Plate 1.

Þingvellir
As its name implies, the Alþingi, “General Assembly ”, was a meeting o f the
whole nation. It was laid down that it should last fo r two weeks over midsummer
each yea r - a time o f perpetual daylight in Iceland - and meet at Þingvöllr, ”As­
sembly p lain ” (now most often in the pL, Þingvellir^ in a magnificent natural
setting some 40 km east o f Reykjavik. In the picture Almannagjá, the biggest o f
the many rifts running through and bordering Pingvellir, is on the left, Ármanns-
fell in the background. The fla gp ole marks the site o f Lögberg, “Law-rock”,
where the Lawspeaker had his reserved place and where much assembly business
was done. - Photo: Hjálmar R. Barbar son.
Eddas and Sagas
 JÓN AS KRISTJÁNSSON

Eddas and Sagas

Iceland’s Medieval
Literature

TRANSLATED BY

PETER FOOTE

Reykjavik
Hið íslenska bókmenntafélag
1988
© Jó n a s Kristjánsson 1988
Prentsmiðjan Oddi hf.
Hið íslenska bókmenntafélag

No part of this book may be translated or

reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint,
microfilm, or any other means, without
written permission from the publishers.
 Contents
Preface ................................................................................................. 7
A new land ......................................................................................... 9
The major periods ............................................................................. 21
Eddaic poetry ..................................................................................... 25
The name. Circumstances of preservation ................................ 25
When and where eddaic poems were composed ...................... 26
German and English heroic poetry ............................................ 30
Metres ............................................................................................. 33
Poems about the gods ................................................................... 36
Heroic poems ................................................................................. 47
Scaldic poetry ..................................................................................... 83
Metres ............................................................................................. 84
Scaldic d ictio n ................................................................................. 87
O rig in s............................................................................................. 88
Preservation..................................................................................... 89
Poems addressed to kings and great men .................................. 90
L ausavisur....................................................................................... 92
Scaldic poets ................................................................................... 93
Christian poetry ............................................................................. I ll
An age of learning ............................................................................. 115
Foreign currents ............................................................................. 115
Grågås. Early Icelandic law ......................................................... 117
Ari the Wise ................................................................................... 120
Genealogies and Landnámabók .................................................. 124
“Sacred exposition” ....................................................................... 127
Learning of many k in d s................................................................. 129
Hagiography. Saints’ liv e s ................................................................. 135
Matter and characteristics...................................................... 135
Style ................................................................................................. 136
Sagas of apostles. Sagas of saints ................................................ 140
Individual w o rk s............................................................................. 142
Kings’ sagas ....................................................................................... 147
O rig in s............................................................................................. 147
6 EDDAS AND SAGAS

The first saga ................................................................................. 150

Abbot Karl Jónsson ...................................................................... 152
Synoptic histories ........................................................................... 154
Royal saints and Icelandic authors ............................................ 157
Morkinskinna and Fagrskinna .................................................... 161
Sagas of rulers outside Norway .................................................. 163
Snorri Sturluson ............................................................................. 166
Contemporary sa g as........................................................................... 179
Bishops’ s a g a s ................................................................................. 180
Sturlunga saga ............................................................................... 187
Sagas of Icelanders............................................................................. 203
Introductory ................................................................................... 203
Saga origins. Fact and fic tio n ........................................................ 204
Subject-matter and narrative method. Characterisation.......... 207
Language and style. Dialogue...................................................... 212
Verse in s a g a s ................................................................................... 214
When were the sagas written? .................................................... 217
Individual sagas ............................................................................... 224
íslendinga þ æ ttir.................................................. ............................. 299
Characteristics. S o u rces................................................................ 299
Individual þ æ ttir............................................................................. 301
Sagas of c h iv a lry ................................................................................. 311
O rig in s............................................................................................. 311
Individual w o rk s............................................................................. 319
Icelandic sagas of chivalry .......................................................... 337
Heroic sagas ....................................................................................... 341
Character and d a te ........................................................................... 341
Oral n a rra tiv e ................................................................................... 342
P oem s............................................................................................... 345
Individual sagas ............................................................................. 346
Jónsbók ............................................................................................... 363
New forms ........................................................................................... 369
B a lla d s............................................................................................... 370
R im u r............................................................................................... 377
Religious verse ................................................................................. 385
Secular p o e tr y ................................................................................... 390
Bibliography ....................................................................................... 401
Index ................................................................................................... 415
 Preface
This book was originally written as part of a general history of Iceland,
intended for the Icelandic reading public and published to commemorate
the eleven hundredth anniversary of the settlement of Iceland in 874. The
present translation is slightly augmented, and certain passages have been
rewritten, but otherwise there is little change from the Icelandic version.
As a consequence the book occasionally presupposes an Icelander’s
knowledge of the subject or gives a different emphasis than would have
been the case if it had been originally intended for foreign readers. But if
there is a slight disadvantage in the fact that the book was written for
Icelanders, there ought to be a decided advantage in the fact that it was
written by an Icelander, for none but Icelanders can fully participate in this
unique national literature. Only we speak this ancient language and only
we have the setting of the sagas in our daily view. Thus it ought to be of
benefit for foreigners to be led through this landscape by an Icelandic
guide.
A novelty in this book is the attention given to prose works, as opposed
to poetry. As a rule, histories of Icelandic medieval literature devote as
much space to poetry — i. e., the eddaic and scaldic poems, with a few
lines reserved for the late poetry — as to all the prose genres together.
This is out of all proportion, for only a few of them can be considered great
poetry, and they do not have any longer our full confidence as sources for
ancient culture, whether pagan or Christian, for many scholars consider
them as part of thirteenth and fourteenth century literature. The present
book devotes only about one-fourth of its space to the eddaic and scaldic
poems, and the remaining three-fourths to the other literary genres. This
is a fairer proportion.
Iceland was settled by Norwegians, and in the Middle Ages Norway
and Iceland were a cultural unity. For this reason it is necessary to say
something about Norwegian literature when one is discussing Icelandic
literature. In addition, whenever a Norwegian text is being discussed or
8 PREFACE

there is doubt about the country in which a text was produced, this will be
clearly indicated.
In the citations from medieval texts the spelling is harmonized accord­
ing to reconstructed orthography of the thirteenth century, when Icelan­
dic prose was at its peak. Thus for example, ö is printed for both earlier q
and 0, and sometimes æ for both œ and œ, reflecting the merging of these
sounds around 1200 and during the thirteenth century. Place-names are
printed with the ending -ur (e. g. Borgarfjörður), in accordance with
modern practice, unless they appear in a citation from a medieval text.
I wish to express my appreciation to the many people who have helped
to make this book possible, although there is not space to name them all
individually or thank them as they deserve. However, I do wish to express
my special gratitude to Dr. Brian Dodsworth, who most kindly and pains­
takingly read the proofs of the book and brought a number of improve­
ments to my attention.
It was a stroke of good luck to get Peter Foote to translate this book into
English, for he possesses the three skills necessary for such a task: he has a
profound knowledge of Icelandic literature, understands the Icelandic
language like a native, and is a master of English style. Except where
attributed, English versions of passages from early texts cited in the book
are the work of the translator. He is well aware that the translations of
verse are feeble in comparison with the originals, but he expects readers
to turn to them only when their own determined efforts to read the Icelan­
dic have foundered. Changes and improvements to the Icelandic text as
printed in Saga Islands are the work of both author and translator.

Reykjavik, April 1988

Jónas Kristjánsson
 A new land
The history of the Scandinavian North begins in the twilight of pre­
history. Archaeological evidence shows these lands to have been inhab­
ited for thousands of years, since the Stone and Bronze Ages, with
fluctuating prosperity and a slow advance. The aboriginal inhabitants
of Scandinavia were of unknown racial stock, but it was later invaded
by a Germanic people, a branch of the great Indo-European stem that
spread across Europe and Asia in the last millennia before Christ.
The ancient Romans came into contact with the Germanic tribes of
the south on the borders of the Empire, beyond the rivers Rhine and
Danube. These southern tribes had certain customs in common and
spoke various dialects of the same language. They had long since
emerged from the herdsman stage to form a number of kingdoms with
some kind of organisation and social structure, but their participation
in the classical Mediterranean culture had been small. They had no
written literature; the characteristic Germanic runes were used almost
exclusively for inscriptions on objects, and later on gravestones. In the
eyes of the Romans, with their richer culture and more developed so­
cial system, these tribes were no better than semi-savage barbarians.
Roman historical works make frequent reference to these people, while
Tacitus devoted a separate book to them, our chief source of informa­
tion on them in the first centuries of our era. But this comes from a
foreign and hostile nation with no overall knowledge of Germanic cul­
ture and customs. And although, as far as it goes, the Roman account
may be correct where neighbouring Germani are concerned, it is not
certain that it applies to the Scandinavians on the shores of the Baltic,
far from the Roman homelands.
The Germanic peoples came originally from the south and east, and
centuries later they flowed back in the same directions, like a tide of the
sea. What part the Scandinavian peoples may have played in the Ger­
manic backlash that flooded more southerly areas of Europe, and
10 A NEW LAND

played a major role in the downfall of the thousand-year-old empire of

Rome, is not known with any certainty. However, Jordanes, the Ostro-
gothic historian, believed his nation had its origins in the southernmost
part of Scandinavia, while the Cimbri, who with their kinsmen the
Teutones were the first Germanic tribes to invade Roman territory, are
thought by some scholars to have originated in the Jutland peninsula,
where their memory is preserved in the regional name Himmerland.
But if direct participation by Northmen in the great migrations is
somewhat doubtful, there is no doubt about their contacts with more
southerly nations at the end of the Dark Ages and the beginning of the
Middle Ages. From the south they obtained not only tools and orna­
ments, but also lays on historical themes which have only survived in
the north, in Iceland.

Shortly before the end of the eighth century the Northmen make
their first definite appearance in written records — and then in the re­
cords of other nations, for as yet they were themselves without the art
of letters, apart from the runes already mentioned. But they were
skilled in other arts and their technical and military development was
advanced. The Scandinavian peninsula is mountainous and inacces­
sible, while the enormous length of the coast with its deep fjords and
excellent harbours is an invitation to seamen, and at this period the
Scandinavians were better shipwrights and sailors than any in Europe.
They were tough and aggressive, well equipped with defensive armour,
could propel missiles, both spear and arrow, at long ranges, while in
close combat they used long-handled axes, considered the most terrible
of weapons. When their homelands became overcrowded and the wan­
derlust seized them, they put out in their ships and at first made the
short voyage across the North Sea. In the year 793 they appeared in
the isle of Lindisfarne off the coast of Northumberland, site of the
monastery of St Cuthbert and one of the main centres of the English
Church. The monks were completely defenceless. They were cut down
in an instant by the raiders and the treasures of their monastery plun­
dered. Sea-warriors of this description were called Vikings and the age
now beginning is named after them. The raid on Lindisfarne was one of
those that marked the opening of the Viking Age.
News of this easily-won wealth doubtless travelled like wildfire all
over Scandinavia. In the succeeding years one raid followed another.
Given the lie of their land, the Danes and Norwegians naturally sailed
westwards to England, Scotland and Ireland, and even all the way
A NEW LAND 11
south to France and the Mediterranean. The Swedes went by what was
known as the Eastern Way, harrying the countries south and east of the
Baltic. Soon the Vikings were no longer content just to raid the coasts
for plunder or occupy outlying headlands. They began to ravage in­
land, mustered great Viking hosts, conquered whole provinces and
established independent Viking states. Thus for a considerable period
the Danes controlled all central and northeastern England in the area
known as the Danelaw, while the Norwegians conquered parts of Ire­
land and secured a permanent hold on Dublin, which was ruled by
Norse kings through the greater part of the tenth and eleventh centu­
ries. Vikings also sailed up the rivers Loire and Seine and harried the
country on both banks. Paris was besieged by Vikings for a whole
winter, and the defence of the city is well chronicled. Rouen fell into
Viking hands and became the capital of a considerable and powerful
state, known as Normandy because of its origins. The Normans’ leader,
Rollo, called Göngu-Hrólfr in the Icelandic sagas, became a count of
the king of France in the year 911, and his more famous descendant,
William Duke of Normandy, beat England into permanent subjection
at Hastings in the year 1066. On the Eastern Way the Slavs called in
Swedes to aid them against the Mongol tribes that were invading their
territory from the east. The Russian Nestorian Chronicle records that the
first Russian state was founded by Rurik, a Swedish Viking. Its capital
was at Novgorod, known by the Northmen as Hólmgarðr.
The Viking raids caused an enormous upheaval throughout Europe
in their day. To the Scandinavian lands they brought wealth and dif­
ferent streams of culture. And yet, with a few exceptions, the Vikings
nowhere succeeded in creating an enduring national state of their own.
Though some of their states, such as Normandy and Hólmgarðr, be­
came powerful, the small ruling element was gradually absorbed by the
native mass, losing both language and ethnic identity. The only places
where this did not happen were previously uninhabited lands occupied
by the Vikings.

“Iceland was first settled from Norway in the days of Haraldr Fair­
haired, son of Hálfdan the Black, at the time . . . when Ivarr, son of
Ragnarr Shaggy-breeks, put St Edmund, king of the English, to death.
And this was 870 winters after Christ’s birth, as is written in his saga.
Ingolfr was the name of a Norwegian man who is truly said to have
first gone thence to Iceland when Haraldr Fairhaired was sixteen years
of age, and a second time a few years later. He settled in the south at
12 A NEW LAND

Reykjarvik . . . And wise men have said that in sixty winters Iceland
was fully settled and no more after that.” So wrote Ari the Wise in his
íslendingabók (pp. 120-123 below).
The settlement of Iceland shows better than anything else the great
vigour and initiative of the Northmen in the Viking Age. Thousands of
settlers crossed the stormy seas in open vessels; men with their wives
and children and other kinsfolk, housecarls and thralls. With them they
took clothes and provisions, utensils and domestic equipment, both
indoor and outdoor, and beside these the necessary livestock: sheep,
cattle, horses, goats, pigs and poultry. This extraordinary migration
reminds one of the marvellous tales of Noah’s Ark, in which all man­
kind and the whole of animal creation found sanctuary.
The settlement was motivated by the same causes as the Viking
raids: overcrowding in the homeland and an urge for novelty and quick
profit. During the Age of Settlement the climate of Iceland seems to
have been relatively mild. The immigrants enjoyed all the advantages
of a land untouched and unspoiled by the hand of man. There was an
abundance of fish in the rivers and lakes and coastal waters of the
island. The lowlands were covered with rich pasture and birchwood
that reached high up the slopes of the mountains. Some of the new­
comers described the new country as a fishing-station, while one de­
clared that every blade of grass dripped butter. However, it was soon
found that there were two sides to the picture and the Icelandic weath­
er could be rather unreliable. One of the earliest would-be settlers lost
all his livestock in the rigours of the first winter, and went back. Before
leaving he climbed a high mountain and saw a fjord filled with drift-
ice, whereupon he gave the country its chilly name. Unwonted events
in Norway stimulated the exodus from the country and speeded up the
settlement. Formerly there had been petty kings in every district, but
now Haraldr Fairhaired subjugated the land and made himself su­
preme. Western Norway was a great breeding-ground of Vikings and
here it was that Haraldr met the stiffest resistance, for he made every
effort to pacify the country and destroy their power. After his victory
many of his enemies left Norway, some sailing to Iceland, and others to
the islands of the west across the North Sea where they established
bases from which to harry their homeland. The king then mounted an
expedition against the west Vikings, after which still more of them were
driven across to Iceland.
According to the Book of Settlements (p. 125 below), most of the
settlers came from western districts of Norway, especially Sogn and
A NEW LAND 13

Frøw v4n5j- íslendingabók, “Book o f the Icelanders”, written in the 1120s or c.

1130. In the opening lines we read: [IJsland byGþisc fyrst vr Norvegi a dog-
om Harallz ens Harfagra, Halfdanar s(onar) ens Svarta —“Iceland was
first settled from Norway in the days o f Haraldr Fairhaired, son o f Hdlfdan the
Black.” Árni Magnússon Institute, Reykjavik: AM 113 b fo l. 17th century.
Photo: Jóhanna Ólafsdóttir.
14 A NEW LAND

Hordaland. The Icelandic language is closest to the Norwegian dialects

spoken in these areas. And when the Icelanders adopted a code of law
for their commonwealth they based it on the laws of the Gulaþing, then
in force in Hordaland, Sogn and Fjordane. Thus all the evidence on the
origins of the Icelanders points in the same direction. But from the
start the people that settled the new land had a distinctive culture and
customs of their own. This may be due to the particular sample of
Norwegians that migrated there, and especially to the slight admixture
of Celtic stock among the settlers from the isles of the west. Many of
the thralls who later mixed with the freeborn immigrants were also of
Celtic origin.

Towards the close of the Age of Settlement the Icelanders combined

to establish a common state and general assembly. The country was
divided into four Quarters, and each of these into nine goðorð, or chief­
taincies, except the Northern Quarter, in which there were twelve. The
chieftains in charge of the heathen sacrificial rites were called godar,
and these were also the leaders of these sub-divisions of the state. They
were of the noblest families among the settlers. In early spring a district
assembly was held in the territory of every three chieftaincies.
The Alþingi was an assembly of the whole nation, as its name im­
plies. Its sessions lasted two weeks every summer at a time when the
sun was highest in the sky and the days longest, and were held in
magnificent surroundings a little to the east of the homestead of
Reykjavik, at the site since known as Þingvöllur — “the plain of the as­
sembly55. Though the Icelandic laws were based on those of the settlers5
native districts in Norway, these were considerably supplemented and
amended. In their recorded form the laws of the Icelandic common­
wealth appear far more complex and advanced than any contemporary
legal system in neighbouring countries.
At the Alþingi, as might be supposed, the godar were supreme. They
were self-appointed members of the legislature (Idgrétta), an institution
that amended old laws, drafted new ones and gave judgment on points
of law. To ensure its efficient and impartial operation, however, every
godi had two advisers, one sitting behind him and one in front.
The judicial courts of the Alþingi were four in number, one for each
Quarter. The godar nominated one man each in every Quarter Court,
thus giving them effective control, though the interests of parties to a
dispute were safeguarded by their right to object to any member of the
court on various grounds of unsuitability. Many features of the Icelan-
A NEW LAND 15
die constitution were unique and it was more democratic in operation
than in neighbouring lands. There was no king to oppress subjects with
tyrannical commands. Power was equally divided between thirty-nine
farmer-chieftains, among whose tasks was the duty of protecting the
interests of their people, each in his own district. The legislative and
judicial powers were completely separate and allotted to independent
bodies. Juries were very much used in the legal process, their members
giving their verdict according to conscience. At a fairly early date a
Fifth Court was introduced as a kind of supreme court of appeal for the
whole country. One of its functions was to decide cases that could not
be settled in the Quarter Courts. With this, Iceland possessed a three-
stage system of justice, just as in any advanced modern society: the
district court of the spring assembly, and the Quarter and Fifth Courts
of the Alþingi.
The merits of this original and well-devised system were proved both
by its duration and results. The Icelandic commonwealth lasted for
nearly three and a half centuries, and under its wing there blossomed a
culture whose like was not to be found anywhere else in Northern
Europe. In the latter part of the commonwealth period, Icelanders
were unequalled in some branches of literature.
In the early period after the settlement the inhabitants possessed a
large and effective fleet of ships, and the wanderlust that had driven
their forefathers to Iceland was still in their blood. From here they
voyaged further westwards in search of new lands. Eirikr the Red, a
man from the west of Iceland, discovered a large country which he
named Greenland — “and said that it would urge men to go there if
the land had a good name55, observes Ari the Wise. Nor was Eirikr
disappointed. During the next few years many emigrated from Iceland
to Greenland, establishing what began as a flourishing settlement.
From Greenland it was not far to the North American continent, and
the seadogs of Greenland soon had a glimpse of still more lands to the
southwest. Bjarni Herjólfsson and Leifr the Lucky, son of Eirikr the
Red, are each said to have discovered three lands which were given the
names Vinland (“Wine-land55), Markland (“Forest-land”) and Helluland
(“Flagstone-land”). Helluland and Markland were probably Baffin Is­
land and the Labrador peninsula. Vinland seems to have been south of
the Gulf of St Lawrence, in New Brunswick or Maine or Massachu­
setts. Remains of houses and other traces of Nordic men have been
found at the northern tip of Newfoundland, where there was probably
a short-term stopping place on the sea voyage between Greenland and
16 A NEW LAND

Vínland. Þorfinnr karlsefni tried to settle in Vinland, but was com­

pelled to leave by the hostility of the natives. Voyages from Greenland
to Markland, on the other hand, continued until at least about the
middle of the fourteenth century.
Greenland followed its mother-country, Iceland, under the rule of
Norwegian and later Danish kings. In time their prosperity declined as
a result of deterioration of climate and foreign misrule. The number of
seaworthy vessels soon dwindled and both countries lacked timber to
replace them. The Greenlanders became totally dependent upon the
whims of foreign merchants. In 1406 a ship was on its way from Nor­
way to Iceland, but was driven off course by difficult currents and high
winds and finally came ashore in Greenland. Four years later it again
ventured out to sea and sailed to Norway. Thereafter nothing is heard
until modern times of the Greenlandic settlement that was left to suffer
the most terrible fate that has befallen any Scandinavian people. When
explorers rediscovered the settlement at the beginning of the seven­
teenth century, they found only the ruins of farms, and poor wooden
crosses over the bones of the seamen of old who had discovered Amer­
ica five centuries before the days of Columbus.

The ancient Icelandic commonwealth lasted longer than is usual for

so happy a polity, but in the thirteenth century the inexorable advance
of history had uncovered its weaknesses. Under the ancient constitu­
tion the Icelanders had no common executive authority. Authority in
the country, previously distributed among 39 equal gobar, had now
become concentrated in the hands of a few men. When these great
chieftains were of a quiet and peaceable disposition, like Snorri’s foster-
father, Jon Loptsson, all was well. But struggles for power between
them grew more frequent, and the country was rocked spasmodically
by civil conflict. King Håkon of Norway was very ready to concern
himself with the quarrels of the Icelanders in order to win control over
the country. In the end, exhausted by constant strife and warfare, the
Icelandic people chose, as the lesser of two evils, to become the king’s
vassals. They swore an oath of loyalty and submission to Håkon in the
years 1262— 1264.
After Iceland passed under the crown of Norway the internal con­
flicts that had raged intermittently for half a century died down. The
population could breathe more freely — for the time being. But as
years went by the unhealthy effects of foreign domination became ap­
parent. The economic state of the country deteriorated rapidly and the
Plate 2
Eleventh-century ships o f ’’viking” type, painted above the waterline and with
striped sails. From the Bayeux Tapestry, the pictorial record o f the Norman in­
vasion o f England in 1066.
 Plate 3
“When Ingólfr saw Iceland, he threw his highseat pillars overboard to lead him, to luck. He vowed he would settle where the
pillars came ashore. li e landed at the place now called Ingólfshojbi, ‘Ingólfr’s promontory Landnámabók, ch. 8. Öræfa-
fókull from the sea; Ingolfshöfði is visible on the left o f the picture. - Photo: Jón Steindórsson.
A NEW LAND 17

A map made by Sigurður Stefdnsson, rector o f the school at Skálholt (d. 1595). He
must have worked from a world map o f the kind published by Mercator in 1569
and supplemented it with information about the western world drawn from old Ice­
landic sources and influenced further by vague sixteenth-century notions o f what lay
across the Atlantic. Among the names included are Gronlandia (Greenland) and
others ultimately derived from Grænlendinga saga and Eiriks saga rauða:
Helleland, Marckland, Skrœlingeland and Promontorium Vinlandiæ. The original
map has not survived and this illustration is reproduced from Gronlandia Anti­
qua, published by Þormóður Torfason (Torfœus) in 1706.
2 Eddas and Sagas
18 A NEW LAND

creative originality that had characterised the literature of the com­

monwealth period petered out.
In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, when the Icelanders were
struggling to regain their independence, it became the habit to blame
foreign misrule for all the shortcomings of the past. But now that free­
dom and independence have been achieved it can be admitted that
there were many factors involved and the decline only partly to be
attributed to the agency of human powers.
As mentioned above, during the first centuries of Iceland’s settle­
ment the climate appears to have been milder than it later became.
The land was fertile and untouched, but gradually it was spoiled by the
incursions of man and beast. Woodlands receded and pastures were
transformed into dust deserts. The climate turned colder in the four­
teenth century, and later, colder still. The polar ice repeatedly blocked
the coasts, causing disastrous seasons and the death of livestock. Volca­
noes emitted ash that poisoned the grazing and killed flocks all over the
country, bringing starvation to the people. To all these were added
epidemic diseases that harried the land, causing fearful havoc in this
remote corner of the inhabited world. The Great Plague of ill fame,
which reached Iceland in 1402, is estimated to have killed about half
the population. Then, and in another epidemic of the late fifteenth
century, whole districts were depopulated, while landed property be­
came concentrated in fewer and fewer hands.
The foreign government cannot however be entirely exonerated from
all blame for the economic and cultural decline of the later middle ages
and succeeding centuries. There were no forests in Iceland to provide
timber suitable for the building of ocean-going ships, and the pop­
ulation was therefore dependent upon other nations for the import of
essential goods. The Iceland trade was both neglected and misused for
the enrichment of foreign merchants. And it was alien influence, both
temporal and spiritual, that caused the Church gradually to lose its
close links with the secular powers and become just a small limb of the
universal Catholic body under the Papacy. With this the connection
between foreign culture and Icelandic lore was also loosened. Many of
the later Catholic bishops were rapacious on the Church’s behalf and
fought with the newly-rich chieftains and secular authorities for landed
estates. The bulk of the people, who had previously been freeholders,
now became impoverished tenants on the lands of the episcopal sees,
the monasteries, or the families of wealthy magnates.
Late in the fourteenth century Norway passed under the Danish
A NEW LAND 19
crown, and with it Iceland, which then became a kind of outlying croft
in the eyes of the Danish authorities. This change was to the progres­
sive disadvantage of the Icelanders, since their masters were now re­
moter both geographically and in kinship than before. Luther’s Re­
formation reached Iceland about the middle of the sixteenth century, in
effect as a cynical profit-making move on the part of the monarchy.
The king now took possession of all the very considerable estates of the
monasteries to add to the various other sources of income that had pre­
viously come his way.
The Reformation marked an upheaval in Iceland, both politically
and culturally. With it a whole era came to an end. The old sagas lived
on in copies on paper and gave stimulus to national feeling and new
literary works. But when historical writing was revived at the begin­
ning of the seventeenth century it took on new forms which could not
compare with the classical literature of Iceland’s golden age.
 The major periods
The history of early Icelandic literature can be conveniently divided
into periods according to the predominant intellectual currents and
literary preferences in succeeding ages.
There is first the period of creativity which existed before literacy
based on Latin learning became established among the Icelanders. It
lasted from the settlement c. AD 870 to the years round 1100. The only
literature in a formal sense from this time was in verse. Ancient poetry
was remembered and transmitted from generation to generation, and
new poems and “occasional” stanzas were constantly made. In the same
period recollections of people and events from the Settlement Age and
from before and after it were told as anecdotes or at greater length, and
stories of ancient heroes were a source of both pastime and knowledge.
Little of the verbal art of this early age was ever recorded. It is true
that in mainland Scandinavia verse couplets and longer sequences were
inscribed on rune stones, and a few sources say that whole poems or
entire narratives were written on rune sticks. We have such a report in
Egils saga but this thirteenth-century account is not trustworthy evi­
dence of tenth-century practice, and it is altogether more probable that
poems were generally known by heart and passed on by word of mouth.
None of the preserved poetry refers to the runic recording of verse, and
the authors of the twelfth and thirteenth century who made use of old
poetry — Snorri Sturluson, for example — never tell us that it was cut in
runes. We are on the other hand often told that people learnt poems and
knew poems. “There were scalds with King Haraldr [Fairhaired], and
people still know their poems and poems on all the kings who have since
ruled in Norway,” says Snorri in the prologue to Heimskringla. We
should further note that we have several examples of verse in variants
recorded from two or more informants. A good instance is offered by the
texts of Vóluspá found whole in the Codex Regius of the Poetic Edda and in
22 THE MAJOR PERIODS

Hauksbók and cited in part in Snorri’s Edda. It is inconceivable that

these three variant forms were all derived from a single runic archetype.
Books came to Iceland with Christianity, Latin books in Latin script.
Christianity could not exist without Scripture and all its derivatives.
The Icelanders formally accepted the new faith in AD 1000 (or 999),
and within a hundred years appear to have made good progress in
writing their own vernacular. The second stage in Icelandic literary
history can be said to begin about 1100: and the start of subsequent
periods generally coincides more or less with the arrival of a new
century. At first native composition was strongly influenced by foreign
learning. Translations and adaptations were made from Latin, and the
native works that were created or copied were either works of scholar­
ship or intended to give practical instruction. These remained the
characteristic modes throughout the twelfth century, which is rightly
called the “age of learning”.
In the decades round 1200 a remarkable development took place.
Icelanders began to write sagas: rich and expansive descriptions and
accounts of people and events from different places and different times,
ranging from the contemporary world to the remotest past, from the
author’s own valley to far-off foreign lands.
The chief sources of these written sagas were the oral traditions that
were zealously cultivated, especially by those who had no book-learn­
ing. The first sagas have typical twelfth-century features: dry informa­
tion of the kind the earliest historians provided, or incredible and
didactic elements of the kind typical of hagiography. But gradually
these two streams merge into one: sober fact and exaggerated fancy, the
real and the imagined, come together in a seemly coherence which is the
hallmark of the classical fslendinga sögur, “sagas of Icelanders”.
There was no long stay before changing tastes began to tend towards
new extremes. Influence from the romantic chivalric literature of west­
ern Europe began to make itself felt from about the middle of the
thirteenth century onwards, largely through the medium of translations
—the first riddara sögur, “sagas of chivalry” —which both in Norway and
Iceland appear to have been warmly welcomed as having all the spice of
novelty. Acquaintance with these stories led people to put a new value
on various homely tales of a more fantastic kind which provided popular
entertainment but so far only existed in oral forms: now they gradually
found written record to make the group of sagas we call jornaldarsögur
Nordurlanda, “sagas of ancient times in the north lands” (i. e., they are
usually set in a period before or about the time of the settlement of
THE MAJOR PERIODS 23

The Christian fa ith was adopted by the Alþingi in the yea r 1000 (or 999). The first
Icelandic bishop was consecrated in the middle o f the 11th century with his see at
Skalholt in the south. H alf a century later a second diocese was established at Hólar
in the north. These two sees were to be the ch ief centres o f intellectual activity in
Iceland fo r seven hundred years, to the end o f the eighteenth century when Reykjavik
began to emerge as the urban capital o f the country. Virtually no ancient remains are
now to be seen at Skalholt but after a period o f ruinous decay restoration is under
way, with a new church and college built there and plans fo r further development.
Photo: Hjálmar R. Bárðarson.

Iceland); another term used (outside Iceland) to describe them is

“mythical-heroic sagas”. Icelanders in the fourteenth century were at a
vast distance from the Settlement Age (c. 870—930) and the so-called
“saga age” (c. 930—1030) which followed it: traditions from the early
periods had either dried up or swelled into exaggerated folktales; many
of them had already been incorporated in written accounts. On the
other hand, literature as such can now be said to lead an independent
life: authors borrow more freely than ever before from older or con­
temporary works, they pick up old motifs from books and repeat them
with a new twist or put them in a new context. The three main kinds of
24 THE MAJOR PERIODS

sagas with settings in the past — the sagas of Icelanders, the sagas of
ancient times and the sagas of chivalry — now come much closer
together than before. In the newest of the sagas of Icelanders we find
narrative strands lifted from the two other kinds, but interwoven with
threads from native history and experience and associated with named
Icelanders. Authors also made up their own sagas of chivalry, using new
and old material, native and foreign, and these fictions became espe­
cially popular.
In the fifteenth century literature became totally dissociated from
Icelandic reality: authors move in exotic and supernatural dream­
worlds. Contemporary affairs are not recorded in any narratives of saga
kind — we have only deeds and documents. Some sagas of chivalry and
other forms of fantasy were put together, and lives of saints were
occasionally translated. But in the fifteenth century and down to the
Reformation in the middle of the sixteenth original composition was
mainly in verse: poems on the saints of the Church, rimur — versified
narratives, mostly drawn from sagas of chivalry — a genre which was
launched in the fourteenth century and really set sail in the fifteenth,
and ballads which seem to have been sung as dance measures and which
lived long in oral tradition before their recording began in the seven­
teenth century.

