''Arons saga Hjörleifssonar'' (standardised Old Norse spelling: ''Arons saga Hjǫrleifssonar'') recounts the life of Aron Hjörleifsson (c. 1200–55), an important contemporary of

Sturla Sighvatsson Sturla Sighvatsson (Old Norse: ; Modern Icelandic: ; 1199 – 21 August 1238) was an Icelandic chieftain or ''goði'' of the Sturlungar family clan who played an active role in the armed conflicts in Iceland during the Age of the Sturlungs (Ic ...

and Bishop Guðmundr Arason. The saga has been dated to around 1340, though it survives first in a fifteenth-century vellum fragment (AM 551d beta 4to), with the earliest complete texts being the paper manuscripts AM 212 fol., AM 426 fol., and AM 399 4to (known as the Codex Resenianus). The saga portrays Aron as a supporter of Bishop Guðmundr, and as in turn receiving the benefits of Guðmundr's numinous assistance. It seems to have been written in the wake of the attempts to have Guðmundr canonised around 1320. It claims that Aron was one of the most famous warriors of his time, becoming an outlaw at the hands of Sturla Sighvatsson, travelling as a pilgrim to Jerusalem, and ending his life at the court of

Haakon IV of Norway Haakon IV Haakonsson ( – 16 December 1263; Old Norse: ''Hákon Hákonarson'' ; Norwegian: ''Håkon Håkonsson''), sometimes called Haakon the Old in contrast to his namesake son, was King of Norway from 1217 to 1263. His reign lasted for 46 y ...

. ''Arons saga'' is not part of the compilation of sagas about Aron's time known as ''

Sturlunga saga ''Sturlunga saga'' (often called simply ''Sturlunga'') is a collection of Icelandic sagas by various authors from the 12th and 13th centuries; it was assembled in about 1300. It mostly deals with the story of the Sturlungs, a powerful family clan ...

'', but stands alongside ''Sturlunga saga'' as an important depiction of events at that time. While not a straightforwardly reliable source for the time it describes, it does provide interesting evidence for the interactions of written sources, memory, and Icelandic identity under Norwegian rule in the fourteenth century.Úlfar Bragason, ' ''Arons saga'': Minningar, mýtur og sagnaminni', ''Ritið: Tímarit Hugvísindastofnunar Háskóla Íslands'', 13.3 (2013), 125-45.

Editions and translations

* ''Arons saga Hjörleifssonar'', in ''Sturlunga saga'', ed. by Jón Jóhannesson, Magnús Finnbogason, Kristján Eldjárn, and Magnús Jónsson, 2 vols (Reykjavík: Sturlunguútgáfan, 1946), II 237-78. * ''Arons saga'' in ''Sturlunga saga'', ed. by Guðni Jónsson, 3 vols (Reykjavík: Íslendingasagnaútgáfan/Haukadalsútgáfan, 1948), http://heimskringla.no/wiki/Arons_saga * ''The Saga of Aron Hjörleifsson'', trans. by John Porter (London: Pirate Press, 1975), http://www.medievalists.net/2009/01/the-saga-of-aron-hjorleifsson/

References

14th-century literature Icelandic literature Old Norse literature 14th century in Iceland 14th century in Norway {{Iceland-saga-stub