176
objects of art like the Bayeux tapestry and the
Oseberg finds.
34
As one speaker observed:
“These artefacts display considerable skill and
open up for the question of who we grasp in
these finds.”
35
Shields were objects that could
tell their own story, and appear to have had a
connection to the female sphere;
36
dwarfs were
popular figures but are not necessarily depicted
as small or even supernatural;
37
smiths as a sort
of cyborg do capture the imagination;
38
and the
embroidery and stitches used to create
tapestries in turn tells stories about cultural
contacts and influences
39
as much as they tell
the actual story in pictures. In detecting these
cultural contacts, manuscripts, names and
runic inscriptions also play an important role.
Runic inscriptions dating from after the Viking
Age show that contacts established during the
Viking Age were still alive even after the
decline of Viking influence;
40
the situation is
somewhat more complicated with names.
41
But there is still cause to suspect that scholarly
interest in the Viking Age as well as recourse
to Viking Age myths and stories helped to
create the identities of later rulers and dynasties
like the Danish royal family and Hedeby.
42
Stories about the Vikings, their treasures
43
and their world continue to be told in our
modern world, and the references to the
Vikings are manifold. This is proven by the
amount of material the World Tree
44
project has
collected, but it also shows in historical fiction.
Two authors of historical fiction, Victoria
Whitworth and Justin Hill, gave talks
45
in the
course of the conference, and a round table,
open to the public, opened discussion about
historical facts in fiction between James
Aitcheson, Justin Hill, Helen Hollick, and
Victoria
Whitworth.
46
Topics
covered
included the amount of research required to
write historical fiction and how to deal with
historical facts as a storyline hindrance.
During the conference, the conference and
recent political developments were topics
discussed by Twitter user King
Cnut the Great
(@CanutusRex), just one example of how
embedded events
and persons from the Viking
Age are in our own memories and identities. It
is therefore not surprising that a great ten-year
research programme, ‘The Viking Phenomenon’
located at the University of Uppsala, will be
launched on the year of these anniversaries, and
the conference certainly served to further future
research and strengthen networks between
scholars of the Viking Age and adjacent periods.
Notes
1. “The Viking Period – a Multifaceted Era!”, by
Caroline Ahlström Arcini and Gareth Williams.
2. “An evolutionary Anthropological Approach to the
Origins of Viking Raiding”, by Ben Raffield, Neil
Price & Mark Collard.
3. “Pagan Conquerors to Christian Settlers: Religious
Change and Burial Custom in Viking Age Isle of
Man” by Dirk H. Steinforth.
4. “The Life of a Slave: Life Histories and Manners of
Death,
the
Slave
Graves
of
Viking-Age
Scandinavia”, by Anna Kjellström.
5. “Gender and Burial”, by Marianne Moen.
6. “Embedded in the Past? – Site Reuse in Early Viking
Age Britain and Ireland”, by Stephen Harrison;
“‘Imbued with the Essence of the Owner’:
Personhood and Possessions in the Reopening and
Reworking of Viking Age Burials” by Alison Klevnäs.
7. “Raiding and Crusading: The Vikings in Iberia Ac-
cording to the Scandinavian Sources”, by Edel Porter.
8. “Rus’ Raiding in the Caspian Region and the
Norman Theory”, by Vusala Afandiyeva; “Norse
Beliefs in Viking Age Poland: Objects, Symbols and
Identities”, by Leszek Gardeƚa.
9. “Ransacking the Wordhord: The Reassessment of
Purported English Loanwords in Old Norse”, by
Nikolas Gunn; “Linguistic Diversity in the Viking
World: Place-Name Vocabulary in the Viking
Diaspora”, by Eleanor Rye; “
Thegns in the Danelaw:
A Case of Scandinavian Usage of the Term in 10–
11
th
Century England”, by Denis Sukhino-Khomenko.
10. “Viking Shielings in Northern Britain:
sætr and
ærgi
Names” by Ryan Foster.
11. “The Names
Eystribygð and
Vestribygð and Norse
Greenland’s Relation to the Norse World”, by Eldar
Heide.
12. “Cnut’s Sea-Dominions, the ‘East Way’ and the
‘Byzantine World’”, by Jonathan Shepard; “The
Gate to Svithiod: Traces of Viking Age in and
around the Island of Stockholm”, by Torun
Zachrisson; “Where Routes Met: Archaeological
Indications of Contacts between Scandinavia and the
Trade Routes in Central Asia during the Viking
Age”, by Charlotte Hedenstierna-Jonson.
13. “Eastern Vikings in Arabic Sources”, by Þórir
Hraundal.
14. “Between Worlds and Across Borders: Burial
Customs and Cultural Transformations in 8
th
–9
th
Century Ribe”, by Sarah Croix.
15. “Medieval Anthropology and the Norse North
Atlantic”, by Dayanna Knight.
16. “Transformations: Norse and Gaelic Languages/
Viking Identities”, by Roderick McDonald; “‘Turn
and Face the Strange’: Changing Regional Ethnic