It had been the ambition of several Norwegian kings to subject distant Iceland by conquest to their rule as they had done in the case of the Orkneys and the Faroes; and the recent altercation had suggested this anew to both King Hákon and Skúli. But Snorri was able to dissuade them, promising to accomplish this by peaceful means. However, after his return to Iceland he did not bestir himself in the least to keep that promise—whether because he had changed his mind or because he had never meant to do so, having given the promise only to save his country from warfare and destruction, we shall never know. The action is in line with his ambiguous character. Rumors of this secret deal with the king had gone before him, and when Snorri set foot on land he was met with lampoons and distrust. Nevertheless, born diplomat as he was, he overcame all suspicions, regaining the confidence of his compatriots to the extent that he was chosen lawspeaker for the second time, holding that influential post for ten years. And by conducting successful lawsuits and advantageously marrying off three daughters he was soon again considered the most powerful man in Iceland. It was in these years, presumably, that he composed the works which cause posterity to consider him the most versatile and gifted man of letters in medieval Iceland, nay in the whole North—the Prose Edda, Heimskringla, and, possibly, the Egils saga.
Later, circumstances worsened again for Snorri. He fell out with his eldest brother, Sigvat, who had a just cause against Snorri because of the depredations of the latter’s favorite but ungovernable son Órœkja on his properties and thingmen. In revenge, Sigvat fell upon Snorri (1236) and drove him out of house and home at Reykjarholt; on which occasion Snorri showed little physical courage and determination.
It was, possibly, in order to escape his many enemies, or (who knows?) perhaps with a forlorn hope of regaining his possessions through the help of Skúli, that Snorri ventured a second journey to Norway (1237), this time accompanied by Órœkja, even though he might have known that he was under heavy suspicion there for having gone back on his promise to deliver Iceland to the king—sufficient reason for him to avoid King Hákon and associate only with, now, Duke Skúli. Whether Snorri was aware of the dangerous tension which had been building up between the two men we do not know. In the fall of 1238 news was brought to Norway of the bloody Battle of Orlygsstathir in which both Sigvat and his son Sturla were killed. This strongly affected the king, who had hoped to find in Sigvat a more willing tool to bring Iceland under his sway, and also Snorri, who after all mourned his brother. Yet here was his chance to regain his properties and influence. So in the following spring, directly counter to the express order of the king, but with the connivance of Duke Skúli, he sailed back to Iceland. The rumor preceded him that Skúli had conferred on him the title of earl.
Once more Snorri succeeded in re-establishing himself. But he was then struck a hard blow in the death of Hallveig, to whom he appears to have been sincerely attached. All the more we wonder at his cupidity and unwisdom in denying the sons from her earlier marriage their rightful share in their inheritance. That proved to be his undoing: they turned for help to their uncle, the chieftain Gizur Thorvaldsson, Snorri’s own, but estranged, son-in-law. The same summer (1241) a letter came to Gizur from King Hákon, to the effect that he was to bring Snorri to Norway, with or without his consent; or else kill him, because he had committed high treason against him in wilfully disobeying his embargo. With sixty of his followers Gizur surprised Snorri in the night of September 23d, 1241 at Reykjarholt and had him slain. The king claimed Snorri’s properties. Thus his death may be called the prelude to Iceland’s loss of independence, twenty years later, after four hundred years of republican, or at least oligarchic, rule.
For his own contemporaries Snorri no doubt was the powerful chieftain known for his munificence as well as his avarice, the lawspeaker who could throw his weight in one’s favor or against one, a ruthless intriguer whom it was dangerous to have as one’s adversary. But for us he is the author of the Prose Edda, the Heimskringla, and, possibly, the Egils saga—works, that is, which in after times have had a far-reaching and profound influence on the literary and political life, not only of Iceland and Norway, but of all Scandinavian countries.
Habent sua fata libelli—books have their own, often curious fates. In the case of Snorri’s works we do not know when they were written; we are not even absolutely sure that they were written by him.
