Dark and violent even by saga standards, the story of Hadding is also one of the most enigmatic that has come down to us from the old North. Looked at closely, it reveals itself as more than a series of adventures and exploits. They have a unity, a deeper meaning; but what? For a century and a half, mythologists and folklorists have wondered.

Aside from a few incidental mentions elsewhere, our only source for it is the Qesta Danorum of Saxo. That we know so little about this writer adds to the irony.

He was a Dane. He states that his father and grandfather fought for King Valdemar I, who reigned from 1157 to 1182. Thus he himself must have been born about 1150. His favorable references to the people of Zealand, compared to others both in the kingdom and abroad, indicate that he hailed from that island and probably spent most of his days there. He says that he undertook his work at the behest of the great Archbishop Absalon. The latter died before it was completed, and so it is dedicated to his successor Archbishop Andreas and to King Valdemar II. This was about 1208, which seems to be more or less the year of Saxo’s death.

His clerical connections, the fact that he wrote in Latin, and his (somewhat limited) classical education have caused most scholars to take for granted that he was a monk. However, we have no direct evidence. His chauvinism, delight in scenes of derring-do, and occasional eroticism imply that he could have been a layman. The appellation “Grammaticus,” meaning “master of words,” only came to him in the fifteenth century, when interest in him revived.

As for his chronicle, he meant to write the history of Denmark from the days of King Svein Estridsson (d. 1076), but Absalon persuaded him also to seek out and set down traditions from earliest times. Although they had been Christian for some two hundred years, the Scandinavians remained fascinated by the deeds and beliefs of their ancestors. In this, the Icelanders became pre-eminent, and Saxo gives them due credit. A person or persons on that island recorded those poems we call the Elder Edda. A generation after Saxo, Snorri Sturluson wrote the Younger Edda, the Heimskringla, and very likely the saga of Egil Skallagrimsson. Others were similarly engaged.

We do not know how long or how widely Saxo delved, whom he questioned, what notes he took, how much he simply recalled of what he heard in childhood or at hearthsides, how much he patched together from scraps or his own imagination. It is clear that he was acquainted with ancient poems still on the tongues of skalds and common folk. He either made prose of them or translated them into his Latin. Sometimes we have Norse versions to compare. Mostly, though, we can only attempt to reconstruct the originals from the materials he has left us.