The Training of Warriors

Hilda Ellis Davidson

In a book called The Art of War, Christian Feest (1980) examines patterns of life in tribal
societies where warfare had been an essential factor within recent times, using material from
various African peoples, Polynesians and Melanesians in the Pacific Islands, and the North
American Indians. Much of what he records is directly applicable to the world of the Celts and
Germans as we see it reflected in medieval literature. His approach helps to reveal practices and
symbols associated with warfare, reminding us of its importance in the lives of men and women
in the early medieval period. Admittedly much of our literary material is derived from Iceland,
where there was no need of a standing army to guard the borders, and such fighting as took place
seems to have been on a tiny scale, with the numbers killed usually in single figures.
Nevertheless the heroic background of warfare has left an indelible mark on Icelandic poetry and
saga, while in Scandinavia, the British Isles and the Germanic areas of the Continent, warrior
bands long continued to play an important part, impinging on the lives of the ruling classes and
of the people in general.

From the Iron Age onwards, warfare permeated the social structure of north-western Europe,
influencing art, symbolism and literature; it played an important part in the pre-Christian religion
and left its mark on popular beliefs and customs. While the doings of the ruthless Vikings and
the martial exploits of heroes like CúChulainn are widely known, the importance of warfare for
understanding early literature can be easily underestimated, as armchair scholars concentrate on
bookish elements and the influences of Christian learning. Ignorance of the techniques of
weapon-play and of battle tactics may mean that much that is significant remains undetected in
both art and literature. Since a warrior society depends for its survival on the efficient training of
its youth, this aspect of life was an important one. Young men growing to manhood had to be
able to defend themselves, while those destined to be leaders had need of many specialised skills.
When a kingdom was under a strong central authority, as was usual in the early medieval
period—Iceland again being an exception—training of special bodies of elite warriors was
essential for the security and prestige of the ruler. He would need border or palace guards and
expert fighters to lead the attack in time of war, or organise the equivalent of commando raids.
Some men served as warriors in their youth and later retired to their estates, returning to serve
the king when needed; others earned a living as mercenaries in a war-band, and others remained
professional warriors until too old to fight. For these various careers a good and thorough
training in boyhood was needed if they were to play an effective part in a warrior’s world.

Not many youths, however, led a specialised life devoted solely to warfare. Feest makes it clear
that normal method of training was for bands of boys to live together away from home,
practising the skills of warfare and hunting side by side, and in societies which he studied he
found little distinction between the weapons of war and those used by the hunter. Julius Caesar
in The Gallic War (VI, 21) couples hunting and warfare together in describing the life of the
Germans, and adds: ‘they devote themselves from childhood to fatigue and hardships’. We hear
of communities of young fighting men in both Norse and Irish literature. One well known group
is that of the berserks in Scandinavian tradition, figures around which a wealth of folklore and
wild legend prolificated, so that in the saga literature they appear as monstrous creatures, almost
ogres, seizing wealth and women as they chose and impervious to ordinary weapons. In the 9th
century Hrafnsmál, however, a poem known as Haraldskvaeðti, concerned with the fame of
Harald Fairhair of Vestfold and attributed to one of his court poets (Kershaw 1922; Turville-
Petre 1976), they became more credible figures. After mention of the leaders, champions and
poets at the king’s court, all of whom receive generous recompense from Harald, a question is
asked about the berserks, to which comes the reply:

Wolfcoats are they called, those who bear

bloodstained swords to battle;
they redden spears when they come to the slaughter,
acting together as one.

It is in such fierce fighters, comments the poet, that a wise king puts his trust in time of battle.
The reputation of the berserks depended on the wild fury with which they fought, cutting down
all in their path and ignoring danger and the pain of wounds.

The name berserkr is generally taken to mean ‘bearshirt’, implying that these warriors wore the
skins of bears as well as those of wolves, as indicated by the name ‘Wolfcoats’ (Davidson 1978,
132-3). An alternate interpretation of berserkr is ‘bare shirt’, and this is custom of fighting semi-
naked, as in the modern expression ‘birthday suit’, and this is favoured in a recent article by Kim
McCone (1987), an important study on the significance of Dog and Wolf names applied to early
warriors to which I shall be making further reference. The berserks were reputed to fight without
defensive armour, and the explanation of ‘running berserk’ (berserksgangr) given in
Heimskringla (Ynglinga Saga 6), emphasizes this:

His (i.e. Odin’s) men went without mailcoats and were as mad as dogs or wolves; they bit their
shields and were as strong as bears or boars. They slew men, but neither fire nor iron had any
effect on them. This is called ‘running berserk’.

