This Viking warlord had a magical banner that promised victory. But it had a secret curse

Sigurd the Stout’s mother promised that her banner would win him a battle, but warned that its bearer would die.

粗壮的西格德的母亲承诺她的旗帜将为他赢得一场战斗，但警告说旗帜的持有者将会死亡。

Judith Jesch explores a saga tale of magic, warfare and death

朱迪思·杰施探索魔法、战争和死亡的传奇故事

Facing a Scottish army he believed outnumbered his own seven to one, the Viking warlord Sigurd the Stout went to his mother for help.

维京军阀粗壮的西居尔面对一支他认为数量比自己七比一的苏格兰军队，向他的母亲寻求帮助。

According to Orkneyinga Saga , she had little sympathy – if any – for his concerns.

根据奥克尼因加传奇的说法，她对他的担忧几乎没有同情心——如果有的话。

“She basically says, ‘Well, if I thought you would be worried about dying, I would have brought you up in my wool basket,’” Viking Age scholar Judith Jesch explains on the HistoryExtra podcast.

“她基本上是说，‘好吧，如果我认为你会担心死亡，我会把你放在我的羊毛篮里养大，’”维京时代学者朱迪思·杰施 (Judith Jesch) 在 HistoryExtra 播客上解释道。

Despite her misgivings about her son’s courage, his mother had, however, made something for him: a banner bearing a raven, so skilfully worked that the bird seemed to fly when the cloth whipped in the wind.

尽管她对儿子的勇气心存疑虑，但他的母亲还是为他做了一些东西：一面印有乌鸦的横幅，制作得非常巧妙，当布在风中拍打时，这只鸟似乎在飞翔。

She promised that it would bring him victory, with one condition.

她答应这会给他带来胜利，但有一个条件。

“She says, ‘This banner will help you win the battle, but whoever carries the banner will die.’”

“她说，‘这面旗帜将帮助你赢得战斗，但任何举起旗帜的人都会死。’”

Three standard-bearers were killed in the fighting that followed.

三名旗手在随后的战斗中丧生。

“You'd think they would have heard that it was a bad idea to carry this banner,” Jesch says.

“你可能认为他们会听说举起这面旗帜是个坏主意，”杰施说。

“But Sigurd does eventually win the battle.”

“但西格德最终赢得了这场战斗。”

Sigurd ruled Orkney in the late tenth and early eleventh centuries.

西居尔在十世纪末和十一世纪初统治奥克尼群岛。

From the islands off Scotland’s northern coast, the Norse earls could reach allies and enemies across Scandinavia, Scotland and Ireland.

从苏格兰北部海岸附近的岛屿，挪威伯爵可以接触到斯堪的纳维亚半岛、苏格兰和爱尔兰的盟友和敌人。

They also sought territory closer to home, across the Pentland Firth in Caithness.

他们还寻找离家更近的领土，穿过凯斯内斯的彭特兰湾。

The saga names Sigurd’s Scottish opponent as Earl Finnleik and places their battle at a site generally identified as Skitten, near Wick.

传奇故事将西格德的苏格兰对手命名为芬莱克伯爵，并将他们的战斗地点设定为威克附近的斯基滕（Skitten）。

Control of this part of the mainland was a recurring concern for Orkney’s rulers.

对这片大陆的控制是奥克尼群岛统治者反复关注的问题。

This account of the battle was written long after the fighting.

这篇关于这场战斗的记述是在战斗结束很久之后写成的。

Orkneyinga Saga , a history of the islands’ earls, is generally thought to have first taken shape around 1200, some two centuries after Sigurd’s lifetime.

奥克尼因加传奇 (Orkneyinga Saga) 是一部关于岛上伯爵的历史，一般认为最早形成于 1200 年左右，即西居尔去世后大约两个世纪。

Its writers drew on earlier traditions, and the text underwent further revision.

它的作者借鉴了早期的传统，并对文本进行了进一步的修改。

We cannot recover a conversation between Sigurd and his mother from this scene, or establish what happened at Skitten through its account of an enchanted banner.

我们无法从这一场景恢复西格德和他母亲之间的对话，也无法通过对一面魔法旗帜的描述来确定斯基滕发生的事情。

We can, though, see what interested the storytellers who wrote this legend.

不过，我们可以看看写下这个传奇的故事讲述者对什么感兴趣。

“Her response to him is goading,” Jesch explains.

“她对他的反应很刺激，”杰施解释道。

“And this is a motif we find a lot in Icelandic sagas.”

“这是我们在冰岛传奇中经常发现的主题。”

In saga feuds, a killing or an insult could affect the standing of an entire family.

在传奇争斗中，杀戮或侮辱可能会影响整个家庭的地位。

Relatives had a stake in whether a man sought compensation, took revenge or did nothing, even if they would never fight themselves.

一个人是否寻求赔偿、报复或什么也不做，即使他们永远不会与自己抗争，亲属也与他们息息相关。

“It's often thought of as a very masculine world,” says Jesch.

“人们通常认为这是一个非常男性化的世界，”杰施说。

“It's the men going out and killing each other, basically.

“基本上，这些人出去互相残杀。

But as the sagas make clear, women also play a part in this process because they're part of the family group.”

