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- [00:01]
Anita Arnan
If you want access to bonus episodes, reading lists for every series of Empire, a chat community discounts for all the books mentioned in the week's podcast ad, free listening and a weekly newsletter, sign up to empire club@www.empirepoduk.com.
- [00:19]
William Dur
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- [00:50]
Advertiser
This episode is brought to you by State Farm Knowing you could be saving money for the things you really want is a great feeling. Talk to a State Farm agent today to learn how you can choose to bundle and save with a personal price plan. Like a Good Neighbor save, State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer availability, amount of discounts and savings and eligibility vary by state. This episode is brought to you by Amazon Prime. From streaming to shopping, prime helps you get more out of your passions. So whether you're a fan of true crime or prefer a nail biting novel from time to time, with services like Prime Video, Amazon Music and fast free delivery, prime makes it easy to get more out of whatever you're into or getting into. Visit Amazon.comprime to learn more.
- [01:54]
Host
Hello and welcome to a brand new series of Empire. And as we hinted in the last episode, this is is the first miniseries in our collection on the history of the places on President Trump's shopping list. And so we're starting with Greenland. We're looking at the different waves of colonization of Greenland from Vikings to American air bases. So look, there is history in them there hills. In this episode though, we're going to go all the way back to the 10th century and we are going to ask how did the Vikings actually get to Greenland to to begin with? And we are joined by Viking expert Elena Barraclough to explore Jackson.
- [02:31]
Anita Arnan
We should give a bit of Elena's remarkable biography which is contained in her books. She describes herself as someone who's pursued her research into the ice floes of the far north and west under the midnight sun with a caribou hunter. I love that. And on the Way she writes, I've been knighted with a walrus penis bone. Now, that has to be the first time we've had a walrus penis bone on this podcast in the Royal and ancient Polar Bear Society. And we need to know a bit more about that before we get any further.
- [03:00]
Host
A little bit more about that, please, Elena. I mean, you know, it's not nothing to do with, you know, realpolitik, but I want to know, why did this happen to you?
- [03:08]
Elena Barraclough
Well, this was actually an Arctic Norway, to be fair. This isn't in Green, the caribou hunter, very much Greenland. But we were doing a radio documentary about the supernatural north. And this Norse explorer called Ochtera, who comes from the time of essentially the Great Heathen army, when sort of the Norse are attacking the Anglo Saxons. And it's all getting very messy in England.
- [03:31]
Anita Arnan
Great Heathen army being the army that we talked about on a previous episode with Cat Jarman and her repton. Little bit of amber, which came from. Exactly, yeah.
- [03:39]
Elena Barraclough
Yes, exactly. And this is very much around the same time. But there's this character, Octuren. He's a very rich trader and explorer who lives in Arctic Norway. Essentially, he goes all the way around the coast. So I was on the trail of him. He ends up in Anglo Saxon England, which is why we know about him. He tells King Alfred and his court all about this amazing Arctic landscape and the people and the animals and the resources there, which is. But I was basically on his trail and stopped off in Hammerfest, where they have the royal and ancient polar bears. It's not ancient. If it's going to be a history podcast, I've got a level with you. I think it was probably the 1960s.
- [04:16]
Host
I was going to go 70s.
- [04:19]
Anita Arnan
Okay, but why a walrus penis bone? What's the role of that in the royal legend?
- [04:25]
Host
So it makes it special, darling. It makes it special.
- [04:28]
Anita Arnan
Yeah.
- [04:29]
Elena Barraclough
I mean, we're talking about it, aren't we? You know, you have to. So you get knighted on either side. The really disturbing thing is that there is actually a stuffed walrus head mounted on the wall that's essentially staring down at you as you get knighted. And you just end up feeling very apologetic. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. But yes, and then you become a member of the Royal Ancient Polar Bear Society. You get a certificate, little badge, everything.
- [04:54]
Host
Well, can I just reiterate your credentials as being the perfect person, as if you were before. Now you are the person to talk about the Vikings. Now, you mentioned sort of Anglo Saxon Britain. Getting their heads around the fact that there were Vikings. The people of England who first heard about the Vikings. We're talking about in the year sort of 793, aren't we? And it's not a lovely story either.
- [05:18]
Anita Arnan
Can I read the Anglo Saxon Chronicle for that year? The famous entry, the arrival of Vikings. It is written in the Anglo Saxon Chronicle was foreshadowed by omens that seared the Northumbrian sky. In this year came dreadful portents over the land of the Northumbrians. And the people were terrified most pitifully. And there were immeasurable whirlwinds and sheets of lightning and fiery dragons were seen flying through the air. These signs were soon followed by a great famine. And a little after that, the despicable ravagings of the heathen men annihilated God's church on Lindisfarne with plundering and slaughter. Eleanor Barraclough. What's going on? Tell her. Yeah.
- [06:03]
Elena Barraclough
Do you want a bit of that in the original Old English?
- [06:05]
Anita Arnan
Oh, yes.
- [06:06]
Host
I'm not gonna be able to match.
- [06:07]
Elena Barraclough
It for drama, but. And also I should preface this by saying that I have a colleague who once said to me, you know, you speak Old English with an old Norse accent. This is not a compliment. So. But it. Start that hair. Werren rabekkana kumina O for Northumbria land on that folk elmlit bregdon that were on them liefde fleogena. So you hear that fiery dragons bit?
