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'Heimskringla' is the best known of the old Norse kings' sagas. It was written in Old Norse in Iceland by the poet and historian Snorri Sturluson (1179 – 1242) ca. 1230.
Heimskringla is a collection of tales about the Norwegian kings, beginning with the legendary Swedish dynasty of the House of Ynglings, followed by accounts of historical Norwegian rulers from Harald Fairhair of the 9th century up to the death of the pretender Eystein Meyla in 1177. The sources of his work are disputed, but would have included earlier written kings' sagas, and oral traditions. Snorri had himself visited Norway and Sweden. For events of the mid 12th century, Snorri explicitly names the now lost saga ''Hryggjarstykki'' as his source. The composition of the sagas is Snorri's.

Contents

Manuscript history

Translations

Scope

Contents

Notes

Bibliography

External links

Manuscript history

The earliest parchment copy of the work was named ''Kringla''. It voyaged from Iceland to Bergen, Norway (perhaps with Sturla Tordson in 1263) and was moved to Copenhagen, the University Library. At that time it had lost the first page, but the second (the current beginning of the Ynglinga Saga) starts ''Kringla heimsins'', "the Earth's circle" of the Laing translation. ^[1]
In the 17th century copies were made by Icelanders Jon Eggertson and Asgeir Jonsson. Eggertson's copy went to the Royal Library at Stockholm. In 1728 the Copenhagen manuscript was destroyed by fire.

Translations

By the mid-16th century, the Old Norse language was unintelligible to Norwegian or Danish readers. At that time, several translations of extracts were made in Norway, into the Danish language, which was the literary language of Norway at the time. The first complete translation was made around 1600 by Peder Claussøn Friis, and printed in 1633. This was based on a manuscript known as ''Jofraskinna''.
Subsequently the Stockholm manuscript was translated into Swedish and Latin by Johan Peringskiöld (by order of Charles XI) and published in 1697 at Stockholm under the title ''Heimskringla'', which is the first known use of the name. This edition also included the first printing of the text in Old Norse. A new Danish translation with the text in Old Norse and a Latin translation came out in 1777-1783 (by order of Frederick VI as crown prince). An English translation by Samuel Laing was finally published in 1844, with a second edition in 1889. Other English translations followed.
In the 19th century, as Norway was achieving independence after centuries of union with Denmark and Sweden, the stories of the independent Norwegian medieval kingdom won great popularity in Norway. Heimskringla, although written by an Icelander, became an important national symbol for Norway during the period of romantic nationalism. In 1900, the Norwegian parliament, the Storting, subsidized the publication of new translations of Heimskringla into both Norwegian written forms, landsmål and riksmål, "in order that the work may achieve wide distribution at a low price".^[2]

Scope

The Heimskringla consists of several chapters, each one individually called a saga. The first of these tells the mythological prehistory of the Norwegian royal dynasty, tracing Odin, described here as a mortal man, and his followers from the East, from Asaland and Asgard, its chief city, to their settlement in Scandinavia. The subsequent sagas are (with few exceptions) devoted to individual rulers, starting with Halfdan the Black, and ending with Magnus Erlingsson. The saga narrates the contests of the kings, the establishment of the kingdom of Norway, Viking expeditions to various European countries, straying as far afield as Palestine in the saga of King Sigurd the Crusader. The stories are told with a life and freshness, giving a picture of human life in all its reality. The Saga of Olaf Haraldsson is the main part. His 15 year long reign takes up about one third of the entire work.
The saga of Harold Hardrada narrates his expedition to the East, his brilliant exploits in Constantinople, Syria, and Sicily, his scaldic accomplishments, and his battles in England against Harold Godwinson, the son of Earl Godwin, where he fell at Stamford Bridge in 1066 only a few days before Harold himself fell at the battle of Hastings. This saga is a splendid epic in prose, and is also of particular relevance to the history of England. The first part of the Heimskringla is rooted in Norse mythology; as it advances, fable and fact all curiously intermingle, and it terminates in factual history.
The value of Heimskringla as a historical source has been estimated in different ways during recent times. The historians of the mid 19th century put great trust in the factual truth of Snorri's narrative, as well as other old Norse sagas. In the early 20th century, this trust was largely abandoned with the advent of ''saga criticism'', pioneered by Curt and Lauritz Weibull. These historians pointed out that Snorri's work had been written several centuries after most of the events it describes. In Norway, the historian Edvard Bull famously proclaimed that "we must abandon all illusions that Snorri's magnificent work bears any deeper resemblance to the actual events" of the time it describes. Norwegian historians have, however, continued to use Heimskringla as a historical source. Although it is no more common to believe in the detailed accuracy of the historical narrative, the saga is seen by many as a valuable source of knowledge about the society and politics of medieval Norway.^[3] The later parts of the saga are also deemed more credible, as the distance in time between the events described and the composition of the saga was shorter, also because of Snorri's quotation of his older source, ''Hryggjarstykki''.

Contents

The Heimskringla contains the following sagas (see also List of Norwegian monarchs):
# Ynglinga saga
# Saga of Halfdan Svarte (the Black)
# Saga of Harald Hårfagre (Hårfagre: "finehair") (died ca. 931)
# Saga of Håkon the Good (died 961)
# Saga of King Harald Grafeld (died 969)
# Saga of King Olaf Tryggvason (died 1000)
# Saga of Olaf Haraldson (died 1030), excerpt from conversion of Dale-Gudbrand
# Saga of Magnus the Good (died 1047)
# Saga of Harald Hardråde (died 1066)
# Saga of Olaf Kyrre (died 1093)
# Saga of Magnus Barefoot (died 1103)
# Saga of Sigurd the Crusader (died 1130) and his brothers
# Saga of Magnus the Blind (dethroned 1135) and of Harald Gille (died 1136)
# Saga of Sigurd (died 1155), Eystein (died 1157) and Inge (died 1161), the sons of Harald
# Saga of Håkon Herdebreid (died 1162)
# Saga of Magnus Erlingson (died 1184)

Notes

1. For etymology, kringla, "disk, circle, orb", is listed in ''Zoëga's A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic'' at northvegr.org. Julius Pokorny, ''Indogermanisches Etymologisches Woerterbuch'', often online at indoeuropean.nl, derives the word from the Indo-European root,
★ ger- (3), "to turn, wind" (search under kringla), but the major English etymological dictionaries do not agree. Similarly heimr, "a place of abode, a region or world", is given in Zoëga's along with kringla heimsins (genitive case), "the globe." Heimskringla is simply another construction of the expression. The etymology of heimr is given under
★ tkei- in the American Heritage Dictionary online.
2. ''"forat verket ved en lav pris kan faa almindelig udbredelse".'' Snorre Sturlason, ''Kongesagaer'' (Kristiania, 1900)
3. e.g. Sverre Bagge, ''Society and Politics in Snorri Sturlusons Heimskringla'' (Berkeley, 1991).

Bibliography

★ . A reprint of the 1932 Cambridge edition by W. Heffer.

External links

★ Heimskringla in Old Norse from "Kulturformidlingen norrøne tekster og kvad" Norway.

★ Berkeley page on Snorri Sturluson's text