ABSTRACT
Einarr Cup-Tinkle, born perhaps in the mid-tenth century, came from Laxárdalr in western Iceland. His brother was the Ósvífr Helgason whose daughter Guðrún gave rise, in the climactic part of Laxdœla saga, to one of the greatest love-stories in medieval literature. Einarr composed many eulogies, of which only fragments survive. Two verses from a poem in honour of King Haraldr Gormsson of Denmark may tell us that Einarr spent some time in Denmark in the late 960s with his master, Earl Hákon of Hlaðir (Lade) in Trøndelag, sharing his exile while the sons of Gunnhildr and Eiríkr Bloodaxe (mis)ruled most of Norway. Einarr’s greatest extant work is Vellekla ‘Gold-Shortage’. This is the name given by posterity to one, if not more than one, poem by Einarr in honour of Earl Hákon, who eventually dominated Norway from c. 974 to 995. The absence of a reference in any text of this poem to the grand sea-battle of Hjlrungavágr, in which Hákon routed the Danes and Jómsvikings in c. 994, dates Vellekla to the early 980s.
