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118-587: The Orkneyinga saga ( Old Norse : [ˈorknˌœyjeŋɡɑ ˈsɑɣɑ] ; also called the History of the Earls of Orkney and Jarls' Saga ) is a narrative of the history of the Orkney and Shetland islands and their relationship with other local polities, particularly Norway and Scotland . The saga has "no parallel in the social and literary record of Scotland" and is "the only medieval chronicle to have Orkney as

236-696: A dialect continuum , with no clear geographical boundary between them. Old East Norse traits were found in eastern Norway , although Old Norwegian is classified as Old West Norse, and Old West Norse traits were found in western Sweden . In what is present-day Denmark and Sweden, most speakers spoke Old East Norse. Though Old Gutnish is sometimes included in the Old East Norse dialect due to geographical associations, it developed its own unique features and shared in changes to both other branches. The 12th-century Icelandic Gray Goose Laws state that Swedes , Norwegians , Icelanders , and Danes spoke

354-548: A King of Scots, apparently named Karl Hundason . The identity of Karl Hundason, unknown to Scots and Irish sources, has long been a matter of dispute. His existence rests solely on the Orkneyinga saga , and more particularly on those elements of Þórfinnsdrápa which are preserved within it. Robertson (1862) proposed that Hundason should be identified with Duncan I . William Forbes Skene suggested that Karl (or Kali) Hundason should be identified with "Malcolm MacKenneth",

472-783: A Viking raid in Anglesey because of his religious convictions, and instead stayed on board the ship during the Battle of Menai Straits , singing psalms. His brother Erling died while campaigning with King Magnus, either at that same battle or in Ulster . Magnus was obliged to take refuge in Scotland , but returned to Orkney in 1105 and disputed the succession with his cousin Haakon Paulsson . Having failed to reach an agreement, he sought help from King Eystein I of Norway , who granted him

590-727: A change known as Holtzmann's law . An epenthetic vowel became popular by 1200 in Old Danish, 1250 in Old Swedish and Old Norwegian, and 1300 in Old Icelandic. An unstressed vowel was used which varied by dialect. Old Norwegian exhibited all three: /u/ was used in West Norwegian south of Bergen , as in aftur , aftor (older aptr ); North of Bergen, /i/ appeared in aftir , after ; and East Norwegian used /a/ , after , aftær . Old Norse

708-417: A female raven or a male crow. All neuter words have identical nominative and accusative forms, and all feminine words have identical nominative and accusative plurals. The gender of some words' plurals does not agree with that of their singulars, such as lim and mund . Some words, such as hungr , have multiple genders, evidenced by their determiners being declined in different genders within

826-412: A front vowel to be split into a semivowel-vowel sequence before a back vowel in the following syllable. While West Norse only broke /e/ , East Norse also broke /i/ . The change was blocked by a /w/ , /l/ , or /ʀ/ preceding the potentially-broken vowel. Some /ja/ or /jɔ/ and /jaː/ or /jɔː/ result from breaking of /e/ and /eː/ respectively. When a noun, pronoun, adjective, or verb has

944-409: A given sentence. Nouns, adjectives, and pronouns were declined in four grammatical cases – nominative , accusative , genitive , and dative  – in singular and plural numbers. Adjectives and pronouns were additionally declined in three grammatical genders. Some pronouns (first and second person) could have dual number in addition to singular and plural. The genitive

1062-492: A largely illiterate society in which "AD dating was probably unknown". As the narrative approaches the period closer to the time it was written down, some historians have greater confidence in its accuracy. For example, there are significant family connections between Snorri Sturluson and Earl Harald Maddadsson (d. 1206) and the original saga document was probably written down at about the time of Harald's death. Gudbrand Vigfússon (1887) identified several different components to

1180-400: A literary figure rather than a real person". He is also a heathen whose appearance at the commencement of the saga contrasts with the later martyrdom of his descendant St Magnus . That event marks a "moral high-point" of the story. The death of Earl Sigurd Hlodvirsson (980–1014) is the subject of earliest known contemporary reference to the earldom of Orkney. The 12th-century Irish source,

1298-584: A long vowel or diphthong in the accented syllable and its stem ends in a single l , n , or s , the r (or the elder r - or z -variant ʀ ) in an ending is assimilated. When the accented vowel is short, the ending is dropped. The nominative of the strong masculine declension and some i-stem feminine nouns uses one such -r (ʀ). Óðin-r ( Óðin-ʀ ) becomes Óðinn instead of * Óðinr ( * Óðinʀ ). The verb blása ('to blow'), has third person present tense blæss ('[he] blows') rather than * blæsr ( * blæsʀ ). Similarly,

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1416-474: A noun must mirror the gender of that noun , so that one says, " heill maðr! " but, " heilt barn! ". As in other languages, the grammatical gender of an impersonal noun is generally unrelated to an expected natural gender of that noun. While indeed karl , "man" is masculine, kona , "woman", is feminine, and hús , "house", is neuter, so also are hrafn and kráka , for "raven" and "crow", masculine and feminine respectively, even in reference to

1534-474: A raiding expedition from Norway against Orkney he encountered Harald near Thurso and captured him. Harald was freed in return for a ransom in gold and by giving his oath to Eystein. Eystein then went on to raid the coasts of Scotland and England. Possibly as a result of Eystein's activities, King David I granted half of Caithness to Harald's cousin, Erlend Haraldsson . The result was a political struggle which ended with Erlend's murder in 1154. Sweyn Asleifsson

1652-476: A similar development influenced by Middle Low German . Various languages unrelated to Old Norse and others not closely related have been heavily influenced by Norse, particularly the Norman language ; to a lesser extent, Finnish and Estonian . Russian, Ukrainian , Belarusian , Lithuanian and Latvian also have a few Norse loanwords. The words Rus and Russia , according to one theory, may be named after

