Heimskringla, or the Chronicle of the Kings of Norway

Snorri Sturluson

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pubOne.info thank you for your continued support and wish to present you this new edition. TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: The "Heimskringla" of Snorri Sturlason is a collection of sagas concerning the various rulers of Norway, from about A. D. 850 to the year A. D. 1177.

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• Publié par: Pub One Info
• Date de parution: 27 septembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9782819927938
• Langue: English

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HEIMSKRINGLA
OR
THE CHRONICLE OF THE KINGS OF NORWAY
By Snorri Sturlason
(c.1179-1241)
Originally written in Old Norse, app. 1225 A. D. ,by the poet and historian Snorri Sturlason.
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: The “Heimskringla” of SnorriSturlason is a collection of sagas concerning the various rulers ofNorway, from about A. D. 850 to the year A. D. 1177.
The Sagas covered in this work are thefollowing:
1. Halfdan the Black Saga
2. Harald Harfager's Saga
3. Hakon the Good's Saga
4. Saga of King Harald Grafeld and of Earl Hakon Sonof Sigurd
5. King Olaf Trygvason's Saga
6. Saga of Olaf Haraldson (St. Olaf)
7. Saga of Magnus the Good
8. Saga of Harald Hardrade
9. Saga of Olaf Kyrre
10. Magnus Barefoot's Saga
11. Saga of Sigurd the Crusader and His BrothersEystein and Olaf
12. Saga of Magnus the Blind and of Harald Gille
13. Saga of Sigurd, Inge, and Eystein, the Sons ofHarald
14. Saga of Hakon Herdebreid (“Hakon theBroad-Shouldered”)
15. Magnus Erlingson's Saga
While scholars and historians continue to debate thehistorical accuracy of Sturlason's work, the “Heimskringla” isstill considered an important original source for information onthe Viking Age, a period which Sturlason covers almost in itsentirety.
PREFACE OF SNORRE STURLASON.
In this book I have had old stories written down, asI have heard them told by intelligent people, concerning chiefs whohave have held dominion in the northern countries, and who spokethe Danish tongue; and also concerning some of their familybranches, according to what has been told me. Some of this is foundin ancient family registers, in which the pedigrees of kings andother personages of high birth are reckoned up, and part is writtendown after old songs and ballads which our forefathers had fortheir amusement. Now, although we cannot just say what truth theremay be in these, yet we have the certainty that old and wise menheld them to be true.
Thjodolf of Hvin was the skald of Harald Harfager,and he composed a poem for King Rognvald the Mountain-high, whichis called “Ynglingatal. ” This Rognvald was a son of OlafGeirstadalf, the brother of King Halfdan the Black. In this poemthirty of his forefathers are reckoned up, and the death andburial-place of each are given. He begins with Fjolner, a son ofYngvefrey, whom the Swedes, long after his time, worshipped andsacrificed to, and from whom the race or family of the Ynglingstake their name.
Eyvind Skaldaspiller also reckoned up the ancestorsof Earl Hakon the Great in a poem called “Haleygjatal”, composedabout Hakon; and therein he mentions Saeming, a son of Yngvefrey,and he likewise tells of the death and funeral rites of each. Thelives and times of the Yngling race were written from Thjodolf'srelation enlarged afterwards by the accounts of intelligentpeople.
As to funeral rites, the earliest age is called theAge of Burning; because all the dead were consumed by fire, andover their ashes were raised standing stones. But after Frey wasburied under a cairn at Upsala, many chiefs raised cairns, ascommonly as stones, to the memory of their relatives.
The Age of Cairns began properly in Denmark afterDan Milkillate had raised for himself a burial cairn, and orderedthat he should be buried in it on his death, with his royalornaments and armour, his horse and saddle-furniture, and othervaluable goods; and many of his descendants followed his example.But the burning of the dead continued, long after that time, to bethe custom of the Swedes and Northmen. Iceland was occupied in thetime that Harald Harfager was the King of Norway. There were skaldsin Harald's court whose poems the people know by heart even at thepresent day, together with all the songs about the kings who haveruled in Norway since his time; and we rest the foundations of ourstory principally upon the songs which were sung in the presence ofthe chiefs themselves or of their sons, and take all to be truethat is found in such poems about their feats and battles: foralthough it be the fashion with skalds to praise most those inwhose presence they are standing, yet no one would dare to releteto a chief what he, and all those who heard it, knew to be a falseand imaginary, not a true account of his deeds; because that wouldbe mockery, not praise.
