People say they love the humor in my book Burden to Bear. It’s not a comedy, but there is humor in the book, and it makes people chuckle enough that some have taken notice. A few snippets from my Goodreads reviews:
- “There is a Pratchett-type feel to the first half of this book; but I found this to be funnier than Pratchett” -Ant
- “An excellent adventure with doses of good humor“ -Bob
- “‘Shitstorm’ is the funniest thing I’ve read yet in a viking-related book.’ -Rowdy Geirsson
- “I chuckled many times and even cracked up at other times.” -Liam
- “At times laugh out loud funny” -Scott Mist
Like the fight scenes (also getting a lot of reviewer attention), the humorous bits help the keep the momentum of the story going. But I didn’t want to make the book non-stop laughs any more than I wanted it to be non-stop violence.
So yeah, humor. It’s a sense of humor I grew up to value. And it overlaps a lot with the sense of humor you’ll find in Norse myths and sagas.
“Norse humor?” You may say. “Weren’t they all super serious?”
It’s not like vikings made jokes or stooped so low as to – gasp – VULGARITY!
One of the Norse myths sees Loki taunting the gods. He accuses Freyja of having sex with her brother and then farting. He then accuses Njord of having some giantesses piss into his mouth. So I’ll let you be the judge of whether the Norse looked down on vulgarity or thoroughly enjoyed it.
Wait, no I won’t.
If you’ve read a few Norse sagas, you’ve encountered a few jokes. They’re generally quite dark and deadpan, maybe even easy to miss. (Except when they involve flatulent incest and face-pissing, I guess.) That sense of humor might seem overly subtle in most cases. But the humor is there, and it’s pretty consistent.
Here are nine virtues of Norse humor as I see them, and as I think about them in my writing. Why nine? Because nine is so NORSE that we make everything NINE! Also it just worked out that way.
- Concise
If you’re going to talk some shit, say it in the most compact way possible. Easier for people to remember the sick burns you laid down. Reduces the chance for your flow getting interrupted by a fist or a flying axe. - Vulgar
My protagonist Ansgar uses vulgar witticisms often, usually in the context of at least one of the other virtues here. Most often used in conjunction with . . . - Ambiguous
What’s Old Norse for double entendre? A statement with two meanings grabs you by the brain and forces you to think, especially if one of those meanings could be insulting. That’s literal language magic as your enemy has to calculate what you meant, or might have meant, and how they need to respond. - Threatening
Sometimes this is the threat of what is said going from joke to insult, but often it’s just a straight up physical threat. In Arrow-Odd’s Saga, Odd hears this sort of thing from some pissed-off Bjarmians. They don’t make explicit threats. They just want to “hold a market” and “exchange steel for silver.” As in, chop up Odd and his friends with their weapons to take back the silver Odd just stole from them. - Obscure
Use references that are not always easy to parse. The more esoteric the better. I don’t do this to the same extent those Norse poets did because it would be torture for the reader. Examples: “Whale-road” is a pretty easy kenning for “ocean.” I am not going to write “the tailfin-feathered prophesying terns of the long nets” as a kenning for “fish.” Yes, that’s a real one from a real saga. And that is not nearly as obscure as these guys got, so it’s sometimes hard to figure “Was this a joke?” Obscurity is the quality I use least. - Self-Deprecating
Only used when involving violence or some sort of physical pain, the extent of which determines the limits of the self-deprecation allowed. Example: Somebody chopped off Bui’s lower jaw. His response: “I guess I’m less kissable now.” There is no explanation about how he says this with no lower jaw, and I don’t need one. - Defiant
Nothing is funnier than denying your enemy victory when they don’t see it coming until it’s too late. Or if they have you for certain, nothing prevents their total victory better than you going to the grave with a joke on your lips. Bui’s statement? Self-deprecating. But his next action is pure defiance: Knowing he’s a dead man, he grabs his gold and jumps overboard to prevent his enemies from obtaining his treasure. Get that last laugh! - Laconic
Being laconic has the quality of showing indifference when that not the case. It reasserts self-control, which is among the most highly-prized qualities of Norseness. My characters Innstein and Utstein are, infuriating to their commander at times, incredibly laconic. The more serious the situation, the less serious they seem to be. - Cruel or hard-hearted
The Norse found violence funny. Violence to others, violence to themselves. I’m trying to think of a single example of a saga character asking a friend something like “Oh no, are you okay?” I don’t think such a scene exists. The appropriate line if your friend just cut his thumb off accidentally and is bleeding would be something like “I can’t wait to see how you tie your shoes now.”
Am I a subject matter expert to lay any of this down? No. I’m just a dude who knows how to read the work of scholars who know what they’re talking about.
Here are a few subject matter experts with videos on the subject if you want to hear it direct from them:
- Dr. Tom Shippey on the viking “Bad Sense of Humor”
- Dr. Jackson Crawford on Humor in Old Norse
- ‘Viking Humor’ by Dr. Hannah Burro
I’ve listed these videos from shortest to longest, but the best single treatment of this subject is in Dr. Shippey’s book Laughing Shall I Die: Lives and Deaths of the Great Vikings.
You should read it. Right after you read Burden to Bear.
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