Sagas of the Icelanders: A Book of Essays 0824083873, 9780824083878

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SAGAS OF THE ICELANDERS

GARLAND REFERENCE LIBRARY OF THE HUMANITIES (VOL. 758)

SAGAS OF THE ICELANDERS

A Book of Essays

Edited by John Tucker

GARLAND PUBLISHING, INC. ♦ NEW YORK & LONDON

1989

This work is indexed in "Essay and General' Literature Index" Introduction and editorial matter copyright © John Tucker 1989. A ll other essays copyright © by their authors, with the exception o f copyrights identified in the Acknowledgments below.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Sagas o f the Icelanders : a book o f essays / edited by John Tucker, p. cm. — (Garland reference library o f the humanities ; vol. 758) Bibliography: p. Includes index. ISBN 0-82 4 0 -8 3 8 7 -3 (alk. paper) 1. Sagas— History and criticism. I. Tucker, John, 1944— n. Series. PT7181.S24 1989 839’.6'09— d c l9 88-29173 CIP

Cover design by Mary Beth Brennan

Printed on acid-free, 250-year-life paper Manufactured in the United States o f America

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

vii

Introduction: Sagas of the Icelanders

1

Hermann Pálsson, "Early Icelandic Imaginative Literature.”

27

Theodore M. Andersson, "The Displacement of the Heroic Ideal in the Family Sagas.”

40

Lars Lönnroth, "Rhetorical Persuasion in the Sagas.”

71

Jenny Jochens, "The Medieval Icelandic Heroine: Factor Fiction?”

99

Margaret Clunies Ross, "The Art of Poetry and Figure of the Poet in Egils saga.”

126

Preben Meulengracht Sørensen, "Starkaðr, Loki, and Egill Skallagrimsson.”

146

Russell Poole, "Verses and Prose in Gunnlaugs saga Ormstungu.”

160

Jesse Byock, "Inheritance and Ambition in Eyrbyggja saga.”

185

Ursula Dronke, "Narrative Insight in Laxdcela saga.”

206

v

VI

Sagas of the Icelanders

Robert Cook, "Reading for Character in Grettis saga.”

226

John Liridow, "A Mythic Model in Bandamanna saga and its Significance.”

241

Óskar Halldórsson, "The Origin and Theme of Hrafnkels sa g a ”

257

Constance B. Hieatt, "Hrútr’s Voyage to Norway and the Structure of Njála.”

272

Carol J. Clover, "Open Composition: The Atlantic Interlude in Njáls sa ga ”

280

William Ian Miller, "The Central Feud in Njáls sa g a ”

292

Bibliographical References

323

Index

367

Acknowledgements

Between their hackneyed or heartfelt lines Acknowledge­ ments tell the stories of the books they introduce. The prep­ aration of this book has required the generous labours of an inordinate number of people. I cannot imagine that editors have often felt so urgent a need to admit their multiple debts—while duly accepting responsibility for all the imper­ fections that have survived their endeavours. I selected the essays included here during a summer in Copenhagen made possible by a grant from the Social Sci­ ences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and by the encouragement of Christine St. Peter, who remained in Victoria. The selection owes more than a little to the sug­ gestions of Christopher Sanders and Margaret Clunies Ross and to the scrutiny of Donald K. Fry. To Eva Rode, James Knirk, Russell Poole, and Robert Cook I am grateful for help with my translations of the articles by Sørensen and Halldórsson. The book was produced in camera-ready form on the mainframe computer at the University of Victoria. My obli­ gations to our Computing Services are manifold: Joe Spar­ row, Moira Glen, Mike Keating, Herb Fox, Richard Chad­ wick, and Steve Dean are as forgiving as their machines and programs are not. And those who have attempted to prepare a document of this size (especially one which involves spe­ cial characters) using Waterloo Script will not need to be told how much I am indebted to the heroic efforts of my research assistants Bryony Lake, Linda Olson, Rob von Rudloff and Tony Bures, as well as to the government pro­ grams and Research Administration assistance that have allowed their employment. My thanks also to Sue Mitchell ♦•

V I1

viii

Icelandic Sagas

for typing, and to Selma Kastner for help with proof-read­ ing. My debts to my contributors are various. Jesse Byock, Russell Boole and Robert Cook wrote their articles specifi­ cally for inclusion in this collection. Others revised their essays at my request. The necessary journals and presses permitted their reprinting, sometimes without charge. Thus, the original sources: Hermann Pálsson, "Early Icelandic Imaginative Litera­ ture.” Reprinted with permission from Medieval Narrative: A Symposium, ed. Hans Bekker Nielsen, ,Peter Foote, Andreas Haarder, Preben Meulengracht Sørensen, Odense 1979, pp. 20-30. Copyright ® Odense University Press. Theodore M. Andersson, "Displacement of the Heroic Ideal in the Family Sagas.” Reprinted with permission from Speculum, 45 (1970), pp. 575-93. Copyright ® The Medieval Academy of America. Lars Lönnroth, "Rhetorical Persuasion in the Sagas.” Reprinted (abridged) with permission from Scandinavian Studies, 42 (1970), pp. 157-89. Jenny M. Jochens, "The Medieval Icelandic Hbroine: Fact or Fiction?” Copyright0 1986 by the Regents of the Univer­ sity of California. Reprinted fron} Viator, 17 (1986), pp. 35-50, by permission of the Regents. Margaret Clunies Ross, "The Art of Poetry and the Figure of the Poet in Egils Saga.” Reprinted with permission from Parergon, 22 (1978), pp. 3-12. Preben Meulengracht Sørensen, "Starkaðr, Loki and Egill Skallagrimsson.” Translated and printed with permission from "Starkaðr, Loki og Egill Skallagrimsson,” Sjötíu Ritgerðir helgaðar Jakobi Benediktssynni, 20. Júlí 1977, Reykjavik, 1977, vol.2, 759-68. Copyright ° Stofnun Árna

Acknowledgements

ix IX

Magnússonar á íslandi 1977. Ursula Dronke, ”Narrative Insight in Laxdœla saga.” Reprinted with permission from J. R. R. Tolkien, Scholar and Storyteller: Essays in Memoriam, ed. Mary Salu and Robert T. Farrell, Ithaca, N.Y., 1979, Cornell University Press, pp. 120-37. John Lindow, "A Mythic Model in Bandamanna saga and its Significance.” Reprinted with permission from Michigan Germanic Studies, 3.1 (Spring 1977), pp. 1-12. Óskar Halldórsson, "The Origin and Theme of Hrafnkels saga.” Translated and printed with permission from "Hrafnkels sagas ursprung och tema,” Gardar, 9 (1978), pp. 5-16. Constance B. Hieatt, "Hrútr’s Voyage to Norway and the Structure of Njála.” Reprinted with permission from the Journal o f English and Germanic Philology, 77 (1978), pp. 484-94. Copyright ° 1978 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. Carol J. Clover, "Open Composition: The Atlantic Interlude in Njáls saga.” Excerpted from Carol J. Clover: The Medi­ eval Saga, pp. 26-34, 41. Copyright ° 1982 by Cornell Uni­ versity Press. Used by permission of the Publisher. William Ian Miller, "The Central Feud in Njáls saga.” A revised and abridged version of "Justifying Skarpheðinn: Of Pretext and Politics in the Icelandic Bloodfeud,” Scandi­ navian Studies, 55 (1983), pp. 316-44. Printed with permis­ sion.

John Tucker

Introduction: Sagas of the Icelanders

If there is a single conviction that unifies the essays in this collection, it is that the Sagas of Icelanders are an extraordinary cultural achievement—extraordinary not only in the relative sense of being unlike any other litera­ ture that has survived to us from the middle ages, but abso­ lutely. For a variety of reasons, not all of them understood, the art of story-telling flowered in Iceland at the beginning of the thirteenth century. Like the other explosions of cre­ ativity that punctuate the course of literary history, this one was short-lived, lasting scarcely a hundred years. But it was enough time to see the composition of a group of sagas so effectively told that, when they became known to people of other lands six centuries later, they gained an enthusiastic readership on the basis simply of their own compelling mer­ its. This readership has continued to grow, especially in recent years, thanks to a number of good, inexpensive trans­ lations,1 and with it has grown scholarly interest—as the number of articles written about these sagas in the last couple of decades attests.1 2

1 See Donald Fry, Norse Sagas Translated into English: A Bibliogra­ phy. For bibliographical details concerning this work and those cited throughout, refer to Bibliographical References at the end of this vol­ o

ume. For a list o f the approximately 500 articles spanning the years 1964-84, see Carol Clover, ”Icelandic Family Sagas,” in Clover and Lindow’s Old Norse-Icelandic Literature: A Critical Guide. The tor­ rent of articles on the sagas and related topics seems for the present

Sagas of the Icelanders

2

The essays selected for presentation here are written to many ends. They are gathered together to provide the non­ specialist reader with a sample of the recent attempts that have beén made to define the nature of this creative achievement and, if only by implication, to account for its origins. Necessarily such a collection rather enacts than surveys the debate that has swirled about these questions. But excellent surveys already exist,3 together with larger analytic studies arguing one or another position.4 It is my hope that the benefits of anthologized variety and open-end­ edness will speak for themselves. In the meantime, however, a brief synthetic introduc­ tion is called for, one which sketches the background to the discussions presented. What precisely is intended by the phrase Sagas of the Icelanders? And what is it about them that makes them worthy of our continued attention so many centuries after they were written down? The Old Norse5 word saga (plural sqgur)6 means a story, originally an oral story since it is derived from segja ”to

to have overwhelmed the annual Bibliography o f Old Norse-Icelandic Studies (BONIS), the last volume of which covers the years 1979-80. ^ Clover’s discussion noted above picks up where Abdersson’s The Problem o f Icelandic Saga Origins, which was published in 1964, leaves off. For a shorter discussion from another angle see Byock, "Saga Form, Oral Prehistory, and the Icelandic Social Context.” 4 Andersson, The Icelandic Family Saga; Byock, Feud in the Icelandic Saga; Clover, The Medieval Saga; Hallberg, The Icelandic Saga; Schach, Icelandic

Sagas; Steblin-Kaminskij, The

Saga Mind;

Sørensen, Saga og samfund. ® The term Old Norse embraces the various North Germanic dialects of Medieval Scandinavia. In fact, most of the Old Norse literature preserved is written in Old Icelandic, which was, like Old Norwegian, a West Norse language. For a brief guide to the pronunciation of Old Icelandic turn to pages 24-26 below. In Modern Icelandic orthography, sögur.

John Tucker

3

say”. It is normal today to distinguish a number of different kinds of sagas,7*of which the so-called íslendingasögur, here referred to asJSagas of the Icelanders, but also known as Family Sagas (and intended when I refer simply to sagas), are the most famous. The other kinds—and one must be aware of them since they provide the immediate literary context within which the Sagas of the Icelanders are to be evaluated—include the following: Konungasögur, Sagas of the Kings of Norway; Biskupasögur, Sagas of the Bishops; Heilagramannasögur and Postolasögur, Sagas of Saints and of the Apostles; Sturlunga saga, a compilation of sagas contemporary to the time of writing and named after the Sturlung family, whose ambitions dominated Iceland durQ ing the thirteenth century; Fornaldarsögur, Sagas of Olden Times or Mythic-Heroic Sagas; and Riddarasögur,9 translations chiefly of French courtly literature. Sagas of the Icelanders share a number of features with these other kinds of stories, and there has been some disa­ greement as to the original validity of the genre divisions just outlined.10 But scholars agree that we can identify

7

For essays on the various saga types and many of the sagas that belong to them, see The Dictionary o f the Middle Ages (DMA), cur­ rently being published under the auspices of the ACLS, and the forth­ coming Encyclopedia o f Scandinavia in the Middle Ages, ed. Pulsiano et al. In addition the Clover-Lindow guide includes bibliographic essays on Konungasögur and Riddarasögur by Andersson and Kal-

Q

°

inke respectively. Pálsson's new Seven Viking Romances conveniently assembles a number of the better known Fomaldarsögur. See Sørensen’s essay in this collection.

Q

See Kalinke and Mitchell's bibliography. The term Fomaldarsögur, for example, is a nineteenth-century coin­ age, and saga writers did not designate their works íslendingasögur, though they seem to have distinguished between Lygisögur, lying sagas, and those conceived of as historical. The modern taxonomy is

Sagas of the Icelanders

4

different phases in saga composition. The earliest preserved sqgur tell of the kings of Norway, and were written for them, while those on Icelandic bishops were strongly influ­ enced by translated legends of saints and apostles. And the Sagas of the Icelanders, which were written after the types just mentioned, seem to have given way in turn to a fashion for Mythic-Heroic and Courtly Sagas, entertainingly legen­ dary and romantic genres of foreign origin and escapist pur­ pose. An examination of the works from each of these phases reveals differences of style and structure in addition to those of source and subject matter. The distinguishing feature of Sagas of the Icelanders, as their name suggests, is their focus on the matter of Iceland. It will be necessary to con­ sider what provoked this period of narrative self-scrutiny, and what brought it to a close, for it is marked by an urgency that must in some way account for the apparently odd fact that this most native of the saga types has enjoyed the widest audience abroad. But before returning to this question one should observe that saga-writing strictly so-called took place within a still larger literary context: the Icelanders cultivated other prose forms and poetry as well.11 The narrative historiogra­ phy of the sagas seems to have been anticipated by the more*

defensible on heuristic grounds, but its possible artificiality from the point of view of the thirteenth-century audience should not be forgot­ ten. For a discussion of these points see Harris, "Genre and Narra­ tive Structure in Some íslendinga þættir” which takes up points made in Lönnroth’s essay "Tesen om de två kulturerna” and the subsequent debate in Scandinavian Studies. 47 (1975): Lönnroth, "The Concept of Genre in Saga Literature” ; Harris, "Genre in the Saga Literature”; and Andersson, "Splitting the Saga,” as well as Ch. 6 of Sørensen, Saga og samfund. ** Turville-Petre, The Origins o f Icelandic Literature. For a summary account see Andersson, "The Emergence of Vernachlar Literature in Iceland.”

John Tucker

5

schematic historical writing which flourished in the twelfth century. From this period date important works such as IslendingabókJThe Book of the Icelanders, and Landnámabók, The Book of Settlements, which outlines the history of the settlement of Iceland, preserving in very abbreviated form some of the same stories retold in the sagas. Then there are the Laws, most famously Grågås,12 which is frequently referred to in these essays, and The Prose Edda13 written by Snorri Sturluson, a compendium of mythology intended to help in the interpretation and composition of skaldic poetry.14 This poetry derives its name from the skalds who composed it and who, like Gunnlaugr, are often the heroes of sagas. It is characterized by extreme metrical complexity and by the use of kennings, metaphorical circumlocutions similar to the Old English ”whale’s way” (for the sea), though usually far more complex and requiring a knowl­ edge of the gods and their stories.15 It is supposed that Snor­ ri’s Edda inspired the gathering of ancient mythological*1

12

Vilhjálmur Finsen edited the different versions of Grågås in the last century. At this point only the first volume of a complete translation is available.

1^ The new translation of the complete text by Faulkes (who also has published a glossed edition of the first two parts of the Prose Edda, The Prologue and Gylfaginning) fills in the gaps left in Young's trun­ cated translation. The most recent analysis of the text is Ross’s Skåldskaparmål, which argues, like her essay in this collection, for the interfusion of native and continental learning in Snorri’s art. See Frank’s Old Norse Court Poetry as well as her bibliographical essay in Clover and Lindow, also von See’s Skaldendichtung, and Turville-Petre’s essays on the topic which are gathered in Skaldic Poetry. The sophistication of such verses, which are often scattered through the sagas (see Poole’s essay below), should help us to resist the temp­ tation to regard the careful simplicities of saga style as a product of a naive aesthetic.

Sagas of the Icelanders

6

poems which are together referred to as The Poetic Edda,16 to which I will return in a moment. * All of these works and genres are inherently interesting and worth pursuing in their own right and it is^a pity that we cannot devote further attention to them here. It must suffice at this point simply to be aware of them since they constitute the artistic and intellectual world to which the sagas, in both the broader and narrower use of the term, belong. Clearly sagas were no isolated phenomenon and must be seen as part of a tremendously rich literary endeav­ our.17 Even considered alone they constitute a substantial cor­ pus of material. Apart from sagas known to be lost,18 a good many remain—-just how many, however, scholars seem reluctant to specify. According to Carol Clover there are "about thirty,” 19 but Kurt Schier refers to approximately three dozen,20 and the newly published collection bearing the title [slendingasögur includes forty. Evidently it is pos­ sible to hold more than one view as to how the saga canon should be defined. The íslenzk fornrit edition of the sagas, a massive scholarly undertaking in multiple volumes, distin­ guishes between two groups: first, the twenty-eight sagas written before about 1300, which are printed in an elevenvolume set arranged on geographical principles,21 and,

Kuhn’s revision of Neckei’s edition remains the most frequently cited text of the complete Edda. Ursula Dronke is presently completing a new, thoroughly annotated, dual language edition of the poems, of which only the first volume has hitherto appeared. 17

Sometimes, as Lindow argues in his essay in this collection, sagas åSsume a knowledge of works in other genres.

18

In this connection, see Jesch, "Two Lost Sagas.” "Family Sagas," p. 612.

20

"Zu den Isländersagas gehören etwa drei Dutzend grössere Prosa­ werke,” Sagaliteratur, p. 34.

21

Volumes II through XII of the fornrit series, edited by a number of

7

John Tucker

second, later sagas—a heterogeneous mixture, six of which have appeared in the only additional volume issued thus far.22 The unwillingness to intermix these groups suggests a concern that the younger works, which are more or less derivative and influenced by Fornaldarsögur, should be kept out of sight lest they detract from the achievement of the older, "classic” sagas. If the new collection Islendingasogur mentioned above is anything to go by, this older atti­ tude no longer holds the field,232 4yet the traditional view has not only influenced most of the individual essays collected here, but their selection. Concerning the sagas that occupy the attention of the scholars gathered in this volume a number of things can be said. One is that they are preoccupied with the earliest period of Icelandic history. From this we may infer that the origins of the sagas are intertwined with the origins of the people whose story they tell. The saga age, the age of the events recounted, is hardly longer than the period of writ­ ing. It commences with the years of settlement, 874 to 930, 2 A

different Icelandic scholars between 1933 and 1956. For further details see Bibliographical References below. 22 Published as Volume XIV in 1959. no

° In this connection, see Paul Schach’s Icelandic Sagas which devotes serious attention to the later sagas.

24

There is a congruence between the fornrit conception o f the corpus as a whole and the various editors’ treatments of particular sagas. These attempt the conflation of existing manuscripts in an effort to reconstruct the "best” text. The editors of íslendigasögur, conversely, print single-manuscript versions of the sagas, and more than one ver­ sion when more than one survives: thus the inclusion of the longer and shorter recensions of Gisla saga. In addition the latter edition asserts the modernity of saga writing not only by printing young texts, but also by using Modern Icelandic orthography (rather than the normalized Old Icelandic of the fornrit editions). Finally it organ­ izes the sagas alphabetically rather than according to the more tradi-

8

Sagas of the Icelanders

and closes with the passing of the immediately succeeding generations, about 1030. Looking backwards through subsequent events, we may see the settlement as the first paroxysm of European west­ ward expansion. Like other settlers in more recent times, the Icelanders understood themselves to have fled to their new land to escape the tyranny of a king. But no indigenous inhabitants disputed the newcomers’ claim to the land and its riches, so they needed no conviction of religious or cul­ tural superiority to legitimize their conquest. In time they pursued their voyages west to Vinland and actually encoun­ tered an aboriginal population, but they lacked the techno­ logical and numerical advantages to proceed with their intended colonization. The most serious task facing the Icelanders was to impose human order upon a beautiful but alien landscape. They had not only to make the land their own, but to do so in symbolically effective ways. This meant naming the land­ marks, and, it would seem, later reinterpreting the new names to make possible more compelling narratives of the humanizing process. In addition land had to be divided among the newcomers. With no preexisting authority to determine the rules of homesteading, the settlers had to devise land-taking rituals that implied divine approval or personal entitlement. Thus they threw their high-seat pil­ lars into the sea as they approached Iceland' and settled where these came ashore.25 And, according to recollections recorded in Landnámabók and the sagas, they hallowed the land they took by ceremonially marking its boundaries,

’tional geographic order. 25

The arbitrariness of this procedure was not lost on contemporaries. But as Landnámabók laconically notes, Kráku-Hreiðarr, who announced he thought it foolish to decide on this basis (kvezk þat Þykkja ómerkiligt at gera ráð sitt eptir þuí, ÍF'I, ii, p. 232), was immediately shipwrecked. Cf. The Book o f Settlements, p. 90.

John Tucker

9

often by means of fire.26 And they evolved a conception of boundaries equally adapted to the economies of their situ­ ation: instead pf physical barriers, the Icelanders made use of a symbolic distance—as far as a bow could shoot—to define a sphere of personal inviolability, despite the fact that bows, apart from Gunnar’s in Njáls saga, seem to have been a relatively unimportant means of defence. As the histories and sagas later recalled it, the powerful settlers divided their land-takings among their followers. Farms sprang up and must have flourished as long as they possessed sufficient land to satisfy the needs of individual households, since these survived by means of animal hus­ bandry. But there came a point, towards the end of the set­ tlement period, when competition and conflict arose over the allocation of remaining lands; understandably, it was just at the time that the island was becoming fully settled that the Icelanders seem to have realized their need for a legal code and some system of government. In 927 they took the reasonable course of sending a cer­ tain Ulfljótr back to Norway to study and adapt the legal system most familiar to them. He returned to establish the Althing, the annual national parliament at which succes­ sive Lawspeakers were to recite all the laws, one-third each

26

For example, Þórolfr mostrarskeggr in Eyrbyggja saga, Ch. 4, car­ ried fire around the land he took (Eptir þat fór Þórólfr eldi um landnám sitt, ÍF IV). And according to Landnámabók King Harald Finehair later decreed that "no one should claim more land than he and his crew could mark off in a single day by means of signal fires” (engi skyldi viåara nema en hann msetti eldi yfir fara á degi með skipverjum sínum, ÍF I, ii, p. 337). But "no woman could take more land than she could walk around, between dawn and sunset on a spring day, leading a two-year old, well-fed heifer” (kona skyldi eigi víðara nema land en leiða mætti kvigu tvævetra vårlangan dag sólsetra [i] millim, hålfstalit naut ok haft uel. IF I, ii, p. 321). See Johannesson, A History of the Old Icelandic Commonwealth, pp. 30-31.

