The Jomsvikings were a semi-legendary and highly selective military fraternity in the tenth and eleventh centuries, famed for their fearlessness. They were headquartered in Jomsborg; we don't know exactly where that is, but it was somewhere on the southern coast of the Baltic Sea, often thought to be near modern-day Wolin in Poland. They were mercenaries selling the services of their well-organized navy at the highest prices. The order began its decline in the 980s when they were on the losing end of some very disastrous battles in the tug-of-war struggle for power between Norway and Denmark. One of these battles was the Battle of Hjǫrungavágr, which is significant for Scandinavian literature, because quite a few Icelanders fought on the Norwegian side against the Danes and the Jomsvikings, and then went back to tell and write stories about it, several of which were preserved. One of these is the next fortnightly book: The Saga of the Jomsvikings, which focuses on their founding and then on the Battle of Hjǫrungavágr.
