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THi practice is described in the Nestors chronicles as a peculiarity typical for 'the slavic people that lived in Novgorod'. The bath was conducted in special heated huts. The participant where naked and hit each other with twigs of birch whereafter they poured cold water over their bodies. This was told by Andreas, Petri brother, as he after a journey up the river Dnjepr got to Rome. 'And those who heard thi story wondered' :-).
Danish priest and historian thath wrote down the danish history on the request of archbishop Absalon. This was done in the 13:th century, and the book was called Gesta Danorum. His books starts of with the mythical king Dan that is supposed to have founded Denmark, and end in 1185. The book is considered to be of limited historical value. It is written in Latin, and it is likely that Saxo tried to write his book in the same style as Beda and Paulus DIaconus did their work. The book refers to several sources, icelandic and danish written and oral traditions, Adam of Bremens Gesta Hammaburgensis, saint legends letters etc. etc. The chronicle seems to be written with a sort of, how should I put it, political intentions.
According to åke Ohlmarks:
The name 'Scandinavia' is the result of a miintepretation of Plinius the olders Naturalis Historiae. In the handwritten manuscripts signed D and Dic the name is 'Scandinavia'. In the A and E(2) material 'Scantinavia', in E(1) 'Scandinavia'. 'Scandinavia' is a latinization of the germanic word 'Skadin-Auju', which means 'Skades Island'. In 10:th century norwegian-icelandic poems 'Skaney' become nowadays 'Skåne'.
However, It is quite clear that Plinius is referring to much larger geographical area than Skåne when he wrote 'Sacandinavia'. Probably he was referring to the whole scandinavian peninsula which he thought was a gigantic island with 500 countys in the middle of the 'Codanish bay', what we would call the Baltic sea (or in swedish: Östersjön). The same island was referred to by Pomponius Mela as 'Codannovia'; Acoording to his description this island is both larger and more fruitfull than any other island known. It is said to be inhabited by Teutonerna. Plinius writes: 'Of all the islands in the Codanish sea, Scandinavia is the most well known. Of immense size /"incoperta magnitudis"/ and partly inhabited by Hillevionerna (Authors note: The Langobardic people in the county of Skåne)'.
When he further down in the tex he refers to Öland ('Oeningia') as a large as 'Scandinavia' it is a sign of that he really means 'Skåne'. Plinius has propably mixed up the county of Skåne with the whole of Scandinavia.
City at lake Mälaren, more precisely, located at the fiord 'Skarven'. Most probably Sigtuna took over the role played by Birka in 970. Sigtuna became the cenral town for the county of Svealand. In 1060 Adam of Bremen writes about Birka as the 'dead town' and Sigtuna as 'Civitas magna', 'the large city'.
Nowadays city center is built on thick culture layers that have given an unusually ric set of materials when they have been exposed for archaelogical diggings. Diggings at the end of 1980 showa that Sigtuna has had a good, planned city layout lots with 8 meters width on each side of the main street. The oldest buildings could be dated to around 980. THe cheramics and combs found is especially important in the efforts of doing precise datings of the town. Another important piece of artefacts are the oldest swedish made coins, made and stamped in Sigtuna. These coins are modelled after english coins from around 990. In 1990 the workshop where the coins was manufactured was found. The building was located in conjunction with the royal farm that is acting as the center piece of the city planning of older Sigtuna. Some of the coins made by Olof Skötkonung are inscribed with the text SIDEI, a short (its believed) that stands for: Situne Dei, "Guds Sigtuna", "Gods Sigtuna".
In and around the town there are several early christian grave yards, and several interesting rune stones. Two of these, talks about 'Frisernas gille', something along the lines of: Frisernas club. These inscriptions suggest the existence of union of Frisian merchants. The remains of small church has been found among the builidings located at the royal farm. This church has been given the name St. Gertrude. A bishop grave has been identified close to this church. Outside Sigtuna a ring of large but hard to date churches has been erected. These includes: St Pers , St Olof, St. Lars. Allf of these churches are now only ruins. Especilly St per and St olof are of interest. Both of them have the characteristics of cathedrals. Which one of these early churches that was the main bishop church is still an open question. In 1060 Adalvard the younger was bishop of Sigtuna.
Wife of Loke. She sheltered him from the venom dripping on him when Loke was tied up after his involvment int he death of Balder.
Wife of Tor. Her golden hair was made by dwarfs as her natural hair was lost when Loke by cunning managed to cut her hair.
