Sigrid the Haughty
Sigrid the Proud (also Gunhild ( a), Sigrid Storråda, Świętosława of Poland or Czcirada; * 965, † after 1014) is a person who appears in many Norse sagas and historical chronicles. It is not known whether this was a real person or a fictional, in which the CVs of different real persons were summarized.
You should have been married for 985 with the Swedish King Erik the Victorious, to counter the alliance of Danes with Obodrites and Lusatians against the Holy Roman Empire and the Piast dynasty. She gave birth to two sons, of whom Olof Skötkonung later King of Sweden was.
When her husband Erik was 995 died, she should have married the Danish king Sven Forkbeard. From him she became the mother of the Danish kings Harald II and Canute and three daughters, of whom one was named after her mother (Latin ) Santslaue.
Origin
The information from Scandinavian sources differ from the reports of other chroniclers who assumed that she was a Slav.
Scandinavian sources
After this act of violence knew the other sub- kings, that they had better not take any similar type of experiments, and Sigrid was nicknamed Storråda ( " the Proud " or "the Haughty "). The sources further report that Sigrid was not averse to marry the Norwegian king Olav Tryggvason. However, she was not ready to accept the Christian faith. Then it came to a dispute between the partners, which was a bitter enmity. Sigrid said to have married the Danish king Sven Forkbeard, who, going to her urging, along with her son Olof Skötkonung, the Swedish king was now against Olav Tryggvasson what Olav died in the battle of Svolder.
In the Icelandic Sagas and Saxo Grammaticus was only noted that Sigrid together with Sven Forkbeard had the daughter Estrid, which in turn was mother of the Danish King Sven Estridsson. Harold II and Canute are not mentioned in the description of this marriage.
One possible explanation is that Sven Forkbeard was married twice, first with Sigrid Storråda and later with the below-described Świętosława of Poland.
Other chroniclers
Various chronicles to give that Knut the Great had a Polish mother, or that she was descended from a closely related gender.
According Thietmar of Merseburg they should come from the marriage of Duke Mieszko of Poland connection from the House of Piast dynasty with the princess Dubrawka of Bohemia, but Thietmar are not their names. He is generally regarded as the most informed medieval chronicler, as he stood to many events described in your personal connection and was also well informed about what is happening in Poland and Denmark. Thietmar also not reported that this queen was before Queen in Sweden.
Adam of Bremen mentions a Polish princess as wife of Erik the victory Merry and further reports that it was the Great also the mother of Harold II and Knut. In a later part of his work he calls them Gunhild. Therefore, some historians argued that Sigrid Storråda was an invention of the Norse sagas. Today is usually assumed that Adam was subject to a misunderstanding when he put together the two people to one person. That Sigrid was a real person, is also supported by the Danish possessions in Sweden had the name " Syghridslef " ( Sigrid's genetic material).
The Slavic first name Świętosława is mainly based on an inscription in the book " Liber vitae of the New Minster and Hyde Abbey Winchester ", where it is recorded that Knut the Great, a sister with the Latin name Santslaue had ( the text reads " Santslaue soror regis CNVTI nostri "). It was further assumed that this woman was named after her mother.
The marriage of the queen with Sven Forkbeard did not take long. She was disowned by him and had to return to their Slavic homeland until she was brought back by her sons after they came to power in Denmark after the death of his father. It is worth noting that they did not travel to Sweden, what they would have done several commentators, if she had been the mother of Olof Skötkonung.
Even in a band of English work Encomium Emmae Reginae is reported that Knut the Great to the land of the Slavs went to fetch his mother to Denmark. Here, however, does not claim that she was also Slawin.