Least uncertainty obtains with regard to the so-called Prose Edda. Yet only the least authentic vellum of this work, the Uppsala Codex, says in so many words that Snorri had “put it together,” i.e. composed it. But the incomparable style of his Edda, surely one of the most delightful of “text-books,” allows little doubt as to who could have written it. The avowed purpose of the slight volume is to set forth the principles of skaldship, its foundations and rules—for its times a most original undertaking; in fact, one without parallel for a similar stage of literary development. It was not intended to be a treatise on Northern mythology, even though to us it is invaluable precisely in this respect, but rather to give the beginning skald the material for his kennings, the most characteristic feature of skaldic poetry, and also to explain the metrical rules governing that difficult art. Some of Snorri’s information, we see, is drawn from certain lays of the so-called Older or Poetic Edda; but much also from sources otherwise unknown.
The work is in three sections. In the first, called “Gylfaginning,” “The Duping of Gylfi,” we are given a synopsis of the heathen beliefs of the olden times—at Snorri’s time the island had been Christian, at least nominally, for some two centuries. This is done with inimitable charm and verve, even though the myths are presented in the pedantic medieval form of question and answer. King Gylfi asks, and Hár, “the exalted” (i.e. Óthin) and his hypostases Jafnhár, “Even-as-Exalted,” and Thrithi, “the Third,” satisfy his curiosity about creation and the nature and the fates of the gods.
The second part, “Skáldskaparmál,” “The Language of Poetry,” deals with the kenningar6 and their mythologic and legendary background. It, too, is presented in the form of a dialogue, this time between the sea god, Ægir, and Bragi, the god of poetry.
The third section, as its name, “Háttatal,” “Enumeration of Metres,” indicates, has as its matter the exceedingly numerous verse forms at the disposal of the skald. Each is described in technical fashion, then illustrated by a stanza of Snorri’s own encomiastic poem on King Hákon and Duke Skúli—a technical feat, even if dull poetry.
The many sagas of Old Iceland are practically all anonymous. Exactly why, we do not know. Present scholarship inclines to regard most of them as composed by individual authors making more or less use of local tradition. The masterly Egils saga is no exception to this anonymity; but in recent times more and more students are inclined to attribute it to Snorri, and this for a number of stylistic and compositional reasons. It must be admitted, however, that among the many arguments adduced for crediting it to him, the only tangible one is this: through his mother’s ancestry Snorri belonged to the kin of the Mýramen, as the kinsfolk of Egil were called. So it must have been a satisfaction for him when coming into the possession of the ancestral estate of Borg, to acquire the intimate knowledge of surrounding localities exhibited in the saga. There also he could, from old retainers of the family, gather reminiscences of the colorful personality of Egil. Negatively, we know of no skald in the thirteenth century from that particular region, and certainly no one equipped like Snorri with the skill to write a saga like Eigla.
We have no certain indications when Heimskringla, a work of so much larger scope than these earlier works, was composed. Most likely it was the occupation of a lifetime. Also, what more likely than that the chieftainly seats of Oddi and of Reykjarholt were well stocked with all the manuscripts about history available and obtainable. For Snorri was by no means the first Icelander to write history. Since the heroic age of the mass migration to Iceland—oversimplified as being due only to the tyranny of King Harald Fair-hair7—took
place about the same time as the introduction of writing, traditions of that time no doubt were in annalistic form, fixed on parchment by clerics, and of course in Latin. Thus Sæmund the Learned (1056-1133) is reported to have written about the lives of the kings of Norway from Hálfdan the Black down to Magnús the Good. But as Snorri stresses in his Foreword, it was the priest Ari Thorgilsson the Learned (1067-1148) who first wrote history in the vernacular.8
This remarkable man seems with one stroke to have lifted Icelandic historiography to a high level. As he himself tells us, he bases his history of Iceland on the reliable oral testimony of veracious old persons of tenacious memory, anchoring its chronology on the established dates of Old English annals and world history. His Libellus Islendorum [Little Book about the Icelanders) gives a compact, matter of fact history of Iceland from its first settlement (ca. 874) down to his own times (ca. 1130). His style is admirably clear and quite unpretentious, his account sober, eschewing all imaginative embellishments. No higher praise can be given him than is bestowed on him by his great successor, Snorri, in his Foreword. Ari’s more comprehensive work called Islendingabók (Book about the Icelanders), now lost, contained genealogies of the kings of Norway as well as accounts of their lives; and Snorri, for much of his narrative about the earlier kings down to the death of Magnús Barelegs, seems to rely on his predecessor. Another work Ari may have written, or at least have had a hand in compiling, is the famous Landnámabók (Book of Settlements), unique in European historiography in specifying in detail what families first settled in Iceland, and where.
