Sagas of Iceland · Part 14 · The end of an age · C1
Snorri Sturluson
Part 14 of the Sagas of Iceland: Snorri Sturluson, the richest man in Iceland, its greatest writer, and a dangerous politician. He wrote the Prose Edda, which saved the stories of the Norse gods, and the Heimskringla, the history of the kings of Norway; he may have written Egils saga. He was killed in his own cellar in 1241, and twenty years later Iceland lost its independence. Hedging and cautious claims (it is thought that, may have been, allegedly, scholars disagree), and the language of history and politics, with Philo, Sophia, Marcos and Demetria. The lesson ends where the Norse myths series will begin.
This is our last saga, and it is about the man who wrote down the gods. Without Snorri Sturluson, we would know almost nothing about Odin, Thor, Loki or the end of the world. And he was not a quiet scholar in a cell: he was the richest and most ambitious politician in Iceland.
A writer who was also a politician? That sounds dangerous.
It was, Marcos. Snorri played a double game between Iceland and the king of Norway, and he lost. Tonight we will practise the careful language of historians, because about Snorri, we know some things for certain, many things probably, and some things only as legends.
Snorri Sturluson was born in 1179 into the powerful Sturlung family and grew up at Oddi, one of the great centres of learning in Iceland. He married well, became very rich, owned many farms and chieftaincies, and was twice lawspeaker of the Althing. At his farm at Reykholt he built a stone-lined hot pool, Snorralaug, which can still be seen today.
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