Constantinople in the 15th-century Nuremberg Chronicle - (Wiki)
YOU CAN LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE HERE OR ON YOUR USUAL PODCAST APP
Sources:
Grettir's Saga, translated by Jesse Byock. Oxford University Press, 2009.
Grettir's Saga, translated by Denton Fox and Hermann Palsson. University of Toronto Press, 1974.
Collingwood, W.G. A Pilgrimage to the Saga-Steads of Iceland. W. Holmes, 1899.
Script:
“As we steamed into the fjord, rolling in the swell of the open sea after rough weather, the sunset died away in purple and rosy light on the hills, and gave place to a cold blue twilight, with a moon that silvered the snowy summits. Drangey stood grim and grey upon the water, seeming unapproachable, with bare sides and bare top, the most inhospitable of abodes.”
So wrote author W.G. Collingwood in his 1899 book, A Pilgrimage to the Saga-Steads of Iceland, having been there In August of 1897 and sketched the island by moonlight, and so it had very much been in the story we’ve followed: grim, grey, and seemingly unapproachable, just as long as the ladder was watched, just as long as the one entrusted to do so didn’t feel put upon and pretty much done with the whole thing, just as long as he didn’t just flop down there by the ladder and nap, letting your enemies freely approach your death bed. So it had gone.
Grettir had been slain there on Drangey, along with Illugi, his younger brother who had fought so bravely to defend him, both of them buried there on the island beneath a pile of stones. Their bodies would later be recovered by family and reburied at a church, but for now, only Grettir’s head would be taken away, carried off by Thorbjorn Hook and his men along with Grettit’s sword, which he kept for himself, and anything else of value. As for the man who had dozed through his watch at the ladder top, Glaum went with them too, but he didn’t last long.
Hook’s people had found Glaum and his failure repugnant, even if it had allowed them to achieve their aims, and they were further disgusted by his behaviour now. He, quote, “began whimpering so shamelessly that they wished to have nothing more to do with him,” and they cut him down for it, a hard ending to what he I’m sure felt had been a hard number of years. Maybe his noisily unignorable presence was too much of a reminder that all had not gone as gloriously as it might have on that island off the coast. There would be more reminders coming.
As Thorbjorn settled down to wait out the winter, word circulated of what had happened, and the word was not entirely positive, not with all the talk of witchcraft being involved. It spread among his neighbours, and it reached Thorir of Gard, the man who had long ago been wronged by Grettir and had placed a reward on his head, the man who now received Thorbjorn as a visitor and heard his claim on the reward money. “I often suffered injury at Grettir’s hands,” Thorir said, “but I never intended to take his life by making myself a criminal or a conjurer as you have done. Rather than seeing you paid, it seems to me that you deserve death for magic and sorcery.”
Maybe Thorir honestly felt as he said. Maybe he saw clearly what was coming and didn’t want to be associated with it. Maybe, as Thorbjorn angrily responded, he was just looking for an excuse not to pay. A decision on the matter would need to wait for the althing, the next stop in a saga that was nearing its end but which had many miles still left to travel.
Hello and welcome. My name is Devon, and this is Human Circus: Journeys in the Medieval World, the history podcast that, like it says on the box, covers “journeys in the medieval world,” whether they be saints, soldiers, or saga-spun outlaws. And it is a podcast that is supported by a Patreon at patreon.com/humancircus, where you can chip in at whatever amount works for you per month and enjoy extra, early, and ad-free listening. Many thanks to those of you who are doing so already.
And now, back to the story, back to the conclusion of the story of Grettir’s Saga.
When last we spoke, our main character died, not usually a sign that there was much story still to come, and Thorbjorn Hook had come away quite content with how it had all played out, satisfied with his new sword and with the wealth and glory which he saw in his future. There was that little setback when Thorir of Gard refused to give him his reward though, an early indication that the doors of his future were not so wide open as he’d initially imagined when he’d scooped up the head of the fearsome outlaw and taken it away to be packed in salt.
His next step was to bring that head to Grettir’s mother Asdis, rather cruelly it must be said, but then his goal there was no kinder: to claim the possessions of her other deceased son, Illugi, whose actions in defending an outlaw allowed for such a thing. This would generally be done only after a favourable judgement had been reached at the althing, but it seems Thorbjorn was not going to wait around for that, easier, he must have thought, to ask forgiveness than to beg permission.
Into her hall he marched, planting Grettir’s head right there on the floor. He offered no greeting save for harsh words in verse, and in verse she replied:
“The north salutes with scorn
you chieftains who drip with gold.
Think how sheep leap down
to the sea when a fox gives chase:
for that’s how you’d have fared
on Grettir’s turf had you faced him
before his sickness struck.
I do not mock when praise is earned.”
Clearly, where Thorbjorn was concerned, praise had not been earned.
Everyone present agreed that it was powerfully said and that it was no great surprise the sons of such a woman had proven so strong, but she had more than words on her side. She had family allies arriving, ones from the region who had been summoned when they’d first learned that Thorbjorn Hook was coming, and as they did so, some mingled outside and spoke with Thorbjorn’s men. They heard from them how well Illugi had fought and how Grettir’s hand had clung to the sword even in death, a detail which was received with wonder.
