The Hunted Children of Kings:
A Theme in the Old Icelandic
Sagas

Ármann Jakobsson

University of Iceland

Life: A Fairy Tale

Is Life a Stepmother Tale? When King Sverrir of Norway (1177-1202)
is on the run from his enemies in his youth, his misfortunes remind the
author of tales that he regards as being from the ancient past “Í þeiri ferð
fékk hann mikit vás, var því líkast, sem í fornum sögum er sagt at verit
hafi, þá er konungabörn urðu fyrir stjúpmœðra sköpum”.

1

(His hardships

in this trips were such that they most resemble what is told in old tales,
when children of kings were hit by stepmother spells.)

In this instance life appears to imitate art, that is if we categorize fairy

tales as art. Life, or at least the life of King Sverrir, resembles a story
about stepmothers. The author of Sverris saga, presumably the abbot
Karl Jónsson (d. 1212/13) under close supervision of the king himself,
speaks only of ‘ancient tales’ and might be indicating that fairy tales are
ancient history, rather than just stories.

2

To him, these ‘old tales’ are not

necessarily fictional. Being old, they might just belong to a different
reality, a past which resembles fairy tales to a larger extent than his own
life, or that of his audience.

Ancient or fictional, the reality of fairy tales would at first glance

seem far removed from ordinary life. And yet Karl Jónsson seems to

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subscribe to a similar point of view as the 20th century scholar Bruno
Bettelheim even though the premises of the two scholars are vastly
different: true or false, fairy tales have a relevance to real life and might
even be a helpful guide in making sense of the world.

3

This direct comparison with Stepmother Tales is one indication that

fairy tales were indeed current in the North and in the late 12th century,
and were even believed to reflect reality in some way.

4

It also implies

that the author is well aware of the fact that Sverrir is not unique; his life
resembles well-known tales. The allusion also reveals that the life of a
contemporary figure may be interpreted as a story structured on the lines
of a Stepmother Tale. In addition, the author seems not only to be well
aware of this but he also thinks it safe, even desirable, to make the
audience aware of the fact as well. The fact that his story resembles other
stories might be construed as suspicious nowadays, but this particular
author seems to want his audience to reflect on the similarity.

Sverris saga is a biography of someone who is still alive, but

structurally akin to the ancient Stepmother Tales. This similarity is again
emphasized later in the saga, in a speech by King Sverrir who refers to
himself as a little low man from the outer skerries when he finally is the
sole ruler of Norway.

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He has emerged victorious through the hardships

or tests of youth, and now the kingdom is his. So even though his story
is true, he is himself a fairy-tale hero.

Thus the fairy-tale structure of the narrative is almost flaunted in our

face. Does the author wish us to infer that it is less historical for it? That
seems unlikely, since this author is relating recent events, which have a
direct bearing on the present. The veracity of his tale is in fact a matter
of the utmost importance. Few saga authors are obsessed with truth in
the same degree as the author of Sverris saga. And with good reason,
since if his story is not true, Sverrir’s claim to the throne is uncertain.
Sverrir’s version of the events leading to his rise unto the throne must be
the truth.

But if the veracity of Sverris saga is so important, why on earth, then,

does the author compare his story with fairy tales? It is possible that to
this author, the fairy tales are semi-historical, as he indeed implies by
calling them “fornar sögur” (old tales)? That would be contrary to the
general 19th century conception that fairy tales were fictitious.

6

But

whether or not fairy tales were also believed to be untrue in the 12th

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century, it seems reasonable to infer that the story of Sverrir is made
more, not less, credible by the fact that it resembles a fairy tale. If not,
it seems extremely unlikely that his biographer would have drawn
attention to the likeness, since his sympathies are very clearly with King
Sverrir.

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The fairy-tale hero finds his way to the throne in the end, and so does

Sverrir. The structural affinities to a fairy tale make the outcome seem
more certain: our hero is bound to succeed. Not least because his status
as a fairy-tale hero also emphasizes his royal qualities. In fairy tales, the
persecuted hero or heroine often turns out to be a prince or a princess,
and that may even be the reason for the persecution.

Sverrir’s hardships are partly caused by the fact of his unknown

paternity. He is raised as the son af a gentleman called Unas, whose
brother is the bishop of the Faroe Islands. From an early age, he is with
his uncle in the Faroe Islands. Though he is the son of a king, he enjoys
none of the privileges he is entitled to. Raised in a kind of exile, he
becomes “úeirinn” (difficult) and not really fit to be a priest. Once he
hits the son of the king’s emissary and must flee into a house and hide
in the oven. The anecdote is symbolic of his status: he is a prince in
exile, a prince in hiding. And yet after he has crawled out of the oven
and taken over the battle for kingship, the turbulent youngster becomes
a prospective ruler. This is very much in the vein of fairy tales: the
author does not even need to mention stepmothers. But when he does so
anyway, he is including his audience in the conspiracy of his art, making
a statement on these lines: I know that my story may resemble a fairy
tale and I admit it. You cannot unmask me, since I hide nothing.

It is not only Sverrir’s youth which resembles ‘old tales’. King Hákon

Hákonarson (1217-1263), Sverrir’s grandson, is also raised with his
mother, and even though a local priest is aware of the fact that he is the
son of King Hákon, this is kept secret since the family has many
enemies. Like King Sverrir, the tiny Hákon meets with adversity in his
youth. When a wicked bishop invites his mother along with the little boy
to stay with him, the allies of the royal family (Birkibeinar) are full of
mistrust. Mother and child flee to Eystridalir.

According to Hákonar saga, which was composed just after King

Hákon’s death in 1263, the journey to Eystridalir was no less arduous
than Sverrir’s journeys in his youth: “Í þessi ferð féngu þau mikit vás af

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illviðrum; þeir váru stundum úti um nætr á skógum ok úbygðum” (In
this journey they were castigated by bad weather, and were often out at
night in forests and the wilderness).

8

This story of hardships reaches its

climax when they run out of food and the child is starving. Fortunately,
there is a lot of snow around in the Norwegian winter: “Engi var önnur
fœða sveinsins, en þeir bræddu snjó í munn honum” (The boy had no
other food than the snow they melted into his mouth). While this
demonstrates the loyalty of Birkibeinar, it also highlights the fact that
King Hákon is not born to luxury. He, like his grandfather, has to suffer
hardships before becoming king.

