Extracts from Scandinavian Literature
Posts in The Copybook tagged ‘Extracts from Scandinavian Literature’
In The Copybook
Posts in The Copybook tagged ‘Extracts from Scandinavian Literature’
In The Copybook
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Zealous convert Olaf Tryggvason went from England to Norway to spread the Gospel, but it seemed the Lord did not like Olaf’s way of doing it.
When Olaf Trygvason returned from England to Norway in 995, he seized the crown of Earl Hakon and declared himself King with the intention of converting all Norway to Christianity. His method was to ask nicely and then slaughter anyone who refused; happily, in Rogaland a higher power than Olaf was at work.
Vige was the inseparable companion of swashbuckling Viking warlord Olaf Tryggvason, who picked him up in Ireland.
During the reign of Ethelred the Unready (r. 978-1016) the coasts of the British Isles were plagued by Viking warlords, none of whom was more trouble than Norwegian prince Olaf Tryggvason. In 988 he became a Christian and married Gyda, an Anglo-Irish heiress, but he did not settle down. Olaf and his Viking band continued to sail around the coasts, taking whatever they needed or wanted.
Magnus, Earl of Orkney, disappointed King Magnus of Norway by refusing to get involved in somebody else’s war.
In 1098, Magnus III ‘Barelegs’, King of Norway, swept across the Scottish islands, reminding their governors that these territories belonged to the crown of Norway. Three brothers of Orkney, the earls Erlend, Magnus and Hakon, were obliged to accompany him as his fleet sailed west and then south down to Wales, where King Magnus barged into a fight between peoples who owed him no loyalty at all.
Snorro Sturluson records some of the miracles attributed to Olaf II, King of Norway, after Englishman Bishop Grimkell declared him a saint.
King Olaf II Haraldsson (?995-1030) ruled Norway from 1015 to 1028. A year after Olaf died in the Battle of Stiklestad on July 29th, 1030, Grimkell, English-born Bishop of Nidaros (Trondheim), glorified him as a saint. Here, Snorro Sturluson records some of the miracles that were reported at Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim, St Olaf’s shrine, where building began in 1070.
Magnus had just reasserted Norway’s authority over The Isles and Man, when he stumbled into a party of Normans harassing the King of Gwynedd.
In 1098, Magnus III ‘Barelegs’, King of Norway, boldly reasserted Norway’s authority over the Isles and Man, a realm of islands around Scotland’s coastline which the Vikings had dominated for over two centuries. Pleased with his progress, Magnus sailed on south to Anglesey, where he stumbled upon a party of Normans celebrating victory over Gruffudd ap Cynan, King of Gwynedd.
Barely a generation after Harald Hardrada narrowly missed out on taking the English crown, his grandson Magnus re-asserted Norway’s authority over The Isles and Man.
Vikings increasingly dominated the northern coasts of the British Isles after King Harald Fairhair united Norway’s petty kingdoms in 872, at the Battle of Hafrsfjord. After Godred Crovan, lord of The Isles and Man, died in 1095 his successor Ingimundr was assassinated, and King Magnus III ‘Barelegs’, who had chosen him, was not pleased. In 1098, Magnus set out from Trondheim with a large fleet.
Among the oldest surviving fragments of Norse poetry are some lines of rugged common sense which any age would do well to heed.
What follows is a selection of proverbs from The Guest’s Wisdom, which Frederick York Powell traced to western Norway in the eighth century. He saw in their spirit something ‘essentially British’: a people steady and sturdy, fast in friendship and fair-minded, but a little grim, neither putting on airs, nor shirking the responsibilities of civilisation.