Anglo-Saxon England in Icelandic Medieval Texts 9781442670860

Table of contents :
Contents
Introduction
1. Old English and Old Norse: The Evidence of Gunnlaugs saga, Fyrsta málfræðiritgerðin, and Hauksbók
2. Old English and Old Norse: The Evidence of Other Sources
3. General Knowledge and Attitudes about Anglo-Saxon England and Its Customs
4. History – Heimskringla, Ágrip af Nóregskonunga sǫgum, Fagrskinna, Knýtlinga saga, and Morkinskinna: From Haraldr Fair-hair to the Sons of Cnut
5. History – Heimskringla, Ágrip af Nóregskonunga sǫgum, Fagrskinna, Knýtlinga saga, and Morkinskinna: From Magnús the Good to Eysteinn Haraldsson
6. History – Egils saga
7. History – Breta sögur, Saga Ósvalds konúngs hins helga, Dunstanus saga, and Jatvarðar saga
8. Kings and Courts
9. The Hero and His Deeds
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

Anglo-Saxon England in Icelandic Medieval Texts

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Anglo-Saxon England in Icelandic Medieval Texts

Magnús Fjalldal

U N I V E R S I T Y O F TO R O N TO P R E S S Toronto Buffalo London

www.utppublishing.com © University of Toronto Press Incorporated 2005 Toronto Buffalo London Printed in Canada ISBN 0-8020-3837-9

Printed on acid-free paper

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Fjalldal, Magnús Anglo-Saxon England in Icelandic medieval texts / Magnús Fjalldal. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8020-3837-9 1. Old Norse literature – History and criticism. 2. Great Britain – Civilization – 1066–1485 – Sources. 3. Literature, Comparative – Old Norse and English (Old). 4. Literature, Comparative – English (Old) and Old Norse. 5. Great Britain in literature. I. Title. PT7150.F53 2005

8399.6093241

C2005-903286-3

University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its publishing program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council. University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial support for its publishing activities of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP).

Contents

introduction

vii

1 Old English and Old Norse: The Evidence of Gunnlaugs saga, Fyrsta málfræðiritgerðin, and Hauksbók 3 2 Old English and Old Norse: The Evidence of Other Sources 12 3 General Knowledge and Attitudes about Anglo-Saxon England and Its Customs 22 4 History – Heimskringla, Ágrip af Nóregskonunga so¸gum, Fagrskinna, Knýtlinga saga, and Morkinskinna: From Haraldr Fair-hair to the Sons of Cnut 33 5 History – Heimskringla, Ágrip af Nóregskonunga so¸gum, Fagrskinna, Knýtlinga saga, and Morkinskinna: From Magnús the Good to Eysteinn Haraldsson 54 6 History – Egils saga 69 7 History – Breta sögur, Saga Ósvalds kónungs hins helga, Dunstanus saga, and Jatvarðar saga 83 8 Kings and Courts 101 9 The Hero and His Deeds 113 Conclusion 121 notes 125 bibliography index 159

149

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Introduction

Ideally, the kind of book that documented how Anglo-Saxon history is recorded in medieval Icelandic sources would be a large anthology containing all the relevant texts concerning Anglo-Saxon England and a reliable English translation of them. The idea of putting such a book together is not new: it was first suggested about 150 years ago by Eiríkur Magnússon, and envisaged as a five or six volume study.1 The project was too ambitious for nineteenth-century publishers, however, and remains so in the century that has just begun. So, instead of attempting anything of the sort, I have settled for re-telling these legends myself, knowing full well that my account of them is bound to be subjective. In short, the purpose of this book is to survey and assess information about Anglo-Saxon England – its language, history, geography, and culture – that appears in medieval Icelandic texts. A great deal has been written on this subject over the last 150 years, but no comprehensive survey of the Icelandic texts has ever been carried out. My intention in the chapters that follow is mostly to try and provide an overview of what information might have been available – in one form or another – to a late medieval reader in Iceland and to assess how accurate it is in those instances where the truth of the matter can be verified. In my approach no distinction will be made between the different genres of literature: heroic-mythic stories (fornaldarso¸gur), histories of the kings of Norway and Denmark, family sagas, and the shorter þættir will be treated side by side for the information that they yield. This may seem to be a dubious methodology, but as we shall see in the course of my discussion, the legendary fornaldarso¸gur (once called ‘the lying sagas’) are no worse source material than works that profess to be historical. In the early literature on this subject it was generally concluded that Icelandic writers were well informed about Anglo-Saxon England, its history, language, and customs. The first testimony to this effect comes from Jón

viii Introduction

Sigurðsson in 1854 who, in his introduction to the Icelandic Saga Ósvalds konúngs hins helga (The Saga of King Oswald the Saint), discusses the subject at some length. He concludes that Icelandic writers during the Middle Ages had extensive knowledge of Anglo-Saxon England, particularly in respect to its history and literature: We have no reason to doubt that Icelandic writers were well versed concerning legends surrounding the holy King Oswald of Northumbria. The authors of Landnámabók [The Book of Settlement] display familiarity with the writings of Bede, and various traits in Old Icelandic literature suggest extensive knowledge about England, English history and English literature.2

For a time, most other commentators agreed with this confident assessment. Henry G. Leach in his 1921 book Angevin Britain and Scandinavia extensively discussed the very close affinities he felt had existed between Anglo-Saxon England and Scandinavia.3 Writing in the 1930s, A.H. Smith assumed that the English and the Scandinavian Vikings had shared a composite language, Anglo-Scandinavian,4 and, quoting Snorri Sturluson’s famous dictum on the value of skaldic verse as a historical source, he insisted that Norse accounts of events in England were both reliable and accurate.5 In the 1950s J.S. Eysteinsson maintained that Icelanders had great knowledge of Anglo-Saxon England, and he believed that information was disseminated by the English missionaries who are known to have lived and worked in Iceland in the early decades of the eleventh century.6 This presumed knowledge of England and English affairs has drawn praise from many quarters. In a recent article, Geraldine Barnes attempts to show that Icelandic medieval writers were generally well informed about English matters, in contrast with Middle English writers such as Giraldus Cambrensis, who amply displayed his ignorance of Icelandic affairs in his writings.7 It should also be noted that some commentators, Sigurðsson and Leach in particular, assume that knowledge of England and things English was evenly spread throughout the country, accurate, and generated by a genuine desire to relate history. However, many others who investigated the evidence disagreed. English scholars such as E.O.G. Turville-Petre, Sir Frank Stenton, Peter Sawyer, and others have examined the Icelandic literature closely for any light it might shed on the history of Anglo-Saxon England. They have concluded that information derived from the Icelandic sagas and skaldic poetry is either unverifiable or does not tally with English sources.8 Icelandic literary sources, Sir Frank Stenton wrote in 1943, are to ‘be followed with peril for the sequence of events and the imaginative power which keeps them still alive.’9 Still, some scholars have

Introduction ix

refused to accept this view. A few decades ago, it was challenged by A.L. Binns and H.R. Loyn, for example, both of whom made a case in their works for the historical value of the Icelandic materials. Binns even ventured a counter-attack by discussing what he felt to be an exaggerated mistrust of the sagas.10 This view has also been backed recently by Geraldine Barnes, who points out that while wealth and productivity, along with luxury, refined manners, and savoir faire, are the hallmarks of England in the Icelandic sagas, descriptions of the country are on the whole, somewhat idealized. Once we have taken that into account, she concludes, the description of England is essentially accurate in Icelandic writings.11 Helgi Guðmundsson, in his recent book about Irish influence in medieval Iceland, examines Orkneyinga saga, and in the course of his investigation comes to the conclusion that it exhibits solid knowledge of England and English affairs.12 And so the battle between the opposing camps of ‘believers’ and ‘non-believers’ is by no means over. But now to a central question in this debate. Why should thirteenth-century Icelanders have been so interested in the history of a country and a culture that had long ago ceased to exist? Unsurprisingly, this question has already been asked and answered. Henry G. Leach, again in his study Angevin Britain and Scandinavia, claims that the distinguishing trait of Icelandic scholarship during the Middle Ages was its cosmopolitan interest in the history of other nations. To illustrate this point, he quotes the Danish medieval historian Saxo Grammaticus: Nor may the pains of the men of Thule [i.e., Iceland] be blotted in oblivion; for though they lack all that can foster luxury (so naturally barren is their soil), yet they make up for their neediness by their wit, by keeping continually every observance of soberness, and devoting every instant of their lives to perfecting our knowledge of the deeds of foreigners. Indeed, they account it a delight to learn and to consign to remembrance the history of all nations, deeming it as a great glory to set forth the excellences of others as to display their own.13

More recently, Christine Fell has maintained that Icelandic saga authors saw their own history as being so intertwined with the history of Anglo-Saxon England that it was only natural for them to be interested in it, and hence to record it.14 Geraldine Barnes has argued that in Snorri Sturluson’s account of the lives of Norwegian kings in Heimskringla (The Orb of the World), empathy with Anglo-Saxon attitudes is often to be noted, as in the dealings between Eiríkr Blood-axe and King Edmund, who – as the saga tells us – was no friend of the Norwegian intruder. Barnes has also noted that ‘[there is] a general enthusiasm for things English ... [to be] found throughout Old Norse history

x Introduction

and saga,’ and that as one genre replaces another in Icelandic literature, this affects the way in which England is described: ‘As Icelandic saga narrative moves from “historical” to the “romance” mode in the fourteenth century, so does the representation of England.’15 Many scholars have also found a close affinity between the two cultures in the so-called genetically related analogues that English and Icelandic literature are said to share. Old English and Old Norse are also, in many quarters, believed to have been so close linguistically that they were mutually intelligible. The hypothesis that Old Icelandic literary records contain genetically related analogues is ‘not in doubt,’ according to Paul Beekman Taylor,16 and he proceeds to list Sörla saga sterka, Grettis saga, and Hrólfs saga kraka as examples of texts with material analogous and genetically related to Beowulf. Others are prepared to go considerably further. Peter A. Jorgensen has argued that dozens of the fragments that make up the story of Beowulf’s fights against Grendel and his mother were used by later writers, and are to be detected throughout Old Icelandic literature.17 As far as the supposed mutual intelligibility of Old English and Old Norse is concerned, it is generally accepted in the standard handbooks on literary history, both in Iceland and abroad, that at least two Icelandic saga heroes and poets, Gunnlaugr and Egill, travelled to England in the mid-tenth and early eleventh centuries, respectively, and delivered praise poems that were both understood and appreciated by King Athelstan and King Æthelred.18 As we have seen, many scholars are prepared to mine Icelandic materials on a variety of issues and usually do so in the belief that medieval Icelandic writers had the information necessary to be considered factually accurate today. It is therefore worth noting that these same medieval Icelandic writers were not always brimming with confidence in their own work. In the fourteenth century, an unknown Icelandic author set out to write a life of St Edward the Confessor. His work is preserved in two manuscripts, and both tell us of the author’s difficulty in finding material on Edward, and of his determination to write the saga ‘although we know little to say [about his life], because of our ignorance and distant location.’19 The other manuscript, Flateyjarbók, contains the same lament, and adds that the author’s above-mentioned ignorance concerns the state of affairs in England during Edward’s reign.20 Of course this remark might be a conventional apology, but Christine Fell, who is one of the main authorities on Saga hins heilaga Játvarðar, believes ‘it is probably true that the sparsity of the saga’s information on Edward [is] not from the author’s selectivity, but from the limited material available.’21 It should be clear that the subject matter at hand is both extensive and convoluted. What I will attempt to do in subsequent chapters therefore is to exam-

Introduction xi

ine in greater detail these and other opinions concerning the value of Icelandic materials in regard to the relationship between Old English and Old Norse, the history of Anglo-Saxon England, and other issues that relate to the question of how much Icelanders actually knew about the country during the Middle Ages. I will then try to bring out some further issues which I think should be included in this long-lasting and often acrimonious debate over what medieval Icelandic writers knew and did not know about Anglo-Saxon England.

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ANGLO-SAXON ENGLAND IN ICELANDIC MEDIEVAL TEXTS

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1 Old English and Old Norse: The Evidence of Gunnlaugs saga, Fyrsta málfræðiritgerðin, and Hauksbók

Aside from Egils saga, the late thirteenth-century work Gunnlaugs saga ormstungu (The Saga of Gunnlaugr Serpent-Tongue) offers more information about Anglo-Saxon England than any other Icelandic family saga, and thus provides a good starting point in trying to establish what knowledge medieval Icelanders might have had of Old English.1 According to the saga’s chronology, Gunnlaugr is in London during the winter of 1002–3, and his visit there is decribed as follows: At that time there ruled over England King Ethelred [Æthelred], son of Edgar, and he was a good prince. He was passing this winter in London. At that time there was the same speech in England as in Norway and Denmark, but the speech in England was changed when William the Bastard won the land. French prevailed in England from that time forth, since he himself was French by birth. Gunnlaug went at once into the king’s presence and greeted him fittingly and with respect. The king asked from what land he might be; Gunnlaug told him the truth. ‘Now it is for this cause I have sought you out, Sire, that I have composed a poem about you, and I would that you should listen to the poem.’ The king said it should be so, and Gunnlaug recited the lay well and boldly; now this is the refrain of it: All the host of the generous and dauntless Prince fears England’s Lord as a god, and the sons of men do homage to Ethelred [Æthelred]. The king thanked him for the poem and gave him as a reward for his poetry a scarlet cloak, lined with the best skins, and with lace down to the hem. He also

4 Anglo-Saxon England in Icelandic Medieval Texts made him his retainer, and Gunnlaug was with the king during the winter and was held in high esteem.2

The poetic genre that Gunnlaugr employs for his panegyric to King Æthelred is known as dróttkvæði, a kind of poem performed for a royal court. Quite unlike Eddic poetry, dróttkvæði is characterized by complicated kennings and extremely convoluted syntax, and it takes some practice to be able to decipher it. R.I. Page has described this poetic tradition as follows: [Skaldic poems] are often ferociously difficult in vocabulary, word order, sentence structure [and] allusion ... [The court poet of the Viking age] had a trained and captive audience and in them he could assume primary education in poetic conventions. In consequence, the poetry that he wrote for the court was commonly highly stylised. It had an artificial diction and sentence structure, an elaborate combination of verse forms, rhymes and alliteration, an appeal to abstruse references, often to details of the ancient mythology of the Scandinavian peoples. At its most complex it must have been hard indeed for anyone to follow at first hearing. It was also hard for later scribes to copy accurately and hence for modern scholars to edit. It is certainly so for modern readers to understand.3

Sorting out a dróttkvæði then is not unlike trying to do a crossword puzzle without the aid of writing materials. If translated literally and the syntax is left intact, Gunnlaugr’s refrain in English would read: ‘People all fear the generous of England as god king; family to do homage king and people dauntless Æthelred.’ The story of Æthelred and Gunnlaugr raises a number of basic questions. First, could an English king around the year 1000, even if he had some knowledge of Old Norse, understand a dróttkvæði? Even if he did, and no less importantly, for court poets like Gunnlaugr expected rewards for their efforts, could his Old Norse have been so good that he could understand and appreciate the poetic skill involved? The author of Gunnlaugs saga answers with a resounding yes to both questions. But is the story of Gunnlaugr in London truth or fiction? Did Gunnlaugr compose the dróttkvæði refrain, or did the late thirteenth-century saga author? Is it possible that the poem itself is genuine, and was inserted into a fictional saga? Many later scholars have agreed with the saga author that Æthelred’s knowledge of Old Norse was indeed good enough. Recent handbooks on the subject of dróttkvæði, such as Bjarne Fidjestøl´s Det Norrøne fyrstediktet, accept Gunnlaugr was the original author of the refrain, and from there that the saga passage itself is a factual and realistic representation of events.4 William G. Moulton has argued that there is an essential formulaic sameness

The Evidence 5

in all Germanic medieval poetry. If that is indeed the case, Gunnlaugr’s praise poem might be understood in light of the possibility that poetic terms and phrases ‘are so similar in the various Germanic dialects that they can hardly be a matter of chance. They could of course be derived from a single earlier common source. It seems more likely, however, that they were borrowed back and forth, which implies mutual intelligibility among the poets who used them.’ 5 Unfortunately, the Anglo-Saxon poetic corpus contains very few royal or noble panegyrics. Conceivably, ‘The Battle of Maldon’ may be taken as such, along with ‘The Battle of Brunanburh’ and a few other poems in the AngloSaxon Chronicle, such as ‘The Capture of the Five Boroughs’ (942), ‘The Coronation of Edgar’ (973), ‘The Death of Edgar’ (975), ‘The Death of Alfred’ (1036), and ‘The Death of Edward’ (1065). This is all that we have to compare with the relatively large body of poems that have been preserved in the Norse tradition. However, although the few Anglo-Saxon praise poems we have bear little relation to the Norse ones, the saga author, like Moulton, is adamant that Gunnlaugr’s art could have been appreciated by the English. In fact, Gunnlaugr’s status as an esteemed court poet is so great that King Æthelred asks him not to leave at the end of his London stay because of his great ability.6 While the possibility that the author of Gunnlaugs saga did have genuine knowledge of the language situation in England around the year 1000 cannot be ruled out, the ‘language passage,’ as it is known, has a certain aura of hesitation about it that instills doubt. It is as if the writer senses that, without some kind of prefatory statement, he will have pushed his story outside the realm of plausibility, in that some of his readers may either be ignorant of the supposed linguistic affinity between Old Norse and Old English, or hold different views. The timing of Gunnlaugr’s visit is unfortunate if we are to believe that the poem is historically accurate and that he spent a year as an honoured retainer at King Æthelred’s court. All editors of the saga are agreed that, according to the poem’s chronology, Gunnlaugr is supposed to be in London during the winter of 1002–3. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, however, it is during this winter on 13 November (St Brice’s Day) that King Æthelred ordered all Danes in England to be killed. Yet no reference is made to these turbulent times in the saga, and so Gunnlaugr’s visit takes place in a historical vacuum. There is every reason, therefore, to consider the ‘language passage’ of Gunnlaugs saga with great caution when evaluating its use in establishing tenth-century linguistic realities. It may offer an interesting perspective as to what some Icelanders during the thirteenth century believed about a language that had long ceased to exist, but there are at least three factors that undermine it as historical evidence of the state of language in Anglo-Saxon England: the origin of the passage remains uncertain and problematic; the story of Gunnlaugr’s visit to King Æthelred follows familiar patterns of saga fiction; and, as

6 Anglo-Saxon England in Icelandic Medieval Texts

a whole, the Icelandic sources that throw any light on the matter are either ambiguous or contradictory. Under these circumstances I think it is unwise to take the ‘language passage’ at face value. Some scholars in the past, however, did take this passage as historical fact. H.R. Loyn, in his study of the Norse presence in Anglo-Saxon England, The Vikings in Britain, uses the ‘language passage’ as evidence of his belief that ‘Old Norse was intelligible at least to the English and the continental German.’7 With clear faith in the saga’s reliability Loyn goes on to remark in a later chapter that ‘An Icelandic author could comment in the thirteenth century that up to the time of William the Bastard the language of England was one and the same as that in Norway and Denmark, and that it was only after his conquest that there was a change of tongue to French – because William was of French extraction.’8 More recently, a modified version of Loyn’s view has been put forward by William Moulton, who believes that speakers of different Germanic languages – Old Norse and Old English among them – learned ‘through practice ... to make the necessary conversions from other dialects to [their] own dialect, both in pronunciation and in vocabulary.’9 In his interpretation of the ‘language passage’ in Gunnlaugs saga, Moulton concludes that ‘English, Norwegian and Danish are the same language in the sense that they are quite different from French, which is another language. At the same time, English, Norwegian, and Danish are what we would today call different dialects of the same language.’10 The problematic ‘language passage’ has been interpreted in a number of ways during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It is, for instance, interesting to note that in the 1860s an early editor of the saga, O. Rygh, felt the remark that ‘there was the same speech in England as in Norway and Denmark’ should not be taken to mean anything except that many Englishmen – King Æthelred among them – might have learned to understand Old Norse.11 Half a century later, Rygh’s view was no longer accepted. H.G. Leach reinterpreted the passage to suggest close affinities between the English and the Scandinavians,12 and in the 1930s, A.H. Smith went one step further when he used it to argue ‘that a Scandinavian language was spoken in England,’ or at least that ‘English was at that time intelligible to an Icelander.’13 That idea, however, was soon challenged by Margaret Ashdown, who thought that those interpretations of the ‘language passage’ went ‘too far in identifying the Scandinavian and English tongues in the eleventh century,’ but added that it was ‘by no means unreasonable to represent Ethelred [Æthelred] as appreciating Gunnlaugr’s poem. Contact with Scandinavian settlers would no doubt have familiarized him with a language which was not, in any case, far removed from his own.’14

The Evidence 7

It is curious to note that scholars have tended to avoid considering the plainest reading of the ‘language passage,’ namely that Old Norse was spoken in all of England at the time of King Æthelred. Only the earliest editors of the saga took the sentence literally, but they explained it away as a later and somewhat ignorant interpolation.15 The first scholar to reject this emendation of the text was Björn M. Ólsen in his study of the saga published in 1911. Ólsen argued that there was no real evidence to support the ‘interpolation theory’ or to reject the refrain as not being genuinely Gunnlaugr’s. Furthermore, Ólsen suggested that Æthelred and his court would have understood Old Norse, a language related to Old English but certainly separate from it. Ólsen’s is the first systematic attempt to defend and try to make sense of this passage from Gunnlaugs saga. Finnur Jónsson, who published an edition of the saga in 1916, did not accept his view and concluded that under no circumstances could Gunnlaugr have conversed with King Æthelred.16 Jónsson also pointed out that a remark like the one on the language situation in England was unprecedented in a family saga, but apart from calling the passage ‘suspicious,’ he offered no suggestion as to its origin or whether it was a later interpolation. Sigurður Nordal and Guðni Jónsson, who edited Gunnlaugs saga in 1938 for the Íslenzk fornrit series, agreed with Ólsen and Ashdown on Gunnlaugr’s ability to converse with King Æthelred and maintained that the ‘language passage’ was genuinely a part of the saga. They also hypothesized that, around the year 1000, ‘there was so much contact between Anglo-Saxons and Norsemen that a great number of people in England would have understood Old Norse, which was after all very closely related to Old English.’17 It might be added that, among Icelandic scholars, conflicting views on this indeterminable question continue to be exchanged from time to time.18 If the ‘language passage’ in Gunnlaugs saga was the only piece of information that thirteenth-century Icelandic materials had to offer on the subject of mutual understanding, we might see it as a clear case of a statement we are either prepared to accept or reject, depending on how closely we deem Old Norse and Old English to have been related and whether or not we think the author of the saga was in a position to comment on that relationship. These are not the questions I intend to debate, however, but as there are other sources to be considered, we are justified in asking whether the author of Gunnlaugs saga is telling us something that was generally believed in Iceland in his day. Björn Ólsen suggested another Icelandic text, known as Fyrsta málfræðiritgerðin (The First Grammatical Treatise), as a possible source of the medieval Icelandic notion of a close linguistic affinity between Old Norse and Old English. Ólsen thought that this work, written a century before Gunnlaugs saga, might have been used as a textbook in Icelandic schools during the thir-

8 Anglo-Saxon England in Icelandic Medieval Texts

teenth century, and so became well known.19 Decades after Ólsen’s suggestion, Peter Foote and Randolph Quirk also suggested the influence of Fyrsta málfræðiritgerðin in the notes to their translation of Gunnlaugs saga,20 but whether they arrived at their conclusion independently of Björn Ólsen is not clear. The text that these three scholars suspected of having inspired the ‘language passage’ in Gunnlaugs saga reads as follows: Englishmen write English with all those Latin letters that can be rightly pronounced in English, but where these do not suffice, they apply other letters, as many and of such a kind as are needed; but they put aside those that cannot be rightly pronounced in their language. Now following their example – since we are of one tongue [with them], even though one of the two [tongues] has changed greatly, or both somewhat – in order that it may become easier to write and read.21

In his edition of Fyrsta málfræðiritgerðin, however, Hreinn Benediktsson believes that the second part of the passage should be understood ‘in the light of the doctrine, universally current in medieval times and based on the story of the Tower of Babel (Gen. xi, 1–9), that Hebrew was the first language to be spoken on Earth, and that the other languages had branched off from it.’22 Benediktsson goes on to point to the presence of the Babel story in Veraldarsaga (A History of the World) and then concludes his discussion by suggesting that the passage ‘should not be taken to show any insight ... [by the author] into the historical relationship, in the modern sense, of Icelandic and English, nor does it presuppose any knowledge of the English language.’23 It is a sign of how easily this passage from Fyrsta málfræðiritgerðin lends itself to different interpretations that a previous editor, Einar Haugen, should come to the different conclusion that its author must have studied in England, and therefore was in a position to make ‘wise observations on the kinship of English and Norse.’24 William Moulton interprets the passage from Fyrsta málfræðiritgerðin as proof of his hypothesis that during the Middle Ages Germanic languages were mutually intelligible: The First Grammarian clearly made a distinction between different languages: Greek, Latin, and Hebrew. Icelandic and English were also different, but this was a difference of another sort – what we would today call a difference between dialects of the same language. The First Grammarian’s remarks provide only a halfway proof of, for him, mutual intelligibility between Icelandic and English. He had clearly learned how to make the conversions needed to understand written English, but we cannot know whether he had also learned how to make the conversions needed to understand spoken English.25

The Evidence 9

Moulton’s interpretation clearly takes issue with Hreinn Benediktsson’s warning that the passage in question in Fyrsta málfræðiritgerðin should not be taken to presuppose any knowledge of the English language, and with the fact that there is no evidence to suggest the author had ever seen or heard anything in Old English. More recently, Gunnar Harðarson has examined this statement in Fyrsta málfræðiritgerðin and argued that it should be taken literally.26 Like Haugen before him, Harðarson sees no reason to rule out the possibility that the author of Fyrsta málfræðiritgerðin had first-hand knowledge of English, both spoken and written.27 But Harðarson also points out that the notion of language change and development was not unknown to the Middle Ages. He suggests the idea of English and Icelandic having once been the same language might have been derived from the Prologue to Snorri Sturluson’s Edda, which tells of the old gods, the Æsir, bringing the ancient parent language to Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Saxony, and England. In the Edda, however, the statement that England belongs to this language group is qualified – or even partly retracted – by Snorri’s adding that there are ancient names in England and place names in a language not related to the parent language mentioned in his Prologue.28 Another example, which Harðarson does not consider, is found in a manuscript fragment called Upphaf allra frásagna (The Beginning of All Stories). This fragment is believed to be a part of a now lost – but partially reconstructed – Skjöldunga saga (a history of the mythical origin of the Danish royal family), a work older than Snorri’s Edda and one from which he borrows. In Upphaf, interestingly enough, the story of how the old gods brought Old Norse to northern Europe and how the new language spread to various countries specifically mentions that it did so to only ‘a part of England.’ 29 As the very different conclusions of Benediktsson, Haugen, Moulton, and Harðarson should have demonstrated by now, the ‘English-Icelandic passage’ of Fyrsta málfræðiritgerðin is so ambiguous and so open to interpretation that it raises many more questions than it answers. In short, Fyrsta málfræðiritgerðin unfortunately offers no decisive evidence, one way or another, about the relationship between Icelandic and Old English, or whether or not the Gunnlaugs saga author was correct in his assumptions of mutual intelligibility between Old Norse and Old English. It is clear, however, that Icelanders did acquire some first-hand knowledge of Old English during the early decades of the eleventh century through the adoption of Christianity, which took place in the year 1000. In the decades that followed the conversion, English missionaries (based in Norway) worked in Iceland, and Icelandic churches are known to have possessed English books, although whether they were actually written in English or were simply Latin texts from England cannot be determined. That this missionary work from

10 Anglo-Saxon England in Icelandic Medieval Texts

England had an impact on literary activity in Iceland can hardly be doubted.30 Christine Fell, who has examined the presence of English books in Iceland, says: Some of the service-books [in Iceland] were from England, though this is specified only in the Hólar register, not in that for Skálholt. Múli had an ‘enskur gradull’ and an ‘enskur psaltare.’ At Háls in Fnjóskadalr there was an ‘enskur gradall’ and two books ‘j spiolldum enskar.’ At Laufás they owned a ‘messubók ensk.’ Perhaps, as the editor of the Diplomatarium Islandicum suggests, the word reddingabækur found in the inventory of Hrafnagil church is the English word ‘reading-book,’ and the books too may have been English. The word enskr could indicate either language or provenance, but either way England evidently provided Iceland with some of her religious texts. Most of these books must have been in the churches long before the inventories were compiled.31

Let us now return to the ‘language passage’ of Gunnlaugs saga and examine its statement against another source, Hauksbók, an early fourteenth-century anthology. In the late 1960s, Arnold Taylor demonstrated that a section of Hauksbók strongly recalls Ælfric’s sermon De Falsis Diis, and striking resemblances between the Anglo-Saxon and the Icelandic text suggest that the translator was cribbing from an Old English version. As the title indicates, Ælfric’s text discusses the heresy of worshipping the old Germanic gods, and it is ultimately derived from Martin of Braga’s De Correctione Rusticorum. However, the exact circumstances surrounding the Icelandic translation are obscure, and the date of the text is also uncertain. Finnur Jónsson thinks that it was composed around 1200,32 but his conclusion appears to be little more than guesswork. Finnur Jónsson and Jón Helgason believe that the author used an Old English version of Ælfric’s sermon as well as Martin of Braga’s Latin text,33 whereas Arnold Taylor considers the Hauksbók text to be basically a translation of Ælfric’s sermon with a few omissions.34 There is no question that the Icelandic translation is coloured by the Old English version. Among phrases that display this influence one finds examples such as þafs mafnfullan men (‘those evil men’), which is translated as þa hina meinfullu menn; geond ealne middaneard (‘around the world’) becomes um allann miðgarð; and so on. However, it is also clear from Taylor’s research that the translator’s knowledge of Old English cannot have been very profound, as misreadings of even the simplest words occur in various places. For example, the translator mistranslates the phrase þu leofa cining (‘you dear king’) as lifi þu konungr ... vel (‘may you live well your Highness’). In a section describing Daniel’s ordeal in the lion’s den, the food of the lions, carcasses of meat – in Old English twegen

The Evidence

11

leapas – become tua laupa brauðs (‘two baskets of bread’) in the Icelandic text. The translator mistakenly equates the Old English leap (carcass) with the Old Norse laupr (a basket – an alternative translation of ‘leap’), without realizing that the word has an additional, entirely different meaning. Where he got the idea of feeding the lions on bread is not known, but it is certainly an original contribution to zoology. When Arnold Taylor wrote his article ‘Hauksbók and Ælfric’s De Falsis Diis’ in 1969, he saw the Hauksbók translation as a proof that, as late as the thirteenth century, Icelanders were still able to read and understand Old English: ‘[It is] interesting to see that English vernacular manuscripts were still being taken to Iceland and still intelligible at so late a date [ca. 1200]. The fact that this small section of Hauksbók gives two instances of translation from Old English (i.e., De Falsis Diis and the Biblical material) makes one think that there must be more.’35 Unfortunately, no more texts have been found since Taylor wrote these lines, and two problems regarding the translation of Ælfric’s sermon complicate his findings. First, the Hauksbók translation does not prove that Icelanders could read Old English in the thirteenth century; the presence of a Latin original casts a shadow over that possibility. Second, we cannot date the Hauksbók text with any certainty, and it could be much older than Jónsson and Taylor think. The text of De Falsis Diis has all the characteristics of the kind of work one would associate with missionary activity. It would have been highly relevant in early eleventh-century Iceland – still fighting to shed the old pagan beliefs – but hardly more than a literary curiosity two centuries later. It could easily have been brought to Iceland by an English missionary and even been translated into Icelandic by that person or someone under his tutelage. If that was the case, the translation, unfortunately, proves little about the mutual intelligibility of Old Norse and Old English. With that conclusion, we have to leave the ‘language passage’ from Gunnlaugs saga in the same ambiguous state as it was in when we first found it.

2 Old English and Old Norse: The Evidence of Other Sources

The Icelandic texts provide at least five different explanations as to how the English and the Norse are said to communicate. First, there is the testimony of some family sagas, histories of kings, and sagas of bishops in which Icelanders and the English communicate as if they literally spoke the same language. Second, there is the suggestion that Old English and Old Norse were similar enough for speakers to be able to communicate in their own language and be understood by those speaking the other. Then there is A.H. Smith’s hypothesis that there was an Anglo-Scandinavian dialect in Anglo-Saxon England which was used by the Norse and the English as a lingua franca. Fourth, there is the view expressed by Olaf von Feilitzen that the English and the Norse could have communicated only ‘by means of ribald gestures and uncouth noises’1 – in other words, hardly at all. And finally, there is the supposition that a segment of the English population and/or the Norse were bilingual.2 There are a substantial number of instances where Icelandic saga authors use poetic licence to have their characters converse with foreigners, that is, people who are not English.3 Such conversations are most commonly reported in Old Norse without the slightest indication of language barriers. In Hrólfs saga Gautrekssonar, Hrólfr, who is Swedish, converses with the king of the Irish.4 Finnbogi of Finnboga saga ramma talks with Jón, the King of Greece,5 and the English and the Greek communicate with ease throughout Sigrgarðs saga ok Valbrands. There are, however, exceptions where language differences are hinted at. Such instances occur in Eyrbyggja saga6 and in Flóamanna saga,7 both involving contact with the Irish, and in Grænlendinga saga, where the Icelanders who are exploring the east coast of North America cannot communicate with the native people.8 An interesting example of language barriers also comes from Grettis saga. In the story Þorsteinn, the younger half-brother of Grettir, has followed his brother’s slayer to Constanti-

The Evidence of Other Sources 13

nople and fulfilled his duty by killing him. For this he has been sentenced to death and thrown into a dungeon to await his execution. To drum up courage for himself and a fellow prisoner, he composes and recites a stanza which reaches the ears of passers-by on the street outside the prison and draws their attention. Among them is a rich and unhappily married lady, Spes, who presumably speaks only Greek but immediately falls in love with the voice. However, she needs to have the verse explained to her. In a recent book, Paul Beekman Taylor argues that ‘Englishmen and Norsemen, along with a smaller body of Celtic speakers, who lived on the same landscape, spoke mutually comprehensible languages and dialects.’9 Considering the issue from a different perspective, it has been maintained by William Moulton that since ‘in the sagas it seems to be taken for granted that Icelandic and English are mutually intelligible’10 – whereas other languages such as Irish are not understood by Icelandic characters – we should accept the accounts in the sagas concerning English and Old Norse as hard linguistic evidence. Other proposals include, for instance, A.C. Bouman’s hypothesis that King Athelstan’s court was bilingual and that Old English texts were recited in Old Norse for the benefit of visitors; and the suggestion by a nineteenth-century Icelandic scholar, Þorleifur Repp, that Englishmen wrote sagas – specifically Jatvarðar saga (The Saga of Edward the Confessor) – in Iceland.11 There is no shortage of examples in the Icelandic family sagas, the þættir, and the histories of the kings of Norway and Denmark of characters who communicate with the English as if they were sharing the same language. Thus Illugi of Illuga saga Tagldarbana converses with King Æthelred.12 In Hrólfs saga Gautrekssonar, Hrólfur talks at length with a legendary King Ælla.13 In Knýtlinga saga, the Danish Earl Úlfr and Godwine, the future father of King Harold II, face no language barriers.14 The same is also true of all communication between English and Norwegian kings in Heimskringla, which also gives English place names in Old Norse as if they had never been called anything else. In the late thirteenth-century chronicle Morkinskinna (‘Rotten Vellum’), which shares many of Snorri’s sources for Heimskringla, an English count converses with two Norsemen and understands the skaldic verse that one of them recites to him.15 In Egils saga, Egill Skalla-Grímsson speaks freely to King Athelstan who understands and appreciates his poetry,16 Högni of Sörla saga sterka talks with Duke Astró of England,17 Hálfdan in Hálfdanar saga Brönufóstra communicates without difficulty with a legendary King Ólafr of England,18 and Þorsteinn of Þorsteins saga Geirnefjufóstra does the same with King Athelstan.19 In Fagrskinna (‘Pretty Vellum’), a history of Norwegian kings older than Snorri’s Heimskringla, Tósti, or Tostig, the brother of King Harold II, converses with Sveinn Úlfsson, King of Denmark, and later

14 Anglo-Saxon England in Icelandic Medieval Texts

with King Haraldr Sigurðarson harðráða of Norway.20 Another example that emphatically equates Old Norse and Old English comes from Saga Ósvalds konúngs hins helga (The Saga of St Oswald the King). In describing St Oswald’s burial place the saga remarks that ‘this place ever since has been called in Latin celestis locus, which in English means a holy place.’ In other words, the Icelandic phrase himneskr staðr is simply rendered in the saga as if it was the English phrase.21 But the most detailed and daring example of equating Old Norse and Old English comes from Jarteinabók Þorláks byskups önnur (Bishop Þorákr’s Second Book of Miracles). It reads as follows: In Kynn [the author probably means Lynn] in England a man named Auðunn had a statue made in honour of the blessed Bishop Þorlákr, and had it placed inside a church. Then a certain English priest approached it and asked whose statue it was. He was told that it was a statue of Þorlákr, the Bishop of Iceland. The priest then ran off mocking the bishop in a fit of laughter, went into a kitchen, and took a suet sausage. He then returned to the statue, holding out the sausage with his right hand, and saying mockingly to it, ‘Do you want some sausage, suet-lander [i.e., eater of greasy sausages]? You are a suet-bishop.’ After this he intended to walk away, but he was completely stuck where he was and could not move. The hand that held the sausage continued to clutch it and could not be moved either. Then a large crowd of people assembled to inspect this wonder, and they asked the priest what had brought it on. He then confessed his crime to all who were there witnessing this sight, and with his confession he displayed true penance. And he asked those who were present to pray for him, and swore that he would never again commit such a crime. Then the crowd prayed with all their heart that his health might be restored, and almighty God heard their prayer as well as the blessed Þorlákr. The priest then could open his hand and was able to go to where he wanted, and all praised God and the blessed Bishop Þorlákr.22

What makes this story so special is that here we have an example of a specifically Icelandic/Norwegian in-joke and insult – which no one else in the world would be likely to understand – being transferred without difficulty onto English soil, where the local inhabitants readily recognize Icelanders as a tribe characterized and united by their love of greasy and disgusting food. 23 Another version of this story occurs in Laurentíus saga byskups (The Saga of Bishop Laurentíus). It goes as follows: [Þorlákr, Laurentíus said,] is merciful to those who call on him, but he is also very revengeful towards those who sin against him. A certain prankster in England was

The Evidence of Other Sources 15 made to experience this. He intended to mock and make fun of St Þorlákr by taking a suet-sausage and holding it out to a statue of Bishop Þorlákr saying, ‘Do you want some sausage, suet-lander? You are from Iceland.’ This prankster was immediately punished, as the hand that held the sausage became as stiff as if it were a piece of wood. He also had to stand where he was with his hand held out, until kind men prayed for him, and he repented of his crime. Then he was released.24

What is particularly interesting in comparing these two versions is that there are enough differences between them to indicate that they are not merely copies of each other. This must mean that multiple versions of the story were in circulation before the sagas of the two bishops were written. But the English and the Norse sometimes did have difficulties in communicating, according to Icelandic texts. A curious example of this is to be found in Sneglu-Halla þáttr, which exists in different versions in Morkinskinna and Flateyjarbók. Sneglu-Halli is a poet and retainer of the Norwegian king Haraldr harðráða. He is also a notorious big mouth and a tease. On a journey to Denmark and England, Sneglu-Halli recites a dróttkvætti to King Harold II, King Haraldr’s future opponent at the Battle of Stamford Bridge, to honour the English king – or so the reader presumes, because the poem is not quoted. When the recital is over, the Morkinskinna version has the king turn to a man called Rauðr (‘Red’), who, we are told, was a poet staying with the king. In the Flateyjarbók version, the king turns to his own court poet. In both texts, however, the king wants to know what the poem was like, which would indicate that he did not understand Old Norse, did not know how to appreciate a dróttkvæði, or both. In both versions, King Harold’s poet declares the poem to have been good. Morkinskinna, however, goes on to remark that Sneglu-Halli’s poem to the king was complete nonsense made up on the spur of the moment. This monumental insult to King Harold is confirmed but told differently in Flateyjarbók. There King Haraldr harðráða, not surprisingly, questions Sneglu-Halli upon his return as to whether he had composed poems about other kings. Sneglu-Halli replies by reciting a stanza in which he says that he did indeed compose a ditty about ‘the earl,’ which was so bad that not even Danish poets (of whom he clearly does not think highly) could do worse. He then proceeds to enumerate all the formal metric violations that the poem contained.25 This elaborate and, for Sneglu-Halli, extremely dangerous joke could not be told in either Morkinskinna or Flateyjarbók unless the authors relied at the very least on the inability of the English to understand dróttkvæði, if not the actual Old Norse language as well. Another instance that invites different interpretations occurs in Fagrskinna (as well as in Morkinskinna and Heimskringla [III, chap. 94]) in the aftermath

16 Anglo-Saxon England in Icelandic Medieval Texts

of the Battle of Stamford Bridge, as one of King Haraldr harðráða’s captains is on the run after the defeat of the Norwegians: Styrkárr, the king’s spokesman and a most renowned man, made his escape that evening on horseback. It got cold, and he was wearing only a shirt. He had a helmet on his head and had pulled his sword. As he was catching his breath, a carter came by wearing a long mantle. Styrkárr addressed him and said, ‘Will you sell me your mantle, farmer?’ He answered, ‘I will certainly not sell it to you. You must be a Norseman: I can hear it from the way you speak.’ Styrkárr then replied and said, ‘What are you going to do about it, if I am a Norseman?’ ‘I’d like to kill you,’ said the carter, ‘but unfortunately I do not have any weapons that might avail me.’ Then Styrkárr said, ‘Since you cannot kill me, farmer, let me see whether I cannot kill you.’ He then raised his sword and swung it at the carter’s neck so that the head rolled off. Styrkárr then took the mantle, mounted his horse, and made towards the boats.26

This story, which is presented in the form of an eyewitness account, is an interesting parallel to the ‘language passage’ of Gunnlaugs saga. Gillian Fellows Jensen has suggested that it shows that the author of Fagrskinna believed: ‘1. that Scandinavians and Yorkshiremen could understand each other’s speech and 2. that the Yorkshire waggoner recognized that Styrkár was speaking homeland Norwegian and not colonial Scandinavian as current in Yorkshire.’27 There is, however, room for other interpretations. It is possible, of course, that the author thought that Styrkárr spoke Old English with an accent, but it is more likely that the reader is being asked to think of Old Norse and Old English as two dialects of the same language. This would be a more moderate interpretation of the issue of essential linguistic sameness than we find in Gunnlaugs saga. In other instances, the Icelandic sagas, histories, and law books make a clear distinction between Old English and Old Norse as two separate languages. In Knýtlinga saga we read that, on his pilgrimage to Rome, ‘King Cnut established a hostel that should feed and house overnight all those who came there and spoke Old Norse.’28 In Heimskringla, the reader is told that in the northeast of England ‘many place names ... are given in Old Norse: Grímsbær and Haukriver and many others.’29 Both Fagrskinna and Morkinskinna refer to þingamenn, a mostly Norse-speaking elite guard from many countries.30 Grágás (The Grey Goose), a twelfth-century law codex, has a special provision for the rights of foreigners to inherit in case a relative died in Iceland, and the law book clearly identifies Old Norse and English as separate languages. A part of the statute reads: ‘Norwegians, Danes and Swedes may claim their

The Evidence of Other Sources 17

inheritance, if a close relative dies in Iceland ... those speaking any language, other than Old Norse, are not entitled to inherit unless the person in question is a father or a son or a brother ... If an English person dies in Iceland ... only a father or a son or a brother can claim his inheritance.’31 It is also a curious coincidence – if indeed it is a coincidence – that none of the so-called reddingabœkur that were discussed in the previous chapter have survived. If only a few people or even nobody in Iceland could read them because they were in Old English, it might possibly explain their fate. And finally, there is the evidence from the Anglo-Saxon royal genealogies that were copied early and occur, for instance, in the Prologue to Snorri Sturluson’s Edda. As R.W. Chambers and others pointed out a long time ago,32 these lists of kings contain the most elementary translation blunders such as Seskef for ‘Se Sceff ’ (that ‘Sceff ’) among others. In the English sources there are unfortunately very few concrete examples where communication between the Norse and the English is not just mentioned but actually described. In Old English literature there is, of course, the tantalizing speech-making that occurs in an unspecified language between the Viking army and Byrhtnoth and his men in ‘The Battle of Maldon.’ At first glance, the author appears to assume that the messenger of the Viking army speaks and understands English, but more than that we shall, unfortunately, never know. The only English author I am aware of who either assumes poetic licence to suggest that Old Norse and Old English were mutually intelligible, or actually believed that they were, is William of Malmesbury (ca. 1080–ca. 1143), but, unfortunately, William was probably writing too late to have any first-hand knowledge of the relationship between the two languages. In describing the Battle of Stamford Bridge, he relates the following incident in his usual florid prose: The English got the upper hand [at Stamford Bridge] and put the Norwegians to flight. Yet – and perhaps posterity will find this hard to believe – a victory by so many men of such quality was delayed for a long time by a single Norseman. This man stood at the entrance to the bridge called Stantfordbrigge, and put paid to several of our force, stopping the rest from getting across. Invited to give himself up so that a man of such valour could experience the generous clemency of the English, he laughed at those who offered it, and, screwing up his face, he taunted them with being men of such feeble hearts that they could not withstand a solitary man. Nobody came nearer him for they thought it rash to get at close quarters with someone who had desperately thrown aside all means of saving himself. One of the king’s followers hurled an iron spear at him from a distance.