Others of Asdis’ allies were arriving. They came riding in from the west and stormed into the hall to confront Thorbjorn. Some wanted his blood there and then, but they were persuaded to wait for the althing, to know that their cause was just and that the greater consensus there was of this among the figures of wisdom and power, the worse it would go for Thorbjorn. The sides were separated and Thorbjorn sent on his way. As he had in parting from Thorir, he came away from Asdis no richer, and it became clear that it was all going to depend on the althing.
The closer that gathering got, the more the tide turned against Thorbjorn. Asdis gained further support, even among those who had once clashed with her son, such as Thorbjorn Poemstump. Meanwhile, Thorbjorn’s Hook side weakened, and as they journeyed to the althing, fewer joined them than expected, but he didn’t seem to fully understand his position just yet. He actually had to be dissuaded from bringing Grettir’s head to put on display. “That would be unwise,” counselled one of his men. “You already have enough enemies without further reminding people of their sorrows by offering such an affront.”
He didn’t seem to grasp where this was going but those with him perhaps did, convincing him just to bury the head on the way, something which is sometimes said to have been done by Grettir’s mother, Thorbjorn having left it with her in that version of events. He carried on to the althing, lacking a severed head but confidence apparently undaunted, and there he put forward his case.
Before the eyes and ears of that general assembly, he spoke in strong terms of his courageous act, his great show of skill and valour, for his glee at successfully slaying Grettir had not been diminished by the overwhelmingly bad vibes that had since surrounded the deed. He talked up his accomplishment in bringing down the most infamous of outlaws, really buttering his own bread in the presentation and laying claim to the reward, but he was not the only one with something to say.
Thorir of Gard was there, and whether or not he was motivated by the chance not to pay out the promised reward, he spoke against Thorbjorn’s cause, repeating what he’d said to his face about magic and foul deeds. And when the law-speaker asked if anyone else had something to say, like the priest at a wedding asking if anyone had an objection, any objection at all to the proposed union, someone did. Grettir’s nephew Skeggi had an objection, and he made it known, accusing Thorbjorn Hook of sorcery and witchcraft causing death, and a secondary charge of injury to a dying man. He asked for full outlawry as a penalty, while someone else argued that the punishment for sorcery causing death should certainly be death. The sides in the affair made themselves known, and Thorbjorn’s was clearly the weaker. As had recently been the case, he wasn’t going to come away with what he wanted.
He wasn’t getting his prize money, for no one would reward such foul acts. He wasn’t getting the confiscation of Illugi’s belongings, wasn’t even getting compensation for his men who had died on Dragney. What he was getting was the verdict that he must leave Iceland, and must never return while any still lived who had claim against him for his misdeeds. No mention of 20 years there. Taking all he had that could be taken, Thorbjorn sailed for Norway, and he did not exactly lie low.
He had, after all, killed a famous outlaw—he wasn’t quite ready to surrender the glory of that deed, even if his peers had found him inglorious for it. In a turn reminiscent of “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford,” he made much of what he had done, milking the accomplishment for all the recognition it was worth, all the acclaim that an edited version of the story might provide, for the news of the events came from him.
That news spread to the ears of a man named Thorstein, Grettir’s half-brother who we met before when the two had rested next to one another during Grettir’s time in Norway, when they’d compared the sizes of their arms. Grettir had mocked Thorstein’s as weak and spindly, while Thorstein had promised that feeble as they may be, his arms would be the ones to avenge Grettir, if any would do so.
Though many years had passed, Thorstein had not forgotten that promise. In fact, he began to actively gather information about Thorbjorn, doing so cautiously, for he had heard his half-brother’s killer was “capable and ruthless.” Meanwhile, Thorbjorn heard about him. He didn’t know him, had never seen him—neither of them had ever seen the other—but they were aware that the other existed. One spent the winter in the north of Norway, the other in the south, near as far away as possible in that same land, but Thorbjorn did not want to be in the same land as Grettir’s kin at all. It was, he felt, too great a risk. So he left. He packed up and departed, crossing the continent and heading for Constantinople.
“At that time many Norwegians travelled to Constantinople,” the saga relates, taking the by-then well-beaten paths to serve as mercenaries. Thorbjorn “passed through [many] different lands,” and behind him was Thorstein. The saga doesn’t tell us much of this game of cat and mouse, no details, but I imagine a Carmen San Diego or, if you’re board game inclined, Fury of Dracula pursuit all the way south. Crucially though, only one of them knew that such a game was afoot. Thorstein had heard of Thorbjorn’s departure and quickly arranged to follow him, coming ever to places he had just left, hearing of the one who had gone before him, but Thorbjorn, out front, knew nothing of this chase. He thought himself to be getting further and further from the rather speculative threat of Grettir’s relation, never imagining how close the hunt had come, never caught until by river and road, and probably the Black Sea, he reached the city of Constantinople and there enlisted in the Varangian Guard.
