HOME



picture info

Gunnhildr Konungamóðir
Gunnhildr konungamóðir (''mother of kings'') or Gunnhildr Gormsdóttir, whose name is often Anglicised as Gunnhild (c. 910  –  c. 980), is a quasi-historical figure who appears in the Icelandic Sagas, according to which she was the wife of Eric Bloodaxe (King of Norway 930–934, King of Orkney c. 937–954, and King of Jórvík 948–49 and 952–954). She appears prominently in sagas such as ''Fagrskinna'', ''Egils saga'', ''Njáls saga'', ''Heimskringla'', and ''Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar en mesta''. The sagas relate that Gunnhild lived during a time of great change and upheaval in Norway. Her father-in-law Harald Fairhair had recently united much of Norway under his rule. Shortly after his death, Gunnhild and her husband Eric Bloodaxe were overthrown and exiled. She spent much of the rest of her life in exile in Orkney, Jorvik and Denmark. A number of her many children with Eric became co-rulers of Norway in the late tenth century. Historicity Many of the ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Eric Bloodaxe
Eric Haraldsson ( , ; c.930−954), nicknamed Bloodaxe ( , ) and Brother-Slayer (), was a Norwegians#Viking Age, Norwegian king. He ruled as List of Norwegian monarchs, King of Norway from 932 to 934, and twice as List of monarchs of Northumbria, King of Northumbria: from 947 to 948, and again from 952 to 954. Sources Historians have reconstructed a narrative of Eric's life and career from the scant available historical data. There is a distinction between contemporary or near contemporary sources for Eric's period as ruler of Northumbria and the entirely saga-based sources that detail the life of Eric of Norway, a chieftain who ruled the Western Norway, Norwegian Westland in the 930s. Norse sources have identified the two as the same since the late 12th century, and while the subject is controversial, most historians have identified the two figures as the same since W. G. Collingwood's article in 1901. This identification was rejected early in the 21st century by the histori ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Jarl Of Orkney
Earl of Orkney, historically Jarl of Orkney, is a title of nobility encompassing the archipelagoes of Orkney and Shetland, which comprise the Northern Isles of Scotland. Originally founded by Norse invaders, the status of the rulers of the Northern Isles as Norwegian vassals was formalised in 1195. Although the Old Norse term ''jarl'' is etymologically related to "earl", and the jarls were succeeded by earls in the late 15th century, a Norwegian ''jarl'' is not the same thing. In the Norse context the distinction between jarls and kings did not become significant until the late 11th century and the early jarls would therefore have had considerable independence of action until that time. The position of Jarl of Orkney was eventually the most senior rank in medieval Norway except for the king himself. The jarls were periodically subject to the kings of Alba for those parts of their territory in what is now mainland Scotland (i.e. Caithness and Sutherland). In 1232, a Scottish ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  




Denmark
Denmark is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe. It is the metropole and most populous constituent of the Kingdom of Denmark,, . also known as the Danish Realm, a constitutionally unitary state that includes the Autonomous administrative division, autonomous territories of the Faroe Islands and Greenland in the north Atlantic Ocean.* * * Metropolitan Denmark, also called "continental Denmark" or "Denmark proper", consists of the northern Jutland peninsula and an archipelago of 406 islands. It is the southernmost of the Scandinavian countries, lying southwest of Sweden, south of Norway, and north of Germany, with which it shares a short border. Denmark proper is situated between the North Sea to the west and the Baltic Sea to the east.The island of Bornholm is offset to the east of the rest of the country, in the Baltic Sea. The Kingdom of Denmark, including the Faroe Islands and Greenland, has roughly List of islands of Denmark, 1,400 islands greater than in ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Gwyn Jones (author)
Gwyn Jones (24 May 1907 – 6 December 1999) was a Welsh novelist and story writer, and a scholar and translator of Nordic literature and history. Personal life and academic career Gwyn Jones was born on 24 May 1907 in New Tredegar, Monmouthshire, the second child of George Henry Jones (1874–1970), a miner, and his second wife, Lily Florence, née Nethercott (1877–1960), a midwife. He was brought up in nearby Blackwood. He attended Tredegar county school and studied at University College, Cardiff as an undergraduate and a postgraduate. After six years he was a schoolteacher in Wigan and Manchester, in 1935 he returned to University College, Cardiff as a lecturer. In 1940 was appointed Professor of English of the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, where he taught until his appointment as Professor of English at University College, Cardiff in 1964, a position he held until his retirement in 1975. In 1939 Jones registered as a conscientious objector to military s ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Landnámabók
(, "Book of Settlements"), often shortened to , is a medieval Icelandic written work which describes in considerable detail the settlement () of Iceland by the Norse in the 9th and 10th centuries CE. is divided into five parts and over 100 chapters. The first part tells of how the island was found. The latter parts count settlers quarter by quarter, beginning with west and ending with south. It traces important events and family history into the 12th century. More than 3,000 people and 1,400 settlements are described. It tells where each settler settled and provides a brief genealogy of his or her descendants. Sometimes short anecdote-like stories are also included. lists 435 people (', which includes men and women) as the initial settlers, the majority of them settling in the northern and southwestern parts of the island. It remains an invaluable source on both the history and genealogy of the Icelandic people. Some have suggested a single author, while others have ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Iceland
Iceland is a Nordic countries, Nordic island country between the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge between North America and Europe. It is culturally and politically linked with Europe and is the region's westernmost and most list of countries and dependencies by population density, sparsely populated country. Its Capital city, capital and largest city is Reykjavík, which is home to about 36% of the country's roughly 380,000 residents (excluding nearby towns/suburbs, which are separate municipalities). The official language of the country is Icelandic language, Icelandic. Iceland is on a rift between Plate tectonics, tectonic plates, and its geologic activity includes geysers and frequent Types of volcanic eruptions, volcanic eruptions. The interior consists of a volcanic plateau with sand and lava fields, mountains and glaciers, and many Glacial stream, glacial rivers flow to the sea through the Upland and lowland, lowlands. Iceland i ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Jorvik
Scandinavian York or Viking York () is a term used by historians for what is now Yorkshire during the period of Scandinavian domination from late 9th century until it was annexed and integrated into England after the Norman Conquest; in particular, it is used to refer to York, the city controlled by these kings and earls. The Kingdom of Jórvík was closely associated with the longer-lived Kingdom of Dublin throughout this period. History Pre-Viking age York was first recorded by Ptolemy around the year 150 as ''Eborakon''. Under the Romans it became the provincial capital and bishopric of ''Eburacum''. The Roman settlement was regularly planned, well defended and contained a stone legionary fortress. The Romans withdrew around 407 and the Anglo-Saxons occupied the settlement from the early 7th century. Post-Roman York was in the kingdom of Deira; it was taken over in 655 by its northern neighbour Bernicia to form the kingdom of Northumbria. The Anglo-Saxon king Edwin of N ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Harald Fairhair
Harald Fairhair (; – ) was a Norwegian king. According to traditions current in Norway and Iceland in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, he reigned from  872 to 930 and was the first Monarchy of Norway, King of Norway. Supposedly, two of his sons, Eric Bloodaxe and Haakon the Good, succeeded Harald to become kings after his death. Much of Harald's biography is uncertain. A couple of praise poems by his court poet Þorbjörn Hornklofi survive in fragments, but the extant accounts of his life come from sagas set down in writing around three centuries after his lifetime. His life is described in several of the Kings' sagas, none of them older than the twelfth century. Their accounts of Harald and his life differ on many points, but it is clear that in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries Harald was regarded as having unified Norway into one kingdom. Since the nineteenth century, when Union between Sweden and Norway, Norway was in a personal union with Sweden, Harald has b ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  