- [06:36]
Anita Arnan
Do you know the whole of the Anglo Saxons Chronicle by heart? You're not. She's not reading.
- [06:41]
Elena Barraclough
No, no, no, no. I mean every single. And not just one version. Every single version off by heart. Yeah, yeah. Complete. And the whole of Beowulf.
- [06:50]
Host
As I said, the perfect person to be talking about the Vikings if I've not mentioned it before now. So the Vikings fell upon Lindisfarne like stinging hornets. What were they doing and what did they do to Lindisfarne? What is the truth beneath the Anglo Saxon headline there?
- [07:04]
Elena Barraclough
Pretty much that. Possibly minus the fiery dragons. You know, it's very portentous. But that's because they know what's coming next. They know that this is the start of raids around the coastlines of Britain and Ireland that will eventually then lead to the arrival of the great heathen army, as we've already ment mentioned in 865. But. So this is the first major recorded raid. It doesn't mean that it's definitely the first. We have something from maybe Three, four years earlier at the Isle of Portland. So right on the south coast of England there, it says that was the first three ships of the Danes that ever appeared on the coast. So. But, yeah, it seems like that's maybe even a trading party, a tourist part, Something gone wrong. Lindisfarne. Why it's so important is because it is a proper raid and they attack Lindisfarne and, you know, it's a sumptuous, very wealthy monastery. We have the Lindisfarne Gospels from around, I think, 700.
- [07:57]
Anita Arnan
I'm giving this interview from about 20 miles away. I'm a little bit up the coast.
- [08:01]
Elena Barraclough
There you go. Yes. I think they still have the original in the museum on Lindisfarne, but they have the Raiderstone, which is.
- [08:08]
Anita Arnan
They do.
- [08:08]
Elena Barraclough
It's still there, it's still brilliant. And they're on the back.
- [08:11]
Host
So what is the Raiderstone? For those who aren't in Berwick at this moment in time, I mean, which is everybody except William. So what is the Raiderstone?
- [08:21]
Elena Barraclough
So the raiderstone they found in Lindisfarne in the context of the monastery or the abbey that was raided from a few decades later, it's not completely contemporary, probably, but on one side there are seven figures with axes and swords raised, hence why it's called the Raiderstone. And then on the other side, there are these two big arms coming round, sort of these hands to meet each other in the middle, and there's the moon and the sun and it's this sense of doomsday having arrived. And I think it's. I think it's probably a grave mark or something like that, maybe for one of the sort of holy mentors.
- [08:52]
Anita Arnan
But it's always used as illustration of the first race.
- [08:56]
Elena Barraclough
But I think it's fascinating because without it, you don't get that sense of kind of how it felt to be on the ground, as it were, in any sense. You know, you have those fiery dragons in the Anglo Saxon Chronicle, but you don't have that sense of these are real people who are attacked out of nowhere, and that's why it's so shocking. And you have people writing in the Carolingian Empire, basically saying, what did you do wrong? You know, why have they attacked you?
- [09:23]
Anita Arnan
And they assume that it's their own sins that have brought this down on them.
- [09:27]
Host
But what it does show is that people from a remote place far, far away are flinging themselves into the ocean. And they are. I mean, are they. Are they just raiding? Is it conquest? Is it colonialism? I mean, what is the Motivating. What is the motivating factor for flinging Vikings all over the world?
- [09:45]
Elena Barraclough
So this is a question that people are still asking and trying to answer. So whatever I say is like subject to change, just to do a bit of kind of covering of beforehand. But it definitely at this point, not conquest. We're talking about hit and run raids for portable wealth. What's really fascinating is that you find in some, you know, a handful of Norwegian female graves from around this time, little bits and pieces of what appear to be raided items that were brought back. This is a huge part of why people think they're now doing it. It's essentially, if you are not already the top dog back where you come from and in this case with talking, those raids in this instance seem to come from Norway, is a really good way of getting yourself some money and some status. And so you come back and suddenly you might have got yourself a wife, you might have got yourself some followers and then you can build up your reputation and some slaves, often very much. And again, you know, you can either enslave people to sell them off to get money or to ransom them back. You have quite a lot of, again, kind of abbots and holy men being ransomed back to their communities. Oh, yep. Take. Take them yourself, you know, so. And I think that's a really important thing that often gets missed out of that fairly glitzy opening. Slavery is a big engine of the Viking age.
- [11:03]
Anita Arnan
So you get this crescendo of raids and it starts off with Deniswan. A few follow Iona is. Is then raided all the kind of, most glamorous monasteries with all the gold, all the lovely kind of gilt crosses, all that stuff you see in the National Museum of Dublin with those gorgeous interlaced crosses and all that sort of st stuff gets carted off to Norway. And then there's a step change in 865, it's no longer raiding. A great army turns up on the south coast and begins to take over. This is actually now an invasion. It's something completely different.
- [11:37]
Elena Barraclough
Yeah, and this is really important. This is a real sea change. It's when you start to see them overwintering sort of on the islands of, say, Thanet, for example, and then from there, or Repton.