1770-551: A single winter after this and died childless. Rognvald's son Hallad then inherited the title. However, unable to constrain Danish raids on Orkney, he gave up the earldom and returned to Norway, which "everyone thought was a huge joke." First written down in the early 13th century, the saga is informed by the Norwegian politics of the day. Once, historians could write that no-one denied the reality of Harald Fairhair's expeditions to

1888-497: A son of Kenneth III . Another candidate is MacBeth whose father may be called "jarl Hundi" in Njál's saga . Woolf (2007) proposes that Hundason, rather that being some hitherto unknown Scots king, was the son of Thorfinn's brother Hundi. However, Thomson (2008) notes that both the Orkneyinga saga and St Olaf's saga suggest Hundi only lived "a short while" and was unlikely to have had a son himself. Anderson (1990) suggested that this

2006-400: A trophy, but as Sigurd rode home, Máel Brigte's buck-tooth scratched his leg. The leg became inflamed and infected, and as a result Sigurd died. He was buried in a tumulus known as Sigurd's Howe , or Sigurðar-haugr . The location of Sigurd's Howe is most probably modern-day Sidera or Cyderhall near Dornoch , which discovery was not made until the late 19th century. Another example concerns

2124-608: A voiced velar fricative [ɣ] in all cases, and others have that realisation only in the middle of words and between vowels (with it otherwise being realised [ɡ] ). The Old East Norse /ʀ/ was an apical consonant , with its precise position unknown; it is reconstructed as a palatal sibilant . It descended from Proto-Germanic /z/ and eventually developed into /r/ , as had already occurred in Old West Norse. The consonant digraphs ⟨hl⟩ , ⟨hr⟩ , and ⟨hn⟩ occurred word-initially. It

2242-467: A vowel or semivowel of a different vowel backness . In the case of i-umlaut and ʀ-umlaut , this entails a fronting of back vowels, with retention of lip rounding. In the case of u-umlaut , this entails labialization of unrounded vowels. Umlaut is phonemic and in many situations grammatically significant as a side effect of losing the Proto-Germanic morphological suffixes whose vowels created

2360-448: A word. Strong verbs ablaut the lemma 's nucleus to derive the past forms of the verb. This parallels English conjugation, where, e.g., the nucleus of sing becomes sang in the past tense and sung in the past participle. Some verbs are derived by ablaut, as the present-in-past verbs do by consequence of being derived from the past tense forms of strong verbs. Umlaut or mutation is an assimilatory process acting on vowels preceding

2478-542: Is "a fabulous story" and concluded that "[n]o solution to the riddle seems to be justified". Muir (2005) points out that a literal translation of "Karl Hundisson" is "peasant son-of-a-dog", an insult that would have been obvious to Norse-speakers hearing the saga and that "we can assume this wasn't his real name". The implication is that there is no purpose in seeking phonetic parallels with known Scots personages. Thomson points out that both "Karl" and Hundi" are names used in other contexts without disparaging intentions although

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2596-461: Is also a reference to claiming land by dragging a boat over a neck of land (reprised in chapter 41 when Magnus Barefoot uses the same trick) and the division of the land between Nór and his brother Gór, which is a recurring theme in the saga. This legend also gives the Orkney jarls an origin involving a giant and king called Fornjót who lived in the far north. This clearly distinguishes them from

2714-521: Is also provided with various characteristics associated with Odin . Both have but one eye and the death of an opponent at Einarr's hands is offered to the god—an act that contains a hint of Odin's own sacrifice to himself in the Hávamál . Einarr is a man of action who is self-made, and he is a successful warrior who (unlike his brothers) avenges his father's death. He leads a dramatic and memomorable life and emerges as "ancient, powerful and mysterious—but as

2832-489: Is corroborated from contemporary sources and the saga writer seems to have obtained most of his material from the poem Þórfinnsdrápa , which was written by his court poet Arnór immediately following his death. The Orkneyinga Saga says that a dispute between Thorfinn and Karl Hundason began when the latter became "King of Scots" and claimed Caithness , his forces successfully moving north and basing themselves in Thurso . In

2950-414: Is crucial to the politics of the Orkney earldom. Although he was not an earl his activities take up fully one quarter of the saga and the oldest version ends with his death. His tale is closely bound up with that of Earl Rögnvald, a more rounded character who is also a troubadour and, like his uncle Magnus, ultimately a saint, and it may be that the saga writers were seeking to portray them as exemplars of

3068-465: Is expected to exist, such as in the male names Ragnarr , Steinarr (supposedly * Ragnarʀ , * Steinarʀ ), the result is apparently always /rː/ rather than */rʀ/ or */ʀː/ . This is observable in the Runic corpus. In Old Norse, i/j adjacent to i , e , their u-umlauts, and æ was not possible, nor u/v adjacent to u , o , their i-umlauts, and ǫ . At

3186-460: Is found in the late 14th century Flateyjarbók but the first translation into English did not appear until 1873. The first three chapters of the saga are a brief folk legend that sets the scene for later events. It commences with characters associated with the elements – Snaer (snow), Logi (flame), Kari (storm) and Frosti (frost) and also gives a unique explanation for how Norway came to be named as such, involving Snaer's grandson Nór . There

3304-584: Is more common in Old West Norse in both phonemic and allophonic positions, while it only occurs sparsely in post-runic Old East Norse and even in runic Old East Norse. This is still a major difference between Swedish and Faroese and Icelandic today. Plurals of neuters do not have u-umlaut at all in Swedish, but in Faroese and Icelandic they do, for example the Faroese and Icelandic plurals of the word land , lond and lönd respectively, in contrast to

3422-459: Is that the nonphonemic difference between the voiced and the voiceless dental fricative is marked. The oldest texts and runic inscriptions use þ exclusively. Long vowels are denoted with acutes . Most other letters are written with the same glyph as the IPA phoneme, except as shown in the table below. Ablaut patterns are groups of vowels which are swapped, or ablauted, in the nucleus of

