POOLE (1987) Skaldic Verse and Anglo-Saxon History 1009-1016

Skaldic Verse and Anglo-Saxon History: Some Aspects of the Period 1009-1016
Author(s): Russell Poole

Source: Speculum, Vol. 62, No. 2 (Apr., 1987), pp. 265-298
Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Medieval Academy of
America
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2855227
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SPECULUM 62/2 (1987)
Skaldic Verse and Anglo-Saxon History:

Some Aspects of the Period 1009-1016
By Russell Poole
Scaldic verses," said Gabriel Turville-Petre, "can tell us little about the his-
tory of England, but the history of England may give us confidence in the
authenticity of some scaldic verses."' A similar skepticism was voiced by Alis-
tair Campbell.2
Certainly skaldic verse borders on the intractable as a source for the histo-
rian of the British Isles. Some of the difficulties stem from the mode of
discourse itself. Only the sparest summation of events is offered, and what
description we do find is in highly formulaic terms. Each event tends to be
presented as a self-contained entity, occupying its own stanza or half-stanza
(helmingr); the relationship between events is usually not explored. A taste for
the traditional and the archaic dominates in the selection of themes, diction,
stanza form, and meter, so that tests of authenticity are hard to devise. The art
is highly self-referential. One poem feeds upon another to an extraordinary
degree. An enigmatic, riddling manner seems to have been deliberately cul-
tivated. The motive in composition was the praise or dispraise of kings and
other leaders; overstatement is everywhere evident, although this bias has at
least the merit of being easily detectable.
Other difficulties arise from the rather scrappy preservation of skaldic
verse and other forms of early Scandinavian narrative. Skaldic verse relates
mainly to Scandinavian history and in the paucity of other putatively contem-
porary sources is not readily checked. Although the prose narrative in the
sagas on Norway and Denmark no doubt contains some genuine traditions, it
was not set down in its extant form until after the middle of the twelfth
century, and so comes very late after the events. The poetry was first set down
in writing, so far as we know, at about the same time. Until then its preserva-
tion must have been largely or entirely oral, and the possibility of memorial
error, free variation, or contamination with other very similar poems is always
present. Although the typically very strict rules of consonance, rhyme, and
alliteration would have imposed constraints upon changes of individual
words, nothing prevented oral variation of complete couplets or larger units.
Such recomposition is not necessarily open to detection now. The survival of
complete or near-complete poems is utterly exceptional. More typically, single
stanzas or small groups of stanzas were detached from the rest of the original
1 Bibliography of Old Norse-Icelandic Studies, 1969, ed. Hans Bekker-Nielsen (Copenhagen, 1970
p. 12; also E. 0. G. Turville-Petre, Scaldic Poetry (Oxford, 1976), p. lxx.
2 Alistair Campbell, Skaldic Verse and Anglo-Saxon History (London, 1971), pp. 3, 13, and 15.
265
266 Skaldic Verse
poem and incorporated into the prose narrative so as to guarantee the au-
thenticity of statements made there. The compilers might omit a stanza so as
to avoid introducing inconsistencies into the narrative, though surprisingly
often inconsistencies between verse and prose were allowed to stand, perhaps
as a result of misinterpretation. We therefore cannot tell what the scope of
most of the poems was, or in what order the stanzas were arranged. The
device of concatenation, in which adjacent stanzas are linked through repeti-
tion of words, internal rhymes, and alliteration, was evidently current but not
applied uniformly, and so is an unreliable criterion in determining the origi-
nal stanza order. The compilers of the prose narrative normally name the
poet but are not always careful to state the name of the poem itself in an
unambiguous form. The result of all this is that the majority of poems can
only be presented in modern editions as a jumble of stanzas, a few of which
will have only dubious claims to the place which they occupy.3
Finally, there are difficulties for the historian that arise from the uncertain
state of skaldic scholarship. No satisfactory modern edition yet exists, in spite
of monumental labors on the part of many scholars. The rules for the demar-
cation of phrases, clauses, and intercalated sentences are imperfectly under-
stood. The translator can rarely be faithful to the poetic richness and reso-
nance of the material without lapsing into unintelligibility.
Yet, while there is much to discourage the use of skaldic verse as a historical
source, there is also much to encourage. The case for the affirmative is ably
presented by Peter Foote: "In the Kings' Sagas .. . scaldic verse is extensively
quoted because it provides authority for statements made about historical ...
facts. The lines cited are usually referred to named poets, most of whom can
be securely dated and many of whom participated in events they describe or
were acquainted with people involved in them. When we read Kings' Sagas it
is proper that we should mistrust the military or political conclusions that an
author draws from his verse sources, but it will not seem likely that the verses
themselves are fabrications falsely attributed to named poets.... The labour
of invention and false attribution on the part of writers of Kings' Sagas ...
would seem decidedly misspent."4
Further to this, we need to ask ourselves whether we can afford to ignore
skaldic material as a source for Anglo-Saxon history. The deficiencies of all
our contemporary sources, including the narrative ones, for the period 1000
to 1016 are becoming steadily more apparent in the light of recent research.
Sten Korner's analysis of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle entries for the reign of
Ethelred showed that the annals 1002 to 1016 go back to a common source.
He regarded this source as written retrospectively "some time between 1017
and 1023, probably nearer the former year than the latter."5 Henry Loyn sees
it rather as a "final recension," presumably of preexisting annals.6
3A thorough discussion of the problems mentioned in this paragraph is provided by Bjarne

Fidjest0l, Det norr0ne Fyrstediktet (0vre Ervik, 1982).
4 Peter Foote, "Wrecks and Rhymes," Autrvandilstd: Norse Studies (Odense, 1984), pp. 223-24.
5 Sten K6rner, The Battle of Hastings: England and Europe, 1035-1066 (Lund, 1964), pp. 7-9.
6 Henry Loyn, The Vikings in Britain (London, 1977), p. 86.
Skaldic Verse 267
In its extant form this section of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is retrospective

and not truly annalistic. In addition, a number of lacunae have been detected
in its account. Discussing the entry for 1001, Simon Keynes points out that
here the Winchester chronicler was an independent source. "Whereas the
main chronicler seems in this case only to have heard about an attack by the
Danes in the south-west, the Winchester chronicler describes an extensive raid
earlier on in the year, near the border of Sussex and Hampshire, before
continuing with a more detailed account of the attack in the south-west."
Keynes's conclusion is that the main chronicle "may not be truly representa-
tive of the course of the Danish invasions."7 Some probable further lacunae
are discussed briefly by M. K. Lawson. He notes that mention of Viking
devastation in Worcestershire ca. 1000, recorded by Hemming and implied by
numismatic evidence, is absent from the Chronicle. Numismatic evidence also
implies that Wallingford was sacked in a Viking raid after the Christmas of
1009, whereas the Chronicle mentions only nearby Oxford. Lawson suggests
that the chronicler, "working probably in southern or eastern England, may
have had little interest in recording the tribulations of other areas, and hence
the impression that Wessex and East Anglia bore the brunt of the attacks may
be misleading"; "even within Wessex his account of the ravaging is not com-
prehensive."8 Missing from the record, too, is Eadric's 1012 raid on St.
David's, which we learn about from the Brut y Tywysogyon and which I shall
discuss in more detail later. The omission is surprising in view of the
chronicler's evident interest in Eadric. Eric John goes so far as to posit a battle
of Maldon fought in 988: mention of this battle is found, not in the Chronicle,
but in Liber Eliensis and Byrhtferth's Life of Oswald; it would antedate the well-
known (second) battle of Maldon by three years.9
In these circumstances skaldic poetry may have more to contribute than is
commonly acknowledged. The focus of my attention in this article will be two
poems which deal with events in the period 1009-1016, the Knu'tsdrdpa of
Ottarr svarti and an anonymous and almost entirely neglected source, the
Li5smannafiokkr. I shall also have to discuss the connectlons these poems have
with two other works, the Eiriksdrdpa (or Belgskakadrdpa) of ]Porbr Kolbeinsson
and the editorially named Vikingarvzsur of Sigvatr IPorMarson.'0
7Simon Keynes, "The Declining Reputation of King 1Ethelred the Unready," in Ethelred the
Unready, ed. David Hill, British Archaeological Reports, British Series 59 (Oxford, 1978), p. 233:
this collection of essays will hereafter be cited as Ethelred.
8 M. K. Lawson, "The Collection of Danegeld and Heregeld in the Reigns of Aethelred II and
Cnut," The English Historical Review 99 (1984), 733.
9 Eric John, "War and Society in the Tenth Century: The Maldon Campaign," Transactions of
the Royal Historical Society, 5th ser. 27 (1977), 173-95.
10 A more extensive discussion of the historical content of 16r6r's and Sigvatr's verse is to be
found in such works as 0. A. Johnsen, Olav Haraldssons ungdom, indtil slaget ved Nesjar 25. mars
1016: En kritisk undersokelse, Videnskapsselskapets Skrifter, 2: Hist.-Filos. Klasse, no. 2 (Kristiania,
1916); Margaret Ashdowri, English and Norse Documents Relating to the Reign of Ethelred the Unready
(Cambridge, 1930); Ove Mobe-rg, Olav Haraldsson, Knut den store och Sverige (Lund, 1941); Alistair
Campbell, ed., Encomium Emmae reginae, Camden 3rd ser. 72 (London, 1949), hereafter EE; also
Campbell, Skaldic Verse.
268 Skaldic Verse
A stanza from Sigvatr's poem will serve to exemplify the peculiarities of this
type of source and its potential value in supplementing English sources.
Vann ungr konungr Engluni

otrau6r skarar rau6ar.
Endr kom bruint a' branda
bl6 i Nyjamo%u.
Nu' hefi ek orrostur, austan
ognbaldr, niu tal6ar.
Herr fell danskr, par's dQrrum
dreif mest at 'leifi.11
The young king reddened the hair of the English unsparingly. Red-brown blood
streaked the swords once more at Ny)jamo6a. Now, [man] bold in battle fr
east, I have tallied nine battles. The Danish army fell there, where spears were
hurled at Olafr most of all.
Line 6 may illustrate the winnowing out of eleventh-century linguistic fea-

tures that occurred in the course of oral and scribal transmission. Here some
manuscripts read ogn-valdr, others -djarfr, and a few -dval6r (my normaliza-
tions). These readings can be explained as emendations or blunders for the
rare word baldr in the still rarer affirmative sense "bold." Such a usage would
represent one of the Anglo-Saxonisms of which Sigvatr is fond.'2
As to content, the stanza is typical in its mention of a specific place-name but
its failure to state why or to what end Olafr fought at this place. The intima-
tions of vast casualties on the English side and undiluted heroism among the
Vikings are typically hyperbolic. Beyond the utterly stereotypic and uninfor-
mative, a general indication of the outcome is given, along with the interesting
admission that there was loss of life on the Viking side too. Quite untypical is
the enumeration of battles, a device which enables us to reconstruct the origi-
nal stanza order in Vikingarvisur with some confidence.
Returning to the place-name, which is the most distinctive feature of the
stanza, we see very strikingly how skaldic verse can supplement our testimony
from other sources in unexpected ways. Not merely is there no other account
of a battle at this place, but even the name itself is unrecorded in the Old
English period. Drawing on attestations in later medieval records, Eilert Ek-
wall showed that a locality called Newemouth once existed near Orford and
11 Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla 2, ed. Bjarni A6albjarnarson, Islenzk fornrit 27 (Reyk

1945), p. 21: hereafter IF 27. For full apparatus see Finnur J6nsson, ed., Den norsk-islandske
Skjaldedigtning, A: Tekst efter Hdndskrifterne (Copenhagen, 1912-15), pp. 225-26: hereafter
Skj. A. The stanza is also discussed by Christine Fell, "Vikingarvisur," in Speculum norreenum: Studies
in Memory of Gabriel Turville-Petre, ed. U. Dronke et al. (Odense, 1981), p. 118.
12 On Sigvatr's use of Anglo-Saxon idioms see Dietrich Hofmann, Nordisch-englische Lehn-
beziehungen der Wikingerzeit, Bibliotheca Arnamagnacana 14 (Copenhagen, 1955), especially p. 93;
also Roberta Frank, "Viking Atrocity and Skaldic Verse: The Rite of the Blood-Eagle," The
English Historical Review 99 (1984), 339.
Skaldic Verse 269
that the name could be identified

