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Erik the Victorious' wives; Sigrid the Haughty

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Jared Olar

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Jun 4, 1996, 3:00:00 AM6/4/96

On Sun, 2 Jun 1996 ander...@pi.se wrote:

> Adam's account that the sister of Boleslaw was the mother of Olaf is
> discarded by most historians today. It is chronologically impossible.
> Olaf Skotkonung must have been at least 15 years old when his father
> Erik died in ~995, and Erik married the Polish princess no more than
> a couple of years prior to his death. We can say this because Boleslaw
> Chobry became king in 992, and it was he who gave his sister to
> Erik (see Adam's Scholium 24).
>
> The obvious conclusion is that Olaf was born in an earlier marriage
> between Erik and a woman not known/mentioned in the contemporary or near-
> contemporary sources (that is, Thietmar/Adam).

Here is Lee M. Hollander's translation of the relevant text in HEIMSKRINGLA:

"King Svein of Denmark was married to Gunnhild, a daughter of King
Burizlaf of Wendland. But . . . it happened that Queen Gunnhild took
sick and died; and a short time afterwards King Svein married Sigrith the
Haughty, the daughter of Skoglar-Tosti and the mother of Olaf, king of
Sweden."

Apparently the Icelandic sagamen tried to reconcile the tradition found
in Adam of Bremen--that Erik's widow was the mother both of Olaf Skotkonung
*and* of Knut of Denmark--with another tradition that Olaf Skotkonung's
mother was Sigrid Storrade. Thus, Svein Tjuguskegg's Polish wife, who in
fact was widow of Erik the Victorious as well as mother of Svein's son Knut,
had to be "disposed of" by having her conveniently take sick and die,
thereby enabling Svein to marry Sigrid, mother of Olaf.

Here is the chronology implicit in the HEIMSKRINGLA stories of Queen Sigrid:

??? The Norwegian kinglet Harald Grenski (afterward father of St. Olaf)
joins the company of the Swedish viking Skoglar-Tosti. Later Tosti's
daughter Sigrid was married to Erik the Victorious, King of Sweden,
and their son was Olaf Soenski (the Swedish) or Skotkonung (Tribute-
King?).

Circa Erik the Victorious dies ten years after the death of his nephew
994 Styrbjorn the Strong at Fyrisvallarna. His son Olaf succeeds him.
(Sigrid now a widow.)

995 Harald Grenski and Vissavald(Vsevolod) of Russia are burned to death
by Sigrid--"in this way she was going to break kinglets of the habit
of visiting her to ask her in marriage."

997 Sigrid engages in marriage negotiations with Olaf Tryggvasson,
King of Norway.

998 Sigrid refuses to Olaf's demand that she become a Christian. Olaf
slaps her in the face and calls her "dog of a heathen." Marriage is
called off.

998/9 Sigrid marries Svein Tjuguskegg, King of Denmark--"with these bonds
of relationship there came great friendship" between Denmark and
Sweden.

999 Svein's sister Thyri refuses to marry Burizlaf, King of Wendland,
and instead flees to Norway, where she marries Olaf Tryggvasson
against her brother's will. (Adam of Bremen says of this Thyri,
"He [Olaf] took a wife from Denmark, the haughty Thore, at whose
instigation he made war on the Danes.")

1000 Sigrid the Haughty nags Svein into making an alliance with Sweden
against Olaf Tryggvasson. Battle of Svoldur--Olaf of Sweden and
Svein of Denmark attack Olaf Tryggvasson--Olaf Tryggvasson is slain.
**No further mention of Sigrid the Haughty in HEIMSKRINGLA**

It is clear that the role of Sigrid in the stories of HEIMSKRINGLA is
that of an explanation for the Battle of Svoldur. Adam of Bremen does
not assign any role to Svein's wife in the outbreak of this war--and the
narrative of HEIMSKRINGLA concerning why Denmark and Sweden went to war
with Olaf Tryggvasson would make perfect sense whether or not Sigrid the
Haughty appears in the story. Adam implies that the "haughty" woman who
instigated hostilities was Svein's sister Thyri, not Svein's wife. We
may therefore disregard the tales of Sigrid's marriage negotiations with
Olaf and the way she got her revenge for Olaf's slap in the face. They
make for great reading, but they're just not historical.

The above chronology makes it unlikely that Sigrid the Haughty was not the
mother of Knut (Canute). Svein died in England in 1014, and was
succeeded on the throne of England by his son Knut. Sigrid could not
have married Svein before 999, and if Knut was her son then he could not
have been born before 1000 or later. I highly doubt that Knut was 14
years of age or (more likely) younger at the time of his father's death.

Thietmar tells us that Boleslav Chrobry gave his sister in marriage to
Erik the Victorious--as Anders Berg has shown, this could not have been
before 992. Erik died about 994. Erik's widow, the sister of Boleslav,
then married Svein Forkedbeard, and became the mother of Knut--so says
Thietmar of Merseburg. Adam of Bremen--and the Icelandic sagamen after
him--state that the mother of Olaf Skotkonung became the mother of Knut
the Powerful, but this cannot be correct, because Olaf was not an infant
when his father died.

Thietmar, Adam, and the sagas all agree that Svein Forkedbeard married a
Polish princess: Thietmar says that she was the sister of Boleslav
Chrobry. Adam's Scholium says that she was Boleslav's daughter or
sister. The sagas state that she was Gunnhild, daughter of Burizlaf,
King of Wendland (Poland). Thietmar and Adam agree that this Polish
princess was the widow of Erik the Victorious, King of Sweden. The
sagas, however, say that the widow of Erik who married Svein was not the
Polish princess, but rather Erik's wife Sigrid, daughter of Tosti. This
is obviously incorrect, an attempt to deal with Adam's misstatement
concerning the maternity of Olaf Skotkonung.

It seems that the role and reputation of Svein's sister Thyri became grafted
onto Svein's wife. Combined with the error concerning which wife of Erik
the Victorious afterwards married Svein Forkedbeard, and we get a woman
who is haughty, and who is remembered for her marriages, especially to
kings. This reputation is *probably* responsible for the story of the way
that she burned Harald Grenski and Vsevolod to death in retaliation for
their proposing to her. We do not have any evidence at all that Olaf
Skotkonung's mother Sigrid survived the death of her husband Erik--for
all we know, she could have been dead by 994. (Of course, this means we
would no longer have an account of the death of St. Olaf's father Harald
Grenski. *Maybe* we could salvage the story of Harald's death while
rejecting the remainder of the saga traditions concerning Sigrid, but the
entire series of events seems to be the normal way sagas establish a
character's personality. Does anyone know if there is any trace of an
alternate tradition concerning the death of St. Olaf's father?)

Well then, when this thread started I thought the dispute concerning the
maternity of Olaf Skotkonung could not finally be resolved. This is some
progress. Now I'm with Anders Berg on this matter!

Thanks again to everyone who has helped me out on this matter!

Jared Olar
ol...@eagle.uis.edu

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