DURING the reign of Haakon Haakonson lived the renowned author of sagas, Snorre Sturlason. He was born in the year 1178 at Hvam (or Kvam), in the western province of Iceland. His family traced their lineage from the old Norse kings. In his third year Snorre was sent to the rich and learned Jon Loftson to be fostered. Jon Loftson’s grandfather was Saemund Frode, the contemporary of Are, who first committed the historical sagas to writing; Jon’s mother, Thora, was an illegitimate daughter of King Magnus Barefoot. In such a family, says Mr. Laing, we may presume the literature of the country would be cultivated, and the sagas of the historical events in Norway, and of the transactions of her race of kings, would be studied with great interest. Jon Loftson died when Snorre was nineteen years of age, but he continued to live with his foster-brothers a couple of years after that. He was quite poor, his mother having wasted his patrimony; but marrying Herdis, the daughter of a wealthy priest, he ob[Pg 210]tained with her a considerable fortune, which he afterward greatly increased. We are told that he owned six large farms and had so many men under him that he could appear at the Things with an armed body of six hundred or eight hundred men. He fortified his main residence at Reykholt, and also constructed there a bathing-house of cut stone, into which the water was led from a neighboring geyser. This bath-house was called Snorrelaug (Snorre’s bath), and ruins of it are still to be seen.

Snorre Sturlason held some important offices in Iceland. On a visit to Norway he won the friendship of Duke Skule and King Haakon, and the latter even appointed him a king’s chamberlain. He is said to have promised the king to induce the people of Iceland to submit to the supremacy of the king of Norway; but if this promise was given he seems to have forgotten it. When afterward, during the conflict between Duke Skule and King Haakon, Snorre was said to be a friend or adherent of Duke Skule, the king declared him to be a traitor, and, in a letter, requested Snorre’s son-in-law and bitterest enemy, Gissur Torvaldson, to bring Snorre to Norway, dead or alive. On this authority Gissur, and other relatives of Snorre, who were his enemies on account of differences about the division of property, came on the night of September 22, 1241, with seventy armed men to Snorre’s residence at Reykholt and murdered him in the sixty-third year of his age. It was the same party which, two years afterward, brought Iceland under subjection to the crown of Norway.

Snorre Sturlason’s famous work, the sagas (chronicles) of the kings of Norway, reaches from the earliest times to the fall of Eystein Meyla, in the battle at Ree, in 1177. The book is also called the “Heimskringla”—the world’s circle—from the first word of the manuscript. It is written in the old Norse language. Snorre also wrote a book called the “Edda,”13 which treats of the old Norse mythology and contains rules for the writing of poetry.

Snorre’s nephew (his brother’s son), Sturla Thordson, afterward wrote the saga of King Haakon Haakonson.

During the reign of King Haakon, another remarkable book was written, “The King’s Mirror.” In the form of a dialogue between a father and his son, it contains information about the seas and the countries that Norway had communication with, especially Ireland, Iceland and Greenland. It also gives the rules of life and conduct for traders and for men at the royal court.