The author of Hákonar saga, Sturla Þórðarson (1214-1284), is just as

eager as the abbot Karl to draw attention to the parallels to his hero’s
predicament. He dedicates the ensuing chapter to a comparison with
King Óláfr Tryggvason (d. 1000), the founding father of Norwegian and
Icelandic Christianity, whose mother had to flee Norway with him to
escape from the clutches of the wicked Queen Gunnhildr and her sons.
And, unlike the abbot, Sturla does not stop at pointing to the parallel, he
interprets it:

Eigi megu menn nú undrast, þó at allsvaldandi guð hafi framar veitt sína
miskunn þessum konungasonum Ólafi Tryggvasyni ok Hákoni, er hér
var nú af sagt, ok frelsta þá af valdi sinna úvina til svá mikillar frægðar,
sem hann hafði hvárntveggja skipat, annan til þess at hefja at upphafi
kristnina í Noregi, en annan til þess at styrkja hana framar en engi annarr
Noregs konunga með hinum helga Ólafi í kirknagerðum ok lagaskipan
ok mörgu öðru uppheldi guðs kristni, sem þeim mönnum var kunnigt, er
honum váru samtíða í Noregi.

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(It is no cause for wonder that the almighty God should give so especially
his mercy to these princes, Óláfr Tryggvason and Hákon whose tale was
just told, and deliver them from the might of their enemies to such fame,
as he had appointed each of them, the one to begin the Christianization
of Norway, and the other to strengthen Chirstendom more than any other
king of Norway, along with St. Óláfr, in the building of churches, the
making of laws and in many other ways he held up the Christendom of
God, as they know who were in Norway in his day.)

The persecution of Hákon is one of many indications of his worth, since
his childhood imitates that of Óláfr Tryggvason, the missionary king of

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Norway and Iceland.

King Hákon’s eventual delivery from his hardships also proves that

God is on his side. It allows the author to stress King Hákon’s support
of the Church and Christendom which makes him almost a missionary
king, a fact that is also highlighted by the obvious parallels between his
childhood and that of King Óláfr Tryggvason, who had an important role
in the Christianization of Norway. Interestingly enough, King Óláfr was
held in an even higher regard in Iceland, and the comparison might
indicate that the text is partly addressed to an audience of Icelanders,
who at the time of the saga’s composition had just become King Hákon’s
subjects.

10

The childhood of King Sverrir and King Hákon is a dramatic start to

a dramatic life, and, as the authors clearly demonstrate, neither
childhood is unique. In fact, it is a recurrent motif in several sagas of
various ages and types.

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The Motif

The story of Óláfr Tryggvason begins with the killing of his father, King
Tryggvi, by one of the sons of Eiríkr Blood-Axe. When King Tryggvi’s
pregnant widow, Queen Ástríðr Eiríksdóttir, learns of his death, she
promptly flees with all her money and gives birth to a son on a remote
lake island. When winter comes, she travels by night across the
countryside to her father’s farmstead. The sons of Eiríkr find her gone
when they come to capture her, and the next spring their mother, the
maleficient Queen Gunnhildr, sends her spies to find the missing Queen
and the child she was presumed to be bearing. When Queen Ástríðr
learns that Gunnhildr’s emissaries are coming, led by a man by the name
of Hákon, she promptly runs away again, disguised by wearing “vánd
klæði” (poor clothes).

12

First they come to the abode of an evil rich farmer, called Bj†rn

eitrkveisa (=poisonous worm). He drives them away and they stay
instead with a certain Þorsteinn. But Hákon and his men are on their trail
and arrive at the farm of Bj†rn the same night. However, one of
Þorsteinn’s labourers is fortuitously present and although Bj†rn guides
the pursuers to Þorsteinn, the latter has helped his guests to the woods
where they hide on another island in the lake. Þorsteinn then leads

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Hákon astray, and mother and child escape to Svíþjóð. Gunnhildr soon
learns where they have gone and again sends her emissaries afoot, led
again by Hákon. They ask the King of Sweden to give up the boy,
insisting that Queen Gunnhildr wants to foster him. But no matter how
rude and overbearing they are, Óláfr’s Swedish fosterfather refuses to
yield him, and they return home snubbed. Later Óláfr is abducted by
Estonian vikings but saved by Queen Allogia of Garðaríki (Russia), who
is not deceived by his bad clothes when she looks into his eyes.

This story is a classic narrative of a persecuted royal child – with

Queen Gunnhildr fitting nicely into the ‘Stepmother’ role. Most import-
antly, the child is threatened because of his royal or noble status. One
can see this motif (K 515 in Boberg’s motif-index)

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in Eddic poetry

(Helgakviða Hundingsbana II), in the narrative about Áslaug, the
daughter of Sigurðr Fáfnisbani, in V†lsunga saga and Ragnars saga, in
the first story of Hrólfs saga kraka, in Hálfdanar saga Brönufóstra and
Færeyinga saga, as well as in several stories in Saxo’s Gesta Danorum,
including the tale of Amleth.

14

The villain is very often a member of a

different line of the royal family, in some instances just any antagonist
but more rarely a parent or a stepmother. In Hálfdanar saga Brönufóstra,
it is Sóti the viking who kills the king of Denmark and then pursues his
children with some evil but unspecified purpose.

15

Even though there is

no shortage of wicked parents in saga literature, they almost never drive
their children away. In the rare instances when the parents want their
children dead, the children usually do not escape.

In the case of Óláfr Tryggvason, the mother escapes with him. In

other cases a relative or a foster-parent may fill this role. The hunted
child does not always save himself: his sufferings and the persecution
seem to be more important than the means by which our hero makes his
escape. In the sagas of Óláfr, the mother and child are constantly
pursued by their adversaries, having to flee several times. The emphasis
is not on hunger and hardships (even though poor clothes get a mention),
but on the physical danger posed by the agents of evil.

In Færeyinga saga, however, we see the hardship motif that we also

find in Sverris saga and Hákonar saga, although the protagonists are not
kings in this instance. Sigmundr Brestisson, who later becomes a knight
of Óláfr Tryggvason, and his cousin Þórir are not exactly on the run
from Þrándr of G†tu, the slayer of their fathers, since it has already been

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decreed that they are not to be killed. Þrándr sells them into slavery
instead but the skipper who buys them sets them free and gives him the
money he has accepted from Þrándr. However, when they have spent the
money, they must seek the court of Earl Hákon and their route takes
them over the Dovre Mountain during the winter. They meet with
snowstorms and must spend days without food, just like the child Hákon
in Hákonar saga.

