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An Old Norse Saga Guide to Surviving the Holidays

Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year, but between treacherous weather, family politics, and dietary decisions, it can also be a tricky time to navigate. To help you get through the season, here are some top tips from the Old Norse sagas on surviving the holidays.

Drinking with the Devil. Reykjavík, Stofnun Árna Magnússonar í íslenskum fræðum, AM 673 a III 4to (Teiknibók), 18v. Image from handrit.is

Pick the right day to celebrate

If you lived in the Middle Ages, deciding when to host your winter festivities could be tricky. For a long time, as Scandinavia gradually converted to Christianity, the winter months saw the coexistence of two different Yule festivals: Christian Christmas and pagan Jól. The latter was likely celebrated differently across the region but said in one king’s saga, Hákonar saga góða, to begin on midwinter night and continue for three nights. These diverging celebrations became a point of friction during the conversion process so, around the middle of the tenth century, the Christian Norwegian king, Hákon the Good, attempted to consolidate the two. According to his saga, he decreed that ‘observance of Yule should begin at the same time as Christian people observed Christmas’ (97).

Although not without its challenges, this was a clever move. We can see its legacy several decades later in Óláfs saga helga, which describes the changing customs of a man named Sigurðr:

During the pagan period, he was accustomed to hold three sacrificial banquets every year, one at the winter nights, the second at midwinter, the third in the summer. And when he accepted Christianity, he still kept up his established custom with the banquets. Then, in the autumn he held a great party for his friends, and also a Yule feast in the winter and then again invited many people; a third banquet he held at Easter. (127)

Once you’ve settled on a date to celebrate, make sure you invite the right people – and if you get an invitation to someone else’s Yule-feast, it’s bad form to not show up. Some time after Sigurðr’s death, his brother Þórir invited his son Ásbjǫrn to a Yule feast, but Ásbjǫrn refused the invitation. Þórir took this as a personal slight and in return made such great mockery of Ásbjǫrn and his expeditions that Ásbjǫrn sullenly ‘stayed at home during the winter and went to no parties’ (131). A sad fate indeed.

Choose the perfect gifts

To be a powerful king in medieval Scandinavia, you had to surround yourself with groups of loyal retainers who would feast with you, fight for you, and uphold your rules. This loyalty needed to be rewarded, and Yule was the perfect time for kings and other powerful men to shower their best retainers with gifts. There’s even a term for gifts given in this season: ‘jólagjǫf’. In Óláfs saga helga, for instance, it is said that the king had a custom of ‘making great preparations, […] gathering together his treasures to give friendly gifts on the eighth evening of Yule’ (199). One of these gifts was a beautiful gold-adorned sword, given to his skald Sigvatr. This was said to be a fine, enviable treasure, though perhaps not as enviable as Óláfr’s earlier gift to Brynjólfr, which he received with a rather unimaginative verse:

Bragningr gaf mér
brand ok Vettaland.

The ruler gave me a sword and Vettaland (an important estate). (51)

Yule-gifts were also an important way to cement friendships and alliances in Scandinavian and Icelandic society, for which clothes appear to have been a popular choice. According to Laxdæla saga, King Haraldr Fairhair once gifted Óláfr Peacock ‘an entire suit of clothes made from scarlet’ (30). Even more impressive is a set of Yule-gifts exchanged between the Norwegian Arinbjǫrn and the Icelander Egill in Egils saga:

As a customary Yuletide gift, [Arinbjorn] gave Egil a silk gown with ornate gold embroidery and gold buttons all the way down, which was cut especially to fit Egil’s frame. He also gave him a complete set of clothes, cut from English cloth in many colours. Arinbjorn gave all manner of tokens of friendship at Yuletide to the people who visited him, since he was exceptionally generous and firm of character. (134)

Of course, before you splash out on expensive swords or clothes, you need to make sure the receiver is worthy of your gift. This is what King Raknarr did on the eve before Yule in the semi-legendary Bárðar saga snæfellsáss, entering the hall of King Óláfr Tryggvason, decked out with armour, helmet, sword, gold necklace, and gold ring. After going round the room to no response, he finally announces scathingly: “Here have I come and nothing at all has been offered to me by this great figure. I shall be more generous for I shall offer to award those treasures that I have here now to that man who dares to take them from me — but there is no one like that here.” (261)

Raknarr’s passive aggressive gifting strategy may not be the best example to follow, particularly as he turns out to be a reanimated corpse who must be slain by the hero Gestr. Instead, why not take inspiration from the troll-woman Hít in the same saga (254), whose Yule party favor for Gestr is a wonderfully loyal dog!

