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Starkaðr and the Death of King Víkarr

Starkaðr and the Death of King Víkarr
  • Creator: Louis Moe 1857-1945
  • Description: Starkaðr treacherously murdering King Víkarr during what was supposed to have been a mock sacrifice to appease the gods in exchange for fair winds for their becalmed ship in Book Six of Fr. Winkle Horn's Danish edition Danmarks Kronike of Saxo's Gesta Danorum.
  • 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.
  • Identity Number: DnKrn-1898-UVic-06-226-01
  • Download size: 705 KB
  • Source code of this document: [XML]
Saxo Grammaticus   Danmarks Kronike, Gesta Danorum   Gesta Danorum   Moe, Louis   Starkaðr, Starkad   Víkarr, Vikar  

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Linked items

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).
Víkarr (non.) Vikar (en.) A king who was slain during a mock sacrifice by Starkaðr. Starkaðr's motives for the murder vary depending on the source.

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.