- [11:47]
Anita Arnan
I dug as a teenager in the vicar's garden, unearthing the bones of Viking elite troops, all of whom were kind of sitting six foot six, all buried in alignment with the church.
- [11:59]
Elena Barraclough
Yeah, well, this is exactly. I mean, something like that. The reason that's so important is because we get this sense of. They've been described as almost like mobile war bands. So they're still pretty flexible. It's not like they arrive and then they're all just going together. It means they can sort of go between the different. They've got their ships and kingdoms.
- [12:18]
Anita Arnan
They go up and down the rivers, don't they?
- [12:19]
Elena Barraclough
They go up and down the rivers and then there's a point where they get horses, I think in the Anglo Saxons, like, uh, oh, this is not looking good. But it means they can move up and down. And so the Anglo Saxon kingdoms start to topple. You know, we have the murder of King Edmund of East Anglia in 870.
- [12:33]
Anita Arnan
Or so and they begin to settle. That's the point. And then suddenly the whole north and east of England become the Danelaw, where sudden you get all these Danish names for Danish farms or Norwegian farms. I went to school in Yorkshire and all the names around there were Thorpes or Biz, Danby, Normanby, all these. All these Viking names. And Thorpe means, well, Thorpe.
- [12:56]
Elena Barraclough
So Thorpe is a bit tricky because you also get it in the Northern Isles. So Orkney and Shetland, where it takes a different form, which is twat. And it basically means a clear. I apologize, but that's true. Yes.
- [13:09]
Anita Arnan
You actually like it so much you put a picture of a twat signpost in your book.
- [13:15]
Elena Barraclough
So. So the. So. So Thwaite or Thorpe or Twat, you know that it basically means a cleared place. It's sort of a secondary place. But, yeah, this. So, like the last time I was up on Orkney, though, did a little detour through twat. Of course I did. I wasn't not. I mean, you know, I'm a.
- [13:30]
Anita Arnan
Everyone has to go to twat.
- [13:31]
Elena Barraclough
Well, but apparently everyone has been going. And so the problem is the signs keep being nicked. And so the last time there was no sign. Could I find a twat anywhere?
- [13:42]
Host
No, I can't. Oh, my God, she looks like such a lovely girl. She says, seriously, this is. Is going to be our last broadcast on Empire. I hope you've enjoyed what you've heard so far. Okay, so. So look, the raid, she says, trying to take control of the children. Kids at the back of the bus. So, I mean, it's now turned into colonization. And as you say, I mean, is it an argument whether it was deliberate colonization or accidental colonization? Because you hang around for long enough and you fall in love. I mean, what happens here?
- [14:12]
Elena Barraclough
Oh, well, I think probably that did happen to some of them. But there is that sense that these are, for the most part, young men who are off on their raids, and then it sort of gets a little bit heavy and then lads off on a trip, but eventually you get a bit tired, you want to settle down, you want some good farmland, you know, and so that's.
- [14:29]
Anita Arnan
The stag party's gone on for too long.
- [14:30]
Elena Barraclough
Well, and, you know, in the sagas you do find, which I'm sure we'll get onto when we talk about Greenland, but these stories written down a bit later, but about this sort of era, if you were a Viking, but you're an older Viking, it's a little bit embarrassing. You've stayed at the party a bit too long, everyone else has gone home, you're still there. There's entry in the Anglo Saxon Chronicle that says rather ominously, they started ploughing the land. And that's a really important part, because when they start plowing, and this is something they're invested in and they want to stay and they want to sort of bring their families or make new families.
- [15:02]
Anita Arnan
So from that we move from a Danelaw that has now got Vikings with ploughs and with horses, and the poor old Anglo Saxons are shoved off into the margins, up into the valley, up into the hills and the less good land. And then they've settled around Dublin, and Dublin has become a Viking kingdom. And it is people from perhaps Viking York, Viking Dublin, that seem to be making the next move further westwards into the oceans. What do we know about the move towards Iceland?
- [15:34]
Elena Barraclough
The interesting thing is that around the time that we see the Norse very heavily invested in settling parts of Britain and Ireland, we also see this move out across the North Atlantic. So around 871 plus, or is 2 very specific dates, because a volcano goes off around the same time. And so we know when.
- [15:53]
Anita Arnan
Brilliant. We've got the date.
- [15:54]
Elena Barraclough
Yeah, we do. And also. So we have. He's called Ari in Frodi. He's an Icelander. He's writing in the 12th century. And he also describes the settlement of Iceland and he dates it to when King Edmund of East Anglia is martyred. And he says it's 870, but he's using oral tradition. But what's really interesting is that Ari out in Iceland, is using that same date. And then we can corroborate that date with an Icelandic volcano going off just before the first settlers arrive, which I absolutely love. So we're talking mostly sort of. The males seem to be predominantly from Norway, but there's a very high population of the first female settlers. And we can tell this from genetics who come from the British Isles in Ireland. So there's that strong element coming in.
- [16:39]
Anita Arnan
Are they slaves? We just don't know.
