Gripla - 20.12.2009, Page 58

GRIPLA58
then king óláf replied, “Has it not entered your mind, earl,
that events have taken such a turn that in the future you may have
neither victory nor defeat?”
The earl said, “This is in your power, sire, to decide this
time.”15
Suddenly understanding his predicament, the earl asks what he has to do to
escape and accepts óláfr’s condition, to leave the country and promise
never to return.
W.P. Ker has characterised the difference between Latin and Old Norse
historiography in the following way:
“These two books [Theodoricus and Historia Norwegie] might be
picked out of the Middle Ages on purpose to make a contrast of
their style with the Icelandic saga. Th[eodoricus]. … indulges in all
the favourite medieval irrelevances, drags in the Roman historians
and the Platonic year, digresses from Charybdis to the Huns, and
embroiders his texts with quotations from the Latin poets”.16
A more charitable – and adequate – description is that theodoricus had a
different aim, regarding the external events as signs of some deeper his­
torical meaning which he found in typological parallels to events that had
taken place elsewhere.17 The earl’s beauty, the drama of his meeting with
Óláfr and the exchange between the two protagonists were of no impor­
tance to him, whereas the allusion to Horace links the episode in this dis­
tant country to the civilised world, and the statement that Óláfr wanted to
avoid bloodshed gives a moral interpretation and serves to protect the
saintly king from the accusation that he broke the rules of chivalry by
attacking without a formal declaration of war or feud.
15 “settisk hann i fyrrúmit. Þá mælti óláfr konungr: “eigi er þat logit af yðr frændum, hversu
fríðir menn þér eruð sýnum, en farnir eruð þér nú at hamingju.” Þá segir Hákon: “ekki er
þetta óhamingja, er oss hefir hent; hefir þat lengi verit, at ýmsir hafa sigraðir verit … kann
vera, at oss takisk annat sinn betr til en nú.” Þá svarar óláfr konungr: “grunar þik ekki þat,
jarl, at hér hafi svá til borit, at þú mynir hvárki fá heðan í frá sigr né ósigr?” jarl segir: “þér
munuð ráða, konungr, at sinni””, Heimskringla II, 39; Heimskringla. History of the Kings of
Norway, transl. Lee M. Hollander (Austin, university of texas Press, 1964), 266.
16 William Paton Ker, “The Early Historians of Norway,” Collected Essays II (London:
Macmillan, 1925), 141 f.
17 Bagge, “theodoricus,” 113–33.