1 SAGA-BOOK VOL. XXX VIKING SOCIETY FOR NORTHERN RESEARCH UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON 2006 VIKING SOCIETY FOR NORTHERN RESEARCH OFFICERS 2005 2006 President Alison Finlay, B.A., B.Phil., D.Phil., Birkbeck, University of London. Hon. Secretaries MICHAEL BARNES, M.A., University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT. Judith Jesch, B.A., Ph.D., University of Nottingham. Hon. Treasurer Kirsten Williams, B.A., University College London. Hon. Assistant Secretary David Ashurst, B.A., Ph.D., University of Durham. Saga-Book Editors ALISON FINLAY, B.A., B.Phil., D.Phil., Birkbeck, University of London. Anthony Faulkes, B.Litt., M.A., dr phil., University of Birmingham. John McKinnell, M.A., University of Durham. Carl Phelpstead, B.A., D.Phil., Cardiff University. Andrew Wawn, B.A., Ph.D., University of Leeds. ISSN: 0305-9219 Printed by Short Run Press Limited, Exeter CONTENTS AT SMYRJA KONUNG TIL VELDIS: ROYAL LEGITIMATION IN SNORRI STURLUSON’S MAGNÚS SAGA ERLINGSSONAR. Kevin J. Wanner ......... 5 GOLDEN AGES AND FISHING GROUNDS: THE EMERGENT PAST IN THE ÍSLENDINGASÖGUR. Slavica Rankovic´ ............................................... 39 GRETTISFÆRSLA: THE HANDING ON OF GRETTIR. Kate Heslop ................ 65 STEFÁN KARLSSON ...................................................................................... 95 JOAN TURVILLE-PETRE .............................................................................. 98 REVIEWS ATLANTIC CONNECTIONS AND ADAPTATIONS. ECONOMIES, ENVIRONMENTS AND SUBSISTENCE IN LANDS BORDERING THE NORTH ATLANTIC. Edited by Rupert A. Housley and Geraint Coles. (Guðrún Sveinbjarnardóttir) ... 101 LAND, SEA AND HOME. Edited by John Hines, Alan Lane and Mark Redknap. (Christopher D. Morris) ............................................... 103 NORWEGIAN RUNES AND RUNIC INSCRIPTIONS. By Terje Spurkland. Translated by Betsy van der Hoek. (Clive Tolley) .................... 106 ‘HE DROWNED IN HOLMR’S SEA — HIS CARGO-SHIP DRIFTED TO THE SEA-BOTTOM, ONLY THREE CAME OUT ALIVE.’ RECORDS AND REPRESENTATIONS OF BALTIC TRAFFIC IN THE VIKING AGE AND THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES IN EARLY NORDIC SOURCES. By Kristel Zilmer. (John Hines) ......................... 109 VIKING EMPIRES. By Angelo Forte, Richard Oram and Frederik Pedersen. (Patricia Pires Boulhosa) ............................................. 110 SKANDINAVISCH-SCHOTTISCHE SPRACHBEZIEHUNGEN IM MITTELALTER: DER ALTNORDISCHE LEHNEINFLUß. By Susanne Kries. (Arne Kruse) ..... 112 PAPERS ON SCANDINAVIAN AND GERMANIC CULTURE, PUBLISHED IN HON- OUR OF MICHAEL BARNES ON HIS SIXTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY 28 JUNE 2005. Edited by H. F. Nielsen. (Paul Bibire) .............................. 114 ICELANDERS AND THE KINGS OF NORWAY. MEDIEVAL SAGAS AND LEGAL TEXTS. By Patricia Pires Boulhosa. (Sverrir Jakobsson) ............. 116 LITERACY IN MEDIEVAL AND EARLY MODERN SCANDINAVIA. Edited by Pernille Hermann. (Matthew Townend) ..................................... 118 THE DEVELOPMENT OF FLATEYJARBÓK. ICELAND AND THE NORWEGIAN DY- NASTIC CRISIS OF 1389. By Elizabeth Ashman Rowe. (Ármann Jakobsson) ......................................................................................... 120 SKÁLDIÐ Í SKRIFTINNI. SNORRI STURLUSON OG EGILS SAGA. By Torfi H. Tulinius. (Margaret Clunies Ross) .............................................. 122 ANGLO-SAXON ENGLAND IN ICELANDIC MEDIEVAL TEXTS. By Magnús Fjalldal. (Richard Dance) .............................................................. 124 FORNALDARSAGORNAS STRUKTUR OCH IDEOLOGI. HANDLINGAR FRÅN ETT SYMPOSIUM I UPPSALA 31.8–2.9 2001. Edited by Ármann Jakobsson, Annette Lassen and Agnete Ney. (Elizabeth Ashman Rowe) ............................................................................. 128 KOMMENTAR ZU DEN LIEDERN DER EDDA 4: HELDENLIEDER. By Klaus Von See, Beatrice La Farge, Wolfgang Gerhold, Debora Dusse, Eve Picard and Katja Schulz. (Carolyne Larrington) ..................... 131 GESCHICHTE DER ALTNORDISCHEN LITERATUR. By Heiko Uecke. (Marvin Taylor) .......................................................................... 133 CHAUCER AND THE NORSE AND CELTIC WORLDS. By Rory McTurk. (William Sayers) ........................................................................... 139 ANDERS SØRENSEN VEDELS FILOLOGISKE ARBEJDER. By Marita Akhøj Nielsen. (Michael Barnes) ............................................................. 142 LJÓÐMÆLI 3: RÍMUR. By HALLGRÍMUR PÉTURSSON. Edited by Margrét Eggertsdóttir, Kristján Eiríksson and Svanhildur Óskars- dóttir; BAROKKMEISTARINN. LIST OG LÆRDÓMUR Í VERKUM HALLGRÍMS PÉTURSSONAR. By Margrét Eggertsdóttir. (Silvia Cosimini) ... 