The woman with the drink
By Eva Koch
Were the women in the
Iron Age particularly fond of beverages, as compared with women of other times? You nearly get that impression, when looking at pictures of the people of the northern iron age, because a recurring motive is a well-dressed woman with a drinking-horn or a goblet in the hand.
The explanation, however, is most probably different.
The first time we encounter the woman with drinking apparel is not a picture at all, but the way a woman has been ordered in the grave. It is the rich grave of a woman found at Juellinge on Lolland, which is now on display in the iron age exhibition of the National Museum of
Copenhagen (Kobenhavn). In this grave, a woman of about 30 years of age was placed with rich grave-gifts. Her jewellery of silver fibulas, silver hairneedles and glassbeads shows that she belonged to the rich upper class of society.
She got a good supply of food and drink with her in the grave: Among other things a whole sheep, and also a bucket, in which parched residues showed that it had been filled with a drink brewed on
barley and cranberries or cowberries - a kind of mixture between beer and fruitwine. In the bucket lay an imported
Roman scope, but in the hand of the woman was lying the
sieve belonging to the scope - as she would hold it when she was pouring the drink for guests. Such sets of scopes and sieves were a firm part of a Roman drinking-apparel, and were used to clear vine or beer while serving. The woman also had
horns and glasses in the grave, so she was amply equipped to welcome guests.
Already Sophus M?ller, who excavated the grave in 1909, mentioned the possibility that the family of the woman had wished to show her in the honoured position of a hostess welcoming and serving her guests at a feast.
The Juellinge-grave is from the end of the first century AD, and it is the first time we meet the rich hostess welcoming her guests.
Some decades later, she appears on the small gold-plates, called "Guldgubber". These are tiny, very thin goldplates, the use of which is still unknown. They do not have holes for sewing them to the clothes, and they are seldom found in graves, so they are hardly jewellery. They are normally found lying in the debris of trading-settlements from about 500 - 600 A.D., and seem to be cult-related. A find confirming this proposition is from Helg? in the fjord M?laren at
Stockholm, where there is just such a trading-place. Here, a great number of these small goldplates were found inside a house-remnant that also gave the finds of other artifacts of religious character: A northern Indian Buddha figure, an Irish bishop-stave, and a
Koptic water-scope. So it is a reasonable assumption that the house had something to do with religious activities.
The motives of the "guldgubber" are mostly human beings - and that is what makes them particularly fascinating. It is always interesting to see how people at different times have seen and depicted themselves - and in this case we also get a look at the clothes of the time. There are three recurring motives on the "guldgubber": A man, seen in profile, and often with a
stave in his hand, a well dressed woman, and a man and a woman facing each other and deeply looking into each others eyes. The well dressed woman often holds a horn or a goblet in her hand. Apart from being richly dressed, she shows with her posture that she is a rich and powerful lady, engaged in something prominent and formal.
Apart from the Juellinge-grave and on the "guldgubber", the woman with the drink also appears in other pictures. From the same time as the "guldgubber" are the golden horns from
Gallehus. On the long horn is a figure dressed in a long gown holding a horn in both hands. The figure does not look very feminine on
Worm's drawing from 1641 - alas, the only documentation we have of the horn - but also the women of the "guldgubber" often have a stretched chin. The long dress and the long hair is more in accordance with what we find on the pictures of women on the "guldgubber" than on the pictures of men. They mostly have short hair and wear short, wide trousers and jackets.
The "guldgubber" cease to be produced at the beginning of the Viking age, but the motive of the woman with the drink goes on. From the Viking age, we have a number of silver-jewellery pins formed as small figures of well-dressed women. Like the women on the "guldgubber", they are mostly seen in profile. Many of them only have their hands on the breast, but quite a few also hold out a goblet, for instance the little lady from Kinsta on ?land shown on the top of this page.
The motive can also be seen in other circumstances, for instance on a trinket (called an ear-spoon) from grave 507 on Birka. Birka is the successor of Helge, containing a trading-settlement as well as a cemetery. The lady on this picture presents a drinking horn. Like her sisters, she is well dressed in a long gown and a shawl, and her long hair is falling down from a knot bound at the neck.
We can get a glimpse of the meaning of this female role in the poem of
Beowulf, which describes events in
Scandanavia in the 5. and 6. century AD. It is believed to origin from around 700 AD, but the earliest written version is from about 1000 AD.
The poem of Beowulf describes the two most important episodes in the life of the Danish mythic King Beowulf. The first is as he, as a young prince, helps king Hrotgar in the fight against the two goblins Grendel and Grendel's mother. The second event is when he as an old, dying king, fights a dragon devastating his hall.
In the first part, in the hall Heorot of King Hrotgar, we meet the woman with the horn in the shape of King Hrotgar's queen Wealthow. In the first mentioning of her (verses 611-641), she welcomes the hero to the hall with a drink. In the second (verses 1168-1232), she initiates the feast for Beowulf's victory over Grendel by handing king Hrotgar a goblet. Doing this, she recommends the King to show his generosity towards Beowulf, and she continues her speech by adopting him as one of her sons. She also offers Beowulf the goblet and urges him to honour the feast. Ending her speech, she gives him rich gifts - and as the poem goes: Her words are heeded.
It is quite important diplomatic tasks the queen performs handing the goblet to the King and to Beowulf.