OF THE PRIEST ARE FRODE The priest Are Frode (thelearned), a son of Thorgils the son of Geller, was the first man inthis country who wrote down in the Norse language narratives ofevents both old and new. In the beginning of his book he wroteprincipally about the first settlements in Iceland, the laws andgovernment, and next of the lagmen, and how long each hadadministered the law; and he reckoned the years at first, until thetime when Christianity was introduced into Iceland, and afterwardsreckoned from that to his own times. To this he added many othersubjects, such as the lives and times of kings of Norway andDenmark, and also of England; beside accounts of great events whichhave taken place in this country itself. His narratives areconsidered by many men of knowledge to be the most remarkable ofall; because he was a man of good understanding, and so old thathis birth was as far back as the year after Harald Sigurdson'sfall. He wrote, as he himself says, the lives and times of thekings of Norway from the report of Od Kolson, a grandson of Hal ofSida. Od again took his information from Thorgeir Afradskol, whowas an intelligent man, and so old that when Earl Hakon the Greatwas killed he was dwelling at Nidarnes— the same place at whichKing Olaf Trygvason afterwards laid the foundation of the merchanttown of Nidaros (i. e. , Throndhjem) which is now there. The priestAre came, when seven years old, to Haukadal to Hal Thorarinson, andwas there fourteen years. Hal was a man of great knowledge and ofexcellent memory; and he could even remember being baptized, whenhe was three years old, by the priest Thanghrand, the year beforeChristianity was established by law in Iceland. Are was twelveyears of age when Bishop Isleif died, and at his death eighty yearshad elapsed since the fall of Olaf Trygvason. Hal died nine yearslater than Bishop Isleif, and had attained nearly the age ofninety-four years. Hal had traded between the two countries, andhad enjoyed intercourse with King Olaf the Saint, by which he hadgained greatly in reputation, and he had become well acquaintedwith the kingdom of Norway. He had fixed his residence in Haukadalwhen he was thirty years of age, and he had dwelt there sixty-fouryears, as Are tells us. Teit, a son of Bishop Isleif, was fosteredin the house of Hal at Haukadal, and afterwards dwelt therehimself. He taught Are the priest, and gave him information aboutmany circumstances which Are afterwards wrote down. Are also gotmany a piece of information from Thurid, a daughter of the godeSnorre. She was wise and intelligent, and remembered her fatherSnorre, who was nearly thirty-five years of age when Christianitywas introduced into Iceland, and died a year after King Olaf theSaint's fall. So it is not wonderful that Are the priest had goodinformation about ancient events both here in Iceland, and abroad,being a man anxious for information, intelligent and of excellentmemory, and having besides learned much from old intelligentpersons. But the songs seem to me most reliable if they are sungcorrectly, and judiciously interpreted.
HALFDAN THE BLACK SAGA.
PRELIMINARY REMARKS. Of this saga there are otherversions found in “Fagrskinna” and in “Flateyjarbok”. The“Flateyjarbok” version is to a great extent a copy of Snorre. Thestory about Halfdan's dream is found both in “Fagrskinna” and in“Flateyjarbok”. The probability is that both Snorre and the authorof “Fagrskinna” must have transcribed the same original text. —Ed.
1. HALFDAN FIGHTS WITH GANDALF AND SIGTRYG.
Halfdan was a year old when his father was killed,and his mother Asa set off immediately with him westwards to Agder,and set herself there in the kingdom which her father Harald hadpossessed. Halfdan grew up there, and soon became stout and strong;and, by reason of his black hair, was called Halfdan the Black.When he was eighteen years old he took his kingdom in Agder, andwent immediately to Vestfold, where he divided that kingdom, asbefore related, with his brother Olaf. The same autumn he went withan army to Vingulmark against King Gandalf. They had many battles,and sometimes one, sometimes the other gained the victory; but atlast they agreed that Halfdan should have half of Vingulmark, ashis father Gudrod had had it before. Then King Halfdan proceeded toRaumarike, and subdued it. King Sigtryg, son of King Eystein, whothen had his residence in Hedemark, and who had subdued Raumarikebefore, having heard of this, came out with his army against KingHalfdan, and there was great battle, in which King Halfdan wasvictorious; and just as King Sigtryg and his troops were turningabout to fly, an arrow struck him under the left arm, and he felldead. Halfdan then laid the whole of Raumarike under his power.King Eystein's second son, King Sigtryg's brother, was also calledEystein, and was then king in Hedemark. As soon as Halfdan hadreturned to Vestfold, King Eystein went out with his army toRaumarike, and laid the whole country in subjection to him.
2. BATTLE BETWEEN HALFDAN AND EYSTEIN.
When King Halfdan heard of these disturbances inRaumarike, he again gathered his army together; and went outagainst King Eystein. A battle took place between them, and Halfdangained the victory, and Eystein fled up to Hedemark, pursued byHalfdan. Another battle took place, in which Halfdan was againvictorious; and Eystein fled northwards, up into the Dales to theherse Gudbrand. There he was strengthened with new people, and inwinter he went towards Hedemark, and met Halfdan the Black upon alarge island which lies in the Mjosen lake. There a great battlewas fought, and many people on both sides were slain, but Halfdanwon the victory. There fell Guthorm, the son of the her