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42 The Viking Age in Denmark

being in the same position as Toke\ Gorm’s son. Only, it is perhaps less elear whether the dead persons were scttled at Hedeby. At this time runestones are complctely absent from the Jelling area, suc-cession being no longer a problem here. To the north in Jylland a cluster occurs at the city of Arhus, on the east coast (Figs 7 A and 8 A). Southern connections are given by a stone with the word ‘Hedeby’ on it - perhaps another fallen warrior from the siege?⁴⁸ A second stone is for a facile and ‘very good' dreng, who died of‘men most non-knave’ (but no geographical locality is given), and who ‘had ship’ together with a named person, possibly the successor to the ownership.⁴⁹ A third monument from the city of Arhus is also set up for a facile, who died . . . ‘when kings fought’.⁵⁰ To the west of the city is a text apparently containing a geographical locality and raised for a high-ranking follower, perhaps like a facile in terms of inheritance. A brother who died in the east is commemorated by a ‘smed’ (craftsman) of a lord;⁵¹ and a manager of an estate (‘landhyrde’) belonging to a person with the surnamc ‘Norwegian’, also in the Arhus cluster, is commemorated by his kinsmen.⁵² Other family-stones are few: one w^ras raised for a father and one for a małe relative, not mentioned as father or as son. Finally, an interesting monument is set up by a craftsman (smed) for the person who liberated him from slavery ‘and gave him gold’ (or perhaps ‘lineage’) (cf. Chapter 6 E). The same ‘smed’ erected a monument to a brother of the landmen from the city of Lund, but this stone stands in the north-eastern Jylland cluster, to which we shall return.⁵³

In spite of the variations, the Arhus group is parallel to the Lund cluster (and to the Hedeby stones) in terms of the dreng-faclle, and brother and ‘died’ combinations. We also lack the dreng-family type and the thegns, etc.

To the north of the Gudena river as far as the Limfjord there exists a belt of stones similar, not surprisingly, in sonie w^rays to the Southern Skane cluster. It includes one dreng, who is a brother, and two who are sons, and we lack the expression from the urban clusters ‘he died’ and a geographical locality. Of a deceased facile there is only one example, and in this case it is combined with dreng. There are a number of thegns and other lords, including a high-ranking ‘man of tidings’ (royal advisor?), two ships’ captains and a manager of land (literally ‘land-herds-man’), who, like the smed (craftsman) above, is raising the stone though.⁵⁴

In the previous Jelling period the stones of this area contained a landmand, two thegns, a single facile and in addition a son who ‘died’ in 0resund.⁵⁵ This resembles the scatter we have just described, and with a possible time-overlap in mind it is safc to say that we cannot depict any temporal difference. We lack elear indications of a settlcment of active younger warriors like, for cxample, the Southern Skane west sub-cluster, possibly bccause of the status of north-castern Jylland as an ‘old’ provincc in the Jelling State. Looking at the family terms of both the Jelling and the ‘After Jelling’ type we also have a quite even scatter of fathers, brothers, sons, etc., throughout the area. This does not imply that north Jylland and south Skane were differently organised, only that family inheritance played a stronger role in Jylland. Two of the four drengs are sons, and one of these is remembered by the mother, who could not take over warrior duties.⁵⁶ Moreover the thegns and drengs seem to be scattered quite evenly throughout the cluster; at any ratę we cannot discern any significant differences for this group alone. On the other hand, there is a generał tendency for the drengs to be closer to towns than the thegns; the latter are missing from the clusters around Lund, Hedeby and Arhus, while in north-eastern Jylland and Southern Skane they are concentrated in the farthest, and most inland, area to the north and east, where drengs are noticeably lacking. In addition, the thegns are also farther from each other, as if they had larger estates than the drengs. The dreng-lands were close to the coasts and cities. The obligations of a dreng -and of other similar persons of his social status - were characterised by mobility, chiefly comprising manning and supplying the fleet; this brought the dreng companionship with other people besides his own family; it also, of course, took him abroad, where he might dic, and yet gave him, like the thegn, a substantial grant of land which eventually fell fully to his family.

In addition to the clusters, only a few solitary stones occur. Of the morę interesting are two from Thy in the north-westernmost part of Jylland, mentioning housecarls.⁵⁷ The same woman raised a stone over her husband who was the housecarl of Finulv, and yet another over a husband, or father, who was also someone’s housecarl and had been killcd. In these examples we seem to mect the settled, and probably ‘retired’, housecarls, their earlier occupation being deemed a designation of honour, although it may also have carried a grant of land. Finulv is comparablc to King Sven and the Toke, CornTs son, of the Hallestad stones in Skane.⁵⁸ He is perhaps identical with the father of a woman w^rho in north-eas tern Jylland set up a monument (with a curse against any possible destroyer of the stone) for an Odinkar, the honourable and lord-faithful,⁵⁹ also a name from the royal lineages.

From the island of Lolland comes a father, ‘the Jutlander’, and thegn, a usual combination in the far countryside.⁶⁰ Morę sur-prisingly, perhaps, is a brother, who ‘died’ (on Gotland?), a combination we otherwise have only from urban clusters, on a stone from the island of Falster.*⁵¹ The text, however, shows a connection in its dialect with the Skane stones, and the dead brother may have belonged to the settlement there as well.

On the many, and late, Bomholm runestones, set out in a con-temporary ‘Swedish’ style, we meet drengs and a thegn, and even a bonde.⁶² The ‘good’ bondc is a father; of the ‘good' thegn we notę only