Erik's Chronicle

Erik's Chronicle^[a] (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 Duke Erik Magnusson, 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 King Erik Eriksson (d. 1250) but focuses on the period 1250-1319, ending in the year when the three-year-old Magnus Eriksson 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]

Notes

'^ Also translated as Eric's Chronicle, The Chronicle of Erik or Erik Chronicle

References

^ 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.