SAGA-BOOK - Viking Society Web Publications

A FRAGMENT OF VIKING HISTORY
By J6N STEFFENSEN
OVE R twenty years ago I investigated all the available
bones that had been found with Viking Age objects
in Scandinavia, the British Isles and Iceland. I concluded
from my study that there were two distinct Viking strains:
a western one, covering the Icelandic and most of the
British finds, and an eastern one, covering the Scandinavian
finds. This conclusion was an unexpected one and
led to my enquiring more closely into the history of the
Vikings in Norse authorities.' The present paper is a
re-examination of the material in the light of subsequent
research.
Many Irish and British authorities divide the Vikings
into two distinct groups, who were often at odds with
each other and appear to have had conflicting interests.
Unfortunately the distinction is not always as clear as
one might wish. They are variously distinguished by the
names Lochlanns for Norwegians and Danars for Danes, or
as Dubhgaill, "Black gentiles" - Danes - and Finngail ,
"White gentiles" - Norwegians. It would be natural
to assume that these names referred to their haircolouring,
fair and dark; but this does not accord very well
with the situation today. The Icelanders are darker than
either Danes or Norwegians, and there is hardly such
difference in hair-colouring between the Danes and the
Norwegians as to justify such differentiating names. It
is, therefore, more than likely that they refer to some
other characteristic of the Vikings.
As regards the struggle for power between "light" and
"dark" foreigners in Ireland, the following may be
considered established facts. Turgeis, who came to
Ireland with "a great and vast royal fleet" and made him-
1 I published two lectures on the subject in SamtiiJ og Saga V (1951), 28-50,
II2-22.