19/12/2024, by aezcr

3. Christmas preparations, a time for family… and killing (the family)

Returning to Earl Þorfinnr from ‘The host with the most…’, the saga tells us that he was in the midst of a conflict with his nephew Rǫgnvaldr who also had a claim to the earldom:

‘And a little before Christmas Earl Rǫgnvaldr went with a great troop to Papa Stronsay to get malt which was to be brewed for Christmas. And in the evening, when they were on the island, they sat a long time by the fireside, and he who was stoking the fire spoke about how the firewood was running out. Then the earl misspoke and said this, ‘We will be fully old when these fires have burned out’. But what he wanted to say was that they would then be fully warmed up’ (chapter 29).

These words were seen as portentous, in that their lives would be over by the time the fire had died down. The unfortunate utterance was followed by the arrival of Earl Þorfinnr who, perhaps not in the most festive of spirits, ‘arrived there and straightaway set fire to the buildings and made a pile of flammable material in front of the door’. Rǫgnvaldr escaped the building and Þorfinnr’s men

‘went to look for him and were divided into squads and Þorkell Foster-father went to look along the shore, and they heard that a dog was barking on the rocky shore. Earl Rǫgnvaldr had his lapdog with him and he gave the earl away. They straightaway made him dead there among the rocks, and it is said by some that Þorkell Foster-father killed him, because there was no one else to do it’ (chapter 29).

Wilhelm Wetlesen’s illustration for Magnus Erlingssons saga, Heimskringla, 1899-edition (Public Domain).

Tune in tomorrow for episode 4: ‘Now behave! More family squabbles and some politicking…’

Matthew Blake

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