16

Another important motif within the motif is that the hero has to hide

in an island on a lake. This twist is used twice in the Heimskringla and
the longest saga version of the story of young Óláfr Tryggvason. In
Hrólfs saga kraka, two young princes, Hróarr and Helgi, hide first on
an island where they have both a hole in the ground and the woods to
hide from their uncle, the wicked King Fróði.

17

These are all useful

hiding places for persecuted young royals, just like King Sverrir’s oven.
But if the young king is to hide successfully, he must hide the regal fire
in his eyes. Not only Óláfr Tryggvason but also Helgi Hundingsbani in
Helgakviða II is recognised by his eyes, even though he is dressed as a
servant woman to escape the persecution of King Hundingr.

18

There are both good and bad people on the road, who either aid or

betray the royals on the run. Like the pregnant Mary and her Joseph in
the Bible, Óláfr Tryggvason and his mother are turned away at one house
before receiving lodging at the next. They are betrayed by some but
aided by others. It is hardly surprising that motifs from the New
Testament are to be found in stories about persecuted children in the
sagas and poems in the North. Jesus Christ himself is thus a classic case
of a persecuted child, driven from Judea by the persecution of King
Herod in his infancy (Matthew 2: 13-18).

The adversity suffered in early life by Óláfr Tryggvason and other

kings in the Sagas makes them imitators of Christ, and it is particularly
interesting to note that both Christ and Óláfr Tryggvason are persecuted
as possible rivals to the throne: King Herod particularly dislikes the fact
that the newborn Christ is called “king”. Similarly, Queen Gunnhildr is
afraid of Óláfr, since he is the son of a rival king, who may threaten her
sons. The story of the young Christ on the run from his persecutors
keeps repeating itself in the lives of terrestrial kings, reminding us that
they are but a pale reflection of the one true King of Heaven.

And yet the motif of the persecuted hero has more to it than to suggest

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a symbolic relationship with one particular divinity. An extraordinary
background and childhood is necessary for extraordinary people, and
kings and heroes are by definition extraordinary.

The Paradox of Power

Examples of children on the run and children suffering adversity in

the sagas are many and varied. The aim of this article is not to collect or
examine each and every one in detail, but rather to cast some light on
the popularity of the theme. The majority of the cases mentioned so far
are from Kings’ Sagas and Legendary Sagas (fornaldars†gur).

Even though these are as a rule regarded as separate genres, the

protagonists of the Legendary Sagas are kings as well, and it is possible to
regard the whole genre as a less realistic variant of the Kings’ Sagas. The
borderline between the first and most ancient sagas in Heimskringla, as
well as Skj†ldunga saga, and those sagas termed Legendary Sagas is far
from clear. For our purposes, the genre borders are unimportant. Hákonar
saga Hákonarsonar and Sverris saga are indeed contemporary sagas,
‘historical’ rather than ‘legendary’ and of some source value, whereas the
sagas about Óláfr Tryggvason, Ragnars saga loðbrókar and Hrólfs saga
kraka are loosely based on historical facts but are basically adventurous
tales, the last clearly influenced by romance literature, and Mágus saga,
which also includes the motif, is without any historical relevance.

But regardless of whether the adversity suffered by the protagonists in

childhood has some basis in fact or not, what is really significant is that
the authors should wish to include this motif, which is essentially a fairy-
tale motif, as the author of Sverris saga makes abundantly clear. No
biography includes everything and it is not self-evident that advent-urous
stories with a different theme should have to start with a narrative
concering the persecution of a royal child. What interests us is the
significance of the motif for the ideology of kingship, and its relevance to
childhood.

It is specified in Sverris saga that the children affected by stepmother

spells are the sons and daughters of kings. The first question to ask might
very well be: why are royal children particularly prone to be persecuted
in their youth? Does adversity have a role in the ideology of mediaeval
monarchy? Must royalty prove its worth?

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For almost everyone, kingship is unattainable. Kings are set apart

from the rest of us by a God-given birthright. No one who is not of royal
blood may become king, and in Sverris saga we are repeatedly told that
a king should ideally be the son of a king, like Sverrir, and not just the
king’s grandson, like his rival, King Magnús Erlingsson. But it is not
only his blood that gives Sverrir a right to the throne. He is also chosen
by God and through several intermediaries, such as St. Óláfr and the
prophet Samuel, to rule Norway, as is reflected in several dreams,
mostly his own, which suggest this more or less directly. His victory in
the struggle against King Magnús and his father also is an indication of
the favour of God.

And, most importantly, the throne must be sought and earned. In

claiming the throne boldly and taking up the struggle against a much
more powerful enemy, King Sverrir has simply earned it. In the end, he
gets to be a king, but first he has to struggle and he has to suffer, just as
the saviour of Mankind had to suffer before being resurrected to eternal
life. It is precisely because in his sufferings King Sverrir imitates Christ:
the adversity suffered in his youth becomes the first part of his thorny
road to the throne.

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But it also serves a more prosaic purpose.

Sverrir’s difficulties in youth mature him. When he makes his claim

to the throne, the odds are heavily against him and in order to reach his
objective, he has to overcome various obstacles, as well as
demonstrating the skills of a ruler. He has to win the loyalty of his men,
and later work hard to gain a tactical foothold in the struggle against
King Magnús Erlingsson. But the obstacles in his way turn out to be
important for Sverrir’s development. When he finally becomes sole ruler
of Norway, he turns out to be a much better ruler than his predecessor
who was put on the throne when five years old and was more interested
in games than government, as he himself admits: “Var ek þá svá
bernskr, at ek kunna hvárki at ráða fyrir orði né eiði, ok betra þótti mér
þá at vera í leik með öðrum sveinum en sitja millum höfðingja. Eigi
keptumsk ek til konungdómsins...” (I was so childish that I couldn’t
make any decisions, and I had more interest in playing with other boys
than sitting with magnates. I did not seek kingship...).

20

.

The first half of Sverris saga is a careful comparison between the two

kings, where the audience cannot fail to note the difference between
King Magnús’ easy path to the throne, and Sverrir’s struggle. At the

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same time, King Sverrir’s abilities obviously far exceed those of King
Magnús, although the latter is indeed amiable and popular with his men.
King Sverrir certainly seems more mature than King Magnús, who is at
first portrayed as childlike and dependent on his strong and charismatic
father.

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It is only at the very end that King Magnús seems to have grown

more mature, but also weary of the difficulties and duties of his office.

