Eric Chronicles

The Eric Chronicle (Swedish: Erikskrönikan) is the oldest surviving Swedish chronicle. It was written by an unknown author (or, less probably, several authors) between about 1320 and 1335.

It is the oldest in a group of medieval rhymed chronicles recounting political events in Sweden. It is one of Sweden's earliest and most important narrative sources. Its authorship and precise political significance and biases are debated, but it is clear that the chronicle's protagonist and hero is Eric, Duke of Södermanland, brother of King Birger of Sweden.

The chronicle is written in knittelvers, a form of doggerel, and in its oldest version is 4543 lines long. It begins in 1229, with the reign of Eric XI of Sweden (d. 1250) but focuses on the period 1250-1319, ending in the year when the three-year-old Magnus IV of Sweden came to the throne. It survives in six manuscripts from the fifteenth century and a further fourteen from the sixteenth and seventeenth.

Example

Dödhin han er ekke söther thz rönte herra jwan en höwelik riddare ok wäl dan han war ther skutin i häll thz edde hertoganom ekke wäl En riddare heyt gudzsär han fik ther ok slikt sama wärk han hörde konung birge till mannen dör tho han ey will Ther miste han sith liiff fult gaff han fore thera kiiff Death is not mild: Sir Ivan experienced it, a courteous, excellent knight: an arrow transfixed him and he died. The duke was not happy for that. A knight's name was Gudsärk, the same thing happened to him, he was one of King Birger's men. Men die even if they don't want: he lost his life, he paid for their conflict.[1]

External links

• Eric's Chronicle. Original text (old Swedish).
• translation into modern english

References

1. Lines 3269-79, quoted and translated by Fulvio Ferrari, 'Literature as a Performative Act: Erikskrönikan and the Making of a Nation', in Lärdomber oc skämptan: Medieval Swedish Literature Reconsidered, ed. by Massimiliano Bampi and Fulvio Ferrari, Samlingar utgivna av Svenska fornskriftsällskapet, serie 3: Smärre texter och undersökningar, 5 (Uppsala: Svenska fornskriftsällskapet, 2008), pp. 55-80 (p. 68), here with minor amendments to punctuation.