Lost Battlefields of Scandinavia
by mystery-thriller author Mark David, imaginator of The Elements
You can sign up for the occasional Elements newsletter, follow Mark David on Twitter @authorMarkDavid. You can read more about his fiction on The Elements homepage or here on medium.
Part of researching the writing of fiction that isn’t completely reliant on the imagination alone — that part of it that works with places, people, deeds of the past — the study of which we call history — is that bit of it I find the most rewarding: Developing an understanding of our world, who we are, where we come from and perhaps even, where we are going to.
This aspect of fate and time, peoples lives like threads that are spun individually, but which coincide, spin, intertwine, is what my own writing is all about, and the reason for the writing of this article: A story of the imagination, requiring imagination to fill in the gaps, history being really only isolated snapshots in time. It takes the reader on a voyage of discovery — into the lost battlefields of Scandinavia.
Legends
Wiki: Battle On the Ice and Beowulf
Of legendary battles, the first source of interest is Beowulf: An epic tale that:
refers to the battle on the ice of lake Vänern. In it, the Swedish king Ohthere (Ottar Vendelkråka, who is often called the first historical king of Sweden) had died and his brother Onela (Áli) had usurped the Swedish throne. Ottar’s sons Eanmund and Eadgils (Adils) had to flee to Geatland and seek refuge with the Geatish king Heardred. This induced Onela to attack the Geats and kill both Eanmund and Heardred. In order to avenge his king and kinsman, Beowulf decided to help Eadgils gain the throne of Sweden. During the battle Eadgils slew Onela and became the king of Sweden. (Wiki)
The other is the Battle of Brávellir or the Battle of Bråvalla, a legendary battle that:
… is described in the Norse sagas as taking place on the Brávellir between Sigurd Ring, king of Sweden and the Geats of West Götaland, and his uncle Harald Wartooth, king of Denmark and the Geats of East Götaland. (Wiki)
The Elements
The context of The Elements, my epic work-in-progress of the last seven years — has taken me around Scandinavia on many travels. Travels that in turn, provide a detailed insight into places and those small discoveries along the way that all add to The Elements concept, recreating history in all its glorious and often inglorious detail — to be worked and reworked into a tale if not larger than life, than at least as rich in it’s portrayal how people and deeds of the past define the continuously evolving present…
The Elements works on many levels. One of those levels is the Nordic-mythological perspective. The lost battlefields of Scandinavia refer to battlefields in the years from the late iron age — at the time just before the end of the Roman empire, through the dark ages to the medieval age of knights in chain mail in the 13th century.
Scandinavia and Climate
What makes Scandinavia unique is the climate, and the relationship with the Roman and Byzantine empires — being both influenced by yet independent of both. Iron-age tribes were heavily influenced by the arms technology coming into the south, and an increase in the nature and scale of battles fought amongst tribes as travel farther and farther afield was made available by developing boat-building and arms craft technologies. Climate — wet, cold in the winter. Cool summers. A mixture of evergreen and some of the most beautiful deciduous forests in Europe.
The reality of ancient and medieval warfare
We have seen ancient and medieval warfare on the big screen, yet few films come close to capturing the intensity and emotions of what it must be like to be placed in a scene of conflict from which the losing side often suffered total oblivion. Few battlefields are known through archaeology, though many are eternalized in the Nordic sagas.
The shot above is a reenactment of Vendel battlefield where those involved constructing their own equipment as faithfully as possible from the few treasures unearthed. The Vendel cult has stylistic ties with the ship-burial unearthed at Sutton Hoo, in East Anglia, England.
Through The Ages
The archaeological remains of Bronze Age battlefields are few and far between. We were a lot less people back then. Still, the nature of bronze and its corrosion resistant properties make any bronze age find a treasure trove of discovery. The following shot is taken from the bronze age section at the Danish National Museum in Copenhagen.
These swords are really the essence of elegance, in an age when survival meant warfare and warfare meant kill or be killed. Bronze Age warfare was also something much closer to a spiritual proximity with the gods who decided the fates of men — and sacrifice to such gods before and after battle. And yet the warriors depicted in the bottom-most picture of this blog shows a distinct similarity to the shields of the iron-age.