18 Anglo-Saxon England in Icelandic Medieval Texts It spitted him as he was arrogantly making preliminary flourishes (dum gloriabundus proludit) and was taking less care of his safety, and he yielded victory to the English.33

There are occasional hints to suggest that perhaps the decline of Old English – and its transition into what we now recognize as Middle English – was a faster process than the standard histories of the English language would have us believe. The fact that the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle was being kept until the twelfth century may have led some scholars astray about the durability of Old English as an effective language of communication. We know, for instance, that Henry of Huntingdon, who was writing his Historia Anglorum in the 1140s, clearly had an acquaintance with Old English, but both his inept translation of ‘The Battle of Brunanburh’ and his misreadings of entries into the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle make it clear that his competence in Old English was not great.34 As Henry himself admitted, he found Old English poetry difficult and its terms strange (extranea).35 The entry for 789 (787) in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle may also suggest difficulties in communication between the English and the Norse. The entry is as follows: In this year King Berhtric [Beorhtric] (of Wessex) married Offa’s daughter Eadburg [Eadburh], and in his days there first came three ships of Northmen (to this the DEF texts add ‘from Hordaland’), and then the reeve rode up and wanted to drive them to the king’s manor because he did not know what sort of men they were (‘þe he nyste hwæt hie wæron’), and then he was killed. These were the first ships of Danish men to come to the land of the English.36

Perhaps, as R.I. Page has suggested, because there were language difficulties, the Norsemen misunderstood the reeve’s intent, panicked, and killed him.37 The Venerable Bede, in his History of the English Church and People, tells an interesting story about a certain Bishop Agilbert, a Frank by birth, whose Frankish dialect should – in theory at least – have been intelligible to his West-Saxon hearers. Bede tells us that Cenwalh, King of the West-Saxons, appreciated his learning and ‘asked him to accept an episcopal see and remain in the province as his chief bishop.’ Later, Bede relates that King Cenwalh, ‘who understood only Saxon, grew tired of the bishop’s foreign speech,’ found himself a West-Saxon-speaking cleric, and gave him half of Agilbert’s see. Offended by this insult, Agilbert reacted as the king had probably hoped he would: he packed his bags and left England for good.38 This same Agilbert is also the subject of another story Bede tells concerning

The Evidence of Other Sources 19

the Synod of Whitby. When consulted for his opinion by the Northumbrians, Agilbert decided to ask one of his disciples to speak for him because ‘he can explain our view in the English language more competently and clearly than I can do through an interpreter.’39 Gillian Fellows Jensen has discussed these examples and others in some detail, and she concludes that: If insular English had distanced itself so far from continental Germanic within 200 years of the migration that the two tongues [i.e., Old English and Frankish] were no longer mutually intelligible and if there was already a marked difference between even West Saxon and Northumbrian, it is hardly likely that the 9th-century Northumbrians, speaking a West Germanic language, would easily be able to understand Danes speaking a North Germanic one.40

It might be added to this interpretation that, as far as anybody knows, the Viking invaders of England or their Scandinavian ancestors before them had no known name for the language they spoke. In his edition of Danakonunga so¸ gur, Bjarni Guðnason argues that do¸nsk tunga (‘the Danish language’), the term that Snorri uses to identify the language of the Scandinavian chieftains and kings in his Heimskringla, is an English rather than a Scandinavian neologism.41 In the Old English references, however, there are only three mentions in two texts. The first occurs in a Latin translation of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and refers to a place name in the Danish language (Danaam linguam). The second comes from Ælfric’s famous homily on De Falsis Diis, where Ælfric compares the Latin names of heathen deities with what the pagans themselves called them in Danish (on Denisc). The third instance, which is identical to the second, also comes from Ælfric’s homily.42 If one is allowed to draw any conclusion from these examples, it would be to identify the Scandinavians as one language community as opposed to the native English, who perceived their own language to be a separate one. In England, ideas about how the English and the Norse communicated have been heavily influenced by general trends in historical linguistics. Michael Barnes, who produced a survey of the debate in 1992, provides a description of three widely differing schools of thought that dominated the discussion during the twentieth century. The first of these – fashionable during much of the century – rested on the belief that Norse and English had been mutually incomprehensible, and stressed the idea that bilingual speakers had been common in both communities and that translators had been used if needed. This theory died hard and was, according to Barnes, still being advocated in the 1980s,43 when it was finally swept aside by new ideas.

20 Anglo-Saxon England in Icelandic Medieval Texts

By then linguists had become interested in the development of pidgin languages and creoles, and many scholars saw such hybrid languages as the key to understanding communication between Norse and English speakers. In 1984, J. Milroy summed up the argument in the following words: [as] it is most unlikely that OE [Old English] and ON [Old Norse] were fully mutually comprehensible, contact forms must have been used to some extent in trade and commerce. As the bilingual situation receded, the varieties that remained must have been effectively Anglo-Norse creoles with a tendency in the post-creole situation to restore some of the grammatical distinctions lost in the pidginization.44

But, attractive as this theory might seem, it faced strenuous objections from various directions almost immediately. In their 1988 study Language Contact, Creolization, and Genetic Linguistics, Sarah Grey Thomason and Terrence Kaufman summed up the theoretical objection to this approach, and in the process of doing so also indicated the outlines of a new school of thought that was gradually emerging: The very close similarity between the two languages [Norse and English] makes the emergence of a pidgin language as unlikely on linguistic grounds as it is on social grounds: linguistically communication could be effected without drastic elimination of linguistic complexities, and socially the need (at least in most places) was for an all-purpose language, not merely for a restricted-purpose minimal language. Creolization is also unlikely on social grounds, and again the languages seem too close linguistically for such an extreme response to communication difficulties.45

Further objections revolved mainly around the fact that adherents of the Anglo-Norse pidgin theory could not produce any evidence that such a language had actually existed in Anglo-Saxon England, and so these ideas were rapidly losing their appeal towards the end of the century. The new thinking that speakers of both Old English and Old Norse could communicate effectively using their own languages is actually not so new. It has gained popularity largely because on both the English and the Norse sides it can be seen to fit much of the available evidence. Linguistic models have also been created to give this idea a necessary theoretical background. Of recent studies along these lines, Matthew Townend’s 2002 book, Language and History in Viking Age England, is among the most thorough. In his concluding remarks, he sums up the argument in a nutshell: ‘I have argued in this work that the model or hypothesis which best explains the fragmentary evi-

The Evidence of Other Sources 21

dence and observable phenomena of Anglo-Norse language contact is that which predicates a situation of adequate mutual intelligibility between speakers of Norse and English, rather than one involving widespread bilingualism or use of interpreters.’46 But before we leave this discussion of how British theories concerning communication between English and Norse speakers evolved during the last century, it should be noted that both Barnes and Townend emphasize that all theories regarding linguistic contact between the two must be taken with a grain of salt. In his concluding remarks, Barnes notes somewhat pessimistically that ‘[we] can employ new theories and models as they become available, but these will hardly be sufficient to overcome the chronic shortage of data ... As so often in life, certainty comes in inverse proportion to knowledge.’47 Similarly, Townend warns that ‘all hypotheses must be made with the expectation of revision.’48 Even if the last word in this ongoing debate may never be written, we know for a fact that the English and the Norse did somehow communicate when the need to do so arose. Somehow Alfred and Guthrum negotiated their treaty; somehow Ohtere related the story of his life and adventures to Alfred’s court; somehow Ólafr Tryggvason was converted and baptized; and somehow danegeld extortions and other instances of blackmail, of which the AngloSaxon Chronicle has so many examples, were successfully negotiated and completed. Finally, there is the Battle of Maldon, where the English and the Norse traded insults so fluently according to the poem of the same name, unless (of course) it is pure fiction. There is no question that the English and the Norse did communicate, but precisely to what degree and how we shall, unfortunately, never know with any certainty. Not being able to determine the answer to this problem is exceptionally frustrating, because virtually everything else concerning the issue of what Icelanders knew about Anglo-Saxon England boils down to the question of communication between the English and the Norse.

3 General Knowledge and Attitudes about Anglo-Saxon England and Its Customs

One of the first things the Romans learned about their neighbours to the north – or so Tacitus tells us in his Germania – was that they were farmers rather than city dwellers. Thus it is not surprising that the Angles, the Saxons, and the Jutes should set their sights on fertile England. Bede tells us, for instance, that the Saxons, after migrating to England, left behind such a barren country that, after their departure, it ‘is said to remain unpopulated to this day.’ 1 That it was the abundance and quality of land that attracted the three tribes in the first place is beyond any doubt. Four centuries later, this same plentiful farmland probably appealed as much to the Norse Vikings as it had done to their West Germanic cousins. However, it should be emphasized that the Viking expansion did not come about as the result of overpopulation and lack of arable land, as historians used to believe. While it is still acknowledged that the Viking period was a time of rapid population growth,2 other factors, such as an expanding economy, political integration, and innovations in shipbuilding – most notably the invention of the keel – also contributed to the rise of the Viking invasions. But, as the Danes began to make their homes in the north and east of England in the 870s, it was opportunities abroad rather than pressures at home that instigated their settlement.3 How much these Viking settlers actually knew about the geography of England as a whole, or of the area which they had chosen for their settlement, we shall never know. However, as their forefathers had raided England for decades, they may well have known quite a lot. There is no evidence that this knowledge of English geography ever found its way to Iceland, nor was there any reason why Icelanders in the tenth and the eleventh centuries would have been particularly interested in it. Icelandic writers began to record topographical information about England in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, but

General Knowledge and Attitudes 23

their sources are unknown, and – on the whole – their knowledge of English geography is sometimes less than impressive. However, they are not wrong about everything, and not surprisingly, the most accurate statements concerning the geography of England concern Northumbria, which is said to have been a fifth of England in size. This piece of information about Northumbria’s size seems to appear first in Orkneyinga saga, and is then repeated – independently or not – in Egils saga, Heimskringla (Hákonar saga góða), and in the Special Saga of St Ólafr (which in the Íslenzk fornrit edition is appendixed to his saga in Heimskringla).4 However, the author of Egils saga also adds that Northumbria is situated to the east of Scotland and then casually remarks that the only people who count for much in that region are those of Scandinavian ancestry. The history of King Haraldr harðráða Sigurðarson’s ill-fated campaign against England in 1066, which puts the geography of Yorkshire at centre stage in Snorri’s Heimskringla, does little to suggest that thirteenth-century Icelanders knew much about that region. Snorri’s account correctly describes the movements of the Norwegian fleet along the Yorkshire coast, but as soon as the action moves further inland (after the Battle of Fulford), it becomes clear that his topographical knowledge of Yorkshire is not very accurate. For instance, he believes Stamford Bridge to be close to the walls of York – and has Haraldr select it as a convenient post for attacking the city – when in reality it is eight miles away. Furthermore, he thinks that Riccall, where the Norwegian ships have been left, Stamford Bridge, and the city of York are all very close to one another, as people shuttle back and forth between them. These three places are actually several miles apart. Other geographical information in Norse texts is often either unverifiable or absurd. Jarlsnes (‘Earl’s Peninsula’), which is mentioned in Orkneyinga saga, has not been identified today. Vínheiðr, the site of the Battle of Brunanburh in Egils saga, of which we shall see more in a later chapter, also has not been identified.5 On the more absurd side, the author of Fagrskinna decides in chapter 7 to illuminate his readers concerning the origin of the term Northumbria (Norðimbraland in Old Norse), by saying that it is so called because Norwegians ruled there for a long time. In Heimskringla (I) it becomes clear in chapter 30 of Ólafs saga Tryggvasonar that Snorri does not quite know where the Isles of Scilly are located in relation to mainland Britain, and seems to think that they are somewhere near the Isle of Man. In Knýtlinga saga, three English kings – Cnut and his two sons, Harold and Harthacnut – are said to be buried in a great city called Morstr (‘mikill hƒfuðstaðr’), rather than at Winchester.6 Another equally mysterious place, Uisturina – which is said to be the burial place of St Edward King and Martyr – is found in Dunstanus saga.7 In

24 Anglo-Saxon England in Icelandic Medieval Texts

Saga Ósvalds konúngs hins helga, which should, at least in theory, be relating events that took place in seventh-century Northumbria, Lindsey has become a separate country and the heathen kings of Forheiðe, Britannien, and Mercienn make war on England.8 The author of Göngu-Hrólfs saga – undoubtedly misled by the name of the place – believes Lindsey to be an island.9 In Hemings þáttr, three great battles take place during the reign of Edward the Confessor against a mysterious Henry (Heinrekr), Earl of Gloucester, who rebels against him. The battles are said to have taken place at such still-unidentified locations as Bonolffs stein, Hrutz serk, and the river Lodda.10 Perhaps the most typical flaw is the gap that the Icelandic texts leave in situations where some geographical or other kind of information is called for. In Ragnars saga loðbrókar ok sona hans (The Saga of Ragnarr Shaggy Pants and His Sons), Ragnarr embarks on an attack against England with only two ships. Although it points out the sheer bravado of making such an expedition, the saga never makes clear why England has been chosen as a target. As Ragnarr gets there, both his boats are shipwrecked, and the reader does not know where his campaign begins. We then learn that ‘the king who was then ruling in England was called Ælla,’11 without being told where his court is located. It is certainly not in London, because Ragnarr’s sons are about to found that city, and no seat is mentioned. We learn nothing about Ælla’s lineage or family, perhaps for good reason, as we shall see in a later chapter. What thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Icelandic writers appear to have been best informed about in respect to English affairs are the Anglo-Saxon royal genealogies and the length of the reigns of individual kings. Heimskringla (Hákonar saga góða, chap. 4), for instance, mentions the death of King Athelstan and goes on to add that he ruled for fourteen winters, eight weeks, and three days. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Athelstan ruled for fourteen years and ten weeks, so Snorri is only a week and a half off the mark. Þáttr af Ragnars sonum correctly relates the torture and death of Edmund, king of East Anglia, at the hands of the Danish Viking raiders Yngvarr and Hústo.12 Illuga saga Tagldarbana rightly observes that Æthelred succeeded King Edward, who had been murdered, but it is probably less well informed when it proceeds to add that England had ‘for the most part’ adopted Christianity at that time.13 But often the sagas are also wrong about the monarchy of Anglo-Saxon England. In Ragnars saga loðbrókar ok sona hans, Ragnarr kills a king named Ælla and then proceeds to conquer and rule over all of England.14 The saga’s tale of Ragnarr’s invasion of Northumbria has no historical basis, and the famous story of him in the Northumbrian snake-pit is based on the legend of Gunnarr Gjúkason.15 The author of Jatvarðar saga claims in chapter 1 that

General Knowledge and Attitudes 25

Æthelred (978–1016), correctly identified as son of Edgar, was the first Anglo-Saxon king to rule over all of England. On the other hand, Ólaf’s saga Tryggvasonar (hin mesta) in Flateyjarbók makes Æthelred the son of Edgar’s brother Edward.16 In Dunstanus saga (8–11), the author gets so confused with the complex genealogy of tenth-century English kings that, in one instance, he has a father succeed his son.17 We shall see many more examples of confusion regarding relationships within the royal family of Wessex in later chapters. Knowledge about the lives of individual kings, or of the English monarchy and its habits as a whole, appears to have been rather limited in medieval Iceland. In Ólafs saga Tryggvasonar (hin mesta) in Flateyjarbók, a not surprisingly unidentified late tenth-century English king called Aðalbrikt successfully fights the Danes and wins back Danish territory in England.18 In Jatvarðar saga, we learn that Harold II is consecrated king while a crown is held above his head. This is entirely plausible, but the additional remark made that this is a custom peculiar to the English monarchy is somewhat to be doubted.19 Dunstanus saga places pre-Conquest earls (jarlar) and post-Conquest barons (baronar) side by side in its narrative, which is set in tenth-century England.20 The same saga also insists that under the tough laws of Anglo-Saxon monarchs, the punishment for false coiners was either to lose both hands and feet or be beheaded, when in reality they had only the right hand cut off.21 Even more dubious is the claim made in Illuga saga Tagldarbana when its hero, Illugi, goes to see King Æthelred at his court in York. Illugi’s errand – to ask the king to make himself and his men Æthelred’s retainers – is commonplace in the Icelandic sagas, but York can hardly be accurate as Æthelred’s royal seat.22 In Sigrgarðs saga ok Valbrands we witness the son of an Anglo-Saxon king being given the somewhat unusual English name of Sigrgarður. His father, who has the rather Slavic sounding name of Valldimar, is said to have many subordinate kings in England.23 Changing the subject from monarchs to the country that they ruled, it must be emphasized that England in the eyes of the Norse was much more than just an attractive country for farming. They knew it was populous,24 and its wealth and commercial importance is apparent in virtually all Icelandic texts that mention Anglo-Saxon England. Göngu-Hrólfs saga describes it as follows: England is said to be the richest country in Western Europe in terms of its practical wealth. All kinds of metal are worked there, and wheat and vines may be grown in addition to a whole variety of other plants. Clothing is made there and a great variety of woven materials, more so than in other places. London and Canterbury are the country’s capital cities. Scarborough is there and Helsingborg, Winchester, and many other places and cities which will not be enumerated here.25

26 Anglo-Saxon England in Icelandic Medieval Texts

In the same saga, ships in England are loaded with malt, mead, wine, and expensive clothing to be transported to Denmark.26 In Egils saga, Egill’s uncle Þórólfr sends a ship from Norway to England. His men are said to have done very good business, and the ship returns loaded with flour, honey, wine, and expensive clothing.27 The issue of wealth – ready cash to be precise – is also brought up in Knýtlinga saga.28 In Guðmundar saga Arasonar, a certain priest, Ingimundr, returns from England with quantities of wine of great quality, honey, flour, and many other articles.29 In Heimskringla, a Norwegian earl who is planning his wedding sails for England to purchase goods for the banquet, items that the text specifically mentions as being unavailable in Norway.30 Similarly, Orkneyinga saga abounds in references to English goods, their quantity, and quality. One character, Kali Kolsson, goes to England for the express purpose of buying stylish clothing for himself. A ship is sent to England to buy weapons and provisions, and two ships carrying English clothes of the finest quality, in addition to wine and mead, are attacked.31 In Ásu-Þórðar þáttr, an older, unmarried, wealthy woman woos a talented younger man without means, much to the dismay of her kinsmen. Rather than giving the young man money outright, she finances a trading voyage to England. The trip is a success, and, after several similar ventures, the young man becomes financially presentable, so to speak. This story clearly has many interesting aspects, and one of them is an unquestioned belief in the profitability of trading in English goods.32 Sometimes, as Geraldine Barnes has observed, the country’s wealth becomes strangely conjoined in the minds of saga authors with the fact that, unlike Scandinavia, England was Christian: ‘Kjartan Óláfsson, hero of Laxdæla saga, sees the primary benefit of conversion as access to commercial opportunities in England: “því at þangat er nú góð kaupstefna kristnum mo¸nnum” (“for that is a good trading centre for Christian traders now”).’33 Maybe the author of Laxdæla saga knew no better, but there is no evidence to indicate that paganism was ever a barrier to trading in England. In the histories of the Norwegian kings, a touch of envy is felt more than once when England – and the great wealth it was known to possess in comparison to Norway – is the subject of discussion. In Óláfs saga helga (The Saga of Saint Ólafr), there is a scene depicting the king as livid with rage when envoys from King Cnut, his arch-enemy, deliver a message demanding that he surrender Norway to Cnut as it had by right belonged to his father. King Ólafr then replies: I have heard in ancient stories that Gormr, the king of the Danes, was counted as a full-fledged king, [although] he [only] governed over Denmark. But that is clearly not enough for his later successors. Now as matters stand, Cnut rules over

General Knowledge and Attitudes 27 Denmark and over England and, in addition, he has conquered much of Scotland. And now he demands that I give up my rightful inheritance into his hands. In the long run, he had better learn how to temper his greed. Or is it his ambition to rule over all northern lands [Northern Europe]? Or does he intend to eat all the cabbage that England yields by himself?34

In this outburst, there are two things of special interest. In the first place, the reference to English cabbage seems to be metaphorical, in the sense that King Ólafr is implying that the wealth of England is not enough for his greedy enemy Cnut. The second, and even more interesting point, is that Ólafr includes England within his geographical definition of ‘northern lands,’ that is, Northern Europe or Scandinavia. The Old Norse term Norðrlo¸nd is a word that medieval Icelandic texts normally apply to Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, and sometimes to Iceland and the Faroe Islands as well. As we saw in the quotation from Göngu-Hrólfs saga cited above, Icelandic writers knew perfectly well that England was situated in Western Europe, so what might explain this desire to make England Scandinavian? A possible explanation might be that Cnut ruled over both England and Denmark, but it does not explain that England is considered ‘part of Norðrlo¸nd’ in the fornaldarsƒgur as well, which have no connection at all with Snorri’s Heimskringla, and in Fagrskinna (chap. 6), where King Athelstan is said to be one of the noblest men in ‘Norðrlo¸nd.’ Knýtlinga saga (chap. 19) calls England the wealthiest country of all the northern lands (allra Norðrlanda). As we shall see shortly, the desire to make England Scandinavian may have an explanation that has nothing to do with geographical definitions. All these examples concerning the wealth and commercial importance of England as a source of quality merchandise would seem to indicate that during the Middle Ages, Icelandic writers had a great deal of first-hand experience with English merchants and English goods, but apparently they did not. Bruce Gelsinger, who has examined English trade documents concerning Iceland during the Middle Ages, presents his findings as follows: most [English merchants] must have been content journeying only to Norway, for no merchant from England is stated specifically to have come to Iceland during the Commonwealth period [930–1262] ... Apparently Englishmen so seldom came to Iceland (or Icelanders to England) that a word of a death would scarcely reach any heirs back home. Although this provision [i.e., the article in Grágás concerning who was to inherit from Englishmen who died in Iceland] shows that at least a few Englishmen visited or lived in Iceland, some of whom may have been merchants, the paucity of other specific references to Englishmen in the

28 Anglo-Saxon England in Icelandic Medieval Texts sources for the Commonwealth confirms that they were seldom found on Iceland during that time.35

But although the Commonwealth of Iceland may have had little direct commercial contact with England, information about England and English products might have reached the country through other channels. The English missionary bishops who worked in Iceland during the eleventh century must have disseminated some knowledge. Another possible source of information might have been Norway, where there was demonstrably a great deal of English influence, commercial and otherwise. Norway was also the country with which Iceland had the most contact during the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries. Finally, there is the possibility that Icelandic writers gleaned their information about Anglo-Saxon England from books, with the Venerable Bede perhaps being their most likely source. In the first book of his History of the English Church and People, we learn among other things that Britain is rich in grain and timber; it has good pasturage for cattle and draught animals, and vines are cultivated in various localities ... There are also many varieties of shell-fish, such as mussels, in which are often found excellent pearls of several colours ... Whelks are abundant, and a beautiful scarlet dye is extracted from them which remains unfaded by sunshine or rain; indeed the older the cloth, the more beautiful its colour ... The land has rich veins of many metals, including copper, iron, lead, and silver ... In old times, the country had twenty-eight noble cities, besides innumerable strongholds.36

It is clear from this description that England is wealthy and commercially important, but unfortunately there is insufficient evidence to show how well Bede’s History of the English Church and People was known in Iceland during the Middle Ages.37 However limited direct contact with England may have been – before and after the Conquest – it did not stop Icelanders from fantasizing about the role of the Norse in shaping Anglo-Saxon society. In Kormáks saga, for instance, we are told that the poet-hero Komákr established the city of Scarborough. 38 His achievement, however, pales by comparison with the number of cities founded in Ragnars saga loðbrókar ok sona hans and its sequel, Þáttr af Ragnars sonum. In Ragnars saga loðbrókar ok sona hans, for instance, we are told how London came to be established: [The sons of Ragnarr] concluded that Ívarr should swear an oath of allegiance to [King Ælla of England] to the effect that he would neither oppose the king in bat-

General Knowledge and Attitudes 29 tle nor conspire against him. In return, Ívarr should receive as much English land as could be covered by the largest ox hide that he could find. Ívarr then got himself an ox hide and had it soaked and stretched three times. He then had it sliced as thinly as possible into strings and tied them together, the hairy parts and the smooth parts of the skin alternating. When this had been done, the string was so long that men marvelled at its length, as no one had thought that this might be done. Then Ívarr had the string spread out over a field, and its circumference was such that a great city might be established within its boundary. He then had marked on the ground the outlines of a great city wall. Then Ívarr employed a large number of carpenters and had a great number of houses built in that field. The end result was a great city which is called London. It is the best and the greatest of all cities in Northern Europe [Norðrlönd].39

In Þáttr af Ragnars sonum, the same story is told but with some interesting changes: Ælla is now ‘only’ king of Northumbria, the new city is York, and Ragnarr’s son Ívarr, after defeating King Ælla and killing him, rules over only the part of England that had belonged to his ancestors.40 Probably the best-known version of this story, where a bull’s hide is cut into thin strips and used to mark the outlines of a new city, is that of Dido in Carthage, told in the first book of Virgil’s Aeneid. Perhaps it did not reach Iceland directly through the Icelandic translation of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s pseudo-history Breta sögur – as one might be tempted to think – but rather through other English sources, as Bjarni Guðnason and Rory McTurk have argued.41 However, it should be borne in mind that the story is ultimately a folk tale, recorded as far afield as southern Africa.42 It is not easy to explain the desire that we have seen among medieval Icelandic writers to credit the Norse with a role in founding key English cities. Perhaps it was the long history of interaction and power struggles between Scandinavians and the English that brought it about, or perhaps it was merely wishful thinking. What is also of interest, however, and equally problematic, is that various Icelandic authors were prepared to bolster Norse importance by incorporating England into Scandinavia, and making it one of the Norðrlƒnd. This impulse might, conceivably, be linked to their assumption that the English and the Norse had shared the same language in the past – which would take us back to the ghost of the ‘language passage’ of Gunnlaugs saga yet again. The Old Norse dróttkvæði that touch upon English affairs are also interesting sources of information, not so much for their historical value as for the attitudes they express. In the Norse corpus, dróttkvæði were not just panegyrics to royalty, but covered a wide variety of topics ranging from personal feel-

30 Anglo-Saxon England in Icelandic Medieval Texts

ings and mundane issues to war, eulogies, and matters of royal policy. Poems that reflect on England, however, cover a much narrower topic spectrum, and for the most part can be categorized as praise for nobles or princes or as battle poems – although the distinction between the two is sometimes blurred. We have already seen an example of dróttkvæði as praise poetry in Gunnlaugr’s poem to Æthelred, whose main attribute – in the absence of victories in battle – is to be feared like God by his people. A similar attitude emerges in the stanza that Egils saga quotes from Egill’s poem to King Athelstan: the king is named, his military achievements (killing three princes) are praised and so is his munificence. These poems are chiefly a ritual observation of the symbiotic relationship between ruler and skald, much in the way that politicians and the media feed off each other in today’s world. The king’s reputation requires constant attention if he is to maintain the respect and loyalty of his subjects, and the poet earns his living by providing the means to that end. These two poems by Gunnlaugr and Egill are examples of court poetry as a purely mechanical art. They express no feelings other than respect for the king, and state the sort of praise everyone would expect to hear. There is, however, one notable exception to this pattern. One of the English nobles who dared to resist William the Conqueror was an earl by the name of Waltheof (ON Valþjófr) of whom we shall see more in a later chapter. According to Heimskringla, William – with a promise of safe conduct – lured Waltheof to a meeting to discuss their reconciliation, only to have him murdered in a most deceitful manner. A poet by the name of Þorkell Skallason (of whom nothing else is known) appears to have been in Waltheof’s service, or at least attached to him in some way. In Haralds saga Sigurðarsonar (chaps. 96 and 97), Snorri mentions a poem by Þorkell (‘Valþjófsflokkr’) celebrating the deeds of the earl, and quotes two stanzas from it. The first of these describes how after the Battle of Hastings, Waltheof and his men burned a hundred of William’s troops to death after they had taken refuge in a wood. This stanza is typical of dróttkvæð battle poems, but the second one, which commemorates Waltheof’s death, exhibits some quite unusual characteristics. Here, the poet’s seething anger at the Norman king is expressed as follows: ‘Certainly has William, he who reddened weapons, the one who sliced the icy sea from the south, deceived brave Waltheof in a state of truce. It is true it will take some time for the killings in England to cease, no more glorious king will die than my bold lord43 was.’44 We do not know whether Þorkell was rewarded in any way for his poem, but even if he was, reward is far from his mind in these highly emotive lines. First of all, Þorkell’s eulogy pronounces his authority to comment on Waltheof’s death (‘certainly,’ ‘it is true’) and then establishes an English geographical perspective (‘from the south’) as a frame for his remarks.

General Knowledge and Attitudes 31

As Roberta Frank has observed, the ill-omened icy waters seem to refer to the poet’s emotional state rather than conditions in the English Channel45 (William invaded England in September, and Waltheof was was executed in the month of May). This idea of coldness as foreboding evil may be compared with the Viking army crossing the river Panta in ‘The Battle of Maldon,’ or the messenger’s cold voice in the Eddic Atlakviða. We then learn that Waltheof – presented as Þorkell’s lord – was brave, bold, and glorious, as opposed to William, the rex injustus, whose murderous rule, he prophesies, will continue unabated. If Þorkell’s poem really was composed on English soil, it is probably fortunate that he chose to employ Old Norse as his medium. People died for far less than daring to accuse King William of treason and murder. Equally dangerous, as we have already seen, is Sneglu-Halli’s mock praise of Harold II, which may explain his rush to leave England after meeting with the king and delivering his practical joke. Although we do not have Halli’s poem, it is likely that it would have belonged to the negative end of royal panegyrics called níð – libellous or defamatory poems. These are best known as one of the lethal weapons in Egill’s arsenal in his battle against Eiríkr Blood-axe and his evil queen, Gunnhildr. In the battle poems, we rarely see the English population as anything but nameless and faceless victims of slaughter. These dróttkvæði focus on the real or imaginary military campaigns of three kings – Ólafr Tryggvason, Ólafr Haraldsson (i.e., St Ólafr), and Cnut – who were not yet rulers when the poems were composed, and two kings established at the time of composition, Haraldr harðráða and Eysteinn Haraldsson. Although these poems are said to have been composed by different skalds over the century between 980 and 1080, they are remarkably similar. As we shall see later, the sagas follow a set pattern when they send their heroes to England, and the same is true of these dróttkvæði, particularly when the Norse are perceived to be successful in their battles against the English. Attacks or battles are always given a location, such as London, York, Norwich, Hartlepool, Canterbury, the Ouse, or the Thames, and enemy leaders such as Æthelred, Ulfkell, Edmund Ironside, Morcar, Waltheof, and others are duly named also. But this is as far as these poems go in presenting tangible information. The silence of the Norse battle poems concerning a variety of questions is as remarkable as what they actually tell us. Apart from recognizing enemy leaders, we rarely know whether the Vikings are fighting against English armies or ordinary citizens. War as we see it in the form of fighting, killing, burning, and looting is clearly perceived as a heroic achievement that needs no explanation nor justification. Furthermore, these poems (with the exception of Þorkell’s stanza) are completely devoid of feeling in respect to the events

32 Anglo-Saxon England in Icelandic Medieval Texts

that they are relating. The English are neither neither good nor bad, brave nor cowardly; they are simply there – and they are in the way of the victorious Norse armies. One of the Viking leaders, Ólafr Haraldsson, is praised for helping King Æthelred regain his native and rightful kingdom, whereas Cnut is proudly called ‘Æthelred’s enemy’ (andskoti Aðalráðs). But more often than not, the Viking armies seem to accept or care for neither the authority of English kings, nor for their hereditary right to govern their own country. The above-mentioned characteristics of the battle poems remain unchanged as long as campaigns against England are seen to be successful. It is only when we get to Haraldr harðráða’s failed invasion of 1066 that the confident – even somewhat arrogant – tone of this poetry changes. As preparations for the invasion begin, Heimskringla quotes a stanza by Úlfr stallari where he expresses concerns about the prowess of the English elite troops, the þingamannalið. In previous battle poems, English armies had never been a source of worry. After the defeat at Stamford Bridge, Þjóðólfr Arnórsson, an Icelandic skald in Haraldr’s court, composes a stanza where Haraldr is accused of needlessly taking the Norwegian army to England only to be slaughtered there (Heimskringla III, 190). Such sentiments are unheard of in earlier battle poems. As Norse involvement in English affairs comes to an end, it does so not only on a note of self-criticism, but also with some long overdue respect for the enemy.

4 History – Heimskringla, Ágrip af Nóregskonunga so¸gum, Fagrskinna, Knýtlinga saga, and Morkinskinna: From Haraldr Fair-hair to the Sons of Cnut This chapter deals exclusively with what these Icelandic histories of Norwegian and Danish kings have to say about Anglo-Saxon England and English affairs. Ágrip af Nóregskonunga so¸ gum (A Summary of the Histories of the Kings of Norway) is believed to have been composed originally in Norway, but a copy was made in Iceland at a later date, so it is included with the other sagas of kings. My aim is to give a broad critical overview, and – as before – to discuss what information is verifiable, what looks credible, and what appears to be pure fantasy. In the histories I shall be discussing, a great deal of skaldic poetry is quoted by the saga writers, often in an attempt to authenticate the description of events in the main text. As the reader will notice, I have little to say about this poetry in the pages that follow. This is because only very rarely do the skaldic verses in the kings’ sagas add any information to that in the main text, and assessing information is the aim of this chapter. The general historical value of skaldic poetry, and specifically its value for Anglo-Saxon history, has been investigated several times, and it has generally been concluded that it is too traditional, artificial, and hyperbolic to be considered a reliable source of historical information.1 Another issue which needs to be touched upon briefly before we begin to look at the histories themselves is the question of foreign sources available to thirteenth-century Icelandic historians. Did they, for instance, know parts or all of such English sources as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and the works of William of Malmesbury, Roger of Hoveden, Simeon of Durham, Henry of Huntingdon, and John of Worcester? Did they perhaps know continental works about English history which had not been available to the English themselves, or had been lost before English historians could make use of them? And last, but not least, did they have access to English materials such as a hypothetical Chronicle of York, which in the course of time was lost and left

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only the faintest traces in the writing of medieval English history? These are all suggestions that have been made over the years by different scholars. It is, however, beyond the scope of my discussion to debate the question of what foreign materials were available to Icelandic historians during the Middle Ages. Instead, claims that Icelandic writers had access to foreign sources that concern Anglo-Saxon England will be dealt with case by case in this and the next three chapters.

King Haraldr Hálfdanarson Fair-hair (hárfagri) The first dealings between English and Norwegian kings that Snorri relates in his Heimskringla occur between King Haraldr Fair-hair and King Athelstan, and are initiated by the latter. In chapter 38 of the story of King Haraldr the pious and victorious Athelstan sends messengers to the court of the Norwegian king. They bring Haraldr a splendid sword adorned with gold and gems, which the king accepts. The person who hands the sword to the king then proclaims that since Haraldr has agreed to accept Athelstan’s sword, he is now by rights his vassal. When King Haraldr realizes that he has been duped he becomes furious but eventually calms down and allows the messengers to leave in peace. In retaliation, however, he sends a mission of thirty retainers to England, who bring with them his son Hákon, whose mother, Þóra, is one of his slaves. They are invited to a royal banquet which they attend with their weapons concealed under their cloaks. The child is then put down on King Athelstan’s knee with the message that King Haraldr has sent him the son of a slave to bring up. King Athelstan’s first reaction is to reach for his sword in order to kill the child, but the leader of the Norwegian retainers calmly explains that killing Hákon will not eliminate all of King Haraldr’s sons. With that King Athelstan relents, and Haraldr’s retainers leave unharmed. King Haraldr is most pleased with this outcome, since – as Heimskringla tells us – he who fosters another man’s child is the less noble of the two. Snorri then concludes his story by remarking that both kings reigned as overlords of their respective kingdoms to the end of their lives and that Hákon grew up to be known as Athelstan’s foster son (Aðalsteinsfóstri), a good Christian, and a young man who, in addition to being renowned for his wisdom and clever speech, excelled at everything he did in training to become a king in his own right. This story is not recorded in Ágrip af Nóregskonunga so¸gum (hereafter Ágrip), but Fagrskinna tells it with a few minor changes. Here the English king is known as Athelstan the Good and said to be one of the noblest men in

From Haraldr Fair-hair to the Sons of Cnut 35

Scandinavia (Norðrlo¸nd). The leader of the Norwegian retainers leaves the English court with his sword brandished, but in other respects the two versions are more or less identical. At a first glance, this story might look like a rather far-fetched attempt to explain how Hákon – who later becomes a king of Norway – came to be brought up at the court of King Athelstan. But as Marlene Ciklamini has noted, power politics on both sides may well be at the heart of it: ‘The stature of a king among his peers is a measure of his power within and outside his kingdom, [and] implicit is the understanding that respect by neighboring kings discourages and inhibits acts of agression.’2 Still, some of Snorri’s details are less than convincing, particularly his idea that King Athelstan would have entertained thirty armed Norwegians at a royal banquet. But is the kernel of truth in this story that Hákon was really fostered by an English king? That seems to be generally accepted,3 although there is no evidence to support it other than the story we have just looked at and the fact that Hákon is called Aðalsteinsfóstri. However, it never seems to occur to anyone that the Aðalsteinn in question might have been someone other than King Athelstan, and as we shall see in the story of Hákon’s return to Norway, there is more room for doubt.

King Hákon Haraldsson the Good (góði) Hákonar saga góða, in Heimskringla, relates that when Hákon is fifteen years old, he learns that his father has died. Before his death, Haraldr had made Eiríkr Blood-axe, his son and Hákon’s exceedingly unpopular half-brother, his successor to the throne. Hákon immediately sets sail for Norway, handsomely equipped by his foster father. Landing in Trondheim, Hákon wins the support of the local magnates, who help him arrange a general assembly of the neighbouring farming communities. At the assembly he makes a powerful speech in which he promises the farmers increased rights and freedoms if they are prepared to support his bid for kingship against Eiríkr. His success is instantaneous, and within a year his power is such that his half-brother chooses to flee the country to settle in the Orkney Islands. There Eiríkr assembles a great army, which proceeds to raid in the north of England and in Scotland. King Athelstan, mindful of the great friendship between himself and Haraldr, then offers Eiríkr a part of England to rule over. Eiríkr accepts Northumbria, which he is to defend against Viking attacks. Feeling that his new English kingdom is too small to support him, Eiríkr resumes his raids, attacking Scotland, Ireland, and Wales. At this point King Athelstan dies, and is succeeded by his brother Edmund. Edmund does not like Norwegians and is no friend of

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Eiríkr’s, according to Snorri. When word gets out that Edmund intends to remove Eiríkr as ruler of Northumbria, Eiríkr goes on the warpath again, this time against England. In a great battle fought at an unspecified location, Eiríkr is killed by a certain King Óláfr, who had been appointed by Edmund to defend against raiders like Eiríkr. With the death of Eiríkr, Hákonar saga góða has no more to say about English affairs. Ágrip (chap. 5) and Fagrskinna (chaps. 7–8) both tell their own versions of this story. In Ágrip, Hákon is asked by his friends in Norway to return two years after the death of his father. Eventually he ousts Eiríkr, who flees to Denmark and is not heard from after that. In Fagrskinna, it is King Athelstan who urges Hákon to return to Norway as soon as his father dies. Hákon is twenty when he goes back. In Norway, he keeps a low profile, makes friends with all and sundry, and waits for Eiríkr to self-destruct. The account of Eiríkr’s exile and rule in Northumbria is the same as in Heimskringla, except that in Fagrskinna he converts to Christianity. All hypothetical language problems aside, the reader has to suspend a good deal of disbelief to accept that this is actually how Hákon came to power. A fifteen- or twenty-year-old boy, and a good Christian, would not have found it easy to go back to fiercely pagan Norway to make great speeches and sell his political charms. As for Eiríkr’s exile in England, an English king – friendship or no friendship – would never give away such a large portion of his kingdom (one fifth, to be precise) – least of all to someone like Eiríkr, who had just led raids on England and was an arch-enemy of Hákon, Athelstan’s much beloved foster son. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Eiríkr did indeed rule over Northumbria for a time, coming to power in 948, but by then King Athelstan had been dead for nine years. The English king who had to deal with Eiríkr was, as it happens, neither Athelstan nor Edmund but Eadred, and he did so by launching an attack on Northumbria in the same year that Eiríkr began his rule. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle further relates that Eiríkr was betrayed and killed at Stainmoor, in Westmoreland, in 954.

King Ólafr Tryggvason As I shall later discuss, Heimskringla, Ágrip, and Fagrskinna are strangely silent about the military exploits of Ólafr Tryggvason in the 990s, whereas the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle has much to say about a certain Anlaf who terrorized England during that period. Apart from remarking that Ólafr raided various parts of England, including Northumbria, Heimskringla has nothing more to add. It does, however, tell two separate stories concerning events in the life of

From Haraldr Fair-hair to the Sons of Cnut 37

Ólafr during his years in England (chaps. 31–2), in particular his conversion to Christianity, which Ágrip (chap. 19) also relates, and his marriage to Gyða, a woman of Irish royal descent. Ólafr’s conversion to Christianity takes place in the Isles of Scilly, and comes about in the following manner: Ólafr hears of a hermit who is said to have the gift of prophecy, and is curious to test the hermit’s powers. He sends the handsomest of his men to see the prophet, and instructs him to pretend to be a foreign king. The man does so, but the prophet immediately knows him to be a king’s retainer rather than a king. Ólafr then decides to go in person to see the prophet. The hermit predicts that Ólafr will be a great king and will do much to advance Christianity. To convince Ólafr that he is telling the truth, he also prophesies an imminent battle in which Ólafr will be thought to be mortally wounded, and that he will recover from his wounds in seven days. These events come to pass exactly as the hermit has predicted. Ólafr then goes to see the prophet a second time and is told that it is God himself who tells the hermit all that he wants to know. The hermit lectures him on the great powers of his God, and now Ólafr is finally convinced, and agrees to be converted to Christianity. He and all his followers are then baptized. Ólafr meets his wife-to-be at an assembly somewhere in England. She is called Gyða, and is said to be a sister of the Norse king of Dublin and the widow of a powerful English earl. Gyða has been wooed by a great champion called Alvini, but has told him that she wants to have the freedom of choosing whoever she likes among her subjects. The assembly that Ólafr is attending has been called for the express purpose of allowing Gyða to select a husband. She quickly makes her way to Ólafr, proposes to him, and he accepts, much to the displeasure of Alvini, who challenges Ólafr to fight a battle with him and eleven of his men. Alvini and his band are quickly defeated, and Ólafr confiscates his possessions and sends Alvini into exile. Ólafr and Gyða then marry and settle down. The entry for 991 in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle tells of a Viking attack on Ipswich, and of the death of Alderman Byrhtnoth at Maldon. This year also marks the beginning of the danegeld payments. After the Battle of Maldon, Æthelred negotiated a peace treaty with the Viking army, which included a certain Anlaf as one of its leaders. This Anlaf is commonly believed to have been Ólafr Tryggvason. The next time we hear of Anlaf in the Chronicle is in 994, when he and Sveinn Fork-beard (tjúguskegg) attack London with ninetyfour ships. The purpose of the attack was to set fire to the city, but Anlaf and Sveinn failed completely and were driven off, having suffered more casualties than they had ever anticipated. But, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, their raid was far from over. They then proceeded to attack Essex, Kent, Sus-

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sex, and Hampshire, looting, killing, and burning wherever they went. Finally, they obtained horses for themselves and rode inland, doing more evil than words can describe, according to the Chronicle. King Æthelred offered them money and provisions in return for peace, which Anlaf and Sveinn accepted. The king then sent Bishop Ælfheah and Alderman Æthelweard to Anlaf, and brought him with great respect to meet King Æthelred at Andover. There he was baptized and given royal presents. Anlaf then solemnly swore that he would never again make war against England, and kept his promise. This Anlaf appears to have left England around the time that Ólafr Tryggvason is known to have returned to Norway, and hence the two are generally assumed to be one and the same.4 If we accept that the Anlaf of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle entries for 991 and 994 is indeed Ólafr Tryggvason, it is completely incomprehensible that no history writer in Iceland, not even Snorri Sturluson, should have heard of these campaigns. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle account is certainly a gruesome story, and one might be tempted to surmise that Icelandic writers of history did not find it fitting to relate the brutalities with which the Chronicle credits Ólafr because he was about to become one of the most forceful missionary kings that Norway – and Iceland, for that matter – had ever seen. (Ólafr was instrumental in getting Christianity accepted in Iceland in the year 1000 and was none too scrupulous in obtaining that end.) But this is not a very satisfactory explanation, because we are considering at least three different authors, and they hardly all thought alike. If Ólafr was Anlaf, the silence of the Icelandic historians remains a mystery. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle’s story of Ólafr’s military exploits in England is entirely believable, but the account of his baptism is a bit harder to accept. The question is, what motivated Ólafr to be baptized? It certainly was not money or royal gifts, because he and Sveinn had been too successful in their extortion efforts to be bribed with anything. Ólafr was indeed baptized, and most likely on English soil, but what motivated him to do so was either not known to the Chronicle writer, or he did not care to relate it. The paucity of information in Icelandic historical writing concerning the years Ólafr Tryggvason spent in England becomes embarrassingly apparent if we take a closer look at the only two stories that Heimskringla can relate: one is lifted from another source, and the other is a fairy tale. The story of Ólafr and the prophetic hermit is ultimately adapted from the Dialogues of Pope Gregory the Great, and the original characters, St Benedict of Nursia and Totila, the king of the Goths, are simply replaced by the hermit and Ólafr. The story in Heimskringla (which is much fuller than in Ágrip) has been slightly embellished, and Ólafr’s baptism has been added to it, but there can be no

From Haraldr Fair-hair to the Sons of Cnut 39

doubt about its provenance. Snorri’s immediate source, however, was probably Ólafs saga hins helga (The Legendary History of St Ólafr Haraldsson), which relates more or less the same story, except for placing the hermit in England and making Ólafr Haraldsson, future king and saint, his disciple.5 The story of Ólafr’s marriage to Gyða is pure fantasy. It is completely impossible that King Ólafr kváran of Dublin, who is supposed to be her brother, could have had a sister who was young enough to marry Ólafr Tryggvason. As for Gyða’s method of choosing a husband, there is not a single known example of an arrangement of the kind that Heimskringla describes in the history of Europe during the Middle Ages. However, stories of women choosing their husbands were told during the Middle Ages, and are duly recorded in the motif indices of folk literature.6 For all the lack of information about King Ólafr’s exploits on English soil, and the misery that he may have inflicted upon the English, a monk at the monestary at Þingeyrar in the north of Iceland, Oddr Snorrason, was evidently undeterred by such problems when he composed his saga of King Ólafr. In his Saga Óláfs Tryggvasonar, composed around 1200, he insists that King Æthelred had been a great friend of Ólafr’s, and that during the reign of Edward the Confessor he continued to be remembered and much revered in England (chap. 79). Oddr claims that Edward respected Ólafr so much that every Easter he would tell his knights of the glories of Ólafr Tryggvason, explaining that as Easter was the greatest of Christian celebrations, it was an entirely fitting occasion to tell of the king who far surpassed all other kings in prowess and fame.7 As a suitable end to his story, Oddr then maintains that Ólafr was not killed in battle but ended his days as a monk in Greece or Syria (chap. 78), where he led a life so holy that he inspired King Harold II – who in Oddr’s version was not killed at Hastings – to do the same (chap. 80).

