MELKORKA

Slavery was an inescapable fact of the ancient world. The Viking Age was certainly no exception, with raiders and merchants co-operating to run a lucrative, insatiable slave trade. Captives of both sexes and all ages were valued in the marketplace, but unfortunate young women seem to have found themselves in particular demand. The grim fate of those caught up in one violent raid was vividly described by the 11th century Norwegian poet, Valgarðr:

…fair women were captured.

A lock secured the girl’s body;

many a maiden went…to the warships;

bright fetters bit greedily into the flesh.

But what happened to such victims after they were taken? There are no written records from the captive women themselves, but some of their stories were passed down orally through many generations. Eventually, they were transcribed in the medieval Icelandic family sagas, which claim to tell of genuine events that occurred in the centuries after the Norse settlement of Iceland.

One of the surviving stories concerns the strange twists and turns of fate that affected a woman of the 10th century. It is told as a sideline to the main plot in Laxdaela Saga, which was written anonymously some 300 years later. The saga introduces our subject as a young captive at a slave market, which formed part of the festivities around a convention of the Scandinavian kings. This was a major event, with huge crowds of followers and hangers-on milling around booths in the assembly grounds.

In one of these booths, behind a dividing curtain, twelve wretched women were sitting in a row. They were waiting to be sold by their ‘owner’, a wealthy merchant known as Gilli the Russian. This particular young woman sat silently at the end, dressed in shabby clothes. Suddenly, the curtain was pulled aside, and Gilli led another man into the inner chamber. The stranger was a well-to-do Icelandic landowner called Hoskuld Dala-Kolsson. The shabbily-dressed woman soon found him ogling her, and heard Hoskuld enquiring, in the words of the saga:
‘What’s the price of that woman?’

Gilli replied, ‘Three silver pieces is what you must weigh me out for her.’

‘It seems to me that you charge very highly for this particular slave woman,’ said Hoskuld. ‘That’s the normal price for three.’

Gilli said, ‘You’re right, I consider her to be worth much more than the others.’

Gilli gave no hint of why he considered her so valuable, and even admitted frankly that she had a disability. He was, she said, a deaf-mute, for she had never spoken a single word to him. Perversely, both the high price and the problem stimulated Hoskuld’s eagerness to purchase her. He took out his purse at once, handed over the full amount of silver and took the slave-woman straight back to his own booth. That night, the saga says blandly, he slept with her – a euphemism for what, from her point of view, could only have been rape. The next morning, he assuaged his conscience by dressing her up in splendid clothes to parade her about as he conducted his business errands. When he had finished, the young woman found herself forced onto a ship with him, bound for Iceland.

After they arrived, she quickly found relief from Hoskuld’s sexual attentions – for his wife, Jorunn, was obviously not at all pleased to meet her. However, Jorunn pitied the slave-woman’s disability and grudgingly allowed her to share their house. Hoskuld had to give up his physical relations with her, but it was too late to prevent the consequences of his assault. For a few months later, the young woman gave birth to a baby boy. Hoskuld adored his illegitimate son, and named him Olaf. However, the jealous Jorunn made it plain that, if the young mother hoped to stay in their household, she must now work for them to earn her keep.

Young Olaf was a sturdy, good looking and very precocious lad. One morning when he was two, he was chattering away to his mother outside when Hoskuld suddenly appeared. Too late, the young woman realised that Hoskuld had overheard her talking back animatedly to the child – and thus finally discovered that her apparent deafness and dumbness was merely a deceit.

Then Hoskuld went to her and asked her name, and said it was useless for her to hide it any longer.
She said so it should be, and they sat down on the edge of the field. Then she said, ‘If you want to know my name, I am called Melkorka.’

Hoskuld bade her tell him of her kindred.

She answered, ‘The name of my father is Myrkjartan. He is a king in Ireland. I was taken a prisoner of war from there when I was fifteen winters old.’

This claim of royal blood infuriated the resentful Jorunn even more. That evening, as Melkorka helped her undress for bed, Jorunn started attacking Melkorka – who fought back even more violently, until Hoskuld separated them.

Melkorka’s revelation, and the fight, turned out to be a turning point in her fortunes. For Hoskuld sent her right away to live in a farm of her own with their son, supplying everything she needed there. Thus her life was transformed for a second time. She had gone from being a princess, to a nameless slave-woman, and now finally to an independent farm manager.

But that was not the end of her story. Olaf grew from a promising boy to an outstanding young man who was "far superior to other men, both on account of his beauty and courtesy", according to the saga. He was fostered by a local goði (priest-chieftain), who made him his sole heir. (Fostering while the parents were still alive was considered an honour in the Viking Age, and a way of extending one’s kinship bonds). Hoskuld now neglected Melkorka. So she seized the opportunity to marry another farmer, who was willing to fund a voyage to Ireland for Olaf to meet his royal kinsmen there.

Olaf’s trip was a great success. En route, he visited Norway, where he gained favour with King Harald Grey Coat and his powerful mother, Queen Gunnhild. The latter provided him with a ship and crew, enabling him to arrive in Ireland in style. There, he presented King Myrkjartan with a gold ring that the king himself had once given the young Melkorka – proof that his abducted daughter had survived, and that Olaf was none other than his grandson. Overjoyed, he offered to make Olaf sole heir of his kingdom – though Olaf pragmatically declined.

By the time Melkorka saw her son again, he was wealthy in his own right, with their shared royal lineage proven beyond doubt. She lived to see him make a good marriage, and to inherit his foster-father’s farm. Known as Olaf the Peacock, he later became an important character in the dramatic events that subsequently unfolded in Laxdaela Saga.