This is the paradox of royal power in the Middle Ages. It must be

given by the grace of God, and yet it must be sought and won. The king
should be born to the throne and yet it is ideally also necessary for him
to earn it. Sverrir qualifies on both counts, but in order to do that he must
first be misplaced, and raised in the Faroe Islands. The misplacement of
the royal hero allows him to earn his throne anew, in a similar fashion
as the the protagonist of Hrafnkels saga, the overbearing chieftain
Hrafnkell, must be humiliated in order to rise anew and earn the respect
due to his position. The king must be cut off from the throne in order for
him to reclaim it. The hero must be misplaced so he can fight to regain
his proper place.

Geirmundar þáttr at the start of the Sturlunga collection is an

exemplary tale of misplaced royals, even though the wrong is righted
early on.

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When the twin sons of King Hj†rr Hálfsson are born, the king

is abroad and the queen is disgusted by their appearance, since they are
“báðir ákafliga miklir vöxtum ok báðir furðuliga ljótir ásýnis. En þó réð
því stærstu um ófríðleik þeira á at sjá, at engi maðr þóttisk hafa sét
dekkra skinn en á þessum sveinum var” (both were extraordinarily huge
and both remarkably ugly in appearance, but the worst thing about their
ugliness was that no one had ever seen darker skin than on these boys).

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At the same time, a slave of the queen gives birth to a beautiful child
whom the queen fancies. Consequently, they exchange their children,
although the slave really prefers her own son. The two sons of King
Hj†rr, Geirmundr and Hámundr, are raised on halm with the other
children of slaves, while the slave Leifr is treated as a king. While not
on the run from their enemies, they are robbed of their birthright, like
King Sverrir.

However, when growing up, the misplaced royal boys “gangast við”

(gain in vigour) but the beautiful slave boy “guggnar” (became diffi-
dent). When the poet Bragi is at court he sees the slave playing with gold
on his throne and Geirmundr and Hámundr sitting in the halm and

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watching him. Since they see neither Bragi nor the queen, who is hidden
under a pile of clothes, the two boys start debating whether to take the
toys from the false prince and play with the gold themselves. They end
up doing just that and drive him from the throne as well, laughing and
mocking him, while the slave just cries and cowers. From this, Bragi
concludes that he is the slave, while the two ugly boys are “hjörvi
bornir”, i.e. born to the sword (or king Hj†rr). Aggressiveness and lack
of fear seem to be the trademark of the true king, while the beautiful
slave has no courage.

The queen consequently switches again with the slave who gets her

beautiful but cowardly son back. When the king returns from the hunt,
she pleads for his forgiveness and explains her trickery. He forgives her
and laconically remarks that “þó hefi ek eigi sét slík heljarskinn fyrr sem
sveinar þessir eru” (I have never seen such Hel’s complexion as these
boys show).

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From all this we may conclude that royal behaviour is

inherited and a slave raised as a king can never become a true king.
Geirmundr and Hámundr are true kings, no matter how ugly. And like
King Sverrir and King Hákon, they are robbed off their throne in infancy
and must retrieve it. Although they are born to the throne, they are
forced to demonstrate their worth as well, if only to their mother.

Must a king always prove himself? The answer is: no. Even though

an ideal king needs to behave in an ideal manner, kings normally need
no feats to establish themselves on the throne. In Arthurian romances,
the emphasis is on the knights of the king and it is they who perform the
heroic deeds, while the king himself is in the background. The same is
true of kings in Old Icelandic sagas that are influenced by romances,
such as Hrólfr kraki in Hrólfs saga kraka. Some scholars have
interpreted the inactivity of King Hrólfr as criticism or irony,

25

but I

myself do not think that Hrólfr is really required to prove his worth,
which is praised excessively (and to my mind without any irony) in the
saga.

26

In many instances, being seems to be more important for a king

than doing.

Some scholars have also found Laxdæla saga critical or ironical

towards the Laxdælir family who do not actually seem to accomplish
much to deserve the praise lavished on them in the saga. According to
Robert Cook, there is with Kjartan Ólafsson and the men of his line in
general “a serious discrepancy between the image and the reality”.

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However, we cannot be sure that the author of the saga distinguished
between image and reality, on one hand the praise he lavishes on his
characters, and on the other their actual deeds in his narrrative. I think
it is significant that the Laxdælir are not only related to royalty but
behave like royals, and a prerogative of their royal status is that they do
not require to prove their worth, only to walk around in their
splendour.

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Even though adversity develops latent characteristics of kingship in

an individual, those not born to be a king who experience adversity will
not develop the characteristics of a king. And a king is only required to
prove himself worthy of his throne if he has first been driven off it.
Then he is forced to become a fairy-tale hero as well as a king. And that
is one of the major functions of the tales of persecuted royal children.
While most monarchs just sit and wait until the throne falls into their
lap, some have to face adversity in childhood, and prove themselves in
that way.

King Sverrir has to prove himself worthy of the throne since he is not

meant to inherit it. He must claim it and seek it, and at the same time
outshine the reigning king. When there is just one king, he has no need
to prove himself. However, when there are two, one must prove himself
the better man. He must not only be a king but more honourable than his
adversary. Adversity not only makes the tale more adventurous; it also
makes the royals more heroic. A king does not need to be a fairy-tale
hero, but some kings nevertheless are, and their tales are more exciting
to those who like adventure.

Competition between two kings also allows the author to demonstrate

which abilities he finds most important for a king.

29

King Sverrir

triumphs over King Magnús because he is a master strategist, a powerful
orator, charismatic and able to inspire loyalty among his men, temperate
and avoids excessive drinking. Since he is misplaced at birth and forced
to prove himself in adversity, he must demonstrate all his superior
abilities and that he is the better man. Therefore, even though adversity
is not a requirement for kings, it certainly has an important function in
the making of some kings, such as Óláfr Tryggvason and King Sverrir.

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The Road to Maturity

The story of the hunted hero has other implications apart from its
relevance to the ideology of kingship. Its protagonist is not only royal,
he is also a child. The story of the persecuted innocent is not only
significant for the sagas’ royal ideology. It also concerns childhood in
general.

Does the popularity of the theme of persecution and flight reflect the

social reality of the time? The answer is both yes and no. The childhood
of future kings was in actual life rarely characterised by adversity. Even
though children were indeed vulnerable in the Middle Ages, noble
children, especially royals, were privileged rather than persecuted –
indeed, they were “beloved”, as a title of a new collection of research
on Hungarian noble children suggests.

30

However, children of kings

might face danger in uncertain times, and there are indeed actual
instances of murdered sons of kings in the Middle Ages, most famously
the sons of King Edward IV of England in 1483.