Feast and be merry!

Once you’ve bought and wrapped your presents, the next step is to plan your menu. The sagas are full of Yule feasts, although they rarely provide specific details of what is actually eaten. At one point in Eiríks saga rauða, for example, Eiríkr is hosting a number of voyagers over the winter at his home in Greenland, but starts to become gloomy as Yule approaches for he does not have the resources to throw them all a proper holiday feast. One of the voyagers, Karlsefni, comes to his rescue, offering him use of their provisions:

“[...] We’ve malt and flour and grain aboard our ships, and you may help yourself to them as you will, to prepare a feast worthy of your generous hospitality.”

Eirik accepted this. Preparations for a Yule feast began, which proved to be so bountiful that men could scarcely recall having seen its like. (11)

What exactly was in that grand feast goes entirely unstated, but it clearly involved some kind of malt, flour, and grain.Hákonar saga góða does suggest that horse meat was an important part of pagan Yule and other feasts. One winter, the saga relates, King Hákon attended a Yule feast with a large number of farmers from Þrándheimr, where he was very reluctantly forced to eat a few pieces of horse-liver and ‘drank all the toasts that the farmers poured for him without the sign of the Cross’ (102). It’s never good to offend your hosts — especially when they are armed.

One way to get into the sacred spirit of Christmas in advance of the gluttony to come is to fast in preparation. Indeed, not doing so could have dire consequences. In Grettis saga, the ill-tempered Glámr demanded meat from his wife on the eve of Yule. She tried to dissuade him, saying, “It’s not the Christian custom to eat on this day, because tomorrow is the first day of Christmas. It is our duty to fast today.” (101) Glámr scoffed at this, claiming a preference for the old pagan ways, and tucked into his meat. That very night, he was found dead in the snow and, even worse, eventually rose again to haunt the area.

As Christianity became the dominant religion in Scandinavia, later kings were less accepting of the old customs. One winter, King Óláfr the Holy got word that the farmers of Innþrœndir had been holding forbidden midwinter sacrificial feasts, and summoned a representative to explain themselves. But the quick-thinking man had the perfect excuse:

“We held,” he says, “Yule banquets and in many places in the districts drinking parties. The farmers do not make such scant provision for their Yule banquets that there is not a lot left over, and that was what they were drinking, lord, for a long time afterwards. At Mærin there is a large centre and huge buildings, and extensive settlements round about. People find it good to drink together there for enjoyment in large numbers.” (117)

The king remained suspicious, but could not fault the farmer’s logic. For, if there’s one thing about Christmas that everyone can agree on, it’s the importance of alcohol.

Drink… but not too much

When King Hákon the Good ordered the convergence of Yule and Christmas, he had one condition of how to celebrate: each person was to consume a measure of ale (16.2 litres, according to one estimate) and celebrate for as long as the ale lasted, or else pay a fine (97).

Drinking is a key component of most Yule feasts described across the sagas. Even core principles like seeking vengeance for fallen kin must come second. In Hákonar saga herðibreiðs, for instance, King Ingi relates that he told one man about the killing of another, sure that he would be spurred to vengeance, but ‘those people behaved as if nothing was as important as that Yule drinking feast and it could not be interrupted’ (227).

In fact, throughout the sagas, Yule-drinking (‘jóla-drykkja’) causes all sorts of problems. According to Óláfs saga helga, a Yule drinking competition in Jamtaland naturally led to bickering between Norwegians and Swedes, and the spilling of secrets as ‘the ale spoke through the Jamtr’ (172). In Eyrbyygja saga, Þórólfr bægifótr got his thralls drunk at Yule and convinced them to burn down an enemy’s house (168–69). The troll-woman’s Yule-feast in Bárðar saga Snæfellsáss steadily deteriorated as the drinking got heavier, leading to a rowdy game, a bloody nose, and a long feud (253).

Even without alcohol, Yule became a time of battle and slaughter throughout the sagas of kings. It is only in Magnúss saga blinda ok Haralds gilla that the two titular warring kings accepted a Christmas truce ‘because of the sanctity of the time’, although Magnúss did use this opportunity to fortify his town and ‘no more than three days over Yule were kept sacred so that no work was done’ (175).

This is a good example for academics everywhere: as much as we might feel the need to work over the holidays, there comes a time to put down our books, buy some gifts, and feast with family, friends, and nemeses — even if it is for just three days over Yule. If you manage to do so, you might just make it through the season alive.

