The Long Ships
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The Long Ships or Red Orm (original title: Röde Orm) is a best-selling Swedish novel written by Frans Gunnar Bengtsson 1894-1954. The novel is divided into two parts, published in 1941 and 1945, with two books each.
It is one of the most widely read books in Sweden, topping the charts of most loaned books at Swedish libraries for many years. The first book was translated to English by Barrows Mussey as Red Orm in 1943, but later editions and newer translations by Michael Meyer use the title The Long Ships.
The language of the novel is modeled on the Norse sagas, making the best of its faculties for wisecracks and comic understatements, and historic names, people and events are woven into the fiction. Bengtsson might also have had some influence from Eric Linklater's The Men of Ness, which book he had translated into Swedish in 1933. The 1963 Anglo-Yugoslavian movie The Long Ships is loosely based on the book.
The Swedish writer Sven Stolpe reports that somebody asked author Bengtsson "what intentions he had with The Long Ships." To which Bengtsson responded that he had no particular intentions. "I just wanted to write a story that people could enjoy to read, like the Three Musketeers or the Oddyssey."
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[edit] Setting
The book is set in the late 10th century and follows the adventures of Orm ("serpent"), called "Red" for his hair, a native of Skåneland. The story portrays the political situation of Europe in the later Viking Age, Andalusia under Al-Mansur Ibn Abi Aamir, Denmark under Harold Bluetooth, followed by the struggle between Eric the Victorious and Sweyn Forkbeard of Denmark, Ireland under Brian Boru, England under Ethelred the Unready, the Battle of Maldon, all before the backdrop of the gradual Christianisation of Scandinavia, contrasting the pragmatic Norse pagan outlook with Islam and Christianity.
[edit] Synopsis
- Book 1
The first book covers the years 982 to 990. Orm as a youth is taken captive by a Viking party stealing provisions at Skåne, returning from an unprofitable campaign among the Wends. The party consists of three ships, some 180 men, led by Krok. Orm is accepted as a crew member, and they sail south, along the coast of the Frankish Empire. At an encounter with a Jutish party, they collect an escaped prisoner, Salaman, an Andalusian Jew. Salaman guides them to the castle of the Castilian Margrave who had betrayed him. The Vikings sack the castle and take the spoils to the ships, Salaman returning to his own land. As they sail off, they are attacked and defeated by an Andalusian fleet, and Orm together with Krok and seven others are captured and made galley slaves. They serve as slaves for more than two years, during which time Orm becomes left-handed and Krok dies killing their hated supervisor. Thanks to the intervention of Salaman, the surviving eight Norsemen are made members of the bodyguard of Al-Mansur. They nominally convert to Islam and take part in Al-Mansur's campaigns in the Marca Hispanica for four years. Raiding Iria Flavia, the burial place of St. James, Al-Mansur charges the Norsemen with shipping the captured bell of the Christian church back to Cordova. On their way back, they encounter and slay the killers of Krok, and are forced to flee Andalusia, taking the bell with them. They cross to Ireland, and learning that Brian Boru gained the upper hand over the Norse there, continue directly to the court of Harold Bluetooth. Harald had recently converted to Christianity, and they present him with the bell of St. James, upon which Harold invites them to celebrate Yule with him. Both Orm and his friend Toke are wounded in duels during Yule. After reconvalescence, during which he meets Ylva, daughter of Harold, and presents her with a golden necklace given to him by Al-Mansur, Orm returns to Skåne. Toke abducts an Andalusian concubine of Harald's and moves further north to Småland.
- Book 2
After King Harald dies in exile, and Styrbjörn the Strong in the Battle of the Fýrisvellir (moved to 991 in the book, historically probably taking place a few years before), Orm joins a Viking party raiding England under Thorkell the High, participating in the Battle of Maldon. The Norsemen set siege to the church of Maldon, and after negotiation with two English bishops agree to accept payment of Danegeld. The chieftains agree to be baptized, and travel to London for the occasion. Orm, having learned that Harald's daughter Ylva is staying in London, agrees to baptism, and Poppo, former bishop of Harald, joins them in Christian matrimony. Orm, Ylva, one-eyed Rapp and the priest Willibald leave London for Denmark, and collect the necklace Ylva had hidden in Jellinge, now Sweyn's stronghold. Sweyn's men discover them, and fleeing, Willibald wounds Sweyn with a stone throw.
