weapons and tools. It is not mentioned whether any money was put into his tomb.’ The
saga of Gísli Súrsson also mentions a ship burial at the tomb of Þorgrímr, Gísli’s
brother-in-law, which shows that the saga-writers were familiar with ancient burial
customs.
Details of Viking rites of worship are not known for certain. Sacrifices are frequently
mentioned in written sources, and place names in Iceland testify to the presence of
temples at large farm estates, where churches were later built. Special words are used in
the texts for the site of blood sacrifices (ho ̨rgr), the sacrificial altar (stallr or stalli) and
cups (hlautbollar) and sticks (hlautteinar) used in rites.
Scholars have strong doubts about the veracity of ancient descriptions of heathen
temples and consider it more likely that rites were conducted in the open air, in groves,
at sacred springs and near burial mounds, as was the case elsewhere in the Germanic
cultural area. The oldest Christian laws in Scandinavia banned heathen rites in such
places.
During the first phase of the Viking Age the Scandinavians started to develop a form
of poetry which was unique in Germanic culture, but reflects some peculiarities of Old
Irish poetry. The art of scaldic poetry flourished in Iceland and Icelandic poets soon
monopolised all posts for professional court poets on the mainland.
At home the poets studied both mythology and poetic diction, and trained their
skills in the complex prosody before they went abroad to try their luck at noble courts.
The art of poetry is therefore one of the oldest export items from Iceland.
Lore and knowledge about the different kings accumulated at royal courts through
poems composed about them. The names of the poets were associated with these poems,
thus preserving their memory in connection with the kings and earls whose praise they
had sung – such as in a list of poets from the Uppsala manuscript of Snorra Edda.
Early on in the settlement period, Iceland was divided into geographically delimited
parishes (hreppar) and chieftaincies (goðorð), which did not depend on where people lived.
The incumbents, the goðar, had both a religious and a secular administrative function.
District assemblies were held regularly and when the General Assembly or Althing
was established at Þingvellir in 930 , chieftains started convening once a year to consult,
make laws and pass judgements about disputes. Implementation of sentences was
generally on the initiative of the goðar and/or parties to the disputes, not a central
executive. Around that time Iceland’s population would have been 10 – 20 , 000. A
Lawspeaker, responsible for preserving the law, was chosen at the Althing for a term of
three years. His function was to recite the law, which was preserved orally until the
introduction of writing, and also to rule on disputes about interpretations of it.
Many of the sagas hinge on the way personal disputes overlapped with the legal
authority of the goðar and Althing. Tension often develops between the ancient duty of
revenge and the sentences imposed under the rule of law, leading to escalating feuds and
bloody conflict which could only be appeased by the new attitudes ushered in by the
Christian philosophy of peace and forgiveness.
At first, the chieftains and major farmers in Iceland sailed abroad and traded for
themselves; the main imports would have been weapons, clothes, honey, wheat, timber,
wax, tar and canvas. Gradually trading sites and harbours developed on main travel
routes around the country. One of the largest trading posts in the Middle Ages was at
Gasar on Eyjafjörður, which archaeological finds show had already begun to develop in
the tenth century.
–– chapter 41 : The North Atlantic expansion––