Skara, a small town in the cunty of Västergötland, is first mentioned in Gunnlaug Ormstungas saga. It is then described as a viking village (around year 1000). Skara is also mentioned in Snorre Sturlassons 'Olav den heliges saga' (the saga about Olav the holy). In both of these cases Skara is mentioned in conjunction with 'Jarlarnas gård', that could be translated to something along the lines of the kings farm (allthough king is not the apropriate translation for 'Jarl'). The farm is located in Järnsyssla (or Järsyssla), at Skara.
Adam of Bremen is also known to have been writing about Skara. He tells us that Archbishop Unwan, at the request of Olof Skötkonung, sent Thurgot to become bishop of Skara. Thurgot is mentionedas bishop in 1013-1030. Adam of Bremen calls Skara 'Scarane Maxima', 'The very large town'.
So far Achaelogoist havent been able to uncover remains from any buildings from the early history of Skara. However lots of loose findings have been made that supports the writings. Among the are remains of combs, the cup of Adalvard and Krucifixes in bronze.
Bishops in Skara:
The family of kings named Skilfinga was mentioned in the poem 'Beowulf'. Skilfingarna is an old royal family from old Uppsala, another name on the family is 'Yngre Ynglingaätten'. Snorre Sturaluasson knew thath the Skilfinga family ruled in 'the east', but traced their name to a nonexistant Sea king, Skelfir. It is more probably thath the name comes from "Skjalf" or "Hlidskjalf" which happens to be the name on the throne end of a royal hall. Agnes, the first of the kings in the skilfinga famlily, death is supposed to have something to do with a 'Skjalf'. Perhaps he was murdered in the throne, or pehaps it has something with the oath which a king had to make at the throne? In Ynglingatal by Tjodolf Hvinverske a person with the name 'Skjalf' is supposed to have killed king Agne by hanging. Snorre states tha this Skjalf is the finnish king Frostes daughter that was kidnapped during one of Agnes military operations in Finnland. She was supposed to instigated the mureder of king Agne when he was ravelling through the entrance of Mälaren. "On the east side of the thorn west of Stocksund", Snorre says. The members of the skilfinga family are (in nor particular order): Yngve-Frej, Fjolner, Sveigder, Vanlande, Visbur, Domalde, Domar, Dyggve, Dag, Agne, Alrek, Erik, Alf, Yngve, Ochilaik, Eorund, Aun, Egil, Ottar, Adils, Eystein, Yngvar, Anund and Ingjald.
Lived between 1179-1241. A leading celandic Chief from one of the noblest families, the Sturlunga family. Snorre was both a learned man as well as a man of the world. He travelled a lot, and had seen most of the then known world. He had visited both Sweden and Norway. He was murdered After a quarrel with the Norwegian king Håkon Håkonsson by a man acting on Håkons will. Snorre ismostly known for being the author of a large number of sagas and tales. Among them: Heimskringla and Snorres Edda (plus an odd number of sagas about kings).
This book was written in the intent of being a schoolboook in how to write poetry. It was written by Snorre Sturlassson, mentioned above, in around 1220. Four handwritten manuscripts still exists, the oldest one is the Uppsala-Eddan form around 1300. In this edition the book is named to: 'Denna bok heter Edda', or in translation: 'This book is called Edda'. What the word 'Edda' means has been the subject for discussion, but it is used in the context as 'Grand mother','Female ancestor', in Righsthula. From here the word is used in the edda poems.
The books starts with a prologue where the world order is described. It starts in Troja, and in this book the nordic asa gods stems from the Trojan Heroes. These Asar, nordic gods, becomes humans and start to wander off northwards. They stay to live in Sweden. In chapter two, Gylfaginning, 'Gylfes synvilla', it is told about the Swedish king Gylfe that travels to Asgård, the living habitat for the gods, to ask where they got their powers from. The gods reeives him and in a mirage they tell him they tell him aobut the different Asa and Asynjor names and properties. Tors strength is told in the tale about his travel to utgårda-Loke.
After Gylfaginning comes Skaldskaparmal, a book whose tales is supposed to help poets to enrich their vocabulary adn to understand the background to the poetic likenings, 'Kenningar', that is so important for any poets handicraft at this time. Why is the gold called for Uttergäld, for example? The answer can be read in tale about Sigurd Fafnesbane. Skaldskaparmal end with the poem Hattatal, where the 102 verses is examples on 100 different metres that is explained and commented.
Snorres Edda is very important for studies in old norse mythology as it contains details about names, numbers adn functions. It also provided us with a geater insight in early Viking age poetry. Wihtout Snorres explanations to dirfferent likenings it woudl be hard, next to impossible, to interpret the poetry produced form this time.
