in one hand. This combat is only found described in a single place in the Sagas, and may, therefore, be regarded as having been of rare occurrence. The account is as follows:
"When the Icelander Thorgils, called Orrabein's Step-son, came on mercantile business to Upland in Sviðþjóð (Sweden), he remained during the winter with a rich countryman named Thrand, who had a daughter Sigrid. To her a certain Randvid, an evil-disposed fellow, but a great warrior, had paid his address. Thrand refused his consent to the marriage. Thereupon Randvid challenged Thrand to a kind of hólmgang called kergánga, in which the parties shall fight in a covered vessel, having each a club in his hand. Thrand would rather fight than give his daughter to so wicked a man. Then said Thorgils to him, 'Thou hast entertained me hospitably, I will reward thee accordingly; I will fight with Randvid in thy stead.' Thrand accepted his offer. Thrand had the sword Jarðhúsnaut (a sword which he had found in a subterranean passage); Randvid had a very slender baton, an ell in length, in his hand. When all was ready, the tub was covered. Randvid told Thorgils to thrust the first, for he was the challenged. He did so, struck the baton so that it broke in pieces, and wounded Randvid in the abdomen. The latter then said, 'Give me now the sword, but do thou have the baton, then shall I stab thee with the sword.' 'Methinks now,' said Thorgils, 'that there is not any baton.' Soon afterward Randvid died. He had relied upon his sorcery; for he had killed many a man in this kind of Hólmgang." (14)
The Kergánga has something in common with the Belt-clasping (Beltespænden), still common in modern times among the peasants in some of the mountain districts of Norway, in which the two contending parties are inclosed within a large belt constructed for that purpose, and thrust at each other with large pocket-knives. Of this kind of duel there are scarcely any traces to be found in the ancient Sagas.
There were men in heathen times, as has been already alluded to in the above-quoted accounts, who made the hólmgang a means of gaining a subsistence, and even a source of wealth; such were especially the so-called Berserks (Berserkr, plur. Berserkir), of whom it may be proper here to speak more at length.
The name of Berserkir was given to certain men who sometimes, especially in the heat of battle, were carried away by a wild frenzy which for the moment redoubled their strength and rendered them insensible to bodily pain, but at the same time deadened all humanity and reason in them, and made them like furious wild-beasts. In this condition, according to the ancient descriptions, they distorted their countenances hideously and changed color, now pale, now blue, and the hair stood up on their heads; they raved like dogs or wolves, and were as strong as bears or bulls; they howled like wild-beasts, bit the edge of their shields, and hewed down everything that met them, often without distinguishing between friend and foe, not even sparing their own children or nearest kindred, if these happened to come in their way. Neither fire nor steel, it was believed, could then take effect on them; with terror people saw them wade through fire or cast themselves upon naked weapons as if in pastime. In battle they went forth unharnessed, clad in the bare serk or shirt, whence probably their name was derived. This mad fury of theirs was called Berserksgang, and seems to have been regarded by the zealous Asa-worshipers as an inspiration from the War-God Odin. The Berserksgang, however, not only made its appearance in time of battle, but often also during severe labors, when the men who were trasported by it accomplished things which otherwise seemed impracticable for human power. It was mostly called forth when the passion of the Berserk, and more especially his anger, was awakened. When the Berserksgang had spent its fury, there followed a great stupor and weakness, which often lasted many days.
In some, who in other respects were peaceable men, the Berserksgang was an actual disease, that came upon them at certain times without any known cause. It is said to have begun with a trembling, a chattering of the teeth, and a coldness of the body, followed by a great heat, which finally passed over into a perfect frenzy, during which the patient showed no mercy to anything whatever that came near him. When the disease left him, he again became as peaceable as before. Thus it is said of the Icelander Thrymketill "that there was a great defect in his mind, and some looked upon it as a disease. It came over him every fortnight; a trembling seized upon his body so that every tooth in his head clattered, although his friends sought for him every elleviation possible. After this trembling and coldness followed a great heat; he then spared nothing about him, neither wall, stick, staff, nor man; even if there was a fire in his way he would go right through it. He tore off the table-covers and the door-casings from the house, whenever he could get at them. But when the frenzy left him he was again gentle and peaceable." (15) It is no wonder that in such cases the Berserksgang was considered a great defect; we find even that those who were possessed by it made vows to the Gods for the sake of being delivered from the plague.
