Heroism

"In Viking times, not only did a man fight with courage, travel with enterprise, or die with nobility; the writer of his epitaph thought it worth describing these events in the language and form of heroic verse. To take a couple of examples out of many. At Sjörup, Skâne, is a memorial stone, perhaps of the eleventh century, set up by a man after his félagi (a word which, in this context, I take to mean'comrade-in-arms'). The primary record, set in an outerband of runes, is simple description: 'Saxi put up this stone in memory of his comrade Asbjorn, Tóki's son'. Within this is a second band of runes, comprising two lines of verse which show why Asbjorn needed and deserved commemoration: Sárfló eigi at Upsalumen va meó hann vápn hafdi* 'He did not run at Uppsala, but fought while he could hold weapons.' The significance of this example is that, to recount a heroic deed, its verse uses a form of words that must have been traditional in heroic poetry. The Norse en vámeó hann vápn hafdi gives the parallel to the Old English heroic formula pa hwile pe hi (he) wœpna wealdan moston(moste), 'as long as they (he) could wield weapons', used of the doomed English defiance to the invaders in the poem of As on the Söderby, Uppland, Sweden, rune-stone (L. Musset, Introduction à larunologie (Paris, 1965), p. 392). The stone was a memorial to Helgi whom Sasur killed,'and he did a nióingsverk—betrayed his comrade.'4 L. Jacobsen and E. Moltke, Danmarks runeindskrifier (Kobenhavn, 1941-2), text,cols. 332-4. The last line of verse is variously divided into its separate words, but this does not affect the argument...

....The man who put up this stone in Skâne looked upon his slaughteredfriend in the same way: as one who had perished in valiant resistance, refusing the easy option of flight. We are not surewhat this battle at Uppsala was, and it may have been a sordid little skirmish; but here it has become a great and heroic Viking adventure."

~excerpt from 'A Most Vile People': Early English Historians on the Vikings, by R. I. Page