Tim Hodkinson

I was recently asked what the bryntroll, or "Mail Troll" spear Einar started carrying at the battle of Brunanburgh might look like. This was how it was described in Eye of the Raven.

'Here,' he said, stooping to pick up a weapon and tossing it to Einar. 'A big lad like you should be able to handle that.'
Einar caught it in both hands, dipping slightly as the weight of the weapon took him a little by surprise. It was a vicious looking implement, like a fighting spear but not like any one Einar had seen before. It had a short, thick shaft more like a fence post than a spear. If Einar had planted the butt of it in the ground he could have grasped the top of it about the height of his chest. The blade was a wicked looking thing, the shape of a feather and about two thirds as long as the shaft. It ended in a ring of four spikes where it met the shaft.
'What is that?' Einar said, turning the weapon over in his hands.
'It's called a Mail Troll,' Thorolf said. 'See the way the blade is tapered to a point, the waves in it, its strength. It's specialised for ripping and tearing brynjas, parting the rings go mail shirts and otherwise causing all sort of mischief. It's called a bryntroll. A mail troll. It that doesn't work you can smash him round the head with the spiked bit,'
Einar thought of his sword sliding across Ingwar's thick coat of mail.
'I'll take it,' he said.

If you think of a Viking warband, the modern image would be one of men armed mainly with swords. In previous decades it would have been axes. However when you read Old Norse literature, the predominate weapon mentioned is the spear or more often, something usually translated as a "halberd". In the original Old Norse, however, we find a variety of intriguingly named weapons being translated to that one term.

The usual Old Norse word for spear is geirr. Another common term often used is a kesja. The saga's also name other, now obscure varieties of blades mounted on sticks, including atgeirr, höggspjót, brynþvarar and bryntroll.

That all of these are a type of blade on a stick, something we would otherwise call a "spear", is not in doubt. However their use and appearance in medieval literature is sufficiently different to what our notion of a spear is to warrant translators from Victorian times to use a different term, usually "halberd" or "bill".

This is itself raises an issue, as halberds, pikes and other pole-arms developed in the later middle ages, so were anachronistic to the Viking age when the characters in the sagas are described as wielding them. So the possibility exists that these are types of weapons now lost to history.

The saga writers have a frustrating tendency not to describe these weapons, hinting that they were very familiar to the audience they were writing for. However it means the we are left to seek for clues amid the texts for what they really were.

The atgeirr is probably the most famous of these. It was the weapon of choice for Gunnar Hámundarson, the Icelandic warrior and main character of Njal's Saga, one which he uses to devastating affect on many characters in the saga. Apart from using it as a vaulting pole to leap, Lone Ranger-like, onto his horse for a quick get away, Gunnar kills many men with his atgeir.

At one point in the saga Gunnar hoists an adversary impaled on the atgeirr aloft. When his enemies gang up on him and one tries to sneak onto the roof, Gunnar shoves his atgeirr out the window, catching Thorgrim in the stomach. The unfortunate man tumbles off the roof. His comrades ask him if Gunnar is at home.

"You can find that out for yourselves," said Thorgrim; "but this I am sure of: His atgeirr is at home," and with that he fell down dead.

Thorgrim's last words, so typical of the black humour of the Sagas, also hint at the regard in which Gunnar's weapon was held. Gunnar's weapon is referred to as atgeirinn – "The atgeir", which suggests it was a unique, special item - a magic weapon worthy of a Dungeons and Dragons quest – however atgeirrs are named in Laxdœla Saga and the Eyrbyggja Saga too. Gunnar's was rumoured to have a life of its own, the blade ringing when it was lifted off its bracket on the wall if it was to taste blood soon.

But what was it? Geirr is simply a very old word for spear, so as Jan H. Orkisz points out, the importance must lie in the "at" part of its name. The common interpretation of "at" appears to be as "excellent" or "very" – hence perhaps "most excellent" or "best" spear. However Orkisz points out that this ultimately derives from a Latin prefix ad-, and Old Norse had a poetic use of at- to denote fight, clash or attack. Hence atgeirr would be "battle spear" or "fighting spear". The way Gunnar and others use it in the saga point towards a heavy spear used in hand-to-hand fighting, perhaps like a heavy board spear, rather than a javelin hurled at the enemy while they are still at a distance.

