Olaf the White

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Olaf the White (

sea-king
who lived in the latter half of the 9th century.

Life

Olaf was born around 820, in

Eyrbyggja Saga, claims that Olaf's paternal grandmother (Thora) was a daughter of Ragnar's son Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye. However, this connection seems unlikely, given that Sigurd appears to have lived in the mid-9th Century and Ragnar himself may have lived until the 860s. Irish fragments provide a different genealogy, suggesting that Olaf's father was Godfred, son of Ragnall, son of Godfred, son of Godfred.[1]

He was named

Ketil Flatnose, the ruler of the Hebrides, according to Icelandic traditions (Landnámabók, Laxdæla saga). The Irish sources name Olaf's wife only as the daughter of a "King Aedh".[2]

Olaf and Auðr had a son, Thorstein the Red (Þorsteinn rauðr), who attempted to conquer Scotland in the 870s. At some point Olaf had a falling-out with the clan of Ketil and sent Auðr and their son back to her father's house. According to Landnámabók, Olaf and Þorsteinn Rauðr were both killed in the British Isles.

Thorstein the Red was married to Þuriðr Eyvindardóttir Austmann, and they had several children: Gróa, Álof, Þorgerðr, Þórhildr, Vigdís, Ósk, Ólafr feilan, ancestor of Ari Fróði, author of Landnámabók.[3] The family was related to the Vinland explorers and the Sturlung family.[4]

Identification and historical conjecture

Olaf may be identical with the Viking warlord

Irish sources was killed in 871/2 by Causantín mac Cináeda, king of Alba. However, both Gwyn Jones
and Peter Hunter Blair dispute this identification.

Old Norse sources mention two Olafs belonging to the ninth-century house of

Olaf Guthfrithsson of Norway.[5]

Ancestry

Notes

  1. ^ Fragm. 127, 195).
  2. ^ Fragm. 151, S. 175; Steenstrup, p. 120-121.
  3. ^ see ÍF, 1, genealogy IXa
  4. ^ Gísli Sigurðsson 262.
  5. ^ Warlords and Holy Men, by Alfred P. Smith, Edinburgh University Press 2010, first published in 1984 by Edward Arnold Publishers, Ltd. p159-160

References

  • Steenstrup, Johannes C.H.R. Normannerne, vol. 2. Kjøbenhavn, 1878: Vikingetogene mod Vest. pp. 119 ff.
  • Forte, Angelo, Richard Oram and Frederik Pedersen. Viking Empires. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005
    ISBN 0-521-82992-5
    .
  • Jones, Gwyn. A History of the Vikings. 2nd ed. London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1984.
  • Gísli Sigurðsson. The Medieval Icelandic Saga and Oral Tradition: A Discourse on Method. Cambridge, MA: Harvard U.P., 2004.
  • Bilbao, Jon. “Sobre la leyenda de Jaun Zuria, primer señor de Vizcaya” in Amigos del País, hoy, Real Sociedad Vascongada de Amigos del País (Comisión de Vizcaya), Bilbao, 1982, pp. 235–263.
  • Warlords and Holy Men, by Alfred P. Smith, Edinburgh University Press 2010, first published in 1984 by Edward Arnold Publishers, Ltd.

External links
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