144 Royal Legitimation in Magnúss saga Erlingssonar 5 AT SMYRJA KONUNG TIL VELDIS: ROYAL LEGITIMATION IN SNORRI STURLUSON’S MAGNÚSS SAGA ERLINGSSONAR BY KEVIN J. WANNER EW EVENTS OF THE NORWEGIAN MIDDLE AGES have Fgenerated as much discussion among historians as the mid-twelfth century coronation of Magnús Erlingsson (Steen 1949–51, 2; for a biblio- graphy of studies on the coronation and related topics up to the mid-1970s, see Helle 1974, 68–69). This event was revolutionary in several respects: it was the first coronation of any Scandinavian monarch; it was the first time a Norwegian was made king whose father was not king before him (or for whom this claim was not at least made); Norway’s churchmen had never before demanded, let alone received, such substantial concessions from the crown; and, finally, it helped to establish primogeniture and legitimate birth as privileged criteria in matters of royal succession in Norway. And yet, for all its importance, this event is poorly chronicled by contemporary sources. We are not even certain of the year in which it took place. (Fagrskinna places the coronation in September 1163, Heimskringla in the summer of 1164. For arguments favouring the former date, see Hertzberg 1905, 30–39; Nygaard Brekke 1960–61; Sandaaker 1998, 190, and the latter, Storm 1873, 200–03; Taranger 1928, 197–98; Ólafía Einarsdóttir 1982, 146–47.) Much of the discussion, then, about the coronation and its circumstances has revolved around attempts to determine just what happened, and when. In this effort, historians have had recourse to sources both documentary, in the form of letters and law- codes, and narrative. As is typical, the former type has been preferred as evidence to the latter, and in this case distrust of literary testimony has been compounded by the fact that none of the extant narrative sources is thought to have been written by a Norwegian.1 For stories of Magnús’s reign and coronation we depend on three Icelandic sources: a chronicle 1 One Norwegian historian who might have covered this period, Theodoricus monachus, explicitly declines to do so in ch. 34 of his Historia de antiquitate regum Norwagiensium because of its distasteful civil unrest (Storm 1880, 67). It is possible that the two other so-called Norwegian synoptics, the Latin Historia Norwegiae (1178–1220?) and the vernacular Ágrip af Nóregskonunga sögum (c.1190) extended to this period, but the endings of both are lost. In addition to the foreign sources listed, there are several Icelandic bishops’ 6 Saga-Book of Norway’s kings, Fagrskinna (c.1220–25), a more extensive collection of kings’ sagas, Heimskringla (c.1225–35), and the monk Karl Jónsson’s saga (c.1185– early 1200s) of Sverrir Sigurðarson, the usurper who killed Magnús and in 1184 assumed his position; and one Danish, Saxo Grammaticus’s Gesta Danorum (c.1210–20). Given the need for historical reconstruction that has driven scholarship on this event, it is not surprising that more energy has been put into assessing the accuracy of the narrative accounts than into discerning the authorial interests that informed their selection and ordering of material. Of those who have addressed this question, most have focused on Mag- núss saga Erlingssonar in Heimskringla, mainly owing to its attribution to an author about whom relatively much is known, the Icelandic chief- tain, lawspeaker and poet Snorri Sturluson (1178/79–1241). Even in this case, however, there has been little agreement as to its author’s perspective on Magnús’s coronation. Indeed, the two most recent con- siderations of this question arrive at contradictory results. Ólafía Einarsdóttir, comparing the descriptions of the coronation in Heims- kringla and Fagrskinna, concludes that disse repræsenterer to indbyrdes fjendtlige grene af det norske kongehus i det 12. årh. Snorri holder på Sigurd Jórsalafaris slægt, medens det træder tydeligt frem i beretningen i Fagrskinna, at den er talerør for . Sverres efterkommere på den norske trone (1982, 134). these represent two mutually hostile branches of the Norwegian royal house in the twelfth century. Snorri backs Sigurðr Jórsalafari’s family [to whom Magnús Erlingsson had a maternal connection], while it comes forth clearly in the account in Fagrskinna, that it is a mouthpiece for . Sverrir’s successors on the Norwegian throne. Conversely, Odd Sandaaker finds that Fagrskinna and Heimskringla, along with other texts produced by or for Sverrir’s dynasty, express an identical perspective on the event: sagas and annals, and English chronicles that provide limited information on Magnús’s coronation (Ólafía Einarsdóttir 1982, 136–46). The nationality of the author of Fagrskinna has been the subject of some controversy. Although it has been established that this text was produced in the court milieu of Hákon Hákonarson, and possibly commissioned by this king (Indrebø 1917, 273–77), most have assumed that its author was Icelandic.