finlay (ed.) - essays on fornaldarsogur

8/13/2019 Finlay (Ed.) - Essays on Fornaldarsogur

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MAKING HISTORYESSAYS ON THEFORNALDARSGUR

EDITED BY

MARTIN ARNOLD AND ALISON FINLAY

VIKING SOCIETY FOR NORTHERN RESEARCH

UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON

2010


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Viking Society for Northern Research 2010

Printed by Short Run Press Limited, Exeter

ISBN: 978-0-903521-84-0

The printing of this book is made possible by a gift to the Universityof Cambridge in memory of Dorothea Coke, Skjaeret, 1951.

Front cover: The Levisham Slab. Late tenth- or early eleventh-century Viking gravecover, North Yorkshire. Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture, Universityof Durham. Photographer J. T. Lang. The editors are grateful to Levisham LocalHistory Society for their help and support.


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CONTENTS

IntroductionRORYMcTURK

Sgubrot af fornkonungum: Mythologised History for LateThirteenth-Century IcelandELIZABETHASHMANROWE

Hrlfs saga krakaand the Legend of LejreTOMSHIPPEY

Enter the Dragon. Legendary Saga Courage and the Birth ofthe HeroRMANNJAKOBSSON

ra and slaug inRagnars saga lobrkar. Women, Dragons

and DestinyCAROLYNELARRINGTON

Hyggin ok forsjl. Wisdom and Womens Counsel inHrlfssaga GautrekssonarJHANNAKATRNFRIRIKSDTTIR

Viik sttumsk ek aldri.rvar-Odds sagaand the Meanings

of gmundr EyjfsbaniMARTINARNOLD

The Tale of Hogni And HedinnTRANSLATEDBYWILLIAMMORRISANDEIRKRMAGNSSON

INTRODUCTIONBYCARLPHELPSTEADThe Saga of smundr, Killer of ChampionsTRANSLATEDBYALISONFINLAY

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vIntroduction

INTRODUCTION

RORY MCTURK

There has recently been a welcome revival of interest in thefornaldarsgur,that group of Icelandic sagas known variously in English as mythical-heroic sagas, legendary sagas, sagas of times past, and sagas ofIcelandic prehistory. Gwyn Jones indicated the need for such a revival,for English readers at least, in 1961, finding that these sagas had been

neglected not so much by choice as for lack of opportunity by the Englishreader.1This presumably meant that at that time there were not enoughtranslations or introductory accounts of them in English. This situationis now largely remedied. A bibliography of manuscripts, editions andtranslations of these sagas, and of secondary literature relating to them,is currently being compiled, under the titleFornaldarsgur norurlanda,by M. J. Driscoll and Silvia Hufnagel, and is accessible on the Internetin an advanced state of preparation. The revival of critical and scholarly

interest in these sagas, heralded at book length by Hermann Plsson andPaul Edwards in 1971,2and by Stephen Mitchell twenty years later,3isnow in full swing. Two collections of essaysnot all of them in English, itis truebased onfornaldarsagaconferences held in Uppsala and Copen-hagen and edited by the Icelandic-Swedish-Danish team that organisedboth conferences, appeared in 20034and 20095respectively, and that sameteam, having organised yet another such conference last year in Reykjavk,is currently preparing its proceedings for publication. The present volume

arises out of the Viking Society Student Conference organised by MartinArnold and hosted by the University of Hulls Andrew Marvell Centreon 28 February 2009. An indication of its contents may be given here.

1Gwyn Jones, trans., 1961.Eirik the Red and other Icelandic sagas, xv.2 Hermann Plsson and Paul Edwards 1971. Legendary fiction in medieval

Iceland, Studia Islandica 30.3Stephen A. Mitchell 1991.Heroic sagas and ballads.4

rmann Jakobsson, Annette Lassen and Agneta Ney, eds, 2003. Fornaldar

sagornas struktur och ideologi. Handlingar frn ett symposium i Uppsala 31.82.9 2001.Nordiska texter och underskningar 28.

5 Agneta Ney, rmann Jakobsson and Annette Lassen, eds, 2009. Forn-aldarsagaerne: myter og virkelighed. Studier i de oldislandskefornaldarsgurNorurlanda.


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Making Historyvi

Comparing Saxos account (in Book VIII of his Gesta Danorum) of thelegendary battle of Brvellir with the account of the same battle in the latethirteenth-century Icelandic Sgubrot af fornkonungum, Elizabeth Ash-

man Rowe argues that in the latter account the minimisation of innsrole in the battle itself is due not to rationalisationsince the pre-battlegeneration here shows marked Odinic featuresbut rather to a wish bythe author to present the Danish king Haraldr hilditnn, leader of one ofthe battles two warring parties, as a kind of pre-Christian martyr, and tosuggest parallels between him and the Norwegian kings Haraldr hrfagriand lfr Tryggvason. Tom Shippey gives a straightforward analysisof the structure ofHrlfs saga kraka, explaining its inconsistencies and

superfluities in terms of its authors evident wish to include everythinghe knows, however remotely relevant. Shippey further summarises theother medieval Scandinavian accounts of this sagaseponymous but forthe most part purely formal hero, showing the ways in which they contra-dict and agree with each other. He compares in passing King Hrlfr withKing Arthur and findsHrlfs saga krakacomparable to Vlsunga saga,both in its inclusiveness and, as he suggests, in its ultimate historicitythough this, he admits, is less easy to confirm than in the case of Vlsunga

saga. rmann Jakobsson, referring mainly to the dragon fights of SigurrFfnisbani and Ragnarr lobrk, in Vlsunga saga and Ragnars sagarespectively, sees the dragon in medieval tradition as symbolic of the fearwhich young people in particular are best equipped to conquerhencethe greater success of Sigurr and Ragnarr in fighting dragons than thatof Beowulf. At the same time the dragon, in giving birth to a hero throughits death, becomes a parental figure as well as an emblem of teenagepower. Carolyne Larrington concentrates onRagnars saga, showing that

Ragnarrs slaying of a serpentine dragon in order to win his first wifera is a rite of passage for her as much as for him, and that the snake-like birthmark in the eye of his son Sigurr by his second wife, slaug,is a pointer to Ragnarrs relative inferiority as a hero, since only when hesees this mark on his newborn son does Ragnarr deign to acknowledgeslaug as the daughter of Sigurr Ffnisbani. Larringtons discussionincludes a comparison of slaug with the Mlusine figure of Frenchlegend, another woman with serpentine connections, and an analysis of

some of the verses ofRagnars saga. Jhanna Katrn Fririksdttir showshowHrlfs saga Gautrekssonargives the lie to the proverbial statement,found not in this saga but not infrequently elsewhere, that cold are thecounsels of women. This saga, she argues, under the four headings offoresight, loyalty, caution and hospitality, imparts wisdom to its audience


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viiIntroduction

by conveying it through female characters juxtaposed with less than wisemales, and does so in terms that are applicable generally as well as to thesagas specific concerns, somewhat in the manner of Hvaml. Martin

Arnold makes use of textual criticism and modern literary theory in show-ing how gmundr Eyjfsbani, a mysterious, loose-end figure in the olderredactions of rvar-Odds saga, becomes in the younger redactions not somuch an alter egoof rvar-Oddr, or a figure of death, as a personificationand reminder of the fate prophesied for him by the sybil at the beginningof the saga. Carl Phelpstead reprints and introduces, as a tribute to WilliamMorris and Eirkr Magnsson, their translation, published in 1875, of thestory now known as Srla ttrbut entitled in their translation, hardly less

appropriately, The Tale of Hogni and Hedinn. In this tale, establishedas part of thefornaldarsagacanon in C. C. Rafns three-volume editionof 182930, the hero Srli functions as little more than a bridge betweenthe story of the theft of Freyjas necklace or collar (referred to elsewhereas theBrsingamen) and that of the potentially everlasting fight betweenHgni and Heinn. The language of the Morris-Magnsson translation,Phelpstead finds, is not so much archaic as Icelandicised. Alison Finlay,finally, produces and introduces her own translation of smundar saga

kappabana, showing in her Introduction that this story of a fight to thedeath between two half-brothers, closely paralleled in Book VII of SaxosGesta Danorumand relying heavily on poems of eddic type, versions ofwhich were also known to Saxo, betrays only the faintest recollection ofthe tragic story of a fight between father and son which forms the subjectof the Old High GermanHildebrandslied, to which it is more distantlyrelated.

The present volume is thus fully in line with current trends in saga

research and an essential supplement to the Uppsala, Copenhagen andReykjavk volumes. There is a great deal more in it than this Introductionhas revealed, as readers are hereby invited to find out for themselves. InJohn Gowers terms, it contains both lust and lore in more or less equalmeasure, whether one is thinking of its articles or its translations.


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Making Historyviii


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1Sgubrot af fornkonungum

SGUBROT AF FORNKONUNGUM: MYTHOLOGISEDHISTORY FOR LATE THIRTEENTH-CENTURY ICELAND

ELIZABETH ASHMAN ROWE

Introduction

The battle of Brvellir is one of the most famous battles of legendaryScandinavia, but its current use in Old Norse studies is as evidence of

inns fickle nature: after favouring the Danish king Haraldr hilditnn allhis life, inn withdraws his help when Haraldr is an old man on the battle-field and gives the victory to the Danes enemy by teaching them a specialmilitary formation that previously he had taught only to Haraldr. In medi-eval Scandinavia, however, the battle of Brvellir had an important place inhistoriography. Saxo Grammaticus makes it the centre of his plan for BookVIII of the Gesta Danorum, which draws on various aspects of the myth ofRagnark. Moreover, the names of men and women who appear in the firstten books of the history reappear among the combatants at Brvellir, so thatSaxo is in effect superimposing the great battle of Ragnark upon ordinarychronology and making the battle at Brvellir the historical turning pointwhen paganism is ended and Christianity introduced (Skovgaard-Petersen1993, 57a). A different story of the battle was produced in late thirteenth-century Iceland and is preserved in a fragment now known as Sgubrot affornkonungum.1As Skovgaard-Petersen observes, there are two notabledifferences between this work and Saxos version (Skovgaard-Petersen1987, 26061; 1993, 57a). One is that the Icelanders whom Saxo placesat the battle have been removed, presumably because the battle takesplace long before the settlement of Iceland. The other is that innsrole has been minimised, which Skovgaard-Petersen suggests is due torationalism. I would argue that even though inns role has indeed beenminimised, the saga authors addition of a number of new mythologicalallusions would indicate that rationalism cannot be the explanation.

