Gentle in speech and free with food

Anyone who wants to know what an age held to be good has two kinds of source. One is what people wrote about their own dead; the other is what they taught their children. From the Viking Age we have both: 2 633 runestones with a word or two about the person who has gone, and Hávamál, a poem of one hundred and sixty-four stanzas of advice to those who have still to live. We read all of it and counted.

The question was simple. If you add up all the praise, all the advice and all the warnings, what kind of person emerges? We expected the warrior, because that is the figure the Viking Age brings with it. He is there. But he stands at the back of the room.

What the stones say

Most runestones praise nobody. Of 2 633 Viking-age runestones, only 293, one in nine, say anything about what the dead person was like. The rest state who raised the stone and for whom: son sinn, fôður sinn, bróður sinn. Kinship is the stone's real message, and the fact that someone cared enough to cut it in stone.

But when the stones do say something, they are fairly unanimous about what. The commonest word is góðr, good – 213 stones. Then come two words for what a man should be: drengr, 74 stones, and þegn, 47. Scholars have argued for a century about what the words mean on the stones, whether a rank in the king's retinue or an ideal; we return to that below. Courage, stated outright – djarfr, frœkn, þróttar þegn, "did not flee" – stands on 9 stones.

What surprised us were the small categories, because they are so definite. Seven stones praise someone for having been mildr matar, "free with food", generous with what was on the table. Six praise someone for their words: mildan orða, gentle in speech; málsrisinn, "quick of speech", eloquent; málspakr, wise in speech. Three for a skill: a man who kunni vel knerri stýra, could steer a ship well; one who was slœgjastr manna, the most skilful of men; and a girl in Hadeland who was mær hônnurst, the handiest maiden. Seventeen for honour, often in the negative: óníðingr, no villain; óneiss, without shame.

And the deeds point the same way. 117 stones tell that someone built a bridge or cleared a road – more than twice as many as tell that someone fell or was killed (51). Journeys east and west are mentioned on 60 stones. The prayer for the soul, Guð hjalpi ônd hans, stands on 315.

A portrait in six traits

This is what the person the stones and the poem hold to be good looks like. We let a stone and a stanza stand side by side in each trait.

Generous. At Hagstugan in Södermanland (Sö 130) four sons raised a stone for their father, mildan orða ok matar góðan – gentle in speech and free with food. At Sövestad in Skåne (DR 291) Bramr was beztr búmanna ok mildastr matar, the best of farmers and the most generous with food. Hávamál says the same thing in stanza 39, in almost the same words:

Fannk-a ek mildan mann eða svá matar góðan, at væri-t þiggja þegit.

I never found a man so generous, or so free with food, that a gift was not welcome. That parallel is old; David Evans noted it in his edition of 1986, after Sven B. F. Jansson. What we add is that the formula is not an exception: seven stones carry it, from Småland to Uppland and Skåne, and Hávamál's economy – gjalda gjöf við gjöf, repay gift with gift – is its explanation. To give was to bind people to you. Með halfum hleif ok með höllu keri fekk ek mér félaga (52): with half a loaf and a tilted cup I got myself a companion.

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Gentle in speech. Kári of Gillberga (U 1146) was called hinn málspaki, the wise in speech. Holmbjôrn of Gådi (U 739) raised his own stone and had it say that he was mildr matar ok málsrisinn, generous with food and quick of speech. Sveinn of Ivla (Sm 44) was gentle to his own and free with food, í orðlofi allra miklu – greatly praised by all. Hávamál gives one advice stanza in five to the word: speaking in measure, keeping silent, listening. The guest needs orðs ok endrþögu (4), a word, and silence in return.

Minding one's own. Þorsteinn of Turinge (Sö 338) was one of the beztra manna, á landi ok í liði úti, the best of men at home and in the host abroad, and the brothers heldu sína húskarla vel: they kept their household men well. It is the only stone that praises someone for how he kept his household, and it does so on the same stone that tells how he fell in Garðaríki. Óðindísa of Hassmyra (Vs 24) gets the stones' one word of praise for a housewife: kemr hýfreyja til Hôsumýra eigi betri, en býi ráðr – no better housewife will come to Hassmyra, who rules the farm. Hávamál: bú er betra, þótt lítit sé (36), a home of one's own is better, though it be small.

