The saga's last chapters are about Earl Harald Maddadsson, who in 1200 held Orkney under King Sverre of Norway and Caithness under William the Lion: his long rule, his quarrel with the Scottish king that cost him Caithness in 1196 to 1197, his recovery of it, and the maiming of Bishop John of Caithness and the king's revenge in 1201 to 1202. It also gives the Orkney and Shetland chieftains, the links to the Hebrides and to Norway's civil wars, and the earl's family. Written near the events but from an Icelandic hand, so dates come from the Scottish and Norse annals.
About this source
- Title
- Orkneyinga saga
- Author
- Anonymous (Icelandic)
- Written
- about 1200 to 1230; surviving text mainly from Flateyjarbok, about 1390
- Language
- Old Norse
- Covers
- 9th century to about 1206
- Kind
- Saga
The Palsson and Edwards Penguin translation (1978) and the Islenzk fornrit edition (1965) are under copyright. The Heimskringla.no page does not name its base edition.
Where to read it
Editions
- Old Norse text at Heimskringla.no
- G. Vigfusson (ed.), Icelandic Sagas, Rolls Series 88, vol. 1 (1887), Old Norse text; not located online in this pass (not freely online)
Translations
- J. Anderson (ed.), J. A. Hjaltalin and G. Goudie (trans.), The Orkneyinga Saga (Edinburgh, 1873), English
- The 1873 translation at Project Gutenberg
- G. W. Dasent, The Orkneyingers' Saga, Icelandic Sagas, Rolls Series 88, vol. 3 (1894), English