1

Bjarni Gunason (1982, xl) argues that Sgubrotcannot have been composedearlier than the middle of the thirteenth century, and Wolf (1993, 597b) puts theterminus post quemof composition in the latter part of the thirteenth century. Theterminus ante quem is provided by the manuscript fragment (AM 1 e 1 fol),which has been dated to around 1300 (Bjarni Gunason 1982, xxxvi; Degnbolet al. 1989, 432).


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Making History2

Both Saxo and the Icelandic author are drawing on a now-lost *Brvalla-ulaMetrical Name List of Brvellir (Skovgaard-Petersen 1993, 56b).Saxo enumerates some 160 champions, often adding their nicknames

and places of origin, and the Icelandic author gives a shorter version ofthe same list. Debate concerning the origin of the list has been prolongedand marked by nationalist bias from Norwegian scholars (e.g. Olrik1894, 26062; Olrik 1919, 182; Seip 1927; Hald 1975). However, BjarniGunason (1958) offers a convincing case for twelfth-century Icelandiccomposition, and Stefn Karlsson (1975) discredits the linguistic argu-ments for an origin in southern Norway.

Once the Icelandic saga author had extracted an account of the battle

from theula(Bjarni Gunason 1982, xli), he set it into a larger historicalnarrative whose sources are likewise not fully understood. This narrative,which was widely known in medieval Iceland, tells how a kind of Vikingempire was established in ancient times. For example, Snorri Sturlusongives a version of the story in ch. 41 of Ynglinga sagawhen he attributes thefounding of the empire to varr vfami of Sweden (Heimskringla, I 72):

varr vfami lagi undir sik allt Svaveldi. Hann eignaisk ok allt Danaveldiok mikinn hlut Saxlands ok allt Austrrki ok inn fimmta hlut Englands.2Af hans

tt eru komnir Danakonungar ok Svakonungar, eir er ar hafa einvald haft.varr Wide-Reacher made all Sweden subject to him. He also came to pos-sess all Denmark and a great part of Saxony and all the Baltic and one-fifthof England. From his line are come those kings of the Danes and those kingsof the Swedes who have had sole rule there.

Snorri probably obtained this information from Skjldunga saga, whichwas the source for much else in Ynglinga saga(Bjarni Aalbjarnarson1979, xxxiliv). Skjldunga sagais now lost, but the sixteenth-century

Rerum Danicarum Fragmenta, compiled in Latin by Arngrmur Jnsson,preserves a version of it (Bjarni Gunason 1982, lxvilxx). Arngrmurswork has a lacuna at this point, so the absence of this passage there doesnot necessarily mean that it was also absent from the original Skjldungasaga. The fact thatRerum Danicarum Fragmentadoes say that varr wasthe ruler of Sweden and Denmark, which is part of what Snorri relates,adds to the likelihood that Skjldunga sagawas Snorris source here.

If Skjldunga sagawas the first to contain this story, the time-frame

for the creation of the myth of the Viking empire would have been

2Presumably this refers to Northumbria; see ch. 3 of Hkonar sagaga, inwhich Snorri saysNorimbraland er kallat fimmtungr EnglandsNorthumbria iscalled a fifth of England (Heimskringla, I 15253).


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between 1180 and 1220.3The next text after Ynglinga sagato use thismaterial is grip af sgu Danakonunga, written sometime between1261 and 1287, but it too does not name a source. In Sgubrot af forn-

konungum, which cannot be dated very precisely but which might bea bit younger than grip, we see a change in the story: the origin ofthe Viking empire has been pushed back in time, with its founder nowsaid to be not varr vfami but his father Hlfdan snjalli Haraldsson.4Despite this change, Skjldunga sagaseems to have been the ultimatesource of Sgubrots history.5The U redaction of Hervarar saga okHeireks, which is dated to the early fourteenth century (Pritsak 1993,283b), also includes the story of the Viking empire, but as it cites konga

sogumkings sagas (Jn Helgason 1924, 156) as its source, presumablythe redactor of this version was not the originator of the Viking-empirematerial.

The genealogy of Haraldr hilditnn

The question of origins is clearer when it comes to the genealogy of Haraldrhilditnn and his relation to his opponent at the battle of Brvellir. Thisman is named Hringr, and by the time Sgubrot was composed, Hringrwas thought to be the same person as Sigurr hringr, the father of Rag-narr lobrk.6In any case, Haraldr and Hringr were closely related, bothbeing descended from Aur, the daughter of varr vfami. Aur wasHaraldr hilditnns mother, and his father was her first husband, Hrrekrslngvanbaugi of Denmark. Aurs second husband was King Rbarrof Holmgarr. They had a son named Randvr, who was thus Haraldrsyounger half-brother. Randvrs son was Hringr, who was thus Haraldrshalf-nephew. The source for most of this is Hyndlulj(st. 28), which

some hold to have been composed in the tenth century (Nordal 1944, xxiv)

3Wolf (1993, 597b) argues that Bjarni Aalsteinssons argument for a date ofaround 1180 for the composition of Skjldunga sagaare weak, but because thesaga is a source for SnorrisEdda, it has to be earlier than around 1220.

4In a description of Ragnarr lobrk, Skjldunga saga(75) specifies that he isthird in line from varr, meaning that Haraldr hilditnn was the first ruler of thesecountries after varr, Sigurr hringr was the second and Ragnarr was the third.

The fact that this early text reckons the succession from varr rather than fromHlfdan suggests that varr was the founder of the Viking empire in the earliestversion of the myth.

5Repetitions in the narrative of Sgubrotlead Bjarni Gunason (1982, xxxviii)to surmise that Sgubrotwas compiled from two exemplars of Skjldunga saga.

6Hringr is named as Ragnarrs father in ch. 6 of Sgubrot(59).


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Making History4

and others hold to have been a product of the twelfth century (Hollander1962, 137; Turville-Petre 1964, 129):7

Haraldr hilditnn, borinn Hrreki,

slngvanbauga, sonr var hann Auar,Aur dipauga vars dttir,enn Rbarr var Randvs fair;eir vro gumnar goom signair;alt er at tt in, ttarr heimsci. (Edda, 29203)

Haraldr War-tooth, born to HrrekrSlinger of rings, he was the son of Aur,Aur the Subtle, daughter of varr,But Rbarr was the father of Randvr;They were warriors dedicated to gods;All that is your family, foolish ttarr.

Going back to varr, then, it appears that, because he has no sons, hisempire dissolves upon his death. Young Haraldr is being brought up inRussia by his mother and stepfather, and when Rbarr learns of varrsdeath, he sends Haraldr back to Denmark, where he becomes king, andfrom there he sets about regaining the kingdoms that his maternal grand-father had possessed.

It is worth noting that Saxo (Book VII) puts together a complete differ-ent ancestry for Haraldr hilditnn: his mother is Gurith (daughter of AlfSigarsson of Sweden), and his father is Haldan Drotsson of Denmark.Earlier in Book VII, Saxo had stated that Haraldr was the son of Borkar andGro, so either this was a slip, or there was more than one tradition abouthis parentage (Ellis Davidson and Fisher 197980, 119, n. 100). PossiblyBrvallaulahad a reference to Haraldrs mother protecting him after abattle, for both Saxo and the Icelandic saga author have an episode in whichthis happens. In the Gesta Danorum, Gurith carries Haraldr away from abattlefield, at which point Haraldr is humiliatingly shot in the posteriorby a distant archer. In Sgubrot, Aur similarly protects her young sonHaraldr by taking him away with her after the killing of her husband, butthere is no reference to a shameful wound dealt from behind.

Is the account in Sgubrot rationalised?

Let us now turn to the question of whether the legendary history inSgubrot is rationalised. The only reason for thinking so is its reduc-tion of inns role in the battle of Brvellir. According to Saxo, inn

7See Rowe (2005, 30108) for a discussion of the problem.


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impersonates Haraldrs servant Brni and sows strife between Haraldr andSigurr. Haraldr is at this point blind from age but still able to fight, andthe two armies meet at Brvellir. After multitudes are slain on both sides,

Haraldr learns that the Swedish army is deployed in a boars-snout forma-tion like his own. Only inn could have taught them this, and Haraldrrealises that the god has turned against him. Brni (that is, inn) hasbeen serving as Haraldrs charioteer, and because Haraldr is invulnerableto cuts from iron weapons, Brni batters the king to death with his ownclub. Sgubrot, however, does not mention any divine intervention inthe battle. Haraldr is killed by Brni, but the latter is nowhere explicitlyidentified with inn; he is simply described as a hfingichieftain and

allra eira manna vitrastr, er me honum vruthe wisest of all the menwho were with him (61), whom Haraldr appoints as his general. Presum-ably the saga author and his audience would have known that Brni wasinn in disguise, but the text omits this information. An additional pieceof evidence for rationalisation is the reason for Haraldrs invulnerability.Saxo presumably gives the original version of the myth when he says thatinn granted special protection to his protg, just as he gave him a spe-cial ability to attack by teaching him the boars-snout formation. Sgubrot,

in contrast, says that Haraldr was invulnerable to iron because his peoplebrought about his protection through sei mikluma great act of sorcery(56). If these were the only changes related to mythology that the sagaauthor makes, then it would be perfectly reasonable to describe Sgubrotas rationalised, but in fact the saga author includes two episodes before thebattle that go a long way toward restoring inns place in this history.

