Norse-Style Ploughing

by Marie-Louise Jensen


I always get excited when I learn something new about one of the eras I write about. Of course there's masses I don't know, but some things reshape your view of the past more than others.
I've written three books about Vikings and am beginning a fourth for younger readers at present. I haven't researched agriculture in huge detail. I know which animals were domesticated and taken to Iceland during the era of settlement and I know which crops were grown across Scandinavia. But a chance reference of mine to a plough threw up a query from my editors and I discovered I knew very little about the agricultural methods of the Viking age.  
I discovered a wealth of rather contradictory information. Firstly, that the Vikings were known for using horses for ploughing rather than strong but slow oxen. It got the job done faster and left more time for raiding during the summer. However, the modern-style collar which enables horses to pull the plough safely had not yet been invented. So horses used for ploughing often became injured. Oxen were less prone to injury.
It appears to possibly be the case that while the Vikings used horses (and ploughs) for ploughing in the European countries they settled, they continued to use oxen in Scandinavia.
I was also fascinated to read that throughout the Norse era, the archaeological evidence points to the fact that ploughs weren't used in the Viking home countries - there they were still using a forerunner of the plough known as an ard (arðr) which scratched furrows into the soil rather than turning it as a plough does. A field near the Viking settlement of Lindholm Høje in Denmark was uncovered from a 900-year-old sand drift recently and found preserved as it had been when the sand blew over it - recently furrowed by an ard for planting.
The evidence points to the same tools and methods being used throughout Scandinavia in the Norse era, certainly in Icelamd. And an ox was used with an ard - the field worker walking beside the ox as he drew it.
So, given that my story is set in Iceland, I probably need to mention an ox, not a horse and almost certainly an ard not a plough.
I also learned two other fascinating facts. Viking-age sheep were tiny and horses were the only animals the Vikings selectively bred on Iceland.
Research really is an education.

Werewolves

by Marie-Louise Jensen


I had a new book out in late July. Which was weird because I didn't see it until mid August because I was in Europe when it appeared.
I arrived at a friend's house in Germany and she (being a wonderful friend) had ordered a copy. That was my first glimpse of the print edition. Cue squeaks of excitement.

The book is a short novel for younger readers and was originally written as an interactive e-book for 10-11 year olds in schools.
Educational publishing - that strange animal, where not offending religious schools takes precedence over what people believed in the past.

Because let's not beat about the bush; the Norse believed in shape-shifting. In the saga of Egil Skallagrimson (not a tale for the faint hearted and certainly not for children) we are told in quite a matter of fact way that Egil's grandfather was known to be a shape-shifter. He was even called Kveld-Ulf (Evening Wolf.) Egil himself has beserker tendencies and behaves a lot more like a werewolf than a man a lot of the time, splitting enemies heads open with axes and other charming incidents.

The Christanisation of Iceland happened peacefully shortly after his death and his son had his body exhumed and reburied near the chapel that was built on his land. I can't believe he'd have been happy with that. He was a true pagan. Forgiveness and meekness were totally alien to him.

By all accounts, the official acceptance of Christianity in Iceland was a formality. The country was threatened with conversion by force from Norway if the population didn't accept the new god. Sensibly, they accepted him and privately continued with their worship of the Norse gods for many years. To this day, the majority of Icelanders confess to believing in 'The Hidden Folk,' - elves.

But my 'werewolf' wasn't allowed to be real. Which was fine. It made for a perfectly good mystery story anyway. But the people of Viking-age Iceland would have had no trouble believing in werewolves. I should think they'd have been more astonished if you said such things didn't exist. Even after the arrival of Christianity. Werewolves, trolls, elves, ghosts and other supernatural beings were an indisputable part of the rich and brutal fabric of their world.

The Viking Faeroes

by Marie-Louise Jensen

For a number of years, I had a bit of an obsession with the Faeroe Islands, dating from receiving a postcard from there aged 20. The islands looked so weird and wonderful, distinctive green mountains rising steeply out of the sea, and I instantly wanted to visit.

