Palnatoke

Who is Palnatoke?

Palnatoke or Palnatoki, sometimes written Palna-Toki or Palna Toki, was a legendary Danish hero and chieftain of the island of Fyn. He raised Harald Bluetooth's son Sweyn Forkbeard and was a staunch supporter of the old pagan faith. He convinced Sweyn to wage war on his own father, and according to some accounts, Palnatoki himself slew Harald. In addition to religious motives, he may have been taking revenge for the death of his grandfather, the Geatish earl Jarl Ottar, who was killed when Harald invaded Götaland.

According to the Jómsvíkinga saga, Palnatoki founded the brotherhood of Jomsvikings and established its laws, but many doubt this.

Saxo Grammaticus relates how Palnatoke was forced by King Harald to use a single arrow to shoot an apple from his own son's head as the boy ran downhill. The legendary motif of the great archer forced to shoot an apple from his son's head appears among other Germanic nations, as the story of Egil in the Þiðrekssaga, William of Cloudesley in an English ballad, Hemming Wolf in Holstein, Puncher in an Upper Rhenish legend in Malleus Maleficarum, and most famously William Tell in Switzerland.

The name has been interpreted in two different ways. The first is as an alternate Old Norse patronymic meaning "Palni's Tóki". The other is as a nickname meaning "Shaft-Toki" or "Toki the Archer".