It is also alleged that she married Máel Sechnaill mac Domnaill after Olaf's death, but this is somewhat contentious as the sources for this marriage are less reliable.
Given that her goading episode exists only in literary sources not contemporary with her lifetime, indeed written long after her death, it is highly unlikely that such an event ever occurred.
The first annalistic account regarding Gormlaith appears in the Annals of Inisfallen, a major extant record of Munster history.
Njál's Saga, a thirteenth-century Icelandic literary work,[11] referred to her as Kormloð, and portrayed her as a jealous divorcee bent on revenge on her ex-husband Brian Boru.
She prompted Sigtrygg to gather support from Vikings outside Ireland, most notably Earl Sigurd of Orkney and Brodir of the Isle of Man, by promising her hand in marriage.
A separate strain of wholly negative conceptions of Gormlaith appeared in Geoffrey Keating's Foras Feasa Ar Eirinn composed in 1634.
In this text Keating makes explicit the link between Gormlaith's goading and Máel Mórda's declaration of war.
Gormlaith's remarks in this Early Modern account weighed on Máel Mórda, contributing to his quarrel with Murchad and eventually leading the "Leinster king to seek allies in the war against the Dál Cais".
One scholar, Meidhbhín Ní Úrdail suggested that he was influenced by Meredith Hamner's Chronicle of Ireland published in 1633, where the cause of Clontarf is attributed not to Gormlaith, but an anonymous "merchant's wife".