Hallvard Vebjörnsson, St.

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HALLVARD VEBJÖRNSSON, ST.

Patron of Oslo; d. near Drammen, Norway, 1043. According to legend, a relative of King olaf ii, he was murdered while trying to defend a woman falsely accused of theft. Soon after his death, his relics were enshrined in Oslo. Besides the Latin legend and fragments of an Old Norse life, a Hallvard sequence also is extant. His cult was not widespread outside Norway, except in Iceland and in the Swedish Diocese of Skara. He appears in medieval Norwegian and Swedish iconography, usually bearing a millstone.

Feast: May 15.

Bibliography: Monumenta historica Norvegiae, ed. g. storm (Oslo 1880). Heilagra manna sögur, ed. c. r. unger, 2 v. (Oslo 1877) v.1. s. undset, Saga of Saints, tr. e. c. ramsden (New York 1934). f. paasche, Norsk biografisk leksikon (Oslo 1923) 5:275276. a. butler, The Lives of the Saints, ed. h. thurston and d. attwater, 4 v. (New York 1956) 2:322.

[h. bekker-nielsen]