In the first Odinic episode (5052), varr vfami maliciously stirs uptrouble between Hrrekr and his brother Helgi by telling him that everyone

says that Haraldr is Helgis child, not his, and that Hrrekr ought to givehis wife to Helgi outright if he is not going to take vengeance. Hrrekrholds a tournament to welcome his brother back from his raiding, butwhere the other riders have lances, Hrrekr equips himself with helmetand byrnie and sword and spear, and when Helgi comes at him with alance, Hrrekr runs him through with a spearclearly an Odinic moment.varr then returns to Denmark, and far from praising Hrrekr for takingrevenge, he calls the slaying ningsverk mikita very dishonourable deed

(52) and says that he will avenge his friend Helgi. varr kills Hrrekr andtakes over his realm, so that he now rules Denmark as well as Sweden.In the second Odinic episode (5355), the historical characters are linked

to the pagan gods. Having dreamed that a dragon (his fetch) disappears ina terrible storm and all his ships have been blown out of their safe harbour,


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Making History6

varr summons his ancient foster-father Hrr for an interpretation. Wisely,Hrr refuses to board the ship and talk to varr in person; instead he standson a rock and they converse through the flap of varrs tent. Hrr says

that varr knows perfectly well what the dream means (54):ok meiri vn, at skammt li hean, r skipask munu rki Svj okDanmrk, ok er n kominn ik helgrr, er hyggsk ll rki munu undirik leggja, en veizt eigi, at hitt mun fram koma, at munt vera daur, envinir nir munu f rkit.

and there is greater hope that it will be only a short time from now before the rule ofSweden and Denmark will change, and now a fatal hunger is come upon you,because you thought all realms would submit to you, but you do not know that it

will come to pass that you will be dead, and your enemies will obtain the realm.Here an Eddic dialogue begins. Like inn in pursuit of knowledge, varr seeksinformation about his relatives from Hrr: If so-and-so were one of the gods,which one would he be? Hrr supplies the equivalents one by one, but eachanswer ends with a negative remark about varr himself (5455), as inthe first exchange:

Konungr mlti: Hverr er Hlfdan snjalli me sum? Hrr svarar: Hannvar Baldr me sum, er ll regin grtu, ok r lkr.

The king spoke: Who is [my father] Hlfdan the Eloquent among the sir?Hrr answers, Among the sir he was Baldr, whom all the gods mourned,and unlike you.

Twice a kind of refrain is interjected (5455):

Konungr mlti: Gakk hingat ok seg illspr nar. Hrr mlti: Hr mun ekstanda ok hean segja. . . . Vel segir , kva konungr, gakk hingat ok segtendi. Hrr svarar: Hr mun ek standa ok hean segja.

The king spoke: Come here and say your evil prophecy. Hrr spoke: HereI will stand, and from here [I will] speak. . . .You speak well, uttered theking, Come here and say [your] tidings. Hrr answers: Here I will stand,and from here [I will] speak.

Similar questions about his son-in-law Hrrekr, about Hrrekrs brotherHelgi inn hvassi and about varrs uncle Gurr follow. Finally, varrasks about himself (55):

Konungr mlti: Hverr em ek me sum? Hrr svarar: Muntu vera ormr

s, sem verstr er til, er heitir Migarsormr.The king spoke: Who am I among the sir? Hrr answers: You wouldbe that serpent who is the worst in existence, who is called Migarsormr.

varr becomes so angry that he charges out of the tent and leaps athim, but Hrr steps off his rock into the sea, and neither one of


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them surfaces afterwards. Whatever is going on here, it is not ration alis-ation.

Other significant additions and substitutionsSgubrotthus minimises inns original role in the battle of Br vellirbut supplies strong Odinic echoes in the previous generation. As allthese events take place before the conversion of Denmark, the elaboraterestructuring of the pagan presence might appear pointless, but I believeit can be explained in the light of other significant changes that the sagaauthor makes.

These changes are curiously anachronistic. First, Haraldrs mother isdescribed in such a way as to invoke echoes of the Icelandic settler Aurin djpga. Second, she is described in such a way as to invoke echoesof strr, the Norwegian mother of the missionary king lfr Tryggva-son. Whoever Haraldrs mother was according to the original tradition,Sgubrotcalls her Aur/Unnr and gives her the nickname in djpgathe subtle (52). Possibly it is significant that Sgubrotdiverges in thisregard from most of the earlier accounts. Skjldunga sagamakes no men-tion of any of varrs children, and in Ynglinga sagaSnorri says nothingof varrs having a daughter and instead states that he has a son namedlfr (Heimskringla, I 73). Sgubrotthus diverges from Ynglinga sagainthree ways: it attributes the creation of the Viking empire to Hlfdan snjallirather than to varr, and it gives varr a daughter and is silent about a son.Ifgrip af sgu Danakonungais earlier than Sgubrot, then it is the firstprose version of the myth of the Viking empire to followHyndluljandgive varr a daughter named Aur in djpga. In any case, Aur lives upto her nickname, for when Hrrekr has killed Helgi, she takes her son and

summons warriors. After varr kills Hrrekr, he has to retreat before hergreater number of men, and she leaves the country, taking Haraldr firstto Eygotaland and then to Gararki. Here we have the parallel with thestory of lfr Tryggvason, for when Queen Gunnhildrs agents attemptto seize the young prince (lfs saga Tryggvasonar, chs 34), lfrsmother spirits him out of Norway. Like Haraldr and Aur, lfr and hismother first go to Sweden. After two years, she plans to join her brotherin Russia, but on the way, they are attacked by pirates and young lfr is

captured and sold as a slave. Providentially, lfr ends up safely in Russiaafter all (lfs saga Tryggvasonar, chs 78).

If Haraldr is a parallel of lfr Tryggvason, then the implication is thathe is a kind of pre-Christian, and this suggestion is emphasised by the wayin which he meets his end. Quite unlike Saxos version of the legend, in


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Making History8

which Haraldr is the hapless victim of inns malice, SgubrotdepictsHaraldr as setting up the battle of Brvellir so that he can die in combatand thus earn a place in Valhalla. The effect is one of pagan martyrdom,

in so far as a martyr could be defined as someone who seeks a particularkind of violent death so that he or she will be rewarded in the next world.This is the first time that inn is mentioned explicitly in Sgubrot:Haraldr declares that only he and inn are familiar with the boars-snoutformation (63). Even though Haraldr thinks inn has deserted him, hestill dedicates all the fallen to inn. Presumably the logic behind this isthat Valhalla is the only desirable afterlife, so even if inn has desertedHaraldr in this world, Haraldr should still try to reach the pagan paradise.

It is Haraldr himself who asks Hringr to fight him. The purpose of thebattle is to get Haraldr a kingly death rather than an ignominious one,and Haraldr candidly tells Hringr that the Danes thought him too old andhad planned to kill him in his bath (60). Hringr apparently agrees to stagea battle, the events at Brvellir unfold accordingly, and after Haraldr iskilled, Hringr takes great care over the treatment of Haraldrs body andits burial, to ensure that he gets to Valhalla (361). It is difficult to knowwhether or not to make anything of Hringrs behaviour, but the battle is

certainly not due to inns malice.As if this vision of history were not complicated enough, the saga author

makes a third change to the original legend. In addition to parallelinglfr Tryggvason, Haraldr hilditnn is also made to resemble Haraldrhrfagri, who as a youth vows that he will eignazk allan Nregcome topossess all Norway (Heimskringla, I 97). The full account of the conquest(Haralds saga hrfagra, chs 46) does not need to be repeated, but thefollowing passage may have served as a model for the author of Sgubrot

(Heimskringla, I 98):eir [Haraldr hrfagri ok Guthormr hertogi] fengu enga mtstu, fyrr en eirkmu til Orkadals. ar var samnar fyrir eim. ar ttu eir ina fyrstu orrostuvi konung ann, er Grtingr ht. Haraldr konungr fekk sigr, en Grtingrvar handtekinn ok drepit mikit li af honum, en hann gekk til handa Haraldikonungi ok svari honum trnaareia. Eptir at gekk allt flk undir Haraldkonung Orkdlafylki ok gerusk hans menn . . . Hann setti jarl hverju fylki,ann er dma skyldi lg ok landsrtt ok heimta sakeyri ok landskyldir, okskyldi jarl hafa rijung skatta ok skylda til bors sr ok kostnaar.

They [Haraldr hrfagri and Duke Guthormr] met no opposition until theycame to Orkadalr. There before them was a levy. Their first battle was there,with a king who was named Grtingr. King Haraldr won the victory, andGrtingr was captured and a large force of his was killed, and he surrenderedto King Haraldr and swore oaths of fealty to him. After that, all the people


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in the Orkadal district submitted to King Harald and became his men . . . Heset up a jarl in each district, whose duty was to render legal judgements andadminister the laws of the land and to collect fines and renders, and a jarl was

to have a third of the taxes and renders to support himself.Like Haraldr hrfagri, Haraldr hilditnn is a young man when he embarkson a campaign of conquest (Sgubrot, 5657):

Haraldr var fimmtn vetra, er hann var til rkis tekinn . . . Hann eignaiskme orrostum ok hernai ll au rki, er tt hafi varr konungr, ok v meira,at engi konungr var s Danmrk ea Svj, at eigi gyldi honum skatt, okallir gerusk hans menn . . . Hann setti konunga ok jarla ok lt sr skatta gjalda.

Haraldr was fifteen when he was accepted as ruler . . . With battles and raids he

came to possess all those realms that King varr had possessed, and more thanthat: there was no king in Denmark or Sweden who did not pay him a tax, andall became his men . . . He set up kings and jarls and had them pay taxes to him.

A further parallel between Haraldr hrfagri and Haraldr hilditnn emergesat the end of their reigns. In his old age, Haraldr hrfagri elevates Eirkrblx to the rank of king, but soon Haraldrs other sons have claimedparts of Norway for themselves (Haralds saga hrfagra, ch. 41). Haraldrhilditnns realm is also divided when he is advanced in years: he makes

Hringr king of Uppsala and gives him the government of all Sweden andwest Gautland, but he retains the rule of Denmark and east Gautland forhimself (58).

The late thirteenth-century political context

What are we to make of this multi-layered history, in which Iceland and twodifferent Norwegian kings are projected onto a figure from legendary Den-mark? We might look to the sagas contemporary political context in searchof an interpretation, but it is not possible to date Sgubrotwith any accuracy.All we know is that it is earlier than the manuscript from around 1300 inwhich it is preserved, and that its style suggests a date of after 1250 (BjarniGunason 1982, xl). Possibly relevant is the fact thatRagnars saga lo-brkar, which is also dated to the second half of the thirteenth century(McTurk 1977, 568), shares with Sgubrota negative depiction of theSwedes. InRagnars saga, King Eysteinn of Sweden is described as illgjarnwicked, ill-natured (Ragnars saga lobrkar, 242), and the Swedishpeople worship the cow Sbilia, who is characterised by sv mikill djfulskraftrsuch great power of the devil (Ragnars saga lobrkar, 242). InSgubrot, of course, the Swedish varr acts like inn and is literally said tobe an evil monster. As King Hkon Magnsson of Norway (r. 12991319)betrothed his infant daughter to the duke of Sweden in 1302, the negative


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Making History10

characterisation of the Swedes suggests that Sgubrotwas written beforethis turn of events. Conversely, ttr af Ragnars sonum, which is believedto date from the early fourteenth century, rehabilitates the Swedes in its

version of the legend of Ragnarr lobrk (Rowe 2009, 35657).However, the contemporary political context does not suggest any reasons

why the Swedes should be depicted in this way. Hkon sought good relationswith Sweden well before 1302, and his father, Magns lagabtir (r. 126380),had worked constructively with his Swedish counterpart, Valdemar Birgisson(r. 127590), to define the border between Norway and Sweden for the firsttime. We are forced to conclude that just as the author of Sgubrotis notparticularly interested in Danish-Swedish history for its own sake, neither

is he particularly interested in using the legendary past as a mirror of thepresent.