It is customary to divide the earliest Icelandic poetry into two kinds:

eddaic and scaldic. In general terms one can see that the division is
justified, but the distinctions between them are not always clear and
many poems come somewhere between them in subject-matter and
form.
 Eddaic poetry
The name. Circumstances of preservation
About 1220 Snorri Sturluson wrote a famous handbook of poetics and
it was to this that the name Edda was first attached: it is called Snorra
Edda, Snorri’s Edda\ outside Iceland it is sometimes referred to as the
Prose Edda. The simplex edda means “great-grandmother” but scholars
have had other ideas as to its significance as the title of Snorri’s book.
One suggestion is that it is derived from the Latin edo> “I edit”, “I
compose” (cf. Icel. kredda, derived from credo, “I believe”, originally
used of the Apostles’ Creed). As the name of Snorri’s work Edda is of
venerable age, for it occurs in the Uppsala manuscript, written about
1300 or soon afterwards: “This book is called Edda. Snorri Sturluson
composed it.”
Sæmundr Sigfusson “the Wise” (1056-1133), priest in Oddi, is
famous in Icelandic history and legend, but nothing he wrote has been
preserved. Icelanders found it hard to reconcile themselves to this sad
fact and in course of time attributed to him a number of works which
had nothing to do with him at all. In the first part of the seventeenth
century, and probably at an earlier date still, the notion was born that
Snorri’s Edda was only an epitome of a much larger and more notable
Edda which Sæmundr had written. The idea may have been encouraged
from the start by the fact that people knew of a manuscript which was
believed to contain some or all of this ancient Edda ascribed to him. In
1643 the codex in question came into the hands of Bishop Brynjólfur
Sveinsson, who was quite convinced that this was indeed Edda Sœmundi
multiscii, Sæmundar Edda. The theory that this was Snorri’s precursor and
source was strengthened by the fact that the codex contained complete
texts of a number of the poems cited or referred to by Snorri. The
association with Sæmundr has now been long rejected, and scholars
recognise that the poems in Bishop Brynjólfur’s manuscript were com­
26 EDDAIC POETRY

posed in various periods, most of them long before Sæmundr was born.
Nevertheless the name Sœmundar Edda has stuck to the poems gathered
together in this ancient book, although most people now simply refer to
the volume as the Poetic Edda or speak of the eddaic poems.
Bishop Brynjólfur presented the codex to King Frederick III of
Denmark in 1662, along with some other precious manuscripts, and
because of its home in the royal collection it came to be called the Codex
Regius. Various imperfections show that it is a copy, not a first
recording. Some eddaic poems are also preserved in the fragmentary
manuscript AM 748 4to, thought to have been written at the beginning
of the fourteenth century. Among the half-dozen mythological poems it
contains is one not found in Codex Regius, Baldrs draumar.
It is hard to tell now whether Bishop Brynjólfur’s openhandedness
sprang more from devotion to the monarch or from a desire to make
these ancient poetic records known to the world in print. Progress in
publication was slow. Hávamál and Vóluspá were printed in 1665. Manu­
script copies of the codex had been made in Iceland before it went to
Denmark and others were made after its transfer, so the poems became
known to some extent in this way. Copyists noticed that poems in
similar vein were to be found in other early manuscripts and added
these to their transcripts. When scholars came to prepare editions for
publication, they did the same, and gradually a more or less generally
accepted canon of eddaic verse was established.

When and where eddaic poems were composed

We know nothing of the creators of eddaic poetry, and there has been
much discussion — and controversy — about when and where the poets
lived. Some of the poems were in all probability recorded already in
the twelfth century: the oldest recording we have are the fragments
quoted in Snorri’s Edda from the 1220s. The forward limit is set by the
age of the manuscripts that contain the poems, especially the Codex
Regius, the biggest of them. It is dated to the later part of the thirteenth
century, but it was copied from an exemplar (or more than one) at least
some decades older.
Assessment of the limit backward in time has chiefly been attempted
by reference to the emergence and development of a language that can
properly be called Norse; and naturally, those poems that have identifi­
able historic characters among their personae can only have been made
after their heroes’ reputation was established. In the Roman Iron Age
WHEN AND WHERE EDDA I.C POEMS WERE COMPOSED 27

The Tune stone, which originally marked a chieftain’s grave, was found built into
the churchyard w all at Tune in Østfold, Norway. It is o f red granite and has runes
on two fa ces, probably carved in the fifth century. One o f the inscriptions contains
the alliterative lines transcribed on p. 28. Sketch from Norges Indskrifter med de
ældre Runer I.
28 EDDAIC POETRY

and Migration Period one language — it has been called proto-Norse —

was spoken throughout Scandinavia. Our knowledge of this in its first
and second stages depends mainly on runic inscriptions. It underwent
substantial changes in the following centuries, most drastically as a
result of the so-called syncope — loss of prefixes and of vowels in weak-
stressed medial and final syllables. The eddaic poems must, it was
thought, have been composed after these major phonological changes
had taken place, i. e. not before about AD 800. The age of the poems
was then pegged between this date and the date of our written sources,
the early thirteenth century, with the tenth and eleventh centuries
regarded as the chief period of composition. This was how most scholars
viewed the problem in the latter part of the nineteenth century.
More recently, however, there has been a tendency to spread the
poems rather more thinly over the whole period available for considera­
tion. Some poems have been counted very ancient, others not much
older than the manuscripts containing them. The Eggjum stone, dis­
covered in West Norway in 1917, is dated to c. AD 700 on archaeologi­
cal grounds, but the inscription is in a language already affected by
syncope, and this puts the linguistic terminus a quo appreciably farther
back in time. It has been suggested that the metrical variety and
freedom of the poems counted the most archaic mean that they may
have originated in a proto-Norse or still earlier stage of the language and
survived the syncope period: the extant forms are merely shorter and
more regular than the originals. Obviously over such a vast area as the
Norse speech-region changes in language did not occur everywhere at
precisely the same rate or with precisely the same result. The early
inhabitants of Scandinavia must certainly have had some kinds of
poetry, and it is in fact possible to point to fragments in archaic runic
inscriptions whose metrical character is still apparent even when trans­
lated into a “classical” Icelandic of some eight centuries later. Compare
the fifth-century Tune stone inscription from Norway with a reconstruc­
tion in thirteenth-century Icelandic:
ek wiwaR Ek V ir I, V ir
after woduride eptir Óðríði in m em ory o f ó ð r íð r,
wita(n)da halaiban vitandhleifa giver o f bread,
worahto r(unoR). orta rúnar. w rought runes.

It is probable that the subject-matter of some of the eddaic poems

whose heroes are of continental Germanic stock came to Scandinavia in
the form of lays that were then transposed, without need for much
WHEN AND WHERE EDDAIC POEMS WERE COMPOSED 29
translation, into Norse verse. Alliteration and accentuation in cognate
words could be retained to some extent, and the Norse “re-creation”
might be influenced by the diction and syntax of the continental
Germanic original. In the case of poems like Hlöðskviða (p. 73) and
Hamðismál (p. 71), both with very archaic elements in them, it may be -
and perhaps always will be — a matter of opinion whether they are
developments or reflections of lays composed in a primitive form of
Norse, perhaps going back to the Migration Age itself, or whether they
represent original Norse compositions from the eighth century or later.
The scholars’ tendency to make some poems as old as possible is
matched by a tendency to make others — those with no evident marks of
antiquity — as close to the manuscript dates as possible. Literary
historians often distinguish the “younger” poems of the Edda as a group,
and propound a variety of reasons for including individual lays in this
category. A full discussion of the question would take us too far afield,
and we may be content with an injunction to tread warily and not be too
easily persuaded that we know how “young” an eddaic poem is. We
should however make some general observations on the methods by
which people try to date this poetry.
(1) In approaching the poems scholars try to establish connections
between them and dateable pieces of literature, especially scaldic verse
attributed to known poets. Demonstrable verbal similarities must,
however, be treated with caution. A vast amount of early poetry has
been lost and it may well be that what appears a possible or probable
connection would be judged differently if we had more sources pre­
served. In other cases the likeness may depend on the formulaic
character of the diction — it may be an expression that was common
property, used again and again. But direct literary connection seems
sometimes indubitable: the influence of Vóluspá on Arnórr jarlaskáld’s
Þorfinnsdrápa is an example.
(2) Most scholars regard eddaic poetry as West Nordic in origin —
i. e. from Norway and the Norwegian Atlantic settlements,
preeminently Iceland. No whole poems have been preserved outside
Iceland. The antiquity of the oldest poems means that they must have
been brought to Iceland from Norway. When sources begin to tell us
more about Norwegian and Icelandic history, we find no references to
continuing composition of eddaic kinds of poetry in Norway, though
there are one or two Norwegian allusions and runic quotations which
point towards some knowledge of eddaic poetry in Norway in the twelfth
and thirteenth century. In Iceland, on the other hand, we learn that all
30 EDDAIC POETRY

kinds of verse-making were practised. That being so, it seems natural to

conclude that all the “younger55 eddaic poems were most probably made
by Icelanders; and, in the circumstances, theories that have been
advanced of continental or East Nordic (Danish) provenance are super­
fluous.
(3) The antiquity of many of the mythological poems may be sug­
gested by the fact that Snorri Sturluson accepted them as authentic
sources of pre-Christian belief, and even used them to provide speaking
parts for pagan gods in his Edda. It is hard, for example, to credit the
notion entertained by numerous scholars that Voluspd hin skamma should
have been composed in or shortly before Snorri’s time, since he uses it as
a source about the origin of the world.
(4) Some critics have maintained that if Snorri does not cite a given
work it is because it was composed in or after his day, but clearly little
significance can be attached to such an argument, for we are in no
position to know what part chance played in Snorri’s selection of
sources. But “not in Snorri55 is worth noting if there is other evidence to
suggest late composition.
(5) Next to evidence of direct literary relationship the most valuable
indicators of date are to be found in the poems’ linguistic and formal
features. Later poets could imitate their predecessors in individual cases
but when a poem shows many archaic or many novel elements, we have
a firm pointer to its age. Language and metre, for example, make it
unlikely that poems such as Lokasenna and Prymskviba (p. 39) were
composed about 1200 or even later, as some scholars believe.

German and English heroic poetry

Ancient sources tell us that Germanic peoples made poetry. In his
Germania (c. AD 100) Tacitus says that poems and songs (carmina) are
the only records and annals of the Germani. Nothing of this antique
composition is preserved and how far it resembled later Germanic verse
is unknown. But the earliest extant poetry in Old High German and
Anglo-Saxon is evidently closely related to the oldest of the eddaic
poems: it was probably composed in much the same period, though in a
more archaic style than the Norse examples. The diction has much in
common and the metre has essentially the same structure. It is distin­
guished not by the regular rhythm and end-rhyme which later made their
entrance under the influence of Latin poetry. In place of rhyme we have
GERMAN AND ENGLISH HEROIC POETRY 31
alliteration and in place of regular rhythm there is an irregular stress
falling on the most important words in each line.

We now know only one Old High German heroic poem in this metre,
the Hildebrandslied, set down about AD 800 by a pair of monks writing on
the cover of a Latin manuscript. The end is missing. The lay tells of
Hildebrand who lived for many years as an exile among the Huns; and
when at last he was able to return, leading a host from the land of the
Huns, he found himself tragically forced to fight in single combat
against his own son, Hadubrand. The same story is reflected in Book
VII of Saxo’s Gesta Danorum about AD 1200, this time in Latin hexa­
meters; and it is found in one of the “sagas of ancient times”, Asmundar
saga kappabana — we can see from these Nordic sources that the German
poem had ended with the death of Hadubrand, Hildebrand’s son.
We may put a few lines side by side with Jon Helgason’s translation:
Do l^ttun se æ rist asckim scritan, Þá börðust þeir fyrst
scarpen scurim , dat in dem sciltim stont. fleygum öskum,
Do stoptun to sam ane, staim bort chludun, skörpum skurum ,
heuw un harm licco huitt£ scilti, svo að í skjöldum stóð.
unti im iro lintun luttilo w u rtun . . . G engust að sterkir,
steinborð klufu,
(Then first they launched their spears, their hjuggu harðlega
sharp weapons, so that the shields w ere pierced. h víta skjöldu,
T hen they strode together, they clove the unz lin d ir þeim
[painted?] bucklers, shrew dly sm iting at the litla r gerðust.
w hite targes until their linden shields were
o f no avail.)

The most archaic of the English poems, corresponding to the Hilde-

brandslied and the oldest heroic lays of the Edda, is the Fight at Finnsburg,
Only a fragment of it is preserved and we cannot tell what the whole
poem was like. The theme is battle between Hnæf, prince of the Danes,
and King Finn in Frisia, probably his brother-in-law. Other Anglo-
Saxon poems are not entirely comparable with Norse examples. The
longest and most remarkable is Beowulf\an epic of over 3000 long lines,
extant in a manuscript from c. 1000 but thought to be much older in
origin, perhaps even from the eighth century. It is by no means a “pure”
example of Germanic heroic poetry, in either matter or style, for
influence from classical literature and Christianity is pervasive. The
poem was doubtless a piece of literary composition from the start and
never led any kind of oral existence.
32 EDDAIC POETRY

Beowulf is the outstanding hero among the Geatas (Icelandic Gautar),

and the epic tells of two of his exploits, but with much tribal history
interwoven in the narrative. As a young man he kills the monstrous
Grendel and his dam, who had been terrorising the stately homestead of
King Hroðgar at Lejre in Denmark. Beowulf then came to be king over
the Geatas who prospered under his rule for fifty years. The poet moves
swiftly over this intervening period to tell of Beowulf s fight against a
dragon who ravages his country. The dragon is destroyed but Beowulf is
overcome by its venom and dies.

Two other Anglo-Saxon poems deserve mention here. Deor is the

lament of an old wandering minstrel who comforts himself in his present
distress by recalling men and women of ancient times who had also
suffered but seen an end to their troubles: “That was surmounted; so
can this be.” Some of them are characters we meet in eddaic poems as
well —Weland (Volundr) and Eormanric (Jormunrek(k)r), for example
— and the poet of Deor knew legends about them similar to those
attested in the Norse sources. Another wandering poet is the central
figure in Widsið, “the far traveller”; he tells of his visits to various kings
who lived in the Migration Age (the Icelandic version is by Stefán
Einarsson):
O nd ic wæs mid E orm anrice ealle þrage, Enn v a r eg með
Jörm u n rek k i
þæ r me G otena cyning gode dohte; öllum stundum ,
se me beag forgeaf, burgw arena frum a, þ ar mig G otna konungur
on þam siex hund wæs smætes goldes góðu sæmdi,
gescyred sceatta . . . så m er baug o f g a f
b orgverja d rottinn,
(And I was with E rm anaric all the time:
er sex h undruð stóð
there the king o f the Goths was
i sm eittu gulli
bounteous unto me. Lord o f cities
skirra skattpeninga . . .
and their folk, he gave me an arm let,
in which there was reckoned o f refined gold
six hundred pieces.)

Poetry underwent different developments in Germany and England.

The inherited Germanic metre went out of fashion among the Germans
in the ninth century, and what heroic poetry they composed afterwards
was in metres without alliteration and with end-rhyme on Latin models.
The manner is very different from the terse style of the ancient Hilde-
brandslied. The Nibelungenlied is the most famous of the German epics,
GERMAN AND ENGLISH HEROIC POETRY 33
with material related to that of the eddaic poems. Among the Anglo-
Saxons on the other hand alliterative verse remained in fashion in some
parts of England until the fifteenth century, though the poets had long
since ceased to compose on the ancient Germanic heroes.

Metres
The verse measure which can be counted common to ancient Ger­
man, Anglo-Saxon and Norse-Icelandic poetry corresponds most closely
to the metres called málaháttr and fornyrbislag by Snorri in his Edda. He
says the former has five syllables to the line, the latter four. The original
Germanic metre was not strictly syllable-counting in this way, but still
followed rules that were distinct from those of verse in the classical and
modern languages of Europe. The metre can be said, on the other hand,
to have lived to the present day in Iceland, though obviously affected in
various ways by developments in pronunciation.
Icelandic scholars have made few contributions to the study of
Germanic prosody: a regrettable neglect for, with their unbroken tradi­
tion of composing in the inherited alliterative metres, Icelanders might
well have valuable observations to offer on how one should recite and
listen to the ancient poems. The chief metrists have been German, and
two of them, the one succeeding the other as the uncrowned but not the
uncontested king of the metrical castle, have dominated the discussion.

Eduard Sievers was the first of them. He published his chief book on
the subject, Altgermanische Metrik, in 1893. Under the influence of Snorri,
Sievers posited a system of regular Norse metres, each with a fixed
number of syllables to the line: dróttkvætt forms (cf. p. 84) with six
syllables, fornyrbislag forms with four. (These regular forms are, how­
ever, later developments which do not give a true idea of the original
Germanic verse measure.) To cover all Germanic verse he proposed an
overall scheme of analysis based on five different types of stress distribu­
tion: A — x I — x år var alda, B x — | x — ok mibjan dag, and so
on. Various departures from the norm were taken into account, but even
with a range of accepted licences it still proved impossible to cajole all
the preserved lines of verse in the ancierft Germanic languages to fit into
his patterns. So the lines had to be altered to suit the system: offending
extra syllables were edited out of existence or word forms and word
order changed to “improve” the metre. This method was applied by
Finnur Jónsson in the first ever popular Icelandic edition of the Poetic
3 Eddas and Sagas
34 EDDAIC POETRY

Edda, published in Reykjavik in 1905. Like other scholars of the time,

Finnur also believed he could identify “interpolations’’ in the preserved
texts, and he drew attention to these “accretions” by printing them in
smaller type than the “pristine” stanzas. It was regrettable that the
eddaic poems first became generally known to twentieth-century Icelan­
ders in this doctored form.

Sievers’s domination of the realm of Germanic metrics was most

effectively challenged by Andreas Heusler, especially with the first
volume of his Deutsche Versgeschickte^ published in 1925. Essentially his
view was that each verse line is made up of two “bars” of equal length,
each corresponding to four minims in music. The main stress always
falls on the syllable representing the first “note” in each bar, but
succeeding syllables may have a secondary stress. If there are many
syllables in a bar, the delivery must be correspondingly quick, if there
are few, correspondingly slow, and pauses must also be counted in order
to give the bar its right length. Syllables that come before the first
stressed “note” in a bar do not belong to the bar but are extra-metrical
(anacrusis, Auftakte). If they belong anywhere, it is rather with the close
of the preceding line.
Heusler’s analysis is preferable to Sievers’s for two main reasons. He
takes the poems as he finds them and does not need to emend on
metrical grounds. And he does not start from regularised dróttkvætt or
eddaic metres but from the more ancient remnants of Old English, Old
Saxon and Old High German verse.
Heusler’s theories were accepted by many scholars but now they seem
to be almost as old-fashioned as those of Sievers. It has been observed,
for example, that following Heusler’s rules we cannot read a short line —
including many in the eddaic poems — without a quite unnatural drawl
or pause; nor does it help to shorten the units of the “bar”, substituting
crotchets for minims, because then the long lines of continental German­
ic verse become a mere gabble. Contemporary metrists appear to have
given up “bars” and musical notation altogether.
One element in the older theories still seems fully accepted. That is
the notion that every line contains two stresses or lifts {Hebungen). The
reading or delivery of eddaic verse has thus usually been guided by this
perception of two heavily stressed syllables in each line, accompanied by
an indefinite number of lightly stressed syllables. The heavy syllables
are emphasized, the light ones danced over.
METRES 35
But this general theory of a pair of lifts in every line seems to need
revision too. Consider the following points:
(1) Introductory extra-metrical syllables often become a real
embarrassment. It is true that in eddaic poetry we never find more than
four, but in continental Germanic verse there may be as many as
fourteen! Is it possible to have so many syllables without a noticeable
stress somewhere?
(2) Reading the poetry nowadays an Icelander often cannot avoid
including a third stress in a given line, a stress of such weight that in a
modern poem it would have to be part of the metrical scheme.
(3) The notion of two stresses stems from the alliterating syllables
which were clearly always heavily stressed. Lines (half-lines, the Eng­
lish and Germans would say) are connected by alliteration to form pairs
(the English and German long line) and thus create the basic unit of the
metrical structure. In the a-line (or half-line) two syllables may alliterate
with one syllable in the b-line (or half-line). But in the b-line readers
always find a second non-alliterating syllable to put stress on, matching
the second stressed syllable (often alliterating) of the a-line. Here we
should pause for thought, not least with the most archaic poetry in
mind. It is reasonable to believe that the oldest metrical structure
depended on three equal units that were delimited by three alliterating
syllables. This is the sort of arrangement one finds in the inscription that
was on the Gallehus horn from c. AD 400: ek hlewagastiR / holtijaR /
horna tawido (in Old Icelandic Ek Hlégestr hyltir horn táða). In the
oldest poems, Hildebrandslied for example, there is an evident tendency to
have the a-line longer than the b-line. Another feature which must be of
significance for the original nature of the metre is that a-lines have
comparatively more weak-stressed syllables between the lifts, while in the
b-lines there are comparatively more weak-stressed syllables before the
first lift {Auftakte). If we take a- and b-lines together, however, we can
say that the original metre had weak-stressed syllables equally distri­
buted between the three lifts that could carry the alliteration. This rule
or tendency may be clearly seen in the oldest of the eddaic poems,
Atlakvida and Hamðismál for example: “Betr hefðir þú / bróðir at þú í /
brynju fœrir”; “hjálm ok skjöld / hvítastan kominn ór / höll Kjárs”;
“blóðugt þat á / bjóð lögðu ok / báru fyr Gunnar”; bróðir okkarr inn /
böðfrœkni er vit á / braut vágum”, and so on.
An alliterating triad of this nature must mean that originally the b-
line did not match the a-line in the number or weight of its stressed
syllables. An equivalence between the a- and b-lines was gradually
36 EDDAIC POETRY

achieved, but it long continued to be possible to have the two lines of

unequal length and with an indefinite number of heavier and lighter
syllables. The weight depended on sentence stress, the relative value of
words in their context. Each line has a minimum of two weighty
syllables, but more than two are also possible, especially in a-lines, as
the above has shown.
Most of the eddaic poems are in these Germanic metres but some are
in the measure called Ijóðaháttr. Sometimes there is a mixture of modes.
The unit in Ijóðaháttr is a pair of lines each with the minimum of two lifts
and alliteration of the antique Germanic kind followed by a third line
which has its own internal alliteration. Doubtless what happened was
that in an original “quatrain” composed of a-line, b-line, a-line, b-line,
the second pair was compressed to provide this third or “full” line of the
Ijódaháttr unit. We do not know Ijóðaháttr outside Scandinavia, but it is
an extraordinarily supple metre and makes an archaic impression. One
is strongly tempted to regard it as an ancient Germanic form which
survived only in the North, all Continental and English examples lost
for ever.
Eddaic poems have these metres in common but in subject-matter
divide into two main groups. The scribe or editor of the Codex Regius
collection understood this division and distributed his texts accordingly.
The first part contains poems about the gods, the second poems about
heroes of the Germanic and Hunnish peoples. Poems of eddaic kind
found in other manuscript sources also belong to these mythological and
heroic groupings.

Poems about the gods

These are not devotional poems comparable to Christian hymns or
liturgical composition but rather didactic and dramatic works of
mythological or cosmological import. There seems no depth of engage­
ment on the part of the poets and people have consequently wondered
whether they can really be the work of zealous pagans. But of course we
must be careful not to apply Christian standards to pre-Christian
religion. We are reminded in some ways of the Homeric poems where
the gods appear very much like human beings, on a grander scale but
nonetheless subject to human frailties. But the sparse information we
glean from the eddaic poems about the characters of the gods cannot
compare with the abundant mythical material in Greek sources; and we
POEMS ABOUT THE GODS 37

A little image (6.7 cm high), usually taken to represent the god Þórr, fou n d in
Eyjajjörður early in the nineteenth century. Photo: Gisli Gestsson.
38 EDDAIC POETRY

learn little from them of the real beliefs and practices of heathen
Scandinavians.

Two poems are collections of mythical lore presented as part of a

dramatic set-piece. In Vajþrúðnismál the giant Vafþrúðnir contends in
learning with Óðinn, answering his questions about the creation of the
earth and the destiny of the universe to doomsday and beyond. Óðinn
had many names and one of them was Grimnir — the masked or
disguised one. In Grírnnismál Óðinn visits his foster-son, King Geirröðr,
who does not recognise him and has him tied up between two fires to
torture the truth out of him. Grimnir then describes many things and
places in the world of the gods and ends by reciting some of his own
names. Geirröðr recognises him now, but too late to escape his doom: he
stumbles and falls on his own sword and is killed. With Völuspá these two
poems are Snorri’s chief sources in Gylfaginning, the first book of his
Edda, where he re-tells old myths.

Other poems tell stories about the gods. Skírnismál tells how Freyr sat
on Óðinn’s seat and from there saw into the world of the giants. The
sight of a beautiful giant girl, Gerðr Gymisdóttir, so moved him that
finally he sent his servant Skirnir to woo her on his behalf. Skirnir
offered her treasure after treasure but to no avail. Then he began to
utter terrible threats, and at last Gerðr promises to give herself to Freyr
nine nights later in the grove called Barri.

Þórr is a protagonist in Hárbarðsljóð. He meets Óðinn who is disguised

as a ferryman and Þórr comes off worse in the ensuing battle of words
and wits. He is not the loser however in an exchange with the imperti­
nent dwarf called Alviss, who in the poem Alvíssmál answers Þórr’s
questions about the names of things, cosmic and otherwise, among the
different classes of beings — of the sky, for instance:
H im inn h eitir með m önnum , M en call it “h eaven ” ,
en h lý rn ir með goðum, Gods “the w a rm er” ,
k alla vindófni van ir, V a n ir “the w in d -w eaver” ,
uppheim jö tn a r, giants “the u p -w orld ” ,
álfar fagraræ fr, elves “the fair ro o f’,
dverg ä r d rjúp an sal. dw arves “the dripping h a ll” .

But Þórr spins out his questioning and Alviss is caught by the rays of the
rising sun and turned to stone.
POEMS ABOUT THE OODS 39
In Hymiskviða Þórr goes to the giant Hymir to fetch a great cauldron
suitable for beer-brewing for the Æsir. More myths and tales are woven
into the narrative, including the story of Þórr’s fishing for the World
Serpent. Hymiskviða is unique among the poems of the Edda. The style
has scaldic elements, especially kennings, and this doubtless means it is
not a very ancient poem. The conflation of a number of tales —probably
the poet’s own work, at least in part — points to the same conclusion.
Nevertheless, there seems no reason why it should not be assigned to a
pre-Christian date, say the late tenth century.

Lokasenna and Prymskviba are both comic in spirit but while the first is
a piece of scathing mockery, the second has a tone of lighthearted
raillery. Lokasenna tells of a great feast in the midst of which Loki
Laufeyjarson —who according to Snorri “has done most damage among
the gods” — steps up and begins to hurl scurrilous accusations at the
assembled Æsir. One after another get their share of insulting home
truths, but when Þórr arrives with his hammer Mjöllnir raised and
threatens to break every bone in his body, Loki gives in and leaves.
Prymskviba, or “the hammer-fetching”, as it is called in some later
manuscripts, tells of the theft of Þórr’s hammer by Þrymr, “lord of
giants”, and of its retrieval by Þórr dressed up as Freyja. It is a simple
unified poem, light and amusing throughout. The three main charac­
ters, Þórr, Þrymr and Loki — here working for and not against the gods
— are full of life, each with his individual features.
Some scholars have argued that both these poems are late composi­
tions, even the work of thirteenth-century poets. They point to the
satirical treatment of the gods. But this is to think that heathens
regarded their gods in the same way as Christians regard their Trinity.
A much more fitting approach is to consider what genuine religious
sentiment of the pagan period may have inspired these poems. And the
language and metre, especially those of Prymskviba, also suggest that they
were composed in pre-Christian times.

Rígsþula is in the Codex Wormianus, written towards 1400, of Snorri’s

Edda. The end is missing. It is counted among the mythological poems:
in the first stanza Rigr is called áss kunnigr, “knowing god” (or áskunnigr,
“of Æsir origin”), and in the prose introduction he is identified as the
god Heimdallr. The name Rigr is derived from Celtic (Irish) n (gen.
rig), “king”. The scenes of the poem belong to the world of men. Rigr
comes to three homes, of Ái and Edda (Great-grandfather and Great­
40 EDDAIC POETRY

grandmother), Afl and Amma (Grandfather and Grandmother), and

Faðir and Móðir (Father and Mother), and in each the woman bears
him a son. Edda’s son is called Præil (Slave) and thralls are his
descendants. Amma’s son is called Karl (Yeoman) and free men
descend from him. Móðir’s son was Jarl, progenitor of earls. J a rl’s
youngest son is called Konr ungr, i. e. konungr, “king55, the star of the
family. In this way the poem accounts for the advance of the generations
of mankind and the origin of kingly state.

Hyndluljóð is found in Flateyjarbók (c. 1390). Freyja wakes the

witchwoman Hyndla and gets her to recite the pedigree of a favourite of
hers called Óttarr Innsteinsson in order to help him gain his patrimony.
The poem is chiefly made up of unconnected lists of names of members
of Óttarr’s kin, though the preserved text is probably corrupt in many
places. In the middle come genealogies of gods and giants, with echoes
from Völusþá among them. Snorri cites one of these stanzas and says it
comes from Völusþá hin skamma, “the short Vóluspá”. The general view is
that there was once such a poem and that it has been incorporated in
Hyndluljóð.

Völuspá is placed at the beginning of Codex Regius, naturally enough

because it surveys the whole history of the universe and of the gods. As
mentioned earlier, there is another text in Hauksbók and Snorri quotes
a good many stanzas from yet another version. O f these three versions,
independently recorded in whole or in part, that in Codex Regius
appears to be more complete and generally superior to that in Hauks-
bók, though the latter is alone in having some apparently genuine
stanzas and lines.
Vóluspá doubtless had its obscurities from the start, for the poet moves
rapidly over great events, pointing up individual scenes but leaving it to
his audience’s general knowledge to make the connections between
them. That it suffered in the course of oral transmission is self-evident,
with stanzas lost, transposed or muddled. So the structure of the poem
and its message are now in many ways problematic. All the same,
individual stanzas convey a dazzling impression of poetic vision and
prophetic inspiration.
Óðinn, the old anxious one among the gods, fears ragnarok, the doom
of the divine powers which he knows is in prospect. To gain wisdom and
to prepare himself for what is in store he goes to the völva, a sibyl who
POEMS ABOUT THE GODS 41
can foretell the future, and she then speaks the poem for gods and men
to hear:
Hljóðs bið ek allar Silence I ask from all
helgar kindir, the holy offspring,
m eiri ok minni sons o f H eim dallr
mögu H eim dallar. greater and lesser.
V ild u at ek V alfó ð r Do you wish V alföðr,
vel fyr telja that I clearly rehearse
forn spjöll fira o f living beings those ancient tales
þau er frem st um man? which I rem em ber from farthest back?

To explain what is to be, the sibyl first tells the story of the world from
the beginning of time. In ancient days the sons of Borr — Óðinn and his
brothers — raised up lands from the sea. The gods were content at work
and play, creating the first human beings, Askr and Embla, from dead
logs:
Sol skein sunnan The sun shone from the south
á salar Steina, on the stones o f earth;
þá v a r grund groin then the ground was grown
grœ num lauki. w ith green shoots.