King Sveinn Haraldsson Fork-beard (tjúguskegg) Chronologically, the next Scandinavian king to play a role in England is Sveinn Fork-beard, King of Denmark – a man very keen to add king of England to his title. Unfortunately, Knýtlinga saga says less about his campaigns in England than one would wish, but its very short account has, as we shall see, some interesting touches. According to the saga, King Sveinn turns his attention to England after campaigns in Saxony and elsewhere. He raids extensively in England, and fights many battles, with mixed success, against King Æthelred. As we saw in the previous section, King Sveinn attacked London in 994 with Ólafr Tryggvason, but failed to capture the city. Sveinn made

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another attempt in 1013, when he besieged London, but again he failed. Yet, it seems that at least some Icelandic authors believed that he had been successful in his campaigns against London. The appendix to Jómsvíkinga saga in Flateyjarbók (I, chap. 164) has Sveinn establishing an army of elite troops (þingamannalið) and placing it in London. But in reality, London eluded Sveinn’s capture, although he was eventually to conquer the greater part of England. He spent a number of years harrying and burning and became known as ‘the enemy of the English’ (fjándi Engla). The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle fully confirms this very short description of Sveinn’s military exploits in England. According to the Chronicle, he raided England on three separate occasions: first by attacking London in 994 (presumably with Ólafr Tryggvason); then in a second campaign in the years 1003 to 1005; and finally in the summer of 1013, when he did indeed conquer much of England and caused King Æthelred to flee the country. King Sveinn died in his sleep one night in February 1014, according to Knýtlinga saga, and it is said among the English that King St Edmund killed him in the same manner that St Mercurius killed Julian the Apostate. Julian the Apostate was a nephew of Emperor Constantine the Great, and an emperor himself from 361 to 363. He was brought up as a Christian but renounced his faith at an early age. Julian was more interested in Greek religion and philosophy than the Church thought proper and fitting, which earned him the unflattering title apostata. As emperor, he tried to resurrect the old Roman faith, while allowing his subjects freedom of religion. He was noted for his talents and excellence, and was compared to the likes of Marcus Aurelius and Alexander the Great. He was killed by a spear wound in battle against the Persians in Mesapotamia when he was in his thirties. When he died, it was rumoured that the Virgin Mary had sent St Mercurius to kill him, and that the holy man had stabbed him through with a spear. St Edmund, king of East Anglia, was killed by the Vikings in 870. The story that King Sveinn died at his hands is also told in Hermannus’s work De Miraculis Sancti Eadmundi, which relates that Edmund killed Sveinn because he had refused to spare the monastery of Bury St Edmunds, Edmund’s own monastery, from heavy taxation.8 Whatever the reason, for the English to recall the story of Julian’s death in connection with the death of King Sveinn says a great deal about what the native population must have felt about him and other Viking raiders. Bjarni Guðnason, the editor of Knýtlinga saga, believes that the kenning ‘fjándi Engla’ and the story of Sveinn’s death reflect English views and sympathies. Furthermore, he argues that it is likely that the ultimate source of Knýtlinga saga’s account of Sveinn’s campaigns in England was an English book,9 which is of course not impossible, but difficult to prove.

From Haraldr Fair-hair to the Sons of Cnut 41

King St Ólafr Haraldsson The military career of Ólafr in England is quite short. He is involved in campaigns between 1009 and 1012, and then leaves England to fight in France and Spain. During the winter of 1013–14 he stays in Rouen and accompanies Æthelred back to England in the spring, according to Ólafs saga hins helga (The Legendary History of St Ólafr Haraldsson). Heimskringla tells the story differently, as we shall shortly see. In the autumn of that same year, 1014, he leaves England for good and sets sail for Norway. There is a great deal of confusion in the Icelandic histories that relate Ólafr’s exploits in England. The main reason for this state of affairs is undoubtedly the attempt in early works on Ólafr, such as Ólafs saga hins helga and Ágrip, to make him an ally of Cnut in his war against Edmund Ironside. In reality Cnut and Ólafr were arch-enemies, and Cnut was instrumental in bringing about Ólafr’s defeat and death at the Battle of Stiklarstaðir in 1030. Ágrip has nothing to say about Ólafr’s military campaigns in England, except for a stinging attack on Cnut, who is said to have conquered England with the help of Ólafr, only to betray him by bribing Norwegian chieftains to plot against him (chap. 26). In both Fagrskinna and Heimskringla, the main emphasis is on enumerating the various battles that Ólafr fought in England. The battles themselves are rarely dealt with in more than a sentence or two, but a copious amount of poetry – which adds little to the information in the prose text – is quoted, presumably to lend an air of authenticity to the account. The only exception to this pattern is a story that Snorri tells to illuminate Ólafr’s talents as a brilliant strategist in Heimskringla II, chaps. 12–13. The same story also occurs in Ólafs saga hins helga, but with the important difference that instead of posing as King Æthelred’s ally, Ólafr is said to be aiding Cnut. In the Heimskringla version, Ólafr, commanding a great Norwegian army, joins forces with King Æthelred to capture London, which is held by the Danes.10 At Southwark, the Danes have made great fortifications that include walls and ditches. The bridges connecting Southwark and London are also heavily fortified and defended. These bridges are held up by wooden poles thrust into the river bed, and play a central role in the defence of both London and Southwark. King Æthelred has, at this point, already tried to attack the bridges but to no avail. The English king is in a state of despair, because he sees no way to capture the bridges, and he calls a meeting of his chief commanders. At the meeting, Ólafr declares that he will mount an attack, provided that other leaders are prepared to support him.

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Having received the support of the others, Ólafr now begins his preparations. He has great protective wooden covers made and pitches them over his ships. Thus arrayed, he and King Æthelred’s men attack. They are met by a hail of spears, arrows, and rocks so big that neither helmets nor shields can protect against them. The ships also take a heavy beating from these missiles, and many of the attackers decide to retreat. Ólafr and his men get underneath the bridges and tie ropes around the poles that support them. They then row away with all their might, and, aided by the current of the river, succeed in pulling the poles loose. With that, the bridges collapse under the weight of the defending army and its equipment. A great many people are thrown into the river, but others manage to escape either to Southwark or London. Next, Southwark is attacked and won. As the citizens of London realize they are not in command of the river anymore, they decide to surrender to King Æthelred and accept him as their rightful king. This story is also told in Saga Ólafs konungs Haraldssonar (hin mesta) in Flateyjarbók (II, 89), and repeated a few pages later (93) with only minor changes, but now Ólafr helps Cnut, and iron hooks replace the ropes. We are also told how close Edmund Ironside’s brother Edward comes to killing Cnut. Cnut, who had fought his way into London, is pushed off his horse by one of his own men in order to avoid a great blow from Edward that cuts through the saddle and the back of the horse. Like Heimskringla, Fagrskinna (chap. 27) makes Ólafr an ally of King Æthelred and has him capture London from the Danes, although the saga’s account of the battle does not include the tale of Ólafr’s tactical brilliance. However, it is certain that this battle never took place. First of all, the Danes never succeeded in capturing London. Sveinn Fork-beard attacked the city in 1013 and Cnut in 1016, but both assaults were unsuccessful. Second, the Londoners always remained loyal to King Æthelred, and Ólafr never won any victories against them. Certain details in this story appear to be derived from descriptions of the attacks in 1013 (a great number of warriors from the attacking army drowned in the Thames) and in 1016 (the Danes dug a great ditch south of the city), but in the main, the story’s only purpose appears to be to show how brilliant Ólafr is as a military leader in comparison to the dejected, beaten, and unresourceful English king.11 After the great battle to win London, Ólafr stays with King Æthelred during the winter. The next battle that he engages in is at Hringmaraheiðr, which has been identified as Ringmere Pit near Thetford.12 John of Worcester confirms that this battle did indeed take place in 1010, but Heimskringla tells us nothing about it except that a great number of people, for the most part English, were killed. Afterwards, Ólafr marches to Canterbury and captures that city, killing

From Haraldr Fair-hair to the Sons of Cnut 43

a large number of people. He then burns it down. It is confirmed by English sources that Canterbury was first besieged and then sacked by a Viking army in the autumn of 1011, an event notable for the ferocity displayed by the attackers. Among the evil deeds that the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle relates is the capture of Bishop Ælfheah, who earlier may have baptized Ólafr Tryggvason. He was held for ransom, and when he refused to have any payment made for his release, he was tortured and killed. Heimskringla, by contrast, notes in the poems it quotes only that the city was set on fire and a great many people killed. Ólafr is then said to have fought a battle at Nýjamóða, but this battle is not mentioned by any English sources. Late medieval records show that a township called Newemouth once existed near Orford, and the place name can be identified linguistically with Heimskringla’s Nýjamóða.13 A poem by Sigvatr, which Heimskringla quotes, tells us only that Ólafr did a great job of dyeing the hair of the English, and the swords of his men, red. Ólafr is then said to have gone to various parts of the country demanding money in exchange for peace, and to have made war against those who declined to pay. According to Snorri, when King Æthelred died in 1016 Ólafr took his campaign of terror to Spain,14 but in reality, Ólafr had been back in Norway for two years at the time of the king’s death. Ólafr, we are now told, goes to the Middle East, where he has a dream in which he is instructed to return to Norway to become king. He then sets sail for France where he is – according to some sources – baptized in Rouen. In France, according to Heimskringla, he meets up with the sons of Æthelred, who had by then been exiled by King Cnut. They form an alliance, and Ólafr is promised Northumbria should they manage to win England back from Danish rule. Ólafr sends one of his trusted men with a great deal of money to ‘win’ friends and influence in England, but in spite of considerable success in this endeavour, it gradually becomes apparent that Danish rule is far too strong to be broken. In the spring of the following year, Ólafr joins forces with the sons of Æthelred in a raid on England. First they attack a city called Jungufurða and kill a great number of people. Then Ólafr and the brothers part company, and the latter return to France. Finally, Ólafr attacks an unidentified coastal city in Northumbria called fyrir Valdi. Again he is victorious and obtains a great deal of money as well. After this battle, Ólafr returns to Norway for good. His last contact with England is in the form of a reply to a letter King Cnut sends him demanding that he surrender Norway and become Cnut’s vassal. Ólafr’s response to this demand was described previously in chapter 3. In the main, the much shorter account of Ólafr’s battles in Fagrskinna (chap. 27) agrees with Snorri’s list of his English battles in Heimskringla, but

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does not mention his alliance with the sons of Æthelred. English sources know nothing about this alliance either, or about Ólafr’s last two battles, and it is doubtful that the clashes, particularly the one at Jungafurða, ever took place. It had already been established that Danish rule in England was too strong to be broken. It therefore makes little sense that the sons of Æthelred should attack a city only to discover subsequently that they were hopelessly outnumbered by King Cnut’s troops, and be forced to beat a hasty retreat back to France.

King Knútr Sveinsson (Cnut the Great) Knýtlinga saga is a strange text in terms of how often it is inaccurate or just plain wrong in relating the life and career of the man who, more than anyone else, occupies centre stage in this history of Danish kings. Cnut is by far the most powerful and important Scandinavian ruler of all time, a king of three countries – Denmark, England, and Norway – and fittingly remembered by later historians as King Cnut the Great. First, the saga tells us that in 1014 Cnut, at the age of ten, came to the throne of Denmark upon the death of his father, Sveinn Fork-beard, as his older brother Haraldr was already dead. Actually, Cnut appears to have been about sixteen years old when his father died,15 and his brother Haraldr lived to ca. 1018–20. The Encomiast, author of the Encomium Emmae, claims that upon Sveinn’s death Haraldr inherited the crown and refused Cnut’s request for help to conquer England. This is no longer believed, and it appears that Cnut was recognized as king of Denmark upon his father’s death, although Haraldr may have been left in charge of the country for a time.16 The saga then relates that, because of his youth, Cnut was persuaded to wait for three years before taking an army to England. That is not quite true, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and the Encomium Emmae. Both these texts state that Cnut was already in England when his father died and relate further that, upon Sveinn’s death, King Æthelred returned from his exile in Normandy to fight Cnut. Cnut felt compelled at that point to return to Denmark and gather more troops, but he was back in England a year later, in 1015, to continue his campaign. Cnut seems to have mounted typical Viking raids of looting, killing, and burning at first, but his strategy soon changed. Cnut’s first major battle, according to Knýtlinga saga, was in Lindisey (Lindsey), where there was great bloodshed, but he emerged victorious. Next, he fought at Hemingaborg (Hemingbrough) with the same result, and then had great battles in Northumbria by the river Tesa (Tees). Emerging victorious from all these battles, Cnut then began a march to the south.

From Haraldr Fair-hair to the Sons of Cnut 45

We are now told that King Æthelred had died the same year Cnut came to England with his army (chap. 9). In reality, King Æthelred died in 1016, and by then Cnut had conquered the whole country, with the exception of London. In Knýtlinga saga, Queen Emma leaves for her kinsmen in France on the death of her husband, only to have her ship and herself captured by Cnut’s men. Cnut proceeds to marry her, presumably not in a romantic fashion, since nothing is said of her consenting to this new alliance. (A similar story is told in the Appendix to Jómsvíkinga saga.) The fact of the matter, however, is that Cnut did not marry Emma until he had become a ruler over all of England in 1017 with the death of Edmund Ironside. According to the Encomium Emmae, Emma was staying with her relatives in France at that time. King Cnut sent messengers to woo her, and she consented to the marriage on the condition that any sons they might have together should be the only rightful heirs to the throne (Cnut already had two sons with an English woman). Chapter 10 of Knýtlinga saga informs us, rather strangely, that after the death of King Æthelred, no less than all four of his sons, Edmund Ironside, Edgar, Eadwig, and Edward, ascended to the throne (‘váru til konunga teknir’). A fifth son of Æthelred’s by Emma, Alfred (who lived to 1036), is not mentioned at all. It is quite clear that the author of Knýtlinga saga is confused about the actual relationship between Æthelred’s sons, as he does not seem to realize that the king had married twice. Thus, mistakenly, Edmund Ironside is made the son of Emma in the saga. After his father’s death, Edmund assembles a great army and does battle with Cnut at Skorsteinn (OE Sceorstan). According to the saga, there are great casualties on both sides. In the course of the battle, Edmund Ironside advances so far against the Danish army that he gets within reach of Cnut, and delivers a mighty blow against him. Cnut holds up his shield for protection, but the blow is such that it cuts through the shield, the saddle, and the back of his horse. Cnut survives this assault more or less unharmed. This is an only slightly altered version of the story that we saw in Saga Ólafs konungs Haraldssonar (hin mesta), but here Edmund Ironside is made to pay dearly for his heroics. He has ventured so far from his troops that they think he has been killed, and they begin to desert the battlefield. Others, seeing him riding away from the Danish army, think he is deserting and do the same. In this chaotic situation, the saga tells us, a great number of English troops are killed as the Danes pursue the fleeing army. A stanza by Óttarr svarti is quoted as evidence of the Danes’ great success, but Óttarr, though gloating about the great number of troops killed by Cnut and his army, stops short of confirming an absolute victory. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the Battle of Sceorstan did indeed take place in June of 1016, but neither side emerged victorious.

46 Anglo-Saxon England in Icelandic Medieval Texts

In chapter 11 of the saga we are given a little short story, supposedly occasioned by the great battle. One of Cnut’s officers, Earl Úlfr, gets lost in a forest while chasing the fleeing English army. Having spent the night there, he finds his way out at daybreak and chances upon a young boy called Godwine (Guðini), who is minding his father’s sheep. Godwine asks him whether he is one of Cnut’s men, Earl Úlfr confirms that he is, and then inquires how far he is from the Danish ships. The boy tells him that given the atrocities committed by the Danish army he should not expect help from anybody. Despite Godwine’s words, Earl Úlfr still asks for help in finding his way back to the Danish boats. The boy informs him that he is a long way from his ships and adds that he is in very hostile territory. Godwine then explains that after the defeat of the English at Sceorstan, Earl Úlfr – and anyone trying to help him – would face a certain death should the neighbouring farmers discover them. He then proceeds to tell Earl Úlfr that he believes him to be a man of substance. Úlfr offers Godwine a golden ring in return for being escorted back to his boats. Godwine declines to accept the gift but agrees to help. Earl Úlfr is then taken to the farm of Godwine’s father, where he is fed and entertained. The following night, as he and Godwine are about to leave, the boy’s parents approach Úlfr and tell him that Godwine is an only child, and add that he cannot come back home after helping Úlfr. Therefore, they wish that the boy might enter into service with Cnut. Úlfr promises them that he will take care of the boy. Úlfr and the boy then travel all that night, and reach the Danish boats in the morning. Earl Úlfr is very warmly received, as he was believed to have been killed in the battle. Only at this point does Godwine discover that he has been escorting one of Cnut’s leading officers. Úlfr keeps his promise, adopts Godwine as his son, and eventually marries him to his sister, Gyða, while Cnut makes him an earl in his own right. We are then told that the future King Harold II and Earl Tostig were the sons of Godwine and Gyða. The saga mistakenly gives Godwine two more sons, Morcar and Waltheof, who were actually Northumbrian earls but unrelated to Godwine. This interesting story of the origin and advancement of Godwine concludes with a statement that many families, including the kings of Denmark and nobility as far away as Sweden and Russia, were descended from Godwine and Gyða. This story has all the characteristics of a folk tale. Despite the fact that Earl Godwine was, for a long time, among the most powerful men in England, very little is known about him or his family origin. In the F version of the AngloSaxon Chronicle, he is said to be the son of a nobleman called Wulfnoth, but other than this, English sources are amazingly silent about his family. We do know, however, that his daughter married Edward the Confessor and that Godwine died at a banquet held by his son-in-law in 1053. Godwine’s quite nasty

From Haraldr Fair-hair to the Sons of Cnut 47

death is related in Saga hins heilaga Játvarðar (The History of Edward the Confessor) in Flateyjarbók. In this account, Godwine wants his son Harold to succeed to the throne, as Edward leads a celibate married life, but the king has a younger brother who stands in the way of Godwine’s plans. When this brother dies from a mysterious illness, the king suspects Godwine of foul play. At a banquet, which Godwine attends, the king openly hints that Godwine had something to do with his brother’s death. Godwine, who is having his meal, replies that God will allow him to enjoy the morsel of food that he is about to put in his mouth, as proof that he had nothing to do with the death of the king’s brother. That is the last we see of Godwine in the saga, because he chokes to death on the piece of food he is eating and his body is thrown out of the palace to be eaten by birds of prey.17 In later tradition there is an increased tendency to give Godwine a humble origin. In the late twelfth-century work by Walter Map, De Nugis Curialium, there is a story in which King Æthelred is given the role of Earl Úlfr. The king is out hunting, gets separated from his men, and loses his way. Eventually, he comes across a shepherd, and seeks shelter from him. The shepherd’s son, who is called Godwine, shows the king such kindness that the latter becomes fond of him. As he leaves, he takes the boy with him, and makes him an earl. After this interlude describing how Godwine rose to power, we are told that Cnut faced Æthelred’s sons in a second battle at the city of Brentford. Knýtlinga saga (chap. 12) insists that Cnut won a great victory, putting Æthelred’s sons to flight and destroying the city. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, on the other hand, relates that Edmund Ironside defeated the Danish army at Brentford in 1016. A third battle follows at Assandun in Essex, in the same year, but this time Cnut had the upper hand. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, all the best men in England were killed there. After the Battle of Assandun, Cnut and Edmund agreed to divide England between them, since neither felt he could conclusively defeat the other. But in Knýtlinga saga, the war between Cnut and Edmund continues in full force after the Battle of Assandun. According to the saga, the brothers fight Cnut at Norwich, but are defeated. Upon hearing that they have retreated to London, Cnut sets sail for the Thames, where he teams up with his brother-in-law Earl Eiríkr. Knýtlinga saga then explains that a great castle – an edifice we have already come across a couple of times in different forms – has been built for defensive purposes in the middle of the river itself. Cnut attacks the castle, which is also defended by ships that have sailed from London, and is victorious, according to a stanza by Óttarr svarti. Cnut then proceeds to attack London several times, but fails to conquer the city. Earl Eiríkr, however, takes a part of the army away from London and goes into battle against Ulfkell of East Anglia. Eiríkr defeats him, but Ulfkell

48 Anglo-Saxon England in Icelandic Medieval Texts

saves himself by running away from battle (chap. 15). In reality, Ulfkell – who was indeed an alderman in East Anglia – was already dead by this time, having been killed at the Battle of Assandun. His death is mentioned by two Icelandic sources. In Flateyjarbók (II, Saga Ólafs konungs Haraldssonar [hin mesta], chap. 20), he is said to have been killed by Þorkell hávi in revenge for the death of Þorkell’s brother. In the Flateyjarbók version of the story, however, Þorkell is associated with Ólafr Haraldsson rather than Cnut. In Heimskringla (II, chap. 25), Snorri interprets the accompanying stanza from the poem Eiríksdrápa to mean that Ulfkell was killed by Eiríkr. Eiríkr is then said to have fought and defeated the English at Hringmaraheiðr – Ringmere Pit – a battle which, as we saw earlier, is also associated with Ólafr Haraldsson. To complete the confusion, John of Worcester claims that Ulfkell fought there against neither Eiríkr nor Ólafr, but against Þorkell hávi, who defeated him.18 During Eiríkr’s campaign, Cnut continues his siege of London which, as before, is defended by Edmund Ironside and his brothers. Then, the saga tells us, messengers went between the two sides, because, as the saga wrongly claims, Cnut is after all married to Emma. A deal is eventually brokered, and it is agreed that Cnut and Edmund should divide the country between them. In the event that one of them dies without leaving an heir, it is agreed further that the other should then rule over the whole country. Bjarni Guðnason, the editor of Knýtlinga saga, firmly believes that the saga’s account of the peace brokered between Cnut and Edmund represents a genuine contact point between English and Icelandic historical works.19 His argument, briefly, is as follows: the Annals of Roger of Hoveden include a short work relating the history of England between 975 and 1042 called Liber de Legibus Angliæ. It is an anonymous text, assumed to date from around 1050. Guðnason argues that the accounts of how peace is made between Cnut and Edmund in Liber de Legibus Angliæ, and in Icelandic texts such as Ólafs saga hins helga (The Legendary History of St Ólafr Haraldsson), Saga Ólafs konungs Haraldssonar (hin mesta) in Flateyjarbók, the Appendix to Jómsvíkinga saga, and, finally, Knýtlinga saga itself, are so similar that accidental likenesses can be ruled out, and a genetic relationship between the English and the Icelandic versions is virtually certain. Liber de Legibus Angliæ and other English sources agree that Edmund reigned for nine months, and that he fought five battles against Cnut during that time. Icelandic histories say the same, according to Guðnason. Liber de Legibus Angliæ and various Icelandic histories relate how peace was made, but only Knýtlinga saga and Ólafs saga hins helga state that important or powerful people – ríkismenn – were those who acted as go-betweens. Knýtlinga saga is the only Icelandic source to mention that as a part of the truce between Cnut and

From Haraldr Fair-hair to the Sons of Cnut 49

Edmund oaths were sworn and hostages exchanged. Guðnason has to admit, however, that Liber de Legibus Angliæ does not mention anything about this. But, he points out that a reference to the sworn oaths is to be found in John of Worcester’s Chronicle, the hostage exchange is mentioned in the Encomium Emmae, and both incidents can be found in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. According to Guðnason, a now lost Knúts saga must be assumed to be the main source of Knýtlinga saga (and the description in Ólafs saga hins helga concerning these events), and it is clear, he says, that the author of this Knúts saga drew upon English sources. This is an interesting argument, but it has an Achilles heel. There is no conclusive evidence that the three English works of history Guðnason cites to establish an English connection for Knýtlinga saga were known in Iceland during the Middle Ages.20 Edmund Ironside died in 1016, and his death was quite clearly a major turning point in King Cnut’s career. It is not known what killed Edmund, but judging from English sources such as the Encomium Emmae, John of Worcester’s history, and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, it would appear his death was caused by some unknown disease. Of course, bearing in mind what was at stake, one does not have to be particularly imaginative to see that the agreement between Cnut and Edmund could be seen as an invitation to murder. This is precisely how some later sources depict it and, beginning with Hermannus’s work De Miraculis Sancti Eadmundi, King Cnut is blamed for King Edmund’s death. Knýtlinga saga (chap. 16) describes King Edmund’s death as follows: ‘There was a powerful man called Eadric Streona, who was paid by King Cnut to betray King Edmund and to make a murderous attack upon him. Yet Eadric had fostered King Edmund, who believed him like himself.’21 According to English sources, Eadric Streona was a notorious deserter and traitor whom King Cnut had killed in 1017. The Encomium Emmae relates that his execution was carried out by Earl Eiríkr. The great faith King Edmund had in Eadric Streona is also described in the Encomium Emmae, which says that Edmund relied heavily on Eadric, who was a wise but wily man. The Encomium Emmae then adds that King Edmund did not think any matter had been properly deliberated unless Eadric had been consulted. Bjarni Guðnason wonders if Knýtlinga saga might have derived its description of King Edmund’s trust in Eadric from the Encomium Emmae. That, however, is not very likely for a simple reason. If the author of Knýtlinga saga had had access to the Encomium Emmae, he would also have known of its description of how King Edmund Ironside actually died. The author then would have been bound to realize that the Encomium Emmae was a source much closer to Edmund and the events of his life than either Hermannus or the Icelandic kings’ histories. Therefore, it

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does not make much sense that he would have borrowed one relatively unimportant detail of the story from the Encomium Emmae, only to leave out what was of real importance: namely, the manner in which King Edmund had actually died. After relating the supposed murder of King Edmund, Knýtlinga saga goes on to inform us that King Cnut drove all the remaining sons of Æthelred into exile. It then mentions the children of King Cnut and Queen Emma, with Harold as the eldest, followed by Harthacnut and Gunnhildr. As it happens, Harold was not Emma’s son.22 His mother was a woman called Ælfgifu (Álfífa in ON), the daughter of Ælfhelm, alderman of Northumbria. Bjarni Guðnason suggests that the mistake of making Harold Emma’s son could have originated in the entry for 1052 in the E version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, in which Emma is referred to as Ælfgiue Ymma, Ælfgifu being the queen’s official title in Old English.23 But this is not a very convincing argument. Aside from the fact that there is no firm evidence to suggest the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle was ever known to Icelandic historians during the Middle Ages, the author of Knýtlinga saga is so often wrong about family relationships in his narrative that more probably, this is just another of his mistakes. The story then turns to King Cnut’s campaign against King Ólafr Haraldsson of Norway. The origin of hostilities between them, according to the saga, is Ólafr’s ascension to the throne, an event that immediately drove Cnut’s nephew Earl Hákon Eiríksson and others into exile. Óláfs saga helga, in Heimskringla (II, chap. 130), relates the great popularity that Ólafr enjoyed when he returned to Norway, and how that popularity all but evaporated when his subjects felt the full force of his tyrannical rule. An exodus of Norwegian chieftains to England began, says Heimskringla, and King Cnut was more than happy to use his wealth to shower the newcomers with money. Soon after Earl Hákon sought shelter in England with his uncle, the two mounted a vast military expedition against Ólafr’s kingdom. They quickly conquered the entire country; King Ólafr was driven into exile and Earl Hákon appointed governor. King Cnut then turned his attention to Scotland, and, according to the saga, made his son Harold king of that country. This is not confirmed by any other source, though Óláfs saga helga in Heimskringla does mention that King Cnut conquered much of Scotland.24 The E version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, however, has an entry for 1031 which indicates that King Cnut went to Scotland and had three Scottish kings – Malcolm, Maelbeth, and Iehmarc – swear him an oath of allegiance. It is perhaps not surprising, therefore, that the author of Knýtlinga saga pauses at this point in his narrative to remark that Cnut was the mightiest king, and ruled a realm larger than that of any Scandinavian monarch before him.25

From Haraldr Fair-hair to the Sons of Cnut 51

Unfortunately, Knýtlinga saga has nothing to say about King Cnut’s court at the height of his career. In Óláfs saga helga in Heimskringla (II, chap. 130), however, Snorri – either following tradition or using his imagination – gives his impression of what life was like for the first and only Danish king of England. At King Cnut’s court, he says, there was more royal splendour than at the courts of other kings. This was evident both from the great number of people surrounding it, and from the grandeur of the chambers that made up Cnut’s quarters. The expanse of his realm enabled him to collect more taxes and to be more generous with his wealth than other rulers. Snorri concludes his account by remarking on the peace that people enjoyed in Cnut’s kingdom, and how he – unlike King Ólafr, Snorri seems to imply – allowed his subjects to exercise their traditional rights. In Knýtlinga saga, the final chapter of King Cnut’s life describes his pilgrimage to Rome (chap. 17) in 1027, although the saga – along with other Icelandic sources – assumes that it was made in 1031. We learn of his great generosity during his journey, and of a letter King Cnut sent to his subjects from Rome that confirms he was given a splendid reception there.26 Upon his return to England, the saga relates that he was struck by yellow fever, and died in the same year on the ‘ides of November,’ that is, the thirteenth.27 This is not so, according to English sources – including the C and D versions of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and John of Worcester’s history – which maintain that King Cnut died on the twelfth of November in 1035. Despite this difference, it has been suggested that because both the Icelandic and the English sources share the word ‘ides’ an English source, probably John of Worcester, was behind the account in Knýtlinga saga.28 This claim is not probable, because it assumes that the borrower was interested only in lifting one commonplace word from the English text, choosing to ignore its information about the exact date and year of the king’s death. King Cnut’s cause of death is also unconfirmed by English or any other sources. Knýtlinga saga (chap. 18) relates that he is buried in a great but unidentified city named Morstr,29 and then gives wrongly the length of his reign over Denmark and England. King Cnut died in Shaftesbury, and was buried in Winchester.

The Sons of King Cnut: Harold and Harthacnut After the death of King Cnut, Knýtlinga saga relates that his sons Harold and Harthacnut divided the realm in such a way that Harold got England and Harthacnut Denmark. Furthermore, the saga adds that Edward the Confessor returned to England at this point, where he was received with the great hospi-

52 Anglo-Saxon England in Icelandic Medieval Texts

tality that was fitting. For the most part, this account is erroneous. In reality, Harthacnut was staying in Denmark when his father died, and by virtue of being the son of King Cnut and Emma, he alone was the rightful heir to the English throne. It was probably because he feared an impending war with his neighbour, King Magnús the Good of Norway, that Harthacnut chose to remain in Denmark. Under these circumstances, his half-brother Harold – who, as mentioned earlier, was the son of Cnut and Ælfgifu – took the opportunity to secure the English crown for himself. Emma then fled to Flanders. When peace was finally made between Harthacnut and Magnús, Harthacnut immediately went to Flanders to see his mother and to plan an invasion of England to drive Harold out. In 1040, however, before invasion plans had materialized, King Harold died. Edward the Confessor did not return to England until after Harold’s death, as he would have been in fear for his life otherwise. Knýtlinga saga also buries King Harold in that mysterious city of Morstr, whereas Snorri (Heimskringla III, chap. 17) places his burial in Winchester. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and other sources, however, he was actually buried in Westminster. In the peace treaty Harthacnut had negotiated with King Magnús of Norway, there was a provision (much like the agreement between Cnut and Edmund Ironside) that should one of the two kings die without leaving a male heir, the other was to inherit his kingdom. Harthacnut was now king of two countries. His reign in England was short, however, as he died in 1042, as Knýtlinga saga correctly observes, two years after the death of his half-brother Harold. The saga account has Harthacnut buried, as his kinsmen were, in the city of Morstr.30 With the death of Harthacnut, the ancient, royal line of Danish kings came to an end, without the reader of Knýtlinga saga being much the wiser about the very short reign of its last survivor. The saga says next to nothing about him, in contrast to the many observations it offers about his father, and the story of Harthacnut’s reign in England is an almost complete blank. We learn only that, after Harthacnut’s death, Edward the Confessor ascended to the throne, and then the saga author observes – somewhat wistfully – that Edward’s reign was a long one, and that no Danish king would rule over England after him.31 Morkinskinna, which on the whole has very little to say about Harthacnut, nevertheless tells an interesting story about his death. King Magnús the Good arrives in Denmark and is received by Harthacnut with great pomp and ceremony. At court, however, the conversation between the two kings turns to the subject of etiquette; King Harthacnut argues that as King Magnús is his guest, ‘he should have precedence in all honor and service.’ King Magnús then replies:

From Haraldr Fair-hair to the Sons of Cnut 53 ‘I see exactly where this is headed. When I am in Norway and you come to visit me, I will enter first and take precedence in all honor and service, but now that I have come here, it is up to you to go first, sit first, drink first, and have precedence in all matters pertaining to honor and service, for it seems most likely to me that both peoples will be most attached to their own king, and it will cause no envy on either side if it is done in this way.’ Harthacnut32 said that it was up to him, then went in and sat on the high seat with King Magnús next to him. Then Álfífa entered the hall and welcomed King Magnús warmly, saying that she wished to honor him in every way. She poured for him and asked him to drink. King Magnús said: ‘Harthacnut should drink first and have precedence in every form of service.’ Then she gave the horn to Harthacnut, and he drank it off, exclaiming, as he cast the horn aside, ‘shouldn’t have,’ but he got no further and gave his death groan. This demonstrated Álfífa’s treachery toward King Magnús because she intended the fatal drink for him. But she vanished instantly so that she could not be punished. This event took place in the sixth year of King Magnús’s reign. It was the death of Harthacnut, who had become king of both Denmark and England.33

It goes without saying that this account of Harthacnut’s death has no foundation whatsoever in reality. In Morkinskinna Álfífa is indeed a paragon of evil, but this story does not really serve any purpose except to reinforce that image of her. It is curious, however, that a similar but much better known ‘poisoned drink story’ should turn up in Egils saga (chap. 44). Here, Egill is the victim and the poisoners Bárðr, his host, and Queen Gunnhildr (Eiríkr Bloodaxe’s wife), who, as it happens, is actually compared to Álfífa in Fagrskinna (chap. 35), as the two are seen as more or less a match for each other in their tyrannical and murderous machinations.

5 History – Heimskringla, Ágrip af Nóregskonunga so¸gum, Fagrskinna, Knýtlinga saga, and Morkinskinna: From Magnús the Good to Eysteinn Haraldsson King Magnús Ólafsson the Good (góði) After the death of Harthacnut and the ascension of Edward the Confessor to the English throne, Danish kings may have lost all hope of regaining England, but their Norwegian counterparts had not, at least not Magnús the Good or, as we shall shortly see, Haraldr harðráða. After all, Magnús had made a deal with Harthacnut, according to Knýtlinga saga, and under its terms it was he and not Edward who was the rightful heir to the throne. Morkinskinna (52–5), Fagrskinna (chap. 48), and Heimskringla (III, chaps. 36–7) all relate the following story of how Magnús tried to claim his right. In Snorri’s version, from which the sentimental piety that colours the account in Fagrskinna and Morkinskinna has been removed, the story is told as follows: after King Magnús came to possess Denmark, he sent messengers to England to take King Edward a letter bearing Magnús’s seal. In the letter, Magnús greeted King Edward and then delivered this message: You will have heard of the private agreement that Harthacnut and I made to the effect that if one of us died without leaving a male heir, the other should inherit his realm and his subjects. Now it has come to pass, as I know you will have heard, that after the death of Harthacnut, I have inherited the entire kingdom of Denmark. At the time of his death, Harthacnut possessed England as fully as he possessed Denmark. Now, according to the above-mentioned agreement, I claim to be the rightful ruler of England and request that you step down and hand the country over to me. If not, I shall assemble armies in Norway and in Denmark and invade England. He who emerges victorious shall then rule the country.1

It is not likely that King Magnús ever wrote such a letter. First, it is suspi-

From Magnús the Good to Eysteinn Haraldsson 55

ciously like King Cnut’s letter to King Ólafr Haraldsson. Second, King Magnús could not conceivably hope that it would intimidate King Edward in such a way that he would surrender his lawful right to the English throne. Last, but not least, if King Magnús was seriously contemplating an invasion of England, an element of surprise would have been essential. But if Magnús’s letter looks incredible, it pales in comparison with the reply in Snorri’s account that King Edward is said to have dictated to the messengers: ‘It is known to everyone in this country that my father, King Æthelred, was descended from a line of kings that had rightfully ruled this country both then and in the distant past. He had four sons.2 As my father died, his eldest son, my brother Edmund, as he was the oldest of us, ascended to the throne. I cherished his rule while he lived. But after his death, Cnut, my stepfather, assumed rule over England. As long as he was alive, it was not easy for me to claim my right to the throne. After Cnut’s death, my brother Harold ruled for the rest of his life. After his death, my brother Harthacnut, as was deemed to be right for us, reigned both in Denmark and in England. After his death, it was concluded by all my fellow countrymen that I should become the next king of England. But before that, while I was without a title, I served those who were above me as well as any man with no claims to succession. I have now been crowned and rule as fully a king as did my father before me. But if King Magnús comes to England with his army, I shall not gather troops to fight against him. He shall then have an opportunity to gain control over England, having first had me executed. Take this message to King Magnús.’ When the messengers returned to King Magnús, they told him all about their mission. The king answered without much enthusiasm and spoke thus: ‘I think the truest and best decision is to allow King Edward to rule in peace as far as I am concerned, while I shall retain this kingdom that God has given me leave to have.’3

This entire account seems orchestrated only to show King Magnús’s magnanimity and fairness, and Snorri deliberately uses it as a narrative climax to end his story of Magnús’s reign. Morkinskinna has the same story. In both instances, however, there is a struggle between good writing and credible history, and the sacrifice both Morkinskinna and Heimskringla are forced to make is to delay King Magnús’s claim to the English throne until such a time when Edward was firmly established as a ruler. By contrast, Fagrskinna places this story at an earlier date, that is, immediately after King Magnús’s ascendancy to the Danish throne. Thus the Fagrskinna account makes much more sense, as it would have been imperative for Magnús to state his claim against Edward before the latter’s position as a ruler was secure.

