Mail Trolls and Atgeirs – the mysterious world of Viking Pole Weapons
Inspired by some recent discussions on the Saga Thing Podcast, I decided to take a deeper look at the fascinating and now rather obscure world of Viking spears.
If you
think of a Viking warband, the modern image would be one of men armed mainly
with swords. However when you read Old Norse literature, the predominate weapon
mentioned is the spear or more often, something usually translated as a
“halberd”. In the original Old Norse, however, we find a variety of intriguingly
named weapons being translated to that one term.
The usual Old
Norse word for spear is geirr.
Another common term often used is a kesja.
The saga’s also name other, now obscure varieties of blades mounted on sticks,
including atgeirr, höggspjót, brynþvarar and bryntroll.
That all of
these are a type of blade on a stick, something we would otherwise call a “spear”,
is not in doubt. However their use and appearance in medieval literature is sufficiently
different to what our notion of a spear is to warrant translators from Victorian
times to use a different term, usually “halberd” or “bill”.
This is itself
raises an issue, as halberds, pikes and other pole-arms developed in the later
middle ages, so were anachronistic to the Viking age when the characters in the
sagas are described as wielding them. So the possibility exists that these are types
of weapons now lost to history.
The saga
writers have a frustrating tendency not to describe these weapons, hinting that
they were very familiar to the audience they were writing for. However it means
the we are left to seek for clues amid the texts for what they really were.
The atgeirr is probably the most famous of
these. It was the weapon of choice for Gunnar Hámundarson, the Icelandic warrior
and main character of Njal’s Saga, one which he uses to devastating affect on many
characters in the saga. Apart from using it as a vaulting pole to leap, Lone Ranger-like,
onto his horse for a quick get away, Gunnar kills many men with his atgeir.
At one
point in the saga Gunnar hoists an adversary impaled on the atgeirr aloft. When his enemies gang up
on him and one tries to sneak onto the roof, Gunnar shoves his atgeirr out the window, catching Thorgrim
in the stomach. The unfortunate man tumbles off the roof. His comrades ask him
if Gunnar is at home.
"You
can find that out for yourselves," said Thorgrim; "but this I am sure
of: His atgeirr is at home," and
with that he fell down dead.
Thorgrim’s last
words, so typical of the black humour of the Sagas, also hint at the regard in
which Gunnar’s weapon was held. Gunnar’s weapon is referred to as atgeirinn – “The atgeir”, which suggests it was a unique, special item - a magic
weapon worthy of a Dungeons and Dragons quest – however atgeirrs are named in Laxdœla
Saga and the Eyrbyggja Saga too. Gunnar’s was rumoured to have a life of its own,
the blade ringing when it was lifted off its bracket on the wall if it was to taste
blood soon.
But what
was it? Geirr is simply a very old word for spear, so as Jan H. Orkisz points
out, the importance must lie in the “at” part of its name. The common
interpretation of “at” appears to be as “excellent” or “very” – hence perhaps “most
excellent” or “best” spear. However Orkisz points out that this ultimately derives
from a Latin prefix ad-, and Old
Norse had a poetic use of at- to
denote fight, clash or attack. Hence atgeirr
would be “battle spear” or “fighting spear”. The way Gunnar and others use it
in the saga point towards a heavy spear used in hand-to-hand fighting, perhaps
like a heavy board spear, rather than a javelin hurled at the enemy while they
are still at a distance.
The höggspjót is another weapon appearing in the sagas. Spjót is again just another word for spear. Högg is a form of the
verb höggva which means “to strike, to smite”. It’s tempting to again translate
this as another “battle spear”, however the verb is often used in the context
of cutting down a tree or wielding an axe, so the name “Hewing spear” might be
more appropriate. Some of the descriptions of its use correlate with the idea
of a long, heavy blade mounted on a pole, capable of slicing through shields
and the flesh and bone of the unfortunates holding them. Egil Skallagrimsson
carries a höggspjót on his
ill-fated meeting with Rognvald, the young son of King Eirik Bloodaxe of
Norway.
Egil’s Saga
also mentions another weapon, the brynþvarar
and gives quite a detailed description of it. Thorolf strides into the
Battle at Brunanburgh “armed like this”:
Kesju hafði hann í hendi. Fjöðrin var tveggja
álna löng ok sleginn fram broddr ferstrendr, en upp var fjöðrin breið,
falrinn bæði langr ok digr, skaftit var eigi hæra en taka mátti hendi til fals
ok furðuliga digrt. Járnteinn var í falnum ok skaftit allt járnvafit. Þau
spjót váru kölluð brynþvarar.
“He had a kesja [spear] in his hand…the
feather-formed blade was two ells long, ending in a four-edged spike; the blade
was broad above, the socket both long and thick. The shaft stood just high
enough for the hand to grasp the socket, and was remarkably thick. The socket was
fitted with an iron prong on the shaft, which was also wound round with iron.
Such spears [spjót] were called brynþvarar.”
It might
seem odd to describe a blade as a “feather”, however when you look at these
examples from the Irish National Museum in Dublin it becomes clear how apt it
is.
An ell was the distance from the elbow to the tip of the middle finger, about
18 inches. Therefore at 2 ells the blade of this weapon was about 36 inches long,
or 3 feet, which is impressive for a spear. It would seem that this weapon has a short,
thick shaft, and the impression is some sort of short implement, mostly blade,
specifically designed for piercing mail. Though perhaps not very short. Later
in the battle, gripped by berserker rage, Thorolf does a Vlad Tepeș. He lunges
at an enemy Jarl’s chest with the brynþvarar,
“driving it right through mail-coat and body, so that it came out at the
shoulders; and he lifted him up on the halberd over his head, and planted the
butt-end in the ground”. Ouch.
The bryn part of the name refers to the brynja, the Old Norse name for a mail shirt.
My Old Norse dictionary lists þvari as
meaning a “bolt or spear”. In other words this was a special type of spear,
specifically designed for piercing mail. Possibly closely related to the brynþvarar we have the bryntroll. We’ve already covered that bryn means mail and troll speaks for itself. It’s a monster, an enemy, a creature that
destroys, so the weapon is a troll or moster for mail shirts. The effectiveness
of medieval spears against mail is demonstrated in this video:
There was
also the rather horrible sounding “Hooked Spear”, the Krókspjót, a weapon so nasty a law was passed forbidding its use.
So at the
end of the day these all appear to be varieties of spear. That they were not
swords is underlined by the way in many sagas the hero is specifically
mentioned as having a sword as well, either at his belt or, in Egil’s case,
tied to his wrist.
That spears
would be important to pagan Scandinavians should not be that surprising. The
spear was the weapon sacred to the God Odin. Battles were traditionally started
by one side hurling a spear over their opponents and yelling “Óðinn á yðr alla” – Odin owns you all. Being
transfixed by a spear while also being hung appears to have been the way to sacrifice
a human being to Odin.
Another
other possibility is that these are all anachronisms. Medieval saga writers could
have been giving impressive modern (for them) weapons to their heroes to make
them look cool to a contemporary audience, or to use terms they were familiar
with.
References:
· Pole-weapons in the Sagas of Icelanders: a comparison of literary and
archaeological sources, Jan H. Orkisz, Chapitre des Armes
· A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic, Geir T. Zoëga, https://www.amazon.co.uk/Concise-Dictionary-Icelandic-Language-Guides/dp/048643431
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