Fridtjof the Bold

The Frithjof's Saga

Fridtjof the Bold              Photo By: Ssolbergj

In Vik, Vangsnes, there is a small peninsula or point where this statue is located. This is Fridtjof, the Bold from The Frithjof Saga.

Friðþjófs saga hins frœkna (Frithiof's Saga) is a legendary saga from Iceland which in its present form is from ca 1300. It is a continuation from The Saga of Thorstein Víkingsson (Þorsteins saga Víkingssonar). It takes place principally in the Vik area of Norway during the 8th century.

Shelly Sylvester summarized the story something like this:

This big fellow is a local viking hero. He wanted to marry Ingebjørg, the daughter of King Bele from the other side of the fjord where Fridtjof lived (Vangsnes).

Fridtjof and Ingebjørg grew up together on the farm Hilding (one of the largest farms in Sogn at the time, situated further in the fjord). But when Fridtjof wanted to marry Ingebjørn her brothers tried to put a stop to it, because they wanted her to marry the powerful King Ring of Ringerike (east Norway), to avoid a big war with him. To make this happen the brothers sent Fridtjof on a trip to the Orkney islands telling him to collect taxes and hoping to be rid of him for good. Then they made Ingebjørg marry King Ring and robbed and burned Fridtjof's home farm on Vangsnes.

When Fridjof came back and saw what had happened to his home farm and Ingebjørg he burned the Grand farm that Ingebjørgs brothers lived on in Balestrand, and stole back the ring he had given to Ingebjørg before he left on the mission her brothers cooked up. Now he was lawless and left to raid foreign countries for treasures - that is to say, he went on Viking Raids!! After 3 years on the run he returned to Ringerike making himself out to be an old man that wanted to see his old girlfriend Ingebjørg. The old King liked Fridtjof and promised that he could have Ingebjørg as his own wife when the old king passed away to stop him going on another raid. Soon after the old King died.

Fridtjof took Ingebjørg as his wife and controlled the kingdom until the old king's sons where of age. They didn't like Fridtjof so they went to war against him. In one battle Fridtjof killed one of the sons while the other begged for his life and Fridtjof let him live. After this Fridtjof became King of all of Sogn and made Hordaland part of his kingdom too.

What is a SAGA

According to Wikipedia:

The setting is primarily Scandinavia, but occasionally it moves temporarily to more distant and exotic locations. There are also very often mythological elements, such as dwarfs, elves, giants and magic. In centuries past, they were considered to be reliable historic sources by Scandinavian scholars, but since the 19th century, they have been considered to contain very little historic material. The present consensus is that, although some of the sagas contain a small core which is not fiction, or are based on historical characters, the primary function of the legendary sagas was entertainment, and the aim of the sagas has not been to present a historically accurate tale. Recently, however, it has been emphasized that the sagas are useful sources for the culture of 13th and 14th century Iceland, "in terms of the light that they can shed on the culture in which they were composed" i.e. Iceland in the later Middle Ages.

The statue in the picture was given to the county of Vik in 1913 by the German Emperor Wilhelm II. The statue of Fridtjof the Bold stands 22.5 m tall and it located on Vangsnes Point.