From Sigvatr's system of enumeration we gauge that the Nyjamo6a encounter
followed the capture of Canterbury ( 101 1) and preceded Olafr's expedition to
France and Spain, which he probably began no later than 1012, after the
dispersal of ]Porkell's fleet.'4 The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle knows nothing of an
East Anglian incursion in either year but does state that the Viking ships
which did not go over to Ethelred in 1012 dispersed very widely. There would
have been opportunity for independent raiding by Olafr and others. We see
from the Chronicle that in 1013 P?orkell himself did not spare the English. The
rarity of the name Newemouth supports Ekwall's identification. A lacuna in
the Chronicle accounts of raids, even in East Anglia, might be explained by
their sheer frequency or by the likelihood that provincial events subsequent to
the capture and eventual murder of Alfheah were eclipsed by the archbish-
op's fate.
KN(JTSDRAPA
Ottarr svarti's Knu'tsdrdpa, like Vikingarvisur, is a promising source because

so many place-names are mentioned. In this respect both poems contrast with
the much vaguer Li6Ysmannaflokkr, which I shall discuss later. On the other
hand, Vakingarvisur and Li6Ysmannaflokkr survive in a coherent state, whereas
Knuitsdrdpa is a set of fragments. In determining the value of Knuitsdrdpa as a
source we need to bear in mind a passage in Fagrskinna, a short history of the
Norwegian kings compiled somewhat prior to Snorri's Heimskringla.'5 Here
Knuitsdrdpa is linked with the Eiriksdrdpa (alternatively named Belgskakadrdpa
of DoPrr Kolbeinsson.16
... sva sem segir M6r&r Kolbeinsson i kvxeti pvvi er hann orti um Eirik jarl ok kemr
samt me6 peim Ottari svarta par er hann telr i Knu'tsdraipu hversu marga bardaga
peir attu aOr en England yr6i unnit.17
.... as M6r&r Kolbeinsson says in the poem which he composed about Earl Eirikr,
and there is agreement between him and Ottarr svarti, where he reckons, in
Knfitsdrdpa, how many battles they had before England was conquered.
13 Eilert Ekwall, "Njjamo6a," Arkiv for nordiskfilologi 57 (1944), 87-96; see also Ekwall, "Annu
en gang N)jam6&z," ANF 58 (1944), 321-22.
14 On Olafr's movements see in particular Johnsen, Olav Haraldssons ungdom.
15 The fullest discussion of the relationship between these two texts is by Bjarni A6albjarn
son, Om de norske Kongers Sagaer, Skrifter utgitt av Det Norske Videnskaps-Akademi i Oslo, 2:
Hist-Filos. Klasse, 1936, no. 4 (Oslo, 1937), pp. 173-236.
16 On the reasons for regarding these two names as referring to the same poem see Fidjest0l,
Fyrstediktet, pp. 115-16. Also Gubbrandur Vigfuisson and F. York Powell, Corpus poeticum Boreale,
2 vols. (Oxford, 1883), 2:102-5: hereafter CPB.
17Fagrskinna, ed. Finnur J6nsson, Samfund til udgivelse af gammel nordisk litte
(Copenhagen, 1902-3), p. 139: hereafter Fagrskinna.
270 Skaldic Verse
This unanimity must have arisen through borrowing from one poem to the
other, or consultation, or use of a common source. To suppose, with Ove
Moberg, that the two poems are independent and corroborate each other is
wishful thinking.'8 Their relative dating is difficult to settle. Finnur Jonsson
thought that P6r`r's work was an erfidrdpa,'9 but certainly the surviving frag
ments give no indication that the earl was dead.20 Internal evidence shows that
Eirtksdrdpa was delivered in England to Knutr's following:
... Fekk - regn Iorins rekka

rann of pingamQnnum
ceglig hQgg, par's eggjar,
Ulfkell, blaar skulfu.
Ulfkell received frightful blows, where the dark blades quivered; this poem was
recited to the household retainers (bingamenn).
The history of this helmingr in twentieth-century interpretation gives a fair

impression of the difficulties that beset skaldic scholarship. Finnur Jonsson
emended rekka to RQkkva and combined RQkkva rpnn by tmesis with regn-
JPorinn, the reading of some manuscripts, to produce a compound adjective
"courageous in battle." He took the phrase of JingamQnnum 'over the bin-
gamenn' as an adverbial adjunct to skulfu 'quivered'.2' E. A. Kock, a strident
foe of both "unnatural" word order and (less consistently) emendations,
added a second emendation, ranns, to avoid the tmesis.22 But the necessity of
emending had never been demonstrated, and the next editor, Bjarni A6alb-
jarnarson, returned to the manuscript readings to produce an interpretation
similar to the above.23 Porin[n] is a heiti 'poetic name' for dwarf and the regn
'rain' of the dwarf is a kenning for poetry. This interpretation was endorsed
by Bjarni Gu6nason.24 But one unnecessary complication in it remained un-
touched from Finnur Jonsson's day: the separation of rann 'ran' from its
natural adjunct of fringampnnum.25 We are dealing with a figure of la
favored by the skalds when poetic recitation is being described: the verb and
18 Moberg, Olav Haraldsson, p. 50, n. 71.

19 Finnur J6nsson, Den oldnorske og oldislandske litteraturs historie, 2nd ed., 3 vols. (CQpenhage
1920-24), 1:562.
20Jan de Vries, Altnordische Literaturgeschichte, 2nd ed., 2 vols. (Berlin, 1964 and 19
21 Finnur J6nsson, ed., Den norsk-islandske Skjaldedigtning, B: Rettet tekst (Copenha
15), p. 206, v. 11: hereafter Skj. B. See Skj. A:216 for apparatus.
22 Ernst Albin Kock, Notationes Norrena, Lunds Universitets Arsskrift, N.F. Avd. 1 (Lund,
1923-44), ? 585: hereafter NN.
23 IF 27:32.
24 Bjarni Gu6nason, ed., Danakonunga SQgur, Islenzk fornrit 35 (Reykjavik, 1982), p. 1

hereafter fF 35.
25 Compare enn regns dropi rann ni6r um kni 'and a drop of rain (i.e., a tear) ran down over he
lap', Gu5rinarkvi&a in fyrsta, in Edda: Die Lieder des Codex Regius nebst verwandten Denkmalern,
Gustav Neckel, rev. Hans Kuhn (Heidelberg, 1962), p. 204, v. 15.
Skaldic Verse 271
adverbial adjunct are selected to conform with the semantic field of the base
word of the kenning, so that here the "rain of the dwarf's comrades (poetry)
ran over the retainers." For its part, the verb skulfu needs no adjunct. The
special relevance of this verb lies in its proximity to acglig'frightful'; skjalfa can
be used of the palpitation of a frightened man's heart, whereas here it is only
the swordblades that skjalfa. The virtual repetition of this witty collocation
from verse 3 of the drdpa, along with the past tense of the parenthetic sen-
tence describing the recitation, presumably signals that the poem is nearing its
end.2
The Pingamenn over whom Por6r's ode washed seem to have been an elite
corps established by Knuitr around 1018, though in medieval prose the term
could also be applied to the followers of Sveinn tjiuguskegg.27 The poem
therefore presumably enshrines the official memory of events; although its
statements are not "history," they issue from a very early reconstruction of
what occurred.
There is no precise terminus ad quem. Eirikr's last signature is datable to
1023, the year he disappears from history.28 A letter of the following year is
signed by his son Ha4kop; no doubt Eirikr would have added his signature had
he been alive.29 The burden of proof rests with those who wish to place the
poem significantly later than 1024.
Turning to Ottarr's Knuitsdrdpa, we find that verse 11 covers the battle of
Helgea; verse 5 reinforces this by calling Knuitr Svaa Prengvir 'oppressor of the
Swedes'. In dating Helgea, Moberg follows the E version of the Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle (1025), whereas Campbell prefers Scandinavian traditions which
place the battle in 1027, three years before the death of Olafr helgi.30 This
means that Knutsdrdpa cannot antedate 1025 and may well be considerably
later. Hence Ottarr's poem is most simply explained as later than and in-
fluenced by Eiriksdrdpa/Belgskakadrdpa, parallel to the relationship bet
HQfu6lausn and Sigvatr's Vikingarvisur.3' This is not to imply, as we shall see,
that Por6r and Sigvatr were Ottarr's only sources.
The stanzas from Knuitsdrdpa to be discussed here are preserved only in
Kn)tlinga saga, a mid-thirteenth-century Icelandic historical compilation on
the kings of Denmark.32 I shall take these stanzas one by one and atternpt to
relate them tQ our other sources.
26 On the use of repetition to signal an approaching close see Russell Poole, "The Origins of th
MAhlAingavisur," Scandinavian Studies 57 (1985), 274-78.
27 IF 27:19, n. 1; C. Warren Hollister, Anglo-Saxon Military Institutions (Oxford, 1962), p. 13.
28EE, p. 70.
29 fF 27:32, n. 1.
30 Moberg, Olav Haraldsson, p. 156; EE, p. 82. Sir Frank Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, 3rd ed.
(Oxford, 1971), p. 403, opts for 1026.
31 Fidjest0l, Fyrstediktet, p. 214.
32 The standard edition is contained in fF 35.
272 Skaldic Verse
Gunni leztu i grcenni,

gramr, Lindisey fram6a.
Belldu vi6r, pvi's vildu,
vikingar par riki.
BiMa le'ztu i' brei6ri
borg Heminga sorgir
cest fyr UIsu vestan
engst folk, Svia prengvir.33
King, you waged war in green Lindsey. The Vikings there exerted the strength that
they wished. Oppressor of the Swedes, you fiercely brought the English people to
suffer sorrows in broad He(l)mingaborg, west of the Ouse.
Here the Lindsey reference is unambiguous, but when, in the second hel-
mingr, there is a move to the Us[a], we might think either of the Great Ouse,
which flows into the Wash, or of the Ouse which flows into the Humber. A
settlement known as Hemingbrough happens to lie just to the northeast of the
Yorkshire Ouse, and this Ekwall identifies with He(I)mingaborg.34 The dis-
crepancy in orientation might have arisen from the situation of Heming-
brough west of a tributary of the Ouse, the Derwent.
This information could fit two different phases of the war. After the death
of Sveinn (3 February 1014) Knu'tr and the people of Lindsey were caught out
by the unexpected arrival of King Ethelred and his full force, probably sup-
ported by Olafr helgi just before his departure for Norway.35 Lindsey "was
ravaged and burnt, and all the men who could be got at were killed; and Cnut
put out to sea with his fleet, and thus the wretched people were betrayed by
him."36 Although Knu'tr might have mounted more of a rearguard action
than the Chronicle here gives him credit for, there does not seem, as Campbell
points out, "to be a place in the story for the battle of Helmingborg."37 A rapid
retreat down the Humber, rather than an incursion on to its Yorkshire bank,
is what we should expect.
The alternative is to consider 1016 and Knutr's rapid northward march,
which he undertook so as to strike at the homeland of the Northumbrian earl
Uhtred and break up his alliance with Edmund Ironside. According to the
Chronicle entry for 1016 Knu'tr "then went out through Buckinghamshire into
Bedfordshire, from there to Huntingdonshire, and so into Northampton-
shire, along the fen to Stamford, and then into Lincolnshire; then from there
to Nottinghamshire, and so into Northumbria towards York."38 This advance
33 IF 35:106. The manuscripts read tvz for Par (Bjarni's emendation). For a different emenda-
tion see Skj. B:297. Another manuscript reads Helminga for Heminga.
34 Eilert Ekwall, ed., The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-Names, 4th ed. (Oxford, 1960),
s. Hemingbrough: hereafter DEPN.
35 Russell Poole, "In search of the Partar," Scandinavian Studies 52 (1980), 275.
36 English Historical Documents c. 500-1042, ed. Dorothy Whitelock, rev. ed. (London, 1979), p.
247: hereafter EHD.
37 Campbell, Skaldic Verse, p. 13.
38 EHD, p. 248.
Skaldic Verse 273
into Yorkshire was a strategic masterstroke, worthy of skaldic commemora-

tion. Being indirect, the route could well have taken in Hemingbrough, a
stronghold commanding a river which was an important means of access to
York. Considerable English casualties and localized resistance to the advance
might well have occurred, despite the silence of the Chronicle on that score.
The stanza which follows in Knytlinga saga probably also followed im-
mediately upon the last in the original poem. The recurrence of lexical items
(engstlEngla, gunni/gunnar, folklfylkir), internal rhymes (-ik- in line 4), and
vowel alliteration strongly suggests the poet's concatenation of adjacent
stanzas.
Ungr fylkir, leztu Engla