Outside observers of battles in which Germans or Celts took part report that some barbarian
warriors fought naked except for a belt, and such figures are depicted both in Roman art and on
Scandinavian helmet plates of about the 6th century AD. The little man shown on a buckle plate
from grave 95 in the Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Finglesham, Kent, is a warrior of this kind,
wearing only a belt and helmet (Hawkes, Davidson and Hawkes 1965). The belt would be
convenient to hold a sword or knife, but might also have a symbolic significance if the skin of
bear or wolf was used for it. In later Scandinavian folklore, men who changed into wolves at
night were said to put on a belt of wolfskin before leaving the house, and this evidently
represented the skin of the beast as a whole (Davidson 1978, 133; Lid 1950, 91f.). While there is
evidently a close connection between berserks and wolves, confirmed by the name Wolfcoats
given to them in the 9th century, the association with bears also seems important for
Scandinavian warriors. The bear fights alone and not in a pack, and while in dreams in the
Icelandic Sagas a band of enemies is often represented by a pack of wolves, a hero and leader,
like Gunnar in Brennu-Njáls Saga, may be seen as a powerful bear (Davidson 1978, 137). It may
be noted that in a number of tales in the sagas, such as Víga-Glums Saga and Grettis Saga, a
young man proves his strength and courage by tackling a fierce bear single-handed (Danielli
1945). In one of these tales the youth wears a bearskin cloak, and brings back the snout of the
bear to prove he has killed it; in another a bearskin cloak is thrown at the bear by the leader of a
band of youths who are taunting the young man, and has to get it back, and also prove that he has
overcome the bear by cutting off one of its paws. In the second case the leader of the band is
called Bjorn (bear). Another example of an encounter with a bear at the beginning of a young
man’s career as a warrior is found in the Latin account of the life of Hereward the Wake, De
Gestis Herwardi Saxonis (3): the young Herewald joins a company of youths at the house of his
godfather, Gisebritus, and at Christmas asks if he may be allowed to fight with a ferocious bear
kept in a cage. He is told he is too young, but next day the bear gets loose and Hereward
encounters it and kills it by cleaving its head with his sword, after which he holds up the dead
beast to display it to the company. We are told that this deed made him envied and hated by the
other boys, but that he won position and honour with the knights and was praised in the
countryside, where women and girls made songs about him for their dances.

Both Bjorn and Ulf were popular elements in personal names. The famous Danish hero, Boðvar
Bjarki, was originally named Bjarki (little Bear), his first name being a nickname meaning
‘warlike’; this may be the reason why the widespread folktale of the Bear’s Son came to be
attached to him in Hrólfs Saga kraka. In the sixth book of the History of Saxo Grammaticus
(trans. Fisher 1979, 173, pp. 162ff.; commentary by Davidson 1980, 95f.), he has a tale of twelve
fierce warriors in possession of an almost impregnable fortress on an island, and gives some of
their names, all of which include the element bjorn, while Bjorn is given as the name of their
leader. A puzzling statement in the preface to the Prose Edda of Snorri Sturluson implies an
association between bearskins and young warriors, since Thor, here represented as a human hero
afterwards deified, is said to have proved his strength in his youth by lifting twelve bearskins
from the ground. Traces of bearskins have been found in men’s graves in Norway and parts of
Sweden from the period before the Viking Age (Vierck 1970, 385).

Thus there is evidence in support of the term berserkr meaning ‘bear-shirt’, although there is no
doubt that the berserks were also associated with wolves. Figures on helmet-plates from Sweden
and on scabbards and buckles from Alamannic graves appear to be men wearing animal skins
and animal heads; some of these resemble bears and other wolves (Davidson 1965, 23f). They
are sometimes shown in company with dancing naked warriors like the one on the Finglesham
buckle. The emphasis on wild animals in warrior tradition is in keeping with the link between
warfare and hunting made by Feest in his account of bands of young men undergoing training,
and the test of manhood by killing a wild animal seems well-established. According to Julius
Caesar, Gallic War VI, 28, the German youths proved themselves by trapping an aurochs, the
great bull then found in central Europe, in a pit and going down to overcome it single-handed,
and such a scene is illustrated on the base of the Gundestrup bowl. They are said to produce the
horns in public as evidence of their achievement