31

Before the 13th

century, kingship in Scandinavia was unstable, with many claimants to
the throne, kings often being forced to share their power, and many
being killed before the age of thirty. And many Kings’ Sagas place
emphasis on the hardship which goes with being a king.

32

Persecution of royal children thus has a basis in reality, and there is

ample reason to stress adversity in childhood. In a recent book on
mediaeval childhood, Nicholas Orme reminds us that “[i]nfancy and
childhood are times of frailty and danger”, including illness,
disablement, accidents, abuse and death.

33

Although his examples are for

the most part taken from the lives of ‘common’ people rather than the
royals, even the children of kings and nobles were not exempt from all
evils which might befall a child in the Middle Ages.

34

John Boswell

studied the phenomenon of the abandonment of children, and found that
it was common not only in literature but also in real life.

35

And yet

Boswell’s discussion of what he calls “quicksand problems” is also
relevant for our purposes.

36

Boswell notes the popularity of quicksand as a plot device in countless

movies and novels, but adds that he has never heard of any real person
who actually died in quicksand or needed to be rescued from it. Even
though quicksand does exist and may be a problem for humans, its role

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in fiction is not a realistic reflection of its importance. Quicksand,
however, has great imaginative force and dramatic convenience.

The persecution of a hero in his childhood is another plot device of

such force. Adversity is of vital importance in increasing the dramatic
quality of any given story. Accordingly, fairy tales frequently begin
with a young hero facing what appears to be certain death. The hero
must be moved from security and safety to uncertainty in order to
heighten the suspense but also so that he can come to grips with life, and
mature into adulthood. Snow White must be persecuted by the wicked
stepmother in order to escape and find a new role with the dwarfs, later
to return to her royal status. Without it, there would be no story.

The importance of the plot device, however, lies not only in its

dramatic quality. As psychologists have ascertained, fairy tales are
indeed psychological as well as historical narrative.

37

In addition to its

function for royal ideology and for the narrative itself, the importance of
adversity lies not least on the psychological level. It is on that level that
the story may have implications for our knowledge about medieaval
children.

Mediaeval sources on children hardly ever stem from the children

themselves.

38

Nor do they seem to be addressed to an audience of

children.

39

Therefore, when children make an appearance in mediaeval

narratives, there is very often by necessity an element of otherness about
them. Nowadays, most scholars regard childhood not as a footnote to a
crystallized adult reality but a self-regulating system which is largely
impervious to outside interference. Countering Ariès’ thesis that
childhood simply did not exist as a concept in the Middle Ages,

40

recent

scholarship strongly suggests that notion of childhood as a different
reality did exist long before the renaissance.

41

King Magnús describes himself as a child as being more interested in

childish games with other boys than sitting with magnates.

42

The

emphasis on the interests of the child being what distinguishes it from the
adult seems to indicate an awareness of the otherness of children that has
often been ascribed more to the last two centuries than the Middle Ages.
In fact, in emphasizing that it is the interests rather than lack of maturity
that distinguish children from adults, they echo the passage ‘On
Children’ from The Prophet (1923) by the Syrian poet Kahlil Gibran.

Childish logic and thought may seem strange and unfamiliar to adults.

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When adults face a child, they feel that they ought to understand it, and
yet cannot be sure, because by growing up we all lose the child in us,
and it cannot be reclaimed. Even though we have all been children, most
of us gradually lose our contact with the childish way of thinking, and,
if we reflect upon it, we feel a little uneasiness when facing a child. We
feel that we should know it, although it is incapable of understanding us.
And yet we cannot be sure, and the child remains an enigma, even
children that we feel belong to us. Children retain the ability to surprise,
even though we know them well, and even though most adults have
ceased to be surprising. It is this aura of otherness which makes it seem
feasible to regard children as strange, unpredictable, and potentially
dangerous. There are indeed many instances of difficult and even
dangerous children in Icelandic sagas.

43

However, in the myth of the persecuted child, children are not

regarded as strange and unpredictable. On the contrary, they are the
heroes of the narrative, with whom we must sympathise. The story of
the persecuted child hero within a historical narrative is intended for an
adult audience, but it retains the fairy tale structure and remains
accessible to children. Fairy tales are not children’s literature, children
were not their main audience and their mentality is not childlike.

44

From the adult point of view, the story of the hero’s persecution in

childhood mainly concerns maturity.

45

The adversity brings out the latent

strength of the hero, who gets a chance of proving his worth, and in
chivalric culture, adventure meant exactly that: an ordeal or proof.

46

Every adventure is in its essence a proof of the hero’s worth. In adversity
the individual tests the limit of his own strength. Adversity is an
important step on the road to maturity, and that is not the least of its
functions in fairy tales. In many fairy tales, the hero faces a succession
of dangers and always succeeds in overcoming them, winding up as the
suitor of the princess and eventually as a king. In others, the sons and
daughters of kings are driven from their proper place and have to make
their way back, or wait for a suitable prince to come to the rescue (like
Snow White).

47

This structure is certainly alluded to in the remark about

‘stepmother spells’ in Sverris saga.

The story of young Áslaug in Ragnars saga loðbrókar is a typical

Cinderella story involving a young and persecuted royal heroine.

48

Áslaug is the daughter of Sigurður Fáfnisbani and has a narrow escape

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when he is killed. She is hidden in the harp of her fosterfather and then
with an old and evil couple who make her their servant. This Cinderella
is, however, really a princess and her persecution and subsequent
humiliation are only a way for her to test her merits.

After having been driven from her own realm, she makes her way to

King Ragnar loðbrók in the end, and solves his riddle by showing up
naked and clothed, fed and hungry, alone and not alone, at the same
time. The ambiguities of the riddle remind us of Áslaug’s own ambi-
valent status. She is both Áslaug and Kráka, a princess and a humble
farmer’s daughter, she is royal by birth but must nevertheless use her
wits to gain her throne. When she reaches the throne, she has attained
maturity.

49

Childhood has had a happy ending.

Childish Paranoia and Evil Parents

The persecution of children does not only function as the adversity

necessary for a hero to attain maturity. It also has a meaning from the
point of view of the child. Even though children were not the main
audience of fairy tales, they do relate to children, especially when the
protagonists are children, and psychological interpretations of well-
known fairy tales by scholars such as Bruno Bettelheim make it seem
credible that they at least partly reflect the mentality of children.

