The Ancient Chinese Spirit Mountains Of Bohai

In the days of the Qin and early Han Dynasty, ancient China was in the midst of an immortal-hunting fervor that infected all levels of society, including the emperors. The mysterious community of supernatural Chinese entities, known collectively as “the immortals,” had similar lives to the Greek gods—both groups were said to have rarely appeared before human eyes and both divine communities spent most of their time in isolation on holy mountains. Yet, the mountain retreats of the Chinese immortals were a bit more complex than the dwelling of the Greek gods on Olympus. According to ancient Chinese mythology, the immortals lived on huge and mobile supernatural landmasses known as spirit mountains, which, like a mirage, could be seen but not reached in the Gulf of Bohai.

Belief in the immortals and spirit mountains long predated the Qin Dynasty. In fact, the 4th-century BCE Daoist scholar, Liezi, mentioned five such spirit mountains in the text that shares his name. Yet, it was King Zheng (the First Emperor of Qin) who mobilized the empire in search of the spirit islands. Sometime after King Zheng brought all of the Chinese kingdoms under his rule in 221 BCE and declared himself to be the August Emperor, a man named Xu Fu appeared before the emperor and claimed that he had a lead on finding three of the evasive spirit mountains. These three mountain-islands were called Fangzhang, Yingzhou and Penglai, of which the last was seemingly the most important. From these magical islands, an elixir (or herb) of immortality could reportedly be obtained, which was something that the First Emperor was eager to possess. Upon hearing of Xu Fu’s proposed expedition to search for the spirit mountains in the Gulf of Bohai, the First Emperor of Qin enthusiastically agreed to the plan and reportedly put Xu Fu in command of thousands of explorers.

Although Fu Xu and other explorers spent a fortune (of the emperor’s money) on their quest to find the spirit mountains, they never made any progress. In their reports back to the First Emperor, Xu Fu and his comrades came up with a number of odd excuses for their inability to find the magical mountain abodes, such as the appearances of magical barriers or hostile aquatic guardians. According to the historian, Sima Qian (c. 145-90 BCE), one such message to the First Emperor read, “The herbs of Penglai can surely be obtained. But always there are large fish that cause difficulty, and therefore we are unable to reach the island” (Shi Ji, 6). In response, the emperor reportedly gave the explorers fishing gear and, for the biggest of fish, repeating crossbows. Interestingly, the First Emperor was said to have been touring the coastline of the Gulf of Bohai (and hunting for giant fish) when he fell ill and died in 210 BCE.

The aforementioned Sima Qian was the Grand Historian and Palace Secretary of Emperor Wu of Han (r. 141-87 BCE). Emperor Wu was reportedly the most zealous seeker of the immortals since the days of the First Emperor of Qin.  When Emperor Wu was not focused on orchestrating new conquests and expanding the power of his central government, he would send out waves of explorers into the Gulf of Bohai to search for spirit mountains.

Present in Emperor Wu’s court were several magicians who claimed to have knowledge of the spirit mountains—and others even claimed to have been students of the immortals. The magicians whose teachings most affected Emperor Wu were Li Shaojun (an elderly wiseman who claimed to know how to reach Penglai) and Gongsun Qing, a long-serving courtier and magical advisor who eventually attempted to grow a so-called fungus of immortality in the emperor’s palace. Gongsun Qing did, indeed, grow some sort of strange fungus around 109 BCE, prompting the excited emperor to proclaim a general amnesty in celebration, yet it was a far cry from the herb of immortality on Penglai.

