Keldugnup
REGIONAL FEUDS
SOUTH ICELAND: Njal’s Saga
WEST ICELAND: The Saga of
the People of Laxardal
The Saga of the Slayings on
the Heath
NORTH ICELAND: The Saga of
the People of Ljosavatn
Valla-Ljot’s Saga
The Saga of the People of
Svarfadardal
The Saga of the People of
Reykjadal and of Killer-Skuta
The Saga of the People of
Vatnsdal
EAST ICELAND: The Saga of
the People of Vopnafjord
The Saga of Droplaug’s Sons
The Saga of the People of
Fljotsdal
The Saga of Thorstein
the White
Thorstein Sidu-Hallsson’s Saga
WEALTH AND POWER
The Saga of the People of Eyri
Hen-Thorir’s Saga
The Saga of the Confederates
Olkofri’s Saga
The Saga of Hrafnkel Frey’s Godi
The Saga of Havard of Isafjord
Types of Sagas
Ref the Sly. Ref is an example of a champion, a strong individual who defends the weak or undertakes ordeals. This branch of saga writing often has a picaresque or roguish element to it and is sometimes closer to folk legend than to history. Certain episodes in Gisli Sursson’s Saga and Egil s Saga are in this vein too; interestingly, even champions have to perform their noble deeds either outside Iceland or outside human society in outlawry.
Opposing the biographical sagas are the sagas of feuds, typically located in a relatively small district which in a sense assumes the central role in the action. An example is The Saga of the People of Vatnsdal, which is a family saga describing five generations of chieftains who live in a district with which they clearly have strong emotional bonds. The concept of the man of authority, the godi, is essential to this saga, but even more to two others spanning a much shorter time, The Saga of Hrafnkel Frey’s Godi and The Saga of the Confederates. These two sagas are succinct but thorough examinations of local power and authority: the emergence of a leader of men, his duties as well as his rights, his response to subversion of his authority. It could be said that the leader figure is the antithesis of the outlaw figure at odds with society, and of the inwardly motivated poet at odds with himself.
In the longer sagas of feud a vast gallery of characters is introduced, but inevitably a few strong personalities dominate the stage – for example Ingimund the Old and his son Jokul in Vatnsdal, and the triangle Bolli, Kjartan and Gudrun in Laxardal. The Saga of the People of Laxardal, like Njal’s Saga, is usually regarded as superior to the majority of the regional feud sagas, a masterpiece of epic narrative with tragic dimensions. The saga charts the dissent and dissolution within a single family as sharply etched characters struggle nobly through a series of fated events over which they have no control. Feuds escalate from trivial local squabbles into unstoppable vendettas. The male protagonists are splendid figures who die heroic deaths, while the women are strong characters who engineer much of the action.
Somewhere between the two main saga classifications are the two Vinland Sagas and one tale, which describe the western outposts of the Viking world: Eirik the Red’s discovery of Greenland and settlement there as leader of a large community, and the first European voyages to North America by his son Leif and later by Gudrid Thorbjarnardottir and Thorfinn Karlsefni.
From a historical perspective, the sagas in this selection map the Viking world and extend across the entire Viking Age: the movement from Norway, the flowering of national culture and localized settlements in Iceland, and the exploration and experience of new worlds. Characters and events recur
The Saga of the People of Laxardal
from one saga to the next, seen from different perspectives but nonetheless with striking resemblances, somehow inviting us to believe that the saga world is a large, unified tapestry of which we only see parts at a time. The settlement by Unn (Aud) the Deep-minded features in both The Saga of the People of Laxardal and Eirik the Red’s Saga; Gest Oddleifsson is the wise counsellor in both the Laxardal saga and The Saga of Ref the Sly; in The Saga of Gunnlaug Serpent-tongue, poets clash for the love of Helga the Fair, who is the granddaughter of the hero of Egil s Saga, and so forth.
The recurrence of dramatis personae and action means that the sagas overlap thematically as well, so that no classification can be absolute. Classification by theme is nothing more than a way of highlighting certain salient features and guiding the reader towards a deeper appreciation of each saga’s artistry and the rich dynamism of the saga world.