3540-572: Is the backdrop to the saga writer's intentions and in part at least the sagas aim to legitimise Norwegian claims to both the Northern Isles and the Kingdom of the Isles in the west. It may be that the saga writers drew on a genuine tradition of a voyage by Harald to the west, or that they simply invented it wholesale for political purposes, but it is possible that there are elements included in

3658-465: Is thus able to emphasise both the legitimacy and independence of his house . Joint earldoms were a frequent feature of the Norse earldom and Thomson (2008) identifies a different intention at the heart of the saga. This joint rulership was "inherently unstable and usually ended in violence". He identifies these family feuds as being the main theme, culminating in the martyrdom of St Magnus c.1115, and that

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3776-557: Is unclear whether they were sequences of two consonants (with the first element realised as /h/ or perhaps /x/ ) or as single voiceless sonorants /l̥/ , /r̥/ and /n̥/ respectively. In Old Norwegian, Old Danish and later Old Swedish, the groups ⟨hl⟩ , ⟨hr⟩ , and ⟨hn⟩ were reduced to plain ⟨l⟩ , ⟨r⟩ , ⟨n⟩ , which suggests that they had most likely already been pronounced as voiceless sonorants by Old Norse times. The pronunciation of ⟨hv⟩

3894-620: Is unclear, but it may have been /xʷ/ (the Proto-Germanic pronunciation), /hʷ/ or the similar phoneme /ʍ/ . Unlike the three other digraphs, it was retained much longer in all dialects. Without ever developing into a voiceless sonorant in Icelandic, it instead underwent fortition to a plosive /kv/ , which suggests that instead of being a voiceless sonorant, it retained a stronger frication. Primary stress in Old Norse falls on

4012-702: The Cogadh Gaedhil re Gallaibh , records the events of the Battle of Clontarf in 1014. The "foreigners and Leinstermen " were led by Brodir of the Isle of Man and Sigurd, and the battle lasted all day, but the Irishmen ultimately drove back their enemies into the sea. His death is corroborated by the Annals of Ulster , which record that amongst the dead was "Siuchraid son of Loduir, iarla Innsi Orcc" (i.e. of Sigurd, son of Hlodvir , Earl of Orkney). According to

4130-535: The Latin alphabet , there was no standardized orthography in use in the Middle Ages. A modified version of the letter wynn called vend was used briefly for the sounds /u/ , /v/ , and /w/ . Long vowels were sometimes marked with acutes but also sometimes left unmarked or geminated. The standardized Old Norse spelling was created in the 19th century and is, for the most part, phonemic. The most notable deviation

4248-540: The Orkneyinga saga , including strife between brothers, relationships between the jarls and the Norwegian crown, and raiding in the Suðreyjar – the Hebrides and elsewhere. In part, the saga's purpose was to provide a history of the islands and enable its readers to "understand themselves through a knowledge of their origins" but even where its historical accuracy is lacking it provides modern scholars with insights into

4366-405: The Orkneyinga saga , the Northern Isles had been Christianised by King Olaf Tryggvasson in 995 when he stopped at South Walls on his way from Ireland to Norway . The King summoned jarl Sigurd and said "I order you and all your subjects to be baptised. If you refuse, I'll have you killed on the spot and I swear I will ravage every island with fire and steel." Unsurprisingly, Sigurd agreed and

4484-667: The Rus' people , a Norse tribe, probably from present-day east-central Sweden. The current Finnish and Estonian words for Sweden are Ruotsi and Rootsi , respectively. A number of loanwords have been introduced into Irish , many associated with fishing and sailing. A similar influence is found in Scottish Gaelic , with over one hundred loanwords estimated to be in the language, many of which are related to fishing and sailing. Old Norse vowel phonemes mostly come in pairs of long and short. The standardized orthography marks

4602-668: The word stem , so that hyrjar would be pronounced /ˈhyr.jar/ . In compound words, secondary stress falls on the second stem (e.g. lærisveinn , /ˈlɛːɾ.iˌswɛinː/ ). Unlike Proto-Norse, which was written with the Elder Futhark , runic Old Norse was originally written with the Younger Futhark , which had only 16 letters. Because of the limited number of runes, several runes were used for different sounds, and long and short vowels were not distinguished in writing. Medieval runes came into use some time later. As for

4720-445: The "saga’s main theme, in so far as it can be said to have one, seems to have been to tie in the history of the earldom with that of the kings of Norway and to establish clearly the history of the relationships between the two polities." Crawford (1987) observes several sub-themes: "of submission and of overlordship; the problem of dual allegiance and the threat of the earls looking to the kings of Scots as an alternative source of support;

4838-557: The 11th century in most of Old East Norse. However, the distinction still holds in Dalecarlian dialects . The dots in the following vowel table separate the oral from nasal phonemes. Note: The open or open-mid vowels may be transcribed differently: Sometime around the 13th century, /ɔ/ (spelled ⟨ǫ⟩ ) merged with /ø/ or /o/ in most dialects except Old Danish , and Icelandic where /ɔ/ ( ǫ ) merged with /ø/ . This can be determined by their distinction within

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4956-979: The 12th-century First Grammatical Treatise but not within the early 13th-century Prose Edda . The nasal vowels, also noted in the First Grammatical Treatise, are assumed to have been lost in most dialects by this time (but notably they are retained in Elfdalian and other dialects of Ovansiljan ). See Old Icelandic for the mergers of /øː/ (spelled ⟨œ⟩ ) with /ɛː/ (spelled ⟨æ⟩ ) and /ɛ/ (spelled ⟨ę⟩ ) with /e/ (spelled ⟨e⟩ ). Old Norse had three diphthong phonemes: /ɛi/ , /ɔu/ , /øy ~ ɛy/ (spelled ⟨ei⟩ , ⟨au⟩ , ⟨ey⟩ respectively). In East Norse these would monophthongize and merge with /eː/ and /øː/ , whereas in West Norse and its descendants