allnaer Tesu falla.
Flo6i djuipt of dau8ra
dik Nor8imbra likum.
Svefn braut svQrtum hrafni
sunnarr hvQtu8r gunnar.
Olli sokn enn snjalli
Sveins mggr at Skorsteini.
Young king, you caused the English to fall almost by the Tees. The deep ditch
flowed over the corpses of the dead Northumbrians. The warrior broke the sleep of
the black raven further south. The bold son of Sveinn brought about a battle at
SceorstAn.
In the Chronicle, on the other hand, there is no indication that Knu'tr advanced
further north than York. After Uhtred's submission and murder Knu'tr "ap-
pointed Eric for the Northumbrians, as their earl, just as Uhtred had been,
and then turned him southward by another route, keeping to the west."40 The
lacunae elsewhere in the Chronicle prevent us from supposing that Ottarr is
simply mistaken in his mention of the Tees. Both he and Do6rr, however,
might have had good reasons for somewhat exaggerating their leaders' con-
trol over Northumbria in 1016. Eirikr's subsequent rule was contested, to
judge from Simeon of Durham's statement that Uhtred was succeeded by his
brother Eadwulf, and Eadwulf in turn by Uhtred's son Aldred.41 Freeman
thought that Eadwulf "either was allowed to hold Bernicia under the suprem-
acy of Eric, or else succeeded to the whole when Eric was banished some years
later."42 An authentic but minor engagement by the Tees may have been used
by the poets to enhance the geographical extent of Viking rule.
The second helmingr has also led to accusations of vagueness and, as trans-
IF 35:109.
40EHD, p. 248.
41 Charles Plummer, ed., Two of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles Parallel, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1892 and
1899), 2:195.
42 Edward Augustus Freeman, The History of the Norman Conquest of England, Its Caus
Results, 3rd ed., 5 vols. (Oxford, 1875-79), 1:379.
274 Skaldic Verse
lated by Ashdown and Campbell, Ottarr certainly sounds so: "more to the
south, thou didst lead the onset at Sherston."43 But E. A. Kock had long since
corrected the erroneous assignment of sunnarr to this clause.44 Ottarr is not
saying, in some hazy fashion, that Sceorstan is "further south"; rather, he is
indicating a new, southern phase in the campaign, subsequent to the North-
umbrian incursion. Sceorstan is brought in as the first stage in this phase; the
stanzas to be dealt with next, on Brentford, Assanduan, Norwich, and the
Thames, no doubt represent a continuation of this section.
FjQrlausa hykk Frisi,

fri8sker8ir, Pik ger6u -
brauztu me8 byggtu setri
Brandfur8u - par, randa.
Jaitmundar hlaut undir
aettni8r gQfugr haettar;
dansk herr skaut P. dQrrum
drott, er Pui rakt fl6tta.i5
I believe that you, warrior, cost Frisians their lives there; you sacked Brentford, with
its built-up settlement. The noble descendant of Edmund received dangerous
wounds; the Danish army pierced the people with spears, when you put the enemy
to flight.
The Chronicle agrees in locating an important battle here but not in the result
it gives. Two days after Edmund had relieved the citizens of London, under
siege by Knuitr, and sent the Vikings fleeing to their ships, he "crossed over
Brentford, and then fought against the army and put it to flight."46 Ottarr's
first helmingr seems to tell the part of this story not covered in the Chronicle,
namely Knu'tr's establishment of a position at Brentford, the likeliest place for
Edmund to cross the Thames and follow up his pursuit.47 The presence of
Frisians cannot be confirmed from other sources:48 possibly they were sup-
porters of Edmund,49 but alternatively they may have been using the Thames
for trade purposes and been inadvertently caught up in the fighting as a
promising source of Viking plunder. The real difficulty in Ottarr's story
comes in the second helmingr. Here propaganda seems to take over, as the
poet attempts to "cover up" the ignominy of the Danish retreat. He may have
been fortified in so doing by the knowledge that the flight, though real, was
only a temporary setback; we learn from the Chronicle that the Danes im-
43 Ashdown, English and Norse Documents, p. 139, and Campbell, Skaldic Verse, p. 13, both
following Skj. B:274.
44 NN, ? 737.
45 IF 35:112.
46 EHD, p. 249.
47 Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, p. 391.
48 Campbell, Skaldic Verse, p. 13.
49James Campbell, "England, France, Flanders, and Germany: Some Comparisons and Con-
nections," in Ethelred, p. 263.
Skaldic Verse 275
mediately resumed the siege of London, while Edmund, seriously hampered

by the heavy casualties on his side, withdrew to Wessex. From the point of
view of the Londoners in particular, the battle of Brentford can hardly have
seemed like an English triumph.
Next in Knytlinga saga but not, as we shall see, necessarily next in Ottarr's
original poem, is the following stanza:
SkjQldungr, vanntu und skildi

skceru verk, enn sterki;
fekk blo6trani bra6.ir
bru'nar Assatuinum.
Vattu - en valfall t0tti
ver8ung - jQfurr, sver8i
naer fyr nordan storu
nafn gnogt Danaskoga.50
Mighty king, bearing your shield you performed a feat of battle; the raven received
red-brown meat at Assanduin. Prince, you gained yourself a great name with the
sword near the northern side of the great Danaskoga[r], and to your retinue it
seemed a massacre.
Here the first helmingr offers no difficulties, but the second, which locates
fighting north of Danaskogar 'forest of Danes' (?), goes beyond information
from elsewhere. Several possibilities are open to us. Ottarr might have mean
a forest south of Assanduin. However, I know of no appropriate English
locality, regardless of which site we favor for this battle.51 Or he might have
intended an altogether separate battle from Assanduin. In this case the two
helmingar might have been incorrectly linked in Knytlinga saga. The difficulty
is that the Chronicle and other sources know of no battle after Assanduin.
According to the Chronicle, Knu'tr's next move after his victory was to go
inland "with his army to Gloucester, where he had learnt that King Edmund
was. Then Ealdorman Eadric and the councillors who were there advised that
the kings should be reconciled, and they exchanged hostages. And the kings
met at Alney [Olanige; "by Deerhurst" added by D] and established their
friendship there both with pledge and with oath."52 A third possibility
Ottarr's battle north of Danaskogar results from some kind of confusion
concerning the "meeting" of the two kings at Olanige. The preliminaries to
this event seem to have been bellicose on both sides. The Chronicle makes this
clear where Kniutr is concerned. The tradition that Edmund for his part was
collecting an army in Gloucestershire is documented by Freeman.53 A series
of writers, William of Malmesbury, Henry of Huntingdon, Walter Map, and
50 IF 35:112.
51 For a discussion of the controversy and further references see Cyril Hart, "The Site of
Assandun," History Studies 1' (1968), 1-12.
52EHD, p. 250.
53 Freeman, History, 1:705-6.
276 Skaldic Verse
Roger of Wendover, go on to tell of a single combat, or offer of single combat,

between the kings. The author of Encomium Emmae also has the single combat
story but links it chronologically with Knu'tr's retreat to Sheppey earlier in the
year.54 Ottarr's story is, however, different in suggesting a general outbreak of
hostilities. Possibly he extrapolated incorrectly from information that Kniutr
won a great name (ON konungsnafn 'a king's title') after Assanduan to the
notion that Knutr's title was won by armed warfare, not negotiations.
Despite the various distortions in his account, Ottarr does seem reliable in
his use of place-names. The mysterious Danaskogar is therefore perhaps to be
explained as a reference to some locality in Gloucestershire. The location of
Olanige itself is not altogether certain. Choice of the well-known, large island
of Alney, near Gloucester, seems to be ruled out because the island where the
kings met is "placed near Deerhurst by the Worcester Chronicler, by Flor-
ence, and by Walter Map, all of whom had local knowledge,"55 whereas other
sources do not mention its position. If we look for forests which Deerhurst is
generally north of, or would have been in Anglo-Saxon times,56 a highl
suitable identification of Danask6gar is with the Forest of Dean. In dealing
with Ottarr's place-names we have to reckon with sound substitution and
possibly also folk etymology, as Brandfur6[a] for OE Bregent/Bragentford57
shows. OE denu 'valley', the etymon of Dean,58 lacks a recorded counterpart in
ON. By contrast, OE Dena 'of the Danes', a fairly common first element in
English place-names, has an obvious cognate in ON Dana, which form itself
occurs in English place-names. Misinterpretation of Denu, especially in a syn-
copated form Den-, is thus a possibility. Sound substitution could have com-
pounded the confusion, because in Essex and certain neighboring areas,
where i-mutated a before nasals resulted in OE e, denu would have had the
form *dwnu (inferred from the ME reflex dane).59 In the pronunciation of the
Vikings Dan-, parallel to Brand- in Brandfur6a, would be the outcome.
Two more stanzas by Ottarr are cited in Kny'tlinga saga. One is about
fighting at Norwich; the other brings the campaign to the Thames. The latter
is clearly out of sequence and should be placed before Assanduan. The men-
tion of Norwich raises greater difficulties.
Bjo6r, vanntu brynjur rau8ar,

blfr storgjafa, si8an
laetr Qnd, a0r Prek Prjoti
Pinn - fyr Nordvfk innan.60
EE, p. lix.
55 Freeman, History, 1:707-8.
56 David Hill, An Atlas of Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford, 1981), map 23, pp. 16-17.
57 DEPN, s. Brent.
58 DEPN, s. denu.
59DEPN, s. denu. See also Karl Luick, Historische Gramrnatik der englischen Sprache (Leipzig,
1914-), ?363 a.2; Alistair Campbell, Old English Grammar (Oxford, 1959), p. 75.
60 IF 35:113.
Skaldic Verse 277
Glad, generous benefactor, you then reddened mailshirts [in blood] inside Norwich;
your valor will not fail until you set free your soul [in death].
This alleged encounter cannot be linked to any mention of Norwich in our

other sources. Alistair Campbell therefore argued that the Norwich helmingr
"is not a part of Ottarr's poem on Kniutr, but belongs to another one (proba
not by Ottarr), which dealt with Knu'tr's father, Sveinn"; Sveinn had sacked
Norwich twelve years before Kniutr's final campaign, in 1004.61 Since, as we
have seen, Ottarr's Knihtsdrdpa is not uniformly reliable, Campbell's hypothesis
is undeniably attractive. It is weakened, however, by the silence of the Anglo-
Saxon Chronicle on another putatively East Anglian encounter, Nyjamd6a.
Ottarr on Norwich needs, I think, to be considered alongside D6r6r on yet a
third East Anglian action, at Hringmarahei6r.
Hvatr vann Freyr a' flotna

folkstafns, sa's gaf hrafni
sollit hold ne sjaldan,
sver8s eggja spor leggi.
Snjallr let opt ok olli
Eirikr bana Peira
rau8 Hringmarahei8i
herr - Engla lid Iverra.62
The brave warrior, who often gave the raven bloated flesh, left the imprint of the
sword-edge on the warriors' limbs. The bold Eirikr often brought about a diminu-
tion of the English forces and caused their deaths. The army made Hringmarahei8r
red.
This mention of Hringmarahei6[r] is striking because the same name is used

by Sigvatr and, following Sigvatr, Ottarr to localize an undoubtedly authentic
battle fought by O1afr helgi in 1010. Finnur Jonsson accepted Dor6r's 1016
battle of Hringmarahei6r as also authentic, on the basis of apparent support
from the Encomium Emmae.63 Moberg agreed, but more cautiously, leaving
open the possibility that Do6rr might have muddled the events of 1009-12
and 1015-16.64 Campbell thought that "a campaign in the southern part of
East Anglia [did] not fit in well with the lines of the fighting in 1015-16."
Noting that Dor6r's Hringmarahei6r stanza immediately follows another
Do6rr attribution in Knytlinga saga containing the names London and Ulfkell,
he suggested that all three names derive not from independent knowledge of
Eirikr's campaigns but from Sigvatr and Ottarr's poems on Olafr helgi.65
Fidjest0l also thinks the Hringmarahei6r reference spurious but traces it to
61 Campbell, Skaldic Verse, pp. 3-4 and 13.