Parent-in-law
A parent-in-law is a person who has a legal affinity with another by being the parent of the other's spouse. Many cultures and legal systems impose duties and responsibilities on persons connected by this relationship. A person is a child-in-law to the parents of the spouse, who are in turn also the parents of those sibling-in-laws (if any) who are siblings of the spouse (as opposed to spouses of siblings). Together, the members of this family affinity group are called the in-laws. Fathers-in-law A father-in-law is the father of a person's spouse. Two men who are fathers-in-law to each other's children may be called co-fathers-in-law, or, if there are grandchildren, co-grandfathers. Mothers-in-law A mother-in-law is the mother of a person's spouse. Two women who are mothers-in-law to each other's children may be called co-mothers-in-law, or, if there are grandchildren, co-grandmothers. In comedy and in popular culture, the mother-in-law is stereotyped as bossy, unfriendly, hos ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Óláfs Saga Tryggvasonar En Mesta
''Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar en mesta'' or ''The Greatest Saga of Óláfr Tryggvason'' is generically a hybrid of different types of sagas and compiled from various sources in the fourteenth century, but is most akin to one of the kings' sagas. It is an extended biography of King Óláfr Tryggvason and relates in detail the conversion to Christianity of Óláfr Tryggvason and Hallfreðr vandræðaskáld. Composed around 1300 it takes '' Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar'' in Snorri Sturluson Snorri Sturluson ( ; ; 1179 – 22 September 1241) was an Icelandic historian, poet, and politician. He was elected twice as lawspeaker of the Icelandic parliament, the Althing. He is commonly thought to have authored or compiled portions of th ...'s '' Heimskringla'' as its base but expands the narrative greatly with content from the previous biographies of the king by Oddr Snorrason and Gunnlaugr Leifsson as well as less directly related material. The saga is preserved in a number of manuscr ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Heimskringla
() is the best known of the Old Norse kings' sagas. It was written in Old Norse in Iceland. While authorship of ''Heimskringla'' is nowhere attributed, some scholars assume it is written by the Icelandic poet and historian Snorri Sturluson (1178/79–1241) 1230. The title was first used in the 17th century, derived from the first two words of one of the manuscripts (''kringla heimsins'', "the circle of the world"). is a collection of sagas about Swedish and Norwegian kings, beginning with the saga of the legendary Swedish dynasty of the Ynglings, followed by accounts of historical Norwegian rulers from Harald Fairhair of the 9th century up to the death of the pretender Eystein Meyla in 1177. Some of the exact sources of ''Heimskringla'' are disputed, but they include earlier kings' sagas, such as Morkinskinna, Fagrskinna and the 12th-century Norwegian synoptic histories and oral traditions, notably many skaldic poems. The author or authors explicitly name the now lost w ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Njáls Saga
''Njáls saga'' ( ), also ''Njála'' ( ), or ''Brennu-Njáls saga'' ( ) (Which can be translated as ''The Story of Burnt Njáll'', or ''The Saga of Njáll the Burner''), is a thirteenth-century Icelandic saga that describes events between 960 and 1020. The saga deals with a process of blood feuds in the Icelandic Commonwealth, showing how the requirements of honor could lead to minor slights spiralling into destructive and prolonged bloodshed. Insults where a character's manhood is called into question are especially prominent and may reflect an author critical of an overly restrictive ideal of masculinity. Another characteristic of the narrative is the presence of omens and prophetic dreams. It is disputed whether this reflects a fatalistic outlook on the part of the author. The principal characters in the saga are the friends Njáll Þorgeirsson, a lawyer and a sage, and Gunnar Hámundarson, a formidable warrior. Gunnar's wife, Hallgerðr langbrók, instigates a feud that ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]