5074-668: The 13th century there. The age of the Swedish-speaking population of Finland is strongly contested, but Swedish settlement had spread the language into the region by the time of the Second Swedish Crusade in the 13th century at the latest. The modern descendants of the Old West Norse dialect are the West Scandinavian languages of Icelandic , Faroese , Norwegian , and the extinct Norn language of Orkney and Shetland , although Norwegian

5192-487: The 8th century, and Old Norse began to develop into the modern North Germanic languages in the mid- to late 14th century, ending the language phase known as Old Norse. These dates, however, are not absolute, since written Old Norse is found well into the 15th century. Old Norse was divided into three dialects : Old West Norse (Old West Nordic, often referred to as Old Norse ), Old East Norse (Old East Nordic), and Old Gutnish . Old West Norse and Old East Norse formed

5310-572: The Faroe Islands, Faroese has also been influenced by Danish. Both Middle English (especially northern English dialects within the area of the Danelaw ) and Early Scots (including Lowland Scots ) were strongly influenced by Norse and contained many Old Norse loanwords . Consequently, Modern English (including Scottish English ), inherited a significant proportion of its vocabulary directly from Norse. The development of Norman French

5428-502: The Isles from 1035, which title was only held amongst the earls of Orkney by Sigurd Eysteinsson before him, and after him possibly by Einar Sigurdsson and for a brief period by Sigurd Magnusson as the under-age son of Magnus Barefoot. Magnus Erlendsson , Thorfinn's grandson, had a reputation for piety and gentleness, which the Norwegians viewed as cowardice. Having been taken hostage by King Magnus Barefoot, he refused to fight in

5546-592: The Norse kings as found in the Heimskringla , specifically the sagas about Olaf Tryggvason , St. Olaf , Sverre , Hákon the Old , Magnus the Good , and Harald Hardrada . But they appear here expanded with additional material not found elsewhere (some of it being very old) along with other unique differences. Most—but not all—of the additional material is placed within the royal sagas, sometimes interlaced. Additionally,

5664-517: The Norwegian kings as described in the Ynglingatal and may have been intended to give the jarls a more senior and more Nordic ancestry. Having dealt with the mythical ancestry of the earls, the saga then moves on to topics that are apparently intended as genuine history. The next few chapters deal with the creation of the Earldom of Orkney; they are brief and contain much less detail than

5782-491: The Norwegian kings' use of hostages; and their general aim of attempting to turn the Orkney earls into royal officials bound to them by oaths of homage, and returning tribute to them on a regular basis." An example is the passing of the title of Earl of Orkney from Rognvald Eysteinsson, who received it from the Norwegian crown, to his brother Sigurd. The notion that Rognvald could hand over his title in this way has been interpreted in various ways. It may be that Rognvald considered

5900-679: The Red"). Here also are preserved the only Icelandic versions of the Orkneyinga saga ("History of the Orkney Islanders") and Færeyinga saga ("History of the Faroe Islanders"). From internal evidence the book was being written in 1387 and was completed in 1394 or very soon after. The first page states that its owner is "Jonn Hakonar son" and that the book was scribed by two priests. One of them, "Jon prestr Þórðar son", scribed

6018-519: The Shetlanders" and Thompson (2008) is in "no doubt " that Shetland was in Brusi's possession. It is likely that Fair Isle marked the boundary between these shares both then and during later joint earldoms. The accuracy with which the saga addresses the conversion of Orkney and Shetland to Christianity has been touched on above and the weight of archaeological evidence suggests that Christian burial

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6136-566: The Stout, against the princes or mormaers of Moray, Sutherland, Ross, and Argyll, and that, in fine, Malcolm and Karl were mormaers of one of these four provinces. It is therefore entirely possible that Thorfinn's campaign was not fought against the Scottish crown as such but that rather the Scots may have been his allies in a struggle they both had against the power of Moray. It is evident that

6254-473: The Swedish plural land and numerous other examples. That also applies to almost all feminine nouns, for example the largest feminine noun group, the o-stem nouns (except the Swedish noun jord mentioned above), and even i-stem nouns and root nouns , such as Old West Norse mǫrk ( mörk in Icelandic) in comparison with Modern and Old Swedish mark . Vowel breaking, or fracture, caused

6372-515: The Viking lifestyle. However, there may also be a more complex moral to the story. Although Ásleifsson's dying words are "Be it known to all men... that I belong to the bodyguard of Saint Rögnvald the Earl", he also blackmailed Rögnvald and caused him a great deal of trouble. It is possible that the saga intends to cast Rögnvald as a weak leader who was unable control his nobles. Another interpretation of

6490-406: The aftermath of the battle at Torfness. Whoever Karl son of Hundi may have been, it appears that the saga is reporting a local conflict with a Scots ruler of Moray or Ross: [T]he whole narrative is consistent with the idea that the struggle of Thorfinn and Karl is a continuation of that which had been waged since the ninth century by the Orkney earls, notably Sigurd Rognvald's son, Ljot, and Sigurd

6608-535: The age that sought to promote the central authority of the crown. If the height of the earls' military strength was during the 11th century time of Thorfinn "the Mighty", the reign of Earl Rögnvald Kali Kolson marks the 12th century cultural high point of the saga. Earl Harald "the Old" Maddadsson (c. 1134 – 1206) ruled jointly with Earl Rognvald for part of his long tenure. When King Eystein Haraldsson undertook

6726-537: The backdrop to the supposed great expedition to the west undertaken by King Harald Fairhair that led to the founding of the Orkney earldom was the mid-13th century Norwegian contest with the Kings of Scots over the Hebrides , so also events that have been included in the saga as embellishments to the life of Earl Thorfinn have a number of parallels with the life of Harald Maddadsson . Woolf (2007) speculates that aspects of Thorfinn's story may have been included to legitimise

6844-541: The beginning of words, this manifested as a dropping of the initial /j/ (which was general, independent of the following vowel) or /v/ . Compare ON orð , úlfr , ár with English word, wolf, year . In inflections, this manifested as the dropping of the inflectional vowels. Thus, klæði + dat -i remains klæði , and sjáum in Icelandic progressed to sjǫ́um > sjǫ́m > sjám . The * jj and * ww of Proto-Germanic became ggj and ggv respectively in Old Norse,