Ashley Castelino, DPhil
Public Humanities Postdoctoral Fellow 
Medieval Institute, University of Notre Dame 

Bibliography

Bard’s Saga [Bárðar saga snæfellsáss]. Translated by Sarah M. Anderson. In The Complete Sagas of Icelanders, edited by Viðar Hreinsson. Vol. 2. Leifur Eiríksson, 1997.

Egil’s Saga [Egils saga]. Translated by Bernard Scudder. In The Complete Sagas of Icelanders, edited by Viðar Hreinsson. Vol. 1. Leifur Eiríksson, 1997.

Erik the Red’s Saga [Eiríks saga rauða]. Translated by Keneva Kunz. In The Complete Sagas of Icelanders, edited by Viðar Hreinsson. Vol. 1. Leifur Eiríksson, 1997.

The Saga of Grettir the Strong [Grettis saga]. Translated by Bernard Scudder. In The Complete Sagas of Icelanders, edited by Viðar Hreinsson. Vol. 2. Leifur Eiríksson, 1997.

The Saga of the People of Eyri [Eyrbyggja saga]. Translated by Judy Quinn. In The Complete Sagas of Icelanders, edited by Viðar Hreinsson. Vol. 5. Leifur Eiríksson, 1997.

The Saga of the People of Laxardal [Laxdæla saga]. Translated by Keneva Kunz. In The Complete Sagas of Icelanders, edited by Viðar Hreinsson. Vol. 5. Leifur Eiríksson, 1997.

Snorri Sturluson. Hákonar saga góða. In Heimskringla, translated by Alison Finlay and Anthony Faulkes. Vol. 1. Viking Society for Northern Research, 2011.

Snorri Sturluson. Hákonar saga herðibreiðs. In Heimskringla, translated by Alison Finlay and Anthony Faulkes. Vol. 3. Viking Society for Northern Research, 2015.

Snorri Sturluson. Óláfs saga helga. In Heimskringla, translated by Alison Finlay and Anthony Faulkes. Vol. 2. Viking Society for Northern Research, 2014.

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A Matter of Time: Medieval Recipes for a Modern Christmas, or Fantastic Feasts and How to Plan Them

Pairing myriad traditional dishes with more elaborate fare in a spectacle appealing to both sight and stomach, the modern Christmas meal maintains some semblance of the medieval feast. But modern feasts are minuscule meal events by medieval standards.  

Like the feasting accoutrements of medieval England, contemporary Christmas table settings typically include cloths and candles, serving platters and salt, a plethora of foods to sample and savor. Differences, of course, also abound. For example, while we pile food upon plates and tuck into our dinners with a fork, our predecessors preferred a hearty slab of bread and a spoon.

Bread was not only served for eating but also used as crockery: large, typically square slices of bread called trenchers were used in place of dishes and, after absorbing drippings from the feast, were refurbished as sop in wine or milk or given as alms to the poor.

Not unlike contemporary bread bowls, trenchers were, essentially, edible crockery. Trenchers were often colored with spices: rendered green with parsley, yellow with saffron, and pink with sandalwood. The image, contained in a manuscript produced in France and illuminated in England in the early 14th century and housed at the British Library, depicts two men baking bread (BL Royal MS 10 E IV, f. 145v).

Medieval diners would have primarily used their fingers, plus a spoon supplied by their host for soft foods such as soups and puddings. A knife, frequently one of their own, would be used for lifting meats from platters and sometimes to the mouth. The lack of utensils does not indicate a lack of etiquette. On the contrary, table manners were held in high regard, as was hygiene. Napkins were pinned around the neck or placed in the lap. Particular fingers were used for particular foods to avoid tampering. Hands were washed in perfumed water before the meal began, between courses, and at the meal’s end.

The Prioress, one of the pilgrims from Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, exhibits the the extent to which manners mattered in the Middle Ages. The General Prologue describes how during meals the Prioress lets no morsel fall from her lips, does not dip her fingers too deeply into sauces, carries her food seamlessly to mouth, and ensures no grease enters her cup while drinking (lines 127-136). Depicted beside the beginning of her tale in the fifteenth-century Ellesmere Chaucer, the Prioress may have questionable morals, but her table etiquette could not be more dignified (Huntington Library, San Marino, MSS EL 26 C 9, f. 148v).

Pageantry was an integral component of the medieval feast. Peacocks, a medieval delicacy, were cooked and served readorned with their iridescent feathers. Live birds were tethered in pies so that they sang when the crust was cut. Mythical creatures from medieval bestiaries, such as the cockentrice, were created by cooks who stitched together the upper half of a chicken and the lower half of a pig or vice versa. Performers of various kinds popped from enormous puddings, enacting a grand entrance that was itself a form of entertainment.  