The Berserks had another name given them by our forefathers, viz.: hamramir menn, and their madness was at hamast. These expressions denote the idea of the ancients concerning the nature of the Berserksgang. The Old-Norse word hamr signifies external form, disguise or semblance. Sometimes it was also used to denote the animal-fylgia or attendant spirit, which was believed to accompany every human being invisibly, as a kind of inferior guardian spirit. (16) The animal-fylgia (dýr-fylgja), as before said, expressed, in a certain manner, the character of the person whom it attended. Cruel, passionate men were thus believed to have ferocious wild-beasts as their fylgias. When their passion overpowered them to such a degree that it made them raving and deprived them of the use of reason, it was believed that the beast stepped up in the place of the man, that it entered the outward form of the man but acted with its own peculiar strength and unruliness. It was, therefore, said of one thus possessed by the Berserksgang, that he was not single or one-formed (ekki einhamr), i.e., that another, stronger being acted in his human form. The superstition in this matter sometimes went even so far that they assumed the outward form of the animal, as well as its internal nature and its strength.
Warlike chieftains endeavored to attract the Berserks to their armies, in order to render themselves so much the more irresistible and the more terrible to their enemies. Thus Harald Hárfagri is said to have had Berserks in his service, which were called Wolf-hides (úlfheðnar), because they wore wolf-skins over their armor. Their station was in the prow of the King's ship, as it was most exposed, in time of battle, to the attacks of the enemy. The Berserks could in this way become useful to those chieftains who had men enough to keep them in check when the Berserksgang came over them untimely. But to the masses the Berserks were a terror, and they availed themselves of the fear which they inspired---and which they naturally strove to augment by strengthening the superstition of their invulnerability---in order to bring into their power whatever they might wish to gain from the weaker. A challenge to hólmgang, for instance, was ever ready on the part of the Berserk when his shameless demands of property or of women were repulsed, and his wild frenzy, joined to his skill in the accomplishments requisite in a duel, secured to him in most cases a favorable issue of the battle. Those who in this way made of the hólmgang a means of gain, were usually called hólmgang-men (hólmgöngu-menn); their number was not inconsiderable in heathen times, and they were a real plague to the peaceable countrymen, whom they took pleasure in tormenting on all occasions.
Although the hólmgang degenerated in this manner into a tool of the basest selfishness, revenge, and wickedness, there is, at the same, time no doubt that it was originally a religious custom, in which the fundamental idea was, that the Gods would make manifest by the issue of the battle which of the contending parties had justice on his side. Therefore it was, even after its religious significance had become a matter of secondary importance, frequently attended with sacrifices, prayers, and other religious performances. The hólmgang was thus in effect a judgment of the Gods, intimately connected with the Asa-faith, and among the Northmen it disappeared with that faith, at least as a judicial act, although among many kindred nations, especially among the Germans, the duel passed over from the heathen into the Christian code. In Norway it was the Christian Jarls Eirik and Sveinn Hákonssons who abolished the hólmgang while Christianity was yet far from being generally introduced into the country (AD. 1000-1014), while they at the same time established the penalty of outlawry against the hólmgang-men and Berserks who aggrieved the citizens. (17) In Iceland, where Christianity became the established religion by a decree of the people in the Al-Thing, AD 1000, the hólmgang was soon afterwards abolished by the popular voice, in consequence of a duel of this kind between two Icelandic youths of distinction, the skalds Gunnlaug Ormstúnga and Skáld-Rafn. The issue of the battle between them being indecisive, and the combatants wishing to renew it, their influential kinsmen interfered and obtained the prohibition of all hólmgangs by law. (18)