Wolves and dogs are closely linked, and both frequently associated with youthful warriors, as
McCone has shown; the use of personal names derived from Wolf, Bear and Hound is well-
established among Germans, Scandinavians and Celts in Western Europe. We have an example
in one of Saxo’s tales of two boys who were hiding because of the hostility of their uncle, who
had killed their father; wolves’ claws were fastened to the boys’ feet so that they left what
seemed to be wolf-tracks, and they were then given the names of dogs, Hopp and Ho, according
to Hrólfs Saga kraka, which includes the same story (Saxo Grammaticus 1979, VII, 182, p. 202).
McCone gives many ‘dog’ names from Irish literature, of which the best known is that of
CúChulainn (Hound of Culann) (Strachan 1944; Ganz 1981, 138f.). His original name was
Setanta, but he acquired the new one after overcoming the fierce hound which guarded the lands
of King Conchobar, his mother’s brother according to one tradition. The hound, which belonged
to Culann the Smith, was so powerful that three men were needed to hold it, and the young boy
encountered it after it had been loosed to guard the cattle during the night, but he was unafraid
and overcame it with his bare hands. When the smith lamented the loss of his dog, which secured
the lives and honour of the Ulstermen and was, he declared ‘the man of the family’, Setanta
offered to take its place:

I will rear you a whelp from the same litter, and until it is grown and capable of action I will be
the hound that protects your cattle and yourself.

In a number of Irish tales, young men belong to the fíana, the roving bands associated with the
hero Finn MacCumaill (O’Grady 1892, vol. 2, 100; Sjoestadt 1982, 101f.; Nagy 1985, 41f.).
They had no fixed abode and lived in the forest in the summer, occupied with hunting and
warfare, independent of families and friends. For a youth to gain entry meant undergoing
rigorous tests, such as being buried up to the waist in the earth and defending himself with a
shield and a hazel-stick while the rest hurled javelins at him, or moving noiselessly through the
forest without stirring a twig or ruffling his braided hair while pursued by armed warriors. The
bands were divided into separate groups of nine or twelve, and in winter they supported
themselves by foraging and robbery, and it was recognized that they might steal, and seize
women. Sjoestedt suggests that they were tolerated, so long as they kept within certain bounds,
because they were accounted ‘among the institutions necessary to the prosperity of the tribe’, and
they waged war on its enemies. Caesar notes in The Gallic War (VI, 23) that German youths
were not punished for robberies committed outside the boundaries of their own kingdom, since
they claim that these are carried out for the purpose of disciplining their youth and preventing
sloth. These youths were associated with deer and hounds; one of Finn’s wives was said to be a
doe, and his sisters’ sons were hounds. He said that he preferred them so: ‘If I were their father, I
would prefer that they be as they are rather than be human.’ Finn himself was said to appear as
deer or dog according to how he wore his hood. There are such close resemblances between the
traditions of bands of warriors in Irish and Norse sources that earlier scholars like Zimmer
thought that the fíana were modeled on memories of Viking bands of raiders. However the cycle
of tales goes back earlier than the Scandinavian invasion, as Sjoestedt pointed out, and she
perceived the true nature of the parallel (Sjoestedt 1982, 106):

It is not by comparison with the Vikings who invaded Ireland in the 9th century that Fenian
mythology can be explained, but by comparison with the myths of the Einherjar, the chosen of
Odin, or with the savage Berserkir, the ‘bearskin warriors’. On both sides we find the same
violent life on the margin of ordered society, the same fury, the same personalities with animal
components, and the same type of warrior fraternities.

The young warrior was clearly required to learn the skills of the hunter and to identify himself
with the fierce animals of the wild. We are often told of the berserks fighting like wild beasts,
howling as they went on their destructive path, killing all before them in the ecstasy of battle.
Ability to lose oneself in such battle-fury was regarded as a gift of Odin, along with the
inspiration which he granted to poets and orators. Parallels may be seen in the fantastic excesses
attributed to Arthur’s warriors in the Welsh Mabinogion, in Culhwch and Olwen (see also
Davidson 1982), one of whom was covered with hair like a stag, while another emitted such heat
from the soles of his feet that he could burn down any obstacle, and a third could drink up part of
the sea; such descriptions convey something of the wild fury and heat of battle possessing these
warriors. On one occasion CúChulainn had to be plunged into several buckets of cold water to
restore him to a normal state of mind and release him from a destructive fury like that of a rogue
elephant or maddened bull. Such traditions may account for one element in the many tales of
shape-changing in the early literature, belonging to a different world from that of the fairytale or
the cunning magician and reflecting the particular method of training which young men were
required to undergo, emphasising a link with the wild animals of mountain and forest.

