Hrólfs saga kraka
Also known as: The Saga of King Hrolf Kraki, Hrólfs saga kraka ok kappa hans
An Icelandic legendary saga recounting the rise and fall of King Hrólfr Kraki of Lejre, his lineage from Halfdan and the brothers Hróarr and Helgi, his court of champions, and his death through the sorcery and treachery of his half-sister Skuld.
Description
Hrólfs saga kraka weaves Scandinavian legendary history into a single narrative centered on the Danish Skjöldung line. The tale follows the usurpation of King Halfdan by Fróði, the survival and vengeance of his sons Hróarr and Helgi, and the tragic entanglement of Helgi with his daughter Yrsa, later wife of the Swedish king Aðils. Hrólfr, the greatest of the line, gathers famed champions—above all Böðvarr Bjarki—and wins renown in conflict with Aðils and other foes. In a climactic final battle at Lejre, Skuld and her husband Hjörvarðr overthrow Hrólfr by sorcery and surprise. Blending courtly episodes, monster fights, and feud-settlements with grim fatality, the saga preserves echoes of figures also known from Beowulf, reframing them in a distinctly Icelandic prose idiom.
Historiography
The saga survives only in late paper manuscripts (17th century and later), believed to derive from a lost medieval vellum; scholarly consensus places composition in 13th-century Iceland. Its protagonists correspond to Beowulf-names (Hrothgar ≈ Hróarr; Halga ≈ Helgi; Hrothulf ≈ Hrólfr), while Aðils parallels the Swedish Eadgils of Yngling traditions. Material overlaps with the lost Skjöldunga saga and with Saxo’s Gesta Danorum, which preserve variant Danish renderings. Modern editions and translations rely on collation of the late witnesses and intertextual comparison with related Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon sources.
Date Notes
Legendary material rooted in Danish/Swedish figures of the Migration Age; prose saga likely composed in Iceland in the 1200s and preserved in later paper manuscripts copied from a lost vellum.
Themes
Archetypes
Symbols
Major Characters
- Hrolf Kraki
- Bodvar Bjarki
- Hjalti
- Skuld
- Yrsa
- Helgi
- Hroar
- Adils
Myths
- The Birth of Hrólfr Kraki
- Böðvarr Bjarki the Bear-Warrior
- The Treachery of Skuld and the Fall of Hrólfr
Facts
- The saga belongs to the Skjöldung (Scylding) legendary cycle centered on Danish Lejre.
- Hrolf Kraki correlates with Hrothulf of Beowulf; Hroar with Hrothgar; Helgi with Halga.
- Aðils of Sweden in the saga mirrors Eadgils in Yngling tradition and Beowulf.
- The famous “Hrolf’s storm” episode explains a Swedish toponymic legend of scattering gold on the Fyris Plains.
- Bodvar Bjarki is depicted as fighting in bear-spirit form while his body sits in trance.
- Yrsa is both Helgi’s daughter and later the wife of Adils, creating a dynastic scandal.
- The work is prose; stylistically it mixes courtly episodes with heroic-legend motifs and wonder-tales.
- Late-paper manuscripts preserve the text; the archetype likely was a 13th-century Icelandic composition now lost.
- Skuld employs seidr-like sorcery and hidden forces to topple Hrolf in a night assault.
- The saga is a key comparative source for aligning Scandinavian legend with Anglo-Saxon epic testimony.