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From a later saga in Heimskringla, Haralds saga Sigurðarsonar (The Saga of King Haraldr Sigurðarson [Hard-counsel]), we know that Snorri had a change of heart concerning King Magnús’s noble reaction to King Edward’s message. In chapter 79 of that saga, Snorri has Earl Tostig remark to Haraldr that ‘King Magnús decided not to invade England, because King Edward enjoyed the support of the entire population.’4 There is a fair agreement, however, that in reality King Magnús did entertain ideas about conquering England. This is supported by an entry in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for 1044, which refers to a huge fleet being assembled by King Edward to defend the country. Here Edward clearly is in a more belligerent mood than he is in his letter to King Magnús. Other sources, such as Adam of Bremen and the Translatio Sanctae Mildredhae are, unfortunately less trustworthy. The former relates that King Edward had promised King Magnús the throne after his death, even if Edward produced male heirs, and the latter tells that Queen Emma was accused of encouraging King Magnús to attack England, supporting him financially and even promising herself to him in marriage.5

King Haraldr Sigurðarson harðráða (Hard-counsel) Ágrip (chap. 41), Morkinskinna (262–81), Fagrskinna (chaps. 58–72), and Heimskringla (III, chaps. 75–94) all relate events leading up to the rebellion of Earl Tostig against his brother Harold II, the subsequent alliance between Tostig and King Haraldr, and the disastrous campaign that ended with their defeat at Stamford Bridge in 1066. But of all the authors of these works, Snorri Sturluson alone seems to have sensed the immense importance of the material with which he was dealing. The failure of King Haraldr’s ambitions to re-create an Anglo-Scandinavian kingdom like the one Cnut had commanded was a prelude to England’s permanent disappearance from the orbit of Scandinavian political and military ambitions, although it was, of course, William the Conqueror’s victory at Hastings that completed this process. Snorri fully understands this, and in his account he tries to describe people and events in a logical manner with the details necessary to make his story credible. Unfortunately – as we shall shortly see – thirteenth-century Icelandic historians were not well informed about this important chapter in Scandinavian and English history, and, as a result, their version of events is often garbled. The first mistake all the Icelandic histories make is to give Earl Tostig a legitimate claim to the throne, either by virtue of his being Earl Godwine’s eldest son, or by his being as well if not better qualified than his brother Harold to rule England.6 Heimskringla (III, chap. 75) makes Harold Godwine’s fifth and

From Magnús the Good to Eysteinn Haraldsson 57

youngest son, while Ágrip (chap. 41) claims that Tostig was just as entitled to the kingdom as Harold. Fagrskinna (chap. 58) agrees with Ágrip, and adds that Tostig was Godwine’s second son. Morkinskinna’s description (262) is the same as Fagrskinna’s, and both add that it was common knowledge that Tostig was cleverer than his brother and in no way less suited to rule the country. With this in mind, it comes as no surprise that all the Icelandic authors are sympathetic in their description of Tostig and what they perceive as his fight for a just cause. In reality, Godwine’s eldest son, Swein, died in 1052, making Harold the eldest surviving son and Tostig the second eldest. Snorri alone tries to rationalize Harold’s rise to power by making him the much beloved foster son of the childless King Edward. On this matter, however, Snorri is in error, as Harold would have been about twenty years old when Edward came to power. As the story continues, Snorri is in agreement with English sources when he has Harold visit Duke William in Normandy (chap. 76). But, unlike William of Malmesbury,7 Snorri does not have Harold arrested by one of Duke William’s vassals, and there is no mention of Harold’s swearing an oath of loyalty to William, as is related in Morkinskinna (285) and various other sources. In Snorri’s version of the story, Harold spends much of his time carelessly flirting with the duke’s wife, and only appeases the furious William by pretending that they were discussing the possibility of Harold’s betrothal to William’s daughter. That match is indeed arranged, but never honoured by Harold. By all accounts this is pure fiction, and in having Harold flirt with William’s wife, Snorri is actually repeating an earlier story in Heimskringla (Ynglinga saga, chap. 21) where the three people involved are Yngvi, Queen Bera, and King Álfr. Later in his story, however, Snorri uses Harold’s breach of his vows, which as we saw are directly occasioned by his flirting with the duchess, as one of William’s reasons for invading England. Heimskringla (III, chap. 77) now relates the circumstances surrounding King Edward’s death and, wrongly, has him buried at the Church of St Paul rather than St Peter. We are then told that Tostig commanded the English army, was in charge of defending the country, and had power over and above other English earls. None of this is true. Tostig was indeed earl of Northumbria from 1055 to 1065, but had no more power in that capacity than his peers. The military role Snorri gives him belonged, in fact, to his brother Harold in the years before Edward’s death. Moreover, Snorri gives Harold the job of being the king’s treasurer, which he never was. We then see a quite unflattering picture of Harold as he skulks around the bed of the dying King Edward, eventually claiming that Edward had given him the throne. While it is true that King Edward may have recommended that Harold succeed him to the throne, it was not within Edward’s power to make that decision. All the same, Harold

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makes King Edward’s wish known at the assembly of noblemen convened to select England’s next king. There Harold is duly elected, and with that the stage is set for his very troubled reign. Heimskringla now tells of Tostig’s growing unhappiness with his brother’s election. He leans on Harold to step down and demands that a new king, presumably himself, be elected. Harold refuses, and grows increasingly suspicious of his brother’s intentions. Before long King Harold strips Tostig of his military command and his power over other earls, and with that Heimskringla (III, chap. 78) notes that Tostig goes into a self-imposed exile. In both Morkinskinna (262) and Fagrskinna (chap. 59), it is King Harold who forces him into exile. The truth of the matter is very different from the Icelandic accounts. Tostig was exceedingly unpopular as ruler of Northumbria, and there had been a successful general uprising against him before King Edward’s death in 1065. The Northumbrians then chose another earl to replace him. From all accounts, it seems that Harold supported his brother, but Tostig still blamed him for having instigated the rebellion. Harold went so far as to take an oath to deny this, but Tostig’s hatred of his brother would govern his every move from then on. Eventually, peace was restored in Northumbria, but Tostig was made to pay a price for his conduct. All the demands of the rebels were met, and in November of 1065 Tostig was thrown into exile. According to Snorri’s account, Tostig stayed briefly in Flanders and then in Frisia before going to see his cousin, King Sveinn Úlfsson of Denmark. By contrast, in both Morkinskinna and Fagrskinna Tostig goes straight to Denmark. In reality, Tostig spent the entire winter of 1065–6 with his brother-in-law, Count Baldwin of Flanders. Heimskringla then relates that his Danish cousin offered Tostig both land and titles in Denmark, but Tostig wanted a great deal more than that. Tostig asks King Sveinn to take after his uncle Cnut and lead an army to England, claiming that his only ambition is to regain his possessions. Sveinn brushes this request aside by claiming to have none of Cnut’s greatness, and adds that he has enough difficulties keeping his Norwegian enemies at bay. A deeply disappointed Tostig replies to King Sveinn that perhaps he will in the end find a noble leader who is not afraid to make courageous decisions. With that, Snorri has Tostig leave for Norway and the court of King Haraldr. In both Morkinskinna and Fagrskinna, the exchange between Tostig and King Sveinn is made to end on a much more acrimonious note, with Tostig exclaiming that as his kinsmen are now his enemies, their enemies shall from now on be his kinsmen. Both this version of the story and Snorri’s emendation of it supply Tostig with a motive to seek out King Haraldr. Heimskringla (III, chap. 79) then describes Tostig’s meeting with Haraldr, where he states his case and makes the same plea as in Denmark. To begin with,

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King Haraldr flatly refuses Tostig’s request on the grounds that given the treacherous nature of English people, a Norwegian army would not be prepared to fight under an English leader. Tostig then changes his tactics. He cites examples of how crucial it is for a king planning to invade a country to have the support of that country’s local magnates. Magnús the Good, although he had legitimate claims to the English throne, he says, did not enjoy such support in England and therefore chose not to invade, whereas he was supported in Denmark and came to rule that country. (At this point, the reader must assume that King Haraldr has never heard of King Magnús’s claim to the English throne.) Tostig then insists that he enjoys the support of the majority of the English nobles and is the real king of England in all but name. He taunts and flatters King Haraldr by reminding him that for fifteen years he has tried unsuccessfully to conquer Denmark, even though he is the greatest warrior ever born in Scandinavia. Tostig then exclaims that after King Haraldr’s failed campaign against Denmark, he cannot understand why he would not want to conquer England, which is there for the taking. With this argument Tostig wins the day, and the idea of conquering England is now firmly planted in King Haraldr’s mind. He and Tostig decide that the campaign against England will take place the following summer, and King Haraldr begins to gather troops. Feelings about his chances of success are said to be mixed, with some putting their faith in his military prowess and others countering that faith by citing the large size of the English population and the awesome reputation of the English elite troops, the þingamannalið. Morkinskinna (263–4) and Fagrskinna (chap. 60) report the conversation between King Haraldr and Tostig very differently than Snorri does. Both have Tostig remind King Haraldr of the legitimate claim that Magnús the Good had against Edward concerning the right to succession. Then Tostig is made to urge King Haraldr to invade England, as he has rightly inherited the claim that King Magnús had and is therefore the only legitimate king of the country. Having decided on an invasion, Haraldr then promises Tostig a great position of power, should they emerge victorious. In Ágrip, however, it is Tostig who promises King Haraldr half of England for his support. Snorri omits all discussion of what Tostig is to get in the event that England is conquered. There is some question as to whether Tostig ever went to Norway or whether his alliance with King Haraldr was forged through messengers passing between them.8 The author of Morkinskinna, after having reported Tostig’s conversation with Haraldr, relates that he sent a messenger to the king to offer him Northumbria, and to egg him on with his plans of invasion. Meanwhile, Tostig is said to have been in France.9 In Heimskringla (III, chap. 79), however, Tostig sails off to Flanders as King Haraldr continues with his preparations for the campaign,

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and refuses to take any heed of bad dreams and ill omens that surround his upcoming venture. The Norwegian fleet eventually leaves to land and gather more troops in the Orkney Islands. King Haraldr then sails to Scarborough, which he loots and burns down.10 Then he sails up the Humber and into the Ouse where he fights two earls, Morcar and Waltheof, who attack him with an army from York. By arranging his troops cleverly and luring the English army towards an area of fens, King Haraldr wins a major victory, according to Heimskringla (III, chaps. 84–5). Heimskringla, Fagrskinna (chap. 43), and Morkinskinna (268) all note that Morcar was killed in this battle, and Fagrskinna, along with Morkinskinna, adds – wrongly – that the English earls were Harold’s brothers. Ágrip (chap. 41) claims that Haraldr and Tostig soon conquered all of Northumbria, and then wrongly insists that King Harold was in Normandy when the invasion began. English sources tell a very different story. John of Worcester (295)11 states that King Haraldr landed his ships at a place called Riccall, on the eastern bank of the Ouse, about nine miles south of York. From there, he headed towards York with his army. Simeon of Durham (131)12 relates that at Fulford, about two miles south of the city, Haraldr was met with a great army led by Edwin and Morcar. Waltheof is not mentioned as being at the battle by any English sources, whereas Morcar is known to have survived the struggle and to have gone on living for another twenty years. Heimskringla (III, chap. 86) now pauses to relate the movements of Tostig, who has come from Flanders to join King Haraldr as soon as the latter reached England and has participated in all his battles so far. Again, English sources are not in agreement. The AngloSaxon Chronicle relates that Tostig begins his campaign alone in the spring of 1066, first landing on the Isle of Wight and then moving on to Sandwich. As Harold, who was in London, sets sail to move against him, Tostig turns his fleet north into the Humber and attacks Lindsey. There he is met by Edwin and Morcar, who drives him out of the country. Tostig then goes to Scotland, where he spends the summer waiting for the arrival of King Haraldr. According to Heimskringla (III, chap. 86), Haraldr now establishes a camp at Stamford Bridge as he begins to prepare for an attack on York. Not thinking that they stand a chance of resisting his army, the frightened citizens surrender without a fight. The king calls an assembly together, receives hostages, and plans to return to the city the following day to set up his own government there. With that, he retires to his camp exulting in the fact that York has been taken without a fight. But that same night, unbeknownst to the Norwegians, King Harold arrives in the city with a huge army. The following day, King Haraldr leaves some of his troops behind to guard the boats and takes the rest of his army on a march back to York. Snorri then informs his readers that it

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was a scorching hot day and, as a result, Haraldr’s men, who were in high spirits anyway, left their coats of mail behind at the boats. As they approach York, they are met by a large mounted army. King Haraldr asks Tostig whose troops they might be and is told they are most likely King Harold’s. Haraldr then quickly sends for the troops he had left behind. Fagrskinna (chaps. 64–6) and Morkinskinna (270–2) relate an identical story, whereas Ágrip has the English army surprise the ill-prepared Norwegian invaders aboard their boats. If one compares these stories to those in English sources such as the AngloSaxon Chronicle and John of Worcester (295–6), it is clear that the Icelandic accounts of Haraldr’s movements after the Battle of Fulford and up to the eve of the Battle of Stamford Bridge are, in most respects, wrong. York did indeed surrender after the Battle of Fulford, and King Haraldr made whatever arrangements he thought necessary for that city, but then he marched to Stamford Bridge to receive hostages from the Yorkshire area and, perhaps, to secure more provisions for his troops. The English army that fought King Haraldr on the twenty-fifth of September came from Tadcaster and marched through York on their way to Stamford Bridge, where they took the invaders by surprise. Bjarni Aðalbjarnarson argues that references to an English cavalry probably derive from Duke William’s use of mounted soldiers at Hastings, and in the absence of information about the Battle of Stamford Bridge, Icelandic historians, Snorri in particular, transfer a variety of features characterizing the Battle of Hastings onto the encounter at Stamford Bridge.13 However, in the latest study on the Battle of Stamford Bridge, Kelly DeVries does not think it impossible that the English army might have included mounted soldiers.14 In the preamble to battle, both Morkinskinna (273) and Fagrskinna (chap. 67) have King Haraldr arrange his men in a straight line, with archers behind them. As the battle begins, the English army surrounds the Norwegian troops and attacks them from all sides until this formation crumbles. Snorri, on the other hand, has Haraldr order his men to form a circle (Heimskringla III, chap. 89), perhaps, as Bjarni Aðalbjarnarson suggests, because he felt a general of King Haraldr’s stature would have anticipated the English strategy.15 All three histories relate that as King Haraldr rides and inspects his troops, his horse stumbles, throwing the king to the ground. He gets up quickly and exclaims that a fall is but a sign of luck. At this point, the English send armed knights to the Norwegian line, and one of them brings Tostig greetings from his brother. He offers him Northumbria if Tostig is prepared to come over to the English side. Tostig replies that many a man would still be alive had this offer been made before his exile, and then enquires what King Haraldr might be offered for his efforts. The knight replies that the king is prepared to give him seven feet of English soil, seeing that he is that much taller than other men. Tostig

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declines King Harold’s offer, and the knights leave. Only then does King Haraldr learn that Tostig has been speaking with his brother. As Haraldr berates Tostig for not revealing his identity (Heimskringla III, chap. 91), Tostig nobly replies that he would rather be killed by his brother than be his slayer. Unfortunately, there is no truth whatsoever to any of this. We know from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and Henry of Huntingdon that the English army descended upon King Haraldr’s men as they were crossing the Derwent river. The Norwegian troops were completely unprepared for battle, and to make matters worse, a part of the army was trapped on the west bank as the English attacked. The tale of King Haraldr’s fall from his horse and his face-saving remark is a familiar story, said also to have happened to Julius Caesar, Scipio, Ólafr Haraldsson, and William the Conqueror. Finally, the idea that King Harold should ride into the middle of the enemy camp, escorted by only a few men, to offer the rebel and traitor Tostig a large part of England in return for his betrayal of King Haraldr does not make much sense. As Snorri has Tostig observe (chap. 91), the gesture is suicidal, and whether or not Tostig could be lured over to the English side, King Harold would still have to fight the Norwegian army. The description of the battle itself is very similar in Morkinskinna (276–80) and Fagrskinna (chaps. 69–71), whereas Snorri’s account (chaps. 92–3) tends to be more coloured by features from the subsequent Battle of Hastings, or even other battles.16 In the first phase of the battle, Morkinskinna and Fagrskinna describe the English army surrounding and attacking the Norwegians from all sides until the Norwegian battle formation comes apart. At that point, King Haraldr charges into the English forces, killing men and horses until he is shot through the throat and killed, as are all the troops who charged with him. In Heimskringla, on the other hand, the Norwegians form a circular shield wall, and it is only when they abandon this formation to pursue what they perceive to be cowardly English soldiers that they are overwhelmed and killed. This is what is known to have happened to King Harold’s men at Hastings. In describing King Haraldr’s great charge, Snorri suggests its force was such that the English army was nearly turned to flight before the king was killed. Haraldr is slain with an arrow through his throat, according to Snorri, again inviting a comparison with the death of King Harold, who was shot through the eye with an arrow. With King Haraldr dead, it now falls to Tostig to lead the army. First, however, King Harold stops the battle while he offers peace to Tostig and his men if they are prepared to surrender. The remainder of the Norwegian army scornfully rejects this offer and fighting resumes. Morkinskinna and Fagrskinna relate that Tostig is killed shortly after. Inexplicably, Snorri does not mention

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Tostig’s fate. Now reinforcements from the ships, fully armed and wearing coats of mail, reach the Norwegian troops and the third phase of battle begins. According to all three histories, the battle is now fought with greater fury than before, and for a while it looks as if the Norwegian troops will have the upper hand. But the reinforcements from the boats are tired from their march, and soon rid themselves of their coats of mail – possibly, according to Snorri, in a fit of battle frenzy. In the end, the outcome is decided by the greater size of the English army, and they carry the day. Some Norwegians manage to save their lives and reach the boats which are now commanded by Ólafr, King Haraldr’s son, and he hurriedly sets sail for the Orkney Islands. In Ágrip alone, Ólafr makes peace with King Harold, as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle confirms that he did, and begs for his father’s body (which he is given). Heimskringla (III, chap. 99) says that King Haraldr’s body was brought back to Norway a year after his death, and Morkinskinna (284) adds that this was done by Skúli, Earl Tostig’s son. What really happened at Stamford Bridge was actually far less glorious than the Icelandic accounts would have us believe, and not an honorable defeat suffered by a Norwegian army fighting with superb valour against vastly superior numbers. It was more a bungled affair, probably caused by a lack of military intelligence on the part of the Norwegian leaders concerning King Harold’s movements and strategy. This would explain their lack of readiness for battle. When the English attacked Haraldr’s army as it crossed the bridge over the Derwent, much of the army, including King Haraldr and Tostig, had already reached the east bank. The troops trapped on the west bank, unable to cross the already crowded bridge, surged forward and tried to ford the river, some allegedly stepping on the bodies of their dead comrades. Next, the bridge itself became the focal point, and, as we saw in chapter 2, much is made of the courage of the Norwegian warrior who single-handedly defended it until he was finally killed. As soon as the English army had succeeded in crossing the bridge, the main battle began. According to English sources, there were heavy casualties on both sides, but the victory of the English army appears to have been both quick and decisive. Among the dead were King Haraldr and Tostig, but some of their Norwegian and Flemish soldiers managed to escape. Of these, some are said to have drowned, others – mysteriously – perished by fire, but a few made it to the boats. As we have seen, there is hardly a contact point between the Icelandic and English descriptions of the battle. The lack of knowledge of events leading up to and during the Battle of Stamford Bridge has been explained away by suggesting that because so few of King Haraldr’s men survived, the general public in Scandinavia would not have known much about the battle itself.17 If this were a rare example of Icelandic historians not getting their

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English facts right, there might be some truth to this explanation, but such is hardly the case. In the aftermath of the Battle of Stamford Bridge, Heimskringla (III, chap. 95), Morkinskinna (284), and Fagrskinna (chap. 74) all turn their attention to the events leading up to the Battle of Hastings. Both Heimskringla and Morkinskinna suggest that Duke William did have some legitimate claim to the English throne, which he hardly had in reality. Fagrskinna omits all discussion of this subject. Heimskringla and Morkinskinna are also alone in relating how Duke William brutally murders his wife, Matilda, on the eve of the departure of his army. She approaches him as he is sitting on his horse, and William kicks her in the chest, fatally stabbing her with his spur. Morkinskinna states that it was her plea to William not to attack King Harold that occasioned this atrocity; Snorri provides no reason whatsoever. This strange story is probably inspired by a tale told in French chronicles concerning William’s proposal of marriage to Matilda. Upon hearing his request, she is said to have replied that she would never marry anyone’s bastard son. William then ambushes her and beats her up badly. Displaying an obvious taste for rough romance, Matilda then declares that she will have none other than Duke William as her husband. Matilda lived to 1083, and died of natural causes. Both Heimskringla and Fagrskinna correctly observe that the Battle of Hastings took place nineteen days after the Battle of Stamford Bridge. In Morkinskinna, however, a whole year is said to have passed between the two battles. All three works are strangely reticent about the battle itself. Heimskringla (III, chap. 96) notes where it took place, states that it was a great battle, and says that along with much of the English army, King Harold and his brothers, Swein and Gyrth, were killed. A fourth brother, Waltheof, is said to have escaped from the battle. King Harold and Gyrth were indeed killed at Hastings, but at the time of the battle Swein had been dead for fourteen years. There is no evidence to show that Waltheof fought at Hastings, and as we have noted earlier, he was not at all related to King Harold. As Edward A. Freeman wryly observes in his History of the Norman Conquest of England, Snorri ‘seems to assume that Godwine must have been the father of every famous Englishman of his time.’18 The only story that Heimskringla and Fagrskinna relate from the battle itself concerns Waltheof’s escape. With his men, he surprises a group of more than a hundred of William’s troops, who flee into a nearby wood rather than fight. Waltheof then sets fire to the wood and makes sure no one escapes out of it, a task that neither Snorri nor the author of Fagrskinna see as a particularly difficult one. We are then told that all of William’s men perish in the blaze. Bjarni Aðalbjarnarson19 suggests that this story may derive from an

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entirely unrelated event that took place about three years later. Waltheof was by then a sworn opponent of King William, and along with many other Englishmen he threw his support behind an army that the Danish King Sveinn Úlfsson had sent to conquer England. This army marched on York, but the Norman garrison defending the city responded by setting York on fire, burning down much of it. Despite this, the Danes managed to get into the city and killed hundreds of troops, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and possibly as many as three thousand, if John of Worcester is to be believed. The Danish invasion forces Waltheof joined were nearly as large in number as King Haraldr’s army of 1066. Led not by King Sveinn himself but by his sons and his brother, the army had limited success. Initially they tested the defences of various places but were beaten off wherever they went. After capturing York with their English allies, the Danish campaign came to a halt, and the army entrenched itself on the Isle of Axholm. Eventually the Danes did recapture York, only to lose it again. The winter of 1069 was spent in the Humber region. In the spring of 1070, King Sveinn Úlfsson joined the fleet personally, but even so the Danish campaign continued to fail to achieve its objectives. In the summer of that same year, Sveinn finally abandoned his plans to conquer England and sailed home. This, however, is far from the way that Knýtlinga saga (chaps. 41–3) tells the story. In its version, the Danish king who plots an invasion of England with his Norwegian counterpart, Ólafr the Peaceful (kyrri), is not King Sveinn but his son Knútr. Together they agree to assemble a joint army in Denmark and invade England. This army is indeed assembled, but King Knútr, presumably fearing an impending invasion of Denmark by Slavs from the Baltic, fails to join the army until it is too late. Eventually, the Danes lose their patience, and by the time their king arrives, they have dispersed. The Norwegians reiterate their support for the initial plan to invade England, but King Knútr sends them home, and with that his dream of conquering England is over. When describing the aftermath of the Battle of Hastings, Heimskringla and Fagrskinna outline how King William cruelly hatches a plot to kill Waltheof. In Snorri’s version of the story, the king sends a message to him inviting him to come and make peace. Waltheof accepts the offer and leaves to meet King William, accompanied by only a few of his men. On the way, he is surprised by a band of Norman warriors who arrest and behead him. Snorri then adds that Waltheof is a holy man in the eyes of the English. His murder by King William is in keeping with Snorri’s characterization of William as cruel and untrustworthy (Heimskringla III, chap. 95). However, the king is not perceived uniformly as an evil tyrant in Icelandic sources, as we shall later see, but in Fagrskinna King William’s cruelty and cunning are beyond belief. The

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king promises Waltheof safe passage, so Waltheof agrees to a meeting. William receives him most politely and, as he departs, gives him a letter bearing the royal seal, which restores him to his old earldom of Northumbria. On his way back home, however, Waltheof is attacked by a group of Norman knights. These have been sent by King William expressly to assassinate him. As the knights seize Waltheof and prepare to behead him, the story in Fagrskinna gets very sentimental and pious. Waltheof forgives the knights who have apprehended him, the person who is about to execute him, and even the king. Then he lies down on the ground, stretching out his arms to form the sign of the cross. As he is beheaded, his blood is said to have healed many. Waltheof was indeed beheaded on King William’s orders but not until ten years after the Battle of Hastings. However, his execution came about after a series of events about which neither Snorri nor the author of Fagrskinna would have known. About the time King Sveinn’s Danish invasion of England folded in 1070, Waltheof surrendered to King William and was forgiven for aiding the invaders. But only five years later he was plotting again with a number of other people to overthrow the king. This time, however, he withdrew from the conspiracy before any action had been taken and went to see William in Normandy, where he confessed his guilt and pleaded for mercy. At first, William does not appear to have thought that Waltheof’s crime was very serious, and he was kept at court but not imprisoned. When King William returned to England, however, Waltheof’s case took a turn for the worse. The rebels were now supported by a large Danish fleet, and the king did not feel it was safe to allow Waltheof to enjoy his freedom any more. His case of treason was investigated, and he was eventually sentenced to death. Waltheof was beheaded at Winchester in the spring of 1076.

King Eysteinn Haraldsson The last story of Norwegian military exploits in England is related in both Heimskringla (III, Haraldssona saga, chap. 20) and Morkinskinna (444–5). They describe how, during the reign of King Stephen (1135–54), Eysteinn Haraldsson embarks on a vicious raid against Scotland and England. After attacking various places in Scotland, including Aberdeen, Eysteinn takes his troops south of the border. Both histories describe his campaign in England as a series of battles, which are briefly narrated and appendixed with skaldic verses. There is no attempt to account for King Eysteinn’s movements once he is in England except through the list of targets which he is said to have attacked. His first battle is at Hartlepool (Hjartapollr), where he defeats a unit of cavalry

From Magnús the Good to Eysteinn Haraldsson 67

and turns it to flight. Then King Eysteinn fights a battle near Whitby and afterwards attacks and burns that town. His next engagement is against a company of knights at Skarpasker, a place which has not been identified. Then he fights at Pílavík (possibly Willoughby) where, as usual, he has the upper hand. King Eysteinn’s last target is Langatún (Langton), a great village which he burns down. That place, adds Heimskringla, has not recovered since. After these achievements, King Eysteinn sails back to Norway. His reception there, however, is quite interesting. In a rare instance of criticism which implies a certain amount of pro-English sentiment, both Heimskringla and Morkinskinna remark that there were very differing opinions about his expedition. King Eysteinn himself, however, insisted that he had undertaken it to avenge the death of King Haraldr harðráða in England. With one exception, English sources are entirely silent about this invasion. A late twelfth-century hagiography, Libellus de Miraculis Sancti Cuthberti by Reginald of Durham, relates that ‘Æistan rex Norwagiorum’ came to England with a large fleet and a huge number of troops in order to attack the country, but that Eysteinn dared not take his army inland and confined his plundering to coastal areas (chap. 29). According to Reginald, the hardest hit targets were the churches and the monasteries on the east coast, although he quickly adds that King Eysteinn attacked them only when he was in a fit of rage. Eventually, the Norwegian army attacked Lindisfarne, and the story is related of a miracle concerning a well which St Cuthbert had brought forth from a rock through his prayers. When the Norwegians violate his shrine, the well dries up, only to reappear when the aggressors are gone.20 Much faith has been placed in Reginald’s account of King Eysteinn’s exploits. The Norwegian scholar who unearthed it, Edvard Bull, believed that it authenticated Snorri’s story.21 More recently, Bjarni Aðalbjarnarson praises it for being a detailed and a reliable source.22 That, however, it is not. Indeed, Reginald’s story is suspiciously unspecific. Here we have a large army which does not really ‘invade’ England but attacks nothing more dangerous than churches and monasteries (which, if true, would have created problems for King Eysteinn with the Norwegian church). In other words, it does not make sense that Eysteinn would assemble a force of this magnitude to do what the great army is said to have done: in essence, to perform a series of pointless raids. Furthermore, Reginald’s story has virtually no contact points with Heimskringla’s account of King Eysteinn’s invasion, and the silence of all other English sources concerning these events makes it hard to accept that anything took place on the scale that Snorri or Reginald would have us believe. Most likely, this story of the last Scandinavian invasion of England is largely a fantasy. Still, the possibility that it contains a kernel of truth cannot

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be entirely dismissed. But even if this is so, the invasion story could hardly have amounted in reality to more than a minor raid, which has been blown out of all proportion in Snorri’s and Reginald’s accounts. We know for a fact that after King Sveinn Úlfsson’s unsuccessful campaign of 1069–70 King Knútr Sveinsson planned an invasion of England in 1085, but, as we saw in the previous section, nothing came of it. But, after these last and failed efforts, England was never again to come under serious attack from Scandinavia. The Normans had no qualms about exploiting their own subjects, but in doing so they also made sure that they did not have any foreign competition. Such was certainly the case even during the very troubled reign of Stephen, when England had long passed out of the orbit of Scandinavian power politics. If we look back at the host of stories we have followed in this and the previous chapter, it must be said that Frank Stenton’s conclusion concerning the value of Icelandic sources for Anglo-Saxon history, namely that they ‘can only be followed with peril for the sequence of events and [their] imaginative power’23 is a fairly accurate statement. Basically, medieval Icelandic historians knew only the order of English kings from Athelstan to Stephen, and, sometimes, how long each king reigned. Such information was most likely supplied by English royal genealogies, which are known to have circulated in Iceland during the Middle Ages. The rest is, for the most part, a rather garbled version of what took place. The Icelandic historians habitually make mistakes describing relationships within the West Saxon royal family, their geography is often incorrect, and they are frequently wrong about who is fighting whom. Sometimes the entertainment value of the material is what seems to motivate them but as often as not, they have their own agenda, namely to make their chosen heroes shine with their deeds on English soil. We shall see more of that tendency in the next chapter, which examines the description in Egils saga of Egill’s heroics in England.

6 History – Egils saga

No Icelandic text, other than the histories of the kings of Norway and Denmark, purports to offer more information about Anglo-Saxon England and its history than Egils saga, which is believed to have been composed during the early thirteenth century.1 This information is preserved in the so-called Vínheiðr episode (chaps. 50–5), which relates Egill’s involvement in the Battle of Brunanburh. The critical debate over this part of the saga has been dominated for more than a century by arguments over what historical information it might contain, and how such information might have been accessible to the author. Decades before Sigurður Nordal published what is still the standard edition of Egils saga in 1933, the credibility of the sagas as historical documents had been questioned by various scholars. In Iceland, however, the matter of their truthfulness was then a sensitive issue, and in his introduction to the text Nordal took the sceptics to task.2 As far as Egils saga was concerned, doubts had been expressed about several aspects, and about the Battle of Vínheiðr (Brunanburh) in particular. The identity of these battles had long been challenged on chronological grounds, and consequently the whole Vínheiðr episode had been dismissed as fiction by early scholars such as Jessen and Steenstrup.3 By the time Nordal published his edition, chronological difficulties had already been removed, and he rejected the doubts that Jessen and Steenstrup had expressed while admitting that the historical framework of the episode was not accurate in all respects. Nordal’s defence faced new challenges as the saga was being published. L.M. Hollander’s article ‘The Battle on the Vin-Heath and the Battle of the Huns,’4 which appeared in the same year as Nordal’s edition, drew attention to the saga’s description of the Battle of Vínheiðr, which Hollander found suspiciously similar to certain scenes in Hervarar saga. Five years later more doubts

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were cast on the historical accuracy of the Vínheiðr episode in Alistair Campbell’s edition of The Battle of Brunanburh,5 which refuted many of Nordal’s arguments and voiced doubts about the presence of Egill’s brother, Þórólfr, in the battle. In the years that followed, many leading scholars on the history of Anglo-Saxon England, such as Stenton and Blair, adopted the critical position of Hollander and Campbell and tended to discard the evidence of Old Norse materials in their works. It looked indeed as if the historical value of Egils saga, insofar as the Vínheiðr episode was concerned, had been rejected conclusively. But over the last few decades some of Campbell’s and Hollander’s findings have come under criticism, and attention has been called to new points in the Vínheiðr episode that have been claimed to be of historical interest. The author of Egils saga offers, as an introduction to the great battle, two short chapters (50 and 51) on Anglo-Saxon history from the time of Alfred to the reign of Athelstan. As Bjarni Einarsson has noted,6 the account of Athelstan’s lineage corresponds to the short genealogy of English kings appendixed to Breta sögur, the Icelandic translation of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae, but it is by no means certain whether the author actually used that work. Egils saga also gives accurate information on the respective geographical sizes of Northumbria, Scotland, and England, which is likewise drawn from an unidentified source. The rest of the introduction is not in accordance with historical documents, with the exception of the saga’s mention of the Scots and the Welsh among Athelstan’s enemies. King Alfred is said to have gained rule over England in much the same manner as Haraldr Fair-hair conquered Norway, that is, by stripping local kings of their power, and Athelstan, who in the saga has just succeeded to the throne, is perceived as a weaker monarch than his ancestors. Consequently, he faces an uprising from the various rulers whom his grandfather had dethroned, and whose rebellious alliance is said to include the native Irish. With the exception of the identity of one person, Óláfr the Red, who according to the saga dies in the battle and is wrongly identified as king of the Scots, nothing in its description of events that lead up to the Battle of Brunanburh can be confirmed by other sources. Egils saga relates how Egill and his brother, Þórólfr, decide to cut short a Viking expedition on which they had embarked in order to join King Athelstan’s army, along with their own men, as mercenaries. Not surprisingly, the king is immediately impressed by the formidable presence of the two brothers and their troops. Seeing that Northumbria is vulnerable to an attack from the north, King Athelstan had earlier appointed two earls, Álfgeirr and Goðrekr, to be in charge of defending the region. King Óláfr of Scotland now makes his move and crosses the border into Northumbria. Athelstan’s two earls immediately gather their troops and engage in a battle against the Scottish king but are

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badly defeated. Earl Goðrekr is killed, and Earl Álfgeirr flees from battle. With that, King Óláfr proceeds to conquer all of Northumbria. His success attracts a great many new followers, and among them are two of King Athelstan’s Welsh vassals, the brothers Hringr and Aðils, whose family – like others – had lost its kingdom to Alfred the Great. With these military setbacks, it is decided that it is imperative that King Athelstan travel to the south of England in person to gather more troops. The king heeds this advice, and leaves Egill and Þórólfr in charge of his Viking forces. Now Egill and Þórólfr begin a long series of tactical delays. Egill and his men send messengers to King Óláfr to say that King Athelstan would like to propose Vínheiðr as an enhazelled, or appointed, battlefield for the impending battle. Furthermore, they announce that the battle will be ‘winner-takes-all’; the outcome shall decide who is to rule over England. Egill asks for a week to get ready, and declares that whoever gets to Vínheiðr first is to wait a week for the other side. King Óláfr accepts these proposals, halts his army, and takes it to Vínheiðr. The battlefield is described as a level plain flanked by a forest on one side and a river on the other. In some places the forest comes close to the river, but is further away from it at other points. King Athelstan’s army decides to take advantage of this geography. They arrange for their tents to be pitched where the forest is closest to the river, and set them up in such a way that it is impossible to see how many tents there really are. In addition, many of their tents are actually empty. The trick works, and Athelstan’s army is perceived to be vast by his enemy. Messengers are now dispatched to delay King Óláfr while Athelstan is in the south, and offer him money in return for peace. He declines, thinking that he will get more money if he waits. The messengers ask for three days to bring back King Athelstan’s reply, then duly return with an offer of more money. King Óláfr sends them back with the same three-day proviso, having instructed them that he is prepared to accept King Athelstan’s offer if he is willing to surrender Northumbria as well. The messengers now actually meet with King Athelstan, who is back from gathering troops in the south. Athelstan sends them to tell King Óláfr that he is prepared to allow him to return home with his army, provided that Óláfr repays any money he has wrongfully extracted from England. It is only upon being given this message that King Óláfr realizes that he has been duped, and he begins to prepare for battle in earnest. The two Welsh defectors, Hringr and Aðils, now suggest to King Óláfr that they, with their troops, launch a surprise night attack on the English army. He agrees, and the two brothers set off only to be spotted by Þórólfr’s watchmen. A battle soon follows, with Aðils facing Earl Álfgeirr and his men and Hringr against the troops of Egill and Þórólfr. As before, Álfgeirr and his men are

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routed, and Álfgeirr flees from the battle to make his way south and over the Channel to France to escape the wrath of King Athelstan.7 Meanwhile, Þórólfr is struck by a battle frenzy as he single-handedly mows down Hringr’s men until he meets Hringr himself, whom he impales on his spear. Still bearing Hringr’s body, the spear is left stuck into the ground. Seeing this, Aðils makes a run for the forest, and is reported dead when King Óláfr is told of the outcome of the disastrous raid. Egill and Þórólfr are duly thanked for their performance by King Athelstan, who promises them his everlasting friendship. On the following day, preparations for the main battle begin. King Athelstan proposes that Egill and Þórólfr lead separate divisions of his army. Egill protests that he does not want to be separated from his brother in battle, but Þórólfr is more compliant to the king’s wishes. On the eve of battle, Egill remarks prophetically that this is an arrangement which he will come to regret often. As the battle commences, King Athelstan leads a division against his Scottish counterpart on the plain by the river while Þórólfr leads another one against King Óláfr’s men near the forest. Þórólfr aligns his men in such a way as to use the forest as a safe backdrop. As before, Þórólfr fights with splendid valour, but when he least expects it he is surprised by Aðils and his troops emerging from the forest, and is cut down without a chance to defend himself. When Egill realizes that his brother is dead, he turns against Aðils’s men and mows them down until he stands face-to-face with Aðils himself, whom he quickly kills. Aðils’s troops then flee from battle, only to be pursued and cut down themselves. Egill now joins King Athelstan’s division, and soon the Viking army has its opponents in full retreat. King Óláfr is killed and most of his army with him. The English celebrate their victory while Egill buries his brother with a great show of respect. Sigurður Nordal maintained that the account of these matters in Egils saga must be seen a mixture of fact and fiction. Discrepancies were to be expected, as the narrative was based on information derived not from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle but from oral traditions that went back to Egill and his followers, who had participated in the battle without ‘fully understanding all the events in which they were involved.’8 In other words, there was no reason to doubt that the details of the Vínheiðr episode were true, although the historical context into which the saga had put them was garbled. Nordal’s defence of the credibility of this ‘inner story’9 sums up most of the different arguments scholars had produced in the long process of trying to match the saga’s version of the Battle of Brunanburh with other sources that might be relevant. His defence can be summed up as follows: 1) (a) Wendune/Weondune, the name of the battle site according to Simeon of Durham, had been identified by P.A. Munch,10 who thought it was remi-

Egils saga 73

2)

3)

4)

5)

6)

7)

niscent of the Norse term Vínheiðr. Nordal then adds Finnur Jónsson’s theory that -heiðr is merely a translation of -dun,11 and (b) goes on to argue that the two fortifications mentioned in the saga would explain why the battle site was identified differently by Simeon as Wendune/Brunnanwerc, -byrig. G. Neilson claimed to have discovered the battle site in Dumfriesshire (then the latest of a host of attempts dating back as far as 1600).12 Nordal finds his claim ‘interesting,’ although he thinks it was more likely that the battle would have taken place further to the south and closer to the west coast. According to Munch,13 two men known to have been associated with the government of Northumbria, Ealdred and Uhtred, could well be the saga’s Álfgeirr and Goðrekr. The existence of the two Welsh earls, Hringr and Aðils, might also be supported. Per Wieselgren14 had pointed to a military campaign in England led by a person called Hiring, according to Adam of Bremen, and Aðils, as Charles Whistler15 had suggested, could be the same person as Owen/ Eugenius, if the Norse name was taken as a contaminated form of the Old English æþeling. Whistler maintained that pseudo-Ingulf’s reference in the Chronicle of Crowland to one Singin/Syngrin of the Wiccii (Hwiccas), who pseudoIngulf claims to have fought beside Abbot Turketul at Brunanburh, was in fact a corruption of the name Skalla-Grímsson; that Þórólfr and Egill had been combined into this one person; that the Wiccii was the same group as the Vikings (víkinga); and that these troops had been led by Skalla-Grímsson. Nordal greets this with caution, however: ‘Although this is by no means certain,’ he notes, ‘it does make it more difficult to refute the idea that the two brothers fought at Brunanburh.’ The saga’s description of the feigned negotiations that keep King Óláfr waiting while Athelstan gathers more forces ‘agrees well with English sources,’ according to Nordal.16 Egill’s stanzas relating to the Vínheiðr episode in the saga are genuinely his, and must be considered as the final proof that the two brothers participated in the battle. The prose may be inaccurate, as in its reporting of the death of King Óláfr, but no such discrepancies appear in the poetry.

Nordal’s general theory is, unfortunately, not very convincing, nor are the various sources he cites to support the saga’s account of the battle. Even if we accept his premise, it defies common logic to assume that incidental details are more likely to survive centuries of oral transmission than the main outline of a story. Furthermore, it is unlikely that Egill and his followers would have

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failed to understand the nature of the conflict or the parties involved, had they participated in the battle. Of course the saga writer could be misinformed when he has Egill and Þórólfr devise – or at least participate in formulating – the delay tactics that allow King Athelstan to gather more troops, but in his praise poem to the king (stanza 22), Egil again is portrayed as a strategist advising the king that the time is right for an invasion of Scotland.17 Although Hollander viewed the actual battle description as fiction, he was inclined to think there might be ‘a slight kernel of historic fact’ in the Vínheiðr episode, especially in its account of negotiations between the two kings before the battle.18 Campbell, who did not exclude the possibility that Egill might have visited King Athelstan and composed poems in his honour,19 nevertheless found the saga ‘unsupported in practically all its details’ and concluded that ‘in view of its frequent gross errors and confusions [it could not] be used as a source for the history of the war of Æthelstan and Anlaf.’20 Campbell did not question Nordal’s general premise but criticized of much of his evidence: 1) (a) Wen- / Weon-, as Campbell points out, cannot be a cognate to Vín- in the Norse term Vínheiðr, although -heiðr might be equivalent to -dun. He also questions how a Russian river name, the Dvina – ON Vína – could come to be the name of an English stream. (b) Simeon’s Brunnanwerc and Weondun are, as Campbell shows, given as alternative names of Brunanburh and do not indicate the presence of two or more fortified locations.21 2) Campbell dismissed Neilson’s discovery of the battle site in Dumfriesshire because of the source Neilson had used (the first appendix to William Kettel’s account of the miracles of St John of Beverley), which, as Campbell demonstrates, must relate to Athelstan’s campaign against the Scots in 934.22 Hollander and others had previously rejected Neilson’s findings for much the same reason.23 3) As for Munch’s theory that Ealdred and Uhtred might be the saga’s Álfgeirr and Goðrekr, the difference between the Norse and the Old English names speaks for itself. Campbell also pointed out that Ealdred disappears from history six years before the Battle of Brunanburh. Campbell was, however, willing to concede that one of the pair might have been Uhtred, although he was inclined to doubt their existence as historical figures.24 Campbell seems to have changed his mind later in his career, and came to accept the saga’s account of Álfgeirr and Goðrekr as factual. 4) Campbell discarded the two Welsh earls, Hringr and Aðils, as unhistorical figures because of their names, which he associated with a legendary early Viking period. Still, he admitted that their presence in the story might recall the part played by Eugenius of Strathclyde or the Welsh (whose pres-

Egils saga 75

ence is supported by three other sources). Campbell found Wieselgren’s idea that Hringr could be the same character Adam of Bremen calls Hiring (citing an unknown Gesta Anglorum) hard to believe. Adam identifies Hiring as the son of Haraldr blátönn (Bluetooth), king of Denmark, which makes it chronologically impossible for him to have been at Brunanburh.25 According to Adam, this Hiring, whose existence is not verified by any other sources, is sent by his father with an army to England. He conquers the island, but is in the end betrayed and killed by the Northumbrians.26 Whistler’s theory that Aðils could be the same name as Owen/Eugenius, a Welsh ally of Anlaf mentioned by pseudo-Ingulf, assumes that Eugenius is the Latin form of Old English æþeling (prince) and thus refers to Constantine’s son. It is by no means easy to equate æþeling and Aðils, and, as Campbell pointed out, Eugenius is the real name of a Cumbrian king who may have died at Brunanburh and who could not under any circumstances be Constantine’s son.27 5) Campbell found Whistler’s other idea that Ingulf’s Syngrin and the Hwiccas (Wiccii) corresponded to Skalla-Grímsson and the Vikings absurd. Syngrin and Skalla-Grímsson share the same first letter and nothing else, and he found it ‘impossible to assume that tradition either seized on their name to make a viking into an Englishman from patriotic motives ... or corrupted Viking into Hwicca.’28 Hollander, on the other hand, appears to note Whistler’s findings with approval, judging from a brief reference to them in his article. 6) Nordal’s claim that Athelstan’s delay tactics as described in the saga accord well with English sources is not supported by any evidence. It is true that William of Malmesbury mentions the king’s ‘withdrawal,’ but the long and detailed account in the saga is really about strategic bluffing, something which is not described in any English account. 7) Nordal is drawing on a long-held but not very reliable belief when he insists that Egill’s stanzas must be genuine, even if the prose is inaccurate. Campbell expresses guarded scepticism on this point in his edition,29 but by the time of his 1970 lecture ‘Skaldic Verse and Anglo-Saxon History,’ his faith in the genuineness of some of Egill’s stanzas had clearly increased.30 If Nordal is correct, then Egill’s poems in honour of the king should be the best proof that he was indeed in England and became a friend of Athelstan’s. But even if we ignore any doubts that the king’s proficiency in Old Norse would have enabled him to understand Egill’s dróttkvæði, stanza 21 has a reference to Athelstan that makes it difficult to imagine that Egill ever delivered it to him. In the second line the king is identified as ‘nið Ellu,’ that is, a descendent of Ælla. Ælla, a ninth-century

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upstart king of Northumbria who did not belong to the West Saxon royal house, is given a much larger role in the later fornaldarsƒgur that deal with the heroic deeds of Ragnarr loðbrók and his sons than he ever enjoys in English sources. The saga author seems to rely on the legendary story of Ragnarr and hence makes the mistake of giving Ælla a royal lineage that would make him one of Athelstan’s forefathers. Nordal later admits in his notes on the stanza that the reference to Ælla makes it doubtful that it was composed by Egill, but discusses the issue no further.31 Gwyn Jones also wonders about the insult embedded in this kenning in his translation of Egils saga,32 and Christine Fell, who is critical of Campbell’s conclusions regarding the historicity of the Vínheiðr episode, addresses the same problem in her translation of the saga. She suggests that the king in question should not be taken to be Ælla of Northumbria, but either as Ælla, king of the South Saxons, or Ælla of Deira.33 Undoubtedly, the kings Fell suggests are more worthy of being the real inspiration for the various kennings in the skaldic poetry that associate England and the English with Ælla, but no other person by that name appears to have been known in Iceland.34 Egils saga explicitly identifies Óláfr the Red of Scotland as a descendant of Ragnarr loðbrók (chap. 51), and in the fornaldarso¸gur, Ælla of Northumbria owes his fame to having had the legendary Ragnarr killed. It would be strange, indeed, if the saga writer had someone else in mind. Collectively, Nordal’s argument for the historicity of the Vínheiðr episode is marred by the relative weakness of its various individual components, and in recent decades no one has followed in his footsteps to claim that the episode is based on first-hand accounts surviving within an oral tradition. Critics who believe that the episode contains factual historical elements now tend to see these elements as being incorporated into the saga through the author’s complex and highly selective use of written sources brought to Iceland from England. Two of Nordal’s points of defence, the resemblance between Simeon’s Weondune and Vínheiðr as place names, and the identification of Adam’s Hiring with the saga’s Hringr, were resurrected by A.L. Binns during the 1960s, but without any new evidence to remove the linguistic and historical obstacles that Campbell noted in the 1930s.35 Binns offers a hypothesis in four stages to explain how the saga author might have come by this information: 1) Old Norse texts, such as Egils saga, have a historically inaccurate ‘top dressing,’ but ‘their central part retains something of the genuine historical tradition of the York kingdom.’36 2) It has been suggested that a contemporary chronicle of Viking York was

Egils saga 77

kept by local chroniclers and that this document – although there is no direct reference to its existence – was a common source for later monastic writers such as Simeon of Durham, Roger of Hoveden, William of Malmesbury, and others.37 3) During the early eleventh century, Bjarnharður hinn bókvísi (Beornheard the Book-learned) and other English missionaries brought with them to Iceland ‘a good library of ecclesiastical historiography including a chronicle of Viking York.’38 4) Thirteenth-century Icelandic writers had access to these historical materials and used them in their works.39 Binns’s theory is interesting, but virtually no evidence has been found that could support it, and it has thus failed to make much of an impact in the critical debate.40 Considering recent studies, the most extensive discussion of Egils saga’s use of sources has been in Bjarni Einarsson’s Litterære forudsætninger for Egils saga (The Literary Sources of Egils saga), where his ideas concerning the author’s use of English materials in the Vínheiðr episode resemble to some extent those of Binns. Einarsson finds two layers of narrative in the episode, and goes on to argue that certain pieces of information and discrepancies in the saga become easier to understand in the light of English sources that could have been available to the author.41 The saga writer used some of this historical information directly42 but recast parts of it for his own special purpose,43 which was, chiefly, to produce an entertaining story.44 Specifically, the following points in the Vínheiðr episode, according to Einarsson, show contact with English sources: 1) The most reliable English sources explain that Athelstan fought against troops from Ireland, identified in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle poem as Norþmenn. This would explain why the saga author includes the Irish among Athelstan’s enemies.45 2) Similarly, the saga’s mention of the treacherous Welsh earls (Bretar) agrees with Simeon of Durham’s statement that the king of the Cumbrians took part in the battle against Athelstan.46 3) The author of Egils saga would have realized that William of Malmesbury’s Anlafus (son of King Sihtricus of Northumbria) had to be descended from Ragnarr loðbrók, and would then have identified him with the legendary forefathers of Ari inn fróði (the wise): Óláfr the White, King of Dublin, and his son Þorsteinn the Red, King of Scotland. From these ingredients the author of the saga combined Anlafus and Constantinus into

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a single person, Óláfr the Red, and proceeded to follow William’s account of the invasion into England, that is, the version that has Anlafus invade across the border without the aid of Norse troops.47 4) Einarsson maintains that William’s description of the events leading up to the battle has a parallel in the saga: ‘Et Ethelstano ex consulto cedente, ut gloriosus jam insultantem vinceret, multum in Angliam processerat juvenis audacissimus et illicita spirans animo, cui tandem magnis artibus ducum, magnis viribus militum, apud Brunefeld occursum.’ Einarsson does not translate this quotation, but he refers to it in a way that makes it clear that he interprets the key phrase ‘ex consulto cedente’ to mean that Athelstan withdrew (i.e., to gather more troops) after a council, ‘in order that he might more gloriously defeat the now attacking foe, this most audacious youth, intent on lawless deeds, [who] had proceeded far into England, and was at length opposed at Brunefeld.’48 The text in Egils saga (chap. 52) that supposedly reflects this information in William’s history is as follows: When Æthelstan heard of all this, he held a meeting with his leaders and statesmen to work out what would be the most expedient thing to do, explaining clearly to the whole gathering what he had learned of the activities of the Scottish king and his great army ... But it was resolved that King Æthelstan should go back and work through the south of England, and bring his own army north up the length of the country. This was because they realized that they would be slow in collecting as many men as they needed if the king himself did not call out the people.49

5) The following points in William’s account also have their parallels in Egils saga, according to Einarsson:50 a) Anlafus’s espionage mission mirrors the saga’s account of arranging the tents of Athelstan’s troops in such a way as to give the enemy an exaggerated impression of the strength of the English forces. b) The English troops are said to have pitched their tents and waited for re-enforcements both in William’s account and in the Vínheiðr episode. c) Both narratives talk of a night raid by the enemy and a king who is woken up. d) In both accounts the enemy is recognized at dawn. e) William and the saga author both state that the English did not fear a surprise attack. Unfortunately, Einarsson’s theory in many ways presents more problems than it solves. It suggests that the saga author had access to and used some ver-

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sion of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, along with the works of Simeon of Durham and William of Malmesbury. Its main flaw, however, has to be that it implies the author made selective use of these works – one at a time – without the slightest effort to collate different and conflicting information. Regardless of this peculiar workmanship, a good deal of research would have been required, and it remains unclear why an author whose chief purpose was to entertain would have bothered to do it.51 As I have tried to show, attempts to detect historical elements in the Vínheiðr episode have been rather unconvincing, and more evidence against its historical value becomes apparent when the passage is considered from a literary point of view. In his article, Hollander correctly observed that the presence of folk tale elements and conventional epic passages in the episode undermine the possibility of viewing it as a historical account.52 I think a similar argument can be made without relying on comparisons between the episode and external sources such as folk tales or fornaldarso¸gur. Egils saga as a whole employs a number of the literary devices present in the Vínheiðr episode, and like Hollander I believe it is reasonable to assume that when clear literary patterns emerge, one should be careful in inferring the presence of oral traditions or details of historical relevance. But I also disagree with Hollander, who after having dismissed the historical value of the episode finds it superfluous and irrelevant to the main story.53 From a literary point of view, the episode is very important to the saga. The literary patterns in the description of the Battle of Vínheiðr are quite unmistakable. In the episode we learn that the generous and wise Athelstan is opposed by the greedy and stupid Óláfr, each in his own fortification on the heath. Of Athelstan’s earls, Álfgeirr and Goðrekr are loyal to him, and Hringr and Aðils are traitors. Goðrekr fights with valour, Álfgeirr flees from battle; Hringr fights honestly, Aðils deceitfully; Egill emerges victorious, Þórólfr is killed. But the most interesting and ambiguous relationship is between the brothers and the king. Although Egill and Þórólfr are Athelstan’s thanes – paid soldiers with their band of warriors – the saga goes to great lengths to establish them as the real leaders in the two battles that ensue. No efforts are spared to keep King Athelstan in the background and away from the action. He is said to be gathering troops as Egill and Þórólfr first hear of him and is packed away to gather more troops as soon as the Scottish invasion begins. Athelstan is thus conveniently absent from the first battle against Hringr and Aðils, and barely visible in the second and main battle against King Óláfr’s forces. As Gwyn Jones has remarked, ‘the glory of the event is first Thórólf´s and then Egil’s,’54 with the latter emerging in the role of a victorious leader.

