24/12/2024, by aezcr

8. At last… some Christmas presents and games

We conclude our quick tour through the Christmases of the Saga of the Earls of Orkney with some presents and some party games! In chapter 85 Earl Rǫgnvaldr ‘had a great Christmas feast and invited people and gave gifts’. Having distributed the gifts, Rǫgnvaldr proceeded to play some twelfth-century Christmas games:

He reached out a gold-adorned spear to poet Ármóðr and shook it at him and asked him to compose a verse in exchange for it.

The illustrious mighty ruler,

the enlarger of the storm of Yggr

does not charge other men with

bringing gifts to me, the poet.

The keen guardian of the land,

the most useful prince, brought

the best blood-candle, made bright

with gold, to Ármóðr’s hands.

Later that Christmas when people were looking at tapestries,

‘the earl said to Oddi the Small, ‘Make a verse about the behaviour of the man who is there on the tapestry, so that you have recited your verse when I have finished my verse, and do not use those words in your verse which I have in mine’ (chapter 85).

These word games had clearly been long established; Earl Rǫgnvaldr was confident in expressing himself in skaldic poetry, and an almost domestic scene is presented here of people sat around appreciating the scenes on a tapestry and using them to inspire new works.

Later in Galicia on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and…

On the tenth day of Christmas Earl Rǫgnvaldr woke up; the weather was good…

Earl Rǫgnvaldr then recited a verse:

Ullr of the wound-flame, I will remember

the Christmases when we entertained

in the east beside Agder’s mountains

with Sǫlmundr, the valorous steward.

This is the first half of the poem, like the best (or worst) Christmas film or advert, its nostalgic view is perhaps a part of Christmas that we still recognise today. The second part of the poem is a bit of a jolt:

Now, just as glad as I was there, I make,

once again, throughout another Christmas,

a swarm of the sword at the southern

perimeter of the castle (chapter 87).

And here we are reminded that while Rǫgnvaldr may have been a poet, he was reciting this poem in the midst of a siege drawing ‘an explicit comparison between the peaceful joyous feasting of Christmas back home in Norway, and the Christmas he is spending equally joyously attacking a castle in Galicia, on his way to the Holy Land’ (Jesch, Skaldic Yule).

Christmas in the saga was a time for feasting, a time for drinking, a time for coming together and a time for, occasionally, killing people. And it just leaves us, the Ragna’s islands team, to say we hope you have a very merry, and un-saga like, festive period!

Matthew Blake

Further Reading

Orkney Yule

Skaldic Yule

Nordic Noir Yule

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