Emily Chan
The Sverris Saga chronicles the life and rule of King Sverre Sigurdsson of Norway. He reigned between 1184 and 1202. He rose to power in the second half of the 12th century.
“Much of Norway’s early history is known from this single text, which depicts a period of political instability characterized by conflicts and civil wars lasting more than a century,” wrote the study authors.
It is believed that most of the text was written around the same time as the events it discusses, which is odd for an Old Norse saga. The author is thought to have been someone close to the king, possibly Karl Jónsson, the Icelandic abbot.
The text is detailed and consists of 182 verses. It does recount actual historical events, but it is also full of embellishments and biases, so it must be interpreted carefully.
One passage gives an account of a military raid on Sverresborg Castle in A.D. 1197. A body was thrown into a well. It was implied that the act was an attempt to poison the local water supply.
Radiocarbon dating supported the theory that the body at the bottom of the well was the person mentioned in the Sverris Saga.
Previous research suggested that the human remains belonged to a man who was between the ages of 30 and 40 at the time of his death.
When the researchers analyzed DNA extracted from the tooth of the “Well-Man,” they learned new information about his physical traits and lineage.
He was a male with “blonde hair, blue eyes, and an intermediate skin tone.” His ancestry is also traced back to a county in southern Norway, which was surprising because the attacking army in the saga was from southern Norway.
This means the attackers must’ve dumped one of their own men into the well. The researchers cannot fully confirm that the skeleton was really the dead man from the saga, but the evidence is strong.
The study was published in the journal iScience.