But gradually the sky darkens. The Æsir kill a woman called Gull-
veig, who seems to be a symbol of avarice — they burn her body thrice
but she is still alive. The Æsir go to war with the Vanir, a divine tribe of
whom we know little save that Njörðr and his offspring Freyr and Freyja
belonged to it. The war ends with the destruction of the Æsir’s defensive
wall and the Vanir roam at liberty with fire and sword (st. 24). There is
then a break in the narrative thread and probably some loss of text. The
matter can be supplied from Snorri’s Edda. A builder of giant race offers
to build up the ramparts of the gods and, persuaded by the malicious
Loki, the gods promise him Freyja and the sun and moon in payment.
When the giant had finished or nearly finished his building the gods
realised their criminal folly and Þórr put an end to the giant’s labouring
with a stroke of his hammer. The poet lays great stress on these events
and is clearly passing moral judgment on the gods’ oath-breaking —and
not long now before still greater tragedies:
Á gengusk eiðar, O aths were broken,
orð ok sœ ri, words and sworn pledges,
m ál oil m eginlig all the forceful vows
er á m eðal fóru. that passed between them.
42 EDDAIC POETRY

But Óðinn does not give up, and one of his expedients is to find and
fix the sibyl in order to hear from her what the future holds: their
encounter is described at just this point in the poem:
Ein sat hon úti Alone she sat, out in the open,
þá er inn aldni kom when the ancient
yggjungr ása Y ggjungr o f the gods [Óðinn] cam e
ok i augu leit: and peered into her eyes:
H vers fregnið mik, W h a t do you ask me?
hví freistið min? W h y do you test me?
The sibyl continues to describe what has happened. Höðr kills Baldr
with the mistletoe twig — Snorri makes it plain that Loki is responsible
but this is not explicit in the poem, where however the very next scene
shows Loki in fetters “below Hveralundr”:
P ar sitr Sigyn, T here sits Sigyn,
þeygi um sinum but not very happy,
v e r vel glýjuð. over her husband.
V itu ð ér enn - eða hvat? Do you know yet — or w hat?
The sibyl has seen three halls in the world of the giants and the world
of the dead. The most terrifying is on “Corpse strand”:
Fellu eitrd ro p ar V enom drops fell
inn urn ljóra, in through the roof-openings;
sá er undinn salr that hall is plaited
orm a hryggjum . w ith serpents’ spines.

Sá hon þ ar vaða There she saw wading

þunga straum a heavy currents
m enn m einsvara perjurers
ok m orðvarga and m urderers
ok þann er annars glepr and the m an who seduces
eyrarú nu . an oth er’s beloved.
Three cocks crow, one among the giants, one among the Æsir, one in
“the halls of Hel”, and it is more than daybreak they herald. And now
the poem begins to describe the insistent present: the hound Garmr,
“the bayer”, begins to howl before Gnipahellir, the sibyl’s real foretell­
ing of the future starts, the universal doom is at hand:
Brceðr m unu berjask Brothers will fight
ok at bönum verðask, and be each o th er’s slayer;
m unu systru n gar blood-kin will
sifjum spilla. com mit incest.
POEMS ABOUT THE GODS 43
H art er i heim i, It is harsh in the w orld,
hórdóm r m ikill, great whoring,
skeggöld, skálm öld, an axe-age and cutlass-age,
skildir eru klofnir, shields are cloven
vindöld, vargöld, — a wind-age and wolf-age
áð r veröld steypisk . . . before m an-age crashes.

The signs and wonders that presage the last great battle are described
with powerful imagery, over and over we hear the ominous refrain:
G eyr nú G a rm r mjök Now G arm r bays loud
fy r G n ip ah elli, in front o f G nipahellir;
festr m un slitna, tethers w ill snap
en freki renna. and the w o lf run.

Finally the catastrophe comes. The giants attack the Æsir in three
divisions. Hrymr and Loki come from the east, Surtr, with fire his
armament, comes from the south; most of the Æsir are killed; the earth
sinks into the sea. But those of the gods who had died as innocents —
Höðr and Baldr are named — survive the holocaust, and the earth rises
once more, fresh and green, from the ocean:
F alla forsar, W aterfalls cascade,
flýgr örn yfir, the eagle flies above,
sá er á Qalli the one who catches
fiska veiðir. fish on the fell.

Snorri accepted Völuspá as a valid source of information about the old

faith in the Æsir, but modern scholars have long since recognised that
much in the poem must be of Christian origin. The idea that the final
doom is a punishment for the gods’ oath-breaking and for the moral
decay of gods and men alike is not known in any other reliable pre-
Christian Nordic source. The description of the torments of wrongdoers
and of the terrible times that precede ragnarok are suspiciously con­
sonant with Christian eschatology; and the paradise enjoyed by the
saved after the universal conflagration is reminiscent of Christian
thinking. Compare for example the new Jerusalem of the Book of
Revelation: “And I saw a new heaven and a new earth . . .” and so on.
Völuspá is the revelation experienced by the sibyl, and is more of a piece
with visionary literature of the Christian middle ages than with any­
thing we know from Nordic paganism. Such visionary literature was of
course well known later in Iceland, as elsewhere. In Duggals leizla, for
44 EDDAIC POETRY

example, we have an early translation of the Visio Tnugdali. Reports of

people who fell into a trance-like state and woke up after visiting other
worlds were common enough. The vision of Rannveig, who lived in east
Iceland, is told in Gudmundar saga Arasonar. She had been the concubine
of two priests and in her transported state she saw the torments
prepared for her if she did not mend her ways. Parallels like these have
sometimes led people to believe that Voluspd is an entirely Christian
poem, in subject-matter and vocabulary, and not composed until
Christian faith and Christian literature were firmly established in
Iceland. But as we have seen, Voluspd must have been composed long
before the time of Snorri Sturluson and if, as seems wholly probable,
Arnórr jarlaskáld’s Þorfinnsdrápa was influenced by it (cf. p. 29), it cannot
have been made later than the first part of the eleventh century. It is
then not a matter of great significance whether it was composed by a
pagan of mixed beliefs late in the tenth century or a half-heathen
Christian early in the eleventh. The poem was created in the twilit
period of the conversion, its nature determined by the fact that the
poet’s mental furniture was fundamentally heathen even though he was
also a seer and a preacher who got some of his ideas from the new
religion.

Hdvamdl are the sayings of Óðinn, “the high one”. This is a collection
of at least six originally separate poems that have been combined to
make one sequence. The man responsible for linking them thought of
them all as uttered by Óðinn, and some stanzas clearly announce that it
is his voice we hear. The first poem is often referred to as the Gestaþáttr,
“Guests’ Section”, because it begins with advice to a wayfarer who
lodges among strangers. This first poem reaches a natural end with the
famous stanzas on those precious things that are alone immortal:

D eyr fé, C attle die,

d eyja fræ ndr, kinsmen die,
d eyr sjálfr it sam a, one dies o neself likewise,
en o rð stírr but fame
d eyr aid regi, never dies
hveim er sér góðan getr. for him who gets good fame.

D eyr fé, C attle die,

deyja fræ ndr, kinsmen die,
d e vr siálfr it sam a. one dies oneself likewise.
POEMS ABOUT THE GODS 45
Ek veit einn I know one thing
at ald ri deyr: which never dies:
dóm r um dauðan hvern. the ju d gm en t on each dead man.

In the second and third poem Óðinn tells of two of his adventures
with women, Billingr’s daughter and Gunnlöð: the first tricked him, the
second he deceived. The fourth poem, Loddfáfnismál, is like the first in
being a sequence of stanzas giving advice. The name is doubtfully
appropriate because Loddfáfnir is not the one who offers counsel but the
one who receives it. The fifth poem (st. 138—145) is called Rúnatal. It
tells a remarkable tale of how Óðinn suffered various torments, hanging
nine nights on “the windswept tree” and winning magic knowledge in
consequence. In the sixth poem, Ljóðatal, Óðinn describes what magic
he can work by chanting eighteen mighty spells. The last stanza of all
bids farewell to the auditor.
It is the first part that people usually think of when they hear the
name Hávamál. The Ijóðaháttr metre suits the subject-matter to perfec­
tion, and the last line of each stanza often becomes —of its own accord,
as it were — a chiselled aphorism. It is difficult for us to decide whether
the poet in fact sometimes availed himself of ancient proverbs or
whether these immortal sayings were forged in his own fancy.
A weary traveller has come off mountain paths to seek rest in human
habitation: but one must be cautious —
G á ttir a lla r A ll doorw ays
áðr gangi fram before stepping in
urn skoðask skyli, are to be looked at all round,
um skyggnask skyli, looked round keenly,
þ ví at óvíst er at vita for it is a problem to know
h v a r óvin ir w here enemies
sitja á fleti fyrir. are sitting in the room before you.

The lessons inculcated are so manifold that it is hard to find any

precise organisation in the poem. Clearly however the poet or the
collector tried to some extent to group the stanzas according to subject-
matter: the order has survived best at the beginning but, as one might
expect, the sequence of the later stanzas is more haphazard.
Immediately after the guest’s arrival the poem speaks of what a man
most needs — an alert common sense. And from that it is only a short
step to recall what he is best without:
Byrði betri Burden better
b err-at m aðr b rautu at bears none abroad w ith him
46 EDDAIC POETRY

en sé m annvit mikit; than a cool discretion;

vegnest v e rra picnic poorer
vegr-a hann velli at packs no departing one
en sé ofdrykkja Öls. than a big load o f beer.

(Peter Foote and D avid M . W il­

son, The Viking A chievem ent, London
1970 [and reprinted], p. 326.)

Over-eating often goes with over-drinking: a greedy fool brings “lifelong

sorrow” on himself:
H jarðir þat vitu Flocks know
næ r þæ r heim skulu when it is time to go home
ok ganga þá a f grasi, and then leave the grass,
en ósviðr m aðr but a foolish man
kann ævagi never has
sins um m ál maga. the m easure o f his belly.

One can say that a substantial part of the G e s ta þ á ttr concerns such
topics, a hymn of praise to good sense and moderation. Even a man’s
wisdom should not be in excess:
M eðalsnotr E veryone should be
skyli m anna h verr, m oderately knowing
æ va til snotr sé, — never be too knowing,
því at snotrs m anns h jarta for the knowing m an ’s heart
verð r sjaldan glatt, is seldom glad
e f sá er alsnotr er á. — not if he knows it all.

As the poem proceeds, the setting expands. The structure falls to

pieces — and it has certainly been mishandled in transmission — as the
poet seizes upon various of life’s problems and gives warning and
guidance. His injunctions have an unconfined, liberal air. Don’t hoard
unused the wealth you have won or it may fall into the wrong hands.
“Friends should gladden each other with weapons and clothes.” It has
often been remarked that it is a farming society the poet is describing:
men own cows and goats, ride horses, drive flocks:
Bú er betra A hom estead is better,
þótt litit sé, though it be sm all
h air er heim a h verr, — everyone is a hero at home;
þótt tvæ r geitr eigi though one owns two goats
ok taugreptan sal, and a rope-raftered croft,
þat er þó betra en bæ n that is still better than begging.
POEMS ABOUT THE GODS 47
This need surprise no one, of course, in an ancient poem made in a
farming society. Indeed, it is more surprising how small a part is played
by the husbandman’s point of view, whether a cotter or the master of
great estates. The farmer is on his farm: but in Hávamál men are always
on the move, attending the assembly, visiting friends, sitting merry over
drink. Two pillars of the Norwegian farming society, the kin and the
king, leave almost no mark in the poem, while in contrast the poet never
tires of praising friendship:
U n g r v a r ek forðum , O nce I was young,
for ek einn sam an, I travelled alone,
þá v arð ek v illr vega. then I lost m y w ay.
A uð igr þóttum k Rich I thought m yself
er ek annan farm, when I met someone else
m aðr er m anns gam an. — m an is m an ’s delight.

On Viking forays men were far from families and homes, the bonds of
kin were loosened, the bonds of friendship correspondingly strengthened
— men swore bloodbrotherhood and vowed to avenge a fallen comrade.
The individual emerges independent of family and king, using his
weapons to win riches and glory, acquiring breadth and variety of
vision, wisdom and a sense of proportion. Because of this some scholars
have stressed the nature of Hávamál as the creation of a Viking world
rather than of the fields and meadows of a Norwegian farming commu­
nity. But it must be noted that there is not a single direct reference to
seafaring anywhere in the poem, men are never pictured on longships,
and the only nautical allusion is in the phrase, “short are ship’s yards”
{skammar eru skips rar). If this poet was a Viking, he had given up the sea
for good — but not his weapons:
þ ví at ovist er at vita for it is a problem to know
næ r ve rð r á vegum úti when out on one’s w ay
geirs urn þ ö rf guma. a m an will have need o f a spear.

Heroic poems
As mentioned earlier, the latter part of the Codex Regius contains
poems about heroes who lived on the European mainland in the so-
called Migration Age. Some of the heroes are in fact unknown to history
and hard to locate on any map but others are famous men who figure in
the pages of reliable chroniclers - Ermanaric, king of the Ostrogoths
48 EDDAIC POETRY

(Jörmunrekr), Gundaharius, king of the Burgundians (Gunnarr), and

Attila, king of the Huns (Atli). They and their peoples lived in central
Europe, some as far west as the Rhine, some as far east as the Black Sea.
These poems belong to the kind of verse that was common to all the
Germanic speech-regions in the first centuries of our era, and we spoke
earlier of the two examples most nearly related to the eddaic lays, the
Old High German Hildebrandslied and the Old English Finnsburg frag­
ment. These Germanic lays differ from the heroic poetry of most other
nations in never developing into a broad stream of epic narrative, like
the Homeric poems, for example, or the French chansons de geste. They
are terse and intense, presenting individual events in a few graphic
scenes. Narrative and direct speech are mingled, and there is immense
force in the measured words of the protagonists. Some younger poems of
the Edda on the other hand are monologues. When the Icelanders had
acquired the art of writing, they did not settle down to compose vast
verse epics, as their contemporaries in France and Germany did.
Instead, they made prose their medium and set down stories from their
own early past, the “sagas of Icelanders” — they are our heroic epics.
In the Codex Regius most of the older heroic lays appear as a mixture
of verse and prose. The latter is used for various narrative parts and
without these prose links the progress of a poem would often be hard to
comprehend. It is extremely difficult to say how this combination of
verse and prose came about. Some scholars maintain that Germanic
hero tales were originally told only in verse: hero tale and heroic lay
were synonymous. In that case the prose parts in the Edda represent
remnants of lost verse, and in some cases they may indeed do so. The
oral preservation of the heroic stories must have been decisively aided
by their verse-form: poems could be and doubtless were transmitted
from people to people and from one generation to another without
suffering much change. The most ancient poems in the Edda also show
various signs of abridgment and alteration - some of which of course
may be due to editing or error in the written stage. On the other hand, it
seems an inescapable conclusion that stories told in prose must always
have existed alongside stories told in verse. Many of the heroic lays are
shaped in such a way that it is evident the poets assumed more
knowledge of the subject-matter on the audience’s part than the poems
themselves encompass: a whole legend is there as the backdrop to the
verse. Many kinds of report and story from the past must have been
current, and inevitably the concentrate of the poetry must have been
thinned out, as it were, and the verse-form dissolved into prose. People
Plate 4
Codex Regius o f the Poetic Edda, 13th century. From Hávamál. Photo: Johanna
Ólafsdóttir.
Plate 5
Pórr fish es up the World Serpent; the giant Hymir is in the bows. “No one has
ever seen horrible sights who was not able to see Pórr glaring with piercing eyes at
the serpent and the serpent staring back and breathing out venom. The giant was
terrified and cut P órr’s line at the gunwale and the serpent sank in the sea and
Pórr hurled his hammer after it. ” Snorri’s Edda. PPom a manuscript o f the Edda
written and illustrated in the eighteenth century by Jakob Sigurdsson, a farm er in
eastern Iceland; now the property o f Ken Mels ted o f Wynyard, Saskatchewan. -
Photo: Jóhanna Ólafsdóttir.
HEROIC POEMS 49
often knew the story-line of the poems even if they did not know the
verse itself by heart, or only knew some fragments of it. They could tell
the tale with the aid of the stanzas they remembered.
Intermingling of verse and prose in the Edda may thus have varying
causes: (1) It is conceivable that there was combination of verse and
prose from the beginning: some parts of a legend were told in firmly
shaped stanzas, some in less well-defined prose, and they were passed
on in this form until they were written down. Recorders (if there were
more than one) of the poems in the Edda were chiefly intent on the
poetry and included the prose links in summary form. (2) A recorder
knew the substance of the poems, the legends on which they were based,
but the lays themselves came to him decayed and mangled. He wrote
down the verse he knew and bridged the gaps with his own prose
passages. (3) Finally, it is possible that all the matter of the stories was
carried in verse-form: the recorder knew complete lays but contented
himself with abridging and re-telling parts of them in laconic prose. One
may even suspect that some of the prose passages in the Codex Regius
precis and modify texts recorded in the original recension of the eddaic
collection. — This third explanation finds support in the fact that extant
stanzas tend to be those containing direct speech, while prose is more
often used for narrative parts. People who wrote down the poems
thought it less fitting to tamper with the words uttered by the heroic
actors in the drama.
The heroic lays are almost all concerned with members of two family
groups and their kinsmen by marriage: on the one hand, Helgi Hund-
ingsbani and Helgi Hjörvarðsson, and on the other, the Volsungs and
the Niflungs (or Gjukungs, as they are also called). The poems concern­
ing the latter are much more numerous and varied than those on the
Helgi pair, but in the Edda the groups are linked by making Helgi Hund-
ingsbani a half-brother of Sigurðr the dragon-slayer, the most famous of
the Völsungs. Two poems that belong to neither group are Volundarkviba,
which is in the “mythological” part of the Edda, probably because
Völundr was reckoned to be of elvish origin, and Hlöbskviba, which is
preserved in Hervarar saga ok Heibreks.

An unbroken sequence in the codex concerns Helgi Hjörvarbsson. It is a

mixture of verse and prose, the dialogue all in the former, the narrative
mostly in the latter. The essential story is one of bitter tragedy but here
it has been mollified to some extent to suit the taste of a later age. The
simple diction and some “poetic” place-names — Rogheimr (whatever
4 Eddas and Sagas
50 EDDAIC POETRY

that means) and R'óðulsjjöll, “aureole mountains” — also suggest that it

is not one of the most ancient lays.
Helgi fell in love with Sváva Eylimadóttir, who could speed through
air and over sea. On the eve of Yule-tide Helgi’s brother Heðinn met a
witchwoman riding a wolf with snakes for reins. She offered him her
favours but he refused: “You will pay for that at the ceremonial cup,”
she said. That evening Heðinn put his hand on the sacrificial boar and
made his vow: to have Sváva, his brother Helgi’s wife. The curse of the
witchwoman was fulfilled — but we are to understand that she was
Helgi’s “fetch” who has now left him because of his impending death.
Heðinn straightway repents of his vow, goes to Helgi and tells him what
has happened:
Ek hefi körna I have chosen
ina konungbornu the royal-born
brúði þína bride o f yours
at bragarfulli. by oath at the sacred cup.

Helgi told him not to reproach himself: he had been challenged to battle
by a certain king; they would fight when three nights have passed and
he would not return from that encounter:
Þá má at góðu Then such a thing — if it is to be —
gerask slfkt ef skal. may be brought to a good end.
Helgi was indeed mortally wounded in the battle. He sent word to
Sváva and told her to hurry to him. When she came, he told her this
would be their last meeting and said she should give her love to Heðinn.
She said:
M æ lt hafða ek þat In the w orld o f love,
í m unarheim i when Helgi
þá er m ér Helgi chose bracelets for me,
hringa valði, I had declared that,
m yndig-a ek lostig after the king was dead,
at liðinn fylki I would not willingly
jö fu r ókunnan enfold a strange prince
arm i verja. in my arm s.

The poem ends with Heðinn bidding Sváva kiss him and vowing not to
come back until he has avenged Helgi.
It has been argued that in the original story the curse of the “fetch”
was probably fulfilled in a more dreadful fashion: Heðinn was himself
the slayer of his brother Helgi. The poet of the present Helgi lay comes
HEROIC POEMS 51
however to a gentler conclusion. The end of the poem shows similar
restraint on his part. He leaves it to the audience to supply the outcome
without explicitly saying that Sváva found consolation in a new hus­
band’s arms.

It is customary to speak of two separate lays of Helgi Hundingsbani,

marked I and II according to their order in the Codex Regius. The first
of the two is clearly a unified poem, with no prose inserts, comparatively
well preserved and evidently one of the younger among the heroic
poems. But the second sequence, Helgakvida Hundingsbana //, is probably
made up of remnants of at least two poems and possibly more. Like
Helgakvida Hjörvarðssonar, it is a mixture of verse and prose, with most of
the verse devoted to the direct speech of the characters. The opening
part tells how Helgi killed Hundingr and so got his cognomen. Sigrún is
described as the valkyrie Sváva reborn. She comes to Helgi and
confesses she helped him in the battle:
Leit ek þik um sinn fy rr I saw you once before
á langskipum , on longships
þá er þú byggðir when you filled you r place
blóðga stafna, between blood-stained stem -posts
ok ú rsv a lar and the bitter-chill
u nnir léku. waves were sporting.

A prose passage relates that at a meeting of kings Sigrún was

promised in marriage to Höðbroddr Granmarsson. When she heard
that, she sped through air and over sea to find Helgi: he has then slain
all the sons of Hundingr and sits resting beneath Arasteinn. The
sequence of stanzas that follows is then said to be called the “ancient lay
of the Völsungs”, Vólsungakviða hin form:
Sótti Sigrún Sigrun w ent
sikling glaðan, to the cheerful prince,
heim nam hon Helga she reached out
hönd at sæ kja, for H elgi’s hand,
kyssti ok kvaddi kissed and greeted
konung und hjålm i, the helm eted king
þá varð hilm i — then the king’s heart
hugr á vifi. inclined to the lady.

The stage is now set, the tragedy can be acted out. Helgi gathers a
great host and goes to fight the sons of Granmarr — Sigrun’s father,
Högni, and her brothers, Helgi and Dagr, are naturally on their side. All
52 EDDAIC POETRY

these princes fall in the battle, except Dagr: his life was spared and he
swore oaths of peace to the Völsungs. In company with other valkyries,
Sigrun sweeps through the air over the battling warriors, and uses her
supernatural powers to help Helgi. She finds Höðbroddr, her suitor,
dying on the battlefield and exults over his fate — she will never yield to
his embrace now — but she weeps when Helgi tells her of the death of
her father and brother:
Lifna m ynda ek nu I would now choose that those who
kjósa are dead
er liðn ir eru, should come to life,
ok knæ tta ek þér þó í but only if I could still bury m yself
faðm i felask. in you r em brace.

Dagr Högnason broke the sworn truce and stabbed Helgi through
with a spear which Óðinn lent him. When he tells his sister what has
happened, she calls down mighty curses on him; but in a moment she
melts as she remembers her superlative husband:
Svá b ar Helgi Helgi surpassed princes
a f hildingum in the same way
sem ítrskap aðr as the glorious form o f
askr a f þyrni, the ash-tree surpasses the thorn-bush,
eða sá d ýrkálfr or as the young hart,
döggu slunginn flecked with dew
er öfri ferr who moves taller
öllum dýrum than all other deer,
ok horn glóa with antlers gleam ing
við him in sjálfan. against the very sky.

The poet knows that this valkyrie is torn by devastating emotions and
it is not fitting to find commonplace words for her to utter. When she
goes to be with Helgi in his burial mound — he has leave to return from
Valhöll for one night — she greets him with:
Nu em ek svá fegin Now I rejoice
fundi okkrum at our meeting
sem átfrekir as ravening
Ó ðins haukar hawks o f Ó ðinn rejoice
er val vitu, when they sn u ff slaughter,
v a rm a r bráðir, w arm carrion,
eða dögglitir or when, dew-coated,
dagsbrún sjá. they see the daybreak.

But Helgi is covered with blood, his hair heavy with rime. “How,
HEROIC POEMS 53
prince, can I improve your lot?” she asks, and he answers, “You alone
are the cause, Sigrun from SefafjöH”:
G ræ tr þú gullvarið G old-adorned one,
grim m um tårum , sun-bright southern one,
sólbjört, suðrœ n, you weep bitter tears
áð r þú sofa gangir. before you go to sleep.
H vert fellr blóðugt Each tear drops bloody
á brjóst gram i, on the breast o f the prince,
úrsvalt, innfjálgt, each drop bitter-chill but scalding w ithin,
ekka þrungit. fraught with grief.

Sigrun sleeps in his dead arms that night — “bright in the burial
mound” — now nothing is impossible and their pain departs. But at
dawn Helgi must return to Valhöll:
M ål er m ér at ríða Now is the hour to ride
roðnar b rau tir, on the reddened roads,
láta fölvan jó to let the pale steed
flugstíg troða; tread the airy paths;
skal ek fy r vestan I m ust be west o f
vindhjálm s b rú ar the w ind-casque’s bridge
áð r Salgofnir before Salgofnir
sigrþjóð veki. rouses the victory-people.

This was but a moment’s relief for Sigrun’s suffering. Next evening
she sends her handmaid to keep watch at the mound. But now Helgi’s
pains are remedied and the human world must remain unvisited by
him:
K o m in n væ ri nú He w ould have come now,
e f kom a hygði if the son o f Sigm undr
Sigm undar b u rr had it in mind to come
frá sölum Óðins; from Ó ðin n ’s halls;
kveð ek gram s þinig I say that hopes o f your
grænask ván ir, king’s com ing are few
er á asklim um now eagles rest
ern ir sitja on ash-boughs,
ok d rífr d ró tt öll and all men flock
draum þinga til. to their dream -assem blies.

The “ancient lay of the Volsungs” seems to mark a turning-point

between the older and younger heroic poems that are now to be
discussed. It unites the sheer force of the earlier poems and the softer
54 EDDAIC POETRY

sentiment of the later. The hardness comes close to savagery when

Sigrun rejoices over Höðbroddr’s death and invites wolves to devour his
corpse; and at the other end of the scale we have an apotheosis of
romantic feeling when Sigrun defies death and folds her chill, gore-
drenched husband in her arms. But we accept both emotions because
we feel that they are not primitive and barbaric relics but creations of a
skilled poet who is capable of both mellowing the harsh and putting
steel into the gentle. Because of this the “ancient lay of the Völsungs”
means more to us nowadays than any other heroic poem in the Edda.

As we noted, the “first lay of Helgi Hundingsbani” is so called

because of its precedence in the manuscript, but a more appropriate
name for it would probably be the “younger lay of the Völsungs”. The
editor of the poems in the Codex Regius evidently knew it was a later
composition but probably chose to put it first because in some respects it
provides a more complete account; and he also used material from it in
the prose passages which supplement the “ancient lay” that follows.
The “younger lay of the Völsungs” is in the van of the newer fashion
which expected poets to treat only single events or single parts of the
legends known from older lays. The poets see the stories from a new
angle or build new lays from ancient fragments, with characterisation,
setting and style modified to suit novel standards of taste.
Helgakviba Hundingsbana I has no prose passages at all. It begins with
Helgi’s birth and ends with his victory over the sons of Granmarr.
Sigrun’s father Högni is referred to in connection with the battle, but
nothing at all is made of the tragedy of the encounter as it is in the
“ancient lay”. Instead we have pomp and circumstance in names and
diction, ringing and rhetorical:
Å r v a r alda It was in days o f yore
þat er a ra r gullu, when eagles scream ed,
hnigu heilög vötn sacred w aters fell
a f H im in^öllum , from H im infjöll
þá haföi H elga — and B orghildr
inn hugum stóra had given birth
B orghildr borit in B rálu n d r to Helgi
í B rálundi. the great-hearted.

In some respects the “younger lay” is akin to scaldic poetry: many

kennings, great battles and the clash of weapons, grand descriptions of
seafaring:
HEROIC POEMS 55
S vá v a r at heyra W hen K ó lg a ’s sisters [waves]
er sam an kómu and the long keels
K ólgu systir came together,
ok kilir langir it sounded
sem björg eða brim as if crags or su rf
b rotn a m yndi. would smash.

One or two scaldic poems of the eleventh and twelfth centuries show
particularly close relations with Helgakviba Hundingsbana /. Gisl Illuga-
son echoes the poem in his elegy on King Magnús Bareleg (killed in
1103). It is more difficult to judge the connection between it and verse
by Arnórr jarlaskáld from about the middle of the eleventh century.
Alexander Bugge went so far as to suggest that Arnórr composed the
“younger lay” himself — not an absurd attribution by any means.

Snorri’s Edda and, at greater length, Vólsunga saga give prose accounts
of Sigurðr Fáfnisbani, Brynhildr, Gunnarr and Högni, Guðrún, Atli and
Jörmunrekr. In the Poetic Edda their stories are told in numerous lays, of
varying age and character, which along with other poems now lost were
the sources used by Snorri and the author of the saga.
Sigurðr was son of Sigmundr, son of Volsungr. As an introductory
prose passage in the Codex Regius says, “in accounts of ancient lore it is
universally agreed that he was the superior of all men and the noblest of
warrior kings.” This is followed by Grípissþá, a younger sequence of
stanzas in which Sigurðr’s whole career is surveyed. After this comes a
long section where prose and verse are intermingled but where no titles
appear. It is however customary to divide this matter among three
poems.
Reginsmal tells of Sigurðr’s youth, how he was fostered by Reginn who
forged the sword Gramr for him: “it was so sharp that he held it down in
the Rhine and let a tuft of wool float downstream against it and the
sword sliced through the tuft just as it sliced through the water; with
that sword Sigurðr split Reginn’s anvil in twain.”
The story is continued in Fáfnismál. Fáfnir was Reginn’s brother, who
lived in dragon shape on Gnitaheiðr, sitting on a hoard of gold which
properly belonged to both brothers. He had a “helmet of terror” which
filled all living creatures with dread. Reginn urged Sigurðr to kill Fáfnir,
and he did so by sitting in a pit he dug on the dragon’s track and
stabbing him to the heart with Gramr as he crawled to his watering
place. Afterwards he roasted Fáfnir’s heart over a fire and when he
thought it was done he tried it with his finger —it got burnt and he stuck
56 EDDAIC POETRY

On the Rhine. Snorri's Edda says: “King Atli invited Gunnarr and H'ógni to come
on a visit, and they went. But before they left home, they hid the gold, the inheritance
left by Fdfnir, in the Rhine, and it has never been found since. ” The etching is from
Die Fahrt auf dem Rhein von Mainz bis Köln.

it in his mouth to ease the pain. And when Fáfnir’s heart’s blood
touched his tongue, he could understand what some birds were saying
as they twittered in the tree above him:
Þar sitr Sigurðr There Sigurðr sits,
sveita stokkinn, spattered with blood,
Fáfnis hjarta roasting Fáfnir’s heart
við funa steikir; at the fire.
spakr þœtti mér The spoiler of rings
spillir bauga, would seem sensible to me
ef hann ^örsega if he ate
fránan æti. the gleaming life-muscle.

Par liggr Reginn, There Reginn lies,

ræðr um við sik, ponders within himself,
HEROIC POEMS 57
vill tæla mög w ants to trick the m an
þann er tru ir honum , who trusts him,
berr a f reiði gathers together
röng orð sam an, false words in anger,
vill b ölvasm iðr the forger o f evils
b róður hefna. w ants to avenge his brother.

So Sigurðr cut off Reginn’s head and ate Fáfnir’s heart and drank the
blood that flowed from both the brothers.
Reginsmal and Fáfnismál are entirely comparable and it is proper to
consider them together. There is no division between them in the
manuscript, as we saw, but there are differences in matter and form, and
probably both represent re-workings of older lays and fragments of lays.
They also contain an unusually large number of prose passages dis­
persed among the stanzas, and these passages are indispensable for an
understanding of the narrative. The poems have some affinity with
mythological poems, and gods play a part in the action: going under the
name of Hnikarr, Óðinn gives Sigurðr good advice; and in his death-
throes Fáfnir, who at one point is called “the ancient giant”, engages in
a dialogue with Sigurðr and answers questions put by him — a situation
reminiscent of some of the didactic poems of the mythological group,
parts of Hávamál, for instance, and Vajþrúbnismál and Grímnismál.

Sigurðr loads Fáfnir’s treasure on his horse, Grani, and rides up onto
Hindarfjall. There he finds a valkyrie asleep in full armour. He uses
Gramr to slit her chain-mail corselet. She wakes and tells him her name
is Sigrdrifa, and some sources assume that she was really Brynhildr
Buðladóttir. Now a new poem is reckoned to start, called Sigrdrífumál in
later copies of the text. Most of the following stanzas contain Sigrdrifa’s
instructions to Sigurðr about runes he should know and various other
pieces of good counsel — this is like parts of Hávamál. The most beautiful
and best-known passages come at the start, when Sigrdrifa wakes from
sleep:

Heill dagr! Hail, day!

H eilir dags synir! H ail, sons o f day!
Heil nótt ok nipt! H ail, night and daughter!
Ó reiðum augum Look on us two
lítið okkr þinig w ith eyes not angry
ok gefið sitjöndum sigr. and to us who sit here give trium ph.
58 EDDAIC POETRY

H eilir æsir! Hail, gods!

H eilar ásynjur! Hail, goddesses!
Heil sjá in fjölnýta fold! Hail, this abundant earth!
M ál ok m annvit G ive words and wisdom
gefið okkr m ærum tveim to us two in our glory
ok læ knishendr m eðan lifum. and hands o f healing w hile we live.