10

Sagas of the Icelanders

year in three year cycles, until they were written down in 1117. According to the law the country was divided into a number of goðorð, which might be rendered "chieftaincies” though the term is difficult to translate because^ it identifies an institutionalized node of authority and allegiance which could be transferred by inheritance or purchase and which was not strictly territorial. Each of the quarters of the island had originally nine goðar (singular goði), priest-chieftains whose power depended on the extent of their followings. Householders had to be in thing with a chieftain, which meant attending the Althing with him and paying thing tax to him, but they could choose the one with whom to contract this relationship. In return for their support, chieftains pro­ tected the lives and livelihoods, chiefly the land, of their fol­ lowers. Within the farmstead, comparable arrangements of authority and dependence existed. Every member of the society was required by law to belong to a household, and some, such as slaves, could never move. Women, on the other hand, are usually depicted as having enjoyed freedoms unusual in continental Europe during this period.“ The mechanisms of land distribution and governance that emerged during the settlement and which are without contemporary parallel proved adequate to the -needs of Ice­ landers for more than three centuries. In the end the com­ monwealth failed; many have tried to explain why. The question is of considerable importance to us, siiice the sagas were written down during the period of its collapse: the quality of nostalgia which adheres to these recollections of an earlier heroic freedom may owe something to the length­ ening shadow of royal power that was falling over the coun­ try during the thirteenth century. Worsening weather con­ ditions and the depletion of natural resources must have destabilized the carefully balanced patterns of dependence and contributed to the wide-spread civil discord which

27

See, however, Jochens’s essay in this collection.

John Tucker

11

resulted from the coalescence of power in the hands of a small number of competing families. But the mere tantalizing question is the opposite one: how was it that the commonwealth survived so long, from the time of settlement until the successful assertion of Nor­ wegian monarchical control in the years 1262-64? Clearly the Icelandic social organism was in many respects admira­ bly adapted to the real needs of the people. It was, to be sure, no democracy, even in our everyday attenuated sense of the term. Rather it was a oligarchy imperfectly protected from the excesses to which oligarchies are prone by a worka­ ble, though uneven, distribution of power which was grounded on a fluid, potentially unstable web of transfera­ ble allegiances. The consentual dynamic of this system assumed a high degree of agreement as to how life had been and ought to be lived. This agreement was expressed in and fostered by the sagas and the laws that gave narrative and apothegmatic embodiment to essential communal values, especially in connection with violence. Modern readers are likely to find in the feud, another of the institutions that the Icelanders imported with them, and the omnipresent subject of the sagas, evidence of a society obsessed by violence. If it was, the obsession cannot have been greater than our own, and the violence practiced then was more stylized and controlled than that we live with. In addition, we should remember that, in the absence of central authority, retaliation—or more properly the threat of retali­ ation—is the fundamental means of protecting one’s interests against the folly, greed, or real needs of another. The difficulty with a threat is that its potency is directly propor­ tional to the probability of its actualization. It has to be believable. Saga narratives provide the vicarious experi­ ence of the dynamic of retaliation and underwrite the credi­ bility of the threats that set it in motion. The inevitability of A n

28

See Miller's essay in this collection.

12

Sagas of the Icelanders

the process is evident in the predictable stages through which it passes. According to Andersson’s analysis the feud story may be divided up into six stages: introduction, con­ flict, climax, revenge, reconciliation, aftermath.?9 In the stories the last two stages, though crucial, received rather less attention than the first four. In the laws the opposite is the case. They define the rules for licit and illicit killing, and the means of stopping the cycles of venge­ ance once these begin. They specify the prices to be paid for a killing (which depend on the status of the victim) and to whom, thus reducing the dangers of disagreements that might keep the hostility alive. Apart from compensation, feuds might be resolved by means of punishment, once again as the laws and sagas show. But punishment must be suitable for communal enforcement. Without some agency that specializes in executions, these must take a participa­ tory form: thus the use of stoning for those accused of sor­ cery. And without the jails that encyst the criminals within modern society, removal from the community had to be effected by expulsion. Hence the use of outlawry, in its lesser and greater forms requiring withdrawal from society for three years or forever. The problems of violence are mediated' also in yet another of the institutional constellations that the settlers brought with them. The Germanic pantheon comprises gods on whom all the deceits and stupidities as well as the noble2 0 3 9

29

The Icelandic Family Saga, pp. 4-29. Lönnroth in Njáls Saga: A Critical Introduction proposes a slightly different but equally architectonic scheme, Byock, in Feud in the Icelandic Saga, a set of recur­ rent elements capable of various arrangements.

30

Perhaps the growing interest in the sagas has something to do with our awareness that the power struggles they depict are not entirely irrelevant to the tensions among modern nation states, which, like the Icelanders of old, admit the existence of no superior authority.

John Tucker

13

f%1_ aspirations of the human spirit are projected. The gods are connected, up to a point, with order and fertility, the once warring Æsir and Vanir a somewhat unreliable bulwark against immanent chaos personified by primordial giants. The gods were understood to be capable of limited interven­ tion in human society and to require propitiation, even devotion if particular gifts (such as that of poetic inspira­ tion) were desired. The poems of the Poetic Edda, which preserve much of what we know about these gods, are a central repository of legendary lore as well. The story of Sigurd and Brynhild, of Gudrun and Gunnar, is contained here in poems of considerable lyrical intensity. These poems provide the most com­ pelling formulation of the German heroic ethos, a set of val­ ues that scholars were once wont to attribute to the sagas. And it is true that the sagas present not a guilt but a shame culture. But their treatment of actions governed by heroic motives tends to be either ambivalent or critical.3 33 The dig­ 2 3 1 nity of the heroic ethos must have seemed admirable in the midst of the sordid realities of the Sturlung Age, but the pro­ blematical nature of its consequences is never minimized. Likewise, the tendency to explain events in terms of fate is usually balanced by an equal awareness of the extent of human responsibility. Considering the probable imaginative force of these myths and legends during saga times, their limited impact on the sagas is noteworthy. It is true that Freyr worship is important to Hrafnkels saga and that Gisla saga, for exam­ ple, alludes to legendary lore, but these cases are

31

Concerning Scandinavian mythology see Turville-Petre, Myth and Religion o f the North, and Ellis Davidson, Gods and Myths o f North­ ern Europe.

32

For an extended discussion of the matter of Brynhild, see Andersson, The Legend o f Brynhild.

33

See Andersson’s essay in this collection.

14

Sagas of the Icelanders

exceptional. The Norse paganism and heroic ethos with which the sagas may once have been charged is now scarcely visible, for the events and values of saga times come to us filtered through the Christian beliefs that the country as a whole accepted in the year 1000. Whatever the immediate social effects of the Christianization, it pro­ foundly affected the tradition of saga narration by providing the new technology for preserving the sagas—writing. In addition, it introduced new models for narrative and demanded the promotion of new values; such models and values were most likely to be well-known to the very people who were instrumental in converting the sagas to written form. Thus Snorri Sturluson, whose own life does not seem to have been unduly impaired by Christian ethics, is con­ cerned to euhemerize the potency out of the pagan gods whose stories he recounts in his Prose Edda. But this brings us to the central debate of saga scholar­ ship: to what extent do the sagas preserve the oral traditions that must have circulated sometime after the events they narrate, to what extent are they authorial compositions reflecting not the facts of the tenth century but the preoccu­ pations of the thirteenth? The once popular but naive view that the sagas we possess faithfully record the versions that would have been told in saga times gave way earlier in this century to the conviction that they can more'fruitfully be analysed as historical novels composed by authors working with the kind of imaginative freedom accorded a Walter Scott.34 Today, partly as a result of folktale studies and our

34

A central statement of the so-called ”book-prose” theory of saga com­ position is Nordal’s Hrafnkels saga Freysgoða: A Study. For a more limited urging of the advantages of this approach see Harris, "Saga as Historical Novel.” The model of rhetorical control that Lönnroth shows to be applicable to Njáls saga was actually developed for the analysis of novels. Dronke’s essay in this collection demonstrates that the analytical approach that has evolved in the study of complex

John Tucker

15

increased understanding of oral literatures, scholars have swung back to a middle position. But middle positions vary greatly, and so perhaps do the combinations of oral and written elements in the individual sagas. Apart from the fact that the sagas tell of events that pre­ date the introduction of writing, important evidence of their earlier orality is preserved in the scenes of saga telling that some of them contain. Let us consider a typical example, which goes as follows: a certain young Icelander was once invited into the Norwegian court because he claimed to know some sagas. (Hann kuazk kunna nqkkurar sqgur.) By Christmas time the Icelander grew sad, so the king asked whether it was because he was running out of sagas. He said it was true. "Now there is one saga remaining and I dare not tell it, it is the saga of your travels, lord.” The king said: "That is the saga which I most want to hear.”35

So the king proposed that he tell the story piecemeal during the Christmas season. Now Christmas time came and the king demanded the saga, and he went on for a while. "Now stop,” said the king. Men began to drink then, and many said that it was daring, and men won­ dered how the king would like it. And so it went through Christ­ mas. The king was very careful to listen, and did not find fault. And when the thirteenth day of Christmas came in the evening, Þorsteinn finished the saga.

and self-conscious literary works can fruitfully be applied to Laxdoela saga, admittedly among the more literary of sagas. 00 Harm kuað svå rétt uera. "Nú er ein saga eptir, ok þori ek eigi at

OK

segja, þuí at þat er útfararsaga yður, herra.” Konungr mælti: “Sú er sú

saga, er mér er forvitni á at heyra.'9 (Þorsteins þáttr

sqgufróða, ÍF XI, p. 335)

16

Sagas of the Icelanders Then the king said: "Don’t you want to know if I like the saga?” He%said he was afraid of it. The king said: "That is to be expected, yet it pleased me very well. And it was never told less well than the subject itself, but where did you learn it?” He answers: "It was my custom, lord, that I travélled every summer to the Althing in our land, and thus I learned the saga, which Halldor Snorrason [who had travelled with the king] told.”36

This story gives rise to a number of observations: events took narrative form quickly, and this form could be learned simply through hearing. Saga telling was a valued, semiprofessional activity of a teller who possessed a repertory of tales and who was intensely conscious of his audience’s response. However unified the narrative, it might be divided into parts. Such are the conclusions that we may draw on the basis of a picture drawn in the thirteenth cen­ tury. For we have, as always, to acknowledge that we can­ not know whether the depiction of the earlier story-telling scene is accurate, though we can infer that the original audience of the vignette found it credible.

36

? Nu kemr jóladagrinn, ok heimtir konungr sqguna, ok gekk hon urn hríð. “Lát nú v e r a s a g ð i konungr. Tóku menn þá til drykkju, ok tqluðu margir um, at djqrfung væri í, ok ætluðu menn um, huersu konungi mundi virðask. Svá fór from um jólin. Konungr var mjqk vandr at hljóði, en fann þó ekki at. Ok er kom inn þrettándi dagr jóla at aptni, lauk Þorsteinn sqgunni. Þá mælti konungr: uEr þér ekki forvitni å9 hversii mér likar sagan?” Hann kvazk hræddr um. Konungr mælti: “ Várkunn er þat, en allvel likar mér. Er kon ekki verr sqgð en efni eru til, eða hvar namtu hana?” Hann svarar: “þat var vanði minn, herra, at ek fór hvert sumar til alþingis á váru landi, ok nam ek svå sqguna, er Halldórr Snorrason sa g ð i” (p. 336)

John Tucker

17

Recent studies of oral literature have cast much light on the process of "narrativization,” and they have demon­ strated that the> techniques of oral story-creation and trans­ mission can explain the existence of narratives of considera­ ble length. Unfortunately, such theorizing about oral narratives bases its findings on long poems, and the ques­ tion remains how far they are transferable to extended prose narrative.37 Scholes and Kellogg make bold to claim that the processes are the same: Some critics believe that prose cannot develop orally because of the difficulty of controlling the logical and syntactic rhythm of the prose sentence. They have restricted illiterate man to the esthetic use of verse and to the non-esthetic use of what Northrop Frye has called the "associative rhythm” of normal speech. On the con­ trary, however, a detailed analysis of the famous "saga style” of the family sagas would in effect yield a description of the "grammar” of Icelandic oral narrative prose. The existence of such a "grammar” was the primary basis for the achievement of an oral prose in medieval Iceland. Orally composed prose will necessarily be highly stylized.38

Certainly it is true that saga prose feels strongly stylized. Phrases and rhythms recur. Events unfold in scenes of pre­ dictable shape which are juxtaposed to one another paratactically.39 The overall structures of the central actions are striking in their similarities. It is these features that those who would emphasize the oral dimension of the sagas point to when called on to explain how a story of the scale and complexity of Njáls saga could have existed in oral form. Perhaps, as the argument once went, it used to exist as a loosely grouped cycle of smaller narrative units relating to a

Q7

See Clover, "The Long Prose Form." The Nature of Narrative, pp 50-51.

39

See Clover, "Scene in Saga Composition."

18

Sagas of the Icelanders

common theme. The term used for saga composition, setja saman, "put together,” would seem to support such a view. And, as we have observed, saga tellers were able to tell their tales piecemeal. In its older formulation the belief that sagas were con­ structed out of smaller, pre-existing elements was referred to as the þáttr theory.40 It gained this name from the often very short narratives that have been preserved with the sagas, þættir (singular þáttr).41 Although þættir were not mentioned in the discussion above of the generic problems associated with the sagas, another of the debated bound­ aries is that between þættir and sagas. By and large þættir are considerably shorter and simpler than typical sagas, but some long þættir are longer than the shorter sagas, and to confuse matters further, different manuscripts can refer to the same story as either a saga or a þáttr.42 In addition most þættir have been retrieved by modern editors from the longer works within which they were embedded in medieval times. The fact that þættir not only survive such excision but flourish in their newfound isolation would seem to sug­ gest that treating them as independent units is not inconsis­ tent with the way in which they were originally read. Their absorption into longer works tells.us more about medieval aesthetics than about the process by which individual saga texts emerged.43 We may believe, if we wish,'; that events were transformed into stories piecemeal, but we cannot prove it.

See Andersson, The Problem o f Icelandic Saga Origins, pp.61-64. The story contained in Hermann Pálsson’s article is such a þáttr, the account of the Icelandic story teller above includes most of another. These should provide some sense of their typical shape. ^ This is another of the reasons why it is difficult to specify how many sagas there are. For a general discussion of the episodic character of medieval narra­ tive, see Evans, "Episodes in Analysis of Medieval Narrative."

John Tucker

19

The hope of identifying the precise moment at which the sagas were "put together” will continue to tantalize. If it happened as pa*t of the transfer of the stories to parchment, we might expect signs that saga writing progressed during the brief period in which it flourished. Early experiments should have given way to more accomplished successes. But, apart from the extreme difficulty of dating the sagas rela­ tive to one another,44 the genre emerges fully blown. Differ­ ences of quality are of degree, not kind. And it must be observed that with a single exception,45 the sagas come to us anonymously. Yet Icelanders were not reticent about identi­ fying the authors of works that they understood to be the fruit of individual artistic ingenuity, skaldic poems. And prose works too, other than the sagas are ascribed to known writers. Apparently then the sagas were conceived of as commu­ nal property, though doubtless reshaped to a greater or lesser extent at each performance. And the recording of the sagas was only the ultimate performance. Once in existence, written versions must have exerted considerable normative pressure, but variation continues. The versions contained in the different manuscripts do not always agree completely, and their differences cannot simply be explained in terms of corruption which the modern scholar can strip away to reveal some pure original form. Individual sagas were liv­ ing, changing entities constituted not by any individual ver­ sion, however good, but by the sum of all the versions. How closely the sagas that have survived relate to the forms that existed in saga times and during the intervening period can never be determined. Their evolution must have been gradual. But it is surely true, as those who would stress their literariness argue, that the act of writing them

44

See Einar 01. Sveinsson, Dating the Icelandic Sagas. Droplaugarsona saga is said to have been told by Þorvaldr Ingjaldsson.

20

Sagas of the Icelanders

was a decisive and radical stage in their development. Scholars of this persuasion point to the learned continental influences,46 whether courtly or religious, and to statements which, when considered in the light of arguably.more histor­ ical documents, appear inaccurate or anachronistic. In addi­ tion they instance thirteenth-century events which parallel and may have influenced the depiction of actions in the sagas, noting the features common to the burning at Flugumýrr in 1253 and that in Njáls saga. for example. And the thematic and rhetorical complexity of a saga narrative may appear inexplicable unless it can be traced to the shaping force of a single, powerful, creative intelligence. None of these factors can be discounted as one seeks to reconcile the conflicting claims of orality and literariness. But several points might perhaps be made. For one thing, although sagas survive only in written form, they must have been intended to be read aloud. So they continued to inhabit an oral environment in which they had still to appeal to audiences whose tastes had been formed on oral story-telling. These audiences must have been unusually mixed. In this respect the saga-telling vignette cited above is misleading. Unlike the writings that have survived from the rest of medieval Europe, the sagas were not intended for a courtly or for an ecclesiastical audience. Nor were there townsmen with more money and sophisticated interests to affect the course of their development. It is probable that a typical audience included a cross-section of the society: at the one end shepherds and washerwomen, at the other peo­ ple capable of writing sagas themselves, and goðar and farmers’ wives in between. It comprised those who could read but more who could not, those who enjoyed the mytho­ logical references and those who preferred the biblical allu­ sions. Satisfying the demands of so diverse an audience doubtless contributed significantly to the characteristic

46

See the essays by Pálsson and Ross in this collection.

John Tucker

21

form and content of the sagas, ensuring the wide appeal that continues undiminished to the present. But despite* the continuities just implied, it must be remembered that we cannot recreate the sensibility of the original saga audience. It is indeed difficult for the modern reader to approach the sagas unless through novel-induced genre expectations.47 One tends simply to discount unusual features as quaint or inchoate. Thus William Miller alludes wryly to the custom of commenting that so-and-so is out of the saga, a quirk that has surely given pause to every first­ time saga reader. In Njáls saga, which names 600 charac­ ters, bidding good-bye to Geirr goði may seem a matter of authorial generosity to the overburdened reader, but the comment that he is now out of the saga assumes also that characters exist apart from the telling. Characters so dis­ missed do not return to the authorial imagination from which they emerged; they go on with their own lives because they are real. In short, the Sagas of Icelanders do not conceive of themselves as fiction, at least not in any sense that we would use the term, but as history, though again not precisely in the modern sense. They issue no more from patient research than from the fertile imagination; the learning they embody is communal. Because a real accep­ tance of their communal evolution comes so unnaturally to us, it is probably more important to reemphasize the orality of the sagas than to document their literariness. Paradoxically, as I have suggested, it is precisely their orality that has produced those features in which the sagas most obviously anticipate the novel, a form whose develop­ ment they predate by four centuries. From oral roots arise their realism, causal cogency, authorial reticence, objectiv­ ity, and concern for ordinary people. But our reading must pass beyond an understandable pleasure in discovering the familiar in the exotic to a fuller awareness of the real

47

See Cook’s essay in this collection.

Sagas of the Icelanders

22

accomplishment of the sagas. Their evolution through time in the face of equally compelling* but changing communal needs, in worlds governed by incompatible ethics, under the influence of various models, is a singular expression of cre­ ative energy. In their sharing of characters and references to one another they display an intertextuality that allows us to refer to them as a single though immense cultural achievement, an encyclopedic account of the birth of the free state as it appeared to those who were witnessing its pass­ ing. *** Some words finally about the selection, arrangement, and presentation of the essays included in this volume. I have called them a representative sample, but their choice was inevitably personal and dictated by many factors.48 The unavoidable difficulty of such a collection is to justify not its inclusions but its exclusions. Unfortunately numerous important articles and many distinguished scholars had to be left out. I only hope that the material provided here will whet appetites and provide the directions needed to find some of the works that I would like to have included. The opening essays address themselves to general ques­ tions; those that follow explore most of the best known

48

It would be a mistake to assume that the essays collected here repre­ sent the full range and primary focus of saga scholarship. Studies written in languages other than English are underrepresented, as are the works of those concerned chiefly with editorial questions. Ice­ landic manuscripts, because so many survive from the Middle Ages and because they continued to be copied through the modern period, present the scholar with daunting problems. Important editorial work continues at the two manuscript institutes', Stofnun Árna Mag­ nussonar in Iceland and the Arnamagnæan Institute in Copenhagen.

John Tucker

23

sagas49 using a variety of approaches. The latter group of articles are arranged geographically according to the locale of the saga, the clockwise movement around the island employed by the Islenzk fornrit series, and before it Landnámabók. I take particular pleasure in the essays commis­ sioned for this volume or made more readily accessible by translation or by retrieval from a publication not generally available. My attempt has been to produce a balanced pic­ ture; readers will decide for themselves whether I have suc­ ceeded. All the essays have been modified to some extent for inclusion here. For the most part these changes have involved supplying either the Icelandic original (usually in the footnotes) or the English translation for quotations from the sagas.50 My intended readers are those who have read or are likely to read the sagas in translation, perhaps students in a course on the sagas taught in translation. Ideally such readers will want to see what they can make of the original on the basis of the translation. A further comparison with published translations (listed in the Bibliographical Refer­ ences) will help to correct the desire to trust any English version absolutely.51 The other forms of systematization pursued here involve the treatment of references and the spelling of Icelandic names. As far as saga references are concerned, citations are identified by chapter number since chapters are short and chapter divisions are, as a rule, common to different*I

49

I regret the lack of an essay on Gisla saga. The fine English transla­ tion, by George Johnston, comes with an informative essay by Peter Foote. In addition, Andersson. Clover, Pálsson, and Sørensen have all written on the saga. For varying reasons the essays by Hermann Pálsson, Ursula Dronke, and Lars Lönnroth depart to some extent from this practice. For a brief discussion of Old Icelandic translation, see my essay "George Johnston’s The Saga o f Gisli. ”

Sagas of the Icelanders

24

editions and translations. I have tried to avoid footnotes that require decoding with the help of a bibliography, but have nevertheless assembled a bibliography, largely of works cited, under the headings Primary and Secondary Sources. Icelandic names present an imperfectly resolved diffi­ culty. My desire has been to problematize -the sagas use­ fully, not to leave readers wondering whether Bqrkr inn digri has anything to do with Bork the stout. But the choice of standardization was less clear. There is, after all, some­ thing to be said for both versions of such a character’s name: the second choice gains in meaningfulness what it sacrifices in alterity. But I have allowed myself to be convinced that Sámr loses too much in becoming Sam and have decided that the benefits of defamiliarization outweigh the gains of domestication. So I have chosen to present the names of Ice­ landers using Icelandic letters and retaining the nomina­ tive singular endings.52 And to compensate for the difficulty this may cause, as also to assist in the reading of the Ice­ landic text, I conclude with a short discussion of Icelandic pronunciation. The Pronunciation o f Icelandic . Two schools of thought exist concerning pronuncia­ tion.53 One holds that we should use a reconstructed medi­ eval pronunciation, the other that we should imitate mod­ ern Icelandic pronunciation, though the two differ some­ what. The argument for medieval pronunciation is simple: it enables us to hear the sagas as they once sounded and it underlines the similarities between Old Icelandic and Old

52

Sigurd and other non-Icelandic figures have, however, been allowed to keep their familiar forms if the essayist preferred.

53

Volume 1 of Mediaeval Scandinavia allows seventeen scholars to present their views. See Haugen, "Two Views oA Old Norse Pronun­ ciation."

