| Gunnhildr Gormsdóttir | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Queen consort of Norway | |
| Tenure | 931–933 |
| Born | c. 910 Jutland, Denmark |
| Died | c. 980 (Aged ~70) Orkney, Scotland |
| Spouse | Eric Bloodaxe |
| Issue | Gamle Eirikssen Guttorm Eirikssen Harald II Ragnfrød Eirikssen Ragnhild Eriksdotter Erling Eirikssen Gudrød Eiriksson Sigurd Sleva Rögnvald Eriksson (?) |
| Dynasty | Knýtlinga |
| Father | Gorm the Old |
| Mother | Thyra |
Gunnhildr konungamóðir (mother of kings) orGunnhildr Gormsdóttir,[1] whose name is often Anglicised asGunnhild (c. 910 – c. 980), is a quasi-historical figure who appears in theIcelandic Sagas, according to which she was the wife ofEric Bloodaxe (King of Norway 930–934,King of Orkney c. 937–954, and King ofJórvík 948–49 and 952–954). She appears prominently in sagas such asFagrskinna,Egils saga,Njáls saga,Heimskringla, andÓláfs saga Tryggvasonar en mesta.
The sagas relate that Gunnhild lived during a time of great change and upheaval in Norway. Herfather-in-lawHarald Fairhair had recently united much of Norway under his rule.[2] 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 inOrkney,Jorvik and Denmark. A number of her many children with Eric became co-rulers of Norway in the late tenth century.
Many of the details of her life are disputed, including her parentage. Although she is treated in the sagas as a historical person, even her historicity is a matter of some debate.[3] What details of her life are known come largely fromIcelandic sources, which generally asserted that the Icelandic settlers had fled from Harald's tyranny. While the historicity of sources as theLandnámabók is disputed, the perception that Harald had exiled or driven out many of their ancestors led to an attitude among Icelanders generally hostile to Erik and Gunnhild. Scholars such asGwyn Jones therefore regard some of the episodes reported in them as suspect.[4]
In the sagas, Gunnhild is most often depicted in a negative light, and depicted as a figure known for her "power and cruelty, admired for her beauty and generosity, and feared for her magic, cunning, sexual insatiability, and her goading", according to Jenny Jochens.[5]
Her parentage was altered fromDanish royalty to a farmer inHålogaland in northernNorway. This made her native to a land neighboringFinnmark, and her tutelage in the magic arts by Finnish wizards became more plausible. This contrivance,Jones has argued, was the Icelandic saga-maker's attempt to mitigate the "defeats and expulsions of his own heroic ancestors" by ascribing magical abilities to the queen.[6]
According to the 12th centuryHistoria Norwegiæ, Gunnhild was the daughter ofGorm the Old, king ofDenmark andThyra, and Erik and Gunnhild met at a feast given by Gorm. Modern scholars have largely accepted this version as accurate.[6][7] In their view, her marriage with Erik was a dynastic union between two houses, that of the NorwegianYnglings and that of the earlyDanish monarchy, in the process of unifying and consolidating their respective countries. Erik himself was the product of such a union between Harald and Ragnhild, a Danish princess fromJutland.[8] Gunnhild being the daughter of Gorm the Old would explain why she would seek shelter in Denmark after the death of her husband.
Heimskringla andEgil's Saga, on the other hand, assert that Gunnhild was the daughter ofOzur Toti, ahersir from Halogaland.[9] Accounts of her early life vary between sources.Egil's Saga relates that "Eirik fought a great battle on theNorthern Dvina inBjarmaland, 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."[10]
Gwyn Jones regarded many of the traditions that grew up around Gunnhild in the Icelandic sources as fictional.[6] However, bothTheodoricus monachus and theÁgrip af Nóregskonungasögum report that when Gunnhild was at the court ofHarald Bluetooth after Erik's death, the Danish king offered marriage to her; if valid, these accounts call into question the identification of Gunnhild as Harald's sister, but their most recent editors follow Jones in viewing their accounts of Gunnhild's origins as unreliable.[11]
Heimskringla relates that Gunnhild lived for a time in a hut with twoFinnish wizards and learnedmagic from them. The two wizards each desired to marry Gunnhild and had slain any other men who approached their hut. With the aid of Erik's men, as they returned from an expedition toBjarmaland, Gunnhild enacted a plan to kill the wizards. The Norwegians then took her to Erik who brought Gunnhild to her father's house and announced his intent to marry her.[12] The olderFagrskinna, however, says simply that Erik met Gunnhild during an expedition to theFinnish north, where she was being "fostered and educated ... with Mǫttull, king of theFinns".[13] Gunnhild's Finnish sojourn is described by historian Marlene Ciklamini as a "fable" designed to set the stage for placing the blame for Erik's future misrule on his wife.[14]
Gunnhild and Eric are said to have had the following children:Gamle, the oldest; thenGuthorm,Harald,Ragnfrod,Ragnhild,Erling,Gudrod, andSigurd Sleva.[15]Egil's Saga mentions a son named Rögnvald, but it is not known whether he can be identified with one of those mentioned inHeimskringla, or even whether he was Gunnhild's son or Eric's by another woman.