Old Ladoga, a city within an enforced wall located at the river Volchov, about 10 kilometers South of Ladogas southern beach. Staraja has been identified as Aldeigjuborg mentioned in the Nestor chronicle. Artefacts found from Staraja indicates a typical city at the time. Remains from cows and pigs have been dumped on the streets, different tools for the handcraft carried out (moulds and so on). At excavations one have found that the townhouses (in the oldest layers, that is around 760) are large and built around a centrally placed fireplace, in short a typical nordic construction made of timbered wood. Other artefacts, very similar to those found in for example Birka also indicates a high degree of nordic activities.
A younger culture layer, from around 900 shows smaller timbered houses with a quadratic form where the fireplace is placed in one of the corners. A lot of scandinavian artefacts is still found here.
In even younger layers the nordic artefacts decline in numbers and is replaced by slavic artefacts. THe story told is that an original population of, perhaps, finnish people, is replaced by a Viking population that in turn slowly is transformed to a local slavic tribe.
Stenkil was a swedish king and forefather to the Stenkil family. He ruled in around 1060-1066. Stenkil proably stemmed from the county of Västergötland. He is pictured as a kind an generous man that favoured christianity. He is probably the one responsible for an early bishop chair in Sigtuna.
He was loved in his home county, and a good archer. According to the tales he is burried in the royal barrow in Leverne, Västergötland.
Fourheaded god for the Raner people of Rügen. According to Saxo they had a sculpture of him in their temple located at Arkona, Rügen. This sculpture was destroyed together with the temple in 1167 by the danes. Svantevit was a fertility and harvest god and large feast to his honour was held after the harvest in the autumn. Saxo tells us how the god looked like: " In the innermost part of the Temple where a large sculpture of the god made of wood. It was considerably larger than a human being, had four heads, pointing in each of the four points of the compass. It had four necks. Beard and hair was cut in the same way as most in Rügen. In his right had he held a drinking vessel put together from several metalls. THe priest fills his horn each year with mead, and he then tries to predict the outcome of the harves from how much of the mead that leaks out."
At the feast it was common to ritually intoxicate one another with alcohol. Human as well as animal sacrifices coud also take place. A white stallion was allways at the gods disposal in the temple.
Small sculptures in wood of the god has been found in Wolin and in Riga. These statues has also been found in old swedish graves in Vallentuna (Uppland) and St Ilin (province of Västmanland).
The central people in the Svea kingdom, Svitjod, from where nowadays Sweden has grown. It is probable that the Svea people had emmigrated to the area around Lake Mälaren before the birth of Christ as the climate grew better this far north. Most likely they came from the danish islands, maybe from the island Fyn. It is not impossible that Fyn is the island that Tacitus talks about when he mentions the island which harbours the seven Nerthus worshipping people. Danish findings from the celtic iron age shows a striking resemblence with findings in the graves of the early Svea period (findings comming from Läby, Knutby and Gödåker).
The immigrant brought the Nerthus cult, a cult worshipping 'the great mother', with them. This cult was most often led by a priest, the Nerthus priest, which also often become the king over the people. According to Tacitus the Svea people was divided in several states, although they all had one leader. The locations of their graveyards supports his words, they where spread out in the county of Uppland. G. Ekholm opinion is that it is a question of a union of independant states with their shared religion as common ground, probably with the king of the Yngla family as their religious leader, judge and commander over their combined military forces.
According to norrön tradition three gods; Odin, Njord and Yngve Frej; was the fathers of the Yngla family. THe odin period lasted for 300 years (and ended aproximately at the same time as Tacitus wrote his books, the 1:st century), The Njord period starts in the 2:nd century the Frey period around the year 200. Fjolner, Sveigder and Vanlande should therefore be placed in this century. The last one of these, Vanlade, has been considered as the first (half)historical king. Birger Nerman interprets the information about the burial of Vanlande in Ynglingatal. According to Ynglingatal Vanland was burnt at the shore of Skutån, this may indicate that the king had ruled and been burried in Skuttunge. If this is true thisi is oldest known royal manor.
In Gödåker, Tensta, at the farm Husby, a large and rich graveyard has been found, The graveyard stems from the 4:th century. There is a common believe that Gödåker has been a royal manor during the 4:th century, just before old Uppsala filled it's place. The first attack on old Uppsala may have been done by Visburs son, Domalde, He failed and got killed. Domaldes son however, Domar, may have suceeded and there are indications that he is burried in one of the barrows in old Uppsala.
Son to Ulf Jarl and Sven Tveskäggs daughter Estrid. After having defeated Harald Hårdråde in a battle at Nissan (south west of sweden, county of Halland) Estridsson became king of Denmark in 1047. The works of Adam of Bremen is in parts told by Estridsson. E. carried out a new organisation and division of dioceses of the danish church. He also fought to get a danish archbishop.
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