Old age, its honour and its toil

Angus MacInnes as Tostig in Vikings Season 1.

Old age hath yet his honor and his toil.                      

Death closes all; but something ere the end,             

Some work of noble note, may yet be done,

Not unbecoming men that strove with gods.

Ulysses, Alfred Lord Tennyson

Of all the short-lived characters there have been in about seventy episodes of Vikings so far, there is no doubt who my favourite is: Tostig.

An old man (How old? Sixty? ) who swears loyalty to Ragnar just after he has killed Earl Haraldson. He swears on his sacred rings, proof that there was a time when he was a good warrior who earned praise from his lord.

Arm rings (of silver, sometimes of gold) were given when one first swore loyalty to a lord, but after that first one more could come in reward for good fighting and brave deeds. They were sacred, and so was any oath sworn by them.

Valhalla,

Ancient Scandinavia was no country for old men, and that was probably true generally speaking, of all archaic, pre-Christian Germanic societies. Old people had failed their mission in life, i.e. a brave death which would earn them a place in the halls of the gods. Old people would die straw deaths, and end up in the house of Hell. They wouldn’t be with their friends and kinsmen, feasting with the gods.

By the way, the only known culture in which the  burials of old men are poorer than those of younger people is the  Viking culture.

In Vikings Tostig wishes for an opportunity  to get back to the shieldwall, so  he would finally leave this world honourably. In the real world, or in a realistic fictional one, you could not hope for a dragon conveniently close like the one Beowulf  faced in his last feat. And while the younger generation may laugh at first, listening to his tale sobers them up. He is a survivor, alone and bereft. He will be granted his wish.

By the way, isn’t it crazy that among his previous roles  Mr MacInnes had been in the first Star Wars film?

Spell check when I can

Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to the photo.

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