The Sagas of the Icelanders

by Smilely, Jane

  ‘I would like to think,’ said Hermund, ‘that we will not both be alive to attend next year’s Althing.’

  ‘Now I’m going to say words which I never expected to speak,’ said Egil. ‘Namely, “may your words be fortunate!” – because it’s been prophesied of me that I will die of old age, but I think the sooner the trolls take you, the better.’

  Then Styrmir spoke: ‘Whoever speaks worst of you, Egil, is nearest the truth, if he calls you underhanded.’

  ‘Now things are going nicely,’ said Egil, ‘and I’m the better pleased the more you insult me and back your insults with proof, because I’m told that when you were all amusing yourselves over your ale by choosing men to compare yourselves with, you claimed me as your equal. Now it’s true, of course,’ he continued, ‘that you have some nasty vices, which others may not know about but you most certainly do. But there’s one difference between us – when each of us promises to back other people, I do all I can and spare no effort, but the moment black-handled axes are raised, you take to your heels. And it’s true that I generally have difficulty making ends meet, but I turn no one away hungry, while you are miserly with food. As a token of that, you own a bowl called “Food in plenty”, but no visitor to your farm has ever seen what’s in it – only you know. Now it’s no disgrace to me if my household have to tighten their belts when there’s nothing in the larder, but it is shameful for someone to starve his household when there’s no shortage. You can guess who I mean!’

  Now Styrmir was silenced, but Thorarin stood up.

  Then Egil said, ‘Shut up and sit down, Thorarin. Don’t say a word, or I’ll accuse you of such shameful things that it would be better for you to keep silent. I don’t find it funny, though your servants laugh about it, when you sit with your legs tight, rubbing your thighs together.’

  Thorarin answered, ‘Wisdom is welcome, wherever it comes from.’

  Then he sat down and kept quiet.

  Then Thorgeir said, ‘Everyone can see that this settlement is pointless and silly, awarding no more than thirteen ounces of silver in a case on this scale.’

  ‘But I thought,’ said Egil, ‘that you at least would see the point of this settlement, and so you will if you think it over. Then you’ll remember how, at the Ranga Assembly, some poor smallholder raised thirteen lumps on your skull, and you accepted thirteen ewes with their lambs in compensation. I thought this would be a good reminder for you.’

  Thorgeir fell silent. Neither Beard-Broddi nor Jarnskeggi wanted to bandy words with Egil.

  Then Ofeig spoke up: ‘Now I want to recite you a verse, so that more people will remember this Althing and the outcome of this case:

  5. Many a metal-tree metal-tree: warrior

  of much less has boasted:

  I record it in the pledge pledge: poetry, the mead that reconciled Am (a giant) and Austri (a dwarf)

  that appeased dwarf and giant.

  In rings I’m not rich, but –

  I revel in telling it –

  I hoodwinked those heroes,

  hurling dust in their eyes.

  Egil answered, ‘Well might you pat yourself on the back! No one man can ever have taken the wind out of the sails of so many chieftains.’

  After this people went back to their booths.

  Gellir said to Egil, ‘I want us both to stick together, with all our men.’

  This they did. There was a great deal of hostility during the remainder of the Althing and the confederates were very unhappy with the outcome of the case. None of them would touch the money awarded, and it got scattered all over the upper fields. Then people rode home from the Althing.

  11 Odd was all ready to put to sea, when he and his father met, and Ofeig told Odd that he had conceded the confederates self-judgement.

  ‘You miserable creature, you abandoned the case!’ said Odd.

  ‘The full story has not been told yet, kinsman,’ replied Ofeig, and related the whole course of events, with the fact that a wife was betrothed to him.

  Then Odd thanked him for all his help, saying that he had pursued matters far beyond anything that had occurred to Odd as possible, and he should never go short of money again.

  ‘Now you must sail as you planned,’ said Ofeig, ‘and your wedding will take place at Mel six weeks before winter begins.’

  After that, father and son parted on the best of terms.

