Geirmund Hjørson, called Heljarskinn, was a leading Icelander of the late ninth century. He was the son of a Norwegian merchant and a Samoyed woman. His nickname, an apparent reference to his complexion, means "Hel skin", which indicates either dark or "black" skin or perhaps skin "pale as death".
The sources for Geirmund's life are the Landnámabók and the Geirmundar þáttr heljarskinns [no], the first saga in the Sturlunga saga collection. According to these, he was the son of a Norwegian petty king and made a fortune as a Viking. On Iceland, he held four large estates and travelled with a bodyguard of eighty men. His lifestyle was supported by the wealth from his raids and could not be sustained off of his estates alone.
Notes
- ^ Price 2020, p. 437.
- ^ Byock 1982, p. 78.
Bibliography
- Byock, Jesse L. (1982). Feud in the Icelandic Saga. University of California Press.
- McTurk, Rory (1997). "Marie de France, Geirmundar þáttr heljarskinns, and Reader-response Criticism". In Claude Lecouteux; Olivier Gouchet (eds.). Hugur: Mélanges d'histoire, de littérature et de mythologie offerts à Régis Boyer pour son 65 anniversaire. Presses de l'Université de Paris-Sorbonne. pp. 193–209. ISBN 2-84050-089-2.
- Mitchell, Stephen A. (1987). "The Sagaman and Oral Literature: The Icelandic Traditions of Hjorleifr inn kvensami and Geirmundr heljarskinn". In John Miles Foley (ed.). Comparative Research on Oral Traditions: A Memorial for Milman Parry. Slavica Publishers. pp. 395–423. ISBN 9780893571733.
- Price, Neil (2020). The Children of Ash and Elm: A History of the Vikings. Allen Lane. ISBN 9780241283981.