A tale which illustrates this is that of the training of young Sinfjotli, Sigmund’s son, in Volsunga
Saga (8), when he and his father were preparing to take vengeance on the slayer of their
kinsmen. They lived like outlaws in the forest, and one day came across two men asleep in a hut
with gold rings on their arms, and two wolfskins hanging on the wall:

They could take off the skins every tenth day, and they were kings’ sons. Sigmund and Sinfjolti
put on the wolfskins and were unable to take them off. With the wearing of them went the same
nature as belonged to the skins: they spoke with the voice of wolves, and yet each understood
what was uttered. They stayed out in the wilds, each going his own way; they made an agreement
that each would take on as many as seven men but no more, and that he who was attacked first
should cry out as a wolf does, ‘We must not depart from this’, said Sigmund, ‘for you are young
and full of reckless courage, and men will want to hunt you down’.
Accordingly when a band of men attacked Sigmund, he howled, and Sinfjolti came to his aid, but
when the boy was alone, he met eleven men and managed to kill them all. However he got no
praise for this: Sigmund was so angry with him for not summoning help that he leapt upon him
and bit him in the throat. Sinfjloti would have died had his father not found a healing herb which
cured the wound. Finally we are told that when the time came they took off the skins and forsook
this way of life. Similar rules about fighting are found in the Icelandic sagas applied to bands of
warriors living together, the most famous being the tradition of the Jómsberg Vikings (Blake
1962). A parallel may be found in Irish literature, when the hero Cormac was asked what were
his deeds as a young man (Meyer 1909, 8; McCone 1987, 111). ‘Not hard to tell’, he replied.
‘When I was alone I would slay a bear, I would follow a track; when I was one of five I would
march against a troop of five; when I was one of ten, I was ready to slay and wreck; when I was
one of twenty I was ready for a raid; when I was one of a hundred, I was ready to give battle.
These were my deeds’.

In the 1st century AD Tacitus in his Germania 31 describes certain picked warriors among the
Chatti living the same kind of life as that of the berserks:

None of them has home, land or business of his own. To whatever host they choose to go, they
get their keep from him, wasting the goods of others while despising their own, until old age
drains their blood and incapacitates them for so exacting a form of heroism.

Here we have what seems to be an extension of the temporary life lived by adolescents, a special
troop of fighting men freed from the restrictions laid on normal members of the community, and
yet under their own stern discipline. A picture of this type of warrior in old age is given by Saxo
in his character of Starkad the Old, to whom he devotes a good deal of attention in books VI and
VIII of his History of the Danes (see Davidson 1980, vol. 2 98f., 134f.). Starkad was an
unflinching follower of Odin, a veteran of countless battles in which he suffered many horrible
wounds; he despised all human weakness and had no time whatsoever for women, even refusing
to accept help from one when severely hurt. He loathed comfort and merrymaking, and roundly
condemned kings who entertained at splendid banquets and their wives who wore ornaments. In
language reminiscent of the Roman satirists, whom Saxo was probably imitating here, or the
sterner prophets of Ancient Israel, he makes plain the austere ideals of dedicated warriors. If men
like him helped train the young, the heroic life must have been demanding indeed.

But it may be safely assumed that his ideas about women were not shared by most young
warriors in training. In studies of tribal age-groups from various warrior societies, it is clear that
dealings with girls were by no means condemned, and that sexual adventures formed a
recognized part of the growing-up process. F.H. Stewart noted that members of adolescent age-
groups among the Prairie Indians of North America not only pursued martial skills but also spent
a good deal of time singing love-songs and performing to attract the girls. He points out that it is
somewhat misleading to describe such groups as ‘military associations’ (Stewart 1971, 267):
 … there is scarcely more justification for this than there would be for calling them ‘erotic
associations’. War, like love, was one of the dominating interests of the young Mandan or Hidatsa
men, and it is not surprising that this interest finds its reflection in the age organization…But the
age society did not normally, if ever, act as military unit.

