A sworn brotherhood of warriors, an impregnable sea fortress, an iron code of honour – and men who look the executioner in the eye and laugh. Few Viking tales are as heroic as that of the Jomsvikings. But how much of it really happened?
The Jomsvikings are the stuff of legend: an elite force of professional warriors who lived and fought by strict rules. Their story has fascinated generations – and for exactly that reason a second, critical look is worthwhile.
According to the Jómsvíkinga saga, Jomsborg was a men's order pure and simple. Only those who proved themselves in single combat were admitted, and only men between 18 and 50. Within the walls hard laws applied: no women, no absence of more than three nights without leave, no cowardice, no blood-feud among the members, all plunder shared. Whoever showed fear or fled lost his place. It is this image of a mercilessly disciplined warrior community that makes the Jomsvikings so compelling to this day.
The seat of the brotherhood, Jomsborg, is said to have lain on the southern Baltic coast – a sea fortress with a harbour that supposedly held several ships behind a lockable gate. Vivid as the sagas paint it, Jomsborg has to this day not been securely proven archaeologically. The best candidate is the trading town of Wolin at the mouth of the Oder in present-day Poland, an important Viking-age site. Whether Wolin really was the legendary Jomsborg remains open – the name "Jomsborg" appears only in later sources.
The saga names Pálnatóki as founder, and later Sigvaldi leads the brotherhood. Their most famous campaign ended in disaster: at a feast the Jomsvikings boastfully swore to topple the Norwegian ruler Hákon Jarl – a heitstrenging, a boasting vow that could not be withdrawn. So they set out. At the Battle of Hjörungavágr (c. 986) they met Hákon's fleet. A sudden storm of hail, which the saga ascribes to sorcery, turned the tide; the Jomsvikings were beaten and many taken prisoner.
The most famous scene is the execution of the captives. One after another is led to the axe – and one after another meets death with defiant composure. A young warrior asks only that someone hold his long hair clear of his neck so the blood will not stain it; as the executioner grips it, the Jomsviking jerks his head forward so the blow strikes the executioner's hands. Such scenes of the "good death" – courage and wit even in the face of the end – are the heart of the Jomsviking material. Whether they happened just so is saga craft; what they show is an ideal: better to die laughing than to live trembling.
The fool thinks / he will live for ever,
if from fighting he flees;
but old age will give him / no peace,
though spears may spare his life.Hávamál 16, translation after Henry Adams Bellows 1923 (public domain)
It is precisely this ideal that carries the tale: not the long life counts, but the bearing with which one meets the unavoidable.
Ragnar Lodbrok · The shield wall · Berserkers · The longships · Thyra Danebod – Denmark's mightiest woman.
No god of the North is without his treasure: Thor without his hammer would be only an angry giant, Odin without spear …
Read more →Where does poetry come from? The North had an uncannily beautiful answer to this: from the blood of a wise being …
Read more →A feast of the gods, ale in plenty – and a guest who exposes every single one of them. The Lokasenna („Loki’s flyting") …
Read more →Every misdeed has its price, and Loki’s bill is settled all at once. After the death of Baldr and his merciless mockery …
Read more →