Nid: the Norse insult that could get you killed

We’re closing in on the first draft of Kingmaker, the sixth and final book in the Viking Ventures series. Since we’re deep in the Viking age right now, here’s a small tidbit that has been on my mind lately.

A word with teeth

The Vikings had a concept called nid, a term for cowardice or unmanliness that was considered one of the worst insults you could level at a man. Being called niding was so serious that it could legally justify a duel.

In fact, insulting someone’s courage wasn’t just socially damaging. It had real legal consequences. The Norse legal codes actually distinguished between different types of insults and prescribed different responses to each. Some words were bad enough that killing the man who said them was considered justified.

Sit with that for a moment. In a world with no police and no courtroom as we’d understand it, your reputation was a form of security. A man who let an accusation of cowardice stand unanswered had, in a very practical sense, lost something he might never get back. The law didn’t just permit him to respond. In some cases it expected him to.

Which puts a certain spin on things

All of which puts a certain spin on Ulv’s little speech in Kingmaker, now that I think about it.

If you’ve read A Viking’s CV, you’ll know the moment I mean. Ulv, our humble diplomat, is called a whelp in front of the men, and for once he doesn’t let it pass. He sets the record straight. At the time I wrote it as a man defending his record. Reading it again with nid in mind, it’s something a little sharper than that. He isn’t just correcting the facts. He’s answering an insult that a Norseman couldn’t afford to swallow.

It’s the kind of thing that makes writing in this world such a pleasure. The characters sit around a fire arguing about honour and loyalty, and behind the argument is a whole legal and social order where a single word could be a matter of life and death. Get the history right and the drama takes care of itself.

You can meet Ulv at the beginning of his story in Viking, the first book in the series.