Some pre-Christian Norse oaths

And how they were adapted to Christianity

Throughout the Old Northern prose sources, especially those from Iceland, we find scattered many small anecdotes of the pre-Christian Cult. These are very important for our understanding of a large part of the cultural and religious history of Northern Europe, but their reliability is frequently questioned. The best way to confirm it is to critically compare them with unrelated, independent sources, whether archeological or literary.

In this post I will begin with listing two pre-Christian oaths attested in Icelandic saws (sagas, histories of the pre-Christian period), and comparing them with closely related analogues from the Christian Icelandic laws. After this I will look at an oath formula found in the Elder Law of the West Geats from 13th century Sweden which invokes the pagan gods. This formula has very close relatives in Norway and Iceland, and based on them we can reconstruct a common Scandinavian pre-Christian law oath.

Shortly on oaths

Oaths were very important in the Old Germanic culture. Swearing an oath was prerequisite for taking any official action at the Things (legal assemblies), as is still the case in modern courts. Warriors would swear oaths to their lords, frequently on the rings or bracelets (henceforth I will use the word “bigh” = Old English béag, Old Norse baugr). From this we get the Migration Period tradition of ring-adorned swords¹, presumably given to warriors as a token of loyalty.

In order to swear an oath one had to be a man (less commonly a woman) of good standing,² and oaths were not taken lightly. The oathbreaker could expect the wrath of the gods,³ to whom, as we will see below, the oaths were directly sworn and dedicated.

Two Heathen Icelandic oaths

Oath 1

The following is from chapter 268 of the Icelandic Book of Landtakings (Landnáma bók), preserved in the Hauksbók manuscript. The text presents it as an excerpt from the Heathen Icelandic law brought from Norway by the first Icelandic lawspeaker, Wolflight (Ulfljótr). All participants at an Icelandic Thing were to swear the following oath on a silvern temple-bigh:

Nęfni ek í þat vę́tti, at ek vinn ęið at baugi, lǫg-ęið. Hjalpi mér svá Fręyr ok Njǫrdr ok hinn al-máttki ǫ́ss, sem ek mun svá sǫk þęssa sǿkja eða vęrja, eða vitni bera eða kviðu eða dóma, sem ek vęit réttast ok sannast ok hęldst at lǫgum, ok ǫll lǫg-mę́t skil af hęndi lęysa þau es undir mik koma meðan ek em á þęssu þingi.

“I name witnesses in this, that I accomplish an oath by the bigh, a law-oath. So help me Free and Nearth and the Almighty Os⁴ as I will pursue or defend this case, or bear witness or verdict or judgment, as I know most righteous and truthful and in agreement with the laws, and perform all lawful pleadings which fall under me while I am upon this Thing.”

A very closely related version is found in the Icelandic Þórðar saga hreðu, where it serves as a genealogical note, Wolflight (there Laga-Ulfljótr, ‘Wolflight of the Law’) being the ancestor of one of the main personages.⁵ Another quotation is found in the Þórstęins þáttr uxafóts.⁶

Oath 2

The second oath comes from the Icelandic Víga-Glúms saga, where the protagonist must swear that he did not partake in a murder. The circumstances around the oath itself are interesting⁷, but for our purposes we are only interested in the first, formulaic part:

Ek nęfni Ásgrím í vę́tti, annan Gizur í þat vę́tti, at ek vinn hofs ęið at baugi, ok sęgi ek þat Ę́si, at ek vas’k at þar …

“I name Osgrim as witness, second Guesser as witness in this, that I accomplish a temple-oath by the bigh, and I say this to the Os, that I was not there/present there …”

Shared with oath 1 is the first sentence: ek nęfni í þat vę́tti, at ek vinn (hofs) ęið at baugi ‘I name witnesses in this, that I accomplish a (temple-)oath by the bigh’.

The Os here is almost certainly the same as the “Almighty Os” in oath 1. See note.

Cultural context

I do not mean to go very deep into it here, but the connection between rings/bighs and law (oaths being a big part of the law) is well attested in pre-Christian Germanic literature. It also serves as a good example of the lack of separation between the religous and secular in the pre-Christian cult; the chief of the Thing was also a priest or gid (goði).

