🇬🇧 Honor and Glory of the Viking
"The Viking, whose mind was always filled with bold plans, chose one thing – victory or death. Death seemed to him a path to immortality, life – a struggle to achieve this goal. His entire life was a combination of military feats and adventures; he sought dangers and found joy in overcoming them.
"From the cradle to war I have dedicated my life. Even as a child, Odin gave me a brave heart. It is unbecoming for the brave to despair at death,” says the saga about Olaf, son of Tryggvi.
Many similar sayings found in ancient sagas are all borrowed from the living school of experience. There was nothing so bold and dangerous that a Viking would not dare with his fearlessness and contempt for death. Religion and ancestors instilled in him the rules that the world belongs to the braver, that it is better to seek glory and honor than to live to a ripe old age, and that the most glorious thing is to live and die with a weapon in hand. At the same time, not to fear but to meet death with dignity.
The saga of Hervor tells how Haki, mortally wounded in the battle of Fyrisvall, set fire to his ship loaded with weapons and corpses, ordered himself to be laid on it, and in this flame sailed with all sails from the islands into the open sea, to live in the memory of descendants as one who met death without fear.
The saga of Eirik the Red says that Eirik indignantly refused freedom and all the blessings of life offered to him for disgrace, ordered himself to be thrown onto spears, and in his death throes sang the last song about his courage and contempt for death.
Ragnar Lothbrok was captured by King Ella, who threw him into a pit filled with snakes. Dying, Ragnar sang a song. Augustin Thierry in History of the Conquest of England by the Normans quotes this song:
We struck with swords. If Aslaug’s children knew my current sufferings, that poisonous snakes crawl over me and cover me with sores, they would shudder, and a desire for battle would flare up in them... Echidna pierced my chest and touches my heart... I am defeated, but I hope that soon the spear of one of my sons will pass through Ella’s ribs.
We struck with swords in fifty-one battles. I doubt there is a king among men more glorious than me. From a young age, I shed blood and wished for such a death. The Valkyries, Odin’s messengers, call my name, beckon me; I go to feast with the gods in an honored place. The hours of my life are running out, but I will die with a smile.
All these stories have only one meaning: the Scandinavians lived with the desire for a famous name; everywhere in the ancient sagas it is a powerful driving force of a life full of feats and magnanimous contempt for death.
No worldly rule lay as deeply in their hearts as the following saying, passed down from generation to generation: "Flocks perish, kin die, and you yourself are mortal; but loud fame of worthy deeds does not die", it is said in Havamal".
Viking Expeditions, Anders Magnus Strinnholm
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