  Odd put to sea, and got a favourable wind north as far as Thorgeirsfjord, where there were merchants lying at anchor. Then the breeze failed and the ship lay there becalmed for several days. Odd grew impatient waiting for a wind, so he climbed a certain high hill and saw that out beyond the fjord the weather was quite different. He went back aboard his knorr and ordered his men to put out of the fjord under oars.

  The Norwegian merchants mocked them and said that it would be a long row to Norway.

  Odd said, ‘Who knows whether you’ll still be waiting when we get back?’

  When they got clear of the fjord, they picked up a favourable wind, and did not lower their sail until they reached the Orkneys. There Odd purchased malt and grain, and spent a short while there preparing his ship. Just when he was ready, an easterly wind rose, and they set sail before it. They made an excellent voyage, and put in to Thorgeirsfjord to find the merchants still there. Odd sailed on west along the coast and put in at Midfjord, having been away seven weeks.

  Then preparations were made for the wedding feast, and good provisions were in plentiful supply. A great crowd of guests came, including Gellir and Egil and many other important men. The feast went off well and indeed magnificently, and people thought they had never attended a better wedding in Iceland. When the party was finally over, the guests were seen off with splendid presents, the costliest falling to Gellir’s share.

  Gellir said to Odd, ‘I hope you are going to be generous to Egil. He deserves it.’

  ‘It seems to me,’ said Odd, ‘that my father has been pretty generous to him already.’

  ‘You can improve on it though,’ said Gellir.

  Then he rode away with his supporters.

  When Egil left, Odd saw him on his way and thanked him for his help: ‘I can never do as much for you as you deserve, but yesterday I had sixty wethers and two oxen driven south to Borg, and they’ll be waiting for you when you get home. And I’ll never be ungenerous to you as long as we both live.’

  Egil was very pleased at this, and they pledged friendship. Then they parted and Egil went home to Borg.

  12 That same autumn Hermund gathered his forces and went out to the Hvamm Assembly, intending to go on to Borg and burn Egil in his house. When they came level with Valfell, they heard a sound like a bowstring twanging up on the hillside, and at the same moment Hermund felt a sickness and a stabbing pain in his armpit, so they had to turn back from their expedition. Hermund’s sickness increased, and when they had come by Thorgautsstadir, they had to lift him from his horse. They sent to Sidumuli for a priest, but when he came, Hermund could not speak, so the priest stayed by him.

  One time when the priest bent over Hermund, his lips moved, and he mumbled, ‘Two hundreds in the gully, two hundreds in the gully.’*

  Then he breathed his last, and his life ended just as reported here.

  Odd now lived on his farm in lordly style and was well content with his wife.

  All this time nothing had been heard of Ospak. A man named Mar Hildisson married Svala and moved into the farm at Svolustadir. He had a brother called Bjalfi, half imbecile and extremely strong.

  There was a man named Bergthor, living at Bodvarsholar; he had summed up the case when Ospak was outlawed. It happened one evening at Bodvarsholar when people were sitting by the fire, that someone came and banged on the door and asked the farmer to come out. The farmer realized it was Ospak who had arrived, and he refused to go out. Ospak kept taunting him to come out, but he was not to be moved and he forbade his men to go out either, and so they parted. But in the morning when the women came in to
the cowshed, nine cows had been mortally injured. This news spread widely.

  Some time later it happened at Svolustadir that someone walked into the room where Mar was sleeping. It was early morning. The man went across to the bed and thrust at Mar with a short sword, right into his belly. It was Ospak, and he spoke a verse:

  6. Sharp from the sheath

  my short sword I drew

  and stabbed it into

  the stomach of Mar.

  I hate the thought

  that Hildir’s heir

  should share the embrace

  of shapely Svala.

  As he turned to the door, Bjalfi jumped to his feet and drove a woodworking knife into him. Ospak walked to the farm called Borgarhol and declared the killing, and then went away, and nothing was heard of him for some time. The news of Mar’s killing spread and was widely condemned.

  The next item of news was that the best five stud horses which Odd owned were all found dead, and people held Ospak to blame for that.