A large lacuna in the Codex Regius begins towards the end of

Sigrdrífumál. In all probability eight leaves have been lost, containing
well over 200 stanzas of verse. There is no way of retrieving this lost
poetry, for all the derivative copies of the codex suffer from the same
loss, though possibly the end of Sigrdrífumál itself can be salvaged. There
are paper copies containing eight and a half stanzas that purport to end
the poem, and it is probable enough that they are ultimately derived
from the codex when it was less defective than it is now. We may have
lost the rest of the poetry but we can nevertheless get some idea of its
contents from the prose narrative in Völsunga saga, which also cites a few
stanzas or parts of stanzas that doubtless come from the lost poems of
the lacuna. The text after the lacuna contains among others a poem
called Sigurbarkvida hin skamma, the “short lay of Sigurðr” — in spite of
the fact that it has all of 71 stanzas. This must imply however that an
even longer lay of Sigurðr had been among the matter on the missing
leaves. For the rest it is wisest to go cautiously in speculating on the
poems that once filled the lacuna: though we may well believe that not a
little fine and impressive poetry perished with those eight leaves. All the
same, if we judge by the preserved poems to do with Sigurðr, we can be
reasonably confident that none of the lost poems on his legend would
stand comparison, any better than the extant ones do, with the “first
fruits” of heroic poetry, Hlöðskviða, Atlakviða and Hamðismál — indeed,
we may doubt whether any poetry was ever made that was truly worthy
of “the noblest warrior king” of ancient Germanic legend.
The narrative in the lost lays must have told how Sigurðr rode from
Hindarfjall and came to King Gjuki. His queen was Grimhildr, their
sons Gunnarr, Högni and Guttormr, their daughter Guðrún. Sigurðr
stays there a long time and marries Guðrún; he and Gunnarr and Högni
swear bloodbrotherhood. They go to win the hand of Brynhildr Buðla-
dóttir for Gunnarr. She lives on HindarQall with a wall of flickering fire
around her hall: she has vowed to marry only the man who dares to ride
to her through the flames. Gunnarr’s horse draws back from the fire, but
then he and Sigurðr exchange appearances, and Sigurðr in Gunnarr’s
HEROIC POEMS 59
guise charges Grani through the blaze. He shares Brynhildr’s bed but
puts his drawn sword, Gramr, between them. Next morning Sigurðr
rides back to his companions, assumes his own appearance and Gunn-
arr his. Gunnarr and Brynhildr are married.
One day Guðrún and Brynhildr went down to the river Rhine to wash
their hair. Brynhildr would not let the water that came from Guðrún’s
washing touch her own head, because she claimed she had the braver
husband. Guðrún insisted that she was married to a man bolder than all
others, “for he killed Fáfnir and Reginn and won the inheritance of them
both”. “It was a deed of greater worth when Gunnarr rode through the
flickering fire and Sigurðr did not dare.” Then Guðrún laughed and
said, “Do you think Gunnarr rode through the flickering fire? I think the
man who joined you in your bed was the man who gave me this gold
bracelet: but the bracelet you wear on your arm and received at your
betrothal, its name is the gift of Andvari, and I fancy it was not Gunnarr
who fetched it from Gnitaheiðr.” Then Brynhildr said nothing and went
home. After that she urged Gunnarr and Högni to kill Sigurðr, claiming
that Sigurðr had betrayed Gunnarr and violated her on Hindarfjall. But
they are Sigurðr’s sworn brothers and must consequently work on
Guttormr to attack Sigurðr. He stabbed Sigurðr asleep in his bed, but
Sigurðr threw Gramr after him and cut him in two. At first Brynhildr
rejoices in Sigurðr’s death but next morning she is grief-stricken and
kills herself. She and Sigurðr are burnt on the same funeral pyre.

One of the oldest of the extant Sigurðr poems is the so-called Brot a f
Sigurðarkviðu, “fragment of a Sigurðr lay”, the nineteen stanzas that
come first after the lacuna in the Codex Regius. The opening is missing
and we come in at the point where Gunnarr is urging Högni to kill
Sigurðr. Högni is reluctant and blames Brynhildr’s wiles; then they
incite Guttormr to do the murder. There are large leaps in the sequence:
either the poet assumed general knowledge of the action on the part of
the audience or, as seems more likely, the extant stanzas are no more
than remnants of the original text. Sigurðr’s death is described in two
lines but from them we learn that he was killed not in bed but in the
open air — a variant that is probably of great antiquity:
Soltinn v arð Sigurðr Sigurðr was done to death
sunnan R inar. south o f the Rhine.

Although the poem is no more than fragments of a fragment, it con­

tains some memorable scenes:
60 EDDAIC POETRY

Su n d r höfum Sigurð W e have hewn Sigurðr asunder

sverði höggvinn, w ith the sword;
gn ap ir æ g rár jó r the gray steed ever droops his head
yfir gram dauðum . over the dead king.

In the extant stanzas Brynhildr is at the centre of the poet’s attention,

whatever the balance may have been in the original poem. Her change
of mood is given a wild grandeur. When she hears of Sigurðr’s death,
she laughs so that the “whole house rang”, but that night she has
dreadful dreams, and in the morning she sheds tears of grief for what she
herself had wanted to come about. She reproaches Gunnarr as an oath-
breaker — now she tells him that Sigurðr had kept complete faith with
him:
Benvönd o f let The m any-splendoured king
brugðinn gulli put between us
m arg d ýrr konungr a w ound-w and [sword]
á m eðal okkar; mounted w ith gold;
eldi váru eggjar on the outside its edges
útan görvar, were m ade w ith fire,
en eitrdropum on the inside brightened
innan fáðar. w ith drops o f venom .

This “ancient lay of Sigurðr”, in fuller form than we have it, inspired
numerous subsequent compositions on Sigurðr, Brynhildr and Guðrún.
The new poems in their turn contributed to the subject-matter and ideas
of poets of succeeding generations, age after age, and it may be that
some of the texts on the lost leaves of the Codex Regius were among the
sources used by the poets of the late lays we still possess. Following a
new literary fashion the poets now select isolated moments or individual
actors from the Sigurðr drama and treat them in detail, concentrating
chiefly on the emotions and temperament of the characters, especially
the women. Instead of the superb and savage force of the older poems,
we find profound and sometimes transcendingly beautiful insights into
the depths of human personality, whether the poet is conveying joy or
grief, cruelty or tenderness.

Although none of the poems of this kind can be notably antique, the
“ancient lay of Guðrún”, Guðrúnarkviða hin forna^ must be among the
oldest of them and get its name from that fact. It is sometimes called the
“second lay of Guðrún” because another Guðrún poem precedes it in
the Codex Regius. It starts as a monologue by Guðrún but ends as a
HEROIC POEMS 61
dialogue, first between her and Grimhildr and then between her and
Atli. She tells her life-story from when she was young, “bright in
bower”, and at home with her mother. At first she is gentle, full of love
for Sigurðr, but then devastated by sorrow at his death:
U lfar þóttum k W olves seemed to me
öllu betri, preferable to anything,
e f þeir léti mik if only they had let me
lífi týna lose m y life
eða brenndi mik or burnt me
sem birkinn við. like barked tim ber.

She spent seven seasons with Þóra Hákonardóttir in Denmark and

her grief was assuaged:
Hon m ér at gam ni For my delight
gullbókaði she em broidered in gold thread
sali su ðrœ n a southern halls
ok svani danska. and D anish swans.

But in the latter part of the poem she becomes hard and merciless,
“full of malevolence”, as she says herself, once Grimhildr has given her a
magic potion and married her to Atli Buðlason. Here the poet combines
two descriptions of Guðrún: the gentle maid at home in the courts of
Gjuki is drawn from one range of older poetry, the ferocious woman
from another, exemplified in Atlakviba, which we shall discuss below.
The poet of this “ancient lay of Guðrún” was familiar with the Brot a f
Sigurðarkviðu, in which the description of Grani drooping his head over
his dead master evidently particularly appealed to him. He expands
this, as he does other details from the older poem, and makes a new
scene out of it. Guðrún goes to Grani and speaks to him, and the horse
then lowers his head and strikes it on the ground. Later, another poet
who knew both these lays was impelled to concentrate attention on the
“ancient” lay’s description of Guðrún in her widow’s grief:
G erðig-a ek hjufra I did not sob
né höndum slá, or beat with m y hands
né kveina um or w ail
sem konur að ra r . . . like other women . . .

On this theme he made the poem usually known as Guðrúnarkviða /,

the first of the three Guðrún poems in the Codex Regius. Other women
attempt to relieve her sorrow by telling her of their misfortunes, but all
to no avail, and each time the poet repeats his theme like a refrain:
62 EDDAIC POETRY

Þeygi G uðrún Y et G uðrún

g ráta m átti, could not weep,
svá v a r hon móðug so overcom e she was
at mög dauðan after the m an ’s death
ok harðhuguð and bitter
um h rö r fylkis. over the prince’s corpse.

Finally, Gullrönd Gjúkadóttir draws back the pall covering the dead
Sigurðr and tells Guðrún to embrace him as if he were alive:
Þá hné G uðrún Then G uðrún sank down,
höll við bólstri, leaning over the bolster,
h ad d r losnaði, her locks loosened,
h lý r roðnaði, her cheeks grew red,
en regns dropi the rain drop -tear
ran n niðr um kné. ran dow n over her knees.

At the end of Guðrúnarkviða I Brynhildr is introduced: she is called

þjóðleið - someone detested by all - and described in hideous fashion:
B rann B rynhildi Fire b urnt
B uðla d óttu r from the eyes o f B ryn h ild r,
eldr or augum , daughter o f Buðli;
eitri fnæsti . . . she snorted venom . . .

As an extension of this we find yet another poet who makes a lay with
Brynhildr as the main character. In the Codex Regius it is called
Sigurðarkuiða hin skamma, but Brynhildarkviba would be a more accurate
name. Like Guðrún, Brynhildr grew up in innocence but is transformed
when she sees through the machinations of Gunnarr and her brothers-
in-law and is filled with love for Sigurðr. She herself is guiltless but fate
has treated her harshly:
L jó tar n ornir Hideous Norns
skópu oss langa þrá. shaped long yearning for us . . .

Guðrún’s development is described in a comparable way in the “ancient

lay of Guðrún” and echoes from this are heard in the Brynhildr poem: in
both Guðrún is described as wailing so bitterly that “the geese in the
enclosure shrieked in response”. Although both women are changed for
the worse by cruel destiny, they are governed by different passions.
Brynhildr is consumed with jealousy and walks “full of evil over frozen
ground and ice” when Sigurðr goes to bed with Guðrún, his wife:
HEROIC POEMS 63
V o n geng ek vilja I lack both
vers ok beggja, jo y and husband:
verð ek mik goela I must make m yself m erry
a f grim m um hug. when m y heart is bitter.

In the “ancient lay of Sigurðr” {Brot) Brynhildr laughed when Sigurðr

was slain but in this poem it is Guðrún’s grief that makes her exultant:
er hon til hvilu when she could hear
h eyra knátti the piercing lam ent
gjallan gråt from the bed
G júka dóttur. o f G ju k i’s daughter.

Brynhildr is great-hearted, consistent and unblemished. And when she

makes ready to join Sigurðr on the funeral pyre, she arranges their
couching with full propriety:
Liggi okkar enn i m illi Let once m ore the ring-adorned m etal,
m álm r h rin gvariðr, the edge-keen iron,
egghvasst já rn lie between us,
svá endr lagit . . . as it was laid last time . . .

It remains to mention a number of heroic poems related in both

subject-matter and treatment to these just discussed. Helreib Brynhildar,
“Brynhildr’s ride to Hel”, is a short poem which tells how Brynhildr, as
she drives on her road to the realm of the dead, meets an uncomplimen­
tary giantess or witchwoman and in their exchange tells her something
of her past. Another short poem is Guðrúnarkviða III. Herkja, A di’s
handmaid and sometime concubine, tells him the rumour that Þjóðrekr
and Guðrún had slept under one coverlet. Guðrún proves her innocence
by ordeal, picking precious stones from the bottom of a cauldron of
boiling water. But when Herkja is to demonstrate the truth of her
accusations by the same ordeal, her hands are scalded and they sink her
deep in a foul bog. It is thought that this poem is derived from German
sources, and the people named have genuine antecedents in the histori­
cal Attila’s entourage. Herkja appears to reflect the name of Kreka, who
was in fact Attila’s wife, and while Theodoric was never among Attila’s
allies, his father had been: altogether the degree of corruption is no more
than one might expect over six or seven centuries. The last poem to note
is “the lament of Oddrún” (Oddrúnargrátr). It tells of the sad, illicit love
affair between Gunnarr and Oddrún Buðladóttir, sister of Atli and
Brynhildr, an extension of a story referred to in Sigurðarkviða hin skamma.
The poet of Oddrúnargrátr on the other hand uses material from Atlakviba
64 EDDAIC POETRY

and in the Codex Regius the “lament” is given a place between the
Sigurðr lays and the Atli lays.

We have now reviewed a good number of poems, from the “ancient

lay of Guðrún” to the “lament of Oddrún”, which have much in
common in subject-matter and/or treatment. Helgakviða Hundingsbana I
may be added to the group. These poems are not so very old. In one way
or another the poets all build on earlier lays, seeing particular events or
characters in a new light, or extending the legend in this or that
direction. It seems that we are here dealing with a rather coherent
movement. The question is: what caused the emergence of this move­
ment? It would be interesting to investigate the possibility that the
collecting and recording of older heroic poems had created a new
interest in this ancient poetic genre and provided inspiration for new
eddaic poems, which would entail a complete knowledge of the contents
of the older poems.
These new poems lack some of the power of the older ones —they seem
milder, more human and nearer to modern man in time. In looking for
an explanation of the changed attitude to the subject-matter evident in
the younger poems, one must naturally consider the influence of Chris­
tianity and its message of mercy and love. When the younger poems were
composed, Christianity had become well established in Iceland and
dominated the spiritual life of the nation.

We now reach the third and last group of heroic poems, those we can
associate with Atli the Hun and Jörmunrekr the Goth. The whole story
is as follows:
After the death of Sigurðr Guðrún was married to Atli, Brynhildr’s
brother. Atli invited Gunnarr and Högni, his brothers-in-law, to visit
him, but they were suspicious and before leaving they hid their gold,
once the treasure of Fáfnir, in the river Rhine. Atli had assembled a
band of warriors and he attacked the brothers on their arrival and took
them prisoner. Atli had the heart cut out of the living Högni and
Gunnarr put in a snake-pen with his hands bound. A harp was secretly
brought to him, and he played it with his toes, putting all the snakes to
sleep except one adder which struck him dead. Guðrún took fearful
vengeance on Atli. She killed their two young sons and had table-vessels
made from their skulls; their blood she mixed with mead to serve at the
funeral feast for her brothers; and their hearts she roasted and gave to
Atli to eat. Then with vile words she proclaimed to her husband what
Plate 6
Egill Skallagrimsson. Illustration in a 17th century manuscript. See p. 99. Photo:
Arne Mann Nielsen.
Plate 7
The name which covers all the laws o f early Iceland is Grågås, “w ild goose”, but
we do not know why the name was given and it does not occur before the sixteenth
century. There are two large collections o f laws in codexes written in the latter part
o f the thirteenth century, Konungsbók (or Codex Regius) and Staðarhólsbók.
They were compiled at ju st about the time when the old laws were superseded by
new codes introduced on the authority o f the king o f Norway, to whom the Iceland­
ers became tributary in 1262-4. The illuminated initial P in the illustration marks
the opening o f Þingskapaþáttr, “Assembly Procedures Section”, in the Kon-
ungsbók. - Photo: Jóhanna Ólafsdóttir.
HEROIC POEMS 65
she had done. There was no lack of strong drink at the feast and
everybody slept. During the night Guðrún and Högni’s son killed Atli in
his bed. Then they set fire to the hall and burnt everyone inside to death.
After this Guðrún meant to kill herself. She threw herself into the sea
but did not drown. Instead, she drifted to the land ruled by King
Jonakr. He married her and they had three sons, Sörli, Hamðir and
Erpr, though some sources say that Erpr was Jonakr’s son by a different
woman. Svanhildr, daughter of Guðrún and Sigurðr Fáfnisbani and the
fairest of women, grew up there with them. Jörmunrekr sent his son
Randvér to ask for her hand on his behalf. Svanhildr was given to him,
but there were some people who said she was a more fitting wife for
Randvér because they were both young. When Jörmunrekr heard such
talk, he had his son hanged and Svanhildr trampled to death by horses.
When Guðrún learned this, she urged her sons to seek revenge. She
gave them coats of mail and helmets so stout that no steel would pierce
them. She laid it down that they should attack Jörmunrekr as he slept,
Sörli and Hamðir should cut off his hands and feet, Erpr his head. On
the way Sörli and Hamðir asked Erpr what help he would give them. He
answered that he would help them as foot helped foot, as hand helped
hand. They saw little to gain from that and they killed him. When they
came to Jörmunrekr’s hall, Hamðir cut off his hands and Sörli both his
legs: and then Hamðir said, “Off now would be his head, if Erpr was
alive.” They were attacked by Jörmunrekr’s retainers but weapons
made no impression on their armour. Jörmunrekr then ordered his men
to stone them: so they did and both Sörli and Hamðir died there. “Then
all the race and offspring of Gjuki were dead.”
Four of the Edda lays treat these events. Three of them, Atlakvida,
Guðrúnarhvöt (the first part) and Hamðismál are, with Hlöðskviða,
reckoned to be the oldest of all eddaic poetry. Dating them is not
however an easy matter. One factor to be taken into account is the links
they have with verse by early scalds that can be dated with some
confidence. Particular notice may be taken of the Haraldskvebi by
Þorbjörn hornklofi, composed soon after the battle of Hafrsfjörðr at the
end of the ninth century: it has even been suggested, though not very
plausibly, that Atlakvida is the work of the same scald. Given their
literary circumstances, it is most natural to believe that all these most
ancient poems were composed in Norway about or a little before c. 870,
the time when Iceland was first settled.
These antique heroic lays have a relentless primitive energy. Without
exception they deal with dire events: kinsmen by blood and marriage
5 Eddas and Sagas
66 EDDAIC POETRY

slaughter each other. Every character is stern, some to the point of

cruelty, there is no sign of the genial or gentle, sorrow and suffering are
the only feelings, love’s only expression is in grief for dear dead ones.
The narrative moves swiftly from one brilliant scene to the next, but the
poets sometimes pause to dwell on an individual picture. They are
willing to emphasize their statements by repetition or by the figure
accumulation piling up lists of rich estates and magnificent arms and
armour for example, which serve to create an impression of a calm
surface contrasting with the surging currents beneath:

Skjöldu kneguð þ ar velja T here you can choose shields

ok skafna aska, and smoothed ash-shafts,
h jálm a gullroðna gold-inlaid helm ets
ok H una mengi, and a retinue o f Huns,
silfrgylld söðulklæði, silver-gilt saddle-cloths,
serki valrau ð a, foreign-red shirts,
d afar, d arraða, darts, javelin s,
d rö sla m élgreypa. bit-clenching horses.

The simple, irregular metre lifts these poems above time and space; but
their fragmentary nature, their difficult and archaic diction, and the
fascination exerted by their exotic settings, all kindle an excited antici­
pation in our modern minds and prompt questions that will never be
answered.

Atlakvida tells of the visit made by Gunnarr and Högni to the home of
Atli, their brother-in-law, of the grim reception they met there, and of
Guðrún’s terrible revenge. The poem seems rather badly preserved,
some stanzas must be lost and others misplaced or misshapen. It is
conceivable too that some odd lines or stanzas from quite different
poems have found their way into Atlakvida.
The poem begins with Atli sending a messenger to Gunnarr to invite
him and Högni to visit him, promising them great gifts if they accept.
But they suspect treachery, and Guðrún moreover has sent them a
warning token, a bracelet with wolfs hair wound round it. But they set
ofT, apparently just the two of them, with no retinue — a rather less than
royal progress which some people think betokens the petty circum­
stances of the poet’s milieu in ninth-century Norway. But there is ample
compensation for this in the speed, din and colour of their journeying:
HEROIC POEMS 67
Fetum létu frœ kn ir The bold men
um fjöll at þ yrja let the bit-clenching
m ari ina m élgreypu horses gallop
M yrkvið inn ókunna; through strange M yrkviðr;
hristisk öll H únm örk all H únm örk shuddered
þ ar er harðm óðgir fóru, where the severe men rode;
ráku þeir vandstyggva they drove the whip-shy m ounts
völlu algrœ na. over the bright green fields.

When they arrive, Guðrún tells them to leave at once, for they have
little power to resist the grievous treacheries of the Huns; but Gunnarr
says they have no choice:
Seinat er nú systir It is too late now, sister,
at sam na Niflungum , to gather N iflungar;
langt er at leita it is a long w ay to look
lýða sinnis til for help from troops,
o f rosmuQöll R inar, bold w arriors,
rekka óneissa. over the rose-tinted m ountains o f the Rhine.

After a bold defence by Högni, the brothers are captured and put in
strong fetters. Atli offers Gunnarr his life in return for the Niflung gold,
and Gunnarr makes a condition: first he will have brought to him the
heart cut from the breast of his brother, Högni. Finally Högni’s heart
was cut out — he laughed while they did it — and brought bleeding in a
dish to Gunnarr. It then becomes clear why he had made so cruel a
bargain. He had feared that Högni might reveal the treasure’s hiding-
place, but now that he alone remains alive, he has no fear that the secret
will be betrayed:
Rin skal ráða The Rhine shall rule over
rógm álm i skatna the strife-m etal o f men,
svinn, áskunna the swift river o f divine source
arfi Niflunga; over the inheritance o f Niflungar;
í veltan d a vatni foreign bracelets will gleam
lýsask valb au gar, in tum bling w ater
heldr en á höndum gull rath er than be gold shining on the arm s
skíni H úna börnum . o f the children o f the Huns.

Later Gunnarr is put bound into the snake-pen, as told above, and
Guðrún calls down dreadful curses on Atli. After Gunnarr is dead, a
feast is prepared and Guðrún plays the regal hostess — but then she tells
Atli what he has eaten:
68 EDDAIC POETRY

Sona heíir þinna, D ealer o f swords,

sverða deilir, you have chewed yo u r sons’
h jörtu h ræ d reyru g corpse-bloody hearts
við hunang o f tuggin. m ingled w ith honey.
M elta knáttu m óðugr Proud m an, you can digest
m an n a valb ráð ir, slaughtered hum an flesh,
eta at ölkrásum eat it as a drink-dainty,
ok í öndugi at senda. send it into the seats o f honour.

At this revelation weeping and wailing rise among the Huns:

nem a ein G u ðrún except G uðrún alone,
er hon æ va grét who never wept
b rœ ð r sína b erh arða for her bear-hard brothers
ok buri svása, and for sweet sons,
unga, ófróða, young, innocent,
þá er hon við A tla gat. whom she got w ith A tli.

Many people have thought that the poet of Atlakviða went too far in
his account of Guðrún’s revenge. Family ties were unbreakable among
the early Scandinavians, and Guðrún’s treatment of her children is a
unique occurrence in old Scandinavian literature — unless one brings in
the story of Signý Völsungsdóttir at the start of Volsunga saga, which is
however related to Atlakviba and perhaps directly influenced by it. The
motif is doubtless of southern origin, and from even remoter sources
than other material in the lay. A well-known theme in classical Greek
literature is the death of children at the hands of father or mother; they
sometimes make a meal of them too — with Kronos himself setting a
prime and primitive example. The story closest to that in Atlakuiba,
however, with children both murdered and eaten, is the myth of Procne
and Philomela, best known in the form Ovid gives it in his Metamor­
phoses. Procne was married to King Tereus of Thrace and they had a
son called Itys. Tereus coveted his wife’s sister, Philomela, raped her
and then cut out her tongue to prevent her telling his crime. But
Philomela was a skilful weaver and she wove a tapestry for her sister
with her story pictured in it. Procne took cruel vengeance, killing Itys

“Then H'ogni laughed as they cut him, the living warrior, to the heart — tears were
farthest from him. They put it bloody on a platter and brought it to Gunnarr”
(Atlakviða, st. 24). The picture shows part of the carving on the church portal at
Austad in Setesdal, Norway, dated to thefirst half of the thirteenth century. Photo:
Universitetets oldsaksamling, Oslo.
HEROIC POEMS 69
70 EDDAIC POETRY

her son and feeding his flesh to Tereus. Afterwards she uses vile words
to tell Tereus of the gourmet delights she has offered him: “You have in
your gut the boy you are asking about.”

The poet of Atlamál built on Atlakviba in the same way as the poets of
the later Helgi lay and of the lays concerning Guðrún and Brynhildr
built on their forerunners, Helgakviða Hundingsbana II and the “ancient
lay of Sigurðr” respectively (and in the latter case also on poems that
were once on the lost leaves of the Codex Regius). But there is a
difference, for Atlamál is not simply a fuller, or diluted, account of what
is told in Atlakviba. This poet has also turned to other sources wþich, if
we are to judge by the Nibelungenlied and Pibriks saga, must chiefly have
been poetry and legend of German origin. It is in accord with German
sources, for example, that Gunnarr and Högni go by sea (over Limfjord)
to visit Atli, and Högni’s son plays a part in the slaughter of Atli at the
end. On the other hand, the poet’s statement that Guðrún had drinking
bowls made for Atli from the skulls of their sons is attributed to the
influence of Volundarkviba.
The relations of Atlamdl with older poetry may parallel those between
the younger heroic lays and their predecessors, but it has little in
common with them in other respects, or indeed with any other verse
that we can ascribe to more or less the same period. This dissimilarity
might suggest that Atlamdl was created in some remoter milieu —
somewhere different from the home of, say, the lays of Brynhildr and
Guðrún discussed above. We may recall that in the Codex Regius the
poem is referred to as “the Greenlandic AtlamaV\ and commentators
have seen various things in the poem which might indeed indicate that it
was composed in Greenland. A polar bear figures in a dream, for
instance, and is interpreted as a portent of a snowstorm from the east;
and it has been thought that the poet’s burlesque vulgarity in dwelling
on the terror of the cowardly slave Hjalli (whose heart Atli’s men
propose to cut out instead of Högni’s) suggests a narrow and unrefined
society such as the Greenlanders’ isolation might have fostered. But the
evidence of the Codex Regius must here be counted less than trustwor­
thy, because Atlakviba is also described as “the Greenlandic lay of Atli”
— a provenance that is out of the question because Greenland was not
settled until the 980s. If one wants to reconcile these two ascriptions to
Greenland, the most plausible explanation is that the poems were
preserved among the Greenlanders and came from a Greenlandic
source-man to the editor of the Edda collection.
HEROIC POEMS 71
At the end of the Codex Regius are Guðrúnarhvöt, “the egging of
Guðrún”, and Hamðismál, “the lay of Hamðir”, two connected poems
which also have some lines of verse in common. The Hvot divides into
two parts. In the first, the “egging” proper, Guðrún urges her sons to
avenge their sister, Svanhildr (cf. p. 65 above), and this is closely related
to the opening of Hamðismál, where we also meet Guðrún inciting her
sons to vengeance. There are numerous verbal echoes, and stanza 4 in
the “egging” is almost word for word the same as stanza 6 and the start
of stanza 7 in HamðismáL One explanation offered for this is that the poet
of Guðrúnarhvöt knew and used Hamðismál —and then most probably in a
version older and better than the one now preserved. But another theory
seems altogether more probable, and that is that the beginning of
Guðrúnarkuöt and what corresponds to it in Hamðismál were originally one
and the same poem which has developed in deviant ways, both
deformed and transformed in the process of oral transmission. It is
conceivable that this poem represented the original opening of Hambis­
mål, but it appears more likely that it was an independent lay whose
proper title would have been “the egging of Guðrún”. The extant Hvot
must then be an extension and adaptation from a later date, for the
second part of the poem as it appears in the Codex Regius belongs to the
group of lays, described above, that make Guðrún’s grief their special
theme. In this part Guðrún enumerates her sorrows, each one more
grievous than the last:
Þat er m ér h arðast H ardest am ong
harm a m inna my griefs is
o f þann inn hvíta to think o f S v a n h ild r’s
hadd S van h ild ar: bright head o f hair:
au ri tröddu they tram pled it in mire
und jó a fótum . under horses’ hooves.

At the end of the poem the Hvot is called tregróf or tregroj\ “row of woes”
or “woes breaking silence”, which might well serve as a name for all
such lays of lamentation.

Hamðismál is called “the ancient lay of Hamðir” in the Codex Regius,

and all agree that it must indeed be a poem of great antiquity — and
probably, like Atlakvida, much changed from its original shape. Some
scholars also conclude that calling it “the ancient” implies that a
younger poem with the same name also existed. As noted above, it
begins with Guðrún inciting her sons to seek vengeance, and then goes
72 EDDAIC POETRY

on to describe the brothers’ journey, their attack on Jörmunrekr and

their death. Guðrúnarhvöt may be superior or fuller in places but some
things are certainly better preserved in Hamðismál. Human isolation is
compared to the bleak harshness of the natural world:

Einstœ ð em ek orðin I have become solitary

sem ösp i holti, like the aspen in the wood,
fallin at frændum bereft o f kin
sem fura at kvisti, like a fir-tree o f branches,
vaðin at vilja stripped o f jo y
sem viðr at laufi like a tree o f le af
þá er in kvistskœ ða when the branch-perilous one
kem r um dag varm an. comes on a hot day.

There are various elements in the account of the attack on Jörmun­

rekr as told on p. 65 above which do not appear in the extant Hamðismál.
This must in part be due to the defective state of the text; and also in
part to the fact that the poet selects and discards as he pleases —for, like
other makers of heroic lays, he was composing on themes from legends
universally known and quite possibly already treated in other verse. The
Ragnarsdrápa attributed to Bragi Boddason the Old has stanzas on the
attack on Jörmunrekr (cf. p. 93 below). These fragments are brief and
difficult but even so we can find details in them that are not in
Hamðismál. We learn from them, for example, that Svanhildr was
Jörmunrekr’s wife and Randvér his son, facts not made plain in
HamðismáL It is thought most likely that Bragi knew Hambismal in a
fuller and more authentic form than we do, and he may perhaps have
known other poems or stories about the same events.
Legends about Jörmunrekr spread far and wide. He was known in
England, as we see from Widsid and Deor, but much more is told of him
in German sources, some of it appearing in Pidriks saga. But in addition
to the German material the sources most closely related to the eddaic
lays are naturally our medieval prose accounts in Snorri’s Edda and in
Volsunga saga and, to some extent, in the Gesta Danorum, where however
Saxo probably had Icelanders as his chief informants, as he did for other
ancient lore.
Hambismal has been likened to a noble ruin, a half-derelict cairn. In
antiquity and vigour it is comparable to Atlakviba. If we know the legend
on which the poet draws, we can appreciate the superb scenes presented
in the extant stanzas. And even where the poem is obscure and
HEROIC POEMS 73
doubtless corrupt, an auditor cannot escape the spell of its mysterious,
arcane utterance:
S p ru ttu á tái O n the doorstep deeds sprang up
tregnar íðir, heavy w ith sadness,
grœ ti álfa the jo y-b ereft deeds
in glýstöm u; that make elves weep;
ár um m orgin early in the m orning
m anna bölva every g rief
sutir h v e rja r for the evils men suffer
sorg um kveykva wakens sorrow.

Sigurður Nordal has pointed out how fitting the end of this poem is,
itself the last poem in the Codex Regius. On the point of death Sörli
looks down on Jormunrekr’s blood-soaked retainers and proclaims the
essence of the heroic ideal:
V e l höfum vit vegit, W e have fought well,
stöndum á val G otna we stand over the edge-weary
ofan eggmóðum slain o f the Goths
sem ern ir á kvisti; like eagles on a branch;
góðs höfum tíra r fengit, we have won good fame,
þótt skylim nú eða í gær w hether we are to die now or on some
deyja, other day
kveld lifir m aðr ekki — a m an lives out no evening
eptir kvið norna. after the N orns’ decree.