A woman receiving her guests with a drink is a motive that persists into the middle ages. A fresco in the church of ?rslev on southwest Zealand (Denmark) from about 1325 AD shows two noble maidens welcoming a horsed knight with goblets held out to him. Here, the powerful woman of the iron age is changed to the slender ideal of the gothic art style, but it is still a self-conscious hostess that is shown.
The woman with the drink occurs within heathen religion. According to the belief of the Vikings, fallen warriors were welcomed in Valhalla, the hall of
Odin, by the
Valkyries, who offered them mead from drinking horns on their arrival. But the connection also emerges in this life, as it appears from a folk tradition connected to various places and noble families.
In short, the story goes as follows: A man comes riding on a dark night, when he meets a woman, who offers him a
horn or a goblet, inviting him to join a feast. The man is a good christian, and he understands that the invitation is for a heathen feast. He feigns to accept, and takes the goblet with the drink. But instead of drinking and joining the party, he keeps the vessel and rides home with it as fast as he can. He is pursued by all the heathen participants of the feast, but succeeds in escaping them. In some versions of the story, the goblet or horn remains in the ownership of the family for a long time, in other he gives it to the local church to use as an altar-vessel.
This is an often told story, which has been recorded in several places in the northern countries, and it has been connected to different vessels, among them the famous
Oldenburger Horn.
So the woman with the drink seems to have had a double role, with a secular side at the common feasts and a religious side at the heathen feasts. These two sides were most probably closely connected in the iron age society.
Is it a suppressed female role we see reflected in these finds? In a way it is, for also these rich and powerful women were restricted in their actions by the social rules of the patriarchal warrior-society we assume has prevailed in late iron age Scandinavia. And it is typical that the highest female status was reflected in a situation where she waits on the returning or visiting warrior.
On the other hand, both the description in Beowulf, and the self-assured appearance of the women on the "guldgubber" show that this was no insignificant or overlooked role. Everything points at the fact that big feasts have played an important role in the diplomatic and religious life of the iron age society. And the sequences from Beowulf indicate that the woman in her role as a hostess had the right to speak and suggest serious decisions - as the adoption of a foreign hero by a queen must have been in the family-organised iron age society. Beowulf eventually succeeds king Hrotgar as a ruler. The right to speak in important assemblages, and to be heard in religious and diplomatic situations, is just one of the rights women did not retain in the later christian society (as reflected by Paulus' often quoted letter to the corinthians).
Also the attitude of the women on these old pictures show the contrast between the proud erect iron age woman with the pointed chin, and the more obliging medieval female ideal of a slender young woman with the shoulders drawn back and the lower portion of the body pushed forward.
So the conclusion must be that, no, the women of the iron age were not more given to drink than their later sisters, but they may have had more to say for themselves than their medieval daughters.
Illustrations
Small silver fibula from the viking age, found at Kinsta on ?land. Drawing made after photo shown by A. Gejer (1937) Taf.38,4. Eva Koch del.
Photo of the woman's grave from Juellinge. Photo from the National Museum of Copenhagen
Drawing of a 'guldgubbe' (small thin gold sheet with a stamped image of a person), showing a richly attired woman holding a goblet. Found at Sorte Muld on Bornholm, Denmark (from the find of von Melle). Drawing made after a photo in the photo-archive of the National Museum of Copenhagen. Eva Koch del.
'Earspoon' made of silver, found in grave 507 on the cemetery next to the trading-place Birka, Sweden, from the viking age. Drawing after photo shown by A. Gejer (1937) Taf. 38.1. Eva Koch del.
Fresco from ?rslev Church (near Skelsk?r, Denmark), from about 1325 AD. After J. Broby Johansen (1947), p. 163
Grave-stone from the late germanic iron age, about 600 - 800 AD. The stone was found used as a building-stone in a cellar at Tj?ngvidde, Alskog parish on the island Gotland (Sweden). After Erik Nyl?n (1978) p. 69, photo outlined by Sune Lindquist
Literature
Beowulf. The resume in the text is based on Michael Alexander's translation into modern English, printed in 'Penguin Classics', first published 1973, Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England
The Bible, the New Testament: Paulus' first letter to the Corinthians. The statement that women ought to remain silent in assemblages is found in verse 14.34
R. Broby-Johansen (1947): Den danske Billedbibel i Kalkmalerier. K?benhavn
Johannes Br?ndsted (1954): Guldhornene, en oversigt. K?benhavn
Agnes Gejer (1937): Birka III, Die Textilfunde aus den Gr?bern. Uppsala
Anne-Sophie Gr?slund (1984): 19. Ohrl?ffel. Birka II:1 Systematische Analysen der Gr?berfunde, pp. 177 - 182. Stockholm
Bengt af Klintberg (ed.) (1983): Nordiske eventyr. Published by "Foreningen Norden"
Agneta Lundstr?m (1970): Find Frequency. Excavations at Helg? III (Wilhelm Holmquist, Kristina Lamm and Agneta Lundstr?m ed.), Report for 1960-1964, Chapter 10: Summary concerning Building group 2, pp. 129 - 146. Stockholm
Sophus M?ller (1911): Juellinge-Fundet og den romerske Periode. Nordiske Fortidsminder II, Hefte 1. K?benhavn
Niels M. Saxtorp (1967): Jeg ser p? Kalkmalerier. Politikens Forlag. About the church from ?rslev at Skelsk?r: p. 200
(Manuscript to an article published in a revised version in Skalk no. 6 1986)
http://home3.inet.tele.dk/evakoch/drik-uk.htm
