"River Kings" by Cat Jarman

 This is a book explaining how the trade networks of the Vikings enabled a carnelian bead to be found in Repton. It is written by an archaeologist.

Leif Eriksson's statue in Reyjkavik

The Vikings were traders, as well as raiders. In some ways they epitomise free enterprise: they made money by trade, by theft, by looting, by threat and extortion, by kidnap and ransom, by kidnap and slavery. Enterprise when it is truly free, without any bureaucratic red-tape (or even any laws). That's entrepreneurship!

Cat Jarman's book is a well-written and interesting addition to this developing perspective on the Vikings. I was particularly impressed with how clearly she explained:

• How the DNA analysis available from 'ancestry' websites matches you with matching populations in the places where they live now (which doesn't necessarily correspond with where they lived back in the days).
• How Y-chromosome DNA and mitochondrial DNA can throw light on the different fates of men and women (in Iceland 75% of modern Icelandic men had ancestry compatible with present-day Scandinavian populations but 62% of women had ancestry matching modern populations in the British Isles including Ireland and Scotland which suggests that in the early population of Iceland Scandinavian men interbred with (possibly slave) British women; slave women are more likely to breed than slave men).
• How radio-carbon dating of skeletons may throw up anomalous results for those on a heavy fish diet.
• How bone isotope analysis can suggest where somebody grew up.

The blurb suggested that this book would "transform the way you think about the Vikings." Not for me. I knew they were traders as well as raiders. I knew they had travelled extensively in Russia and that they had reached Constantinople. These things have been known for decades. My only surprise was the extent to which they were slave traders. So I wasn't enthralled (which word, we are told in chapter 2) comes from the Viking word 'trell' or 'thrall' which means a slave). 

But, quite apart from the science of archaeology mentioned above, there were many things that I did learn from this book. For example:

• Monasteries were targets for armies because they stored food which they collected as taxes (‘feorm’ = ‘food rent’) from the local population. Armies need feeding. (Ch 3)
• The first Viking attack recorded in the AS Chronicle was not Lindisfarne but at Portland on the south coast, not far from the 'emporia' (trading station) of Hamwic, now Southampton. (Ch 4)
• For fallen warriors who didn’t make it to Valkyrie, they might be picked by Freya (actually she got first pick) to go to Sessrumnir, her hall in Folkvang (= Field of Folk). (Ch 4) I wondered whether Freya’s Field of Folk made its way into Piers Plowman to become the fair field of folk that Langland spied at the beginning of his poem.
• “The only accounts we have of Asgard, the world of the Norse gods, come from sources written down from the eleventh century onwards, many of them even later.” Some of the buildings may have been influenced by what the Vikings saw in Byzantium etc. (Ch 9)
• ‘Alexander’s wall’ was the Great Wall of China (Ch 9)
• Analysis of DNA from ancient specimens suggest that smallpox originated in about 600.  It may have been spread through north-western Europe as a result of the widespread travelling of Vikings. (Ch 8)
• The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle mentions in the entry for 883 CE "an embassy sent to the shrine of St Thomas in ‘India/Indea’ by none other than Alfred the Great ... both St Thomas and St Bartholomew, who is also mentioned in the entry, appear to have been martyred in India ... There are documented Christian communities in India from the fifth century.” (Ch9)

So, despite not being astonished and amazed, this book was an enjoyable read, with plenty of interesting facts.

Selected quotes:

“Tracing the objects and materials that went back and forth, the routes they travelled on, and the people who took part in the transactions, is a bit like watching a drop of water running down an uneven windowpane: flowing downwards with gravity, changing path and direction if it uncovers a flaw in the glass, stopping when it reaches an insurmountable obstacle until its path is taken up again when joined by further drops that add the necessary momentum.” (Ch 9)

September 2023; 300 pages

This review was written by the author of Bally and Bro, Motherdarling  and The Kids of God