Among the most ancient of the heroic poems is also the Hlöðskviða, to
give it its usual modern name. It has been reconstructed by threading
verses which occur here and there in Hervarar saga (Heibreks saga) but
which evidently belong together. The part of the saga in which they are
cited is thought to be a prose version of the original poem, with verses
chiefly quoted when they contain direct speech. Hervarar saga was
probably written in the latter part of the thirteenth century but its text is
badly preserved and the remnants of Hlöðskviða have suffered with it.
The oldest manuscript ends before the poem begins, and the next in
chronological order ends when only the first few stanzas have been
quoted. So most of the text exists only in two seventeenth-century paper
manuscripts whose text is evidently corrupt in many places. In addition,
they omit the few narrative stanzas originally given in the saga and
retain only stanzas of direct speech. There is no way of remedying these
defects. Even so, there is enough of the poem left to let us see that it was
74 EDDAIC POETRY

once well worthy of a place beside Atlakvida and Hamðismál, both in the
power of its diction and in the tragedy of its heroic theme.
Hlöðr was the illegitimate son of Heiðrekr, king of the Goths; he was
brought up by his mother’s father, King Humli in Hunland. When
Hlöðr hears of his father’s death, he rides westward to claim his
inheritance. He comes to the Gothic king’s palace in Árheimar just as
his half-brother Angantýr is celebrating the funeral feast in honour of
their dead father. Angantýr gives Hlöðr a good welcome and leads him
th e h a ll, b u t H lö ð r a t o n c e p re s e n ts h is d e m a n d s :

H afa vil ek hálft allt H alf will I have

þat er H eiðrekr átti, o f H eidrek’s riches,
ku ok a f kálfi, o f cow and o f calf,
kvern þjótandi, o f creaking handm ill,
al ok a f oddi, tools and weapons,
einum skatti, treasure undivided,
þý ok a f þræli slave and bondm aid
ok þeira barni, and their sons and daughters;
hrís þat it m æ ra the renowned forest
er M yrk við ir heita, th at is nam ed M irkw ood,
g rö f þá ina góðu the hallow ed grave
er stendr á G oðþjóðu, in G othland standing,
stein þann inn fagra the fair-w rought stone
er stendr á stöðum D anpar, beside the D nieper,
h álfar h erváð ir h a lf the arm ou r
er H eiðrekr átti, owned by Heidrek,
lönd ok lýða lands and liegemen
ok ljósa bauga. and lustrous rings!

(The Saga of King Heidrek the Wise.

T ran slated . . . by C h ristop h er
Tolkien, Edinburgh etc., 1960,
pp. 4 8 - 4 9 . )

His demands seem overweening to Angantýr. He would gladly give

his brother gold and treasure: ‘T will give you twelve hundred retainers,
twelve hundred steeds will I give you . . . a third of the Gothic people
you alone shall rule.” But, he says,
B resta m un fy rr bróðir T he bright buckler
in b likh vita lind, shall break, kinsman,
ok k ald r geirr the cold lances
koma við annan, clash together,
HEROIC POEMS 75
ok m argr gumi grim men unnum bered
i gras hniga, in the grass sinking,
áðr en T yrfing ere the heritage I share
i tvennt deila, with H um li’s grandson
eða þér H um lungr or ever T yrfing
hálfan a r f gefa. in tw ain sunder!

(T h e S a ga o f K in g H eidrek . . . p.
49.)
When old Gizurr Grýtingaliði, the man who had fostered King
Heiðrekr, their father, heard Angantýr’s offer, he thought it excessive to
a man such as Hlöðr, “a bastard”, “son of a bondmaid”. Hlöðr was
furious at this and returned to Hunland. Next spring Hlöðr and his
grandfather Humli gather a host so vast that not a single able-bodied
man is left at home in the land of the Huns, and they march against the
Goths. They fight first with Hervör, Angantýr’s sister, and her foster-
father Ormarr; Hervör is killed but Ormarr escapes to King Angantýr
in Árheimar. At this news Angantýr curled his lip and took time before
speaking; and then he said:

Ó bróðu rliga v a rtu leikin In no b rotherly fashion were you treated

in ágæ ta systir. famous sister.

He sent messengers in all directions to call men to his banner,

whoever was willing to help and fit to wield weapons. Even so, when
battle was joined the Huns outnumbered the Goths by two to one. They
fought for eight days, only the leaders were left unwounded, and no one
could tell the number of the slain. But new troops arrived by day and by
night to support Angantýr, and at the end he had as many men as when
the battle began. The Goths “were defending their freedom and the land
of their birth . . . and for this they stood firm, and each man urged on his
comrade. When the day was far spent the Goths pressed on so hard that
the Hunnish legions gave way before them; and seeing this Angantýr
strode out from behind the shield-wall and up into the foremost rank,
and in his hand he held Tyrfingr, and he cut down both men and horses;
then the ranks fell apart before the kings of the Huns, and brother struck
at brother. There Hlöðr fell and Humli the king, and the Huns took to
flight; but the Goths slew them . . . ” King Angantýr went to inspect the
fallen and found Hlöðr, his brother. Then he said:
Bauð ek þér bróðir T reasures uncounted,
basm ir óskerðar, kinsm an, I offered you,
76 EDDAIC POETRY

fé ok fjölð m eiðm a w ealth and cattle

sem þik frem st tiddi; w ell to content you;
nú hefir þú hvárki but for w ar's rew ard
h ild ar at gjöldum you have won neither
ljósa bauga realm m ore spacious
né land ekki. nor rings glittering.

(T h e S a ga o f K in g H eidrek . . . p. 58.)
B ölvat er okkr bróðir, W e two are accursed, brother.
bani em ek þinn orðinn; I have become you r slayer.
þ at m un æ uppi, T h at w ill live for ever.
illr er dóm r norna. Evil is the ju d gm en t o f the Norns.

Vólundarkviða is in many respects unique among the eddaic poems.

Volundr is called “leader of elves” and “prince of elves”, and that
doubtless explains why it is included among the mythological poems in
the first half of the Codex Regius. But otherwise it clearly belongs with
the heroic lays, though it is acted on a larger stage and touches more
chords than they usually do. In part the theme is a heroic legend of
avarice, malice and ruthless revenge; but it is also a fairy-tale of a
woman in the likeness of a swan who loses her bird-shape for a time and
lives with a human being; and in the completion of the tale, we have
another touching love-story with interwoven elements of deceit and
treachery, anguished mourning at parting and loss, and abiding
melancholy.
Völundr the smith was known throughout the Germanic world.
Stories are told of him in Pidriks saga, believed to be based on German
sources. His tribulations and Böðvildr’s are rehearsed in Deors lament,
and although the Old English text is only a few lines long, it has verbal
similarities with Volundarkvida. It is also noteworthy that the so-called
Franks Casket of seventh- or eighth-century Anglo-Saxon workmanship
has two scenes from the Völundr story on it. One shows Völundr when
the princess Böðvildr comes to him in his smithy, where her brothers’
corpses lie concealed. The other shows Völundr’s brother, Egill, inside a
building and using his bow — the exact purport of this scene is not
known but it must indicate that more legends were once current about
Egill than our written sources preserve.
The poet of Volundarkvida depicts his characters with a few telling
strokes. King Níðuðr’s cruel treatment of Völundr is the result of his
greed, but he is pitiable in his grief when the murder of his sons and the
rape of his daughter are revealed to him. He seems indeed to be the tool
HEROIC POEMS 77
of his queen who rejoices when Völundr is captured and commands her
men to cripple him. King Níðuðr understands this too late and regrets
it:
V a k i ek á v a llt I stay aw ake all the time,
viljalau ss, joyless;
sofna ek m innst I fall asleep so seldom
síz m ína sonu dauða, since m y sons died;
keil mik í höfuð, num bing cold in m y head,
köld eru m ér ráð þín . . . cold to me you r counsels . . .

Völundr himself is the most enigmatic and difficult of all the heroes of
Germanic legend. He appears totally human in his love for the swan-
maid and in his desolation when she flies away after their nine years
together. In his captivity he is cunning but also full of savage ruthless­
ness, like Atli and Guðrún. He is a cousin of the Greek Daidalos, the
most skilful of craftsmen who, when necessary, can fly through the air.
This kinship was recognised early on by Norsemen who gave the name
Vólundarhús, “Völundr’s house”, to the Labyrinth of Daidalos. But even
in his vengeance he is not utterly merciless. He tells Níðuðr he must
bind himself on oath to spare his violated daughter and the child she
will bear Völundr — and he, the avenger, calls her his wife and bride.
Böðvildr herself is all womanly, lured by finery and novelty, whose grief
for the loss of her innocence is mingled with grief for the loss of the lover
who had overpowered her.
Völundr has himself known betrayal and loss when his swan-wife, the
young Alvitr, flew away to the dark forest to follow her destiny. We see
her only through Völundr’s eyes, as he sits desolate after her escape.
While his brothers, Egill and Slagfiðr, make active search for their
swan-women, Völundr stays alone in Ulfdalir and finds solace in his
craft, constant in his love, trusting that Alvitr might return:
H ann sló gull rau tt He tapped red gold
við gim fástan, against the hue-rich gemstone;
lukdi hann alia he fully covered
lind baugum vel; the whole linden-cord w ith rings;
svá beið hann so he waited
sinnar ljóssar for his bright wife,
k vá n ar e f honum in case
kom a gerði. she should come to him.

Níðuðr, lord of the Njárar, hears of all the precious things made by
Völundr and goes with his men to Ulfdalir:
78 EDDAIC POETRY

N óttum fóru seggir, M en-at-arm s went by night,

negldar váru b ryn ju r, their coats o f m ail were studded,
skildir bliku þeira their shields gleamed
við inn skarða m ána. against the pared moon.

Völundr is out hunting, so they inspect his treasures and remove the
finest of the bracelets from the cord they hang on. Völundr returns and
sees the ring is missing:
Hugði hann at hefði He thought
H löðvés dóttir, that H löðvér’s daughter,
A lv itr unga, young A lv itr,
væ ri hon ap tr komin. had it — that she had come back.

Völundr sits there waiting until he falls asleep. Then it is not his bright
swan-maid but fierce King Níðuðr who rouses him. He wakes to find
“heavy oppression on his arms, a fetter clasping his legs55. Níðuðr takes
his captive home; he himself wears Völundr’s sword. His queen did not
like Völundr’s look:
Tenn honum teygjask His teeth are bared
er honum er tét sverð, when the sword is displayed to him
ok hann B öðvildar and he recognises
baug um þekkir. B öðvild r’s bracelet.
A m u n eru augu His eyes are like
orm i þeim inum frána. the gleam ing serpent.
Sníðið ér hann C ut aw ay from him
sina magni, the strength o f his sinews,
ok setið hann síðan and then put him,
í Sæ varstöð. in Sæ varstöð.

So Völundr was hamstrung, put to live on a small island, and required

to make all kinds of precious things for the king. He brooded on
vengeance. The king’s sons come to him, curious to see him and his
work. He tells them to come again next day without telling anyone.
When they came, he cut off their heads and from their skulls he made
drinking bowls for Níðuðr, jewels made from their eyes he sent for the
queen, brooches from their teeth for Böðvildr.
Then it happened that Böðvildr broke the bracelet, the first thing
stolen from Völundr. She does not dare tell anyone and goes to Völundr
to get it mended. His behaviour is described with remarkable reticence:

B ar hann hana bjóri He overcam e her w ith drink

því at hann betr kunni, for he was more cunning,
HEROIC POEMS 79

B'óðvildr and her maid visit Volundr in his smithy. She is passing the smith the
broken ring to mend. Under the fo r g e lies the body o f her brother. An illustration
from the Franks Casket, carved in whaletooth ivory, probably dating from c. 700 and
now preserved in the British Museum. Photo: British Museum.

svá at hon i sessi so that she fell asleep

um sofnaði. on the seat.
„Nú hefi ek hefnt “Now, with willing malice,
harma minna I have avenged
allra ncma einna all my wrongs
íviðgjarna.“ save one.”
Böðvildr goes weeping from the island but Völundr flies laughing into
the air. He settles on the parapet of the king’s hall and calls Níðuðr to
come and talk. He then tells him what has happened — but first gets
him to swear oaths “by the ship’s side and the shield’s rim, the steed’s
80 EDDAIC POETRY

shoulder and the sword’s edge” that he will do no harm to Böðvildr.

Völundr then flies away and the king calls his daughter to come. He
asks whether she has been with Völundr on the island and the poem
ends with her mournful reply:
S att er þat N íðuðr It is true
er sagði þér: w hat was told you Níðuðr:
Sátu m vit V ö lu n d r V ö lu n d r and I
sam an í hólm i stayed together on the islet
eina ögurstund, for one heavy hour,
æ va skyldi. which should never have been.
Ek væ tr honum I had no skill
vin n a kunnak, to resist him,
ek væ tr honum I had no strength
vin n a m áttak. to resist him.

Gróttas'óngr is about two giant maidens and is consequently sometimes

included among the mythological poems. It is preserved in the Codex
Regius of Snorri’s Edda, where it is cited to explain an expression like
“flour of Fróði” for gold, a kenning which doubtless shows that the
legend was well known in early times. The two giant maidens are named
Fenja and Menja, and they are captive slaves of Fróði, king of the
Danes, labouring at his great hand-mill called Grótti. The greater part
of the poem is the song of the women at their work. For a long time the
flour they grind for the king is the flour of peace — the peaceful reign of
Fróði was remembered as a golden age in the North — and the flour of
gold:
A uð m ölum Fróða, Let us grind w ealth for Fróði,
m ölum alsæ lan, grind him all-prosperous,
m ölum fjölð fjár grind a mass o f treasure
á feginslúðri. over the trough o f bliss.
Siti hann á auði, M ay he sit on riches,
sofi hann á dúni, m ay he sleep on down,
vaki hann at vilja, m ay he know pleasure w hile wakeful
þá er vel m alit. — then it is well ground.

But the slave-women recall that they are descended from valiant giants
and in their youth accomplished huge feats of strength and fought great
battles:
Nu erum kom nar Now we are come
til konungs husa to the king’s dwelling
HEROIC POEMS 81

“N o w w e a r e c o m e / to th e k in g 's d w e l l i n g / u n p it ie d / a n d e n s la v e d . " A s d e s c r i b e d in
Gróttasöngr, th e t w o g i a n t m a id e n s , F e n ja a n d M e n ja , w e r e c a p t i v e s o f F r ó b i , k in g
o f th e D a n e s , w h o f o r c e d th em to la b o u r a t h is g r e a t h a n d - m i ll, G ró tti. A d r a w i n g
b y E rn st H a n se n .

m iskunnlausar unpitied
ok at m ani hafbar. and enslaved.
A u rr etr iljar, M ire eats the soles o f our feet,
en ofan kulði, cold eats from above,
drögum dólgs sjötul, we drag at the quern that ends strife
d ap rt er at Fróða. — it is gloom y at F róði’s.

The king is to pay a high price for enslaving such mighty women. Now
the flour they grind for him is the flour of war, and soon the flash of fire
is seen from the ranks of his enemies. They grind harder until the
millstone splits and King Fróði’s life and reign are at an end.
There is unusual sympathy for the toiling slave-women in this poem:
indeed, in modern times the poem has been treated as symbolic of cruel
exploitation of workers in all ages.
6 Eddas and Sagas
82 EDDAIC POETRY

Another poem which perhaps has its roots in ancient work-songs is

the Darraðarljóð quoted in Njáls saga. The saga relates that a man in
Caithness in Scotland heard twelve valkyries chant this poem on the day
the great battle of Clontarf was fought outside Dublin in 1014. The
valkyries had set up a loom on which the weights were human heads,
the woof and warp human entrails, the batten was a sword and the pin-
beater an arrow. The eleven stanzas we have are probably only part of
the original poem. The verse represents the work-song of the valkyries
as they weave the web of fate which will decide the outcome of the
battle. As one might expect, they labour against a dark and dismal
background — the air is tinted with blood and “bloodstained, clouds
draw across the sky”. The matter of the poem classes Darraðarljóð with
scaldic poetry but the metre is eddaic fornyrðislag.
 Scaldic poetry
It is customary and convenient to divide the corpus of Norse-
Icelandic verse into eddaic and scaldic kinds, though the boundaries
between them are not absolutely strict. They are chiefly distinguished
by criteria of form, matter and preservation:
(1) Eddaic verse is in metres without internal rhyme (hendingar) or
end rhyme. Eddaic verse-forms to some extent represent common
Germanic metres, but scaldic forms are peculiar to Scandinavia, parti­
cularly Norway and Iceland.
(2) The diction of the eddaic poems is simple while scaldic poets
employed a specialised diction which has to be learnt to be fully
comprehended. Word-order in eddaic verse is usually straightforward,
in scaldic verse it is often exceedingly complex.
(3) Eddaic poetry takes its themes from pagan mythology and from
legends of heroes who lived in a remote past. Scaldic poetry makes
recent or even contemporary events its chief subject-matter; many
scaldic poems are in praise of kings or other leaders, alive or recently
dead.
(4) The great majority of scaldic poems are attributed to named poets;
none of the eddaic poetry is.
There are some poems however that do not fit happily in this
classification on account of their form or matter. Haraldskvœði and
Hákonarmál^ for example, are by named scalds and describe recent
events but they are in eddaic metres. We count them as scaldic because
of their themes and in part because of their diction. On the other hand,
scaldic metres are used for legendary or mythological narrative in
poems by named poets — in Ragnarsdráþa and Haustl'óng, for example.
These are counted scaldic because of their form. Both pairs of poems
just mentioned are among the oldest Norse verse preserved; and as time
goes on the distinctions between eddaic and scaldic become easier to
observe. But as the preceding chapter will have shown, the term
84 SCALD IC POETRY

“eddaic” is properly reserved for the poems found in the Codex Regius
and in the few other sources that preserve verse comparable to them in
both matter and metre.
Scaldic poetry is the usual English equivalent for what in twentieth-
century Icelandic is called dróttkvœbi, a modern term like eddukvœði for
eddaic poetry. It is derived from the name of the single most popular
metre of the scalds, dróttkvæbr háttr as Snorri calls it in his Edda, which
must originally have meant “metre suitable for performance among the
king’s sworn retainers”. In English there is no need to keep the generic
Icelandic dróttkvæbi, and best to use the adjective dróttkvæbr (n. dróttkvœtt)
as a technical term restricted to the description of the favourite stanza
form of the scalds and to poems in that metre and its varieties.

Metres
This stanza by Sighvatr Þórðarson, made c. AD 1020, is in regular
dróttkvætt:
Hugstora biðk h^yra,
h r^ fœ rr jöfurr, þmar,
þolðak \ás, hvé visur,
wrðung, of for g^rðak.
Sendv vask upp af öndrum
amír, svafk fátt í hausti,
til Svíþjoðar, szðan,
svanvo7Z£s í for \ang?i.
Each stanza has eight lines, each line has six syllables, three given
metrical weight, three not, with variations in distribution; by so-called
“resolution” two short syllables can stand for one metrically long one;
the cadence in each line however is always —x (heyra, pessar, etc.).
Two alliterating syllables in the first line of a couplet chime with the first
syllable (always stressed) of the second line. (Alliterating letters are
printed bold in the stanza above.) This rule is stricter than in fomyrbislag
where sometimes only one syllable in the a-line alliterates with one in
the b-line. A remarkable novelty is the obligatory internal rhyme: half­
rhyme in the first of a pair {stor : heyr, vås : vis, etc.) and full rhyme in the
second (hress : pess, verb : gerb, etc.); these are called skothending and
abalhending respectively and printed in italics in the text above. Note that
the stressed cadence syllable always completes the rhyme in each line.
Icelandic sources of the thirteenth century tell us that the first poem
METRES 85
in dróttkvœtt metre was Ragnarsdrápa by Bragi the Old, thought to be
composed in the ninth century. Poets in the retinue of King Haraldr
Fairhaired used dróttkvœtt, so it was certainly current in Norway at the
end of that century. The origins of the metre remain a mystery, but its
characteristics are such that it is not inconceivable that it was the
creation of an individual poet who was looking for novelty — an
experimental form which was then developed and regularised by later
practitioners. Use of the metre is virtually restricted to Norway, Orkney
and Iceland. Examples found in a Danish or Swedish milieu are
probably the work of West Norse poets or the result of West Norse
influence.
As was mentioned, dróttkvœðr háttr is the most popular of the scalds’
metres but it is not the only one they used. Some of their other forms are
evidently developments from the Germanic kinds employed in eddaic
verse, while others are varieties of dróttkvætt — sometimes they are
offspring of both. Others again result from the influence of late Latin
poetry, adapted for native use and never without alliteration as a
binding principle.
Kviðuháttr comes closest to fornyrdislag (p. 33). It is however rigorously
syllabic, with three syllables in the a-line, four in the b-line:

Hitt var fyrr

at fold ruðu
sverðberendr
sínum dróttni.

This is the metre of one of the oldest scaldic poems extant, Ynglingatal by
Þjóðólfr of Hvin, and since it is so close to the common Germanic form
one might be tempted to conclude that it was the earliest of scaldic
verse-forms. But the syllable counting and the use of kennings relate it
to verse in dróttkvœðr háttr, and it is just as likely that it is a subsequent
development.
Other varieties are certainly later developments. We may take one or
two examples. Tóglag (or toglag) and haðarlag are difficult forms, created
by introducing regular skothending and aðalhending into fornyrdislag and
málaháttr (cf. p. 3 3 ) respectively, the first with only four syllables to the
line, the second with five. An example of hadarlag from the thirteenth-
century Hrafnsmál by Sturla Þórðarson is:
Sóttu sóknhvattar
sveitir háleitan
86 SCALDIC POETRY

geira glymstœri
glyggs ór Finnbyggðum.
Two old metres were modelled on Latin forms, evidenced by the end
rhyme in the one case, by the verse movement in the other. The oldest
poem preserved with end rhyme (runhenda) is H'ófuðlausn, attributed to
Egill Skallagrimsson and supposed to have been made for presentation
to Eirikr Bloodaxe in York c. AD 950:
Óx hjörva glöm
við hlífar þröm,
guðr óx of gram,
gramr sótti fram,
þar heyrðisk þá,
þaut mækis á,
málmhríðar spá,
sú var mest of lá.
The next oldest examples with what seem reliable attributions are from
c. 10 0 0 . The one fragment among them that is part of a panegyric on a
reigning monarch was made for recitation in Denmark.
Old English end-rhymed poetry is known from the tenth century or
earlier; it includes the so-called Rhyming Poem, whose metre is very
similar to runkent. The association of Egill Skallagrimsson with England
has consequently led some scholars to believe that he got to know the
form from vernacular examples there, but the ultimate origins are
doubtless to be sought in Latin verse.
Hrynhenda or hrynhendr háttr has alliteration and internal rhyme like
dróttkvætt but instead of six syllables to the line it has eight. It has been
seen by some as a straightforward extension of dróttkvætt, but the flow of
the rhythm is different and for the first time in Norse verse we find
strong tendencies towards a regular repetitive beat, a trochaic move­
ment in imitation of Latin verse — a rhythm that was to prevail in
Icelandic poetry for centuries to come. It may also be noted that what is
regarded as the oldest fragment in this form is distinctively Christian in
content, supposed to have been made by a Hebridean in the midst of
tempest in the Greenland Sea just before AD 1000:
Mínar bið ek at munka reyni
meinalausan farar beina,
heiðis haldi hårar foldar
hallar dróttinn yfir mér stalli.
METRES 87
The next certain instance is a whole poem made in the metre by Arnórr
jarlaskáld c. 1046. Three hundred years later Eysteinn used it in his
famous Lilja, so in later Icelandic the form has often been called Liljulag,
the “Lilja tune”.
Finally the metre may be mentioned which Snorri called hálfhneþt
(“half-chopped”, “truncated”, to use Turville-Petre’s glosses). This is
dróttkvœtt but without the final unstressed ending. We need not stop to
discuss the various theories that have been put forward to explain the
origin of this form. A well-known love stanza by Björn Breiðvíkinga-
kappi (late tenth century) provides a good example:
Sýlda skar ek svana fold
súðum því at gæibrúðr
ástum leiddi oss fast
austan með hlaðit flaust.
Víða gat ek vásbúð,
víglundr nú um stund
helli byggir hugfullr
hingat fyr konu bing.

Scaldic diction
“There are two features which distinguish all poetry,” says Snorri,
“diction and metre.” The specialised poetic diction is usually divided
into two kinds: heiti (or ókennd heiti) y “appellations”, and kenningar,
“kennings”. Snorri uses the term heiti of all substantives found in verse
whether everyday or special to poetry, but nowadays we generally
reserve the term for nouns employed in poetry but not in ordinary
speech or written prose: words like 70V “horse”, jöfurr “prince”, mœkir
“sword”. A kenning on the other hand is made up of two substantival
elements, either compounded like oddbreki “point-wave”, blood, hrein-
braut “reindeer-road”, land, or in genitive relationship, like unnar hestr
“wave’s horse”, ship, örva drif “arrows’ snowstorm”, battle. The main
element may be called the base-word, the genitive word (or its equiva­
lent) the qualifier. It is said that a ship is called a horse and kennt tily
“attributed to” or “referred to”, a wave. But each part of a kenning may
itself be expressed as a kenning. A ship may then be called svana strindar
blakkr “(pale) steed of swans’ land”, where “swans’ land” means sea; or
allra landa umbands harbvigg “hard horse of the girdle of all lands”; battle
may be hrafns vins hregg “storm of the wine of the raven”, i.e. of blood,
88 SCALDIC POETRY

Sköglar bords skelfihríð “storm that makes shudder the board of Skögul”
(Skögul is a valkyrie, whose board is a shield); or as part of the most
extended kenning in all scaldic poetry, nausta blakks hlémána gtfrs drifa
“storm of the trollwoman of the lee-moon of the (pale) steed of boat-
sheds”: “steed of boatsheds” is a ship, whose “lee-moon” is a shield —
shields were mounted on the topstrake of a warship; a shield’s “troll-
woman” is an axe, the axe’s storm is battle.
Our comprehension of this peculiar diction depends fundamentally
on Snorri’s Edda: when a fourteenth-century poet like Eysteinn in his
Lilja talks of Eddu regia, “the rule of the Edda”, he means what Snorri
lays down on the subject of intricate and puzzling kennings. In Gylfa-
ginning (cf. p. 176) Snorri tells the myths which one needs to know in
order to understand kennings of heathen content, and in Skáldskaparmál
(p. 178) he shows how things can be described by kennings that refer to
the divine and human worlds and he relates more of the myths and
heroic legends necessary for their understanding.
The obscurity of scaldic poetry is made all the greater by the fact that
word-order and clause-distribution are generally very different from
that of ordinary communication, spoken or written. Each half-stanza
forms an independent unit but within its brief limits the poet has great
freedom in disposing his statements. It is often doubtful which words go
with which, and we are faced with a variety of interpretations depending
on critics’ views of how one should connect or understand the parts of
the half-stanza under discussion, i.e. how to arrange the words to give
the sense the poet intended. It is of course also possible that poets
sometimes meant their words to be ambiguous or to serve a dual
purpose.

Origins
Bragi’s Ragnarsdrdpa, which early sources count the oldest of scaldic
poetry, had pictures on a shield for its subject. We have fragments of
other early shield-poems and references to others again that are lost.
The depictions on these shields were often illustrations of myths, and we
know that other scaldic poems were composed on exploits of the gods:
whether they or some of them were shield-poems as well we do not
know. A related kind is Úlfr Uggason’s Húsdrápa which described
mythological motifs as they appeared in carvings on the walls of a new
house built by Óláfr pái at Hjarðarholt c. 985. As we have seen, much
scaldic diction is closely connected with pagan religious beliefs: ken-
ORIGINS 89
nings are full of references to gods and goddesses and make free use of
divine names. It is natural therefore to consider all this under one head
and to conclude that, like pictorial art, poetry was a handmaid of
religion — a connection that remained unbroken throughout the pagan
period, no matter whether the subject-matter of the scaldic verse
concerned the gods directly or not. Names of gods and valkyries had
two-fold significance: in kennings they come in phrases referring to men
and weapons and battle, and so serve one purpose; but at the same time
they serve another by inevitably drawing attention to the origins of the
imagery in heathen belief and to the existence of the pagan deities and
their intervention in human affairs — after all, poetry itself was a gift
from Óðinn.

Preservation
As we have seen — with the Codex Regius as our best witness —
numerous eddaic poems were recorded entire and collected together in
manuscript books. We know of no similar collections of scaldic verse,
but after the art of writing was introduced in Iceland some poems found
individual record, especially poems on Christian subjects — indeed,
these were very probably written down as soon as they were composed.
Older scaldic poetry lived on orally, at least for some time. A vast
amount has undoubtedly been lost, but what remains was saved chiefly
because it was put to use in prose writings, sagas of various kinds and
didactic works — Snorri, for example, includes many stanzas or parts of
stanzas and even complete poems in his Edda. Authors cited verses to
substantiate their history-writing — in the prologues to his separate
Óláfs saga helga and Heimskringla Snorri devoted some famous lines to the
principles of such citation. But this means that whole poems are rarely
quoted, usually only individual stanzas as the narrative proceeds. The
poems now have to be reconstructed from many small parts, but we can
seldom be confident that a complete text has been recovered or stanzas
restored in absolutely the right sequence.
As we have observed, some eddaic poems, especially the older ones,
are badly preserved and consequently difficult to understand. We face
still more problems when we come to interpret scaldic verse. The
complex but regular form of the dróttkvœtt metre was admittedly a
notable mnemonic aid, but the specialised diction and the syntactic
“dismembering” did little to help comprehensible oral transmission.
When the verse was recorded in prose narratives, it was cited, as we just
90 SCALDIC POETRY

saw, in isolated bits and pieces, a form of quotation which did nothing to
make the meaning clearer. An author sometimes tried to correct the
verse he quoted, not necessarily to its advantage. Subsequently copies
were made, and copies of copies, and in this process the verse ran the
same dangers as in oral transmission or worse dangers still. Scribes who
understood only a fraction of the verse they were copying put their own
misapprehensions and errors into circulation and made unsuccessful
attempts to improve their originals. Dróttkvætt verse is a delicate struc­
ture —one word wrong, one mistake breeding another, and half a stanza
becomes a total enigma. Many dróttkvœtt stanzas are in this state. We
know that some corruption has crept in, but the chances of putting it
right are almost nil.
With these reservations in mind, we may turn to the two main groups
of scaldic poetry, poems on kings and great men and “free-standing” or
“occasional” stanzas, Icelandic lausavisur, which we may keep as a
convenient technical term.

Poems addressed to kings and great men

A custom of great antiquity, widespread and certainly common
among all the Germanic peoples, was for poets to declaim poems in the
presence of kings and other great patrons. Stories tell of poets reciting
old heroic lays; a famous example is Þormóðr Kolbrúnarskáld’s render­
ing of the ancient Bjarkamál to St Óláfr and his men on the morning of
the battle of Stiklestad. But it was preeminently their own compositions
that poets presented — dróttkvætt verse in the literal and proper sense of
that term (p. 84). In an illiterate world the poets were both the
entertainers and the memorialists of great men. They told the tale of
their exploits and battles. But generally speaking the matter of these
poems is less weighty than one might expect from contemporary recor­
ders. More effort goes into the form, less into the content. Ships at sea
and battles are described in more or less the same terms over and over
again, the clash of weapons and the screech of carrion fowl are there in
plenty, but the events themselves drown in the flood of kennings.
Most scaldic poems were composed on rulers of Norway, but we are
told of some made in honour of kings of Denmark and Sweden, even of
England, and a few such poems are still preserved whole or fragmen­
tary. Leaders of lesser status, the earls of Orkney and chieftains of hersir
rank in Norway, for example, also received panegyric poems from
scalds. Elegiac praise-poems were also composed. We further know of
POEMS ADDRESSED TO KINGS AND GREAT MEN 91

The Karlevi stone in Ö la n d Sweden} the oldest literary record containing a

dróttkvætt stanza. The stone was raised about the yea r 1000 over the grave o f a
Danish chieftain who died in Öland.
92 SCALDIC POETRY

poems made to glorify Icelanders: Pormóðr Trefilsson for instance

composed a poem called Hrafnsmál, “Raven lay”, on Snorri goði, which
was used by the author of Eyrbyggja saga; and Þormóðr Kolbrúnarskáld
commemorated his foster-brother, Þorgeirr Hávarsson, in a poem which
was a main source for the first part of Fóstbræbra saga where the tale of
Porgeirr’s manslaughters is told.
Praise-poems were composed in the metres described above and in a
few other varieties, but the form most commonly used was dróttkvœtt. A
poem (kvæbi) is classified as a drapa or a flokkr, depending on the
disposition of the stanzas, not on the metre as such. A drápa is distin­
guished by the use of one or more refrains (stej) repeated at various
intervals. The parts between the refrains were called stejjabdlkar (refrain
dividers or sections — balkr = a balk of timber), and the last part of the
poem was the slœmr, perhaps another loan from carpentry since the word
otherwise means the angled crosscut which finishes off the end of a
beam. A flokkr (group, band, flock), on the other hand, was a sequence
of stanzas without refrains. The drápa was naturally thought a more
distinguished form than the flokkr. The story is told that Knutr the
Great of England and Denmark took offence when Porarinn loftunga
presented him with a flokkr and was going to have him hanged, but
Porarinn saved his neck by inserting refrains and so transforming his
poem into a drápa.