  Now for a long time nothing was heard of Ospak. Then in the autumn, when some men went to round up wethers, they found a cave in some crags, and in it a dead man. Beside him stood a basin full of blood, and it was as black as pitch. It was Ospak, and people reckoned that the wound Bjalfi dealt him must have weakened him, so that he then died for lack of food and help. That was the end of him. It is not reported that any case was ever brought over the killings of Mar and Ospak.

  Odd lived at Mel until old age and was thought a most outstanding man. Many important men in Midfjord are descended from him, including Snorri Kalfsson. The friendship and good family feeling between Odd and his father lasted the rest of their lives. And there this saga ends.

  Translated by RUTH C. ELLISON

  GISLI SURSSON’S SAGA

  Gisla saga Súrssonar

  Time of action: 940–80

  Time of writing: 1270–1320

  Gisli Sursson’s Saga is a classic outlaw saga, and dwells with exceptional insight on the inner torment of its central character. Unlike many sagas with a vengeance theme, it is not ultimately a vindication of the family as a social unit, but rather maps the dissolution of a family through tragic conflicts and complex divided loyalties: Gisli is exiled when he takes revenge for the killing of his wife’s brother, by killing his sister’s husband.

  Thorbjorn Sur, his sons Gisli, Thorkel and Ari and his daughter, Thordis, leave Norway for Iceland largely because Gisli kills several of Thordis’s suitors, introducing a hint of ambiguity about sexual relationships which is never dispelled. The action switches to west Iceland where, after Thorbjorn’s death, Gisli and Thorkel and their wives Aud and Asgerd farm together at Hoi, next to Thordis and her husband, Thorgrim the Godi, at Saebol. Thorkel moves to Saebol when he overhears his wife and Aud talking – it appears that Asgerd has had an affair with Aud’s brother Vestein, and also that Aud was involved with Thorgrim before marrying Gisli. Soon afterwards, Vestein is slain at night, and although the saga writer leaves the killer’s identity as one of the great mysteries of Icelandic literature, this seems to be the work of Thorgrim and Thorkel. Gisli avenges him by killing Thorgrim, who is lying in bed by Thordis’s side; she promptly marries her dead husband’s brother, Bork. Finally, the scene moves to the remote West Fjords of Dyrafjord and Geirthjofsfjord where Gisli, outlawed for the killing, evades his pursuers until providence has the final word.

  Heathen ritual plays a crucial role in the development of the story. The neighbours Gisli, Vestein, Thorkel and Thorgrim prepare a ceremony to take the traditional blood oath of sworn brotherhood, but end up quarrelling

  Main Characters in Gisli Sursson’s Saga

  instead, as if the constant presence of another heathen notion – fate – has somehow gained the upper hand in this scene. Then, before the identity of Thorgrim the Godi’s killer is known, the sorcerer Thorgrim Nef lays a heathen curse on him – like Grettir the Strong, Gisli can apparently only be overcome by the evil arts. Like Grettir, too, Gisli divides his outlawry between heroic escapes and comic outwitting of his adversaries, in almost slapstick interludes which heighten the drama and tragedy. And the two outlaws share a fear of the dark: Gisli’s sleep is plagued by the good and bad dream-women of his verses, who seem to bode Christian hope and heathen despair in the dark night of his soul. Inevitably, Gisli dies in a heroic stand against insuperable odds – human odds, but also those of fate itself.

  The saga has a skilfully devised binary structure, with numerous opposites that overlap and interact. For example, the short preamble in Norway presents a miniature of the main story which takes place in Iceland; two brothers and two brothers-in-law are killed; two farms, Hol and Saebol, are the centre of the action in Haukadal; two dream-women rob Gisli of his sleep; and two women are the main shapers of his fate. Gisli’s wife, Aud, who devotes her life to preserving and comforting her husband, has her opposite in Gisli’s sister, the hard-hearted Thordis who urges men to take vengeance and to win honour at any cost. Thordis even goes so far as to strike a blow at Gisli’s killer, and divorces her second husband for his involvement, even though the pursuit of her brother was largely brought on at her instigation. Together with the two dream-women, Gisli’s sister and wife create a powerful and varied female profile in what is essentially the story of a typical male hero’s resourceful but vain battle against misfortune.

