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The Skull and Crown of Erik IX of Sweden
Today we have an extremely special treat to counteract the treacle of yesterday’s fluffy movie review: it’s the skull of a Viking king complete with a period crown! Hooray! The skull is what remains of King Erik IX who ruled Sweden from 1156 until 1160 when a political misunderstanding resulted in his head violently flying off his body (admittedly with some help from a large man with an axe). Well, at least that is what we think happened…no historical records have survived from Erik’s reign so all we have are myths, legends, and archaeological evidence (like this bitchin’ skull and crown).
The skull and crown from a different angle
Like many Swedish royals, Erik IX seems to have hailed from Götaland (which is to say he was a Geat)! Erik claimed the throne in 1150 while Sverker the Elder was still king and the two men bitterly contested the throne. In 1156 some mysterious party ordered the murder of Sverker on Christmas day and thereafter Erik was the uncontested king until he himself was murdered while attending mass at Uppsala. Uppsala had long been the center of political and spiritual life in Sweden and it was once the site of a huge temple to the old gods (which stood surrounded by sacrificed human beings and the barrows of ancient kings), however in Erik’s era Christians were taking over and there was already a church at Uppsala in 1160.
The cathedral at Uppsala today
A fair amount of whitewash seems to have been applied to Erik by Christians who were still in the process expunging the ancient pagan faith from Scandinavia. Additionally his son Knud was fighting for the throne with the Sverkers and shamelessly mixed together facts and legends about Erik to consolidate his position. Nevertheless, it seems fairly certain that Erik IX formalized Swedish law and led an invasion/crusade against the pagan Finns. Today Erik IX is known as Eric the Lawgiver, Erik the Saint, and Eric the Holy. His severed head is on the coat of arms of Stockholm.
The Coat of Arms of Stockholm
Although Erik was never formally recognized as a saint by the Catholic church, his skull and crown have long been held in Uppsala cathedral. Historians and archaeologists opened the casket in April of 2014, and the contents will go on public display in June. The crown of Erik is made of gilded copper inset with semi-precious jewels.
The Crown for the Hereditary Prince of Sweden
So, I wish I could explain this better, but here are the crowns of the princes and princesses of Sweden. These images come from the amazing website Official and Historic Crowns of the World and Their Locations which is an amazing resource for all things crown related. Evidently each Swedish prince and princess had their own crown made based on a standardized template. The effect of all these nearly identical and yet subtly different crowns is rather remarkable–like a beautiful treasure-based version of one of those “spot the difference” games which one sees in the comics pages. Yet somehow it all seems excessive: couldn’t they just have reused one crown (is the one on the top an original?) and spent all of that sweet crown money on weapons research and mentally-ill Strindberg plays? Hmm, now that I say that aloud it occurs to me that actually redundant pointy princely crowns might have been the right way to go…
The crown of Princess Sophia Albertina 1771
The crown of Princess Hedvig Elisabet Charlotta 1778
The crown of Princess Eugenia 1860
The crown of Prince Wilhelm 1902
The crown of Prince Oskar 1844
The crown of Prince Carl 1771
The crown of Prince Frederick Adolf 1771
Today we head back to Gotland for another ancient knotlike symbol. The Saint John’s arms is a square with loops at each edge. The shape is actually not a knot but an unknot: if you pulled at it you would discover that it is a torus which has been twisted.
Fornsalen Museum, Visby ( Gotland ). Picture stone with Saint John’s Arms Knot (photo by Wolfgang Sauber)
The symbol appears carved on a 1500 year old image stone from Hablingbo, on the island of Gotland (a Swedish Island in the Baltic Sea). Ever since then it has appeared throughout the Scandinavian/Baltic world to demark sights of interest. Although it is especially common in Finland (where it gained a reputation for warding off evil), the Saint John’s arms can be found blazoned upon cultural attractions throughout Belarus, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Lithuania, Norway, and Sweden.
Rana museum, department of Natural history in Mo i Rana (Nordland, Norway)
From its obscure Scandinavian roots, the Saint John’s arms vaulted into international fame during the 80s. Originally Apple computer utilized the “open apple” and “closed apple” as its command keys (I even remember these from my old Apple IIe and my halcyon days of adventuring in the realms of Ultima). In 1984, when the Macintosh personal computer was introduced, Steve Jobs decided that using the apple for shortcut commands was denigrating the brand. According to Apple insider Andy Hertzfeld, when Jobs saw how many apple commands were in an early version of MacDraw he peremptorily told the design team, “There are too many Apples on the screen! It’s ridiculous! We’re taking the Apple logo in vain! We’ve got to stop doing that!” The bitmap artist, Susan Kare, flipped through her dictionary of international symbols until she found one that easily translated into 16 bit-resolution. It was the Saint John’s arms symbol—which the symbol dictionary said indicated camping grounds in Sweden.