Lausavísur
Snorri’s Edda, the grammatical treatises and many þættir and sagas —
kings’ sagas, sagas of Icelanders and Siurlunga saga, these last two in
particular — preserve a variety of stanzas, singly or in short sequences,
most of them dróttkvœtt, which are associated with fleeting occasions.
Whereas verses from flokkar and drápur are used to substantiate what is
told in the prose of a story, lausavtsur are themselves part, sometimes
indeed the core, of the narrative, and often add to what the prose relates.
This is possible because they are presented as composed on the spur of
the moment, or at least in more-or-less immediate association with the
events described. Poems composed on long-past events could naturally
not be used in this way.
Few doubts have been cast on the authenticity of the saga-attribu­
tions of praise-poems, but it is clear that some of the stanzas found in
sagas of Icelanders —especially the later ones —cannot have been made
by the poets whose work they are said to be. Late word-forms provide
LAUSAVÍSUR 93
the best evidence for such false attributions. One prime problem is
where to draw the line between genuine and spurious ascriptions, and
another is how to decide whether verses of suspect origin were made to
accompany a story in an oral stage or were composed when a saga was
written. These problems are extraordinarily difficult to resolve, not least
because the scaldic metres retained their fixed characteristics and the
dróttkvœtt style changed little from one century to another. Some stanzas
were evidently not composed in the circumstances related in the sagas,
but even so they may still have been composed by the poets named;
alternatively, the verses cited may be ancient but made by other poets
and in other situations than those described in the prose narratives.

Scaldic poets
We have a source called Skáldatal, “enumeration of poets”, known in
late thirteenth-century versions but thought possibly to have originated
with a list first compiled by Snorri. It gives the names of Norwegian and
Icelandic poets and the rulers in whose honour they composed. In some
cases we know no more of the poets and their poems than is found in the
list. The first scald named there is Starkaðr the Old, of whom it says,
“His poems are the most ancient of those that people know nowadays;
he composed on kings of the Danes.” But no one now has much confi­
dence in the authenticity of the verse attributed to him or to any other of
his “contemporaries” in the fornaldars'ógur.

On the border between the prehistoric and the historic stands the
figure of Bragi Boddason the Old, who lived in the ninth century but
whether in its first or second half is disputed. Fragments of stanzas are
attributed to him in Snorri’s Edda and said to be from a poem called
Ragnarsdrápa — descriptions of pictures on a shield given to the poet by a
certain Ragnarr (possibly Ragnarr loðbrók, cf. p. 358). The themes are
mythical and heroic: Þórr fishing for Miðgarðsormr; Gefjun ploughing
out “Denmark’s increment” — the island of Sjælland —from the land of
Gylfi, king of the Swedes; Hamðir and Sörli taking vengeance —

Knátti eðr við illan Again, Jörmunrekr woke

Jörmunrekr at vakna to harsh reality
með dreyrfáar dróttir among blood-shining retainers
draum í sverða flaumi. in an eddy of swords.
94 SCALDIC POETRY

Rósta varð í ranni Tumult rose in the hall

Randvés höfuðniðja, of the chief kinsman of Randver
þá er hrafnbláir hefnðu when the raven-black brothers of Erpr
harma Erps of barmar. avenged their wrongs.
In Ragnarsdrápa we see that the specialised poetic diction is already
remarkably well established and some of the kennings are complex:
evidently some period of development in the dróttkvætt style had pre­
ceded its composition. But the kenning imagery is more lively than in
subsequent poetry, the kenning components have a fresh, individual
significance, they are not empty word-play. There is also less regularity
in the internal rhyming than the later conventions required. These
features give the verse an archaic stamp, and scholars generally incline
to the view that this is indeed the oldest scaldic poetry we possess.

“There were poets in the following of King Haraldr [Fairhaired],”

says Snorri, and Skdldatal names six of them. The best known were
Porbfóm hornklofi and Þjóðólfr of Hvin. Two poems by Þorbjörn are known
— incomplete, of course, like most of the extant scaldic praise-poems.
One of them has been dubbed Haraldskvœdi or Hrafnsmal — the latter
name is because the poet presents his poem as spoken by a raven to a
valkyrie. It is in a mixture of málaháttr and Ijóðaháttr, closely related in
form to the oldest of the eddaic lays. The raven had followed the king
when he undertook his youthful conquests, and in the first part of the
poem he describes the battle of Hafrsfjörðr. In the latter part he
portrays life in the king’s retinue, and it can be seen that the king’s poets
were well content with their royal rewards:
Á gerðum sér þeira One sees from their gear
ok á gullbaugum and from their gold bracelets
at þeir eru i kunnleikum that they are on close terms with
við konung, the king;
feldum ráða þeir rauðum they dispose of cloaks red
ok vel fagrrenduðum, and beautifully striped,
sverðum silfrvöföum, of swords wound with silver,
serkjum hringofnum, ring-woven corselets,
gylldum andfetlum gilded baldrics
ok gröfnum hjálmum, and chased helmets,
hringum handbærum bracelets worth wearing
er þeim Haraldr valði. which Haraldr picked out for them.
The other poem by Þorbjörn hornklofi is in dróttkvœtt, Glymdrápa, “the
ringing drapa". The name shows that men thought the hall resounded
SCALDIC POETS 95
when such a poem was declaimed, but to us the poem seems frigid and
empty, once the grand ornament is stripped away.
Two poems by Þjóðólfr are also known. Haustldng is a dróttkvætt
shield-poem describing mythological scenes, like Bragi’s Ragnarsdrápa.
The dróttkvœtt form is stricter here but the pictures are full of life
nevertheless.
It is Þjóðólfr’s other poem, Ynglingatal, which is better known. He
composed it in honour of Rögnvaldr heiðumhæri, a cousin of King
Haraldr Fairhaired. Snorri used it as his chief source in Ynglinga saga,
and says of it: “In that poem he named thirty of his [Rögnvaldr’s]
ancestors and told of the death and burial place of each one of them.”
The poem is a notable source for the student of ancient folklore, and it is
no wonder that Þjóðólfr got him fróbi, “the wise”, as a nickname. The
metre is kviðuháttr. The poem is well preserved; the word-order is simple
and the many kennings are easily understood:
Ok Ingjald And at Ræningr
ífjörvan trað the one who sends smoke gushing
reyks rösuðr trod down the still living
á Ræningi, Ingjaldr,
þá er húsþjófr when the housebreaker
hyrjar leistum on stockinged feet of flame
goðkynning stepped right through
í gegnum steig. the man of divine descent.
It may seem surprising that it is the deaths of all these ancient kings
that form the poem’s main subject — though it is true that most of them
ended their days in ways worth telling. And there is some compensation
in a pleasant prospect of relaxation in the next world for some of them:
Ok Austmarr And the Baltic Sea
jöfri follnum sings songs of Gymir [the ocean]
Gy mis ljóð for the pleasure
at gamni kveðr. of the fallen prince.

Haraldr Fairhaired’s eldest son and successor, Eirikr Bloodaxe, was

forced to leave Norway and was killed in England in 954. His queen,
Gunnhildr, commissioned an unnamed poet to make a memorial poem
in his honour, which in modern times has been given the name
Eiríksmál. We have the opening of it in Fagrskinna. Like Haraldskvœði
(Hrafnsmál) and some of the eddaic lays it is a mixture of málaháttr and
Ijóðahattr. Óðinn wakes early in Valhöll and is gladdened by the dream
96 SCALDIC POETRY

he has had — an outstanding king is coming who will help him at

ragnarok:
því at ovist er at vita, for it is a problem to know
sér ulfr inn hösvi — the grey wolf looks baleful
(greypr) á sjöt goða. at the dwellings of the gods.
The bench-boards in Valhöll creak as Eirikr approaches; Sigmundr and
Smooth, the Völsung heroes, are sent to receive him, and the fragment
ends with Eirikr’s arrival followed by five other kings who had fallen
with him in his last battle.

Eyvindr Finnsson got the nickname skáldaspillir, “spoiler of scalds”,

doubtless because he was thought too much of a plagiarist and not an
improver of what he borrowed. He was a poet of King Hákon Aðal-
steinsfóstri, “the Good”. About AD 960 Håkon was mortally wounded
in the battle of Fitjar, fighting against the sons of Eirikr Bloodaxe and
Gunnhildr. When they came to rule in Norway after Hákon’s death,
Eyvindr’s position was difficult, and his verse reveals both his mourning
for the loss of Håkon and his hostility to the sons of Gunnhildr. He also
composed a separate memorial poem on his dead king, Hákonarmál,
preserved in Heimskringla. It is modelled to some extent on Eiriksmal and
uses a similar blend of málaháttr and Ijóðaháttr. Eyvindr goes further than
the Eiríksmál poet, however, in making Óðinn send two of his valkyries
to choose Håkon as a suitable warrior for Valhöll. The battle is
described with resounding phrases and grand, bloodstained imagery:
Brunnu beneldar Wound-fires burnt
í blóðgum undum, in bloody gashes,
lutu langbarðar swords leaned
at lýða fjörvi, towards men’s vitals,
svarraði sárgymir wound-sea surged
á sverða nesi, on the headland of swords,
fell flóð fleina flood of javelins
í Qöru Storðar. fell on the foreshore of Stord.
This time it is Hermóðr and Bragi who are sent to receive the dead
king. On his entry Håkon thinks Óðinn eyes him malevolently —
doubtless because he had been a Christian. But Bragi reminds him that
he has eight brothers in Valhöll, and it is now made plain that Håkon
had also allowed his subjects to keep their pagan faith:
Þá þat kynndisk Then it was made known
hvé sá konungr hafði how well that king
SCALDIC POETS 97
vel of þyrmt véum, had cared for sanctuaries
er Håkon báðu when all those
heilan koma who have domination and power
ráð öll ok regin. bade Håkon welcome.
Eyvindr’s enemies called him “spoiler of scalds” but there is no need
to let them spoil our judgment. Hákonarmál is in fact one of the very best
of all Norse poems. As the gods lead Håkon into Valhöll, so the poem
leads us into an antique world where two faiths struggle for mastery.
The closing stanzas convey the poet’s grief in simple words, but they
have such power that posterity’s opinion of King Håkon has always
been shaped by them; and they give him a cognomen as fair as
Eyvindr’s was foul and undeserved:
Góðu dœgri On a day of fair omen
verðr sá gramr of borinn is a king born
er sér getr slikan sefa, who acquires such a temperament;
hans aldar his time
mun æ vera will always be
at góðu getit. spoken of with fair words.

Mun óbundinn The wolf Fenrir

á ýta sjöt will move unfettered
Fenrisulfr fara, against the dwellings of men
áðr jafngóðr before as good
á auða tröð a king-man comes
konungmaðr komi. to this desolate land.

It has long been believed that the composition of scaldic verse more or
less ceased in Norway at the end of the tenth century. But various
studies and discoveries in recent years show that the art lived on among
the Norwegians — and it would have been extraordinary if it had not.
The excavations at Bryggen in Bergen, for example, have brought to
light rune-sticks with dróttkvætt verse on them; they are dated to c. 1200
and later, on into the fourteenth century, though of course the verse
itself may be older than its inscription. Lack of the right literary kinds
meant that little Norwegian poetry was preserved. Scaldic poems were
embedded in sagas of kings — and these were written in Iceland.
Everyday verse and probably some praise-poems too were lost among
the Norwegians because there were no sagas to frame them. We may
compare the situation in Iceland, where we find few lausavtsur preserved
from ages that found no record or reflection in sagas (cf. below, p. 179).
7 Eddas and Sagas
98 SCALDIC POETRY

But it remains a fact that no Norwegian praise-poems are extant from

after the time of Eyvindr. If there was much poetry made of this kind,
some of it would surely have been preserved because of its source-value,
even though the sagas were written in Iceland and not in Norway. But
in Iceland the practice of scaldic poetry waxes as it wanes in Norway;
verse becomes a kind of national game and an article of export. Young
Icelanders with skill in the craft visited foreign rulers, presented their
drápur, and were rewarded with honours and gifts. Sometimes the poet
stayed with his patron for a shorter or longer time; sometimes he
continued his triumphant voyaging from one king to another, always
with a new “cargo of praise” on board. Many perils might meet the poet
in a turbulent world — some never came back, but others returned to
their family-farms, rich in knowledge of foreign ways and distant events.
Later their poems and careers made them both source-men and heroes
in the written sagas of kings. The panegyric kind of poetry flourished
almost without a break for many centuries and it did not finally
succumb until towards 1300. Sagas took the place of scaldic poetry as
sources of knowledge about the past. But the hrynhent metre was popular
in religious verse down to the Reformation, and the scaldic diction was
inherited by the rimur-poets and has lived on to the present day.

The first — and the greatest — of all Icelandic scalds was Egill
Skallagrimsson. It is astonishing that this kind of poetry should reach
such a peak of achievement straightway at the outset. But the eddaic
lays and the early Norwegian scaldic verse show that a long evolution
lay behind it, and we know that the art flourished among Egill’s
kinsmen and forebears in Norway. It is true that Egill was a great poet
in any case, but he would never have attained such heights if others had
not already laid the foundations.
A separate saga was written on Egill’s career: an outstanding work of
art which will always mould our ideas about him. But it will never be
decided whether the saga depends on reliable oral tradition, whether
Egill was really the man the saga makes him. There are no serious
discrepancies between what the saga tells and what we learn from the
lausavisur and poems there ascribed to him: and in fact the verse does
confirm various features of the saga’s portrait, though, as might be
expected, it does not reveal all the characteristics with which the author
endows his personality. Egill was a son of one of the most prominent
settlers in Iceland and himself a chieftain in Borgarfjörður. The stanza
SCALDIC POETS 99
he is supposed to have composed when he was six, Pat mælti min móðir,
shows how deep engrained in these kinsmen the fighting strain was.
Egill got his wish, he sailed to foreign lands, took part in Viking raids
and pitched battles, composed drápur on mighty kings. He made many
lausavisur, full of skilfully wrought imagery, on his forays and fights. He
is better than most scalds in maintaining the congruent style Snorri
called nygervingar: “It is nygervingar to call the sword a snake, using a
correct kenning, and the scabbard its paths, and the straps and covering
its skin,” he says, and cites a stanza to demonstrate the figure. There is a
famous description in the saga, of Egill sitting in King Athelstan’s hall,
mournful and with eyebrows sunk and louring because of the death of
his brother, Þórólfr: “Then the king drew his sword from the scabbard
and took a bracelet from his arm, a fine big one, slipped it over the
sword’s point, stood up and stepped onto the floor and stretched it
across the fire to Egill. Egill stood up and drew his sword and stepped
onto the floor, he stabbed his sword into the bight of the ring and drew it
his way, went back to his place. The king sat down in the high seat. And
when Egill sat down, he slipped the ring on his arm, and then his
eyebrows came into place.” In the stanza cited to support this account,
the poet likens the gold bracelet to a ringing noose, hrynvirgill, and the
arm to the “windy tree — the gallows — of the hawk”, heibis vingameidr.
So the king, referred to as “god of the mail-shirt” (brynju Höðr), hangs
this noose on the gibbet. Then the poet lifts the ring, which is called the
“cord of the gallows-beam of the shield-wearier” (gelgju seil rítmæðis) — a
sword “wearies” a shield, the “gallows-beam” of a sword is the arm of
its wielder — the “cord” of the arm is thus the bracelet. The same image
is maintained: Egill takes the bracelet from the king’s sword with his
own sword: and he describes his sword as the “gibbet-bar” of the
“spear-storm” (gálgi geirveðrs), a kind of fatal sign-post of battle. Egill
compresses all this most beautifully and economically into 36-odd
syllables, and has room to add in an interlaced clause “the feeder of
battle-hawks commands all the more praise:”

Hrammtangar lætr hanga The god of the mail-shirt [warrior]

hrynvirgil mér brynju suspends the ringing noose of the fist-tongs
[bracelet]
Höðr á hauki troðnum on the hawk-trodden
heiðis vingameiði. gallows of the falcon [arm].
Rítmœðis kná ek reiða I raise the cord of the gallows-beam
— ræðr gunnvala bræðir — of the shield-wearier [bracelet]
100 SCALDIC POETRY

gelgju seil á gálga on the gibbet-bar of spear-storm [sword],

geirveðrs — lofi at meira. The feeder of battle-hawks [warrior]
commands all the more praise.

EgilPs fame as a poet, however, depends not on his lausavisur but on

the three longer poems by him that have survived, though by no means
in perfect condition. Two of them are in simpler metres which allow
freer rein to the poet’s imagination.
The best-preserved is Höfuðlausn, “Head-ransom” — whatever the
reason for its good state may be. The saga tells that Egill fell foul of King
Eirikr Bloodaxe, cursed him with a “pole of scorn”, and killed one of his
sons. Afterwards Eirikr was driven out of Norway and ruled in York
with his wife, Gunnhildr. Arinbjörn hersir, Egill’s old friend and kins­
man of his wife, Asgerðr, is in exile with the king. Because of a tempest
raised by Gunnhildr’s witchcraft, Egill’s ship is driven to the Yorkshire
coast and wrecked off the mouth of the Humber. He goes straight to
Arinbjörn in York, who sees nothing for it but to take him boldly to
King Eirikr and appeal for mercy. Gunnhildr wants Egill killed at once
but Arinbjörn persuades the king to postpone the execution till morn­
ing. He now advises Egill to make a poem in praise of Eirikr, and in
what is left of the night Egill composes a twenty-stanza drapa in the
novel runhenda metre (cf. p. 86 ). In the morning he recites it before the
king and queen and is given his head as a reward. The rhymed verse is
plangent and the diction strident, but the poem is singularly devoid of
precise statements of fact, even for a scaldic encomium. One explana­
tion offered for this is that the poem was made in haste and on an
uncongenial subject. Other critics deny Egill’s story. They note that this
is only one of several inter-related “head-ransom” tales in early litera­
ture, and what we have is a literary motif borrowed by one author after
another. They also detect signs of late composition in the language. In
countering this view, other critics claim that ancient metrical rules are
observed in the drápa and that, although the poem is unlike others by
Egill in form and content, it has certain features of style in common with
his poetry that are not easy to parallel in the work of other early scalds.
Finally we may register the argument, not the least weighty of them,
that in his Edda Snorri refers to the poem on more than one occasion and
unhesitatingly ascribes it to Egill.
Arinbjörn’s good support in York did nothing to reduce Egill’s warm
regard for him, and if Höfuðlausn has a certain frigidity, Egill could make
SC ALDI C POETS 10 1

up for it by a more ardent tone when composing on his friend. His

Arinbjarnarkvida is only preserved in Möðruvallabók, the great four­
teenth-century codex containing sagas of Icelanders, where it is written
on a single page at the end of Egils saga. This page is not completely
legible and the following leaf which contained the end of the poem is
lost. By the mercy of providence, however, we know two more stanzas
because they are cited by Óláfr hvítaskáld in his Málskrúðsfrœði,
“doctrine of rhetoric55 (often referred to as the Third Grammatical Treatise,
cf. p. 130). So enough remains of the poem to give us a good idea of its
qualities: the verse is ablaze with sincerity but under the control of an
extraordinarily powerful and precise word-craft. Egill has a good deal to
say about his visit to York and confirms that he carried his “head-
ransom to the prince's knees55. In what seems the last stanza, quoted by
Óláfr hvítaskáld, Egill regards his work with the satisfaction of a
Horace:
Var ek árvakr, I was early wakeful,
bar ek orð saman I gathered words together
meö málþjóns with the morning labours
morginverkum, of the speech-servant [tongue];
hlóð ek lofköst I built a stack of praise
þann er lengi stendr which will long stand,
óbrotgjarn not hasty to collapse,
í bragar túni. in the courtyard of poetry.
The saga tells that when Egill heard of the death by drowning of
Böðvarr his son, he decided to starve himself to death. His daughter
Þorgerðr persuaded him not to end his life until he had made a
memorial poem for him. Egill had lost another son, Gunnarr, not long
before, and he remembers both the boys in his Sonatorrek, “Sad loss of
sons55 (torrek originally meant “difficult vengeance55, then “great loss55).
In its way this poem is as badly preserved as Arinbjarnarkviða — we have
it more-or-less complete but only in late paper manuscripts that are
seriously corrupt. Nevertheless this must be counted the most remark­
able poem we now have by any named poet of the Viking Age. Only the
greatest of the eddaic poems will stand comparison with it.
Sonatorrek is the lament of a grieving father. At first he finds it difficult
to utter his thoughts, as he plainly says in the first stanza:
Mjök erum tregt It is a hard drag for me
tungu at hrœra to move my tongue
 102 SCALDIC POETRY

er-a nu vænt there is no prospect now

of Viðurs þýfl of Óðinn’s theft [poetry],
né hógdrœgt nor is it easily drawn
or hugar fylgsni. from thought’s hide-out.

His solitariness stabs him: he remembers that he had lost father and
mother, and now Rán and Ægir, goddess and god of the sea, have
robbed him of his son:
Grimmt varum hlið To me it was a harsh breach
þat er hrönn of braut which the wave
föður mins broke in my father’s
á frændgarði, kindred-wall;
veit ek ófullt I know the gap
ok opit standa left by my son,
sonar skarð which the sea made for me,
er mér sær of vann. stands vacant and void.
For a moment his Viking nature surges up: if he could take vengeance
with the sword he would set out to attack the rulers of the sea. But he
sees that is hopeless, he has not the strength to contend against his son’s
slayer. Grief for loss again overwhelms him, grief for loss of son, brother,
friends. And grief for what he now finds worthy of record in the latter
part of his poem: Óðinn had earlier taken his other son “in the fire of
sickness” to join him in the world of the gods:
Áttak gótt I was on good terms
við geirs dróttin, with the lord of the spear,
gerðumk tryggr I made myself secure
at trua honum - in trust of him . . .

he says, but now the god has severed their ties of friendship and so Egill
is reluctant to sacrifice to him. But “Egill began to improve as the
making of the poem progressed,” says the saga, and indeed one may
clearly read this out of the poem itself. By the end he has quelled his
grief and reconciled himself with Óðinn through his poetry:
Gafumk íþrótt The enemy of the wolf [Óðinn],
ulfs of bági used to battle,
vigi vanr gave me a skill
vammi firrða, removed from blemish,
SCALDIC POETS 103
ok þat geð and such a cast
er ek gerða mer of mind that I made
visa fjandr open enemies
af vélöndum. of wily plotters.

Skal ek þó glaðr Yet glad,

með góðan vilja in good heart
ok óhryggr and not cast down,
heljar bíða. shall I wait for death.
Although Icelandic poets of old assiduously cultivated praise-poetry
and won advancement at foreign courts, not many works of this kind
appeal to modern readers. It has been said that they aim more at the
head than the heart. Some indefatigable students dig deep into them
and believe they can appreciate them like any other verse, but most
people find them more like puzzles than poems. The content is thin and
the poets not deeply engaged; they ply their trade for profit, not as a
vocation. The dróttkvœtt metre and other complex forms are fetters that
chain inspiration and imagination. The success of Icelandic poets in the
courts of foreign rulers makes a remarkable tale, out of this world, but
modern readers find their poems chiefly valuable as monuments of
history and philology. Sigurður Nordal found it appropriate to give the
first part of his chapter on Icelandic court-poets in his book, íslenzk
menning, the title, “A dead literature’s living story” — Lifandi saga daubra
bókmennta.
The quantity of scaldic verse preserved from the century following
Egill’s mature period is more or less equally divided between praise-
poems and lausavisur. As one would expect, the former are chiefly found
in kings’ sagas, the latter in the sagas and þœttir about Icelanders. The
period told of in the sagas of Icelanders ends about AD 1050, and
thereafter we have a century and a half from which very little verse is
known. In Porgils saga ok Hafliba, telling of events from c. 1110'-1120,
and in Gubmundar saga djra, telling of events from c. 1180—1200, there
are 17 and 5 stanzas respectively. It is not until the recording of
“contemporary” sagas begins in earnest in the thirteenth century that
lausavisur once more appear in any number.

Kormákr Ögmundarson composed in honour of Sigurðr Hlaðajarl (died

c. 965). A few half-stanzas of his poem are preserved; they are unusual
because they each end with a clause that refers not to the earl, but to
104 SCALDIC POETRY

mythical and legendary tales (Seid Yggr til Rindar, Komsk Urdr ór brunni,
and so on). In Kormáks saga we are told that Kormákr was in love with
Steingerðr Þorkelsdóttir but failed to turn up at their wedding. The saga
contains a mass of stanzas, most of them attributed to Kormákr: some
are love-poetry on Steingerðr, some are scurrilous verse insulting the
two husbands she had. Scholars disagree whether this verse is really by
Kormákr. Some believe it was composed long after his day, even at the
time when the saga was written. The verse is badly preserved — the saga
is only found in Möðruvallabók — and that does not make the problem
any easier to solve. Nevertheless, there are various ancient features in
the verse that suit Kormákr’s time better than the saga-writer’s, while
on the other hand few young linguistic forms are apparent. And some of
the stanzas ascribed to Kormákr are in truth worthy of an earl’s poet:

Brim gnýr, brattir hamrar The surf roars, the steep cliffs
blålands Haka strandar, of the shore ofHaki’s dark land (waves),
allt gjálfr eyja þjálfa all the surge of the belt of islands (sea)
út líðr í stað víðis. flows out into the realm of the ocean.
Mér kveð ek heldr of Hildi I say that I am much more sleepless
hrannbliks en þér miklu than you
svefnfátt, sörva Gefnar because of the valkyrie of the light of the
sakna man ek ef ek vakna. wave (girl),
I shall miss the goddess of the necklace
(girl) if I awake.

Einarr skálaglamm Helgason composed a drápa in honour of Håkon jarl

Sigurðarson (died 995) which was called Vellekla (“gold-dearth” —
probably because people thought the poet showed little inhibition in
claiming reward for it). The poet harps on the theme of Hákon’s zealous
support for the pagan cults, and it is assumed that this emphasis is
because of Einarr’s awareness of the advance of Christianity. Snorri has
a high regard for Vellekla as a historical source and often quotes it in
Heimskringla.

From the end of the heathen period we have fragments of two poems
on mythological subjects, preserved in Snorri’s Edda. One is Húsdrápayso
called because, as was noted earlier, it was composed by ulfr Uggason on
the pictures carved on the wainscotting of Óláfr pái’s grand house at
Hjarðarholt. In what we have left the poet describes Þórr’s fishing for
Miðgarðsormr, Baldr’s funeral, and a swimming contest between Loki
and Heimdallr. The other poem, by Eilífr Guðrúnarsony was on Porr’s
SGALDIC POETS 105
visit to Geirröðr. This is the most difficult of all scaldic poems and will
never be fully understood. It demonstrates that the extended kenning
style was still as vigorous as ever. Most people will doubtless agree that
verbal art has gone astray in such a work as this, but anyone with a
mind to delve deep into Eilifr’s verse will be gripped by its majestic
imagery and magnetic mysteries.
But we are on the verge of a new epoch. Eilifr survived the transition
and later made poetry on Christ, though we know only half a stanza of
it. As we saw, kennings were rooted in heathen beliefs to no small degree
and now, when Christianity prevailed, they were torn up from their
native soil. It was felt unsuitable for newly converted poets to use
kennings containing names of pagan deities, and the necessary corollary
was that kennings became both fewer and simpler. This change first
becomes evident in poems on the missionary kings of Norway, Óláfr
Tryggvason and St Óláfr Haraldsson.

Hallfrebr Óttarsson made poems in honour of Óláfr Tryggvason (who

ruled AD 995—1000), both in the king’s lifetime and after his death. It
was the king, so we are told, who gave Hallfreðr his nickname vandrœða-
skáld, “troublous poet”, because he at first found him a handful to deal
with. Hallfreðr later became a staunch supporter of the king, and his
loyalty shows clearest in the admirable memorial drapa he composed
after Óláfr Tryggvason’s death at the battle of Svold:

Norðr eru oil of orðin All the northlands are become

auð lönd at gram dauðan, desolate on the king’s death;
allr glepsk friðr af falli all peace is confounded because of the fall
flugstyggs sonar Tryggva. of Tryggvi’s son, who shied away
from any thought of flight.
In this drápa Hallfreðr notably avoids kennings with pagan associa­
tions, doubtless out of deference to the Christian king who had stood
sponsor to him at his baptism. In Hallfredar saga, on the other hand, it
says that Hallfreðr long remained mixed in his beliefs, and he describes
his own dread of the next world in the last verse attributed to him (cf.
below, p. 229).
Judging from the sagas of the two poets, one would conclude that
Kormákr and Hallfreðr had careers that were similar in various ways,
but one must remember that Kormdks saga probably exerted a direct
literary influence on Hallfredar saga. Though Hallfreðr is in love with
Kolfinna, he will not marry her; and the saga quotes many verses which
106 SCALDIC POETRY

he made about her and her husband, Griss. Comparison of these stanzas
with Hallfreðr’s praise-poems puts no obstacle in the way of assuming
their common authorship.

Many Icelandic poets served or visited King Óláfr Haraldsson

(reigned 1015—1030) but one stands head and shoulders above the rest
— Sighvatr Þórðarson, from Apavatn in Grimsnes, not far north of
Skálholt. We have more verse by him — lausavisur and parts of many
longer poems — than by any other poet of the pre-literate age. Snorri
tells us that “Sighvatr was not a fluent man in prose speech, but verse
came to him so naturally that he spoke verse just as if he were talking in
ordinary language.” Such a man doubtless composed a vast amount of
verse, but to ensure its preservation in quantity he needed the advan­
tage he had of being the poet of a martyr-king on whom long written
sagas were put together. Snorri has much to tell of Sighvatr’s tactful
courtesy and sagacity, and it is clear from his poetry that he enjoyed the
king’s high favour. St Óláfr made him his marshal, for example, a post
of distinction in the royal retinue.
Avoidance of kennings with names of heathen divinities in them, first
observed in Hallfreðr’s poetry on Óláfr Tryggvason, was clearly Sig­
hvatr’s policy as well. This must be why his kennings are comparatively
few and easy to understand. It is not that he consciously cultivated a
simple style, however, for his word-order and syntax are as complex as
any scald’s, and it is often extremely difficult to work out exactly which
parts of his stanzas belong together.
Some of St Óláfr’s poets died with him at Stiklestad — Þormóðr
Kolbrúnarskáld among them, whose end was described by saga-authors
in a memorable death-scene — but Sighvatr missed the battle because
he was on pilgrimage to Rome. He describes his sorrow at the death of
his king in the stanza:
Há þótti mér hlæja The high, leaning cliffs round all Norway
höll of Nóreg allan seemed to me to smile
—fyrr var ek kenndr á when Óláfr was alive
knörrum — — I used to be known on ships.
klif meðan Óláfr liföi. Now, afterwards, the slopes seem to me
Nú þykki mér miklu much less friendly —
— mitt stríð er svá —hlíðir such is my grief.
(jöfurs hylli varð ek alia) I had the king’s complete favour.
óblíðari síðan.
SCALDIC POETS 107

The poet Sighvatr Þórðarson reciting verse to his companions on his journey to
Götaland. A drawing by Halfdan Egedius.

St Óláfr was killed fighting his own countrymen in 1030. His son,
Magnus, a boy only some ten years old, was brought home from exile to
become king of Norway five years later. As he grew to be independent,
he began to take harsh action against men who had been his father’s
opponents. The landowners and farmers were not prepared to put up
with this, and they chose Sighvatr to remonstrate with the young king.
Sighvatr elected to do so in verse and addressed Magnus in a poem
which has since been known as Bersöglisvísur, “frank-speech verses”. A
large part of it is preserved in Heimskringla, and we can see from it that
the poet brought the protest home to the king with skill and sincerity.
108 SCALDIC POETRY

He presents to him as models those earlier kings of Norway who had

been just law-givers and had made no exceptions in their own favour.
He lets it be understood that he could transfer his allegiance to King
Hörðaknútr in Denmark, but declares at the end of the poem that what
he most wants is to stay with Magnus:
Erum Magnus vér vægnir, Magnus, we are easy-going:
vilda ek með þér mildum I would want to live and die
— Haralds varðar þú hjörvi with your generous self —you protect
haukey — lifa ok deyja. Haraldr’s
hawk-island [Norway] with the sword.
The king turned over a new leaf on Sighvatr’s admonition and after­
wards became so popular that he was —and still is —called Magnús the
Good.