62 IF 35:118.
63 Finnur J6nsson, Knftlingasaga, dens Kilder og historiske Verd (Copenhagen, 1900), p. 17.
64 Moberg, Olav Haraldsson, pp. 39 and 50.
65 Campbell, Skaldic Verse, p. 15; EE, p. 71.
278 Skaldic Verse
Dor6r's conflation of Ottarr's Hpf

this, I have given reasons for taking Eiriksdrdpa more seriously as a historical
source. As we shall see presently, Campbell himself acknowledged that certain
stanzas in this poem may be based on early and possibly even authentic
traditions.67
Finnur Jonsson's confirmation for Do6rr was evidently sought in a passage
from Encomium Emmae where we see Eirikr inspired by Dorkell's success at
Sceorstan and setting off, with Knuitr's permission, to ravage part of England.
He destroys villages and overcomes the enemies who meet him, capturing
many of them. On Eirikr's return, Kniutr calls a halt to these activities, mag-
nanimously parcens patrice 'sparing the country', and begins the siege of Lon-
don.68 The whole account reads suspiciously like an exculpation of Knutr
from active participation in the destruction and slaughter of 1015 and 1016,
or at least those parts of the campaign whose object was forage, not final
victory. Accordingly, the Encomiast's raid may well be identical with the gen-
eral raid described in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle entry for 1016: "The army
then turned after that with their ships from London into the Orwell, and went
inland there (Ixr up foran),69 and went into Mercia (feordon on Myrcean), slay-
ing and burning whatever was in their path, as is their custom, and procured
provisions for themselves."70 Florence's account explains that they then re-
turned to their ships.7' Presumably when Stenton terms this "a great raid over
East Anglia and Mercia"72 he is either interpreting the words on Myrcean very
broadly or else hazarding a reasonable guess as to the wide coverage of the
expedition. It follows that actions at Norwich and Hringmarahei6r, either on
the way inland or on the return journey to the ships on the Orwell, cannot so
confidently be excluded as Campbell thought.
The site of the 1010 battle of Hringmarahei6r was identified by W. H.
Stevenson with Ringmere Pit, near Thetford, in the parish of East Wretham.
Ringmere Pit "lies between Croxton Heath, Roudham Heath, and Bridgeham
Heath" and is "a circular lake or mere at the bottom of a circular pit of
considerable size." "The agreement in name and situation with Florence's
Ringmere and the Hringmarahei6r of the sagas is so remarkable, and a 'ring-
mere' is so unusual a geographical feature, that I think we may safely con-
clude that Ulfketel's defeat occurred near Ringmere Pit. The existence of this
name in a heathy country justifies the Norse name Hringmarahei6r."73

67EE, p. 70; Campbell, Skaldic Verse, pp. 14-15.
68 EE, pp. 22-23.
69 Plummer, Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, 1:150, E.
70 EHD, p. 250.
71 Florentii Wigorniensis monachi Chronicon ex chronicis, ed. Benjamin Thorpe, 2 vols. (London,
1848 and 1849), 1:176.
72 Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, pp. 391-92.
73 W. H. Stevenson, "Notes on Old-English Historical Geography," English Historical Review 11
(1896), 301-2.
Skaldic Verse 279
The heathland in which Ringmere lies was evidently of major strategic

importance. Stevenson noted its handiness to Peddars Way, a route whose
continued importance, even after the Norman Conquest, is shown by the
position of Castle Acre, commanding the intersection of this and another
route a few miles northwest of Ringmere. But from the map in Margary's
Roman Roads in Britain Ringmere and its surrounding heathlands can be seen
to be a nodal point for communications so long as the Roman road network
was kept up, being close also to the Icknield Way and to various cross routes.74
Whoever held this area could deploy war bands rapidly to most parts of East
Anglia. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, supplemented by Florence, tells us that in
1010 Dorkell's army went at once, after landing, to the place [Ringmere]
where they had heard that Ulfcetel was with his army.75 This again suggests
that Ringmere was a marshaling point for the Anglo-Saxon militia. It is not a
particularly high or naturally well protected location but would, in this chalky
country, have had the inestimable advantage of constituting a reliable source
of fresh water.76
The center handiest to Ringmere and adjacent to the same heathlands is
Thetford, about four miles away. The Danes seem to have recognized the
usefulness of the location when they made it their wintering place in 869. Set
on the tract of open country running between the forest and the fen and
connected by river traffic with the ports of the Wash and the North Sea,
Thetford, as a Danelaw settlement, seems to have developed as a trading town
on a plan approximating those of Birka and Hedeby, with bank-and-ditch
defenses on the landward side. By the reign of Edgar the town boasted a
mint.77 Using numismatic criteria, David Hill has calculated that during the
reign of Ethelred Thetford would have ranked fifth-equal or sixth in a hierar-
chy of centers, ranking below only such major settlements as London, Lin-
coln, York, and Winchester, just below or on a par with Chester, and far
surpassing all East Anglian centers except Norwich at tenth and Ipswich at
eighteenth.78 Thetford was by this time the second largest town in East Ang-
lia, after Norwich, and in process of rapid expansion. 79
We learn from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle that when Sveinn raided East
Anglia in 1004 he first attacked Norwich and then, leaving his ships, advanced
inland to Thetford, which he also sacked. Meanwhile Ulfcetel had clandes-
tinely collected his army and intercepted the Vikings "Oa hi to scipum
74 I. D. Margary, Roman Roads in Britain, rev. ed. (London, 1973), map 1 1, pp. 28 and 2
75 EHD, p. 243.
76 I am grateful to the warden of the Ringmere Nature Reserve for commenting on this point
and for showing me round the area.
77 B. K. Davison, "The Late Saxon Town of Thetford," Medieval Archaeology 11 (1967), 189 and
195.
78 David Hill, "Trends in the development of Towns during the Reign of Ethelred II," in
Ethelred, p. 216; also Hill, Atldas, p. 130.
79 Davison, "Thetford," pp. 189 and 194.
280 Skaldic Verse
don."80 Dorothy Whitelock suggests that this battle took place on "the heath-
lands north of Thetford,",8' which would be possible if we understood woldon
in a conative sense. In that case Ringmere, on the route to Norwich and
evidently Ulfcetel's base in 1010, would be the natural point of interception.
In the light of this evidence it can be seen that repeated engagements on the
heathlands around Ringmere are a natural outcome of that area's strategic
importance. The occurrence of the place-name in DoPrr's Eiriksdrtpa is in no
way proof of fabrication. This is not to say, of course, that the reappearance of
so famous a name was without rhetorical impact. In selecting a few salient
events from the raid of 1016 Do`rr might well have bypassed other pos-
sibilities in order to single out a clash on Hringmaraheibr, implicitly equating
Eirikr's prowess with Olafr's and perhaps also with Dorkell's and Sveinn's
because all four men had fought there at one time or another. Ottarr's men-
tion of Norwich would similarly glorify Knu'tr as the match of his celebrated
father. The names Ulfcetel and London in Eiriksdrtpa further this implicit
mannjafnabr 'comparison of patrons or leaders', one type of which Klaus von
See has termed "polemical citation."82 Ottarr stands at the beginning of an-
other chain of citations, where Scandinavian leaders are praised for their
battles by the Yorkshire Ouse. We see Knui[tr there in Ottarr's poem, Haraldr
harbradi in Arnorr Do'rarson's, and finally 6Olafr kyrri in Steinn Herdisar-
son's. The literary influence is obvious, especially when Steinn conflates Ot-
tarr's mention of the Ouse and the Tees to produce the couplet
Ungr visi, lzt Usu

allnaer bu'endr falla.83
But this does not mean that the battles were fictive. More patterns of the same
kind may have existed than we can now fully discern. Ottarr's praise of
Knu(tr's incursion into Lindsey may have been motivated not so much by the
glory of the raid itself, which would necessarily have been brief, but more by
the awareness that Sigvatr had praised O`lafr helgi (in Vikingarvuisur, whi
Ottarr himself used for HQfufalausn) for humiliatingly dislodging Knu'tr from
the same district a mere two years before.84
LIDnSMANNAFLOKKR
When we turn from the works of Ottarr and Porbr to the anonymous or at
best collective Li6smannaflokkr, we find the same zeal for implicit comparison
richly exemplified.
80 Plummer, Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, 1: 135.

81 Dorothy Whitelock, "Scandinavian Personal Names in the Liber Vitae of Thorney Abbey,"
Saga-Book of the Viking Society 12 (1937-45), 139.
82 Klaus von See, "Polemische Zitate in der Skaldendichtung: Hallfr0or vandra6ask;ild und
Hald6rr 6kristni," Skandinavistik 7 (1977), 115-19; reprinted in Klaus von See, Edda, Saga, Skal-
dendichtung: Aufsatze zur skandinavischen Literatur des Mittelalters (Heidelberg, 1981), pp. 384-88.
83 For Arn6rr and Steinn see Skj. B:323 and 379 respectively.
84 See above, n. 35.
Skaldic Verse 281
1. Ggngum upp, aOr Engla

attlQnd farin rQndu
mor6s ok miklar fer6ir
malmregns stafar fregni:
verum hugrakkir Hlakkar,
hristum spj6t ok skjotum,
leggr fyr orum eggjum
Engla gn6tt a flotta.
Let us go ashore, before warriors and large militias learn that the English home-
lands are being traversed with shields: let us be brave in battle, brandish spears and
hurl them; great numbers of the English flee before our swords.
2. Margr ferr Ullr i illan

oddsennu dag Penna
frar, par's foeddir orum,
fornan serk, ok bornir:
enn a enskra manna
Qlum gjo6 Hnikars bW6Ai;
vart man skald i skyrtu
skrei6ask hamri sam6a.
Many an impetuous warrior puts on today the ugly old shirt, where we were born
and bred: once more let us nourish the raven on the blood of Englishmen; the
cautious poet will slip into that kind of shirt which the hammer sews.
3. Pollr mun glaums of grimu

gjarn si6arla airna
randar sko6 at rj66a
rce6inn, s'a's mey fce6ir:
berr eigi sa' sveigir
sara lauks f 'ari
rei6r til Rinar g166a
rQnd upp a' Englandi.
That garrulous reveler who brings the girl up will be eager to make no undue haste
to redden his sword at night: the warrior does not carry a shield ashore into English
territory at this early hour, enraged, in quest of gold.
4. P6ttut mer, es ek Patta,

Porkels liWar dvelja
sousk eigi Peir sver6a
song - i folk at ganga,
aOr an ?hau6r? a' hei6i
hri6 vikingar kni6u -
ver hlutum vaipna sku'rir -
var6 fylkt li6i - har6a.
Porkell's men did not seem to me, as I saw [them], to lose time in joining battle
they did not fear the ringing of swords - before the Vikings fought a hard engage-
ment on ?hau6r? heath; we .encountered showers of weapons; the troops were in
battle formation.
282 Skaldic Verse
5. Hair Pykki mer, hlyra,

hinn jarl, es bra' snarla
maer spyrr vitr ef vaeri
valkQstr - ara fQstu:
en PekkjQndum Pykkir
Punnblas megina'sar
hQr6, su's hilmir ger6i
hri6, a' Tempsar si6u.
This earl, who briskly broke the ravens' fast, seems to me outstanding - my clever
girl asks if there was carnage - but the battle the king waged, on the bank of the
Thames, seems a hard one to the bowmen.
6. Einr.A6it le't aMan

Ullkell, par's spjgr gullu -
hQr6 ox hildar gar6a
hriM - vikingar at bi6a:
ok sli6rhuga6r si6an
satt a oss hve' matti
byggs vi6 bitran skeggja
brunns; tveir hugir runnu.
Ulfcetel decided beforehand to await the Vikings, where spears made their din -
the fighting grew fierce - and you saw from our appearance afterwards what that
remorseless man could achieve against the implacable stone-dweller; dissent arose.
7. Knu'tr re6 ok ba6 bia -

baugstalls - Dani alla -
lundr gekk rQskr und randir
rikr - va' herr vi6 diki:
naer vas, sveit par's sottum,
Syn, me6 hjalm ok brynju,
elds sem olmum heldi
elg Rennandi kennir.
Knu'tr decided, and commanded the Danes all to wait - the mighty warrior went
bravely into battle - the army fought alongside the moat: lady, where we engaged
the enemy forces, with helmets and mailcoats, it was almost as if a man held a
maddened elk.
8. Ut mun ekkja lita -

opt gloa vOpn a' lopti
of hjalmtQmum hilmi -
hrein su's by5r i steini
hve sigrffkinn scekir
snarla borgar karla
dynr a' brezkum brynjum
blo6iss - Dana visi.
The chaste widow who lives in stone will look out - often weapons glitter in the air
above the king in his helmet - [to see] how the Danish leader, eager for victory,
valiantly assails the city's garrison; the sword rings against British mailcoats.
Skaldic Verse 283
9. Hvern morgin ser horna

