For many decades, scholars have discussed whether the first ruler of Normandy was in fact of Danish descent, or whether Rollo was a Latinised name for Gǫngu-Hrólfr Rögnvaldsson. It is undisputed that Gǫngu-Hrólfr was a son of Rognvald Eysteinsson, Earl of Møre. This is a brief summary of what the sources tell us.
The first surviving written source on the origins of Rollo is found in Historia Normannorum or Gesta Normannorum by Dudo of Saint-Quentin, written in Latin between 996 and 1015. Here, Rollo is said to have been the son of an unnamed earl, and had been banished from his home in Dacia by an evil king. In Chapter 2, Dudo correctly locates Dacia between Alania and Greece, but claims that “the Dacians are called by their own people Greeks or Danes”. I have not found any other mentions of Danes or Denmark in Gesta Normannorum, nor does Dudo have any further information about the ancestry of Rollo. We can rule out that Rollo came from Dacia, since the kingdom of Dacia was ancient history long before Rollo.
However, there is an earlier, oral source, which mentions Rollo and his ancestry. The source is one of the few surviving Old Norse poems recited by a woman, his mother. It tells the story of how a son of Rognvald Eysteinsson, Earl of Møre, in what is now Western Norway, was indeed banished from his home by the king.
The poem is cited in the collection of sagas known as Heimskringla, attributed to the Icelandic poet and historian Snorri Sturluson (1178–1241). According to Chapter 24 of the Saga of Harald Fairhair , as translated by Samuel Laing (1844):
"One summer, as he [Hrólfr] was coming from the eastward on a viking's expedition to the coast of Viken, he landed there and made a cattle foray. As King Harald happened, just at that time, to be in Viken, he heard of it, and was in a great rage; for he had forbid, by the greatest punishment, the plundering within the bounds of the country. The king assembled a Thing, and had Rolf declared an outlaw over all Norway. When Rolf's mother, Hild heard of it she hastened to the king, and entreated peace for Rolf; but the king was so enraged that here entreaty was of no avail. Then Hild spake these lines: --
"Think'st thou, King Harald, in thy anger,
To drive away my brave Rolf Ganger
Like a mad wolf, from out the land?
Why, Harald, raise thy mighty hand?
Why banish Nefia's gallant name-son,
The brother of brave udal-men?
Why is thy cruelty so fell?
Bethink thee, monarch, it is ill
With such a wolf at wolf to play,
Who, driven to the wild woods away
May make the king's best deer his prey."
Rolf Ganger went afterwards over sea to the West to the Hebrides, or Sudreys; and at last farther west to Valland, where he plundered and subdued for himself a great earldom, which he peopled with Northmen, from which that land is called Normandy."
The line “Why banish Nefia's gallant name-son” refers to the fact that Hrólfr was named after his mother’s father, Hrólfr Nefja.
Rognvald Eysteinsson, the father of Hrólfr Rögnvaldsson, had been one of King Harald Fairhair’s strongest allies. He had fought with Harald in his wars against various of the petty kings of Western Scandinavia, and had been rewarded with the Earldom of Møre, one of the petty kingdoms located near the westernmost part of the Norwegian coast. There, he was in a strategic position, both for collecting taxes from trading ships along the coastline, and also for warding off raids by pirates (so-called “vikings”), many of whom were the previous inhabitants of the subdued petty kingdoms, who were now exiled across the North Sea.
King Harald Fairhair hated these “vikings”, which is why “he had forbid, by the greatest punishment, the plundering within the bounds of the country”. However, the punishment of Hrólfr Rögnvaldsson was politically motivated on an entirely different level. The king had become wary of the power of the earl, he was beginning to imagine him as a potential rival, and he wanted to put him in place. He wanted to see Rognvald Eysteinsson beg for clemency or effectively loose his son.
Young Hrólfr Rögnvaldsson, who was hardly more than a teenager at the time, had sailed his ship to the East, avoiding the North Sea, and any possible conflict there. The “cattle foray” was not as much “plundering” as a necessary step to feed his crew, since a viking ship did not have ample room for provisions for long journeys. The punishment proposed by the king was clearly disproportionate, but Rognvald Eysteinsson refused to beg for clemency. Instead, his wife, the boy’s mother, did, which apparently failed to satisfy the king.
Incidentally, Rognvald Eysteinsson ended his life a few years later at the hands of Harald’s sons Halfdan Long-Leg and Gudrød Ljome, who burned him in his own home with sixty of his men.
As we have seen, the Saga of Harald Fairhair provides a detailed account of the relations between the earl and the king. These relations are also briefly mentioned in Orkneyinga Saga , written in Old West Norse in Iceland ca. 1200. Chapter 4 of the saga explains, in the English translation by George W. Dasent (1894):
“Earl Rognvald joined Harold fair-hair when he seized the land, but he (Harold) gave him lordship over both the Mæren and Romsdale; he had to wife Ragnhilda the daughter of Hrolf nosy; their son was Hrolf who won Normandy.”