Sima Qian wrote about the magicians and Emperor Wu’s search for the magical islands in what is known as The Treatise on the Feng and Shan Sacrifices (Shi Ji 28), included in his Records of the Grand Historian. In that treatise, Sima Qian wrote down a summary of the various pieces of folklore he had heard about the spirit mountains:

“[Penglai, Fangzhang and Yingzhou] were three spirit mountains which were supposed to exist in the Gulf of Bohai. They were not very far from the land of men, it was said, but the difficulty was that, whenever a boat was about to touch their shores, a wind would always spring up and drive it away. In the past, people said, there had been men who succeeded in reaching them, and found them peopled by fairy spirits who possessed the elixirs of immortality. All the plants and birds and animals of the island were white, and the palaces and gates were made of gold and silver. Seen from afar, the three spirit mountains looked like clouds but, as soon as one drew closer, they seemed instead to be down under the water” (Shi Ji 28, Burton Watson translation pg. 14).

As happened with the First Emperor of Qin, the explorers and magicians working with Emperor Wu made little progress in their search for the immortals and the spirit mountains of Bohai. Although Emperor Wu did execute numerous magicians who were found out to be frauds, and, by 98 BCE, began to feel disheartened about his search for the magic islands, the emperor reportedly never lost faith in their existence.  Yet, despite Emperor’s Wu’s decades of sending explorers into the Gulf of Bohai, and his cultivation of a home-grown fungus of immortality, the emperor never found a way to ward off old age. He died in 87 BCE.

Written by C. Keith Hansley

Picture Attribution: (Painting depicting the Spirit Island of Penglai by Yuan Yao (active in the 18th century), [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).

Sources:

• Records of the Grand Historian (Shi ji) by Sima Qian, translated by Burton Watson. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993.
• http://www.chinaknowledge.de/History/Myth/personspenglai.html
• http://www.chinaknowledge.de/Literature/Daoists/liezi.html
• http://www.chinaknowledge.de/Literature/Novels/haineishizhouji.html
• https://www.britannica.com/biography/Shihuangdi

The Empress Drama Of Emperor Leo VI

Leo VI was the emperor of Constantinople from 886 to 912. He was a prolific writer who published codes of law, poems, treatises, and other miscellaneous works on ecclesiastical and secular subjects. These scholarly endeavors earned Leo the epithet of “the Wise” or “the Philosopher,” yet, outside of the realm of academia, Leo’s reign was incredibly chaotic. Militarily, his time in power was disastrous. The Empire of Constantinople was defeated in Lombardia by Prince Aigion of Benevento (c. 887), and Symeon of Bulgaria was so successful against the emperor’s armies between 894 and 897 that Leo VI began pay annual tribute to the Bulgars. Leo’s forces were also pushed out of Sicily (c. 902), and the Muslim naval forces began to dominate the seas. In the Aegean, the Greek-Muslim admiral, Leo of Tripoli, was a nightmare for Constantinople—he captured Thessalonica in 904 and also inflicted a major defeat against the imperial navy in 912 at Samos. In addition to the poor military record of Leo VI, he also had an incredibly tumultuous love life, as well as a long-running feud with the church of Constantinople. Interestingly, the poor relationship between the emperor and his church was often directly related to his private life, especially toward the end of his reign.

The troubled love life of Leo VI began in 882, when the sixteen-year-old future emperor was forced by his father (Emperor Basil I) to marry Theophano Martinakiou. As arranged marriages go, Theophano was the dream of most imperial princes. Not only did she have powerful connections to the Amorian Dynasty, an influential family allied with Leo’s own Macedonian Dynasty, but she was also one of the most beautiful women in the empire—In fact, she was chosen as Leo’s wife after winning a beauty contest in 882. Nevertheless, love cannot be forced, and, despite the two having a daughter together, Leo VI and Theophano never had a particularly warm marital relationship.

Leo’s marriage to Theophano was one of politics, not love, and the young prince was open to a more passionate relationship outside of marriage.  He found this more emotional connection in Zoe Zautsina, a noblewoman of Armenian descent who was reportedly a widow. It is unclear when the clandestine relationship between the married Leo and the widowed Zoe began, but some think it was a contributing factor to Leo’s long period of house arrest from 883 to 886, in the years prior to his father’s death.