HlQkk a' Tempsar bakka -
skalat hanga ma' hungra -
hjalmsko6 ro6in blot6i:
ry6r eigi sa' sveigir
sara lauk i airi,
hinn's Grji6tvarar gaetir,
gunnbor6s, fyrir Sta6 nor6an.
Each morning, on the bank of the Thames, the lady sees swords stained with blood;
the raven must not go hungry: the warrior who watches over SteinvQr, north of
Sta6r, does not redden his sword at this early hour.
10. Dag vas hvern pat's HQgna

hur6 rjo6task nam bW6Mi,
ar par's u(ti vOrum,
Ilmr, i fgr me6 hilmi:
kneigum ver, siz vigum
var6 nylokit hQr6um,
fyllar dags, i fQgrum,
fit, Lundu'num sitja.
Every day the shield was stained with blood, lady, where we were out early on our
expedition with the king: now that these hard battles have been recently concluded,
we can settle down, lady, in beautiful London.
Verses in the kings' sagas are usually cited with an attribution to a well-
known professional poet. But in the case of the LiYsmannaflokkr we are w
this assurance. In the sagas of Olafr helgi, now represented by the so-called
Legendary Saga and by fragments of a vita compiled by Styrmir Karason, the
ten stanzas of this poem are spoken by Olafr helgi himself after his legendary
help to Knui2tr in capturing London.85 In Kn5tlinga saga only two of the stanzas
are cited, in ajumbled order, and they are attributed to the liMsmenn, that is, to
Knu'tr's following.86 Bjarni Gubnason has argued convincingly that the associ-
ation with the 1i&smenn is primary and to be traced to the lost Kntits saga.87
The speaker within the flokkr narrates with immediate hindsight: London
has just been occupied by his comrades, following the protracted siege. Por-
kell inn havi is accorded the rank of earl. The ostensible dating is therefore
1017. And the great importance placed on Porkell, so that he almost matches
Knu'tr, suggests an author who was aware of contemporary English politics.88
85 6ldfs saga hins helga: Die "Legendarische Saga" fiber Olaf den Heiligen, ed. Anne Heinrichs et al
(Heidelberg, 1982), pp. 48-53. For Styrmir see Flateyjarb6k, ed. C. R. Unger and Gu6brandur
Vigfusson, 3 vols. (Kristiania, 1860-68), 3:237-39.
86 IF 35:116.
87 IF 35:xcv-vi.
88 I have investigated the treatment of Porkell in this poem in an as yet unpublished mono-
graph.
284 Skaldic Verse
Jan de Vries thought he saw linguistic and stylistic evidence for a dating as
late as the twelfth century.89 But the application of hreinn 'chaste/pure' to a
woman, which struck him as a mark of later, overtly Christian poetry, can be
paralleled in a verse attributed to IUilfr stallari and datable to 1066.90 This
verse expresses Norwegian defiance of the Jingamannali6 and so may even
have a literary connection with Li5smannaflokkr. De Vries also found the motif
of the woman watching the fighting men from her window in verse 8 suspect.
But Sigvatr and Pj66`lfr Arn6rsson have very similar lines, datable to around
1020 and 1060 respectively.9' We might reasonably assume, with Dietrich
Hofmann, that here Sigvatr is borrowing from Li6smannaflokkr.92
Hofmann saw the poem as produced in an Anglo-Saxon milieu.93 He drew
attention to the differences among the manuscripts over line 8 in verse 2:
skrei6ask hamri sam6a

skce6ask hamri sce6a
skrei6ask hamri sei6a94
and hypothesized that underlying the first word was an Anglo-Saxonism

which had confused the copyists. This theory had been partially anticipated
by Gu6brandur Vigfusson, who tentatively conjectured skry&az,95 but Hof-
mann improved on this by the suggestion that the original word was *skre6&ask,
representing OE dialect *scredan (for West Saxon scrydan 'to issue with cloth-
ing'). Comparing the statement in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle entry for 1012
that Ethelred was to fedan and scrydan the Danes who went over to him,96
Hofmann argued that for the Danes in question the word could have had the
status of a technical term. The bkifs saga form skreisask appears to represent
an Icelandic or possibly Norwegian hypercorrection of the apparently mon-
ophthongized Danish *skrMask.97 Since the normal ON loan word from OE
scrydan is skrj&a, the use of *skrMask in a late historical poem of the kind
envisaged by De Vries is unlikely.
A kindred feature may be traced in verse 6, where in the manuscripts
(normalized) the second line reads
Ulfkell, par's spjgr gullu.
Konra' Gislason emended gullu to skulfu, following Eirtksdrdpa
Ulfkell, b1dar skulfu,
89 Jan de Vries, Altnordische Literaturgeschichte, 1:281-82.

90 Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla 3, ed. Bjarni A6albjarnarson, islenzk fornrit 28 (Reyk
1951), p. 175: hereafter IF 28.
91 iF 27:94; IF 28:142.
92 Hofmann, Lehnbeziehungen, p. 83.
93 Hofmann, Lehnbeziehungen, pp. 64-70.
94 See Skj. A:422 for full apparatus: my normalizations.
95 CPB, 2:107 n.
96 Plummer, Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, 1:143.
97 On the dialect differences in monophthongization of ei to e see Johannes Br0ndum-Nielsen,
Gammeldansk Grammatik i sproghistoriskfremstilling, 1 (Copenhagen, 1928), 315-16.
Skaldic Verse 285
so as to obtain mandatory full internal rhyme.98 If, instead, we emend Ulfkell

to Ullkell, we obtain a form which, apart from the geminated -11- (possibly a
result of analogy with the god's name Ullr), has a late Old English look about
it. In OE clusters of three unlike consonants, including -IfC-, were sporadically
reduced, especially in proper names.99 In pre-Conquest manuscripts of char-
ters we find such forms as Wullaf, alongside Wulflaf,'00 Wulmaer for
Wulfmaer,101 Wulhun alongside Wulfhun,102 and Wulbyr for Wulfbyr.103
though the orthography of coins is at best shaky, examples from the late tenth
and early eleventh centuries show the same systematic alternation of forms.
Of moneyers active in the reign of Ethelred the same man is called Wulmaer
and Wulfmaer, Wulstan and Wulfstan, Wulgar and Wulfgar, Wulsi(ge) and
Wulfsige, Wulbern/beorn and Wulfbern/barn.104 It seems likely from this
evidence that in Ethelred's time the alternation of forms existed not merely in
spelling but also in pronunciation.
The attestation of Ulcetel, for Ulfcetel, is later and slightly less certain.
Possibly merely a blundered form is Vlccetel alongside Vlfcetel in coins of
Edward the Confessor (1042-66).1o5 The Thorney Liber vitae contains the
form Wlketel(us) five times alongside Vlfketel (twice), Vlfkil, and Vlfkel (once
each). Whitelock notes that although the hands here "are as late as about
1100, some of the matter on folio 1Or belongs to the time of Cnut and it is
clear that the scribe has had earlier lists in front of him."'106 English money
of this name are attested by Danish coins. An Ulkil/Ulfkil was active in Ros-
kilde during the reign of St. Knu'tr (1080-86). The same forms are attested
for a Lund moneyer in the reign of Sveinn UJlfsson (1047-75), but alongside
numerous blundered forms, and Ulkil alone, perhaps for the same man, in
the reign of Haraldr hein (1075-80). 107 A parallel reduction in West Norse
proper names does not occur. 108 De Vries's postulated antiquarian poet would
therefore most likely have used the form Ulfkell, in imitation of 6r6r,
whereas Ullkell, despite the strange gemination, indicates an English milieu.
98 KonrM5 Gislason, ed., Udvalg af Oldnordiske Skjaldekvad (Copenhagen, 1892), p. 165.

99 Campbell, Old English Grammar, p. 19 1.
100 W. de G. Birch, Cartularium Saxonicum (London, 1885-93), no. 496; P. H. Sawyer, Anglo-
Saxon Charters: An Annotated List and Bibliography, Royal Society Guides and Handbooks 8 (Lon-
don, 1968), p. 152, no. 328. Also Birch, no. 609; Sawyer, p. 371, no. 1281.
101 Birch, no. 1290; Sawyer, p. 407, no. 1451.
104 V. J. Smart, "Moneyers of the Late Anglo-Saxon Coinage, 973-1016," Kungl. Vitterhets Hist.
och Antikvitets Akad. Handlingar, Antik. Serien 19 (1968), 191-276. B. E. Hildebrand, Anglosach-
siska Mynt i Svenska Kongliga Myntkabinettetfunna i Sveriges Jord, 2nd ed. (Stockholm, 1881), p. 96.
105 Hildebrand, Anglosachsiska Mynt, p. 436.
106 Dorothy Whitelock, "Scandinavian Personal Names," pp. 129 and 145.
107 Peter Hauberg, Mynqforhold og Udmyntninger i Danmark indtil 1146, Det Kongelige Danske
Videnskabernes Selskabs Skrifter, Rsekke 6, Historisk og filosofisk Afdeling 5/1 (Copenhagen,
1900), pp. 92-103 and 265.
108 Didrik Arup Seip, Norwegische Sprachgeschichte, rev. Laurits Saltveit (Berlin, 197
and 190.
286 Skaldic Verse
A third abnormal linguistic feature seems to be contained in the periphrasis

"PekkjQndum Punnblas meginasar." The general sense of the kenning is
clearly "to the Vikings," who are described as Pekkj[endr] 'experts' in some-
thing or other, very probably ships or weapons. But exactly what has re-
mained obscure because Punnbld- seems to yield no sense in its obvious W
Norse meaning "thin blue." The situation is different if we treat bld as an East
Norse word, attested as blaa in Old Danish and Swedish and meaning "coarse
linen fiber."'09 The adjective bunn- is associated with a related word, blwja
'coarse bedspread', in an Icelandic verse.110 The compound bunnbld 'thin
linen fiber' is closely paralleled, in both formation and sense, by Bragi's mj6ty-
gill 'thin string'."' Bow strings were often of linen; 112 indeed, in skaldic poetry
the bow string can be called simply hQrr 'linen'. 113 Then the meginas[s] 'mighty
beam or shaft' of the "thin linen fiber" can readily be explained as the arrow.
In kennings for arrow strengr 'string' is a common defining word." 14 Although
the base word ass is not paralleled, closest being the even more grotesque
palmr 'palm tree' in Krdkumdl,"5 the logic behind the kenning would not be at
all extravagant by skaldic standards. Equally, to describe the Vikings as "ex-
perts with arrows" or "bowmen" would not be strange." 6 Since the word blaa
has left no traces in West Norse, it suggests that the Li&smannaflokkr had a
Danish and Swedish audience, as we would expect of Porkell's and Knu'tr's
followings,"17 even though the speaker proclaims himself a man wit
gian connections.
The incidence of these three distinctive linguistic features leads me to think
that Li&smannaflokkr is what it purports to be, an expression of rank-and-file
jubilation at Knu'tr's conquest, composed almost contemporaneously with the
events it describes. I turn now to the question of its value as a historical source.
Compared with Sigvatr's Vikingarvz'sur, which pays special attention to geog-
raphy and chronology, or even Por6r's Eiriksdrapa and Ottarr's Knu'tsdrdpa,
where again and again a sense of precise documentation is created by the
details of orientation, Li&smannaflokkr leaves an impression of vagueness. The
elusiveness is greatest in the first three stanzas, where the setting and period
of the actions (a landing on the English coast, the advance, preparations, and
109 Hjalmar Falk, Altwestnordische Kleiderkunde, Videnskapsselskapets Skrifter, 2: Hist.-Fil

Klasse (Kristiania, 1919), p. 63; Marta Hoffmann, sengeutstyr, Kulturhistorisk Leksikon for nordisk
Middelalder (Copenhagen, 1956-78), 15:137: hereafter KLNM.
110 Sigur6ur Nordal, ed., BorgJirYinga sQgur, Islenzk fornrit 3 (Reykjavik, 1938), p. 145.
"' Skj. B:4, v. 19.
12J. Alm, bage, KLNM, 2:460.
113 Lexicon poeticum antiquae linguae septentrionalis, ed. Finnur J6nsson, 2nd rev. ed. (Copenha-
gen, 1931), s. hprr.
114 Rudolf Meissner, Die Kenningar der Skalden: Ein Beitrag zur skaldischen Poetik, Rheinische
Beitrage und Hulfsbucher zur germanischen Philologie und Volkskunde 1 (Bonn and Leipzig,
1921), p. 146.
115 Skj. B:652, v. 15.
116 For a similar kenning see IF 27:359.
117 Dorothy Whitelock, "Scandinavian Personal Names," pp. 137-39.
Skaldic Verse 287
the flight of many of the English) are not defined at all. All this, however, is
merely a prelude to verse 4, where Porkell is identified as the central figure,
and the site of the battle which has been imminent from the beginning is
specified as a heiYi. Conceivably the obscure readings haurdlhaudr could be the
vestiges of a place-name, as Gubbrandur Vigfusson thought,"18 but I know of
none that would help here. Th'e temptation to link this material with the battle
of Hringmaraheibr in 1010 is very strong. In the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (sup-
plemented by Florence) there is the same pattern of a landing and rapid
inland advance followed by a battle which we know to have taken place on a
heath:"19 "Her on Pissum geare com se ofersprecena here ofer Eastron
[East] Englum. ond wendon up aet Gipeswic. ond eodon anreces Paer hi gea
codon Ulfcytel mid his fyrde."'20 According to the Chronicle the East Angles
fled at once, which may correspond to the statement in verse 1 of the flokkr
that great numbers of the English fled, if by these are not rather meant the
locals whom Porkell encountered during his advance. The Chronicle notes that
the men of Cambridgeshire held firm amid the panic, and so we could credit
them with the "showers of weapons" mentioned by the poet. Both sources
award the victory to the Danes. The statement in verse 5 that Porkell broke
the ravens' fast tallies well with the grim record of English deaths in the
Chronicle, though of course the comment is stereoty'pic.