John Tucker

25

English. The writer of the First Grammatical Treatise, an ingenious, quasi-phonemic description of the Icelandic pron­ unciation from* the mid-twelfth century, seems to have anticipated our need and supplied the means of achieving a reasonable reconstruction. On the other hand, Modern Ice­ landic retains almost all the complex morphology and many of the words of Old Icelandic, and it is a living language, unlike—say—Latin, and one which can be learned and used. There is much to be said for the approach that maxim­ izes the continuity of Old and Modern Icelandic, though as the table below indicates Modern Icelandic does not main­ tain all the distinctions apparent in the older language. The consonant system has developed less than the vow­ els and contains fewer unfamiliar components, but uses aspiration more commonly and voicing less commonly than English does. It also continues to distinguish double and single consonants, and it uses the velar fricatives we reserve for names like Bach. Some of its consonant clusters are or look difficult for us but they should be taken seriously, for medieval writing is accurate in ways that ours is not. The apparently odd letter forms ð and þ/Þ, which occur still in Modern Icelandic and ought to be in English, stood and still stand for the sounds respectively of th in then and thin. As far as the vowels are concerned, neither the Old Ice­ landic nor the Modern Icelandic system can be described simply in terms of the sounds available in Modern English, which means having recourse to the International Phonetic Alphabet or to the European languages which have not been affected by the Great Vowel Shift that English has under­ gone. The following table oversimplifies Gordon’s treatment in An Introduction to Old Norse and Einarsson’s grammar of Modern Icelandic but may help. You should turn to them for further details.54

54

Gordon’s description assumes that the difference between long and short vowels in Old Icelandic was one of length only. Einarsson’s

Sagas of the Icelanders

26

a á e é æ æ i i o ó u ú y ý q 0 au ei ey

01 [a] mann(G) [a:] father [e] été(F) [e:] reh(G) [æ:] thräne(G) [ø:] creuse(F) [i] fini(F) [i:] rire(F) [o] repos(F) [o:] bote(G) [u] roux(F) [u:] droop [y] tu(F) [y:] pur(F) [o] not [ø] creux(F) [ou] cold(Aust) [ei] hate [ey] oeil(F)

MI [a] 'father [au] cow [e] air [je] yes [ai] high [ai] high [i] bid [i],green [o] law(Brit) [ou] slow [Y] müssen(G), [u] school [i] bid [i] green [Ö] peur(F) [ö] peur(F) [öy] feuille(F) [ei] ale [ei] ale

symbols indicate qualitative differences between their descendants. The explanatory "oeil” for Old Icelandic [ey] is borrowed from Hol­ lander’s Guide to Pronunciation in his translation of Heimskringla.

Hermann Pálsson

Early Icelandic Imaginative Literature

Since the title of my paper will probably baffle some of its potential readers, I should like at the outset to clarify the situation and state my intention. To begin with, the term 'early’ in this context refers to the thirteenth century and the first half of the fourteenth. The phrase 'imaginative lit­ erature’, as I understand the term, denotes narrative struc­ tures whose themes and characters are subordinated to a plot, which means that two major types of medieval narra­ tive are precluded from consideration: the lives of the saints and other devotional stories, where the message dominates the form, and chronicles and other descriptions of the past where the course of events, rather than literary convention, determines the ultimate shape of the narrative. To put things differently, my paper is concerned with secular fic­ tion in Iceland during the period c. 1200-1350 and its pri­ mary purpose is to identify some of the problems facing the student of that literature. I shall begin by considering the crucial question of literary kinds and then proceed to take a cursory look at certain aspects of the stories involved. The total range of secular fiction in the period of my choice shows a remarkable diversity of purpose, mode and content, and probably the simplest way of classifying the lit­ erature into separate categories is to use the quality of the world to which the hero belongs—or in which he exists—as our principal criterion. The literary cosmos of early Ice­ landic fiction divides into three primary worlds. First, there is the timeless, hypothetical world of myth, inhabited by gods and other extramundane beings. All the myths of the period in question appear to have come from the pen of Snorri Sturluson (d. 1241), who included several stories

28

Sagas of the Icelanders

about pagan deities in his Edda (c. 1225). The fact that he based his myths on poetry going back to a pagan, preliterate age need not concern us here: what is more important for our immediate purpose is that prose stories .of that kind were created in Iceland in the first half of the thirteenth century. Second, we have the alien, aristocratic world of heroic legend and romance, a world which* is essentially human, though it shares certain obvious features with myth: some of the heroes are of divine origin; pagan gods make an occasional appearance, and the hero may travel to purely imaginary places; various laws of nature are sus­ pended at will. As in the case of myth, most of the hero-tales in Snorra-Edda are prose renderings of ancient poetry, but other legends and romances reached beyond native tradi­ tion for some of their raw materials, including descriptions derived from foreign models such as Icelandic and Norwe­ gian translations of Latin and French literature. In broad geographical terms, the heroic world of romance corre­ sponds to Europe (outside Iceland), though the hero’s adven­ tures may take him to even more distant parts: south to Ethiopia and east to India. Under the blanket term ’romance’ belong the so-called Legendary Sagas (fornaldarsögur), Sagas of Chivalry (riddarasögur) and Lying Sagas (lygisögur), as well as vernacular versions of the chansons de geste, romans d’aventure and certain bther foreign works. Third, there is the familiar world of experience, mir­ roring the physical and social realities of the’author’s own enviroment. Stories like Bandamanna saga and Þorsteins þáttr stangarhqggs, which are set entirely in Iceland and which are free of fanciful elements, can be classified as ’naturalistic fiction’, but since the heroes are modelled on real personages belonging to a not too distant time (c. 9^30-1050), the label 'historical fiction’ appears to be no less appropriate. However, the term 'historical fiction’ applies equally well to other stories based on that period even though the hero leaves the world of experience in search of adventure in the world of romance. In Njáls saga, Laxdoela saga and a good many others, there may be no lack of

Hermann Pálsson

29

realism in episodes set in Iceland, but as soon as the hero leaves his native shore, the narrative mode tends to change and drift in the direction of the idealised landscape of romance, with its royal splendour and heroic exploits. Another romance feature of such stories is the occasional suspension of natural law, in which case description fails to yield a literal sense and should therefore be treated figura­ tively; as an example we might mention the ghosts and monsters in Grettis saga, which are essentially symbols of the powers of evil. The so-called 'Sagas of the Icelanders’ (Islendingasögur) exemplify two distinct, though closely related, literary kinds: 'naturalistic fiction’ and 'historical fiction’. To sum up: on the basis of how closely each fictive story corresponds to what the author could observe and experience in his native land, the entire corpus can be seen as a spectrum, with myth and naturalistic fiction at the two opposite extremes, while hero-legend, romance and histori­ cal romance occupy the central grades of the total literary order. Scribes in medieval Iceland making observations on the nature and functions of imaginative literature singled out for special comment three aspects which they called skemmtan ('entertainment’), fróðleikr (probably best trans­ lated as 'factual knowledge’), and nytsemð ('utility’). The term skemmtan refers to the sheer delight we take in the story-teller’s art; a modern critic would of course be more analytical and talk about plot, character, mode, suspense, humour and any other relevant feature of a well-told tale. In other words, we identify skemmtan with the fictional aspect of narrative art, which is the quintessence of imagi­ native literature and therefore of a universal kind. The fac­ tual knowledge implied in the term fróðleikr relates not only to particular events, but also to other kinds of informa­ tion, such as social customs and geography. Historical fic­ tion, whether or not the naturalistic mode is sustained throughout the narrative, differs radically from the other literary grades in so far, as indeed the term indicates, as it deals with specific happenings of the not so distant past,

30

Sagas of the Icelanders

while romance presents imitations of other stories rather than of actual happenings. And, not surprisingly, the adventures of the Icelandic hero in foreign parts tend to be modelled on legend and romance. However, romances are by no means devoid of fróðleikr, many of them show a remarkable knowledge of geography, and in this connexion we might mention the descriptions of England and Den­ mark in Gqngu-Hrólfs saga. The utility (nytsemð) of a sec­ ular story consists essentially in certain basic humanistic assumptions, in what it tells us about the human condition in general. In sacred stories, which lie beyond the scope of the present paper, the utility element relates to God rather than Man. When we analyse a story from the point of view of its utility, we find that we are in fact exploring its the­ matic aspect. A story with a powerful thematic element will teach us what to desire and what to avoid; like people else­ where in medieval Europe, the Icelanders would rather be instructed by fable than by sermon or homily. Whereas the historical aspect relates to fact, the thematic aspect relates to truth and has therefore a universal significance. The description of an actual event may serve as an exemplum or a cautionary tale, but a miracle story and any other kind of fanciful narrative will be found lacking in historical dimen­ sion, however clear its message may sound. Compared to the more sophisticated historical fictions, such as Njáls saga, Hrafnkels saga and Grettis saga, the legendary romances are thematically impotent. Their teal strength lies in their fictive quality but on the whole they do little by the way of helping us to see ourselves as we are or as others see us. In romance literature, whether historical or legendary, one of the characteristic features is that the protagonist uhdertakes a journey or a quest, typically for the purpose of self-advancement; he emerges from his adventures a greater man than when he set out. In contrast, naturalistic fiction is concerned more with justice and other related moral prob­ lems and the quest element is either totally absent or else relegated to a minor role. The hero of romance is in fact

Hermann Pálsson

31

essentially a traveler, who sets out to see the world, to defend a kingdom against an intruder, to rescue a damsel in distress, or to put himself to some test or other. The hero’s journey has two inherent elements: first, a goal, which is usually, though not always, defined before he leaves home; and, second, adventure, including all the hazards and obsta­ cles he must face before attaining the desired goal. The identification of the goal is often a major factor in the anal­ ysis of romance: "Tell me where you come from and where you’re going, and I’ll tell who you are and what kind of story you deserve to have written about you.” Looking at the Icelandic saga hero who leaves the inti­ mate world of experience to explore the alien world beyond the sea, we find that his goals vary from one narrative to another: to seek fame and fortune, to gain recognition from a potentially hostile grandfather, to win a name for himself as a court poet or a warrior, to attain promotion above his own social level through associating with royalty, or even to do something for the benefit of his soul. Again and again, we see him taking part in dangerous, if sometimes profit­ able, campaigns against vikings in the Baltic or British Isles. In early Icelandic literature, the viking season invari­ ably corresponded to the summer months, which left the adventurer plenty of opportunity to indulge in other forms of heroic enjoyment for the rest of the year, such as drinking and feasting at a royal court, killing the odd berserk (always regarded as winter sport), or even to woo a lady to relieve the monotony of the otherwise masculine form of heroic existence. The Icelandic hero abroad is a highly conven­ tional figure, incapable of freeing himself from the romance convention. Notwithstanding all the attempts that have been made to identify the hero’s adventures abroad with actual history, I can see little reason why the descriptions of Egill Skallagrimsson in England or Bjqrn Hitdoelakappi in Russia should be regarded as anything but potential history, which is one way of saying that they are not imitations of real events.

Sagas of the Icelanders

32

For the purpose of illustrating some of the recurrent fea­ tures of secular fiction in early Iceland, I have chosen a short tale about a pilgrim.1 But before I come to that story, there are three points I should like to make. First, when we try to make sense of the sagas and study them in critical terms, we should relate them to the total literary experience of educated men in medieval Iceland. Second, the thematic aspect of the literature should be explored in terms of the medieval world of ideas and for that purpose the extant ver­ nacular literature is an inadequate guide. Third, apart from the obvious assumption that elements failing to give a literal meaning should be treated figuratively, we should also reckon with the possibity that even realistic descrip­ tions are capable of symbolic interpretation. So, when we read the story of our pilgrim, we should bear in mind that the notion of a journey invites not only a literal acceptance but also a metaphorical interpretation: the course of a per­ son’s life was often presented as a journey from the cradle to the grave, and, conversely, a single journey could symbolize the shape and purpose of the total life of an individual. A Pilgrim from the East Fjords There was a man called Þorsteinn, a lively young fellow belonging to a family in the East Fjords. He set off for Rome, travelling first to Denmark where King- Magnus the Good was fighting one major battle after another. It hap­ pened one day, as Þorsteinn was walking on his why, that he saw a man standing beneath an oak defending himself with spirit against four attackers. He seemed to Þorsteinn a*

2

The following translation is based on Þorsteins þáttr austfirzka in IF XI, pp. 327-32. By way of justifying the title of the English transla­ tion. I should like to point out that the name Þorsteinn was very com­ mon and therefore non-distinctive:

in some of the versions of

Þorsteins þáttr sqgufróða, the hero is nameless.

Hermann Pálsson

33

great-hearted man. "Wouldn’t it be the more soldierly thing,” Þorsteinn asked himself, ^to help the one on his own rather than the four fighting against him?” So he went up to them and drawing his sword he struck hard and fast, quickly killing three men while the one under attack killed the fourth. He was a good-looking fel­ low, youthful in appearance with a silk jacket over his coatof-mail, and he was quite worn out from the fight. "What would be the name of the man I’ve been helping?” asked Þorsteinn "My name’s Styrbjörn,” he replied, "one of King Mag­ nus’s retainers. Things weren’t looking so well for me when you came to my rescue: my companions have scattered into the forest. The great service you’ve done me won’t be easy to repay. But tell me about yourself.” "I’m an Icelander,” said Þorsteinn, "on my way to Rome.” "Are you sure you’ve not delayed your pilgrimage?” asked Styrbjörn. "Maybe,” answered Þorsteinn, "but if I have I’d rather do it for King Magnus or one of his men than for anyone else.” "You’ve a high opinion of him?” asked Styrbjörn. "Very high indeed,” answered Þorsteinn. "As a ruler he’s outstanding and his reputation has spread to every land.” "I think you’d best get on with your journey, since it’s a necessary one,” said Styrbjörn, "but come and see me on your way back. You can always find me at the court of King Magnus.” With that they parted. Þorsteinn travelled to Rome and was back north in the spring. He came to the place where the King was feasting, walked up to the door and asked to be allowed in. The doorkeepers replied that it wasn’t the cus­ tom for strangers to walk in where the King was at table. 'Then ask a man called Styrbjörn to come out,” said Þorsteinn.

34

Sagas of the Icelanders

Then one of the doorkeepers ran in shouting with laugh­ ter, "Styrbjorn’s wanted outside.” * At that all the retainers leapt to their feet calling "Out you go, Styrbjörn, an Icelander’s asking for you. He’s surely making no mistake over names, but we don’t know anyone in here with a name like that.” They went on mocking and jeering, each .of them keep­ ing to his own place and calling "Styrbjorn’s wanted out­ side." Then the King spoke. "This isn’t much to joke about,” he said. "A man’s name can be used in many ways: you’re not to mock at this one any more.” The king’s wishes were obeyed, whereupon he rose from his seat, wearing a precious robe, and went outside. "Welcome to you, Icelander,” he said, "put on this cloak and come inside. A bath will be made ready for you, you’re welcome to stay with us at court, and let no-one dare harm you.” This was a surprise to everyone. Þorsteinn stayed on at court, but kept very much to himself and rarely mixed with the others. On one occasion the King asked "Who do you think our Styrbjörn could be?” "You’re the likeliest one to have used that name,” he answered. "And it would also be true if you thought of yourself as the man who saved my life,” said tbe King.' "You should be well repaid.” At that, the King related the whole story, starting with their first meeting in Denmark. Afterwards they all travelled to the north of Norway, and on one occasion, when their ship was berthed at a cer­ tain harbour, some of the crew went ashore to cook a meal of porridge. When the bowl was passéd to Þorsteinn, he lapped up all the contents. This raised a laugh. "You know a thing or two, Icelander,” said the retainers, "when it comes to porridge.”

Hermann Pálsson

35

The king smiled and made this verse: At a singlp swoop the spear-wielding warrior felled three in the fray: he rose above the rest. And grasping the gruel-bowl, he gobbled three shares, rowing to the northlands: he rose above the rest. "He was the one who gave me such great backing when you were nowhere near,” said the King, "gave it, indeed, to someone he didn’t know, which must make him a real war­ rior. It’s never wise to make fun of a stranger, and you’d have to search far to find a man of greater mettle and cour­ age. Some people will say that what happened in his case was a stroke of luck.” "My lord,” answered Þorsteinn, "its plain to see that I must have been sent by God to protect you. I was so impressed by the look of you that I knew you were no ordi­ nary man, and that’s why I thought I’d help you.” The King was very good to Þorsteinn. On one occasion, he asked him, "What can be done that will suit you and please you best? Would you like to marry and settle down here?” "That’s a generous offer,” said Þorsteinn "While you live, I’ll be paid the greatest respect here, but long life is guaranteed to no-one, and as soon as I lose your protection people will start to envy me. But I know that as long as I have your patronage I’ll be safe.” "You’ve spoken wisely,” said the King. And afterwards, he provided generously for Þorsteinn’s voyage back to Iceland, including plenty of money. There Þorsteinn settled down and people thought him the most for­ tunate of men. And that’s the end of our tale about him.

36

Sagas of the Icelanders

Like the more celebrated Auðunar þáttr vestßrzka, which also describes a pilgrimage, our story has a simple plot: at the beginning we are told that the hero sets off for Rome, and later on we learn that his second goal is ter get back to Iceland. He succeeds in both, so the tale describes a round trip and is itself cyclical in shape, the completion of the total journey marking the end of the tale. Þorsteinri’s adventures and trials are revealed in four successive scenes, but the actual journey is indicated rather than described. The first scene, set here in Denmark, corresponds to the heroic phase of the Icelandic protagonist abroad: Þorsteinn’s valour is put to the test and he proves his fighting ability by killing three assailants and saving the life of a stranger. The other three scenes, all set in Norway, are essentially concerned with the revelation and recognition of personal identity and character. The stranger in Denmark turns out to be none other than King Magnus the Good, and Þorsteinn himself, in spite of his uncouth behaviour and low social back­ ground, is shown to be of true heroic mettle and capable of completing his journey and attaining the ultimate goal. In romance, our sympathies usually lie with the hero and the other characters tend to divide into two opposite camps, depending on whether they are helping or hindering him in the all-important task of achieving his goals. Apart from the protagonist, the only other character mentioned by name is Styrbjorn/King Magnus, who acts out several differ­ ent roles in relation to the hero: after encouraging the pil­ grim to go to Rome and then protecting him and explaining his worth to the detractors in Norway, the King appears as a tempter, placing unexpected obstacles in his way back to Iceland. The rest of the cast are nameless people who are against the hero: his victims in Denmark as well as the King’s retainers who do their best to humiliate him. In a story of this kind, we expect the author to use such conventional devices as contrasts and parallels: Þorsteinn comes to the King’s rescue in Denmark and gets his rewards in Norway; he kills three villains in Denmark and later gob­ bles up the food intended for three retainers in Norway.

Hermann Pálsson

37

Such recurrent fictional features as the concealment and revelation of a person’s identity serve to sustain our interest in the story. 'When we consider the overall pattern, we can hardly fail to recognize its affinity with other accounts of Icelandic saga characters travelling to Norway and beyond, even where the ultimate goal is different in kind. Leaving aside the potential historical relevance of this simple tale, we can now proceed to its thematic aspect. As I have already indicated, journeys are often used symboli­ cally as well as in a literal sense; the message of the story is ultimately inseparable from its form. As I see it, our story exemplifies three themes which run like quick-silver thread through the literature I have called 'historical fiction’. Readers of the sagas who fail to isolate and identify the ele­ ments in question are, to put it plainly, not looking at the literature critically or analytically. The three themes I have in mind are happiness, integrity and alienation. All three are of course interrelated, and they keep recurring not only in the stories vulgarly known in English as Family Sagas or Sagas of Icelanders, but also in Norwegian and Ice­ landic translations of medieval works of learning. There is no need for me to mention here the well-known fact that the basic notion of a goal is closely related to that of good for­ tune; the desire of the virtuous ends in happiness. In the ultimate analysis the two concepts appear inseparable: happiness consists in choosing the right kind of goal and in pursuing that goal with steadfastness. Our hero exempli­ fies that ideal: he lets no obstacles, neither humiliation nor temptation, divert him from his chosen goal. The basic idea of integrity, that it is everyone’s moral duty to protect not only his own wholeness but also that of others, is of course closely related to the ideal of self-knowledge. Þorsteinn defends the stranger’s integrity in Denmark, and later his own by refusing to settle in Norway. Finally, there is the theme of alienation, which in early Icelandic literature as elsewhere is a notoriously complex matter to deal with, not least in a short paper. It is by no means unlikely that the actual historical and cultural experience of my forbears

38

Sagas of the Icelanders

during the first generations after emigrating from Norway created a sense of alienation which lasted for centuries. But looking at the extant literature in the vernacular, foreign and native, secular and sacred, fictive and thefhatic, of the twelfth and the thirteenth centuries, there is ample evi­ dence to show that alienation, in the medieval as well as the modern existentialist sense, was a concept to be reckoned with in the kind of story we are considering here. As I indi­ cated earlier on, in order to make sense of secular fiction, we would try to see the literary creation in terms of the total intellectual experience of medieval Iceland. The thirteenthcentury Icelandic terms for alienation, ørlendi and ørlending, convey not only the literal sense of being alien­ ated or banished from one’s country, but they also denote various degrees and kinds of isolation from anything one loves and ultimately from God. Our tale presents a person who is temporarily alienated from his native land and who, through his pilgrimage and reintegration into his own soci­ ety, is ultimately fated to attain happiness. As we have seen already, this theme is presented as the major informing ele­ ment in a tale cyclical in form. But there is also a linear narrative form, as for example in Grettis saga, where the alienation theme controls a totally different pattern. In medieval writings, and here I am thinking ýi particular about works still extant in Icelandic translations, human life was sometimes presented in terms of three phases in relation to alienation. In early childhood we belong to a cer­ tain place, which is the only part of the world we know and love; anything beyond our unguided vision is an alien world to us. But when we reach a certain age, we are sent off to school, and travelling from country to country we gradually learn that we are at home wherever we happen to be; we belong to the whole world. We attain the third phase once we have acquired the true wisdom of old age, when we real­ ise that we exist in an alien world and are therefore strang­ ers in a foreign land. In contrast to our stor;y, elsewhere in medieval Icelandic fiction we have characters who willingly undertake the outward journey of no return, seeking the

Hermann Pálsson

39

kind of happiness that can be achieved only after three stages of alienation through which the perfect man must pass. Exploring the thematic aspect of historical fiction, we find it necessary to distinguish between what we might call the major informing elements, such as the three themes I have just mentioned, and certain explicit sententious state­ ments in the dialogue, which add to the total semantic con­ tent of the story. In our tale there are three sentences of that kind: one, echoing a maxim in the Distichs o f Cato and the precept in Exodus urging people not to mock a stranger; another on the uncertainty of life, reminiscent of Job; and the third on the inconstancy of people’s names. Sentences like these: "It’s never wise to make fun of a stranger” (er þat uitrligra at gera eigi mikit spott at ókunnigum manni). "Long life is guaranteed to no-one” (Engum er ianglifi heitit). "A man’s name can be used in many ways” (megu manna nqfn marga vegu saman herd) serve to indicate the kind of education and book-learning the author received. The tale of our pilgrim is evidently an exemplum, though it has been left to us to work out its message. When we compare this story to other secular fictions in medieval Iceland, we find that not only are the basic formal qualities the same here as in saga episodes describing a journey abroad, but also that from a thematic point of view we are dealing with a common stock of ideas, which are essentially humanistic in outlook. While there can be little doubt that a major purpose of Njáls saga, Egils saga and the rest was to attempt an acceptable description of the past, they were intended also for exemplary and edificatory ends. The mod­ ern reader will enjoy the sagas as manifestations of narra­ tive art, but we owe it to their nameless authors not to forget that historical fiction in early Iceland had several different facets and that medieval audiences were probably better equipped than modern ones to appreciate the simple fact that serious saga authors used their narrative skill for the purpose of encouraging people to make sense of themselves and of the world to which they belonged.