THE TRANSLATIONS
The editorial aims of The Complete Sagas of Icelanders were: (i) to produce accurate and readable modern English versions of the original texts, and (2) to reflect the homogeneity of the saga world, by means of a co-ordinated translation of key vocabulary, concepts and phrases, but at the same time to capture the individuality of the separate sagas. As Robert Kellogg states in the Introduction, the world of the sagas is a unified whole in several senses: the geographical setting, time frame, social background and to some extent the characters of the sagas are identical, and in addition the narrative technique defines these works as belonging to a conscious genre. The thirty translators, all native speakers of English, were supplied by the Editorial Team with directions and suggestions which would ensure the desired consistency. Each translation was read over by an Icelandic scholar, and later by a native English-speaker.
The Reference section explains a number of recurrent key terms and concepts: legal terms (such as outlawry and compensation), legislative structures (e.g. Spring Assembly, Autumn Meeting and Lawspeaker), social ranks (godi, earl and slave), games (ball game, horse-fight, board-game), customs and rituals (arch of raised turf and foster-), supernatural elements (berserk, shape-shifter, scorn-pole, troll and giant), the ancient calendar and important days of the year (Moving Days and Winter Nights), weights and measures (hand, ounce and hundred), and certain physical details, such as those relating to the layout of houses (main room, high seat and bed closet) and farms (hayfield wall and shieling). Where practicable, some distinctions between types of ships (e.g. longship, knorr) and weapons (halberd) have also been established by co-ordinating the vocabulary. Some additional entries of a general nature have been included in the Glossary.
SPELLING CONVENTIONS AND PROPER NOUNS
English equivalents have been used for Icelandic letters in personal and place names: Þ/TH, Ð/D, Á/A, É/E, Í/I, Ó/O, Ú/U, Ý/Y, Æ/AE, Ö/O. For example, paraldtursffordur becomes Tharalatursfjord, after the nominative ending has been dropped as well. Icelandic is an inflected language, in which the endings of words change according to grammatical context. A main rule in the treatment of personal and place-names for this edition has been to drop the nominative singular endings and use the stems instead. Thus, the name Egil becomes Egil; and the modern Icelandic Audur (old Icelandic Auð-r) becomes Aud. For the sake of consistency in the appearance of the English, the ur/rending has also been dropped even when strictly speaking it belongs to the stem: thus Ósvifuur/r, for example, becomes Osvif. Plural endings are common in place-names and this distinction has been retained: for example Breidabolstadur (singular) becomes Breidabolstad, but Hrafnkelsstadir (plural) is written Hrafnkelsstadir.
Nicknames are a common feature of Old Icelandic texts, and these are translated when the meaning is clear and makes sense. In some cases, however, depending on the context, they are left untranslated in the text but suggested translations are given in parentheses the first time they occur. All nicknames which occur in more than one saga have been standardized. Some nicknames assume the full status of proper names, as for instance when Thorfinn Karlsefni is referred to as Karlsefni.
For easier recognition, the modern form of mainland Scandinavian place-names has been used when it is known, with a few exceptions. In
place-names outside Scandinavia, the common English equivalent is used when known; otherwise the Icelandic form has been transliterated. The meaning of place-names in Icelandic is often self-evident and the last part of a place-name usually refers to a topographical feature. The modern Icelandic form of place-names is preferred, but readers should bear in mind that a few are now lost and do not appear on modern maps. In some cases place-names are translated in parentheses, for example when there is a direct association with a character or when the story hinges on an understanding of the name. In place-names that include topographical features (e.g. Hvita = lit. White river), the feature is translated in the first appearance of the name in each saga (e.g. ‘the Hvita river’ first, and then usually ‘Hvita’). The last element of the longest types of place-names is often translated, as in words ending in beidi (e.g. Arnarvatnsheiði = Arnarvatn heath). Variant forms of the same place-name have been standardized, generally on the basis of modern Icelandic spelling or usage.
