Gunnhild Mother of Kings

Infobox Norwegian Royalty|majesty|consort
name = Gunnhild Gormsdóttir
title = Queen consort of Norway, Orkney, and Jorvik

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imgw = 250
caption = Gunnhild convinces Erik Bloodaxe to kill the Finnish wizards. From an illustration by Christian Krohg.
reign = 931 - 934 (Norway)
937 - 954 (Orkney)
952-954 (Jorvik)
coronation =
spouse = Erik Bloodaxe
issue =Gamle Eirikssen
Guttorm Eirikssen
Harald II
Ragnfrød Eirikssen
Ragnhild Eiriksdotter
Erling Eirikssen
Gudrød Eiriksson
Sigurd Sleva
royal house =Fairhair dynasty
house-type =Dynasty
titles =
full name =
father = Gorm the Old
"or" Ozur Toti
mother = unknown, possibly Thyra
date of birth = 910
place of birth =
date of death = 980
place of death =
buried =|

Gunnhildr konungamóðir ("mother of kings") or Gunnhildr Gormsdóttir [Or, alternatively, Gunnhildr Özurardóttir.] (c. 910 – c. 980) was the wife of Erik Bloodaxe (king of Norway 930–34, "king" of Orkney c. 937–54, and king of Jórvík 948–49 and 952–54). Gunnhild is a prominent figure in many Norse sagas, including "Fagrskinna", "Egil's Saga", "Njal's Saga", and "Heimskringla". Many of the details of her life are disputed, including her parentage. Gunnhild lived during a time of great change 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 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 Erik became co-rulers of Norway in the late tenth century. What details of her life are known come largely from Icelandic sources; because the Icelanders were generally hostile to her and her husband, scholars regard some of the more negative episodes reported in them as suspect. [Jones 121–24.]

Origins

According to the 12th century Historia Norvegiae, Gunnhild was the daughter of Gorm the Old, king of Denmark, and Erik and Gunnhild met at a feast given by Gorm. Modern scholars have largely accepted this version as accurate. ["E.g.", Bradbury 38; Orfield 129; Ashley 444; Alen 88; Driscoll 88, note 15.] In their view, her marriage with Erik was a dynastic union between two houses, that of the Norwegian Ynglings and that of the early Danish monarchy (who may have claimed descent from Ragnar Lodbrok), in the process of unifying and consolidating their respective countries. [Jones 94–95. The purported descent of Gorm from King Ragnar through his son Sigurd Snake-eye comes from, "inter alia", "Ragnarssona þáttr" §§ 3-4; but many modern scholars regard the tales of Ragnar and his family as confused and unreliable. "See, e.g.", Jones 204-211; Forte 69.]

Gwyn Jones in particular supported the identification of Gunnhild as the daughter of Gorm, and regarded the stories of her origins in Halogaland and her tutelage by Finnish wizards as part of a general Icelandic hostility towards Gunnhild and Erik. [Jones 121–22.]

"Heimskringla" and "Egil's Saga", on the other hand, assert that Gunnhild was the daughter of Ozur Toti, a hersir from Halogaland in northern Norway. ["E.g.," "Harald Fairhair's Saga" § 34.] Accounts of her early life vary between sources. "Egil's Saga" relates that "Eirik fought a great battle on the Northern Dvina in Bjarmaland, and was victorious as the poems about him record. On the same expedition he obtained Gunnhild, the daughter of Ozur Toti, and brought her home with him." ["Egil's Saga" § 37.]

Gwyn Jones regarded many of the traditions that grew up around Gunnhild in the Icelandic sources as fictional. ["Ibid."] However, both Theodoricus monachus and the Ágrip af Nóregskonungasögum report that when Gunnhild was at the court of Harald Bluetooth after Erik's death, the Danish king offered marriage to her; these accounts call into question the identification of Gunnhild as Harald's sister. [Theodoricus ___; Driscoll ___.]

