''The Legendary Saga of St. Olaf'' or ''Helgisaga Óláfs konungs Haraldssonar'' is one of the
kings' sagas
Kings' sagas ( is, konungasögur, nn, kongesoger, -sogor, nb, kongesagaer) are Old Norse sagas which principally tell of the lives of semi-legendary and legendary (mythological, fictional) Nordic kings, also known as saga kings. They were compo ...
, a 13th-century biography of the 11th-century Saint
Olaf II of Norway
Olaf II Haraldsson ( – 29 July 1030), later known as Saint Olaf (and traditionally as St. Olave), was King of Norway from 1015 to 1028. Son of Harald Grenske, a petty king in Vestfold, Norway, he was posthumously given the title ''Rex Perpet ...
. It is based heavily on the largely lost ''
Oldest Saga of St. Olaf''. The composition is primitive and clumsy and the saga essentially consists of a series of separate anecdotes extracted from
skaldic verse
A skald, or skáld (Old Norse: , later ; , meaning "poet"), is one of the often named poets who composed skaldic poetry, one of the two kinds of Old Norse poetry, the other being Eddic poetry, which is anonymous. Skaldic poems were traditionally ...
. The anonymous author may have been a Norwegian and the saga is preserved in one mid-13th-century Norwegian manuscript. It is thought to have been composed in the early 13th century. Snorri Sturluson is believed to have used a work closely similar to the ''Legendary Saga'' when he composed his ''
Separate Saga of St. Olaf
''The Separate (or Independent) Saga of St. Olaf'' ''(Olav den helliges saga'') is one of the kings' sagas. It was written about King Olaf II of Norway (''Olaf Haraldsson''), later Saint Olaf (''Olav den Hellige''), patron saint of Norway.
His ...
'' and ''
Heimskringla
''Heimskringla'' () is the best known of the Old Norse kings' sagas. It was written in Old Norse in Iceland by the poet and historian Snorre Sturlason (1178/79–1241) 1230. The name ''Heimskringla'' was first used in the 17th century, derived ...
''.
[Hoops 1999, p. 243.]
See also
*
The Saint Olav Drama
''Saint Olav Drama'' ( no, Spelet om Heilag Olav) is an outdoor theatre performance played every end of July in Stiklestad in Verdal, Norway.
The play commemorates the Battle of Stiklestad that took place in the year 1030, and which resulted in ...
Notes
References
* Andersson, Theodore Murdock (2006). ''The Growth of the Medieval Icelandic Sagas, 1180-1280''. Cornell University Press.
* Bjarni Aðalbjarnarson (editor) (1941). ''Íslenzk fornrit XXVI : Heimskringla I''. Hið íslenzka fornritafélag.
* Finlay, Alison (editor and translator) (2004). ''Fagrskinna, a Catalogue of the Kings of Norway''. Brill Academic Publishers.
* Hoops, Johannes (1999). ''Reallexikon der germanischen Altertumskunde: Band 14''. Walter de Gruyter.
External links
Olafs saga hins helgaAn 1849 edition of the Old Norse text.
Kings' sagas
Olaf II of Norway
Sagas of saints
{{saga-stub