SAGAS
EGIL’S SAGA
Egils saga Skallagrímssonar
Time of action: 850–1000
Time of writing: 1220–40
Egil’s Saga is acknowledged as one of the masterpieces of the genre, a magnificently wrought portrait of poet, warrior and farmer Egil Skallagrimsson, loosely contained within the framework of the family saga, but with an unusual twist – the feud that Egil and his forebears wage is with the kings of Norway.
Spanning some 150 years, much of the action takes place outside Iceland and repeatedly returns to Norway, where the saga starts and where its main themes are laid out against the background of King Harald Fair-hair’s merciless unification of the realm. Egil’s grandfather Kveldulf and father Skallagrim refuse allegiance to the king, while Kveldulf’s other son Thorolf enters his service but dies at the king’s own hands, the victim of malicious slanders. Beyond the closely mapped sites in Norway, the setting extends into vaguer territory elsewhere in Scandinavia, deep into the Baltic and East Europe, far north to Finnmark, and to England – much of the known Viking world at that time. Often the adventures and heroics are larger than life, but are outrageous and delightfully gross rather than implausible or fantastic. Egil’s enemies are motivated by treachery, self-interest and malice, and he confronts them as his forebears did, with the family traits of obstinacy, ruthlessness, animal strength and an instinctive inability to accept authority. To his friend and advocate Arinbjorn in Norway, however, and to others whose favour he wins, Egil shows loyalty and unswerving devotion, and he heroically adheres to a brutal but not entirely unappealing sense of justice.
The action in Iceland falls into several phases. Skallagrim settles at Borg and is an ideal of pioneer and craftsman, but the social order which he builds is threatened by the unruly and rebellious Egil. When Egil many years later
Norway
Borgarfjord
inherits his farm, he becomes a respected figure of authority himself, and does not engage in feuds in Iceland; his main involvement in a dispute occurs when he rules in his son Thorstein’s favour, acting as a figure of authority rather than of force. However, the trick he plans to humiliate the greedy thingmen in his eighties shows that his relish for provocation has never been entirely lost. At intervals he had been drawn away from Borg to pursue his feud with the Norwegian royal family, which escalates into a sheer battle of personalities with King Eirik Blood-axe and Queen Gunnhild. After their deaths he seems to realize that Norway is gradually changing into a world in which he can never be accepted, and Iceland becomes for him, as for so many other saga heroes, a kind of retirement home for ageing Vikings.
Although the objective style of the sagas does not allow direct revelation of the characters’ thoughts, the portrayal of Egil is exceptionally rich in psychology. His gestures are dramatic, almost ritualistic, as he sulks or broods, suffers personal sorrow in silence, flies into a rage or succumbs to childlike joy on receiving a noble gift. And while the saga is clearly a man’s world in which Egil fears no adversary, he is timid and submissive towards women, as shown by his almost blushing love for his brother’s widow Asgerd, who later becomes his wife, and by the way he allows his daughter Thorgerd to trick him out of his sympathy-seeking act of pining away after the death of his sons.
Scholars have pointed out the psychological tension between the ugly Egil and his ‘exemplary’ brother Thorolf, the jealousy which sometimes manifests itself in irresponsible pranks and then turns into self-reproach after Thorolf’s death in battle. Egil seems to have inherited this jealousy from his father, who was always overshadowed by his own brother, also named Thorolf, in the first part of the saga. Macabre tension between father and son is another psychological theme: Skallagrim even comes close to killing the young Egil once in a savage, shape-shifter’s fury.
Another window into Egil’s psyche is his poetry, which ranks with the most personal as well as the most accomplished in the sagas. We see Egil glorifying his own ugliness as if it were an archetypal landscape, depicting the living forces of nature and mythology in brisk, dramatic strokes, and exalting the values he cherishes most. The scene where Egil saves his life in York by reciting his ‘Head Ransom’ to King Eirik abounds in irony, since the poem has an empty, tongue-in-cheek ring to it compared to his other verse and seems, so to speak, to go over the king’s head anyway. By contrast, the eulogy for Arinbjorn is heartfelt, engaged, stacked with monumental metaphor and tinged with nostalgia for the lost Viking lifestyle. In ‘The Loss of My Sons’ Egil lays his soul bare, delves into thwarted ambition for his family and unrealized affection in the bonds that have been lost, and breaks with the god Odin who has given him gifts in both poetry and war, but deprived him of personal fortune.