Evidently we must distinguish between such bands of young men learning warrior skills and
special groups of committed men of the Starkad type. Most of the ruling class, having proved
themselves and served as fighting men for a period, married and settled down as rulers of halls,
probably with a grant of land from the king, as suggested by the term ‘Land-right’ (lond-riht) as
used in Beowulf. Dorothy Whitelock pointed out the distinction made in the poem between
duguð and geoguð, tried warriors and young retainers, in the retinue of King Hrothgar of
Denmark; the king also relied on folctogan, chiefs of the people, who were ruling their own
estates but prepared to give support and counsel when required (Whitelock 1951, 89f.). Similarly
Saxo refers to the two classes of young men and veterans when describing the plan of the army
in Book VII (Fisher 1979, 227). The young warriors were to fight with javelins behind the
leading men who formed the wedge at the forefront of the battle, and behind the young men a
company of older warriors ‘to reinforce their comrades, if their strength waned, with their own
brand of seasoned courage.’

The part played by women in these warrior societies is something about which we know little.
There is a recurring tradition of the shieldmaid, the girl who fights along with men, in Old Norse
literature, and this has become confused with the supernatural figures of valkyries, maids of Odin
who decided the course of battle according to his commands and conducted dead heroes to his
hall, and also with guardian spirits attached to certain families. In Irish tales of the fíana we find
women living with the men in their war-bands and even fighting along with them, and Feest has
found this in some tribal societies. He mentions women not only providing food for the warriors
and nursing the wounded, but also dancing to support them, and sometimes sharing the fighting,
while they may mutilate dead men after battle (Feest 1980, 18-19). Such possibilities may help to
explain the vigour of the valkyrie tradition in Norse literature.

One wonders also what was the fate of children born of unions between women of the
community and the men in camps and strongholds. A suggestion made by Kim McCone (1987,
104) may throw light on the puzzling Anglo-Saxon poem known as ‘Wulf and Eadwacer’, which
has baffled its editors (Hamer 1970, 82f.) In this poem the speaker is a woman, who refers to her
lover as Wulf; she speaks of him being on a separate island in the fens inhabited by men ‘fierce
in slaughter’ (waelreowe), apparently not far away, but visiting her only rarely. If he comes with
a troop, her people will try and capture him. She has either borne a child or is expecting one, but
this brings no happiness: Wulf (or ‘a wolf’) will ‘carry off our wretched whelp to the woods’.
She laments that there can be no true marriage with her lover, and at the close she appeals
directly not to Wulf but to Eadwacer. The idea that the father of her child is one of a band of
young men living outside the community seems the most satisfactory one made up to now, and
more probable than Richard Hamer’s suggestion that Wulf is an enemy Viking. It would also
explain the use of two names: Eadwacer could be the family name, and Wulf the young man’s
name as a member or leader of the war-band. There is a parallel, possibly, in the story of the
childhood of the Zulu champion Shaka (Ritter 1978, 25f.). His father was a young chief
belonging to a band of adolescent warriors, who were allowed sexual relationships with girls of
the tribe, even those whom they were forbidden to marry, but were expected to take certain
precautions so that no children would be born of such temporary unions. However Shaka’s
mother, a chief’s daughter, gave birth to a son, to the amazement and strong disapproval of the
community; the marriage could not be officially celebrated, and she and her son Shaka lived in
dishonor. His position as a rejected and despised child may account for his extreme ruthlessness
in later life. It is conceivable that some of those trained as berserks may have been children of
such unions with girls in the community. Another possible parallel here is that of the training of
the Janissaries, the crack warriors of the Ottoman Empire (Prescott 1855; Bradford 1961, 86f.).
These men fought with the skill, dedication and fearlessness of the berserks, and were trained for
such a life from the age of seven. They were the children of Christian parents within the Empire
who were thought to show special promise, and were taken away for tests and severe training at
this early age.

The warrior groups do not appear to have included boys of all classes of society, but only sons of
men of some standing. In RigsÞula, an Icelandic poem thought to show Irish influence, the
bringing up of children of various classes is briefly described. This poem is usually included with
poems of the Codex Regius in editions of the Poetic Edda, but is found only in the Codex
Wormius, one of the MSS of Snorri’s Prose Edda, where the end is now missing. The sons of
thralls were taught to work with animals and in the fields, while those of the free farmers learned
to build houses and run a farm. A Jarl’s son, however, received special training as a warrior and
hunter:

There Jarl grew up in the halls;

he swung the shield and fitted the bowstring,
bent the bow and shafted the arrow,
let fly the dart and wielded the spear,
rode horses and loosed hounds,
drew swords and swam the stream…

This can be compared with the list of accomplishments claimed by Jarl Rognvald in the 12th
century, in a poem said to have been composed in his youth, before he became ruler of Orkney
(Gordon 1957, 16 (L), 155, 249). It was imitated from a poem of the Norwegian king Harald
Hardradi, over a century earlier, of which unfortunately only two lines survive, and runs as
follows:

I am skilled at the board game,

and have nine accomplishments.
I can remember runes,
I am busied with books and building,
 I can travel on skis,
I can shoot and row if needed,
I am skilled at the harp and at poetry-making.

