Table Of ContentSaxo was probably a canon of Lund Cathedral,
at that period a Danish cathedral, and lived at
the end of the twelfth century. He was in the
service of Archbishop Absalon, who encouraged
him to write a history of his own country from
the beginnings up to his own time, with a strong
Christian bias. Starting with the myths and
heroic tales of primitive Scandinavia, he devoted
the lirst nine of his sixteen books to legendary
material before dealing with the first kings of the
Viking age and finished in 1285, after relating
the earlier exploits of King Cnut Valdemarson.
The activities of the Danish kings were
intimately bound up with the monarchies of
Norway and Sweden; Cnut the Great, one of
Saxo’s heroes, whose empire stretched as far as
Britain and Iceland, was ruler of both these
countries. In the last books Saxo took particular
concern to describe the campaigns of Valdemar I
the Great and his warrior archbishop, Absalon,
against the Wends of North Germany.
The work is a prosimetrum, that is, in six of
the first nine books he inserts poems, which are
intended to parallel specimens of old Danish
heroic poetry in Latin metres. Saxo’s Latin prose
style is often complex, based as it is on models
like Valerius Maximus and Martianus Capella,
but he is a lively and compelling story-teller,
often displaying a rather sly sense of humour,
and an interest in the supernatural. He is the first
author to give a full account of Hamlet, whose
adventures he relates at some length, the
elements of which in a great many respects
correspond surprisingly closely with the
characters and incidents of Shakespeare’s play.
Volume I of Saxo Grammaticus contains an
introduction from the editor, and the first ten
books of Saxo’s work.
OXFORD MEDIEVAL TEXTS
General Editors
J. W. BINNS D. D’AVRAY
M. S. KEMPSHALL R. C. LOVE
SAXO G R A M M A T IC U S
GESTA DANO RUM
THE H ISTO RY OF TH E DANES
VO LUM E I
Saxo Grammaticus
G E S T A DANORUM
The History of the Danes
VO LU M E I
EDITED BY
K A R ST EN F R IIS -JEN SEN
TRANSLATED BY
PETER FISH ER
CLAREN D O N PRESS OXFORD
OXFORD
UNIVERSITY PRESS
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, 0x2 6dp,
United Kingdom
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford.
It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship,
and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of
Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries
© Karsten Friis-Jensen and Peter Fisher 2015
The moral rights of the authors have been asserted
First Edition published in 2015
Impression: 1
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the
prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted
by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics
rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the
above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the
address above
You must not circulate this work in any other form
and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Data available
Library of Congress Control Number: 2013956036
ISBN 978-0-19-82052-34
Typeset by Anne Joshua, Oxford
Printed and bound by
CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, cro 4YY
Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and
for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials
contained in any third party website referenced in this work.
PREFA CE
T he sixteen books of Saxo Grammaticus’s Gesta Danorum in
their entirety form one of the most important texts of medieval
Danish literature, but the first nine books contain such rich materials
for medieval Scandinavian myth and legend that they have enjoyed
special attention from an international readership interested in the
cultural history of medieval Europe. Consequently much research has
been devoted to the Gesta Danorum, including textual criticism,
scholarly editing, and translation into modern languages. The present
edition of the Latin text and translation into English originate in a
more than twenty-year-old collective project which, besides the
present editor and the present translator, includes Peter Zeeberg,
the latest translator of Saxo into Danish. We all felt the need for a
new critical edition of the Latin text which took advantage of the
progress made in Saxo scholarship since the latest edition of 1931,
combined with complete modern translations of the new text into
Danish and English. For various reasons a Latin-Danish edition
became the first result of the project, published by the Danish Society
for Language and Literature in 2005 (Friis-Jensen/Zeeberg). The
present Oxford Medieval Texts edition has benefited from the
standard demands for volumes in this series by having to include,
among other things, general notes to the text and translation and a
general index. The Latin text of the present edition has undergone
only minor changes in comparison with the 2005 edition, but it is
accompanied by a critical apparatus in English, not in Latin. The
English translation consists for the first nine books of a thoroughly
revised version of the translation published in 1979 (History of the
Danes, ed. Davidson, vol. i), with the kind permission of its publish
ers. The translation of the last seven books has been made for the
present edition.
The general notes to text and translation are the responsibility of
the present editor, but he has been assisted substantially, and
patiently, by the present translator. In general the notes carry no
references to secondary literature if the points made are felt to
represent the communis opinio of modern scholarship. However,
when particular independent opinions are mentioned, in approval
or rejection, references are given. The writing of the notes has been
VI PREFACE
much facilitated by the existence of two modern full commentaries on
the Gesta Danorum: History of the Danes, ed. Davidson (vol. ii), to
books i-ix, and Danorum regum heroumque historia, trans. Christian
sen, to books x-xvi. With the kind consent of the commentators,
Hilda Ellis Davidson and Eric Christiansen, these commentaries have
been exploited to the extent demanded by the much more modest
scale of the present notes. But in a similar way references have been
given in cases where these commentaries seem to represent particular
independent views.
The responsibility for the other main elements of this edition has
been divided in the following way: the editor is responsible for the
Introduction, the Latin text with apparatus criticus, and the Register
of Parallels with alphabetical index, whereas the translator is respons
ible for the Translator’s Introduction, the translation, the Biblio
graphy, and the General Index; the remaining elements are the results
of our cooperation.
We have incurred many debts of thanks during our work on the
present edition. We thank Messrs Boydell & Brewer for their
permission to rework the translation of books i-ix, and the Danish
Society for Language and Literature together with Oxford University
Press for their mutual willingness to share the new critical readings of
the Latin text. We likewise thank the two modern commentators on
Saxo, Eric Christiansen and the late Hilda Ellis Davidson, for their
generosity in allowing us to use their works freely. The Carlsberg
Foundation made it possible for the translator to work on our project
in Copenhagen in an early phase, for which we sincerely thank the
members of its board. We also thank a large number of colleagues for
assistance and for sharing their expertise with us, among them David
Baxter, Lars Boje Mortensen, Ivan Boserup, Michael Lapidge,
Anders Leegaard Knudsen, Jonna Louis-Jensen, Birger Munk
Olsen, Britta Olrik Frederiksen, Marianne Pade, Reg Piggott (for
the maps), Johann Ramminger, Inge Skovgaard-Petersen, and Chris
tian Troelsgård. Special thanks go to the third member of our project,
Peter Zeeberg, with whom we have had lively and fruitful discussions
about many difficult points, and to Winifred Fisher, who over the
years unfailingly supported our work by word and deed, including
lending her fine ear for the English language.
Peter Fisher and Karsten Friis-Jensen
