VIKING SOCIETY FOR NORTHERN RESEARCH TEXT SERIES GENERAL EDITORS Anthony Faulkes and Richard Perkins VOLUME XV THOR THE WIND-RAISER AND THE EYRARLAND IMAGE The Eyrarland image (fijms 10880). (By kind permission of the photographer, Páll Stefánsson.) THOR THE WIND-RAISER AND THE EYRARLAND IMAGE BY RICHARD PERKINS VIKING SOCIETY FOR NORTHERN RESEARCH UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON 2001 © Richard Perkins 2001 ISBN 0 903521 52 0 Printed by Short Run Press Limited, Exeter The cover picture is of the amber figure from Feddet, Roholte parish, Sjælland, Denmark (= FI; DNM C24292; height: 4.6 cm.). (By per- mission of Nationalmuseet, Copenhagen.) Cf. also Figure 6. TILL INGEGERD 14 20–7 01 CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES ........................................................................ viii PREFACE ......................................................................................... ix CHAPTER ONE: Wind-power and wind-gods ................................. 1 CHAPTER TWO: An episode in Rƒgnvalds fláttr ok Rau›s .......... 27 CHAPTER THREE: Three beard-clutching figures ....................... 53 CHAPTER FOUR: The Eyrarland image ....................................... 82 CHAPTER FIVE: Conclusions. Contexts ..................................... 150 APPENDIX: Rƒgnvalds fláttr ok Rau›s and ‘Rau›s fláttr ins ramma’ 159 BIBLIOGRAPHY AND ABBREVIATIONS ............................... 165 LIST OF FIGURES The Eyrarland image ...................................................... Frontispiece 1: Vignette from Olaus Magnus’s Historia ................................... 12 2: AM 61, fol., f. 34ra, lines 22–37............................................... 37 3: Walrus-ivory figure from Lund, Skåne, Sweden ...................... 64 4: The Lund figure (reverse) ......................................................... 65 5: The Lund figure compared with Swedish Thor’s hammer ....... 67 6: Amber figure from Feddet, Denmark ....................................... 69 7: Bronze figure from Chernigov, Ukraine ................................... 71 8: Vˇjopatis ................................................................................... 79 9: Pictures of the Eyrarland image from Iduna ............................. 84 10: The Eyrarland image (side view) .............................................. 86 11: The Eyrarland image (front view) ............................................ 87 12: Silver pendant from Foss, Iceland ............................................ 91 13: Rune-stone at Ledberg, Sweden ............................................... 98 14: The rune-stone at Ledberg (reverse) ......................................... 99 15: Bronze image from Rällinge, Sweden .................................... 100 16: Bronze image from Lindby, Skåne, Sweden ........................... 101 17: Thor’s hammer from Eketorp, Sweden................................... 110 18: fiórshamar .............................................................................. 110 19: Rune-stone from near Grästorp, Sweden ................................ 111 20: Runic rock at Norra Åby, Sweden .......................................... 112 21: Rune-stone at Stenkvista church, Sweden .............................. 113 22: Lead alloy mask from Ribe, Denmark .................................... 114 23: Thor’s hammers from Hilda, Norway..................................... 116 24: Thor’s hammer from Skåne, Sweden ..................................... 120 25: Thor’s hammer from Er(ik)storp, Sweden .............................. 120 26: Thor’s hammer from Bredsätra, Öland, Sweden .................... 121 27: Thor’s hammer from Mandemarke, Denmark ........................ 121 28: Pendant from Rau›nefssta›ir, Iceland .................................... 129 29: Whalebone figure from Baldursheimur, Iceland .................... 135 30: Séra Jón Prímus at his chess-board ......................................... 138 31: Thor’s hammers from Vålse and Sejerby, Denmark ............... 142 32: Buddha from Helgö, Sweden .................................................. 145 33: Egyptian amulet, clasping was-sceptre ................................... 147 34: Egyptian amulet, lion-headed ................................................. 147 35: Egyptian amulet, archer .......................................................... 