Volta
Person1179 – 1241

Snorri Sturluson

Also called: Snorri, Snorre Sturlason

Icelandic chieftain, poet and historian, credited with the Prose Edda and Heimskringla, the history of the kings of Norway; killed at Reykholt by men acting for the Norwegian king

Born in 1179 at Hvammur in western Iceland into the powerful Sturlung family, he was raised at Oddi, a centre of learning. Through marriage and inheritance he gathered wealth, settled at Reykholt and became one of Iceland’s leading chieftains, twice serving as lawspeaker of the Althing. In 1218–1220 he visited Norway, where King Haakon IV and Earl Skúli gave him honours, and he is said to have promised to bring Iceland under the Norwegian king. He is credited with the Prose Edda and Heimskringla, the history of the kings of Norway, and some scholars think he also wrote Egil’s Saga. Later, having defied the Norwegian king and quarrelled with other Icelandic chieftains, he was killed at Reykholt on 23 September 1241 by men under Gissur Þorvaldsson acting on the king’s letter.

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1 related event

  1. 1
    1220Snorri Sturluson’s Prose Edda (Younger Edda)author

    Around 1220 the Icelandic chieftain and poet Snorri Sturluson composed the Prose Edda at Reykholt. Written as a handbook explaining the language and metres of old poetry, its question-and-answer section on the gods, Gylfaginning, became the most important book telling Norse mythology as a continuous story.

Themes this person appears in

  • Norse MythologyAD 793 – 1876

    From the world made of Ymir’s body through Odin’s runes, Thor’s adventures and the death of Baldr to Ragnarök and the rebirth of the world — Norse myth in story order, alongside the temple at Uppsala, the Oseberg ship, runestones, the Gosforth Cross, Snorri’s Edda, the Codex Regius and Wagner’s Ring