6962-484: The biggest and best book in all of Iceland, and he continued to refuse even when Bishop Brynjólfur paid him a personal visit and offered him five hundreds of land. Jon only changed his mind and bestowed the book on the bishop just as the bishop was leaving the region. The manuscript was given as a present from Bishop Brynjólfur to King Frederick III in 1656, and placed in the Royal Library of Copenhagen. In 1662,

7080-604: The bishop presented the king with a second medieval manuscript, the Codex Regius ( Konungsbók eddukvæða ). It and Flateyjarbók survived the Copenhagen Fire of 1728 and the Second Battle of Copenhagen in 1807 and were eventually repatriated to Iceland in 1971 as Icelandic national treasures. They are preserved and studied by the Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies . Flateyjarbók consists of

7198-413: The case with Icelandic language writing of this period, the aims of the saga were to provide a sense of social continuity through the telling of history combined with an entertaining narrative drive. The saga is thought to have been compiled from a number of sources, combining family pedigrees, praise poetry and oral legends with historical facts. In the case of the Orkneyinga saga the document outlines

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7316-460: The cathedral, begun in 1137, was ready for consecration the relics of St Magnus were transferred there. As this part of the saga was written only a few decades after Asleifsson's death it is reasonable to suppose these chapters more accurately reflect the events they describe than the histories of earlier times. Asleifsson is depicted as the quintessential Viking, a freebooter whose activities include drunkenness, murder and plundering and whose support

7434-530: The central place of action". The main focus of the work is the line of jarls who ruled the Earldom of Orkney , which constituted the Norðreyjar or Northern Isles of Orkney and Shetland and there are frequent references to both archipelagoes throughout. The narrative commences with a brief mythical ancestry tale and then proceeds to outline the Norse take-over of the Norðreyjar by Harald Fairhair –

7552-411: The cluster */Crʀ/ cannot be realized as /Crː/ , nor as */Crʀ/ , nor as */Cʀː/ . The same shortening as in vetr also occurs in lax = laks ('salmon') (as opposed to * lakss , * laksʀ ), botn ('bottom') (as opposed to * botnn , * botnʀ ), and jarl (as opposed to * jarll , * jarlʀ ). Furthermore, wherever the cluster */rʀ/

7670-402: The combination is otherwise unknown. Thomson also notes that the war with Hundasson seem to have taken place between 1029 and 1035 and that the Annals of Ulster record the violent death of Gillacomgain , son of Mael Brigte and Mormaer of Moray in 1032. He too is thus a candidate for Thorfinn's Scots foe—and the manner of his death by fire bears comparison with Arnór's poetic description of

7788-463: The contents from the tale of Eirík the Traveller down to the end of the two Olaf sagas and the other, " Magnús prestr Thorhallz sun ", scribed the earlier and later material and also drew the illustrations. Further material was inserted towards the end of the 15th century. The manuscript first received special attention by the learned in 1651 when Bishop Brynjólfur Sveinsson of Skálholt , with

7906-449: The diphthongs remained. Old Norse has six plosive phonemes, /p/ being rare word-initially and /d/ and /b/ pronounced as voiced fricative allophones between vowels except in compound words (e.g. veðrabati ), already in the Proto-Germanic language (e.g. * b *[β] > [v] between vowels). The /ɡ/ phoneme was pronounced as [ɡ] after an /n/ or another /ɡ/ and as [k] before /s/ and /t/ . Some accounts have it

8024-467: The earldom of Orkney and he ruled jointly and amicably with Haakon until 1114. Eventually however, the followers of the two earls fell out, and the sides met at an assembly on the Orkney mainland in 1117. Peace was negotiated and the Earls arranged to meet each other to formalise this at Easter on the island of Egilsay , each bringing only two ships. Magnus arrived with his two, but then Haakon treacherously turned up with eight ships. Magnus took refuge in

8142-521: The early history of Iceland, where the saga was written. Thorir is a compliant son who Rognvald is happy to keep at home. Hrolluag is portrayed as a man of peace who will go to Iceland. Einarr is aggressive and a threat to his father's position so can be spared for the dangers of Orkney. (In the Landnámabók version the equally aggressive brother Hrolfr is also present, and his destiny is anticipated to be in conveniently far-away Normandy .) Einarr

8260-406: The genre of "Kings' Sagas" within Icelandic saga literature, a group of histories of the kings of Norway, the best known of which is Heimskringla , written by Snorri Sturluson . Indeed, Snorri used Orkneyinga saga as one of his sources for Heimskringla which was compiled around 1230 (and then Heimskringla became in turn a source for later versions of the Orkneyinga saga ). As was generally

8378-430: The gift from the king as a mixed blessing, but this is an instance in which the writer of the Orkneyinga saga attempts to reconcile the conflicting themes of independence from Norway (Rognvald gifts the islands to Sigurd) and dependence on royal authority (King Harald formalises the process by confirming Sigurd as earl). Beuermann (2011) speculates that Rognvald's transfer of power to his brother may have been an attempt by

8496-421: The island's church overnight, but the following day he was captured and an angry Haakon made his cook Lifolf kill Magnus by striking him on the head with an axe. It was said that Magnus first prayed for the souls of his executioners. Sometime later William the Old , Bishop of Orkney, was struck blind in his church, but subsequently had his sight restored after praying at the grave of Magnus. He also later sanctified

8614-459: The islands became Christian at a stroke. However, when the sagas were written down Orkney had been Christian for 200 years or more and the conversion tale itself has been described as "blatantly unhistorical". Some have argued that when the Norse arrived in the Northern Isles they would have found organised Christianity already thriving there, although there is no mention of this at all in the sagas. Virtually nothing about Thorfinn Sigurdsson 's life