"Heimskringla" relates that Gunnhild lived for a time in a hut with two Finnish wizards and learned magic from them. The two wizards demanded sexual favors from her, so she induced Erik, who was returning from an expedition to Bjarmland, to kill them. Erik then took her to her father's house and announced his intent to marry Gunnhild. ["Harald Fairhair's Saga" § 34.] The older "Fagrskinna", however, says simply that Erik met Gunnhild during an expedition to the Finnish north, where she was being "fostered and educated ... with Mǫttull, king of the Finns". ["Fagrskinna" § 8.]

Marriage with Erik

Erik's kinslaying and exile

Gunnhild and Erik had the following children: Gamle, the oldest; then Guthorm, Harald, Ragnfrod, Ragnhild, Erling, Gudrod, and Sigurd Sleva. ["Harald Fairhair's Saga" § 46.] "Egil's Saga" mentions a son named Rögnvald, but it is not known whether he can be identified with one of those mentioned in "Heimskringla", or even whether he was Gunnhild's son or Erik's by another woman.

Gunnhild was widely reputed to be a "völva", or witch. ["E.g., Harald Fairhair's Saga" § 34; "Njal's Saga" §§ 5–8; Fox 289–310.] Prior to the death of Harald Fairhair, Erik's popular half-brother Halfdan Haraldsson the Black died mysteriously, and Gunnhild was suspected of having "bribed a witch to give him a death-drink." ["Harald Fairhair's Saga" § 44.] Shortly thereafter, Harald died and Erik consolidated his power over the whole country. He began to quarrel with his other brothers, egged on by Gunnhild, and had four of them killed, beginning with Bjørn Farmann and later Olaf and Sigrød in battle at Tønsberg. ["Harald Fairhair's Saga" §§ 45–46.] As a result of Erik's tyrannical rule (which was likely greatly exaggerated in the sagas) he was expelled from Norway when the nobles of the country declared for his half-brother, Haakon the Good. [Jones 94–95.]

Orkney and Jorvik

Erik, his family and his retainers set sail to Orkney, where they settled for a number of years. During that time Erik was acknowledged as "King of Orkney" by its "de facto" rulers, the jarls Arnkel and Erlend Turf-Einarsson. [Ashley 443–44.]

Gunnhild went with Erik to Jorvik when, at the invitation of Bishop Wulfstan, the erstwhile Norwegian king settled as client king over northern England. [

According to the "Saga of Haakon the Good", it was King Athelstan of England who appointed Erik as ruler of Jorvik, but this is chronologically problematic; Athelstan died in 939. Ashley, among others, proposes that Erik received his commission from Athelstan but did not take it up until later. Ashley 443–44.] At Jorvik, both Erik and Gunnhild may have been baptized. [Saussaye 183.]

Following Erik's loss of Jorvik and subsequent death at the Battle of Stainmore (954), the survivors of the battle brought word of the defeat to Gunnhild and her sons in Northumberland. ["Haakon the Good's Saga" §§ 4–5.] Taking with them all that they could, they set sail for Orkney, where they exacted tribute from the new jarl, Thorfinn Skullsplitter. ["Haakon the Good's Saga" § 5.]

Ultimately, however, Gunnhild decided to move on; marrying her daughter Ragnhild to Jarl Thorfinn's son Arnfinn, she took her other children and set sail for Denmark. [Ashley 443; "see also" "Haakon the Good's Saga" § 5; "Fagrskinna" §§ 8–9. Ragnhild would later, according to the "Orkneyinga Saga", murder Arnfinn, marry his brother Havard, murder him in turn, and then marry their brother Ljot. Ashley 443–44.]

Conflict with Egil Skallagrimsson

Gunnhild was the nemesis of Egil Skallagrimsson, and his saga and poetry present her in a particularly negative light. Egil was introduced to Erik by his older brother Thorolf, who was a friend of the prince, and the brothers were originally on good terms with Erik and Gunnhild. ["Egil's Saga" § 36.] However, during a sojourn in Norway around 930, Egil got into an inheritance dispute with certain members of Erik's court, during which he killed Bárðr of Atley, one of the king's retainers. ["Egil's Saga" §§ 56–58.]

