son (1124–1197), and were maintained throughout
the following decades without the viciousness found
elsewhere. The intellectual tradition of Oddi also fl our-
ished. Sæmundr’s son, the priest Eyjólfr, had a school
there attended by the future St. Þorlákr; Jón Loptsson
fostered and educated Snorri Sturluson there. Jón’s son,
the bishop Páll, compiled a miracle book of St. Þorlákr,
and is himself the subject of one of the biskupa sögur.
The poem Nóregs konunga tal was composed around
1190 to celebrate Jón Loptsson’s descent through his
mother from the Norwegian kings; other works, notably
Orkneyinga saga and Skjo ̨ ldunga saga, may have links
with Oddi.
Sæmundr is frequently named as an authority by
medieval Icelandic historians, and these references
provide the main clues about his learning and its trans-
mission. That he composed a work, now lost, on the
rulers of Norway from Haraldr hárfagri (“fair-hair”) in
the late 9th century down to Magnús góði (“the good,”
d. 1046/7) is suggested by Nóregs konunga tal (st. 40),
which acknowledges Sæmundr inn fróði as its model
for the lives (ævi) of these eleven rulers. The scraps of
information attributed to Sæmundr elsewhere, however,
especially concern the late 10th century: the length of
Hákon jarl’s reign (in Oddr Snorrason’s Óláfs saga Tryg-
gvasonar); the number of ships in the Jómsviking fl eet
at Hj6rungavágr (Liavåg) (in AM 510 4to, a late MS
of Jómsvikinga saga); details of Óláfr Tryggvason’s
christianization of Norway (in a fi fty-word quotation
from Sæmundr in Oddr Snorrason’s saga); and the
date of his death (in Ari Þorgilsson’s Íslendingabók).
Sæmundr is also named in certain versions of the
Icelandic annals as authority for the ice-bound Scandi-
navian winter of 1047. It seems from all this evidence,
and from the example of the near-contemporary
Íslendingabók, that Sæmundr’s legacy to later his-
toriography must have been a chronological scheme,
with brief narratives on each ruler, in a sober style but
with Christian bias.
Sæmundr’s presumed history was probably written
rather than oral, especially since the long quotation from
Sæmundr in Oddr Snorrason’s saga (which survives only
in Icelandic versions of a Latin original) is followed by
“Svá hefi r Sæmundr ritað um Óláf konung i sinni bók”
(“Thus has Sæmundr written about King Óláfr in his
book”). Storm (1873: 15) and Meissner (1902: 35ff.)
nevertheless disputed that there was a written work by
Sæmundr. The language seems to have been Latin, for
Snorri Sturluson, in his prologue to Óláfs saga helga
and Heimskringla, refers to Ari Þorgilsson as the fi rst
writer of history in Norse, although Sæmundr, an older
contemporary whom Ari consulted over the writing of
Íslendingabók, probably completed his history fi rst. The
nature of Sæmundr’s writing and its infl uence on other
histories of Norway, such as Fagrskinna, Ágrip, Histo-
ria Norwegiae, and even on Knýtlinga saga, have been
much discussed by scholars such as Bjarni Aðalbjar-
narson, Siegfried Beyschlag, Svend Ellehøj, and Bjarni
Guðnason (see the summary in Andersson 1985).
Sæmundr is also acknowledged as an authority for
certain facts about Iceland, including its discovery by
the Viking Naddoddr (Landnámabók, Sturlubók text),
but whether such matters were included in the history
of Norwegian kings, whether there was a separate work
on Iceland, and whether some of Sæmundr’s more frag-
mentary pieces of learning were at fi rst only transmitted
orally cannot now be established. The “oral” theory is
supported by the report in Kristni saga, that “in that year
[1118–1119], there was such great loss of life, that the
priest Sæmundr the learned said [sagði] at the þing that
no fewer must have died of sickness than had come to the
þing.” It is also possible that Sæmundr simply became a
model of learning, to whom miscellaneous facts could
be attached. This tendency could apply to such patently
clerical facts as the details about the creation of the sun
and the moon (in AM 624 4to) or the body of Adam (in
AM 764 4to).
The title Sæmundar Edda appeared on editions of the
Codex Regius poems of the Poetic Edda until well into
this century, and this attribution goes back to 16th- and
17th-century theories that credited Sæmundr fi rst with
the Prose Edda (now attributed to Snorri) and then with
the Codex Regius poems. The connection may not be
completely unfounded, for it is possible, as Halldór Her-
mannsson (1932) argued, that Snorri found the poetic
materials for his Edda at Oddi, and that Sæmundr had
a hand in collecting them.
See also Snorri SturlusonFurther ReadingLiterature
Storm, Gustav. Snorre SturlassM ns Historieskrivning. Copen-
hagen: Luno, 1873.
Meissner, Rudolf. Die Strengleikar: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte
der almordischen Prosalitteratur. Halle: Niemeyer, 1902.
Halldór Hermannsson. Sæmund Sigfússon and the Oddaverjar.
Islandica, 22. Ithaca: Cornell University Library, 1932.
Buckhurst, Helen T. McM. “Sæmundr inn fróði in Icelandic Folk-
lore.” Saga-Book of the Viking Society 11 (1928–36), 84–92.
Einar Ól. Sveinsson. Sagnaritun Oddaverja. Nokkrar athuganir.
Studia Islandica, 1. Reykjavik: Ísafold, 1937 [English sum-
mary, pp. 47–51].
Turville-Petre, G. Origins of Icelandic Literature. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1953 rpt. 1975 [esp. pp. 81–7].
Andersson, Theodore M. “Kings’ Sagas (Konungasögur).” In
Old Norse–Icelandic Literature: A Critical Guide. Ed. Carol
J. Clover and John Lindow. Islandica, 45. Ithaca and London:
Cornell University Press, 1985 [esp. pp. 197–211].
Diana Edwards WhaleySÆMUNDR SIGFÚSSON INN FRÓÐI