Leo VI became emperor after his father, Basil I, died in 886. Once in power, Zoe Zautsina was apparently raised from the shadows to the position of a concubine. Empress Theophano was still alive at the time, and she reportedly was kept well informed about her husband’s affair. Yet, she seemingly sympathized with her husband, or at least kept a dignified demeanor despite Leo’s wandering attentions. Of Theophano’s attitude, the historian, John Skylitzes (c. 11th century), wrote, “For her part, she saw and heard everything that was going on but did not in the least allow herself to give way to the passion of jealousy” (Synopsis historion, chapter 7, section 3). Unfortunately, Empress Theophano fell ill and died around 896 or 897. Interestingly, Leo VI may have been gaining a new appreciation of his wife at the time of her death—the emperor successfully pressured the clergy of Constantinople into naming his late empress a saint.

After the death of Theophano, Leo VI was finally able to marry his mistress, Zoe Zautsina. The marriage occurred around 898, yet their long-delayed union was tragically short. Empress Zoe Zautsina reportedly lived only a year and eight months after the marriage, placing her death around 899 or 900. They had one daughter together, Anna, who was reportedly born well before Leo and Zoe were officially married. Although Emperor Leo VI doted over Zoe Zautsina, many of his courtiers and clergymen thought she was distasteful. As her burial was being prepared, someone allegedly vandalized Zoe’s sarcophagus with a distasteful reference to Psalm 137:8; John Skylitzes wrote, “When the sarcophagus in which her body was to be laid was being prepared, they found an incised inscription which read: ‘Daughter of Babylon, wasted with misery’” (Synopsis historion, chapter 7, section 16).

With the death of Zoe Zautsina, Emperor Leo VI faced an ecclesiastical and political problem. The church of Constantinople only condoned a man to marry twice—this was a problem for Leo because the children he had with Theophano and Zoe Zautsina were all daughters. If the church had its way, Leo VI would die without an heir since the emperor’s daughters could not inherit the empire. There were also ceremonies that required someone to play the role of the empress, so Leo VI named the young Anna, daughter of Zoe Zautsina, as his symbolic empress while he planned his next move.

It did not take long for Emperor Leo VI to make his decision. To the protest of the clergy, Leo married a woman named Eudokia Biane around the year 900. Yet tragedy struck again, and Empress Eudokia died of childbirth complications in 901. The newborn baby, a boy named Basil, survived the birth, but he unfortunately died a few days later. After the tragic deaths of Eudokia and Basil, the public duties of empress were once more carried out by Anna.

Although young Anna would continue to play out the role of empress in public for years to come, Emperor Leo soon found a new mistress. Her name was Zoe Karbonopsina, or Zoe ‘of the coal-black eyes,’ a woman from a distinguished family. She quickly became something more than just a mistress, but the emperor withheld from her the title of empress. The church of Constantinople was apparently ok with this marital gray-area as long as Zoe Karbonopsina was not made Leo’s official wife and empress. Yet, the precarious balance between the emperor and the religious Patriarch of Constantinople broke in 905, when Zoe Karbonopsina gave birth to a son named Constantine VII. With a male heir finally born, Emperor Leo VI scrambled to strengthen the boy’s status. First, Leo had his brother, Alexander, become the boy’s godfather. Next, Leo put plans in motion to elevate Zoe Karbonopsina to the rank of a full-fledged empress, which would further legitimize young Constantine’s claim to the throne.

When Emperor Leo VI married Zoe Karbonopsina in April, 906, and declared her to be his empress (finally relieving Anna of her ceremonial duty), it ignited an odd showdown in Constantinople, known as the Tetragamy affair. Leo’s third marriage to Eudokia had been scorned, but begrudgingly accepted. His fourth marriage to Zoe Karbonopsina, however, was considered pure scandal. In fact, after the fourth marriage, Patriarch Nicholas of Constantinople and other clergymen banned Leo VI from entering church on at least two occasions—at the Christmas service of 906 and the Epiphany service of 907. Later in 907, however, Leo VI was able to have a much more friendly churchman, named Euthymios, placed at the head of the church in Constantinople.

