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Old Norse Drinking Culture

Jesus Fernando Guerrero Rodriguez

Centre for Medieval Studies

University of York

PhD candidate

2007

Abstract:

This thesis examines the production, consumption and symbolic aspects of alcoholic beverages in the West Norse world mainly during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Chapter 1 is the introduction, source and methodology description. Chapter 2 is devoted to the study of the main types of alcoholic beverages available during these centuries as well as to the production and acquisition of both the raw materials and tools to produce them. Chapter 3 studies the mythological origins and symbolism attached to these beverages, with the main focus on mead. Chapter 4 analyzes the different contexts in which alcohol was consumed during the period under research. Chapter 5 studies the main occasions on which alcohol was consumed. Chapters 6 and

7 approach the uses

of alcohol as a tool for acquiring and displaying power. Chapter 6 is devoted to the analysis of alcohol as a way of displaying and acquiring power through the display and offering of both alcoholic beverages and drinking vessels as well as through drinking competitions. Finally, Chapter 7 studies the ways in which alcohol could be used as a tool of deception and personal enhancement. These topics are analyzed using literary, legal, historical and archaeological sources. 11

Table of Contents:

Page Chapter 1. -Introduction, sources and methodology ..................................... 1

Chapter 2. -Types

of Alcohol. ................... " ......................... '" ................ 13

2.1 -Lactose-Based Drinks: Misa, Skyr and SYra .......................... , ......... 17

2.2 -Maltose-Based Drinks: QI and Mungdt ........................................... 33

2.3-Glucose-Based Drinks: Mjqor ........... , ........... , ................................ 55

2.4-Fructose -Based Drinks: Vin ......................................................... 70

2.5-Drinks with Mixed Sucrose Content: Bj6rr ........................................ 89

Chapter 3-Mythological Origins and Ideas of Alcohol and Drinking .................. 1 00

3.1-Mead, Wisdom and Poetry ..................................................... 1 0 1

3.2 -Drinking in Asgar6r ............................................................. 134

3.3-The lEsir's Quest for Alcohol among the

Jqtnar

............................. .149

Chapter

4: Drinking Places: Skdlar, Hallir, Skytningar, Hjuk6lJar and Other Locations

4.1 -Skdlar and Hal/ar ..................................................................... 162

4.2-Skytningar and Hjuk6lfar ............................................................. 172

4.3-Other Drinking Places ................................... , ...................... 193

4.4 -Seating Arrangements at the Hall as A Symbol of Power ............... 205

Chapter 5 -Drinking Feasts: Wedding, Funeral and Seasonal Feasts

5 .1-Wedding Feasts

................................................................. 224

5.2-Funeral Feasts. -Drinking the

Erfi ................................. '" .............. 23 5

5.3-Seasonal Feasts

............................................................... 257

Chapter

6-Alcoholic Drinks as a Tool of Power: Display and Offering ............ 262

III

6.1-Alcohol as Part of The Old Norse Gift-Giving Culture .................... 271

6.2-Drinking Vessels ............................................................... 278

6.3-Mannjafnaoar, Boasting and Drinking Contests ........................... 303

Chapter 7-Alcoholic Drinks as a Tool of Power: Drunkenness and Deception

7.1-Magic Drinks

.................................................................... 317

7.2-Drunkenness as an Instrument

of Power and Deception ................... 337

Conclusion

.............. 354

Bibliography

............ 360 Illustrations ........................................................................ ............. 383 IV

List of illustrations:

Figure

3.1

Figure 3.2

Figure 3.3

Figure

4.1

Figure 4.2

Figure 4.3

Figure 4.4

Figure 4.5

Figure

6.1

Figure 6.2 Stenkyrka stone

Tjangvide stone

Klinte stone

Plan of the longhouse at Borg

Image comparing the size

of the longhouse at Borg with Trondheim's cathedral

Eighteenth-century illustration

of Hakon's Hall

The longhouse at

Stong

Runic-stick 648-S0ndre s0stergarden

Reconstruction of the Borg funnel-beaker

Bucket found in the

Oseberg burial

v

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

There are several people and institutions without which this study would not have been possible. First of all I would like to thank the Mexican CONACYT -

Consejo Nacional para

la Ciencia y la Tecnologia-(National Council of Science and

Technology) who sponsored this project.

Second, I would like to thank the support of

my supervisors, Matthew Townend and Julian D. Richards. Their knowledge, support, advice, suggestions and patience have been invaluable. Without them and their guidance, I think, I would have been lost in the midst of such a huge problem as Old Norse drinking culture is. Pragya Vohra and Hannah Burrows proof-read vast sections of this study, and most of all, discussed with me several aspects of this research.

