TABLE OF CONTENTS MICHAEL MÜLLER-WILLE, Introduction . 9 I. Communication EDITH MAROLD, Hedeby – an ‘international’ trading place for Danes, Swedes, Norwegians, Germans, Frisians and Slavonic people. The linguistic and literary evidence . 13 MICHAEL MÜLLER-WILLE, Ribe – Reric – Hedeby. Early urbanization in southern Scandinavia and the western Slavonic area . 21 ELSE ROESDAHL, Walrus ivory in the Viking Age – and Ohthere (Ottar) . 33 DANIEL LÖWENBORG, Landscape and setting as a means of communication . 39 SØREN MICHAEL SINDBÆK, An object of exchange. Brass bars and the routinization of Viking Age long-distance exchange in the Baltic area . 49 ANDRES SIEGFRIED DOBAT, ‘Come together’. Three case-studies on the facilities of communication in a maritime perspective . 61 SEBASTIAN MESSAL, The Daugava waterway as a communication route to the East (9th–12th centuries) . 71 KRISTIN ILVES, About the German ships on the Baltic Sea at the turn of the 12th and 13th centuries: Data from the Chronicle of Henry of Livonia . 81 II. Scandinavians and Slavs HENRYK MACHAJEWSKI, The south-western part of the Baltic Sea basin at the end of Antiquity . 87 HANNA KÓČKA-KRENZ, The processes underlying the Piast state formation . 95 MONIKA MALESZKA, Viking and Slav: early medieval Baltic neighbours . 103 AGNIESZKA DOLATOWSKA, Wolin as a port-of-trade . 109 MARCUS GERDS, Worked and unworked amber from early medieval trading places in the south-western Baltic region . 115 KAROLINA SARGALIS, Local societies and Scandinavians in the light of grave goods in Pomerania and Great Poland. 123 5 III. Scandinavian Settlement and Central Places ANNE-SOFIE GRÄSLUND, Birka between West and East . 129 ANNIKA LARSSON, Oriental warriors in Viking Age Scandinavia – nothing but an illusion? . 141 SHANNON LEWIS-SIMPSON, A survey of colonial situations in relation to the Scandinavian Viking-Age westward expansion . 155 IV. Runestones GUNHILD ØEBY NIELSEN, Runestones as communication – the Danish material . 165 HARALD JOHANNES KRØVEL, Norwegian runestones from the 10th and 11th centuries – a social and political approach . 173 V. Transition to the Middle Ages BIRGIT SAWYER, The ‘Civil wars’ revisited . 179 TORE IVERSEN, A main phase in the development of Norwegian Medieval law based on the concepts of land property and tenancy . 195 ELLEN ZIRR BROX, Sie heirateten rund um die Ostsee. Familiäre Kontakte und Bündnisse zwischen nordischen und slawischen Gebieten in der Zeit von 1000–1200 . 197 ARVE SLETTEN, Some reflections on the performance of foreign relations in the Middle Ages and on gifts as part of these . 205 TOR EINAR FAGERLAND, Warfare and politics in medieval Scandinavia . 209 VI. From Paganism to Christianity HEIKI VALK, The Christianisation of Estonia and changes in burial customs . 215 MARGE KONSA, Different means of burying the dead. Stone graves of the 10th–13th centuries in Estonia . 223 ARVI HAAK, Society and change: The case of Northern Viljandimaa (South Estonia) during Europeanisation. 229 ALEXANDRA SANMARK, The nature of pre-Christian religious custom in Scandinavia . 237 PHILIPP LENZ, Using pagan myths in a Christian society: The case of Snorri’s Heimskringla . 249 ALEKSANDRA FRĄCKOWIAK, Otto III in Gniezno – towards European unity . 257 EWA RUTKOWSKA, The Cistercian Order in the Polish lands and its influence on society, economy and culture in the Middle Ages (12th–16th centuries) . 263 6 VII. Literature and History MATTHEW TOWNEND, Norse poets and English kings: Skaldic performance in Anglo-Saxon England . 269 CHRISTINA LEE, Eclectic memories: In search of Eadgyth . 277 TIMOTHY KNEBEL, The Anglicising of Appolonius . 287 SUZANNE NICOLE OSSA, An unholy alliance? Olaf Guthfrithsson and the Northumbrian church . 293 UNNI MYREN, King Olav Tryggvason – Hero or Heathen. Medieval perspectives in North-European literature . 299 EIKEN FRIEDRICHSEN, Harald Sigurdsson: A Norwegian king in the service of the Byzantine Emperor as described in Snorris Heimskringla . 303 SONJA SCHRAMM, The description and function of the Baltic Sea region in the Fornaldarsögur . 307 TRINE BUHL, Structural meaning in Hrafnkels saga Freysgoða . 313 7.