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Like in other staged scenes in Egils saga, the description of the site of the battle at Vínheiðr is carefully crafted. The important details that set the stage – the appointed battlefield, the river, and the forest – serve two important purposes: to explain the cunning arrangement of the tents, which shows Egill and Þórólfr as brilliant strategists, and to create surroundings that could account for the death of a hero of Þórólfr’s stature. The appointed battlefield is not just there as a ‘naively romantic motif,’ as Hollander thought:55 it signifies that the opposing sides have agreed to fight in a civilized fashion within a designated area. The surprise attack attempted by Hringr and Aðils before the Vínheiðr battlefield agreement comes into force warns the reader that Athelstan’s enemies may not intend to play by the rules, and the manner in which Þórólfr is killed confirms it. As the troops are arranged for the final battle, King Athelstan opts for the relative security of the open field by the river, whereas Þórólfr is put into a position that gives him no chance of defending against the treacherous attack by Aðils from the forest. Like his uncle and namesake, Þórólfr can only be killed under conditions where fair play is not observed. In the saga, the outcome of the battle does not contain the final note that one might expect. Quite clearly, it serves the function of preparing for Egill’s encounter with King Athelstan when the Vínheiðr episode reaches its actual climax. At the banquet Athelstan throws to celebrate his victory, Egill is given a seat of honour, although he is not in a festive mood. But, for Egill, money is always a great antidote to unhappiness. The narrative now ignores the fact that Egill is just a paid soldier, and begins taking on the characteristics of a fairy tale. His sorrow over the loss of his brother is lifted in three stages, neatly marked by the number of gifts he receives at each stage: first a golden ring from Athelstan’s own hand, then two chests of silver, and finally two golden rings and a splendid cloak that had been worn by the king himself. This process looks like the steps in a coronation ceremony, but Egill does not accept his rewards in a particularly courtly fashion, as he proceeds to vent his anger at Athelstan through intimidating gestures and stanzas. When the king puts a golden ring on the tip of his sword and hands it across the fire to Egill, who receives it in like fashion, it is not just a sign of fear or mistrust56 but also, symbolically, an act of social recognition. The exact symmetry in the way the two men are presented is more important than the gift involved; it shows Egill and Athelstan as equals. It has been suggested that this highly dramatic scene is modelled on Chansons de geste episodes where the vassal demands his right from the king.57 In Egils saga, however, it is only the magic of the story teller that can make the reader think Egill is entitled to anything at all, but this special recognition of the hero seems to be a necessary prelude to the extravagant and totally unjustified compensation Egill receives for the death of Þórólfr.

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A stanza (no. 19) that Egill delivers to Athelstan after receiving the golden ring shows well the mixed feelings Egill has for the king. On the surface the poem politely expresses gratitude to Athelstan for a gift that is a credit to him. However, the language used is anything but friendly. Both parts of the stanza rely on images of death: gallows and a noose to denote the ring on the poet’s arm. If Athelstan has not yet realized that Egill blames him for his brother’s death, the imagery and the atmosphere of the poem should be enough to convey that message. More such reminders follow, as Egill continues to exact his reward. After receiving a treasure intended for his family (two chests of silver so heavy that two men carried each) and a virtual carte blanche from Athelstan to money, lands, and honours in his kingdom, the text informs us that Egill cheers up. However, the stanza that follows (no. 20) also threatens the king as it praises him.58 It is not until we reach the point when Egill appears to be indispensable to the English king that he seems satisfied. Recently, some scholars who assume Snorri Sturluson to be the author of Egils saga have associated its hostile tone towards Norwegian monarchs with events in Snorri’s life and his bitter experience with Norwegian court politics. It has also been maintained that the saga upholds Egill as a free and independent farmer who succeeds in holding his own against a Norwegian king, a role model to be emulated in thirteenth-century Iceland.59 But such bio-critical interpretations ignore Egill’s curiously ambivalent attitude towards kingship. As someone who shows continuous disdain for Norwegian rulers, he would seem to be an unlikely ally of Athelstan’s, whose ancestors – according to the saga – had used much the same methods as King Haraldr Fair-hair in conquering England. Egill hates royal power only when it insults or thwarts him, as it does in Norway; at the court of King Athelstan, he has no objection to the rewards and honours it can bring. This mixed attitude towards royal power is by no means out of keeping with Egill’s character. There is much in his nature that is marked by unresolved contradictions. Often he appears as an arrogant, evil creature who is strangely different from the chivalric Egill who is shown as a champion of ladies in distress. The Vínheiðr episode is the climax of Egill’s life; at no other point in the saga does he enjoy the same wealth and stature as he does at Athelstan’s court, and his subsequent career in Iceland is somewhat anti-climactic in comparison. Vésteinn Ólason has noted how Egill, in his dealings with kings, succeeds in winning honours and keeping his independence as his career combines the conflicting ambitions of his father, grandfather, and the two Þórólfrs.60 But without the Vínheiðr episode, Egill’s achievement would not amount to much more than having opposed a Norwegian king on several occasions and lived to tell the tale. The honours Egill receives in King Athelstan’s court also may well be intended to signify more than the hero’s personal

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accomplishment. The imaginary vision of an English court where justice and generosity prevails is in stark contrast with the less than favourable impression the saga offers of the Norwegian courts of King Haraldr and his sons. From this point of view, the author hardly included the Vínheiðr episode to relate an event in the history of Anglo-Saxon England, but as a literary counter-point with a thinly veiled political message.

7 History – Breta sögur, Saga Ósvalds konúngs hins helga, Dunstanus saga, and Jatvarðar saga

It is commonly agreed that Icelandic students studying in England during the twelfth century would have brought books back with them upon their return to Iceland.1 Two bishops from wealthy and prominent Icelandic families, Páll Jónsson and his uncle Þorlákr Þórhallsson (St Þorlákr), are believed to have studied in Lincoln. Both have been singled out as learned men, particularly interested in history, who surely would have obtained any books they could find on the history of Anglo-Saxon England, particularly the works of William of Malmesbury and Henry of Huntingdon.2 Unfortunately, William, Henry, and other English historians have not left their mark on Icelandic literature, and very few historical works concerning Anglo-Saxon England are known to have existed in Iceland. The Venerable Bede was certainly known and is frequently mentioned in early writings, but Icelandic authors thought of him mainly as a chronologist, not a historian. His History of the English Church and People may or may not have been known in Iceland, and which of his other works were being read by Icelanders remains a matter of uncertainty.3 All that we have of English provenance are the section of Breta sögur, preserved in Hauksbók, that relates the beginnings of Anglo-Saxon history (chaps. 25–53) and three saints’ lives: those of Oswald, Dunstan, and Edward the Confessor. It has also been suggested that a passage in Þáttr af Ragnars sonum and a few lines from a poem called ‘Allra heilagra drápa’ (‘A Poem of All Saints’) hearken back to English sources, but the evidence for this claim is inconclusive.4 In short, there are no rich pickings in this field, and statements to the effect that English literary and historical documents were easily available to Icelandic writers after the Norman Conquest5 are, unfortunately, based only on wishful thinking. Geoffrey of Monmouth’s pseudo-history of the kings of Britain is a lasting proof that being factual has little to do with being influential. Geoffrey died in 1154 and soon after his Historia Regum Britanniae (The History of the Kings of

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Britain) began to influence various facets of European literature. In Iceland, his work was translated very early on by an unknown person, perhaps around 1200, as Breta sögur. But what is customarily referred to as the Icelandic translation of Geoffrey’s work should be approached with care, because the Icelandic effort is really more of an adaptation. The translator shortens and summarizes as he goes, and towards the end he gets more than usually impatient with his task. However, for all the shortcomings of the Icelandic translation, it is widely believed that Breta sögur may have been one of the models on which Snorri Sturluson styled his Heimskringla. But let us now pause to examine what a thirteenth-century Icelandic author might have learned from the chapters of Breta sögur that relate the history of Anglo-Saxon England. Unlike Bede, Geoffrey states that Hengist (Heingestr) and Horsa (Horsus) came uninvited to Vortigern’s court and offered their services.6 Vortigern (Vortigernus), having just usurped the English crown and facing a multitude of enemies, is more than happy to employ them. Soon after the Picts invade, and the Saxons prove to be eminently valiant and defeat them. Vortigern now gives them Lindsey, where they build a strong castle. More troops from Saxony arrive, along with Hengist’s daughter, Renwein (Ranvæn), with whom Vortigern falls in love and marries. Still more Saxon soldiers arrive, including Hengist’s son Octa (Otta). Vortigern’s subjects, unhappy with such a large number of Saxons in England, ask him to expel them, and when he refuses they elect his son Vortimer as king. Vortimer duly routs and expels the Saxons only to be poisoned by his stepmother, Renwein, and Vortigern comes again to the throne. He wastes no time in recalling Hengist and his troops. Attending a conference of Vortigern’s chieftains, the Saxons treacherously murder most of them, and Vortigern saves his own life only by giving Hengist whatever he wants. Vortigern now intends to build himself a strong castle, but his failure to achieve that brings in Merlin (Merlinus), who delivers a prophecy which is included in the Icelandic translation. It is, however, so cryptic that a medieval Icelandic reader would have learned the same amount about Anglo-Saxon history by reading the book of Revelation. Aurelius Ambrosius, whose father Vortigern had killed, now returns to Britain and is anointed king. He immediately attacks Vortigern’s great castle, and burns it down with the usurper in it. When Hengist learns of Vortigern’s death, he retreats to the Humber region to gather more troops. Aurelius attacks and defeats the Saxons. Hengist is captured and beheaded, but his son Octa escapes to York. Aurelius now turns to York, but rather than fight, Octa grovels and begs for mercy. Peace is made, and for a change, the Saxons keep their word. Aurelius, however, is soon poisoned at the instigation of another of Vortigern’s

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sons, Pacenius. At Aurelius’s death, his brother Utherpendragon (Yter) succeeds to the throne and with him as king, the Saxons do not feel they owe anybody any allegiance. Under Octa they attack York, but Utherpendragon defeats them, and Octa is captured and imprisoned. Eventually, however, he escapes, goes back to Saxony to raise an army and returns to Britain. Again, Utherpendragon defeats Octa and this time kills him, only to meet the fate of his brother Aurelius and be fatally poisoned by the Saxons. Utherpendragon is succeeded by his son Arthur (Artur). In Arthur the Saxons face a more formidable enemy than any British king before him. Their new leader, Colgrin (Kolgrimr), faces King Arthur in battle near the river Douglas (called Þverá in the Icelandic translation). Arthur defeats him, and the Saxons retreat to York and send for more troops from Saxony. Another battle ensues, and again Arthur routs the Saxons. Those who survive the battle save their lives only by giving him treasure and hostages in return for being allowed to leave. As usual, the Saxons return to fight Arthur once more, but the result is the same as before: they are utterly defeated and all their leaders are killed. With Britain safe, Arthur now turns his attention to conquering Europe. First he attacks Norway in order to crown Loth, his sister’s son, as a king of that country. The Icelandic translation adds that the father of Ywain (Yvein) had been a king named Loth, who ruled over a Norwegian province called Hörðaland. When his brother Sichelm (Sighialmr),7 who rules over all of Norway, dies, Arthur appoints Loth to succeed him. The Norwegians, not desiring a British king, rebel and appoint one of their own – a man named Riculf (Rikulfr) – to the throne. He is soon attacked and defeated by Arthur, and Norway, Denmark, and various other northern countries – the Icelandic translator throws in the Faroe Islands for good measure – are now securely within the British realm. Arthur then turns his attention to the continent which he attacks and conquers with the aid of such unlikely dignitaries as King Loth of Norway, Aschil (Askell), king of Denmark, and King Malvasius of Thule, which our translator adds is now called Iceland. King Arthur wages a highly successful European campaign until he learns that Mordred (Modret), to whom he had entrusted the kingdom of Britain in his absence, has taken Guinevere (Gunnvor) as his wife and gathered an army of pagans. King Arthur goes into battle against him, aided as before by foreign allies such as King Loth of Norway and Aschil, king of Denmark. Both Mordred and Arthur are killed in this battle, and Breta sögur adds that this event took place in 542. King Arthur is succeeded by Constantine (Constantinus), whose realm is harried by the Saxons and the sons of Mordred. The Saxons are eventually defeated and the sons of Mordred disposed of. Then Constantine

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dies and is succeeded by his son Aurelius, a thoroughly incompetent ruler. After his day Vortiporius comes to the throne, and the Saxons make war against the British again. Vortiporius is succeeded by Malgo, a great warrior who conquers Scotland, Ireland, Iceland, the Orkney Islands, Denmark, and Gothland.8 After the reign of Malgo, the throne is passed on to Keredic (Karsius), who has to face an alliance of the Saxons and Gormund (Guðmundr), the king of the Irish. Keredic is defeated and flees the country. Now the Saxons and the Irish conquer the whole of England, destroy her churches, and introduce their pagan faith. England is divided into two kingdoms with Athelbrict (Aðalbrikt) ruling over the south and Æthelred (Aðalraðr) and Ælla (Ella) having control over Northumbria.9 The saga writer now tells of St Augustine’s mission to England, and how Athelbrict embraces the new faith whereas Æthelred and Ælla reject it. Cadvan (Kadvan) is elected King of the Britons, and makes war against Æthelred10 until peace is made between them and Cadvan is given a kingdom south of the Humber. In due course these kings are succeeded by their sons, Cadwallo (Kaðall) and Edwin (Eduin). Edwin requests that Cadwallo grant him the right to be crowned as king and overlord of the country. When Cadwallo refuses, war breaks out between them; Cadwallo is defeated, and flees to Ireland. Edwin, who had been brought up at Cadvan’s court, now makes war on his own father Æthelred’s kingdom, and Cadwallo is unable to return because Edwin has a magician who foresees Cadwallo’s every move. Eventually, Cadwallo manages to have the magician killed and returns with his army to England. He is first attacked by Peanda (Pendan), king of the Mercians, whom he promptly defeats, and then by Edwin, who suffers the same fate. Cadwallo now conquers all of England and Scotland and attempts to eradicate the Saxon race. Oswald (Osvalldr) now emerges in a somewhat mysterious fashion as King of Northumbria. Cadwallo makes war against him and drives him all the way to the Scottish border. A final battle takes place, and Oswald is killed.11 He is succeeded by his brother Oswi (Osvið), who makes peace with Cadwallo and reigns as his vassal. Peanda now begins a campaign of slander against Oswi, and tells Cadwallo that Oswi intends to import troops from Saxony to avenge his brother. With that Peanda is given a free hand to move against Oswi, which he does immediately, but in the ensuing battle Peanda is defeated and killed. Attempts by his son Wulfred (Villifer) to avenge his father are quashed by Cadwallo. Cadwallo now dies and is succeeded by his son Cadwallader (Thedvallas). During his reign England is struck by such famine and pestilence that Cadwallader and most of his subjects flee the country. When England is finally resettled, it is not by Cadwallader but by a Queen Sæborg, whose origin is not

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mentioned in the Icelandic text.12 She conquers Northumbria. Originally, Cadwallader had intended to go back to England, but after an angel speaks to him and tells him he is to go to Rome – as returning to England is against God’s will – he changes his mind. In Rome he gives up his royal title and becomes a bishop. Breta sögur then notes that since his day Britons have not ruled over England, and proceeds to list the English kings that followed Cadwallader. This appendix is not to be found in Geoffrey’s work, and its origin remains unknown. The line it traces goes as follows: Æthelred, Queen Simbvr, Cynewulf, Bricivs, Ecgberht, Eidwulf, Edelald, Æthelbriht, Alfred, Edward, and finally Athelstan the Good who, the translator says, fostered Hákon, the son of Haraldr Fair-hair. The Icelandic version of Geoffrey’s history is not a great work of scholarship. It is all action – quite without motive or reflection – and tends to mutilate the original. (Still, someone producing a proper critical edition of Breta sögur – something which has yet to be carried out – might find more redeeming qualities in it than I have been able to.) It is, however, quite clear that to later thirteenth-century Icelandic writers, this translation was of little use as far as the history of Anglo-Saxon England was concerned. Geoffrey’s approach to his subject matter may have influenced Snorri, but Breta sögur is never mentioned or quoted by any writers. However, it may have suggested obliquely some ideas that do occur in the Icelandic literature of the period, such as the notion that a king does not deserve to rule his country, or that God does not wish him to be there. In reality, however, the greatest contribution of Breta sögur may well have been to better acquaint Icelandic writers with the geography of England. Geoffrey’s history may be less than reliable, but there is nothing wrong with his knowledge of English geography. Saga Ósvalds konúngs hins helga dates from the fifteenth century, and relates the life of St Oswald, who was king of Northumbria from 634 to 642.13 In the saga, however, he is king over all of England and is surrounded by powerful heathen enemy countries. We are first told of his great piety and his role as a benefactor of the poor. Oswald has no patience with those whose faith is weak or with ungodly characters. After a short introduction, the saga states that England is without a king and that no one has a legitimate claim to the throne. The nobles proceed to elect Oswald as their lord, but he declines on the grounds that he is unworthy to be king and without the proper lineage to hold that title. The nobles persist in their choice, and Oswald responds by making himself scarce. He is found, however, and this time he consents to his royal election. On the day of his coronation, Oswald is to be anointed with a special oil, which goes missing at the ceremony. Oswald takes this as a sign, and remarks to those present that this is God’s way of showing he is unworthy of

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his crown. Then a raven descends from the sky carrying both the oil to anoint Oswald and a letter, which declares that the oil has been blessed by none other than St Peter. The raven turns out to speak Latin, and it confirms that the oil has indeed been sent from heaven. After some time on the English throne, King Oswald builds a splendid cathedral which he dedicates to St Peter. He then embarks upon a campaign to force Christianity upon his heathen neighbours. At home, he generously presents his earls and barons with castles, villages, and cities, and rules his kingdom to everyone’s satisfaction. At this point, his subjects begin to urge him to get married, as they fear that without an heir Oswald might be succeeded by someone without a rightful claim to the throne. In response, King Oswald declares that he has not yet found a suitable queen, although in reality his reluctance to marry stems from his desire to keep to a celibate lifestyle. Then a hermit in the habit of a pilgrim – believed by some to be an angel from heaven – appears. He announces that he has a message from God to the effect that King Oswald’s bride shall be a fair and clever lady called Pia, the daughter of a Muslim king named Gaudon. There is, however, a slight problem. King Oswald cannot send messengers to ask for Pia’s hand, because Gaudon is in the habit of killing all Christians who enter into his kingdom, and moreover he has sworn that anyone who wants to marry his daughter will first have to defeat him in battle. The hermit now suggests that the raven be brought in. King Oswald composes a letter to the lady, including among other things, twelve articles on the Christian religion, and the raven is dispatched carrying the letter and a golden ring. It takes the raven nine days to reach Gaudon’s castle. There, glass windows have just been opened, and the raven quickly enters, greets King Gaudon, and states that its mission is to ask for the hand of his daughter for King Oswald. King Gaudon responds by ordering the bird to be killed. His daughter Pia intervenes and, eventually, she is given the raven, which then presents the letter and the ring to her. Reading King Oswald’s letter, Pia is instantly converted to Christianity. The raven returns with a message of Pia’s undying love for King Oswald, and a letter instructing him to come for her the next year with a fleet of seventy-two ships and seventy-two thousand troops. On its way home the raven is caught up in a great storm, and both the letter and the golden ring from Pia are dropped into the sea and swallowed by a fish. However, a hermit who the raven chances to meet prays so fervently on its behalf that an angel is dispatched to find the fish and bring back the letter and the ring, which the raven carries to King Oswald. The great fleet is built, and the king assembles an army of his nobles and their knights, each wearing a cross on the outside of their cloaks. As they approach

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Gaudon’s castle, the raven is sent to announce King Oswald’s arrival to Pia. She tells the bird that King Oswald and his men are to pretend to be foreign merchants. This they do, and invite King Gaudon to inspect their goods. The openly displayed crosses, however, infuriate Gaudon, who threatens to have the men killed. Gaudon relents at the sight of a splendid hart, however, which King Oswald has brought with him and which Gaudon now greatly desires. He is given the animal, only to spend the next few days chasing after it, making futile attempts to catch it. While Gaudon hunts the hart, Pia has been securely locked in her room with four ladies-in-waiting to guard her. Catching sight of the great hart provides her with an excuse to get out of the castle, and the securely bolted door to her room bursts open as she touches it in the name of God. Pia now joins King Oswald and they sail off, but Gaudon quickly catches up with them and a great battle follows. Gaudon is defeated, and is told he can choose between baptism or death. He agrees to be baptized on the condition that Oswald’s God brings his fallen troops to life. This miracle is quickly performed, but Gaudon deceitfully engages Oswald and his men in a second battle. Again Gaudon is defeated and presented with the same ultimatum. As before, Gaudon agrees to baptism, but this time on the condition that Oswald’s God squeeze water from a rock. This is also achieved, and Gaudon and his men, who have been resurrected for a second time, now convert to Christianity. Gaudon, whose new Christian name is Simon, makes all his subjects adopt Christianity as well. Back in England, King Oswald celebrates his wedding, and again we are told of his great generosity to the poor. On seeing how kind the king is to the needy, Aydanus, one of his bishops, predicts that Oswald’s right hand shall never decompose. (This prompts the Icelandic author to add that the hand is indeed kept in a silver casket at St Peter’s Cathedral, and that, to date, it is still like the hand of a living person.) But a great war looms on the horizon as King Oswald’s heathen enemies in the kingdoms of Forheiðe, Brithaniam, and Mercienn decide to invade England. Oswald, in the meantime, hears voices from heaven telling him that he shall die a martyr’s death. In the ensuing battle, King Oswald and his men are defeated, and the King of Mercienn orders Oswald’s arms and head to be cut off and displayed as trophies. The foreign armies proceed to raid much of England, but they eventually leave the country. King Oswald is succeeded by King Osvinus, who has Oswald’s head and arms properly buried. The rest of the saga relates that the king remained celibate despite his marriage, and goes on to list the many miracles associated with him. A sick horse and a girl are cured by resting on King Oswald’s grave and, after its whereabouts have thus been discovered, many others are cured there as well. Men from Brithaniam dig for his bones, and discover a wonderful scent as they open

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his grave. They then take the bones to a house where a great feast is being held. The house accidentally catches fire and burns to the ground, and everything is destroyed except King Oswald’s bones. The saint’s bones are then said to have healed many sick people. They are eventually given to Oswald’s niece, the Queen of Austria. She deposits them at a monastery in a ceremony accompanied by the sight of a light from heaven illuminating the saint’s shrine, which a white dove has perched on, and a possessed man is exorcised of an evil spirit by lying down beside Oswald’s remains. Meanwhile, at Oswald’s grave in England, a blind man is cured by rubbing its earth into his eyes. A great cross is erected on the spot of his burial, and splinters from it turn out to have the same healing powers as everything else associated with the saint. The saga declares King Oswald’s grave to be a heavenly place, and ends with a prayer to him. There is little to be said about the historical value of Saga Ósvalds konúngs hins helga; events as I have outlined them speak for themselves. The author is completely ignorant of life during the seventh century, as the glass windows of Gaudon’s castle and the crusader outfits worn by King Oswald’s men make clear to us. As for England, the same ignorance is apparent in every respect as far as history, geography, or English customs are concerned. The closest the author gets to relating anything correctly is to have Oswald killed in a battle against the Mercians, as he indeed was in 642. Various versions of King Oswald’s life – both English and continental – exist, but the saga author does not appear to have used any of the ones that are known. He refers to his sources from time to time, but what they were has never been discovered. During the fourteenth century Árni Laurentiusson, a monk at the monastery of Þingeyrar, compiled a saga of St Dunstan (ca. 909–88). In doing so, his main sources were Adelard’s Vita Dunstani, the Passio Sancti Eadwardi, and some version of Vincent of Beauvais’s Speculum Historiale. His work also shows traces of other sources, mostly Icelandic sagas about religious figures and Latin saints’ lives.14 Unfortunately for our purposes, Árni does not seem to have been particularly knowledgeable nor interested in English history of the tenth century, nor in Dunstan’s career as a statesman. It is the melodramatic material in his sources that always interests him the most. As so many medieval Icelandic religious texts do, Dunstanus saga opens with a kind of letter from the author to his readers, offering them the conventional apologies about his inability to handle the task of relating the life of the glorious saint, and asking them to pardon his effort and to appreciate the greatness of Dunstan’s story instead. Árni then tells us that Dunstan was born into a noble family but, more importantly, that his parents led such virtuous and pious lives that after their deaths Dunstan was to see them paraded around by

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angels in heaven. We are next told of a vision of this kind in which Dunstan saw his mother as the bride of Christ at a marriage feast in heaven. At this ceremony, an angel teaches Dunstan the right hymn for the occasion. The saga then describes a miracle involving Dunstan’s mother during her pregnancy with him. While she is attending a mass celebrating the Feast of the Purification (2 February), the candles of all present are extinguished and only the candle that Dunstan’s mother is holding is miraculously relit. In the next scene, the Devil unleashes upon Dunstan fiends from Hell in the shape of a pack of dogs. Dunstan defends himself with a stick he is holding, and the dogs sink through the ground back to Hell. After these preliminary visions and miracles, Árni’s narrative gets slightly more coherent. Dunstan now enters the monastery at Glastonbury. He falls ill and is at death’s door when he miraculously recovers. A brief section then follows on Dunstan’s growing up and the Ages of Man. Dunstan is then said to have left the monastery of Glastonbury where he had been educated, although he had not yet taken Holy Orders. He now goes to stay with his uncle Athelm, Archbishop of Canterbury, who soon presents him to King Athelstan. However, just after Dunstan enters his service, Athelstan dies and is succeeded by his brother Edward, whom Árni describes as a great warrior but more importantly, a staunch supporter of the church. King Edward has two sons: his namesake and another one, Æthelred, by an evil woman named Ælfthryth. The king has decreed that he is to be succeeded by his namesake, a plan that Ælfthryth does not intend to follow. King Edward dies, and Dunstan, who is Archbishop of Canterbury by this time, successfully campaigns for Edward’s election. Once on the throne, King Edward appoints Dunstan as his chief adviser. But after only a short reign, Edward is brutally stabbed to death by his stepmother. King Edward is buried at a convent called Uisturina, and is succeeded by his halfbrother Æthelred. The saga now goes back in time to when Edward the Elder appointed Dunstan as abbot at Glastonbury. This event occasions a little digression by Árni on the evils of secular authorities having the power to appoint their candidates to offices within the church, and how St Thomas à Becket’s martyrdom stopped such practices in England. As an abbot, Dunstan constantly preaches purity and sanctity in all things. The scene then abruptly returns to court, where King Æthelred is seen to be bitterly mourning his brother’s death. As he is doing so, his mother attacks him with a large candle and gives him a severe beating. Árni then tells us that from that day onward, the king did not want to see candles anywhere around him. Æthelred’s reign, says Árni, was one of peace, justice, and prosperity for the church. It now comes to pass that Dunstan is elected bishop of Winchester (called

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by its Latin name Uinthonia in the saga), but he refuses to accept his new position. Then, in a dream, St Peter, St Paul, and St Andrew appear to him. St Andrew brings Dunstan a message from Christ ordering him to accept the post, and St Peter, like a schoolmaster, smacks him on his palm for his refusal to accept the bishopric. Having been taught this divine lesson, Dunstan humbly accepts his new appointment. After a few years at Winchester, Dunstan is promoted to the bishoprics of Worcester (also called by its Latin name, Uigornensem, in the saga) and London by King Edgar, and is ultimately made Archbishop of Canterbury. In his new position, Dunstan regularly receives divine messages to guide him in his appointments to church offices; angels converse with him, and the Holy Ghost appears to him three times in the shape of a dove. As archbishop, Dunstan is strict and keen to uphold the law. Árni now relates a story about a certain earl who had married his frœndkona (one’s own niece or cousin). Dunstan reproaches the man and orders him to dissolve the union, but the earl ignores him. Dunstan then excommunicates the nobleman. The king attempts to intervene on behalf of the earl, but Dunstan stands firm. Eventually the earl relents and seeks out Dunstan, flogging himself as he goes and falling to Dunstan’s feet, begging for mercy. Only then is the verdict of excommunication withdrawn. This example is followed by a story of three false coiners. When apprehended, they are sentenced to have their hands and feet cut off, a mutilation that Árni insists is proper punishment under English law. On Whitsunday, Dunstan learns that the sentence still has not been carried out, and refuses to preach until the offenders have been punished. And Árni – having promptly forgotten everything he said about a proper punishment under English law half a page before – has them beheaded. The remainder of Dunstanus saga is a long list of miracles of various kinds associated with the saint. The Holy Ghost in the shape of a white dove descends upon the archbishop during a mass. Later, after a mass, Dunstan finds himself with no one to help him as he removes his chasuble, but, as it comes off, the chasuble miraculously hangs in the air. Dunstan makes a spring of water appear as he dedicates a church. Another church is dedicated only after Dunstan has pushed it with his back until it faces directly to the east, as it should have in the first place. Árni then stops briefly to relate that around this time Dunstan was unfairly driven into exile by evil people. He does not explain why, and then returns to relating more miracles. Next comes Dunstan’s vision of a band of angels who greet him and invite him to join their feast in heaven. Dunstan explains to them that he is not quite ready to go, so the following Saturday is agreed upon for his departure from the world. As Dunstan assiduously preaches to his flock in the final days of his life, he promises them that although he shall soon be physically absent, he shall always be with them in

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spirit. During these last sermons a great light, so powerful that no one can look straight at it, is seen to emanate from his mouth. Dunstan is now taken ill, and during his illness makes it known where he wants to be buried. Saturday arrives and Dunstan dies according to plan, but not until his bed has been tossed high into the air and landed slowly and gently three times. Nearly a third of Árni’s saga relates miracles that take place after Dunstan’s death, beginning with angels who are heard to sing in the air. Árni then digresses slightly to insist that Dunstan qualifies to be considered as a martyr of his faith although he did not die by the sword. He pauses to quote his Speculum Historiale on the different offices Dunstan held and the length of his appointment as Archbishop of Canterbury. Árni then claims, incorrectly, that Dunstan lived to be seventy years old, but rightly observes that he died in 988. He relates that Dunstan was succeeded as Archbishop of Canterbury by a man named Lanfranc, and then begins to report the last of Dunstan’s miracles. First, however, he tells a lengthy story of how Dunstan healed a monk possessed by a devil in the shape of a small puppy, and finally how Dunstan helped Archbishop Lanfranc in a lawsuit brought by the Earl of Canterbury concerning church property. Here Árni ends his saga, fortunately, one might perhaps add, as he is evidently drawing out material that does not bring his account of St Dunstan to a spectacular climax. As can readily be seen, there is not much historical meat on the bones of Dunstanus saga, but all the same, it contains its share of mistakes. Some of these can be blamed on Árni’s sources, but his own ignorance of tenth-century England, and the royal family in particular, does little to help his saga. The main outline of Dunstan’s career within the church is correct, but little else is. There is only the briefest hint at Dunstan’s career as a statesman, and his fame as a craftsman is missing entirely. With Árni’s ignorance of tenth-century English kings, he is unable to put Dunstan’s life into anything resembling historical perspective. Thus Athelstan is succeeded by his father, Edward the Elder who in Árni’s account is credited with the deeds of Edmund and Edgar in addition to those of the children of Edgar. Eadred and Eadwig do not exist in Árni’s book, so understandably little is said about their reigns. Half way through his saga (Dunstanus saga, 15), Árni does recognize the existence of Edgar as the monarch who appointed Dunstan bishop of Worcester and London, but at this point he is too confused to attempt to fit him into any historical framework. As for lesser mistakes that may be noted, Árni (Dunstanus saga, 8) refers to King Athelstan as an absolute ruler (einuallz konungr) over all of England. In reality, Athelstan ruled over England as far as the Humber and was overlord of the Northumbrians, the Welsh, and the Scots. The absolute rule Árni has in

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mind was not accomplished until the reign of Edgar (959–75). As we saw, Árni has St Edward King and Martyr murdered by his stepmother (Dunstanus saga, 11), but there is no evidence that she even plotted his murder let alone carried it out herself; it was most probably committed by Æthelred’s household men so that their young master might become king. Edward is then said to have been buried in that mysterious place called Uisturina, whereas he was, in fact buried at Wareham. The long and bitter dispute between Thomas à Becket, who was murdered in 1170, and King Henry II (12) did not specifically involve royal control of ecclesiastical appointments; it had its origin in the issue of taxation. Árni is completely wrong when he suggests that Thomas wrested the right to make episcopal appointments from the monarchy. The English church (unlike the Icelandic one) never won that right, and episcopal appointments are still a royal prerogative. In describing Dunstan’s appointment as bishop (14), Árni refers to his predecessor, Ælfheah (Elfegus) as being archbishop, which he was not. In the story about the coiners of false money, the saga, as we saw, explains that under English law the customary punishment for counterfeiting money was the loss of both hands and feet. In Anglo-Saxon England, however, the normal sentence was the loss of the right hand. Here, however, Árni’s account may be influenced by some knowledge of much more severe punishments introduced in England during the twelfth century. In relating Dunstan’s exile (20), Árni has him driven from his bishopric, when in fact Dunstan was exiled before his consecration as bishop. Finally, Árni is quite mistaken in his account of Archbishop Lanfranc (25–30). For instance, Árni seems to assume Lafranc was Dunstan’s immediate successor, whereas no less than eight archbishops served at Canterbury after Dunstan and before Lanfranc’s appointment in 1070. In the story of the lawsuit brought against Lanfranc, it was not the Earl of Kent (who would have been Bishop Odo of Bayeux) who instigated it. It is, however, true that Lanfranc succeeded in having lands and rights restored to his see. The Icelandic history of St Edward the Confessor in all probability dates back to the fourteenth century. It exists in two versions, as Saga hins heilaga Játvarðar in Flateyjarbók, and as Jatvarðar saga in the Appendix to Guðbrandur Vigfússon’s Icelandic Sagas and Other Historical Documents Relating to the Settlements and Descents of the Northmen on the British Isles, vol. I.15 The Icelandic history of St Edward does not exist in a critical edition as yet and was largely ignored in Old Norse studies until the 1970s, when Christine Fell discussed it at length in three very informative articles.16 Her work is particularly interesting for showing that the Icelandic author used at least three foreign sources: a service book containing the lections to St Edward’s Day, the Specu-

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lum Historiale by Vincent of Beauvais, and an anonymous Chronicon Laudunensis. Of particular importance is Fell’s conclusion that, in some instances, the sources which the Icelandic author was using appear to have been fuller than the shape in which they survive today. But now to the actual story. We first learn about King Edward’s ancestry and how St Dunstan heard angels singing in the sky at his birth. His mother, Emma, is said to be the daughter of Duke Richard of Normandy and the sister of Robert the Devil, who gave up his dukedom to become a hermit. We are then told of Edward’s affection for everything associated with the church, his giving of alms to the poor, his love for the Virgin Mary, and his adoption of St Peter as his foster father and St John the Evangelist as the personal guardian of his life-long celibacy. It is then quickly added that his three wives lived celibate lives as well. The story then abruptly turns to Duke William of Normandy, whose mother is said to have been one Gunnhildr, the sister of King Æthelred, and the saga insists that William himself was not an illegitimate child and only called ‘bastard’ because his ancestors had been born out of wedlock. We then learn that William and Count Baldwin of Flanders make peace between them with Baldwin offering the duke his daughter Matilda in marriage. Then follows the familiar story of Matilda calling him a bastard son, and of William responding by attacking and brutalizing her, which, as before, inspires her undying love for William. One of the messengers sent to bring William her message of love is cut in two, as William thinks the messengers come to attack him. William and Matilda are then married with great splendour. The saga now returns to King Edward, and relates the great joy of the English church at his ascension to the throne. This joy is not only because he was the rightful heir, but also because his election brought freedom and prosperity to the church and the general public – as opposed to the misery of life under King Cnut and his sons. Nothing else is said about King Edward’s reign, and the saga proceeds to relate his visions and the miracles associated with him. First he sees the king of Denmark drowning as he is about to embark on an invasion of England. Then, at Christmas, a pilgrim asks the king to give him something. When Edward replies that he has nothing with him to give, the pilgrim remarks that he is making his request on behalf of the holy man the king loves most. Mindful of St John the Evangelist, King Edward presents the pilgrim with his coronation ring, and with that the pilgrim disappears. The following night, St John appears before an Englishman who had been kept captive for nine years by the Saracens. He asks the man to tell King Edward of his vision, and gives him the king’s ring as proof of it. St John then spirits him to England where he relates the miracle to the king. Edward’s court is duly impressed, and all marvel at his holiness.

