The extensive saga literature of Iceland contains few “speeches,” though it abounds in dramatic dialogue. Admirable examples of both are found in the Færinga saga, from which Snorri, a good judge of such matters, has lifted bodily several chapters containing in their taut narrative the superb short speech of Sigurth Thorlaksson as well as the prevaricating answers of Thránd. But the “set speech” as a feature of historic writing was introduced by Abbot Karl in his Sverris saga, emulating Livy, who in his turn imitated Thucydides. Snorri had probably become acquainted with Karl’s work while in Norway. What Thucydides says about the many speeches he introduces—“I have made the persons say what it seemed to me most opportune for them to say in view of each situation; at the same time I have adhered as closely as possible to the general sense of what was actually said”16—might have been claimed, with the same slight justice, by Snorri who, wisely, makes only sparing use of long set speeches but, unlike Thucydides, integrates them into the action. Thus, in a famous passage, we see Thorgný, the powerful leader of the farmers, sitting broad and self-possessed at the Uppsala Assembly, facing the king of Sweden. Both Bjorn, the emissary of King Óláf of Norway, and Rognvald, earl of Gautland, have pleaded the cause of peace between the two countries, to be sealed by a royal intermarriage, but have been talked down by the loud-mouthed king of Sweden, and there is much tumult and shouting. Then Thorgný arises to speak, the crowd surges forward, hushed, to hear him. When he has finished, a tumult of applause breaks out; and the king, cowed, promises he will agree to all he is asked to do.
Again, the modern reader finds monotony in the narrative of Thucydides, unrelieved as it is by the innumerable picturesque touches with which Snorri enlivens his pages. Where, in the older historian, will you find such trenchant characterizations of great leaders as—to choose one among many—that of the grizzly, old, wry-necked warrior, Erling Skakki, with his old-fashioned garb and gaunt appearance, which Snorri gives us?17 Or such a startlingly candid appraisal and comparison as Halldór makes of King Saint Óláf and his half-brother, Harald Hardruler, both utterly different outwardly, but much alike in temperament, nevertheless?18 Is it a wonder that Heimskringla still is favored reading in Scandinavia among high and low, young and old? Thucydides makes it clear that he intends his work to be “useful.”19 Snorri no doubt intended that too, but he also intended that it might serve til skemmtanar, for entertainment.
Still further, compared with Thucydides’ frequently turgid and obscure style, Snorri’s prose is simplicity itself, even where it rises to heights of passionate eloquence or expresses high dramatic tension. But it must be admitted that occasionally his paragraphs are disfigured by drab, careless sentences; that there are altogether too many which begin with the childlike “then … then”; worse, that sometimes sentences, or even whole paragraphs, are absentmindedly repeated and, in places, contain contradictory statements—all shortcomings of which saga literature is rarely, if ever, guilty. Concerning these obvious blemishes (which the translator is often tempted to remove) the surmise may be entertained that they are due to the author’s not having bad the time or opportunity to set matters straight, what with the huge pile of vellum involved. Perhaps portions of the work dictated from notes had not been gone over by him for a last filing.
Readers of Heimskringla have been troubled by the author’s lack of any recognizable philosophy or central view concerning the pageant of history he lets pass before our eyes. There certainly is no enthusiasm shown about the missionary activities of the two Óláfs, and not much enthusiasm for Christian ideals, apart from some obbligato passages in the life of Saint Óláf. Is it that Snorri at heart was a fatalist? Before the decisive battle of Stiklar-stathir the saint to be has the vindictively-minded skald Thormóth intone the heathen Old Bjarkamál, and thanks him for it. He trusts that the better cause will win, but “fate will decide the outcome.” On the other hand the old heroic ideals of loyalty to king and defiance of death prevail in his evaluation of the fallen—“fair fame will fade never, I ween, for him who wins it,” as the thoroughly heathen Eddie “Hávamál” has it.
