Olaf The Peacock - Birth and Upbringing

Birth and Upbringing

Olaf was the son of Hoskuld Dala-Kollsson, a chieftain who lived in the Laxardal region. According to Laxdaela Saga, Hoskuld purchased 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 Jorunn Bjarnadottir. When Hoskuld returned home to Iceland, he took the concubine with him. Despite Jorunn's irritation, the concubine was accepted into Hoskuld's household, though he remained faithful to Jorunn while in Iceland. The following winter the concubine gave birth to a son, to whom they gave the name Olaf after Hoskuld's uncle, Olaf Feilan, who had recently died. Landnámabók mentions that Hoskuld and Melkorka had another son, Helgi, but he does not appear in Laxdaela. According to Laxdaela Saga, Olaf was a precocious child, and could speak and walk perfectly by the age of two. One day Hoskuld discovered Olaf'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 Jorunn and Melkorka forced Hoskuld to move his concubine and his son by her to a different farm, which thereafter was known as Melkorkustead.

At the age of seven, over his mother's objections, Olaf became the foster son and heir of a wealthy but childless goði named Thord, who was at the time engaged in complex litigation with the kinsmen of his ex-wife Vigdis Ingjaldsdottir (another descendent of Thorstein the Red). Olaf's adoption complicated the issues in the suit and threatened to lead to a blood feud, but Hoskuld arranged a settlement and compensated Vigdis' kinsmen with gifts. By fostering Olaf Thord gained the protection of the powerful Hoskuld, and Hoskuld secured an inheritance for his illegitimate son beyond the limited amount he was permitted to leave to Olaf under Icelandic law. Olaf accompanied Thord to the Althing when he was twelve years old, and his fancy clothing earned him the admiring nickname "the Peacock."