- [16:41]
Elena Barraclough
We don't know. It's possible and certainly some of them probably are. And in the sagas, again, which are these lakes, sources that look back to that time, a lot of the slaves have Irish or Celtic names. But there's also that tricky thing that someone's genes don't tell you necessarily what sort of heritage or how they grew up. So if you looked at my genes, they'd look quite Dutch. But I can't speak Dutch. It's my granny was Dutch. Do you know what I mean? So it's like. So we don't know whether they are sort of people of the British Isles of Ireland, sort of who are living in Norse cultural communities and then going up there. I'd imagine quite a few of them probably are slaves.
- [17:18]
Host
But we do, we do know what they did when. I mean, when they got to Iceland. Iceland was very heavily forested. And we know that, you know, they were industrious, they cut down a lot of trees, they needed building materials.
- [17:27]
Elena Barraclough
It's a tricky one. Heavily forested. For us, not living in Iceland probably means something different to what it meant for those first Icelanders who were describing it. We certainly. We've got trees, but they're all a bit scrubby and sort of of almost in the Arctic of the North Atlantic sort of thing. But, yeah, it's certainly true that we start to see. The reason I'm being slightly cagey about this is because I've written a very academic article about deforestation in Iceland and it is gripping. But you probably don't want me to go into as much detail as I want.
- [17:56]
Host
I mean, we're talking about some sickly trees. Not that many. Don't get too excited, Anita. Basically, that's what I'm getting the abstract from your academic article. Okay, I won't, but I think I. Are they chopping down timber to sort of set up villages or is it to make boats to go even further exploring? So what is it for?
- [18:13]
Elena Barraclough
This is a really good question. So they need it for fuel? They need it, yes, for boats. But you find very, very few ship burials in Iceland. I think it's like six compared to, say, if you go to Norway, and that's partly because you're not going to have the wood. So you've got to think those boats are often going to be already have been built in the British Isles or Norway. But it's what Happens next. And, yeah, it's this. So we don't get that movement going further west. So remember, Iceland settled in around 871. We're talking 985 before we know that someone has sort of intentionally gone off further west and has found Greenland.
- [18:52]
Anita Arnan
And is this regarded as a staging point for further travel, or is this a place that is an end in itself? What. What's the.
- [18:59]
Elena Barraclough
Iceland is very much somewhere you settle. Yeah. So Iceland is somewhere that you go and you find land. And the first people to go out there get the most land and the best land, but it is all the way around the edge. That's something because. Because even today, you can't really live, for the most part in the interior. It's very icy and rocky and people.
- [19:14]
Anita Arnan
Turn up with IKEA kits. I love that in your book. They've got. They got prefab houses they bring with them from Norway.
- [19:20]
Elena Barraclough
Yeah, they're very. They're very smart. You can. You can see why the sort of today's Scandinavians came from those Scandinavians. You know, it's things like they bring. They bring the same blueprint of farm animals every time they make this movement across the North Atlantic. And then it's essentially, suck it and see which ones are going to survive. You know, pigs, great in the Faroese, not so great when you get to Iceland, and even worse when you get to Greenland.
- [19:44]
Host
So they're in Iceland. You know, they've chopped down trees for, you know, some really pathetic trees from the south of things that nobody's gonna miss. And they, you know, they've been sort of building their little homesteads and their. Their ships, flinging themselves into the ocean and then sort of heading for Greenland. Is that a deliberate move? Because after the break, we're going to talk very much about Greenland and the Viking presence there. But, I mean, is it deliberate or is it kind of an accidental. We're just wandering around and. Oh, that's interesting.
- [20:10]
Elena Barraclough
Well, this is mostly when you're talking about these sorts of places. They are accidental discoveries. Someone gets blown off course, and then they're like, something's over.
- [20:18]
Anita Arnan
Gunborn son of Alf the crow, no less. We don't have Alf the crow on the show enough. I think we need him.
- [20:25]
Elena Barraclough
I completely agree. They're good names, aren't they? Yeah. No. The problem is, though, he gets into, I'd say, a lot of trouble, but he doesn't want to land. They get blown off and they're like, oh, you didn't land. You didn't. Okay, so it's those sorts of feelings that if you're not the one to actually go and explore, it's not cool.
- [20:41]
Anita Arnan
Elf the crow sights the land. But the person who actually realizes that this is a place that you can try and settle is going to be the hero of the next half. After the break, we're going to introduce you all to Eric the Red, who Eleanor describes as a hot tempered serial killer.
- [21:01]
Host
He sounds dreamy. Okay.
- [21:08]
Anita Arnan
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- [22:21]
William Dur
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- [22:49]
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- [23:15]
Elena Barraclough
Vitafusion Flavor.
- [23:23]
Anita Arnan
Welcome back. Well, just before the break, we'd met Eric the Red, the hot tempered serial killer. A difficult, violent, but intrepid man with limited options.
- [23:33]
Elena Barraclough
I think that's pretty much spot on. I think he'd probably have quite liked that description himself, to be honest. So he starts off in Norway and he gets outlawed from Norway because of some killings, as the sagas say, rather darkly. So then he goes off to Iceland, he settles there, he's got a family, it's all good. Gets into another fight. But then, yeah, there are some more killings over some bed boards that I think don't get returned and everyone gets a bit cross. And so, yes, more killings happen.
- [23:59]
Host
Until I read your book, I always assumed Eric the Red was like that character in Game of Thrones with his big red shaggy beard and his red hair. But it's Eric the Red because he's covered in blood pretty much most of the time.
