Description: The death of Starkaðr in Book Eight of Fr. Winkle Horn's
Danish edition Danmarks
Kronike of Saxo's Gesta Danorum. According to Saxo's version,
Starkaðr grew weary of life but wanted to die an honorable death
at the point of a sword wielded by someone of noble birth. He
goes out in search of someone to fulfill his wish and kills an
impudent peasant who asked for one of his swords. A young man
named Hathar, who is hunting nearby, sees what happened and
approaches Starkaðr. After an exchange of verses, Starkaðr
realizes Hathar is the son of one of his previous victims named
Lenni and asks Hathar to cut off his head in exchange for the
gold that Starkaðr had received for killing Hathar's
father.
Source: Danmarks Kronike
Folio or Page: 226
Medium: Not known
Date: 1898
Dimensions (mm): 125 x 140
Provenance:
This copy of Danmarks Kronike
was donated to the MacPherson Library at the University of Victoria
by Ejnar Dohlmann. It contains a bookplate acknowledging his gift on
the inside of the front cover and his signature is on the bottom of
the blank page that precedes the first of two title pages.
Call number: DLL47 S3 1898
P.A. Baer scanned this image from the copy of Danmarks Kronike in Special Collections in the
MacPherson Library.
Rights:
Illustrations by Louis Moe in the 1898 and 1939 editions of Danmarks Kronike came into the public
domain on January 1, 2017.
Bibliography:
Editions
Saxo (Grammaticus). Danmarks krønike.
Edited by
Fr. Winkel
Horn,
Copenhagen: A. Christiansens
Kunstforlag, 1898.
Secondary Sources
Cleasby, Richard
and
Vigfússon
Guðbrandur
. An Icelandic-English Dictionary.
Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1957.
Historical Persons, i.e. from Heimskringla, Saxo, sagas etc.
Starkaðr (non.)
Starkad (en.)
A legendary warrior who appears in many sources including Saxo’s
Gesta Danorum (c. 1204) and Olaus Magnus’s
Historia de gentibus septentrionalibus (1555).
Source Materials:
Danmarks Kronike (da.)
Gesta Danorum (la.)
This edition of Saxo's Gesta Danorum was
translated and published by Fr. Winkel Horn and illustrated by Louis
Moe. Moe recycled some of his illustrations from Winkel Horn's edition
of Noreges konge-sagaer.
Gesta Danorum (la.)
Saxo Grammaticus's thirteenth century prose work concerning Danish
mythology and history.
Source Persons
Moe,
Louis (no.)
b. 1857
d. 1945
Nationality: Norwegian/Danish.
Occupation: illustrator
Residence: Copenhagen
Moe was an illustrator who was born in Norway but became a Danish
citizen in 1919.
Saxo
Grammaticus (la.)
b. 1150
d. 1220
Nationality: Danish
Occupation: cleric
Saxo wrote the Gesta Danorum, which is known
in English as The History of the Danes . His
account of mythological Norse gods and heroes is heavily
euhemerized.