The höggspjót is another weapon appearing in the sagas. Spjót is again just another word for spear. Högg is a form of the verb höggva which means "to strike, to smite". It's tempting to again translate this as another "battle spear", however the verb is often used in the context of cutting down a tree or wielding an axe, so the name "Hewing spear" might be more appropriate. Some of the descriptions of its use correlate with the idea of a long, heavy blade mounted on a pole, capable of slicing through shields and the flesh and bone of the unfortunates holding them. Egil Skallagrimsson carries a höggspjót on his ill-fated meeting with Rognvald, the young son of King Eirik Bloodaxe of Norway.

Egil's Saga also mentions another weapon, the brynþvarar and gives quite a detailed description of it. Thorolf strides into the Battle at Brunanburgh "armed like this":

Kesju hafði hann í hendi. Fjöðrin var tveggja álna löng ok sleginn fram broddr ferstrendr, en upp var fjöðrin breið, falrinn bæði langr ok digr, skaftit var eigi hæra en taka mátti hendi til fals ok furðuliga digrt. Járnteinn var í falnum ok skaftit allt járnvafit. Þau spjót váru kölluð brynþvarar.

"He had a kesja [spear] in his hand…the feather-formed blade was two ells long, ending in a four-edged spike; the blade was broad above, the socket both long and thick. The shaft stood just high enough for the hand to grasp the socket, and was remarkably thick. The socket was fitted with an iron prong on the shaft, which was also wound round with iron. Such spears [spjót] were called brynþvarar."

It might seem odd to describe a blade as a "feather", however when you look at examples from the Irish National Museum in Dublin it becomes clear how apt it is.

An ell was the distance from the elbow to the tip of the middle finger, about 18 inches. Therefore at 2 ells the blade of this weapon was about 36 inches long, or 3 feet, which is impressive for a spear. It would seem that this weapon has a short, thick shaft, and the impression is some sort of short implement, mostly blade, specifically designed for piercing mail. Though perhaps not very short. Later in the battle, gripped by berserker rage, Thorolf does a Vlad Tepeș. He lunges at an enemy Jarl's chest with the brynþvarar, "driving it right through mail-coat and body, so that it came out at the shoulders; and he lifted him up on the halberd over his head, and planted the butt-end in the ground". Ouch.

The bryn part of the name refers to the brynja, the Old Norse name for a mail shirt. My Old Norse dictionary lists þvari as meaning a "bolt or spear". In other words this was a special type of spear, specifically designed for piercing mail. Possibly closely related to the brynþvarar we have the bryntroll. We've already covered that bryn means mail and troll speaks for itself. It's a monster, an enemy, a creature that destroys, so the weapon is a troll or moster for mail shirts. The effectiveness of medieval spears against mail is demonstrated in this video.

There was also the rather horrible sounding "Hooked Spear", the Krókspjót, a weapon so nasty a law was passed forbidding its use.

So at the end of the day these all appear to be varieties of spear. That they were not swords is underlined by the way in many sagas the hero is specifically mentioned as having a sword as well, either at his belt or, in Egil's case, tied to his wrist.

That spears would be important to pagan Scandinavians should not be that surprising. The spear was the weapon sacred to the God Odin. Battles were traditionally started by one side hurling a spear over their opponents and yelling "Óðinn á yðr alla" – Odin owns you all. Being transfixed by a spear while also being hung appears to have been the way to sacrifice a human being to Odin.

Another other possibility is that these are all anachronisms. Medieval saga writers could have been giving impressive modern (for them) weapons to their heroes to make them look cool to a contemporary audience, or to use terms they were familiar with.

References:
Pole-weapons in the Sagas of Icelanders: a comparison of literary and archaeological sources, Jan H. Orkisz, Chapitre des Armes
Brennu-Njáls saga text and translation, sagadb.org
Egils saga Skalla-Grímssonar, text and translation, sagadb.org
A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic, Geir T. Zoëga, Amazon