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On Easter Sunday at Westminster, the king is having his meal in the presence of his spiritual and lay magnates when he suddenly has a great fit of laughter. When asked what had occasioned his laughter, Edward explains that he has just seen the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus turn in their two-hundred-yearlong sleep from lying on their right sides to lying on their left, which is how they will rest for the next eighty-four years. He then predicts that during this period wars, earthquakes, plagues, and famines will occur. The king’s audience is dumbfounded by this vision and the stories he proceeds to relate which could not have come from any books on the Seven Sleepers. They then send messengers, first to Constantinople and then to Greece, and they verify that the Seven Sleepers have indeed turned over to their left sides. The wars and other disasters prophesied by King Edward soon follow. We then hear of him healing a hunchback sent by St Peter, and of blind men who are given back their sight through the powers of the king. Again the story changes abruptly, veering towards domestic matters. Edward marries Godwine’s daughter, and the marriage brings much power to her family. The story we saw in chapter 4, about the suspicious death of King Edward’s brother, the king’s misgivings about Godwine’s role in it, and the latter’s shameful death, is now related. But then the saga turns its attention to the question of succession, and King Edward’s desire to see Duke William on the throne, as he is descended from English kings and closely related to Edward himself. The sons of Godwine are now made to swear that they will support Duke William’s bid for the kingship. To this is added a story of Harold meeting with Duke William and likewise swearing an oath of allegiance to him. After reigning for twenty-three years, King Edward falls ill, assembles his noblemen, and declares that Duke William is to succeed him. As the king’s illness reaches a serious state, Harold is summoned to the dying Edward and afterwards claims that Edward chose him as his successor. King Edward dies and is buried at St Paul’s Cathedral, but miracles associated with him continue, and eventually Thomas à Becket has his remains translated and placed in a splendid shrine. Harold is now elected king, which gravely offends his older brother Tostig, who asks to share the kingdom with him. When Harold refuses, Tostig goes first to Denmark and then to Norway to seek support for his cause. King Haraldr and Tostig then lead an army to England and fight with Tostig’s brothers, Morcar and Gyrth, at York. Morcar is killed, but Gyrth escapes from the battle. Shortly afterwards, both King Haraldr and Tostig are killed at Stamford Bridge. Upon Harold’s ascension to the English throne, Duke William is furious over his breach of oaths and begins to assemble an army to invade England. He arrives about the time of the Battle of Stamford Bridge and fights King Harold at Hastings. On the eve of battle, Gyrth reminds his brother of his broken oath to Duke

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William and finds it an ill omen. King Harold brushes his worries aside. For a long time the outcome of the battle is in doubt, but eventually the English losses become overwhelming; King Harold and Gyrth are killed, but some, including their brother Waltheof, flee from battle. He and a hundred of his men lose their lives when Duke William burns down the forest in which they are hiding. The saga now turns to the aftermath of the battle, and we learn that the English people maintain that though his friends searched for his body among the dead, King Harold was found to be only wounded and was secretly nursed back to health. Harold, however, did not want to resume his fight against William, and he is said to have lived for a long time thereafter. In the Flateyjarbók version, Harold admits that God would not allow him to have his kingdom, which is perhaps for the best, and he becomes a hermit instead. Now William has himself crowned, but he still faces opposition from the English nobles. They appeal to King Sveinn Úlfsson of Denmark to join them in their fight against King William. When William learns of these entreaties, a messenger is dispatched to Denmark to buy Sveinn off, a practice William continues with the Danish king for several years. When the English nobles realize that help will not be forthcoming from Denmark, they assemble more than three hundred ships and leave England, led by Earl Sigurðr (OE Siward) of Gloucester. They set sail for the Mediterranean and eventually reach Constantinople, which is under siege by a pagan army. The English troops break the siege and drive the enemy away. Kirjalax (Alexius), the grateful Greek emperor, invites the English to join his elite Varangian guard, but they decline his offer and ask instead for a place where they might settle. The Greek emperor informs them of a country to the north which at one point had belonged to the emperors of Constantinople but had been lost to heathen conquerors. After many battles in their new promised land, the English drive away the entire indigenous population and proceed to settle in their new home. The new country is called England, and cities are given names like York and London. In matters of religion, however, they favour the doctrine of the Hungarian church over that of Constantinople. Finally, we learn that they have continued to inhabit this flourishing country – which is a six-day journey by sea from Constantinople – to this day, and on that note Jatvarðar saga ends. According to Christine Fell,17 most of the material concerning Edward’s genealogy comes from the first lection for St Edward’s Day. It is, of course wrong that Emma was the sister of Earl Robert, the father of William the Conqueror, but Jatvarðar saga shares that error with other Icelandic histories, both contemporary and earlier. The story that Robert gave up his dukedom to become a hermit is derived from the Chronicon Laudunensis, a chronicle believed to have been written by an English monk at Laon, and the suggestion that William was wrongly called ‘bastard’ because his ancestors were bastards

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also comes from this source, as does the information that William’s mother was a woman named Gunnhildr. It is not clear how this mistake, which would link William to the Danish royal family, comes about. King Cnut had both a daughter and a niece by the name of Gunnhildr, and his daughter eventually married Emperor Henry of Germany. William’s hereditary claim to the English monarchy was actually quite remote; it was only through Queen Emma, the sister of his grandfather and wife successively to two English kings, Æthelred and Cnut, that his claim was derived. The story that Matilda first rejected William’s proposal of marriage because she thought he was a bastard, but later accepted him on account of his violent behaviour towards her, is found only in Norman sources, including the Chronicon Laudunensis. Most of Jatvarðar saga’s information about the king comes from hagiographic sources, except for the story about Edward’s three wives who kept their virginity at his persuasion, which is derived from the Chronicon Laudunensis. Other chronicles and Heimskringla relate that King Edward was married to Godwine’s daughter only. The story of St John and Edward’s gift to the pilgrim of his coronation ring is also derived from the Chronicon. Jatvarðar saga’s account of Edward’s vision of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus is clearly based on a very similar story told by William of Malmesbury. But, as Christine Fell warns, the author borrows only one very brief story from William, and had he had access to the whole text, it does not make much sense that he would use so little of it. The author of Jatvarðar saga knew of William only ‘in some exeedingly abbreviated form,’ probably through the Speculum Historiale.18 A number of sources are used for other accounts about King Edward, but the saga author returns to the Chronicon for the story about Earl Godwine’s denial of his responsibility for the death of Edward’s younger brother. The tale itself, which is found in most English and Norman chronicles, is of course a folk tale. The short explanatory paragraph in Jatvarðar saga that introduces Godwine and his family (at the beginning of chapter 5 in Vigfússon’s edition) is not found in the extant copies of the Chronicon Laudunensis, but may have been in the text available to the saga author. In the section of Jatvarðar saga that relates events just before King Edward’s death and Harold’s succession (chapter 6 in Vigfússon’s edition), the author combines material from Haralds saga Sigurðarsonar in Heimskringla vol. III and the Chronicon Laudunensis. Understandably, these sources differ on a number of points. One interesting example is Harold’s visit to Duke William. In the Chronicon Laudunensis, Harold promises to hold the kingdom of England for William, which could mean he was to secure William’s election, or was to get himself elected in order to step down in favour of William. But in Jatvarðar saga his oath is to not hold England against William and rule it for himself, perhaps meaning that if elected king Harold would be prepared to

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abdicate if William asked for the throne. This change may well be inspired by the oath as it is related by Morkinskinna (285) that Harold would never oppose William. Harold’s claim that the dying King Edward bequeathed him the crown is undoubtedly taken from Snorri’s account in Heimskringla. The story of King Edward’s body being moved to a splendid shrine by Thomas à Becket is not derived from any sources on St Edward but is found both in the Latin and Icelandic lives of St Thomas. With regard to the events leading up to the Battle of Stamford Bridge (chapter 7 in Vigfússon’s edition), the saga author condenses the description of the Icelandic histories we saw in chapter 5 and acknowledges his debt to them.19 However, the saga’s comment regarding the dislike English nobles had of serving under foreign rulers is not in the Icelandic histories and may well be derived from the Chronicon Laudunensis, as that work relates the nobles’ reluctance to take an oath of support for William. Jatvarðar saga moves the Battle of Fulford to York and substitutes the name of Earl Waltheof, who flees from battle in the Icelandic histories, with Gyrth (Gyrðr) and, as do other Icelandic sources, assumes that both men were sons of Godwine. The account of the Battle of Stamford Bridge is very short and muddled in the Chronicon Laudunensis, and the author of Jatvarðar saga ignores it and uses Snorri’s description instead. For the Battle of Hastings, Heimskringla is also the main source of the saga author. However, he does borrow the occasional item, such as Gyrth’s warning to Harold not to fight William because of his perjury, from the Chronicon Laudunensis. The story in Heimskringla about Waltheof’s burning a hundred of William’s men in a wood has been reversed in Jatvarðar saga, and Fell’s suggestion that the mistake is due to the author’s faulty memory is probably right.20 Chapter 8 of Jatvarðar saga also records the story that King Harold did not perish at the Battle of Hastings but was rescued by friends and healed of his wounds in secret. This legend is not uncommon in medieval stories and chronicles,21 and it occurs in the Chronicon Laudunensis. But as the author of Jatvarðar saga introduces the story, he claims an English source (‘Þat er sögn Enskra manna’), which has given rise to speculation that he may have had materials other than just the Chronicon Laudunensis, but what they might have been is impossible to determine. When considering the story of the Anglo-Saxon emigration to Byzantium, Christine Fell notes that ‘the author of JS [i.e., Jatvarðar saga] appears either to have had access to a fuller and more coherent text than our present manuscripts of CL [i.e., Chronicon Laudunensis], or himself to have imposed coherence on a confused source.’22 Still, the author of Jatvarðar saga derives his information of English resistance to William’s rule from the Chronicon Laudunensis. Many of the English nobles hated it, and their overtures towards King Sveinn of Denmark proved unsuccessful as William bought him off – which is,

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as we saw in chapter 5, not far from the truth. The saga and the Chronicon both specify the ranks of the leaders involved in the decision to emigrate, the numbers of earls and barons, the number of ships, and, finally, stopping places on the way to Byzantium. Both texts also state that after their arrival in Byzantium and their subsequent settlement, the English rejected Greek Orthodoxy in favour of the Latin rites of the Hungarian church. On the name of the leader of the English expedition, the Icelandic version differs from its source. In the Chronicon Laudunensis he is called Stanardus, a name which does not readily translate into the saga’s Sigurðr. Christine Fell believes that in this instance the author of Jatvarðar saga may be closer to the truth, as no one by the name of Stanardus is known to have played a role in mid-eleventh-century English politics, whereas more than one Siward (Sigurðr) is known to have opposed William’s rule.23 In Old Norse studies, Jatvarðar saga’s story of the English emigration to Byzantium was traditionally dismissed and ridiculed as pure fantasy by scholars such as Guðbrandur Vigfússon, Jón Helgason, and Sigfús Blöndal.24 Still, the story is supported by the Anglo-Norman chronicler Orderic and the hagiographer Goscelin. However, from the evidence of Byzantine sources, such as Anna Comnena’s Alexiad and other documents, it can be firmly established that there were large numbers of emigrant Englishmen present in Byzantium at the end of the eleventh century. Although some details of the emigration story, such as the vast number of ships that leave England, are probably an exaggeration, the story as a whole is quite plausible. The motivation of the English nobles to escape from William’s rule was real enough. And if the English joined the Varangian guard but were no longer needed to defend Byzantium or its neighbouring regions, it would make perfect sense to give them an outpost like Crimea to hold. As a saint’s life, Jatvarðar saga may seem an unlikely candidate to contribute something to Anglo-Saxon history, but in this instance it does indeed help to verify an important event that English sources appear to have failed to record. In this chapter we have looked at four quite different works from different periods of Icelandic medieval literature. There is little to say about Breta sögur and the three saints’ lives in general except that they show continuing interest in Anglo-Saxon England at a time when reliable information about that country was seemingly out of reach to Icelandic authors. What is clear from these works, however, is that there cannot have been much first-hand knowledge about Anglo-Saxon England in Iceland during the late Middle Ages. No piece of information about the country can be said to derive from the Icelandic authors without there being a foreign written source behind it.

8 Kings and Courts

Iceland – a country without a king during the Middle Ages, until its union with Norway – had a curious love-hate relationship with the notion of kingship and the importance of courts. Much of the time, medieval Icelandic writers loathed the court of Norway. They knew the Norwegian kings had schemes to gain control over the country (which they eventually did in 1262), and they also knew the Norwegian court was actively supporting certain players in what was virtually a civil war in Iceland during the first half of the thirteenth century. If you fell afoul of the Norwegian royal tyrants they would have you killed, which is what happened to Snorri Sturluson, for example, who was murdered in 1241 for supporting the wrong candidate in Norwegian power politics. But thirteenth-century Icelandic writers also knew that if you wanted to be socially acceptable, kings and their courts were your key to success. As Joseph Harris has noted, ‘Acceptance at court is the start of the hero’s “socialization” process, and this is crystallized in a scene in which the Icelander sheds his dirt and old clothes for a new suit.’1 Inevitably, the Norwegian court is directly and indirectly compared to the court of Anglo-Saxon England in the Icelandic sagas and þættir. The theory that Icelanders recorded information about Anglo-Saxon England during the thirteenth century merely for the love of knowledge does have certain instances to back it up, but nowhere does it look quite as dubious as when it comes to comparing Norwegian and English kings and courts. Most Icelandic authors who make these comparisons have a very clear agenda: to contrast tyrannical, scheming, and murderous Norwegian kings to idyllic, generous, and friendly monarchs on the English throne. In other words, the Icelandic sagas and þættir often seem to exhibit signs of being thinly veiled political propaganda as they contrast Norwegian and English kings and courts. This aspect of the interest that Icelandic authors developed in Anglo-Saxon England during the thirteenth century is often overlooked by scholars who

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seek to credit them with a nobler motive. And, ironically, if these authors knew little about the English kings they were so keen to praise, it seems – if anything – to have made their task easier. Iceland was first settled during the ninth century by people who did not wish to live under the tyranny of King Haraldr Fair-hair, who had made himself the sole ruler of Norway – or so Icelandic writers of the thirteenth-century kings’ sagas tell us.2 Not surprisingly, many Icelandic sagas and þættir are not very kind – nor even polite – in their references to Norwegian kings. Egils saga provides one of the earliest and best examples. Skalla-Grímr’s brother Þórólfr seeks the glamorous life at court despite his father’s warning. He is outgoing, friendly, and extremely capable, and he soon becomes King Haraldr’s favourite. His success with the king, combined with an inheritance dispute, however, make him powerful enemies. Þórólfr is entrusted with the business of collecting taxes from the Lapps, as the king’s governor of northern Norway, and his absence from court gives his enemies ample opportunity to sow seeds of doubt about him. Þórólfr is accused of withholding tax funds from the king, and of setting up a court of his own to compete with King Haraldr. It is even whispered in Haraldr’s ear that Þórólfr intends to establish himself as king of northern Norway. Eventually, Haraldr comes to believe these accusations and skirmishes begin between him and Þórólfr. Þórólfr’s father, Kveld-Úlfr, warns his son that no one can hold his own against the king and advises him to seek a friendly court abroad, mentioning England as his first choice. But Þórólfr is stubborn and persists in his resistance to the king and his men. Ultimately, King Haraldr mounts a full scale attack against him, and Þórólfr is killed by the king himself (chap. 22). Egill’s brother – Þórólfr’s nephew and namesake – also has a career in the service of the Norwegian court under Eiríkr Blood-axe and Gunnhildr and is a favourite with the queen for a time. That career, however, comes to an abrupt end as soon as Þórólfr is joined by Egill in Norway, and before long a plot is hatched by Queen Gunnhildr (chap. 49) to have both brothers killed. Egill himself is a life-long enemy of Norwegian kings, who steal his property and try to kill him on several occasions. At a banquet in honour of Eiríkr Bloodaxe and Gunnhildr, Egill narrowly escapes being poisoned (chap. 44). Later, he tries to claim the inheritance due to his wife, Ásgerðr, whose father had died, but fails to do so because of Eiríkr’s and Gunnhildr’s intervention. To add insult to injury, Eiríkr tries to kill Egill on this occasion. Finally, Egill comes close to death when he is shipwrecked in England, and he decides to seek out Eiríkr, who is then sitting at York. The so-called Ho¸fuðlausn (Headransom) episode (chaps. 59–61) relates how Egill composed a praise poem in Eiríkr’s honour in return for his life.

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Court hostility towards Icelanders also emerges in several of the þættir. The most common insult is to refer to them as ‘eaters of greasy sausages’ (mörlandar). In Þorsteins þáttr skelks (chap. 2), King Ólafr Tryggvason accuses Þorsteinn of insolence.3 In Gísls þáttr Illugasonar, King Magnús Ólafsson repeats this accusation and adds that it is a symptom of the Icelandic national character. The Norwegian nobleman Einarr fluga shows a general dislike of Icelanders in Sneglu-Halla þáttr and Odds þáttr Ófeigssonar, and hostility towards Icelandic heroes is openly displayed in Óttars þáttr svarta and Þorsteins þáttr Austfirðings (chap. 2). In short, thirteenth-century Icelanders had good reasons for their misgivings when it came to the court of Norway and its kings. The lesson to be learned from this relationship between the Norwegian court and Egill’s family is quite plain: if a Norwegian king perceived that you were trying to compete with him – not to mention if you were better at anything than he was – your life was in danger. In Laxdæla saga (chap. 40), Kjartan Ólafsson, having just arrived in Norway, enters into an apparently innocent ducking match against a stranger whom he noted previously to be a strong swimmer. The match quickly turns ugly when the stranger seems to be attempting to drown him. As Kjartan escapes his clutches, he realizes that he has never had to fight so hard for his life before. The stranger turns out to be none other than King Ólafr Tryggvason, who then proceeds to chide Kjartan for being overly proud and ambitious. But by far the most graphic example of the murderous jealousy of a Norwegian king – in this instance towards one of his own subjects – is shown in Hemings þáttr.4 The þáttr first introduces us to King Haraldr harðráða, whom it describes as a man of great physical stature, superbly polite, clever, and wellspoken. But it also relates how, having sworn an oath of faith, he abandoned his first wife, Silkisif, in Constantinople and remarried once he was back in Norway. The story begins in earnest on the island of Torgar, located off the coast of northern Norway. The main chieftain of Torgar is a man called Áslákr, who is renowned for his wisdom. He has a son named Björn, who is a very promising young man. King Haraldr sends word to Áslákr announcing his arrival. They meet, and Áslákr is well received by the king. King Haraldr informs Áslákr that he intends to stay for three days, and that Áslákr is to feed and house the king and his men during their visit. Áslákr claims to have neither the facilities nor the savoir faire to entertain the king and his men, but offers to pay for their upkeep during their stay on the island. The king refuses to take no for an answer and in the end Áslákr has no option except to comply. The first night of the king’s feasting with him is a great success. The following morning the king compliments Áslákr on his great legal

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knowledge and then asks whether he is familiar with a statute that forbids parents to have their sons fostered in secret. Áslákr pretends to be unconcerned by the king’s question, but it is soon revealed by one of the king’s men that Áslákr has another son, Hemingr, who as a child had already shown exceptional athletic talents.5 Áslákr insists that the only reason why Hemingr is not at home with him is that, as a youth, he became deranged and had to be sent away. Áslákr then adds that he has never inquired after the boy, and does not know whether he is dead or alive. King Haraldr declares abruptly that he is leaving, but announces that he will be back and that, upon his second arrival, Áslákr is to produce Hemingr, sane or insane, dead or alive. The king returns to Torgar in due time, but as before, there is no sign of Hemingr. Áslákr claims that he is staying so far away that he simply was not able to accommodate the king’s wishes in time. A now furious King Haraldr announces that he is leaving but will return in two months time. A failure to produce Hemingr then shall result in Áslákr being severely punished. Once more the king returns and, as before, there is no Hemingr. The king now tells Áslákr that he can take all the time he wants to fetch his elusive son, as he intends to stay at his farm with his men until that has been achieved. Furthermore, the king threatens that should he run out of provisions during his stay, neither Áslákr nor his son Björn will live to entertain anybody. Now, at long last, Áslákr gives in to the king. He arranges for a party of his men to go on a mission to bring Hemingr back. Having given them detailed instructions on how to find him, Áslákr adds that the men are to ask Hemingr to come back of his own free will but to also inform him that the lives of his father and brother are at stake. The men find Hemingr and give him Áslákr’s message. At first Hemingr flatly refuses to return with them but then instructs them to leave in the morning, adding that if he is not there when they reach their boats, they are not to wait for him. Áslákr’s men return to the ships – a four-day journey on foot – and Hemingr is there to meet them, having completed the trip in less than a day on his skis. Back in Torgar, Hemingr is introduced to King Haraldr and offers him his services, and should the king decline them, to go into exile or die for his kinsmen. The king explains that nothing so drastic is called for, and begins to question Hemingr about his athletic skills. Hemingr replies that he is a reasonable skier but nothing above that. The king then insists that they play some games to entertain themselves until he leaves. The first ‘game’ that the king wants to play is one of marksmanship. He sticks a spear into the ground and shoots an arrow into the air, which hits the tail end of the spear. Hemingr responds by shooting another arrow into the air, which hits the tail end of the first one. The king now tries his hand at hurling a spear as far as he can. Hemingr throws his slightly farther. The king throws

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again, and this time his shot is a bit farther than Hemingr’s. Hemingr now requests that they stop the competition, as he claims he cannot out-shoot the king. Haraldr, however, explicitly orders him to throw again. Hemingr does so and far out-shoots him. Haraldr then sticks his knife into a tree and shoots an arrow that hits the back of the shaft. Before Hemingr shoots his arrow, the king observes that it is adorned with gold, and pronounces Hemingr to be a man of pride and ambition. Hemingr replies that his arrows were given to him. He shoots and, again, is better than the king. Haraldr now insists that they see which of them can shoot an arrow the farthest. As before, Hemingr out-shoots the king, hitting a nut at which he has aimed. At this point, the king’s ‘game’ enters a new and more sinister phase. He takes Hemingr’s nut, places it on top of the head of his brother, Björn, and demands that Hemingr hit it with a spear, with his own life at stake if he misses. Hemingr refuses, but the king threatens him with death. Björn now intervenes, and Hemingr agrees to do it for the sake of his brother. He declares that the king carries full responsibility for what may happen, and invites Haraldr to stand at Björn’s side to see how accurate his shot is. The king, unsurprisingly, declines this offer. Hemingr now shoots his spear, and successfully strikes the nut off his brother’s head. The following morning, the king approaches several of his men and asks them to challenge Hemingr to a swimming competition, while making it quite clear at the same time that the real objective of the exercise is to kill him. One of Haraldr’s men, Nikulás, finally agrees to compete with Hemingr. They swim until Nikulás is so exhausted that Hemingr has to carry him back to shore. The king then approaches another of his men and asks him to repeat the competition, but he declines. At that point King Haraldr prepares to compete with Hemingr himself, and, seeing the king get himself ready, Áslákr advises his son to flee for his life since it is clear the king wants him dead. Hemingr refuses to run and decides to compete. As they swim, Haraldr makes every attempt to hold Hemingr down and drown him. A long time passes, and eventually the king returns alone. He is furious, and no one dares to speak to him. Hemingr is presumed dead, and Áslákr grieves for him. But, later that night, Hemingr unexpectedly appears and gives the king back a knife he had carried during their swimming competition. It then becomes clear to all that Hemingr had overpowered the king during the match. The next morning, the king leaves the island and demands that Áslákr and Hemingr accompany him to the mainland. They arrive at a place located in a steep, mountainous region. The king now insists that Hemingr show him his skiing abilities. Hemingr objects, and points out that the skiing conditions are far too treacherous, as the slope the king has chosen is icy and has a precipice

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at the bottom of it. The king demands that Hemingr ski anyway. So, in the end, Hemingr shows off his skiing abilities and duly impresses the king’s entourage. When Hemingr thinks he has done enough, he asks the king’s permission to stop, but King Haraldr has something else in mind. Hemingr is ordered back onto the icy slope, and told not to stop his run until he reaches the very edge of the precipice. Hemingr replies that this venture is tantamount to suicide, but the king threatens to kill him if he refuses. Áslákr offers all his possessions in return for his son’s life, but the king declines. Then Oddr Ófeigsson, one of the king’s Icelandic retainers, gives Hemingr a piece of cloth that once belonged to St Stephen, and explains that no one who has worn it has ever died. Hemingr performs his dangerous run, and manages to get rid of his skis and land at the edge of the precipice. As his balance is unsteady, he grabs hold of the king’s cloak, but the king lets go of it and Hemingr tumbles down the cliff. As Oddr Ófeigsson comments on the king’s cruelty towards Hemingr, the king orders his men to kill him. Other Icelanders in the king’s retinue now intervene, and in the end Haraldr is content with sending Oddr into exile. Hemingr, however, is miraculously saved by St Stephen’s cloth, which catches on to a crag on the cliff side. As he is hanging there helplessly, Hemingr resolves to go on a pilgrimage to Rome if he survives, and to give all his money to the poor, to St Ólafr, and to St Stephen. Then in the middle of the night, a great light appears, and several men standing on the edge come to his rescue. Among them is St Ólafr, who advises Hemingr to leave the country and go to Rome. He predicts that Hemingr will be present at King Haraldr’s death, but asks Hemingr, as a reward for having saved his life, not to take part in the events leading up to it. With that, St Ólafr vanishes, and Hemingr returns to Torgar.6 It is not difficult to see that Áslákr in his wisdom had realized early on that his highly talented son would be the object of King Haraldr’s homicidal jealousy if the two men ever met. Thus, as we saw, he sends Hemingr into exile to a place where no one was supposed to find him, a move which, unfortunately, arouses the king’s suspicion and prompts Hemingr’s return. Commenting on Hemings þáttr, Knut Liestøl has remarked that King Haraldr is ‘evil and unfair.’7 While that is quite true, it is, however, only half the story. The real point is that here – as in Egils saga and elsewhere – a Norwegian king cannot accept that a commoner might surpass him in any way. Haraldr Fair-hair, Ólafr Tryggvason, Haraldr harðráða, and other Norwegian kings like them are, as far as many Icelandic saga authors are concerned, little more than utter megalomaniacs. By contrast, English kings in the sagas have no such hangups. As we have already seen, King Athelstan does not seem to mind being

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upstaged by Haraldr Fair-hair, enjoys the company of dozens of armed Norwegians at his royal banquet, and fosters Haraldr’s son. Furthermore, he is happy to have Egill and Þórólfr fight his battles for him, and even bestows great honours upon Egill for it. When Egill announces that he intends to return to Norway (in order to investigate whether he is entitled to inherit Þórólfr’s property), King Athelstan asks him to stay with him in England and to name whatever he wants as his reward for doing so.8 As Egill leaves, the king, with a great show of friendship, asks his most indispensable retainer to return as soon as possible. But it is not just the modesty of English kings that is emphasized by Icelandic saga writers. Their kindness and generosity is evident in most instances where Icelanders (or Norwegians, Danes, and Swedes) come into contact with them.9 In previous chapters we have seen several examples of these virtues in the descriptions of Edward the Confessor, Athelstan’s dealings with Egill, and Æthelred’s kindness and generosity towards Gunnlaugr. Even Cnut might be included in this list, at least as far as his lavish gifts to all and sundry are concerned, not to mention his splendid court that we saw Snorri describe in chapter 4. Even the legendary Aðalbrikt (from Saga Ólafs Tryggvasonar [hin mesta]) – that great destroyer of Danish armies in England – is still recognized as a good king by the saga author. By the same token, King Edmund’s immediate and natural enmity towards the evil tyrant Eiríkr Blood-axe identifies him implicitly as a good and just ruler. These are by no means the only instances of the kindness and generosity of English kings, or of their unique ability to recognize and appreciate the qualities of Icelandic or Scandinavian men of talent – an ability conspicuously lacking in their Norwegian counterparts. Hrólfs saga Gautrekssonar10 relates two stories that illustrate the fairness and sense of justice to be found in an English king. Hrólfr (who is a Swedish king himself) has been warring against other Vikings but eventually makes his way to England. There, a legendary King Ælla, whom the saga introduces as a mighty and splendid king (chap. 23), invites him and as many of his men that he cares to bring along to a royal banquet. We are told King Ælla has a lion so mighty and ferocious that no one can withstand its attacks. Ælla uses the beast in defence of his country, and its power is such that it can kill hundreds of his enemies at a time. The lion is kept by two of Ælla’s retainers, Bárðr and Sigurðr. Jealous of King Hrólfr’s fame, they resolve to let the lion loose after intoxicating it into a state of frenzy, and have it attack Hrólfr while he is on his way to Ælla’s banquet. Hrólfr and his men come upon the lion as it is tossing up oak trees with its tail and playing with them in the air, and understandably, Hrólfr suspects foul play. He has one of his companions do an imitation of a squealing pig to dis-

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tract the lion. As it cannot stand the sound, the lion cowers, and Hrólfr is able to kill it. The traitors, Sigurðr and Bárðr, immediately inform King Ælla that Hrólfr has killed his prize lion, but also confess their part in the plot to harm the Swedish hero. Ælla becomes furious with them and decides to ride in person to meet Hrólfr. Still not knowing who is behind the attempt to kill him, Hrólfr continues his journey towards Ælla’s court. As the two kings meet, Hrólfr readily admits to killing the lion and offers compensation. Ælla in turn claims to be the one who should compensate Hrólfr, and invites him to decide the fate of Bárðr and Sigurðr. Hrólfr recommends leniency, and the two are exiled. Hrólfr is then invited to stay with his men in England until the next summer. Again, Hrólfr’s fame incites Ælla’s nobles to slander him. They insist to the king that Hrólfr is secretly plotting to overthrow him and conquer England. For some time Ælla refuses to believe this, but Hrólfr’s enemies produce a string of false testimonies and eventually King Ælla is persuaded by their evidence. He then gives his nobles permission to move against Hrólfr. On the night of the attack, however, Ælla decides to sleep in the same quarters as Hrólfr and his men. Ælla’s nobles then set fire to the house where they are staying, but the Swedes manage to break out, giving special priority to the safety of the English king who is sleeping – or pretending to be sleeping – through the attack. A battle ensues between Hrólfr’s men and the large army that Ælla’s nobles brought with them. As soon as Ælla has been carried out of the burning building, he orders his men to stop fighting. He then turns to King Hrólfr and admits that he is partly to blame for the attack, and asks Hrólfr to forgive him. Ælla orders the rumour-mongers to be killed, but Hrólfr has them pardoned, an act that makes him greatly popular among the English. The two kings cement their friendship again, as if nothing had happened. We have already seen the generous rewards that Gunnlaugr ormstunga and Egill Skalla-Grímsson receive from Æthelred and Athelstan respectively, and there are, indeed, other examples that show the munificence of English kings. In Bjarnar saga Hítdælakappa, Björn joins the court of King Cnut (chap. 5). While Björn and the king are travelling together, their ship is attacked by a flying dragon. Björn kills the dragon and is rewarded with a large sum of money and a splendid ship. Like Gunnlaugr and Egill, Sneglu-Halli is also handsomely rewarded for his poem in honour of King Harold, according to his þáttr in Flateyjarbók, although, as usual, he uses a trick to maximize his reward. The king wants Sneglu-Halli to stay at his court for a while to give his retainers a chance to commit his poem to memory. When Sneglu-Halli refuses this offer, King Harold decides to have silver coins poured over his head as a reward for his poem, decreeing that he can keep only the money that actually

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sticks to his hair. With that Sneglu-Halli steps out, finds a team of shipwrights, and has them pour tar into his hair and fashion it into the shape of a bowl. That accomplished, he returns to court and the money is duly poured into his hair. The þáttr goes on to remark that Sneglu-Halli obtained a great quantity of silver in this manner. The version of Sneglu-Halla þáttr that is preserved in Morkinskinna shows King Harold to be even more generous. There it is explicitly stated that the king did not understand Sneglu-Halli’s poem, but he still rewards his effort handsomely. The late seventeenth-century Illuga saga Tagldarbana (chap. 7) offers a good example of the warm relationship Icelandic saga heroes have with English kings. As do other Icelanders before him, Illugi arrives unannounced at the court of King Æthelred. Of course his fame precedes him. The king recognizes him and is delighted to accept him as one of his retainers. When danger, in the form of a mighty Danish Viking leader called Uni, threatens Æthelred’s realm, his own men are unwilling to fight, but as expected, Illugi rises to the occasion. Having successfully disposed of Uni and his army, Illugi is given lavish gifts by the king, including a splendid coat of armour and a great halberd. Illugi immediately gives his halberd a name, Aðalráðsnautr (‘the gift of Æthelred’), and vows never to part with it. All in all, Illugi spends two years at Æthelred’s court before setting sail for Iceland. For a saga hero, Illugi has a relatively long stay in England, but it is not nearly as extensive as that of Hemingr Ásláksson – the same Hemingr that Haraldr harðráða tried so desperately to kill. Unfortunately, Hemings þáttr exists only in a series of fragments, and it remains uncertain whether they go back to a single Hemings þáttr.11 But textual problems aside, in the different versions in which the þáttr is preserved we are told that Hemingr was loved and esteemed by no fewer than three English kings: Edward the Confessor, Harold II, and William the Conqueror. Hemingr keeps his promise of going on a pilgrimage to Rome, and having accomplished that decides to make England his home during his life-long exile. Living under the assumed name of Leifr, Hemingr joins Edward’s court and becomes hugely popular. We are then introduced to Godwine’s family. His wife is said to be one Ingiríðr, but who their children are and the order in which they were born is as confused in Hemings þáttr as in other Icelandic sources. Soon Hemingr is appointed instructor in athletics to young Harold who is now in high favour with the king. In England, Hemingr meets with Oddr Ófeigsson, returns the precious cloth, and rewards him as he had planned to do. Later Hemingr accompanies Harold on a journey to Normandy which Hemings þáttr claims – erroneously – is governed by Duke Robert (the Magnificent), who died at least two decades before Harold’s visit, or around 1030. There Harold makes a pact (félag) with Robert’s son

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William, and they spend three years together as Viking raiders. On being summoned back to England, Harold demands his share of the loot, and a feud arises between the two over the division of their property. But from this point onward, the fates of Harold and William are to be forever intertwined. Harold’s presence in England is required because King Edward is trying desperately to put down a rebellion begun by one Henry (Heinrekr), Earl of Gloucester. The king’s forces engage Henry in three great battles, and eventually he is defeated and killed.12 After Henry’s defeat, King Edward falls gravely ill. In his illness, he convenes a great assembly and publicly declares that he wishes Harold to succeed him on the throne. King Edward then dies and is succeeded by Harold, who now faces demands from Tostig and his brothers that he share the kingdom with them.13 Hemings þáttr follows Morkinskinna and Fagrskinna in sending Tostig first to Denmark and then to Norway to seek support against his brother. The one notable addition to other Icelandic sources is the inclusion of Aesop’s fable of a dog and his shadow, which King Sveinn uses to heighten the dramatic effect of his refusal to accede to Tostig’s request. Hemings þáttr is also unique in mentioning both Tostig’s open criticism of Haraldr’s wisdom and strategy, and King Haraldr’s claim that he is going to England (with a huge invading army) only to reconcile the two brothers. During his life in England, Hemingr shows no ambition for high office, but as the Battle of Stamford Bridge approaches, we see him as King Harold’s most trusted friend and advisor. Interestingly, the þáttr makes no mention of hot weather as the reason why the Norwegians leave their coats of mail behind as they march towards York, and, as in other Icelandic histories, the English army is composed largely of cavalry. The description of the battle is in most respects the same as in Heimskringla, with the exception that Hemings þáttr has only three men (rather than twenty) riding up from the English ranks to meet with the Norwegians on the eve of battle. The þáttr is also unique in containing a description of Tostig’s death, which goes entirely unnoticed in Snorri’s account. Hemingr is, as St Ólafr had predicted, present at the battle in which King Haraldr is killed and – after a fashion – keeps his promise to the saint not to take an active part in Haraldr’s death. Despite keeping a low profile, Hemingr does play his part. As the battle seems to be going against the English, an exasperated King Harold asks Hemingr – the only person in the English army who appears to know the Norwegian king by sight – what use his marksmanship is if he does not shoot Haraldr. Hemingr replies that his awe of St Ólafr prevents him from doing so. King Harold then asks Hemingr to shoot something at Haraldr harðráða and thus mark him out. This Hemingr does, and sub-

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sequently King Harold kills the Norwegian king with a shot through his neck. With Tostig in command after King Haraldr’s death, Hemingr, who is now actively participating in the battle, asks the king’s permission to take a shot at him, and he reluctantly grants it. With that, Hemingr shoots Tostig through the eye and kills him. (Tostig’s manner of death is in all likelihood borrowed from the description of his brother’s fatal wound at Hastings.) Hemingr then turns his attention to other Norwegian captains and picks them off with his bow, one after the other, until the outcome of the battle has been decided. At the Battle of Hastings, Hemingr is again at King Harold’s side. Duke William, we are told, is now the ruler of all of France (Valland) and has, prior to the invasion, declared his intention of avenging King Harold II, should Harold be killed in battle. At Hastings, King Harold allows his men to choose between following him or leaving the country. Interestingly, this statement agrees with the D version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (‘þe him gelæstan woldon’) but as Gillian Fellows Jensen observes, it is ‘almost certainly only the result of chance,’14 as the author of Hemings þáttr shows no familiarity with any English sources. After King Harold appears to have been killed, Hemingr is offered the opportunity to join William’s retainers, and seeing that there is no point in continuing the battle, he accepts. However, he harbours no illusions about William and predicts that Waltheof, who had been offered a pardon in return for an oath of allegiance to William, will not have long to live. Like Jatvarðar saga and Saga Óláfs Tryggvasonar, by Oddr Snorrason munkr, Hemings þáttr also relates how King Harold was only wounded and not killed at Hastings. The king is discovered on the field of battle by a peasant and his wife, who see a bright light where the king’s body is lying.15 They take him into their home and secretly nurse him back to health. Then Hemingr is sent for, and he arrives to discuss King Harold’s plans for the future. Hemingr offers to tour the country to raise an army against William, but Harold refuses on the grounds that it would force a great many men to break their oaths of allegiance to William. He then announces his intention of becoming a hermit at Canterbury, and to live only on what food Hemingr may bring him.16 This comes to pass and, according to Hemings þáttr, Harold lives in secret at Canterbury for three years.17 One day when Hemingr is in King William’s presence, church bells ring so loudly and beautifully that the king wonders what the occasion might be. Hemingr tells him that a monk named Harold has died. When King William makes further inquiries about this Harold, Hemingr tells him the truth. The king then immediately asks who has given his predecessor protection, and Hemingr admits to being the guilty party. William pronounces a sentence of death upon Hemingr and storms off to inspect King Harold’s remains. The

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body of the dead king is found to be so sweet smelling and beautiful that all are agreed he must be a true saint. By now William’s anger has subsided somewhat, and he asks Hemingr what he is prepared to do in order to save his life. Hemingr defers the decision to the king. King William asks Hemingr to show him the same kind of loyalty he had shown King Harold, and to support him in the same manner in which he had supported the now deceased king. Hemingr retorts that he would rather die with Harold than live with William, and adds that if he had been minded to betray King William, he could have done so a long time ago. The king replies that to kill Hemingr would be to deprive England of one of her most valiant men. He then offers to make Hemingr a baron and to take charge of his royal household, or, alternatively, to accept a large sum of money and settle wherever he would like in England. Hemingr declines both offers and asks for Harold’s hermit cell at Canterbury instead. King William has Harold’s body dressed in royal robes, and gives him a funeral with all due respect and ceremony.18 As he had intended, Hemingr ends his days in his cell at Canterbury. Icelandic authors, Snorri in particular, display a marked dislike for William the Conqueror, but in Hemings þáttr, William is shown to be a compassionate soul who treats his former enemy with full dignity by giving him a respectable burial. But in being shown in such a favourable light, William may well be benefiting from Icelandic attitudes towards his Anglo-Saxon predecessors. As the reader may have noticed, there is hardly ever so much as a whiff of criticism of Anglo-Saxon monarchs in Icelandic saga literature – except, perhaps, of that ever-present and mysterious King Ælla in Ragnars saga loðbrókar ok sona hans, who has Ragnarr killed by throwing him into a snake pit in Northumbria.19 Other kings are without fail living images of the just and kind king – the rex justus – embodying the medieval royal virtues of kindness and generosity towards their subjects. But one royal virtue – that of being war-like – is almost entirely lacking in most Anglo-Saxon kings in the Icelandic sources. In the saga literature, they are most often portrayed as rather weak and helpless rulers. There is, however, perhaps a good explanation for their lethargy in military matters in the Icelandic sagas, as we shall see in the next chapter.

9 The Hero and His Deeds

In medieval Icelandic literature, Anglo-Saxon England is often depicted as a country where Scandinavian heroes demonstrate their ability to perform great deeds of valour. We have already seen numerous examples of the invaluable services that Icelanders, Danes, Norwegians, and Swedes offer to English kings in the sagas, and their lasting contributions on English soil. After all, how would London and York have been founded, if not for the sons of Ragnarr loðbrók? What would have happened to King Athelstan at the Battle of Brunanburh, had he not employed the military might and strategy of Egill and Þórólfr? Or consider the story of Ólafr Haraldsson (St Ólafr) and his brilliant role in capturing London for King Cnut, or Björn Hítdælakappi, who rescued the king from the flying dragon, not to mention Hemingr Ásláksson’s helpful advice and assistance to Edward the Confessor, Harold II, and William the Conqueror. Without these heroes and their deeds, Anglo-Saxon England would hardly have been the same – and there are still more examples to consider. The Icelandic sagas – the family sagas in particular – tend to follow quite a distinct pattern when describing a hero’s visit to England, and the regularity with which this pattern occurs makes it hard to imagine that there is much truth or reality in any of the saga accounts. The shape of the pattern is usually as follows: the hero arrives in England, often for no particular reason but sometimes to escape from his enemies. Sometimes he will deliver a praise poem to the king, sometimes he will fight in his service, and occasionally he will do both. The hero’s great reputation has already reached England, he is recognized and welcomed by the king and his court, and he is told that he can stay there – with his men, if he is not alone – as long as he wants. Soon, a problem arises, usually a military threat of some kind or the presence of a menacing individual. The king is weak or old – or both – and the English court and army are composed of retainers who lack the courage or the prowess to

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deal with the threat. Now the Icelandic (or Scandinavian) hero rises to the occasion. Usually he volunteers to solve the problem, however difficult it may seem. After a heroic struggle, the enemy is overcome and peace and order are restored. The hero is handsomely rewarded by the king, the most famous case of this being Egill’s present of two chests of silver (a treasure, it might be added, that some scholars are still hoping to unearth in the area around the farm of Mosfell near Reykjavík, where Egill spent his last years and is said to have buried his English money). More time passes, but eventually the hero gets restless, wants to leave England, and announces his plans to do so to the king. The king asks him not to go – a request often accompanied by an offer of lands, high office, or whatever else the hero might desire – but to no avail. The hero leaves England and is implored by the king to return as soon as possible. Naturally, there are exceptions and variations to this theme, but it is very much in evidence in sagas later than the thirteenth-century Egils saga,1 which seems to have have introduced the theme into medieval Icelandic literature and is itself a textbook example of how it works. There is nothing unusual about seeing similar descriptions surface in different sagas, since their authors frequently copied one another.2 However, it takes little imagination to see the purpose of a narration that follows this particular blueprint. Anglo-Saxon England and English affairs actually matter very little, and are seldom discussed in sagas that send their heroes to England. The only function of the country, its court, its king, and its wealth is to promote and enhance the hero’s stature. In other words, England is merely another foreign country which, in a manner of speaking, he has ‘conquered.’ In this scenario – which so clearly displays Icelandic fascination with foreign kings and their courts – there does not appear to be much point in assiduously searching for historical facts. Let us now return to Gunnlaugs saga and look at what it has to say about Gunnlaugr’s stay in London. Gunnlaugr, it might be noted, is supposed to be only eighteen years old at the time of his stay with Æthelred. He arrives in England from Norway, where he has mortally offended a nobleman from whom he is lucky to escape alive. Gunnlaugr has not made any plans to go to England; it simply happens to be the first place he can get to in order to escape from Norway. In England he is, as we saw in chapter 1, warmly received by King Æthelred’s court, where he delivers his praise poem, receives a great reward, and is made one of the king’s retainers (hirðmaðr). Gunnlaugs saga then relates his adventures in England as follows: One day, early in the morning, Gunnlaug met three men in a certain street, and their leader gave his name as Thororm. He was a big man and strong and an exceedingly awkward fellow to deal with. He said: ‘Hand over some money to me, Northman,

The Hero and His Deeds 115 as a loan.’ Gunnlaug replied: ‘It is not prudent to hand over money to an unknown man.’ He answered: ‘I shall repay you on a day appointed.’ ‘Then the risk shall be taken,’ said Gunnlaug, and handed him the money. Now a little later Gunnlaug met the king, and told him of the lending of the money. The king replied: ‘Now things have fallen out unluckily; this is nothing but a robber and a viking. Have no dealings with him, and I will make good the money.’ Gunnlaug replied: ‘Things have then come to a bad pass with us retainers of yours; we trample upon innocent men, but let such men as this keep from us what is our own. This shall never be.’ A little after this he met Thororm and claimed his money from him. But Thororm said that he was not going to pay. Then Gunnlaug recited this verse: It is not too wise a thing for you to withhold my money from me, god of the spell of weapons. You have dealt guilefully with the reddener of the spear. This shall you know, that not for nothing am I called Serpent’s Tongue; I won that name in my youth. Men will see ill results of this. ‘Now I will make you a lawful offer,’ said Gunnlaug, ‘that you shall pay me my money or else fight with me in three days’ time.’ Then the viking laughed and said: ‘No one has hitherto been prepared to challenge me to a duel, such rough treatment as many a man has received at my hands. I am only too ready for this.’ And with that he and Gunnlaug parted for the time. Gunnlaug told the king how things had gone between them. He answered: ‘Now matters have turned out very awkwardly, for this man blunts every weapon. You must now proceed according to my advice,’ said the king. ‘Here’s a sword which I will give you, and with this you must fight, but show him another.’ Gunnlaug thanked the king heartily. Now when they were ready for the duel, Thororm asked Gunnlaug what kind of sword it was that he had. Gunnlaug showed him and drew it, but had a loop about the hilt of the sword the king had given him, and drew it over his hand. When he saw the sword the berserker spoke and said: ‘I do not fear that sword,’ and struck with a sword at Gunnlaug, and so cut off almost the whole of his shield. Gunnlaug quickly returned the blow with the sword the king had given him, but the berserker stood unprotected before him, thinking that Gunnlaug had the same weapon as he had looked upon; but Gunnlaug struck him his death-blow without delay. The king thanked him for the deed, and from this he won great renown in England and in many another place. In the spring, when ships began to sail between one land and another, Gunnlaug asked King Ethelred [Æthelred] for leave to sail. The king asked what

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it might be that he wanted to do. Gunnlaug replied, ‘I want to carry out what I have promised and purposed to do,’ and recited this verse: I must go visit the house of three princes and two earls; this have I promised the possessors of land. I shall not return before the giver of gold summon me. You give the servant of Spear-Gefn the red couch of the serpent for his sleeves. ‘And so it shall be, poet,’ said the king, and gave him a gold ring that weighed six ounces. ‘But you must promise me this,’ said the king, ‘to come back to me next autumn, for I do not wish to lose you because of your accomplishments.’3

In Gunnlaugs saga everything about Gunnlaugr’s visit to England follows the usual pattern: a kind reception at court, a poem, an evil berserker who needs to be disposed of, a heroic fight, more rewards, his intention to leave, and the king’s urgent request that he return as soon as possible. King Æthelred does advise Gunnlaugr on how to deal with Þórormr, but he and his court are clearly too weak to combat the evil berserker, who is free to roam at will and prey on innocent victims until Gunnlaugr rids London of this menace. It is interesting – and typical – that the one event Gunnlaugs saga relates occupies only a few days of the whole winter Gunnlaugr spent in England. Furthermore, there is nothing particularly English about the Þórormr episode – it could take place anywhere. As for the realism of Gunnlaugr’s English adventure, the text speaks for itself. As we saw in the previous chapter, Illugi of Illuga saga Tagldarbana fits all but one of the elements of the traditional pattern: fame precedes the hero, he receives a great welcome, a famous deed is performed, and he receives lavish gifts. The only part missing is the king’s request that he not leave court. But let us now examine how Illugi’s famous deed is presented in this saga, beginning with the traditional account of English cowardice in the eyes of the Icelandic saga writer: Towards the end of that winter, word reached the king that a Danish Viking named Uni the Red had reached England with an army from Denmark. He raided the country, and burnt towns and cities as well as robbing and pillaging. The king wished to drive this enemy away as soon as he might and asked his retainers who would lead an expedition against Uni. Most of his men said that they were reluctant to face him in battle, because it was said that he had a large army made up of tough fighters. In the end, no one wanted to go.

The Hero and His Deeds 117 Illugi then offered to lead the expedition. ‘It is my duty, your highness,’ he said, ‘to give you whatever support I can, as I have been your guest this winter and have been very well looked after.’4

King Æthelred, of course, gratefully accepts Illugi’s offer. Illugi then prepares his ship for the expedition, and the king provides another ship with English troops on board. They depart and soon meet Uni and his army in a great sea battle. Uni attacks the English ship first and quickly disposes of the king’s troops. Illugi then turns against Uni. For a long time the outcome of the struggle is in doubt, and Illugi loses many of his men. Eventually, however, he and Uni face each other in hand-to-hand combat, and it is not long until the Viking succumbs to Illugi’s blows. With Uni’s death, the Danes surrender and are given amnesty. Illugi is reckoned to have won a famous victory, and he gathers magnificent spoils of war. He is profusely thanked and rewarded by Æthelred, and stays with the king as one of his favourite retainers for another year before setting sail for Iceland. Þorsteins saga Geirnefjufóstra is unusual in the sense that its hero, Þorsteinn, and his companion, Hrómundr, stay in England for quite a long time without doing anything the saga can find to relate. In fact, it describes only their friendly reception by King Athelstan (chap. 9) and their departure from England (chap. 11); not a word is said about the country itself, or about any events that might have come to pass during their stay: Þorsteinn and Hrómundr stayed with King Athelstan for four years. They were splendidly treated. Then Þorsteinn asked for the king’s approval to be allowed to return to Iceland and explained to the king what was at stake. The king said that he would grant his permission, although he was greatly unhappy to lose Þorsteinn. As Þorsteinn departed, the king gave him a set of purple clothing, a most splendid outfit, and a sword, and to Hrómundr he gave an axe decorated with gold and a good cloak. They then departed from the king in a most friendly manner.5

King Athelstan is without doubt by far the most generous of all Anglo-Saxon kings in the Icelandic sagas, and Þorsteins saga Geirnefjufóstra offers further proof of his munificence. As we have just seen, Athelstan bestows lavish gifts on the two Icelanders for doing nothing, but why he should be so sorry to see Þorsteinn and Hrómundr leave is one detail the author of the saga does not care to explain. In the later fornaldarso¸gur, the pattern one sees so clearly in the family sagas is sometimes blurred, but the essential parts of it are always present, and the deeds the heroes perform on English soil can be quite gruesome. In Hálfdanar saga Brönufóstra,6 Hálfdan travels to England and goes to meet

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one Óláfr, who is said to be the king of the country. Hálfdan introduces himself as a merchant and asks for the king’s permission to spend the winter with him. He is given a warm welcome, and his request to stay is readily granted. King Óláfr has a champion called Áki, on whom he relies for the defence of the country. Áki, who is a thoroughly evil and treacherous character, is filled with envy and anger when Hálfdan quickly replaces him as the king’s favourite. He tries to get even with Hálfdan by challenging him to two different competitions. First they compete at swimming, and Hálfdan (in full armour) utterly defeats Áki. Then Áki tries jousting, but again he is thoroughly humiliated. Áki’s next move is to ply Hálfdan and his companions with drink and burn down the castle in which they are staying. Hálfdan miraculously survives the attack. King Óláfr is informed of Áki’s attempted murder of Hálfdan, but pays little heed as he still values his champion. As summer arrives, Hálfdan thanks the king for his stay and sets out to reach his boats. In the meantime, Áki has told King Óláfr that Hálfdan has made the king’s daughter pregnant. The king is reluctant to believe this accusation, but he nonetheless gives Áki and his troops permission to intercept Hálfdan and fight with him. A great battle ensues, and eventually Hálfdan kills all of Áki’s men and takes Áki prisoner. Now the inevitable punishment of the traitor follows: [Hálfdan] cut off his nose and put out both his eyes. He then cut off both his ears and castrated him. After that he broke both his ankles and turned his feet around so that his toes faced backwards and his heels forward. With that he put him on his ass and sent him back to the king’s palace ... Áki reached the palace and huffed and puffed a great deal. Óláfr’s retainers announced his return to the king. The king inspected Áki’s condition, and had him permanently expelled from his court.7

The king’s approval of Hálfdan’s deed is indirect in this instance, but the state of Áki’s mutilation as he returns to court is undoubtedly meant to suggest to the king that his now appalling outward appearance reflects the evil personality he harbours within. Another fornaldarsaga, Göngu-Hrólfs saga,8 relates how Göngu-Hrólfr, who is Norwegian, helps an English prince to conquer England. At a banquet, one of his followers, who calls himself Hrafn, explains that his real name is Haraldr and that his father, Játgeirr (Edgar), had been king of England. Heinrekr (Henry), a close relative of his father’s, has treacherously rebelled against him and usurped the throne in England. Haraldr has managed to escape, and has been in exile ever since. He asks Göngu-Hrólfr for help to avenge his father and regain England. His request is readily granted, a great army is assembled, and they set sail for England with thirty ships.