Gunnhild ordered her two brothers to kill Egil and Thorolf. Egil killed the pair when they confronted him, greatly increasing the Queen's thirst for revenge. ["Egil's Saga" §§ 59–60.]

Erik then declared Egil an outlaw in Norway. Berg-Önundr gathered a company of men to capture Egil, but was killed in his attempt to do so. ["Egil's Saga" §§ 59–60.] During his escape from Norway, Egil killed Rögnvald Eriksson, Erik's son. ["Egil's Saga" § 60.] He then cursed Erik and Gunnhild by setting a horse's head on a pole in a shamanic ritual (the pillar was a "níðstöng" or "níð-pole"; níð translates, roughly, to 'scorn' or 'curse'.) and saying:

"Here I set up a "níð"-pole, and declare this "níð" against King Erik and Queen Gunnhildr", — he turned the horse-head to face the mainland — "I declare this "níð" at the land-spirits there, and the land itself, so that all will fare astray, not to hold nor find their places, not until they wreak King Erik and Gunnhild from the land." He set up the pole of níð in the cliff-face and left it standing; he faced the horse's eyes on the land, and he rist runes upon the pole, and said all the formal words of the curse. ["Egil's Saga" § 60. the Icelandic source is, essentially, giving Egil credit for the ouster of Gunnhild and Erik from Norway.]

The last encounter between Egil and Gunnhild occurred around 948 in Jorvik. Egil was shipwrecked on a nearby shore and came before Erik, who sentenced him to death. But Egil composed a "drápa" called "Höfuðlausn" in Erik's praise over a single night. [He did so despite being pestered by the noise of a bird, which he believed was Gunnhild disguised with magic. "Egil's Saga" § 62] When he recited it in the morning, Erik gave him his freedom and forgave the killing of Rögnvald, against Gunnhild's wishes. ["Egil's Saga" § 64.]

Life after Erik

In Denmark

After the death of her husband, Gunnhild took refuge with her sons at the court of Harald Bluetooth at Roskilde. ["Haakon the Good's Saga" § 10. As noted above, Harald may have been Gunnhild's brother or half-brother.] Tradition ascribes to Gunnhild the commissioning of the skaldic poem Eiríksmál in honor of her fallen husband. [Jones 123; "Fagrskinna" § 8; "Haakon the Good's Saga" § 10.]

In Denmark, Gunnhild's son Harald was fostered by the king himself, and her other sons were given properties and titles. ["Fagrskinna" § 9; "Haakon the Good's Saga" § 10.] As King Harald was involved in a war against Haakon's Norway, he may have sought to use Gunnhild's sons as his proxies against the Norwegian king. ["Haakon the Good's Saga" § 10.] One of her sons, Gamle, died fighting King Haakon around 960. ["Haakon the Good's Saga" § 26.]

Return to Norway

Gunnhild returned to Norway in triumph when her remaining sons killed King Haakon at the Battle of Fitjar in 961. Ironically, the battle was a victory for Haakon's forces but his death left a power vacuum which Gunnhild's son Harald, with Danish aid, was able to exploit. [Jones 122.] With her sons now ensconced as the lords of Norway, Gunnhild was from this time known as "konungamóðir", or "Mother of Kings." [Jones 123–24.]

During the reign of Harald Greyhide, Gunnhild dominated the court; according to "Heimskringla" she "mixed herself much in the affairs of the country." [Jones 123–25; "Harald Grafeld's Saga" § 1.] Gunnhild's sons killed or deposed many of the jarls and petty kings that had hitherto ruled the Norwegian provinces, seizing their lands. Famine, possibly caused or exacerbated by these campaigns, plagued the reign of Harald. [Jones 123–25; "Harald Grafeld's Saga" §§ 2–17.]

Among the kings slain (around 963) was Tryggve Olafsson whose widow Astrid Eriksdotter fled with her son Olaf Tryggvason to Sweden and then set out for the eastern Baltic. [Jones 124–25; "Olaf Tryggvason's Saga" §§ 2–3.] According to "Heimskringla" Astrid's flight and its disastrous consequences were in response to Gunnhild having sent soldiers to kidnap or kill her infant son. [Jones 131–32; "Olaf Tryggvason's Saga" § 3.]

