Dale-Gudbrand


Dale-Gudbrand is a historical Norwegian person that appears in the Separate Saga of St. Olaf in Snorri Sturluson's Heimskringla. He is said to have lived at the farm in Hundorp in the Gudbrand Valley in the 1100s and to have been the most powerful man in the Gudbrand Valley at that time, with the status of a hersir. He is named in Haakon Jarl's Saga as being allied with Haakon Jarl in his conflict with Harald Greycloak.
The Separate Saga of St. Olaf describes a meeting between Olaf II of Norway and Dale-Gudbrand in 1021 that was the start of the introduction of Christianity into the Gudbrand Valley.
The story of an idol that is broken is a motif found in many legends and stories about Christianization around Europe. When the hero breaks the idol, the devil comes out in the form of a worm or a dragon. The story is well known in Norway because it was reproduced in Nordahl Rolfsen's Lesebok for Folkeskolen, and then in a retelling by Alexander Bugge.