The Age of the Vikings by Winroth Anders

Author:Winroth, Anders
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2014-10-10T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 7

AT HOME ON THE FARM

THE MATRIARCH OF THE FAMILY WAS DEAD. SHE HAD DIED AT the farm of her long-dead first husband, at Såsta, about seventeen kilometers north of where, a century or so later, Stockholm would be built. She died in the late eleventh century at a great age for the time, older than sixty, and she had outlived two husbands, three sons, and her stepson. None of them had been Vikings plundering around the shores of Europe, as far as we know, but they lived in the Viking Age and were no strangers to traveling far. Estrid Sigfastsdotter had always taken care of feeding and clothing her family, of bringing up the children; she carried the keys of the farm (one key followed her into the grave) and she managed the storehouses. But as the men around her died, Estrid took on an even more central role in the family, managing farms and thralls, running the family business, making the important decisions. Her influence and wealth are still discernible in the Swedish landscape through the many runic inscriptions that she decided to create to memorialize the dead of her family. But when we read the inscriptions, we are perhaps less fascinated by the men of the family than by Estrid herself, the matriarch, who stands out in unusually vivid colors.1

Estrid died and was buried on the farm in Såsta that she had been running for decades. Her skeleton was found in the 1990s, helping us form a basic idea of what she looked like so we may imagine her in life and death. She was 165–170 centimeters tall, lithe, and had gracious features. She had been married twice, but now she was buried next to the monument to her first husband, Östen, and the grave of their first son, Gag. Perhaps it was her decision to rest here rather than at the farm of her second husband, Ingvar; perhaps she liked Östen better. Or it could be that her surviving sons decided her final resting place. One does, however, get the impression that Estrid was used to making decisions, so I suspect she had determined her own final resting place.

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