1. The son of Helfdan the Black, the son of Gudrod the Hunter-King, the son of Halfdan ‘the Open-Handed but Inhospitable’, the son of Eystein Fart, the son of Olaf the Wood-Cutter, king of the Swedes. This remarkable genealogy occurs in several sources, and the author of Hrafnkel’s Saga probably borrowed it from Ari Thorgilsson’s Islendingabόk. According to Icelandic reckoning King Harald Fine-Hair died in 931 or 932.
2. The opening of the story is freely based on the following passage in Landnámabόk (Book of Settlements): There was a man called Hrafnkel Hrafnsson who came to Iceland towards the end of the Settlement Period [i.e. not long before 930]. He spent the first winter in Breiddale, but in the spring he travelled north across the mountains. He took a rest in Skridudale and fell asleep, and then he dreamed a man came to him and told him to get up and leave at once. He woke up and set off, and he had only gone a short distance when the mountain came crashing down and killed a boar and a bull belonging to him. Afterwards he claimed possession of Hrafnkelsdale and lived at Steinrodarstead. His sons were Asbjorn, father of Helgi, and Thorir, father of the chieftain Hrafnkel, father of Sveinbjorn.
3. According to Landnámabók Hrafnkel was one of the leading chieftains in the east of Iceland when the Althing was instituted in 930. At that time there were thirty-six priest-chieftains (goðar) in Iceland, but in 963 their number was increased to thirty-nine, and finally to forty-eight in the year 1005. These chieftains had various functions at the Althing and local Assemblies, acting as law-makers and nominating the judges for the courts. Their sacerdotal role came to an end with the introduction of Christianity in A.D. 1000.
4. Freysgoði. The god Frey seems to have been widely worshipped in pagan Iceland. The nickname Frey’s-Priest is not associated with Hrafnkel in any other source, and it has been suggested that it may have been borrowed from Thord Frey’s-Priest, the eponymous ancester of the Freysgydlings, one of the leading families in Iceland during the 10th–13th centuries. For other saga references to Frey worshippers see e.g. Vatnsdæla Saga and Killer-Glum’s Saga. In a late version of Gisli’s Saga one of the protagonists is called Thorgrim Frey’s-Priest.
5. The sagas mention several Icelanders who were supposed to have joined the Varangian Guard in Constantinople in the late 10th or early 11th centuries. See e.g. Grettir’s Saga, Njal’s Saga, Laxdæla Saga, King Harald’s Saga, and Halldor Snorrason below.
6. The name Freyfaxi means literally ‘Frey’s black-maned stallion’; in Vatnsdæla Saga (ch. 34) there is a reference to a much-loved horse bearing the same name. One version of Olaf Tryggvason’s Saga mentions a herd of horses dedicated to Frey.
7. In Iceland, as in some other mountainous countries, it was customary to move the livestock to higher ground in the summer to make the best use of the grazing. The ‘shieling’ refers to the dairy and the sheds built to accommodate the herdsmen and dairymaids. See Laxdæla Saga, Penguin Classics, 1969, pp. 118, 186, 207.
8. i.e. about 6 p.m.
9. The last day for serving an Althing summons was four weeks before the Althing convened. See Njal’s Saga, Penguin Classics, 1960, p. 127n.
10. In the tenth century the Althing used to meet on the ninth Thursday of summer, about the middle of June.
11. The ‘booths’ at the Althing which are so often referred to in the sagas were temporary shelters. They had permanent walls of turf and stone, but the roof and other furnishings were put up every year for the duration of the Althing only.
12. Thorolf was the brother of Egil Skallagrimsson, the eponymous hero of Egil’s Saga. His daughter Thordis is known from other sources, and was not the wife of Thormod Thjostarsson.
14. The saga’s definition of the legal term weapontake (vápnatak) agrees with early Icelandic usage. It refers to the custom that everyone had to lay his weapons aside while the Althing was in session and was only allowed to resume them when it broke up.