Books and building may indicate the new demands of a Christian age and sword and spear are
omitted, but on the whole Rognvald appears to be following the traditional pattern of the skills of
a young ruler to be. Knowledge of runes, harp-playing composition of poetry and skill at board
games had long been associated with kingship, and were more than mere amusements in the hall.
Playing pieces and harps as well as weapons have been found in some of the richest Anglo-
Saxon graves, most notably at Sutton Hoo and Taplow, and their inclusion may be due to the fact
that they represented special knowledge and power which a ruler should possess. In RigsÞula the
youngest son of Jarl is given the name of King (Konr ungr), and he is the only one to learn runes
among the brothers. He also learned how to protect his men, and was taught magic spells to use
in warfare; thus he could blunt the swords of enemies, calm a troubled sea, and understand the
speech of birds, which could warn him of danger and bring him the knowledge to make the right
decisions. Emphasis on the training needed by a king’s son is found again in the Edda poems
concerned with the youth of Sigurd the Volsung, a hero very popular in Scandinavian tradition
from the 10th century onwards. He appears in the poems Reginsmál, Fáfnismál and Sigrdrífumál,
which are included in the Codex Regius with no divisions between them, and also in the
Volsunga Saga. Sigurd received a full if unconventional education. The god Odin instructed him
in runic lore and battle strategy; the smith Regin acted as foster-father and teacher, and reforged
his father’s broken sword; and a valkyrie, identified with Brynhild in later sources, gave him
instruction on runes and battle-spells and moral counsel, warning him to keep solemn oaths, to
avoid foolish brawls and entanglements with women, and the vengeance of the wolf. The last
might be a reference to the threats offered by members of warrior fraternities sworn to avenge
one another whatever the cost.

The Irish champion CúChulainn also had a series of teachers, some of whom were from the
supernatural world. In childhood he forced his way into the troop of small boys associated with
the royal hall, without first asking for their protection as a new arrival should have done. Then he
became the king’s ‘guard dog’, defending the boundaries of the land against attack, one of those
young men ‘strolling about the border’, as Conchobar put it in the tale of ‘Mac Da Thó’s Pig’.
CúChulainn received instruction from Cathub the druid, who taught a hundred young men at a
time, dispensing the kind of wisdom which seems roughly equivalent to the runes and spells in
the Sigurd poems. He then learned that a certain day would be fortunate for anyone receiving
arms, since he would win unending fame, and so begged the king to grant him weapons. But he
broke all he was given, until at last Conchobar gave him his own, presumably family heirlooms,
and on the following day his own chariot, since ordinary chariots were too fragile for the
powerful young hero. Next CúChulainn had to learn to use the weapons he had received. He
went to a skilled fighter, Domnall the Warlike, who taught him many feats of skill and agility;
then he sought out a supernatural woman warrior, Scáthach, who was reputed to have trained the
greatest warriors in Ireland (Meyer 1892; Cross and Glover 1936, 163f.).

CúChulainn became famous for his feats, and they are listed more than once in the tales. A literal
translation of these in one list, obviously difficult to interpret, was offered by Henderson (1899,
37) as follows:

Over-breath feat, apple-feat, sprite-feat, screw-feat, cat-feat, valiant-champion’s whirling-feat,

barbed spear, quick stroke, mad roar, heroes’ fury, wheel-feat, sword-edge-feat, climbing against
spike-pointed things and straightening his body on each of them.

The feats of heroes in the tales and of CúChulainn in particular become increasingly fantastic, so
that he may stand poised on a spearpoint, or make a ‘salmon’s leap’ over a great distance to
come down on his enemies from above. However those familiar with the martial arts or yoga will
recognise that such names are not improbable for physical exercises such as might form a regular
part of a young warrior’s training. Other skills had to do with physical endurance, and one feat
was to dance above the furnace in the forge until the soles of his feet were blackened and
discoloured. Another example of the ability to endure heat is found in the tale of the Danish king
Hrolf kraki, who, with his warriors suffered the heat from the fires in the royal hall at Uppsala
without flinching (Hrólfs Saga kraka, 28), while Odin himself underwent a similar test,
according to the prose introduction to Grímnismál. Another test was to endure extreme cold.
CúChulainn once sat naked in the snow, and Starkad was nearly buried in snow when waiting for
his opponent to arrive for a duel (Fisher 1979, VI, 181). In Anglo-Saxon and Norse literature we
have occasional glimpses of the demands of the sword-duel, for which long practice and skill
were required. This was not only important for self-defence, but also essential in battle, since this
often depended on a series of duels between the leading warriors. One of the kings in Saxo’s
History is said to have set exacting standards of sword-play for his warriors (Fisher 1979, VII,
228):

