SOURCE AND GENRE
Heimskringla, Óláfs saga helga, Linder–Haggson ch123 / Wikiheimild ch117: Þórir hundr invites Ásbjǫrn
OLD NORSE
Þórir hundr bauð Ásbirni til jólaveizlu ok móður hans ok þeim mönnum, er þau vildu hafa með sér.
Ásbjörn vildi eigi fara, ok sat heima.
Þat fannst á, at Þóri þótti Ásbjörn gera úvirðiliga til boðsins, er hann vildi eigi fara.
… en hann vill eigi hér fara í næsta hús til mín.
TRANSLATION
Þórir hundr invited Ásbjǫrn, his mother and however many companions they wished to bring to a Jól feast. Ásbjǫrn declined and stayed at home. The narrator remarks that Þórir considered the refusal discourteous, and Þórir mocked Ásbjǫrn for travelling far to visit Erlingr but not coming to his near neighbour's house.
DIRECTLY ATTESTED
An invitation naming Ásbjǫrn, his mother and optional companions; refusal and non-attendance; the narrator's statement that Þórir interpreted the refusal as dishonoring; the interested speaker Þórir's reproach and ridicule. Distinguish Þórir hundr, the inviter, from Þórir selr, the royal official who confiscates Ásbjǫrn's cargo earlier in the same story.
CONTEXTUAL
The account sits after a confiscation of grain acquired during a shortage, amid Christian King Óláfr Haraldsson's political and personal tensions. Ásbjǫrn is aggrieved from the earlier conflict. The social judgment comes partly from Þórir as a character with interests; the narrator corroborates his resentment but does not issue a universal prescriptive rule.
MY INTERPRETATION
Refusal of elite Jól hospitality could function as a perceived affront in this particular narrated kinship dispute, rather than as a categorical pagan or legal prohibition on nonattendance.
NOT ESTABLISHED
An obligation on all guests to accept Jól invitations; legal sanction, ritual offence or blót; a completely neutral character judgment; proof of actual early-eleventh-century social enforcement. No feast attended by Ásbjǫrn in the recorded episode.
FIND IT YOURSELF
Actually consulted: N. Linder and H. A. Haggson (eds.), Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla eða Sögur Noregs konunga (Uppsala: W. Schultz, 1869–1872), Saga Ólafs hins helga, ch. 123, within “Upphaf Ásbjarnar Selsbana,” edited Old Norse passage, find Þórir hundr bauð Ásbirni til jólaveizlu. Actually consulted comparison: Wikiheimild, Ólafs saga helga, ch. 117, modernized Icelandic, find Þórir hundur bauð Ásbirni. Not actually examined: Bjarni Aðalbjarnarson's twentieth-century Heimskringla critical apparatus (Íslenzk fornrit XXVII, 1945), individual medieval manuscripts. English: fresh close rendering of the old edited Norse, not falsely attributed to a checked published translator. Ledger: SL-039-A–C.
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CHRONOLOGIES
Represented: Christian Norway during Óláfr Haraldsson's early-eleventh-century reign. Testimony/composition: Snorri's thirteenth-century Heimskringla composition/narration (not contemporaneous testimony). Surviving witnesses: Later medieval kings'-saga manuscripts and edited texts; none directly inspected.
VARIANTS AND DEPENDENCIES
The source checked in nineteenth-century Old Norse prints this in ch. 123 (the extended Ásbjǫrn Selsbani sequence). The accessed modern Icelandic Wikiheimild parallel labels its corresponding continuation ch. 117. Chapter numbering is edition-specific. The two versions transmit the same literary scene and are not independent historical attestations. No full 1945 critical apparatus or manuscript recension comparison is claimed.