Li6Ysmannaflokkr is also in close agreement with Ottarr svarti's account of
Hringmaraheibr (1010) in HQfudlausn.
Pengill, frak, at lunga

linn herr skipum ferri -
raub Hringmaraheibi
hl6 valkQstu - bl6bi.
Laut fyr ybr, adr 1etti,
landfolk i gny randa
Engla ferb - at jQrbu
6tt - en mQrg a fl6tta. 121
King, I heard that your army heaped up a massive pile of corpses far from the ships;
Hringmarahei&r was reddened with blood. The people of the land fell to the
ground in terror before you in the battle, as long as it lasted, and many of the
English militia took to their heels.
Sigvatr's account in Vikingarvi'sur, Ottarr's source, is by contrast curiously

muted, stating merely that "all the English stood" at Hringmaraheibr in "Ulf-
cetel's land" and that there was loss of life.'22 It seems likely, then, that Ottarr,
in preparing HQfu.Ylausn, supplemented Vakingarvisur from Li6Ysmannaflokkr.
"8CPB, 2:107.
" 9EHD, p. 243 and n. 2.
121 IF 27:19, but with modifications in punctuation and syntax; see also Skj. B:269-70.
122 Campbell, Skaldic Verse, pp. 10-11.
288 Skaldic Verse
Altogether more obscure is the battle which the poet attributes to Knu'tr in
verse 5 and goes on to describe in the next verse. We gather that it was fought
by the Thames, that Ulfcetel commanded the English forces, that the two
sides were fairly evenly matched and did considerable damage to each other,
and that this encounter was followed by a continuation of the siege of Lon-
don. In the second helmingr of verse 6 Ulfcetel is called a brunns byggs skeggia
'stone-dweller'. In verse 8 we have the curiously parallel expression su's byr a
steini 'she who dwells in stone' applied to a woman in London (of whom more
presently). In fact, stone structures would have been scarce in London at this
period, but the Roman walls were partly or wholly of stone, and these and
such other structures as did exist would have impressed the Vikings. Building
in stone was not practiced in Denmark until the eleventh century and then
initially only with churches.'23 That the scene of the battle is London or very
close by, alongside the Thames, is indicated by verse 7, where the Danes are
instructed to ba0a 'wait' after this battle and lay siege to London. Gubbrandur
Vigfusson's tentative identification with the battle of Brentford deserves con-
sideration but faces the difficulty that Edmund Ironside was, according to the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the English commander on that occasion.124 We might
prefer to think of the part of 1016 when Edmund was in Wessex, securing the
allegiance of the local population. The Chronicle states that the Danes con-
tinued the siege of London for some time after his departure, but ineffectu-
ally, because of stout opposition from the garrison.'25 Who commanded the
Londoners on this occasion is unknown.
The poet seems guarded in indicating the result of the battle. We are not
told in so many words that Knu'tr won. The opposing leaders seem evenly
matched; if Knu'tr is sli6rhuga6r, Ulfcetel is bitr. Most striking is the remark
"tveir hugir runnu," evidently an admission that dissent or doubt existed
among the Vikings about how to proceed after the damage inflicted by Ulf-
cetel. According to the Chronicle entry for 1004 Ulfcetel was famed among the
Danes as their most formidable adversary.'26 William of Malmesbury's praise
of Ulfcetel's resistance attributes a similar ruefulness to the Danes:
Solus ex omnibus comes Orientalium Anglorum Ulkillus et tunc impigre contra

invasores restitit; ita ut, quamvis nomen victoriae ad hostes concessisset, multo plus
afflicti qui vicerant, quam qui victi erant, aestimarentur. Nec sane piguit barbaros
veritatem confiteri, cum multotiens illam victoriam deplorarent.127
The poet of LiYsmannaflokkr reaches a rough kind of balance between the

praises of Porkell and Knutr by showing each leader pitted against the implac-
123 Else Roesdahl, Viking Age Denmark, British Museum Publications (London, 1982), p. 150.
124CPB, 2:107.
25 EHD, p. 249.
126EHD, pp. 239-40; Keynes, "Declining Reputation," p. 230.
127 William of Malmesbury, De gestis regum Anglorum, ed. William Stubbs, Rolls Series 90, 2 vols.
(London, 1887), 2:190.
Skaldic Verse 289
able Ulfcetel, though in Porkell's case this is left implicit. The poet's cautious
manner may reflect the fact that Porkell seems to have won his victories more
convincingly than Knutr.128
In Eiriksdrdpa Por6r also speaks of Ulfcetel as present in the London area at
this period.
Gullkennir let gunni,

grcebis hests, fyr vestan -
Pundr va leyf6r til landa -
Lundin saman bundit.
Fekk - regn Dorins rekka
rann of lingamQnnum
ceglig hQgg, Pear's eggJar,
Ulfkell, blaar skulfu.129
The prince joined battle to the west of London; that celebrated seafarer fought for
lands. Ulfkell received frightful blows, where the dark blades quivered; this poem
was recited to the Pingamenn.
Por6r, too, is guarded about the result; he mentions Ulfcetel's wounds but not
who won the victory. Snorri used the stanza as a record of Ulfcetel's death
("par felldi hann Ulfkell snilling"), but his mistake was corrected in Kny
saga ("haf6i Eirikr sigr, en UIlfkell fly'i"). 130 Campbell accepts that the m
of Ulfcetel in Por6r's stanza has a historical basis.'3' The reference to Ulf-
cetel's presence at or near London in Lidsmannaflokkr cannot be regarded as
corroboration of a totally independent kind. Nevertheless, we may tentatively
conclude that Ulfcetel's part in the 1015-16 war was not confined to East
Anglia, where his exact rank and power are in any case uncertain,132 and that,
like Eirikr jarl, he played a more wide-ranging role. His contribution may
have become overshadowed by Edmund's in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle ac-
count.
At the end of verse 6 we learned that tveir hugir runnu 'dissent arose', but in
verse 7 we are assured that Knuitr re'6'Knu'tr decided'. Somebody, it seems, was
overruled by Knutr's decision. Presumably either Porkell or Eirikr had ex-
pressed a reluctance to press on with the siege, as bidden by Knu'tr; it had
certainly proved an expensive and inconclusive stratagem, and Knu'tr's failure
to win London was not forgotten in later Scandinavian tradition. When, as we
have seen, the Encomium Emmae shows Knu'tr insisting that Eirikr abstain from
further excursions away from London, the report may have its basis in a
12 James Campbell, EricJohn, and Patrick Wormald, The Anglo-Saxons (Oxford, 1982), p.
'29Skj. A:216; B:206; IF 27:31-32; IF 35:117-18.
130 IF 27:31; IF 35:117.,
'3' EE, pp. 70-71.
132 Simon Keynes, The Diplonias ofKingEthelred "The Unready" 978-1016 (Cambridg
208, n. 199. See also Freeman, History, 1:653.
290 Skaldic Verse
dispute about the siege. The poet's description of the siege is not detailed but
includes the diki mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.'33
In verse 8 LiiYsmannaflokkr again diverges from the Chronicle and inde
takes on something of a romantic tinge with the mention of the "chaste
widow" who watches Knu'tr as he heroically assails the city's garrison. The
statement that she lives "in stone" would, in later Icelandic or Norwegian,
locate her in a convent, a convenient refuge for widows at this time, especially
the widows of prominent men.'34 But the similar description of Ulfcetel
makes it likelier that London in general, with its stone walls, is being indicated
as the woman's residence. The word ekkja, here translated as "widow," is not
absolutely unambiguous, since, in accordance with its etymology,'35 it can
occasionally mean a single woman of any kind, but the sense "widow" is
decidedly the dominant one. The most prominent widow of this period would
have been Ethelred's Queen Emma. Since Knu'tr later married her she could
with considerable relevance be associated with him in the poem.
Our sources are divided on the question of whether Emma was present in
London during the siege. The earliest to place her there is Thietmar. He tells
us that Emma was still in London, after Ethelred's death, when Knu'tr began
his siege. After six months, becoming "worn out by constant war," she "sent
messengers to ask for peace and to inquire diligently what they required of
her." The conditions set by the Vikings were extremely harsh, but she ac-
cepted them. Meanwhile Edmund and Athelstan, who are wrongly called her
sons, "escaped in the silence of the night from the threatened peril in a little
boat, and gathered together whomsoever they could to the defence of their
country and the rescue of their mother." After an initial setback Athelstan,
the surviving brother according to Thietmar, succeeds in relieving London.
The subsequent fate of Emma is not specified. The conditions set by the
Vikings do not include any demand that she should marry their leader.'36
In an otherwise markedly different story, William of Jumieges also places
Emma in London at this period:
Rex igitur Chenutus, audita morte regis, suorum consultu fidelium, precavens in
futurum, Emmam reginam, abstractam ab urbe, post aliquot dies sibi junxit chris-
tiano more, dans pro illa cuncto exercitu in auro et argento pensum illius corpo-
ris. 137
William wrote the Gesta Normannorum ducum, it is thought, ca. 1070/71.138 He

is a shaky source for events early in the century, for example in placing the
'33 EHD, p. 249.

134 Pauline Stafford, "The Reign of iEthelred II: A Study in the Limitations on Royal Policy
and Action," in Ethelred, p. 36.
13Jan de Vries, Altnordisches etymologisches Worterbuch, 2nd rev. ed. (Leiden, 1962), s. ekkja.
136EHD, pp. 348-49.
137 William of Jumieges, Gesta Normannorum ducum, ed. J. Marx (Rouen-Paris, 1914), pp. 82-83.
138 Elisabeth M. C. van Houts, Gesta Normannorum ducum (Groningen, 1982), pp. 22-23 and 67.
Skaldic Verse 291
battle of Assanduin before the death of Ethelred. But on Emma, a member of

the Norman ducal family, one would expect him to be a well-informed, if
biased, witness. Elisabeth van Houts argues that William tells the story in a
manner flattering to Emma, who in reality chose of her own free will to
remain queen of the English rather than to return to Normandy after Ethel-
red's death.'39
Two Scandinavian prose works touch on this question. From KnyItlinga saga
we learn that after Ethelred's death Emma was preparing to escape from
England but was intercepted by Knu'tr's men, who seized her ship and
brought her to Knu'tr: he accepted the advice of his leading followers to marry
her.'40 A somewhat similar story is told in an appendix to J6msvzkinga saga
preserved in Flateyjarbok, a fourteenth-century Icelandic manuscript. 141 Por-
kell discovers Emma on board ship (presumably trying to make her escape
from England); having brought her back to land, he encourages Knutr to ask
for her hand in marriage, which the king does. These stories probably de-
scend from the lost Knu'ts saga. The mention of Porkell in Flateyjarbo'k need not
be a later addition, since there is evidence that references to him were system-
atically excised by the compiler of KnyItlinga saga.'42 Obviously little weight
attaches to the testimony of Knu'ts saga, though its compiler derived some of
his material from English sources.143
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle entry for 1017 tells us, by contrast, that "the king
ordered the widow of King Ethelred, Richard's daughter, to be fetched (fec-
cean) as his wife."'144 Read in combination with the entry for 1013 these w
imply, as Campbell has commented, that Emma was fetched from Nor-
mandy.'45 But since the authorship of these two entries is almost certainly
different,146 we are not necessarily entitled to expect coherent links between
them. Emma might therefore have been fetched from some much closer place
of residence than her native land. Campbell himself lends some credence to
Thietmar's story by conceding that Emma might have returned to England
with Ethelred in 1014 "and have withdrawn again in 1015 or 1016," having
first entered into communications with the Danes during the siege.'47
The Encomium Emmae isolates itself from all other sources in its explicit
statement that Emma was in Normandy when Knu'tr sought her hand in
marriage.'48 But here we can scarcely trust the Encomiast, who, for rea
139 Elisabeth M. C. van Houts, "The Political Relations between Normandy and England before
1066 according to the Gesta Normannorum ducum," Actes du Colloque international du CNRS 611,
Etudes Anselmiennes (1984), p. 81.
140 IF 35:107.
141 Flateyjarb6k, 1:203-5; for a normalized text see EE, pp. 92-93.
143 iF 35:cvi.
144 EHD, p. 251; Plummer, Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, 1:154-55.
145EE, p. xliv.
146 K6rner, Battle of Hastings, p. 9.
147 EE, p. xliv; see also Freerilan, History, 1:700.
148 EE, p. 33.
292 Skaldic Verse
explored by James Campbell, completely suppresses Emma's marriage to