Gunnhild was widely reputed to have or otherwise employ magical powers.[16] Prior to the death ofHarald Fairhair, Erik's popular half-brotherHalfdan Haraldsson the Black died mysteriously, and Gunnhild was suspected of having "bribed a witch to give him adeath-drink."[17] Shortly thereafter, Harald died and Eric 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 withBjørn Farmann and laterOlaf andSigrød in battle atTønsberg.[18]As a result of Eric's tyrannical rule, he was expelled from Norway when the nobles of the country declared for his half-brother,Haakon the Good.[8]
According to the Icelandic sagas, Eric set sail with his family and his retainers toOrkney, where they settled for a number of years. During that time Eric was acknowledged as "King of Orkney" by itsde facto rulers, thejarlsArnkel andErlend Turf-Einarsson.[19] Gunnhild went with Eric toJorvik when, at the invitation ofBishop Wulfstan, the erstwhile Norwegian king settled as client king over northernEngland.[20] At Jorvik, both Eric and Gunnhild may have been baptized.[21]
Following Eric's loss of Jorvik and subsequent death at theBattle of Stainmore (954), the survivors of the battle brought word of the defeat to Gunnhild and her sons inNorthumberland.[22] Taking with them all that they could, they set sail for Orkney, where they exacted tribute from the new jarl,Thorfinn Skullsplitter.[23]
Ultimately, however, Gunnhild decided to move on; marrying her daughter Ragnhild to Jarl Thorfinn's sonArnfinn, she took her other children and set sail for Denmark.[24]
Some modern historians call into question the identification of the Eric who ruled over Jorvik with Eric Bloodaxe. None of the English sources for Eric's reign inNorthumbria identify him as Norwegian or as the son of Harald Fairhair. A thirteenth-century letter fromEdward I toPope Boniface VIII identifies Eric asScottish in origin.[25] Lappenberg, Plummer and Todd, writing in the late nineteenth century, identified Eric as a son ofHarald Bluetooth, a claim Downham discounts as untenable.[25] Downham, however, regards Eric the king of Jorvik as a distinct individual from Eric Bloodaxe, and thus views Gunnhild's sojourn in Orkney and Jorvik as the construct of later saga-writers who conflated different characters between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries.[26]
Gunnhild was the nemesis ofEgill Skallagrímsson, and his saga and poetry present her in a particularly negative light. Egil was introduced to Erik by his older brotherThorolf, who was a friend of the prince, and the brothers were originally on good terms with Eric and Gunnhild.[27] However, during a sojourn in Norway around 930, Egil got into an inheritance dispute with certain members of Eric's court, during which he killed Bárðr of Atley, one of the king's retainers.[28]
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.[29]
Eric 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.[29] During his escape from Norway, Egil killedRögnvald Eriksson, Erik's son.[30] He then cursed Eric and Gunnhild by setting a horse's head on a pole in a shamanic ritual (the pillar was aníðstöng or "níð-pole"; níð translates, roughly, to 'scorn' or 'curse'.) and saying:
"Here I set up aníð-pole, and declare thisníð against King Erik and Queen Gunnhildr", — he turned the horse-head to face the mainland — "I declare thisníð 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 Eric 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.[31]
The last encounter between Egil and Gunnhild occurred around 948 in Jorvik. Egil was shipwrecked on a nearby shore and came before Eric, who sentenced him to death. But Egil composed adrápa called "Höfuðlausn" in Eric's praise over a single night.[32] When he recited it in the morning, Eric gave him his freedom and forgave the killing of Rögnvald, against Gunnhild's wishes.[33]
After the death of her husband, Gunnhild took refuge with her sons at the court ofHarald Bluetooth atRoskilde.[34] Tradition ascribes to Gunnhild the commissioning of theskaldic poemEiríksmál in honor of her fallen husband.[35]
In Denmark, Gunnhild's son Harald was fostered by the king himself, and her other sons were given properties and titles.[36] 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.[37] One of her sons, Gamle, died fighting King Haakon around 960.[38]
