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Jim,
Thanks.
"Heimskringla" is pretty much where I started this particular journey. I have, however become aware of the difficulties one faces deciding how far to trust Icelandic saga sources. As I put it in the book I'm working on, after I describe the process by which scholars became warier of the historicity of the saga stories:
"The net result is that the sagas are now treated primarily as literature, and historians deal with the information in them as though they're handling plutonium, with extreme caution and an ever-present fear of contamination."
All the sagas I've read repeat the same story about Gunhild's parentage that Snorri offers, but six people repeating a lineage doesn't make it true if they're all uncritically following a flawed, and in this case probably biased, source. It looks like I should track down that appendix on the Orkney Earl's line when I can, as most of what I've got there is taken from "Heimskringla" and other saga sources. Just offhand, I don't recall Gunnhild's descent continuing in the main line of the Orkney inheritance, although her daughter is said in the "Orkneyringa Saga" to have married several of the earls in succession whose descendents did NOT, so far as I know, inherit the earldom. But I can see that, thanks to daughter Ragnhild, Gunnhild's origins would be discussed, and that might be useful.
Anyway, it's good to know that there is reasonable support for her Danish origin, as opposed to the Azur Snout parentage the Icelanders insist upon.
David
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