Olaf the White ( non, Óláfr hinn Hvíti) was a

viking Vikings ; non, víkingr is the modern name given to seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded and se ...

sea-king who lived in the latter half of the 9th century.

Life

Olaf was born around 820, in

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

. His father was the Hiberno-Norse warlord

Ingjald Helgasson Ingjaldr HelgasonIn some sources his father's name is given as Olaf. In '' Laxdæla saga'' his father's name is given as "King Frodi the Valiant, who was slain by Jarl Sverting and his sons." was a Hiberno-Norse chieftain of the 9th Century. Acc ...

. Some traditional sources portray Olaf as a descendant of

Ragnar Lodbrok according to legends, was a Viking hero and a Danish and Swedish king.Gutenberg Projec ...

– for instance, the '' Eyrbyggja Saga'', claims that Olaf's paternal grandmother (Thora) was a daughter of Ragnar's son

Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye Sigurd Snake-in-the-eye ( non, Sigurðr ormr í auga) or Sigurd Áslaugsson was a semi-legendary Viking warrior and Danish king active from the mid to late 9th century. According to multiple saga sources and Scandinavian histories from the 12th ...

. However, this connection seems unlikely, given that Sigurd appears to have lived in the mid-9th Century and Ragnar himself may have lived until the 860s. Irish fragments provide a different genealogy, suggesting that Olaf's father was Godfred, son of Ragnall, son of Godfred, son of Godfred. He was named

King of Dublin Vikings invaded the territory around Dublin in the 9th century, establishing the Norse Kingdom of Dublin, the earliest and longest-lasting Norse kingdom in Ireland. Its territory corresponded to most of present-day County Dublin. The Norse refe ...

around 853. According to Irish sources, Olaf ruled jointly with his kinsman

Ímar Ímar ( non, Ívarr ; died c. 873), who may be synonymous with Ivar the Boneless, was a Viking leader in Ireland and Scotland in the mid-late ninth century who founded the Uí Ímair dynasty, and whose descendants would go on to dominate the Ir ...

. Olaf married

Aud the Deep-minded The Australian dollar ( sign: $; code: AUD) is the currency of Australia, including its external territories: Christmas Island, Cocos (Keeling) Islands, and Norfolk Island. It is officially used as currency by three independent Pacific Isla ...

(''Auðr''), daughter of

Ketil Flatnose Ketill Björnsson, nicknamed Flatnose (Old Norse: ''Flatnefr''), was a Norse King of the Isles of the 9th century. Primary sources The story of Ketill and his daughter Auðr (or Aud) was probably first recorded by the Icelander Ari Þorgilsson ...

, the ruler of the

Hebrides The Hebrides (; gd, Innse Gall, ; non, Suðreyjar, "southern isles") are an archipelago off the west coast of the Scottish mainland. The islands fall into two main groups, based on their proximity to the mainland: the Inner and Outer Hebr ...

, according to Icelandic traditions (''

Landnámabók (, "Book of Settlements"), often shortened to , is a medieval Icelandic written work which describes in considerable detail the settlement () of Iceland by the Norse in the 9th and 10th centuries CE. is divided into five parts and ove ...

'', '' Laxdæla saga''). The Irish sources name Olaf's wife only as the daughter of a "King Aedh". Olaf and Auðr had a son,

Thorstein the Red Thorstein the Red or Thorstein Olafsson was a viking chieftain who flourished in late ninth-century Scotland. Biography He was born around 850 AD and was the son of Olaf the White, King of Dublin, and Aud the Deep-minded, who was the daughter o ...

(''Þorsteinn rauðr''), who attempted to conquer

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...

in the 870s. At some point Olaf had a falling-out with the clan of Ketil and sent Auðr and their son back to her father's house. According to ''Landnámabók'', Olaf and Þorsteinn Rauðr were both killed in the British Isles. Thorstein the Red was married to Þuriðr Eyvindardóttir Austmann, and they had several children: Gróa, Álof, Þorgerðr, Þórhildr, Vigdís, Ósk, Ólafr feilan, ancestor of Ari Fróði, author of Landnámabók. The family was related to the

Vinland Vinland, Vineland, or Winland ( non, Vínland ᚠᛁᚾᛚᛅᚾᛏ) was an area of coastal North America explored by Vikings. Leif Erikson landed there around 1000 AD, nearly five centuries before the voyages of Christopher Columbus and John ...

explorers and the Sturlung family.

