Melkorka

Melkorka is the name given in Landnámabók and Laxdœla saga for the Irish mother of the Icelandic goði Ólafr Höskuldsson. According to Laxdœla saga, Höskuldr purchased Melkorka, who he believed to be a mute thrall-woman, from a Rus' merchant on Brännö while on a trading expedition to Norway, and made her his concubine while away from his wife Jórunn Bjarnadóttir. When Höskuldr returned home to Iceland, he took her with him. Despite Jórunn's irritation, the concubine was accepted into Höskuldr's household, though he remained faithful to Jórunn while in Iceland. The following winter the concubine gave birth to a son, to whom they gave the name Ólafr after Höskuldr's uncle, Olaf Feilan, who had recently died. Landnámabók mentions that Höskuldr and Melkorka had another son, Helgi, but he does not appear in Laxdœla. According to Laxdœla saga, Ólafr was a precocious child, and could speak and walk perfectly by the age of two. One day Höskuldr discovered Ólafr's mother speaking to her son; she was not, in fact, mute. When he confronted her she told him that she was an Irish princess named Melkorka carried off in a viking raid, and that her father was an Irish king named "Myrkjartan" (Muirchertach). Shortly thereafter squabbling between Jórunn and Melkorka forced Höskuldr to move his concubine and his son by her to a different farm, which thereafter was known as Melkorkustaðir.