A king’s luck? A discussion of battle-luck and ill-fortune in Sverris Saga

Abstract

This article brings the concept of luck to the forefront in a discussion of the Saga of King Sverris (Sverris saga) while at the same time introducing the reader to the age of the Civil War in Norway. An important scholar who has contributed to outlining the role of luck in Norway’s early medieval political ideology was Vilhelm Peter Grønbech with his seminal work, The Culture of the Teutons. The methodology employed in this short contribution is that of comparing and contrasting Grønbech’s established theory with more recent hypotheses and interpretations in order to reach a conclusion whether the theoretical concepts of the mentioned scholar are applicable in the interpretation of Sverris saga.