SOURCE AND GENRE
Heimskringla Hákonar saga góða, Linder–Haggson ch12; Wikiheimild ch11
OLD NORSE
Hákon konungr hafði jólaveizlu í Þrándheimi. Þessa veizlu hafði Sigurðr jarl búit fyrir honum á Hlöðum. Hina fyrstu jólanótt ól Bergljót … sveinbarn;
TRANSLATION
King Hákon held a Jól feast in Þrándheimr, prepared for him at Hlaðir by Jarl Sigurðr. On the first night of Jól Bergljót, Sigurðr's wife, gave birth to a boy; the following day Hákon poured water over him and gave the child his own name.
DIRECTLY ATTESTED
The kings'-saga prose describes a royal jólaveizla organized by Sigurðr at Hlaðir; Bergljót's birth on hina fyrstu jólanótt; and Hákon's water-pouring and naming of the child the following day. The narrative distinguishes events within the visit by relative sequence.
CONTEXTUAL
Hákon góði is represented as a Christian-associated king ruling a contested landscape of older religious practice. However this particular chapter does not call the royal feast a sacrifice, does not describe any offering and does not connect the child's water-pouring to an annual Jól religious rule. Other chapters depicting pressure to sacrifice are different scenes.
MY INTERPRETATION
Useful retrospective kings'-saga evidence for first-night terminology and elite Jól hospitality. The coincident birth and water-pouring show a narrated family event timed within Jól—not proof that all Jól celebrations featured initiatory rites.
NOT ESTABLISHED
That this chapter reports a blót, deity invocation, sacrifice, formal Jól baptism, compulsory first-night naming, precise modern calendar date, or contemporary eyewitness testimony for the tenth century.
FIND IT YOURSELF
Actually consulted: N. Linder and H. A. Haggson (eds.), Heimskringla eða Sögur Noregs konunga Snorra Sturlusonar (Uppsala: W. Schultz, 1869–1872), Saga Hákonar góða, ch. 12, https://heimskringla.no/wiki/Saga_H%C3%A1konar_g%C3%B3%C3%B0a (search Hákon konungr hafði jólaveizlu). Second text checked: Heimskringla / Hákonar saga Aðalsteinsfóstra, Wikiheimild modernized text, ch. 11, https://is.wikisource.org/wiki/Heimskringla/H%C3%A1konar_saga_A%C3%B0alsteinsf%C3%B3stra/11. Critical edition identified, NOT examined: Bjarni Aðalbjarnarson (ed.), Heimskringla I, Íslenzk fornrit XXVI (Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka fornritafélag, 1941), Hákonar saga góða. English: independently rendered from checked 1869–72 edited Old Norse. Source ledger: SL-035-A–C.
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CHRONOLOGIES
Represented: Tenth-century Norway during Hákon góði's rule, and the birth of the later jarl Hákon Sigurðarson. Composition/testimony: Heimskringla early-thirteenth-century Icelandic kings'-saga compilation. Witnesses: Later medieval kings'-saga manuscripts and editorial traditions; individual folios not consulted.
VARIANTS AND DEPENDENCIES
Actually consulted Linder–Haggson edition's ch. 12, plus a modernized Wikiheimild presentation where the same event is ch. 11. The numbering difference is not evidence of separate events or of an independently attested feast. Neither the Bjarni Aðalbjarnarson critical edition nor original manuscript folios were directly collated. Other sacrificial feast episodes in the same work remain excluded from the direct-claim section here.