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identity which served to integrate the social upper class (Fældbek 1996,
133f). to enhance a common identity of previously differentiated commu­
nities, which were to be integrated, Saxo invented the legendary king Dan
as the symbolic protoplast of all Danes. Saxo acted in concordance with the
already current method of the conscious and purposeful enriching of the
past, which may be illustrated by the similar action taken some twenty five
years earlier by the anonymous author of the Historia Norvegiae who, in
the first chapter of his work, introduced king Nór; this character reap­
peared as king Nóri in oddr munkr’s Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar (ch. 22) ca.
1190. It is difficult to believe that those medieval historians did not under­
stand the meanings of Denamarc and Nordvegr. therefore, one should
suspect conscious manipulation introduced in order to produce a past that
would “better” fulfill the current political integrational needs. The intro­
duction of eponymic nation­founders, and the establishing of reference
points for the “national” identities of all subordinates of competing territo­
rial dynasties, was quite popular throughout medieval Europe, e.g. Brutus
by Geoffrey of Monmouth, Bohemus by Cosmas of Prague, or Rus by
nestor.
“Republican” Icelanders did not need to invent any common king­
founder because their land was self defined by its insular geography, which
automatically determined the common destiny of all those who had chosen
the island for settlement. Instead, we may imagine competition between
the leading families who challenged each other with alternative visions of
the heroic deeds of their ancestors. Just as elsewhere, ownership of the
past was important in Iceland as a crucial argument in struggles for power.
However, the disappointing shortness of the Icelandic past forced
Icelanders to refer to more ancient times. thus, they recalled the common
Nordic past with special stress being put on their Norwegian ancestry.
“The sagas of kings contributed to create a Norwegian identity, but at the
same time they may have contributed to the creation of an Icelandic iden­
tity at least in two ways, both by showing a common Norwegian and
Icelandic past and close relations and by telling about conflicts between the
Norwegian kings and Icelanders. The fornaldarsögur which mostly told
about distant past in the Scandinavian mainland may have strengthened the
Icelanders’ feeling of sharing the history and identity with their Nordic
neighbors” (Mundal 2007).
DeConStRuCtInG tHe “noRDIC CIvILIZAtIon”