Intimately connected with this religious indifferentism—after all rare in the Middle Ages—is Snorri’s cool impartiality. Earl Hákon the Powerful’s great qualities are acknowledged, Sigurth Slembidjákn’s stoicism under torture is admired, notwithstanding conduct which in our eyes would brand them as criminals on a grand scale. The opponents of King Saint Óláf have their day in court as well as the hero and his followers. We are given to understand how ill will accumulates against him, how his harsh justice alienates more and more of his former friends. Snorri does not moralize, he is “objective,” and is content to let facts speak for themselves; whereas the compiler of Morkinskinna, on whom he leans heavily, often cannot refrain from expressing his indignation or approval.
As was remarked above, we do not know when Snorri’s works were written, nor are we absolutely sure that they were written by him. To be sure, the Sturlunga saga20 tells us that in the winter of 1230 to 1231 “Sturla [Sig-vatsson, Snorri’s nephew] was for a long time in Reykjarholt and concentrated on having saga books copied from the books which Snorri had put together [composed].” But how can we be certain that this refers to Heimskringla?
Of the main manuscripts (or copies of lost manuscripts) giving us the text of Heimskringla (Kringla, Jǫfraskinna, Codex Frisianus), not one mentions Snorri as the author. The best of them, Kringla, was written about twenty years after Snorri’s death. It was brought to Norway some time in the Middle Ages, and later was transferred to the library of the University of Copenhagen. Already then it had lost the first page containing the Foreword. Toward the end of the seventeenth century two excellent copies of it were made—fortunately; in 1728 occurred the great conflagration of Copenhagen which destroyed also the greater part of the University Library. Codex Frisianus was written about 1300 in Norway, by an Icelander, and contains all of the histories excepting the one dealing with Saint Óláf. It was found in 1550 in Bergen, and was brought to Denmark before 1600 when it was acquired by the book collector Otto Friis, who then sold it to the famous bibliophile, Árni Magnússon, in whose huge collection, now belonging to the University of Copenhagen, it still reposes. The third manuscript, called Jǫfraskinna (Kings’ Vellum) because in it were the pictures of two Norwegian kings, was written about 1320 by a Norwegian who copied an Icelandic original. It contains all of Heimskringla, together with the Sverris saga and the Hákonar saga Hákonarsonar, and also landed in the University Library where it was burned, but not before a good copy had been made of it. There is, finally, the codex called Eirspennill (Vellum with Copper Clasps), written about 1300 by an Icelander and now in Árni Magnússon’s collection. In it are found the sagas of the Norwegian kings, but only from the accession of Magnús the Good to the death of Hákon Hákonsson.
The first, abridged, translation, by the Norwegian lawman, Matthis Størssøn, about 1561, shows no knowledge of Snorri’s being the author. Yet Laurents Hanssøn, a royal steward who in the years 1548 to 1551 translated the central portion of Heimskringla, twice states outright, in the heading and at the end of the Foreword, that the work is by Snorri. And the Norwegian divine, Peder Claussøn Friis, who in 1599 translated all of Heimskringla, likewise mentions Snorri twice. A recent study of Hanssøn’s and Claussøn’s versions seems to show that both used a manuscript now lost.
A copy of Claussøn’s translation got into the hands of the learned Danish antiquarian, Ole Worm, who at once recognized the importance of the work and published it in 1633 under the title of Snorre Sturleson’s Chronicle of Norwegian Kings. The book soon won a large circle of readers, especially in Norway. A second edition came out in 1757.
The first edition of the original text, with a translation into Swedish, based on the Kringla manuscript, was prepared by the royal Swedish antiquarian Johan Peringskjöld. It was he who gave the work the title Heims-kringla, after the two first words of the Ynglinga saga, Kringla heimsins (The Earth�
�s Round). The title has been adopted generally. A more appropriate name would be The Lives of the Kings of Norway as, indeed, it is frequently called in other Old Icelandic manuscripts.
