Þorleifr Rauðfeldarson, known by the
epithetjarlsskáld or jarlaskáld ("earls'/earl's poet") was an Icelandic
skald in the second half of the 10th century. He was one of the court poets of
JarlHákon Sigurðarson and composed drápur on both the jarl and King
Sweyn Forkbeard, but little of his work survives. He is the protagonist of Þorleifs þáttr jarlaskálds, a largely fictional tale in the
Flateyjarbók version of Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar en mesta, and is also mentioned in Svarfdœla saga and as a skald in a number of other sources, including Landnámabók and Skáldatal.
Life
According to Svarfdœla saga, ch. 11 or 12, Þorleifr was one of twin sons of Ásgeir Rauðfeldarson of
Brekka in
Svarfaðardalur, born when their mother was out tending sheep. According to "Þorleifs þáttr jarlaskálds", written in the late 13th or early 14th century, he was the youngest of three sons. He went to Norway as a young man, but left after coming into conflict with Jarl Hákon over trading rights; Hákon burned his ship and killed the crew. He then went to Denmark, where he became a courtier of Sweyn Forkbeard's but returned to Norway to recite a níð verse at Hákon's court that caused the jarl's hair to fall out, after which Sweyn dubbed him jarlsskáld, "the earl's poet". After returning to Iceland he lived in Mýrdalur, but Hákon, with the assistance of his tutelary goddesses
Þorgerðr Hǫlgabrúðr and Irpa, sent a wooden figure containing a man's heart that successfully killed him at the
Alþingi in about 990. He was buried there at
Þingvellir.[1] The final chapter recounts how a shepherd and unsuccessful skald named Hallbjǫrn sat on Þorleifr's
grave-mound and Þorleifr came to him in a dream and taught him the art of poetry.[2][3] This story clearly incorporates many fantasy elements, and it is likely that Þorleifr spent longer at Jarl Hákon's court,[4] but his composition of the níð verse is reported in several sources, including
Oddr Snorrason's Latin life of
Óláfr Tryggvason, so that detail must have been current by the end of the 12th century.[1][2]
Poems
Other than the níð verse on Jarl Hákon, which is probably genuine,[5] surviving work by Þorleifr jarlsskáld includes six probably spurious lausavísur,[2] the refrain from a drápa for King Sweyn that reportedly had 40 verses, and one and a half verses of a drápa for Jarl Hákon.[4] Of this Hákonardrápa, the full verse is:
^
abcJan de Vries, Altnordische Literaturgeschichte, 2 vols., Volume 2: Die Literatur von etwa 1150 bis 1300, Die Spätzeit nach 1300, Grundriß der germanischen Philologie 16, Berlin: de Gruyter, 1967, p. 429 (in German).
^John L. Greenway, The Golden Horns: Mythic Imagination and the Nordic Past, Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia, 1977, p. 34.
^
ab"Þorleifr Rauðfeldarson jarlaskáld", in:
Rudolf Simek and
Hermann Pálsson, Lexikon der altnordischen Literatur, Kröners Taschenausgabe 490, Stuttgart: Kröner, 1987, pp. 357–58 (in German).
^Jan de Vries, Altnordische Literaturgeschichte, Volume 1: Vorbemerkungen, Die heidnische Zeit, Die Zeit nach der Bekehrung bis zur Mitte des zwölften Jahrhunderts, Grundriß der germanischen Philologie 15, Berlin: de Gruyter, 1964, p. 177 (in German).