In the Eddic Lay of Attle, Attle is said to have sworn oaths at hringi Ullar ‘by the ring of Woulder’, a pre-Christian god. The large ring from Forsa, Sweden, which I discussed at some length in my earlier post Liggi í úgildum akri — On Germanic bog burials has a pre-Christian legal inscription. The golden Gotish ring from Pietroessa, Romania, was probably also a cultic object, and bishop Ambrose of Milan in a letter deplores the wearing of arm-rings by Gotish Arian priests—perhaps a remnant of the old cultic dress?

Christian parallels

We know that Christianity did not mean an immediate reworking of the Heathen Icelandic legal system. Indeed, traces are found even today: the modern parliament of Iceland is still called the “Allthing” (Alþingi). Oaths continued to be a big part of the laws, and we may thus expect to find similarities between the Heathen and Christian oaths. Or at least, we do find such similarities.

In the long legal proceeding at the Althing described in the Njála, the prosecuting Marth (Mǫrðr) at one point swears the following oath. Minor discrepancies like the use of inna instead of lęysa and sannast ok réttast instead of réttast ok sannast, reveal that this formula probably derives from oral tradition, rather than being textually related to the Heathen oaths above.

Nęfni ek í þat vę́tti, at ek vinn ęið at bók, lǫg-ęið, ok sęgi ek þat guði, at ek skal svá sǫk þęssa sǿkja sem ek vęit sannast ok réttast ok hęldst at lǫgum, ok ǫll lǫg-mę́t skil af hęndi inna, meðan ek em á þęssu þingi.

“I name witnesses in this, that I accomplish an oath by the book, a law-oath, and I say this to God, that I will pursue this case as I know most truthful and righteous and in agreement with the laws, and perform all lawful pleadings which fall under me while I am upon this Thing.”

Several almost identical formulae are in fact found in Icelandic law. In chapter 49 of the Grey-Goose Laws⁸, we read:

Sá maðr es fé-ráns dóms bęiddi skal sér nęfna vátta í þat vę́tti, ‘at ek vinn lǫg-ęið at bók, ok sęgi ek þat guði, at ek mun svá fǿra mǫ́l ǫll framm hér at fé-ráns dómi þęssum á hęndr N. N. sem ek vęit réttast ok sannast ok hęldst at lǫgum.’

The man who requested a judgment about cattle-theft will name himself witnesses as witness in this, “that I accomplish a law-oath by the book, and I say this to God, that I will bring forth all matters here, with regard to this cattle-theft against N. N., as I know most righteous and truthful and in agreement with the laws.”

In chapter 129 of the same text, in a section about minors or other incompetent persons, we read the following variant:

Svá skal hann með ęið fǿra at hann skal nęfna vátta tvá eða flęiri í þat vę́tti, ‘at ek vinn ęið at krossi, lǫg-ęið, ok sęgi ek þat guði, at ek ...’

“So he shall go forth by oath, that he shall name two witnesses or more as witnesses in this, “that I accomplish an oath by the cross, a law-oath, and I say this to God, that I …”

Conclusion

All the related Christian variants incorporate the structure of oaths 1 and 2, but reflect the religious change in their word choices. The pagan bigh is replaced with the Christian book (the Missal or the Gospels) or cross, and instead of speaking to the Os, the swearer speaks to the Christian God. Still, they are so similar to the pre-Christian oaths that there are really only two possibilites. Either,

1. the Heathen oaths are literary fabrications based on the Christian oaths, or

2. the Christian oaths derive from the earlier Heathen oaths.

For the following reasons I hold the second view.

1. First, the Book of Landtakings has as its goal to preserve Icelandic oral narratives about the first settlers and early history of the island. I see no plausible motivation for fabricating a Heathen oath, especially not one based on the Christian formula in use at the time.

2. Second, we know that oaths were very important in the pre-Christian Germanic legal system, and they would have been common enough for there to be formulaic utterances (as we will see clearly in the third Heathen oath below). Since the Christian laws were to a large degree based on pre-Christian models, it makes sense for these formulae to be incorporated, but with small changes.

3. Third, the oath in the Book of Landtakings does not seem be directly textually related to the later Christian oaths, nor does the oath in Víga-Glúms saga. They show such variation in word choice and structure as would be expected from orally related texts (and the laws were orally transmitted), not from antiquarian fabrications.

A common Scandinavian pre-Christian oath

The above oaths have a few things in common. They all come from Iceland, follow the same structure, and are sworn on objects—arm-rings in the pre-Christian variants, books and crosses in the Christian. Apart from these we also, however, possess a simpler oath formula, variants of which are found across Scandinavia, which can be reconstructed in its original, pre-Christian form. This was done already by Frits Läffler in 1874⁹, and so the following paragraphs make no claim to originality.

