Hálfdan the Generous and the Stingy with Food: This contradictory nickname is rooted in a surviving anecdote that claims the king paid his men well, but also starved them.ģ. Óttarr the Vendel Crow: So given because after he was slain in a battle at Vendill, his body was eaten by crows.Ģ. Monarchical nicknames-both legendary and historical-are especially descriptive, and often survive in the Norse canon along with an explanation for the epithet that helps to contextualize the king. Many-although not all-of the nicknames he cites through the text are pulled from a compendium of Icelandic settlers in the 9th and 10th centuries called Landnámabók (The Book of Settlements) and fall into the following rough categories: “those describing physical features, mental characteristics, and one’s deeds or habits (good or bad).” Often, they're not exactly flattering. He writes in the abstract, “The quantity of nicknames in Old Norse literature is incomparably rich, and recurring nicknames provide a tool for understanding saga transmission, cultural history, slang, and etymology.” Plus, some of them are really silly. Paul Peterson, now a teaching fellow in Scandinavian and German at Augustana College in Illinois, dedicated his advanced studies to Norse nicknames, completing a masters thesis and doctoral dissertation at the University of Minnesota on the subject. Historical figures had their share of quirky epithets-from Albert the Peculiar to Zeno the Hermit-but the Norse Vikings seem to have had them beat when it comes to comical range and sheer absurdity. Before surnames were a well-established way of telling one Olaf or Astrid from another, identifying nicknames were far more prevalent.
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