Note to Anon Krm 14^VIII

[4] á Norðimbralandi ‘in Northumbria’: Meaning originally, as Townend (1998, 59) has shown, ‘the land of the people north of the Humber’, Norðimbraland refers here, somewhat loosely, to the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria, of which York was the capital (Haywood 2000, 213-14, cf. 135). It was in York, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, that the Great Army of the vikings who landed in East Anglia in 865 put to death in 866 the rival Northumbrian kings Osberht and Ælle (see ASC I, 68-9; cf. Garmonsway 1954, 68, n. 1 and Wormald 1982, 142-3), and the slaying of the latter king, known in Norse tradition as Ella, is presented in Krm (st. 27/5-8, cf. sts 24/5-6 and 26/2-10), in Ragn and RagnSon, as well as in Saxo’s account (where he is named Hella) as an act of vengeance by the sons of Ragnarr loðbrók for their father’s death at King (H)ella’s hands in a snake-pit.  Ælle is presented as king of England in the 1824b text of Ragn, but specifically as a king of Northumbria in RagnSon. Saxo’s location of Ragnarr’s death in Ireland appears to be based on a misreading by him of Humbros ‘Northumbrians’ as Hibernos ‘Irishmen’ (Saxo 2015 I, ix. 4. 38, 5. 1-5, pp. 660-5; cf. de Vries 1928d, 140; Rowe 2012, 100).

References

1. Bibliography
2. ASC [Anglo-Saxon Chronicle] = Plummer, Charles and John Earle, eds. 1892-9. Two of the Saxon Chronicles Parallel. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon. Rpt. 1952.
3. Townend, Matthew. 1998. English Place-Names in Skaldic Verse. English Place-Name Society extra ser. 1. Nottingham: English Place-Name Society.
4. Wormald, C. P. 1982. ‘Viking Studies: Whence and Whither?’. In Farrell 1982, 128-53.
5. Vries, Jan de. 1928a. ‘Die westnordische Tradition der Sage von Ragnar Lodbrók’. ZDP 53, 257-302.
6. Haywood, John. 2000. Encyclopaedia of the Viking Age. London: Thames & Hudson.
7. Rowe, Elizabeth Ashman. 2012. Vikings in the West: The Legend of Ragnarr Loðbrók and his Sons. Studia Medievalia Septentrionalia 18. Vienna: Fassbaender.
8. 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.
9. Garmonsway, G. N., trans. 1954. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Everyman’s Library 624. London: Dent.
10. Internal references
11. 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 26 April 2024)
12. 2017, ‘ Anonymous, Ragnars sona þáttr’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 777. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=85> (accessed 26 April 2024)
13. Not published: do not cite (Rloð^VIII)
14. Rory McTurk 2017, ‘ Anonymous, Krákumál’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 706. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=1020> (accessed 26 April 2024)