The Viking Saga Read online

  TO WRITE RUNES, YOU WILL NEED:

  ❋ Paper (or a blackboard, a slate, a small plank – anything hard with a smooth surface)

  ❋ Pen (or pencil or chalk)

  Here are the letters:

  Can you work out what your name would be using Short-twig runes? You may have to use the rune with the nearest sound for some letters. The fifth rune, which looks a bit like the letter ‘p’, is a ‘th’ sound.

  Use this for writing important and secret information. Share it with your friends, and use it as a secret code!

  Did You Know?

  Miklagard is the Viking name for Byzantium, which was later called Constantinople – today we call it Istanbul!

  The earliest pictures of Stone Age boats have been found in North Norway. They are cut into rocks.

  The Vikings invented the keel, which makes a ship more stable, and allows the sailors to control its direction. They also invented a steering oar, which was attached to the starboard side of the ship. Their ships had a shallow draught – they did not sit deep in the water – so they could sail up rivers as well as out to sea.

  The mast of a Viking ship was placed exactly in the middle. This meant the ship could be sailed forwards or backwards, depending on what was needed.

  The great longships in which raiders travelled the seas, were called ‘drakkar’ (dragon ships). The standard size was about 28 metres long, and about 4.5 metres broad, taking fifty or sixty crewmen. Ships for trading, which were wider and shorter, were called ‘knörr’.

  The remains of a Viking settlement was discovered in 1960 at L’Anse aux Meadows (say ‘Lancy Meadows’ – it comes from the French for ‘Jellyfish Cove’) in north-west Newfoundland, Canada. There were three large houses, and several smaller buildings. They appear to date from around AD 1000. Viking sagas from Iceland mention ‘Vinland’ – could this site be Vinland? In 2012 further evidence of Vikings was found, at Tanfield Valley on Baffin Island and two other islands in the Canadian territory of Nunavut. These remains appear to be older than the settlement at L’Anse aux Meadows.

  In 2014, remains of a Viking ship were found in Tennessee by archaeologists from the University of Memphis, USA, excavating at the point where the Wolf River meets the Mississippi. It was a knörr, a merchant ship. A broken sword was also found.

  Vikings travelled down south-flowing rivers to Byzantium, carrying their ships past obstacles or over land between rivers. These Vikings were called ‘Rus’, from a Finnish word meaning ‘Swedes’, and the land was called ‘Russia’ after them. They overpowered the Slavic tribes they met, and set up trading posts, which became towns such as Novgorod and Kiev.

  So many Vikings travelled to Byzantium, and they were such good fighters, that in the tenth century a special unit of the Imperial Army was set up for them. It was called the Varangian Guard, The Varangian Guards served as the Emperor’s personal bodyguards.

  The red pipestone prized by the Beothuks and other indigenous peoples is quarried from hills in what is today south-west Minnesota, USA. When Europeans came to the North American continent, they heard about the soft rock that could easily be carved, and saw such things as pipe bowls made from it, but it wasn’t until the nineteenth century that they actually found out where the rock was obtained.

  Puffin Writing Tips

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  Viking’s Dawn first published by The Bodley Head 1955

  Published in Puffin Books 1967

  The Road to Miklagard first published by The Bodley Head 1957

  Published in Puffin Books 1967

  Viking’s Sunset first published by The Bodley Head 1960

  Published in Puffin Books 1967

  This collection published as The Viking Saga in Puffin Books 1985

  Reissued in this edition 2016

  Copyright © the Estate of Henry Treece, 1955, 1957, 1960, 1985

  Illustrations by Christine Price

  Cover illustration by Robert Ball

  All rights reserved

  The moral right of the author and illustrator has been asserted

  ISBN: 978–0–141–36954–9

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  Penguin Random House Children’s

  80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL

  * History tells only of the most important happenings, the most forceful people. Sometimes it has to neglect the life of ordinary people so as to stress the victories of a king. So, always there is a part of any community that lags behind recorded history. There is always a part of any country that will not keep abreast of the beliefs of the times. There are people even today who believe that it is unlucky to sit thirteen at a table.

  So, in many parts of what we now call Scotland, there were villages and even whole areas, in the eighth century, which had not become Christianized. This especially applied to the mountainous places, where communication was difficult.

  And some of these folks, ‘Picts’ (or ‘Painted ones,’ as their Romanized name implies, because of their use of woad), still believed in the old gods, to whom sacrifices were made before the coming of Christ – such as Lugh, Mabon, and Belatucader … Time moved slowly in those distant days.

  Yet these people were not deficient in other respects. They were good fishers, good herdsmen, good craftsmen in iron and in the precious metals. It is not wise for us to belittle the intelligence, or the civilization, of any people simply because they do not hold the same religious beliefs as ourselves.

  * Horic was referring to the druidic sacrifices, performed on Midsummer Day, at dawn-time, when a red-haired youth was chosen to represent the Sun-god. By dying on the sacrificial stone, this youth was thought to bring sunshine and hence growth to the crops. He died for the people.