As guests imbibed in food and drink, musicians provided vocal and instrumental accompaniment to the feast. Music not only created appropriate atmosphere for the meal but also signaled the start of each course, even the introduction of specific dishes. Indeed, the staging and procession of the meal was as crucial for a successful feast as the food.

Medieval illumination depicting a feast for King Richard II of England, who reigned from 1377 to 1399 (BL Royal MS 14 E IV, f. 265v). Although rarely used, plates, rather than trenchers, may appear here, as the individual dishes are the same color as the serving platters, or chargers, on the table.

In the recipe for a medieval feast, time is the essential ingredient.

By medieval weights and measures, we simply don’t spend enough time at the dinner table. Modern menu plans and eating practices, even when expanded and extended for the purposes of holiday celebration, tend to follow a fairly straightforward appetizer-entrée-dessert trajectory that lasts maybe an hour or two around the actual table. Formal seating might be limited to the main course, or all three courses might be served simultaneously, resulting in an abbreviated eating experience that could not compete with the gastronomic pleasure produced through the successive courses of a medieval feast.  

As Madeleine Pelner Cosman explains in her book Fabulous Feasts: Medieval Cookery and Ceremony, “The medieval ‘course’ was closer than the modern to the Latin origins of the word currere, to run, a running, passing, flowing ordering in time. No mere appetizer-entrée-dessert sequence made the medieval menu. Yet there was a tripartite configuration for most feast fares: each of three ‘courses’ had seven or twelve or fifteen separate meat or poultry or fish or stew or sweet dishes—or, in the most elegant feasts, all. The medieval course, then, was an artful succession of foods in time.”[1] Abundance, not gluttony, was probably the goal. In other words, medieval feasting was likely more about a wide variety of choices rather than excessive portions.

Along with an abundance of fascinating information about medieval food and feasting, Cosman’s book contains more than 100 recipes from medieval manuscripts, including one for “Four and Twenty Singing Blackbird Pie or Live Frog and Turtle Pie” (204). The Medieval Cookbook by Maggie Black is a good source for adventurous cooks more interested in medieval recipes and less fussed about food history (British Museum Press 2012).

Should the pageantry of peacock preparation evade your palate or your price point (or violate the laws where you live), there are still plenty of ways to infuse the flavor of medieval feasting into your Christmas meal.

For a condensed but comprehensive feast in medieval form, you can plan your menu by preparing a single dish from each of the categories Cosman outlines in her truly excellent book: appetizer; soup or sauce or spiced wine; bread or cake; meat; fish; fowl; vegetable or vegetarian variation; fruit or flower dessert; spectacle or sculpture or illusion food.[2]

Fruit desserts are plentiful in the modern period; flower desserts are not nearly as prevalent. I highly recommend a rose pudding if you’d like to give a medieval recipe a go.

For a contemporary spin on the cockentrice, a turducken could fulfill the final category and create the kind of wonder apropos of a Christmas celebration. Remember you can always buy a three-bird roast already prepped, rather than attempt the stuffing method yourself.

A turducken consists of a chicken stuffed into a duck stuffed into a turkey, with all of the carcasses deboned. The dish is a form of engastration, a method of food preparation where the carcass of one animal is stuffed into the gastric passage of another. The technique supposedly originated in the Middle Ages.

Since I’ve not made a turducken myself, I can’t attest to its difficulty. But I can say from experience that a beef wellington might be a more practical choice, and the pastry can be shaped to satisfy the sculpture aspect of the category. Done properly, the beauty of the red meat inside a golden pastry crust adorned with seasonal designs is an impressive spectacle despite its relatively simple preparation. And it tastes absolutely divine.

Cue music to set the mood. If you’re interested in medieval music, you might enjoy this playlist by a friend and fellow medievalist made specifically for the holiday. I recommend Hildegard von Bingen’s Canticles of Ecstasy. If you’re medieval curious but want something more upbeat, try Hildegard von Blingen for a premodern spin on pop music.

But to truly revel in the zeal of the medieval feast, take your time. Sit at the table, serve your food in courses, and savor every minute as much as every bite.  

Emily McLemore, Ph.D.
Department of English
University of Notre Dame

[1] Madeline Pelner Cosman, Fabulous Feasts: Medieval Cookery and Ceremony, New York: George Braziller, Inc. (1976), p. 20.

[2] Cosman, Fabulous Feasts, p. 130.