Theodore M. Andersson

The Displacement of the Heroic Ideal in the Family Sagas

Walther Gehl began his study of saga ethics by stating: "Honor is the most fundamental driving force in ancient Germanic life.” 1 The other treatises on saga ethics agree and suggest that there is a continuity of values from heathen literature to the sagas and that the demands of honor remain constant. Despite the deep divisions in opin­ ion on most problems connected with the sagas, there seems to be perfect unanimity in this particular area. Vilhelm Grønbech depicted Germanic honor in the sagas as a feeling of personal integrity vital to the individual.*2 Whenever a man’s honor is compromised, his integrity is damaged and must be restored; hence the demand for blood revenge required to keep the integrity of the family intact. This revenge is an automatic response. It does not spring from a sense of justice, or retaliation ("eye for an eye”), or vindic­ tiveness, but from a man’s feeling of responsibility to him­ self and his sense of his own honor, which is an unnegotiable standard. Gehl anchored the saga mentality no less firmly in honor. The Germanic system of values distinguished not

Ruhm und Ehre bei den Nordgermanen, p. 7. Page references to Gehl’s study will henceforth be introduced parenthetically into the text. o

Vor Folkeæt i Oldtiden (rev ed.), I, pp. 57-107. Page references to Grønbech’s study (all to vol. I) will henceforth be introduced paren­ thetically into the text.

Theodore M. Andersson

41

between good and evil (p. 23) but between honor and disho­ nor. In a chapter entitled 'The Absolute Honor Imperative” he stated: "Tile priority of honor has absolute force; all other human obligations are secondary” (p. 40). The literary application in the sagas is clear: "The dispute of honor is the saga motif par excellence . . . . All other motifs are isolated and insignificant by comparison” (p. 73).3 Within the frame­ work of the sagas Gehl established an evolution of honor: at the earliest stage it is taken for granted and not belabored CHávamál, Heiðarvíga saga, Hrafnkels saga); at a later stage it becomes more self-conscious and develops into drengskapr, a spirit of chivalry that imposes respect for another man’s honor as well as one’s own (Þorsteins þáttr stangarhqggs, Gisla saga); the final development veers either in the direction of meaningless imitation ( Vatnsdoela saga) or a flouting of the concept (Bandamanna saga). The primacy of honor is similarly maintained by Hans Kuhn: The most prized possession of the early German, and the decisive factor in determining his action, was his honor and the glory that survived him. That is the consensus of the heroic lay and pane­ gyric poem of the warrior aristocracy, the gnomic verse of the peace-loving lesser farmers, and the saga of the intermediate class of wealthy Icelandic farmers.4

The same point of view is reiterated in the most readily available general book on the sagas by Peter Hallberg, where we find the following formulations: "Honor (Icelandic sómi, sæmð, uirðing, etc.) is ethically the key concept in the world of the Icelandic saga. This was not an abstract idea, but a deep and passionate experience, a condition of life as basic and essential as one’s daily bread.” 'The people of the*

3

The translations here and throughout are my own.

* "Sitte und Sittlichkeit,” p. 215.

42

Sagas of the Icelanders

sagas must always be on the alert, ready at all times to fight to preserve their honor.” ” Honor was a precious and irre­ placeable possession which was not to be squandered and on which everything depended which made life worth living.”5 That GehFs conclusions continue to go unchallenged is indicated by Oskar Bandle’s recent comments on the prob­ lem: As has been shown chiefly by Walter Gehl, the honor imperative is universal and dominates the whole outlook of the saga. Honor has almost supernatural significance and can be regarded (as in the case of heroic poetry) as the central motif and prime mover of f*

the action in the Icelandic sagas.

Despite general agreement this viewpoint strikes me as doubtful. It is arrived at through partial interpretation of the texts; especially Gehl (Grønbech remains the subtlest and best-balanced moral interpreter of the sagas) tended to single out scenes from various sagas in which personal honor appears in a positive and admirable light. There are many such episodes and no dearth of illustrative material, but the procedure is one-sided. It involves a neglect of epi­ sodes which depict personal honor in a less favorable light and it takes the episodes it does interpret out of context. As we progress, we will have occasion to observe frequently how the commentators have skewed the moral by disregard­ ing the larger context and interpreting episodically. The perspective changes if we substitute an integral reading for an episodic reading and interpret the sagas as a whole. We find then that honor is not really ” the saga motif par excellence” and that there are other more important val­ ues, values which are in fact directly inimical to honor. But

g

The Icelandic Saga, pp. 99-100. "Isländersaga und Heldendichtung," pp. 12-13. For a fresh approach see Pálsson, Siðfræði Hrafnkels sögu, esp. pp. 21-23.

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this view is based on the supposition that it is possible to interpret a smja as a whole, a supposition which is not gen­ erally made, let alone accepted. The Icelandic saga, by com­ mon consent, exemplifies literature focused on the "internal fiction”;78it has tacitly been regarded as a genuinely one-di­ mensional narrative with no discernible theme. To my knowledge no one has asked what the point of a saga is. On the contrary, the appropriateness of the question has been explicitly denied. Grønbech wrote: "The old literature has no synthetic viewpoint, an absolute predetermined sum, which is merely calculated in the story in order to be proven” (p. 91). Gehl wrote to the same effect: "In the saga there is no moral superstructure according to which the Q individual characters can be judged” (p. 75). The reason for the rejection of a moral or thematic framework in the sagas lies in part in their deceptive objec­ tivity and in part in the traditional view that the sagas are history, a record of events or traditions about events without a "conceptual interest.”9 But now that the sagas are closer to being accepted as imaginative literature, it is perhaps time to raise the question of theme; is a given saga just a story, or is there some underlying concern which informs the events and which requires interpretation? Does the author impose

7 8

See Northrop Frye, The Anatomy o f Criticism, p. 52. I have adopted this point of view myself in The Icelandic Family Saga, p. 32: "In short, there is no guiding principle laid down by the author in order to give his material a specific import. He draws no general conclusions and invites his reader to draw none. In this sense the saga is not interpretable. The critic, whose congenital belief it has been, from the Homeric commentators on, that a moral or a meaning is inherent in literature, has nonetheless refrained from exercising his wiles on the saga.” I must therefore ask for indulgence when I now exercise these wiles myself. Cf. Lars Lonnroth’s excel­ lent article "Rhetorical Persuasion in the Sagas” [in this volume].

® Frye, p. 10.

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Sagas of the Icelanders

values on the action, and if so, is the chief value really honor? Are the real heroes of the sagas the men who guard their honor most sedulously, and if not, who are the real heroes? The passage quoted from Grønbech above is apropos of a thematic crystallization of the Þórólfr prelude to Egils saga, a crystallization which Grønbech proposes and then dis­ misses as distorting the balance and impartiality of the saga. He suggests that the episode is: "About a noble hero, who stumbles on his own nobility, whom fate, so to speak, overcomes with his own virtues,” (p. 91) but a little later: "One gets tired of catching oneself in this sort of aesthetic indulgence.” Is such a characterization really just aesthetic indulgence and does a thematic distillation really distort the text? Þórólfr is indeed a noble hero and the author is at no small pains to burnish his image and enlist the reader’s sympathy. On the other hand, he does stumble over his own nobility, and not simply because of malevolent fate. His honor requires him to antagonize the sons of Hildiríðr by making no concessions in their dispute over a legacy, his honor requires him to alienate the king by a suspicious dis­ play of grandeur, and ultimately his honor requires him to clash openly with royalty. Þórólfr is an exemplar of nobil­ ity, but he is also a proud, ambitious, and uncompromising figure. Would he have been less noble if he had placated the sons of Hildiríðr, had indulged in less pomp, and had deferred to the king? It seems to‘ me that the author is at equal pains to depict Þórólfr’s high-mindedness and his haughty and ill-fated conduct, and that this discrepancy suggests a theme: the theme is the fine line between honor and pride. In short, Grønbech’s formulation, "a noble hero who stumbles over his own nobility,” is a very good one. Is Þórólfr not perhaps a little excessively noble? Þórólfr is introduced into the saga as "inn mesti kappsm aðr” a word which at the positive end of the seman­ tic spectrum means a firm man and at the, negative end a contentious man. The latter shade of character is inherited by Þórólfr’s nephew Egill, the protagonist in the remainder

Theodore M. Andersson

45

of the saga. He too devotes his career to feuding with a Nor­ wegian king,Jbut there is an interesting contrast between the two feuds. The eminently attractive hero Þórólfr suc­ cumbs, while the eminently unattractive Egill, physically and otherwise Þórólfr’s antithesis, survives. But though he survives, he gains nothing in stature; he remains a surly, aggressive, and acquisitive giant. His honor is not at stake, nor does it profit from his feud. Now, since the action in both generations involves a contest with the Norwegian throne, it is not too much to sug­ gest that this is the theme of the saga. If the roles and per­ sonalities of the two heroes had been interchanged, if the heroic Þórólfr had conquered and the glowering anti-hero Egill had succumbed, we would have credited the author with the proper sense of values and a proper sense of rewards, and we would have regarded the saga as a positive statement about the advisability of such feuds and the vin­ dication of honor against all comers. But as things stand we can only judge that Þórólfr’s honor is too demanding and does not avail against the king and that no honor accrues to Egill from his challenge to the throne, in effect that a stub­ born pursuit of honor is either tragic or vain and inconclu­ sive. We can see in the text only a negative statement about this sort of contest and infer a preference for compromise. Such a reading is of course particularly tempting because of Snorri’s putative authorship and the probability that Snorri would have urged moderate diplomacy in dealing with Nor­ way. The saga in which the author’s point of view is clearest and about which it is consequently easiest to make a the­ matic statement is perhaps Hœnsa-Þóris saga. The tragic protagonist, Blund-Ketill Geirsson, expropriates surplus hay from a neighbor when he is refused sale in an emer­ gency and is eventually killed at the behest of the injured neighbor, Hœnsa-Þórir. There is clearly a breach of the law, but the point of the saga is that it is a technical breach, that Blund-Ketill is a thoroughly honorable man, and that his enemies are in part malicious and in part misguided. How

46

Sagas of the Icelanders

does the saga define honor in the cáse of Blund-Ketill? Cer­ tainly not as the stubborn self-vindication of which the trea­ tises speak. On the contrary, his honor is selfless and flexi­ ble. The seizure of hay is no act of self-interest, but is undertaken on behalf of hard-pressed tenants. It is not car­ ried out self-righteously or with undue provocation; BlundKetill rehearses a long list of generous offers which the vil­ lainous Hœnsa-Þórir rejects out of sheer ill will. When legal action is brought against him, Blund-Ketill again makes every possible effort to effect a conciliation and is again unsuccessful only because he is confronted with malice. There is a clear opposition between honorable and dishono­ rable behavior, in terms of which the former is defined as a firm but moderate attitude and a willingness to go more than half way in meeting even an unreasonable opponent. Gehl wrote: The admiration of pride and ambition knows no bounds. No one earns respect with humility . . . . The only enthusiasm about deference occurs when a person is moved by pride to renounce some advantage, (p. 21)

Hcensa-Þóris saga is the best demonstration to the contrary. Blund-Ketill is willing to sacrifice his pridean the most humiliating way when dealing with the upstart Hœnsa-Þórir, but he emerges from the saga enjoying uni­ versal respect. The lesson is that honor does not lie in self­ exaltation and an unyielding protection of one’s prestige but in an equitable and just perspective. Gunnlaugs saga is the best representative of the love saga, about which Gehl says: Even the frequently mislabeled "love stories" such as Bjarnar saga Hitdoelakappa, and Gunnlaugs säga. . . are primarily trag­ edies predicated on impugned honor. No matter how tightly, for example in Gunnlaugs saga, love, jealousy, and hate are intertwined, one thing is constant—the demands of honor. Honor is the determining feature and lends the whole composition its

Theodore M. Andersson

47

truly tragic character, (pp. 73-74)

It is certainly true that the motivations in Gunnlaugs saga are strangely intertwined and difficult to separate; it is therefore a little hard-handed to make honor the prime mover and the controlling principle in the saga. The climac­ tic scene, in which the rivals Gunnlaugr and Hrafn kill one another, shows on balance that the destiny behind the story is not honor but love. Hrafn, who is severely wounded, asks Gunnlaugr for water and promises not to betray him, but when Gunnlaugr approaches in good faith, Hrafn breaks his promise and inflicts a headwound which proves fatal. This is the most dishonorable episode in saga literature.10 The point is that Hrafn’s love for Helga is so strong that it costs him his honor. To Gunnlaugr’s reproach for his treachery he can only reply: "That is true . . . and I did it because I begrudge you the embrace of Helga the Fair.” 11 The larger point for us must be that honor, even in the otherwise very honorable Hrafn, is not the highest and most coercive

^ Gunnlaugr’s father says as much: "How will you make up to me for my son . . . whom Hrafn, your son, betrayed during a sworn truce” (Hverju villtu baeta mér son minn . . . er Hrafn, soar þinn, sveik hann í tryggðum? ÍF III, Ch. 13) This is reminiscent of Sigurd’s death, the most dishonorable episode in heroic poetry: "But everyone also says this, that they betrayed him in a sworn truce and slaugh­ tered him lying down and unprepared” (Enn þat segia allir einnig, at þeir svico hann í trygð oc vógo at hánom liggianda oc óbúnom). "Frá Dauða Sigurðar,” Edda: Die Lieder des Codex Regius, ed. Kuhn, p. 201. ^ Satt er þat . . . en þat gekk mér til þess, at ek ann þér eigi faåmlagsins Helgu innar fqgru. (IF III, Ch. 12) This is reminiscent of Brynhildr’s reply to Guðrún in Vqlsunga saga: "You shall pay for your possession of Sigurðr, and I will not permit you to enjoy him or his heap of gold” (Þess skaltu gjalda, er þú átt Sigurð, ok ek ann þér eigi hans at njóta né gullsins mikla, Fornaldar Sögur Norðurlanda,

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standard. It is a fragile quality which shatters on the more unyielding demands of Eros. It may be that this is a postclassical and decadent moral (though the heroic legend of Sigurd did not disdain love as a tragic motivation), but it will in any case not do to interpret Gunnlaugs saga as yet another demonstration of the binding force of honor, before which all else crumbles. Gehl’s conception of the ideal chieftain shows a similar bias: The hqfðingiand mikilmenni is almost necessarily also an ójafnaðarmaðr. That is to say he proceeds autocratically and with unwarranted harshness against anyone who stands in the way of his domination. No moral opprobrium attaches to this ójafnaðr . . . for according to the forn siðr it stands in no perceptible opposition to the prevalent sense of honor, (p. 18)

12

To this is added a footnote: See the characterization of Styr r, the typical ójafnaðarmaðr, in the "Styrs þáttr” of Heiðarvíga saga and Eyrbyggja saga. There is no derogatory shading at all, such as is always found in the con­ cept of ódrengskapr.

It is difficult not to take exception to this neutfal judgment of the ójafnaðarmaðr. Not only should it be clear to any reader of Heiðarvíga saga that Styrr is easily the least attractive character in the story, but it should also be clear that the frequently recurring figure of the ójafnaðarmaðr is*1 2

1,180). 12 Gehl’s distinction between ójafnaðr (neutral) and ódrengskapr (neg­ ative) is neatly refuted by a passage in Hávcirðar saga (ÍF VI, Ch. 3): "ÞorbjQrn seemed now to everyone to have shown his injustice and complete lack of values.” (Þótti qllum mqnnum Þorbjqrn enn nú hafa auðsýndan ójafnað sinn ok fullkominn ódrengskap.)

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49

always harshly judged in the sagas. To document this at length wouldJnvolve overkill; it is enough that Heiðaruíga saga explicitly condemns the ójafnaðrmaðr. A few years after Styrr has committed his last killing against an out­ numbered older man (Þórhalli), a certain Þorleikr, who has raised the deceased man’s son Gestr, appeals to Styrr for some token compensation for the boy: ”People think that you killed Þórhalli for little cause.” 13 In other words, this unjust slaying by Styrr is not given the benefit of neutrality. It is not merely a question of a "derogatory shading” but an outright condemnation by public opinion (Þat virðisk mqnnum). When Styrr then sarcastically offers Gestr a mangy lamb as indemnity, Þorleikr replies: "This is spoken neither like a gentleman nor like a chieftain, and I expected differ­ ent words from you.”14 This clearly conflicts with the view that a hqfðingi is almost necessarily an ójafnaðarmaðr; because Styrr acts the part of an inequitable man, he fails to act the part of a chieftain. The incompatibility of ójafnaðr and hqfðingskapr could not be more apparent. No real conclusions can be based on the story of Styrr in Heiðarvíga saga because we have only Jón Olafsson’s late transcription from memory. On the other hand, it is clear that Jón Olafsson derived no very favorable picture of Styrr from what he remembered. What we do retain a favorable impression of is Barði’s behavior during the feud which grows out of Styrr’s action. Barði turns out to be hardly less formidable a warrior than Styrr, but he shares no character­ istics of the ójafnaðarmaðr. He is cautious, circumspect, open to counsel, and conscious of public opinion. Obliged to seek redress for a slain man, he first solicits the advice of his mentor Þórarinn. He is told to appeal for compensation*I,

13

„ , Þat virðisk mqnnum, þú hafir fyrir litlar sakar uegit Þórhalla. (IF III, Ch. 8)

^ Þetta er hvártki góðmannliga né hqfðingliga mælt, ok hefða ek annarra orða vænt a f þér♦ (IF III, Ch. 8)

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patiently at the Thing for two summers; he does so and is rewarded with public approbation: "and everyone at the Thing praised the restraint with which he conducted the case.”15 The third summer Barði is advised to address his appeal to a certain Gisli, who is known to be hotheaded. Predictably enough he is insulted; in other words he has deliberately sacrificed his "honor” in order to maneuver his opponent into the position of an ójafnaðarmaðr, a play that promptly redounds to his credit: "Barði’s speech was greeted with great applause and it seemed to people that he got a hard answer considering the restraint with which he made his request.”16 Barði’s strategy opens the way for him to take a justified vengeance. It seems clear then that in Jón Olafsson’s memory of Heiðarvíga saga aggressive behavior met with public disapproval while restraint and moderation met with public sanction. One can therefore hardly sub­ scribe to Gehl’s view: "The ójafnaðarmaðr Styr enjoys as much of the story-teller’s sympathy as Barði and Þórarin” (p. 96). Barði is primarily a methodical and sagacious man and only incidentally a good warrior. But these qualities have somehow failed to interest the students of Norse, values, who tend to look askance at characters who do not conform to the swashbuckling ideal. Grønbech could only bring himself to frame a negative concession: "Cleverness an:d diplomacy were not forbidden qualities in the old morality” (p. 42). But it is not at all clear to me that diplomacy was a second class quality in the eyes of the thirteenth-century Icelander. Barði is a case in point. But the most illustrious and suc­ cessful diplomat in the sagas is Snorri goði, the protagonist of Eyrbyggja saga. Snorri is no gallant viking nor a

. . . en allr þingheimrinn lofaði, hversu spakliga var at málinu farit. (ÍF III, Ch. 14) 1C

Gera menn nú mikinn róm at máli Barða, ok þykkir þungliga sva­ rat, með slíku spaklæti sem þessa er beizk. (ÍF III, Ch. 14)

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memorable hero but a skilled tactician and an artist in sur­ vival. He is npt popular, but he is universally respected as a great chieftain. His greatness rests on keen judgment and a willingness to compromise, not on a jealous disputing of honor. Eyrbyggja saga depicts his career as a kind of tight­ rope, on which he balances with mastery but not without some bad moments. He guards his reputation, but his asser­ tiveness never goes beyond what his position can tolerate. The modern reader may find Snorri pussy-footing and devi­ ous compared to more flamboyant saga heroes but his con­ temporaries seem to have valued his sense of diplomacy, as is clear from the fact that he is the most frequent peace­ maker and arbiter of disputes in the sagas. I fail to find any evidence that the Odyssean Snorri was less highly regarded than his more Achillean compatriots, rather the contrary. The only characteristic mentioned in Eyrbyggja saga's description, in addition to personal appearance, wisdom, and the fact that Snorri was good to his friends and hard on his enemies, is gentleness: "he was normally mild man­ nered” (hann var hógværr hversdagliga, IF IV, Ch. 14). I believe that anyone wishing to prove that the mild-man­ nered man is more highly esteemed in the sagas than the ójafnaðarmaðr would have little difficulty. It is, for exam­ ple, interesting that of all the chieftains provoked by Skarpheðinn in Njáls saga, Snorri comes off best. In response to Skarpheðinn’s taunting suggestion that he should avenge his father Snorri replies evenly: "People have said that before and I am not going to be angered by such things.” 17 This is a man who is above petty bickering about personal honor. Alongside Heiðarvíga saga Gehl places Hávarðar saga ísfirðings as the purest representative of the old feeling for honor: "Despite the late date of the preserved version,

17

Margir hafa þat mælt áðr . . . ok mun ek ekki við slíku reiðask. (IF XII, Ch. 119)

52

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Hávarðcir saga is the most striking example of the sense of honor in this older group” (p. 97). This judgment is doubt­ less based on the readiness and efficiency with which Hávarðr is able, finally, to avenge the death of Kis son Óláfr. My impression differs in that I am not able to take the por­ trayal of honor quite seriously. This saga has none of the earmarks of a classical work but is characteristic of a late stage given to hyperbolic imitation. The old fellow’s mission of vengeance partakes a little too much of the musical com­ edy: the exaggerated sorrow which sends him to bed, the perennial admonishings of his wife (what better lampoon of the huqtf), his submissive trips to the Thing in search of redress, his wife’s metaphorical recruitment of allies, and Hávarðr’s miraculous recovery of youth and spirits when the redemption of honor is at hand. One may choose to put a parodistic or an epigonous construction on these well-worn conventions, but it is difficult to see in Hávarðr a serious embodiment of a venerable ideal. On the contrary, the figure who best conforms to some sort of ethical ideal in the saga is not Hávarðr but his son Óláfr. Not that Óláfr fails to satisfy a traditional code of honor; when he is attacked without cause by the typical ójafnaðarmaðr ÞorbjQrn, he gives every satisfaction and dies defending himself manfully. But the tragedy of Óláfr’s death lies not in the demise of a man of uncompromising honor but in the fall of a good man. He recommends himself to the reader by collecting lost shedp and returning them to their owners, by disregarding the ingratitude with which the gesture is received in ÞorbjQrn’s household (there is no stuffy indulgence of personal honor), and by disposing of a sorcerer’s revenant which is preying on the district. Oláfr is avmodel member of the community—civic-minded, concilia­ tory, and guileless. Nevertheless he is killed. What moves the author of this story is not the issue of personal honor but the tragedy of incommensurate rewards and the consoling certainty that retribution follows injustice. Hávarðar saga ísfirðings may give a slightly comic version of personal honor, but a really negative statement is

Theodore M. Andersson

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reserved for Valla-Ljóts saga (if we overlook the desecration of traditional^values in Bandamanna saga). In brief, the saga tells us the story of Halli Sigurðarson, an aggressive and ambitious man who leaves his district in mid-life in order to enhance his status: "here I cannot be the most prominent man in the family, as long as we are all here, but there I can be regarded as the most prominent man.” 18 Halli promptly antagonizes the chieftain of his new district, Valla-Ljótr, who responds at first with admirable restraint, but when Halli adds to his hostile acts certain invidious com­ ments, Valla-Ljótr takes revenge and kills him. The remainder of the saga is devoted to the settlement of the incident, which is eventually effected by the chieftains Valla-Ljótr and Guðmundr inn riki. Both men exercise the utmost moderation and both emerge, as the saga tells us explicitly, with their honor intact. The message is clear: the saga rejects the vain and self-seeking quest of personal honor and vindicates conciliation.19 Valla-Ljóts saga provides a particularly instructive demonstration of the discrepancy between integral reading and episodic reading, since by virtue of episodic reading Gehl was able to use even this text in his argument for the positive force of honor. He suggested that the reader’s sym­ pathy is on Halli’s side in the opening episode when Halli kills his mother’s suitor, who, he feels, is of inferior birth (pp. 14-15). Only when this episode is isolated from the gist

18

. . . eigi må ek hér mestr maðr vera várra frænda, meðan vér erum hér allir, en þar må ek mestr maðr heita. (ÍF IX, Ch. 2)

19 This is the conclusion reached in an article by Marlene Ciklamini: "What distinguishes Valla-Ljóts saga is not only its didactic aim, but also the form in which the transmuted concept of honor is sustained. Throughout the saga, men of good will are reluctant to use force in countering defiance and aggressive acts and disavow or question the social sanction of blood revenge.” "The Concept of Honor in VallaLjóts Saga,” p. 303.

