CHAPTER EIGHT ( 3 )

KAUPANG – ‘SKÍRINGSSALR’

Dagfinn Skre

K

aupang is located by the mouth of the Oslo fjord, in the region of Vestfold on the
fjord’s western side. The region is one of the most fertile in Norway. It is also one
of the richest in monuments from the Viking Age. The two Viking ships Oseberg
(buried ad 834 ) and Gokstad (buried ad 900 – 5 ) were found in barrows a few kilometres
north of Kaupang. The ninth-century town Kaupang lies in a protected bay just by the
main sailing route along the coast (Figure 8. 3. 1 ). Also important for its location is
the mouth of the river Lågen just a few kilometres further west. In this part of Vestfold,
Lågen is the main route from the coastal areas inland. In the ninth century inland
regions of eastern Norway are known to have produced iron, whetstones and soapstone
vessels – all of which were popular trading goods in the Viking Age.

WHERE IS SKÍRINGSSALR?

The history of Kaupang research goes back almost 200 years. One main theme in the
early research was to locate a place named Sciringes heal in the so-called ‘Ohthere’s
account’. This account was rendered c. 890 at the court of Alfred the Great of England
by the Norwegian voyager Ohthere, written down by the king’s scribes and included in
the Old English translation of the history written by the early fifth-century author
Orosius. However, the reference here to Sciringes heal is brief and raises more questions
than it provides answers. There are in fact only two pieces of information in the Old
English text. First of all, we learn that Skíringssalr was located about a month’s sailing
to the south from where Ohthere lived in Hålogaland in northern Norway. Sufficient
detail is provided about the route to identify the southern part of present-day Norway,
possibly the Oslo fjord area, as the most likely location. Secondly, it is said that
Skíringssalr was what in Old English was called a port, a word of multiple meanings,
covering modern ‘port’ or ‘harbour’, ‘marketplace’ and ‘town’.
The first important contribution in the efforts to locate Skíringssalr was made by Jens
Kraft ( 1822 ), who drew attention to two documents dating from the early fifteenth
century. These deal with land transactions in Tjølling parish in southern Vestfold. Some
of the farms referred to in the diplomas are said to lie in Skíringssalr, which therefore
seems to have been an old and now forgotten name for some part of the parish. Kraft also