Zoe Karbonopsina would remain Leo’s empress until the emperor’s death in 912.  After Leo VI, power momentarily passed to his brother, Alexander. During Alexander’s reign, the late Leo’s allied patriarch, Euthymios, was kicked out of Constantinople (and was given a physical beating by his fellow clergymen) and was sent into exile—Nicholas was then restored as Patriarch of Constantinople. Alexander also systematically began stripping power from other allies of the late Leo VI (including Empress Zoe), but Alexander died in 913 and power returned to Constantine VII, the son of Leo VI and Zoe Karbonopsina.

Written by C. Keith Hansley.

Picture Attribution: (Depiction of Leo VI from the Hagia Sophia, photographed by José Luiz Bernardes Ribeiro and licensed Creative Commons 3.0).

Sources:

• John Skylitzes. A Synopsis of Byzantine History: 811-1057, translated by John Wortley. Original text c. 11th or early 12th century. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
• https://www.britannica.com/biography/Leo-VI-Byzantine-emperor 
• https://www.ancient.eu/Leo_VI/ 
• https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/leo-vi-byzantine-emperor  

Irish Hermit Monks Were Said To Have Inhabited Iceland Before Scandinavian Settlers

Several Irish Christian anchorites (holy-men seeking seclusion from society) reportedly discovered and lived in Iceland before the arrival of pagan settlers from Scandinavia. As questions like “which nation arrived first?” and “which religion was here first?” can inspire nationalistic and theological biases, the existence of such anchorites on Iceland remains hotly debated to this day. Some scholars want to entirely disregard written sources about the Irish anchorites in Iceland until archaeological evidence is found. Other scholars take a more literalist approach and want to blindly believe written records unless archaeology proves the sources wrong. Here, however, we will take a neutral stance and present the earliest written evidence behind the idea that Irish anchorites were present on Iceland, doing this simply for public awareness and intellectual entertainment—the metaphorical “food for thought.”

It is believed that the earliest person to claim that Irish hermits had set up camp in Iceland was the Irish monk, Dicuil, who published a text called Concerning the Measurement of the World in the year 825. In the work, Dicuil claimed that three Irish anchorites sailed to the mysterious island of “Thule” around 795. The so-called island of Thule has a history stretching back to the 4th century BCE, when the Greek explorer, Pytheas, found a large landmass (which he named Thule) after having sailed for nearly a week out into the sea off the northern coast of the British Isles. The identity of Pytheas’ Thule is still debated—many believe the explorer found Iceland, yet others think he may have reached Norway, instead.

It is unsurprising that we are not in agreement on the location of Thule, as even the ancients did not seem to know exactly where to find Pytheas’ Thule. By the time Julius Agricola was the Roman governor in Britannia (r. 77-84 CE), his fleet apparently believed Shetland was Thule. With multiple islands being called Thule by various authors, modern scholars have a difficult task of using the geographical description and latitude information to differentiate the regions. In the case of the 9th-century monk, Dicuil, his description of Thule has convinced many that he was referring to Iceland. The renowned Icelandic scholar and translator, Hermann Pálsson made mention of Dicuil in the introduction of his translation of The Book of Settlements. On Dicuil’s Thule, Hermann Pálsson confidently wrote, “The latitude he assigns to ‘Thule’ makes it certain that this must have been Iceland” (Pálsson, Landnámabók introduction, 1972, reprint 2006).

Another source from outside of Iceland is the Historia Norvegiae (History of Norway), an anonymous work that is believed to have been written in the 12th century. In that text, monkish figures called “Papae” were said to have lived on islands scattered around the British Isles before the arrival of Norse settlers. The anonymous author explained the title given to the religious figures by stating, “the Papae have been named from their white robes, which they wore like priests; whence priests are all called papae in the Teutonic tongue” (trans. A. O. Anderson, Early Sources of Scottish History, vol. I, 330-2). The author of the Historia Norvegiae did not specifically mention Iceland as a destination of these so-called papae, yet if they were sailing to places such as the Orkney Islands, who is to say that they did not keep sailing farther out.