Sighvatr seems to have died soon after his protest to Magnus, or

perhaps he did after all leave the king’s service in spite of his assertion at
the end of Bersöglisvísur. His place was filled by Amórr Pórðarson, called
jarlaskald because he composed in honour of the Orkney earls. He was
one of the first poets we know to use the hrynhent metre (p. 86 ), in a poem
on King Magnus: apparently because the metre was so much of a
novelty, the poem was named after it and called Hrynhenda. The form is
rhythmic and sonorous, and it is in keeping that Arnórr’s poem is
laudatory and hyperbolic in the extreme:
Magnus, hlýð til máttigs óðar, Magnus, hear my matchless poem:
manngi veit ek fremra annan, mighty art thou, none more valiant!
yppa ráðumk yðru kappi, Praise I shall thy dauntless prowess,
Jóta gramr, í kvæði fljótu. Prince of Jutes, in rapid measures:
Haukr réttr ert þú, Hörða hawklike art thou, Lord of Hordland —
dróttinn, hardly any ruler like thee.
hverr gramr er þér storum verri, Thrive then may’st thou more than they
meiri verði þinn en þeira shall,
þrifnaðr alir, unz himinn rifnar. thane, till rive the very welkin.

(Lee M. Hollander, The Skalds,

Princeton 1945 [and reprinted],
p. 183.)

Arnórr also composed on Haraldr the Hardruler, Magnus’s successor,

and we have poems on these two kings by Arnorr’s contemporary,
Pjóðólfr Amórsson, as well. But Þjóðólfr was especially attached to
SCALDIC POETS 109
Haraldr and made a drápa in his praise called Sexstejja — that means it
had six refrains and must have been very long. We only have fragments
of it now.

From 1066 to 1093 Óláfr, son of Haraldr the Hardruler, was king of
Norway. He was a man of peace and got “the Quiet’’ as his nickname.
This had its effect, for court-poets could compose on few themes other
than strife and battle, and for a time there is almost no scaldic poetry to
speak of. His son and successor, however, was the warlike Magnus
Bareleg and a number of scalds made poems in his honour. One of them
was Gisl Illugason who composed a memorial drapa on Magnus (killed in
Ireland in 1103) using the metre fornyrdislag, a novelty in the scaldic
tradition. As the twelfth century progresses, we observe a change in
scaldic style, as poets once more begin to make unrestrained use of
“pagan” kennings. This must be the result of antiquarian interests: the
oldest known poets were taken as models. Christianity was firmly
established and uttering names of heathen gods was not going to imperil
one’s immortal soul. But this return to archaic diction makes the dating
of lausavisur all the more difficult.

We may end this survey by mentioning some of the chief poets from
the last phase of the dróttkvætt tradition. Markús Skeggjason the
Lawspeaker (died 1107) composed much verse, most notably a poem in
memory of the Danish king, Erik Ejegod, which follows the form of
Arnórr’s Hrynhenda. But in fact the best-known poet of the twelfth cen­
tury is Einarr Skúlason, priest. He composed praise-poems on several
rulers but little of them is preserved. His most famous poem is Geisli, in
honour of St Óláfr, which will be referred to below. Snorri Sturluson
(1179—1241) also composed laudatory poems on various princes and
even one on a Norwegian princess, but the only praise-poem of his
extant is the Háttatal preserved as part of his Edda (p. 175), on King
Håkon and Earl Skuli of Norway. The last of the court-poets to
bequeath us royal panegyrics were the brothers, Óláfr hvítaskáld (died
1259) and Sturla Pórðarson (died 1284). A good deal of Sturla’s poetry is
included in his history of King Håkon the Old, Hákonar saga Hakon-
arsonar.

Lausavisur. Many sagas of Icelanders, over and above those already

mentioned, contain verse that is customarily described as scaldic and
part of the dróttkvœtt tradition. Who actually made these stanzas is very
110 SCALDIC POETRY

hard to say. Some of them are probably ancient and correctly attri­
buted; some of them were composed in the oral story-telling stage that
came between the original events and the saga-recorded narrative. In
the circumstances it is best to heed the advice of one of our outstanding
literary historians: take the verse as it comes in the story, enjoy it if it is
good, and give up worrying about the poet’s identity.
An example of stanzas whose attribution seems self-evidently genuine
is to be found in the so-called Máhlíbingavísur by Þórarinn svarti Þórólfsson
cited in Eyrbyggja saga. In the verse — and in the saga narrative — the
poet appears as a peaceable man who is unwillingly drawn into feud.
The poetry is notable for the insight it gives into Þórarinn’s mind.
In contrast, most people think that the stanzas attributed to Gisli
Sursson cannot be as old as his saga would have us believe and that in­
stead they were composed to play a part in oral stories told about him,
probably in the twelfth century. The poet has however lived himself into
the role of Gisli the hunted outlaw in an admirably effective way, and
his verse both adds to the artistic appeal of the saga and deepens its
psychological realism.
The Gisla saga verse, and verse in other sagas of Icelanders that was
the creation of a story-telling — as distinct from a saga-writing — age, is
perhaps to be associated with the learned and antiquarian interests of
the twelfth century. Some didactic poems and others on antique heroes
are fruit of the same tree.

Rögnvaldr Kolsson, earl of Orkney, collaborated with an Icelander

named Hallr Pórarinsson to make a poem which in Orkneyinga saga is
referred to as Háttalykill him fomiy “the ancient key of metres”. The
fragments we have show that it exemplified many different metres,
though sometimes it is more a matter of stylistic than metrical variation.
The subject-matter is treated in a desultory way, the poets introducing
heroes known from eddaic poetry and jomaldarsbgur as well as Nor­
wegian kings from Haraldr Fairhaired to Magnus Bareleg. Generalised
battle-din is the staple content. Snorri composed his Háttatal on the
model of this earlier clavis rhythmica.

At least two drápur were composed on Óláfr Tryggvason long after his
death. One of them is Rekstejja by an otherwise unknown poet named
Hallar-Steinn (perhaps from Höll in Borgarfjörður?). Yet another
unknown scald is Haukr Valdisarson who composed íslendingadrápa, a
poem about ancient Icelandic heroes and warriors. The Jómsvikings
SCALDIC POETS 111
were also celebrated. A certain Porkell Gislason made a drapa on Bui, and
Bjami Kolbeinsson, bishop of Orkney, another, Jómsvíkingadrápa, with
Vagn Ákason as the chief hero. Bishop Bjarni’s poem has a personal
touch because he begins by speaking of the sorrows love has brought
him, and they echo again in the refrain:
Ein drepr fyrir mér allri A grandee’s wife
itrmanns kona teiti. ruins all my cheerfulness.
This is reminiscent of the plank, the amorous complaint of the French
troubadours, and it also points forward to the mans'óngvar, the introduc­
tory stanzas which rimur-poets often addressed in conventional love-
terms to women.
Bishop Bjarni is usually also counted the author of the so-called
Málsháttakvœði, “Proverb poem” — it is found with Jómsmkingadrápa in
the Codex Regius of Snorri’s Edda, the only manuscript to preserve the
two poems. The Málsháttakvæbi is made up of short aphoristic sentences,
usually proverbial statements modified to suit the verse-form. Some­
times the poet brings in motifs from ancient legend, sometimes he refers
to the pangs of love which he suffers on account of a woman called
Rannveig. The metre is a regular four-beat line in rhyming couplets
disposed in eight-line stanzas:
Yndit láta engir falt, Seldom offered —joy for sale;
allopt verðr í hreggi svalt, someone’s often chilled by gale;
andaðs drjúpa minjar mest, funeral over — soon forgot;
magran skyldi kaupa hest, fancy nags more lean than not;
œrit þykkir viðkvæm vá, woe’s an edge that cuts full keen —
vinfengin eru misjöfn þá, caring friends are then best seen;
fasthaldr varð á Fenri lagðr, fetters that Fenris-wolf should hold
fíkjum var hann mér rammligr fabulous strength had — so I’m told
sagðr.

Christian poetry
Scaldic poetry on Christian themes appears to be almost as old as the
Conversion itself. Hafgerdingadrápa, described above (p. 86), is sup­
posed to have been composed (by a Hebridean Norseman) on a voyage
to Greenland late in the tenth century. Eilífr Guðrúnarson made a
Pórsdrápa (p. 104) but also composed on Christ - locating his throne,
though, in the south by the well of Urðr, the pagan goddess of fate. Half
a stanza is extant:
112 SCALDIC POETRY

Setbergs, kveöa sitja They say he sits in the south

sunnr at Urðar brunni, by the well of Urðr:
svá hefir rammr konungr so the mighty king of Rome has
remmðan imposed himself
Roms banda sik löndum. on the lands of the mountain-gods
(Norway and Iceland?).

However strange it may seem, poets of the Christian faith made no

bones about adopting scaldic forms, even though traditional scaldic
diction was half-founded on pagan names and pagan myths. As we saw
above, the new poets understandably avoided outright pagan language
and took over only the metres and the general style of the earlier scalds.
They created new kennings for the persons and concepts of their new
theology, often caiques on existing Latin circumlocutions for God,
Christ, the Blessed Virgin, heaven and so on; e.g. for God Róms konungr
(king of Rome), himna harri (king of the heavens), himins dróttinn (lord of
heaven); for Mary sœvar stjama (star of the sea), sprunda gimsteinn (jewel
among women); for heaven guds h'óll (abode of God), engla vegr (path of
angels).

From the twelfth century onwards religious poems were written as

soon as they were composed, or composed pen in hand. The first of them
that can be dated with precision is Einarr Skulason’s Geisli, delivered in
the cathedral in Nidaros in 1153 or 1154, just after Nidaros had been
made a metropolitan see. The drápa is on St Óláfr, his death and
especially his miracles. The name Geisli, “beam” or “ray”, comes from
references to St Óláfr in the poem as geisli miskunnar solar “beam of the
sun of mercy” and geisli guds hallar “beam of God’s hall”. The
archbishop and the three kings who ruled in Norway at that time were
among Einarr’s first audience; and the saga tells us that the church was
filled with a sweet odour when he recited his poem.

A poem called Harmsól, on the theme of repentance, was composed by

Brother Gamli, an Augustinian canon of Þykkvabær. It reveals a sincere
and devout humility, the poet remorsefully confessing his own sins at
the same time as he describes Christ’s Passion and the doomsday to
come. From the same period, the late twelfth century, we also have
Plácitusdrápa, a versification of the legend of St Eustace, which we know
too in Icelandic prose; Leidarvisan, “the guide”, on the sanctity of the
sabbath and on various events that have fallen on Sundays; and
CHRISTIAN POETRY 113
Líknarbrauty “the road of grace”, on the Holy Rood. But probably the
religious verse of the early period which seems to us most moving
nowadays is the three rhyming stanzas which Kolbeinn Tumason is said to
have composed on the day he was struck down in battle against the
followers of Bishop Guðmundr Arason at Víðimýri on 9 September
1208:
Heyr þú himna smiðr Catch this scald’s cry,
hvers er skáldit biðr, Creator of the Sky —
komi mjuk til min make thy mercy flow
miskunnin þín, mild on me below.
því heit ek á þik, Thus I call on thee —
þú hefir skaptan mik, thou didst fashion me,
ek em þrællinn þinn, I am thrall all thine —
þú ert dróttinn minn. thou art master mine.

Sólarljóðy “Songs of the sun”, is a Christian work but it is unique

among the early religious poems and in matter and style very close to
eddaic poetry. It is only preserved in late manuscripts (seventeenth-
century the earliest) and its text is certainly imperfect. The age of
Sólarljóð is a mystery but scholars are chiefly disposed to date it to the
early thirteenth century. The metre is Ijóðaháttr, and the first part of the
poem is a collection of exempla and good advice — a sort of Christian
Hávamál — and indeed the kinship with that old collection of poetry is
easy to see. As the poem continues, the poet begins to speak in his own
person, and we now learn that the words are those of a dead father
speaking to his living son, giving him counsel and describing the other
world. The poem appears to be fragmentary and is hard to understand
but that does not diminish its mystical power and extraordinary appeal.
As in other medieval visionary literature — Dante’s Divine Comedy is the
great example — we are led first to the places of torment prepared for
sinners and then to the blessed homes of the righteous. But the most
famous stanzas in the poem are those describing the father’s departure
from this world, when he looked on the sun for the last time:
Sól ek sá, I saw the sun,
sanna dagstjörnu, the true daystar,
drupa dynheimum i, droop in dinning worlds,
en Heljar grind and on the other side
heyrðak á annan veg I heard the ponderous roar
þjóta þungliga. of the barred gate of Hel.

8 Eddas and Sagas

114 SCALDIC POETRY

Sól ek sá I saw the sun,

setta dreyrstöfum, set about with blood-stripes
mjök var ek þá,ór heimi hallr. — I was then leaning far out of the world.
Máttug hon leizk It looked mighty
á marga vegu in many ways
frá því er fyrri var. more than it was before.

Sól ek så, I saw the sun

svá þótti mer —it seemed to me
sem ek sæja göfgan guð. like seeing glorious God.
Henni ek laut I made it reverence
hinzta sinni for the last time
alda heimi i. in the world of men.
The latter half of the poem’s last stanza is used today as a prayer in
funeral services of the Church of Iceland:
Hér vit skiljumsk Here you and I part
ok hittask munum and we shall meet
á feginsdegi fira; on the day of bliss for men.
dróttinn minn May my lord
gefi dauðum ró, give rest to the dead
en hinum likn er lifa. and grace to those who live!
 An age of learning
Foreign currents
It was noted earlier that at some time towards 1100 the Icelanders
began to write their own language, using a form of the Roman alphabet.
The art of writing was thus itself a piece of imported learning, whose
introduction owed most to its status as an essential tool of the Christian
faith. Some of the early promoters of Christianity in Iceland, bishops
and other learned men, studied abroad and brought foreign knowledge
home with them, some in their heads and some in written books. The
first Icelandic writings consequently bear the inevitable stamp of their
origin and have a marked didactic character. Naturally enough, we can
detect two currents, one religious coming from Europe, the other secular
flowing from native sources. True to their nature and origin, the learned
writings we know from the early period were almost exclusively pro­
duced for practical educational purposes — probably, indeed, more
practical than we can now realise. Both the main currents, foreign and
native, religious and secular, mingled from the start. Some differences of
language and style can be observed, and the term “learned style” has
been especially applied to the typical manner of some works of ecclesiastical
edification. On the other hand, traces of Latin influence are clearly
visible in the language of the earliest writings on secular, native
subjects. In both cases we are dealing with Icelandic language and
literature. And although the main emphasis of the oldest Icelandic
works is on the didactic and scholarly, preeminently in the service of
Christianity, some of the stories and anecdotes in them have entertain­
ing and artistic qualities that point forward to the saga-writing of a later
age.
This widespread pursuit of knowledge and practice in forms of
literary composition testify to connections with contemporary centres of
learning in the outside world. During the time when Christianity
116 AN AGE OF LEARNING

became consolidated in Iceland, in the first half of the eleventh century,

the chief clerics in the country were missionary bishops, and they must
certainly have given necessary religious instruction to a number of
young Icelanders and taught them some Latin. Some of the pioneers
and leading lights of Christianity in Iceland went abroad for education.
Gizurr the White sent his son, Isleifr, to a convent school at Herford in
Westphalia, and in the next generation, Gizurr, son of ísleifr, also
studied in Germany, possibly at the same school as his father. These
two, father and son, were the first Icelandic bishops. Sæmundr Sigfús-
son “the Wise”, Bishop Gizurr’s close collaborator, spent some years in
Frakkland, “the land of the Franks”, probably on or near the Rhine. Two
pupils taught by Bishop ísleifr at his home in Skálholt were his son,
Teitr, and Jón Ogmundarson, who later became the first bishop of
Hólar, the northern diocese in Iceland. We do not know if Teitr went
abroad, but we know that his brother, Gizurr, as well as going to school
abroad, also made trading voyages in his younger years, so it is not
unlikely that Teitr also saw foreign parts. Jón went abroad after he had
spent some years at school in Skálholt, “to see the customs of good men
and to add to his education,” as it says in the saga about him. Teitr
subsequently kept a school in Haukadalur, and Jon established a school
at his new cathedral church at Hólar after his consecration as bishop in
1106. The author of Jóns saga speaks of his school in glowing terms. His
schoolmaster was a certain Gisli from Götaland in South Sweden
(probably Västergötland); he taught Latin, grammatica as it is called in
one of the Jóns saga texts; and a Frankish man, called Rikini, perhaps
from Alsace-Lorraine, taught liturgical singing and metrical composi­
tion. In the first period the Anglo-Norman sphere was the chief source of
ecclesiastical learning in Iceland, and we know of Icelandic clerics who
also went to France and England to study later on in the middle ages. St
Þorlákr, bishop of Skálholt 1178—93, had been a student in Paris and in
Lincoln; and his nephew and successor as bishop, Páll Jonsson, who was
regarded as the most learned man of his time in Iceland, had also
studied in England. These are just one or two names of men we happen
to know, but it may well be both that more foreign teachers worked in
Iceland than we find in the sources and that more Icelanders than we
ever hear of went abroad to improve their education. People on pilgrim­
age did not in the ordinary way spend long in the holy places they
visited, but they might certainly return to Iceland with novel and
fruitful notions gained on their travels, not least if they already had
FOREIGN CURRENTS 117
some education to build on. And a factor of great importance: many
such men brought books back to Iceland.
The Icelanders were quick to become both book-collectors and book-
producers. That is amply testified by the manuscripts that are still
extant — in spite of the ravages of time and the neglect of centuries.
That books were owned and read and copied is evidenced no less by the
many novel kinds of literature that came into being in this twelfth-
century “age of learning”. Icelanders could not have pursued so many
branches of international learning if they had not imported a goodly
array of books from abroad. Without them they could not have created
their notable early works of erudition and edification. And those early
works have in them the seeds of the original and unique vernacular
literature that was to follow.
If one is asked where this learned literature was read and written, one
thinks first of the cathedral establishments at Skálholt and Hólar and
also of some particular church-farms, like Oddi and Haukadalur, where
we know learned men took pupils. When monasteries were established,
they too in varying degrees became centres where works of literature
were created and books produced — as they continued to be down to the
Reformation. The first monastery in Iceland was opened at Þingeyrar in
1133. It played an important part in the literary history of the last phase
of the “age of learning”, as we shall see below.
One of the oldest prose works in Icelandic to be preserved is the so-
called First Grammatical Treatise, written about 1150 or, more probably, a
little before that date. The author’s aim was to provide the Icelanders
with a practical alphabet which would make it easier for them to set
down and to read the writings that were then current in the country:
laws, genealogy, sacred exposition, and “also that wise learning which
Ari Þorgilsson has put into books with his perceptive understanding”.
In all probability, these four kinds were the precise sum of the literature
that flourished in Iceland about the middle of the twelfth century. We
may look a little closer at each of them.

Grågås. Early Icelandic law

In íslendingabók, written not later than c. 1130, Ari says that at the
General Assembly of 1117 the legislators took the novel decision to have
the laws set down in a book, and that in the following winter sections of
the laws were put into writing at the home of Hafliði Másson, at
118 AN AGE OF LEARNING

Breiðabólstaður in Vesturhóp. This is the first certain writing in Ice­

landic that we know about, though it is commonly assumed that a tithe
law, introduced on the initiative of Bishop Gizurr ísleifsson a little before
1100, was also written down from the start. Presumably this official
codification of the laws was completed in the years following 1117 —18;
and between 1122 and 1133 the laws relating to Christian observance in
the country were revised and recorded, and then subsequently incorpo­
rated as the first section of the general collection of laws. That first legal
recording, called Hafliðaskrá, “Hafliði’s code”, has of course long since
disappeared, but it is thought to have provided the kernel of the law
texts that are preserved.
Many copies of the laws, or of sections of them, were produced, and
gradual efforts were made to include fresh legislation and to remove
obsolete articles. There was no centralised consistency in this activity
and it was not long before there was great confusion over what was valid
law and what was not. Complicated rules were then devised to be
applied in cases where law books were at odds with each other.
The name covering all the laws of early Iceland is Grågås, “wild
goose” — we do not know why and it does not occur before the sixteenth
century. We have two large collections in codexes written in the latter
part of the thirteenth century, Konungsbók (or Codex Regius) and Stabar-
hólsbók. They were made at just about the time when the old laws were
superseded by new codes introduced on the authority of the king of
Norway, to whom the Icelanders became tributary in 1262—4. Stabar-
hólsbók lacks a number of sections that are in Konungsbók, including the
sections on Assembly procedures, the Law Council, and the
Lawspeaker, and the so-called baugatal, “wergild ring list”, on atone­
ment payable in killing cases. On the other hand, Stabarhólsbók is usually
fuller and more detailed than Konungsbok in the parts they have in
common.
The Icelandic law texts are much more varied and extensive than
those of comparable age from the mainland Scandinavian countries. In
general, the Norwegian, Danish and Swedish laws appear more popular
and primitive and show more signs of oral preservation and delivery,
evident in some degree from their use of fixed phrases and a preference
for alliteration and other mnemonic devices. Ari says that the men
responsible for writing down the laws in 1117 —18 were to introduce “all
such new laws as seemed to them better than the old laws”. It seems as
if these first “authors” went a long way towards impressing on the
Icelandic laws that bookish stamp they have in their extant shape.
GRÅGÅS. EARLY ICELANDIC LAW 119
But Grågås has some notable passages where devices like alliteration
and rhythmic clause patterning are evident, and we may believe that
such mnemotechnic features were frequent in legal composition in the
pre-literate age. The following passage is not a piece of legislation as
such but shows the “rhapsodic” elements that may have been charac­
teristic of some earlier legal language. It is from the so-called Tryggða-
mál, “Peace guarantee speech”:
Sakar váru á milli þeira N.N ok N.N, There were causes of dispute between
en nú eru þær settar ok fé bættar sem A and B but now they are settled and
metendr mátu ok teljendr töldu ok dómr atoned with money, as the valuers
dæmdi ok þiggjendr þágu ok þaðan báru valued and the tellers told and the
með fé fullu ok fram komnum eyri þeim í judges judged and the receivers received
hönd seit er hafa skyldi. and carried it away, the cash in full and
Pit skuluð vera menn sáttir ok sam­ each ounce produced, handed to him
værir at öldri ok at áti, á þingi ok á who should have it.
þjóðstefnu, at kirkna sókn ok í konungs You two are now to be men reconciled
húsi, ok hvervetna þess er manna fundir and able to keep company over beer and
verða þá skuluð þit svá samsáttir sem board, in assembly and array, in coming
aldregi hæfisk þetta ykkar á meðal. Pit to church and in the king’s house, and
skuluð deila kníf ok kjötstykki ok alia wherever there are meetings of men you
hluti ykkar í milli sem frændr en eigi sem shall be as much at one as if this had
§ándr. Ef sakar gerask síðan á milli never arisen between you. You shall
þeira annat en þat er vel er, þat skal fé share knife and meat-bit and all things
bæta en eigi flein ijóða. En så ykkarr er with each other like family and not like
gengr á görvar sáttir eða vegr á veittar foes. If matters later come up between
tryggðir, þá skal hann svá víða vargr you that are other than smooth, you
rækr ok rekinn sem menn víðast varga shall redress with cash and not redden
reka, kristnir menn kirkjur sækja, heiðn- the spear. But the one of you who tram­
ir menn hof blóta, eldr upp brennr, jÖrð ples on treaties made or smites at sure­
grær, mögr móður kallar ok móðir mög ties given, he shall be an outcast
fæðir, aldir elda kynda, skip skríðr, skild- despised and driven off as far and wide
ir blíkja, sól skínn, snæ leggr, Fiðr skríðr, as ever men drive outcasts off, Chris­
fura vex, valr flýgr várlangan dag, tians come to church, heathens hallow
stendr honum byrr beinn undir báða temples, fire flames, ground grows, son
vængi, himinn hverfr, heimr er byggðr, calls mother, mother bears son, men
vindr þýtr, vötn til sævar falla, karlar make fires, ship glides, shields flash, sun
korni sá. Hann skal firrask kirkjur ok shines, snow drifts, Lapp skis, fir tree
kristna menn, guðs hús ok guma, heim grows, falcon flies a spring-long day with
hvern nema helvíti. a fair wind beneath both wings, heavens
revolve, world is inhabited, wind whist­
les, waters flow to the sea, men sow seed.
He shall shun churches and Christian
people, house of God and man, every
home save hell.

The Grågås texts clearly demonstrate the great interest of Icelanders

120 AN AGE OF LEARNING

in laws and legislation. Much of what they contain belongs with the
oldest of all Icelandic writings: the effective language, at once concrete
and supple, the legal thinking, both finespun and fair-minded, and the
extensive and detailed practical information —all make Grågås a unique
source of knowledge about early Icelandic culture, society and govern­
ment.

Ari the Wise

In his list of the literature available to Icelandic readers the author of
the First Grammatical Treatise refers last to the works of Ari Porgilsson,
generally known in later times as Arifróði, Ari the Wise. Ari came of
well-known families in Breiða^örður and the southeast of the country.
His grandfather Gellir was son of Þorkell Eyjólfsson and Guðrún
Ósvífrsdóttir, the heroine of Laxdœla saga. A ri’s mother, Jóreiðr, was a
granddaughter of Porsteinn Síðu-Hallsson (cf. p. 249).
Ari was born in 1067 or 1068 and died at a ripe old age in 1148.
According to Laxdela saga, his father Porgils was drowned while still a
young man. Ari was fostered by his grandfather Gellir but on his death,
when Ari was seven years old, he went into the home of Hallr Pórarins-
son in Haukadalur, where he stayed until he was twenty-one. Teitr
ísleifsson was also brought up by Hallr. He was some years older than
Ari and acted as his tutor — Ari calls him his “fosterer”. In Jóns saga ins
helga it says that “Teitr brought up and taught many clerics.” What
happened to Ari after he left Haukadalur is obscure. It has been
conjectured that he lived as householder and priest at the farm called
Staður (now Staðarstaður) on Snæfellsnes, chiefly because we know that
that was where his descendants lived.
The only certain remains that we possess of Ari’s “wise learning” is
íslendingabók, Book of the Icelanders, a highly concentrated history of the
nation from the settlement to A ri’s own time. Ari writes a preface in
which he gives a brief account of the work’s genesis:
I first made the Book of the Icelanders for our bishops, Porlákr
and Ketill, and I showed it both to them and to priest Sæmundr,
and since they were pleased to have it as it was or in augmented
form, then I wrote this in similar vein, omitting the tracing of
pedigrees and the reigns of kings but adding what became better
known to me subsequently — which is now more fully told in this
version than in the former one.
This makes it clear that Ari wrote his book twice. The first version
ARI THE WISE 121
was drafted between 1122, when Ketill Þorsteinsson became bishop of
Hólar, and 1133, when Bishop Þorlákr Runólfsson of Skálholt and
Sæmundr the Wise both died. The second draft, the text we now
possess, was probably also written in the lifetime of the two bishops, say
c. 1130. The first version included accounts of the kings of Norway and
genealogies which were omitted in the second edition; in their place Ari
brought in more Icelandic material, apparently urged to do so by the
bishops and Sæmundr. The first version is lost, and the second came
close to suffering the same fate. The only copy in existence in the
seventeenth century was in an ancient manuscript which at some stage
came into the hands of Bishop Brynjólfur Sveinsson. He commissioned
the well-known copyist, Rev. Jon Erlendsson of Villingaholt, to make
two transcripts of the íslendingabók text, and we now know the whole
work only in them.
íslendingabók gives information about certain major events in Icelandic
history, those which Ari and his patrons thought most significant. He
tells first of the settlement and in particular of four outstanding settlers,
one in each Quarter of the country, and he then describes the establish­
ment of the General Assembly, the Alþingi^ and the constitutional
arrangements. He spends most time, however, on the coming of Chris­
tianity and its consolidation in the country, enumerating the bishops
and their pedigrees and dwelling especially on ísleifr and Gizurr, father
and son, the first two Icelandic prelates — given Ari’s education and
position and the circumstances of the book’s genesis, this is not a
surprising emphasis. A matter that is more surprising — and one of
supreme significance for Icelandic literature and culture — is that Ari
wrote in his native tongue and not in Latin, the language of learned men
throughout Christendom. And this is still more surprising when we
consider that Sæmundr the Wise, one of Ari’s mentors and supervisors,
had himself apparently written in Latin on one of the subjects included
in the first edition of íslendingabók, the lives of the kings of Norway. But
thereafter Icelanders followed A ri’s example and regularly elected to use
their own language for writing books of history — which they did
through many generations, as we shall see.
As a historian Ari appears admirable for two particular reasons. The
first is his critical sense, the second his care for chronology.
He scrupulously chose the most knowledgeable and reliable infor­
mants known to him and openly acknowledged them as his authorities
for this or that part of his narrative. When he wants to date the
beginning of the settlement he refers to three people: “Teitr, my fosterer,
122 AN AGE OF LEARNING

son of Bishop ísleifr, the wisest man I have known; Þorkell Gellisson,
my father’s brother, who remembered a long way back; and Þóríðr,
daughter of Snorri the Chieftain, who was wise in many things and
whose knowledge was unmendacious.” He calculates that the first
Greenland settlement was “fourteen or fifteen winters before Christian­
ity came here to Iceland, according to what a man who had personally
accompanied Eirikr the Red on his voyage counted up for Þorkell
Gellisson [Ari’s uncle, that is] in Greenland.” Concerning the first body
of laws, Ulfljótslóg, and the creation of the Alþingi, he refers to Teitr and
Hallr Órækjuson and to Úlfheðinn Gunnarsson who was Lawspeaker
1108—16. He had been preceded by Markús Skeggjason who was
Lawspeaker for twenty-four summers. Ari says that it was according to
Markus’s account that he wrote of the careers of all the Lawspeakers
who had lived before his own memory could serve; and Markús had
been told by Þórarinn, his brother, and Skeggi, their father, and other
wise men about the Lawspeakers who had held office before his time,
and that was in accordance with what Bjarni the Wise, their father’s
father, had said — and he “remembered the Lawspeaker Þórarinn and
six more after him.” Þórarinn was the second Lawspeaker in Iceland’s
history, succeeding Hrafn Hængsson who, according to Ari’s reckoning,
held office AD 930—49. Such a series of named sources takes us
remarkably close to the origins of the Icelandic state and one would
need real bravado to challenge statements so strongly supported.
As is well known, medieval authors were in the habit of referring to
great men as their authorities, whether justifiably or not. A ri’s conscien­
tious citation of source-men may perhaps in part be due to this
convention, but we can see that he is not so much trying to impress with
great names as carefully selecting informants who he knew stuck to the
truth and had long memories. There is thus no occasion to belittle the
sincerity of his statement at the end of the prologue or regard it as an
empty claim that chiefly betrays the author’s self-conceit. There he says:
“And whatever is mis-said in this history, one is duty-bound to prefer
what proves to be more true.” The history that Ari records in the
succeeding chapters is the best proof that these words are not trite
phrases but rather the program of a reliable scholar.
The importance Ari attached to chronology will have become clear
from some of the points noted above. He dates some main events by the
customary reckoning from the birth of Christ and pinpoints other
Icelandic happenings in relation to them. As the skeleton of his national
history he uses the term in office of the Lawspeakers — he knows the
ARI THE WISE 123
number of years each of them served from 930 onwards — and he then
links one event to another until everything is firmly locked in an
integrated system. We can never measure our debt to him for providing
this basic chronology for the first two and a half centuries of Iceland’s
existence. All this demonstrates his pioneering stature as a thoroughly
trustworthy historian and the first author to use Icelandic as his
medium.
Some later sources contain chronological or other information to do
with kings of Norway that can be traced to Ari. It must have been
derived from the first edition of íslendingabók which included what Ari
calls konunga œvi (for which “reigns of kings” must be the best transla­
tion, though (Bvi is a singular word, meaning “life, generation”). Some
scholars have thought that this was a separate and rather extensive
section, but it is more likely that the konunga œvi were comparable to the
logsogumanna œvi, as Ari calls them, in the extant íslendingabók (translated
above as “careers of Lawspeakers”), and were concise entries stating the
length of each king’s reign and recording a few notable events associated
with them. Snorri Sturluson set great store by these konunga œvi,
adopting A ri’s material and following his chronology in Heimskringla
(p. 168). “All his account seems to me of greatest note,” says Snorri. It
is from Snorri’s Prologue to Heimskringla that we learn most of what we
know about the lost first edition of íslendingabók.
We know little for certain about A ri’s other contributions under the
head of “wise learning”, but a few small pieces or memoranda have been
plausibly attributed to him. The most remarkable among them are a list
of Icelandic priests, dated 1143 (printed with commentary in Diplomata­
rium hlandicum I, 180—94), and the so-called Ævi Snorra goba, “Career of
Snorri the Chieftain”, preserved incomplete as an appendix in one
manuscript of Eyrbyggja saga.