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The story now turns to Heinrekr’s court, and we are told that one of his chief councillors is an old and evil magician called Annis. He foresees GönguHrólfr’s invasion long before it happens. Annis advises the king on where to choose a battlefield and – in a move that seemingly echoes Egils saga – recommends the devious strategy of hiding half the English troops in a nearby forest. A battle between Hrólfr’s men and the English forces follows. The invaders soon find themselves at a disadvantage as their weapons suddenly become blunt. Göngu-Hrólfr’s great sword, however, is not affected and he keeps the English army at bay single-handedly. Annis now makes an appearance, and as soon as he joins the battle the weapons of Göngu-Hrólfr’s men regain their bite. Göngu-Hrólfr engages Annis only to discover that the old man’s magic still works. His sword gets stuck in Annis’s shield and as he tries to let go of it, he finds that his hand is stuck to the hilt. Göngu-Hrólfr is now fiercely attacked by Heinrekr’s men and is about to succumb when his companion, Stefnir, who is a Danish chieftain, comes to his aid. Stefnir attacks Annis and cuts off half his face and both hands. This sets Göngu-Hrólfr free, and he resumes fighting. He marches through the English ranks, reaches King Heinrekr, and cuts him in two. With that the English, along with the Scots who had supported them, flee from battle. In the aftermath of the battle, Göngu-Hrólfr has Annis drawn and quartered, while Haraldr goes to Winchester, where he is warmly welcomed and immediately made king. Göngu-Hrólfr and Stefnir are summoned to Haraldr’s court and thanked for their efforts. Haraldr’s sister is now sent for, and Stefnir instantly falls in love with her. They are married in due course, and Stefnir receives a generous dowry payment. Göngu-Hrólfr and Stefnir then leave for Denmark. In Göngu-Hrólfs saga, the two heroes are not asked to stay because King Haraldr soon joins them in Denmark to marry Þóra, who is Stefnir’s sister. Haraldr finally returns to England, after having made a great pledge of friendship to Göngu-Hrólfr and Stefnir. As we have seen, Hrólfs saga Gautrekssonar is one of the fornaldarso¸gur that exemplifies the fairness and generosity of English kings. At Ælla’s court, Hrólfr has disposed of various treacherous retainers, but his main achievement is ridding the country of an evil berserker called Hárekr.9 Hárekr is introduced when a farmer named Þórðr approaches Hrólfr to tell him of his dilemma. Hárekr, who is a great bully the size of a troll, has forceably taken Þórðr’s sister as his mistress. When Þórðr protests, Hárekr challenges him to a duel, and Þórðr agrees. But soon he realizes he has no chance of defeating Hárekr, so he approaches Hrólfr to ask him to take his place. Hrólfr agrees and the berserker is delighted that someone of greater prowess than Þórðr is to fight him. The duel is a short one, as Hrólfr cuts the berserker in two with his first blow. As Hrólfr returns to the palace, the king welcomes him and exclaims:

120 Anglo-Saxon England in Icelandic Medieval Texts that [Hrólfr] had performed a great deed of fortune in defeating the worst berserker in all of England. No one had been so oppressive to people in bullying and robbing them. [Ælla] then profusely thanked Hrólfr. During that winter, Hrólfr travelled all over England with King Ælla and corrected people’s wrongs. He made all decisions on behalf of the king, as Ælla was a very old man. All were happy to do as Hrólfr commanded, and his popularity spread throughout all of England.10

In Hrólfs saga Gautrekssonar we see yet again a Norse hero coming to the rescue of the English who, as so often before, have no means of dealing with Hárekr or any other dangers that threaten the country. Hrólfr’s reward for his services appears to be that he becomes king of England in all but name for as long as it pleases him. Eventually, however, Hrólfr leaves Ælla’s court and goes to Ireland. For the heroes of the Icelandic sagas and þættir who travel abroad, royal recognition is almost always of paramount importance. In the eyes of saga writers, such recognition could not easily be obtained in Norway or elsewhere in Scandinavia. Anglo-Saxon England, on the other hand, offered many possibilities, not the least because while it was perceived by medieval Icelandic writers to have been within the Scandinavian orbit of influence, it was also conveniently long ago and far enough away to be the scene of the most incredible adventures. The English court with its wealthy, kind, generous, but timid rulers was an ideal setting both to attract threats of violence and to provide opportunities for Icelandic or Scandinavian heroes. Of course this reflects a certain amount of northern jingoism, but it is worth remembering that in the sagas, England is more a stage than a country. Aside from the king himself and occasionally one or two evil advisors, the rest of the population is most commonly a faceless and nameless crowd. They have no role in the sagas, whereas their king and country do: to give an English royal stamp of approval to the heroic outsider, and an international flavour to his saga.

Conclusion

During the thirteenth century, when Icelandic writers began to take interest in it, Anglo-Saxon England was long gone and much of its language and history with it. It was, in other words, something of an Atlantis: a land once great and glorious which had now ceased to exist. Certainly, there was much to link Scandinavian and English history – and hence much to discuss – but virtually none of it had anything to do with Iceland. One can argue that because so much of thirteenth-century Icelandic literature is concerned with past Scandinavian history, it was only natural that England would be included. This is indeed what Christine Fell has suggested,1 and undoubtedly there is some truth to it. But I think it only partly explains Icelandic interest in Anglo-Saxon England. Geraldine Barnes has suggested that this interest came about because thirteenth-century Icelanders liked England,2 and while that may or may not be true, it still does not convincingly explain the lasting attention that Icelandic thirteenth- and fourteenth-century writers paid to Anglo-Saxon rather than to contemporary English affairs. Henry G. Leach’s theory that interest in Anglo-Saxon England stemmed from a general love of knowledge is not very plausible either, because Icelandic authors during the thirteenth century and afterwards were not recording information about the world indiscriminately. So what created this lasting interest? Before I attempt to answer that question, I would like to draw attention to a certain characteristic that occasionally emerges when Icelandic writers are discussing Anglo-Saxon England, namely that when they are ignorant of the relevant historical facts, the history of Norway – as they knew it – is made to substitute for English history. The clearest example of this comes from Egils saga, where the rise to power of Athelstan’s ancestors is discussed as Egill and Þórólfr join Athelstan’s court:

122 Anglo-Saxon England in Icelandic Medieval Texts Alfred the Great ruled over England. He was the first king of his line to be the sole ruler over the whole of England. This was in the time of Harald Finehair,3 the king of Norway. After Alfred his son Edward became king of England; he was the father of Æthelstan [Athelstan] the Victorious, the foster-father of Hakon the Good. About this time Æthelstan succeeded his father to the English crown. He had several brothers, also the sons of Edward. When Æthelstan succeeded to the throne hostilities began among the chieftains who had lost their power to his ancestors. They thought now would be the easiest time to claim it, while a young king ruled the kingdom. They were from Wales, Scotland and Ireland.4

At the beginning of the ninth century, what is now Norway was made up of several small kingdoms. Haraldr Fair-hair made war against them, deposed their kings one by one, and gradually conquered the entire country to make himself the sole ruler of Norway – or so Snorri and other thirteenth-century Icelandic historians believed. There were indeed uprisings both in Haraldr’s lifetime and later, but the Norwegian monarchy was seldom seriously threatened. Egils saga’s account is clearly based on this piece of history. In the saga’s description, everything about Anglo-Saxon England is wrong except for King Athelstan’s lineage. Athelstan was not particularly young (over forty at the time of the battle in 937), he had been on the throne for about twelve years, and the Battle of Brunanburh had nothing to do with English nobles and others trying to reclaim lands and titles lost to Athelstan’s West Saxon ancestors. But this piece of Norwegian-inspired history accords well with the battle story that Egils saga is about to tell, and with Egill’s and Þórólfr’s participation in it. As we saw in the previous chapter, England does indeed function as a background for any author who wanted to give his saga hero a claim to being famous abroad. But there is more to it than that. There was much about Norway that thirteenth-century Icelanders did not like, such as the tyranny of its rulers, their meddling in Icelandic affairs, and the lack of respect that was often felt by Icelanders. In the dreamy and frequently unrealistic descriptions of Anglo-Saxon England, one often senses a desire on part of the Icelandic author, either conscious or unconscious, to create another, perfect Norway in England. Neither do I think that the glowing terms used to depict nearly all Anglo-Saxon rulers are a coincidence. What these kings had come to represent to Icelanders was the ideal of a ruler who is fair, generous, friendly, and – of course – Norse-speaking. It is thus my contention that such descriptions of Anglo-Saxon England were, in a way, a form of escapism that had more to do with the rather ugly realities of the Norway of the day than anything that had actually happened in England. This, I think, was one of the forces – if not the

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main force – that kept Icelandic authors interested in Anglo-Saxon England during the Middle Ages. In previous chapters, I have tried to examine what medieval Icelandic sources have to say about the relationship between Old English and Old Norse, about the history of Anglo-Saxon England, and about the country in general. As far as the relationship between the two languages is concerned, the evidence of the Icelandic sagas, the histories of Norwegian and Danish kings, the þættir, and the fornaldarso¸gur is, as I have noted earlier, unfortunately altogether ambivalent. It is easy to find passages that would appear to suggest that Old English and Old Norse were mutually intelligible, and equally easy to find examples to suggest that they were not. The only first-hand knowledge Icelanders would have had of Old English would have been through their contact with English missionaries in the first decades of the eleventh century, but unfortunately, that experience was not recorded5 and would hardly have been remembered when Icelandic authors, directly or indirectly, addressed the question of the mutual intelligibility of Old English and Old Norse two hundred years later. As we saw in chapter 2, Grágás clearly identifies English as a foreign language, separate from Old Norse, but as Grágás is a twelfth-century work, it is too late to contain anything very relevant about Old English. So, other than concluding that Icelandic authors during the twelfth and the thirteenth centuries could not have been in a position to have much information about Old English, the question of what they knew about the mutual intelligibility of the two languages must remain unresolved. As for history, there is little reason to believe that Icelanders ever had much, if any, first-hand knowledge of events in Anglo-Saxon England. Most if not all the adventures of the fornaldarso¸gur and the þættir that are supposed to take place on English soil appear to be pure fantasy. That leaves us with the English episodes of the two family sagas, Egils saga and Gunnlaugs saga. To me, the evidence suggests that the Vínheiðr episode of Egils saga and the account of Gunnlaugr’s stay in London are fictional, and their sole purpose is to add fame abroad to the stature of the two heroes. It therefore comes as no surprise that kings’ sagas like Heimskringla, Ágrip af Nóregskonunga so¸gum, Knýtlinga saga, Morkinskinna, and Fagrskinna, that claim to relate the actual history of Anglo-Saxon England during the tenth and the eleventh centuries, should be as inaccurate as they are. There was clearly not much reliable information to be had about this period of English history in thirteenth-century Iceland. As we saw in chapter 3, this same lack of information frequently plagues Icelandic authors when it comes to general knowledge about Anglo-Saxon England. They are often ill-informed about the West Saxon royal house, their knowledge of English geography is frequently unreliable, and the same can be

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said about the names and locations of various English cities. However, they did know that England was wealthy and populous, and they also knew it was a great place for buying all kinds of quality merchandise not readily available in Scandinavia. As I noted in my introduction, Geraldine Barnes has remarked that ‘writers of Old Norse history, “family” saga, and romance shared a common perception of England’s ... commercial significance for Norway and Iceland – as a source of luxuries,’6 and her observation is readily borne out by the texts themselves. The great variety of goods that could be purchased from England was probably the subject that thirteenth-century Icelandic writers knew most about. But if we have to accept that English merchants seldom came to Iceland during that period, one is forced to conclude that this knowledge of English goods probably came from Icelanders who had stayed in Norway, which had flourishing trade relations with England. So, even if this knowledge of English wealth and luxuries did not directly apply to Anglo-Saxon England, it was close enough. In conclusion, I would like to return to my introduction and take another look at some of the general assumptions scholars have made about what medieval Icelanders knew of Anglo-Saxon England. Geraldine Barnes has argued that as ‘Icelandic saga narrative moves from the “historical” to the “romance” mode in the fourteenth century, so does the representation of England.’7 In researching the Icelandic materials, I have not been able to find much that supports this thesis. There is no noticeable difference between the way England is represented in the histories of Norwegian and Danish kings, the family sagas, the þættir, and the fornaldarso¸gur. As to the knowledge medieval Icelanders had of Anglo-Saxon England, it is quite clear that claims by early scholars to the effect that they had extensive familiarity with the country and a close affinity to it are unfounded. For medieval Icelanders, Anglo-Saxon England largely existed as a never-never land.

Notes

Introduction 1 See Stefán Einarsson 1933, 80–1. 2 Translation mine. See Sigurðsson 1854, 16–17: ‘Vi have ingen Anledning til at tvivle om, at man i Island har haft alle de almindelige Legender om den hellige Kong Osvald af Northumberland. Forfatterne af Landnámabók paaberaabe sig allerede Bedas Skrifter, og det kan ved mange i Islands ældre Literatur forekommende Træk eftervises, at man har haft en omfattende Kundskab om England, engelske Personer og engelsk Literatur.’ 3 Leach 1921, 3. 4 Smith’s theory attracted considerable interest in the debate over the possible existence, of Anglo-Norse pidgin in the late 1970s and 1980s. For further discussion, see, e.g., Townend 2000a, 91–2. 5 Smith 1928–36, 216–17. 6 Eysteinsson 1953–7, 108. 7 Geraldine Barnes 1992, 16. 8 Stenton 1943, 689; Turville-Petre 1976, lxx; and Sawyer 1971, 9. 9 Stenton 1943, 689. 10 Binns 1961, 179. 11 Geraldine Barnes 1992, 25. 12 Helgi Guðmundsson 1997, 212, n. 26. 13 Leach 1921, 129. 14 See Wawn 1991, 210. 15 Geraldine Barnes 1992, 15 and 23. 16 Paul Beekman Taylor 1998, 5. 17 For further discussion of Jorgensen’s ideas, see Fjalldal 1998, chap. 9, ‘The Big Bang Theory,’ 108–16.

126 Notes to pages x–4 18 On this issue, see, e.g., Geraldine Barnes 1992, 21–2 and Paul Beekman Taylor 1998, 6. The matter of the supposedly genetically related analogues that have been thought to link Anglo-Saxon and Old Icelandic literature is discussed in detail in my book The Long Arm of Coincidence. 19 Translation mine. In Jatvarðar saga (Vigfusson 1887, 390), this comment reads as follows: ‘Þótt vér kunnum fátt frá at segja sakir fáfræði ok fjarlægðar.’ 20 Nordal 1945, Flateyjarbók, vol. 4, 247: ‘En fyrir fáfræði vitum vér varla, hvat fyrr eðr síðar hefir verit á hans dögum ...’ 21 Fell 1972, 247. Chapter 1: Old English and Old Norse: The Evidence of Gunnlaugs saga, Fyrsta málfræðiritgerðin, and Hauksbók 1 This chapter and the next are partly based on my article ‘How Valid Is the AngloScandinavian Language Passage in Gunnlaugs saga as Historical Evidence?’ 2 The English translation is taken from Ashdown 1930, 191. In Icelandic, the text (see Nordal and Jónsson 1938, Íslenzk fornrit, vol. 3, 70–1) reads: ‘Þá réð fyrir Englandi Aðalráðr konungr Játgeirsson ok var góðr ho¸fðingi. Hann sat þenna vetr í Lundúnaborg. Ein var þá tunga á Englandi sem í Nóregi ok í Danmo¸rku. En þá skiptusk tungur í Englandi, er Vilhjálmr bastarðr vann England; gekk þaðan af í Englandi valska, er hann var þaðan ættaðr. Gunnlaugr gekk bráðliga fyrir konung ok kvaddi hann vel ok virðuliga. Konungr spyrr, hvaðan af lƒndum hann væri. Gunnlaugr segir sem var, – ‘en því hefi ek sótt á yðvarn fund, herra, at ek hefi kvæði ort um yðr, ok vilda ek, at þér hlýddið kvæðinu.’ Konungr kvað svá vera skyldu. Gunnlaugr flutti fram kvæðit vel ok skƒruliga; en þetta er stefit í: Herr sésk allr enn ƒrva Englands sem goð þengil; ætt lýtr grams ok gumna gunnbráðs Aðalráði. Konungr þakkaði honum kvæðit ok gaf honum at bragarlaunum skarlatsskikkju skinndregna inum beztum skinnum ok hlaðbúna í skaut niðr ok gerði hann hirðmann sinn, ok var Gunnlaugr með konungi um vetrinn ok virðisk vel.’ 3 Page 1995, 13–14. 4 Fidjestøl 1982, 111. Matthew Townend 2000b, 351, believes in the existence of a now lost Aðalráðsdrápa, that is, a long dróttkvætt poem by Gunnlaugr, and adds that ‘it does not matter that ... this poetry survives only in a fragmentary state,’ as well as observing (356) that ‘Gunnlaugr’s Aðalráðsdrápa also testifies to the presence of at least one Norse skald at the court of Ethelred [Æthelred].’

Notes to pages 5–7 127 5 Moulton 1988, 18. 6 Nordal and Jónsson 1938, Íslenzk fornrit, vol. 3, 74: ‘ek vil eigi láta þik sakar íþróttar þinnar.’ 7 Loyn 1977, 30. 8 Ibid., 114. 9 Moulton 1988, 15. For a similar opinion (‘I would myself subscribe to the common view that speakers of Norse and English were adequately intelligible to one another when each spoke their own language’), see Townend 2000a, 90. 10 Moulton 1988, 18. 11 Rygh 1862, 63–4. 12 Leach 1921, 3. 13 Smith 1928–36, 219. 14 Ashdown 1930, 237. It should be noted in passing that Ashdown confuses the name of the author of the commentary on Gunnlaugs saga that she is considering – Björn Magnússon Ólsen (cf. the following note) – with that of a contemporary Norwegian scholar, Magnus Olsen. 15 Ólsen 1911, 44–5. 16 In his edition of Gunnlaugs saga (1916, xv), Finnur Jónsson’s comment reads as follows: ‘Bemærkningen om ‘tungen’ i England er ednu mere mistænkelig og kan siges at være enestående i en slægtsaga. Den skal vel snarest motivere, at Gunnlaugr kan tale med kong Adelråd, men den er naturligvis ganske urigtig, hvis ordene skal forstås som de lyder. I virkeligheden lyder bemærkningen blot som kuriositets-notits, og således bör den vist opfattes. Den minder noget om bemærkningen i Hák. góð. k. 3. slutn.’ (‘The remark concerning the “language” of England is even more suspicious and can be said to be unique in a family saga. It purports to explain how Gunnlaugr can converse with King Æthelred, but the statement is, of course, quite wrong if its words are to be taken at face value. In reality, the remark sounds like an explication of something exotic, and that is how it should be regarded. It is reminiscent of the observation that is made at the end of chapter three of Hákonar saga góða.’) Translation mine. The observation which Jónsson refers to in Hákonar saga góða in Snorri’s Heimskringla comments on the longstanding Norse presence in Anglo-Saxon England, and adds that the country has a great number of place names in Old Norse. 17 Nordal and Jónsson 1938, Íslenzk fornrit, vol. 3, 70, n. 2. In Icelandic, their comment reads as follows: ‘Um árið 1000 áttu Engilsaxar og norrænir menn svo mikið saman að sælda, að fjöldi manna á Englandi hefir skilið norræna tungu, enda er hún mjög skyld engilsaxnesku.’ 18 See, e.g., Blöndal 1954, 218: ‘Margir af þessum mönnum [þ.e. mönnum Sigurðar jarls af Gloucesterskíri] hafa þá sennilega komizt inn í Væringjalið, ekki sízt vegna þess, að ýmsir þeirra hafa getað talað ‘danska tungu,’ og því verið skoðaðir sem

128 Notes to pages 7–12

19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28

29

30 31 32 33 34 35

landar af Væringjum, og auk þess var tunga og hættir Englendinga (Engilsaxa) á þeim tímum svo líkir tungu og háttum manna af norrænu kyni, að samruni þeirra þjóða var auðveldur’; Pétur Knútsson Ridgewell, quoted in 1999, Morgunblaðið, November 9, Section B, 1: ‘fornenska og íslenska [eru] náfrænkur, en líkjast þó meir hvor annarri en margar alsystur, sem oft vill vera’; and Eyþórsson 2002, 25–6: ‘Þessi munur [þ.e. á íslensku og fornensku] er (að breyttu breytanda) ekki mikið meiri en á milli norrænu meginlandsmálanna nú á dögum, norsku, dönsku og sænsku ... þeir Egill Skalla-Grímsson og Aðalsteinn hinn sigursæli og trúfasti hefðu hæglega getað talað saman hvor á sínu móðurmáli, skáldbóndinn á íslensku og konungurinn á fornensku.’ Ólsen 1911, 44–6. Foote and Quirk 1953, 378. Benediktsson 1972, 209. Ibid. 1972, 195. Ibid. 1972, 196. Haugen 1972, 71. Moulton 1988, 17. Harðarson 1999, 12. Ibid. 1999, 17 and 24–7. The text in Snorri’s Prologue to his Edda (Finnbogason 1952, 8) reads: ‘Æsir hafa haft tunguna norðr hingat í heim, í Nóreg ok í Svíþjóð, í Danmƒrk ok í Saxland; ok í Englandi eru forn lands heiti eða staða heiti þau er skilja má at af annarri tungu eru gefin en þessi.’ As this quotation shows, the last part – beginning with the conjunction ok (and) – does not connect with the sentence part before it, and is inexplicably out of joint with the rest. See Bjarni Guðnason’s edition of Danakonunga so¸ gur (1982, Íslensk fornrit, vol. 35, 39). ‘tungan kom með þeim norðr higat, er vér kƒllum norrœnu, ok gekk sú tunga um Saxland, Danmƒrk ok Svíþjóð, Nóreg ok um nokkurn hluta Englands.’ On the influence of English missionary bishops working in Iceland see, e.g., Pálsson 1957, 148. Fell 1972, 256. Arnold Taylor 1969, 108. Ibid., 101. Ibid., 102. Ibid., 108.

Chapter 2: Old English and Old Norse: The Evidence of Other Sources 1 Quoted from Fellows Jensen 1980, 197. 2 For a discussion of this view see, e.g., Fellows Jensen 1980, 206–7.

Notes to pages 12–15 129 3 A survey of Icelanders communicating with foreigners in Icelandic medieval romances has been done by Marianne Kalinke (1983), but no study of that kind exists for saga literature and þættir. 4 Jónsson and Vilhjálmsson 1944, vol. 3, 132–6. 5 Guðni Jónsson 1953, Íslendinga sögur, vol. 9, 314–17. 6 Ibid., vol. 3, 178–9. 7 Ibid., vol. 12, 27–8. 8 Ibid., vol. 1, 382–4. 9 Paul Beekman Taylor 1998, 6. 10 Moulton 1988, 18. 11 See Wawn 1991, 207–8. 12 Guðni Jónsson 1953, Íslendinga sögur, vol. 3, 438–40. 13 Jónsson and Vilhjálmsson 1944, vol. 3, 121–7. 14 Guðnason 1982, Íslenzk fornrit, vol. 35, 109–11. 15 Finnur Jónsson 1932, Morkinskinna, 325–6. 16 Nordal 1933, Íslenzk fornrit, vol. 2, chaps. 50–5. 17 Jónsson and Vilhjálmsson 1944, vol. 3, 213–14. 18 Ibid., vol. 3, 338. 19 Guðni Jónsson 1953, Íslendinga sögur, vol. 8, 422. 20 Bjarni Einarsson 1985, Íslenzk fornrit, vol. 29, 275–6. 21 Translation mine. Sigurðsson 1854, 90. The Icelandic text reads: ‘Og þesse stað er nú síðan kallaðr á latínu celestis locus, en á eingelsku himneskr staðr.’ 22 Translation mine. Guðni Jónsson 1953, Byskupa sögur, vol. 1, 195–6. ‘Í Kynn á Englandi lét maðr nökkurr, sá er Auðunn hét, gera líkneskju til dýrðar inum sæla Þorláki byskupi, ok er líkneskit var gert ok sett í kirkju, þá gekk at klerkr einn enskr ok spurði, hvers líkneskja þat væri. Honum var sagt, at þat var líkneskja Þorláks byskups af Íslandi. Þá hljóp hann með hlátri miklum ok spotti í soðhús eitt ok tók mörbjúga ok kom síðan aftr fyrir líkneskit ok rétti bjúgat fram inni hægri hendi ok mælti svá með spotti til líkneskjunnar: ‘Viltu mörlandi? Þú ert mörbyskup.’ Eftir þat vildi hann á burt ganga ok mátti hvergi hrærast ór þeim sporum, sem hann stóð, ok var höndin kreppt at bjúganu, ok mátti ekki hræra. Dreif þá síðan til fjöldi manna at sjá þessi fádæmi, ok spurðu hann síðan sjálfan, hverju þessi undr sætti. En hann játaði þá glæp sínum fyrir öllum þeim, er við váru staddir ok þat sá, en hann sýndi með viðrkenningu sanna iðran ok bað þá, er við váru, at þeir skyldi styðja hann með sínum bænum, en hann hét því, at hann skyldi aldri þess kyns glæp gera síðan. Báðu þeir honum af öllum hug heilsubótar, en almáttugr guð heyrði bæn þeira ok inn sæli Þorlákr byskup, ok réttist þá höndin, ok fór hann þá hvert er hann vildi, ok lofuðu allir guð ok inn sæla Þorlák byskup.’ 23 For a further explanation of the ‘suet-lander’ (mörlandi) joke, see Harris 1976, 17. 24 Translation mine. Guðni Jónsson 1953, Byskupa sögur, vol. 3, 36–7. ‘[Þorlákr,

130 Notes to pages 15–18

25 26

27 28 29 30

31

32 33 34 35 36

sagði Laurentíus] er miskunnsamr við þá, sem til hans kalla, svo er hann ok mjök hefnisamr þeim, sem í móti honum brjóta. At því gafst einum dára í Englandi, at hann þóttist gera til háðungar ok spotts við hinn heilaga Þorlák byskup, takandi eitt mörbjúga, framberandi fyrir líkneski Þorláks byskups, þessum orðum talandi: ‘Viltu, mörlandi? Þú ert utan af Íslandi.’ Fékk sá dári svo skjóta hefnd, at sú höndin, sem upp hélt mörbjúganu, varð honum stirð sem tré. Varð hann þar at standa, sem hann var kominn, með uppréttri hendi, þar til sem góðir menn báðu fyrir honum ok hann iðraðist síns glæps, varð hann lauss.’ See Finnur Jónsson 1932, Morkinskinna, 245–6; Nordal 1945, vol. 4, 212–13; Andersson and Gade 2000, 251–2; and Gade 1991. Translation mine. The text in Fagrskinna (Bjarni Einarrson 1985, Íslenzk fornrit, vol. 29, 289–90) reads: ‘Styrkárr stallari komsk þar undan frægasti maðr, því at hann fekk sér hest ok reið á brott um kveldit, ok gørðisk þá á vindr kaldr, en Styrkárr hafði verit í skyrtu einni klæða ok hjálm á hƒfði ok í hendi brugðit sverð. Nú dvalðisk hann, er hann hratt mœðinni af sér, ok í því kom at hónum vagnkarl einn í kƒsungi síðum. Nú spurði Styrkárr: ‘Villtu selja kƒsung þinn, bóndi?’ Hann svaraði: ‘Víst eigi þér; þú munt vera Norðmaðr, kenni ek mál þitt.’ Þá svaraði Styrkárr: ‘Hvat vill þú þá, ef ek em Norðmaðr?’ Hann svaraði: ‘Ek vilda drepa þik ok er nú svá illa at borizk, at ek hefi ekki vápn, þat er nýtt sé.’ Þá mælti Styrkárr: ‘Ef þú mátt eigi mik drepa, bóndi, þá skal ek freista, ef ek mega þik drepa.’ – reiðir þá til sverðit ok svá á háls bónda, at fauk af hƒfuðit. Tók hann síðan þar sér skinnhjúp ok hljóp síðan á hest sinn ok hleypði svá til skipa.’ Fellows Jensen 1975 ‘Vikingens forhold til stednavne i Yorkshire,’ 8. Guðnason 1982, Íslenzk fornrit, vol. 35, 123: ‘Knútr konungur setti spítala þann, er alla menn skyldi fœða um nótt, þá er þar kœmi af danskri tungu [i.e., Old Norse].’ Aðalbjarnason 1941, I, Íslenzk fornrit, vol. 26, 153: ‘Mƒrg heiti landsins eru þar gefin á norrœna tungu, Grímsbær, Hauksfljót ok mƒrg ƒnnur.’ Bjarni Einarsson 1985, Íslenzk fornrit, vol. 29, 276. The text in Morkinskinna (Finnur Jónsson 1932, 265) reads, ‘Á Englandi er oc þat lið er callaþir ro þinga menn, oc valizc hofþo saman af ymsom londom, oc mest af danscri tvngo.’ Translation mine. Karlsson et al. 1992, 55–6: ‘Norrænir menn og danskir og sænskir eigu hér arf að taka eftir frændur sína ... af öllum öðrum tungum en danskri tungu skal engi maður hér arf taka nema faðir eða sonur eða bróðir. ... Nú andast enskir menn hér, ... og er eigi skylt að selja þeim, nema hér hafi verið fyrr sonur eða faðir eða bróðir þeirra.’ See, e.g., Chambers 1929, 88, n. 2. Page 1987, 26. For further discussion, see Page 1987, 15. See Chambers 1929, 88, n. 2. Page 1987, 21–2.

Notes to pages 18–24 131 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48

See Page 1987, 23. Sherley-Price and Latham 1974, 152. Ibid., 188. Fellows Jensen 1975a, 8. See Guðnason 1982, Íslenzk fornrit, vol. 35, xii. For a more detailed discussion of these examples, see, e.g., Townend 2000a, 93–4. See Michael Barnes 1993, 70. Quoted from Michael Barnes 1993, 65. Quoted from Michael Barnes 1993, 66. Townend 2002, 210. Michael Barnes 1993, 81. Townend 2002, 211.

Chapter 3: General Knowledge and Attitudes about Anglo-Saxon England and Its Customs 1 2 3 4

5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Sherley-Price and Latham 1974, 56. See, e.g., Fitzhugh 2000, 54. For further discussionn, see Fitzhugh 2000, 28–30. See Finnbogi Guðmundsson 1965, Íslenzk fornrit, vol. 34, 17; Nordal 1933, Íslenzk fornrit, vol. 2, 129; Aðalbjarnarson 1941 and 1945, I, Íslenzk fornrit, vol. 26 (Hákonar saga góða), 152–3, and II, Íslenzk fornrit, vol. 27 (Ór Óláfs so¸gu ins helga inni sérsto¸ku), 430. On the other hand, Morkinskinna (Finnur Jónsson 1932, 274) calls Northumbria a third of England. See Finnbogi Guðmundsson 1965, Íslenzk fornrit, vol. 34, 1979; and Nordal 1933, Íslenzk fornrit, vol. 2, 137 and 132. See Guðnason 1982, Íslenzk fornrit, vol. 35, 124 and 128. Fell 1963, 11. Sigurðsson 1854, 86 and 70–2. Jónsson and Vilhjálmsson 1944, vol. 2, 451. In Icelandic, ey means an island. See Fellows Jensen 1962, cxxxi and 33. Translation mine. Jónsson and Vilhjálmsson 1943, vol. 1, 133: ‘En konungr sá hét Ella er þá réð Englandi.’ Ibid., 159. English sources vary in the way that they confirm that this event took place. In Abbo of Fleury’s Passio Sancti Eadmundi the Danes are said to be Inguar and Hubba and not described as brothers. Here it is Yngvarr alone who shoots King Edmund so full of arrows that he seemed to bristle like a hedgehog, and then beheads him. In Roger of Wendover’s account, the sons of Ragnarr are falsely informed that King Edmund had killed their father. They challenge him to a battle, in which the English suffer such heavy losses that the king decides to surrender his

132 Notes to pages 24–5

13 14 15 16 17

own person. He is then tortured and killed in the same manner that Abbo of Fleury describes. For further discussion, see McTurk 1991, 229–33. Translation mine. Guðni Jónsson 1953, Íslendinga sögur, vol. 3, 438: ‘Þá var England at mestu kristnat.’ Jónsson and Vilhjálmsson 1943, vol. 1, 140–3. For further discussion, see Smyth 1977, 50. Nordal 1944, vol. 1, 562: ‘Aðalráðr konungr Játvarðsson hafði ráðit fyrir Englandi þrjú ár ok tuttugu, þá er Ólafr konungr barðist fyrir Svoldr.’ The following table of the kings of England in the tenth century, which is adapted from Fell 1963, xlvii, shows the complex order of succession with which the author of Dunstanus saga has to battle: Edward the Elder (901–25)

” Athelstan (925–40) Edmund (940–6)

Eadred (946–55)

Edward (died early)

” Eadwig (955–9)

Edgar (959–75)

Edward (975–8)

”

Æthelred (978–1016)

In Dunstanus saga, the author has reduced this table to: Athelstan “ Edward the Elder “ Edward “ Æthelred

18 19 20 21

22 23 24

Not surprisingly when, at a later stage, the author has to acknowledge the existence of King Edgar (who made Dunstan bishop of Worcester and London), he has no idea where to fit him into his greatly simplified scheme of succession. Nordal 1944, vol. 1, 114: ‘Eftir [Aðalmund Játgeirsson] var konungr Aðalbrikt. Hann var góðr konungr ok varð gamall.’ Vigfusson 1887, 395–6. Fell 1963, 16 and 18. See ibid., 34, nn. 17, 29. The author of the saga, Árni Laurentiusson, first explains that loss of both hands and feet was the punishment of false coiners under AngloSaxon law (‘sem til er sett j ennsko logmale’) (17), but half a page later (18), they are beheaded – also according to Anglo-Saxon law (‘epter lagana dome’). See Guðni Jónsson 1953, Íslendinga sögur, vol. 3, 438. Loth 1965, 111–12. In Fagrskinna (Bjarni Einarsson 1985, Íslenzk fornrit, vol. 29, 276), we are told that as King Haraldr harðráða decided on his campaign against King Harold II, some of his retainers warned that England was a populous country (ríki fjo¸lmennt).

Notes to pages 25–9 133 25 Translation mine. Jónsson and Vihjálmsson 1944, vol. 2, 458: ‘England er kallat gagnauðigast land af Vestrlöndum, því at þar er blásinn allr málmr, ok þar fellr hveiti ok vín, ok alls konar sæði má þar hafa. Eru þar ok klæði gerð ok margháttaðir vefir meir en í öðrum stöðum. Lundúnaborg er þar höfuðstaðr ok Kantaraborg. Þar er Skarðaborg ok Helsingjaborg, Víncestr ok margir aðrir staðir ok borgir, er hér eru eigi nefndir.’ 26 Ibid., 456–7. 27 Nordal 1933, Íslenzk fornrit, vol. 2, 41–2. 28 Guðnason 1982, Íslenzk fornrit, vol. 35, 124: ‘England er auðgast at lausafé allra Norðrlanda.’ 29 Guðni Jónsson 1948, 218. 30 Aðalbjarnarson 1945, II, Íslenzk fornrit, vol. 27 (Óláfs saga helga), 335. 31 Finnbogi Guðmundsson 1965, Íslenzk fornrit, vol. 34, 132, 157, and 285. 32 Guðni Jónsson 1953, Íslendinga sögur, vol. 4, 445–6. 33 Geraldine Barnes 1992, 19–20. For the comment from Laxdæla saga, see Guðni Jónsson 1953, Íslendinga sögur, vol. 10, 125. 34 Translation mine. Aðalbjarnarson 1945, II, Íslenzk fornrit, vol. 27, 223–4: ‘Þat hefi ek heyrt sagt í fornum frásƒgnum, at Gormr, konungr Dana, þótti vera gildr þjóðkonungr, ok réð hann fyrir Danmƒrku einni. En þessum Danakonungum, er síðar hafa verit, þykkir þat ekki einhlítt. Er nú svá komit, at Knútr ræðr fyrir Danmƒrku ok fyrir Englandi, ok hefir hann þó nú undir sik brotit mikinn hluta Skotlands. Nú kallar hann til ættleifðar minnar í hendr mér. Kunna skyldi hann hóf at um síðir um ágirni sína. Eða mun hann einn ætla að ráða fyrir ƒllum Norðrlƒndum? Eða mun hann einn ætla at eta kál allt á Englandi?’ 35 Gelsinger 1981, 131. 36 Sherley-Price and Latham 1974, 37–8. 37 In his study of the influence of Bede in medieval Iceland, E.O.G. Turville-Petre (1972, 106) remarks that: ‘the Historia Ecclesiastica, Bede’s chief work in our eyes, was known little, if at all, in Iceland, and his reputation rested upon other writings.’ Unfortunately, Turville-Petre offers no further comments to explain this statement. 38 Guðni Jónsson 1953, Íslendinga sögur, vol. 6, 389. 39 Translation mine. Jónsson and Vilhjálmsson 1943, vol. 1, 140–1: ‘Nú ráða þeir þetta með sér, at Ívarr sverr honum [Ellu konungi Englands] eiða, at hann skyldi eigi skjóta í mót honum ok eigi ráð leggja til meins honum, en hann skal eignast af Englandi þat, sem uxahúð tekr yfir, er hann fengi mesta til. Nú fær Ívarr sér öldungshúð eina, ok nú lætr hann hana bleyta, ok þrisvar lætr hann hana þenja. Nú lætr hann rista hana sem mjóst alla í sundr, ok þá lætr hann renna sér hvárt, háram eða holdrosu. Ok er þessu var lokit, var þvengr sjá svá langr, at furða var at, ok engum kom í hug, at svá mætti verða. Ok þá lætr hann breiða á einum velli, en þat

134 Notes to pages 29–33

40 41 42 43

44

var svá vítt land, at þat var mikil borgarvídd, ok þar fyrir utan lætr hann marka grundvöll sem til mikilla borgarveggja. Ok þá fær hann sér smiði marga ok lætr reisa hús mörg á þeim velli, ok þar lætr hann gera borg eina mikla, ok er sú kölluð Lundúnaborg. Hún er allra borga mest ok ágæzt of öll Norðrlönd.’ Ibid., 157–9. See McTurk 1991, 245. See Tatlock 1950, 386–7. According to Roberta Frank (1978, 133–4), the Norse term harri had never before been applied to anyone other than a king. Interestingly, the same use of epithets, reserved exclusively to denote kings in Anglo-Saxon poetry, is applied to Byrhtnoth in ‘The Battle of Maldon.’ For further discussion, see my 1987 study The Vocabulary of Religious and Secular Rank in Anglo-Saxon Poetry. Translation Jesch, 1997, 322. The text in Heimskringla (Aðalbjarnarson 1951, III, Íslenzk fornrit, vol. 28, 196) reads: ‘Víst hefr Valþjóf hraustan Viljalmr, sás rauð malma, hinn es haf skar sunnan hélt, í tryggð of véltan. Satt es, at síð mun létta, snarr an minn vas harri deyrat mildingr mærri, manndráp á Englandi.’

45 Frank 1978, 124. Chapter 4: History – Heimskringla, Ágrip af Nóregskonunga so¸gum, Fagrskinna, Knýtlinga saga, and Morkinskinna: From Haraldr Fair-hair to the Sons of Cnut 1 For further discussion of the importance of skaldic poetry to the history of AngloSaxon England, see, e.g., Turville-Petre (1976, lxx) who concludes that it ‘can tell us little about the history of England, but the history of England may give us confidence in the authenticity of some scaldic verses.’ Campbell (1971, 3, 13 and 15) voices similar scepticism. On the other hand, Poole (1987, 298), while accepting Turville-Petre’s and Campbell’s general assessment as correct, concludes that ‘on occasion skaldic testimony has the value of corroborating details found in other minor sources. On occasion, too, information in the skaldic verses, though not fully confirmed elsewhere, has a general plausibility that encourages acceptance and adds to our awareness of the deficiencies of our main source.’ Icelandic scholars have generally been less optimistic than Poole about the potential historical value

Notes to pages 33–42 135

2 3

4 5 6

7

8

9 10 11

12

of skaldic verse. Thus Davíðsdóttir (1979, 202), in the main agrees with TurvillePetre and Campbell when she observes that ‘the historical value of the court poems [i.e., skaldic poetry] can only be determined by comparing their testimony in each particular case with the testimony of other independent sources. But such sources are rare and the results have turned out to be meager.’ Ciklamini 1978, 76. The editor of Heimskringla, Bjarni Aðalbjarnarson, thinks it ‘probable’ that Hákon was Athelstan’s foster son, as Athelstan is said to have fostered the sons of two other kings (see Aðalbjarnarson 1941, I, Íslenzk fornrit, vol. 26, 145–6, n. 2). F.M. Stenton, who is usually very sceptical of the truthfulness and reliability of Norse sources in his Anglo-Saxon England, accepts fully the idea that Hákon was brought up at Athelstan’s court, because ‘surnames of this kind [i.e., Aðalsteinsfóstri] generally represent a genuine popular memory.’ Stenton 1943, 344–5. H.R. Loyn also accepts this story as genuine and believes that Hákon drew ‘heavily from his English upbringing and experience.’ Loyn 1977, 74. For a more detailed account of these matters see Aðalbjarnarson 1941, I, Íslenzk fornrit, vol. 26, cii–ciii. See Heinrichs 1982, 64. Bjarni Aðalbjarnarson (1941, I, Íslenzk fornrit, vol. 26, cv, n. 1) points to two possible sources in his introduction: N.M. Penzer, The Ocean of Story, vol. 10, 322; and Stith Thompson, Motif-index of Folk-Literature, H 316 (vol. 3, 303), and T 55 (vol. 5, 260). The relevant passages in Finnur Jónsson’s edition of Saga Óláfs Tryggvasonar (1932, 244–5) read. ‘Oc þui var hann [i.e., Edward] vanr ahuerio ari at segia riddarum sinum fra Olafi konungi. apasca tið. fra morgum agetligum uerkum hans. er hann hafði unnit’ and ‘Oc vita scolu þer þat s. konungriN. at miclu er hann dasamlegri aðrum konungum. oc þui scal segia ahinni òztu hatið. fra hinum agetasta konungi. Olafi T. s. at sua berr hann af aðrum konungum. sem hatið sia berr af aðrum hatiðum. Þui at hann hafði mest firir aðra konunga hraustleikinn oc styrcðina. oc alla frægð craptanna.’ For a more detailed discussion see, Guðnason 1982, Íslenzk fornrit, vol. 35, 98–9, n. 2, and Aðalbjarnarson 1945, II, Íslenzk fornrit, vol. 27 (Óláfs saga helga), 14, n. 1. Guðnason 1982, Íslenzk fornrit, vol. 35, introduction, xcix. In the Legendary History, Ólafr joins forces with King Cnut, whom the Londoners refuse to accept as their king. This picture of King Æthelred does not quite fit the now widely accepted opinion (see, e.g., Geraldine Barnes 1992, 18) that, as opposed to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Heimskringla’s portrayal of him is unequivocally positive. See Poole 1987, 278–9 for further discussion.