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of the whole saga can it be read in-a positive sense. Seen in context Halli’s slaying is the first evidence of his false sense of honor, which the saga as a whole so plainly condemns. If Valla-Ljóts saga contains the clearest negative ethic in the sagas, Reykdœla saga boasts the clearest positive ethic; one saga makes recommendations about how a man should not behave, the other makes recommendations about how he should behave. The first section of Reykdœla saga describes a long and monotonously constructed feud between Vemundr kqgurr and Steingrímr Qrnólfsson. Eight times the two men clash, and seven times the chief­ tain Áskell, sometimes with the aid of Eyjólfr Valgerðarson, effects a settlement (only after the fourth incident is he unsuccessful). Askell’s imperturbable patience in arbitrat­ ing these endless disputes makes him one of the most impressive characters in the sagas. Gehl dismissed him as "the type of the Christian chieftain,” (p. 107) but Grønbech was more subtle: Perhaps Áskell, the just, peace-making chieftain from Reykjadalr, is a little too modern to fit properly in Egill’s company; but his story, as it is told in Reykdcela saga, gives us in any case a vivid picture of the principles of conciliation in the old morality, (p. 41)

Áskell is no Christian encrustation but the soul of the story. Neither Vémundr, who is a combination of the ójafnaðarmaðr (ÍF X, Ch. 4) and the rascal, nor Steingrimr, though an appealing figure, is the real hero. Drengskapr, Gehl’s term for a sophisticated sense of honor, is the prop­ erty of Askell: "And Askell always showed that he had few equals in just dealing with men and the generosity of spirit which he exercised toward all.”20 When Áskell is killed, it

20

Ok jafnan sýndi Askell þat. at harm war fám (nqnnum likr sakar réttdoemis, er hann hafði manna i milium, ok drengskapar viå hvem mann. (ÍF X, Ch.7)

55

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happens characteristically as he returns from yet another mission of arbitration, and even on the threshold of death he is able to make a final grand gesture of conciliation by con­ cealing the fatal wound he has received long enough to avert a new outbreak of hostilities (like Ingimundr in Vatnsdcela saga and Koðrán in Ljósuetninga saga). After his death, the author of the saga leaves him a fitting memo­ rial, demonstrating once more that Askell is the real hero and moral focus of the story: Now Askell the chieftain died. And many people thought it was a great loss because he had been a great and popular chieftain___ Although many people thought Askell a more grievous loss than Steingrimr, still both were great chieftains.

ot

The ethical ideal in Reykdcela saga is clear. We cannot deduce from it that: "The hqfðingi and mikilmenni is almost necessarily also an ójafnaðarmaðr” (p. 18). On the con­ trary, the ideal chieftain is a tireless conciliator with an uncommon sense of justice and restraint and a willingness to efface himself in the interests of peace. Hrafnkels saga Freysgoða combines the ethical state­ ments made by Valla-Ljóts and Reykdcela saga; it illus­ trates on the basis of Hrafnkell’s career both how a chieftain should act and how he should not act. It is the only saga which is so openly moralistic that it enacts an ethical pro­ gram by telling a story of pride, punishment, and rehabilita­ tion. Hrafnkell vows to kill anyone who rides his horse Freyfaxi and when, partly by force of circumstances and without malice, a certain Einarr transgresses, Hrafnkell makes good his vow to the letter. Hrafnkell is a powerful2 1

21

Nú andask Askeli goåL Ok þótti mqnniim þat mikill mannskaði, því at hann hafåi verit mikill hqfåingi ok vinsæll . . . . Þótt Áskeil væri mqrgum mqnnum meir harmdauði en Steingrímr, þá var þó hvárrtveggi mikill hqfåingi. (ÍF X, Ch. 16)

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man and Einarr is without influential relatives so that the prospects for revenge are dim. But almost miraculously Einarr is avenged and Hrafnkell is humiliated, deposed, and exiled from the district. The motif of improbable revenge, effected by children or old men, is familiar from Heiðarvíga saga and Hávarðar saga, where it has provi­ dential overtones and suggests that an abuse of power will be punished no matter what the odds are. But Hrafnkell is not killed outright, as is usually the case; he is humbled so that he can learn. Prior to his fall he is a caricature of a chieftain: Because of this [his attachment to the god Freyr and his desire to be a chieftain] his name was lengthened and he was called Freyr’s chieftain, and he was a very unjust man, though a man of good parts. He forced the men of Jokulsdale to become his Thingmen; he was mild and kindly to his own men but hard and unyielding to the men of Jokulsdale, and they received no justice from him. Hrafnkell was often involved in single combats and paid no indemnity for anyone, so that no one received any compensation no matter what he did.

22

But his fall from power makes a drastic change in Hrafnkell’s life: "There was much talk about how his pride had suffered a fall and many people recalled the old proverb that excess is shortlived.”2 23 Hrafnkell takes the lesson to heart 2

22

Við þetta var lengt nafn hans ok kallaðr Freysgoði, ok var ójafnaðarmaðr mikill, en menntr vel.

Hann prøngåi undir sik

Jqkulsdalsmqnnum til þingmanna hans, var linr ok blíðr við sina menn, en stríðr ok stirðlyndr við Jqkulsdalsmenn, ok fengu af honum engan jafnað.

Hrafnkell stóð mjqk i einvigjum ok bcetti

engan mann fé. því at engi fekk a f honum neinar bætr, hvat sem hann gerði. (ÍF XI, Ch. 2) 23 A þetta Iqgou menn mikla umrœðu, hversu hans ofsi hafði niðr fal­ l i t o k minnisk nit margr á fornan orðskvið, at skqmm er óhófs ævi.

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and mends his ways: Now there was a change in his disposition. The man was much more popular than before. He had the same instincts of gain and outlay, but he was much more popular and quieter and more easy­ going than before in all things.24

We need not look for the moral in this story; it is contained in the old proverb "excess is shortlived” (skqmm er óhófs ævi). Finally, a word about Njáls saga. This is a saga which, for obvious reasons, has provided almost no foothold for elaborations on honor, at least honor in the traditional sense of magnified personal reputation. It is not a story of prowess or heroism but a story of frustrated good will, a story of noble personalities who succumb to less noble rivals and the pressures of society. There are four parts to the saga: the story of Hrútr Herjólfsson, the feud between Gunnarr’s wife Hallgerðr and Njáll’s wife Bergþóra, then the main action comprising the story of Gunnarr’s death and the story of Njáll’s burning. None of these parts is about the quest for honor; they are about determined but ultimately futile efforts to maintain an equilibrium in the face of malice and ill will. The prefatory matter concerning Hrútr characterizes a man distinguished in every way, who, through no fault of his own, is cursed with a bad marriage, compromised by a

(ÍF XI, Ch. 5) 24

Vor nü skipan á komin á lund hans. Maðrinn uar miklu vinsælli en áðr. Hafði hann ina sqmu skapsmuni um gagnsemð ok risnu, en miklu var maðrinn nú vinsælli ok gæfari ok hœgri en fyrr at qllu. (ÍF XI, Ch. 7) The reading lund is an emendation for land and has been disputed, but it seems to me to make better sense. See Halleux, "Hrafnkel’s Character Reinterpreted,” p. 43.

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divorce, and humiliated when his wife’s dowry is extracted at sword’s point by Gunnarr. Yet when two children act out the details of Hrútr’s private misfortune in public and his brother strikes one of them in anger, Hrútr‘ responds by compensating the injured child with a gold ring. Gehl prop­ erly cited this anecdote as a model of drengskapr (pp. 110-111) and Hrútr’s honor does not suffer from his complai­ sant behavior: "Hrútr was applauded for this” (A f þessu fekk Hrútr gott orð, ÍF XII, Ch. 8). Again, when he is forced to back down from a duel with Gunnarr, he harbors no grudge and is able to maintain friendly relations with Gun­ narr. HQskuldr and Hrútr welcomed Gunnarr; he sat down between them and nothing in their speech indicated that there had ever been a disagreement between them.

oc

The gist of this story seems to be that a man can be equal to his misfortune and survive it without damage to his reputa­ tion if he recognizes the limits of his situation and exercises the necessary restraint. The second part of the saga recounts the feud between Hallgerðr and Bergþóra, which is almost caricatural in the willfulness of its perpetrators and the symmetry of its design. The author apparently intends to set off the preemi­ nent patience of Gunnarr and Njáll, who settle the dispute with courtesy and tact as often as It is renewed, despite the flagrant aggressiveness of their wives, especially Hallgerðr. As so often in the sagas, this preface has a nice pertinence to the plot. A feud that is so formalized as to be abstract pre­ cedes the more realistic feuds which bedevil the careers of Gunnarr and Njáll. Furthermore, this proleptic feud

25

Hqskuldr ok Hrútr to ku vel viå Gunnari; hann §ettisk niår i meåal peira, ok fannsk pat ekki i tali peira, at par hefåi nqkkur mispykkja i meåal verit. (ÍF XII, Ch. 33)

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demonstrates how two parties motivated by good will and patience can,Respite all provocations, settle a feud no mat­ ter how acrimoniously it is prosecuted. The subsequent events are doubly tragic when they reveal that even these two ideally constituted personalities cannot prevail against the feud mentality and eventually succumb, each in his own way. They succumb differently, Gunnarr resisting in the old style and Njáll philosophically. Gunnarr succumbs because, against Njáll’s advice, he fails to observe the terms of what should have been the final settlement of his feud. He has been sentenced to a three-year exile, but he reneges at the last moment when he glances back and remarks on the appearance of his fields. It has been felt that he simply could not bring himself to leave his home (though he had spent two years abroad before), but it is just as likely that his remark is one of the traditional and inapposite excuses used by heroes to mask their will. Gehl wrote: "In this deci­ sion, which sealed his fate, Gunnar behaved with complete nobility, for he chose the way of greater danger” (p. 41). I am not certain whether this the sense of the passage and whether Gunnarr’s decision is not rather an inadequacy in his character and, in the final analysis, a failure to satisfy the last demands on his patience and good will. This is sug­ gested by Kolskeggr’s reaction to Gunnarr’s proposal that he too remain in Iceland: I will not dishonor myself in this matter or any other matter in which my good faith is counted on; and this thing alone will lead to our separation.

26

Kolskeggr, at any rate, does not think that his brother is

26

. . . huárki skal ek á þessu níðask ok engu qðru, puí er mér er til trúat; ok mun sjá einn hlutr svá vera, at skilja mun með okkr. (IF XII, Ch. 75)

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acting ”with complete honor” (durchaus ehrenhaft) and Kolskeggr is our only key to the author’s opinion. Gunnarr has been struggling long and hard against the maelstrom of the feud imposed on him by his wife, but at the last moment he weakens and is dragged down. He has not gained per­ sonal honor but has slipped back into a personal morality. The doubt surrounding Gunnarr’s fate and the possibil­ ity that he is at least partially culpable (though this is a strong word for inadequacy under strain) provides the saga with a development in the action and a moral elaboration from the first part to the second. In the preface Gunnarr and Njáll are equally sure-footed in dealing with the feud between their wives, in the next feud Gunnarr finally stum­ bles (literally and figuratively) and succumbs, but in the third feud Njáll never stumbles and still falls. He becomes a victim of a system which overpowers the individual despite an exemplary display of personal good will. There can be no question of a critique of the individual here, but at most of a critique of feud society, which swallows up its best members in the pursuit of misconstrued honor. The feud is ultimately settled after a massive battle at the Althing. The settlement is initiated by Hallr af Síðu and it is made possible characteristically not by an insis­ tence on honor but by a sacrifice of honor. Hallr makes a brilliant offer of renunciation: "Everyone knows what grief I have suffered in the loss of my son Ljótr. Many may feel that he will come dearest of all those who died here. But for the sake of a settlement I will offer to leave my son uncompensated and still agree to both a truce and guarantees with those who are my opponents. I ask you, Snorri goði, and the other most prominent men, to bring about a settlement between us.” Then he sat down and his speech was greeted with great and «17

favorable applause and all praised his good will mightily.

27

“Allir menn uitu, hvem harm ek hefi fingit, at Ljótr, son minn, er

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Gehl again dismissed this passage as an intrusion of Chris­ tian humilitaß and criticized Grønbech for his impression­ ability and his failure to see the Christian influence (p. 145). But Grønbech saw more clearly. Hallr makes the ges­ ture not out of humility but out of a sense of emergency and a recognition that his action must be drastic enough to meet the crisis. There is no reversal of values and no specifically Christian intrusion but the same conciliatoriness for which Hrútr, Gunnarr, and Njáll stood and which is a prominent ideal in the other sagas. Hallr’s offer is an example of heightened moderation which shows us what an extraordi­ nary effort of good will may on occasion be necessary to redeem peace and curtail the menace of an expanding feud. It remains to generalize, on the basis of these ten sagas, about the concept of honor which Gehl and others have placed so prominently in the foreground of their ethical interpretations. Egils saga makes a statement about the unproductiveness of self-aggrandizement, Hœnsa-Þóris saga recommends conciliation even at the cost of personal honor, Gunnlaugs saga suggests the frailty of honor, Heiðarvíga saga rejects personal arbitrariness and recom­ mends a respect for public opinion, Eyrbyggja saga cele­ brates the art of diplomacy, Hávarðar saga praises generos­ ity and forbearance, Valla-Ljóts saga condemns the pursuit of personal honor and counsels compromise, Reykdcela saga idealizes the peacemaker, Hrafnkels saga chastises the overbearing chieftain, and Njáls saga condemns the whole pattern of feuding. Gehl states: "What seems to be

látinn. Munu þat margir ætla. at hann muni dýrstr gqrr o f þeim mqnnum, er hér hafa látizk. En ek uil vinna þat til sætta at leggja son minn ógildan ok ganga þó til at veita þeim bæði tryggðir ok grið, er mínir mótstqðumenn eru. Bið ek þik, Snorri goði, ok aðra ina beztu menn, at þér komið því til leiðar, at sættir verði með oss.” Síðan settisk hann niðr, ok varð rómr mikill ok góðr gqrr at máli hans, ok lofuðu allir mjqk hans góðgimd. (ÍF XII, Ch. 145)

62

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completely lacking is a negative ideal, corresponding to the Greek sophrosyne, the Middle High German maze” (p. 139).28 My reading is rather different. What gives a consis­ tency to the ethical temper of these sagas is precisely a sense of proportion and moderation. They are written against excess: excessive self-seeking (Egils saga), excessive pas­ sion (Gunnlaugs saga), excessive ambition ( Valla-Ljóts saga), excessive arbitrariness (Hávarðar saga, Hrafnkels saga), or they are written in praise of moderation (Heiðaruíga saga, Eyrbyggja saga) and forbearance (Reykdœla saga, Njáls saga). In short, I can find no better key to the spirit of these sagas than the concept of sophro­ syne. Most other sagas, it seems to me, conform to the same ideal (Fóstbrœðra saga, Víga-Glúms saga, Vápnfirðinga saga, Droplaugarsona saga, Gisla saga, Þorsteins þáttr stangarhqggs), while perhaps only Laxdoela saga resusci­ tates and idealizes the old heroic concept of honor. In dealing with classical literature we can test our feel­ ing about the moral temper of literary works against the theoretical statements of moral treatises. In Iceland the closest we can come to a moral treatise is the Eddie poem Hávamál and it may be worthwhile to compare the sense of this poem with the sense of the sagas. The ethical precepts recommended by Hávamál have generally been regarded as unpleasant. Van:- den Toorn’s book on saga ethics distinguishes between "Húvamál eth­ ics” and "heroic ethics” and projects an unexalted picture of the former:

28

The history of sophrosyne can now be followed in the fascinating account by Helen North, Sophrosyne: Self-Knowledge and Self-Re­ straint in Greek Literature. It strikes me that there is a real analogy here between the development from heroic megalo-psychos in Homer to the civic virtue of sophrosyne in later Greece on the one hand and the development from warrior’s honor in Germanic heroic poetry to the social ideal of moderation in the sagas on the other hand.

Theodore M. Andersson

63

The ethics displayed are materialistic and utilitarian, and most can be reduced to one central conception: self-interest. . . . Hávamál ethics are essentially rustic; the moderation propagated is a 9Q

mediocrity and the caution changes into suspiciousness. "

I am not certain that the central concept is really self-inter­ est in any contemptible sense and that the moderation pro­ pounded is really a mediocrity. The gnomic section of Hávamál comprises the first ninety stanzas and in addition "Loddfafnismål” (stanzas 111-137). The first part might be broken down as follows (bearing in mind that the headings are very approximate and that there are stanzas in each group which do not fit particularly well): I- 10 Introduction

1 Entrance 2-4 Behavior befitting a host 5-7 Behavior befitting a guest 8-10 Admonition to listen and learn I I - 21 Moderation in food and drink 22-31 Varieties of foolishness 32-52 Social intercourse 53-73 Practical precepts 74-79 Vanity 80-90 Distrust The framework evoked for the poem by the introduction is a visit and the first fifty stanzas or so revolve loosely around this situation and the social amenities pertaining to it: proper eating and drinking habits, proper conversational habits, good manners, and the proper conduct of friendship.*

29

Ethics and Morals in Icelandic Saga Literature, p. 29. On van den Toorn’s book in general see Guðnason, "Þankar um siðfræði íslendingasagna.”

Sagas of the Icelanders

64

Then the fiction tends to dissolve and the precepts become more and more general. What is really the burden of "Háuamál ethics’? The sense of the first section on food and drink is cteårly modera­ tion. Stanza 11 warns against an "ofdrykkja qls” (”excess of ale”) and stanza 19 elaborates the thought as follows (the text is from Kuhn’s edition): A man should not hold fast to his tankard, but should drink mead on

with moderation: he should speak to the point or be silent.

Van den Toorn plays down the level of the intention here: ”A note of warning is sounded against the possible conse­ quences of drinking ale, but the temperance propagated is a precautionary measure against being at a disadvantage in a quarrel.”3 313 0 2This is not what the stanza really says. Drink­ ing is discouraged because it affects the mind: The more he drinks, the less a man is in possession of his wits.

on

Overeating is discouraged for more or less the same reason; it makes a man foolish (stanza 20) or bestial (stanza 21). The next section (22-31) deals specifically with foolish­ ness. A foolish man mocks others while unaware of his own weaknesses (22), he wastes himself on worry (23), he is too credulous (24-25), he is too garrulous (27-29),, or he is too unguarded (30-31). Again, all these precepts deal with excess and illustrate on a much less abstract and more prac­ tical level the sort of negative ideal urged by the sagas. It is not so much a question of self-interest as of self-contained

30 31 32

Haldit maðr á keri,

drecci þó at hófi mioð,

mæli þarft eða þegi; • Ethics and Morals in Icelandic Saga Literature, p. 31. þvíat færa veit,

er fleira dreccr,

sins til geðs gumi. (stanza 12)

65

Theodore M. Andersson

behavior. The section on social intercourse (32-52) is not pertinent to an ethical outlook since it has more to do with details of etiquette (32, 33, 35), the cultivation of friends (34, 41-44, 50, 52) and precautions against enemies (38, 39, 45, 46, 51), the practice of generosity (39, 40, 48, 49), and the value of home (36, 37) and human society (47). What this section does share with the sagas is an awareness of the community in which the individual lives. The following group of stanzas(53-73) contains a variety of practical precepts which are for the most part ethically oriented. There are first of all the curious stanzas recom­ mending a moderate intelligence (54-56): Every man should have a middling mind and never be too wise; life is fairest for those men who know just enough.

oo

These sentiments have a strange ring for the modern stu­ dent, who would probably not be reading them if he had the recommended sense of intellectual moderation. They come closest to justifying van den Toorn’s verdict of mediocrity, though stanza 56 suggests that what is really meant is that a man will live more contentedly if he is not so clear-sighted as to know his own fate, an unexceptionable maxim. In any case, what is being urged is another form of moderation. Aside from the homey moral of 58-59 (”The early bird gets the worm”) many of the following stanzas are charac­ terized by a happy medium: a man can maintain dignity though he has modest means (61), one should not be gregari­ ous at the expense of firm alliances (62), and one should be well-informed but discreet (63, 65, 73). Stanza 64 contains3

33

Meðalsnotr

scyli manna hverr,

æva til snotr sé; þeim er fyrða

fegrst at Ufa

er vel mart uito. (stanza 54)

Sagas of the Icelanders

66

in capsule form the moral of such sagas as Hávarðar saga and Hrafnkels saga and might serve an an epigraph for Eyrbyggja saga : Every wise man should exercise his power with moderation; he will And, when he comes together with brave men, that none is the bravest of all.34

This is contrary to top-dog heroic morality and embodies the ideal of conciliation which is at the heart of the sagas. The final stanzas of the section (69-72) state that a man can find reason to be contented though he is ill, poor, handicapped, or blessed only with posthumous progeny. Here too life is seen as a system of counterbalancing factors. What informs these stanzas, and the sagas, is not a standard which imposes an autocratic sense of values on the individual, but a flexible attitude and a spirit of adjustment. There follows a group of six stanzas (74-79) including the two famous and repeatedly quoted stanzas (76-77) which are taken to document the supremacy of honor in the Ger­ manic and Icelandic scale of values. Wealth perishes, family perishes, a man perishes likewise; but reputation never perishes for a man who acquires a good one.35

Stanza 77 is in the same vein. Thesé gnomes are often taken

^ Ríki sitt

scyli ráðsnotra hverr

í hófi hafa; þá hann þat finnr, OC

er með frœcnom kømr,

at engi er einna hvatastr.