The cultural context

One thing that is clear is the saga authors antiquarian bent. Mythologicalpoetry is one of his interests; in addition to his use of BrvallaulaandHyndlulj, he may have been drawing on a poem that is now lost forthe dialogue between varr and Hrr, as was suggested by Cleasby andVigfusson, who in their citation of the use of the word helgrrvoracitybetokening death state that it is found in a paraphrase of a poem (Cleasbyand Vigfusson 1957, 255a). Just as a metricalulaunderlies the account ofthe battle of Brvellir, extensive alliteration in this passage suggests that itwas drawn from a verse source.8If a lost poem was not the source for thisdialogue, then the author would seem to be playing with Eddic conven-tions. Poems about attempts to win knowledgeespecially knowledgeregarding identitiesfrom reluctant seers includeHyndluljandBaldrs

draumar, and Grmnismlcontains two instances of a phrase very similarto the central phrase of the dialogue in Sgubrot(e.g.Hverr er Hlfdansnjalli me sum?Who is Hlfdan the Eloquent among the sir?) Inst. 49 of Grmnismlit appears as Grmni mic hto at Geirraar, en . . .Gndlir ok Hrbarr me goomThey called me Grmnir at Geirrs[hall], but . . . [they called me] Gndlir and Hrbarr among the gods(Edda, 67). In st. 54 it appears as htomc undr fyr at . . . Gautr ok Ilcr

8

Alliteration appears in the following phrases: Hr mun ek standa ok heansegja(54),Hverr er Hlfdan snjalli me sum(54),Hverr var Hrrekr me sum(55),Hann var Hnir, er hrddastr var sa(55),Hverr var Helgi inn hvassi mesum(55),Hann var Hermr, er bazt var hugar(55),Heimdallr var hann, erheimskastr var allra sa(55),Hverr em ek me sum(55),Muntu vera ormr s,sem verstr er til, er heitir Migarsormr(55) andrna ursinn (55).


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Making History12

was called Raumelfr. That realm was called Raumarki. The one that King lfrruled over was called lfheimar, and the people who are descended from himare all of elfkind. Those were the most handsome people after the giant folk.

orsteins saga Vkingssonarseems to have been composed approximatelybetween 1280 and 1290 (Rowe 2004, 15152), and the phrase llumfornum frsgnum um at flk, er lfar htuin all the old accounts aboutthe people who are called lfar, which is present in Sgubrotbut absentin orsteins saga Vkingssonar, suggests that the former was borrowingfrom the latter, if they were not both drawing on a common exemplar. Asimilar phrasesem segir llum fornum sgumas it says in all the oldsagas (65)indicates that the author of Sgubrotwas using material from

a number of sources. It also implies that Sgubrotis not an old saga itself.Gurn Nordal observes that in the thirteenth century, Icelandic poets and

historians changed their focus from Danish myths and legends to Norwe-gian ones. This happened not only because the new political situation ofsubmission to Norway lent weight and appeal to Norwegian material(Nordal 2001, 326) but also because Denmark had ceased to be a market forIcelandic literary products. By around 1300, Icelandic textual culture func-tioned within a Norwegian milieu. Sgubrotexemplifies this transition,

for although the subject of the narrative is East Norse legendary history,the Danes and Swedes who figure in it are given West Norse alter egos.

Conclusion

Bjarni Gunason (1982, xli) regardsSgubrotas a rewriting and expansion ofSkjldunga sagathat was carried out in the second half of the thirteenth centu-ry as a result of the same cultural impulses that gave rise to thefornaldarsgur.Breyttur smekkur, njar sgur (changed tastes, new sagas), he remarks.

This conclusion results from an analysis of Sgubrots style that finds sig-nifigant influence from romance. Bjarni is certainly correct in this regard,and to his list of chivalric inflections such as the battle descriptions andthe turnimenttournament (51) (Bjarni Gunason 1982, xxxixxl) onecould also add Hrrekrs dream of a hlbarrleopard (50).9Nonetheless,although Sgubrotdoes reflect the cultural milieu of late thirteenth-centuryIceland, changed tastes alone cannot account for the saga authors otherreworkings of his source material. What would explain the omission

of inn from so much of the story, when inns role is left intact in

9Bjarni Gunason (1982, xl) suggests that although iriks saga af Bernmayhave served as a model in this regard, most probably general influence fromromance is at work here.


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Vlsunga saga, which cannot be more than a few decades older?10Indeed,what would explain the intrusion of Odinic motifs into the borrowingsfrom romance? In the tournament referred to above, for example, a grim

and incongruous note is struck by the contrast between the chivalric Helgi,who jousts me burtstngwith a lance (51), and his brother Hrrekr,who equips himself unromantically with a helmet, byrnie, sword and spear.When the saga author has Hrrekr run Helgi through with his spear, heis clearly doing something more than bringing the weaponry up to date.

It is important to remember that the text of Sgubrotis fragmentary, so aunified interpretation is not justifiable. It is also quite likely that what thesaga author does is largely dictated by the pre-existing legends, from which

he simply cannot stray very far. He can pursue the legend in this directionor that according to a genealogical framework that probably offers somescope for modification, and he can give a particular emphasis to specificepisodes, but the overall action (Haraldr and Hringr fight, Haraldr is killed,Hringr fathers Ragnarr) is probably not mutable. Nonetheless, a partialinterpretation may be ventured upon.

Haraldr hilditnn seems to be attracting two sets of parallels: onewith Haraldr hrfagri, and the other with lfr Tryggvason. With the

former, there is then an allusion to a specifically Norwegian traditionof empire-building. Even though Haraldr hilditnns father was Danishand the dissolved empire he reconstructs was a Swedish creation, mak-ing Haraldr hilditnn into a prefiguration of Haraldr hrfagri endowsNorwegian empire-building with an authoritative, ancient prehistory thatis not surprising in a text compiled in the late thirteenth century, whenNorwegian power encompassed Greenland, Iceland, Orkney, the Froesand the Shetland Islands. The parallels with lfr Tryggvason turn

Haraldr into a kind of pagan martyr, a person whose goal is to die in sucha way as to enter his version of heaven. This might explain why innsrole is diminished with respect to Haraldr, for if Haraldr is to be castas a pre-Christian martyr, he should not also be depicted as a devotedworshipper of the foremost of the pagan gods. However, inns role inthe original legend of the battle of Brvellir, to stir up emnity betweenfamily members, does not disappear from the narrative but is displaced tothe previous generation, when varr vfami maliciously induces Hrrekr

to kill his brother. The Odinisation of varr, the previous pagan king,fits into the usual pattern in which an old, unredeemed generation iscontrasted with a new generation that is either pre-Christian or ready for

10Finch (1993, 711a) dates Vlsunga sagato no later than around 12601270.


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Making History14

conversion.11Possibly this is a nested typology, in which the pagan ageitself is divided into an evil old half and a less evil new half, but morelikely it represents a multi-stage development towards Christianity, in

that the oldest generation is suggested to be the pagan gods reborn, thenext generation hopes only to attain the best afterlife, and the accountof the third generation opens with ominous references to sacrifices andepidemics in Norway (71):

er Sigurr hringr var gamall, var at einu hausti, er hann hafi riit um rkisitt, Gautland vestra, at dma mnnum landslg, ok kmu mti honumGandlfssynir, mgar hans, ok bu, at hann mundi veita eim li at ra hendr eim konungi, er Eysteinn het, er v rki r, er htu Vestmarar, en

n heitir Vestfold. vru hf blt Skringssal, er til var stt um alla Vkina.When Sigurr hringr was old, it happened one autumn, when he was riding aroundhis realm, West Gautland, to pass sentences on people according to the laws ofthe land, his kinsmen, the sons of Gandlfr, came up to him and asked him to givethem a party of men with which to ride against a king who was named Eysteinn,who ruled the realm that was then called Vestmarr but is now called Vestfold.Sacrifices had been held in Skringssalr, as there was sickness all across Vkin.

The fragment breaks off at this point, but possibly the saga would have

gone on to tell how active pagan practices were eradicated.The demonising of the Swedish varr vfami suggests a time of compo-sition roughly that ofRagnars saga lobrkar, before 1300, when the kingof Norway betrothed his daughter to the duke of Sweden. However, theauthor of Sgubrotseems to be less interested in using legendary Scandi-navia as a mirror of the present than he is in using legendary Scandinaviaas a vehicle for exploring Icelandic-Norwegian relations. The analysispresented here begins with the battle of Brvellir, but the changes that the

saga author makes to his account of that battle are the logical developmentof the changes that he made earlier in the narrative. First varr vfamiis Odinised, and then Aur and Haraldr hilditnn are depicted as parallelsof strr and lfr Tryggvason. The saga author next omits inn fromthe explanation for Haraldrs invulnerability to iron, and immediately af-terward Haraldr is made to resemble Haraldr hrfagri. Only then does thesaga author write inn out of the battle of Brvellir. As Bjarni Gunason(1958, 116) points out, of the two versions of the battle, the one in whichthe battle comes about because inn has sown strife between kinsmen isdoubtless the original; Haraldrs desire to die in battle rather than of oldage must be a very young motif. Here I would add that the reason why

11Examples of this pattern are provided by Schach (1977), Harris (1986) andRowe (2005, 6873).


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the original version had to be changed was because it undermined theparallelism between Haraldr hilditnn and lfr Tryggvason.