Some of them became so adroit in this remarkable exercise of dueling that they could graze their
opponent’s eyebrow with unerring aim. If anyone at the receiving end so much as blinked an
eyelid through fear, he was shortly discharged of his duties and dismissed from court.

The receiving of weapons was obviously a turning-point in the development of the young
warrior, and once more CúChulainn’s career provides us with a pattern, in spite of the excesses
and fantasies of the narrative. As a small boy, he had wooden weapons, which could be used as a
test of dexterity, and with considerable effect against other boys. His exploit in protecting
himself with his thin wooden shield from their throwing sticks reads like a parody of the heroes
of the fían warding off javelins with shield and hazel-stick. Entry into the boy troop seems to
have been at about seven years of age, although of course exceptional heroes might make a
premature appearance. In Bede’s Life of St. Cuthbert, we are told that he joined the boys’
company in his eighth year, ‘the first year of boyhood succeeding from infancy’, and that he took
part in jumping, running wrestling and other exercises, including some in which the boys
performed various gymnastics naked, executing what are described as ‘various unnatural
contortions’ (Colgrave 1940, 154-6). The next stage in training came at about fourteen; by the
time he was fifteen, Guthlac seems to have become an active fighter, devastating the towns and
residences of the enemy, collecting booty, and engaging in ‘pillage, slaughter and rapine’ at the
head of a band of youths (Colgrave 1936, XVIII-XIX). St. Wilfrid likewise obtained arms and
horses at the age of fourteen, although he made the decision to enter a monastery instead of
engaging in military service (Colgrave 1927, II, 7). In the account of CúChulainn’s youth, it
seems that real but inferior weapons were available for boys ready to receive them, but in his
case they were contemptuously broken, so that he was finally supplied with family weapons bu
his kinsman the king. Later he won splendid weapons in single combat, and brought these,
together with the heads of the vanquished, to Conchobar. His special weapon of terrible potency,
the gai bulga, a kind of barbed spear which could be sent through water, was supposed to have
been received from his supernatural teacher, the woman warrior Scathach. There are also
examples of Norwegian and Danish heroes receiving a special sword from the valkyrie who is
bride and guardian to the young warrior, and sometimes being given a name at the same time; in
such cases it seems that the sword is a family heirloom, handed to the young warrior (Davidson
1960).

In Germanic heroic tradition it seems that arms and armour could be won in a duel, received as
gifts from the heads of the family, or from another king in return for some exploit. In Paul the
Deacon’s History of the Lombards (24) it is said that a prince had to receive his first set of arms
from some ruler other than his father. When the young Alboin won a victory for his people by
killing the son of the king of the Gepids in battle, he had still not officially received his own
arms, and therefore was not permitted to sit beside his father at the feast to celebrate the victory.
Alboin thereupon went to the king of the Gepids and formally requested the arms of the dead
man. This was a foolhardy act, and the young warriors at the court would have killed him, but
the king prevented this, acknowledging the justice of Alboin’s request, and gave him the arms
which brought him recognition as a mature warrior. It may be noted that in Beowulf the hero
received many splendid gifts from the king of the Danes when he had overcome Grendel; these
consisted of a standard, helmet, mailcoat, sword and eight fully equipped horses. Beowulf later
presented sword, armour and four of the horses to his own king and kinsman, Hygelac; three
more of the horses were given to Hygelac’s queen, together with a breast-ornament which had
been presented to Beowulf by the Danish queens, and presumably he kept the last horse for his
own use. On receiving these rich gifts, Hygelac in turn presented to Beowulf’s grandfather, and
also gave him a hall and lands. It seems as though the young hero had no special sword up to that
time, since he overcame Grendel with his bare hands, and borrowed a sword for the encounter
with Grendel’s mother. The gifts received from Hygelac mark recognition of Beowulf as a fully
established warrior and prince, though he still owed allegiance to the reigning king and only later
took over the kingdom.
Weapons were apparently kept in the family armoury until it was time to hand them over to a
youth who had proved his right to hold them. According to Tacitus (Germania 18), women
played an important part in this, keeping the weapons until their sons grew up, and a bride
received a gift of weapons from her husband’s family to hold in trust for her sons:

She is receiving something which she must hand over unspoilt and treasured to her
children, for her son’s wives to receive in their turn, and pass on to the grandchildren.

