The ''Jómsvíkinga saga'' ("''Saga of the

Jomsvikings The Jomsvikings were a legendary order of Viking mercenaries or conquerors of the 10th and 11th centuries. Though reputed to be staunchly dedicated to the worship of the Old Norse gods, they would allegedly fight for any lord who could pay t ...

''") is a medieval

Icelandic saga The sagas of Icelanders (, ), also known as family sagas, are a subgenre, or text group, of Icelandic sagas. They are prose narratives primarily based on historical events that mostly took place in Iceland in the ninth, tenth, and early elev ...

composed by an anonymous author. The saga was composed in

Iceland Iceland is a Nordic countries, Nordic island country between the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge between North America and Europe. It is culturally and politically linked with Europe and is the regi ...

during the 13th century. It exists in several manuscripts which vary from each other. There are many different versions and translations of the saga.

The saga

At the time of writing,

Wolin Wolin (; ) is a Polish island in the Baltic Sea, just off the Polish coast. Administratively, the island belongs to the West Pomeranian Voivodeship. Wolin is separated from the island of Usedom (Uznam) by the Strait of Świna, and from mainla ...

, also known as Willon, off the southern coast of the

Baltic Sea The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by the countries of Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden, and the North European Plain, North and Central European Plain regions. It is the ...

, was not more than a typical market town of the 13th century. However, the ''Jómsvíkinga saga'' tells the story of its founding, centuries earlier, as the famed Jómsborg by the legendary Danish chieftain Pálna-Tóki. Jómsborg's name is composed of two elements: the Old Norse term ''borg,'' meaning a

citadel A citadel is the most fortified area of a town or city. It may be a castle, fortress, or fortified center. The term is a diminutive of ''city'', meaning "little city", because it is a smaller part of the city of which it is the defensive core. ...

, and the unidentified term, ''Jóm''. The ''Jómsvíkinga saga'' is centered around the tensions between Haraldr Gormsson of Denmark, Hákon Sigurðarson of Norway, and the Jómsvíkings. The Jómsvíkings challenged royal authority in the midst of a power struggle between Denmark and Norway. In order to better understand the ''Jómsvíkinga saga'', it is important to understand the relationship between

Denmark Denmark is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe. It is the metropole and most populous constituent of the Kingdom of Denmark,, . also known as the Danish Realm, a constitutionally unitary state that includes the Autonomous a ...

and

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of ...

around this time. In addition to founding Jómsborg, Pálna-Tóki founded the brotherhood of the Jómsvíkings. The saga describes the brotherhood and the laws of the Jómsvíkings. It also mentions their defeat during the semi-legendary naval Battle of Hjǫrungavágr in 986. This battle occurred between the Jarls of Lade and the Danish invasion fleet of King

Harald Bluetooth Harald "Bluetooth" Gormsson (; , died c. 985/86) was a king of Denmark and Norway. The son of King Gorm the Old and Thyra Dannebod, Harald ruled as king of Denmark from c. 958 – c. 986, introduced Christianization of Denmark, Christianity to D ...

of Denmark. Jómsvíking chieftain

Sigvaldi Strut-Haraldsson Jarl Sigvaldi was the semi-legendary chieftain of the fabled Jomsvikings and commander of their stronghold - Jomsborg. He succeeded Palnatoke as the leaders of the Jomsvikings in the late 10th century. The character of Sigvaldi remains largely e ...

, led the Jómsvíkings in an effort to depose Jarl Hákon Sigurðarson, vassal ruler of Norway. The Jómsvíkings lived monastically and primarily in the Baltic region. The only things that are proven to have existed that were mentioned in the ''Jómsvíkinga saga'' are many of the main characters (excluding Pálna-Tóki), the Battle of Hjǫrungavágr, and the existence of Jómsborg. Aside from those things, the rest is an unsolved mystery.

History

There are five versions of the ''Jómsvíkinga saga'' that have been recovered over the years. The first, MS AM.291, is an incomplete manuscript written by an Icelander in the late thirteenth century. The second, MS AM. 510 4to, was written in the fifteenth century and contains much more information than the other versions. The third, Codex Holmanius 7, written in the fourteenth century, is shorter than the other versions and gives a brief summary of the saga. The fourth, Flateyjarbók, is a combination of the Jómsvíking saga and the Greater saga of Óláfr Tryggvason. Lastly, the fifth version, was a Latin translation of Arngrímr Jónsson written in the year 1592. Historians have found it difficult to classify the ''Jómsvíkinga saga'' among the Old Norse sagas. It is sometimes counted among the

Kings' sagas Kings' sagas (, , ) 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 composed during the twelfth through the fourteenth centuries, ...

based principally upon the association with Danish kings. Both the Kings' sagas and the ''Jómsvíkinga saga'' can be looked at through a political lens.

Popular culture

''Jómsvíkinga saga'' served as inspiration for Henry Treece's novel ''Horned Helmet'' (1963).

Translations

*
The Saga of the Jomsvikings: Translated from the Icelandic with Introduction, Notes and Appendices
', trans. by N.F. Blake (London: Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd, 1962) (Nelson's Icelandic Texts) *''The Saga of the Jomsvikings: A Translation with Full Introduction'', trans. by Alison Finlay and Þórdís Edda Jóhannesdóttir (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 2018), .

References

Other sources

*Fløtre, Odd Karstein (2009) ''Jomsvikingslaget i oppklarende lys'' (Hatlehols AS) *Halldórsson, Ólafur (1993) ''Jómsvíkinga saga'' (Medieval Scandinavia: An Encyclopedia. Ed. Phillip Pulsiano et al., Routledge Encyclopedias of the Middle Ages; 343–44) * Blake, N.F. (1962) "The Saga of the Jómsvíkings" (Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd)

External links

*Editions available fro
''Old Norse Workfiles''
by Michael Irlenbusch-Reynard.
Jómsvíkinga saga
in Old Norse (with translations into other Scandinavian languages) from heimskringla.no

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jomsvikinga saga Sagas Jomsvikings Medieval literature Icelandic literature 13th-century literature Anonymous works