50

Why do fairy tales concern kings and queens? Is it just that people

like hearing and reading about the rich, powerful, and glamorous? Are
ordinary people not worthy of stories? If we interpret fairy tales, and
fairy tale motifs such as the persecuted child, as symbolic tales about the
road to maturity, maturity is certainly not only the property of kings and
rulers. Kingship may, however, serve as a metaphor for the pinnacle of
maturity.

51

From the point of view of the child, kingship is also a metaphor for

importance. If a story is a symbolic externalization of the inner life, the
king is a symbol of the subject whose inner life is being symbolised.
Children were and still are considered unimportant in society at large.
In their own mind, however, they have supreme importance, which
makes them kings and queens of their own lives. Hence, they are royal,
and all ills that befall them may be interpreted as proof of their
importance. The persecuted children are royal and are persecuted

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because of their special status.

The contrast between security and fear lies at the heart of the motif.

Like many common narrative motifs, it reflects the latent anxieties of
children which so often find their outlet in fairy tales. Sometimes, the
anxieties expressed in the story may surface in its imagery. Perhaps the
most potent of all childhood anxieties is the anxiety of separation, which
lies at the heart of the popular fairy tale of Hansel and Gretel.

52

Even

though the story of the childish hero is often told in brief in the sagas,
the few clear images we get seem to indicate some sort of separational
anxiety. In at least three instances in the extant versions of the story, the
persecuted child hero must take refuge on an island in a lake. The
protagonists enter a watery isolation which may signify a latent desire to
re-enter the lonely and watery pre-natal state in the womb which goes
hand in hand with the anxiety of separation. King Sverrir, however,
chooses an oven to hide from his persecutors, another typical womb
symbol.

53

Fairy tales where wicked stepmothers play an active role are

characterized by suspicion, mistrust and paranoia which are essentially
childish. At a certain stage of maturity, the child begins to compare
himself with the parent and compete with it, but in the fairy tales the
aggression is projected onto the parent (or, more commonly, step-parent)
who is depicted as jealous and wishes to harm the child. The childlike
heroes of fairy tales are indeed abandoned, humiliated or persecuted. In
most instances, the hero is persecuted because he/she is more beautiful
than the mother (Snow White) or the sisters (Cinderella). The
persecution is actually a proof of the protagonist’s worth.

54

Like Áslaug in Ragnars saga, the fairy tale heroine may be a princess

in disguise who has been forced into a more humble role. Another
example is Þorgrímr in Víglundar saga, a classic case of an unfavoured
child. He is the son of a servant and gets treated with much less respect
than his two brothers, though he is not raised in extreme poverty like
Áslaug in Ragnars saga.

55

In the manner of a fairy tale hero, he proves

himself in the end to be the best man, and indeed the envy of his two
stepbrothers is rooted in his superiority. The child hero suffers the envy
of others, but that very fact proves that he/she is an important person.
This is true of Christ himself, who is persecuted by the evil King Herod
because he dislikes the child being called a king, and this is true of Óláfr

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Tryggvason, Áslaug, and indeed the majority of the persecuted royal
children. And, exactly as in fairy tales, present sufferings will eventually
lead to a bright and clear future, where virtue will triumph and evil be
punished.

Even though there are examples of abandoned children, in most

instances the persecuted children of the Sagas are accompanied either by
their parents or by foster-parents who seem to be excellent surrogates.
This is true of Christ himself, as well as all three kings of Norway,
Óláfr, Sverrir, and Hákon. The two latter escape with their mothers,
whereas a foster-parent more frequently fills that role in the legendary
sagas, e.g. in Hrólfs saga kraka and Ragnars saga loðbrókar. It is
remarkable that the juvenile paranoia which finds its outlet in these sagas
does not focus on the parents but very often on more distant and less
specific antagonists.

Even though the flight motif is usually not entwined with the motif of

a cruel parent or step-parent, there are nevertheless several instances of
almost incredible parental cruelty in Old Norse literature. The heroine of
Atlakviða and Atlamál, Guðrún Gjúkadóttir, kills her own sons in order
to avenge her brothers, and in Guðrúnarhvöt Hamdismál she sends a
second set of sons to their death in order to gain revenge for her
daughter’s death.

56

In Völsunga saga we have two such Medeas, since in

addition to Guðrún, Signý, daughter of King Völsung, kills four of her
own children.

57

These child killings seem in no way to be normal in a

cruel age, but rather to have cathartic quality, somewhat like the motif
of the persecuted child.

58

And yet the child killings signify death and

decline, whereas the emphasis is on flight and survival in the motif of
the persecuted children of kings.

In addition, the motif of the wicked stepmothers is to be found in

Eddic lays and in several legendary sagas, such as Hrólfs saga kraka,
Hjálmþérs saga ok Ölvis, Úlfhams saga and Mírmanns saga.

59

And in

Egils saga and Harðar saga, cold, indifferent, or downright cruel
parents are juxtaposed with loving foster-parents.

60

In the last two sagas,

a certain resemblance to stepmother tales may be discerned. The parent
appears to be jealous of his offspring or wishes to harm it in some way.
Egill Skalla-Grímsson is a close relative of the persecuted princes of the
sagas. He even ends up fleeing from his father’s oppressive rule, but not
from his ‘kingdom’, since he is seeking honour at the hand of foreign

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kings at the same time.

The children in the motif sometimes play a relatively minor role in

securing their own survival. Hákon Hákonarson and Óláfr Tryggvason
are accompanied by good mothers and other helpers, and in other
instances another adult plays this role. The actual danger faced is no less
important than the character-building nature of adversity. The
persecution motif has a cathartic quality. The children in the motif are
persecuted because of their own special status, and their timely delivery
gives hope to all those feeling unwanted and neglected, even persecuted.

The young hero’s ordeal puts him on the road to maturity, and on the

emotional level, the motif may serve as an outlet for the anxieties of
childhood and the paranoia of youth which so often is manifested in the
wicked stepmothers of fairy tales and other narratives. It offers some
insight into the childish mentality which is otherwise almost invisible in
the mediaeval literature of Iceland.

The audience of Sverris saga is invited to sympathise with King

Sverrir, as the hero of a fairy tale with whom everyone must identify.
The adversity suffered in youth makes King Sverrir, and other
persecuted protagonists of the sagas, more accessible and their stories
gain a wider meaning, beyond history.