Although the Historia Norvegiae did not connect the Papae to Iceland, another 12th-century writer did make that connection. Ari Thorgilsson the Learned (c. 1068-1148) was the first known historian of Iceland to write in the Icelandic vernacular and he claimed that when Norwegian settlers first arrived in Iceland, they found a few Irish monks already present on the island. This claim was first written in Ari’s text, the Book of Icelanders (Islendingabók). The assertion was later repeated in the Book of Settlements (Landnámabók), of which Ari the Learned is thought to have been a major contributor or original author. The Book of Settlements became a generational affair, with numerous versions being produced over the centuries and additional information included in each new edition.

There are five existent versions of the Book of Settlements, the oldest of which is the Stulubók (produced c. 1275-1280). The Stulubók and the Islendingabók have a nearly identical passage about the existence of Irish monks in Iceland before the arrival of Scandinavian settlers. Sturla Thordarson, the author of the Sturlubók, wrote, “before Iceland was settled from Norway there were other people there, called Papar by the Norwegians. They were Christians and were thought to have come overseas from the west, because people found Irish books, bells, croziers, and lots of other things, so it was clear they must have been Irish” (Sturlubók, chapter 1, trans. Hermann Pálsson, 1976, 2006). Ari Thorgilsson’s earlier account matched that of Sturla Thordarson except that Ari also claimed that the Christian monks left Iceland after the arrival of the Norse settlers. Ari the Learned was also slightly less committal to the monks’ origin—whereas Sturla claimed it was “clear” that the monks were Irish, Ari wrote “one could perceive” the monks of having an Irish origin based off of the evidence left behind (the books, bells, croziers, etc…). Although the Book of Settlements and the Book of Icelanders both mention Christian relics being left behind by the monks, no convincing archaeological remains of such pre-settlement items (or of the monks who left them there) has yet been discovered on Iceland.

In addition to the lack of physical evidence, some have questioned the truthfulness of Ari the Learned on the claim of Irish monks in Iceland because of Ari’s close connections to the See of Skalholt in Christianized Iceland. Like most medieval scholars, Ari received much of his education through the church, and two of his greatest patrons were the bishops, Thorlak Runolfsson of Skalholt and Ketil Thorsteinsson of Holar. Nevertheless, the question of whether or not Ari the Learned and other Christian scholars in Iceland would lie about the pre-settlement Irish monks is a debate of opinion, not fact. As of now, with no archaeological evidence to prove or disprove the claims, historians can only fall back on the stereotypical government response—we can neither confirm nor deny the existence of Irish monks in Iceland before the arrival of Norse settlers. Yet, although the existence of the monks cannot be confirmed, a majority of the historical community still seems to give Ari Thorgilsson and his successors the benefit of the doubt on their claim that Irish monks were present on Iceland before the time of settlement.

Written by C. Keith Hansley.

Public Domain: (An image from the tale of Saint Brendan, published by the Franciscan Sisters of the Perpetual Adoration (La Crosse, Wis.), c. early 1900s, [Public Domain] via Creative Commons)

Sources:

• The Book of Settlements (Sturlubók version) translated by Hermann Pálsson and Paul Edwards. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 1972, 2006. 
• http://www.paparproject.org.uk/introduction.html#6 
• https://www.britannica.com/biography/Dicuil 
• http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Gazetteer/People/Dicuil/Britannica_1911*.html 
• https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ari-Thorgilsson-the-Learned 
• https://www.britannica.com/place/Iceland/Government-and-society#ref10088 
• https://www.historyireland.com/pre-norman-history/the-arctic-irish-fact-or-fiction/ 
• https://www.britannica.com/biography/Pytheas  