Ethelred and does not even mention him by name. 149 There is nothing in the
Encomium to exclude the possibility that Emma was in London at least until
Ethelred's death. In fact, the Encomiast lends color to Thietmar's account by
describing negotiations between Knu'tr and the Londoners (though of course
Emma is not implicated).'50 Since some of his details seem to come from the
Southampton negotiations between Knu'tr and the leading magnates of En-
gland, recorded by Florence,'5' he may here be telescoping two separate
events.
Although a precise account of Emma's movements, especially those im-
mediately prior to her marriage to Knu'tr, is beyond our reach, there is noth-
ing to prevent our thinking that some contemporary reports located Emma in
London from 1014 until at least the time of Ethelred's death, and that the
author of Li6smannaflokkr is alluding to these reports when he describes a
widow inside the walls gazing at the valorous future conqueror.
Li6smannafiokkr 8 is also interesting for the parenthesis dynr a brezkum bryn-
jum/ bl6oiss 'the sword rings against British mailcoats'. The word brezk[r] here
has been explained away as meaning "belonging to the inhabitants of Britain
in general, i.e. the British Isles"'152 or, by poetic licence, "English,"'153 but I
have not been able to find supporting evidence for this interpretation. Proba-
bly the oldest extant occurrence of the words brezkr/Bretar in skaldic poetry is
in Eilifr's P6rsdrdpa, a work of the latter half of the tenth century; Eilifr also
mentions the Kumrar 'Cumbrians' and Scots. 154 From roughly the same period
are two occurrences in the work of Hallfre8r. The two stanzas editorially
designated Oldfsdrdpa 8 and 9155 list the peoples of the British Isles whom
Olafr Tryggvason harassed as the English, the Northumbrians, the brezkrar
jar6Yar byggvendr, the Cumbrians, the people of Man, the Scots, the Hebri-
deans, and the Irish (the catalogue arranged here as in Fagrskinna).'56 The
other Hallfre8r example is editorially designated Erfidrdpa Oldfs 11, but may
in reality belong in the same Oldfsdrdpa as the previous one.157 It is a purely
passing reference in a periphrasis for Olafr ("oppressor of the Bretar") which
probably refers back to the stanzas just cited.'58 It is not possible to check these
claims satisfactorily against historical records from the British Isles. The
149 Campbell, "England, France," p. 256.

50 EE, p. 23.
151 EHD, p. 249, n. 3.
152 Ashdown, English and Norse Documents, p. 207.
153 R. E. Zachrisson, Romans, Kelts, and Saxons in Ancient Britain, Skrifter utgivna av Kungl.
Humanistika Vetenskapssamfundet i Uppsala 24 (Uppsala, 1927), no. 12, p. 47.
154Skj. A:148-52, B:139-44, vv. 11, 13, and 2 respectively.
155Skj. B:150.
156 Fagrskinna, pp. 1 10-1 1; Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla 1, ed. Bjarni A6albjarnarson, Islenzk
fornrit 26 (Reykjavik, 1941), pp. 264-65; Fidjest0l, Fyrstediktet, pp. 107-9.
158 Ashdown, English and Norse Documents, p. 197.
Skaldic Verse 293
Welsh annals do mention raids at the appropriate period (995) but these are
attributed to Sveinn, not Olafr Tryggvason, and it is not clear whether An-
glesey or Man was the target. 159 Fidjest0l believes that Hallfre8r lacked precise
information about Olafr's movements and was merely deploying a stock cata-
logue of national names. 160 Finally, there are two occurrences in the stanzas
editorially designated the Porfinnsdrdpa of Arnorr Por8arson.161 Porfinnsdrdpa
14-16 contain a list of peoples of the British Isles afflicted by the hero, very
much after the style of Hallfre8r: the forms are arsk, brezkar, Skota, MQn, and
Engla. 162 Porfinnsdrdpa 10 deviates from this familiar pattern into slightly more
circumstantial detail:
... minn drottinn naut maittar

mildr und brezkum skildi ...63
my generous lord exerted his strength from behind his British shield
This is reminiscent of Li.Ysmannaflokkr but with the difference that the Orkney
earl himself carries British gear, instead of being opposed by people carrying
it, as in Li6smannaflokkr. The poet might mean a shield of British manufacture
or one acquired from a British owner by trade, as a gift, or as plunder. In
Orkneyinga saga Porfinnr and (to a slightly less extent) RQgnvaldr carry out
very extensive expeditions in modern Scotland, the Isles, and England. Ar-
norr's Porfinnsdrdpa 15 even mentions fighting fyr MQn sunnan 'south of
Man','64 which, interpreted strictly, would mean somewhere in Wales. B. G.
Charles sees a reference to modern Wales in Porfinnsdrdpa 14, though once
again confirmation is not to be found in the Welsh annals.'65 Loyn believes
that Porfinnr "was certainly effective in the northern mainland and also in
Galloway where he liked to reside and which he liked to use as a base for
ventures in the Southern Isles and Man."'166 If this is right, the Bretar in
Arnorr's verses can be the inhabitants either of Strathclyde or (no doubt less
likely) of modern Wales. In summary, all the skaldic uses of this national
name are in the context of catalogues of nations; they offer no positive war-
rant to suppose that Bret- can apply to the British Isles in general. Even so
minor a group as the Cumbrians seems to be kept distinct.
Hermann Palsson traces the more general sense of Bret- in later Icelandic
159 B. G. Charles, Old Norse Relations with Wales (Cardiff, 1934), pp. 103 and 106; Bruty Tyw
gyon (Red Book Version), ed. Thomas Jones (Cardiff, 1955), pp. 18-19.
161 On the allocation of stanzas between Arn6rr's Porfinnsdrdpa and RQgnvaldsdrdpa see Hof-
mann, Lehnbeziehungen, p. 102, and Fidjest0l, Fyrstediktet, pp. 131-32.
162 Orkneyinga saga, ed. Finnbogi Gu6mundsson, Islenzk fornrit 34 (Reykjavik, 1965), pp. 59-
62.
163 IF 34:50-51.
164 IF 34:61.
165 Charles, Old Norse RelationS, pp. 111- 12, 38, and 41.
166 Loyn, Vikings in Britain, pp. 1 10-1 1.
294 Skaldic Verse
and Norwegian literature to learned works, which borrow from Latin or Old
English.'67 Even in thirteenth-century prose, as Hermann shows, the use of
Bretland to mean particular Welsh-speaking areas, such as Strathclyde, per-
sists.
The poet of Li.Ysmannaflokkr seems, then, to have intended Welsh mailc
whether or not with Welshmen inside them. Support for this notion that
Welsh speakers in some way lent aid to the defenders of London comes from
two other sources. In his story, cited above, of Athelstan's alleged relief of
London Thietmar states that the Danes were put to flight by the news that
relief was being brought by Athelstan and Britannis venientibus 'the approach-
ing Britons'.168 The word Britanni, used only here, is unlikely to be mere
elegant variation for Angli, which Thietmar uses five times elsewhere. On the
other hand, Thietmar's susceptibility to blunders is illustrated by his mention
of Athelstan as Edmund Ironside's successor.169 Freeman suggested that
Thietmar's Britanni might represent "troops levied mainly within the shires of
the old Wealhcyn," who could then be called Brettas or Wealas by Thietmar's
English informant.'70
The other source is Gaimar, in his L'estoire des Engleis. According to Gaimar,
the English resistance to Knutr was led by Edmund Ironside and his uncle,
another Edmund. The uncle has rebelled against Ethelred, his younger
brother, but has Welsh allies:
Les Galeis erent ses amis

Kar sa femme ert de lur pals,
Fille a un rei ert de la terre,
Od lui mainteneient la [guere].171
The Welsh were his friends / for his wife was of their country. / She was daughter of
a king of the land. / They maintained warfare against him [Ethelred].172
After the death of this Edmund, the nephew Edmund Ironside continues the
resistance against Knutr, again with Welsh support:
Od lui se tindrent les Gualeis,

Si prist la suer a un des reis
E tuit icil dela Saverne,
Des [Lancastre] tresque [Malverne],
Sivent sun [ban] e sun cumand.173
167 Hermann Palsson, "Athugasemd um nafni6 Bretland," Saga 3 (1960), 43-46.

168 EHD, p. 349; the Latin citation from Thietmari Merseburgensis episcopi Chronicon, ed
Lappenbergh and F. Kurze (Hanover, 1889), pp. 217-18.
169 EHD, pp. 138 and 593-96.
170 Freeman, History, 1:701.
171 Geffrei Gaimar, L'estoire des Engleis, ed. Alexander Bell (Oxford, 1960), p. 130: hereafter
Bell ed.
172 Here and elsewhere I use the Rolls Series translation, modified where necessary to conform
to Bell's text: Lestorie des Engleis, ed. T. Duffus Hardy and C. Trice Martin, Rolls Series, 2 vols
(London, 1888-89), 2:130.
173 Bell ed., p. 134.
Skaldic Verse 295
With him the Welsh held. / He took [to wife] the sister of one of their kings. / And all
those beyond Severn, / from Lancaster to Malvern, / followed his call and his com-
mand. 174
Edmund fights at Sceorstan but at Assanduin
Volsist u nun le champ [guerpit],

Par force l'en traistrent Gualeis,
La victoire orent Daneis.
Willy-nilly he forsook the field. / The Welsh dragged him away by force. / The Danes
had the victory.
Which is the last we hear of Edmund's Welsh supporters.

Gaimar wrote shortly before 1140. He displays a fondness for legend and
eulogy and is given little credence by modern historians, except on a few
isolated points.'75 A lost version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is his chief
source, but for the period under consideration he supplemented it from a
variety of unknown works.'76 The spurious connection of Edmund Ironside
to the Welsh by marriage is thought to rest on a confusion between two
different women called Ealdgyth, both of them themselves connected with
well-known men called Morcar.'77 The mysterious elder Edmund cannot be
the historical brother of Ethelred, who died when Ethelred was an infant; his
presence, too, may rest on some kind of confusion. Bell thinks it probable that
Gaimar "found him in the source on which he relied for the reign of
Ethelred."'178 The two Edmunds are so similar in most respects that they seem
likely to me to have evolved from a double treatment of the one person,
Edmund Ironside. The difficult and obscure episode of Edmund Ironside's
rebellion against his father Ethelred (reconstructed recently by Pauline Staf-
ford) 179 was coped with by Gaimar or his source by a resurrection of a suitably
rebellious elder brother.
One would expect an author who acknowledges his debt to Geoffrey of
Monmouth'80 to pay some attention to the destiny of the Welsh, and indeed
on two occasions Gaimar does seem to drag them into his story. Whereas the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle entry for 827 is silent on the question of who killed
Ludeca, Gaimar assigns the responsibility to the Welsh, probably by inference
from nearby entries concerning battles with (inter alia) the Britons in 825 and
the Welsh in 830.181 But here other authorities were also evidently driven to
speculation.'82 Additionally, a misinterpretation of the Chronicle entry for 802
174 Rolls Series, 2:133-34.

175 Antonia Gransden, Historical Writing in England c. 550-c.1307 (London, 1974), pp. 209-10.
176 Bell ed., p. lxvii.
177 Plummer, Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, 2:194; Bell ed., p. 253.
178 Bell ed., p. 253.
180 Gransden, Historical Writing, p. 209.

