Snorri Sturlason,

Snorri Sturlason, an Icelandic historian and politician, was the son of a chief of the western fjords, and was born in 1179. The grandson of Sæmund Siffusson, the compiler of the Elder or Poetic Edda, instructed him in the history, mythology, and poetry of the North, as well as in classical literature. By a wealthy marriage Snorri early sprang into a position of influence, and was elected (1215) supreme judge as well as president of the legislative assembly of the island. But his ambition, avarice, and love of intrigue led him to take part not only in private quarrels, but in the intestine troubles of Norway, and thus drew upon him the ill will of the Norwegian king, Hakon, who sent secret instructions to Iceland for his arrest, or, if need be, his assassination. The king's commands were carried out by one of Snorri's bitter enemies, who attacked him in his own house, and murdered him in the year 1241. Snorri was a poet of no mean order; and besides numerous laudatory poems on contemporary kings and jarls, he composed the Younger or Prose Edda (q.v.) and the Heimskringla; this last is a series of sagas or biographies of the Norwegian kings down to 1177, based on trustworthy sources and critically sifted evidence, and is written in a lively and interesting style. It has been translated by S. Laing (1844; new ed. by Rasmus B. Anderson in 4 vols. 1889).