In the Elder Law of West Geatland¹⁰ from 13th century Sweden, we at numerous points find that the oath-swearer is to biðja svá sér guð holl ‘ask so for the gods to be true to him’. This occurs in the first person svá sé mér guð holl ‘so be the gods true to me’ in the section on murder and manslaughter, where an accuser is to swear (MD 1:2):

Svá sé mę́r guð holl ok váttum mínum, at þú bart á hann odd ok ęgg, ok þú er sandr bani hans.

‘So be the gods true to me and to my witnesses, that thou carriedst onto him point and blade, and thou art his true slayer.’

That the adjective, and hence the noun guð, is in the (neuter) plural is indicated by the endingless form holl. If we were dealing with the masculine singular “God”, we would here expect to see *svá sé mę́r guð hollr (manuscript huldær, holdær), and for biðja svá sę́r guð holl we would expect the accusative singular guð hollan. The latter does occur in the law, but only once out of twelve times.

That this is not the result of a dropped case ending is shown by Läffler’s ingenious observation that, when in the Younger Law of West Geatland and in other mediæval Swedish laws the neuter plural holl is systematically replaced by the masculine singular hollan or hullan, this happens together with the younger use of the accusative pronoun sik, mik for the old dative sę́r, mę́r. We are thus dealing with two younger forms appearing together, and so the older form holl must indeed be the neuter plural.

The persistence of this formula may perhaps be compared with the fossilized plural אלוהים (elohím) in the Hebrew Bible, that is to say, that it is unlikely that Christians in West Geatland would have understood themselves as swearing oaths to the gods when they uttered the above formula.

Let us go further. In the same chapter quoted above we read that the swearers of the oath are to guð hylla at sę́r ok at gręmja ‘make the gods true to and wroth against themselves’. The verbs hylla ‘make true/loyal, win one’s friendship’ : gręmja ‘make wroth, anger’ are of course causatives to the adjectives hollr ‘loyal, true, gracious’ : gramr ‘wroth, angry’. There are also the nouns hylli ‘favour, loyalty’ : gręmi ‘wrath, anger’.¹¹

These words are frequently used to refer divine favour or wrath in Norwegian and Icelandic literature, especially pre-Christian poetry. gręmja in particular is notable since this is the only occurence of the expression gręmja guð ‘make the gods wroth’ in Old Swedish—it does not seem to have been used about the Christian God. The same phrase is found in reference to incurring divine wrath in pre-Christian Eddic poetry from Iceland, as are many others.¹²

A striking legal parallel is found in the Norwegian Book of the Hird (hirðskrá), where we read: svá sé mér guð hollr sem ek satt sęgir, gramt ef ek lýgr ‘so be God true to me if I speak truly, wroth if I lie.’ The first five words here are identical to the Old Swedish oath quoted above, and it is likely that this is the formula underlying the prescription that the swearers are to guð hylla at sę́r ok at gręmja. There is also the conflicting gender between masculine hollr and neuter gramt.

If we take this together with the indisputably pagan formula from the West Geatish Law we can reconstruct the following oath in archaic Old Norse: *svá sén méʀ goð holl ef ek sant sęgi, grǫm ef ek liug.

1. On this, see the following post:

The Ring Sword

2. A “nithing” or dishonoured person could not swear any oath. See my earlier post Liggi í úgildum akri.

3. op. cit.

4. Or ‘the immensely strong god’, for we should not understand al-máttigr as having the theological meaning of the Christian “omnipotent”; rather it it probably refers to physical strength.

The identity of this god is not certain, but it is very unlikely to be the Christian god. ǫ́ss is an exclusively heathen term and is never used in a Christian context, and, as we will see below, the Christianized oaths replace it with guð.

The two candidate gods from the Norse pantheon are Weden (Óðinn) and Thunder (Þórr), but the latter is the more likely referent. Thunder is the protector of mankind and its dwellings and was very dear to the Icelandic settlers. He is renowned for his physical strength (cf. the terms ǫ́s-męgin ‘strength of the Os’ and ǫ́s-móðr ‘rage of the Os’, used in poetry when Thunder displays his strength). When ǫ́ss stands on its own (as it does in oath 2 below which probably refers to the same god as the Almighty Os), it usually refers to Thunder. This is the case with compounds like *ǫ́s-ękja ‘the driving of the Os’, which becomes Swedish åska ‘thunder’. An especially remarkable incident is that the element Þór- may sometimes be swapped with the element Ǫ́s- in personal names; thus a man named Þór-móðr is called Ǫ́s-móðr in a stanza in the Book of Landtakings (signum HelgÓl Lv 1 in SkP IV).

