page_title: Sigurd the Stout
section_title: Interpretations
hierarchical_section_title: Sigurd the Stout / Interpretations
caption_attribution_description: English: Cropped image of the raven banner which appears on the Bayeux Tapestry.
context_page_description: Sigurd Hlodvirsson, popularly known as Sigurd the Stout from the Old Norse Sigurðr digri, was an Earl of Orkney. The main sources for his life are the Norse Sagas, which were first written down some two centuries or more after his death. These engaging stories must therefore be treated with caution rather than as reliable historical documents.
  Sigurd was the son of Hlodvir Thorfinnsson and a direct descendant of Torf-Einarr Rognvaldson. Sigurd's tenure as earl was apparently free of the kin-strife that beset some other incumbents of this title and he was able to pursue his military ambitions over a wide area. He also held lands in the north of mainland Scotland and in the Sudrøyar, and he may have been instrumental in the defeat of Gofraid mac Arailt, King of the Isles. The Annals of Ulster record his death at the Battle of Clontarf in 1014, the earliest known reference to the earldom of Orkney.
  The saga tales draw attention to Sigurd's conversion to Christianity and his use of a totemic raven banner, a symbol of the Norse God Odin.
context_section_description: Sigurd's earldom "exerted a magnetic attraction for high-born Icelanders" and inspired many tales of military prowess in their own family sagas.
  "King Kjarvalr", Sigurd's supposed grandfather, appears as Kjarvalr Írakonungr in the Landnámabók and has been identified as Cerball mac Dúnlainge, King of Osraige who died in 888. There is clearly a chronological problem with Sigurd's mother being the daughter of a king who died more than 70 years before the death of his own grandfather, Earl Thorfinn. Furthermore, Thorstein "the Red" Olafsson (fl. late 9th century and Hlodvir's great-grandfather) was apparently married to a granddaughter of Kjarvalr. Woolf (2007) concludes that the saga writers may have confused this story about the provenance of Sigurd Hlodvirsson with one about Thorstein, a close ally of Sigurd Eysteinsson.
  Drawing on Adam of Bremen's assertion that Orkney was not conquered until the time of Harald Hardrada, who ruled Norway from 1043–66, Woolf (2007) speculates that Sigurd may have been the first Earl of Orkney. He also offers the hypothesis that the earldom was a created by the Danish king Harald Bluetooth, circa 980 rather than in the time of Harald Fairhair one hundred years earlier. He concludes that "If there were no earls in Orkney before Sigurð's time it might help to explain the islands' low profile in the annals since these, for the most part, record only the deaths of great men." However, the absence of comment on this subject by Irish sources prior to Sigurd's death there is hardly surprising. Irish sources of the period were not well informed about and "not much concerned" with Orkney. Smyth (1984) is more sympathetic to the claims of the sagas and argues that Torf-Einarr "may be regarded as the first historical earl of Orkney".
  The conflict between Sigurd and Olaf Tryggvasson probably predates their chance meeting at Kirk Hope as the latter is known to have been raiding in the Sudrøyar during the period 991-94. His motives for a determined pursuit of Christian obedience are likely to have been essentially political rather than religious. His journey back to Norway was in order to bid for the kingship there, and securing a passive Orkney in advance of this was therefore greatly to his advantage. Although Sigurd's marriage to an unnamed daughter of Malcolm of Scotland is mentioned in the Orkneyinga Saga immediately after the death of Hunde and the earl's consequent break with Olaf Tryggvasson, Thomson (2008) views this nuptial arrangement as a joint attempt by the Orcadians and Scots to align themselves against the "common threat from Moray" rather than as a slight to Norway.
  When the sagas were written down Orkney had been Christian for 200 years or more and the conversion tale itself is "blatantly unhistorical". When the Norse arrived in the Northern Isles they would have found organised Christianity already thriving there, although there is no mention of this at all in the sagas. Furthermore, the Norse dragon motif of the whale-bone plaque found at the Scar boat burial was found in conjunction with the grave of an elderly woman who had died by 950 AD at the latest, and the weight of archaeological evidence suggests that Christian burial was widespread in Orkney by Sigurd's time. The intention may have been to disown the influence of indigenous elements of Orcadian and Shetland culture and emphasise that positive cultural developments came from Scandinavia, whilst at the same time critiquing the unduly blunt method of Norwegian interference in this case. The inclusion of the tale of the raven banner in the saga material may convey the idea of a revival of heathenism in Orcadian society and a reaction to Norwegian attempts to control the islands. However, in the Orkneyinga Saga there is a vivid contrast between Sigurd's death clutching the raven banner and the later career of his son Thorfinn, who is credited with several achievements in bringing Orkney into mainstream Christendom. Taken as a whole the intention may be to draw attention to this transition.
caption: Detail from the Bayeux Tapestry, showing a Norman knight carrying what appears to be a raven banner
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