Just as Saxo seems to have felt that Icelanders belonged at the battle of

Brvellir, the saga author too appears to think that Iceland ought not to be leftout of the heroic past. But where Saxo seems to be including Icelandic namesbecause he envisions the combatants as coming from all over Scandinavia,the saga author uses a single Icelandic name to make grandiose implicationsabout how much Norway owes to her new tributary country. When Aur ispositioned as the mother of a figure who resembles Haraldr hrfagri, the paral-lelism suggests that an Icelander helped create the very existence of Norwayas a state. When Aur herself is made to resemble the mother of lfr

Tryggvasonand not merely a parallel to strr, but a superior version ofher, one who actually succeeds in getting her son to Russiathe parallelismsuggests that an Icelander was responsible for saving the agent of Norwaysown salvation.12And when an Icelander crafts a saga about legendaryScandinavia from aula, pagan mythology, and one or more Eddic poems,he seems to be suggesting that Iceland is the guardian of the culturalheritage of the north. And that, at least, is not so very far from the truth.

BibliographyBjarni Aalbjarnarson 194151. Formali. In Snorri Sturluson.Heimskringla. Ed.

Bjarni Aalbjarnarson. slenzk fornrit XXVIXXVIII, XXVI vcxl.Bjarni Gunason 1958. Um Brvalla ulu. Skrnir132, 82128.Bjarni Gunason 1982. Formli. InDanakonunga sgur. slenzk fornrit XXXV,

vcxciv.Cleasby, Richard and Gudbrand Vigfusson 1957.An Icelandic-English Dictionary.

2nd ed. With a supplement by William A. Craigie.Degnbol, Helle et al., eds, 1989.A Dictionary of Old Norse Prose / Ordbog over

det norrne prosasprog.Indices / Registre.Ellis Davidson, Hilda, ed., and Peter Fisher, trans., 197980. Saxo Grammaticus.

The History of the Danes, Books IIX.Finch, R. G. 1993. Vlsunga saga. InMedieval Scandinavia: An Encyclopedia.

Ed. Phillip Pulsiano et al., 711.Hald, Kristian 1975. Navnestoffet hos Saxo. Saxostudier:Saxo-kollokvierne

ved Kbenhavns universitet. Ed. Ivan Boserup, 7994.Harris, Joseph 1986. Saga as historical novel. In Structure and Meaning in Old

Norse Literature: New Approaches to Textual Analysis and Literary Criticism.

Ed. John Lindow, Lars Lnnroth and Gerd Wolfgang Weber, 187219.12A later work, Orms ttr Strlfssonar, explores a similar theme when the

Icelander Ormr Strlfsson is declared to have been so strong that if he had beenwith lfr Tryggvason in his last battle, the kings ship would never have beentaken by the enemy (Rowe 2005, 6768, 8384).


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Heimskringla = Snorri Sturluson,Heimskringla 194151. Ed. Bjarni Aalbjarnar-51. Ed. Bjarni Aalbjarnar-. Ed. Bjarni Aalbjarnar-son. slenzk fornrit XXVIXXVIII.

Hollander, Lee M., trans., 1962. The Poetic Edda. 2nd. rev. ed.

Jn Helgason, ed., 1924. Heireks saga: Hervarar saga ok Heireks konungs.Samfund til udgivelse af gammel nordisk litteratur XLVIII.1.McTurk, Rory 1977. The relationship ofRagnars saga lobrkarto iriks saga

af Bern. In Sjtu ritgerir helgaar Jakobi Benediktssyni 20. jli 1977. Ed.Einar G. Ptursson and Jnas Kristjnsson, 56885.

Nordal, Gurn 2001. Tools of Literacy: The Role of Skaldic Verse in IcelandicTextual Culture of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries.

Nordal, Sigurur, ed., 1944.FlateyjarbkI.Olrik, A. 1894. Brvalla kvadets Kmperkke.Arkiv fr nordisk filologi10, 22387.Olrik, Axel 1919. The Heroic Legends of Denmark.Edda = Edda: Die Lieder des Codex Regius nebst verwandten Denkmlern 1962.

Ed. G. Neckel, rev. H. Kuhn. 4th edition.Pritsak, Omeljan 1993. Hervarar saga og Heireks konungs. InMedieval Scan-

dinavia: An Encyclopedia. Ed. Phillip Pulsiano et al., 283ab.Ragnars saga lobrkar. InFornaldarsgur norurlanda1954, IIV. Ed. Guni

Jnsson. Vol. 1.Rowe, Elizabeth Ashman 2004. Absent Mothers and the Sons of Fornjtr: Late-

Thirteenth-Century Monarchist Ideology in orsteins saga Vkingssonar.Mediaeval Scandinavia14, 13360.

Rowe, Elizabeth Ashman 2005. The Development of Flateyjarbk: Iceland andthe Norwegian Dynastic Crisis of 1389.

Rowe, Elizabeth Ashman 2009. Ragnars saga lobrkar, Ragnarssona ttr,and the Political World of Haukr Erlendsson. InFornaldarsagaerne: Myter ogvirkelighed, ed. Agneta Ney, rmann Jakobsson and Annette Lassen, 34760.

Schach, Paul 1977. Some Observations on the Generation-Gap Theme in theIcelandic Sagas. In The Epic in Medieval Society: Aesthetic and Moral Values.Ed. Harald Scholler, 36181.

Seip, Didrik Arup 1927. Den norske grunnlag for Brvallakvadet hos Saxo.

Norsk tidsskrift for sprogvidenskap3, 120.Skjldunga saga. In Danakonunga sgur 1982. Ed. Bjarni Gunason. slenzkfornrit XXXV.

Skovgaard-Petersen, Inge 1987.Da Tidernes Herre var nr: Studier i Saxos historiesyn.Skovgaard-Petersen, Inge 1993. Brvallaula. In Medieval Scandinavia: An

Encyclopedia, ed. Phillip Pulsiano et al., 5657.Stefn Karlsson 1975. Diskussion. In Saxostudier:Saxo-kollokvierne ved Kben-

havns universitetEd. Ivan Boserup, 9193.Sgubrot. InDanakonunga sgur 1982. Ed. Bjarni Gunason. slenzk fornrit XXXV.

Turville-Petre, E. O. G. 1964. Myth and Religion of the North: The Religion ofAncient Scandinavia.Wolf, Kirsten 1993. Skjldunga saga. InMedieval Scandinavia: An Encyclopedia.

Ed. Phillip Pulsiano et al., 59798.orsteins saga Vkingssonar. In Fornaldarsgur norurlanda 1954 IIV. Ed.

Guni Jnsson. Vol. 3.


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HRLFS SAGA KRAKAAND THE LEGEND OF LEJRE

TOM SHIPPEY

In his entry onHrlfs saga krakainMedieval Scandinavia: an Encyclo-pedia, Jonathan Evans remarks that next to Vlsunga saga [it is]probably the best-known of the fornaldarsgur (Evans 1993, 304), aview confirmed by the existence of three modern English translations(Jones 1961, Byock 1998 and Tunstall 2003). Its popularity in earlier

times is shown by the number of manuscripts extant, the list of 38compiled by Slay (1960) having been further extended to 59 by Driscolland Hufnagel (2009). All the manuscripts are thought to go back to onecommon original, which may be the copy listed as extant at Mruvellir in1461, though legends about the hero were in wide circulation throughoutScandinavia much earlier.

The sagas popularity in modern times may, however, give a ratherfalse impression, for much of it derives from the fact that the saga is an

analogue of the Old English poem Beowulf. There is no doubt that itshero Hrlfr is to be identified with the enigmatic and unspeaking figureof Hrothulf, mentioned twice in the much older Old English epic, thoughthere he plays no active part at all. Both men are said to be members of theSkjldungr or Scylding dynasty, and poem and saga furthermore shareat least seven other characters. Much of the commentary on the saga hasaccordingly dealt with its relationship to Beowulf, as one can see fromthe bibliographies given by Evans and Driscoll / Hufnagel, while much

of the remainder deals with single motifs, such as its ursine elements(Tolley 2007) or its perilous women (rmann Jakobsson 2003). Twoissues have been dealt with relatively rarely. First, the saga has not oftenbeen considered as a whole and for itself. Second, till very recentlyinterest had faded in the sagas connection with its many Scandinaviananalogues, both earlier and later.

This latter situation has, however, changed both recently anddramatically. Scandinavian stories of Hrlfr agree in placing him and

his dynasty at a place variously labelled as Lethra, Hledro, Hleiraor (the sagas form) Hleiargarr; and it has long been agreed thatthis must be the small village near Roskilde now known as Lejre,or Gammel Lejre. It has nevertheless also been agreed for most ofthe last century that there is no historical basis for what, following


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18 Making History

Niles (2007), may be called the legend of Lejre. Gwyn Jones,for instance, after brilliantly summing up the Skjldungr legends,remarks that

of Hrolfs sixth-century court no trace has been found. It is sad to think ofthose high lords without a roof to their heads, but in respect of Lejre that isthe case, and likely to remain so. (Jones 1968, 4647)

H. R. Ellis Davidson repeated the point with equal assurance someyears later in her commentary on a new translation of Saxo Grammaticus,observing that there is no reason to suppose Lejre was of any importanceat the time Hrlfr was supposed to live (Ellis Davidson and Fisher1979, II 46). The legend of Lejre had in fact been written off as merefable.

But then the archaeologists took a hand. In the late 1980s excavationsbegan on the Lejre site under the direction of the archaeologistTom Christensen, with further work continuing to the present day,and these excavations revealed not one but three massive halls on twodifferent sites, dating from the mid-sixth century up to the eleventh.One of these, Christensen notes, found in the first site excavated duringthe 1980s, is the largest we yet know of from the Late Germanic Iron

Age and the Viking period (Christensen 1991, 73); while the earliestof the halls, almost as long but not as wide, and found on the secondsite excavated during the 2000s, nevertheless must be classed amongthe very largest buildings known from the sixth century in Denmark(Christensen 2005, 122). Furthermore, and reported only after this paperwas first presented and as it was about to go to press, news has comein of a third site excavated at Lejre which has produced yet anotherhall complex, with as many as three halls built successively, the largest

of them even larger than anything so far discovered, almost 200 feetlong. Not enough of this last discovery is known yet for any commentto be made on it. However, one has to say that in the current state ofknowledge, the dates of legend and archaeology do not entirely match,for if we were to go by the (uncertain) evidence of Beowulf, Hrlfrsperiod of power ought to have been the earlier sixth century, i.e. justbefore Christensens earliest hall was built. But there is no doubt, at least,thatjust as the various forms of the legend of Lejre assertedLejre

was a major power-centre for Scandinavia before and lasting into theViking era. The question has accordingly resurfaced, Ha[ve] modernscholars been too hasty in writing off the kings of Lejre? (Christensen1991, 21). And can anything be deduced from the legend as a whole,Hrlfs sagaincluded?