OD Deyr fé

deyia frændr

deyr siálfr it sama; enn orðztírr

deyr aldregi,

hveim er sér góðan getr. (stanza 76)

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Theodore M. Andersson

together with the following passages from Beowulf and the Heliand to represent the quintessence of Germanic moral­ ity: Each of us will come to the end of this life On earth; he who can earn it should fight For the glory of his name; fame after death Is the noblest of goals, (tr. Burton Raffel)363 8 7

Let us all follow him on this journey: our lives lose nothing of value in this, but in his following, together with him, we die with our lord. Then our glory lives after us, the good reputation of men.

qr t

The same view is then generally extended to cover the sagas: ”The heroes of the sagas have the dictum of Hávamál about the 'judgment of a dead man’ engraved in their consciousness. »38 In fact, the Hávamál stanzas tell us less about Germanic morality than about our own susceptibility to monumental phrases out of context. If we read the stanzas with the group in which they occur, they appear in a different light. It turns out that the group is about uncertainty, vanity, and transitoriness. Stanza 74 tells us that we can be glad if we *

^ Ure æghwylc sceal worolde lifes;

wyrce se þe mote

domes ser deaþe; unlifgendum 37

ende gebidan þæt bið drihtguman

æfter seiest. (11.1386-89) Duan us alla só,

folgon im te thero ferdi: uuihtes uuirðig,

ni låtan use fera uuið thin

neba iiiii an them uuerode mid im,

döian mid uson drohtine.

Than lébot thoh duom after,

guod uuord for gumon. (3998-4002) 38 Hallberg, p. 99.

Sagas of the Icelanders

68

are sure of a meal and the uncertainty of things is rendered with a weather image: "Fickle is an autumn night; there are many kinds of weather in a week and more in a month.” Stanza 75 tells us that a man should not be reprbached for a lack of wealth. Stanza 78 tells us that wealth is imperma­ nent: "Wealth is like the twinkle of an eye; it is the ficklest of friends.” And stanza 79 warns us against counting either on wealth or on a woman’s favor. What do stanzas 76 and 77 mean in this context? Simply that wealth is fickle. They mean, oddly enough, the same as Proverbs 22,1: "A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches, and loving favour rather than silver and gold.”—a text which is not usually taken to illustrate the heroic mentality. The emphasis is on the first part of these stanzas, concerning the vanity of wealth, and not on the acquisition of honor. Repu­ tation is a kind of consolation prize in line with stanzas 69-72, which extend various comforts to the variously hand­ icapped. When stanza 71 tells us: Haltr ríðr hrossi,

hiqrð recr handarvanr,

daufr vegr oc dugir.

we are to translate: A lame man can still ride a horse a one-armed man can still drive a herd, a deaf man can still fight and be valorous.

Likewise a dead man can still take some comfort in a good reputation. But neither lameness, nor paraplegia, nor deaf­ ness, nor death has anything positive to recommend it; the gnomes simply point out that there are always balancing factors. The last section of ten stanzas (80-90) attaches roughly to the section on vanity since it suggests specific ways of avoiding a sense of false security: one shoqld distrust the future, women, swords, girls, ice, beer, weather, bows, fire, animals, trees, waves, a boiling kettle, spears, a king’s

Theodore M. Andersson

69

child, slaves, corpses, an early-sown field, a son, the mur­ derer of one’s father, a half-burnt house, and a fast horse. This amounts to a sample itemizing of the negative ideal. What emerges from this collection of gnomic verses is not a formulation of self-interest. It seems to me rather that Hávamál propounds the values of the middle way and social accommodation and it seems to me further that this is very close to the spirit which moves the authors of the sagas. ”Every wise man should exercise his power with modera­ tion” (Ríki silt I scyli ráðsnotra huerr / í hófi hafa) and ”excess is shortlived” (Skqmm er óhófs ævi) are inter­ changeable maxims. The outlook of this literature is not animated by selfishness or by a hectic pursuit of honor but by a search for moderation. Signs of moderation in the sagas are regularly attrib­ uted to Christian influence. But the concept of moderation is older than Christianity and has hardly been a notable feature of Christian teaching. What we probably have in the sagas is not so much the replacement of a pagan ideal with a Christian ideal as the replacement of a warrior ideal with a social ideal. C. M. Bowra has drawn a distinction between heroic epics, which embody an individual ideal, on and literary epics which embody just such a social ideal. Whether or not his distinction holds true for epics, it makes a very useful distinction between Germanic heroic poetry and Icelandic family sagas. In heroic poetry it is not the life of the community but the stature of the individual which is important. Sigurd is slain, but his prowess lives on: But Sigurd was the most prominent of all and everyone familiar with ancient matters says that he was above all men and the greatest of warrior kings.40

39

From Virgil to Milton, pp. 9-10.

^ Sigurðr var þó allra framarstr, oc hann kalla allir menn i fornfrœðum um alla menn fram oc gqfgastan herkonunga.

“Frå

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Sagas of the Icelanders

Gunnarr and HQgni may choose life or death, but since life would compromise their honor, they prefer death and sur­ render themselves to Atli’s perfidy. Hamðir and Sqrli, faced with the obligation of vengeance, undertake? a suicidal attack on Ermanaric. There is no suggestion of moral alter­ natives in these heroic fables; they eulogize the individual who does what honor demands and despises the conse­ quences. The situation of the Germanic hero is morally sim­ ple. The situation of the saga hero is more complicated; his morality does not lie in the adherence to a few rigid princi­ ples but in his social instincts and his response to various social contingencies. He lives in a world of interaction and of limitations imposed by society on individual assertive­ ness. The highest values in this society are flexibility and moderation. The difference between the heroic ethic and the moral­ ity of the family sagas is perhaps to be explained by the sup­ position that the heroic lays reflect the values of a warrior class while the sagas reflect the values of Icelandic society at large. A warrior class allows some scope for individual aggressiveness, a normal society does so to a lesser degree. The family sagas, despite all the heroic modes and gestures borrowed from tradition, portray a normal society. They tell the stories of strong individuals who disrupt the social fab­ ric, but despite the respect paid many of these strong person­ alities, the sagas are ultimately opposed to social disruption. This is why the heroic lay regularly ends on a note of individual grandeur while the saga, from its social vantage point, always ends with conciliation and with the restora­ tion of social balance.

Dauða Sinfjqtla, ” Edda: Die Lieder des Codex Regius, ed. Kuhn, p. 163.

Lars Lönnroth

Rhetorical Persuasion in the Sagas1

The classical sagas of Iceland, especially the ”family sagas,” are generally regarded as the very opposite of any­ thing homiletic, rhetorical or moralistic. They stand out as the ultimate examples of ”objective” narrative, where events are calmly presented as they were seen and heard by reliable men, without any value judgments or explanatory comments by the narrator. The reader can easily get the impression that there is no message or moral at all, but sim­ ply a story to be told.2 Yet each saga also manages to convey the idea that cer­ tain ethical norms exist, against which characters as well as

Abridged from the original version published in Scandinavian Stud­

o

ies. The ”objectivity” of the sagas is stressed in almost any survey of Old Norse literature. Most recently it has been discussed in Anderssons The Icelandic Family Saga where the author (on page 31) does recog­ nize the fact that "the term 'objective’ only applies to the sagas in a limited sense (the sagas are not free of moralism).” Somewhat sur­ prisingly, however, Andersson goes on to say (on page 32) that the saga "has nothing in common with the idealistic, didactic, satirical, or sentimental traditions which flourished during the Middle Ages and after. In short, there is no guiding principle laid down by the author in order to give his material a specific import. He draws no general conclusions and invites his reader to draw none. In this sense the saga is not interpretable. The critic, whose congenital belief it has been, from the Homeric commentators on, that a moral or a meaning is inherent in literature, has nonetheless refrained from

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actions can be measured. Critics have no difficulty identify­ ing heroes and villains, not only with reference to our cur­ rent values but also in terms of values which are somehow implied in the sagas themselves.*3 Our impression of "objectivity,” then, must at least in part be illusory. If we look more closely at the narrative technique, we may be able to discover various subtle devices whereby the'author or the narrator4 leads us to accept his own point of view. The present paper is primarily intended as a critical inventory of such devices. In it will also be discussed the extent of actual didacticism in sagas from the classical period. Before we set about this task, we may do well to consider briefly some different meanings of the term "objectivity” as applied to narrative. Wayne Booth, who has discussed this problem in Rhetoric o f Fiction, especially Ch. 3,5 distin­ guishes three kinds of objectivity which he terms "neutrality,” "impartiality,” and "impassibilité.” I intend to borrow these terms for my own purposes. "Neutrality” describes a completely uncommitted attitude to everything

exercising his wiles on the saga.”—The present exercise in "wiles” may be regarded as an outgrowth of a review that I wrote of Andersson’s book in Speculum. In spite of my disagreement with him on some points, I am also indebted to him for many ideas and concepts concerning structure and rhetorical technique. As a matter of fact, his pioneering study of narrative art in the sagas has laid the ground­ 3

work for essays of the present kind. 1 The classical work about the ethical norms of the saga is Grønbech’s Vor Folkeæt i Oldtiden (English translation: The Culture o f the Teu­ tons.). More recent studies include: Gehl, Ruhm und Ehre bei den Nordgermanen; van den Toorn, Ethics and Morals in Icelandic Saga Literature; and Pálsson, Siðfræði Hrafnkels sögu.

*

It might be misleading to use the word "author,” since a saga is nor­ mally at least to some extent traditional and hence the result of many creative talents, although it may still be possible to speak of one implied author for each saga, i.e. one controlling and organizing mind

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73

that is related; this is an attitude which can possibly be found in a purely scientific work, but, as Booth convincingly demonstrates^ it can hardly be upheld in even the most fac­ tual narrative, since the very selection of facts and the emphasis put upon them implies a certain amount of com­ mitment. "Impartiality,” on the other hand, is a more easily acquired virtue, since it only entails giving a fair and equal hearing to all participants in the presentation of a dispute or a conflict, even though the narrator may himself be com­ mitted to one side. "Impassibilité,” finally, can be defined as an emotional restraint in the narrator’s treatment of his subject matter; it is primarily this quality, rather than actual neutrality or impartiality, which makes a story appear "cool” and "detached.” Yet the most insidious kind of propaganda often seems "objective” in this sense, although it is clearly neither neutral nor impartial. These definitions may be somewhat lacking in preci­ sion, and they may differ slightly from what Booth had in mind, but I think they are sufficient for our purpose. To these should be added, however, a fourth kind of objectivity which might be called "empiricism,” and which is generally acknowledged to be of special importance in the sagas. "Empiricism” describes a tendency to consider facts in terms of the manner in which they were actually observed, and to separate such observed facts from the conclusions that may be drawn from them: the quality, in other words, that we expect from a good eye-witness report in a criminal case. In a fictional narrative, we get an impression of empiricism (and hence credibility) when the narrator presents scenes and situations directly without speaking about them or try­ ing to interpret their significance. The impression of empi­ ricism is even greater when the narrator also refers to

which we experience as speaking to us through the narrative. ® My general indebtedness to Booth should be obvious enough even without specific references.

74

Sagas of the Icelanders

specific witnesses to the conveyed scenes and situations, or when he claims to be ignorant of certain facts for lack of wit­ nesses. Also this quality, however, may be found in works which are in fact meant to influence our valufes and emo­ tions. When impartiality, impassibility and empiricism all appear in a text, we may say that it contains á maximum of formal objectivity. Most saga critics would probably agree that this is the kind of "objectivity” we do find in the sagas. They would not insist that sagas are "neutral” in our sense, i.e. totally uncommitted to any cause or value. They would also probably agree that all sagas contain "elements of rhe­ torical persuasion,” if we mean thereby any technique or device of narrative which tends to influence and control audience reactions towards particular characters or ideas. It should be noted in this connection that such techniques are not necessarily conscious on the part of the authors, in this case the Icelandic saga-writers and story-tellers, who may indeed have felt that they were "just telling a story,” even when they were in fact manipulating the sympathies and antipathies of their readers or listeners. Objectivity o f the Saga What makes the sagas seem objective is, t9 begin with, their empiricism and impassibilité. Both these qualities can be illustrated by a quotation from Peter Hallberg’s The Ice­ landic Saga (pp. 72-73), in which the author analyses a pas­ sage from Droplaugarsona saga. I shall quote both the saga passage and Hallberg’s comment on it: "Hallsteinn had a thrall named Þorgils. Two weeks after this, Helgi, Droplaug, and Þorgils had a long talk together; but no one else heard their conversation. During the winter Þorgils had the job of looking after the sheep in an enclosure south of the homefield, and he was a competent worker. He transported a great deal of hay to the enclosure. One day Þorgils came to Hallsteinn and asked him to come and take a look at the hay and the sheep. Hallsteinn went with

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75

him and entered the shed. When he was about to leave by way of a window, Þorgils struck him with an axe that belonged to Helgi Droplaugarson, and that blow was enough to kill him. Helgi was coming up the slope from his horses and arrived on the spot to see that Hallsteinn was dead. Helgi slew the thrall immediately. He went home and told his mother the news as she sat by the fire with the other women. Shortly afterward, people heard from members of the house­ hold at Viðivellir that Helgi, Droplaug, and Þorgils had talked for a long time together on the day before Hallsteinn was killed. And this slaying was ill spoken of.” In such a passage one can speak of objectivity in a double sense. Everything indicates that mother and son agreed to have Hallstein slain and to use the thrall as an instrument in carrying this out; in turn the thrall was also killed, obviously to prevent him from revealing the truth of the matter. But this is not directly stated. The narrator leaves it to the hearer or reader to draw his own conclusions from the facts as stated. This very manner of presentation in the form of a neutral report naturally strengthens to a high degree the impression that one here has to do with an

0

Hallsteinn átti þræl, er Þorgils hét Þat var hálfum mánaði síðar, at þau tqluðu lengi einn morgin, Helgi ok Droplaug ok Þorgils, þræll Hallsteins, ok vissu aðrir menn eigi þeira oråræåu. Þorgils vann at sauðfé um vetrinn á gerði fyrir sunnan garð ok var góðr verkmaðr. Þagat váru borin key mikil. Einn dag kom Þorgils at Hallsteini ok bað hann fara at sjá hey sin ok fé. Hann fór ok kom í hlqðu ok ætlaði út vindauga. Þá hjó Þorgils til Hallsteins með øxi, er átti Helgi Droplaugarson, ok þurfti hann eigi fleiri til bana. Helgi kom þar at ór hlíð ofan frå hrossum sinum ok så, at Hallsteinn var veginn. Helgi drap þegar þrælinn. Hann fór heim ok sagði móður sinni tíðendin. En hon sat við eld ok konur hjá henni. Litlu síðar spratt þat upp af heimamqnnum á Víðivqllum, at þau Helgi ok Droplaug ok Þorgils hefði lengi talat einum degi åår Hallsteinn var veginn, ok varå þetta vig óvinsælt (ÍF XI, Ch. 7)

76

Sagas of the Icelanders authentic series of events. But the narrator is also objective in a second sense: he does not permit himself to make a moral value

judgment of the deed; he neither approves nor condemns it.

The first sense of objectivity discussed by Hallberg—i.e. the insistence on observed facts—seems identifiable with our "empiricism,” while the second sense comes close to "impassibilité.” There are several narrative devices, gener­ ally considered as typical of "saga style,” which can be seen as functions of one or the other of these two basic qualities. The behavioristic presentation of events, without any efforts to explain the "inner” motives for any action, can thus be regarded as a function of empiricism, and the same thing can be said about the numerous references to what "people have heard” (or said) concerning the factual circumstances of this or that event ("no one else heard their conversation,” "shortly afterward, people heard,” etc.). The frequent use of under-statement can on the other hand be regarded as a function of impassibilité since this stylistic figure contrib­ utes to the impression of emotional restraint. Both empiri­ cism and impassibilité can perhaps in turn be analyzed as functions of that specific self-discipline which constituted the very core of heroic ethics as we know it from Hávamál and other sources. As has often been pointed qut, we find a very similar heroic ideal in the "hard-boiled”: writing of a modern novelist such as Hemingway, who also uses many of the same narrative devices, without ever having been influ­ enced by the sagas as far as anybody knows—a fact which testifies to the close relationship between ethics and style. The very striving towards an impression of impassibilité and empiricism is, in other words, motivated by a definite commitment to one specific ideal: the strong, tough, silent man who does not act rashly and who seldom reveals his emotions.

The wary guest who comes to his meal keeps a watchful silence;

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77

he listens with his ears, and peers about with his eyes; n thus does every wise man look about him.

In spite o f his restraint, however, the narrator in the quoted passage from Droplaugarsona saga is far from neu­ tral, since he obviously disapprovingly regards Helgi as a murderer. This is indicated not only by the concluding note about public opinion of the slaying (”was ill spoken o f ’) but also by several little details in the preceding narrative. Indeed, the strictness of the narrator’s empiricism and his stubborn insistence on "hard” facts serve as a sign to the audience that Helgi, Droplaug and Þorgils are up to no good. The trained listener will recognize the dastardly nature of their scheme as soon as it is said that "no one else heard their conversation,” since the conversation clearly would either have been reported or not referred to at all had it been innocent (the narrators are, after all, not that rigorous about spelling out everything they do not know). The hideous nature of the conspiracy becomes clear when we are told of the murder, which appears especially cruel and cold-blooded when set against a pastoral setting and the unsuspecting behaviour of the victim. It is interesting to note that the description of Hallsteinn’s death apparently violates the principle of empiri­ cism, since nobody could possibly have known anything about it except the thrall, who was himself killed "immediately” afterwards. The narrator does not even bother to make a show of impartiality by giving Helgi’s and7

7

Inn vari gestr, er til verðar kømr þunno hlióði þegir; eyrom hlýðir, enn augom scoðar; svá nýsiz fróðra hverr fyrir. —Hávamál, verse 7. The relevance of Hávamál for the understand­ ing of saga ethics has been stressed many times, e.g. in van den Toorn, Ethics and Morals in Icelandic Saga Literature, Ch. 2,4.

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Droplaug’s version of what happened—it is, after all, pretty clear from the context that they did not admit to having instigated the murder. It can thus be seen that the story is ”formally” objective only up to a certain point, and where the principle of formal objectivity is adhered to, it tends to strengthen the reader’s antipathies towards Helgi and his mother. One of the main reasons for this is clearly that there is a certain consensus between the narrator and his audience in regard to what kind of actions should be considered good or evil (innocent or suspect, idyllic or ominous, etc.), so that it does not have to be spelled out each time. This consensus must have been even greater at the time when the saga was first composed, and it is therefore often necessary to consider social norms and beliefs among medieval Icelanders in order to understand the rhetoric of the saga. As a matter of fact, because of the homogeneity of Old Norse society, a narrator of the time would run less risk than a modern author of hav­ ing his values misunderstood when communicated through formally objective prose; in most cases he could be certain that his audience had exactly the same opinion as he about a specific action even when reported with complete impar­ tiality, impassibilité and empiricism. As we shall see, the narrators nevertheless often did violate the principles of for­ mal objectivity in their efforts to persuade the audience, although this was done very discreetly. In order to see this, it is not sufficient to analyze only a short passage like the one quoted. We must observe how the rhetorical persuasion operates within a longer saga. As we shall see, the methods employed are somewhat different in different sections of the narrative. I have found it conven­ ient to make a distinction between four such sections: ”introduction,” ”development of conflict,” ”climax,” and ”ending.” This division, which represents a somewhat mod­ ified version of a structural scheme recently introduced by

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Theodore Andersson,8 should not be understood to cover four very clear-cut parts of a saga, since most longer sagas have a very complex structure, consisting of many episodes, and episodes within episodes. One saga may thus contain sev­ eral ”introductions” and ”climaxes,” and even ”climaxes” within ”introductions,” and ”developments” within ”endings,” etc. The same episode may also appear as ”ending” from one viewpoint and as "introduction” from another. When passages from the same story are related to each other, it is nevertheless possible to see, in that particu­ lar context, what should be regarded as ” introduction,” ”development,” etc. The function of the "introduction” is to acquaint the audience with the characters and the scene of action. The "development” introduces a cause for conflict and leads us on, step by step, to a full-fledged feud of some sort. The climax centers on a clash between the feuding par­ ties, usually culminating in a hero’s death. The ending pro­ vides us an aftermath to the climax by summing up its results and indicating what happened to the survivors (this may in turn lead over to a new conflict, which necessitates the introduction of new characters, etc. until we reach a new climax and a new aftermath). As a model I have chosen Njáls saga, which contains a large number of stories and episodes, each of which may be divided into these four parts. Occasionally I have chosen examples from other sagas as well. Rhetoric o f the Introduction In Njáls saga, as in most other sagas, the narrator lays the groundwork in the introductory presentations of charac­ ters. As I have tried to show elsewhere, these presentations tend to follow certain stereotyped patterns which seem to be at least partly derived from Late Latin historiography and

Q

Andersson, The Icelandic Family Saga, Ch. 1 (cf. my discussion of it in Speculum).

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from French romances, although the Icelanders have toned down the emotive expressions and sobered up the rhetoric of their foreign models: they adapted them, in other words, to their own ideals of empiricism and impassibility.9 Neverthe­ less, it is in these introductions that the narrator passes judgment on his characters, sometimes in fairly strong and unequivocal terms: "He was insidious and malicious” (harm var slœgr ok illgjarn, Ch. 46);10 "He was the most courteous of men (cf. French courtois), tough, generous and calm, loyal to his friends and careful in choosing them.” 11 Notice that the second and positive statement particularly emphasizes such qualities as calm and restraint. Such praise naturally reflects back on the narrator and sets him up as a man of maturity and wisdom, the kind of man who would not judge people lightly, and this in turn gives authority and credibil­ ity to the judgments that he does make. The chances are that they will remain firmly planted in the reader’s mind throughout the saga. As we can also see from the second example, a panegyrical description may sometimes be fur­ ther emphasized by such rhetorical devices as superlatives (kurteisastr) and by euphonic effects such as alliteration and assonance ( VINfastr ok VINaVandr, fémILDR ok stILLTR vel), eulogizing strategies which seem to be depen­ dent at least partly on Latin rhetoric. Very often the narrator prefers to present even his major characters by means of ironic understatements and subtle hints. About the great skald and warrior Egill Skallagrimsson, the hero of Egils saga, it is said, for example:

g

Cf. my article "Det litterära porträttet” 1-2, (with an English sum­ mary; also summarized in my European Sources, pp. 20-22). All quotations are from the IF editions of the family sagas. Numbers refer to chapters, not pages. If the name of the saga is not clearly stated in the text, the reference is always to Njáls 6aga.

