Note to BjRagn Lv 1^VIII (Ragn 7)

[4, 6]: Olrik (1892-4, II, 101, 121), noting Saxo’s account (Saxo 2015, I, ix. 4. 4, pp. 634-5) of how Regnerus Lothbrog, after winning a victory over the Scanians at Whiteby (cf. Hvítabær, l. 6), also fought successfully against the Jutes near Limfjord (ON Limafjǫrðr), suggests that Saxo understood Whiteby to be the inland village of Vitaby, situated in south-east Skåne some four kilometres due west of the port of Kivik. De Vries (1928a, 265) suggests that what originally lay behind the references in Saxo’s account and Ragn to Whiteby/Hvítabœr was the Northumbrian harbour town of Whitby, located on the coast of modern Yorkshire: not only was this town much more important than the Scanian village in viking times, but Rægnald, the viking king of York from 919 until his death in 921 (Stenton 1971, 333, 338), may well have been the historical prototype of Ragnarr’s son Rǫgnvaldr, who according to the saga prose preceding this stanza died in the battle at Hvítabœr (Ragn 1906-8, 132). The Northumbrian Whitby, de Vries claims, came to be replaced by the Scanian Vitaby in Scandinavian tradition, and it is indeed likely to be the latter, inland location to which Saxo and the saga are referring: Saxo mentions it in a Scanian context, and in the saga’s account, at least, it seems to be a land battle that is described. There can be no doubt that it is Whitby in Yorkshire that is referred to by the variant form of the name (acc. sg. of Hvítabýr [-býr] as opposed to Hvítabœr) that occurs in ESk Run 7/4^II (við Hvítabý ‘at Whitby’) in a group of stanzas documenting Eysteinn Haraldsson’s raids along the east coast of Scotland and England in 1151, see Townend (1998, 42-4, 95-6).

References

1. Bibliography
2. Townend, Matthew. 1998. English Place-Names in Skaldic Verse. English Place-Name Society extra ser. 1. Nottingham: English Place-Name Society.
3. Vries, Jan de. 1928a. ‘Die westnordische Tradition der Sage von Ragnar Lodbrók’. ZDP 53, 257-302.
4. Ragn 1906-8 = Olsen 1906-8, 111-222.
5. Olrik, Axel. 1892-4. Kilderne til Saxses oldhistorie: en literaturhistorisk undersøgelse. 2 vols. Copenhagen: Wroblewski.
6. Stenton, F. M. 1971. Anglo-Saxon England. 3rd edn. Oxford: Clarendon.
7. Saxo 2015 = Friis-Jensen, Karsten, ed. 2015. Saxo Grammaticus: Gesta Danorum: The History of the Danes. Trans. Peter Fisher. Oxford Medieval Texts. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon.
8. Internal references
9. 2017, ‘ Anonymous, Ragnars saga loðbrókar’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 616. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=81> (accessed 25 April 2024)