8732-554: The islands, Einarr fought and defeated two Danish warlords who had taken residence there. Einarr then established himself as earl and founded a dynasty which retained control of the islands for centuries after his death. The scene in which Einarr's father scorns him is a literary device which often figures in Old Norse literature . The dialogue between the father and his sons has been interpreted as being about Rognvald's desire to cement his own position as Earl of Møre and an allusion to

8850-436: The isles", was those islands lying north of the Orkney mainland , that his brother Einar "Wry-mouth" Sigurdsson 's was originally the east Mainland and the south isles and that Sumarlidi Sigurdsson 's was the west Mainland. However, it is also possible that Brusi's share was Shetland , which formed part of the earldom throughout the Norse period. This possibility is supported by a later reference to his son Rognvald as "Lord of

8968-451: The later events the saga describes. The saga states that Rognvald Eysteinsson Earl Rognvald retains the rule of Møre by the King of Norway, Harald Fairhair. Earl Rognvald accompanied the king on an expedition where they conquer the islands of Shetland, called Hjaltland, and Orkney, before they continued on to Scotland, Ireland and the Isle of Man . During this campaign Rognvald's son Ivarr

9086-514: The latter's adventures. Early in the narrative in particular, there are examples of obviously fictional elements such as Earl Sigurd's raven banner and also in some later events such as the effects of the poisoned shirt that supposedly killed Earl Harald Haakonsson . Furthermore, there is the regular use of standard Norse dramatic sitations. For example, the story of the killing of Rognvald Brusason by Earl Thorfinn "is saga-fiction, and it contains some stock-episodes which are repeated elsewhere in

9204-485: The latter's canonisation. Indeed, the rivalry between the two families that Paul and Erlend founded were still alive four generations later when the Orkneyinga Saga was written down. Although the saga frequently mentions placenames it is largely silent on the subject of how the joint earldoms functioned on a geographical basis. It is possible that Brusi Sigurdsson 's share, described as the "northernmost part of

9322-482: The lives of the earls of Orkney and how they came about their earldom. Woolf (2007) suggests that the task that the Icelandic compiler was faced with was not dissimilar to trying to write a "history of the Second World War on the basis of Hollywood movies". He also notes that a problem with medieval Icelandic historiography in general is the difficulty of fixing of a clear chronology based on stories created in

9440-399: The long vowels with an acute accent. In medieval manuscripts, it is often unmarked but sometimes marked with an accent or through gemination . Old Norse had nasalized versions of all ten vowel places. These occurred as allophones of the vowels before nasal consonants and in places where a nasal had followed it in an older form of the word, before it was absorbed into a neighboring sound. If

9558-528: The main characters of the saga are the exclusively male jarls and kings and their male supporters and antagonists. Nonetheless, it is believed that women enjoyed a relatively high status during the Viking Age, possibly due to the high degree of mobility in society and they regularly appear in supporting roles. Amongst them are Gunnhild "Mother of Kings" Gormsdóttir ; Ingibiorg "the Earls'-mother" Finnsdottir , wife of Earl Thorfinn; Frakokk, whose poisoned shirt

9676-709: The manuscript contains the only copy of the eddic poem Hyndluljóð , a unique set of annals from creation to 1394, and many short tales not otherwise preserved such as Nornagests þáttr ("the Story of Norna Gest"). Especially important is the Grœnlendinga saga ("History of the Greenlanders"), giving an account of the Vinland colony with some differences from the account contained in Eiríks saga rauða ("History of Eirík

9794-680: The most conservative language, such that in present-day Iceland, schoolchildren are able to read the 12th-century Icelandic sagas in the original language (in editions with normalised spelling). Old Icelandic was very close to Old Norwegian , and together they formed Old West Norse , which was also spoken in Norse settlements in Greenland , the Faroes , Ireland , Scotland , the Isle of Man , northwest England, and in Normandy . Old East Norse

9912-415: The motives of the writers and the politics of 13th century Orkney. The original text of this Norse saga was written in the late twelfth century. It no longer exists. A new version was written in the early thirteenth century (three centuries after some of the earliest events it records) by an unknown Icelandic author who was probably associated with the cultural centre at Oddi . Orkneyinga saga belongs to

10030-461: The murdered Earl. St Magnus Church, Egilsay , was constructed on the island shortly afterwards, at or near the supposed site of the murder. Magnus's nephew, Rögnvald Kali Kolsson , laid claim to the Earldom of Orkney, and was advised by his father Kol to promise the islanders to "build a stone minster at Kirkwall " in memory of his uncle the Holy Earl, and this became St Magnus Cathedral . When

10148-403: The narrative is that rather than seeing these two men as protagonist and antagonist that together they live in a golden age where the earl is a cultured ruler and primus inter pares but who owes his position in part to his band of "worthy warriors" and is by no means a despot who rules by divine right. In this case the whole story may be seen as a reaction to the Norwegian royal propaganda of

10266-420: The narrative that are drawn from the much later expeditions undertaken by Magnus Barefoot. The situation faced by Earl Harald Maddadsson of Orkney in 1195, shortly before the time that the sagas were first written down, when he was forced to submit himself to royal authority after an ill-judged intervention in Norwegian affairs would have made legendary material of this nature of considerable interest in Orkney at

10384-514: The nasal was absorbed by a stressed vowel, it would also lengthen the vowel. This nasalization also occurred in the other Germanic languages, but were not retained long. They were noted in the First Grammatical Treatise , and otherwise might have remained unknown. The First Grammarian marked these with a dot above the letter. This notation did not catch on, and would soon be obsolete. Nasal and oral vowels probably merged around

10502-641: The other North Germanic languages. Faroese retains many similarities but is influenced by Danish, Norwegian, and Gaelic ( Scottish and/or Irish ). Although Swedish, Danish and Norwegian have diverged the most, they still retain considerable mutual intelligibility . Speakers of modern Swedish, Norwegian and Danish can mostly understand each other without studying their neighboring languages, particularly if speaking slowly. The languages are also sufficiently similar in writing that they can mostly be understood across borders. This could be because these languages have been mutually affected by each other, as well as having