^ Manna kurteisastr var hann, harðgqrr í qllu, fémildr ok stilltr vel, oinfastr ok vinavandr; . . . (Ch. 19)

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”He was an early talker and fluent of speech; he was rather tough to get along with when playing with other youngsters.” There is no reason to regard such statements as con­ cealing the narrator’s opinions, since an experienced reader would understand that a character described in this manner must turn out to be a very difficult person indeed! As a mat­ ter of fact, it seems quite likely that this kind of under­ handed and apparently noncommittal presentation is more effective as indoctrination than the most impassioned advo­ cacy. Few things can make us more certain that a character is a raving maniac than a discreet hint from the narrator that he was "somewhat difficult to deal with when things did not go his way,” or something along that line. There are, however, even more indirect ways of condi­ tioning audience reactions to a character. One way is to present him with some of the conventional outward charac­ teristics of a hero or a villain. Blond and beautiful persons will generally turn out to be good, while dark and ugly per­ sons generally turn out at best to be rather problematic.13 Especially when used together with other types of informa­ tion, references to such characteristics may be quite effec­ tive on a more or less subconscious level. Very often the narrator chooses to characterize a person by telling what other people thought about him; a hero is said to be vinsaell, popular, while a villain is said to be óvinsæll, not well liked. A great chieftain can be respect­ fully introduced by saying for example that "nobody consid­ ered a verdict valid if he were not present” (engir þóttu Iqgligir dómar dœmðir, nema hann uæri við, Ch. 1). A beautiful but wicked queen can be discreetly deprecated by*I

12

Harm var brátt málugr ok orðvíss; heldr var hann illr viðreignar, er hann var í leikum með qðrum ungmennum. (Ch. 31)

13

I have discussed this type of relationship between personality and physical appearance in "Kroppen som själens spegel” (English sum­ mary: "The Body as Mirror of the Soul”).

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saying that "people have said about her that she was ill endowed in everything that she herself had any influence *»14 over. Most effective, although sparingly used, is the method of presenting a whole dramatic scene in which a new and espe­ cially important character is presented through the reac­ tions of others. A famous example of this is provided by the first chapter of Njáls saga, where the young girl Hallgerðr—who is later to bring so much disaster to the story—is seen playing on the floor with her playmates, watched by her proud father and somewhat more skeptical uncle Hrútr. The uncle then makes the following remark, which is not likely to be forgotten by the audience: "The girl is beautiful enough, and many men will pay for it. But I don’t know how the thief s eyes got into our family.”*15 There are many small things that contribute to give tremendous authority to this ominous prediction. First of all the uncle himself has already been presented as the wisest of men, manna uitrastr, so that we are immediately prepared to accept him as a spokesman of the narrator. Second, his words are given special emphasis in the context by being placed as the con­ clusion of the scene and of the first chapter;16 third, the nar­ rator adds that the words aroused the father’s anger, and this information can only serve as a confirmation that the uncle had indeed hit the nail on the head. The last example shows that the persuasion, may depend not only on what is said, but also oh the way it is presented

. . . þat er mål manna, at henni haß allt verit illa geßt, þat er henni

15 1fi

var sjálfrátt. (Ch. 154) Œrit fqgr er mær sjá, ok miinu margir þess gjalda; en hitt veit ek eigiy hvaðan þjófsaugu eru komin í ættir várar. (Ch. 1) Chapter divisions often vary somewhat between manuscripts and are sometimes canonized by modern editors on rather obscure grounds, but in Njáls saga these divisions can be safely reconstructed; see my article "Structural Divisions.”

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in context. Things that the narrator wants stressed and especially reinembered by his audience are for example often expressed in direct rather than indirect speech, are placed as the ” last words” at the end of a chapter, paragraph or section, and they are usually presented with a greater number of details and retarding elements than other, less important information. In many cases this amounts to a flagrant breach of the principle of impartiality. The heroes of Njáls saga are, for example, generally presented in greater detail than their adversaries and they always get the ”last word,” even though the personalities and "last words” of their adversaries may be just as relevant to an impartial understanding of the conflict. Characters who do think that Hallgerðr is good—such as her father—are not allowed to express their views as freely and directly to the audience, although it is true that they are generally given some hearing in order to give an impression that certain minimal requirements of impartiality are met. To boost the hero’s cause it is often quite enough to show him in homey everyday situations with which the audience can identify: eating, sleeping, surrounded by children, working on the farm, etc. This method, well known from modern political campaigns, is much practiced in the sagas, which also make ample use of the corresponding method of deprecating villains by making their lives appear alien to a ”normal” social existence. Although the hero Gunnarr and the villain Mqrðr are both farmers, for example, only Gun­ narr is ever seen at his farm, doing the kind of things that a farmer normally does, and we get much better insights into his family life. When attention focuses on Mqrðr, however, he is usually working some crooked scheme far away from his own home ground. This would make it next to impossi­ ble for us to see him as anything but an alien intruder, even if he had not been presented as a villain from the start.

17

See for example Njáls saga, the endings of Ch. 56,66,77.

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Developing the Conflict The method of steering the sympathies and the expecta­ tions of the audience by sheer emphasis and narrative tech­ niques becomes more important as the narrator leaves the introductory portrayal of characters for the development of the conflicts between them. Also at this point, however, he makes abundant use of value judgments and emotive reac­ tions to the conveyed incidents and thus provides a running commentary to his own story. The major differences are that the comments are now seldom made by the narrator directly but mostly through his spokesmen within the nar­ rative, and they refer not so much to characters as to specific actions or events. Often the spokesmen are anonymous representatives of the community at large: "the people,” whose favorable or unfavorable responses are registered at thing meetings or private gatherings. The narrator may also use some particularly wise and respected member of the community as his main spokes­ man—the technique already demonstrated in the introduc­ tion of Hallgerðr. There are several characters of this sort in Njáls saga, the most important being of course Njáll him­ self. His personality dominates the saga, but his role is essentially passive, although it is true that his counsels to other people sometimes precipitate action. Most of the time he functions as a Greek chorus—commenting, warning, expressing approval and disappróval, prophesying about the future. The fact that he is known to be endowed with second sight gives the highest possible authority to his words. Similar characters are found also in other sagas, e.g. Gestr Oddleifsson in Laxdoela saga. It should be noted that such men are usually said to be great lawyers as well, i.e. they are especially competent to interpret the norms of the community, which are also the norms of the narrator. The saga narrator’s admiration for legal expertise is a natural result of his basic conformism and staunch, support of com­ munity norms and community values.

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The wise community spokesmen within the narrative have a tendency to state their views in the form of brief but succinct speeches, where they can make use of legal quota­ tions, proverbs and other kinds of generalized statements which are often set off against the context through their more rhetorical form. In contrast to most speeches in medi­ eval narratives, the eloquence is extremely elliptic but it is hardly less expressive. In a confrontation scene with his adversaries at the Althing, for example, Njáll makes effec­ tive use of a well-known Norse sententia: ”Our land must be built with law or laid waste with lawlessness” (með Iqgum skal land várt byggja en með ólqgum eyða, Ch. 70). In this case, the reference to a generally acknowledged and respected principle lends credibility to the speaker’s cause. At the same time, such rhetoric may be very important in establishing a specific moral, even though it is not directly expressed by the narrator himself. This is especially the case in Njáls saga, where we find an unusually large num­ ber of aphoristic statements in the dialogue, particularly in counsels, speeches and prophecies pronounced by Njáll and other wise men. It should be noted that the use of sententiæ and vernacular proverbs is very common also in other types of medieval narratives,1 19 and its presence in the sagas may 8 well be at least partly dependent on foreign influence, even though the gnomic formulas themselves may be of native

18

Collections of proverbs from the sagas have been made by Finnur Jönsson, H. Gering and K. Vrátny in ANF, vols. 30, 32-33. Cf. also Singer, Sprichwörter des

Mittelalters, and the articles under

"Ordsprog” in KLNM, 12. The relationship between Old Norse law and the sagas has been discussed many times. The classic work is Heusler’s. So far, however, very little has been said about the func­ tion of proverbs and laws in their narrative context within sagas. 19

See for example Singer, Sprichwörter des Mittelalters; E. R. Curtius, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, Ch. 3; Leger Brosnahan, "Wace’s Use of Proverbs.”

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origin. The use of prophecy as a means of establishing values is also especially noteworthy. Very often Njáll and similar characters express the narrator’s approval or* disapproval not by saying that a specific action is good or bad per se but by saying that it will have good or bad results (predictions which are naturally always fulfilled). This gives an impres­ sion of pragmatism, but we also get the feeling that there is justice in the course of history: "crime doesn’t pay.” Both these aspects of Old Norse ideology are clearly present in the concept of "luck” (gaefa, gipta, hamingja) which plays an important role in Njáls saga and is essential also to the understanding of saga rhetoric. A man who is described as a "lucky man” (gæfumaðr), on the other hand, is either pic­ tured as a scoundrel or as a basically noble man who for some reason or other has gone wrong—in any case there is a definite relationship between morality and worldly suc­ cess.20 Predictions by authoritative spokesmen of the narra­ tor that this or that character will be lucky or unlucky therefore serve as very important clues to the ethics of the saga.21 The concept of luck leads us to the use of miracles and other supernatural events to indicate divine disapproval or approval of an action. This was of course an especially potent means of persuasion in the Middle Ages, and we find it in countless chronicles and lives of saints. It.is fairly com­ mon also in the sagas, especially' in such works as Njáls saga which are clearly influenced by foreign historiogra­ phy. In order to see how some of the last-mentioned methods work together in conditioning the reader’s mind, let us

20

There is a vast literature about ”luck.” Cf. for example Grønbech, The Culture o f the Teutons; the concept of luck in Njáls saga is dis­ cussed in detail in Sveinsson’s A Njálsbúð.

21

On this, see Grønbech, The Culture o f the Teutons, I, p. 153.

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analyze the following beautiful example of a well-concealed partiality: A change of rulers had taken place in Norway. Earl Håkon had died and Óláfr Tryggvason had taken his place. Earl Håkon had met his death at the hands of the slave Karkr, who cut the earl’s throat at Rimul in Gaulardale. At the same time it was learned that there had been a change of faith in Norway. The old faith had been discarded, and King Óláfr had christianized the eastern lands also: the Shetlands, the Orkneys, and the Faroe Islands. Njáll heard many people say that it was a great wickedness to give up the old faith, but he answered: "It seems to me that the new faith is much better, and happy he who accepts it (så mun sæll, er þann fær heldr). If those who preach it come here I shall do all I can to further it.” He often went by himself and mumbled (Hann fór opt frá qðrum mqnniim ok þulði, einn saman, Ch. 100).

The indoctrination for the new faith and against the old one is present already in the first lines, where the disgrace­ ful death of the last pagan ruler is contrasted to the success of the new and Christian king. Both Earl Håkon and King Óláfr would of course be well-known to any Old Icelandic audience, who would most probably associate the first of these two men with evil, black magic and ”bad luck,” while the latter would be associated with great heroism, nobility and ”good luck.” The death of Håkon and the shift of rulers is explained as follows in Heimskringla, the most authorita­ tive of all sagas of the kings of Norway: ”The main reason for it was that the time had come when heathen sacrifices and those who took part in them would be condemned {at fyrirdæmask skyldi blótskaprinn ok blótmenninnir) but instead came Holy Faith and True Religion (en í stað kom

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heilqg trúa ok réttir s ið ir )”12 This interpretation, accord­ ing to the Augustinian idea of God’s plan for human history, is presumably shared also by the narrator of Njáls saga, although he prefers to be less explicit. The next piece of information, about the adverse reac­ tion to Christianity by "many people,” would normally cast a shadow of doubt upon the new faith, but in this case we know also that it had strong support in the Norse commu­ nity. What finally settles the matter in favor of the Chris­ tians is the fact that the pagan argument is presented anon­ ymously and indirectly, while the counterargument is given in direct quotation, and as the "last word,” from the greatest authority among all characters of the saga. His prediction that Christianity will bring happiness—here roughly equiv­ alent with "luck”—to its converts, will be immediately accepted by anybody previously acquainted with his second sight. The wisdom of the prediction is further emphasized through its gnomic form (sá mun sæll, er þann fær heldr). And the final comment about the "mumbling,” strange as it is, seems to further underline Njáll’s contact with the super­ natural, hence also his credibility. The passage provides a fairly typical example of how a new conflict is brought into the saga after the main charac­ ters have been introduced and made familiar, to the audi­ ence. There are, however, cases when the narrator really does stay uncommitted to either side, for example the story of the feud between Njáll and Gunharr, both important he­ roes of Njáls saga and enjoying the narrator’s sympathy and admiration to the same extent. But in these cases he invariably builds up a moral contrast between the good and the bad members of either party. The audience is often given to understand that it is really the bad members of both sides who are responsible for the conflict.

22

Oláfs saga Tryggvasonar(Ch. 50).

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Climax As the nayator approaches the climax of his story, dra­ matic presentation gradually takes the place of both direct and indirect commentary in playing upon our emotions. This is only natural, since we are by this time thoroughly persuaded and only need to have our prejudices confirmed in scenes that are as moving and as vivid as possible. To a great extent this is done with the help of a technique which Theodore Andersson has called "staging” and defines as a "deceleration of pace, a magnifying of detail, and a dwelling on incidentals in order to focus the central event one last time and enhance its importance in relation to the rest of the story.”23 As Njáls saga moves towards the great fire, where Njáll and his sons are finally to perish, staging becomes increasingly important: Njáll’s household is shown, as it were, in cinematic close-ups which serve not only to further dramatic action but also to strengthen the reader’s empathy with the heroes. We are told, for example, of their last meal together, when Njáll’s wife lets everybody have the food he likes best (Ch. 127). We are also told of var­ ious portents and prophetic dreams which foreshadow the impending doom (Ch. 124-127). The scene begins to shift rapidly back and forth between Njáll’s home and the approaching burners (Ch. 128). When the end is near, the narrative focuses a last time on each of the most important members of Njáll’s family (Ch. 129-130). All these staging devices are of course well known from the modern film, but they are used with maximum effect already in the sagas. Two details in the staging technique deserve special attention. One is the method by which the narrator may increase or decrease sympathy for a character by simply changing the focus or perspective. A good example is pro­ vided by the story of Skarpheðinn, Njáll’s oldest son and one of the major heroes of Njáls saga. At first he is pictured in

23

Andersson, The Icelandic Family Saga, p. 54.

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the center of events, but when he decides to slay his noble foster brother Hqskuldr, the attention immediately shifts over to the victim and remains there until well after the killing. Skarpheðinn is suddenly seen only frbm afar, i.e. from the viewpoint of the slain man and his widow, and in the process he loses a good deal of our sympathy. Later, right before his own death, he manages to regain it by again being shown at close range. Some critics have in fact felt that his killing of HQskuldr is not motivated enough,24 but such criticism seems to miss the point: the killing should appear senseless in order to make Skarpheðinn fall hard in the esteem of his audience. To make his motives under­ standable by showing him in close-up at this point would be to let him off too easily. Another interesting detail is the use of pastoral and demonic imagery to set the stage for the big catastrophic cli­ maxes. Pastoral images—fields on a sunny day, a peaceful meal at the farm, a sheep-fold in the summer, etc.—may be evoked in order to make the life of the heroes appear in an especially idyllic and moving light before the catastrophe hits them. Demonic images—blood and fire, darkness, bliz­ zards, wolves, horrible monsters, etc.—may, on the other hand, be used to picture the catastrophe itself and to build up an appropriate mood of fear and pity.25 Sometimes this is done in a way which transcends our ”normal” reality, most prominently in the various dreams and other kinds of pre­ monitions that prepare us for the' climax: Njáll sees his house full of blood before the big fire (Ch. 127); another man sees a black man riding on a grey horse across the sky, car­ rying a burning torch in his hand and lighting the sky with it (Ch. 125). When set against the normal, everyday world of,the heroes, such visions seem to give their life a higher

24 nc

E.g. Nordal, Nordisk kultur, p. 259.

° Concerning the use of pastoral and demonic imagery, cf. Frye, Anat­ omy o f Criticism, pp. 141-158.

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significance than that of ordinary men, almost as if they were gods, and the forces which threaten them were set loose by all the demons of the underworld. Most commonly, however, the demonic or pastoral images are more unobtrusive and used only within a frame­ work of meticulous realism. Pastoral sheep-folds or demonic blizzards are, in other words, introduced as perfectly natural ingredients in the landscape, and they usually have some definite function within the plot. Icelandic saga narrators do not like to fill their stories with a great number of inci­ dental details and descriptive ornamentation just to set the mood. If they place the hero against the background of a sheep-fold, for example, it is not merely to make him come off as a pastoral and peaceful person but to prepare some kind of action in the sheep-fold, usually a fight. By choosing the right kind of setting and by focusing on it at the right moment, the narrator may nevertheless make it work also on the emotive level to manipulate sympathies and antipa­ thies. A good example is provided by the story of Hqskuldr’s death, which is said to have taken place on an early spring morning: The weather was fine and the sun was up. At this time Hqskuldr H vítanessgoði woke up. He dressed and put on the cloak that Flosi had given him. He took a basket full of grain and a sword in his other hand and went out on his field to sow. (hann tók kornkippu ok sverð i aðra hqnd ok ferr til gerðis sins ok sár niðr korninu). Skarpheðinn and his companions had agreed that they should all use their weapons against him. Skarpheðinn rushed up from behind the fence, but when Hqskuldr saw him he wanted to turn away. Then Skarpheðinn ran at him and said: ” Don’t bother to take to your heels, Hvitaness priest” (“Hirð eigi þú at hopa á hæl, Hvítanessgoðinn”) —and struck him with his axe. The blow hit his head, and Hqskuldr sank down on his knees. He said this: "May God help me and forgive you!” Then they all attacked him and cut him down (Hljópu þeir þá at honum allir ok unnu á honum, Ch. 111).

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Clearly this is the death of a martyr! The extraordinary effect is largely achieved through a skillful use of pastoral stage-props as setting for a revolting display of brutality. Or as Peter Hallberg aptly puts it: "The entiré situation of the peaceful sowing of grain in the early morning affords a touching contrast to the blackness of the atrocious deed. It is as though the very light of day were concentrated into a resplendent nimbus about the figure of Hqskuldr”.26 Most of the pastoral details (the weather, the cloak, the basket full of grain, etc.) are incidental to the story and could actually have been left out without a loss of understanding. But they are presented so naturally and discreetly as part of the set­ ting that they are never felt to be superfluous. Chances are that the inexperienced reader will not even notice that the narrator is very deliberately creating a medieval passio, or description of martyrdom! It may be interesting to compare the killing of Hqskuldr to another killing in the same saga—that of Kolr Þorsteinsson, a minor character who had participated in the burning of Njáll’s house and afterwards talked scornfully of the victims. The hero Kári attacks this man just as he is about to make a business transaction in a British port, where they have both arrived together with other Norse vikings: This morning Kári came to the city. He came to the place where Kolr was counting his silver. Kári reco'gnized him. Then he attacked him with his sword drawn and chopped off his head while he was still counting, and the head said ” ten” as it fell off. (Siðan hljóp Kári til hans með sverð brugðit ok hjó á hálsinn, en hann talði silfrit, ok nefndi hqfuðit tíu, er affauk bolnum. Ch. 158)

In this case we are obviously meant to be amused rather than moved and shocked, although the deed in itself is

26

Hallberg, The Icelandic Saga, p. 112.

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analogous, and there is no overt editorializing in either case. How, then, should we account for the difference in effect? For one thing, of course, the victims are very differ­ ent in stature even before we are told of their deaths. Sec­ ondly, the situations are significantly different: being killed while counting money abroad somehow appears less atrocious than being killed while sowing grain on one’s own land, and it is definitely more dignified and moving to die with a prayer than with a trivial utterance about property. Thirdly, the killing seems somewhat less brutal in the latter case, since it is done more quickly and in a neater way and by only one man. The most important difference, however, lies in the staging, which is more elaborate in the first case, involving careful preparations and foreshadowings, a fairly extensive dwelling on incidental details of the setting, and a solemn, almost biblical tone. The killing of Kolr, on the other hand, is told so swiftly and abruptly that there is no time at all to feel sorry for the victim. It is the suddenness of the whole incident, rather than anything else, which makes it comic instead of tragic. Ending Right after a hero has been killed, the narrator often sums up his personality in a commentary which is some­ what reminiscent of the introductory presentations. These final characterizations, which Theodore Andersson calls ”necrologies,”27 are probably to some extent dependent on the medieval convention of inserting eulogies at this point in biographies of princes, thereby providing an appropriate rhetorical valediction to the dead.28 The saga necrologies, however, are generally much more concise and less florid than their Latin counterparts. In most cases, the narrator avoids committing himself openly but refers to the

27

Andersson, The Icelandic Family Saga, pp. 60-62. 28 c f "Dgt litterära porträttet,” pp. 80-81,86-87.

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consensus of public opinion: “People thought he was a great loss because he had been a great chieftain and a popular man,” "It is generally said that Glúmr was the greatest chieftain in EyjafjQrðr for twenty years, and* for another twenty years no one was more than his equal. It is also said that Glúmr was the best warrior this country has seen.” There is indeed a very thin line between such formally "factual” statements and direct editorializing, which also does occur in a few instances: "Skúta’s death came as no surprise to many people. And yet it is only fair to say that he was wise and every bit a man, and many were no obetter n than his equals though they were outstanding men.” The effect on the audience will probably be about the same in all these three cases. The examples given so far are fairly typical of the restrained, matter-of-fact saga tone, even though they express a very high degree of praise and are a little more highflown in style than most saga passages. In some cases, however, the tone of the necrology becomes much more eulo­ gistic through quotations from skaldic poems about the dead hero. This is done for example after the death of Gunnarr in Njáls saga (77), and it is repeatedly done in Heimskringla towards the end of a king’s biography. The narrator just makes the quotation without lengthy introductions or elab­ orations: "The skald So-and-so has said this about his death”—no further comment necessary. This technique is of course especially effective if the pofem is a good one, such as Hákonarmál, inserted at full length in the final chapter of Hákonar saga góða in Heimskringla. Unfortunately, very few poems of this class seem to have been composed about heroes of family sagas. Sometimes the necrology will be spoken (occasionally in verse, but more often in prose) by one of the authoritative

29

All these three examples are borrowed from Andersson, The Ice­ landic Family Saga, pp. 60-62. The italics are mine.