Gunnhild returned to Norway in triumph when her remaining sons killed King Haakon at theBattle of Fitjar in 961. 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.[39] With her sons now ensconced as the lords of Norway, Gunnhild was from this time known askonungamóðir, or "Mother of Kings."[40]
During the reign ofHarald Greyhide, Gunnhild dominated the court; according toHeimskringla she "mixed herself much in the affairs of the country."[41] Gunnhild's sons killed or deposed many of the jarls andpetty kings that had hitherto ruled the Norwegian provinces, seizing their lands. Famine, possibly caused or exacerbated by these campaigns, plagued the reign of Harald.[42]
Among the kings slain (around 963) wasTryggve Olafsson whose widowAstrid Eriksdotter fled with her sonOlaf Tryggvason toSweden and then set out for the easternBaltic.[43] According toHeimskringla Astrid's flight and itsdisastrous consequences were in response to Gunnhild having sent soldiers to kidnap or kill her infant son.[44]
Gunnhild was the patron and lover ofHrut Herjolfsson (orHrútur Herjólfsson), an Icelandic chieftain who visited Norway during the reign of Gunnhild's son Harald.[45] This dalliance was all the more scandalous given the difference in their ages; the fact that Gunnhild was a generation older than Hrut was considered noteworthy.[46] Gunnhild engaged in public displays of affection with Hrut that were normally reserved for married couples, such as putting her arms around his neck in an embrace.[47] Moreover, Gunnhild had Hrut sleep with her alone in "the upper chamber."[48]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.[49]
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.[50] When Hrut returned home, Gunnhild gave him many presents, but she cursed Hrut withpriapism to ruin his marriage to Unn, daughter ofMord Fiddle; the two ultimately divorced.[51]
Gunnhild also showed great favor toOlaf 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.[52]
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 Danishfiefs. 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.[53] They went to Orkney, again imposing themselves as overlords over Jarl Thorfinn.[54] 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.[55]
According to theJómsvíkinga saga, Gunnhild returned to Denmark around 977 but was killed at the orders ofKing Harald by being drowned in a bog. TheÁgrip and Theodoricus Monachus'sHistoria de Antiquitate Regum Norwagiensium contain versions of this account.[56]
In 1835, the body of a murdered or rituallysacrificed woman, the so-calledHaraldskær Woman, was unearthed in a bog inJutland. Because of the account of Gunnhild's murder contained in theJomsviking Saga and other sources, the body was mistakenly identified as that of Gunnhild. Based upon the belief of her royal personage,King Frederick VI commanded an elaboratesarcophagus becarved 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. Laterradiocarbon dating demonstrated that the Haraldskær Woman was not Gunnhild, but rather a woman who lived in the 6th century BCE.[57]
Gunnhild is often connected with sorcery, as seen throughout the Icelandic sagas. This magical ability may be recognized in part due to Gunnhild's affiliation with the Finns, having supposedly lived in a hut with two Finnish wizards in Finnmark and learned magic from them, according to Snorri in Heimskringla. Also as seen in Heimskringla, Eirík first made the acquaintance of Gunnhild when he was younger and off on a raid in northern Norway. His men had stumbled upon the Finns' hut where she was staying, and described her as "a woman so beautiful that they had never seen the like of her."[58] As stated in Heimskringla, Gunnhild convinced them to hide in the Finns' hut, and then spread the contents of a linen sack both inside and outside of the hut. It is thought that this action was an indication of magic, which upon the Finns' return, caused them to fall asleep without being easily awoken. Gunnhild completed her magic by covering their heads with seal skins, and then directing Eirík's men to kill them, after which they returned to Eirík. Gunnhild's Finnish sojourn is described by historian Marlene Ciklamini as a "fable" designed to set the stage for placing the blame for Eirik's misrule on his wife.[59]
