Heimskringla - The Norse King Sagas

Snorre Sturlason

Description

This early work of poetry is both expensive and hard to find in its first edition. Written in the early thirteenth century, it contains a collection of sagas about Norwegian kings. This is a fascinating work and is thoroughly recommended for anyone interested in Norse history.
Contents Include: Dedication to King Haakon VII - Editor's Introduction - Translator's Preface - Snorre's Preface - The Ynglinga Saga, Semi-Mythical - Historic Sagas - Halfdan the Black - Harald the Fairhaired - Haakon the Good - Eric's Sons - Earl Haakon - King Olaf Tryguesson - King Olaf the Saint - Magnus the Good - Harald the Stern - Olaf the Quiet - Magnus Barefoot - The Sons of Magnus - Magnus the Blind and Harald Gille - The Sons of Harald - Haakon the Broad-Shouldered - Magnus Erlingson - List of Old Sagas - List of Kings of Sweden, Denmark, Norway - Index of Names and Places.

Sujets

• Folk Tales
• Fairy Tales
• Legends
• Mythology
• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Read Books Ltd.
• Date de parution: 24 mars 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781446548059
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

HEIMSKRINGLA:
THE NORSE KING SAGAS

SNORRE STURLASON
LONDON: J. M. DENT SONS LTD.
NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON CO. INC.