181 EHD, pp. 185-86; Bell ed., lines 2287-88; Plummer, Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, 1:60-63.
296 Skaldic Verse
brings about an erroneous mention of the Welsh.'83 On the other hand, when
Gaimar tells us that the kings of Wales were in attendance on Edgar while he
held court at Gloucester, his information, though ndt corroborated elsewhere,
is perfectly plausible. On the whole, then, Gaimar's interest in the Welsh stops
well short of being an obsession, so that some of his scraps of information may
have historical value. One such, apparently, is his localization of the death of
Cenwulf in 821 to Basingwerk.'84
The silence of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle concerning Welsh help to Edmund
would not be strange, to judge from the lacunae already located. The Welsh
annals, which are equally silent, in any case provide only a highly sketchy
record of this period. Our sources on Anglo-Welsh relations are not exactly
bountiful at any period, but a general sense of the development can be ob-
tained. According to David Kirby, "externally, the rulers of Wales in the tenth
century had two diplomatic and military alternatives," alliance with the En-
glish against the Vikings or vice versa.185 Beginning as early as 885, when the
Welsh prince, Rhodri Mawr, defeated and killed the Danish leader, Gorm, a
process can be traced where Rhodri's successors came to cooperate with the
West Saxons and to benefit from English victory. The most famous of these
client rulers is Hywel Dda, whose subscriptions to charters of Athelstan and
Eadred, from 928 to 949, stand consistently at the head of the list of Welsh
princes who witnessed the land grants.'86 Hywel and Morgan, whatever their
secret feelings about the Saxons, avoided making capital out of Edmund's
discomfiture between 939 and 946, doubtless because of the uncertain conse-
quences for the Welsh of a Viking victory in England. 187 We learn from Roger
of Wendover that in 946 (recte 945) Edmund was assisted by Llewellyn, king
of Dyfed, in devastating Cumbria and assigning it to the king of the Scots.'88
Significantly, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle entry is silent on the question of Welsh
support.'89 The prolongation of a loose English overlordship into the strong
reign of Edgar (959-75) was memorably symbolized at Chester, with the
ceremony of submission to him on the part of the British kings.'90
The history of the relationship after Edgar's death is not so clear. It seems
to have become looser. Important in this, evidently, were the renewed Viking
attacks, the parceling out of England among the great ealdormenn, and a
183 Bell ed., lines 2213-18 and p. 235; EHD, p. 183.

184 John E. Lloyd, A History of Wales from the Earliest Times to the Edwardian Conquest,
(London, 1939), p. 202, n. 32; similarly, Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, p. 230, n. 3.
185 D. P. Kirby, "Hywel Dda: Anglophil?," The Welsh History Review 8 (1976), 2.
186 Henry Loyn, The Vikings in Wales (London, 1976), p. 5.
187 Kirby, "Hywel Dda," pp. 6-8.
188 EHD, p. 283.

189EHD, p. 222.
190 Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, pp. 369-70; Lloyd, History of Wales, pp. 348-49. See also
Henry Loyn, "Wales and England in the Tenth Century: The Context of the Athelstan Charters,"
The Welsh History Review 10 (1981), 283.
Skaldic Verse 297
waning of imperial pretensions on the part of the English crown.191 Never-

theless, certain more limited and local alliances are known to have continued.
According to Wendy Davies, "the last century before the Norman arrival saw
a further development as Welsh kings used English leaders for their own
political purposes. In 983 Hywel ab Ieuaf of Gwynedd campaigned with earl
Alfhere against Einion of Dyfed; in the 990s Edwin, Einion's son, used En-
glish forces to ravage his uncle's, Maredudd's, lands in Dyfed."'192 The att
of Edward the Confessor has much, she thinks, to sugggest that he "consid-
ered the whole of Wales already subject." Very much after the old imperial
style, certainly, is the boast of the Encomium Emmae that Knu'tr "quinque
regnorum, scilicet Danomarchia, Anglix, Britannix, Scothiae, Norduuegae
uendicato dominio, imperator extitit." 193
After the death of Edgar, it fell to the ruler of Mercia to keep an eye on the
movements of the Welsh and direct punitive expeditions against them.'94
Mercia's most notorious ealdormann, Eadric Streona, was not backward in this
respect, as we learn from the account in the Welsh annals of his raid against
St. David's in the year 1012.195 In spite of the silence of the Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle on this event, along with other English sources, historians have been
tempted to charge Ethelred with connivance or even participation in Eadric's
raid. 196 According to B. G. Charles, the easiest way to organize an attack on St.
David's from Mercia was by sea, "and in all probability the earl made use of
the Danish ships which King Ethelred took into his service this year."'197 H
of course, we should not forget the Menevian basis, and hence bias, of the
Welsh annals,'98 which may mean that raiding in places other than St. David's
escaped comment.
Three years later, as Pauline Stafford's study of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
entry for 1015 has shown, Edmund's rebellion against his father Ethelred
caused radical shifts of alliances in England. Having rescued Ealdgyth from
the abbey of Malmesbury, he secured the submission of the Five Boroughs
and the support of Uhtred of Northumbria. It is clear from his abrupt mar-
riage that Edmund had links with Sigeferth and Morcar before Eadric de-
nounced them at the council of Oxford in 1015. Their deaths, in which the
king acquiesced, could only have increased Edmund's disaffection from both
Ethelred and Eadric. Additionally, Edmund's rights to the throne were prob-
ably now threatened by Emma and her eldest son by Ethelred.199 Later in
191 Lloyd, History of Wales, p. 350; Loyn, "Wales and England," p. 283; Eric John, Orbis Bri
niae (Leicester, 1966), pp. 56 and 60.
192 Wendy Davies, Wales in the Early Middle Ages (Leicester, 1982), pp. 114-15.
193 EE, pp. lxii and 34.
194 Lloyd, History of Wales, p. 348.
195 Brut (Red Book), pp. 18-19.
196 Freeman, History, 1:a5 1; Plummer, Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, 2:189.
197 Charles, Old Norse Relations, p. 37. See also Lloyd, History of Wales, p. 348.
198 John E. Lloyd, "The Welsh Chronicles," Proceedings of the British Academy 14 (1928), 16
199 Stafford, "Reign of )Ethelred II," pp. 36-37.
298 Skaldic Verse
1015 Edmund and Eadric seem to have forged a temporary alliance, which
broke up when Eadric "seduced forty ships from the king, and then went over
to Cnut; and the West Saxons submitted and gave hostages."200 Particularly
after Knuitr had outmaneuvered Uhtred in 1016, by the means already dis-
cussed, and obtained his submission, Edmund would have stood in need of al-
lies. A natural occasion for the Welsh to have supplied aid would have come a lit-
tle earlier, when Edmund and Uhtred were carrying out a devastation of Chesh-
ire, Staffordshire, and Shropshire, presumably in order to prevent their Mer-
cian enemy and his Danish ally from procuring remounts and provisions
there.20' The Welsh might have been doubly motivated by the opportunity to
avenge themselves on Eadric (perhaps also Ethelred) for the raid of 1012 and
the possibility of staving off outright Scandinavian conquest of England.
This evidence shows that LiYsmannaflokkr is corroborated, in its implicat
that the Welsh somehow contributed to the resistance against Knu'tr at Lon-
don, by two other sources. Furthermore, help from the Welsh under such
circumstances, though not documented in our main sources, would be in
keeping with what we know of the politics and power struggles of the times.
For whatever reason, the poet of LiYsmannaflokkr is silent concerning the
battle of Assanduan. The description of the siege of London leads directly into
the final stanza, which announces jubilantly that the fighting is over and the
city occupied by the Vikings. In other words, despite the various interruptions
to the siege and the decisive importance of the settlement at Olanige, the poet
leaves it open to his audience to assume that the siege led directly to the
occupation. More realistic, but less glorious, is the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle ac-
count, which states that after Olanige "the Londoners came to terms with the
army and bought peace for themselves; and the army brought their ships into
London and took up winter quarters inside."202 So far as it goes, and so far as
we can check it, the fokkr gives an account that tallies with other early reports.
But the poet resembles the author of the Encomium Emmae in his ability to
gloss over the vicissitudes that beset Knuitr in his attempts to conquer
England.
In summary, Campbell's and Turville-Petre's skeptical assessment of skal

verse as a possible source for Anglo-Saxon history seems generally correct.
But on occasion skaldic testimony has the value of corroborating details found
in other minor sources. On occasion, too, information in the skaldic verses,
though not fully confirmed elsewhere, has a general plausibility that encour-
ages acceptance and adds to our awareness of the deficiencies of our main
source.
200 EHD, p. 248.

201 Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, p. 389.
202EHD, pp. 250-51.
Russell Poole is Senior Lecturer in the Department of English, Massey University, Palmerston
North, New Zealand.

POOLE (1987) Skaldic Verse and Anglo-Saxon History 1009-1016

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Skaldic Verse and Anglo-Saxon History: Some Aspects of the Period 1009-1016

Author(s): Russell Poole

Skaldic Verse and Anglo-Saxon History:

3A thorough discussion of the problems mentioned in this paragraph is provided by Bjarne

In its extant form this section of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is retrospective

Vann ungr konungr Engluni

Line 6 may illustrate the winnowing out of eleventh-century linguistic fea-

11 Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla 2, ed. Bjarni A6albjarnarson, Islenzk fornrit 27 (Reyk

that the name could be identified

Ottarr svarti's Knu'tsdrdpa, like Vikingarvisur, is a promising source because

... Fekk - regn Iorins rekka

The history of this helmingr in twentieth-century interpretation gives a fair

18 Moberg, Olav Haraldsson, p. 50, n. 71.

24 Bjarni Gu6nason, ed., Danakonunga SQgur, Islenzk fornrit 35 (Reykjavik, 1982), p. 1

Gunni leztu i grcenni,

into Yorkshire was a strategic masterstroke, worthy of skaldic commemora-

Ungr fylkir, leztu Engla

FjQrlausa hykk Frisi,

mediately resumed the siege of London, while Edmund, seriously hampered

SkjQldungr, vanntu und skildi

Roger of Wendover, go on to tell of a single combat, or offer of single combat,

Bjo6r, vanntu brynjur rau8ar,

This alleged encounter cannot be linked to any mention of Norwich in our

Hvatr vann Freyr a' flotna

This mention of Hringmarahei6[r] is striking because the same name is used

61 Campbell, Skaldic Verse, pp. 3-4 and 13.

Dor6r's conflation of Ottarr's Hpf

66 Fidjest0l, Fyrstediktet, p. 215.

The heathland in which Ringmere lies was evidently of major strategic

Ungr visi, lzt Usu

80 Plummer, Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, 1: 135.

1. Ggngum upp, aOr Engla

2. Margr ferr Ullr i illan

3. Pollr mun glaums of grimu

4. P6ttut mer, es ek Patta,

5. Hair Pykki mer, hlyra,

6. Einr.A6it le't aMan

7. Knu'tr re6 ok ba6 bia -

8. Ut mun ekkja lita -

9. Hvern morgin ser horna

10. Dag vas hvern pat's HQgna

skrei6ask hamri sam6a

and hypothesized that underlying the first word was an Anglo-Saxonism

Ulfkell, par's spjgr gullu.

Konra' Gislason emended gullu to skulfu, following Eirtksdrdpa

Ulfkell, b1dar skulfu,

89 Jan de Vries, Altnordische Literaturgeschichte, 1:281-82.

so as to obtain mandatory full internal rhyme.98 If, instead, we emend Ulfkell

98 KonrM5 Gislason, ed., Udvalg af Oldnordiske Skjaldekvad (Copenhagen, 1892), p. 165.

A third abnormal linguistic feature seems to be contained in the periphrasis

109 Hjalmar Falk, Altwestnordische Kleiderkunde, Videnskapsselskapets Skrifter, 2: Hist.-Fil

Chronicle, though of course the comment is stereoty'pic.

Pengill, frak, at lunga

Sigvatr's account in Vikingarvi'sur, Ottarr's source, is by contrast curiously

Solus ex omnibus comes Orientalium Anglorum Ulkillus et tunc impigre contra

The poet of LiYsmannaflokkr reaches a rough kind of balance between the

Gullkennir let gunni,

William wrote the Gesta Normannorum ducum, it is thought, ca. 1070/71.138 He

'33 EHD, p. 249.

battle of Assanduin before the death of Ethelred. But on Emma, a member of

explored by James Campbell, completely suppresses Emma's marriage to

149 Campbell, "England, France," p. 256.

... minn drottinn naut maittar

Les Galeis erent ses amis