Emperor Wu And His Spirit Mistress

Emperor Wu (r. 141-87 BCE) of China was said to have shown great respect to an interesting deity known as the Spirit Mistress. The interactions of the emperor and the spirit were documented by Sima Qian (c. 145-90 BCE), the Grand Historian and palace secretary of Emperor Wu. Sima Qian’s passage about the Spirit Mistress appears in his “Treatise on the Feng and Shan Sacrifices” (Shi Ji 28), which purports to be a text on the ceremonial rites performed by China’s mythical/folkloric sage rulers, but really expands to be a text on sacrifices, mysticism, religion and miscellaneous supernatural topics.

According to folklore recorded by Sima Qian, the Spirit Mistress came into being after an unnamed woman from Changling died during childbirth. Although the woman’s name was unknown, Sima Qian did provide a name for her brother—Wanruo. The spirit, following her unfortunate death, traveled to the home of her brother. There, the spirit drew major attention to herself by supernaturally possessing Wanruo’s wife. Wanruo reacted to the spiritual possession in an interesting way—he became the spirit’s first worshipper and, perhaps, her first priest. Wanruo, or possibly his possessed wife, invited neighbors to come see the spirit and then neighbors brought their friends, exposing more and more people to the new spiritual being. Before long, the so-called Spirit Mistress became the talk of the town and soon came to be thought of as more of a deity than just a simple ghost.

The Spirit Mistress predated the reign of Emperor Wu, for the emperor’s maternal grandmother, Lady Pingyuan, had reportedly been an avid worshipper of the Spirit Mistress before the emperor was placed on the imperial throne. Nevertheless, it was Emperor Wu who really brought the Spirit Mistress to prominence. After ascending to the throne, the emperor sent agents to Changling (or wherever the spirit had moved), and somehow lured, guided or simply invited the Spirit Mistress to relocate to the Imperial Capital Area. The Spirit Mistress reportedly accepted the offer and was housed with honor in the Tishi Tower at Shanglin Park, located southwest of the capital city, Chang’an. By the time the Spirit Mistress was moved to the tower, she reportedly no longer was possessing a human body and instead inhabited her new home in an invisible ghostly state—Sima Qian wrote, “It was said that one could hear the words spoken by the spirit but could not see her form” (Shi Ji 28).

Sometime later, a man from Youshui named Fa Gen informed Emperor Wu that there was a skilled shamaness living in the province of Shang. This woman, Fa Gen claimed, could commune with spirits and was possessed by ghosts regularly. Emperor Wu reportedly retrieved the shamaness and housed her in the Palace of Sweet Springs, which was a place he recently had constructed for the worship of all spirits.

The shamaness quickly became the chosen spokeswoman of the Spirit Mistress, who apparently moved from the Tishi Tower to be with the shamaness in the Palace of Sweet Springs. This partnership between the Spirit Mistress and the shamaness occurred before the year 118 BCE, at which point Emperor Wu fell ill. He consulted the Spirit Mistress (through the shamaness) about his health, and when he subsequently recovered from his illness, Emperor Wu was convinced that the Spirit Mistress had intervened to improve his health. In thanks, Emperor Wu built for the Spirit Mistress a new home—the Temple of Long Life. This temple was said to have been dedicated specifically for the Spirit Mistress, and with the new temple came more respect and higher rank for the Spirit Mistress in the hierarchy of spirits.

Sima Qian recorded further details about the Spirit Mistress, but the renowned translator Burton Watson warns that anything exceeding the information listed in the preceding paragraphs may have been corrupted over the millennia. Nevertheless, some of the possibly corrupted pieces of information includes that at least one other temple was built for the Spirit Mistress by Emperor Wu and that a group of lesser deities, known as the Great Forbidden Ones, became associated with the spirit and were believed to be her supernatural attendants and helpers. Another possibly corrupted claim of Sima Qian is that Emperor Wu kept a record of all of messages or prophecies delivered by the Spirit Mistress’ mediums, but any such text (if it existed) has been lost.