Another Icelander to whom Snorri owes many of the details of the history of Magnús the Blind and Harald Gilli and his sons is Eirík Oddsson. His work, called Hryggjarstykki9 has come down to us only in what we find in Heimskringla and the Morkinskinna Codex. We gather that it was essentially a history of his own times as witnessed by himself or told him by contemporaries.
Of Karl Jónsson, the author of the excellent Sverris saga, we know only that he twice, and for long years, was abbot of the cloister of Thingeyrar in Iceland and that he wrote it under the supervision of the adventurer king himself. The hypothesis may be entertained that Snorri read this work when in Norway. If so, he may have learned from Karl how to compose the speeches which form so notable a part in both works. And though Snorri does not say so, he may have concluded his own work, rather abruptly, with the accession of Magnús Erlingsson because he knew of the existence of Karl’s work, which starts about that time, and considered it unnecessary to continue.
About the turn of the century two Icelandic monks, Odd Snorrason and Gunnlaug Leifsson, likewise of Thingeyrar monastery, composed works in Latin, but now known only in fragmentary Old Norse translation, about the two missionary kings; however, they were more in the style of hagio-graphic and thoroughly uncritical compilations than historic writing. Still, they probably furnished the basis of more connected lives of the two Óláfs.
Of greater historic interest are the Latin works of two Norwegian (?) clerics of about the same time. One, Theodricus monachus, in his Historia de antiquitate regum Norwagiensium, gives us a brief, soberly written account of the lives of the Norwegian kings from Harald Fairhair to the death of Sigurth Jerusalemfarer. It is noteworthy that Theodricus is the first to make use of Skaldic verse and insofar is the forerunner of Snorri and others in recognizing its importance as contemporaneous testimony. The other work, Historia Norwegiœ, has been called the oldest continuous history of Norway. But its chief interest for us lies in the copious topographical information it furnishes about Scandinavia and the various tributary lands of Norway, and also Iceland. Unfortunately it breaks off in the middle of Saint Óláf’s reign.
Finally there is a poorly written compilatory work in Icelandic from the last years of the twelfth century, properly called Ágrip af Noregs konunga sǫgum (Epitome of the Sagas of the Norwegian Kings), which, with considerable gaps, deals with all Norwegian history from Harald Fairhair to the sons of Harald Gilli.
Then there are the many works of hagiography, rather than historiography, dealing with the lives of northern saints; among them, fragments of an independent life of Saint Óláf in Icelandic, dating from the latter part of the twelfth century; also, a later Legendary Óláfs saga, apparently based on the former. Snorri leaned heavily on this saga for his Life of Saint Óláf.
All these works were in existence by 1220 when the two large compilations, the one called Morkinskinna (Rotten Vellum), the other Fagrskinna (Beautiful Vellum), came into being. The first is a work of high caliber, stylistically, but in typically medieval fashion uncritically decked out with a wealth of anecdotes relating to the various kings, some to be sure brilliantly told. The unknown author makes no pretence of historic reliability, following the happy principle of quod bene dictum est, meum est—what is well told I make my own! The likewise unknown author of Fagrskinna, on the other hand, writes in an awkward style, but more scrupulously foregoes bringing in irrelevant material. What gives his compilation great importance is that, to an even larger extent than Morkinskinna, it cites skaldic stanzas, many not found elsewhere. It is from these two collections that Snorri has lifted bodily some of the most telling pages of the sagas of Harald Sigurth-arson and the kings succeeding him—always improving and clarifying their accounts.