So today the Saint John’s arms, a mysterious Viking symbol carved on a weird rock on a haunted island, is in use everywhere that Apple computers are.
Hollywood's Interpretation of the Geats
The Geats are the protagonists of the epic poem Beowulf (in fact, the titular character Beowulf himself was a Geat). The poem gives us a picture of a society of northern Germanic warriors who lived near the coast. They spent the summer accomplishing feats of valor–raiding and fighting through the lands around the Baltic and the North Sea–and then they returned home to pass the winter in their mead halls drinking and telling great tales.
It is a compelling picture and such a tribe did indeed exist. Historiae Francorum by Gregory of Tours recounts a raid against Frisia by the Geatish king, Hygelac, which took place in 516 AD. The Geats inhabited what is now Götaland (“land of the Geats”) in Sweden. Their lands were bounded by the Baltic Sea to the South and the haunted forest of Tiveden to the North. In the great Norse Sagas they are referred to as the “Gautar”. It seems they lived much in the manner suggested by Beowulf and the Sagas–albeit with fewer mythical monsters and less political unity. Wikipedia somewhat blandly informs us that, “The Geats were traditionally divided into several petty kingdoms, or districts, which had their own things (popular assemblies) and laws.” Ultimately the Geats were integrated into the Kingdom of Sweden. This annexation was more a matter of political expediency than via conquest: the Swedes and the Geats shared many cultural similarities and they shared a terrible enemy—the Danes. In fact many Swedish rulers and elite were Geats.
All of this has a larger context: looking further back into ancient history, one discovers that the Geats are the presumed Goths. Jordanes, a sixth century Roman bureaucrat who wrote The History and Deeds of the Goths decided that the ancestral home of the Goths was the southern edge of Scandinavia–which he describes as a great island named Scandza. Here is how Jordanes explains the origin of the Goths:
Now from this island of Scandza, as from a hive of races or a womb of nations, the Goths are said to have come forth long ago under their king, Berig by name. As soon as they disembarked from their ships and set foot on the land, they straightway gave their name to the place. And even to-day it is said to be called Gothiscandza…But when the number of the people increased greatly and Filimer, son of Gadaric, reigned as king–about the fifth since Berig–he decided that the army of the Goths with their families should move from that region. In search of suitable homes and pleasant places they came to the land of Scythia, called Oium in that tongue.
Many historians have questioned Jordanes’ accurac–not least because he wrote a century or more after the events described had taken place. In fact some scholars have written off The History and Deeds of the Goths as utter mythology. Other writers, however, accord Jordanes greater respect for his primary source of information was Cassiodorus, a Roman statesman who served under the king of the Ostrogoths at the end of the fifth century. Many of Cassiodorus’ works are lost, but Jordanes had access to them. Archaeological and linguistic evidence has indeed tied the Wielbark Culture to the Geats. The Wielbark culture in turn gave rise to the Gothic kingdom of Oium, a part of the Chernyakhiv culture. Um, hopefully the following map will make this more clear.
If you have been following my topic thread concerning all things Gothic, you will know that I am baffled and delighted by this inpenetrable muddle. The origin of the Goths seems to flow into the north in the distant past and dissolve into myth. Yet somehow these ancient barbarians have lent their name to lovely Northern Flemish art, horror fiction, the sack of Rome, medieval architecture, and an entire contemporary youth movement. With this in mind, it seems completely appropriate that the original Goths were Geats (or their progenitors). The violent and exquisite Anglo Saxon Poetry of Beowulf seems as appropriate a place to find the Goths as anywhere. I like the idea that the Goths did not vanish forever in the sands of northern Africa. Some of them stayed home and became the Vikings. The Swedes like the idea as well and the name “Goth” is to be found everywhere in southern Sweden. Indeed until 1973 the King of Sweden was also styled as the King of the Goths. But can any of that explain why kids in black still identify as goths?
Geat?
ferrebeekeeper 