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19Hrlfs saga kraka and the Legend of Lejre

This essay accordingly seeks to do two things. First, albeit briefly, toconsider the saga as a whole and for itself. Second, to review the sagasconnections with the other Scandinavian versions of the legend of

Lejre, but not (except for one brief lapse) withBeowulf.

The Structure of the Saga: Gaps and Failings

There is no doubt that the saga author is capable of arresting andentertaining narrative, but the saga as a whole is not well-structured. Itconsists of some six or more not very well integrated units, some butnot all of them marked off as separate sections in Guni Jnssons1954 edition. I number, identify and summarise these here for futureconvenience, with chapter numbers from this edition.

1) Chapters 15, Fra ttr: This says that there were twobrothers, Hlfdan and Fri. Fri kills his brother, and tries to kill histwo sons, Hrarr and Helgi, but they escape, and in the end avenge theirfather.

2) 617, Helga ttr: This tells the story of the incestuous birth ofHrlfr. Helgi rapes a Saxon queen called lf, who bears a daughter

whom she refuses to acknowledge, and to whom she gives the dogs nameof Yrsa. Yrsa grows up to be an outstanding beauty, and Helgi carries heroff and sires Hrlfr on her, without knowing who she is. Yrsas motherbides her time, but eventually discloses the secret of the couples incest,after which Yrsa is married off to King Ails of Swedenwho, in theend, kills Helgi, his predecessor.

Inserted in this story, however, are two further sequences:

2a) 1012, the tale of Hrarrs ring: Helgi has a very valuable ring,which he gives to his brother Hrarr. The latter allows a cousin, Hrkr,to handle it, but Hrkr throws it in the sea. Hrarr mutilates Hrkr, butHrkr kills Hrarr. Helgi takes further revenge on Hrkr, and Hrarrsposthumous child Agnarr retrieves the ring.

2b) 15, the elf-woman and the birth of Skuld: In this chapter, Helgisires a child on an elf-woman, but fails to collect the child as agreed. Theelf-woman nevertheless sends him his daughter, Skuld, and says a curse

will be laid on his kinsfolk for his breach of their agreement.3) 1823, Svipdags ttr: Svipdagr forces his way into the retinue

of King Ails and has conflicts with the kings berserks, in which heis assisted by his two brothers Beigar and Hvtserkr. They eventuallydecide, however, to serve King Hrlfr, because of the fame he has


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acquired at Hleiargarr. The last chapter of this section, 23, tells howHrlfr tricks Hjrvarr, husband of his half-sister Skuld, into becominghis under-king.

4) 2436, Bvars ttr and 37, Hjalta ttr: This is in effecta fairy-tale. Bvarr is the son of a were-bear, the least monstrous ofthree brothers. He goes to take service with King Hrlfr, defeats thekings ill-mannered champions and rescues a man they are tormenting.Bvarr then kills a dragon, and makes the man he has rescued drinkits blood, after which the former weakling becomes bold and strongand is given the name Hjalti, as also the nickname inn hugpri themagnanimous for his forbearance in not taking revenge on his formertormentors.

5) 3847, Hrlfrs raid on Uppsala and his return: Egged on by Bvarr,Hrlfr rides to King Ailss court at Uppsala to recover his furarfrpatrimony. He and his men evade various plots and ambushes, and rideoff with much of Ailss treasure, hotly pursued across the Frisvellirplain by Ails. To escape, Hrlfr scatters the gold, so that the Swedesstop to pick it up, and Ails himself bends from his horse to retrieve

an especially valuable ring. At this Hrlfr exclaims, Svnbeyga ekn ann, sem Svanna er rkastr Now I swine-bowed him who ismightiest of the Swedes, and slices off Ailss buttocks. During theexpedition, however, Hrlfr antagonises his former supporter inn.

6) 4742, the Last Stand and Fall of King Hrlfr and his men:Hrlfr is attacked at Hleiargarr by his half-sister Skuld andher husband Hjrvarr. Before the battle, Hjalti the Magnanimous,seeing the enemy ships approach, asks his mistress whether she would

prefer two men of twenty-two or one of eighty. She says the former,and he bites off her nose; he then goes to join the doomed battle.After this has lasted a while, Hjalti notices Bvarr is not there, goesto find him, and urges him into the battlebut as he does so a greatbear fighting in Hrlfrs ranks (obviously Bvarrs were-shape)vanishes and is not seen again. The battle ends with Hjalti, Bvarr andmost of the other champions falling round their king, while Hjrvarrdies as well, further vengeance being taken by Yrsa and Bvarrs

brothers on Skuld.Some parts of this are certainly well told, perhaps especially section(4) above, Bvars ttr. One can also see that the author hasdone his best to thread items together, for instance inserting the


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story of Skuld, and the story of the tricking of Hjrvarr, in chs15 and 23 respectively, thus providing a double motivation aheadof time for the Last Battle. However, there are also clear lacunae,

blind motifs (i.e. sections which seem to promise a continuationbut in the end lead nowhere), as well as cases of apparently pointlessdoubling.

To take the last item first, sections (3) and (4) above, Svipdagr andhis two brothers, Bvarr and his two brothers, look very like eachother. In ch. 18 King Ailss berserks challenge Svipdagr, asking hvarthann s kappi nokkurrwhether he is some kind of champion, and heanswers, slkr sem nokkurr eira einnas much as any one of them. In

ch. 22, it is King Hrlfrs berserks who challenge him, going round thehall and asking each man hvrt s teldist jafnsnjallr honumwhether herated himself as bold a man as he and getting evasive but conciliatoryanswersuntil they reach Svipdagr, who immediately jumps up anddraws his sword. In ch. 37 the same scene is played out with Bvarr.King Hrlfrs berserks go round the hall asking the same question andgetting the same kind of answer, till they reach Bvarr, who is askedthe usual question and responds, ekki jafnsnjallr, heldr snjallari not

as bold, but bolder. In chs 22 and 37 brawls break out, though Hrlfr,unlike Ails, forbids killing. (One has to say that the nameless berserksof both kings become rather tedious,ttust honum vallt meiri okstu vallt svikrum vi hannforever thinking themselves strongerthan [Bvarr] and always laying plots against him (ch. 49), but neveractually amounting to much.) Svipdagr and his brothers also seem tofade out of the story. They are given places to King Hrlfrs left, Bvarrand Hjalti being on his right (ch. 37); they are present on the Uppsala

ride, and Svipdagr even calls in an earlier promise by Ails to buy hiscompanions temporary immunity (ch. 40); but they are only mentionedin the Last Stand sequence, along with seven other men, named but notindividualised. Very little would be lost from the saga if the whole ofsection (3) were deleted, along with all further mentions of Svipdagr andhis brothers.1

1

Their connection with the legend of Lejre as a whole is thin. Saxo men-tions a Suipdagerus king of Norway in his Book 1, and a Svipdagr figures inthe poemFjlsvinnsml(Ellis Davidson and Fisher 1979, II 2829), but neitherseems relevant. Beigar is mentioned once, in connection with Hrlfr, in Tkattr Tkasonar.


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22 Making History

As for blind motifs, one might wonder about the whole story ofHrkr and the precious ring. As things stand, the ring is thrown intothe sea, but then recovered. No more is heard of Agnarr, except that

Bvarr, close to death, boasts of the services he has done for KingHrlfr, which include the fact that ek drap Agnar, berserk ok eigi srkonung I killed Agnarr, berserk and no less a king. Could they bethe same man? Is Bvarr boasting of killing Hrlfrs cousin for him?What happened to the ring? Even weaker, however, is the case of Vggr.He is introduced in ch. 42 as a servant of King Ails, so it is odd thathe cheekily gives Hrlfr the nickname krakipole-ladder (presumablybecause he is tall and thin). Hrlfr rewards him, the king says (not very

relevantly), Litlu verr Vggr feginn It doesnt take much to makeVggr happy and Vggr swears (again, not very relevantly) to avengethe king if he outlives him, though not much notice is taken of this, forVggr seems physically unimpressive. TheLitlu verr . . .saying is foundalso in Snorris Skldskaparml, but Snorri does not complete the story.The whole sequence is told much better by Saxo Grammaticus, writingprobably more than two centuries before the saga was written, wherethe whole point of the story is that Vggr is present at the Last Stand

and the only one of Hrlfrs men to survive. Offered his life if he willswear fealty to Hjrvarr the victor, he agrees, takes the latters sword toswear on, but then runs the new king through with it, thus fulfilling hisoath and ensuring that the usurper becomes king only for a few minutes,a satisfying and ironic conclusion. In the saga, though, there is none ofthis. Vggr is not even present at the Last Stand, Hjrvarr is killed inthe battle by Bvarr, and all the saga author can say, remembering thepromise to take vengeance, is that Yrsa sends men to take revenge on

Skuld, ok segja menn, at Vggr hefi ar verit flokksforingi fyrirmensay that Vggr was the leader of the troop, by comparison with Saxomerely bathetic.

One could continue to make criticisms. The motivation of Yrsa ispeculiar: she stays married to Ails, but is continually hostile to him.The point of Hrlfrs visit to Uppsala is less than clearto regain hisfurarfr, says Bvarr, but one would have thought vengeance forHrlfrs father Helgi would be a more pressing motive, for according to

the saga he was killed by Ails, though other versions of the Skjldungrepic have different explanations. One gets the impression that thesaga author knows quite a lot of related tales, and is reluctant to leaveanything out (hence Svipdagr and his brothers, Hrkr and the ring, thetwo Agnarrs). But at the same time he does not know the full story in


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some cases, and so has to make up his own conclusions, as with Vggrsunconvincing revenge, and the offstage and quickly forgotten death ofHelgi.2

The biggest lacuna of the saga, however, is simply Hrlfr. He ispresented as the great hero of the North, but as far as we can see, hedoes almost nothing. The chase across the Frisvellir plain was clearlyfamous (see below), but kings of the Danes do not normally gain gloryby running away from the Swedes. The rest of the saga is not about him(except for the tale of his incestuous birth) but about his champions.The Old English poem Widsi does indeed credit him with a major feat:with his uncle Hrogar he killed Ingeld and destroyed the Heao-Bard

army at Heorot, Hrogars great hall. But if the event ever took place,the Heao-Bards were destroyed so completely that no one is now surewho they were, though some have suggested that their name survivesin the southern Baltic area of Bardengau, and the name Hothbrodusatribal name converted to a personal one?recurs uneasily in legendarytradition. However, Hrlfs saga itself knows nothing of this. The kingis almost a roi fainantso much so that two critics have suggestedindependently that the saga may be in effect a satire on heroic pretensions

(Valgerur Brynjlfsdttir 2003 and Kalinke 2003). Certainly, in thesagas presentation of the king, one has to take the wish for the deed.The saga author was, of course, not the only medieval Icelander who hadtrouble arranging, and even understanding, his much older materials, butto these I now turn.