Another judicial proceeding of the heathen Northmen, which was regarded still more expressly as a judgment of the Gods, though it is much less frequently mentioned that the hólmgang, was the custom of going under a strip of earth (ganga undir jarðarmen) in order to clear one's-self from accusations, to prove the justice of his claims or the truth of his assertions. This custom is called skírsla in the Old-Norse---a name which signifies a purification or setting free from accusations, and which was probably common to all similar customs. We find a description of it in the Laxdæla Saga. "It was a mode of setting one's-self free from accusations in those times, for him to go under a strip of earth (þat var skírsla at ganga skyldi undir jarðarmen)---a strip of green-sward being thrown up in such a manner that the ends only rested upon the ground, while he who was to clear himself from unfounded accusations (sá maðr er skírsluna skyldi fram flytja) had to pass under it. The heathens considered it no less a case of conscience, when they had to pass through this ceremony, than the Christians now esteem it when similar modes of purification (skírslur) are applied---as for instance, the ordeal of hot-iron (járnburðr). He who passed under the strip of earth was acquitted if the turf did not fall upon him." The narration in the above-mentioned Saga, shows also how much the heathens feared to submit to this means of deliverance when they were not quite certain themselves of the justice of their cause. The account is as follows:---A certain Icelander of distinction, Thorstein Surt, being by an unlucky accident drowned, with his family, the question arose how his inheritance should be divided among his relatives. A certain Thorkel Trefill, whose wife was Gudrid was a near relative of Thorstein, and had besides a sister among the drowned, wished to get the whole inheritance. He therefore bribed the only survivor of the shipwreck, a certain Gudmund, to declare that the persons drowned had died in such an order that Gudrid's sister, who died last, became the heir of all the rest. Then after her death the whole inheritance should fall to Gudrid. But Gudmund had related the circumstances differently before he had been bribed by Thorkel, and this being rumored abroad, awakened some doubt in the minds of the other heirs, as to the legality of Thorkel's claim. They therefore demanded that Gudmund should be subjected to the above-mentioned test in order to confirm the truth of his later assertion. The test was accordingly decided upon. But as Thorkel was conscious that the whole affair did not hang rightly together, and consequently feared an unfavorable issue of the test, he persuaded two men to make a pretense of falling out in a quarrel at the moment that Gudmund was creeping under the turf, and to throw each other across it in such a way that the bystanders could plainly see that it fell by their fault. The plan was carried out successfully. Just as Gudmund had come under the strip of green-turf the preconcerted quarrel began, and both the combatants fell over the turf, which naturally tumbled down upon Gudmund. Thorkel now called upon the bystanders to give their opinion of the test, and they, being mostly his friends, declared with one voice that it would have turned out favorable if it had not been disturbed. It was decided accordingly and Thorkel took possession of the inheritance. (19)
This ceremony was sometimes accompanied with the taking of oaths, as was the case, for instance, when two or more persons swore fellowship (fóstbræðra-lag) with each other. On this occasion they sometimes passed under three such strips of turf. (20) This ceremony was also employed as a symbol of humility, in which case the first strip was to be raised as high as the shoulders, the second should reach the hips, the third as high as the middle of the thighs.
Another kind of heathen ordeal may here be mentioned in conclusion, which is spoken of in a few places in the ancient Eddaic poems, namely, the ceremony of clearing one's-self from an accusation by taking up stones out of a boiling cauldron with the bare hand, without injuring the hand. It is related of King Atli's Queen, Guðrún, that when she was accused of illicit intercourse with one King Thjodrek, a guest a Atli's court, she desired to prove her innocence by the means here spoken of. The ordeal was performed with great solemnities. The seething cauldron was consecrated by a certain King who was skilled in such things, who had been sent for on the occasion, and seven hundred of King Atli's men were present in the hall where the ordeal took place. Guðrún took up the stones from the bottom of the boiling cauldron with unscathed hand, and was acquitted. But Herkja, Atli's mistress who had accused the Queen, burned her hand when she was subjected to the same ordeal, and in punishment for her falsehood was cast into a pool and drowned. (21)
This whole affair, however, if indeed there be anything historical in the account, took place among the German tribes. The ordeal may therefore have been in use among them in heathen times, and through then become known to the Northmen, without having been employed by them. Not until Christian times do we find with certainty that the Northmen adopted this ordeal (ketilfang, or ketiltak), (22) which among the Germans was, like many similar customs, carried over from heathendom to Christianity.
Endnotes
13. Kormaks S. 9-10. [Back]
14. Flóamanna S. 14. [Back]
15. Dropl. Son. S. 3. [Back]
16. Chap. 18. [Back]
17. Grettis S. 21. [Back]
18. Gunnlaugs Ormstúnga S. 11. [Back]
19. Laxd. S. 18. [Back]
20. Fostbr. S. 1. [Back]
21. The O. Edda: Guðrúnarkv. III. [Back]
22. Eiðsiva Thing's Chr. Laws, 42 & Norw. Anc. Laws, I., p. 389, &c. [Back]
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