It was 20 years before I got there, but in the intervening time, I read a fair bit of Faeroese literature (in Danish) and was generally fascinated by the remoteness of the islands and the isolated life there. A life that was isolated not just from other countries but by being a series of islands with treacherous seas running between them.

In the Viking era, the islands must have seemed less of a remote outpost than they do now, despite all that cheap flights and bridge-building between islands by the Danish government can do. The Fareoes were very central in the North Atlantic trade and exploration routes - a handy stop over on a voyage to Iceland, Greenland or even Scotland from the rest of Scandinavia.

The Vikings settled them early - duly driving out the Irish monks, as they did in Iceland. They even had their own saga - Faereyinga Saga - though the manuscript has sadly been lost.
In the sagas where they are mentioned, ships stop over on their way to Iceland, and I was inspired by that for my travellers in Daughter of Fire and Ice to stop there for fresh water; a life-changing stopover for my characters as it turned out.

Most of the literature I read about set in the islands was about mu
ch later periods - priests who were deeply mortified about being posted to such a backwater, or who tried desperately to stop their incorrigible flock spending their days in drunkenness.  And - an eye-opener for me - about the leper colony on one of the islands. The over-riding theme of the later literature (19th century and prudish) was the issue of sexual licence. A small colony was in need of new blood to avert in-breeding, so the women reputedly tumbled into bed with every sailor who visited. Myself, I suspect this was either much exaggerated by the male authors (who also told tales of stoning brothers and sisters to death for incest) or down to the Faeroese men being jealous or perhaps they just didn't know how to treat their women properly?

There's no doubt it was a hard life and a poor one for much of the islands' history.

I'm still fascinated by the islands' history and geography and am currently drooling with jealousy over photos my mother has been emailing to me (she's just been there). I've now shared these! Trip, anyone?

Vik and The Night Raider

by Marie-Louise Jensen

One of the first questions I tend to ask myself, once a story has formed in my mind, is where is it set? I need to be able to see it. I've mentioned this in connection with Runaway in my last post, but it's true of everything I write. Sometimes it's a wonderful excuse to revisit a place I love.
When I wrote The Night Raider for the Fiction Express website last year, I wanted to choose a different location in Iceland to my two teen novels. There, I fictionalised the settlement of Husavik on the north coast. For this story for younger readers, I chose another place in Iceland that made a big impression on me.
I don't know whether it was the incredible weather we had the first time I visited Vik on the south coast, the sky cloudless and the deepest blue I've ever seen, or whether it was the incredible black volcanic-shingle beach:

"Reynisfjara, Suðurland, Islandia, 2014-08-17, DD 163" by Diego Delso. Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Reynisfjara,_Su%C3%B0urland,_Islandia,_2014-08-
17,_DD_163.JPG#/media/File:Reynisfjara,_Su%C3%B0urland,_Islandia,_2014-08-17,_DD_163.JPG

This is a beautiful picture, but it doesn't fully depict how black the shingle is to stand on, and no picture can communicate the sound of the beach - the roar and rattle of the stones as the wild North Atlantic ocean surges against it. 

Another thing I loved about Vik, was that it was the first place I saw puffins flying from the cliffs. I saw plenty later, but this was my first sighting of the funny, charming, awkward fliers:

"Puffin002" by T.Müller - Own work. Licensed under CC BY 2.5 via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Puffin002.jpg#/media/File:Puffin002.jpg

A third thing I loved about Vik was the campsite was right below bird cliffs, so the second time I visited, and camped, we had kitiwakes and other gulls nesting right around us. Of course Vik also lies close to one of Iceland's big volcanoes, Katla. It is due an eruption soon  and the town is on permanent alert. 
The Vikings settlers in my story don't know about the volcano; it's lurking beneath the glaciers. They are more concerned with a mysterious thief who is stealing livestock in the night...


The Night Raider is print-publishing at the end of June and is suitable for ages 9-11. 
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