Hrólf's saga kraka

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Lorenz Frølich, 1856.
Rolf Krakes death

The Hrólfs saga kraka or with the addition ok kappa hans ("The saga of Hrolf Kraki and his fighters") is a larger Icelandic Fornaldar saga (prehistoric saga) that was written in the 14th or 15th century.

Content and background

In terms of content, the saga takes up material that deals with the Iron Age Danish ruling family of the Skjöldungen ( Skyldinge ) and focuses on the figure of the eponymous protagonist Hrólf kraki . However, the saga is hardly given any historical value; rather, different elements and materials are compiled from heroic sagas and heroic poetry and from folk tales, partly from older sources such as Snorri's Prose Edda . Further sources for the Hrólfs saga were the Ynglingasaga and the Gesta Danorum of Saxo Grammaticus . Due to the young and heavily revised form of the saga, research therefore assumes that at this time of the first quarter of the 13th century (Snorri) an oral original form of the Hrólfs saga already existed, the elements and materials of which may even refer to the lost, older Skjöldunga saga only preserved in small fragments and quotations goes back.

The saga is essentially transmitted in 44 manuscripts, none of which was written before the 17th century. Main manuscripts are the signatures of the Arnamagnæanske Håndskriftsamling AM 9 fol., AM 11 fol. and AM 285, 4to. In the Möðruvellir Monastery in Iceland, however, there was a version from 1461, so it can be assumed that the later versions are based on earlier stories.

Older sources

Hrólf Kraki's father is Halga or Helgi, a legendary Danish king of the 6th century, as his mother Yrsa , from whom Halga later separated. Mostly Hrólf is referred to as a King of Zealand in Lejre and is evidently identified with Hroðulf, the nephew of Hroðgar (also: Hróarr, a brother of Halgas) in the Beowulf . The leader of his people is Bjarki , "the little bear" who can turn into a bear and has certain similarities with Beowulf.

A king named Rodulf was also considered to be the leader of the East Germanic Heruli in the 6th century. In the Chronicle of Saxo Grammaticus, Hrólf kills a king named Rorik . This old Norwegian form of the name could refer to Hreðric , a legendary son of Hroðgar, i.e. Hrólf's cousin.

According to the Lejre Chronicle , a version of the saga recorded around 1170, Hrólf is defeated by his half-sister Skuld, who knows the magic , and is killed by her husband Hartwar or Hiarwarth (Heoroweard) and his men. The murder is avenged by the Swedish Queen Yrsa, mother of Hrólf Kraki, through her general Wögg or Wigg.

In the Skjöldungen saga, Hrólf's successor is a king Hrörek of Lejre, who in the 6th century shared the kingdom with his brother Halgas and uncle Hrólfs, a king Valdar who ruled over Skåne .

literature

expenditure
  • Finnur Jónsson (Ed.): Hrólfs saga kraka og Bjarkarímur. SL Møllers, Copenhagen 1904, OCLC 2867333 (Icelandic).
  • Desmond Slay (Ed.): Hrólf's Saga Kraka. (= Editiones Arnamagnæanæ. Series B, Volume 1.), Ejnar Munksgaard, Copenhagen 1960, OCLC 6324320 (Icelandic / English).
Translations into German
Research literature
  • Joseph Harris: Hrólf's Saga Kraka. In: Joseph R. Strayer (Ed.): Dictionary of the Middle Ages . Volume 6 Grosseteste, Robert - Italian Literature. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York City 1985, ISBN 0-684-18168-1 .
  • Kurt Schier : saga literature. Metzler Collection, Volume 78: Reality books for Germanists. Metzler, Stuttgart 1970, ISSN  0558-3667 .
  • Hermann Schneider : Germanic heroic legend. Tape. II, Department 1, de Gruyter, Berlin / Leipzig 1933, OCLC 466653378 .
  • Rudolf Simek , Hermann Pálsson : Lexicon of Old Norse Literature (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 490). Kröner, Stuttgart 1987, ISBN 3-520-49001-3 .
  • Desmond Slay: The manuscripts of Hrólf's saga Kraka. (= Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana. Volume 24.), Ejnar Munksgaard, Copenhagen 1960, OCLC 3979185
  • Jan de Vries : Old Norse literary history. 3rd, unchanged. Edition in one volume with a foreword by Stefanie Würth (= Outline of Germanic Philology. 15/16). de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1999, ISBN 3-11-016330-6 .
  • Oscar Ludvig Olson: The relation of the Hrólfs saga Kraka and the Bjarkarímur to Beowulf; a contribution to the history of saga development in England and the Scandinavian Countries. (= Dissertation, University of Chicago, 1914). Hamburg tredition, Hamburg 2012, ISBN 978-3-849-19647-9 .

Web links

Wikisource: Skáldskaparmál - Hrolf Kraki  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ AM 9 fol. on handrit.is
  2. ↑ AM 11 fol. on handrit.is
  3. ↑ AM 285, 4 tons on handrit.is
  4. ^ Armann Jakobsson: The Royal Ideology and Genre of Hrolfs Saga Kraka. on questia.com (English)
  5. ^ Beowulf: Scandinavian Traditions; Personality of the Hero; Origin and Antiquity of the Poem; the Religious Element. In: The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907-21). Volume I. From the Beginnings to the Cycles of Romance. III. Early National Poetry on bartleby.com.