Chapter 309 of the 12th century Old West Norse Landnámabók confirms that Hrólfr aka Gǫngu-Hrólfr Rögnvaldsson, the first ruler of Normandy, was a son of Rognvald Eysteinsson, Earl of Møre, who was a son of Eystein Glumra, a son of Ivarr Upplendingajarl, a son of Halfdan the Old, and that his mother was called Ragnhildr, and was a daughter of Hrólfr Nefja.
Chapter 210 of Fagrskinna , written in Norway around 1220, also confirms that Gǫngu-Hrólfr Rögnvaldsson, the first ruler of Normandy, was a son of Rognvald Eysteinsson, Earl of Møre (Munch & Unger 1817). The book also mentions his brothers Thorir ‘the Silent’, Earl of Møre, Hrollaug, who settled in Iceland, and Torf-Einarr, Earl of Orkney. The latter was attacked by Halfdan Long-Leg, a son of King Harald Fairhair, who sailed to Orkney with three long-ships after having killed Rognvald Eysteinsson. Following a battle, Torf-Einarr managed to kill Halfdan Long-Leg, thereby avenging their father. Einarr reproached his brothers for having failed to help fight Halfdan in a poem that is cited in Heimskringla as well as in Fagrskinna:
"I see not from Hrolf’s hand,
Nor Hrollaug’s eke, fly
Dart on the foeman flock,
Father-vengeance befits us;
But while we the battle
This even urged on,
Earl Thorir in Mæren
O’er mead-cup sits mute."
Translation by George W. Dasent (1894)
Another of the sagas from Heimskringla describes the relations between Norway and Normandy in the 11th century. Chapter 19 of the Saga of Olaf Haraldson mentions that Olaf Haraldson, prior to becoming King of Norway, visited and allied with the sons of Richard of Normandy:
Richard the earl of Rouen was a son of Richard the son of William Long Spear, who was the son of Rolf Ganger, the earl who first conquered Normandy; and he again was a son of Ragnvald the Mighty, earl of More, as before related. From Rolf Ganger are descended the earls of Rouen, who have long reckoned themselves of kin to the chiefs in Norway, and hold them in such respect that they always were the greatest friends of the Northmen; and every Northman found a friendly country in Normandy, if he required it.
During the same period, Emma of Normandy also visited her brothers, the sons of Richard of Normandy. Chapter 8 of Knytlinga Saga , an Icelandic saga written around 1250, confirms that:
“Their father was Richard, Earl of Rouen, son of Richard, son of William Longspear, who was the son of Gongu-Hrolf, conqueror of Normandy, son of Rognvald of More.”
The fact that Gǫngu-Hrólfr Rögnvaldsson became the first ruler of Normandy is also mentioned in three Icelandic Annals, all written in Old Icelandic (Storm 1888).
Oddaverjar Annal (Oddverjaannáll) claims that Gǫngu-Hrólfr (Gaungu hrolfur) won Normandy (Nordmandi) after a siege of Paris in 885: “Anno 885 settuzt Nordmenn wm Parijs: þa wann Gaungu hrolfur Nordmandi”.
Another Icelandic Annal, Annales reseniani , claims that Gǫngu-Hrólfr (Gaungu Rolfr) won Normandy (Normannia) in 898: “Vann Gaungo Rolfr nockurn lut af Franz, oc hæitir þat siðan Normannia”.
A third Annal, the Lawman's Annal (Lögmanns annáll) confirms that Gǫngu-Hrólfr (Gongu Rolfr) won Normandy (Nordmandi) at some point between 861 and 918: “J þessum timum vann Gongu Rolfr Nordmandi”.
Since the spelling of the names vary, it can be assumed that these entries are not copied from each other, but rather come from oral tradition, or older sources.
According to Historia Norwegiæ, one of the earliest Norwegian histories, written in Latin in the 12th century:
“Hrólfr, called Gongu-Hrólfr” attacked Rouen with an army of Norwegians, “entered the city and along with it gained the whole region, which has taken its name of Normandy from them.” (Phelpstead 2001:9)
Literature
Dasent, George (Tr.). The Orkneyingers Saga (Icelandic Sagas, and other historical documents relating to the settlements and descents of the Northmen on the British Isles, Volume III). London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1894.
Munch, P.A. & C.R. Unger. Fagrskinna. Christiania, 1817.
Phelpstead, Carl (Ed.). Kunin, Devra (Tr.). A History of Norway and the Passion and Miracles of the Blessed Óláfr. Viking Society for Northern Research: University College London, 2001.
Storm, Gustav (Ed.). Islandske annaler indtil 1578. Christiania: Grøndahl & søns bogtrykkeri, 1888.
Sturleson, Snorro. The Heimskringla, or Chronicle of the Kings of Norway. With a Preliminary Dissertation by Samuel Laing, Esq (Tr.). Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans: London, 1844.
Vigfusson, Gudbrand. An Icelandic-English Dictionary. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1869.
