Heimskringla III.Pdf
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SNORRI STURLUSON HEIMSKRINGLA VOLUME III The printing of this book is made possible by a gift to the University of Cambridge in memory of Dorothea Coke, Skjæret, 1951 Snorri SturluSon HE iMSKrinGlA V oluME iii MAG nÚS ÓlÁFSSon to MAGnÚS ErlinGSSon translated by AliSon FinlAY and AntHonY FAulKES ViKinG SoCiEtY For NORTHErn rESEArCH uniVErSitY CollEGE lonDon 2015 © VIKING SOCIETY 2015 ISBN: 978-0-903521-93-2 The cover illustration is of a scene from the Battle of Stamford Bridge in the Life of St Edward the Confessor in Cambridge University Library MS Ee.3.59 fol. 32v. Haraldr Sigurðarson is the central figure in a red tunic wielding a large battle-axe. Printed by Short Run Press Limited, Exeter CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ................................................................................ vii Sources ............................................................................................. xi This Translation ............................................................................. xiv BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES ............................................ xvi HEIMSKRINGLA III ............................................................................ 1 Magnúss saga ins góða ..................................................................... 3 Haralds saga Sigurðarsonar ............................................................ 41 Óláfs saga kyrra ............................................................................ 123 Magnúss saga berfœtts .................................................................. 127 Magnússona saga .......................................................................... 145 Magnúss saga blinda ok Haralds gilla .......................................... 170 Haraldssona saga ........................................................................... 186 Hákonar saga herðibreiðs .............................................................. 215 Magnúss saga Erlingssonar ........................................................... 233 INDEX OF NAMES ........................................................................... 263 Introduction King Óláfr inn helgi (the Saint) casts a long shadow over the third and last part of Heimskringla. It has been pointed out that in writing the Óláfs saga helga that is the centrepiece of Heimskringla Snorri was amplifying the version of the same narrative he had written earlier in the Separate Saga of St Óláfr, whereas the process of constructing the sagas of subsequent kings involved cutting down the earlier texts he was using as sources. Thus, ‘if Snorri was indeed the author of the whole of Heimskringla, it . seems likely that it was a matter of importance for him that Óláfs saga helga should be large enough to dominate the other parts of his narrative’ (Ármann Jakobsson 2005, 397). It is in keeping with the planned dominance of the saga of St Óláfr that reference to the saint should continue throughout the sagas of his successors that cover the historical period from Óláfr’s death in 1030 up to 1177. The groundwork was already laid by the inclusion in the Separate Saga of stories of miracles attributed to the saint in the years after his death; these are repeated in their chronological contexts in the sagas of his son Magnús (Magnúss saga ins góða ch. 27) and half-brother Haraldr (Haralds saga Sigurðarsonar chs 14, 55–57), and in the joint reign of the sons of Haraldr gilli (Haraldssona saga chs 24–25). Alongside conventional hagiographical accounts of miraculous cures, the saint’s interventions repeatedly testify to his benevolent protection of his son: he appears to Magnús in a dream before his significant battle against the Wends at Hlýrskógsheiðr—in which Magnús carries his father’s axe, named Hel—and is explicitly said to have ensured his victory. In a second dream Óláfr appears to Magnús to presage his death (ch. 28), a scene clearly recalled by the saint’s later appearance to Haraldr harðráði before his fall at Stamford Bridge in 1066 (Haralds saga Sigurðarsonar ch. 82), where Haraldr’s predicted death in battle, not caused by God, is set against his brother’s ‘holy fall’ (stanza 152). One effect of these interventions is that Haraldr’s character and reign are directly contrasted, not only with those of his predecessor (and, for a short time, joint ruler) Magnús, but also with those of his sainted half-brother. On a secular level, Haraldr is compared more positively with Óláfr in the testimonial of Halldórr Brynjólfsson, who knew them both, and declares that ‘I never came across two men more alike in character’. His assessment, occupying its own chapter near the end of Haralds saga Sigurðarsonar, can be seen as a specimen of the traditional mannjafnaðr ‘comparison of men’, another example of which occurs in a later saga in the exchange between the jointly ruling brothers Sigurðr Jórsalafari and Eysteinn (Magnússona saga ch. 20). It has been noted that Heimskringla (following its main source, Morkinskinna; see below) bases its account of Norwegian history on ‘two viii heimskringla contrastive sets of kings . the “foreign adventurer” type [Haraldr harðráði, Magnús berfœttr, Sigurðr Jórsalafari] and the “builder and lawmaker” type [Magnús góði, Óláfr kyrri, Eysteinn Magnússon]’ (Andersson 2012, 120; see also Andersson 1993, 16–19; Bagge 1991, 139, 156; Lönnroth 1978, 53–80). It is notable in this context that St Óláfr, in the stanza in which he predicts his half-brother’s death in defeat, aligns himself with the stay-at-homes: ‘I had, since at home I lingered, | a holy fall to earth’.1 As has been pointed out with reference to Morkinskinna, the literary technique of comparison of kings was encouraged by the prevalence of joint kingship in this period of Norwegian history: ‘A good deal of [the] narrative deals with periods when there are two kings in Norway at the same time, thus providing an opportunity for comparison’ (Ármann Jakobsson 2005, 396). This phenomenon resulted from the conditions under which a claim to kingship could be made (Bagge 2010, 40–41): In the case of Norway, the rules of succession—or perhaps the lack of such rules—have often been regarded as a serious problem. All male descendants of a king, at least the agnatic descendants, whether they were born in wedlock or not, had an equal right to claim the throne and could in principle be recognised by any local assembly . If two or more kings were recognised at the same time, they had to make an arrangement between them or fight over the throne. If a peaceful arrangement was made, as happened several times in the period 1045–1157, no territorial division took place. The king had no fixed residence in this period, but travelled around the country, largely receiving his incomes in the form of veizla, i.e. provisions for himself and his men in the local region. When there were several kings, they usually travelled in different parts of the country, probably according to some pre-arranged pattern, occasionally meeting for eating, drinking, and discussion. It is clear that this arrangement implied great risks for conflict. No rule forced the pretenders to agree to divide the throne between them; a stronger candidate, or a candidate believing himself to be the stronger, might easily try to fight his rival. Once an agreement was made, plenty of situations might lead to conflicts between the co-rulers, such as the sharing of common incomes, who was to preside over the common meetings, and quarrels between their adherents. The sagas give many examples of such conflicts. Division between the kings meant a division of wealth and power but not necessarily of ambition. Bagge’s remarks are made in the context of the so-called ‘civil wars’, the term conventionally designating the turbulent period from the death of Sigurðr Jórsalafari in 1130, to 1240. But even the ‘period of peace’ of the preceding century begins with the uneasy collaboration of the young king 1 This contrastive theme is found only in the Heimskringla (and Fagrskinna) text of the stanza, since Morkinskinna has a different version of these lines: ‘If you stayed at home you would have had a holy fall to earth’. introduction ix Magnús inn góði with his half-uncle Haraldr, clearly forced on Magnús by the greater age, wealth and charisma of the returned adventurer from Byzantium, and includes the shared rule of Haraldr Sigurðarson’s two sons and, in turn, of the three sons of Magnús berfœttr, Sigurðr, Eysteinn and Óláfr. The prevalence of rival claimants was exacerbated by the appearance of pretenders, self-declared sons of Magnús berfœttr: first Haraldr gilli who successfully legitimises his claim to royal descent by undergoing the ordeal of walking over hot iron bars (Magnússona saga ch. 26), then the less successful Sigurðr slembidjákn (Magnús saga blinda ok Haralds gilla ch. 13). This chaos of competing claims reaches its nadir in Haraldssona saga, where factions fighting in the names of the sons of Haraldr gilli, aged respectively five and three, defeat Sigurðr slembidjákn, who has bolstered his own claim by an alliance, voluntary or not, with the blind and mutilated Magnús inn blindi, whom he has taken out of the monastery in which he had taken refuge after his own reign was ended by enemies who brutally mutilated him ‘in such a way that he could not call himself a king from then on’. Throughout these struggles the puppet child-kings are used as figureheads for the warring factions and carried in person into battle, which leads in the case of the one-year-old Ingi to permanent physical deformity: ‘It is said