147 PREFACE The immediate stimulus for the present study which concerns amongst other things the Eyrarland image was an article by the distinguished Icelandic archaeologist Kristján Eldjárn. In the memorial volume for Gabriel Turville-Petre of 1981, Kristján put forward an interpretation of the Eyrarland image which he expressly intended to provoke dis- cussion and reassessment. His arguments were tentatively presented, with learning and good humour. They certainly had a provocative and catalytic effect on me and I counter them in my Chapter 4. Although, then, as will be seen, I disagree with various of Kristján’s arguments in their essentials, I owe him a special debt of gratitude for drawing attention to problems connected with the Eyrarland image. The work of three British scholars has had particular influence on this book. Not only did Gabriel Turville-Petre, whom I have just men- tioned, give me my first scholarly introduction to Norse mythology, but, as will be seen, I draw extensively on his Myth and religion of the North, first published in 1964. This book remains one of the most humane and balanced treatments of the subject perhaps in any language. In the writings of Hilda Ellis Davidson, I have found a number of thought-provoking observations about Thor suggestive of various of the conclusions I arrive at myself. Some of the ideas I put forward in this monograph will scarcely come as much surprise to her. Thirdly, a work by a former member of University College London has been of special interest to me: George Stephens’s Thunor the Thunderer, carved on a Scandinavian font of about the year 1000 of 1878 is a decidedly idiosyncratic work by present-day standards. I am afraid that I am as little able to accept the main thesis of this work as I am that of Kristján Eldjárn’s article. In it, however, Stephens makes a number of valuable observations on the iconography of Thor which certainly deserve more attention than they have received over the years. I became aware of Stephens’s arguments at a relatively late stage in my research for this volume, but found them corroborative and reassuring when I did. In this study, I necessarily take an interdisciplinary approach. In particular, I stray from my home ground of philology and allied sub- jects into the field of archaeology where I tread far less confidently. In an article of 1900 cited in my bibliography, the German classical philo- logist Hermann Usener wrote ‘ich fühle mich nur als Gast unter den x Preface Archäologen’, and I feel very much the same in the present context. Archaeologists will doubtless detect much which reveals amateurism and ignorance in my approach. Whatever shortcomings exist in this respect, however, they are not for want of generous help from archae- ologist colleagues and those in allied fields. Readers will readily dis- cern my indebtedness to the published catalogues of Viking-Age and Norse antiquities of James Graham-Campbell (1980) and Else Roesdahl (1992), both of whom have also aided me in other ways than through their writings. I have received much kind co-operation from colleagues at museums in Scandinavia. At Statens Historiska Museum in Stock- holm, Elsie Lindström was the epitome of efficiency and helpfulness. Claes Wahlöö and Maria Cinthio at Kulturen in Lund showed and discussed with me the walrus-ivory figure in that collection which is one of the subjects of my third chapter. In Västerås, Krister Ström shared his specialist knowledge of Thor’s hammers with me. Sigrid Kaland gave me information on Thor’s hammers in Historisk Museum in Bergen. Elisabeth Munksgaard and Helga Schütze provided me prompt answers to a number of queries about objects in Nationalmuseet in Copenhagen. But I have also had much help from scholars other than archae- ologists. Rory McTurk gave me pertinent bibliographical references, Peter Foote read and criticised the monograph in draft and Jeffrey Cosser assisted me in various ways, not least by translating material from Russian. I also had help with Russian from Gavin Orton, and David Dixon allowed me to benefit from his huge expertise in Egyptological matters. I received invaluable lexicographical informa- tion from Gu›rún Kvaran and Gunnlaugur Ingólfsson of Or›abók Háskólans in Reykjavík and from Christopher Sanders of the Arna- magnæan Dictionary in Copenhagen. Of librarian colleagues who have been unfailingly helpful I should particularly mention John Townsend, Bess Ryder and Anna-Lisa Murrell in London, Ólöf Benediktsdóttir in Reykjavík and Olle Andersson in Lund. Birutˇ Butkeviçienˇ, Direc- tor of Vilnius University Library kindly arranged for me to receive the picture I have as my Figure 8. Marit Åhlén and Thorgunn Snædal at Runverket in Stockholm discussed runological matters with me and not least the runic rock at Åby in Södermanland which I regard as significant for my arguments in Chapter 4. Desmond Slay kindly read a proof and made suggestions for improvements. Preface xi There are five Icelandic colleagues to whom I am especially indebted: fiór Magnússon, formerly fijó›minjavör›ur, allowed me to inspect the object in his keeping which I believe to represent his namesake and gave me information about it which I would not have discovered