The question, in my view, seems basically to be that no near-contem****ary
source explicitly mentions the two girls as being daughters of queen Edel.
And many Scandinavian monarchs of the era had mistresses, whose children
were treated as royals, without *much* difference compared with the
legitimately born ones.
However, no source explicitly states that they were *not* queen Edel's
daughters.
Some have tried to read big things from the fact that when the royal daddy
got murdered, these girls seem to have found their way to exile in the
neighboring Sweden, taken by their paternal uncle Erik, later king Erik I
the Evergood.
Whereas queen Edel fled to her native Flanders, seemingly taking her baby
son, Karl (Charles, later a count of Flanders) with her.
But these diverging exilic routes may just have been caused by expediency,
and the girls (who occasionally are said to have been twins) anyway appear
to have been some years older than their very-recently born brother. (The
girls did not need the mother any longer as much at the time...)
King K**** IV, the saint, is renowned as a pious man, not seemingly having
mistress(es) when married. Indeed, while many other Scandinavian monarchs'
mistresses who birthed kids to their king, are mentioned by name in legends
and/or archives, there is no mention of king K****'s mistress...
The habit of the era, kings having kids by mistresses, is thus much less
likely as to king K**** IV.
I think the last one about this maternity question, from the research, has
been:
Gallén, Jarl (1985), 'Knut den helige och Adela av Flandern. Europeiska
kontakter och genealogiska konsekvenser.' [Canute the Saint and Adela of
Flanders: European connections and genealogical consequences]. In: Studier
i äldre historia tillägnade Herman Schück 5/4. Stockholm, pp.49-66.
Prof. Gallén's conclusion in this was that the two girls probably, very
likely, were daughters of Edel of Flanders.
One cannot however be perfectly sure of that filiation...
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