23/12/2024, by aezcr

7. A choice: more ale or more prayers?

Elsewhere (see the last blog!) we hear that at the Earl’s palace, the then earl being Páll Hákonarson, at Orphir, there was a church next to a large drinking hall, and that whilst there ‘during the night people got up to listen to the canonical hours, and after high mass people went to eat’. Thus the pattern is set for Christmas, at Orphir at least, the Earl was to entertain his guests with the usual carousing but interspersed with religious observances. After mass and food more drinking took place, and the saga tells us of an increasingly tetchy Sveinn Breast-rope’s mood, one unlikely to be improved by alcohol. Concerned by his own over-consumption he ‘thought that Eyvindr was pouring higher in his vessel, and taking it away before Sveinn Ásleifarson had drunk from his vessel, and he said that Sveinn was drinking deceitfully’ (chapter 66).

The drinking and the tetchiness went on until mid-afternoon when they were called away for more prayers:

‘and when the drinking had gone on for a while, then it was time for nones. And when people came back, then memorial speeches were made and they drank from horns’ and then ‘the drinking continued until evensong’.

The days ebbed and flowed between drink and prayer. Eventually, according to the saga at least, Sveinn Ásleifarson succumbed to whispers in his ear by Eyvindr, prompting him to respond to the baiting of Sveinn Breast-rope, although Sveinn Ásleifarson does not come across as a man who needed much prompting. While Earl Páll, in stark contrast to the two Sveinns, went to church to continue his religious observances, Sveinn Breast-rope got up, possibly to follow the earl, but got only ‘as far as the door, then Sveinn Ásleifarson struck his forehead from in front’ with an axe.

As a postscript Sveinn escaped to Egilsay via Damsay and when there ‘the bishop thanked him for the killing of Sveinn Breast-rope and said that had been good riddance to a miscreant. The bishop allowed Sveinn to be there during Christmas’ (chapter 66). In this tale, then, Christmas, alcohol, violence and prayers all came together and ended with an episcopal blessing.

Tune in tomorrow for the final festive blog! ‘At last… some Christmas presents and games’.

Matthew Blake

• Share on Facebook
• Share on Twitter
• Share on Google+
• Share on LinkedIn