The The Orkneyinga Saga on Orkneyinga Saga

The Orkneyinga Saga > For > Preface.

• attestation: The Orkneyinga Saga is the primary historical authority for three and a half centuries of northern Scottish history, covering the Norse Earldom of Orkney.

  "THE ORKNEYINGA SAGA is the history of the Orkneymen, Earls and Odallers of Norwegian extraction, who established an Earldom of Norway in the Northern Scottish Isles a thousand years ago, and whose descendants for several centuries held sway over the Hebrides and Northern Mainland of Scotland."

• attestation: Skaldic songs were the primary source material from which the sagas were later elaborated, and were considered historically reliable because poets would not dare to lie in the presence of those whose deeds they recounted.

  "The skaldic songs, so often quoted, were the materials from which the Sagas were subsequently elaborated. In estimating their value as historical materials, it must be borne in mind that all history has begun in song."

• attestation: The Orkneyinga Saga was known in Iceland in the first half of the thirteenth century; its earlier chapters are incorporated into Snorri Sturluson's Olaf Saga under the title 'Jarla Saga' or Saga of the Earls.

  "there is proof, however, that it was known in Iceland in the first half of the thirteenth century. Its earlier chapters, down to the division of the Earldom between Thorfinn and Brúsi, are incorporated into the Olaf Saga of Snorri Sturluson, and are there cited as from the "Jarla Saga," or Saga of the Earls."

• attestation: The Orkneyinga Saga must have existed as a complete work before 1241, the year of Snorri Sturluson's death.

  "It must therefore have been in existence as a completed work before 1241, the date of Snorri's death."

• attestation: The closing chapters of the Orkneyinga Saga recording the burning of Bishop Adam could not have been written before 1222 and were likely completed before 1225.

  "The closing chapters of the Orkneyinga Saga, in its present form, recording the burning of Bishop Adam, could not have been written before 1222; but, as it is stated in the last chapter that the terrible retribution exacted by the Scottish King for the murder of the Bishop was still in fresh memory, it may very well have been completed before 1225."

• attestation: No manuscript of the original Jarla Saga is known to exist; the text survives primarily through Snorri Sturluson's work and the Flateyjarbók, written between 1387 and 1394.

  "No manuscript of the Jarla Saga is known to exist, and the original form of what is now called "The Orkneyinga Saga" is thus matter of conjecture. We know it only as the substance of its earlier chapters was given by Snorri previous to 1241, and in the expanded version of the Flateyjarbók, where it is pieced into the Sagas of Olaf Tryggvi's son and Olaf the Holy. The Flateyjarbók, however, is nearly a century and a half later than Snorri's work, having been written between the years 1387 and 1394."

• attestation: The Orkneyinga Saga is considered the primary authority for the history of Northmen in Scotland, covering the history of the Earldom until it ceased to be Norwegian territory.

  "the history of the Earldom down to the time when it ceased to form part of the Norwegian dominions."