Papers from the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences 14

austrvega
Saga and East Scandinavia

Preprint papers of The 14th International Saga Conference Uppsala, 9th15th August 2009
Volume 1

Edited by Agneta Ney, Henrik Williams and Fredrik Charpentier Ljungqvist

in cooperation with Marco Bianchi, Maja Bckvall, Lennart Elmevik, Anne-Sofie Grslund, Heimir Plsson, Lasse Mrtensson, Olof Sundqvist, Daniel Svborg and Per Vikstrand http://www.saga.nordiska.uu.se

Gvle: Gvle University Press, 2009

Aldeigjuborg of the sagas in the light of archaeological data1

Tatjana N. Jackson, Institute of world history, Russian academy of sciences Adolf Fririksson terms the method of using sagas and early historical writings in Icelandic archaeology as literary analogy. He claims that by the application of literary analogy finds are given function, age and meaning, and notes that the reliability of the conclusion of an archaeological inquiry is dependent on the current views of the historicity of the sources it uses (Adolf Fririksson 1994: 14). In case of Russian studies, sagas are much less reliable as a historical source (Jackson 2005). Old Rus had never been in the focal point for saga authors sagas dealt with different material and had other interests. Nuggets of information preserved in the sagas still need careful examination and comparison with various source material. Among other things, literary data have to be coordinated with methods and results of archaeological investigations. Archaeology might prove the veracity of certain facts mentioned in the sagas. Thus, the issue presented here puts Adolf Fririkssons premises, so to say, upside down: what will be discussed below might be termed as archaeological analogy. Old Norse-Icelandic narrative sources have preserved twelve toponyms that are considered by medieval authors, as well as by modern publishers and researchers, to have been the names of Old Russian towns (Jackson 2003). One of them is Aldeigja / Aldeigjuborg. This name is, as a rule, understood as a designation of Ladoga (Old Ladoga), a settlement in the lower reaches of the Volkhov River, on the route from the Varangians to the Greeks described by the Russian Primary Chronicle. Aldeigja / Aldeigjuborg is mentioned about forty times in skaldic poetry and sagas, while it does not occur in runic inscriptions and geographical treatises. The events described in the sagas and connected with Aldeigjuborg (Ladoga) can be dated to the Viking age, i.e. up till the middle of the eleventh century, when Haraldr Sigurarson left Rus.

I
Going from Novgorod to Sweden, a medieval traveller would naturally sail along the Volkhov River down to Old Ladoga, then into Lake Ladoga, and therefrom along the Neva River into the Gulf of Finland. This is a manifest communication route, and that is why its details are seldom reffered to in the sagas. Still, Aldeigjuborg (Old Ladoga) is sometimes mentioned as a transitional station, a kind of gateway, on the water route from Scandinavia to Old Rus and back. The travellers are said to make a halt there and to change their ships.
Um vrit snimma byrja eir fer sna Einarr ambarskelfir ok Klfr rnason ok hfu mikla sveit manna ok it bezta mannval, er til var rndalgum. eir fru um vrit austr um Kjl til Jamtalands, til Helsingjalands ok kmu fram Svj, ru ar til skipa, fru um sumarit austr Garrki, kmu um haustit Aldiigjuborg. Geru eir sendimenn upp til Hlmgars fund Jarizleifs konungs [] Vru eim gri seld til eirar ferar (Snorri Sturluson. Heimskringla 2: 414415). Early in the spring Einar Thambarskelfir and Klf rnason set out with a large company of men picked from the best in all the Trondheim districts. They proceeded to Jamtaland in spring, across the Keel, from there to Helsingjaland, and arrived in Sweden. There they procured ships
1

Supported by RFH, grant 07-01-00058.

