Ketill Flatnose

Ketill Björnsson, nicknamed Flatnose (Old Norse: Flatnefr), was a Norse King of the Isles of the 9th century.

Primary sources

Ketill is a character in such works as the Laxdæla saga, Eyrbyggja saga and Saga of Erik the Red, and his genealogy is described in detail in the Landnámabók. The story of Ketill and his daughter Auðr (or Aud) was probably first recorded by the Icelander Ari Þorgilsson, who lived from 1067 to 1148. Þorgilsson was born not long after the death of his great-grandmother Guðrún Ósvífrsdóttir, a prominent character in the Laxdæla saga whose husband, Thorkell Eyjolffsson, was descended from Auðr. Þorgilsson was thus a direct descendant of Ketill and so, when he wrote his story of Ketill, he was drawing on family history. Nonetheless, these Old Norse sagas were written down long after the events they describe (like most Greco-Roman and medieval histories), and no contemporary record exists of his life, with the arguable exception of a single entry in the Annals of Ulster.