Björn at Haugi
Encyclopedia
Hervarar saga
Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks is a legendary saga from the 13th century combining matter from several older sagas. It is a valuable saga for several different reasons beside its literary qualities. It contains traditions of wars between Goths and Huns, from the 4th century, and the last part is used as...
a Swedish king and the son of Erik Björnsson
Erik Björnsson
Erik Björnsson was one of the sons of Björn Ironside and a semi-legendary king of Sweden of the House of Munsö, who would have lived in the early 9th century. One of the few surviving Scandinavian sources that deal with Swedish kings from this time is Hervarar saga. It says:...
, and Björn ruled together in diarchy
Diarchy
Diarchy , from the Greek δι- "twice" and αρχια, "rule", is a form of government in which two individuals, the diarchs, are the heads of state. In most diarchies, the diarchs hold their position for life and pass the responsibilities and power of the position to their children or family when they...
with his brother Anund Uppsale
Anund Uppsale
Anund Uppsale or Anoundus, English exonym: Anwynd of Upsala, ruled Sweden together with his brother Björn at Haugi, according to Rimbert and Hervarar saga...
:
This account dates king Björn to the first half of the 9th century, as his nephew Eric Anundsson
Eric Anundsson
Eric Anundsson/Eymundsson was a Swedish king who ruled during the 9th century. The Swedish encyclopedia Nordisk familjebok identifies Eric with the legendary Swedish king Erik Weatherhat....
was the contemporary of Harald Fairhair. Landnámabók
Landnámabók
Landnámabók , often shortened to Landnáma, is a medieval Icelandic written work describing in considerable detail the settlement of Iceland by the Norse in the 9th and 10th centuries AD.-Landnáma:...
mentions a Swede named Þórðr knappr who was one of the first settlers in Iceland
Iceland
Iceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population...
and whose father was called Björn at Haugi. Moreover, Björn and his court skald Bragi the Old are mentioned also in Skáldatal
Skáldatal
Skáldatal is a short prose work in Old Norse. It is preserved in two manuscripts: DG 11, or Codex Uppsaliensis, which is one of the four main manuscripts of the Prose Edda , and AM 761 a 4to , which also contains Skaldic poems...
, where a second court skald also is mentioned, Erpr lútandi
Erpr lútandi
Erpr lútandi was according to Skáldatal the court skald of the Swedish kings Eysteinn Beli and Björn at Haugi. There are no extant poems by Erpr.Skáldatal tells that Erpr committed the crime of killing in a sanctuary...
.
A confirmation on the historicity of king Björn at Haugi is found in Rimbert
Rimbert
Saint Rimbert was archbishop of Bremen-Hamburg from 865 until his death.A monk in Turholt , he shared a missionary trip to Scandinavia with his friend Ansgar, whom he later succeeded as archbishop in Hamburg-Bremen in 865...
's (d. 888) Vita Ansgari
Vita Ansgari
Vita Ansgari is the biography of Ansgar, written by Rimbert, his successor as archbishop in Hamburg-Bremen. Written in about 875 CE, the Vita is an important source in not only detailing Ansgar's missionary work in Scandinavia but in its descriptions of the everyday lives of people during the...
i, where he talks of a king Björn (rex Bern) and says on Ansgar
Ansgar
Saint Ansgar, Anskar or Oscar, was an Archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen. The see of Hamburg was designated a "Mission to bring Christianity to the North", and Ansgar became known as the "Apostle of the North".-Life:After his mother’s early death Ansgar was brought up in Corbie Abbey, and made rapid...
's voyage in 827: "Tandem ad portum regni ipsorum, qui Byrca dicitur, pervenerunt, ubi benigne a rege, qui Bern vocabatur, suscepti sunt". This king Björn is generally considered to be the same as Björn at Haugi and this as early as Langebek who lived in the mid-18th century. Some scholars have called this Bern "king of Birca", but this has no foundation in Rimbert's writings, as Rimbert writes that Ansgar went ashore in Birca, which was in king Björn's kingdom. During Ansgar's visits there was also a Swedish king Anund who had been exiled but returned with Danish help, and this Anoundus is the same as Björn's brother Önund, who is mentioned in Hervarar saga.