Gudrod the Black, King of Man & the North Isles - Who was his mother?

Private User — how does this last link connect to the discussion?

I feel somewhat confused here about what are obviously assumptions being made about me that have nothing to do with me at all, and are not - as far as I can see - anywhere evident in my discussion. If this is part of a larger, ongoing (and obviously highly emotive) debate about the validity of the Scandinavian sagas that has two sides defending intellectual? / nationalist? territories, then I’d like to suggest that it is causing a loss of perspective on a grand scale if nobody can even mention the sources without being perceived as taking sides in the conflict.

Private User “We don't dismiss our only available sources and the knowledge they provide in favor of a complete suspension of belief, particularly those of such significance for the history of an entire culture. At least, not without good evidence to refute it.”

To what is this a reference?

• 1.-my point that the Orkneying Saga has an internal contradiction in it (that Cawley seems to miss), but that we’ll need to resolve in order to represent it (at all!) on a family tree? ...How does documenting this simple fact constitute dismissing of the source or it’s significance to an entire culture? Dr. Wilton McDonald II - Attorney & Barrister that seemed to me to be your point too, but I didn’t reply because it didn’t make any sense. I’m literally using the saga as a source on geni!
• 2.-or are we making all these assumptions about me by demonising my use of the word ‘story’ as an unacceptable profanity about a reified text? … I had assumed that your post about definitions of the word ‘story’ were making the point that a story/saga is not synonymous with fiction or lying, in case that misconception is what was making Reidar Holmsen see this as a degradation. It seemed useful to point out that what I was assuming was obvious (that a saga proclaims itself as a constructed narrative, by definition) Reidar might, for some reason, be taking as a cultural slur.

All history (all writing, for that matter) is the author’s story. This is basic historiography, and not especially controversial. Even the choice to document the christening of the king’s son over that of the baker’s daughter, is an act of narrative intention on the part of the scribe/historian. If, as in the Orkneying saga, the writer foregrounds this narrative intent, then it is hardly a degradation to assume we all understand that they’re invested in linking ‘facts’ into connected events that move the story forward, teleologically. (As Private User points out - Medieval historians took this assumption for granted, as the definition of historical writing itself. That we don’t anymore, doesn’t degrade them.) Hardly surprising then, that some links between the dots have to be filled in - and occasionally this creates internal contradictions. The beautiful JSTOR article makes this point so well. Thank you for posting it - I love it!

Reidar Holmsen I agree with everything you are saying about the two sources in your post above. I do not understand, though, why you are interpreting my use of both of them as necessarily a degradation of one of them? Perhaps they are part of this side-taking argument you seemed to be framing me inside. I assume both are written by ‘Viking’ descendants (I may be wrong), so I can’t really see how they’re easily positioned as opposite sides of polarities. Is it that the one is written in Latin that alienates it from being used as a complementary text? (I’m feeling in the dark here.)

Surely it cannot simply be that I pointed to the self-proclaimed narrative motivation of the sage, as opposed to the more mundane documentary intentions of the Manx Chronicles?

How else would you suggest we solve the problem within the Saga that is created by Ingiborg being both Olav’s wife/children’s mother, and his son, Godrod’s, wife/children’s mother? It seems a pretty innocuous point to suggest that the saga writer has obviously joined two dots differently at two different times (without realising it) in order to create the familial continuity that he requires for this to be a saga. The Manx Chronicles give us a version of the info that helps us solve this problem. It leaves out info it cannot find. Why would we choose not to use them together, then? This is how historians work with sources: and doesn’t constitute degradation of one.

Private User regarding this link https://linguistlist.org/issues/9/9-741/ and the application of Saussure (whose Course in General Linguistics I have on my bookshelf) to this Discussion: we are, perhaps, having a misunderstanding about the meaning of the word story in relation to history and truth, that is due largely to Reidar's diachronic understanding talking at cross-purposes to my essentially synchronic point. It would be fun to discuss, but I think it would stray far from genealogy :-)

RE "and if there is an internal contradiction in the Orkneying Saga I would be most interested in hearing all about it"

The entire point of the Discussion is that:
https://www.geni.com/discussions/233827?msg=1485428

Private User -- thanks you for your response! Much clearer as to where things are coming from.

I'm never brief, but I will try --

as to links, and what they do or do not do:

1) the Geni project on sagas does indeed present sources, mostly the primary texts; if any of these secondary sources discuss the problem of historicity in the sagas (which is what I thought we were talking about), it were best to link to them directly, as it's impossible otherwise to see which ones are cogent.

2) Margaret Clunies Ross is using genealogies, and assuming that the genealogies were as truthful as possible. Fair enough. That is not the same thing as saying that they are indeed accurate. If that's something she says, could you give us the quotation? It's a very different thing indeed. And since even in the case of Orkneyinga Saga, which is how this whole discussion started out, we have a contradiction in the genealogy, it would of course make no sense for a renowned scholar to assert that the genealogies in the sagas are all accurate.

