ACCORDING TO ICELANDIC sagas, the future Norwegian king Óláfr Tryggvason, the great-grandson of the founder of the dynasty of Norwegian kings, Haraldr inn hárfagri (the Fine-Haired), spent several years at the court of King Valdamarr (Prince Vladimir Svyatoslavich) in Garðaríki (Old Rus’), or, to be more exact, in Hólmgarðr (Novgorod). Óláfr Tryggvason played an exceptional role in Norwegian history and is very popular in medieval literature, though the early historical tradition about him is scanty. Only contemporary English annals (the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle) and Old Norse-Icelandic skaldic poetry describe some of his military exploits and allude to his Christianity. However, after Óláfr's death his exploits were included in works by the founding fathers of Scandinavian history: Adam of Bremen's Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum (ca. 1070) and Ari Þorgilsson's Íslendingabók (1122– 1132). In the late twelfth century an anonymous author wrote of him in the Historia Norwegie, as did Theodoricus monachus in his Historia de antiquitate regum Norwagiensium. Ágrip af Noregskonunga sǫgum (ca. 1190) touched briefly upon his life. Two sagas were composed about him in Latin in the late twelfth century at the Benedictine Þingeyrar monastery in northern Iceland: by Oddr Snorrason, surviving only in early thirteenth-century Old Icelandic translation, and by Gunnlaugr Leifsson, surviving only in translation as interpolations into another saga. The great compendia of the Norwegian kings from the first half of the thirteenth century— namely, Fagrskinna and Snorri Sturluson's Heimskringla— devote much space and attention to him. The encyclopaedic collection, called by scholars Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar en mesta, was probably compiled around 1300 by an Icelander Bergr Sokkason, an abbot in Munkaþverá. Óláfr figures also in the Icelandic family sagas, those of them which refer to the conversion of Iceland in the year 999 or 1000.

Óláfr is mentioned in the Icelandic annals. The date of his birth is given as 968 or 969; his captivity in Eistland is dated to 971; he arrived at Garðaríki in 977 or 978 and departed in 986 or 987; his baptism on the Scilly islands is told to have happened in 993; the beginning of his reign in Norway is related to 995; and his last battle and death are dated to 999 or 1000 (IA 1888, 104– 5).