Gunnhild was the patron and lover of Hrut Herjolfsson (or Hrútur Herjólfsson), an Icelandic chieftain who visited Norway during the reign of Gunnhild's son Harald. [Ordower 41–61; "Njal's Saga" § 3] "Laxdaela Saga" in particular describes the extent to which she became enamored of Hrut:

Gunnhild, the Queen, loved him so much that she held there was not his equal within the guard, either in talking or in anything else. Even when men were compared, and noblemen therein were pointed to, all men easily saw that Gunnhild thought that at the bottom there must be sheer thoughtlessness, or else envy, if any man was said to be Hrut's equal. ["Laxdaela Saga" § 19.]

She helped Hrut take possession of an inheritance by arranging the death of a man named Soti at the hands of her servant, Augmund and her son Gudrod. ["Njal's Saga" § 5.] When Hrut returned home, Gunnhild gave him many presents, but she cursed Hrut with priapism to ruin his marriage to Unn, daughter of Mord Fiddle; the two ultimately divorced. ["Njal's Saga" §§ 5–8; Fox 289–310. In describing the problem to her father, Unn says "when he comes to me his penis is so large that he can't have any satisfaction from me, and we've both tried every possible way to enjoy each other, but nothing works." "Njal's Saga" § 7. Earlier, more prudish translations such as Sir George W. DaSent's 1861 edition merely reported cryptically that Hrut and Unn "did not pull together well as man and wife."]

Gunnhild also showed great favor to Olaf the Peacock, Hrut's nephew, who visited the Norwegian court after Hrut's return to Norway. She advised him on the best places and items to trade and even sponsored his trade expeditions. ["Laxdaela Saga" § 21.]

Exile and death

Haakon Sigurdsson, jarl of Hlaðir, arranged the death of Harald Greyhide around 971 with the connivance of Harald Bluetooth, who had invited his foster-son to Denmark to be invested with new Danish fiefs. Civil war broke out between Jarl Haakon and the surviving sons of Erik and Gunnhild, but Haakon proved victorious and Gunnhild had to flee Norway once again, with her remaining sons Gudrod and Ragnfred. ["Olaf Tryggvason's Saga" §§ 16–18.] They went to Orkney, again imposing themselves as overlords over Jarl Thorfinn. [Ashley 443; "Olaf Tryggvason's Saga" §§ 16–18.] However, it appears that Gunnhild was less interested in ruling the country than in having a place to live quietly, and her sons used the islands as a base for abortive raids on Haakon's interests; the government of Orkney was therefore firmly in the hands of Thorfinn. [Ashley 443.]

According to the "Jomsvikinga Saga", Gunnhild returned to Denmark around 977 but was killed at the orders of King Harald by being drowned in a bog. The "Ágrip" and "Historia de Antiquitate Regum Norwagiensium" contain versions of this account. ["See, generally", Ashley 443; "Jomsvikinga Saga" §§ 4-8. Poul Anderson regarded the story of Gunnhild's murder in Denmark as entirely unreliable. Anderson 594-595.]

In 1835, the body of a murdered or ritually sacrificed woman, the so-called Haraldskær Woman, was unearthed in a bog in Jutland. Because of the account of Gunnhild's murder contained in the "Jomsviking Saga" and other sources, the body was mistakenly identified as that of Gunnhild. Based upon the belief of her royal personage, King Frederick VI of Denmark commanded an elaborate sarcophagus be carved to hold her body. This royal treatment of Haraldskær Woman’s remains explains the excellent state of conservation of the corpse; conversely, Tollund Man, a later discovery, was not properly conserved and most of the body has been lost, leaving only the head as original material in his display. Later radiocarbon dating demonstrated that the Harakdskær Woman was not Gunnhild, but rather a woman who lived in the 6th century BCE, possibly of the Cimbri tribe. [" [http://www.archaeology.org/online/features/bog/gunhild.html Haraldskaer Woman: Bodies of the Bogs] ", "Archaeology", Archaeological Institute of America, December 10, 1997. Radiochemical dating methods were not available until well into the twentieth century.]