Without shame. Ôzurr of Århus (DR 68) dó manna mest óníðingr, died the least villainous of men. Tóki Gormsson of Hällestad (DR 295) fló eigi at Uppsôlum, did not flee at Uppsala. This is where courage stands, and it is worth seeing how it stands: not as attack but as not failing others. Hávamál 16 says why the coward gains nothing anyway: ósnjallr maðr hyggsk munu ey lifa, ef hann við víg varask; en elli gefr hánum engi frið – the coward thinks he will live for ever if he shuns the fight, but old age gives him no peace. And in stanza 48 courage and generosity share a line: mildir, fræknir menn bazt lifa, generous, brave men live best.

Skilled. Gunnleifr (U 654) was killed in the east with Ingvarr, but what the carver wanted said of him was that he kunni vel knerri stýra, could steer a cargo ship well. Ástríðr of Dynna (N 68) was mær hônnurst á Haðalandi, the handiest maiden in Hadeland; her mother built a bridge for her. Hávamál has no word for craft but has the thought: be no shoemaker or shaft-maker for others, says stanza 126, unless you can do it – a bad shaft will be your undoing.

Remembered. Þóra of Saleby (Vg 67) was bezt með ôldum, the best of her generation. Etill of Fågelö (Sö 64) var manna beztr. Jóarr at Korpbron (Sö 140): engi fœðir son snjallara, no one bears an abler son. That is the stone's whole errand – to let a judgement stand – and Hávamál says in its best-known stanza (76) what is at stake:

Deyr fé, deyja frændr, deyr sjalfr it sama, en orðstírr deyr aldregi, hveim er sér góðan getr.

Cattle die, kinsmen die, you yourself die likewise; but a good name never dies for the one who earns it. Áskell on Lolland (DR 212) put it in stone: æ mun standa, með steinn lifir, ever will it stand, while the stone lives. And stanza 72 knows who raises the stones: sjaldan bautarsteinar standa brautu nær, nema reisi niðr at nið – seldom do memorial stones stand by the road unless kin raise them for kin.

What the poem teaches

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We read every stanza and noted what each is about. In the 110 advice stanzas – the guest wisdom and Loddfáfnismál – friendship is the largest subject, one stanza in five. Then speech, understanding, hospitality and moderation. Courage and fighting: 7 stanzas out of 110.

There is also something in the poem that has no word on the stones: care for the weak. Get þú váluðum vel (135), treat the poor well. At hárum þul hlæ þú aldregi (134), never laugh at a grey-haired speaker. And stanza 133: er-at maðr svá góðr at galli né fylgi, né svá illr, at einugi dugi – no one is so good that no fault goes with him, nor so bad that he is good for nothing.

Where the warrior stands

The warrior exists, but he lives in another house. We counted value words in four groups of Eddic poems. Words for friendship stand 6.3 times per thousand words in Hávamál and less than once in the heroic poems; words for fighting 3.7 times per thousand in the heroic poems. Revenge – hefna, bróðurbani – occurs in the heroic poems and the mythological ones and even in the Christian ones. In Hávamál the word does not occur once.

On the stones it is drengr that leans towards fighting. The drengr stones mention battle or journeys abroad four times as often as stones in general: 11 of 74 against 99 of 2 633, a difference chance would produce less than once in ten thousand. Þegn has no such link. But even among the drengs, five in six mention neither battle nor journey. The word lies between "warrior" and "a man you can rely on", and the stones lean towards the latter.

Is this what they were like?

We do not know. A runestone is an epitaph, and epitaphs are polite; Hávamál is an ideal, and ideals describe what people fall short of. What can be said is what they chose to cut in stone, and what they chose to teach. Conquest is not there, and neither is revenge. What is there is: be generous, speak well, mind your own, do not fail others, be able at something – and make sure someone remembers it.

It is a list that has not aged, and that is perhaps the most unexpected thing. Replace the stone with anything meant to outlive a person, and the demands stay the same.

Sources

• Scandinavian Runic-text Database 3.1 (Rundata). Uppsala University.
• Evans, David A. H. (ed.) 1986. Hávamál. Viking Society for Northern Research, London. Commentary on stanza 39, p. 91.
• Jansson, Sven B. F. 1985. Runinskrifter i Sverige. 3rd ed. Värnamo. (The edition Evans refers to.)
• Goetting, Lauren 2006. "Þegn and drengr in the Viking Age". Scandinavian Studies 78 (4).
• Sukhino-Khomenko, Denis 2024. Thegns Around the North Sea. University of Gothenburg.
• Vitki's article What the High One says a thousand years later, with the texts and the method.