The identification with Thunder is further supported by the fact that the triad Free–Nearth–Thunder (in that order) also occurs in a stanza by Eyel (Egill Lv 21 in SkP V), where these three gods are invoked to punish a criminal; there Thunder is called the land-ǫ́ss ‘land-os’. Indeed all three gods are closely associated with the prosperity of settled land: Free with peace and the harvest (ár, see my previous article: The significance of the Germanic j-rune and its name), Nearth (who is manna þęngill inn męins vani ‘the blameless Lord of Men’ (Grímnismǫ́l 16)) with the sea, and Thunder with the rain and warding off evil spirits, especially ettins.

5. The relevant attestation of the oath formula reads: Hann skyldi vinna ęið at baugi ok nęfna vátta í þat vę́tti, at hann ynni lǫg-ęið at baugi, ‘hjalpi mér svá Fręyr ok Njǫrðr ok ǫ́ss inn al-máttki, sem ek skal svá sǫk sǿkja eðr vęrja eðr vę́tti bera eðr kviðu kveða eðr dóm dǿma ok ǫll lǫg-mę́lt skil af hęndi lęysa sem ek vęit réttast ok sannast ok hęldst at lǫgum, þau es undir mik koma.’

This excerpt has probably been taken from a now-lost version of the Book of Landtakings. The saw further adds the interesting detail that most of the statutes of the law were taken from the Norwegian law of the Gol-Thing (Gula-þings lǫg). It also makes the following note: “So said the learned man Thurmod, who was then gid of the whole people (alls hęrjar goði), that with these words and the blessing of the Thing (þing-mǫrk), his ancestors had hallowed the Allthing for all generations.”

6. It is so obviously a direct quotation that it warrants no further discussion.

7. It relies on the same-sounding of the preposition at ‘by, present’ and the clitic -at ‘not’. After swearing, Gloom exclaims triumphantly: “Now may the men of wisdom in attendance inspect the oath!”

8. The manuscript is GKS 1157 fol, from around 1250.

9. In the articles “Hedniska edsformulär i äldre Vestgötalagen” and “Ännu några ord om de hedniska edsformulären i Norden”, both in Antiqvarisk tidskrift för Sverige, parts 5 and 13, respectively.

10. Modern Västergötland, a province in the west of Sweden, bordering Norway.

11. I had previously planned to write a separate post on just these words, but I fear that it would overlap too much with the present one, and with Liggi í úgildum akri as well. An in-depth analysis on godly grace and wrath in the pre-Christian Germanic worldview could probably fill a book.

12. Lok 12, where Bray admonishes Lock: gręm-þu ęigi goð at þér! ‘do not make the gods wroth against thee!’

Some other examples of the root *gram- to illustrate its usage are: ÞjóðA Lv 4, describing a battle: Dǫnum vǫ́ru goð grǫm ‘the gods were wroth toward the Danes’; Hfr Lv 9, after his forced conversion to Christianity: Mér skyli Fręyr ok Fręyja … gramr, ok Þór enn ramma ‘Free and Frow, and the strong Thunder, will be wroth toward me’; Heiðr 112: gramr er yðr Óðinn! ‘Weden is wroth toward you!’ — Cf. the word goða-gręmi ‘the wrath of the gods’, used as a threat against cowards and truce-breakers in the saws. The adjective gramr in the masculine and neuter plural acquires the connotation of dæmons or vengeful ghosts; cf. also the West Germanic “un-hold wights”.

Some examples of the root *hulþ- are: Grímnismǫ́l 42 (I am planning a post about only this stanza and the two preceding it) and 51; Hfr Lv 7: Ǫll hefr ę́tt aldar til hylli Óðins skipat ljóðum ‘the whole race of man has made songs to win the favour of Weden’; Oddgr 10: Svá hjálpi þér · hollar vę́ttir, // Frigg ok Fręyja · ok flęiri goð ‘so help thee gracious wights, Frie and Frow, and yet more gods’; Lok 4: holl ręgin ‘the gracious gods’.