Kings’ Sagas and Norwegian History (review)

In his introduction, Shami Ghosh identifies the following aims of his book: (1) to present a critical overview of recent research on the sagas of the Norwegian kings, (2) to highlight some of the more important problems posed by the source material, and (3) to suggest some pathways for further research. Finally, he hopes “to provide some pointers as to how the study of the kings’ sagas could be better integrated into the larger field of scholarship on medieval European historiography” (p. 3). The book is divided into three chapters, which deal respectively with the relationship between skaldic poetry and saga prose, nonnative sources and their influence, and the uses of the past. The first of these (chap. 2), is by far the longest (pp. 25–109), as well as the most important.

In this chapter, Ghosh addresses the fundamental problem faced by researchers into Norwegian history before the early twelfth century: the lack of contemporary written sources. He gives a detailed and very useful presentation of the many ways of dealing with this issue in scholarship over the last decades, mainly focusing on the problems involved in the use of skaldic poetry. Although admitting that extant skaldic poems may actually present contemporary evidence and have been transmitted orally over a century or two, he argues that in no particular case can this be guaranteed. He also rejects Snorri’s famous claim in the prologues to Heimskringla and Óláfs saga helga that the metric form of skaldic verse prevents change and that their factual information can be trusted because the poets would not lie in the face of their patrons. Nor does he accept Beyschlag’s theory of poems being transmitted together with narrative prose (Begleitprosa). Consequently, the prospect for research on the political history of Norway from the reign of Haraldr hárfagri until the early twelfth century seems bleak; and Ghosh does nothing to console the historians wanting to deal with this period.

Most contemporary Norwegian historians will probably agree with many of these observations. However, it is a problem that Ghosh, despite his extensive reading, is not sufficiently familiar with recent—nor apparently with earlier— Norwegian historical research. He mostly refers to two recent surveys in English. The one-volume History of Norway (1995) is actually a translation of an elementary introduction intended for beginner students of history. The Cambridge History of Scandinavia (2003) is more substantial, but is nonetheless also a summary. The best and most relevant work in this context is Claus Krag’s volume of Aschehougs Norgeshistorie (1995), which, although written for the general public, tries to do exactly what Ghosh has failed to find in the volumes he has read, namely to apply the saga criticism from the Weibulls—also unmentioned by Ghosh—onward to a relatively detailed narrative history from ca. 800 until 1130. Certain additional articles, both by Krag and others, are also relevant in this context.

With regard to Ghosh’s arguments against the use of skaldic poetry, every scholar who has ever looked at a critical edition of skaldic poems will immediately understand the potential for variation, as they differ among the various sagas and manuscripts in which they have been transmitted. Snorri’s insistence on the poems being “rétt kveðin” suggests the same. Nevertheless, the meter is important; a prose story may be changed far more easily than a skaldic poem. Nor are all changes equally problematic from a historical point of view. Snorri’s statement about the trustworthiness of poems recited before kings or chieftains has been subject to much discussion. Referring to the recent studies by Krag, Ghosh shows that it does not hold true regarding Haraldr harðráði’s battles in the Mediterranean (pp. 72–75). However, this is a special case, as nobody in Norway could control what Haraldr chose to recount about his foreign career; there may be more to be said in favor of Snorri’s argument concerning events in Scandinavia.

Ghosh finds it unlikely that skalds would...