Amleth, Prince of Denmark

William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616) drew inspiration from history, and not just for his Henry plays. His best-known play was no different. Hamlet, Prince of Denmark has been endlessly retold and adapted for 400 years. Shakespeare himself probably got the story from a 1514 Paris printing of Saxo Grammaticus' Gesta Danorum. (The illustration here is from a 17th-century Danish printing.) The Amleth story is told in Books three and four of the Gesta.

In the Danish original, Amleth (Amlóði in Old Norse) is the grandson of a Danish king. Amlóði is a term for a fool or simpleton, reflecting the character's pretense of helplessness to fool his victim. Amleth's father, Horvendil, married Gerutha (Gertrude), daughter of the king of Denmark, after slaying the king of Norway, but Horvendil's brother Feng (Claudius) kills him out of jealousy. Feng convinces Gerutha that her husband hated her and that he, Feng, had saved her from this marriage and that she should marry him. This is in Jutland.

Amleth, afraid of sharing his father's fate, acts like an imbecile, but Feng is not satisfied with this. Feng tries to occupy him with a young girl who is being fostered at court (this character becomes Ophelia in Shakespeare's play). Amleth, while speaking in his mother's chambers, slays an eavesdropper (Polonius), and disposes of the body. Feng now knows he cannot trust Amleth, and sends him to Britain with a letter asking the king of Britain to put the bearer to death.

Amleth learns of the letter's content and alters it to instead execute the attendants with him (Rosencrantz and Guildenstern) and give the king's daughter to Amleth in marriage. Amleth marries the princess and returns to Denmark a year after he left. He shows up in time to see a funeral—his own, since Feng assumed his death had taken place as intended. After encouraging everyone at the feast to drink a lot of wine, he weighs them down with the heavy tapestries from the hall and sets it all on fire, including his mother. He kills Feng with Feng's own sword.

He makes a long speech to his people, who proclaim him king. He then goes to Britain to bring his wife home, but learns that Feng and the king of Britain had a pact to each avenge the other's death. The king is reluctant to kill Amleth, and so sends him on a dangerous task: proxy to woo a Scottish queen who has executed all those who tried to woo her. This queen falls in love with Amleth and returns with him to Britain, where his first wife warns him of her father's intent to kill him. Amleth wins the battle that follows.

He returns to Jutland with his two wives, but Wiglek, the successor of his maternal grandfather, seeks revenge for the death of Gerutha. Wiglek kills Amleth.

From the photo-story of a character with whom we are all familiar, we turn next in the Gesta to a famous hero who is completely unknown outside of Scandinavia, Starkad. See you tomorrow. 

Early Denmark

The Gesta Danorum ("Deeds of the Danish People") was written in the 12th-century by Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Grammarian"). Its 16 books are indispensable for their look at the history of Denmark, and particularly because they contain a look at early Estonia and Latvia.

Because it begins with pre-history, the first half deals with mythological and legendary characters. It introduces the brothers Dan and Angul, the founders of the Danes and Angles, respectively. Book One relates the loss of Denmark to Sweden (starting a long hostility between the two countries) and the attempt to get it back with the help of Odin. Hading, one of the first Danish kings, is orphaned when his father, King Gram, is killed by King Svipdag of Norway. Hading is taken to Sweden and raised by a giant whose daughter tries to seduce Hading into staying with her instead of training as a warrior.

Hading eventually returns to Denmark with the giantess, Harthgrepa, who raises a man from the dead to get some information but then is killed by supernatural beings. Odin then gives Hading advice and predicts his future.

Hading achieves success fighting in the Baltic, then returns to Denmark to kill his father's killer and assume the throne. He spends his reign fighting the Norwegians and Swedes until his death by suicide. He is succeeded by Frotho I, who has to replenish the royal treasury (depleted due to the Hading's wars) by slaying a dragon for its hoard. Like Hading, he campaigns first in the Baltic and later in Britain where he captures London. He dies fighting against the king of Sweden.

Book Three introduces Hamlet, Prince of Denmark ... sort of. I'll explain next time.

Yrsa

Yrsa was the mother of the 6th century King Hrolf Kraki. Her name is uncommon, not appearing in any other Norse sources, and there is a common assumption that it relates to Latin ursus, "bear." This would align with the Scandinavian tendency to use bear symbolism for extraordinary people, like Beowulf and Bothvar Bjarki (who appears in Hrolf Kraki's Saga, of which Yrsa is a main character).