Written by C. Keith Hansley

Picture Attribution: (Painting of Hongxian (紅線), attributed to He Dazi, from his collection called "Gathering Gems of Beauty", [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).

Sources:

• The Records of the Grand Historian (Shi ji) by Sima Qian, translated by Burton Watson. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993.

The Tale Of Breeches-Aud

The story of Breeches-Aud is one of the more memorable tales in the Icelandic Laxdæla saga, a 13th-century book filled with strong female characters that were loosely inspired by women said to have lived in the 9th, 10th, and 11th centuries. Although the exploits of many people described in the sagas were embellished or even invented, the core details (genealogy, settlement locations, poetic evidence etc.) were deemed to have enough truth that later Medieval Icelanders, such as the chieftain Snorri Sturluson (c. 1179-1241), proudly and confidently traced their ancestry back to characters in the sagas. Whether or not the sagas were histories with creative license, historical fictions or pure folklore, they were feats of impressive storytelling and, as Icelandic stories go, the tale of Breeches-Aud was one of the more unique narratives.

According to the Laxdæla saga, Aud lived with her husband, Thord Ingunnarson, on a farmstead called Hol in 10th-century Iceland. Aud eventually became a bold woman of action, but in her first scene in the saga she is portrayed in an extremely downgrading light. Poor Aud was horribly described as “a woman who was neither good-looking nor exceptional in other ways, and Thord had little affection for her” (Laxdæla saga, chapter 32). Her husband, the prominent lawyer, Thord Ingunnarson, received much better treatment in his introduction: “Thord was a fine, strapping figure of a man, highly capable, and often involved in lawsuits” (Laxdæla saga, chapter 32).

Thord Ingunnarson’s law work brought him into contact with one of the central figures of the Laxdæla saga—Gudrun Osvifsdottir. Her father had forced her to marry a man named Thorvald Halldorsson when she was only fifteen years old. After two unhappy years of marriage, Gudrun decided to divorce her husband following an incident where Thorvald slapped her across the face. Before she had made her decision to separate from Thorvald, Gudrun had befriended Thord Ingunnarson, and now, she used his knowledge of Icelandic law to help her case. With her friend’s help, Gudrun successfully divorced Thorvald Halldorsson, and she even received half of his property when they split up.

Thord Ingunnarson remained friendly with Gudrun after her divorce, but he wanted to be more than friends. He was unhappy with his current wife, Aud, and quickly fell for the young Gudrun, who was described as “the most beautiful woman ever to have grown up in Iceland, and no less clever than she was good-looking” (Laxdæla saga, chapter 32). Gudrun apparently returned his affection and helped Thord search for a way to extricate himself from his unfulfilling marriage.

According to the Laxdæla saga, Thord and Gudrun were traveling to the Althing, Iceland’s national assembly, when the pair decided on what tactic to use against Thord’s wife. Gudrun claimed that if Aud was accused of cross-dressing like a man and witnesses were found to support the claim, no one would object to Thord filing for divorce. It was also Gudrun, who supposedly first proposed the catchy nickname, Breeches-Aud. Although Thord Ingunnarson responded to Gudrun’s plan by musing that he had never seen his wife dress like a man and similarly had never heard her be called Breeches-Aud, he decided to go with the ploy, anyway. When Thord reached the Althing, “He named witnesses and announced he was divorcing Aud on the grounds that she had taken to wearing breeches with a codpiece like a masculine woman” (Laxdæla saga, chapter 32). The announcement shocked, surprised and enraged Aud’s brothers, who were in the assembly at the time. It was through these siblings, Thorkel Pup and Knut, that the now infamous Breeches-Aud learned of her divorce. Thord did not immediately go back to Hol, but instead traveled to the estate of Gudrun’s father in Laugar. A posse did arrive, however, to seize some cattle from Aud’s farm in Hol as Thord’s share in the divorce, and, as soon as the animals reached Laugar, Thord and Gudrun became engaged, with their marriage set at the end of the summer.