- [24:09]
Elena Barraclough
I mean, let's say shaggy red hair, possibly also covered in blood. You know, this guy, I don't know, I mean, he's the right guy to settle Greenland, put it that way, because he's intrepid. He only gets outlawed this time for three years. So this is called lesser outlawry, which essentially means you get out, you think about what you've done, you sit on the naughty step and then you come back. And so he does that.
- [24:31]
Anita Arnan
But it's only when you've killed a handful of people as opposed to a full scale massacre.
- [24:34]
Host
Yes, exactly.
- [24:36]
Elena Barraclough
Off you go. Yes, very naughty boy. So off he goes and he decides, yeah, he's heard there's this, this land and so he's going to go and explore it. But really importantly, it's the west coast that he explores. And that's important because the east coast, although there are people who live there now, they're people who sort of very much hunter gatherer, Inuit way of life. We've got to think of the Norse as being part of this medieval Northern European culture. And so they need land to farm, they need to be able to hunt, they need to be able to grow things if they can. But honestly, Greenland is pretty harsh for that. So he goes up and down that west coast, he discovers all these fjords that are really quite lush in the summer. And he then comes back after three years, gets his family and his followers together and he says, off we go, we're settling. And so this is around 9, 8, 5.
- [25:24]
Anita Arnan
And then he does a kind of sales pitch. He rather than come back and say, it's this really icy place full of rocks, he decides he's going to do the kind of estate agent thing and he's going to call it Greenland.
- [25:34]
Host
Greenland, which is something Iceland that has more greenery. Never bothered with, you know, we'll just call us what we are, but Greenland, you know, let's just change the thing on the tin so everyone thinks we're a different color than we are.
- [25:48]
Elena Barraclough
And to be fair to him, those fjords. Because I've spent a bit of time out there researching sort of in the trail of the. Hence the caribou hunter that we talked about, you know. But in the summer, it's good. It's good land. It's not brilliant, but it's good. The problem with Greenland comes in the winter because it's dark and it's very, very cold, and there are long winters. And so that makes growing very difficult. It makes. Makes keeping animals really difficult, particularly slightly more tender animals. Like I said, the pig, not a big fan of Greenland. Goat, great. Sheep, great. It's that whole yearly cycle that becomes difficult. What they do have, however, is really good hunting. And they have these two settlements. So they have the eastern settlement, which is all along the west coast, but it's bigger. It's got its own bishopric. And then they've got the western settlement a few hundred miles further up the coastline, and it's about a third of the size. And then if you go further than that, beyond the Arctic Circle, around what's now Ilulisset, Disco Bay, that area very, very icy and cold, you have what they called Nordursetta, which means the northern hunting grounds. And then you have things like walrus. Great thing about walrus, they have really tough hide for ships, ropes. But more importantly, perhaps they've got ivory. And ivory is a big deal, and people will pay a lot of money for it. So the Norse have access to this.
- [27:05]
Host
So, I mean, a lot of what we know about this period and this settlement, I mean, it's from the sagas. And I just wanted to know, are the sagas history? Are they sort of epic storytelling by the fireplace? How do we know what's true, what's not true, and when they were actually written?
- [27:19]
Elena Barraclough
Oh, wow. Okay. So both of the above is the first answer. We often don't is the second answer. And yes, we do know when they're written down. I could give you that. So, yeah, the thing is, saga literally means it comes from an old Norse word, seja, to say, to tell. So they're based very much on oral traditions that get passed down the generations. And we've already seen from the settlement of Iceland that oral traditions can be really sort of really good markers of time. So it's not to discount that, but other things can slip in. And so our idea of what is a historical account might not be the same as sort of medieval Iceland's idea of a historical account. The sagas get passed down and they change and they sort of wiggle around and you end up with extra things in. And then, particularly in the 13th century, you start to see them being written down. And that's partly because by that point, there's a horrible civil war going on in Iceland. And the Norwegian king is very heavily involved in that civil war and sort of wants to take over and eventually does in the 1260s. And so by the time they're writing down the sagas, they're looking back at a time and we're talking particularly the sagas of Icelanders here. There are other types, but these are the ones that we're talking about in this context. But they're looking back to those first centuries of settlement, when they are what's sometimes called a commonwealth, but they're an independent country without a king. And so that's the context, you know, you know, most about your own identity when you come up against something that is threatening it.
- [28:50]
Host
The greatest tests of your mettle. I mean, and I just wonder with this, I mean, you mentioned, you know, they sort of hug the coast most of the time, which is just more home hospitable whenever they find these landfalls of Greenland and Iceland. But, but, but, but do we ever have in the sagas any kind of account of what happens when they make first contact with the original inhabitants? You know, sort of the Inuits who.
- [29:11]
Anita Arnan
Live there are the original inhabitants. I mean, are the Inuits already there, all over the coastline, in the interior, or not visible at all for many years?
- [29:20]
Elena Barraclough
It's tricky because there are different groups, sort of Arctic hunter gatherer type groups that come in and out of Greenland. We can talk about Greenland then. We can talk about. Because they certainly, we know a little more actually about the people they encounter when they move even further west than that. But in the case of Greenland, when the Norse actually arrive, that's a period where it doesn't look like there is actually other cultural groups living in that particular sort of more southerly part of the western coast.