Her story is quite tragic. She is the illegitimate child of Halga (a brother of Hrothgar from the poem Beowulf) and the Saxon Queen Oluf. Halga wooed Oluf, but she wanted nothing to do with him; while he was asleep, she shaved his head and tarred him. Later, he returns and kidnaps her, getting her pregnant in the process. Oluf returns to her home and bears a daughter whom she names Yrsa, who is sent away to be raised with shepherds.

At the age of 12, Halga comes upon the young shepherdess and decides to wed her. (Yes, the age discrepancy is alarming, but Halga had a reputation for pursuing women.) Oluf, learning this, keeps quiet about Ursa's lineage, thinking it a sweet revenge that Halga should wed his own daughter. The pair wed, and have a son, Hrolf, who will some day inherit the kingdom of Denmark.

Hearing that the marriage is a happy one, Queen Oluf decides to ruin them by traveling to Denmark to reveal Yrsa's parentage. Halga accepted this, but Yrsa was ashamed, and left him. She winds up in Sweden where she marries King Aðils (Eadgils in Anglo-Saxon literature). Learning this, Halga goes to Sweden to take her back, but he is killed by Eadgils and robbed. Upset by this, Yrsa curses Eadgils that all his berserker warriors will die. Later, when the warrior Svipdag arrives to "test his skills," she supports him and he slays all the berserkers. Svipdag leaves Sweden for Denmark and enters service under King Hrolf, who has succeeded Halga.

Yrsa saw her son again when he went to Sweden to collect the gold that Eadgils had taken from Halga. Eadgils and Hrolf had recently worked together against their mutual enemy, King Áli, Eadgils' uncle who usurped his throne. Eadgils was reluctant to return the gold, and kept putting off the event. Yrsa gives Hrolf much more gold than he was owed, including Eadgils' favorite gold ring, Sviagris, and gives him and his retainers armor, provisions, and the dozen best horses.

Hrolf and his men leave, Eadgils pursues; Hrolf casts Sviagris on the ground; Eadgils sees it and stoops to pick it up by spearing it with the tip of his spear; while leaning down, Hrolf cuts his back with his sword.

When Hrolf was later killed by his brother-in-law, his sister Skuld ruled Denmark. Yrsa gets revenge for the death of her son by sending a Swedish army that captures Skuld, whom she tortures to death. Hrolf's daughters rule Denmark.

Yrsa's story appears in more than the Hrolf Kraki Saga: Saxo Grammaticus in his Gesta Danorum ("Deeds of the Danish People") says she fled with Hrolf, and suggested the stratagem of casting some of the gold behind to delay the Swedes. Thinking ahead, she had packed gilt-covered copper coins for this purpose.

The Gesta Danorum is another collection of stories like Hrolf Kraki's Saga that offers a lot of information about early Scandinavian beliefs and culture. We'll check that out next.

Vikings - Art Imitates Life

A new TV show started in 2013 and has proven popular enough that it has been renewed for a couple more seasons. It is called "The Vikings." Its historicity would not be very satisfying to scholars, but it is very popular with audiences.

It centers on the character of Ragnar Lodbrok (in Old Norse that would look like Ragnarr Loðbrók). The saga of Ragnar is attached to the Norse Völsunga Saga ["Saga of the Volsungs," a clan that included Sigurd and therefore inspired the Nibelungenlied, the "Song of the Nibelungs"]. It tells us of Ragnar's quest for a wife, then for another wife, and of the deeds of their sons.

Ragnar actually had three marriages (in legend, that is: the exact truthfulness of the details of his existence cannot be proven). His first was to Lagertha, a Danish shield maiden. In the history written by Saxo Grammaticus, Lagertha got Ragnar's attention when she dressed as a man to fight against the Swedes who had killed King Siward of Norway. They married and had a son and two daughters.

Ragnar divorced her, however, so that he could marry Thora Borgarhjortr, the daughter of King Herraudr of Sweden. Despite that betrayal, Lagertha came to his aid when he dealt with a civil war in Denmark.*

Even later, Ragnar supposedly married Aslaug, who was the daughter of Sigurd (who killed Fafnir the Dragon in the Nibelungenlied) and Brunhild the Valkyrie. (It gets a little more mythical than usual here.)

Ragnar became a scourge of England and France. The invasion and pillaging of Paris on 28 March 845 is attributed to him.

King Aelle of Northumbria (who died on 21 March 867) was one of the English that Ragnar annoyed.  Aelle captured Ragnar and threw him in a pit of snakes. This would have happened prior to 865: the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for 865 states that the Great Heathen Army that invaded England was led by Ragnar's sons to avenge their father.

*On the TV show, the marriage between Ragnar and Lagertha didn't survive the first season; the writers had him take up directly with the seductive Aslaug, skipping over the more likely marriage to Thora.