I am savvy enough about the current climate of opinion to be aware that it can be a dangerous thing to criticize Ukrainian President Volodymir Zelensky (for the record, I have no doubt that Vladimir Putin’s attack on Ukraine is both illegal and unjustified).
Nevertheless, I have to correct Pres. Zelensky today.
Something you probably haven’t heard about, but I have, is that Pres. Zelensky addressed the Norwegian Parliament (Storting) today, by remote video. I know this because I was listening to the Norwegian NRK radio network at the time, and heard it live. And I understood it perfectly because (for some unexplained reason) they broadcast it with simultaneous English translation – not Norwegian.
The full text is here.
Pres. Zelensky appeals, among other things, to the historical ties between Norway and Ukraine. He says this in particular:
Today, Russian bombs are flying at our land and our people. At the land where the Ukrainian Princess Elisiv of Kyiv was born and grew up. Wife of King Harald III of Norway, mother of King Olaf the Peaceful, grandmother of Magnus III, great-grandmother of Eystein I and Sigurd the Crusader.
This statement is in error – though the fault is probably that of the president’s speech writers.
Princess Elisiv (Elizabeth) of Kyiv (portrait above, taken from a church wall in Kyiv) was indeed the wife of Harald III, better known as Harald Hardrada, the freebooting Viking and mercenary who became king of Norway in 1046 and died in England in 1066. And she did bear him a child, a girl named Maria who was later declared a saint.
The mother of King Olaf the Peaceful, however, was not Elisiv, but Harald’s mistress, Thora Thorbergsdatter, daughter of Thorberg Arnesson of Giske.
What makes this fact of particular interest to us is that Thora’s mother was Ragnhild Erlingsdatter, daughter of Erling Skjalgsson of Sola, hero of my Viking novels.
The marriage of Ragnhild to Thorberg actually constitutes a plot element in my work in progress, King of Rogaland, currently nearing completion but delayed by heavy translation work.