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I INTRODUCTION his is my second and final monographic contribution to the project Svealand in Vendel Period and Viking Age (SIV). The T Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation has financed the project. My research within the SIV project centres around ideological and political development during the Late Iron Age and this book in English is partly a summing up of my first contribution in Swedish (Herschend 1998a), partly a synthesis. I have however, chosen to shape the summing up as a series of new studies paralleling and expanding upon the original ones in Swedish. Ingrid Lundegårdh has done her best to revise the text and improve my English. None the less, I still have a lot to learn. Elisabet Green has read the proofs. The time-span discussed is labelled the ‘Late Iron Age’. It covers roughly the 6th to the 11th century AD and thus also what is in South Scandinavia commonly called the Viking Age. This age, however, is not singled out, because the interest of this book is on the transition from a pagan to Christian society, and not on the revival of the warfare, plundering, trade and colonisation originally introduced during the Late Roman Iron Age. The renaissance or revival character of the Viking Age is in other words not in focus. On the contrary, the path I hope to clear is that which proceeds from the Migration Period (i.e. the aftermath and crisis of the Late Roman Iron Age) into the medieval. This is a short step in Gaul and a long one in Scandinavia, so long in fact that in some peripheral parts, the foot was not put down until well after AD 1100. It is my emphasis upon the Mälar Valley that has resulted in the upper time limit. The book falls into three parts. In the first, three studies link the male and female journey of civilisation to the social structure and cosmology of the transitory pre-Christian society. The journey is the theme of the first study which makes it clear that the endpoint for the journey of civilisation is the hall. The second study discusses the word sal. The word is used in Swedish Iron-Age place names as a synonym for the word ‘hall’. However, the meaning of the word has been considered to differ within the area and period in question. Occasional- ly, sal is thought to have denoted a meadow barn, but it was also used to denote a king’s residence. Were it so—residence as well as barn— essential parts of the arguments in the first study would lose their general significance. Therefore, the second study is devoted to the meaning of the word sal in Swedish place names. Having shown that the word is synonymous with ‘hall’ (building upon a discussion by Stefan Brink) it becomes possible to expand a bit upon the topographi- cal position of the hall and the economic raison d’être of the hallcentred society. In the third study, the significance of the journey and the hall or house is brought into the analysis of the aristocratic graves of the trans- itory period. These graves mirror transition as well as the journey and home of men and women. Within the three first studies, pagan civilisation and cosmology have been sketched. The greatest difference between pagan and Christian societies is considered to be ontological and pagan ontology is strongly marked by the idea that reality can be understood as a number of complementary realities or worlds abutting the world immediately perceived around us. The second part of the book consists of two chapters designed to give a picture of the social and ontological differences between pagan and Christian societies, but also a sketch of the character of the change in pagan society within its development towards a Christian one. The 8 once modern, Christian society is depicted in a study analysing the Old High German poem Ludwigslied. The study points out the differences between the two societies. The second study summarises change in pagan society. The chapter is based upon an analysis of the rune-stone poetry and a strophe by Kormak O?gmundersson quoted by Snorri. This strophe from the mid-tenth century gives what is understood as a true picture of a small event, which signifies the change and its problem. The use and character of poetry is in itself an expression of the transitory phase and with examples drawn from the rune-stones in the Mälar Valley it can be shown how the poetic dimension in pagan under- standing comes to an end during the transition to Christianity. These analyses lead to a renewed description of the characteristics of the pagan ontology. In the two first parts, the complexity of pagan society becomes apparent and it would seem that it is the complexity in itself which stands in the way of the political and social development wished for by royal and aristocratic circles. It has become plausible that the simpli- fication of the ideological scene is Christianity’s main contribution to the ideology of the transitory society. The unification of theological thought and the idea of the supreme king in the shape of the Old Testament God would have been two concepts that the royal families were interested in comprising. Moreover, a clear social stratification and the definition of passive collectives would also have appealed to the upper stratum of society. The third part of this book therefore, is an outline of a synthesis based upon the development of three macro sociological concepts relating to the period of transition. These concepts can be said to order social, economic and rural landscapes. Although a tentative synthesis, its function is perhaps best described as an attempt to bring a Late Iron Age mental archaeology into contact with a sociology of the period. 9 10 II THE JOURNEY OF YOUR LIFE GRAND TOUR OR PASSAGE TO CIVILISATION hen Beowulf sets out on his trip to visit and help the Danish King Hroðgar, it turns out to be his Grand Tour. Eventually W the journey educates him to such a degree that he becomes perfect (Beowulf ll. 195–2199). Dangers are lurking everywhere on this kind of tour. Danger is one of its points and for one of his companions or followers, the man eaten as an appetiser by Grendel, the trip turned out to be no tour at all. On the contrary, it became a journey with a definite end (Beowulf ll. 740 ff.). The tour, whether tragedy or success, is therefore not the only way of travelling depicted in Beowulf. In addition to this ideal way of becoming mature, travelling can also become a traumatic occupation before we die. To illustrate the traumatic travel, we can point to Hengest in the Finnsburg episode and fragment (Klaeber 1950; Fry 1974; Herschend 1998a). In this episode, Hengest is longing to return home, but a victim 11 of circumstances, he is forced to stay the winter in Finnsburg. Accord- ingly, in the spring, when he becomes more homesick than ever, the poet describes him as a wræcca, i.e. a hero with no home to return to and thus a travelling man with no definite goal (Beowulf l. 1137). Despite the fact that a hero is always a hero, the word wræcca has a slightly negative ring to it. It stems from the fact that a wræcca never goes home. Of course, if we are as capable as the wræcca Sigeferð, we can enjoy a horrible reputation, but still, the life of a wræcca is not perfect (Finnsburg Fragment l. 12; Herschend 1998a, pp. 25 ff.). Gunmen and gang members in the Wild West are the modern counterparts to the iron-age wræcca. If they manage to survive, they can eventually build up knowledge, equal to that of the warrior poet Widsið, and perhaps gain a kind of respected position or winning gold and power over men and women the way Hama and Wudga managed to. However, they do not get hold of the real qualities in life, such as land, hall, inheritance, home, wife and children (cf. Malone 1962, pp. 63 ff. & 209 f.; Widsið ll. 129–30). As it happens, men must balance the possibility of a successful tour against the risk of dying or meeting with the horrible fate of a wræcca such as Hildebrand (Klaeber 1950, pp. 290 ff.; Braune 1994, pp. 84 ff. & 170). Forced to leave home, wife and baby, and reported to have been killed in action, he became a warrior who spent most of his life fighting. Eventually he encounters his own son in battle and duel without being able to convince the son of their relationship. Tragedy is well under way as they clash just where the fragment breaks off. None the less, adding the character of Sigeferð in Finnsburg to the story about Hildebrand and Hardubard on the battlefield, we can conclude that rootlessness, treachery, brutality and alienation were some of the feelings and events constantly surrounding the wræcca. It is not surprising that the word is derived from the verb wrecan, which means ‘to wreck’, but also ‘to throw over in a rough and heartless way’. In Swedish the word still describes the act of driving families from their homes when they cannot fulfil their duties. The loss of home and inheritance and the brutal disposition generated by the loss seems to reproduce itself during history in much the same way as child abuse brings forth the next generation of tor- mentors. In effect, travelling is a way of sorting men according to a system where status is based on such concepts as honour, skill, capability and moral.

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