The Legend of Lejre

What were the earlier frsagnir narratives about Hrlfr, mentioned

by Snorri and from which the author ofHrlfs sagamust have drawn?Obviously we cannot tell for sure, but it might be noted before proceedingfurther how similar are the situations of King Hrlfr and King Arthur.Both men were active (if they existed at all) in the early sixth century.There is no contemporary documentation for either. In both cases thelegends became established in the twelfth century, by Latin chroniclers,respectively Saxo (c.1200) and Geoffrey of Monmouth (c.1135). In bothcases, though, there are hints of earlier knowledge in works now hard to

2No one gives a satisfying account of the death of Helgi, prominent in thelegend though he is. Saxo suggests that he committed suicide from shame at hisincest, Skjldunga saga and Ynglinga saga that he died in an unidentified battle,theLejre Chroniclementions his burial but not the manner of his death.


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24 Making History

date, such as the Gododdinpoem, surviving in Middle Welsh but thoughtto have been composed in a different place and dialect (see Koch 1997),or the fragments of the Old Norse poemBjarkaml or Lay of [Bvarr]

Bjarki. Both men attracted stories ascribed to their knights or champions,and both formed connections in legend with particular places, Hleira/Lejre or the still unidentified Camelot. One could well add that in bothcases there is still very deep reluctance by professional historians to takethe legends seriously, but thateven allowing for the ninth-centuryevidence of theHistoria Brittonum ascribed to Nennius, to which onecould nevertheless oppose the uncertain witness of Beowulfon thewhole, the evidence for King Hrlfr is stronger than that for his more

famous contemporary.Once again leaving outBeowulfand Widsi, there are almost a dozen

medieval Scandinavian accounts of Hrlfr other than the saga, which Ienumerate here, in very brief outline, as far as possible in chronologicalorder, and largely following the list compiled by Marijane Osborn andothers (Niles 2007). More extensive selections from them may be foundtranslated in Garmonsway et al. 1968, with original texts and a somewhatdifferent set of selections in Fulk et al. 2008, 294306.

1) Grottasngr (Old Norse poem, date unknown, possibly as old as1000). Mentions Hleirar stli in st. 20; st. 22 reads in part mun Yrsosonr / vi Hlfdana hefna Fra; / s mun hennar heitinn vera / burr ocbrir(see below for comment and translation).

2)Bjarkaml (Old Norse poem, said in the thirteenth century to havebeen old even in 1030, and apparently set at the moment of HrlfrsLast Stand). Only some lines survive in Old Norse, plus a long Latin

paraphrase in Saxo, (6) below. Similar to Hjaltis wake-up call in ch.49 of the saga.

3) Langfegatal (twelfth century). A royal genealogical list, part ofwhich goes:

Froe frkni . . . Ingialdr Starkaar fostri h[ans] s[onr], Halfdan broir hans,Helgo ok Hroar h. ss., Rolfr Kraki Helga s., Hrrekr Hnauggvanbaugi Iniallzs., Froe h. s., Halfdan h. s., Hrrekr Slaungvanbaugi h. s.

Fri the Bold, father of Ingjaldr foster-son of Starkar, Hlfdan his brother;

his sons Helgi and Hrarr, Hrlfr Kraki son of Helgi, Hrrekr HnggvanbaugiIngjaldrs son, his son Fri, his son Hlfdan, his son Hrrekr Slngvanbaugi.

4) The Lejre Chronicle(Latin, late twelfth century): Ro was the sonof Dan. His sons were Helgi and Haldanus. [Note: the version of this inGesta Danoruminverts the genealogy so that Haldan is once again the


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father of Helghe and Ro.] Tells the incestuous birth story, and Rolfsdeath at the hands of Hiarwart and Sculd.

5) Sven Aggesen, Short History of the Kings of Denmark (Latin, c.1188): Skjolds heirs are Frothi and Haldanus, Haldanus kills Frothi, issucceeded in turn by Helghi, Rolf Kraki, killed at Lethra, and RokilSlaghenback.

6) Saxo Grammaticus, Gesta Danorum (Latin, c.1200): Extensiveaccount in Book 2 of Rolvos incestuous birth, his raid on Uppsala, hisdeath at the hands of Sculda and Hiarwarthus, and the revenge taken byhis last surviving retainer Wiggo. Book 7 adds the story of Haldanus.

7) Snorri Sturluson, Ynglinga saga(Icelandic, early thirteenth century),tells of the incestuous birth, briefly mentions the battle on the ice of LakeVner, the expedition to Uppsala, the sowing of gold on Frisvellir, andthe death of Hrlfr at Hleira.

8) Snorri Sturluson, Skldskaparml(Icelandic, early thirteenth cen-tury): Kraki gives the boy Vggr a ring, in return for which he promisesto avenge him. Snorri also gives the story of the Uppsala raid, the Fris-

vellir chase and the ring Svagrss, including use of the verb svnbeyga.9) Annales Ryenses(Latin, c.1290): Rolf killed at Leire by Hiartwarus,

along with Biarki and Hjalti.

10) Bjarkarmur (Faeroese, c.1400): Hlfdans sons are Hrarrand Helgi. The Hrrekr Ring-slinger story is told much as in the saga,but the ring is Svagrss, and Agnarr is the son of Ingjaldr, not Hrarr,and is later killed by Bjarki. Also tells the story of Vggrs vow ofvengeance.

11) Skjldunga saga (date unknown, survives only in Latin epitomeby Arngrmr Jnsson, c.1570): Scioldos grandson is Frodo; Rolfo Krakeis born of incest (not detailed); his uncle Roas is killed by his own firstcousins, Rrecus and Frodo, sons of Ingialldus; Rolfo is named Krakeby Woggerus, who vows to avenge him; his champions are Witserchusand Bodvarus; the latter kills Agnarus, another son of Ingialldus. Rolfohelps Adillus to fight Alo on Lake Waener, but does not get paid, andraids Adillus to get his dues; the stoop like a swine story is told; he iskilled by Hiorvardus and Scullda, avenged by Woggerus, succeeded byRrecus, see above.

In addition to the above, it should be noted that there are a number ofreferences to Hrlfr in the slendingasgur and the fornaldarsgur,


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26 Making History

several of them mentioning Hrlfrs sword Skfnungr, said to have beenlooted from his barrow and taken to Iceland by Mifjarar-Skeggi.

The most obvious fact about the Scandinavian accounts, however, is

that they are bewilderingly contradictory. There seems to be no certaintyabout who people are. Thus,

Hrlfs sagasays at the start that Fri kills Hlfdan. But Sven Aggesenand Saxo say that Haldanus kills Frothi; though Saxo (who seems to havedealt with conflicting accounts by telling both as if of different people)says that another Frothi tried to kill Haldanus.

The Eddic poem Grottasngr refers to the same conflict, but is hard

to make out. In it two giantesses, enslaved byFri, rebel and threatenhim with vengeance. Two lines of stanza 22 are given above (p. 24),and as they stand they mean the son of Yrsa will avenge Fri on theHalf-Danes; he will be known as her son and brother. The reference toincest makes it certain that the son of Yrsa is Hrlfr, but the rest doesnot fit well either with other accounts of the feud or with the poemsown context, in which the giantesses are threatening Fri. It has beensuggested that the second line should read vgs Hlfdanar hefna Fra

(Bugge 1867): Hrlfr will avenge the killing of Hlfdan on Fri, bettersense and better grammar. But if this was once the case the scribes of thepoem did not understand it.

Furthermore:

The saga is clear that Hrarr is the son of Hlfdan, but theLejre Chroniclesays that Haldanus is the son of Ro. Very interestingly, however, theman who translated the chronicle into Old Danish, working with anauthoritative Latin text in front of him, was aware enough of a differentversion to challenge it, writing that Haldan had two sons, en het Roocsumme sigh at han het Haldanoc anner het Helgheone was calledRobut some say he was called Haldanand the other was calledHelgi (Gordon 1962, 165).

There is a well-agreed ancestry for Hrlfr, but:

There is near-total disagreement about Fri. The saga says he isthe brother of Hlfdan, Saxo calls him the father of Haldanus, in the

Langfegatal he appears both four names above and two namesbelow Rolfr (along with two Halfdans and two Hrrekrs), in the LejreChroniclehe is Rolfs grandson, and in the Skjldunga sagaepitome heis Rolfos cousin. Clearly there is a feeling that he should be in the story.But who is he?


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Other figures bob around disquietingly, such as Hrrekr Slaungvanbaugior Ring-Slinger, who must be the same as the sagas Hrkr, and whomay well be the same as his namesake Hrrekr Hnauggvanbaugi, Ring-

Miser; Ingialdr (in the Old English tradition son of Froda and defeatedby Hroulf); Hothbrodus (who kills Ro in Saxo; it is suggested above thatthis is a tribal name converted to a personal one); and Agnarr or Agnerus,who never quite comes into focus, even inHrlfs saga, see above.3

Nevertheless, one has to concede also that there are some areas of solidagreement centring on the life of Hrlfr himself:

The story of his incestuous birth is repeated with little variation in items

(1), (4), (6), (7) and (11) above.The Frisvellir chase also appears, this time with even some verbalconsistency, in (6), (7), (8) and (11).

The character of Vggr as Hrlfrs avenger is also present in (7), (8),(10) and (11).

Hjrvarr also appears as Hrlfrs bane in (4), (6), (9) and (11), Skuldappearing also in all but (9).

It is clear also that at least some of the time these authors are borrowingnot from each other, but from accounts circulating independently; onecould not construct a reliable stemma for the legend as a whole.4Thus,Saxo andHrlfs saga are in substantial agreement over many thingsboth for instance tell the tale of Hjaltis testing and mutilation of hismistress on the morning of the Last Standbut if the author of the sagahad had Saxo available to him, or Skjldunga saga, he would not haveconcluded his version of the vengeance of Vggr so ineptly.

