Earl Thorfin
Orcadian earl, father of Paul and Erlend, supporter of Kalf Arnason.
Earl Thorfin is attested across two sources, the Heimskringla and the Laxdaela Saga, where he appears as a significant Orkney earl with deep dynastic connections. According to the Laxdaela Saga, Earl Thorfin was the son of Earl Turf-Einar, who was himself the son of Rognvald Mere-Earl (Laxdaela Saga, Chap. IV). Through his daughter Greilad, Thorfin was the grandfather of Hlodvir, who fathered Earl Sigurd (Laxdaela Saga, Chap. IV).
In the Heimskringla, Thorfin is depicted as a decisive political actor. When his brother Bruse traveled east to negotiate with King Olaf, Thorfin resolved to go east himself without delay, calculating that the narrow time gap between their arrivals might prevent Bruse from concluding his business before Thorfin could present his own case (Heimskringla, The Earl's Agreement To The King's Terms).
The two sources frame Earl Thorfin quite differently. The Laxdaela Saga treats him as a genealogical link, placing him in a line of Orkney earls stretching from Rognvald Mere-Earl through to Earl Sigurd (Laxdaela Saga, Chap. IV). The Heimskringla, by contrast, shows Thorfin as a politically active figure willing to race his own brother to the Norwegian court (Heimskringla, The Earl's Agreement To The King's Terms). Where the saga tradition preserves him as lineage, the chronicle preserves him as a man of action.
Appears in: Beings, Cross-Source Entities, Entities in Laxdæla Saga: Translated from the Icelandic, Norse Tradition
On trail: Genealogies