- Book 3
Fearing Sweyn's revenge, Orm moves to the deserted inheritance of his mother's in Göinge, northern Skåne, near the border to Småland. During the following years (992 to 995), Orm prospers , and Ylva gives birth to twin girls, a son, Harald, and later to another son, Svarthövde. Orm beats off a treacherous attack sponsored by Sweyn, and Willibald advises against killing the surviving attackers, forcing them to be baptised instead. At the thing between the men of Göinge, Värend and Finnveden, Orm renews his friendship with Toke who has gained wealth as a fur trader in Värend. Rainald, who had come to the thing with Orm to be exchanged for a priest enslaved by the Värenders disrupts a fertility ceremony, causing the death of a priest of Frey, and is given to the women of Värend as recompense.
- Book 4
The year 1000 passes without Christ returning. In 1007, Orm now in his early fourties, Orm's brother Are returns from the east, blind, mute and mutilated. He succeeds in telling of his fate with the help of runes: He had left Skåne in 978 and served in the Varangian guard of Basil II. Are participated in raid on a Bulgar castle at the mouths of the Danube with the aim of capturing the gold treasure of the Bulgar king. The emperor's treasurer made away with the gold, heading for Kiev, and Are pursued him. He succeeded to recapture the gold and hide it in the Dniepr, at the cataracts south of Kiev, but was later caught and mutilated, and with much luck made his way home to Denmark. Orm decides to travel to the Kievan Rus for the gold, and together with Toke and Värend chieftain Olof (after the latter is promised Orm's daughter Ludmilla upon their return) mans a ship. They travel via Visby, reaching the Dniepr via the Daugava and Beresina. They find the treasure, but are attacked by Pechenegs, and Orm's son Svarthövde is captured. Orm pays a high ransom, but enough of the treasure remains to liberally reward his entire crew. They return to Skåne safely, just four days after Orm's farm had been attacked by outlaws led by the former priest Rainald, abducting Ludmilla and other women. Orm heads a punitive expedition, the women are freed and Olof slays Rainald. Following this, Orm and Toke live in peace in good neighborhood, and Svarthövde Ormsson becomes a famous Viking, fighting for Canute the Great. The story ends with the statement that Orm and Toke in their old age "did never tire of telling of the years when they had rowed the Caliph's ship and served my lord Al-Mansur."
[edit] Politics
For a book written in Sweden during the Second World War — when Sweden's neighbors Denmark and Norway were occupied and quite a few Swedes tended to accommodate themselves to Nazi Germany in various ways — there was an obvious political significance to depicting a Jew as the ally and comrade in arms of Vikings, who moreover gets the Vikings to help him get revenge on gentiles who had wronged him.
In Swedish society of the 1940s, there was something a bit sensitive in acknowledging — as the book does — that Skåneland, Orm's home from which he sets out for his travels and to which he returns, was part of Denmark in the Middle Ages and until 1658. While this is an undisputed historical fact, there had been considerable attempts to obscure it following the area's incorporation in Sweden.
The book is written in a strong spirit of tolerance to all religions - pagan, Jewish, Muslim or Christian. While becoming a Christian, Orm never shows any fanaticism, and is on the best of terms with Toke - a stubborn Pagan married to a Muslim wife. But a partial exception is made with regard to the renegade priest Rainald. So long as he is Chrisitian he seems a sympathetic and rather comic character; but once becoming a pagan he also becomes a satanic and malevolent figure, destroying for the sake of destruction, who dies a deserved ignominious death. It seems that the writer had nothing against those who were born pagans remaining such, but did not like the idea of Chrisitians becoming pagans. Given the aforementioned situation at the time of writing, and Rainald's being a German, it is possible that the character was intended as a comment on Nazi attempts to appropriate Norse paganism as part of their ideology.
[edit] See Also
- Trade route from the Varangians to the Greeks (taken by Orm in book 4)
[edit] Editions
- Norstedts (1983), ISBN 91-1-791702-6.
- English translations
- Red Orm, Barrows Mussey (trans.), C. Scribner's sons (1943), ASIN B0007E7BYW.
- The Long Ships : A Saga of the Viking Age, Random House (1954).
- The Long Ships, Michael Meyer (trans.), HarperCollins (1984), ISBN 0-00-612609-X.