John Niles accordingly, having contemplated the bewildering varietyof stories told about the Skjldung kings of Lejre, asks himself the

3Saxo describes the duel between Agnerus and Biarco, but identifies him asthe son of Ingellus, as do theBjarkarmur. These latter also identify the Agnarrwho recovers the ring with the Agnarr killed by Biarki.

4Though there are some indicators. The saga author may have known SnorrisSkldskaparml, for both have the saying Litlu verr Vggr feginn. If, as sug-

gested by Gubrandur Vigfsson, vggrwas originally a word for small childas well as a name (see Ellis Davidson and Fisher 1979, II 46), then Hrlfr is mak-ing an amusing pun on a proverb parallel to our Little things please little minds.Snorri does not complete the story by telling of Vggrs vengeance, though thesaga author seems to have felt that the story needed completion, see above. Seealso Valgerur Brynjlfsdttir 2003, 14142.


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28 Making History

question, Was there ever a more or less unitary form of the tale? orwhether the search for one is only an exercise in futility (Niles 2007,255). He concludes that the attempt is possible, and offers an archetypalversion of the story (26061), going on with an attempt to relate thisto the results of the archaeological excavations at Lejre5the great hallbuilt c.550, the second hall built c.680, the signs of a great cremation c.63050. What he suggests is that the legend had no real correspondencewith past events, but was made up by people living later in the Lejre area,and attempting to explain memories of the first great hall and the greatcremation; the legend would then be based on a ruin, or the memory ofa ruin.

This is certainly logical, and it fits the evidence of the archaeologyand its dating as theories deduced from Beowulf, for instance, do not.There are perhaps two objections to it. One is that the original legendmust have been a compelling one to circulate so widely and last so long,in which case it is odd that there is no trace or mention of a first version.A poem? A saga? What we have looks arguably more like a scatterof different witnesses to the same events, with different explanations,relationships and even political standpoints creating different stories

which as we know is what happens in the real world, especially if oneis relying on oral accountswith of course a great deal of further andfantastic accretion.

The other objection (to allow Beowulf into the discussion for oneparagraph) is that one of the things which makes Beowulf ratherconvincing is the poets unemphatic, even casual delivery of informationwhich makes a good deal of sense. The poet is not much concernedwith the Scylding kings, apart from Hrogar (or Hrarr), a minor figure

in all the Scandinavian accounts. But he lets slip that Heoroweard (orHjrvarr) is himself a Scylding, the son of an elder brother of Hrogarand Halga of whom Scandinavian tradition knows nothing. He mentionsHreric also (= Hrrekr? = Hrkr?), not as Hrogars enemy but ashis son. The situation in Beowulfthen (I repeat, quite clearly stated butonly peripheral to the poems narrative) is that there are three paternalfirst cousins, each with an evident claim to the throne once Hrogardies, an event expected in the poem before very longenough in itself

to explain Hrlfrs death at Hleira at the hands of Hjrvarr, and perhapsthe elimination of Hrrekr/Hrkr by Hrlfr. It is again odd that this neat

5As known in 2007, but see p. 18 above for further discoveries on the Lejre site,these latter as yet not reported in enough detail to be taken into any interpretation.


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and plausible explanation (much more credible than the demonic half-sister Skuld) has vanished from Scandinavian memory. Its existencecreates something of a dilemma for the original legend theory. Was

it not part of the hypothetical Ur-legend, but invented separately inEngland? In which case one has to wonder why anyone bothered. Ordoes it preserve something which existed in the original legend but waslater eliminated from Scandinavian memory as discreditable to Hrlfr?In which case one must ask why a discreditable version was producedin Scandinavia in the first place. It would be a simpler explanation tosay that we have two different views of the same event, a pro-Hrlfrone which suppressed or distorted memories of his rivals, and a more

neutral one which offered no judgement on the civil war of the Scyldingsgenerally.

Meanwhile, one could argue that the real-life scenario behind thevariant legends is this. In the post-Roman era, a time of major transfersof power within Scandinavia as on its borders, a number of royal orsub-royal dynasties were contending for power, associated with tribalgroups such as the Danes, Swedes, Gauts, Bards, Jutes, Frisians andeven Angles, along no doubt with even smaller groups of which we have

little record. These contentions were remembered in different ways bydifferent groups, and the relationships between them were in any caseforgotten (as for instance with Fri and Hlfdan), as was any exactchronology. Names themselves ceased to be recognised, so that Hlfdan,in Grottasngr, turns into the Half-Danes, while conversely theHeao-Bards turn into Hothbrodus. What were well-remembered weredramatic incidents,6 no doubt embellished and embroidered almost assoon as first told: the battle on the ice of Lake Vner, in which (according

to Skjldunga saga,Skldskaparml and theBjarkarmur) King Hrlfrschampions fought; the enmity between King Hrlfr and King Ails, orat any rate between Danes and Swedes; the death of great kings and thefall of dynasties.

Most of Hrlfs saga of course looks like pure fantasy, with its elf-women, were-bears, miraculous escapes and berserk-quelling champions,while much of what is left looks like the massaging of Danish amourpropre, with repeated humiliation of the Swedes, and utter defeat in the

end transformed into moral victory (as is regularly the case with utter

6And sometimes words or phrases associated with the incidents, like the punor proverb suggested in note 1 above, or the verb svnbeyga, which seems to havebecome a favourite (see Skldskaparml, I59 and Vatnsdla sagach. 33).


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of fading tradition, were certainly strong elements (as well as tellingentertaining stories) in the motivation of many if not most medievalIcelandic authors.

Bibliography

rmann Jakobsson 2003. Queens of Terror, Perilous women inHlfs saga andHrlfs saga kraka. InFornaldarsagornas Struktur och Ideologi, Handlingarfrn ett symposium i Uppsala 31.82.9. 2000. Ed. rmann Jakobsson et al.,17389.

Bugge, Sophus 1867.Norrn fornkvi . . . Smundar Edda hins fra.Byock, Jesse, trans., 1998. The Saga of King Hrolf Kraki.Christensen, Tom 1991. Lejre, Fact and Fable. Trans. Faith Ingwersen. In

Beowulf and Lejre 2007. Ed. John D. Niles, 13101.Christensen, Tom 2005. A New Round of Excavations at Lejre (to

2005). Trans. Faith Ingwersen. InBeowulf and Lejre 2007. Ed. John D. Niles,10926.

Driscoll, M. J. and Silvia Hufnagel 2009. Fornaldarsgur norurlanda: Abibliography of manuscripts, editions, translations and secondary literature.www.staff.hum.ku.dk/mjd/fornaldarsagas

Ellis Davidson, Hilda, ed., and Peter Fisher, trans., 197980. Saxo Grammaticus.The History of the Danes, Books IIX.

Evans, Jonathan 1993. Hrlfs saga kraka. In Medieval Scandinavia: AnEncyclopedia. Ed. Phillip Pulsiano et al., 30405.

Fulk, R. D., Robert E. Bjork and John D. Niles, eds., 2008. Klaebers Beowulf,4th Edition.

Garmonsway, G. N., Jacqueline Simpson and Hilda Ellis Davidson, trans., 1968.Beowulf and its Analogues.

Gordon, E.V., ed., 1962.An Introduction to Old Norse, 2nd ed. revised by A. R.Taylor.

Hrlfs saga kraka ok kappa hans. InFornaldarsgur Norurlanda1954, IIV.

Ed. Guni Jnsson. I 1105.Jones, Gwyn, trans., 1961.Eirik the Red and other Icelandic Sagas.Jones, Gwyn 1968.A History of the Vikings.Kalinke, Marianne 2003. Transgression in Hrlfs saga kraka. In Fornaldar-

sagornas struktur och ideologi: Handlingar frn ett symposium i Uppsala31.82.9. 2000. Ed. rmann Jakobsson et al, 15771.

Koch, John T., ed., 1997. The Gododdin of Aneirin, Text and Context from Dark-Age Britain.

Niles, John D., ed., 2007.Beowulf and Lejre.

Slay, Desmond, ed., 1960.Hrlfs saga kraka. Editiones Arnamagnan B / 1.Snorri Sturluson 1998. Skldskaparml. Ed. Anthony Faulkes.Tolkien, J. R. R. 2009. The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrn. Ed. Christopher

Tolkien.Tolley, Clive 2007. Hrlfs saga kraka and Sami bear rites. Saga-Book

XXXI, 521.


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Tunstall, Peter 2003. The Saga of King Hrolf Kraki and his Champions.www.northvegr.org/lore/oldheathen/034.php

Valgerur Brynjlfsdttir 2003. A Valiant King or a Coward? The Changing

Image of King Hrlfr kraki from the Oldest Sources toHrlfs saga kraka. InFornaldarsagornas struktur och ideologi, Handlingar frn ett symposium iUppsala 31.82.9. 2000. Ed. rmann Jakobsson et al., 14156.


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33Enter the Dragon

ENTER THE DRAGON. LEGENDARY SAGA COURAGEAND THE BIRTH OF THE HERO

RMANN JAKOBSSON

The uses of monsters

at sagir , Reginn, at dreki sj vri eigi meiri en einn lyngormr, en mr

snask vegar hans far miklir You claimed, Reginn, that this dragon wasno bigger than a regular worm, but he seems to me to leave a mighty track(Vlsunga saga, 41).1Before killing Ffnir, Sigurr Ffnisbani is far fromenthusiastic. Presumably he is not supposed to realise at this point that hewill be famous ever after for slaying this dragon, as his nickname attests.2According to Vlsunga saga, he mainly desires revenge for the death ofhis father; it is his foster-father Reginn who keeps urging him to kill thedragon and he continues to postpone it until he has avenged his kinsmen.

Sigurrs reluctance is not explained in the saga. If it had been someoneelse, one might suspect anxiety about confronting the dragon. But as willbe discussed in more detail later, it is stated on more than one occasionin Vlsunga sagathat Sigurr knows no fear. So the most likely option isthat he is simply not very interested in the dragon at this stage; he fightsit because he has promised to, or so the saga has it: Efna munu vr atsem vr hfum ar um heitit, ok ekki fellr oss at r minni We will makegoo

finlay (ed.) - essays on fornaldarsogur

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