To
KING HAAKON VII
IN WHOSE VEINS, AFTER A THOUSAND YEARS, STILL RUNS THE BLOOD OF HAAKON THE GOOD THE FIRST CHRISTIAN KING OF NORWAY THIS ENGLISH EDITION OF THE SAGAS OF THE NORSE KINGS IS DUTIFULLY INSCRIBED
CONTENTS
D EDICATION TO K ING H AAKON VII
E DITOR S I NTRODUCTION
T RANSLATOR S P REFACE
S NORRE S P REFACE
I. T HE Y NGLINGA S AGA . S EMI -M YTHICAL
H ISTORIC S AGAS
II. H ALFDAN THE B LACK
III. H ARALD THE F AIRHAIRED
IV. H AAKON THE G OOD
V. E RIC S S ONS
VI. E ARL H AAKON
VII. King Olaf Trygvesson . See Vol. 717, Everyman s Library
VIII. King Olaf the Saint . See Vol. 717, Everyman s Library
IX. M AGNUS THE G OOD
X. H ARALD THE S TERN
XI. O LAF THE Q UIET
XII. M AGNUS B AREFOOT
XIII. T HE S ONS OF M AGNUS
XIV. M AGNUS THE B LIND AND H ARALD G ILLE
XV. T HE S ONS OF H ARALD
XVI. H AAKON THE B ROAD-SHOULDERED
XVII. M AGNUS E RLINGSON
A PPENDIX I. L IST OF O LD S AGAS
A PPENDIX II. L IST OF K INGS OF S WEDEN , D ENMARK , N ORWAY
I NDEX OF N AMES AND P LACES
INTRODUCTION
It is to an Icelandic bard and chieftain, Snorre Sturlason, that we owe the Sagas of the Norse Kings . He had been keenly interested in the legendary songs and historic narratives which the scalds had sung or told in the common hall of the great house at Odde which was his childhood s home. Early in the thirteenth century he began to collate and compile the scaldic poems and traditional tales; and at intervals from 1220 onward he committed each saga to writing in the Old Norse tongue, then generally understood throughout the North.
The complete collection has come to be known as Heimskringla , the Icelandic word with which the series of tales begins. We have first of all the Ynglinga Saga or narrative of the Yngling family from the legendary Odin to Halfdan the Black, a period which closes semi-historically in the ninth century. Then follow sixteen sagas covering a historic period of upwards of three centuries-from 839 to 1177.
The present volume contains all the sagas except two, which have already appeared in Everyman s Library, under the title Heimskringla-The Olaf Sagas (No. 717). In the Introduction to that volume all necessary information regarding the Heimskringla and Snorre Sturlason himself was given. Here we need only add such additional observations as may enable the reader to appreciate the unique contribution which these sagas make to the scanty historical and literary lore of Europe at that period.
The Heimskringla opens in mythical and pagan days, and it shows us the Norse coming into contact with Christianity in Scotland and Ireland. Thereafter, mainly through Anglo-Saxon influence, Norway was Christianised. In due time the Norse kings and leaders took part in the Crusades, and their feats of valour received ample recognition and reward. And although the roving traits in the national character were only partially subdued, we observe the evolving of gentler manners, kindlier customs, and a Christian legislation, all the more interesting to us because it was an evolution in great measure due to the influence of our ancestors on their originally pagan invaders.
T HE V IKING A GE
Saga Time and Viking Age are frequently employed as if they were synonymous terms. But they are not really so. The number of the sagas cannot be exactly stated. A saga purports to be the story of a man s life and exploits. Some of the narratives are so lengthy and contain such comprehensive references to other men, that minor sagas can be compiled from them. Many of the sagas are more or less mythical and their dates conjectural; but there are hundreds of sagas, the most important being specified in the appendix. Reckoning only those sagas to which a more a less definite date can be assigned, it may be accepted that Saga Time extended from the sixth to the fourteenth century, the Orkneyinga Saga coming down to a date later than almost any other. Saga Time, then, covered about eight hundred years.
The Norse, one might say, only came into history when the vikings began their ravaging raids in the eighth century, and the Viking Age proper occupied not more than three hundred years. That period may be divided into two; the one embracing the era of the plundering expeditions on the coastal kingdoms of Europe up till the middle of the ninth century, and the other covering the time when, as actual invaders, the Norse occupied large sections of territory and set up kingdoms of their own.
W HENCE CAME THE V IKINGS?
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for the year 787 (789) says:
Here King Beortric took Offa s daughter Eadberg in marriage. In his days (785-802) came first three Northmen s ships: and the count rode down to them and wanted to take them to the king s farm: for he did not know who they were: but they killed him there. These were the first Danish men s ships which came to England.
That was at Dorchester in Wessex. But the MS. D., drawing from a northern tradition or an older MS., says: 3 scypu Nordmanna af Haeredaland.
Prof. A. Taranger, LL. D., and Norwegian authorities hold that the Haeredaland of the A. S. C . corresponds to the Hordeland of Western Norway, extending from Bommelfjord in the south almost to Sognefjord in the north, including the whole of the famous Hardanger, Vossevangen and Bergen districts. The reference to Danish men in the Chronicle was evidently only a supposition, corrected in later MSS. to Haeredaland. In the Irish Chronicle Cogadh Gaedhel re Gallaib (The war of the Irish with the Northmen), which deals with the period extending from 795 to 1002, the invaders are said to come from Hirotha or Irruaith; and the Irish contemporary writers speak of Norway as Lochlann; and the lann being a Scandinavian word, it is probably younger than Hirotha. Loch corresponds to the Norse fjord, sj ; and Lochlann thus would mean sj land , coastal district. Danish records make no mention of raids on England about that time, whilst Norse and Irish Chronicles do specifically refer to such ravaging expeditions as coming from the fjords and coastal districts of Western Norway. There seems no reasonable doubt, then, that the pillagers of Dorchester, Lindisfarne, and elsewhere, from over the North Sea, were Norsemen from some fjord within sixty miles of Bergen.
What then were the vikings? The term viking has nothing whatever to do with a king. The word is vik-ing not vi-king ; and vik means a creek. The Norwegian fjords are usually well furnished with creeks and bays, and the place-names ending in vik are innumerable. In Saga Time, Viken- the Creek, the Great Creek-was the bay on which Oslo, as it then was and now again is called, was situated. In Scotland, Wick is just the Norse word Vik; Lerwick is the muddy creek; Berwick the bare creek. And the vikings were creek-dwellers, men who housed their galleys in these creeks or bays or fjords. They were men who, if driven by necessity of any kind, did not hesitate to set out, in single ships or in bands of two or three, to supply themselves at some risk, and sometimes at considerable cost, with things they envied or required. But eventually the vikings arrived at a moral code that made it wrong for them to plunder Norse coasts or merchant ships, unless, of course, there was some private quarrel or family feud demanding settlement. And in their plundering raids they ceased murdering women, although they might carry them off as captives and keep them for their own purposes or dispose of them in ways prescribed.
The early vikings were not necessarily important personages, but in course of time the leader of a small plundering expedition might gain name and fame because of his seamanship and successes. Such a leader soon had plenty of volunteers for bigger expeditions and further forays, until usually a foreign viking raid was well equipped with ships and with men inured to exposure and hardships of every kind. And although these vikings might be termed brutal robbers and murderers by those who suffered from their violence, in their own country they were looked upon as engaged in an honourable profession, just as pirates, privateers, letters-of-marque men, slavers and other rovers in later days in our own land too often lost but little respect from those at home who knew quite well how nefarious were their deeds on the high seas or on the islands and coasts of the main.
V IKINGS AND S EA -K INGS
In the course of time a condition of affairs arose in Norway that led to a great increase in the size of the viking expeditions, under the leadership of nobles and princes. In the early Saga Time and at the beginning of the Viking Age, Norway was merely a conglomeration of larger or smaller, more or less well defined, districts, each under its own independent chieftain or kinglet, The stronger chiefs in time managed to bring the weaker or smaller kingdoms into subjection, until at the beginning of the ninth century one of the ancient Yngling race, in the person of Halfdan the Black, had become the most powerful of all the chiefs in the land, and the first really deserving the title of king. And, in the reign of his son Harald the Fairhaired, all the petty kings of Norway had been slain or become tributary to him.
Before the time of Harald the chieftains assumed the title of jarl (earl) or even the name of king; and it is difficult to discover any distinction between the two terms. But the viking raids gradually led to a distinction. Any jarl who, with his subjects or followers, sailed from Norway to other lands to subdue a district was reckoned a king by his men. And when Harald had subdued all Norway the kinglets and their sons who went a-roving became known as Sea-kings, to distinguish them from those who stayed at home to administer the realms. Vikings, as we have seen, were the ordinary Norsemen who had their homes on the coastal regio