10620-533: The permission of King Frederick III of Denmark , requested all folk of Iceland who owned old manuscripts to turn them over to the Danish king, providing either the original or a copy, either as a gift or for a price. Jon Finnsson, who resided on Flatey ('Flat Island') in the fjord of Breiðafjörður on the northwest coast of Iceland, was then the owner of the book which was already known as the Flateyjarbók . At first Jon refused to release his precious heirloom,

10738-536: The root vowel, ǫ , is short. The clusters */Clʀ, Csʀ, Cnʀ, Crʀ/ cannot yield */Clː, Csː, Cnː, Crː/ respectively, instead /Cl, Cs, Cn, Cr/ . The effect of this shortening can result in the lack of distinction between some forms of the noun. In the case of vetr ('winter'), the nominative and accusative singular and plural forms are identical. The nominative singular and nominative and accusative plural would otherwise have been OWN * vetrr , OEN * wintrʀ . These forms are impossible because

10856-425: The saga depict the lives of Harald's four successors who ruled until the murder of Jon Haraldsson in 1231, bringing the line of specifically Norse earls of Orkney to an end although Orkney and Shetland remained part of Norway until the 15th century. There is clearly doubt about the historicity of many of the claims in the Orkneyinga saga and the extent to which euhemerism may be an appropriate approach. Just as

10974-422: The saga says, then marched south through Scotland as far as Fife , burning and plundering as he passed. As a result of his military exploits Thorfinn became Mormaer of Caithness and during the first twenty years of his long earldom he was often based there. He was thus a vassal of both the King of Norway and the King of Scots, a status and title that was held by many of his successors. Thorfinn also became King of

11092-480: The saga that have been thought of as essentially fictional, but have later been shown to have some basis in fact. For example, towards the end of his reign as earl, Sigurd Eysteinsson is said to have challenged a native ruler, Máel Brigte the Bucktoothed, to a 40-man-a-side battle. Treacherously, Sigurd brought 80 men to the fight and Máel Brigte was defeated and beheaded. Sigurd strapped the head to his saddle as

11210-500: The saga writers to imply that the Orkney earldom had more independence from Norway than that of Rognvald's earldom of Møre and that the earl's holdings in Caithness may have allowed for an even greater degree of freedom of action. Such implications are more likely to be rooted in the writer's interest in emphasising Orcadian independence at the time of writing rather than the 9th/10th century events they purport to describe. Similarly,

11328-507: The saga". Another example of the saga writer's fictional devices is found in the tale of Haakon Paulsson's travels through Scandinavia where he meets a fortune teller. The sooth-sayer's predictions are in effect a "table of contents" for his later travails with his cousin Magnus and an example of "the frequent need to disentangle the historical Magnus from the saga's story-telling techniques". However, there are also examples of events depicted in

11446-487: The saga, which may have had different authors and date from different periods. These are: A Danish translation dating to 1570 indicates that the original version of the saga ended with the death of Sweyn Asleifsson , who (according to the saga) was killed fighting in Dublin in 1171. Various additions were then added circa 1234-5 when a grandson of Asleifsson and a lawmaker called Hrafn visited Iceland. The oldest complete text

11564-441: The same language, dǫnsk tunga ("Danish tongue"; speakers of Old East Norse would have said dansk tunga ). Another term was norrœnt mál ("northern speech"). Today Old Norse has developed into the modern North Germanic languages Icelandic , Faroese , Norwegian , Danish , Swedish , and other North Germanic varieties of which Norwegian, Danish and Swedish retain considerable mutual intelligibility . Icelandic remains

11682-559: The story of Torf-Einar in the next generation touches on this theme. The writer of the saga established Einarr's status in two contradictory ways. Although in the Historia Norvegia Rognvald of Møre's family are described as "pirates" the Orkneyinga saga provides them with a legally established earldom instated by the king. On the other hand, Einarr success is largely down to his own efforts and he negotiates with King Harald rather than offers blind obedience. The author

11800-452: The take-over is not in doubt although the role of the king is no longer accepted by historians as a likelihood. The saga then outlines, with varying degrees of detail, the lives and times of the many jarls who ruled the islands between the 9th and 13th centuries. The extent to which the earlier sections in particular can be considered genuine history rather than fiction has been much debated by scholars. There are several recurring themes in

11918-523: The time. Nonetheless, the view that the Orkney earldom was created by "members of the Møre family" continues to receive academic support. Hallad's failure led to Rognvald flying into a rage and summoning his sons Thorir and Hrollaug. He asked which of them wanted the islands but Thorir said the decision was up to the earl himself. Rognvald predicted that Thorir's path would keep him in Norway and that Hrollaug

12036-497: The umlaut allophones . Some /y/ , /yː/ , /ø/ , /øː/ , /ɛ/ , /ɛː/ , /øy/ , and all /ɛi/ were obtained by i-umlaut from /u/ , /uː/ , /o/ , /oː/ , /a/ , /aː/ , /au/ , and /ai/ respectively. Others were formed via ʀ-umlaut from /u/ , /uː/ , /a/ , /aː/ , and /au/ . Some /y/ , /yː/ , /ø/ , /øː/ , and all /ɔ/ , /ɔː/ were obtained by u-umlaut from /i/ , /iː/ , /e/ , /eː/ , and /a/ , /aː/ respectively. See Old Icelandic for information on /ɔː/ . /œ/

12154-482: The verb skína ('to shine') had present tense third person skínn (rather than * skínr , * skínʀ ); while kala ('to cool down') had present tense third person kell (rather than * kelr , * kelʀ ). The rule is not absolute, with certain counter-examples such as vinr ('friend'), which has the synonym vin , yet retains the unabsorbed version, and jǫtunn (' giant '), where assimilation takes place even though