Notes

1. Sverris saga, Konunga sögur. Ed. C.R. Unger. Kristiania (Oslo) 1873, p.7;
Cf. Sverris saga etter Cod. AM 327 4

o

. Ed. Gustav Indrebø. Kristiania (Oslo)

1920, p.7; Det Arnamagnæanske Håndskrift 81a Fol. (Skálholtsbók yngsta). Ed.
Albert Kjær and Ludvig Holm-Olsen. Kristiania/Oslo 1910-1986, p.8. All
translations in this article are mine.
2. The exact nature of abbot Karl’s authorship of the saga is the subject of
some debate, see Ludvig Holm-Olsen, Studier i Sverris saga. Oslo 1953; Gustav
Indrebø, Innleiding, Sverris saga ette Cod. AM 327 4

o

. Ed. Gustav Indrebø.

Kristiania (Oslo) 1920; Eigil Nygaard Brekke, Sverre-sagaens opphav: Tiden og
forfatteren. Oslo 1958; Johan Schreiner, “Omkring Sverres saga”, Historisk
tidsskrift 36 (1952-53), 561-78; Halvdan Koht, Kong Sverre. Oslo 1952; Lárus
H. Blöndal, Um uppruna Sverrissögu. Reykjavík 1982.
3. Bruno Bettelheim, The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance
of Fairy Tales. London 1991. (1st Edition 1975 and 1976.)
4. Some Icelandic fairy tales must in fact be very ancient, even though they

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were not recorded as such on print until the 19th century. The tale of the
merman thus makes it way to 13th century versions of the Landnámabók, as
well as Hálfs saga ok Hálfsrekka. See Ármann Jakobsson, “Hættulegur hlátur”,
Úr manna minnum: Greinar um íslenskar þjóðsögur. Eds. Baldur Hafstað and
Haraldur Bessason. Reykjavík 2002, pp.67-83.
5. Sverris saga (Unger), p.104; cf. Sverris saga (Indrebø), p.106; Det
Arnamagnæanske Håndskrift, p.130.
6. See Bengt Holbek, Interpretation of Fairy Tales: Danish Folklore in a
European Perspective. FF Comm. No. 239, Helsinki 1987, p.406.
7. It is only fair to point to the fact that one version of Sverris saga includes a
comparison between Sverrir and his father, King Sigurðr, which reveals them
to be very unlike in many respects (Sverris saga (Indrebø), pp.194-95). And yet
Sverrir’s claim to the throne rests on his paternity.
8. Hákonar saga Hákonarsonar, Konunga sögur. Ed. C.R. Unger. Kristiania
(Oslo) 1873, p.241; cf. Hákonar saga Hákonarsonar etter Sth. 8 fol., AM 325
VIII,4

o

og AM 304,4

o

. Ed. Marina Mundt. Oslo 1977, 3; Det Arnamagnæanske

Håndskrift 81a Fol., pp.295-96.
9. Hákonar saga (Unger), pp.242-43; cf. Hákonar saga (Mundt), pp.4-5; Det
Arnamagnæanske Håndskrift, pp.296-98.
10. On the author of Hákonar saga and his motives, see Ármann Jakobsson,
“Hákon Hákonarson – friðarkonungur eða fúlmenni?” Saga 33 (1995), pp.166-
85.
11. Cf. Gerd Kreutzer, “Der Held als Kind – der Kind als Held”, Arbeiten zur
Skandinavistik: 10. Arbeitstagung der deutschsprachigen Skandinavistik. Ed.
Edith Marold and Bernhard Glienke. Frankfurt 1993., pp.158-66 (p.163).
12. Heimskringla I, Íslenzk fornrit 26. Ed. Bjarni Aðalbjarnarson. Reykjavík
1941, p.227. This story appears both in Snorri Sturluson’s Óláfs saga in
Heimskringla, Óláfs saga by the monk Oddr Snorrason (Saga Óláfs
Tryggvasonar af Oddr Snorrason munk. Ed. Finnur Jónsson. Copenhagen 1932,
pp.6-14), and in the longest saga of St. Óláfr (Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar en
mesta I, Editiones Arnamagnæanæ A 1. Ed. Ólafur Halldórsson. Copenhagen
1958, pp.67-79. In Oddr’s version this Hákon is made into the wicked and
heathen Earl Hákon Sigurðarson (d. 995) who ruled Norway after the sons of
Gunnhildr had been killed or exiled.
13. Inger Margrethe Boberg, Motif-Index of Early Icelandic Literature,
Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana 27. Copenhagen 1966, p.170.
14. Rory McTurk believes the threat to the youthful hero to be a part of what
he terms “The heroic biographical pattern” (Studies in Ragnars saga loðbrókar
and its Major Scandinavian Analogues. Oxford 1991, pp.64-68). Cf. Margaret
Schlauch, Romance in Iceland. London 1932, pp.95-97.

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15. Hálfdanar saga Brönufóstra, Fornaldar sögur Norðurlanda IV, Ed. Guðni
Jónsson. Akureyri 1944, pp.295-96.
16. Færeyinga saga, Rit Stofnunar Árna Magnússonar 30. Ed. Ólafur
Halldórsson. Reykjavík 1987, pp.22-23.
17. Hrólfs saga kraka, Editiones Arnamagnæanæ B 1, Ed. Desmond Slay.
Copenhagen 1960, pp.1-7; cf. Mágus saga, Fornsögur Suðrlanda. Ed. Gustaf
Cederschiöld. Lund 1884.
18. Helgakviða Hundingsbana II, Eddukvæði. Íslands þúsund ár. Ed. Gísli
Sigurðsson. Reykjavík 2001, pp.193-94.
19. See the discussion in Ármann Jakobsson, Í leit að konungi: Konungsmynd
íslenskra konungasagna. Reykjavík 1997, pp.156-71; cf. Sverre Bagge, From
Gang Leader to the Lord’s Anointed: Kingship in Sverris saga and Hákonar
saga Hákonarsonar. Odense 1996, pp.52-65.
20. Sverris saga (Unger), p.93; cf. Sverris saga (Indrebø), p.96; Det
Arnamagnæanske Håndskrift, p.116.
21. See Ármann Jakobsson, Í leit að konungi, pp.220-21.
22. Sturlunga saga. Eds. Jón Jóhannesson, Magnús Finnbogason and Kristján
Eldjárn. Reykjavík 1946, pp.5-11.
23. Ibid., p.5.
24. Ibid., p.7.
25. See e.g. Valgeður Kr. Brynjólfsdóttir, “A valiant king or a coward?: The
changing image of King Hrólfr kraki from the oldest sources to Hrólfs saga
kraka”, Fornaldarsagornas struktur och ideologi. Eds. Agneta Ney, Ármann
Jakobsson and Annette Lassen. Uppsala 2003, pp.141-56; Marianne Kalinke,
“Transgression in Hrólfs saga kraka”, Fornaldarsagornas struktur och ideologi,
pp.157-71.
26. See Ármann Jakobsson, “Le Roi Chevalier: The Royal Ideology and Genre
of Hrólfs saga kraka”, Scandinavian Studies 71 (1999), pp.139-66.
27. Robert Cook, “Women and Men in Laxdæla saga”, Skáldskaparmál 2
(1992), pp.34-59; cf. Njörður P. Njarðvík, “Laxdæla saga – en tidskritik”,
Arkiv för nordisk filologi 86 (1971), pp.72-81; Helga Kreess, “‘Mjök mun þér
samstaft þykkja’: Um sagnahefð og kvenlega reynslu í Laxdæla sögu”, Konur
skrifa til heiðurs Önnu Sigurðardóttir. Reykjavík 1980, pp.97-109.
28. Ármann Jakobsson, “Konungasagan Laxdæla”, Skírnir 172 (1998), pp.357-
83 (pp. 361-63).
29. Ármann Jakobsson, Í leit að konungi, pp.125-43 and 193-96.
30. Beloved Children: History of Aristocratic Childhood in Hungary in the
Early Modern Age. Ed. Katalin Péter. Budapest 1988, pp.1-13.
31. On the status of royal children in England, see Chris Given-Wilson and
Alice Curteis, The Royal Bastards of Medieval England. London 1984. Some