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and in summer sailed east to Gartharki, arriving in fall at Aldeigjuborg. From there they sent messengers to Hlmgarth and King Jarizleif [] They were given safe-conduct for the journey (Hollander: 537, with my emendations). Magns lfsson byrjai fer sna eptir jlin austan af Hlmgari ofan til Aldeigjuborgar. Taka eir at ba skip sn, er sa leysti um vrit (Snorri Sturluson. Heimskringla 3: 3). King Magns lfsson started on his journey from the east after Yule, first from Hlmgarth to Aldeigjuborg. He and his men began to get their ships ready when ice broke up in spring (Hollander: 538, with my emendations). eir Kalfr dvauluz i Hlmgare ar til er lei iol. Foro ofan til Aldeigioborgar oc fluu ser ar skipa; foro egar austan er isa leyste um varit (Orkneyinga saga: 57). Kalf and his men stayed in Hlmgarth till the end of Yule. They went then down to Aldeigjuborg and got themselves there ships; they sailed from the east as soon as ice broke up in spring. Enn at vri byrjai hann (Haraldr Sigurarson. T.J.) fer sna r Hlmgari ok fr um vrit til Aldeigjuborgar, fekk sr ar skip ok sigldi austan um sumarit, snri fyrst til Svjar ok lagi til Sigtna (Snorri Sturluson. Heimskringla 3: 91). In the spring following he journeyed from Hlmgarth to Aldeigjuborg. There he got himself ships and in summer sailed from the east, turning first to Sweden, and anchored in Sigtna (Hollander: 538, with my emendations).

In her lecture at the Institute of material culture in April 1941, Elena Rydzevskaja, a Russian scholar studying sagas as a source for Russian history, put forward an assumption proceeding from the sagas that the vessels sailing in the Baltic and in the Volkhov River should have been of different types, and that, correspondingly, there should have been craftspeople in Ladoga occupied in ship repair and ship equipment. She also expressed hope that further archaeological excavations in Ladoga might bring to light some traces of local crafts, remains of workshops, etc. (Rydzevskaja 1945). And in fact, as early as in 1958, at the horizon E1 which dates to 870s890s, there was revealed a complex connected with iron and bronze working that was thought to have been a smithy. A craftsman working there produced, among other things, rivets, most likely, to repair northern ships coming to Ladoga (Davidan 1986). Moreover, fragments of ships are found in Ladoga excavations beginning with the earliest layers, as well as iron boat rivets of the type known from excavations in Scandinavia (Ibidem). Pirjo Uino is right in stressing (with reference to excavations of 1970s in the Varjazhskaja street in Ladoga cf. Petrenko 1985) that local boat-building and the repairing of cargo vessels are indicated by finds of boat and ship parts, which were secondarily used in the structures of the houses and the wooden streets (Uino 1988: 217). Ship-building, or ship-repairing, was one of the functions of a Scandinavian manufacturing complex of the mid-eighth century revealed in 197375 (Rjabinin 1980). Thus, we can see that predicting archaeological finds on the basis of saga data can sometimes bring its fruit.

II
On the other hand, archaeological material is able to verify those saga stories that seem unlikely at first sight. An example of this kind would be the description of Earl Eirkr Hakonarsons attack on Aldeigjuborg. Both Fagrskinna and Heimskringla refer in their narration

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of this event to Bandadrapa composed by Eylfr daskld, the skald of Earl Eirkr, ca. 1010, i.e. two centuries earlier than the two compendia, and Snorri even quotes the following stanza:
Oddhrar fr eya (x hr at at) san logfgandi (lgis) land Valdamars brandi; Aldeigju brauzt, gir (oss numnask skil) gumna; s var hildr me hlum hr, komt austr Gara (Den Norsk-Islandske Skjaldedigtning. B: 1912).

The author of Fagrskinna does not cite the corresponding strophe, but, like the skald, speaks about the destruction of Aldeigjuborg (Hann braut Aldeigjuborg Fagrskinna: 165), while Snorri adds to it the burning down of the entire town (braut og brenndi borgina alla (Snorri Sturluson. Heimskringla 1: 338339). The latter supplement is thus likely to be Snorris own invention, though in fact wooden towns were destroyed in the Early Middle Ages through fires. According to the relative chronology in the saga of lfr Tryggvason in Heimskringla this enterprise of Earl Eirkr took place in approximately 997. Still, in 1941 Elena Rydzevskaja had to stress in her lecture the absence of any archaeological traces of fire in the earthwork fortress area in Ladoga that could have been a result of Earl Eirkrs assault of 997 (Rydzevskaja 1945: 55). By the 1980s, however, archaeologists had accumulated certain data that could back up Snorris narration. Excavations in the Varangian street (on the left bank of the River Ladozhka) revealed the fact that all constructions of the second main layer (horizon II), as well as many constructions of the third one (horizon III, both dated dendrochronologically within the tenth century), bear marked traces of fire destruction (Petrenko 1985: 91, 92, 115). The same data have been obtained in the earthwork fortress area in Ladoga, where a badly preserved level XI, after 980, displays traces of destruction in the fire that could have been the result of Earl Eirkrs attack on Ladoga (Machinskij, Machinskaja, Kuzmin 1986; for the discussion of this new, based on dendrochronology, stratigraphic scale of Old Ladoga, which includes eleven layers from mid-eighth through the tenth centuries, cf. Kuzmin 2000).

