News, History | Coming to Risør to talk about the book som redda Norge
Kjell-Olav Masdalen is the historian from Søndeled who for a number of years has had several important jobs in historic Agder. He is a trained historian from the University of Oslo and has worked as an archivist at the National Archives, the Oslo City Archives and the Aust-Agder-Arkivet. From 2004 to 2015, he was director of the Aust-Agder cultural history center, where he reached senior researcher. He has written Agder’s history 1920-1945, among other things, and also sat on the editorial committee for “Risør’s town history”, which Victor Norman wrote.
Hairdressers’ right to rule
This time Kjell-Olav Masdalen comes to Risørhuset to talk about Snorri Sturlasson, who wrote the royal sagas. Something he did to document the right of the hairdressers to rule Norway.
Even after that time, Snorre’s royal sagas have been used to substantiate the kings’ right to rule over their lands, not just in Norway, but also in Denmark and Sweden.
In 1633, Peder Claussøn Friis’s translation of the royal sagas was printed in Copenhagen. The Danish kings claimed hereditary right to the crown of Norway and were therefore interested in spreading knowledge about the history of the kings and Norway.
In the 17th century, it was also published for Swedish translations of the kings’ sagas, in 1670 and 1697. The Swedes also thought that the kings’ sagas could tell a lot about Sweden’s history.
Link to public information
It was not until the 1800s that the first “Norwegian” editions of Snorri’s sagas appeared. Jacob Aall’s translation of the kings’ sagas in 1838-39 was part of a program of public education and revival that was to build up during the new Norwegian state formation in 1814.
Only with Gustav Storm’s folk edition of the royal sagas in 1900 did Snorri become folk reading. It goes well with the secession from Sweden in 1905.
You can do that and much more about Snorri’s sagas if you take the trip to Risørhuset on Thursday 20 October. The organizer is the Library, the Association Norden Risør and the People’s Academy in Risør.