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of the royal bastards they focus on have, of course, very much in common with
King Sverrir or King Hákon Hákonarson, both of whom were sons of kings but
not sired within a marriage.
32. Ármann Jakobsson, Staður í nýjum heimi: Konungasagan Morkinskinna.
Reykjavík 2002, pp.130-47 and 226-28.
33. Nicholas Orme, Medieval Children. New Haven and London 2001, p.93.
34. Ibid., pp.93-128; See also: Shulamith Shahar, Childhood in the Middle
Ages. London 1990, pp.121-61; Mary Martin McLaughlin, “Survivors and
Surrogates: Children and Parents from the Ninth to the Thirteenth Centuries”,
The History of Childhood. Ed. Lloyd deMause. New York 1975, pp.101-81.
Barbara Hanawalt, Growing Up in Medieval London: The Experience of
Childhood in History. New York & Oxford 1993, pp.56-62.
35. John Boswell, The Kindness of Stranges: The Abandonment of Children in
Western Europe From Late Antiquity to the Renaissance. New York 1988.
36. Ibid., pp.6-10.
37. See e.g. Bettelheim, The Uses of Enchantment; cf. Holbek, Interpretation
of Fairy Tales, pp.259-322 and 410-48.
38. Orme, Medieval Children, p.338.
39. Sverrir Tómasson has suggested that Gunnlaugs saga may have been
intended for children (as a sort of cautionary tale), but this interesting idea must
await further evaluation (“‘Ei skal haltr ganga’: Um Gunnlaugs sögu
ormstungu”, Gripla 10 (1998), pp.7-22.
40. Philippe Ariès, Centuries of Childhood: A Social History of Family Life.
Transl. by Robert Baldick. London 1962, p.128.
41. See e.g. Barbara A. Hanawalt, “Medievalists and the Study of Childhood”,
Speculum 77 (2002), pp.440-60.
42. See note 20.
43. See Ármann Jakobsson, “Troublesome Children in the Sagas of
Icelanders”, Saga-Book 27 (2003), pp.5-24.
44. Holbek, Interpretation of Fairy Tales, p.405.
45. Martina W. Stein-Wilkeshuis (Het kind in de Oudijslandse samenleving.
Groningen 1970, pp.46-50) discusses tests of maturity in Old Icelandic
literature, the previously discussed Geirmundarþáttr being one of her examples.
46. This idea stems from Erich Köhler, L’Aventure chevaleresque: Idéal et
réalité dans le roman courtois. Paris 1974. (Original German edition 1956). See
also Christiane Marchello-Nizia, “Courtly Chivalry”, A History of Young
People in the West I. Eds. Giovanni Levi and Jean-Claude Schmitt. Cambridge,
Mass. 1997, pp.120-72. (pp.158-62).
47. Cf. Bettelheim, The Uses of Enchantment, pp.277-80.
48. Völsungasaga og Ragnars saga loðbrókar. Ed. Örnólfur Thorsson.

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Reykjavík 1985.
49. Cf. McTurk, Studies in Ragnars saga loðbrókar, pp.89-93 and 173-211.
50. This is the contention of Bruno Bettelheim (The Uses of Enchantment) and
the premise for some of his excellent interpretations of well-known fairy tales.
51. Bettelheim, The Uses of Enchantment, p.127.
52. Bettelheim, The Uses of Enchantment, p.15 and pp.159-66.
53. See e.g. Juan Eduardo Cirlot, A Dictionary of Symbols. Transl. by Jack
Sage. (2nd edition) London 1971, p.247.
54. Bettelheim, The Uses of Enchantment, pp.66-73, 194-215 and 225-77.
55. Víglundar saga, Íslenzk fornrit XIV. Ed. Jóhannes Halldórsson. Reykjavík
1959.
56. Eddukvæði, pp.315-63. In Völundarkviða, we have another example of
children being murdered, this time as a part of the revenge of Völundr the smith
(Eddukvæði, pp.150-54).
57. Völsungasaga, pp.18 and 22.
58. Else Mundal (“Forholdet mellom born og foreldre i det norrøne
kjeldematerialet”, Collegium medievale 1 (1988), pp.9-26 (pp.18-19) has
interpreted this motif as a ‘nightmare vision’ of a woman caught in between her
loyalties as a sister and a wife/mother in a community where the family is the
supreme institution.
59. This motif is no. S31 in Boberg’s Motif-Index. See Schlauch, Romance in
Iceland, pp.99-102; Ralph O’Connor, “‘Stepmother Sagas’: An Irish Analogue
for Hjálmþérs saga ok Ölvers”, Scandinavian Studies 72 (2000), pp.1-48.
60. Egils saga, Íslenzk fornrit II. Ed. Sigurður Nordal. Reykjavík 1933, pp. 98-
102, Harðar saga, Íslenzk fornrit XIII. Eds. Þórhallur Vilmundarson and Bjarni
Vilhjálmsson. Reykjavík 1991, pp.16-25.

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