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Figure 39. A tentative division of the hall at Lejre into entrance room, lower hall and upper hall. Some of those invited into the hall are also admitted to its upper part, which in the Lejre case is the area next to and above the fire. This is the stage part of the hall, at Lejre probably centred by the king in his high-seat at the back. This stage is used by those who wish to address everybody in the hall. The upper part is delimited by the wall behind the king, and there is a passage here too, namely a door that allows the king and queen (or perhaps only the king), to enter and leave the hall instantly and without any contact with the guests, a Deus ex machina entrance. So, looking at the Lejre hall in connection with the social stratification in the hall-governed kingdom, we seem to find the following conventions: the common people are not allowed to pass the entrance room, other hall owners and other socially significant guests are 171
not free to pass through the lower hall, and lastly the king’s men are not automatically allowed to pass the king’s throne or high-seat and leave by the backdoor. In the farmer’s hall (Birkeli 1932, pp. 29 ff.) the design is not equally clear, but in principle we find the same demarcations although the guests are all of them closer in rank to the hall owner than is usual in a king’s hall. The abominable, but partly tolerated behaviour of the berserk Bjorn testifies to this. When it comes to the way people talk in the hall, and thus to the literary possibilities of the texts used here, this organisation is, in my opinion, reflected in specific production formats (Goffman 1981, pp. 146 ff.). One such format is made up by the poem about hall life itself, a production format meant to be recited in the hall. Even Venantius’ poems to Lupus indicated that the official poem was essential to barbarians, but also that a man like Venantius with his Latin extraction felt the need to balance the official poem with a private one. In the entrance room the participant framework (Goffman 1981, pp. 146 ff.) is rigid. The formality of the talk is exemplified by the greetings scene in Beowulf when the hero arrives in Denmark. Although he speaks for his group of people, he has no special status at the moment, but the group needs someone to represent them vis-àvis a higher stratum in society. The same is the case in the tale about St. Sabas, where the villagers are represented by the village leaders. The other participant in the village assembly scene, which is a parallel to the entrance room framework, is the king’s representative who has been sent there by the king in the same way as Wulfgar was sent out to meet Beowulf. In the first Lupus poem a group of what seems to be Saxons and Danes is represented by an emissary and met by Lupus who acts on behalf of the king. These royal emissaries, Wulfgar or Lupus, the king’s representatives pose questions in the king’s name, and in Goffman’s terms that is their principal standing, but they also allow themselves to embed (Goffman 1981, pp. 128 and 149 f.) some of their own opinions in their questions. This is certainly true of Lupus, while Wulfgar uses ‘I’ now and then and the nobleman in Sabas’ village also acts as a judge and not just as a persecutor or interrogator when in the assembly he creates new representatives of the people by letting someone step forward and give his opinion of Sabas. This nobleman obviously cannot think of himself as talking to the assembly itself, he is only able to question someone who represents the people in the village. He is a courtier, a civil servant acting partly on behalf of the king, partly on his own behalf. His actions, however, seem not to have been satisfactory since later on and, no doubt, after having heard what happened in Sabas’ village a new and more effective nobleman with a sharper question is sent to Sabas. Like Lupus and Beowulf this man represents not only the king but also the people: he is the acting king. He demands that Sabas eat the sacred meat, and by refusing to do so Sabas loses his life. The new nobleman, Athanarid, appears to be following precise instructions. He is the equivalent of the returning Wulfgar who, when he refrains from expressing his own opinion, is the king’s mouthpiece. The enquiry carried out by the king’s man in 172
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Occasional Papers in Archaeology 15
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Published with grants from Swedish
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6 The Two Panegyrics ..............
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I. Introduction This study seeks an
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(Herschend 1993). It has also becom
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democratic congregation had been es
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ample of a need for large storage f
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mately the sense applied to the oth
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is found at Borg in Lofoten and dat
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Figures 3a and b. (a) The hall at W
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(b) An early phase of a farm at Cow
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The Farm Owner’s Seat The positio
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place. Living quarters are limited
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Figure 9. A proposed schematic deve
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When eventually hall and power, kin
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Figures 12a and b. A comparison bet
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kitchen. The tempo in Northern Norw
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have their obvious counterparts in
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they, contrary to most of the guest
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accessible, elevated and at the sam
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Figures 17a-c. Three sections of ro
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this farm, however, the village was
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Figure 19. The Oelandic Iron Age vi
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50 Figures 21a and b. (a), Early Me
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question. This is certainly a matte
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the sources used, houses as well as
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Although we may accept the argument
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The change in the meaning of the wo
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60 UlfR ok þeR Ragnarr restu sten
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Earlier discussions of the Old Engl
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Figure 22. The structure of Wealhth
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than pious disposition, ought to do
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Figure 25. Two partly overlapping e
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good father, good son or good broth
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72 In reality it gives a significan
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and immediately afterwards he is cu
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current, throughout the poem as wel
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2209 hé gehéold tela fiftig wintr
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Figure 30. The use of the word good
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to introduce Beowulf and to describ
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mate success, but there is no sharp
Page 87 and 88: Wealhtheow, whose name means ‘cel
Page 89 and 90: In verse 1810 the sword Hrunting is
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Page 93 and 94: it must be discussed how a Late Cla
Page 95 and 96: 45 Post tenebras noctis stellarum l
Page 97 and 98: Sigibert burn to marry the maid. Th
Page 99 and 100: why is the description of Brunhild
Page 101 and 102: Skírne-motif and hints at the para
Page 103 and 104: fourth belongs to a period after Si
Page 105 and 106: The second poem seems ultimately to
Page 107 and 108: 106 You have adopted the custom of
Page 109 and 110: Distant or stand-offish Germanic ki
Page 111 and 112: 110 So am I, exhausted by the might
Page 113 and 114: the first poem to express the unite
Page 115 and 116: How fast does Fame fly, rising on f
Page 117 and 118: order to survive and develop, but a
Page 119 and 120: Their peaceful role in general and
Page 121 and 122: eciprocal connection between a pair
Page 123 and 124: esult of a philosophical developmen
Page 125 and 126: connections is marked and dispropor
Page 127 and 128: and humans and animals on each side
Page 129 and 130: competition on the farm was smooth
Page 131 and 132: The established aristocracy is alwa
Page 133 and 134: 166
Page 135 and 136: peasants, namely the marriage betwe
Page 137: have been their obvious right to ex
Page 141 and 142: 174 Then Ælfwine said, he talked b
Page 143 and 144: was a child. Today we would not cou
Page 145 and 146: Beowulf in the first part of the po
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Page 149 and 150: Andersson, K., 1993. Romersk guldsm
Page 151 and 152: Fabech, C., 1998. Slöinge i perspe
Page 153 and 154: ⎯ 1993. The origin of the hall in
Page 155 and 156: Knudsen, S. Aa. & Hertz, E., 1994.
Page 157 and 158: Nielsen, K. M., 1945. Var thegnerne
Page 159 and 160: ⎯ 1993. Vikingetidens volde og bo
Page 161 and 162: Williams, T. A., M. Shaw & V. Debha
Page 163 and 164: 212
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Page 169 and 170: 3 Dejbjerg. The hall from Dejbjerg
Page 171 and 172: on a central farm among other large
Page 173 and 174: 186 Appendix II An English version
Page 175 and 176: 188 To him who strengthless fled th
Page 177 and 178: 190 When I, as a stranger, saw Germ
Page 179 and 180: Notes 1 The translation follows the
Page 181 and 182: always fasting, incessantly praying
Page 183 and 184: 7. When Atharidos got to know this
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