  Gisli is a split personality in several ways, torn between his dream-women, unable to reconcile the roles of husband and outlaw, proving his nobility of character by living in a den like a beast. He is firmly committed to the ancient heroic values, a fearless and ruthless fighter who without compunction sacrifices his personal happiness on the altar of honour and the code of vengeance. Nonetheless, the heroic element is only one part of his makeup, since he is also an industrious worker and accomplished craftsman with all the qualities of the model pioneer farmer, and a fine actor too, a master of disguise when his life is at stake and he needs to dissemble. At times in his outlawry he is slightly coloured by the medieval trickster figure, in comic interludes which temporarily divert from the tragedy but ultimately serve to intensify it.

  Although it is only preserved whole in later manuscripts, Gisli Sursson’s Saga is thought to have been written in the late thirteenth or early fourteenth century. Two versions are extant, of which the shorter is translated here by Martin S. Regal from Íslendinga sögur II (Reykjavík 1987).

  1 This story begins at the time when King Hakon, foster-son of King Athelstan of England, ruled Norway and was near the end of his days.

  There was a man named Thorkel, known as Skerauki, who lived in Surnadal and held the title of hersir. He had a wife named Isgerd and they had three sons. Ari was eldest, then came Gisli,* and finally Thorbjorn. All three were brought up at home. There was a man named Isi, who lived in the fjord of Fibule in North More with his wife, Ingigerd, and his daughter, Ingibjorg. Ari, son of Thorkel from Surnadal, asked for Ingibjorg’s hand and she was given to him with a large dowry. A slave named Kol went with her.

  There was a man named Bjorn the Black, a berserk. He went around the country challenging men to fight with him if they refused to yield or accede to his demands. One winter, he arrived at Surnadal while Thorkel’s son Ari was taking care of the farm. Bjorn gave Ari a choice: either he fight him on the island of Stokkaholm in Surnadal or hand over his wife, Ingibjorg. Without hesitation, Ari decided that he would fight Bjorn rather than bring shame on himself or his wife. The duel was to take place three days later.

  The time appointed for the duel arrived, and they fought – the result being that Ari fell and lost his life. Bjorn assumed he had won both the land and the woman, but Ari’s brother Gisli said that he would rather die than allow this to happen. He was determined to fight Bjorn.

  Then Ingibjorg spoke, ‘I did not marry Ari because I preferred him to you. Kol, my slave, has a sword called Grasida (Grey-blade). You must ask him to lend it to you since whoever fights with it is assured of victory.’


  Gisli asked the slave for the sword and Kol lent it to him, but with great reluctance.

  Gisli prepared himself for the duel. They fought and Bjorn was slain. Gisli felt he had won a great victory, and it is said that he asked for Ingibjorg’s hand because he did not want the family to lose a good woman. So he married her, took over her property and became a powerful figure. Thereafter Gisli’s father died, and Gisli inherited all his wealth. Gisli saw to it that all the men who had come with Bjorn were put to death.

  Kol demanded that his sword be returned. Gisli, unwilling to part with it, offered him money instead. Kol wanted nothing but the sword, but it was not returned. Greatly displeased with this, the slave attacked Gisli and wounded him badly. In response, Gisli dealt Kol such a blow to the head with Grasida that the blade broke as it smashed through his skull. Thus both men met their death.

  2 Thorbjorn then inherited all the wealth that previously belonged to his father and two brothers, and continued to live at Stokkar in Surnadal. He asked for the hand of a woman named Thora, the daughter of Raud from Fridarey, and his request was granted. The couple were well suited and soon began to have children. The eldest was a daughter named Thordis. The eldest of their sons was named Thorkel, then came Gisli and the youngest was named Ari. They were regarded in the district as the finest men of their generation. Ari was taken in as a foster-son by Styrkar, his mother’s brother. Thorkel and Gisli were brought up at home.

  There was a young man named Bard who lived in Surnadal, who had recently inherited his father’s wealth. Another young man named Kolbjorn lived at Hella in Surnadal. He, too, had newly inherited his father’s property.