Appearances in popular culture

Gunnhild was a villain in Robert Leighton's 1934 novel "Olaf the Glorious", a fictionalized biography of Olaf Tryggvason. She is the central character of the novel "Mother of Kings" by Poul Anderson, [Tor Books, 2003] (which accepts the version of her living with the Finnish warlocks and emphasizes her being a witch) and also appears in Cecelia Holland's "The Soul Thief". [Forge Books, 2002.]

Notes

References

*Alen, Rupert and Anna Marie Dahlquist. "Royal Families of Medieval Scandinavia, Flanders, and Kiev." Kings River Publications, 1997.
*Anderson, Poul. "Aftermath" (Historical note). "Mother of Kings." Tor Books, 2003.
*Ashley, Michael. "The Mammoth Book of British Kings and Queens." Carroll & Graf Publishers, 1998.
*Bradbury, Jim. "The Routledge Companion to Medieval Warfare". Routledge, 2002.
*Chantepie de la Saussaye, Pierre Daniël. "The Religion of the Teutons". Bert J. Voss, trans. New York: Ginn & Co., 1902.
*Driscoll, M. J., ed. "unicode|Ágrip af Nóregskonungasǫgum". Viking Society for Northern Research, 1995. ISBN 090352127X
*Finlay, Alison, ed./trans. "Fagrskinna, a Catalogue of the Kings of Norway". Brill Academic Publishers, 2004. ISBN 90-04-13172-8
*Forte, Angelo & Oram, Richard & Pedersen, Frederik. (2005). "Viking Empires". Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-82992-2
*Fox, Denton. "Njals Saga and the Western Literary Tradition." "Comparative Literature", Vol. 15, No. 4 (Autumn, 1963), p. 289–310.
*Jones, Gwyn. "A History of the Vikings." 2nd ed. London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1984.
*Magnusson, Magnus, and Hermann Palsson, trans. "Njal's Saga". Penguin Classics, 1960.
*Ordower, Henry. "Exploring the Literary Function of Law and Litigation in 'Njal's Saga.'" "Cardozo Studies in Law and Literature", Vol. 3, No. 1 (Spring – Summer 1991), pp. 41–61.
*Orfield, Lester B. "The Growth of Scandinavian Law." The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd., 2002.
*Sturluson, Snorri. "Heimskringla: History of the Kings of Norway" Lee Hollander, trans. Univ. of Texas Press, 1991.
*Theodoricus monachus (David and Ian McDougall, trans.; introduction by Peter Foote). "The Ancient History of the Norwegian Kings". Viking Society for Northern Research, 1998. ISBN 0-903521-40-7
*Thorsson, Örnólfur, et al., eds. "Egil's Saga". Bernard Scudder, trans. "The Sagas of the Icelanders: a selection". Penguin Classics, 2000.
* [http://www.northvegr.org/lore/oldheathen/056.php Tunstall, Peter, trans. "The Tale of Ragnar's Sons".] Northvegr, 2004.

External links

* [http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/egil/index.htm Egil's Saga online]
* [http://omacl.org/Heimskringla/ Heimskringla online]
* [http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~cousin/html/p283.htm#i17111 Genealogy of Gunnhild]
* [http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/read/GEN-MEDIEVAL/2000-02/0951627062 Caveats on Gunnhild's parentage]
* [http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext05/olafg10h.htm Leighton's "Olaf the Glorious" on Project Gutenberg.]
*" [http://www.archaeology.org/online/features/bog/gunhild.html Haraldskaer Woman: Bodies of the Bogs] ", "Archaeology", Archaeological Institute of America, December 10, 1997.

Persondata
NAME = Gunnhild Mother of Kings
ALTERNATIVE NAMES = Gunnhildr konungamóðir; Özurardóttir, Gunnhildr
SHORT DESCRIPTION = Wife of Erik Bloodaxe
DATE OF BIRTH = c. 910
PLACE OF BIRTH =
DATE OF DEATH = c. 980
PLACE OF DEATH = Orkney or Denmark