Although Thord was ready to forget about his former wife, Breeches-Aud and her brothers were in no way willing to forgive and forget Thord. Thorkel Pup and Knut tried to rally their neighbors and relatives to support their mistreated sister, but Gudrun’s plan to assassinate the character of Aud had worked like a charm, and consequently, everyone was hesitant to give public support to Breeches-Aud. With no allies to be found, Thorkel Pup and Knut gave up hope of finding justice in court or battle. Breeches-Aud, however, did not stop her planning.

In the summertime, ewes were brought out to pasture and the inhabitants of the various Icelandic farmsteads that were responsible for the animals would stay in shielings (pasture huts) to keep watch over their respective flocks. The people of Hol pastured their ewes in Hvammsdal and Aud was one of the people staying in a shieling. Thord and Gudrun’s community from Laugar was pasturing its animals in Lambadal, just southwest of Aud’s location. Using farmhands as spies, Aud gathered information about her former husband. The informants reported back that almost everyone from Laugar was in the pasturelands, including Gudrun. Thord Ingunnarson, however, was not with the others. He was believed to be back at Laugar helping Gudrun’s father build a new hall.

Hearing that Thord would only be accompanied by his aging father-in-law during the night, Breeches-Aud decided that now was the time to strike back against her ex-husband. She invited only one other person to join her plot—a loyal shepherd. At the end of the day, after the exhausted herdsmen had gone to sleep, Breeches-Aud made her move. She even dressed for the occasion: “shortly before sundown Aud mounted her horse, dressed in breeches, to be sure” (Laxdæla saga, chapter 35). Armed with a sword and wearing pants “like a masculine woman,” Breeches-Aud and the loyal shepherd rode through the night to Laugur. There, just as Aud’s informants had predicted, Thord Ingunnarson was sleeping alone, with only his father-in-law nearby in another room of the home.

Breeches-Aud left the horses in the care of the shepherd and then crept, with sword brandished, toward the house. The door was not locked and she easily slipped inside the hall. Before long, she found the room where Thord was in a deep sleep. He did not wake up as his scorned ex-wife tiptoed into the room. He did not even awaken when she prodded him, presumably to hear why he had done what he did, or simply to look into his eyes while she attacked. She did not achieve either of those possible goals, for Thord merely rolled over on his left side in response to the poking.

Not wasting any more time, Breeches-Aud raised her sword to mete out vengeance on her ex-husband for his betrayal and the public humiliation that he had made her suffer. Summoning all of her rage, Aud chopped down with everything she had. In its single arc, the sword cut deep into Thord’s right arm and even sliced his pectorals before the blade lodged itself firmly into the wooden bed frame. As Thord howled in pain, Breeches-Aud escaped into the night. Thord was too wounded to chase after her, and by the time his father-in-law rushed into the room, Aud had already disappeared.

Thord Ingunnarson miraculously survived his wounds. His right arm had taken the bulk of the blow, crippling it for the rest of his life, but the cuts on his chest were minor flesh wounds that healed quickly. At first, because of the breeches, Thord thought his assailant was a man. Yet, after thinking it over, he came to suspect it was Aud. In an interesting ending to the story, Thord sympathized with his ex-wife and, although he was an accomplished lawyer, he decided not to press charges. When explaining his reasoning to his father-in-law, Thord simply said, “what Aud had done was only evening the score” (Laxdæla saga, chapter 35).

Written by C. Keith Hansley.

Picture Attribution: (Image of the Valkyrie, Brunnhild, painted by Arthur Rackham (1867–1939), [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).

Sources:

• The Saga of the People of Laxardal and Bolli Bollason’s Tale, by an anonymous 13th-century Icelander and translated by Keneva Kunz. New York: Penguin Classics, 2008.