但正如这些传奇故事所表明的那样，女性也在这个过程中发挥了作用，因为她们是家庭的一部分。”

That involvement often means “urging, encouraging the menfolk to go out” and commit violence, she explains, whether to avenge a wrong or for another purpose.

她解释说，这种参与通常意味着“敦促、鼓励男人们出去”并实施暴力，无论是为了报仇还是为了其他目的。

Sigurd’s mother uses the same pressure against her son.

西格德的母亲对她的儿子也施加同样的压力。

Her wool-basket remark paints a picture of an earl anxious about the odds as a child who still needs protecting – it’s emasculating.

她的羊毛篮言论描绘了一位伯爵作为一个仍然需要保护的孩子而对可能性感到焦虑的画面——这是一种阉割。

If he wants to be taken seriously, she implies, he must accept the possibility of death.

她暗示，如果他想被认真对待，他就必须接受死亡的可能性。

Such scenes tell us about the expectations of saga writers and their audiences.

这些场景告诉我们传奇作家和他们的观众的期望。

The woman who shames a reluctant man into fighting is a recurring literary figure – beyond this saga, too; think of Shakespeare’s Macbeth .

那个让一个不情愿的男人感到羞耻而打架的女人是一个反复出现的文学人物——也超出了这个传奇故事。想想莎士比亚的《麦克白》。

But in this story, the notion of women encouraging men to commit violence is only one of several motifs.

但在这个故事中，女性鼓励男性实施暴力的观念只是几个主题之一。

“It's the combination of women giving advice, women with magical powers, and women goading men to go out and kill.

“这是提供建议的女性、具有魔力的女性以及怂恿男性出去杀人的女性的结合。

These are three motifs that are entwined in this episode.”

这是这一集中交织在一起的三个主题。”

Women who foresee events or practise magic appear elsewhere in Norse literature, among them the seeresses known as ‘völur’.

预见事件或施展魔法的女性出现在挪威文学的其他地方，其中包括被称为“völur”的女预言家。

The banner belongs to another strand of Norse storytelling , in which textile work gives women control over the fate of warriors.

这面旗帜属于挪威故事的另一流派，其中纺织工作让妇女能够控制战士的命运。

A poem preserved in Njál’s Saga describes valkyries, the supernatural figures associated with choosing the battlefield dead, weaving a fabric of war from human entrails and severed heads.

尼尔的传奇中保存的一首诗描述了瓦尔基里，这些超自然的人物与选择战场上的死者有关，用人类的内脏和砍下的头颅编织了战争的织物。

The raven, too, was familiar in accounts of battle.

乌鸦在战争的记载中也很常见。

It fed on the corpses left after fighting and was associated with Odin, whose ravens Huginn and Muninn brought him knowledge of the world.

它以战斗后留下的尸体为食，并与奥丁有关，奥丁的乌鸦胡金和穆宁给他带来了世界知识。

On Sigurd’s banner, the bird is an appropriate emblem for a victory that will leave its bearers dead.

在西格德的旗帜上，这只鸟是胜利的恰当象征，而胜利却会让持有者死去。

There is evidence for Vikings entering battles with raven standards outside the sagas.

有证据表明维京人在传奇之外以乌鸦标准参加战斗。

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records the capture of a Viking war banner with the black bird in Devon in 878 – during the Viking attacks on Alfred the Great’s Wessex .

《盎格鲁-撒克逊编年史》记载，878 年，维京人袭击阿尔弗雷德大帝的威塞克斯时，在德文郡用黑鸟捕获了维京人的战争旗帜。

Sigurd died in 1014 at Clontarf, near Dublin, fighting in the coalition opposed to the Irish ruler Brian Boru.

西居尔于 1014 年在都柏林附近的克朗塔夫去世，当时他正在反对爱尔兰统治者布赖恩·博鲁的联盟中作战。

His allies included the rulers of Dublin and Leinster.

他的盟友包括都柏林和伦斯特的统治者。

With Irish and Norse interests entangled on the battlefield, the conflict neatly demonstrates how interlinked the Norse and broader Gaelic worlds had become.

由于爱尔兰和挪威的利益在战场上纠缠在一起，这场冲突清楚地表明了挪威和更广泛的盖尔世界是如何相互联系的。

His death is recorded beyond the Icelandic saga tradition.

他的死亡记录超出了冰岛传奇传统。

The Annals of Ulster name the earl of Orkney among the dead.

《阿尔斯特年鉴》将奥克尼伯爵列为死者之一。

And in Njál’s Saga , the raven banner returns to account for his end.

在 Njál 的传奇中，乌鸦旗帜再次出现，导致了他的死亡。

Once again, its bearers are killed.

它的携带者再次被杀。

This time, the surviving men refuse to take it.

这一次，幸存的人拒绝接受。

Sigurd takes the banner himself.

西格德亲自接过旗帜。

As per his mother’s magic, he dies.

按照他母亲的魔法，他死了。

Judith Jesch was speaking to James Osborne on the HistoryExtra podcast .

朱迪思·杰施 (Judith Jesch) 在 HistoryExtra 播客上与詹姆斯·奥斯本 (James Osborne) 交谈。

Listen to the full conversation .

听完整的对话。

James Osborne is a senior content producer at HistoryExtra

James Osborne 是 HistoryExtra 的高级内容制作人

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