It was subsequently translated into Danish by N.F.S. Grundtvig (1818-1821), into Dano-Norwegian by Jacob Aal (1838-1839) and P. A. Munch (1859-1871), into Swedish by H. O. Hildebrand (1869-1871)—to mention only translations by outstanding authors. By these translations Heims-kringla became a “folk-book” such as few nations possess. Certainly, no other work, the Bible excepted, has exerted such broad and pervasive influence on Scandinavian life, literature, the arts. In Norway especially it has been a source of inspiration and strength in times of national stress as well as in those of prosperity; particularly since Gustav Storm’s exemplary translation (1899) in one volume made the work, richly illustrated with drawings by the best Norwegian artists, available to all at a popular price.
The text followed in this translation of Heimskringla is that of the manuscript “Kringla” as edited by Bjarni Athalbjarnarson, with the variants of the other manuscripts, in three volumes (Reykjavik: hiò Islenzka Fornritafélag, 1941, 1945, 1951). It differs from previous translations into English, and from all others, for that matter, in endeavoring to adhere closely both to the form and the content of the copious skaldic stanzas. I have laid down my views on how best to render skaldic verse in the Introduction to The Skalds (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1945), and also in Scandinavian Studies, XVIII (1945), 233-240. Readers interested in the nature of skaldic art, its verse forms, kennings, rimes, and alliterations will find a brief orientation in the former publication.
Reviewers are urged to take note of what I consider the proper diction to be employed in the rendering of Old Norse poetry (discussed in Scandinavian Studies, V (1920), 197-201), and of what can be said concerning the proper rendering of Scandinavian personal and geographic names (ibid., XXVI (1954), 25-29). As to the latter, I have in general used the forms likely to be most familiar to English-speaking readers. However, a little reflection will show that consistency on this score is unattainable.
I have of course followed Snorri’s very capricious division into chapters. The headings to these are mine. Naturally it is difficult to do justice in these to the contents of divisions so greatly varying in length.
As to my Introduction and, to a large extent, the footnotes, I disclaim any independent value. The specialist will without difficulty discern in how far both are based on the conclusions of previous scholarship. The scope of the present translation has, of course, precluded going into the—legionary—difficulties of the interpretation of the skaldic verse. My own interpretation has, I hope, profited from the best scholarship in this field.
The gracious permission from Gyldendal Norsk Forlag of Oslo to reproduce the illustrations by Norwegian artists is hereby gratefully acknowledged; likewise the permission extended by Hiò Islenzka Fornritafélag to use the sketch of maps of Nitharós, Ósló, and Bjǫrgvin from their edition of Heimskringla.
Snorri’s foreword
In this book I have had written down old accounts about the chieftains who had dominion in the North and were speakers of the Danish tongue,1 basing myself on the information given me by well-informed men; also, on some of their genealogies according to what I have learned about them, some of which information is found in the pedigrees which kings or other persons of exalted lineage have about their kin; and still other matter follows ancient lays or legends people have entertained themselves with. And although we do not know for sure whether these accounts are true, yet we do know that old and learned men consider them to be so.
The learned Thjóthólf of Hvinir2 was a skald at the court of King Harald Fairhair. He composed a lay about King Rognvald the Highly Honored which is called Ynglingatal (Enumeration of the YnglingKings). Rognvald was the son of Óláf Geirstathaálf, the brother of Hálfdan the Black. In this lay are mentioned thirty of his forebears, together with an account of how each of them died and where they are buried. Fjolnir is the name of the son of Yngvifrey to whom the Swedes made sacrifice for a long time afterwards. That race is called the Ynglings after him. Eyvind Skáldaspillir3 also enumerated the ancestors of Earl Hákon the Mighty in the lay which is called Háleygjatal (Enumeration of the Hálogaland Chieftains),4 which he composed about Hákon. There, Sæming is named as the son of Yngvifrey. And in it also we are told about the death of each of them and where his burial mound is. First we have written the lives of the Ynglings according to Thjóthólf’s account, and this we amplified with the information given us by learned men.