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and "wise” characters of the saga. After the death of Hqskuldr, for example, Njáll says that he would rather have lost two of his own sons (Ch. 111). By contrast, villains and minor characters are generally not remembered once their death has been reported. If they are mentioned at all, it is because their death leads to legal complications at the thing, or because their ghosts are haunting people. In the case when the hero manages to survive his con­ flicts and struggles, the narrator generally takes leave of him by telling of his final reconciliation with his enemies, plus a few concluding words about his later life and descen­ dants. This sort of ending, although less dramatic than the violent ending of a martyr’s legend, can serve just as well to eulogize him. The last thing we hear of Gunnarr’s noble brother, Kolskeggr, for example, is that he had a dream which made him go to Denmark and become a Christian and later settle in Constantinople as a "knight of God” in the Varangian guard (Ch. 81). And the last we hear of the two bitter antagonists Flosi and Kári is how they both went to Rome as pilgrims and were absolved from sin, and how they fell in each other’s arms when they met again in Iceland (Ch. 158-159). The Christian tone is on the whole more prominent in these concluding sections, as if the narrator were anxious to dispel any idea that his story might be regarded as heathen or impious. Conversions and pilgrim­ ages are thus often referred to, and they seem to serve at least partly to legitimize the not-so-Christian exploits that went before. The listing of descendants, especially if these were wellknown and respected people, can also serve as an effective albeit retroactive booster of the hero. It is hard not to respect somebody who appears as a notable ancestor or per­ haps even as a founding father of one’s own society. And vice versa: a notable man reflects some of his splendor on his offspring. Nobody, on the other hand, wants to be the descendant of a villain.

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Conclusions We have found that the narrators use a large number of techniques to create sympathy or antipathy for characters, actions, and ideas within the saga. These techniques fall into the broad categories of commentary, stylistic variation, and staging. By "commentary” I mean any expression of opinion, whether made directly by the narrator himself ("editorializing”) or indirectly through his spokesmen within the story. By "stylistic variation” I refer to such devices as using a specially high-flown or solemn language when speaking of heroes while using a simpler, more straight-forward language when speaking of villains and minor characters. The term "staging,” finally, is used here not just about that specific narrative technique which is used to dramatize highly important events within the story but about the whole selective process whereby a narrator determines: a) which incidentals to use in the presentation of an event, a thing, or a character; b) the order in which to present these incidentals; c) the relative emphasis to put upon them through the use of "showing” versus "telling,” direct versus indirect speech, detailed description versus passing reference, etc. Given this admittedly very wide defin ition ^ "staging,” it is obviously the most important method used in condition­ ing the minds of the saga audience, since it occurs in every phase of the narrative while the usfe of the other methods is confined to certain limited sections only. Heroes are, for example, favored from the beginning to the end in compari­ son with their adversaries by being presented in greater detail, by being quoted more often, by always getting the "last word,” by having their most attractive features stressed, and by always being shown in situations with which the audience likes to identify. And if there is a con­ flict between two different opinions within the story—for example between paganism and Christianity—the more accepted, respectable view is always given more exposure and a more attractive presentation. The use of conscious or

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unconscious symbolism in the presentation is especially noteworthy: the blackness of the villain’s hair is stressed, for example, or the hero is set against an idyllic or splendorous background. In some sagas, especially those that are the most influenced by Christian literature, dreams, visions and miracles also testify to the goodness of good men and the wickedness of the wicked. There can be no doubt that all this amounts to a high degree of partiality in almost every saga episode, even though it may sometimes be difficult to see this, partly because of the extreme restraint in the use of emotive language, and partly because heroes and villains are often evenly distributed on either side of the described conflict, so that the really significant contrast is not so much between the feuding parties as between factions within each party. Indirect commentary is used as a very important supple­ ment to staging, especially during the early development of a conflict or at the very end of a story or an episode. The comments are made either by ”people” in general, or by selected spokesmen of the established community values, and they usually refer either to some character’s status within that community ("Gunnarr was a popular man”) or to the outcome of some specific action (”The killing was ill spoken o f ’). The first type of comment is more often used in the beginning, while the latter usually occurs towards the end. A more generalized type of indirect comment is pro­ vided by proverbs, legal quotations and prophecies. The function of prophecy, usually quoted verbatim (”This will bring us luck,” ”This will lead to the death of all of us”), is to indicate the ethical value of whatever is the object of the prophecy, and to prepare the audience for future events. The same double function is often present in various other types of foreshadowings such as dreams and miraculous omens. Such supernatural happenings can thus be regarded not only as part of the staging but as a special kind of indi­ rect commentary—the ”comments” being made by God him­ self or by some sort of deterministic force behind the stage.

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Direct commentary (editorializing) and stylistic varia­ tion seem to be used much more sparingly than either stag­ ing or indirect commentary. When they are used, they are not infrequently used in combination, i.e. an important com­ ment will be further emphasized by a more elevated style. This occurs primarily in the very beginning and at the very end of a story, i.e. in the introductory presentation and the final necrologies. A heightening of style sometimes occurs also in proverbial expressions and quotations from law and poetry spoken by characters who appear as spokesmen of the narrator. Both the editorializing and the more high-flown language are in violation of the basic saga principle of impassibilité, and they both seem to be influenced by other genres—on one hand by skaldic poetry, on the other hand by the rhetoric of foreign biographies and saints’ lives. Although these methods seem somewhat foreign to the sagas as a whole, and although they are often neglected by critics, they may nevertheless play an important role in the unconscious formation of our sympathies, especially since the passages where they are used stand out so prominently against the regular calm, even flow of factual narration. The narrators show a remarkable restraint in their use of all these techniques and devices, compared to most medi­ eval authors and also to most modern novelists. That is to say that they are not only very frugal in their own use of editorializing and high-flown, emotional expressions, but the indirect comments made by thei'r spokesmen will also be brief and restrained, and they will use their emotive staging effects very discreetly and never in a way which interrupts the continuous flow of action. Once the reader has become used to this restraint, however, he may be as strongly affected by one dry prose line in a saga as he would be by several passionate exclamations in a romantic poem of the Sturm und Drang variety. This does not mean, of course, that sagas are either better or worse than romantic poems, or that their emotional impact can be said to be either stronger or weaker—it is just that the literary language is different.

Jenny M. Joche ns

The Medieval Icelandic Heroine: Fact or Fiction?

Even a superficial reading of the family sagas, also known as the sagas of the Icelanders, the most famous seg­ ment of the medieval Icelandic vernacular literature, will produce an indelible image of strong, willful, domineering women. Found most strikingly in such well-known master­ pieces as Njáls saga and Laxdcela saga, the names of Unnr, Hallgerðr, Bergþóra, Rannveig, Guðrún, and Þorgerðr come immediately to mind, but they are also prominent in lesserknown stories as for example Hávarðr saga Isfirðings, Gisla saga, and Eyrbyggja saga.1 With realistic settings and ample verifiable information these "historical novels” were used extensively by previous generations of scholars to reconstruct the political history of the island. However, since the turn of the century they have been exposed to rig­ orous criticism by historians who have shown internal inconsistencies, and discrepancies with older Continental sources as well as with archeology. Today they are often designated as the literary sagas and they have been con­ fided to literary critics.1 2 Not totally convinced by such

1 The references throughout are to chapters in the ÍF volumes contain­ ing the sagas referred to. The ÍF volume itself is identified only in the

o

first citation after the given saga. The translations are my own. For a recent treatment of saga problems see Schach, Icelandic Sagas. On the specific issue of historicity and literary interpretation see Andersson, The Problem o f Icelandic Saga Origins; and Arvidsson, "Source-Criticism and Literary History,” as well as Clover and Lindow, Old Norse-Icelandic Literature.

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arguments, some social and religious historians, anthropol­ ogists, and especially scholars interested in women’s history have nonetheless been more reluctant to abandon these gold mines.3 Combined with meager suggestions frbm Tacitus, these stories have formed the basis of a Germanic-Nordic model of independent womanhood which was assumed to contrast markedly with a patriarchal and dependent model found in Mediterranean Europe.4 Most historians still consider the contemporary sagas dealing with the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, such as Sturlunga saga and the sagas of the bishops, as their proper domain, because these writings are closer in time to the period they describe. To these sagas historians also join the more historically oriented account of Islendingabók and most of the material in Landnámabók, as well as the laws.5 In recent years, however, certain historians and literary critics have voiced doubts over the veracity of even these more historically oriented sagas and sources and have sug­ gested that only a difference of degree of historicity sepa­ rates the literary from the so-called historical sources.6 Coupled with a present interest in social history, this inter­ pretation has led some literary critics to adopt the whole

3

See Turner, "An Anthropological Approach to the Icelandic Saga” ; Damsholt, "The Role of Icelandic Womeh in the Sagas and in the Pro­ duction of Homespun Cloth” ; Ólafia Einarsdóttir "Kvindens stilling i Fristatstidens Island” .

4 Grønbech, The Culture of the Teutons', and Williams, Social Scandi­ navia in the Viking Age. For a full bibliography of relevant material see the Viator version of the present essay, f.n. 4. ® Jóhanesson, A History of the Old Icelandic Commonwealth. C Not even skaldic poetry, normally considered the most trustworthy of sources, is completely reliable: see Roberta Frank, "Viking Atrocity and Skaldic Verse”; but see also Bjarni Einarssop, "De Normannorum Atrocitate.” For further references see the Viator version of the present essay.

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spectrum of Icelandic vernacular writing as their province and to shift attention from narrative techniques toward the social and cultural content of the texts. In this effort they are joined by social and legal historians who look for conti­ nuity over centuries.7 This essay proposes to reexamine the Germanic-Nordic model of womanhood by analyzing the nature and extent of power exercised by the heroines found in the family sagas and by comparing the resulting picture with evidence drawn from the law codes, the contemporary sagas, and the meager charter material, all of which also illuminate the lives of medieval Icelandic women. The final goal will be to determine whether the heroines should be taken at face value or whether they are irretrievably fictitious. The anal­ ysis will also suggest conclusions about the comparative veracity of literary and historical sagas, at least on this par­ ticular subject. Two specific issues, namely, marriage and divorce will be explored, followed by a concluding but more problematic question—what was women’s psychological and emotional influence upon men. Although these issues are important for all women in medieval Europe, the Icelandic materials are of special interest because they depict ordi­ nary women. Not only the Icelandic heroines of the family sagas, but also the women in the historical sagas and other historical materials are wives, daughters, or widows of farmers, busily involved with the everyday tasks of running the household. They do not belong to the group of unique political women acting as rulers in the absence of males, as found in the sources of continental Europe.

n

For a good overview of the literature, see Byock, "Saga Form, Oral Prehistory and the Icelandic Social Context.” Support for this view may be found in Miller, "Choosing the Avenger,” and Miller, "Avoiding Legal Judgment.”

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In the family sagas, marriage was monogamous and con­ sisted basically of a contract between two parties, the male guardians of both bride and groom. The partners had to be of equal social standing and comparable wealth for the match to be negotiated successfully. While there were only few indications that a young man was asked for his opinion about his prospective bride, we are led to believe that fathers normally conferred with their daughters, because of the anger and frustration of some girls when not asked. In Laxdcela saga Guðrún was not consulted about her first marriage contracted at the age of fifteen, and "she let it be known that she was displeased” (ok heldr gerði hon sér at þessu ógetit, ÍF V, Ch. 34). In Njáls saga, when Hallgerðr was told about her father’s plans for her marriage, she offered the following comment: "Now I am certain of what I have been suspecting for a long time, namely, that you do not love me as much as you always have said you did, since you did not think it necessary to discuss this proposal with me; besides, I do not find this marriage as prestigious as you had promised me” (ÍF XII, Ch. 10).8 When fathers or other male relatives did consult the young girls, apparently they took their opinions seriously. In Laxdcela. saga Egill assured his daughter that his answer to the spokesman for her suitor would depend on her reaction to the proposal and when he was not able to persuade'her, he transmitted her negative answer to the waiting party (Ch. 23). In the same saga Snorri declared to his daughter’s prospective step-fa­ ther-in-law that "she shall only marry the man who pleases her” (hon skal þann einn mann eiga, at henni sé vel at

g

“Nú em ek at raun komin um þat, er mik hefir lengi grunat, at þú mundir eigi unna mér svá mikit sem þú sagðir jafnan, er þér þótti eigi þess uert, at viå mik væri um talat þetta mál; enda þykki mér ráð þetta ekki svá mikils háttar sem þér hétuð mér; . .

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skapi, Ch. 70). When Flosi was negotiating with Njáll about the marriage of his niece Hildigunnr to Njáll’s foster son HQskuldr tie assured her that ”it is sufficient for me to call off the negotiations if you do not want to get married.”9 Most often the girls yielded to their fathers’ wishes. Occasionally such consent was given in positive terms, as when Oddný willingly agreed to her father’s suggestion of a betrothal to BjQrn because ”she knew him beforehand and they had loved each other dearly,”10*but in most cases the acceptance was tacit and passive: the girl ”did not refuse” (,fundusk eigi afsvqr í hennar máli),íl or ”did not say no on her behalf and asked her father to decide” (veitti ok eigi af­ svqr fyrir sina hqnd, ok bað hon fqður sinn ráða),121 3or ”it 1^ was not against her will” (ekki með hennar mótmæli). Sometimes the woman objected strenuously,Aas Þorgerðr did when her father tried to convince her that Oláfr would be a good match. ” 1 have heard you say that you love me most of your children, but now it seems to me that you are going against that if you plan to marry me to a concubine’s son, although he is handsome and dresses beautifully.” 14 In Hœnsa-Þóris saga Þuríðr answered her father’s proposal of marriage by saying that ”she wasn’t that eager for a hus­ band that it did not seem just as good to stay at home.”15 (In

9

“Pat er ærit eitt til . . . e f þú vill eigi giptask, at pä mun ek engan kost å g e r a (Njåls saga, Ch. 97)

^ . . . henni var Bjqrn kunnigr áðr, ok þau hqfðu elskazk sin i mil­ ium mjqk kærliga. (Bjarnar saga hítdœlakappayÍF III, Ch. 2) ^ Porsteins saga hvíta (ÍF XI, Ch. 4).

12

Laxdæla saga (Ch. 45).

13 Kormåks saga (ÍF VIII, Ch. 17). ^ “Þat heft ek þik heyrt mæla, at þú ynnir mér mest barna þinna; en nú pykki mér pit pat ósanna, ef pii vill gipta mik ambáttarsyni, pótt hann sé vænn ok mikill á b u r ð a r m a ð r (Laxdæla sagaf Ch. 23) . . . eigi er henni svå mikil manngirnð i hug, at henni pcetti jafngott at sitja heimaf . . . (ÍF III, Ch. 11)

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both instances the marriage, nonetheless, took place.) In still other cases the woman imposed conditions to be ful­ filled before agreeing to the arrangement. Hildigunnr, who we recall had been assured by her uncle that*she did not have to marry Hqskuldr if she did not want to, consented to the proposal if the young man could be provided with a chieftainship. Njáll asked for a respite of three years and met the demand (Ch. 97). A widow, on the other hand, was usually free to remarry according to her own wishes without the necessity of consul­ tation or her relatives’ approval. In Laxdcela saga two of the leading women found themselves in this advantageous position. When Guðrún was courted by Bolli, Guðrún’s father assured him that he would recommend the match, but "as you know, Bolli, Guðrún is a widow and can answer for herself.” 16*He repeated to his daughter, "you have to answer this proposal” (áttu nú svqr þessa måls). The author of the same saga remarked concerning Þorgerðr’s remarriage that "when this matter came up Þorgerðr had the right to answer since she was a widow.” In Njáls saga (Ch. 25) Unnr married Valgarðr without consulting her rel­ atives, and in Droplaugarsona saga (IF XI, Ch. 4) the hero­ ine married a second husband against the explicit advice of her sons. Even if all widows were not given such generous rein, they normally received special consideration. During the negotiations over Hallgerðr’s second marriage, her uncle advised her father to "let her. know all about this mar­ riage proposal now, meet Glúmr, and decide for herself whether she wants to marry him or not.” 1 78 When she 6

16 17

“Svá er, sem þú veizt, Bolli, at Guðrún er ekkja, ok á hon sjálf svqr fy rir sér; . . . ” (Ch. 43) Ok er at þessum málum var setit, átti Þorgerðr svqr at veita, er hon var ekkja; . . . (Ch. 7) . . skal hon nå vita alian þenna kaupmåla ok sjá Glúm ok råda sjålf, hvårt kon vill eiga hann eåa eigi, . . . ” (Njåls saga, Ch. 13)

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approved, she declared her own betrothal, as she also did prior to her third marriage (Ch. 33). Since marriages in most traditional societies were arranged by parties other than the contracting couples, the choice of abandoning an unsatisfactory marriage was poten­ tially more significant than the right to be consulted before entering one. The family sagas of Iceland portray a society unique to medieval Europe in the availability of divorce, particularly granted at the women’s request. These narra­ tives report four times as many cases of divorce instigated by women as by men. The most frequently cited reason was the insult suffered by the wife when her husband slapped her.19 Occasionally the alternative to divorce in such mat­ ters was to have the husband killed, as happened to two of Hallgerðr’s husbands in Njáls saga. In both cases Hallgerðr’s foster father Þjóstólfr was the killer, but she was directly responsible for the death of her first husband and did not prevent the killing of her second.20 Other reasons permitting a wife to divorce her husband included her anger over his jealous violence, general dislike of and unhappiness with him, his failure to consummate the marriage, and his effeminate clothing.21 In a particularly moving case a sick woman divorced her husband because she wanted him to have a younger, healthier wife.22 Sometimes it is impossible

19

20

Laxdcela saga (Ch. 34); Eyrbyggja saga (IF IV, Ch. 13-14); Gisla saga (ÍFVI.Ch. 37). Njáls saga (Ch. 11, 17). The author liked the theme of the husband slapping his wife so much that he had Hallgerðr’s third husband per­ form the same act. She held her grudge and promised to repay him later, which she did by not giving him two strands of her hair to fash­ ion a bowstring which he desperately needed (Ch. 48,77).

^ Viga-Glúms saga (ÍF IX, Ch. 21); Laxdcela saga (Ch. 15-16); Reykdcela saga (IF X, Ch. 15); Kormáks saga (Ch. 13); Njáls saga (Ch. 7); Laxdcela saga (Ch. 34). ^ Vápnfirðinga saga (ÍF XI, Ch. 6).

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to discern any reason at all, as in the case of Rannveig’s divorce in Droplaugarsona saga. She added insult to injury by throwing her husband’s clothes into the cesspool, thus forcing him, wrapped only in bedclothes, to seek*help from a neighbor (Ch. 9). While the fine points of marriage and divorce may escape the casual reader, no one can fail to notice the over­ whelming influence of women on the lives of their husbands and families and their decisive part in the action of the sagas. The German scholar Rolf Heller has used the word Hetzerin to designate the role of the female instigator, who by goading and nagging forced an often reluctant husband to evil deeds of crime and revenge. In the almost forty extant literary sagas and short stories he has found fifty-one cases of the Hetzerin motif, in which a woman urged a man to take revenge, almost always with terrifying success.23 It is sufficient to be reminded of the awesome Guðrún in Laxdcela saga. Married four times, she never succeeded in gaining her true love Kjartan. In her pique she taunted her third husband Bolli to kill Kjartan, but with little initial effect. She then turned to her father and brothers and liter­ ally shook them into action. When they agreed to lay an ambush for Kjartan, she persuaded Bolli to take part by threatening divorce. Although in the end Bolli dealt Kjar­ tan his deathblow, he held him in his arms as he was dying and regretted his deed immediately, but Quðrún was greatly pleased (Ch. 46-49). Kjartan’s death was revenged by his mother Þorgerðr who incited her other sons to kill Bolli, but she, also, had to work on them before they agreed. When they finally were ready, she accompanied them to the scene of the deed to ensure that they did not waver. She urged them to carry their case against Bolli through to the end when he was so badly wounded that "he leaned against

23

Rolf Heller, Die literarische Darstellung der Frau in den Isländersa­ gas.

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the wall, wrapping his tunic tightly around him to prevent the entrails frpm spilling out.”24 When one of her sons gave Bolli such a blow with his axe that Bolli’s head came off at once, she praised him and expressed grim satisfaction in Guðrún’s loss of her husband. Of course, Guðrún did not greatly mourn Bolli, but she nevertheless spent the next twelve years waiting for her two sons to grow up so they could avenge their father. The climax of her goading was to show them Bolli’s blood-drenched clothes.25 Not only do the leading women play the role of the insti­ gator, but minor characters of low social standing are also used in this capacity and appear only when the motif is needed. Thus, in Hrafnkels saga Freysgoða (IF XI, Ch. 8) the action and words of a washer woman rekindled the desire for revenge in the main character, who had lived in peace with his opponent for several years, and in a less active way, in Njáls saga (Ch. 44) a group of beggar women accelerated the pendulum of revenge between the families of Hallgerðr and Bergþóra. The process of goading and inciting has attracted renewed scholarly attention in recent years. Jesse Byock minimizes the female element by noting the few cases where men did the goading.26 Within the verbal nagging scenes William Miller singles out the use of objects associated with the dead person, such as the severed head or blood-drenched clothes. Supported by anthropologists studying tribal feuds in modern times south of the Mediterranean and in the Mid­ dle East, Miller interprets these features as remnants of

24

Bolli stód þá enn upp við selsvegginn ok helt at sér kyrtlinum, at eigi hlypi út iðrin. (Ch. 55) Laxdœla saga (Ch. 55, 60); Njáls saga contains four prominent cases of this female type, Bergþóra, Hallgerðr, Hildigunnr, and Hróðny.

° Byock, Feud in the Icelandic Saga, p. 95. Byock does not mention that the symbolic objects used to incite vengeance in all his cases were introduced by women.

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formalized ceremonies whereby a*weak party within one group could incite a stronger member of the same group to take vengeance against another group for crimes committed against the inciter.27 The Hetzerin was, therefore, the dominant female func­ tion in the literary sagas. It should also be noted, however, that women occasionally exercised less evil, but still impor­ tant roles, as in the example of Jórunn, Hqskuldr’s wife, in Laxdcela saga. When Hrútr, HQskuldr’s half-brother, demanded his share of an inheritance, HQskuldr refused, but Hrútr proceeded to help himself to the property. An ensuing battle between Hrútr and HQskuldr’s men made the former so angry that he was ready to murder his brother. Only Jdrunn’s calm advice to divide the property, advice accepted by her husband, prevented further bloodshed (Ch.

8 ). In the literary sagas, then, women clearly exercised con­ siderable rights and privileges over their own lives, and their advice—for good or bad—carried weight in the men’s

97

Miller, "Choosing the Avenger,” esp. pp. 175-204. Of the eight Old Norse cases listed by Miller four belong to Njáls saga, one each to Eyrbyggja saga, Laxdcela saga, Vápnfirðinga saga, and one to Óláfs saga in Heimskringla, where the bloody sword used in a killing was given by the victim's mother to her brother-in-law. Miller's argu­ ments are well presented, but he does not examine the possibility of literary borrowing. The parallel with distant, modern societies, although enticing, needs more work. See Black-Michaud, Cohesive Force; Hasluck, The Unwritten Law in Albania; Alexiou, The Ritual Lament in Greek Tradition. Magnus Magnusson and Herman Pálsson have suggested that the author of Laxdcela saga created the unhistoric revenge by Bolli of his father inspired by a contemporary episode from 1244, recorded only in the Króksfjarðarbók of Sturlunga saga (Sts 2.283), where a killer wiped his bloodied