Identification and historical conjecture

Olaf may be identical with the Viking warlord

Amlaíb Conung Amlaíb Conung ( non, Óláfr ; died c. 874) was a Viking leader in Ireland and Scotland in the mid-late ninth century. He was the son of the king of Lochlann, identified in the non-contemporary ''Fragmentary Annals of Ireland'' as Gofraid, and ...

, who according to

Irish Irish may refer to: Common meanings * Someone or something of, from, or related to: ** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe ***Éire, Irish language name for the isle ** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...

sources was killed in 871/2 by

Causantín mac Cináeda Causantín mac Cináeda ( Modern Gaelic: ; died 877) was a king of the Picts. He is often known as Constantine I in reference to his place in modern lists of kings of Scots, but contemporary sources described only as a Pictish king. A son of ("K ...

, king of

Alba ''Alba'' ( , ) is the Scottish Gaelic name for Scotland. It is also, in English language historiography, used to refer to the polity of Picts and Scots united in the ninth century as the Kingdom of Alba, until it developed into the Kingdom ...

. However, both Gwyn Jones and Peter Hunter Blair dispute this identification. Old Norse sources mention two Olafs belonging to the ninth-century house of

Vestfold Vestfold is a traditional region, a former county and a current electoral district in Eastern Norway. In 2020 the county became part of the much larger county of Vestfold og Telemark. Located on the western shore of the Oslofjord, it bordered t ...

. The first of these, Olaf the White, because of his connections with Dublin and with Ketil Flatnose, must be identified with Olaf king of Dublin, as described in early Irish and Scottish chronicles. We are also told in the

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, derive ...

Olaf Guthfrithsson Olaf Guthfrithson or Anlaf Guthfrithson ( non, Óláfr Guðrøðsson ; oe, Ánláf; sga, Amlaíb mac Gofraid; died 941) was a Hiberno-Scandinavian (Irish-Viking) leader who ruled Dublin and Viking Northumbria in the 10th century. He was th ...

of Vestfold who on good archaeological evidence can be identified with the king buried in the Gokstad ship. It is possible that there was only one such king, Olaf Guthfrisson of Vestfold, who in his earlier days ruled from Dublin and raided in Scotland and who later in 871 returned to claim his Vestfold kingdom. The Irish Three Fragments of Annals, while not actually proving such a theory, do support the case for regarding Olaf Guthfrithsson of Vestfold as being the same as Olaf the White of Dublin and the Scottish Isles. The Fragments claim that Olaf of Dublin ended his reign there when c. 871 he returned to Norway to support his father Guthfrith in a struggle for a kingdom. This passage, then, would identify Olaf of Dublin, alias Olaf the White of Landnamabok with

of Norway.Warlords and Holy Men, by Alfred P. Smith, Edinburgh University Press 2010, first published in 1984 by Edward Arnold Publishers, Ltd. p159-160

Ancestry

Notes

References

*Steenstrup, Johannes C.H.R. Normannerne, vol. 2. Kjøbenhavn, 1878: Vikingetogene mod Vest. pp. 119 ff. *Forte, Angelo, Richard Oram and Frederik Pedersen.
Viking Empires
'. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005 . *Jones, Gwyn. ''A History of the Vikings''. 2nd ed. London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1984. *Gísli Sigurðsson. ''The Medieval Icelandic Saga and Oral Tradition: A Discourse on Method.'' Cambridge, MA: Harvard U.P., 2004. *Bilbao, Jon. “Sobre la leyenda de Jaun Zuria, primer señor de Vizcaya” in Amigos del País, hoy, Real Sociedad Vascongada de Amigos del País (Comisión de Vizcaya), Bilbao, 1982, pp. 235–263. *Warlords and Holy Men, by Alfred P. Smith, Edinburgh University Press 2010, first published in 1984 by Edward Arnold Publishers, Ltd.

External links

Stirnet: Viking03
(mentions Olaf) {{DEFAULTSORT:Olaf The White 820s births 870s deaths Monarchs of Dublin 9th-century Irish monarchs 9th-century rulers of the Kingdom of the Isles no:Olav Kvite