- [29:47]
Anita Arnan
There have been, because if you're hunter gatherers, you want to be near the walrus and the seals. You don't want to be on the southern coast. Got it.
- [29:54]
Elena Barraclough
Exactly. And at that point, it's a little bit warmer. What we find from sort of the 1200s onwards is that it gets stormier, it gets icier, the temperatures start to drop. You know, it's not sort of a downward slope, but it's kind of a gradual descent and what you find there is that life becomes more difficult increasingly, for the Norse. But if you think further north, you end up with more coastline that is more suitable for this. This sort of Inuit way of life, essentially. And so they start to make their way further down. Now we have this quite. It's quite dark account. It's in the historian of Egija, so in the history of Norway, and it's written in the 13th century and they say, you know, the hunters in Norse Greenland. The Norse hunters have found these people further up the coastline and they call them the Skralingar. And Skralingar is not nice. It means sort of wretched ones, but it's not meant to be complementary savages.
- [30:54]
Host
Is it savages or puny ones? I mean, is it puny ones?
- [30:57]
Elena Barraclough
Yeah, puny.
- [30:58]
Host
That's what I thought. You know, the weaker human, the lesser human.
- [31:02]
Elena Barraclough
Exactly. Like mannequins, little ones, Wretched ones. Exactly. And then, rather worryingly, it says, you know, they. When they're cut a little bit, these people, their wounds turn white and they don't bleed, but when they're cut more than they bleed and bleed and bleed, and you just think, oh, this is not good.
- [31:18]
Anita Arnan
Not going to end well.
- [31:19]
Elena Barraclough
Exactly. Now, that has. Then it's really tricky because you don't see regular contact between these groups, although it seems that definitely starting off in these northern hunting grounds, they are coming into contact with each other in the kind of latter part of the Norse Greenlandic settlement. For example, the people who are sort of the ancestors of today's Greenlandic Inuit, in their archaeological evidence, they seem occasionally to be carving little wooden figures that look like they are depicting the Norse, for example. Or you'll find bits and pieces of Norse artefacts in their occupation layers, in the Inuit occupation layers. But we don't know what that, you know, did they. Did they sort of.
- [32:02]
Host
Does that mean trade? Does that mean conquest? Does that mean defeat? I mean, it's fascinating or none of the above.
- [32:07]
Elena Barraclough
And actually it's that they sort of find these things later on when the Norse have disappeared. So it's tricky. We don't know. There doesn't seem to be any sort of genetic evidence to go on there either.
- [32:18]
Anita Arnan
But just to clarify, when they're arriving on the south coast, this is pretty well virgin territory. There's no evidence from archaeology that it's.
- [32:26]
Elena Barraclough
Been inhabited before on the south coast of Greenland? No, no. So there is. I can't remember how far down they get, but there's an earlier population who definitely. And I think there is Actually a Norse text that says, you know, they found evidence of these people and their tools and their weapons. So there is. But we're talking about a significant amount of time.
- [32:44]
Anita Arnan
It's a dead population. It's like finding a lost civilization.
- [32:47]
Elena Barraclough
Exactly. And because it's stone tools and bones, they survive. They don't sort of deteriorate in the same way that more kind of soft organic material would have done.
- [32:56]
Anita Arnan
How easy is it to settle? You've got Eric the Red psycho killer turning up with his family. They haven't got. There's no wood. They can't grow wheat, so there's no bread. What are they living on?
- [33:07]
Elena Barraclough
The only wood that's there, really. I mean, there's like, puny bits. There are some bits. Exactly. It's mostly the good wood is driftwood from Siberia or they're having to import it from Norway, and even more so as time goes on and it gets sort of increasingly precious.
- [33:22]
Anita Arnan
So they're building from turf or what?
- [33:24]
Elena Barraclough
Yeah, so. And this is true of Iceland as well. What you'll see is, like that the lower layers are stones and turf and they build up the walls. And it's really effective, particularly for these. These long winters, you know, these thick, thick walls. There's one church, it's at Kvalzi. So this is in what was, you know, would have been known as the Eastern Settlement. It's still standing. And I've been there. The walls of this stone church are so thick, like crazy thick. But it makes perfect sense within that context. And in fact, one of the last written records we have about life in Norse Greenland comes from the church at Kvalzi. It's from. On the first decade of the 1400s, and it's a marriage that takes place there. And so, yeah, you can see. You can see. Kind of part of the fascinating thing about Norse Greenland is that it hasn't much been built over. And so a lot of these farmhouses, the remains are still there. And you can see that they are in areas that are sort of the lushest parts of Norse Greenland. And so, you know, certainly in the early years, it's. It's not a bad place to settle at all. You know, they have, like I say, their own bishopric.
- [34:31]
Anita Arnan
What are they eating other than fish? I mean, I remember Robert MacFarlane writing about how disgusting gannets are to eat. Are they eating razorbills and gullimuts and puffins?
- [34:40]
Host
Is there blubber? I mean, blubber.
- [34:42]
Elena Barraclough
Must be a big of seal blubber and more seal blubber as the years go on. Sort of. As things get harder, you see an increase in that. In their diet.
