In the early 8th century the kingdoms of Norway, Denmark and Sweden did not exist as they do now. The area we refer to as Scandinavia consisted of various groups of people, with perhaps the bulk of then falling into a category which has been labelled as Norse and Danish. The languages they spoke would have been versions of Old Norse and the non-Christian religions they worshipped would also have been related. The one exception to this was the people (or again, perhaps, peoples) of the very north whose language was very different; we know these as the Finnic or Sami populations.
The land now called Norway was not united. Instead there were a number of kingdoms such as Vestfold, Rogaland, Romsdal and Sogn, but the basic make-up of society for all of these lands has been traditionally split into three classes.
First we have the aristocrats or the Jarls – landowners and employers who were sometimes the supreme leaders of a particular area (in place of a “king”) while at other times they answered to the king.
The second group were the Karls – free men who could also be landowners or business owners but less powerful than the Jarls. As with most societies, modern and ancient, the range of wealth of these men could vary widely. Although Jarls and Karls were men, women were also deemed to be part of these classes by birth or marriage.
The third group were the Thralls – or slaves. Often considered more as property than people, these men and women (and their children) were either born into the class or were forced into through war (i.e. by being captured) or debt. They did have some rights and could be freed at any time by their masters, whereupon they joined a separate group somewhere between Thralls and Karls with some residual obligations to their former masters.
Another name we come across the Hersirs. These were usually Karls who had a specific military role. The original Hersirs were perhaps farmers which had built up their base to become local leaders[1] and who had enough authority over others to be able to launch their own initiatives and raids, travelling with sword and shield on foot, by horse or, of course, in a ship. Generally however they would have owed allegiance to a Jarl or a King.
The Icelandic Book of Settlements (Landnámabók) is an astonishing record of the foundation of Iceland. It names the original settlers, the land they took, and their descendants. Probably dating originally from the 11th century, it was written down at least two hundred years after some of its events and while its absolute accuracy may be questioned, it is likely to have survived initially through oral history. Many of the events which it relates can be confirmed with other histories and sagas. In its more than 100 chapters, this Landnámabók names 22 Hersirs as ancestors of some of the settlers of Iceland and I want to pick out a few of those here.
The earliest Hersir mentioned in the book is someone called Eylaug from Sogn. No further information is provider other than that he had a daughter called Thorgerd. Of Thorgerd we know no more than her father’s name and that of her own daughter – Hervor.
There are no dates recorded for these people, but I suggest that Hersir Eylaug was probably born just before Bridei of the Picts was defeating the Northumbrians at Dun Nechtain in 685. We might then propose that his daughter Thorgerd was born around the year 705 and his granddaughter Hervor sometime after 725.
The source tells us that Hervor was the mother of the colourfully-named Weather-Grimm[2], who is also described as a Hersir[3]. Again we have no further information about this person (although, as below, Landnámabók does introduce us to a later character with the same name) other than that he also has a son who is this time described as a “leading Hersir in Norway.”
That son is named as Bjorn Buna and the Icelandic Source now teases us by noting that of Bjorn’s own sons “ok er frá þeira afkvæmi margt sagt í þessi bók[4]” (and a great deal will be said about their children in this book). Weather-Grimm was born around the year 740, at the time when Onuist, King of Picts, had subdued the Scots, while this Weather-Grimm’s son Bjorn perhaps dates from around 770-780.
In future posts we will meet more of this family and see how they came to interact with the people of north Britain, Ireland, Scandinavia and Iceland.
Bjorn Buna, his children, grandchildren and other descendants will return!
Note: Another Weather-Grimm is mentioned in Landnámabók[5], but it is clear that he lived around a century later than the first one. He is the son of another Hersir called Asi and his family would become involved in the settlement of Iceland in the last decades of the 9th century. This Weather-Grimm’s son, Koll, would become a close confidant of Bjorn Buna’s granddaughter (Auð) – another important character we will meet in this Tapestry. Koll would also marry a great-grant-granddaughter of Bjorn.
[1] W.B. Bartlett describes them as “lesser chieftains” in “Vikings: A History of the Northmen, p24”
[2] Also mentioned in Eyrbyggja Saga, Chapter 1
[3] This is based on the Sturlubók version of the text. The Hauksbók version describes Weather-Grimm as Hervor’s husband which would bring the dates above forward by a generation and also says that Eylaug was a “konung” – a king.
[4] Landnámabók Chapter 10
[5] Landnámabók Chapter 26 (the Hermann Pálsson and Paul Edwards English translation puts this into Chapter 96)
The Northern Tapestry 
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