The Varangians were by then an established institution, a palace guard pledged to the service of Byzantine emperor, prized for their fighting ability but equally importantly their lack of entanglements in local politics and power structures, their more trustworthy status as strangers to that place. They are, for whatever reason, quite famous I guess you would say, having really captured the imagination over the years—”Vikings in the Eastern Roman Empire” is a pretty powerful image—but they’re not necessarily unique, in the sense that the Byzantine empire would rely on all manner of foreign mercenaries and, much as with the western Romans before them, resettled peoples who they had conquered.
The saga tells us that Thorbjorn joined the Varangian Guard of Michael IV the Paphlagonian. His name a reference to the region on the southern coast of the Black Sea, he was a common-born money changer whose relative had arranged for him to receive a court job and who had subsequently been noticed by the empress, the two perhaps conspiring to poison her husband in order to place him next to her on the throne. Thorbjorn’s arrival was then within his 7-year reign from 1034 to 1041, about half a century after the date often given for the guard’s formal establishment and about a half a century before its Anglicization with the influx from post-Norman-invasion England.
So that was the guard Thorbjorn joined, and in a very satisfying dramatic turn, Thorstein joined it too. They both enlisted on arrival, but remember that they still had not seen one another. Thorbjorn didn’t even think Thorstein was there in Constantinople at all, while Thorstein knew that Thorbjorn was there in the city and possibly also in the guard but didn’t know who he was or what he looked like. He could not identify him among the many men and lay awake disconsolate at his failure, discouraged that he would ever be able to locate his target, but eventually his opportunity came.
The guard had been given a mission, a mandate to deal with piracy, though whether that was in the Black Sea or the Mediterranean, the saga doesn’t say. It didn’t really matter so far as we’re concerned because what mattered was the traditional inspection of arms before the fighters went forth. That was the occasion for Thorbjorn to present his sword before an audience, the one he had taken from Grettir, the one that had been disfigured when he’d chopped at Grettir’s head. You knew he would not do so quietly.
The sword caused much comment, with all expressing their admiration along with what a pity it was that such a blade had been damaged. How could such a thing have happened, they wondered, and Thorbjorn was only too happy to tell them.
That, he said, is a story worth hearing. “It began out in Iceland,” he said, “where I killed the champion called Grettir the Strong. He was the greatest, most courageous warrior there, because no one could cut him down before I arrived. But I was fated to overcome him and so I killed him, even though he had many times my strength. With the [sword], I struck him a blow on the head which broke out a piece from the edge.”
As you can see, Thorbjorn was not one to let modesty, or indeed questionable means or honesty, get in the way of a good story.
His words had exactly the effect he wanted, drawing interest and attention, remarks that this Grettir must have been very hard-headed indeed, and requests to have a closer look at that sword. Among those there in the audience was Thorstein. He saw Thorbjorn, saw the sword, heard the whole boastful story of his half-brother’s killing.
But Thorbjorn still don’t know him, didn’t even know he was there in the city and not safely far away in Norway, so when Thorstein asked to see the sword, he handed it over willingly, still basking in all the attention. Much to Thorbjorn’s surprise, much to the surprise of everyone present, Thorstein took his half-brother’s sword, raised it, and cut straight down through Thorbjorn’s head, bisecting it all the way to the jaws. Thorbjorn Hook fell dead, and Grettir the Strong was avenged.
Thorstein was seized by those around him—he’d hardly been secretive in the killing, waiting to follow Thorbjorn home and knife him in the dark or arranging a little accident, at sea or when they clashed with the pirates. He’d done it in the midst of the Varangian Guard, and they all wanted him to explain this sudden act of violence. Why had he done it, they asked him, and when they heard that he was actually Grettir's kin and had come all this way to Constantinople just to take revenge for his death, they marvelled at it, saying that this Grettir, infamous in Iceland but there unknown, must have been very important indeed.
They were inclined to believe Thorstein, to take him at his word that the killing had been justified, but they could not confirm what he told them, nor could he possibly find anyone else who would stand as his witness in that city. They were inclined to be sympathetic, but the prescribed penalty was death, and Thorstein was taken away to a cell to wait for that punishment or for someone to come forward and pay his ransom, not a prospect that was at all likely in this city full of strangers.
Thorstein’s cell was “foul-smelling and cold,” his cellmate a man in poor spirits who had long languished in there, having no hope of rescue or ransom, no kinsmen who would aid him, much like Thorstein really, but Thorstein was oddly optimistic. “The future is not always clear,” he told his cellmate, “but let’s be cheerful and have some fun,” and so saying, he began to sing.
His story, the story of the whole saga, was about to take a sharp turn. The revenge sequence had concluded, and it was about to give way to romance and trickery.
We’ll take that turn with Thorstein after this quick break, and today by “this quick break” I mean a few days. I’m running out of time to record before heading off to visit family, and what I’m going to do is put this out now and record the second half when I’m back, so for now, thank you very much for listening, and I’ll talk to you then.