- [34:50]
Anita Arnan
No one chooses to eat seal, do they? It's not a delicacy.
- [34:53]
Host
No. No. Blubber is quite yummy. Yeah.
- [34:56]
Elena Barraclough
I think it's just. I'll tell you who didn't like it very much was the Norwegian bishops who were coming in. So they weren't sort of native Norse Greenlanders, as it were. They didn't enjoy it. So you see more reindeer, for example, on their. On their plates. And there are certainly reindeer. But I mean, no, I think. I think it's. You're talking to the wrong person. I'm vegan. I haven't got a clue what part. I'm like such a rubbish Viking historian.
- [35:19]
Host
I did once try blubber. It is. I mean, it's not to my taste. Taste at all.
- [35:23]
Anita Arnan
Where did you try your blubber?
- [35:25]
Host
Well, it was. There was an opportunity to try it in Kiruna, which is sort of in the Arctic Circle, where they also like a lot of reindeer meat and lingonberries and things like that. Blubber, not delicious for me, but I know that it is a massive delicacy for some because it's so high in calories, it's calorific. And in cold weather, it really, you know, bolsters you up. You get used to it if you need it.
- [35:47]
Elena Barraclough
Exactly. And I mean, speak to sort of the Greenlanders today, modern Greenlanders, they would, you know, very much. You know, it's. It's. And there are other things that you can eat. They do try and grow grain, I think barley at some point. Doesn't go very well. We're talking. Yeah, a lot of. A lot of seal, a lot of, well, reindeer, where you can get it. But there's also a very regular trading route coming from Norway, bringing supplies in, and that's absolutely crucial. And when that disintegrates, that's the problem.
- [36:12]
Host
Sure. But I mean, while it's good. I mean, it's is. It's very good. Greenland is not like some kind of, you know, poor cousin, because they. They do give tithes to the Norwegian king. They're able to. I love that. I love the gifts that they bring to the Norwegian king, you know, because. And you can only do this. You can only do the flex like this if you see yourself and others see you as a vibrant society. So they will bring sort of, you know, ivory, as you said, walrus ivory. It's like gold, hides, furs, you know, sort of all the reindeer skins, gyrefalcons and live polar Bears. Now, this is to me a wonderful gift that no king needs, which is for your Majesty.
- [36:50]
Anita Arnan
I present.
- [36:51]
Host
I present to you a thing that's going to eat your face. You're welcome. You can only do that. You can only give a tithe like that if you see yourself as if not an equal, but then something. Something to be reckoned with.
- [37:03]
Elena Barraclough
Yeah, no, exactly that. It's really important. I think equal is tricky, but we are talking about a Norse diaspora. We're talking about a connected cultural world and that's. That's a really important feature. So the people living in Norse Greenland, in New Settle, would have absolutely considered themselves part of that world. And as you say, they're giving tithes to Norway. They're getting. They have trade routes. They start from Iceland, but really, over time, the trade routes with Norway become the most important ones. They have bishops imported from Norway, so those links are absolutely crucial and they, you know, they have a common language.
- [37:40]
Anita Arnan
For example, and what they have to offer, the walrus ivory. This is a very valuable thing. This is a treasure, hugely.
- [37:48]
Elena Barraclough
And you look at something like the Lewis chess pieces, and most of them are walrus ivory, and there's a very good chance they're starting to do DNA evidence on walrus ivory. And I'm just waiting for them to do it on the Lewis chess pieces. To my knowledge, not yet. I have asked, sort of begged, because I'm desperate to know, but in all likelihood that woolrus ivory probably comes from Greenland. Yeah. And in fact there's.
- [38:09]
Anita Arnan
Found in Shetland, in Lewes.
- [38:11]
Elena Barraclough
Yeah.
- [38:13]
Anita Arnan
Lewis.
- [38:13]
Host
Jesus. Of course, sorry, it's the Lewis Chesterton.
- [38:15]
Anita Arnan
I could have worked that out, couldn't I?
- [38:17]
Elena Barraclough
But there are other gaming pieces very much found in Orkney and Shetland, all over the place.
- [38:24]
Host
Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry.
- [38:25]
Anita Arnan
Lena, she always enjoys these moments.
- [38:27]
Host
I just revel in these little puddles of joy. Lewis pieces. Are they the ones from Barbados? No, no, Lewis, still Lewis.
- [38:36]
Anita Arnan
I'm gonna bring things back to Eleanor. Tell me about horny zombies. This is something I've been longing to discuss with you. You have a wonderful section in your book which is called Porridge, Passion and Paganism. So quickly tell us about the outcrop of horny zombies in Greenland and indeed witches.
- [39:01]
Elena Barraclough
I've got to say. This is from my earlier book, so you are really testing me now on horny zombies. And that is not what the question. I thought you were going to ask me that. But essentially that's from one of the sagas, the Vinland Sagas, which also look at North America. It's called Greininninger Saga.
- [39:15]
Anita Arnan
We're going to come to that in the next episode.