The idea of an iron-age battlefield is nothing new, but the battlefields uncovered had to the date of the beginning of the period when artifacts were made as offerings to the pagan gods such as were uncovered in the excavations at Illerup Ådal.
The photographs above and below shows the type of late iron-age weapons uncovered in Denmark at the time of the late Roman Empire 5th century: a movement of the Gladius-type sword of the Romans to longer blades and heavier, metal pommels that would see a revolution in sword-making technique of the Swedish Vendel period to early Viking in the 9th century. Taken from the collection at the National Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen.
Neither is it a secret that Scandinavia is a treasure trove of archaeology with finds made every year. Anything from the medieval to the Viking age and back. The rich tapestry of history in this country has never ceased to inspire me and the work I seek to create weaves an intricate conspiracy-thriller line around the events of the resistance in the second world war with archaeological investigations at this time and forward to the time just prior to the end of the cold war — the period 1939 — 1989.
Scene-setting
I am in the process of writing a fictive site of an old battlefield, the like of which had never actually been found before. I had the idea of a new excavation discovering traces of an older excavation from the war. A scene of an iron-age (pre-Viking/ late Roman) battle located at the old seat of the Kings of the North — Lethra. The place that gave birth to nothing less than the whole Beowulf legend. Yes, Beowulf was a Danish-Swedish based tale.
This was all fiction, of course. Or so I thought… then in 2009 just such a battlefield was found. I just never heard about it until now. The History Blog tells more about the discovery at Alken Eng in Denmark.
As the link to this article reveals, the site was first investigated in 1945, then only fully revealed in 2009. This just goes to prove that reality will always outdo fiction… but it’s nice to have history rear it’s time-honored head from time to time.
Many Viking Age finds have been found in Scandinavia uncovering the untold stories of warfare in all its gory detail. The photograph here revealing an arrow penetrating the skull through the base of the nose. (National Museum, Copenhagen Viking exhibition autumn 2013)
Gotland
Gotland is an island with a rich tapestry of history from the stone, bronze, iron and Viking ages to the many battles fought between Sweden and Denmark over control of the island. A visit to the medieval festival is a must for anyone interested in these things: Go there in the summer at the time of the medieval festival in the beginning of August each summer, an experience not to be missed — probably the best setting for any medieval festival there is.
A visit to the museum at Visby on Gotland revealed the full horror of medieval warfare, the likes of which have yet to be truly created on film. We have Braveheart of course — perhaps the grittiest example of what a battlefield would be like. And yet — this fails when compared to these images of the true scale of the carnage in ancient and medieval warfare.
The museum forbid the use of cameras, but the temptation was too great, admittedly. Keeping a watchful vigil and evading the watchers proved to get the better of this author. In the end, I was discovered of course and politely acceded to their demands to refrain from more picture taking. Still, the state of these skulls is probably unique and I am a champion of Visby, wanting to promote the town and the museum. This will be a subject for a future blog, since I have a stack of photos just begging to be used.
I think anyone seeing these images will agree, that a picture speaks louder than a thousand words. Indeed, I had to keep reminding myself these were the skulls of real people, real warriors dressed in chain mail, evading arrows, some more lucky than others whose dying thoughts only the imagination can do any justice.
Ulfberht: Is the name of one of the greatest swords of an age in the following photo. I had a shot in my folio of one of the original Uhlfbert swords. These swords were crucible-forged — meaning smelted steel from the best mix of carbon and ore, at such high temperatures that all impurities were heated out, leaving the perfect steel for sword-making, all it requiring is hammering and heating and forming for days and weeks to create the sword you see here.
It was way ahead of it’s time. The photo here shows the Uhlfbert inscription +UHLFBER+T — marking this as one of the originals, the style much copied in Viking times, most of which were not original.
by mystery-thriller author Mark David, imaginator of The Elements
You can sign up for the occasional Elements newsletter, follow Mark David on Twitter @authorMarkDavid. You can read more about his fiction on The Elements homepage or here on medium.
If you want to contribute to making stories and articles, join him in developing the collection Stories To Imagine, working with elements of the imagination from the real world.
Copyright Mark David 2014