Some commentators refuse to accept this, thinking that Tacitus has misunderstood the nature of
the dowry given by the bride’s father, but other scholars have accepted it as genuine tradition,
and the statement is clear enough. Echoes in later literature tend to confirm such a tradition. The
mother of Sigurd the Volsung kept her husband’s broken sword and gave it to Sigurd when he
was ready to use it (Volsunga Saga, 12, 15(. The Norwegian king, Olaf Haraldson, known as St.
Olaf, had a sword waiting for him from the time of his birth, said to have been taken from the
burial mound of an earlier king (Flateyjarbók (1860-68), II, 12, 12). One day the boy asked his
mother what the bright thing was he saw gleaming in a chest, and she replied ‘It is the hilt of a
sword’. He asked whose it was, and she replied that it was the sword Basing, which belonged to
an earlier king Olaf. ‘I want to have it’, said the prince, who is said to have been eight years of
age, ‘and to wear it’, and Asta then gave him the sword which he carried until his death in battle.
Such heroic traditions often find their way into the Icelandic sagas, and there is a striking
example in Grettis Saga. The young Grettir had so angered his father by his rebellious and
destructive behavior that he sent them away from home and refused to give him any weapon:
‘You have not been dutiful towards me, and I don’t intend to give you any.’ His mother however
went to see him off, and said as she bade him farewell:

‘You are not being sent from home, my son, in the way that I would have wished for a man so
well-born as you are. The worst lack, it seems to me, is that of a weapon fit to use, and my mind
tells me that you will need one.’ Then she took from under her cloak an ornamented sword, a very
fine treasure, and said: ‘This sword belonged to my grandfather Jokull, and to the men of
Vatnsdale in former days, and brought them good fortune and victory. This sword I am going to
give you, and you must make good use of it’. (17)

The tale of this sword and of the outstanding luck of Jokull and his brothers is told in Vatnsdaela
Saga, where it bears the name Ættartangi, but in Grettis Saga it is called the ‘Gift of Jokull’, as
the sword given to Beowulf is referred to as the ‘Heirloom of Hrethel’ (Davidson 1962, 171-2).
Those familiar with the sagas would recognise the allusion and realise Grettir’s folly in not
keeping so lucky a weapon, for he took over another sword taken from a burial mound and let
the family weapon pass into his brother’s possession. The tales of heroes receiving swords from
some guardian spirit or valkyrie connected with the family also emphasise their importance as
heirlooms and symbols of the luck of their forbears. A parallel in Irish tradition is the goddess
who becomes the bride of a king and represents sovereignty (MacCana 1955), and such
traditions originally belonged to ruling families, both in Scandinavia and Ireland. There were
many young men with claims to royal descent in the numerous small kingdoms of the Viking
Age and earlier, and it was from such aristocratic circles that such traditions came.

Indeed the importance of royal and aristocratic tradition in the tales of young warriors needs to
be emphasised. In the family sagas of Iceland such traditions have been used against a different
background, and many have passed into popular tales and folklore, but we must not be misled by
this. Heroic literature had a practical function in the training of the young, and was more than
mere entertainment or even propaganda to enhance the glory of the ruler and his champions. It
was part of the instruction for boys of good family, emphasising the ideals of courage, loyalty,
endurance and skill with weapons, as well as the need to win fame by heroic deeds as quickly as
possible, since life might well be short. There is much more about which we know little in the
training of warriors, dancing, for example, seems to have been important, and is mentioned by
Tacitus and confirmed by dancing figures shown on weapons. We need more information also
concerning the methods by which youths with natural gifts for fighting but from a humbler
background could succeed as warriors without family backing; possibly folktales preserve some
memory of these. Certainly the heroic tradition has left a mark on popular tales, thus becoming
part of the literary heritage of those never destined for leadership. But on the whole we are
dealing with the training of a privileged class, like that of the knights of the Middle Ages, and
this was of such importance for the community that it has widely affected both literature and art.

Taken from S.C. Hawkes, Weapons and warfare in Anglo-Saxon England, 1989, pp. 11-23.

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