III
Finally, archaeological analogy turns out to be of use in toponymic studies, which might be exemplified by the examination of the origin of the Russian town-name Ladoga () and its connection with the Old Norse-Icelandic Aldeigja. The fact that Aldeigja is mentioned in skaldic poetry (in the Bandadrpa by Eylfr daskld, as mentioned above) points at this form as the original one for this name. The compound Aldeigjuborg that occurs in the sagas (the earliest mention is in lfs saga Tryggvasonar by Oddr Snorrason, ca. 1190) was built with the help of the geographical term borg (town, fortification) that served for the formation of town-names of Western Europe, and was not typical for the town-names of Old Rus. The reason for this lies in the fact that the Scandinavians moved along the route from the Varangians to the Greeks stage by stage. Thus, Ladoga, located at the gateway of this route, was, according to archaeological materials, opened up by the Scandinavians as early as in the middle of the eighth century, while at the remaining part of this route their archaeological traces go back to the second half of the ninth century only. Those Scandinavians who settled in Ladoga, and who are likely to have constituted there a relatively independent political organization (Lebedev 1975: 41), created, on the local basis (to be discussed further), the name

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Aldeigja, and then transformed it into Aldeigjuborg, in accordance with the well familiar to them toponymic pattern X-borg. Scholars are unanimous in recognizing the genetic relation of the place-names Aldeigja and Ladoga. However, their origin and correlation have been interpreted in different ways. The town-name has been explained as having originated on the basis (i) of the name of Lake Ladoga (Finnish *aaldokas, aallokas wavy < aalto wave) (Munch 1874: 260; Thomsen 1879: 84; Vasmer 1955: 448), (ii) as well as of the name of the river Ladoga modern Ladozhka (Finnish *Alode-joki < alode, aloe low lands, and jok(k)i river) (Mikkola 1906: 1011; Brim 1931: 222223; Rydzevskaja 1945: 6465; Rospond 1972: 53; Popov 1981: 5556, 90 91; Neroznak 1983: 101102; Schramm 1982), (iii) and even of the name of the river Volkhov, or the Lower Volkhov (Finnish Olhava) (Schramm 1986: 369370. Having changed his mind, Gottfried Schramm did not take into consideration an important toponymic regularity which results in the fact that if a town grows at the mouth of a small river falling into a bigger one it usually gets its name not from the main river, but from its tributary). It may be considered practically proved by now that the first to arise was the river name, then that of the town, and lastly, the name of the lake. The prevalent opinion today is that the name comes from the Baltic-Finnish languages. Most likely, the original hydronym was the Finnish *Alode-jogi (joki) Low river. According to A.I. Popov, the succession was as follows: 1) the Baltic-Finnish, or the Saami, original 2) the Russian transmission of this name (my italics. T. J.), with further association with a trade center, namely the town of Ladoga, 3) the transition of the name from the town to the lake (Popov 1981: 5556, 9091). The Old Norse-Icelandic place-name Aldeigja (Aldeigjuborg) is, as a rule, mentioned by scholars as a parallel to the Old Russian name Ladoga (Ibidem; Neroznak 1983). However, as J.J. Mikkola was quite right to show, the original combination of sounds could be only al, but not la, since only the latter could have arisen from the former, but not vice versa (Mikkola 1906). Correspondingly, we may assert that the likely development is from the Finnish river name *Alodejogi to the Scandinavian name Aldeigja (first for the river, and then for the settlement), and only then (with a methathesis ald > lad) to the Old Russian Ladoga. The origin of the Old Russian name Ladoga not directly from the substrate *Alode-jogi, but via the intermediate Scandinavian Aldeigja, has to be explained. Not so long ago, Gottfried Schramm could only put forward an assumption that, if the Slavic name had originated from the Scandinavian one, the Slavs had to have reached Ladoga some decades later than the Scandinavians (Schramm 1986: 369). Today we have plausible arguments in support of this supposition. As the latest analysis of archaeological materials from Ladoga has shown, the first settlers in Ladoga were in fact the Scandinavians in 750s, while the first Slavs reached this region not earlier than the 760s (Kuzmin 2000).

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