3) To say that a writer has not written a scholarly, peer reviewed study is not an ad hominem fallacy. It's just a statement of fact. If I had said that the author was an idiot, and that's why the book wasn't scholarly, THAT would be an ad hominem argument. The Smithsonian article is engaging and readable and interesting and gives some good information. But it is not a scholarly argument about the historicity of the sagas, and the main person interviewed is not an author of scholarly arguments on the subject. So, it's not useful in an argument about the scholarship.

4) Thank you for explaining the philology/linguistics/history link -- it's a good article, but I could not see why it was connected. As explanation, I haven't questioned the work of Margaret Clunies Ross, nor her worth as an historian. I am just saying that she either is not arguing what you think she is arguing, or she is arguing that, but it doesn't address the point.

The point being:

The sagas in general are not valid histories, as we understand history, though they contain (in general, again) much that is historically valid, and are themselves of high value to historians. They cannot, in their entirety, be taken at face value. They have to be interpreted.

And, in specific, since this whole discussion started out with the problem that it contains a contradiction in the genealogy --

Sharon quotes from Medlands: Orkneyinga Saga says Ingibjörg married “Olaf Tit-Bit King of the Hebrides”[982]
But also Orkneyinga Saga records that the mother of “Rognvald Godrodarson, King of the Hebrides” was “Ingibjorg, Earl Hakon Paulsson’s daughter”[983].

-- it's hard to see how we are to take this at face value.

Even this small point requires interpretation.

It's pretty straightforward for the saga to have said that Ingiborg is Rognvald Gudrodsson's grandmother, if that's what it meant - without calling her his step/mother.

We know that Gudrod's children are mostly not those of his official wife, Fingola - but I don't think it really pertains, unless we're positing the Ingiborg had an affair with her stepson version of events - which is going to make great historical drama, but seems to defy the Occam's razor solution to the Saga contradiction that the Manx Chronicles gives us when it specifies that Gudrod is Aufrica's son.

Olav has an 'illegitimate" son called Ragnald. It seems more logical, if we're going to assume the Saga made a mother/grandmother confusion, to just assume that it confused Ragnald Gudrodson with Ragnhald Olavason.

Who knows? But there is no good reason to conclude that the Manx Chronicles are wrong when it involves jumping through hoops to avoid acknowledging that the Saga is accidentally contradicting itself.

You'll be able to search the Orkneying saga online if you need to.

"Ragnvold's "mother" and his "step"-"grandmother" (which is what I meant to say, because technically she wasn't his grandmother by blood) -- is a lot more logical than completely confusing two completely different people."

If the Orkney saga is to be taken as given, she would have been his blood grandmother.

It is most logical to simply use what the Manx Chronicles are telling us about this, given that it is impossible to resolve what the error is that the Saga made. There are several possibilities, and no way to decide between them.

That's useful:

"The king of Scotland became very angry at this, and sent men to Sudrey to Rognvald Sudrey.
young Gudröðarson. Guðröður's mother was Ingibjörg, 478. daughter of Hákon earl Pálsson"

https://books.googleusercontent.com/books/content?req=AKW5QaesUBUID... p225

No: better - The king of Scotland became very angry at this, and sent men to Sudrey to Rognvald, king of Sudrey, Gudrod's son.
Guðröður's mother was Ingibjörg, daughter of Hákon earl Pálsson.

Cawley's ref for this: 'the mother of “Rognvald Godrodarson, King of the Hebrides” was “Ingibjorg, Earl Hakon Paulsson’s daughter”' http://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/SCOTTISH%20NOBILITY.htm#_Toc268450047

is [983] Orkneyinga Saga 110, p. 221.

In translation - here: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/57723/57723-h/57723-h.htm#h3-IV

• Helga, Moddan’s daughter, was the concubine of Earl Hákon, and their son was Harald, who was called Sléttmáli (smooth-talker), and their daughter was Ingibiorg, who was married to Olaf Bitling (little bit), the King of the Sudreyar. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/57723/57723-h/57723-h.htm#h3-IV CHAPTER XLV GENEALOGICAL.
• CHAPTER CXIV OF THE ORKNEYMEN. He became enraged at this, and sent men to the Sudreyar to Rögnvald, Gudröd’s son, the King of the Sudreyar. Gudröd’s mother was Ingibiorg, daughter of Earl Hákon, Paul’s son.https://www.gutenberg.org/files/57723/57723-h/57723-h.htm#h3-IV

I think you're quite right, Debra

Dr. Wilton McDonald II - Attorney & Barrister absolutely true, but what connection to this Discussion?

First, I'll contact him with the correction - which is the great thing about him: he actively seeks collaborative updates.

At some stage -he says in his Intro- they dropped the Bibliography because it had become so large as to be unusable (unloadable online?) - in favour of the inline citations. I agree with you that that made it hard to track - however, possiblly the presumption is that (as you and I just did) anyone interested can find and search the documents freely available online.

What I like about this, is that you are able to check his sources for accuracy. This is a level of scholarly transparency I can work with.

Second, this probably bring the two docs from that time the Manx Chronicles, and the Orkneysaga - into direct contradiction - without the resolution I'd hoped we'd found.

Back to square one :-)

Ready, steady, go....

Jolly well done on doing that spade work, Debra. Salute!