Sigvatr Þórðarson
Icelandic skald (995–1045)
Sigvatr Þórðarson or Sighvatr Þórðarson or Sigvatr Thórðarson or Sigvat the Skald (995–1045) was an Icelandic skald. He was a court poet to King Olaf II of Norway, as well as Cnut the Great, Magnus the Good and Anund Jacob, by whose reigns his floruit can be dated to the earlier eleventh century. Sigvatr was the best known of the court skalds of King Olaf and also served as his marshal (stallare), even baptizing his son Magnus.
Approximately 160 verses of Sigvatr's poetry have been preserved, more than from any other poet of this period. The style of Sigvat's poems is simpler and clearer than that which generally characterises older compositions. Although his verse is still dense, he uses fewer complex poetic circumlocutions than many of his predecessors, and as a Christian poet, he by and large avoids allusions to pagan mythology.
Most of his surviving poems were texts that praised King Olaf. Many of the poems from St. Olaf's saga in Heimskringla are by Sigvatr. Víkingarvísur, composed c.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Oct 18, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q2165103. VIAF identifies the subject as 2376440. The Library of Congress control number is n93053686. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1045.
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This entry incorporates text from “Sigvatr Þórðarson” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.