12272-589: The war which followed, Thorfinn defeated Karl in a sea-battle off Deerness at the east end of the Orkney Mainland . Then Karl's nephew Mutatan or Muddan, appointed to rule Caithness for him, was killed in Caithness by Thorkel Fosterer. Finally, a great battle at "Torfness" (probably Tarbat Ness on the south side of the Dornoch Firth ) ended with Karl either being killed or forced to flee. Thorfinn,

12390-459: The west (recounted in detail in the Heimskringla ), but this is no longer the case. Thomson (2008) writes that Harald's "great voyage is so thoroughly ingrained in popular and scholarly history, both ancient and modern, that it comes as a bit of a shock to realise that it might not be true." The Norwegian contest with the Kings of Scots over the Hebrides and the Isle of Man in the mid 13th century

12508-422: The writer is emphasising the doom of "kin-slaying". Examples include the fratricidal strife that engulfed the sons of Earl Thorfinn in which they were abetted by Ragnhild Eriksdotter , the deaths of Einar Sigurdsson and his nephew Rognvald Brusason at the hands of Thorkel Fosterer, the henchman of Thorfinn as well as the homicidal dispute between the cousins Haakon Paulsson and Magnus Erlendsson itself that led to

12626-404: Was a moderately inflected language with high levels of nominal and verbal inflection. Most of the fused morphemes are retained in modern Icelandic, especially in regard to noun case declensions, whereas modern Norwegian in comparison has moved towards more analytical word structures. Old Norse had three grammatical genders – masculine, feminine, and neuter. Adjectives or pronouns referring to

12744-566: Was a stage of development of North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and their overseas settlements and chronologically coincides with the Viking Age , the Christianization of Scandinavia , and the consolidation of Scandinavian kingdoms from about the 8th to the 15th centuries. The Proto-Norse language developed into Old Norse by

12862-412: Was again heavily involved in this dynastic conflict. In 1153 King David died and was succeeded by his young grandson, Malcolm IV . King Eystein too died in a war with his brothers Ingi and Sigurd . As a result, by 1158 Harald Maddadsson was undisputed Earl of Orkney, with neither the King of Scots nor the King of Norway in a position to contest his power. The final, brief chapters of the later version of

12980-562: Was already widespread in Orkney by Sigurd Hlodvirsson's time. The intention may have been to disown the influence of indigenous elements of Orcadian and Shetland culture (such as the existence of this religion prior to the arrival of the Norse) and emphasise that positive cultural developments came from Scandinavia, whilst at the same time critiquing the unduly blunt method of Norwegian interference in this case. Old Norse Old Norse , also referred to as Old Nordic , or Old Scandinavian ,

13098-400: Was also influenced by Norse. Through Norman, to a smaller extent, so was modern French. Written modern Icelandic derives from the Old Norse phonemic writing system. Contemporary Icelandic-speakers can read Old Norse, which varies slightly in spelling as well as semantics and word order. However, pronunciation, particularly of the vowel phonemes, has changed at least as much in Icelandic as in

13216-460: Was destined seek his fortune in Iceland. Einarr , the youngest of his natural sons, then came forward and offered to go to the islands. Rognvald said: "Considering the kind of mother you have, slave-born on each side of her family, you are not likely to make much of a ruler. But I agree, the sooner you leave and the later you return the happier I'll be." Despite his father's misgivings, on arrival on

13334-583: Was heavily influenced by the East dialect, and is today more similar to East Scandinavian (Danish and Swedish) than to Icelandic and Faroese. The descendants of the Old East Norse dialect are the East Scandinavian languages of Danish and Swedish . Among these, the grammar of Icelandic and Faroese have changed the least from Old Norse in the last thousand years, though their pronunciations both have changed considerably from Old Norse. With Danish rule of

13452-446: Was involved in the death of her nephew Earl Harald Haakonsson; Helga Moddansdottir , sister of Frakkok and mother of Ingibjörg Hakonsdóttir who married King Olaf Godredsson ; and Gunnhild, sister of Magnus Erlendsson and mother of Earl Rognvald. On the other hand, the idea of "courtly love" plays a much more prominent part in the literature of continental Europe for the same period than in the sagas in general. Woolf (2007) argues that

13570-455: Was killed and in compensation Harald granted Earl Rognvald to rule over Orkney and Shetland. Rognvald Earl thereafter returned to Norway , giving these islands to his brother Sigurd Eysteinsson . Sigurd had been the forecastleman on Harald's ship and after sailing back east the king "gave Sigurd the title of earl". Sigurd "the Mighty" then died in a curious fashion, following a battle with Máel Brigte of Moray . Sigurd's son Gurthorm ruled for

13688-535: Was obtained through a simultaneous u- and i-umlaut of /a/ . It appears in words like gøra ( gjǫra , geyra ), from Proto-Germanic *garwijaną , and commonly in verbs with a velar consonant before the suffix like søkkva < *sankwijaną . OEN often preserves the original value of the vowel directly preceding runic ʀ while OWN receives ʀ-umlaut. Compare runic OEN glaʀ, haʀi, hrauʀ with OWN gler, heri (later héri ), hrøyrr/hreyrr ("glass", "hare", "pile of rocks"). U-umlaut

13806-766: Was spoken in Denmark, Sweden, Kievan Rus' , eastern England, and Danish settlements in Normandy. The Old Gutnish dialect was spoken in Gotland and in various settlements in the East. In the 11th century, Old Norse was the most widely spoken European language , ranging from Vinland in the West to the Volga River in the East. In Kievan Rus' , it survived the longest in Veliky Novgorod , probably lasting into

13924-440: Was used partitively and in compounds and kennings (e.g., Urðarbrunnr , the well of Urðr; Lokasenna , the gibing of Loki). There were several classes of nouns within each gender. The following is an example of the "strong" inflectional paradigms : Flateyjarb%C3%B3k Flateyjarbók is the largest medieval Icelandic manuscript, comprising 225 written and illustrated vellum leaves. It contains mostly sagas of

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