Egil ’s Saga is preserved in a number of vellum manuscripts and fragments dating from the second half of the thirteenth century onwards, although the most important is Módruvallabók (AM 132 fol., dated 1330–70). Composed in the second quarter of the thirteenth century, the saga is generally attributed on stylistic and other grounds to Iceland’s greatest medieval historian, Snorri Sturluson (1179–1241), who was a descendant of Egil. If the attribution is correct, Egil’s Saga is the only one whose author is known. It is translated here by Bernard Scudder from the version printed in Íslendinga sögur, vol. 1 (Reykjavik 1987), and incorporates a number of emendations based on Bjarni Einarsson’s new reading of MoSruvallabok and paper manuscripts deriving from it.
1 There was a man named Ulf, the son of Bjalfi and of Hallbera, the daughter of Ulf the Fearless. She was the sister of Hallbjorn Half-troll from Hrafnista, the father of Ketil Haeng. Ulf was so big and strong that no man was a match for him; and he was still only a youth when he became a Viking and went raiding. His companion was Kari from Berle, a man of high birth who had the strength and courage to perform great deeds. Kari was a berserk. He and Ulf shared all they owned and were close friends.
When they gave up plundering, Kari returned to his farm on Berle, a very wealthy man. Kari had three children, two sons called Eyvind Lamb and Olvir Hump, and a daughter named Salbjorg. She was a beautiful woman of firm character. Ulf married her, then he too returned to his farm. He was rich in both lands and possessions. He became a landholder like his ancestors and was a powerful figure.
Ulf is said to have been a very clever farmer. He made a habit of getting up early to inspect what his farmhands or craftsmen were doing and to keep an eye on his cattle and cornfields. Sometimes he would talk to people who were in need of his advice, for he was shrewd and always ready to make useful suggestions. But every day towards evening he would grow so bad-tempered that few people dared even address him. He always went to sleep early in the evening and woke up early in the morning. People claimed he was a shape-shifter and they called him Kveldulf (Night Wolf).
Kveldulf and his wife had two sons. The elder one was named Thorolf and the younger one Grim, and they both grew up to be big, strong men like their father. Thorolf was an attractive and highly accomplished man.
He took after his mother’s side of the family, a cheerful, generous man, energetic and very eager to prove his worth. He was popular with everyone. Grim was swarthy and ugly, resembling his father in both appearance and character. He turned out to be an active man; he was gifted at working in wood and iron, and grew to be a great craftsman. In winter he would often set off on a fishing boat to lay nets for herring, taking many farmhands with him.
When Thorolf was twenty, he made ready to go raiding, and Kveldulf gave him a longship. Kari’s sons Eyvind and Olvir joined him, with a large band of men and another longship. In the summer they went raiding and took plenty of booty which they shared out among themselves. They went raiding for several summers, spending the winters at home with their fathers. Thorolf brought many precious things back to give to his parents, for in those days it was easy to win both wealth and renown. Kveldulf was very old by then, and his sons had reached full manhood.
2 Audbjorn was king of Fjordane at this time. One of his earls was Hroald, who had a son named Thorir.
Atli the Slender, another earl, lived at Gaular and had three sons, Hallstein, Holmstein and Herstein, and a daughter called Solveig the Fair.
One autumn when there was a great gathering at Gaular for the autumn feast, Olvir Hump saw Solveig and began courting her. Later he asked for her hand, but the earl, not considering him worthy enough, would not marry her to him. Afterwards, Olvir composed many love poems and grew so obsessed with her that he gave up raiding, leaving Thorolf and Eyvind to go by themselves.
The Sagas of the Icelanders Page 8