They, as well as

my supervisors brought to light sources that otherwise I would have not considered, and I would like to thank them for those nights of 'practical research' during which we discussed the Old Norse uses and abuses of alcohol. I would also like to thank my parents, mostly for the same reasons, and most of all for their support and encouraging. It must not be easy to have a medievalist son. I want to thank also

Rudolph Simek, who became an enthusiast

of my project and often sent me copies of articles related to my subject of research. Unfortunately I am not able to dominate as many languages as he does, thus I had to neglect the literature in Russian and German that he sent me. Finally I would like to thank the librarians at the

Amamagnrean

Institute in Copenhagen, the Stofnun Ama Magnussonar in Reykjavik, and at the

University

of Oslo library for giving me free and unconditional access to their libraries and sources that otherwise would have been impossible for me to have access to in England. Many people have been omitted from this list, mostly due to lack of space rather than to lack of gratitude. I must finally say that all the errors and omissions in this project are my own responsibility. v

CONVENTIONS

Throughout my thesis I have used the standard editions of Old Norse texts. The islendinga sqgur, Heimskringla and Landnamab6k editions that

I have used are

those published in the islenzk Fornrit collection. My references to the Fornaldar sqgur follow Gu5ni J6nsson's four-volume Fornaldar Sogur Norourlanda and my references to the Sturlunga saga compilation come from J6n J6hannesson's two volume edition. Flateyjarb6k will be quoted following

Sigur5ur Nordal's 1944

edition. Any other saga texts will be provided in the bibliography. My references to Snorri's Edda come from Hans Kuhn's Edda; Die Lieder Des Codex Regius Nebst

Verwandten

Denkmiilern. Sagas, even when the name of the author is known, will be quoted by providing the abbreviated name of the saga in italics and the chapter number in roman numbers, followed by the pages in which the reference is to be found in the standard edition in Arabic numbers. Eddie sources will quoted providing either the abbreviated name of the poem in italics followed by the stanza number in Arabic numbers or, when it comes to Snorri's Edda, by providing the abbreviated name of the book's section -Prologus, Gyljaginning, Skaldskaparmal or Hattatal - followed by the chapter in Arabic numbers and by the page number where the reference can be found. Norwegian charters and legal sources will be quoted from the six-volume Norges Gamle Love started by

R. Keyser and P. A. Munch in 1846, and

the 21-volume Diplomatarium Norvegicum. Dipiomatarium Islandicum will be quoted from the lO-volume edition initiated by Jon Sigur6sson in 1857. Gragas will be quoted from Gunnar Karlsson's 1992 edition for

Mal og Menning. For these texts I

will provide the abbreviated title of the book in italics, followed by the volume number in roman numerals and, finally, in Arabic numbers, the reference to the page in which the charter or law is to be found in the standard edition. Other primary and vi secondary sources will be quoted following the standards set in MHRA Style Guide. Icelandic authors will be quoted by first name and then patronymic, as is the convention. When confronted with different spellings for the same word I will follow the spelling as provided in the primary. source in which it appears. For my translations I will follow what Kennedy calls 'the future of saga translations' where a "clear trend in saga translation today is to demand more from the reader than is asked by a magazine article or a typical novel on sale at an airport shop"'. As a lover of the Old Norse language I agree with the fact that "in an age when political developments have given a new urgency to understanding philosophies and lifestyles strikingly different from those which now prevail in Western societies, it seems unlikely that translators from very different times and places will generally feel disposed to translate them [the sagas] in a way suggesting that what is unfamiliar in them [the sagas] is of no consequence or should where possible be obscured from the reader's attention.,,2

Hence,

my translations pay careful attention to representing the mentality and ideology of the Old Norse language while at the same time I try to render them in a form that results perfectly intelligible in Modem English.

On some occasions they

may sound a bit alien, but since this work is about the

Old Norse society, and

understanding their language is another way of approaching the culture that created the texts analyzed in this thesis. All translations are mine, unless otherwise stated.

1 John Kennedy, ranslating the Sagas: Two Hundred Years of Challenge and Response, Making the

Middle Ages, 5 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007), p. 187.

2 Kennedy, p. 187.

vii

Abbreviations:

The list

of abbreviations follows, when possible, the sigla provided by the Registre of the Ordbog over det Norrone Prosasprog and, by Neckel and Kuhn in their edition of the Edda. Other abbreviations follow a similar logic to that of these two systems.

Alternative titles are provided in brackets.

All references to dictionaries and to primary sources in

Old Norse are given in an

abbreviated form.

Primary Sources:

Agr Akv Alv Am Ar Asm Band Baro Bdr BjH Boll Bas

Brandkr

Nj DI DN Dpl Eb Eg EgAsm Eir Eksm Eym Fbr Finnb Fljquotesdbs_dbs17.pdfusesText_23

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