TY - JOUR
T1 - Earl Thorfinn of Orkney and the forgotten battle of 1058
AU - Licence, Tom
N1 - Funding information: The research in this paper was facilitated by the Leverhulme Trust’s award of a Major Research Fellowship (MRF-2021-078), to fund the three-year project, ‘The Earl who became King: the Rise of Harold Godwinson’.
PY - 2025/1
Y1 - 2025/1
N2 - Verses by Arnórr ‘jarls’-poet’, preserved in Orkneyinga saga, describe a battle in which Earl Thorfinn of Orkney fought the English south of the Isle of Man. The thirteenth-century saga-author associated these verses with a campaign supposedly fought in the 1030s or 1040s, but this account is doubtful. Turning to the Norwegian expedition of 1058, this article considers whether the verses might originally have referred to that campaign and later become linked with a different story. New readings of the key stanzas are proposed, and a new sequence, with consequences impacting on the chronology and circumstances of Thorfinn’s life and death. There are ramifications for discussions touching the saga tradition, Arnórr’s career, Malcolm (Máel Coluim) III Canmore’s career, and his marriage to Ingibjorg.
AB - Verses by Arnórr ‘jarls’-poet’, preserved in Orkneyinga saga, describe a battle in which Earl Thorfinn of Orkney fought the English south of the Isle of Man. The thirteenth-century saga-author associated these verses with a campaign supposedly fought in the 1030s or 1040s, but this account is doubtful. Turning to the Norwegian expedition of 1058, this article considers whether the verses might originally have referred to that campaign and later become linked with a different story. New readings of the key stanzas are proposed, and a new sequence, with consequences impacting on the chronology and circumstances of Thorfinn’s life and death. There are ramifications for discussions touching the saga tradition, Arnórr’s career, Malcolm (Máel Coluim) III Canmore’s career, and his marriage to Ingibjorg.
U2 - 10.1017/ean.2024.4
DO - 10.1017/ean.2024.4
M3 - Article
SN - 3033-3679
VL - 51
JO - Early Medieval England and its Neighbours
JF - Early Medieval England and its Neighbours
M1 - e4
ER -