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Þórarinn (Þór), an Icelander and a poet, plays a minor role in ÓT. The ‘D’ redaction reports that he composed the stanza below while returning from Þrándheimr (Trøndelag) with King Óláfr Tryggvason after Óláfr’s missionary visit there, which would place the stanza in the winter of 998-9 AD. Þórarinn has been tentatively identified with the late tenth-century skald Þórarinn inn svarti ‘the Black’ Þórólfsson, who fled to Norway after a killing in Iceland (see Eyrbyggja saga, ÍF 4, 60; LH I, 521; Finnur Jónsson 1930b, 49), or with Þórarinn Nefjólfsson, who sailed to Niðaróss (Trondheim) in the late 990s and later became a retainer of Óláfr helgi (see Hkr, ÍF 26, 329; ÓT 1958-2000, II, 160-1; Ohlmarks 1958, 110-11), but according to the sources neither was in Norway when Óláfr’s missionary expedition set out.

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