I have dwelt on the fact that several of the histories mentioned contain skaldic verses. The modern historian, with documents of all sorts at his disposal, would not dream of depending—of all things—on poems for his source. The case is different for the historian of a preliterary age. Just as Thucydides, quite correctly for his times, relies on Homer as his witness for legendary history, Snorri cites as his authority Thjóthólf’s genealogic poem Ynglingatal (Enumeration of the Yngling Kings) and Eyvind’s corresponding Háleygjatal (Enumeration of the Hálogaland Chieftains) for the origins in dim antiquity of the Scandinavian nations. Together with scanty living tradition they were the only source available. For later times, he draws importantly on the contemporary encomiastic poems of the skalds, both for the information they contain and for a check on tradition. As he explains in his Foreword:
“At the court of King Harald [Fairhair] 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 … As to the poems, I consider they will yield the best information if they are correctly composed and judiciously interpreted.”10
As to the latter statement, Snorri, himself the greatest expert on skaldic poetry, has for the most part been confirmed in his interpretations by modern Icelandic and continental scholars. Yet skaldic poetry, both intrinsically, and often by faulty tradition, is difficult—perhaps the most difficult body of poetry in existence. The translator of it must ever be on his guard to render these verses faithfully, without adding a tittle of spurious matter and thus falsifying their testimony. At the same time it is in the nature of things that, like any translation of Thucydides, his version needs must read more smoothly than the gnarled original.
It has been the arduous task of historians and philologists to determine which of the sources available at the time were used by Snorri, and to what extent. It cannot be the purpose here to give in detail the often conflicting results of their labors. Nor has it been the aim in the present translation of his work to point out the hundreds of errors of fact or chronology which he is, or may be, guilty of, or to cite variant and differing accounts in English and continental annals or histories. Like every historian, Snorri bu
ilds largely with materials brought together by his predecessors. In a number of cases he frankly mentions his sources. But it is generally conceded that, while making abundant use of them, he stands high above all his predecessors in deliberately omitting, or at least rationalizing, what he considers less credible. As he remarks concerning King Harald Hardruler, “Yet many more of his famous deeds have not been set down, both because of our lack of information and because we do not wish to put down in writing stories not sufficiently witnessed … it seems better that [some accounts] be added later, rather than that they needed to be omitted.”11 To be sure, this critical attitude would seem to us moderns to be sorely wanting when he includes the multitude of stories of witchcraft; and still more so when we are regaled with the numerous mawkish, and often revolting, miracles of Saint Óláf, chapters which we would regard as serious blemishes in his work. But here we must not fail to remember that Snorri, like other great men, after all was a child of his own times—in his case, the thirteenth century, a period more given to superstitions of all kinds than any other, before or after. Moreover, the possibility must not be ruled out that Snorri, keen intellectual as he was, may not have put more credence in some Christian miracles than in heathen magic and that he copied these accounts of miracles verbatim from older collections to placate the Church: their sanctimonious, lachrymose style is easily distinguished from Snorri’s own cool and matter-of-fact manner. Another matter, born storyteller as he was, Snorri evidently was loath to forego the pleasure of including such entertaining fornaldar saga12 style yarns of derring-do as the one of the robbing of the temple of Jómali,13—nor would we, admittedly, wish this omitted—even though a much briefer account would have sufficed to account for Thórir the Hound’s later actions. The same is true of many other telling episodes which often do not seem indispensable, yet add zest and life to his narrative. On the other hand, still others, seemingly irrelevant, finally reveal themselves as indispensable links in the course of events. Take the case of Thórarin Nefjólfsson’s ugly feet, where broad bantering leads to a wager, and that to Thórarin’s being intrusted with the responsible task of disposing of dangerous King Hrœrek.14 The very long episode of Ásbjorn Selsbani15—by the way, one of the pinnacles of Snorri’s narrative art—at first blush appears wholly unrelated to the main course of Norwegian history, but then is seen to lead to the irreconcilable, and ultimately fateful, conflict between King Óláf and Erling Skjálgsson.
Heimskringla Page 2
