Óðinn Visiting Christian Kings: Storytelling and the Construction of Royal Authority in Medieval Norway

Abstract

A group of similar stories in the saga literature deals with the Norse god Oðinn visiting two ‘founding father’ kings of early medieval Norway, Olafr Tryggvason and Olafr Haraldsson. This leads us to investigate the political importance of storytelling during times of political fragility. The stories were first written down in the late twelfth century but are likely to have much older antecedents preserved in oral tradition. We interpret these stories as a creation of an alternative way of transferring the legitimate authority of legendary rulers to new kings with weak inheritance rights. Oðinn, as a representative of the past, accepts the founding-father kings and gives legitimacy to fragile state formation attempts in a historical context of rivalry between pretenders to the throne. We explore the relationship between storytelling and the symbolic foundation of a community. The stories appear to be Norse manifestations of a common European tradition of using the past as a political instrument of power.