- [39:17]
Elena Barraclough
Brilliant. So this one is the saga of the Greenlanders. Okay. So one of Eric the Red's sons, whose name is Thorsten, and his wife Gur, who becomes a really important character. They are. It's that classic thing they set off. They're lost at sea all summer. They're driven by storms. They end up in the western settlement, which, if you remember, is that one that's a third of the size further up the coastline. So it's still the western coast further towards the Arctic. And they end up with this. Just imagine this really grumpy farmer called Thorsten the Black. And he says, yeah, you can stay with me, but it's not much fun here. And, like, it's just me and my wife, and so they. They. They hang out there. And then, of course, because it's a farmstead, you know, there's lots of other people there as well, working there, living there, despite what he says. And plague comes, or at least sickness comes.
- [40:07]
Anita Arnan
And this is a real horror story that you have in your book. It's a proper. It's a movie.
- [40:12]
Elena Barraclough
Yes.
- [40:13]
Anita Arnan
So one by one, everyone begins to die.
- [40:15]
Elena Barraclough
Everyone. And then the saga. So there's two versions of this story. And the other one is told in Eric's saga, Ruidr, which is the saga of Eric the Red, which is the other one, and Gudruddr. So Thorsten's wife, at this point, she's going to the privy with Thorsten the Black, who's a bit miserable, his wife, and she's very not well. And then she suddenly looks towards the doorway and she says, I can't go outside. And there's this. There's a whole gang of the dead just standing there.
- [40:43]
Host
Yeah, well, they're not dead. They're not zombies, though. Hang on a minute. Are they very sick people?
- [40:48]
Anita Arnan
They are zombies.
- [40:50]
Host
The zombies.
- [40:50]
Anita Arnan
No, they died.
- [40:52]
Elena Barraclough
Well, yeah. No, no, no. Yeah, but I think at this point we're not. I'm gonna get in so much trouble for calling them zombies, Right? At this point, we're not even sure. They could be ghosts at this point. Gotta wait for your zombies. Right. So she's basically saying, among all these, the dead who are standing outside the door, in what corporeal form, we do not know at this point, she says, I recognize your husband, Thorsten. And I see myself. Oh, my goodness. So cut to the morning. She is indeed dead. But then this is where. Okay, I do describe them as zombies. It's my own fault.
- [41:22]
Anita Arnan
We need this movie to be made. Netflix, are you listening?
- [41:26]
Host
Wait a minute. Stop interrupting. Explain. The zombies. Why do you say zombies?
- [41:30]
Elena Barraclough
So at this point, Thorsten, who's Eric the Red's son, Gudvr's wife, husband, is lying in bed and he's dying. And at this point, the farmer's wife kind of is basically, her corpse is reanimated. Now, I should say there is an excellent word for this. Yes. Well, they call them druiger, like zombie. The undeads. These you. So there's a special Dr. Yeah. And they live in Huar, which are the kind of burial man.
- [41:56]
Anita Arnan
So you're the Dr. From Hu.
- [41:58]
Elena Barraclough
The Dr. From the Hu. Yeah, exactly. But she is not polymeric.
- [42:03]
Host
There once was a Dr. From Hyga.
- [42:06]
Elena Barraclough
But she basically, the horniness comes in because Thorsten, despite the fact that he's dying, manages to get word that essentially I don't have any peace because your dead wife keeps on trying to get under the bed covers with me.
- [42:19]
Anita Arnan
Into my bed.
- [42:20]
Elena Barraclough
Into my bed. Yeah. So again, I mean, maybe she's just cold.
- [42:23]
Anita Arnan
Maybe it's a reasonable complaint.
- [42:25]
Elena Barraclough
Well, I think so. He's trying to die in peace and there's a horny zombie trying to get into. But I mean, it doesn't end well. And this is. Yeah. So basically the only way to unanimate.
- [42:34]
Anita Arnan
Her, essentially, is that the boring farmer takes an axe and cleaves the dead woman in two.
- [42:41]
Elena Barraclough
I mean, this is proper Nordic noir. It is absolute Nordic noir. Yes.
- [42:45]
Host
Can I just say, when I thought we were going to talk about the history of Greenland, I didn't think we'd end up here. But I'm not sorry.
- [42:51]
Anita Arnan
Neither did I.
- [42:52]
Host
Not at all. Sorry about that. Listen, we're going to end it there, but join us for the next episode with the wonderful Eleanor. Wonderful, unpredictable, slightly mad Eleanor, who is going to take us further on this Viking adventure. And we might actually. We might quite stride between two of the subjects that we're doing in this here miniseries, Greenland, but also Canada, because we're going to be looking at something called the Vinland Sagas. I can't promise you zombies or sex with zombies or any of that.
- [43:25]
Anita Arnan
I'm definitely going to ask her, though, about witches, because there's some very witch stories.
- [43:29]
Host
Okay.
- [43:29]
Anita Arnan
All right.
- [43:29]
Host
Well, they'll be. Well, there'll be witches. Okay. There'll be witches and you know the score. If you want to get all four of the Greenland episodes and not wait around at all or just join the club, that's empirepod uk.com empirepod uk.com and you get lots more besides till the next time we meet it's goodbye from.
- [43:45]
Anita Arnan
Me Anita Arnan and goodbye from me William Dur.
- [43:57]
Host
Before you go, can we tell you about something really exciting?
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Anita Arnan
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Host
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Anita Arnan
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Host
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