Other sources acting as examples of Gunnhild's sorcery include the story of King Hákon's death in Snorri's Heimskringla, as well as instances concerning Egil in Egil's Saga, and suspicion surrounding the death of Halfdan Haraldsson . Heimskringla describes Hákon's ascent to the Norwegian throne after hearing of the cruelties caused by Eirík's rule. Hákon found great support among the Norwegian people, and therefore forced Eirík and Gunnhild to flee to England. Naturally many battles for the throne ensued, which ultimately led to Gunnhild getting blamed for Hákon's death, when an arrow flew towards him in battle piercing into the muscle of his upper arm. According to Heimskringla, it is stated that "through the sorcery of Gunnhildr a kitchen boy wheeled round, crying: 'Make room for the king's slayer!' and let fly the arrow into the group coming toward him and wounding the king."[60] Marlene Ciklamini reasons that the unusualness of the mortal wound directs the origin to possible sorcery involved, presumably by Gunnhild.[59]
The character of Egil in Egil's Saga is also cursed by being on Gunnhild's bad side after his many transgressions towards the Norwegian court. First attracting her attention and dislike at a feast when he became overly drunk and foolishly killed one of her supporters and after which escaped, Gunnhild placed a curse on Egil, "from ever finding peace in Iceland until she had seen him."[61] This curse of Gunnhild's is presumably the cause for Egil's later desire to travel to England, which was where Gunnhild and Eirík were at the time after being exiled. Egil ended up requesting to receive forgiveness from Eirík and Gunnhild, and was allowed a single night to compose a tributary poem to Eirík, or else face death. Gunnhild's second moment of sorcery in the saga appears later that night, when Egil was apparently distracted from his writing by a bird twittering at the window. This bird is reputed to be Gunnhild, who hadshape-shifted into that form, as seen by Egil's companion Arinbjorn, who had "sat down near the attic window where the bird had been sitting, and saw a shape-shifter in the form of a bird leaving the other side of the house."[62]
Carolyne Larrington takes an interesting look into the comparative amount of power Gunnhild held, as well as her overall role as queen within the Norwegian court. Queenship as a concept emerged relatively late in Norway, and as Larrington points out, the most powerful women in Norwegian history were usually king's mothers rather than kings' wives. Gunnhild acts as one of the most important partial exceptions to this rule, as she was influential during both Eirík's and her sons' rules. Gunnhild became increasingly politically active in her own right after her husband, Eirík, died in battle, after which she later returned to Norway where she put her sons in power, and her son Harald on the throne. Gunnhild also arranged her daughter's marriage to the strategically important Earl of Orkney, displaying her awareness for political advantage. Gunnhild remained resilient to maintain power for the rest of her life, acting as Queen Regent to her son Harald, and continuing to be a major deciding factor and source for political advice.[63]
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Gunnhild was a villain inRobert Leighton's 1934 novelOlaf the Glorious,[64] a fictionalized biography ofOlaf Tryggvason. She is the central character of the novelMother of Kings byPoul Anderson,[65] (which makes her a granddaughter ofRognvald Eysteinsson, accepts the version of her living with the Finnish warlocks and emphasizes her being a witch) and also appears inCecelia Holland'sThe Soul Thief.[66] InThe Demon of Scattery[67] byPoul Anderson andMildred Downey Broxon, and illustrated byMichael Whelan andAlicia Austin, the main characters, the Viking Halldor and theIrish ex-nun Brigit, become Gunnhild's paternal grandparents. She is a central character inRobert Low's "Crowbone". She is a title character in Genevieve Gornichec's historical fantasy "The Weaver and the Witch Queen".
She is played by Icelandic actressRagnheiður Ragnarsdóttir in the television seriesVikings.[68]
{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help){{cite book}}:|work= ignored (help){{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)Gunnhild, Mother of Kings | ||
| Preceded by | Queen Consort of Norway 931–934 | Succeeded by |
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