The first age is called the Age of Cremation. In that age it was the custom to burn all the dead and to raise memorial stones after them; but after Frey was put to rest in a burial mound at Uppsalir [Uppsala], many chieftains used to erect burial mounds as often as memorial stones to commemorate departed relatives. However, after Dan the Proud, the Danish king, had a burial mound made for himself and decreed that he was to be carried into it when dead, in all his royal vestments and armor, together with his horse, fully saddled, and much treasure besides, and when many of his kinsmen did likewise, then began the Age of Sepulchral Mounds. However, the Age of Cremation persisted for a long time among Swedes and Norwegians.
Now when Harald Fairhair was king of Norway, Iceland was settled. At the court of King Harald there were skalds, and men still remember their poems and the poems about all the kings who have since his time ruled in Norway; and we gathered most of our information from what we are told in those poems which were recited before the chieftains themselves or their sons. We regard all that to be true which is found in those poems about their expeditions and battles. It is [to be sure] the habit of poets to give highest praise to those princes in whose presence they are; but no one would have dared to tell them to their faces about deeds which all who listened, as well as the prince himself, knew were only falsehoods and fabrications. That would have been mockery, still not praise.
Priest Ari the Learned, the son of Thorgils, the son of Gellir, was the first man in this country to write in the Norse tongue about lore both ancient and recent. In the beginning of his book he wrote chiefly about the settlement and legislation of Iceland, then also about the lawspeakers, how long each one was in office; and he employed this reckoning, first for the time before Christianity was introduced in Iceland, then for the period down to his own days. He included also much other matter, both concerning the lives of the kings of Norway and Denmark, as well as of England, and also the notable events which had occurred here in his own country. And what he says appears to me most noteworthy. He was exceedingly well informed, and so long lived that his birth occurred one year after the fall of King Harald Sigurtharson [1067].5 As he himself tells us, he wrote the lives of the kings of Norway, following the narrative of Odd Kolsson. [Kol was] the son of Hall of Sítha. Odd himself had heard it from Thorgeir Afráthskoll, a well-informed man whose life extended back to the time when he dwelled in Nitharness and Earl Hákon the Powerful was slain. In this same locality Óláf Tryggvason founded the market town which is there now [995].6
Ari the Priest when seven years old came to Hall Thórarinsson in Hauka Dale and remained there for fourteen years. Hall was a man of extensive information and possessed an excellent memory. He remembered Thangbrand the Priest baptizing him when he was three years old. That was one year before Christianity was adopted by law in Iceland [1000]. Ari was twelve years old when Bishop Isleif died. Hall travelled much and had commercial dealings with Holy King Óláf, and profited greatly thereby. For this reason Hall was well informed about his reign.
Now when Bishop Isleif expired [1080], nearly eighty years had elapsed since King Óláf Tryggvason’s fall. Hall died nine years after Bishop Isleif’s demise. He reached the age of ninety-four years. When thirty years old he established himself in Hauka Dale and lived there for sixty-four years—all this according to Ari. Teit, Bishop Isleif’s son, was fostered by Hall in Hauka Dale and lived there afterw
ards. He was the teacher of Ari the Priest and gave him much information, which Ari wrote down afterwards. Ari also had much information from Thuríth, the daughter of Snorri the Gothi,7 who was a wise woman. She remembered Snorri, her father, who was nearly thirty-five years old when Christianity was introduced to Iceland and died one year after the fall of Holy King Óláf. Therefore it is not strange that Ari was well informed about events that had happened in the olden times both here [in Iceland] and in foreign parts, because he had learned from old and well-informed men, and himself was both eager to learn and endowed with an excellent memory.
As to the poems, I consider they will yield the best information if they are correctly composed and judiciously interpreted.8
The Saga of the Ynglings
Chapter 1. Of the Three Continents
The earth’s round, on which mankind lives, is much indented. Great seas cut into the land from the ocean. We know that a sea goes from the Norva Sound [The Strait of Gibraltar] all the way to Jórsalaland [“Jerusalem Land,” Palestine]. From this sea a long arm extends to the northeast which is called the Black Sea. It separates the three parts of the world. The part to the eastward is called Asia; but that which lies to the west of it is called by some Europe, by others Eneá.1 North of the Black Sea lies Svíthjóth the Great or the Cold.2
Heimskringla Page 3