136 Notes to pages 43–51 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

20 21

22 23 24 25

26 27 28 29

See ibid., 268–9 for further discussion. The place names of chapters 16–19 are not easily identified. See Guðnason, Íslenzk fornrit, vol. 35, introduction, cviii. For further discussion see Lawson 1993, 55, and Howard 2003, 133–4. See Nordal 1945, vol. 4, 250–1. See Guðnason 1982, Íslenzk fornrit, vol. 35, 119, note on stanza 19. See ibid., introduction, c–civ. Much of Bjarni Guðnason’s argument concerning the saga’s supposed use of English historical sources derives from Svend Ellehøj’s work Studier over den ældste norrøne historieskrivning. See Ellehøj 1965, 172–4 and 281–2. For further discussion, see Fjalldal 2003, 95, nn. 51, 102. Translation mine. Guðnason 1982, Íslenzk fornrit, vol. 35, 119–20: ‘Heiðrekr strjóna hét einn ríkr maðr, er fé tók til þess af Knúti konungi, at hann sviki Játmund konung ok dræpi hann með morðvígi, ok þetta varð hans bani. Heiðrekr var þó fóstri Játmundar konungs, ok trúði hann honum sem sjálfum sér.’ Snorri (see Aðalbjarnarson 1951, III, Íslenzk fornrit, vol. 28, 32) also mistakenly believes that Harold was Emma’s son. See Guðnason 1982, Íslenzk fornrit, vol. 35, 121, n. 1. See Aðalbjarnarson 1945, II, Íslenzk fornrit, vol. 27, 223. Guðnason 1982, Íslenzk fornrit, vol. 35, 123: ‘Hann [þ.e. Knútr] hefir verit ríkastr konungr ok víðlendastr á danska tungu.’ In light of this praise, it is hard to understand why the author of the saga feels compelled – in the last chapter that deals with King Cnut (chap. 20) – to insist that he was not a very clever man (a phrase which is almost certainly meant as a litotes), nor were his ancestors Sveinn, Haraldr, and Gormr (‘ekki ... stórvitr maðr,’ ‘þeir váru engir spekingar at viti’). See ibid., 122–3, n. 1. Ibid., 124, ‘Ídús Nóvembris.’ Snorri uses the same phrase in Heimskringla (Aðalbjarnarson 1951, III, Íslenzk fornrit, vol. 28, 11). See Ekwall 1928, 221, and Moberg 1941, 219–20. In 1928, Eilert Ekwall suggested that Morstr was a misreading of OE mynster (a monastery) by a writer who was using an English source for the history of Cnut and his sons. Although the two words may look somewhat similar, it is by no means apparent how this supposed error might have come about. Ekwall realized that his proposal demanded that early Icelandic historians had access to and used English sources, a possibility that earlier researchers such as Gustav Storm and Finnur Jónsson had always categorically rejected (see, e.g., Moberg 1941, 217). Undeterred by their objections, Ekwall went ahead and postulated that the AngloSaxon Chronicle and the works of Henry of Huntingdon, John of Worcester, and William of Malmesbury might all have been present in medieval Iceland and at the disposal of the authors of the kings’ sagas. The evidence that Ekwall provides to

Notes to pages 51–4 137

30

31

32

33

support his claims is extremely scant (see Ekwall 1928, 219–21), but his idea seems to have provided an inspiration for subsequent hunters of English sources and parallels. Snorri knows nothing of the city of Morstr and relates that Cnut, Harold, and Harthacnut were buried in Winchester (see Aðalbjarnarson 1951, III, Íslenzk fornrit, vol. 28, 31). Guðnason 1982, Íslenzk fornrit, vol. 35, 128: ‘Þá var Játvarðr Aðalráðsson til konungs tekinn yfir Englandi. Var hann þar lengi konungr, ok eignuðusk Danakonungar aldregi England síðan.’ In the Morkinskinna text, Harthacnut is repeatedly called Hákon for some unknown reason. In order not to confuse the reader, I have taken the liberty of correcting this mistake as I go along, both in Andersson’s and Gade’s translation and in the text which is quoted from Morkinskinna. Translation Andersson and Gade 2000, 111. The text in Morkinskinna (Finnur Jónsson, 1932, 33–4) reads as follows: ‘Og er þeir kuomu ath hollunne þa mællti Knutr konungr til Magnus konungs. Þier skulod furre jnn ganga herra og ydr skal veita fyrri alla þionozstu og tign. Þa mællti Magnus konungr. Ek se giorla huersu mal þetta skal fara. Þa ek em j Noregi og sækir þu mik heim þa skal ek fyrre ganga og fyrre skal mer veita alla þionostu. en nu skulu þier fyrre ganga er eg er hier komin. og sitia fyrre og drekka fyrre og taka fyrre alla þionosto og tign. Þuiat mier synezt þat likligazt ath huors ockars folke mune mest astud aa vera sinum konunge og mun þetta vera aufundarlausazt af huorum tueggium at so se med farit. HƒrðaKnútr bidr hann rada. og geingr jnn sidan og setz j hasætid en Magnus konungr hid næsta honum ut j fra. Þui næst kemur Alfiua j hollena og fagnade uel Magnuse konungi og kuozt allan soma vilia honum veita. skenker honum sidan og bidr hann drekka. Magnus konungr segir. fyrst skal Hƒrða-Knútr drecka og honum skal fyrst alla þionostu veita. Sidan fær hun Hƒrða-Knúti hornit og drack han af og mællti vid er hann kastade nidr horneno. eigi skyllde. eigi gat hann leingra mællt og æpti sidan til bana. Og syndiz nu þesse suik Alfiuo vid Magnus konung þuiat hun hafdi honum ætlad þenna daudadryck. en hun var þegar òll j brut og matte henni þui ecke hegna. Þesse atburdr vard aa setta aare Magnus konungs er Hƒrða-Knútr fieck bana er bædi uar þa ordinn konungr yfir Danmork og Einglandi.’

Chapter 5: History – Heimskringla, Ágrip af Nóregskonunga so¸gum, Fagrskinna, Knýtlinga saga, and Morkinskinna: From Magnús the Good to Eysteinn Haraldsson 1 Translation mine. Aðalbjarnarson 1951, III, Íslenzk fornrit, vol. 28, 65. The Icelandic text reads: ‘Þér munuð spurt hafa einkamál þau, er vér Hƒrða-Knútr gerðum með oss, at hvárr okkarr, sem lifði eptir annan sonlausan, þá skyldi sá taka lƒnd ok þegna,

138 Notes to pages 54–6

2 3

4 5 6

þau er hinn hafði átt. Nú er þat svá orðit, sem ek veit, at þér hafið spurt, at ek hefi tekit allt Danaveldi í arf eptir Hƒrða-Knút. Hann átti, þá er hann andaðisk, engum mun síðr England en Danmƒrk. Kƒllumk ek nú eiga England eptir réttum máldƒgum. Vil ek, at þú gefir upp ríki fyrir mér, en at ƒðrum kosti mun ek sœkja til með styrk hers bæði af Danaveldi ok Nóregi. Mun þá sá ráða lƒndum, er sigrs verðr auðit.’ Here, as before, Snorri appears to assume – wrongly – that Emma was King Harold’s mother. Translation mine. Aðalbjarnarson 1951, III, Íslenzk fornrit, vol. 28, 66–7. The Icelandic text reads: ‘Þat er ƒllum mƒnnum kunnigt hér í landi, at Aðalráðr konungr, faðir minn, var óðalborinn til ríkis þessa bæði at fornu ok nýju. Váru vér fjórir synir hans. En er hann var fallinn frá lƒndum, þá tók ríki ok konungdóm Eatmundr, bróðir minn, því at hann var ellstr vár brœðra. Unða ek þá vel við, meðan hann lifði. En eptir hann tók ríkit Knútr konungr, stjúpfaðir minn. Var þá eigi dælt til at kalla, meðan hann lifði. En eptir hann var konungr Haraldr, bróðir minn, meðan honum varð lífs auðit. En er hann andaðisk, þá réð Hƒrða-Knútr, bróðir minn, fyrir Danaveldi, ok þótti þat þá einu rétt brœðraskipti með okkr, at hann væri konungr bæði yfir Englandi ok Danmƒrk. En ek hafða ekki ríki til forráða. Nú andaðisk hann. Var þat þá ráð allra landsmanna at taka mik til konungs hér í Englandi. En meðan ek bar ekki tignarnafn, þjónaða ek mínum hƒfðingjum eigi stórligar en þeir menn, er enga ætt áttu hér til ríkis. Nú hefi ek tekit hér konungsvígslu ok svá fullliga konungdóm sem faðir minn hafði fyrir mér. Nú mun ek þetta nafn eigi upp gefa at mér lifanda. En ef Magnús konungr kømr higat til lands með her sinn, þá mun ek eigi liði samna í mót honum. Mun hann kost eiga at eignast England ok taka mik áðr af lífdƒgum. Segið honum svá mín orð.’ Fóru þá sendimenn aptr ok kómu á fund Magnúss konungs ok sƒgðu honum allt sitt ørindi. Konungr svaraði tómliga, mælti þó svá: ‘Ek ætla hitt munu vera sannast ok bezt fallit at láta Eatvarð konung hafa ríki sitt í ró fyrir mér, en halda þessu ríki, er guð hefir mik eignask látit.’ Translation mine. Ibid., 174. The Icelandic text reads: ‘Því barðisk Magnús konungr eigi til Englands, at allr landslýðr vildi hafa Eatvarð at konungi.’ For further discussion, see ibid., 67, n. 1. Gustav Storm (see Storm 1873, 184) has argued that, ultimately, this very erroneous representation concerning Harold and Tostig goes back to Norwegian traditions, as it looks at people and events in a way that justifies Tostig’s case and, at the same time, justifies the reasons for King Haraldr’s involvement. This is conceivable but unverifiable. The sympathy of Icelandic historians seems to have been with the Norwegian venture; at least King Haraldr’s invasion of England is never criticized, not even after his defeat at Stamford Bridge. However, Snorri does quote a stanza by Þjóðólfr in which the poet criticizes the king for needlessly sacrificing his army on English soil. (See Aðalbjarnarson 1951, III, Íslenzk fornrit, vol. 28, 190, stanza 159.)

Notes to pages 57–69 139 7 See Mynors 1998, 417–19. 8 For further discussion, see Freeman 1869, vol. III, 329 and 708–13; Aðalbjarnarson 1951, III, Íslenzk fornrit, vol. 28, xxix; and DeVries 1999, 238–9. 9 See Morkinskinna (Finnur Jónsson 1932), 264. 10 Geraldine Barnes has argued that Snorri’s detailed description of the burning and razing of Scarborough is his way of obliquely showing his distaste for King Haraldr’s enterprise (Geraldine Barnes 1992, 17). Her view challenges Bjarni Aðalbjarnarson’s argument in his introduction to Heimskringla (Aðalbjarnarson 1951, III, Íslenzk fornrit, vol. 28, xxxvii) that there is never any criticism in Snorri’s account of King Haraldr’s invasion of England or the wisdom of his expedition. 11 All references to John of Worcester and his Chronicle are taken from the translation of Stevenson 1853. 12 All references to Simeon of Durham’s A History of the Kings of England are taken from the 1987 reprint of J. Stephenson’s 1858 translation, which originally appeared in The Church Historians of England. 13 See Aðalbjarnarson 1951, III, Íslenzk fornrit, vol. 28, 185–91. See also comments in his introduction, xxxii–xxxiii. 14 For further discussion, see DeVries 1999, 275–7. 15 See Aðalbjarnarson 1951, III, Íslenzk fornrit, vol. 28, introduction, xxx–xxxi. 16 See, e.g., Hughes 1988, and Gelsinger 1988. 17 See Freeman 1869, vol. III, 720–1, and Aðalbjarnarson 1951, III, Íslenzk fornrit, vol. 28, xxxiii–xxxiv. 18 Freeman 1870, vol. II, 553. 19 See Aðalbjarnarson 1951, III, Íslenzk fornrit, vol. 28, 195, note to stanza 161. 20 For Reginald’s text and a Norwegian translation of it, see Bull 1915, 6–7. 21 See Bull 1915, 5, n. 1. 22 Aðalbjarnarson 1951, III, Íslenzk fornrit, vol. 28, 330, n. 1: ‘Frá hernaði Eysteins á England segir greinilega í jarteiknabók Cuthbertus hins helga ... sem taka má mikið mark á.’ 23 Stenton 1943, 689. Chapter 6: History – Egils saga 1 This chapter is based in part on my article ‘A Farmer in the Court of King Athelstan: Historical and Literary Considerations in the Vínheiðr Episode of Egils Saga,’ English Studies 77, 1996: 15–31. 2 Nordal never lost faith in Egils saga as a historical work, despite his later reversal of opinion regarding other sagas, according to Bjarni Einarsson’s Litterære forudsætninger for Egils saga, 18. 3 Early criticisms of the saga as a historical document are summed up in the intro-

140 Notes to pages 69–74

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8

9 10 11 12 13 14

15 16

17

18 19 20 21 22 23 24

duction to Finnur Jónsson’s edition Egils saga Skallagrímssonar tilligemed Egils större kvad, lix–xci. Hollander 1933. Campbell 1938. Bjarni Einarsson 1975, 234. In Egils saga, the description of the flight of Earl Álfgeirr from battle is quite similar to a scene in Orkneyinga saga (Finnbogi Guðmundsson 1965, Íslenzk fornrit, vol. 34, 177–8) where a character named ¯lvir rósta not only flees from battle but also from the country. However, we have no means of knowing whether the author of Egils saga used Orkneyinga saga as one of his sources. Nordal 1933, Íslenzk fornrit, vol. 2, xlii. Here and in some of the paragraphs that follow, I take the liberty of translating a few of Nordal’s remarks without specifically noting page numbers or quoting the Icelandic text. These references are limited to pages xlii to xlvi of his edition. See ibid., xliii–xlvi. Munch 1852, 698. Finnur Jónsson 1886–8, lxxii. Neilson 1909, 37–55. Munch 1852, 695, n. 2. Wieselgren 1929, 500–11. Campbell, in his edition of The Battle of Brunanburh (71–2, n. 3), observes that Hringr and Hiring had been identified by Sharon Turner more than a century earlier. Whistler 1908–9, 59–67. Nordal 1933, Íslenzk fornrit, vol. 2, xliv. It is possible that the source that Nordal has in mind is the first appendix to William Ketell’s account of the miracles of St John of Beverley that Neilson used as the basis of his article. Neilson mistakenly thought that the appendix related events that had taken place in 937 rather than Athelstan’s campaign of 934, and Nordal is certainly being misled by this source in his edition when he refers to Athelstan’s invasion of Scotland following the Battle of Brunanburh (147, note on stanza 22). Ibid., 147. The two lines that the saga quotes from this supposedly long poem read as follows: Nú liggr hæst und hraustum / hreinbraut Aðalsteini (i.e., ‘the highest path of the reindeer [i.e., the Scottish Highlands] now lies in the power of the brave Athelstan’). Hollander 1933, 41. Campbell 1938, 74, n. 2. Ibid., 80. Ibid., 73, esp. n. 2 and 62. Ibid., 66–8. See Hollander 1933, 41. Campbell 1938, 71.

Notes to pages 75–8 141 25 Ibid., 71–2. 26 It is important to note that Adam of Bremen says only who killed Hiring, not where he was killed. Some later critics, e.g., A.L. Binns 1961, 187, have erroneously interpreted Adam’s brief description to mean that he places Hiring in Northumbria or even in Viking York. On the reliability of Adam of Bremen as a historian, see, e.g., Heinrichsen 1968, xiv–xvii. 27 Campbell 1938, 79. 28 Ibid., 79. 29 Ibid., 74, n. 2. 30 Campbell 1971, 6–7. 31 Nordal 1933, Íslenzk fornrit, vol. 2, 146, stanza 21: n.d. 32 Jones 1960, 247. Jones accepts the main conclusions of Hollander and Campbell in respect to the Vínheiðr episode but suggests that traditions and historical works relating to it may have reached Iceland in the twelfth century. 33 Fell 1975, 187. For an opposing view, see Townend 1997, 33–5. Unlike Campbell, Fell accepts Hringr and Aðils as historical characters whose Welsh names had been forgotten (185–6), and she believes that the author’s reference to Vínheiðr and Vínuskógr in the prose need not be based on his misunderstanding of stanza 17 (Nordal 1933, Íslenzk fornrit, vol. 2, 142) as Campbell had maintained (186). 34 The Icelandic translation of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae also refers to Ælla as a king of Northumbrian Breta sögur hinar fornu, a reprint of Jón Sigurðsson’s 1848 edition in Danskir annálar, 109. For the latest attempt to solve the reference to this mysterious king, see Kries 2003. 35 See Binns 1961,186–7, and 1963, 48–9. 36 Binns 1963, 5. 37 Ibid., 46 and 48. 38 Ibid., 52. 39 Ibid., 48–51. 40 For a more detailed discussion of Binns’s ideas see Fjalldal 1996. 41 Bjarni Einarsson 1975, 238–9. 42 Ibid., 239–40. 43 Ibid., 244 44 Ibid., 253. 45 Ibid., 239. 46 Ibid., 240. 47 Ibid., 241. 48 ‘William beretter at Ethelstanus efter rådslagning trak sig tilbage (for at samle flere tropper), og at angriberen imedens fortsatte langt ind i England indtil han blev standset ved Brunefeld ... ’ Bjarni Einarsson 1975, 245. The rest of the translation follows Whitelock 1979, 304. 49 Translation Fell 1975, 76. The text in Nordal 1933, Íslenzk fornrit, vol. 2, 130–1

142 Notes to pages 78–86

50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59

60

reads: ‘En er Aðalsteinn spurði þetta allt, þá átti hann stefnu við hƒfðingja sína ok ráðamenn, leitaði þá eptir, hvat tiltœkilegast væri, sagði þá allri alþýðu greiniliga þat, er hann hafði frétt um athƒfn Skotakonungs ok fjƒlmenni hans ... en sú ráðagørð staðfestisk, at Aðalsteinn konungr skyldi fara aptr ok fara á sunnanvert England ok hafa þá fyrir sér liðsafnað norðr eptir landi ƒllu, því at þeir sá elligar myndi seint safnask fjƒlmennit, svá mikit sem þyrfti, ef eigi drœgi konungr sjálfr at liðit.’ Bjarni Einarsson 1975, 246–7. For further discussion, see Fjalldal 1996. Hollander 1933, 36. Ibid., 41. Jones 1960, 7. Hollander 1933, 38. See, e.g., Jón Helgason’s comments on the custom of using a weapon to present a gift or receive it. Helgason 1948, 58. See Wolf 1990, 510. For further discussion, see Ólason et al. 1992, 238. Views to this effect have been expressed by Jónas Kristjánsson and more recently by Vésteinn Ólason. See Kristjánsson 1977, 449–72 (especially his conclusion), and Ólason 1991, 46–59. Ólason 1991, 52–3.

Chapter 7: History – Breta sögur, Saga Ósvalds kónungs hins helga, Dunstanus saga, and Jatvarðar saga 1 This chapter is based partly on my article ‘Anglo-Saxon History in Medieval Iceland: Actual and Legendary Sources,’ Leeds Studies in English, New Series XXXIV, 2003, 77–108. 2 For further discussion, see, e.g., Bjarni Guðnason’s edition of Danakonunga so¸ gur (1982, Íslenzk fornrit, vol. 35), xvii, and Moberg 1987, 76. 3 For further discussion, see Turville-Petre 1972, 104–6. 4 For further discussion, see Pálsson 1957, 144–5. 5 See, e.g., Smith 1928–36, 223–4. 6 The English names follow Lewis Thorpe’s 1966 Penguin edition and translation of Geoffrey’s history. 7 Here the Icelandic translation mentions that he had fostered King Arthur’s nephew and niece. 8 Geoffrey of Monmouth (see Thorpe 1966, 263) actually calls these places ‘neighbouring Islands of the Ocean’ and adds Norway to the list of Malgo’s conquests. The Icelandic translation omits any reference to either. 9 The original text mentions only three kings but does not say who they were.

Notes to pages 86–106 143 10 In the original he is called Edelfridus. 11 Upon King Oswald’s death, the Icelandic translator inserts a story of a miracle. One of Cadwallo’s men whose hand had been badly wounded in the battle accidentally touches King Oswald’s wounds and is instantly healed. 12 There is no sign of this lady in Geoffrey’s text, but he does mention that people from Germany, ‘a vast horde,’ landed in Northumbria (Thorpe 1966, 282). 13 The only publication of this saga was carried out by Jón Sigurðsson in 1854. It appeared in a volume entitled Annaler for nordisk oldkyndighed og historie. 14 See Fell 1963, xvi–lix. 15 See his 1887 Icelandic Sagas and Other Historical Documents Relating to the Settlements and Descents of the Northmen on the British Isles, vol. I, 388–400. 16 See Fell 1972, 247–58; 1974, 179–96; and 1977, 223–36. 17 Most of the discussion that follows on Jatvarðar saga is based on Fell’s articles. 18 Fell 1972, 251. Earlier, Ove Moberg (Moberg 1941, 220–1) had insisted that the borrowing of this passage from William in Jatvarðar saga proved that his Gesta Regum Anglorum had been known in Iceland. 19 Vigfusson 1887, 396: ‘Sem sagt er í Æfi Noregs-konunga.’ (As it is related in the histories of the kings of Norway.) 20 See Fell 1977, 233. 21 It also occurs in the Hemings þáttr of Hauksbók. See Finnur Jónsson and Eirikur Jónsson 1892–6, 347–9. 22 Fell 1977, 228. 23 For further discussion, see Fell 1974, 184–6. 24 For specific references, see Fell 1974, 179–80. Chapter 8: Kings and Courts 1 Harris 1976, 20. 2 In reality, King Haraldr Fair-hair never became an absolute ruler over Norway, and another two hundred years would pass before any Norwegian monarch could make that claim. For further discussion, see Christiansen 2002, 108. The reasons for the settlement of Iceland are still debated, but most historians now believe that economic factors were more important than political ones in bringing the settlement about. 3 The þættir that are discussed in this paragraph are all to be found in Halldórsson et al. 1987. 4 See the version of the þáttr preserved in Nordal 1945, Flateyjarbók, vol. 4, 183–95. 5 Some versions of the story relate that King Haraldr, prior to his visit to Áslákr, had learnt of Hemingr’s prowess as an athlete. 6 At this point, in the middle of a sentence, Hemings þáttr breaks off in Flateyjarbók.

144 Notes to pages 106–12

7 8

9

10 11

12

13 14 15

16

17

18

19

The scribe left empty space to finish his story in the manuscript, but for some reason he never did. Liestøl 1933, 108: ‘Harald er vond og urimelig.’ Nordal 1933, Íslenzk fornrit, vol. 2, 147: ‘hinn veg þykki mér bezt, at þú takir hér staðfestu með mér ok slíka kosti sem þú vill beiðask.’ (‘I would prefer that you chose to remain here with me and accept such terms that you are prepared to request.’) There are, of course, occasional exceptions, but they are rare. In Þormóðar þáttr (Guðni Jónsson 1953, Íslendinga sögur, vol. 5, 361–71), for example, King Cnut is characterized as treacherous and stingy, as opposed to his enemy King Ólafr Haraldsson, who shows great generosity. Jónsson and Vilhjálmsson 1944, vol. 3, 116–27. For further discussion of the textual and manuscript problems associated with Hemings þáttr, see Ashdown 1959, 125–7 and Fellows Jensen’s edition of the þáttr, 1962, xvii–lxvii. As Fellows Jensen suggests, this rebellion appears to be invented for the sole purpose of getting Harold back to England and breaking up his partnership with William. In reality, King Harold’s brothers all supported him against Tostig and the Norwegian invaders. Fellows Jensen 1962, cxlvii. In Saga Óláfs Tryggvasonar (Finnur Jónsson 1932, 245–6) by Oddr Snorrason, a villager goes to the field of battle to plunder the corpses and is rebuked by King Harold, who is lying among the dead. Margaret Ashdown (Ashdown 1959, 131) is reminded by King Harold’s request to have a cell built for him at Canterbury – where he can daily look upon William – of a scene in the Vita Haroldi where Harold returns to England to test the sincerity of his new faith. The Vita Haroldi was written in England in the first decades of the thirteenth century, and could hardly have influenced the author of Hemings þáttr. Saga Óláfs Tryggvasonar (Finnur Jónsson 1932, 246) claims that King Harold lived in his cell for a long time (‘Oc valði ser til bygþar æinn stein. oc var þar lengi’), and Jatvarðar saga (Vigfusson 1887, 397) relates that Harold lived until the days of ‘Heinrekr hinn gamli’ – presumably Henry I, who died in 1135. Gillian Fellows Jensen (1962, cxlix) suggests that the author of Hemings þáttr deliberately shortens the period that Harold is said to have lived in his cell in order to allow Hemingr to take his place, and thus conclude his story in a satisfactory manner. Saga Óláfs Tryggvasonar (Finnur Jónsson 1932, 246) also relates that King Harold was given an honourable burial by William (‘Vilhialmr konungr let fòra lik hans iLundunir og grava uegliga hia aðrum konungum’). To the case of Ælla might be added a story that occurs in Örvar-Odds saga (Jóns-

Notes to pages 112–16 145 son and Vilhjálmsson 1943, vol. 1, 318–19). A Viking named Skolli reveals to Oddr that his father, who had been a king in England, was killed by a man called Edmund (Játmundr), who then seized the region and appointed himself as king over it. In due course Skolli avenges his father by killing King Edmund in battle, and regains his father’s kingdom. Chapter 9: The Hero and His Deeds 1 The earliest known version of Egils saga dates back to the 1230s (the so-called y-manuscript fragment) and is thus one of the earliest Icelandic family sagas. Many scholars believe that it was written by Snorri Sturluson, and there is considerable evidence to support this view, both external and internal. Egill was a local hero of Borgarfjörður in the west of Iceland where Snorri lived, and Egils saga tends to agree with his Heimskringla in most instances where the subject matter of the two works happens to converge. 2 For further examples of how material from other sagas is borrowed, see, e.g., my discussion of the composition of Grettis saga in Fjalldal 1998, ch. 10, ‘A Saga Author Shops Around – The Eclectic Composition of the Glámr and Sandhaugar Episodes,’ 119–29. 3 Translation Ashdown 1930, 191–5. The Icelandic text (Nordal and Jónsson 1938, vol. 3, 71–4) is as follows: ‘Ok einn dag um morgininn snimma, þá mætti Gunnlaugr þrim mƒnnum á stræti einu, ok nefndisk sá Þórormr, er fyrir þeim var; hann var mikill ok sterkr ok furðu torvelligr. Hann mælti: ‘Norðmaðr,’ segir hann, ‘sel mér fé nƒkkut at láni.’ Gunnlaugr svarar: ‘Ekki mun þat ráðligt, at selja fé sitt ókunnum mƒnnum.’ Hann svarar: ‘Ek skal gjalda þér at nefndum degi.’ ‘Þá skal á þat hætta,’ segir Gunnlaugr. Síðan seldi hann honum féit. Ok litlu síðar fann Gunnlaugr konunginn ok segir honum fjárlánit. Konungr svarar: ‘Nú hefir lítt til tekizk; þessi er inn mesti ránsmaðr ok víkingr, ok eig ekki við hann, en ek skal fá þér jafnmikit fé.’ Gunnlaugr svarar: ‘Illa er oss þá farit,’ segir hann, ‘hirðmƒnnum yðrum, gƒngum upp á saklausa menn, en láta slíka sitja yfir váru, ok skal þat aldri verða.’ Ok litlu síðar hitti hann Þórorm ok heimti féit at honum, en hann kvazk eigi gjalda mundu. Gunnlaugr kvað þá vísu þessa: 4. Meðalráð es þér, Móði malma galdrs, at halda, att hafið ér við prettum oddrjóð, fyr mér hoddum; vita mátt hitt, at heitik, hér sék á því fœri, þat fekkst nafn af nøkkvi, naðrstunga, mér ungum.

146 Notes to pages 116–17 ‘Nú vil ek bjóða þér lƒg,’ segir Gunnlaugr, ‘at þú gjalt mér fé mitt eða gakk á hólm við mik ella á þriggja nátta fresti.’ Þá hló víkingrinn ok mælti: ‘Til þess hefir engi orðit fyrri en þú, at skora mér á hólm, svá skarðan hlut sem margr hefir fyrir mér borit, ok em ek þessa albúinn,’ ok við þat skilðu þeir Gunnlaugr at sinni. Gunnlaugr segir konungi svá búit. Hann svarar: ‘Nú er komit í allóvænt efni; þessi maðr deyfir hvert vápn. Nú skaltu mínum ráðum fram fara, ok er hér sverð, er ek vil gefa þér, ok með þessu skaltu vega, en sýn honum annat.’ Gunnlaugr þakkaði konungi vel. Ok er þeir váru til hólms búnir, þá spyrr Þórormr, hvernig sverð þat væri, er hann hafði. Gunnlaugr sýnir honum ok bregðr, en hafði lykkju um meðalkafla á konungsnaut ok dregr á hƒnd sér. Berserkrinn mælti, er hann sá sverðit: ‘Ekki hræðumk ek þat sverð,’ segir hann ok hjó til Gunnlaugs með sverði ok af honum mjƒk svá skjƒldinn allan. Gunnlaugr hjó þegar í mót með konungsnaut, en berserkrinn stóð hlífarlauss fyrir ok hugði, at hann hefði it sama vápn ok hann sýndi; en Gunnlaugr hjó hann þegar banahƒgg. Konungr þakkaði honum verkit, ok af þessu fekk hann mikla frægð í Englandi ok víða annars staðar. Um várit, er skip gengu milli landa, þá bað Gunnlaugr Aðalráð konung orlofs at sigla nƒkkut. Konungr spyrr, hvat hann vildi þá. Gunnlaugr svarar: ‘Ek vilda efna þat, sem ek hefi heitit,’ ok kvað vísu þessa: 5. Koma skalk vistar vitja viggs dƒglinga þriggja, því hefk hlutvƒndum heitit, hjarls ok tveggja jarla; hverfkak aptr, áðr arfi, auðveitir gefr rauðan ormabeð fyr ermar, odd-Gefnar mér stefni. ‘Svá skal ok vera, skáld,’ segir konungr ok gaf honum gullhring, er stóð sex aura, – ‘en því skaltu heita mér,’ segir konungr, ‘at koma aptr til mín at ƒðru hausti, fyrir því at ek vil eigi láta þik fyrir sakar íþróttar þinnar.’ 4 Translation mine. The Icelandic text (Guðni Jónsson 1953, Íslendinga sögur, vol. 3, 439) reads: ‘At áliðnum vetri kom þat til eyrna konungi, at víkingr sá frá Danmörk, er Uni hét ok kallaðr inn rauði, var þar við land kominn með Danaher. Hann herjaði landit ok brenndi borgir ok bæi. Veitti hann víða upprás með strandhöggum ok ránum. Konungr vildi sem fyrst reka óvin þenna af höndum sér ok leitar þess við menn sína, hverr gerast vildi fyrirliði orrustunnar við Una. En er flestir létust þess ófúsir at berjast við hann ok þat spurðist, að hann hefði harðfengt lið ok fjölmennt, varð engi til þess búinn. Þá bauðst Illugi, at hann mundi freista at fara för þessa. ‘Er mér skylt, herra,’ segir hann, ‘at veita yðr þat lið, er ek megna, fyrir yðar góðu viðtökur ok vist í vetr.’

Notes to pages 117–22 147 5 Translation mine. The Icelandic text (ibid., vol. 8, 424) reads: ‘Þorsteinn var með Aðalsteini konungi fjögur sumur, vel haldinn, ok þeir Hrómundr. Tók hann þá orlof af konungi til Íslandsfarar. Sagði hann honum, hvat hann átti um at velja. Konungr kvað svo mundi verða at vera ok þótti þó illa, at hann vildi brott. At skilnaði gaf hann honum skarlatsklæði, in mestu gersemi, ok sverð búit, en Hrómundi öxi gullrekna ok skikkju vandaða. Skildu þeir með allri blíðu.’ 6 See Jónsson and Vilhjálmsson 1944, vol. 3, 338–46. 7 Translation mine. In Icelandic (ibid., 346) the description is as follows: ‘[Hálfdan] skerr af honum nefit ok stakk bæði augun ór honum ok skerr af honum bæði eyrun ok geldir hann. Síðan brýtr hann í honum báða fótleggina ok snýr aptr tánum, en fram hælunum, ok setr hann síðan á bak ok snýr essi hans heimleiðis til konungshallar. ... Nú skal segja frá Áka, at hann kemr heim ok rembist ekki alllítit, ok sjá konungsmenn hann ok segja konungi, at hann er heim kominn. Konungr sér nú Áka, hversu hann er útleikinn. Rekr konungr hann í burt, ok kemr Áki ekki síðan við þessa sögu.’ 8 See ibid., vol. 2, 449–56. 9 See ibid., vol. 3, 128–9. 10 Translation mine. The text in Hrólfs saga Gautrekssonar (ibid., vol. 3, 129–30) reads: ‘Ella konungr mælti ok kvað hann hafa unnit mikit happ, sigrat þann berserk, er verstr gekk um England ok mestan ójafnað sýndi öllum mönnum í kúgan ok ránum, ok bað hann hafa mikla þökk fyrir. Marga aðra óspell siðaði hann þar um vetrinn ok fór víða um England með Ellu konungi. Skipaði hann ok setti þeim málum, er Ella konungr átti dóm á, því at hann var þá gamall mjök. Vildu allir svá sitja ok standa sem Hrólfr konungr vildi. Fór hans vinsæld um allt England.’ Conclusion 1 See Wawn 1991, 210. 2 The title of Barnes’s article, ‘The Medieval Anglophile,’ tells its own story, and, as I noted in my introduction, she observes with some truth that there is ‘general enthusiasm for things English [to be] found throughout Old Norse history and saga.’ (Geraldine Barnes 1992, 15.) 3 This is Fell’s translation of the Old Norse hárfagri. In my discussion he is Haraldr Fair-hair. 4 Translation Fell 1975, 74. This text in Egils saga (Nordal 1933, Íslenzk fornrit, vol. 2, 127–8) reads: ‘Elfráðr inn ríki réð fyrir Englandi; hann var fyrstr einvaldskonungr yfir Englandi sinna kynsmanna; þat var á dƒgum Haralds ins hárfagra, Nóregs konungs. Eptir hann var konungr í Englandi sonr hans Játvarðr; hann var faðir Aðalsteins ins sigrsæla, fóstra Hákonar ins góða. Í þenna tíma tók Aðalsteinn

148 Notes to pages 122–4 konungdóm í Englandi eptir fƒðr sinn; þeir váru fleiri brœðr, synir Játvarðs. En er Aðalsteinn hafði tekit konungdóm, þá hófusk upp til ófriðar þeir hƒfðingjar, er áðr hƒfðu látit ríki sín fyrir þeim langfeðgum, þótti nú, sem dælst myndi til at kalla, er ungr konungr réð fyrir ríki; váru þat bæði Bretar ok Skotar ok Írar.’ 5 There is an interesting passage which discusses the difficulties that foreign missionaries experienced in Iceland in Oddr Snorrason’s Saga Óláfs Tryggvasonar (see Finnur Jónsson 1932, 154–5): ‘There was no hope that the people would adapt to Christian rites or convert fully to Christianity. The time was short and the people stubborn and firmly entrenched in their paganism and reluctant to abandon the religion of their kinsmen. There was a great shortage of preachers, and those who were there were timid because of their lack of knowledge and ignorance of Old Norse. They were, as a result, held in great contempt by the people.’ Translation mine. The Icelandic text reads: ‘En eigi var þess at von. at folkit myndi verþa lyðit með siþum eða fullri tru við guð. Þui at stundin var scomm en folkit hart oc styrct i utrunni. oc villdi seint lata sið frenda sinna. kenni manna fæð var oc mikil oc þo udiarfir þeir er voro. firir sakir uvizku oc ukunnandi. at fara með danscri tungu þui at þeir varu miok firir litnir af monnum.’ Unfortunately, Oddr makes no reference to the nationality of these preachers. They could have been English, but missionaries from other countries were also working in Iceland at the time. 6 Geraldine Barnes 1992, 25. 7 Ibid., 23.

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Index

Icelandic names are listed under the patronymic.

fosters Hákon the Good, 34–6, 107, 135n3; generosity of, 117

Ælla (king of England): dealings with Ragnarr loðbrók, 24, 112; dealings with the sons of Ragnarr, 28– 9; King Athelstan’s ancestor, 75–6; visited by Hrólfr Gautreksson, 107–8, 119–20 Æthelred (king of England): helped by Gunnlaugr ormstunga, 114–16; helped by Illugi Tagldarbani, 109, 116–17; helped by Ólafr Haraldsson, 41–2; image in Heimskringla, 135n11; rewards Gunnlaugr, 3–4 Anglo-Scandinavian language in England. See Smith, A.H. Ásláksson, Hemingr. See Hemingr Ásláksson Athelstan (king of England): ancestral history, 70, 121–2; as Ælla’s descendant, 75–6; asks Egill Skalla-Grímsson to stay in England, 107; dealings with Haraldr Fair-hair, 34–5, 106–7; fights in the Battle of Vínheiðr, 72;

Barnes, Geraldine: on English wealth in the sagas, 26, 124; on enthusiasm for things English, ix–x, 147n2; on Icelanders being well informed about English matters, viii; on representations of English history in Iceland, 124; on Snorri’s empathy with Anglo-Saxon attitudes, ix, 139n10 Barnes, Michael, 19 Battle of Brunanburh. See Battle of Vínheiðr Battle of Hastings, 64–5, 96–7, 111 Battle of Stamford Bridge, 61–3, 110–11. See also Haraldr harðráða (king of Norway); Tostig (earl of Northumbria) Battle of Vínheiðr, 72, 123 Bede, the Venerable, 18–19, 28, 83, 133n37. See also English books postulated to have existed in Iceland Binns, A.L., 76–7 Breta sögur, 83–7

160 Index Campbell, Alistair, 70, 74–5 Cnut the Great (king of Denmark, England, and Norway), 26–7, 41–2, 44–51 cruel Norwegian kings, 103–6. See also Haraldr Fair-hair; Haraldr harðráða; Ólafr Tryggvason Dunstanus saga (Life of St Dunstan), 90–4 Edward the Confessor (king of England), 39, 54–8, 94–6, 98–9, 135n7. See also Jatvarðar saga Egill Skalla-Grímsson, 70–2, 79–82, 102, 107, 113. See also Athelstan (king of England) Egils saga, 69–82, 123 Einarsson, Bjarni, 77–9 England as part of Scandinavia (Norðrlƒnd), 27, 29 England in ON dróttkvæði, 29–33, 134n1 English books postulated to have existed in Iceland, 10, 33–4, 83, 136–7n29; Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 33, 78–9, 136n29; Chronica (Roger of Hoveden), 33; Chronico ex Chronicis (John of Worcester), 33, 136n29; church inventories, 10; Gesta Regum Anglorum (William of Malmesbury), 33, 77–9, 83, 98, 136n29, 143n18; Historia Anglorum (Henry of Huntingdon), 33, 83, 136n29; Historia Regum Anglorum et Dacorum (Simeon of Durham), 33, 79; Historia Regum Britanniae (Geoffrey of Monmouth), 83–7; sermon in Hauksbók (Ælfric), 10–11; the works of Bede, 28, 83, 133n37 English geography in Icelandic texts,

22–4, 137n30. See also Snorri Sturluson English kings: genealogies of, 24–5, 56– 7, 75–6, 132n17, 138n2; generosity of, 108–9; kindness of, 106–7, 122; legendary kings, 25, 107–8, 119–20; weakness as rulers, 112–20 English royal courts in the sagas, 101–2, 106–7, 120. See also Egils saga; Gunnlaugs saga; Hemingr Ásláksson; Hrólfr Gautreksson English trade with Iceland. See Gelsinger, Bruce English wealth, 25–7, 124. See also Barnes, Geraldine Eysteinn Haraldsson (king of Norway), 66–8 Fell, Christine, ix, 10, 76, 97–100, 121 founding of English cities by Norse heroes, 28–9 Fyrsta málfræðiritgerðin, 7–9. See also Gunnlaugs saga Gautreksson, Hrólfr. See Hrólfr Gautreksson (king of Sweden) Gelsinger, Bruce, 27–8 Geoffrey of Monmouth. See English books postulated to have existed in Iceland Godwine (earl of Wessex), 46–7, 56–7, 99, 109. See also Jatvarðar saga Gunnlaugs saga, 3–8, 114–16, 123. See also Fyrsta málfræðiritgerðin Hákon the Good (king of Norway), 34–6 Hálfdanarson Fair-hair, Haraldr. See Haraldr Fair-hair (king of Norway) Haraldr Fair-hair (king of Norway), 34– 5, 102, 106–7, 122, 143n2

Index 161 Haraldr harðráða (king of Norway), 56– 63, 67, 96, 103–6, 110–11 Haraldsson, Eysteinn. See Eysteinn Haraldsson (king of Norway) Haraldsson the Good, Hákon. See Hákon the Good (king of Norway) Haraldsson, St Ólafr. See Ólafr Haraldsson (king and saint of Norway) Haraldsson Fork-beard, Sveinn. See Sveinn Fork-beard (king of Denmark) Harold I (king of England), 51–2 Harold II (king of England): elected king, 57–8, 96; fights at Stamford Bridge, 110–11; killed at Hastings, 96–7, 111; legend about his survival, 111–12, 144n17; mocked by SnegluHalli’s poem, 15, 31, 108–9; visits Duke William in Normandy, 57, 96, 98 Harthacnut (king of England and Denmark), 51–3 Hemingr Ásláksson, 104–6, 109–13 Henry of Huntingdon. See English books postulated to have existed in Iceland history of England: knowledge of in Iceland, vii–ix, 124; as related in dróttkvæði, 29–32, 134–5n1; representation of in Iceland, ix–x, 124; substituted by Norwegian history, 121–2. See also Barnes, Geraldine; Fell, Christine Hollander, L.M., 69, 74, 79 Hrólfr Gautreksson (king of Sweden), 107–8, 119–20 Icelandic interest in England, ix, 101, 121–2, 124 Illugi Tagldarbani, 109, 116–17 Jatvarðar saga (Saga of Edward the

Confessor), x, 94–100. See also Fell, Christine John of Worcester. See English books postulated to have existed in Iceland Kveld-Úlfsson, Þórólfr. See Þórólfr Kveld-Úlfsson Leach, H.G., viii–ix, 6, 121 Magnús the Good (king of Norway), 52–6 monarchy of England in the sagas, 101– 2, 107–9, 112–20, 122 Moulton, William G., 4–6, 8–9 Nordal, Sigurður, 69, 72–4, 139n2 Norwegian royal courts in the sagas, 101–3, 122 Ólafr Haraldsson (king and saint of Norway), 41–4, 106 Ólafr Tryggvason (king of Norway), 36– 9, 103, 106, 135n7 Ólafsson, Magnús the Good. See Magnús the Good (king of Norway) Ólason, Vésteinn, 81 relationship between Old English and Old Norse: communication difficulties between two peoples, 15, 18; modern ideas concerning 19–21; mutual intelligibility, x, 12–15, 20–1, 127n9, 127–8n18. See also Moulton, William G.; Smith, A.H.; Taylor, Arnold; Townend, Matthew Saga Ósvalds konúngs hins helga (Life of King St Oswald), viii, 87–90 Scandinavian heroes in England: func-

162 Index tion of England as a stage, 120; general pattern of visits, 113–14; in Gunnlaugs saga, 3–4, 114–16; in Göngu-Hrólfs saga, 118–19; in Hálfdanar saga Brönufóstra, 117–18; in Hrólfs saga Gautrekssonar, 107–8, 119–20; in Illuga saga Tagldarbana, 116–17; in Ragnars saga loðbrókar ok sona hans, 24; in Þorsteins saga Geirnefjufóstra, 117 Sigurðarson, Haraldr Hard-counsel. See Haraldr harðráða (king of Norway) Sigurðsson, Jón, vii–viii skaldic poetry, 4, 33, 134–5n1 Skalla-Grímsson, Egill. See Egill SkallaGrímsson Skalla-Grímsson, Þórólfr. See Þórólfr Skalla-Grímsson Smith, A.H., viii, 6, 12, 125n4 Sneglu-Halli, 15, 31, 108–9. See also Harold II (king of England); relationship between Old English and Old Norse Snorri Sturluson: on Battle of Hastings, 61, 64–5; on Battle of Stamford Bridge, 61–3; dislike of William the Conqueror, 65, 112; on English geography, 23; murder of, 101; on Ólafr Tryggvason in England, 38 Stenton, Frank, viii, 68 Sturluson, Snorri. See Snorri Sturluson Sveinn Fork-beard (king of Denmark), 37–40

Sveinn Úlfsson (king of Denmark), 65– 6, 97, 99 Sveinsson, Knútr. See Cnut the Great (king of Denmark, England, and Norway) Taylor, Arnold, 10–11 Taylor, Paul Beekman, x, 13 Tostig (earl of Northumbria), 56–63, 96, 138n6 Townend, Matthew, 20–1, 127n9 Tryggvason, Ólafr. See Ólafr Tryggvason (king of Norway) Úlfsson, Sveinn. See Sveinn Úlfsson (king of Denmark) Waltheof, Earl of Northumbria, 30–1, 60, 64–6, 99, 111. See also William the Conqueror William the Conqueror, 57, 64–6, 96– 100, 111–12. See also Battle of Hastings William of Malmesbury. See English books postulated to have existed in Iceland Þórisson, Illugi Tagldarbani. See Illugi Tagldarbani Þórólfr Kveld-Úlfsson, 26, 102 Þórólfr Skalla-Grímsson, 70–2, 79–80, 102, 113

Toronto Old Norse–Icelandic Series

General Editor Andy Orchard Editorial Board Robert Bjork Roberta Frank 1 Einarr Skúlason’s Geisli: A Critical Edition edited and translated by Martin Chase 2 Anglo-Saxon England in Icelandic Medieval Texts by Magnús Fjalldal