In his Heimskringla Prologue Snorri says that Ari was the first man
“here in the country” to write “history both ancient and modern in the
Norse tongue”. From this one might conclude that Snorri was also
familiar with history that was not written in Icelandic. As noted above,
it is believed that Sœmundr Sigfusson (1056—1133), A ri’s older contempo­
rary, wrote on historical matters but used Latin. Reference is twice
made to Sæmundr in the Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar of Oddr Snorrason, and
on the one occasion the author says specifically, “So Sæmundr has
written about King Óláfr in his book.” The source which tells us most
about that book, however, is a poem called Noregs konungatal (“enumera­
124 AN AGE OF LEARNING

tion of the kings of Norway”), composed late in the twelfth century in

honour of Jón Loptsson: Jón had Sæmundr for a grandfather, but his
mother was a daughter of King Magnus Bareleg of Norway (died 1103).
The poet counts up kings and earls in Norway from Hálfdan the Black
in the ninth century to Sverrir (whose rule was effective from 1184 — he
died in 1202) and gives a few facts about them, chiefly relating to their
deaths. After mentioning Magnús the Good (died 1047) he says:
Nu h e f ek talit Now I have counted
tiu landreka, ten rulers, each o f whom
þá er h v e rr v a r was [in line o f descent] from
frá H araldi. H araldr [Fairhaired].
In n ta ek svå I rehearsed their reigns
ævi þeira in the w ay Sæ m undr the
sem Sæ m undr W ise told them.
sagði inn fróði.

The poem thus presents Sæmundr’s chronology, which differed in some

respects from A ri’s. Later historians followed Ari, doubtless because his
dating appeared more reliable — and they probably found his history an
advance on Sæmundr’s not merely because he wrote in Icelandic.

Genealogies and Landnámabók

As we saw, when Ari wrote his second edition of íslendingabók he left
out the “tracing of pedigrees and the reigns of kings”. There is no reason
to suppose that the pedigrees were long and detailed, any more than the
“reigns of kings” were. Ari does not say that the bishops and Sæmundr
thought his first book had too much in it — on the contrary, they were
pleased to have it as it was or even augmented — and he tells us that
things he got to know better are now more fully told in the second
recension. But when we consider the brevity of the extant íslendingabók,
it becomes impossible to think that the matter he omitted from his first
edition was extensive and elaborate.
The tenth and last chapter of íslendingabók concludes with the words,
“Here ends this book.” There then follow however two genealogical
lists. The first traces the descent of four bishops from four of the chief
settlers, one in each Quarter of Iceland. The second traces A ri’s own
pedigree, with Yngvi, king of the “Turks”, as progenitor. In all prob­
ability these genealogies were lifted from the first recension of íslendinga-
bók to make an appendix to this second version. They provide examples
GENEALOGIES AND LANDNÁMABÓK 125
of the material Ari dispensed with when he came to make the extant
íslendingabók.
We recall however that the author of the First Grammatical Treatise
refers both to A ri’s writings and to genealogy (áttvísi) among the
commendable and available reading-matter of his time. (He mentions
genealogy before A ri’s works but of course that need have no chronologi­
cal significance.) There has been much discussion of what precise
writings he had in mind — too much, indeed, to consider in detail, and
here I shall stick to what seems the most plausible interpretation of his
words.
The work called Landnámabók, Book of Settlements, is preserved in a
number of versions. The oldest extant is Sturlubók, compiled by Sturla
Þórðarson (died 1284), probably late in life. Next comes Hauksbók, made
by Haukr Erlendsson soon after 1300. Haukr says that he followed the
book Sturla had written “and that other book which Styrmir the Wise
[died 1245] wrote; and I took whatever was more extensive from each,
though for the most part they both said the same.” The third medieval
version is known as Melabók, of which only a small fragment is pre­
served. Jon Johannesson thought that all the medieval versions were
descended from Styrmir’s lost work, but it has recently been argued by
Sveinbjörn Rafnsson that Melabók is not related to Styrmisbók and that
Sturla did not follow Styrmir directly but used the same sources as
Styrmir had done. Two early modern recensions are those by Björn
Jonsson of Skarðsá (died 1655) and Þórður Jónsson of Hitardalur (died
1670) — called Skarðsárbók and Pórðarbók respectively. The former is a
conflation of Sturlubók and Hauksbók. Þórður followed Skarðsárbók but he
also knew Melabók in better condition than it is now and he sometimes
includes material from it — invaluable information about a source that
is otherwise largely lost.
Nothing suggests that Haukr Erlendsson used any versions of Land-
námabók other than those of Sturla and Styrmir, the two he names, but
he knew — or thought he knew — that still older men had made their
contributions to the work. “Now the settlements made in Iceland have
been surveyed in accordance with what learned men have written, first
priest Ari Þorgilsson the Wise and Kolskeggr the Sagacious.” It is
usually assumed that Haukr got these references from Styrmir’s lost
book. We find further that, when the account in Sturlubók reaches
Husavik in the northern part of the East Quarter, it says, “Now, from
here on, Kolskeggr has told the tale of the settlements.” And from this
point the pattern of the description changes and various new stylistic
126 AN AGE OF LEARNING

characteristics appear — they are very noticeable in the first of the

succeeding chapters and occur intermittently thereafter up to the end of
the section on the East Quarter. Probably Kolskeggr dictated the
substance of these parts of Landnámabók, or perhaps wrote them down
himself — difference between the two processes is only a matter of
degree. His own pedigree is traced in Landnámabók and it seems likely
that he was rather older than Ari: he was, for example, a great-uncle of
the priest and Lawspeaker, Finnr Hallsson, who died in 1145 —Ari, we
recall, died in 1148.
The fact that Kolskeggr seems certainly to have recorded or sat over
the recording of settlements in the East Quarter lends weight to Haukr’s
testimony that Ari also wrote on the history of the settlement. Our
Landnámabók texts contain one direct reference to him and one to Þorkell
Gellisson, his uncle — which doubtless came through Ari as well. It has
been conjectured that Ari was the chief editor of the first Landnámabók,
assisted by well-informed men like Kolskeggr. Other scholars have
thought it more likely that Ari was the author of only part or parts of the
original work — or even that his contribution was confined to the
information included in the first edition of íslendingabók. About 1700
Árni Magnusson sapiently remarked: “It is probable that Ari’s work on
the settlement did not cover the whole country, for that was a task of
ample difficulty for a single man to accomplish.”
How do our ideas on the composition of Landnámabók harmonise with
the statements of the author of the First Grammatical Treatise? Kolskeggr
was A ri’s senior and presumably started work before him. Genealogies
were the main substance of the first Landnámabók, and it may be that the
Grammarian meant Landnámabók when he referred to genealogy (áttvísi)
second after law in his list of literature. Alternatively, he might have
meant smaller collections of pedigrees. If, on the other hand, Ari had
made a complete Landnámabók, the Grammarian might have included it
among “that wise learning which Ari Þorgilsson has put into books”.
In comparison with the earliest Landnámabók, the preserved versions
must contain a vastly increased store of personal history, with family
trees often brought down to the thirteenth century or later. Lines of
descent to members of the Sturlung family are often traced in Sturlubók,
those of the Melamenn in Melabók (whence its name) particularly to
Markús Þórðarson, father of Snorri (Lawman 1302-7, died 1313).
Some brief anecdotes figured in the original Landnámabók, antique tales
that reveal dark superstition and a lawless society. Many more stories of
various kinds are woven into the texts of the extant versions, most of
GENEALOGIES AND LANDNÁMABÓK 127
them extracted from sagas of Icelanders (p. 203). Sturla Þórðarson is
thought to be chiefly responsible for these additions. Some of them come
from sagas otherwise lost and others from versions of sagas older than
those we now possess. This extra matter brings life and variety into the
dry recital of genealogies: not that we would not prefer to have the
original Landnámabók just as it was, or even Styrmir’s book or the whole
of Melabók.
Some four hundred and thirty independent settlers, men and women,
are named in Landnámabók, along with an account of their homesteads
and the boundaries of their settlements. Names and lines of descent
from settlers are probably trustworthy on the whole, but relying on the
pedigrees of the settlers themselves is another matter — they are often
traced to royalty and great men of the dim and distant past. Reports of
events are often dubious too, even those that must have been in the
original Landnámabók, for many of them wear the garb of folk-tale and
are altogether larger than life. These tales turn landnam into literature
but do less for the status of Landnámabók as history. But in its various
recensions it remains a remarkable piece of medieval scholarship. It
offers some explanation of the causes of the migration to Iceland and
describes the origins of the settlers — and much of what it says is
confirmed by other sources and by modern research. It preserves a vast
amount of personal and family history, and provides vivid illustration of
ways of life and of men’s thoughts and beliefs in the Icelandic com­
munity’s early days.

“Sacred exposition”
In his list of available writings the author of the First Grammatical
Treatise includes helgar þýðingar. Obviously we have to decide what he
meant by the word þýðing. It has sometimes been taken in its plain
modern sense of “translation”, but that does not seem to answer to early
usage, since “translate” in the old language was usually expressed by
the verbs snúa or snara (literally, “turn, twist”). The sense ofþýðing seems
rather to have been “explanation, exposition”, which probably included
translation or paraphrases of foreign material of various kinds, and the
Grammarian was presumably referring in a general way to works of
religious edification. That must have included the homilies which we
know from various evidence were among the very first writings in
Icelandic — perhaps indeed the very first compositions that could be
dignified with the title of Icelandic literature. Priests were required to
128 AN AGE OF LEARNING

preach in the mother tongue at Sunday services and other festivals, and
clerics in Iceland must certainly have tried to fulfil this duty as soon as
the Church was established in the country. There are no explicit
instructions about preaching in the early church laws of Iceland, but
they occur in later archiepiscopal statutes and in them are doubtless a
dinning-in of ancient custom. Accounts in bishops’ sagas also show that
preaching was common twelfth-century practice. On the continent and
in England separate homiliaries soon came into existence for the
convenience of preachers, with contents chiefly drawn from sermons by
Fathers and Doctors of the Church. These collections in whole or in part
were then put into the vernacular and circulated among clerics in copies
and extracts. We have very ancient Icelandic manuscripts containing
homilies, including the fragments that are considered to be the oldest of
all our manuscript remains. These are in AM 237a fol., where two
homilies are represented, one of them the so-called Dedication Homily,
on the symbolism of the church-building itself. These two manuscript
leaves are dated to c. 1150. We have other fragments with homily texts
from the latter part of the twelfth century, and the oldest Icelandic book
preserved in anything like complete shape is the so-called Icelandic or
Stockholm Homily Book, written c. 1200 and now in the Royal Library,
Stockholm.
It has been suggested that saints’ lives translated from Latin into
Icelandic were also among the Grammarian’s þýðingar helgar. The use of
the words þýba (“to translate”) and þýðing (“a translation”) in Old
Icelandic does not appear to conflict with the possibility that the
Grammarian was also referring to the oldest translations of saints’ lives,
which would then mean that they are older than the middle of the
twelfth century. A number of these are extant in very ancient manu­
scripts, and the reading aloud of such stories in the vernacular was
normal Christian practice in the early days of the Church (see below pp.
135-136, 140-143).
It has also been argued however that we cannot legitimately draw
sweeping conclusions about Icelandic literature on the basis of what the
Grammarian does not say: he may have been merely mentioning
examples of what was available. This seems to me unconvincing: his
choice of phrase seems to me to signify quite definitely that he knew
these kinds of literature and no others that were worth mentioning. At
the end of his treatise he repeats his list and names just these same
kinds, though with a slight variation in the manner of early writers to
avoid exact repetition. He now puts “sacred expositions” first and does
Plate 8
O f all the manuscripts containing apostles’ sagas Skarðsbók is the biggest and
most beautiful. O f its original 95 leaves only one is lost. The codex is believed to
have been written about 1360, probably in the monastery at H elgafell, commis­
sioned by the Lawman, Ormr Snorrason, o f Shard on Skarðsströnd (c. 1320-
1401/2). The copy o f the law-book (Jónsbók) in AM 350 fo l. (also known as
SkarðsbókJ was probably also made fo r him. Ormr presented his book o f post-
ula sögur to the church at Skard, and it was last inventoried there on the occasion
o f a rural dean’s visitation on 25 Ju ly 1807. But twenty years later it was noted at
a similar visitation, reported on 9 August 1827, that “The sagas o f apostles on vel­
lum were now not there. ” When next heard of, the codex was in England, but how
it got there is not known. On 30 November 1965 it was auctioned in London and
bought by Icelandic banks who presented it to the nation. It is now in the collection
o f the Ami Magnússon Institute in Reykjavik. - The picture is o f St John the
Evangelist, holding a book in his left hand, his usual attribute. - Photo: Johanna
Olafsdóttir.
Plate 9
St Nicholas brings dead men to life. Illustration in Helgastaðabók, 14th century.
See pp. 140-42. - Photo: Jóhanna Ólafsdóttir.
“SACRED EXPOSITION” 129
not mention Ari by name but speaks in general terms of “rational and
useful knowledge” (skynsamleg nytsemi) which people may want to “cull
or teach from books”. We are fortunate in being able to demonstrate by
other means that precisely his four kinds of literature really were in
existence about the middle of the twelfth century: something that cannot
be done for any other branches of early Icelandic writing. Laws were
recorded not later than the winter of 1117—18. Kolskeggr made his
contribution to Landnámabók early in the twelfth century. Homilies exist
in manuscripts from as early as c. 1150. Ari wrote his íslendingabók before
1133 and died in 1148.

Learning of many kinds

Scholarly endeavour in the twelfth century did not remain devoted
only to historical recording and Christian edification. The Grammatical
Treatise throws light on our first Icelandic literature, but it is still more
remarkable for what it tells us about the Icelandic language of the
twelfth century. The author proposes an orthography for Icelandic
writing based on Latin but with modifications invented by himself. In
order to explain his proposals he gives a precise description of the sound
system as it was in his day, so precise indeed that it has been said that,
following his instructions, we can accurately reproduce all the sounds of
twelfth-century Icelandic. The author was evidently familiar with Euro­
pean grammatical theory but he nevertheless makes his own original
observations and his methods are equally independent and novel. He is
the only authority to tell us that in certain positions vowels were
“spoken in the nose” — nasalised, that is — and we can see from
comparative philology that in just the positions he describes there were
original nasal sounds which were lost soon after his time. His descrip­
tion of mutated vowels prefigures the observations of nineteenth-century
scholars; and his practice of using “minimal pairs” to show the differ­
ence between long sounds and short, nasalised and unnasalised, was
unparalleled in European tradition until modern linguists began to
employ the same method. For anyone surveying the development of
Icelandic the First Grammatical Treatise represents a summit from which
one can look both backwards and forwards with inestimable advantage.
This twelfth-century work is called the First Grammatical Treatise
because it is followed by three others in the Codex Wormianus of
Snorri’s Edda, where it is preserved. The Second, also concerned with
orthography, was made in the 13th century. The Third and Fourth are
9 Eddas and Sagas
130 AN AGE OF LEARNING

handbooks of grammar and rhetoric, adapted from current schoolbooks

for Latin learners (works by Priscian, Donatus and others) but with
examples drawn from vernacular Icelandic verse, a feature which
associates them with Snorri’s Edda. The Third Treatise is probably the
most notable after the First. It was made by Snorri Sturluson’s nephew,
Óláfr hvítaskáld Þórðarson, who died in 1259. The Fourth Treatise seems
to have been made towards the middle of the fourteenth century.

There was naturally no early end to the composition of works of

Christian edification, and translation of works of this kind from Latin
must have become more and more common as the twelfth century
progressed. Elucidarius is a famous didactic work in colloquy form, on
the Creation and Fall, Christ’s sacrifice, and the soul’s salvation or
damnation. We have it in Icelandic in a manuscript, sadly defective, of
about the same age as the Icelandic Homily Book and also defective in
Hauksbók from about 1300. Such a tract as Elucidarius might well seem to
fit under the heading of “sacred expositions”, but Honorius Augusto-
dunensis who wrote the Latin original was a younger contemporary of
Ari Þorgilsson, so the Icelandic version can hardly have been made
before the latter part of the twelfth century. From the same period we
have translations of Gregory the Great’s Dialogues and of works by
Alcuin and other well-known churchmen, but much of what is preserved
is fragmentary and much has gone for good. “Remains of ancient
Icelandic Christian lore” was the title Þorvaldur Bjarnarson chose for
his selection of these early texts published in 1878, a collection which
bears witness to the prolific extent and eclectic nature of Icelandic
translation in the twelfth century. Interest in foreign learning and
devotional literature did not of course disappear in the thirteenth

Physiologus is the name of a treatise on natural history written in Alexandria

in the fust centuries AD. It deals especially with the marvellous characteristics of
various beasts, birds and peoples — some real and some from folklore. The work
was translated early into Icelandic and exists in manuscript fragments, with some
remarkable illustrations, from about 1200. The bottom row of figures on this page
represent the Cyclopes who have a single eye-socket in the middle of their foreheads
and one eye which they take it in turn to use, the Panotii with ears big enough to
cover the whole body, and the Hippopodes with hooves like horses instead of feet.
From AM 673 a 14to, c. 1200; the Ami Magmsson Institute, Reykjavik. Photo:
Jóhanna Ólafsdóttir.
LEARNING OF MANY KINDS 131
132 AN AGE OF LEARNING

century, but it dwindled, partly because the early works provided a

sufficient stock and partly because other literary kinds, particularly
sagas, were more in demand.

Numerous kinds of more secular study were also pursued in the “age
of learning”. It is true that works on geography and natural and human
history were often not merely informative but served pious and moral
purposes. Works of this kind were naturally of foreign origin, usually
derived at some remove or other from Isidore, Bede, Honorius and
similar authorities. The little book called Veraldar saga —“the world’s
history” — covers the six ætates mundi from the Creation down to the
author’s own time, with most attention paid to the history of the Jews.
At the end it says, “Konrad was emperor when Gizurr Hallsson was in
the south [i.e. in Germany] but now Frederick is.” This must have been
first written after 1152, when Gizurr returned from his European
travels, and before 1190, when Frederick Barbarossa died. Gizurr
Hallsson must have been connected in some way with the composition
of Veraldar saga — some scholars have thought he wrote it.

The best-known of the “scientific” translations is the so-called Phy­

siologies, originally written in Greek some time in the first centuries of our
era and then popularised in Latin throughout the western world. It
describes various marvellous creatures, some real, some fabulous. When
their characteristic features have been related, the allegorical lessons
that can be drawn from them are made plain, usually in relation to
mankind or Jesus or Satan. The Icelandic Physiologus is preserved in
manuscripts from about 1200 which include illustrations of the creatures.
They are the earliest pictures known in Icelandic manuscripts; they
show English influence.

Various pieces on foreign lands were translated — Icelanders were

great travellers — and present a not unexpected mixture of factual
information, historical lore and pious comment. Some of this matter is
found in Hauksbók, made about 1300, and in other miscellany manu­
scripts of varying ages (much of it published by Kr. Kålund in Alfrœði
íslenzk I and III, 1908—18). Some more significant works were based on
what the authors had seen on their own travels abroad. Abbot Nikulás
of Munkaþverá compiled a pilgrim’s guide to Rome and Jerusalem,
paying special attention to the shrines of saints in the cities on his route.
This little book is known as Leibarvisir (“guidebook”) or Leibarvisir ok
LEARNING OF MANY KINDS 133
borgaskipan (“guidebook and list of cities”), a title based on its conclud­
ing words. Abbot Nikulás gives a clear account and his topography is
extraordinarily accurate — but then he had seen it all himself. He
returned to Iceland in 1154 and died in 1159 — his Guide was written
between these two dates. As far as we know, it was the first itinerarium for
pilgrims ever to be composed in the Scandinavian world.

From ancient times the Northmen divided the year into two seasons,
winter and summer, and reckoned the passage of time in winters. From
the Christian south they adopted a division into twelve months and
fifty-two weeks, with necessary intercalations which in Iceland were
made according to a native scale invented by Þorsteinn surtr who, as Ari
tells us in íslendingabók, proposed the “summer eke” reform about AD
950. After the Conversion Christian time-reckoning was introduced,
though it was far from unified in European practice of the time; and the
early laws say that at the end of the General Assembly each summer the
Lawspeaker should announce the calendar and feastdays to be observed
in the coming year. In the twelfth century some Icelanders proved
experts in computus, the ecclesiastical arithmetic combined with
astronomical calculations on which the Church’s calendar and chrono­
logy were based. They translated and adapted works by foreign authori­
ties and at the same time made their own observations and developed
their own chronological methods. The priest named Bjarni “the num­
ber-wise” (died 1173) studied in the cathedral school at Hólar in the
days of Bishop Jon Ogmundarson (1106—21) and wrote some sort of
treatise on computus. Another specialist in the field was “Star”-Oddi
Helgason, who belonged to Múli in Aðalreykjadalur (Suður-Þingeyjar-
sýsla). He made remarkably accurate observations of the sun’s course
and the difference in daylight hours in different seasons. Competent
judges consider him to have been one of the most notable European
astronomers of his age. Oddi’s work and the fruit of his observations are
embodied in a treatise on computus which was made shortly after his
death and is preserved in a manuscript from the end of the twelfth
century. The work is sometimes called Rzmbegla. It is based partly on
foreign sources but also, as noted, on independent observation of
Icelandic conditions.
 Hagiography. Saints’ lives
Matter and characteristics
The oldest Icelandic manuscripts containing prose narratives that we
have today contain lives of saints, translated from Latin (cf. p. 148
below). Without doubt the oldest saints’ lives in Icelandic preceded our
first home-made sagas. It is consequently essential to pay more atten­
tion to these religious narratives than has generally been done hitherto
before we go on to investigate the origins of native saga-writing.
It was in Christendom’s early days that people began to put together
accounts of saintly men and women, chiefly those who had been
martyred for the faith. Those accounts were joined to a canon made up
of Scripture and the fixed parts of the liturgy and came to be read, in
extenso or in part, either in daily services or on other appropriate
occasions. (A saint’s life was a “legend” — from legenda, “what is
suitably read”; legere “to pluck, cull, read”.) In services the texts were
invariably read in Latin but if the saint’s day was publicly observed his
life had to be translated for the congregation. A saint was especially
commemorated on his birthday — not the day he was born into this
world but the day of his death, when he was born into the next. And on
such a day of rejoicing it was particularly common to read in public the
record of his life and miracles. Numerous collections of saints’ lives,
arranged on various principles, were made for liturgical or general use.
The well-known Legenda aurea, put together c. 1260 by the Italian
Dominican, Jacobus de Voragine, proved one of the most popular of all.
Works on the apostles (acta apostolorum) naturally took pride of place,
supplemented by accounts of the martyrs of the early Church. These
centred on their passio, the history of their martyrdom. Typically, a
pagan ruler persecuted the saint with accusations and torture. He
defended his faith with long speeches and patiently suffered every
torment until death crowned his victory, as in Christ’s own Passion.
136 HAGIOGRAPHY. SAINTS’ LIVES

Later other holy men and women were commemorated who had not
actually suffered martyrdom but were famous for piety, self-denial or
preaching the Gospel. The history of such a confessor is often called a
vita, a “life”. In the case of a martyr, the whole legend usually comprises
both vita and passio. A third part which was a more-or-less obligatory
addition was a record of the marvellous works attributed to the saint’s
intercession — his miracles (acta, miracula). It gradually came about that
it was hardly conceivable to have a saint without a vita or a passio or
both. Over the centuries the saints of the Church have become a vast
host and their legenda form a huge library. Moreover, a saint’s life often
exists in numerous versions, sometimes abridged, sometimes variously
farced and larded.
Saints’ lives were evidently very popular in Iceland, just as they were
everywhere else in pre-reformation Europe. We still have them in many
manuscripts, despite the reformers who forbade invocation of saints and
were positively hostile to the hagiographic literature that perpetuated
their cults. To modern taste — at least to that of lukewarm Protestants
— these saints’ lives seem monotonous and derivative, even puerile. The
saint and his allies are totally virtuous, their persecutors wholly
depraved; and one text is very much like another, all set in a rigidly
conventional mould. However, accounts of miracles sometimes offer
interesting material: founded on a childlike acceptance of the marvel­
lous and the descriptions of immediate witnesses, they were often
written soon after the saint’s death — as in the case of St Þorlákr of
Skálholt, for example, who died in 1193 and whose acta were first put
together about 1200. The circumstances of the miracles can be very
varied and the accounts often give fascinating glimpses into the every­
day life of distant times and places.

Style
Although the hagiographic literature of medieval Iceland has not
enjoyed much esteem in modern times and been totally overshadowed
by indigenous saga-writing, we must not shut our eyes to the fact that
narratives of saints doubtless served in many ways as models for native
authors. They played some part in bringing the genre of íslendinga s'ógur
into the world and had some influence on their form and composition.
Deeper study is necessary before we can be certain how extensive that
influence was (cf. p. 212 below). Here I shall only try to show, by
quoting a few selected pieces from very ancient saints’ lives, that such
STYLE 137
narratives can be pointedly reminiscent of the diction and story-telling
methods of Icelandic saga-authors. The use of direct speech in native
sagas — rapid dialogue exchange, charge and counter-charge — has
often been highly praised, for example — but parallels to it are readily
found in early saints’ lives. The examples that follow are all from AM
645 4to, one of the earliest manuscripts containing complete, rather
than fragmentary, saints’ legends.
One of the texts in AM 645 4to is a translation of the life of St
Clement, who succeeded the Apostle Peter as bishop of Rome. At the
beginning of the story we learn that a Roman noblewoman, Mathidia,
is travelling to Syria with her two sons, Faustus and Faustinus (Postola
sögur, p. 128):
Þeim fórsk vel unz þeir liðu um Sikiley. Their voyage went well until they were
Þau fóru í nánd við borg þá er Patera passing Sicily. They sailed in the
heitir ok Nicholaus byskup var síðan neighbourhood of the city called Patera,
fæddr í. Þar tók þau útsynningr steinóðr where Bishop Nicholas was later born. A
ok keyrði of nótt at eyju þeiri er Corphu fierce southwesterly caught them there
heitir. Par leysti skip allt í sundr undir and drove them through the night to the
þeim, ok [fórusk] fjárhlutir allir ok menn island called Corfu. There the whole
nema Mathidia ok synir hennar — þau ship was ripped apart under them and
ein höfðu líf. Hon fylgdi skipsborði nökk- all the goods and people perished except
uru til lands ok gekk síðan á land upp. Mathidia and her sons — they alone
Hon kom of miðnætti til húss einnar survived. She got ashore on a ship’s
auðigs manns konu, ok var þar tekit vel plank and went up on land. About mid­
við henni. Þeir Faustus ok Faustinus night she came to the house of a certain
sátu á skipsflaki, ok er lýsa tók, þá sá lady, a rich man’s wife, and was well
þeir fara í nánd sér víkinga skip. Þeir received there. Faustus and Faustinus
leituðu sér ráðs sín á milli hvat tiltæki- sat on some wreckage, and when it
ligast væri. Þá mælti Faustus við Faust- began to grow light, they saw a pirate
inum bróður sinn: „Þessir menn munu ship sailing close by. They talked over
taka okkr ok selja mansali. Gefum vit what the best thing to do was. Then
okkr nöfn önnur en vit eigum áðr. Ek Faustus said to Faustinus, his brother:
mun nefnask Niceta, en þú skalt heita “These men will seize us and sell us as
Aquila.“ Síðan gripu víkingar sveina slaves. Let us give ourselves different
þessa báða ok höfðu þá út of haf til names from those we now have. I shall
Jórsalalands. Þeir seldu þá í sjáborg say Niceta is my name, and you shall be
þeiri er Cesarea heitir húsfreyju auðigri, called Aquila.” Afterwards the pirates
ok hét sú Justa ok var Gyðinga kyns. En seized both these boys and took them
húsfreyja sú lagði ást mikla á sveinana across the sea to Jerusalem. In the city
ok gerði þá sér at óskbörnum. Hon seldi by the sea called Cesarea they sold them
þá til læringar Simoni inum fjölkunnga to a rich lady — she was called Justa —
af Samaria, er kraptr Goðs almáttigs lézk of Jewish race. But that lady came to
vera. En er þeir höföu numit allar íþrótt- love the boys so much that she made
ir hans, þá fundu þeir at hann loddi them her adopted children. For educa­
flærð einni saman ok illsku. Peir hljóp- tion she put them in the hands of Simon
138 HAGIOGRAPHY. SAINTS’ LIVES

usk á braut frá Simoni illa ok sóttu fund Magus of Samaria, who claimed he was
Pétrs postola. Hann tók við þeim vel ok a power of God Almighty. And when
kenndi þeim kristinn dóm, ok gerðusk they had learnt all his skills, they real­
þeir þá hans lærisveinar. ised that he clung only to falsehood and
evil. They ran away from Simon the
wicked and went to find Peter the Apos­
tle. He received them kindly and taught
them Christianity, and they became his
disciples.

Further, here is a short passage from a life of St Peter (Postola sögur, p.

210). If names and circumstances were altered, it would not seem at all
out of place in one of our native sagas:
En er Paulus var til höggs leiddr, þá var When Paul was led to execution, there
á götu hans ein göfug kona ok ráðvönd, was on his road a noble and virtuous
en hon hét Plautilla. Paulus mælti við woman, and her name was Plautilla.
hana: „Léðu mér dúks þíns at binda Paul said to her: “Lend me your kerchief
fyrir andlit mér, er ek em höggvinn, en to tie over my face when I am executed,
ek mun selja þér dúkinn er ek hefi hafö- and I shall return the kerchief to you
an sem ek þarf.” En hon . . . fekk honum when I have had it for my needs.” And
dúkinn. En þeir er Paulum leiddu til she gave him the kerchief. And those
höggs þá hlógu at henni ok mæltu: who were leading Paul to execution
„Fyrir hví glatar þú, kona, dúki þínum laughed at her and said: “Why are you
góðum?“ Plautilla svaraði: „Eigi glata ek throwing away your good kerchief,
honum, heldr mun ek heðan bíða unz woman?” Plautilla answers: “I am not
hann kömr mér til handa.“ Pá var throwing it away, and I shall wait here
Paulus leiddr á stræti þat er kallat er Via for it to be returned to me.” Then Paul
Ostensis ok höggvinn þar, ok sýndisk was led along the street called Via
mjólk renna ór sårum hans heldr en Ostensis and executed there, and milk
blóð. En er þeir vildu taka dúkinn, þá rather than blood appeared to flow from
hvarf hann ór höndum þeim. Pá hurfu his wounds. But when they tried to pick
þeir aptr ok fundu Plautillam á götu ok up the kerchief, it vanished out of their
mæltu við hana í háði: „Hvar er dúkr hands. Then they went back and met
þinn er Paulus hét at færa þér?“ Plautilla Plautilla on the road and spoke to her in
svaraði: „Hér hefi ek dúkinn, því at derision: “Where is the kerchief Paul
hann kom at færa mér svá sem hann hét promised to bring you?” Plautilla
mér.“ Þá tók hon dúkinn ór serk sér ok answered: “I have the kerchief here —
sýndi þeim, en þeir urðu ókvæða við er for he came to bring it to me as he
þeir sá dúkinn blóðgan ok kenndu. promised.” Then she took the kerchief
from her dress and showed them, and
they did not know what to say when they
saw the bloodstained kerchief and recog­
nised it.

Hagiographie texts in Norwegian and Icelandic can be divided into

two main groups according to their age. The changes from one stage to
STYLE 139
another are reflected in style and vocabulary and to some extent in
choice of subject-matter. The first stage ends about the middle of the
thirteenth century and in this early period authors typically followed
their originals rather closely. It is true that we rarely know the exact
Latin sources they were using, but versions closely related to them are
often to be found in the available printed texts.
As the thirteenth century went by, fewer translations of saints’ lives
seem to have been made. Instead, existing translations were expanded
with pious comment and reflection and often refurbished in the so-called
“florid style”. As the name suggests, this style is characterised by ornate
diction and rhetorical mannerisms: a profusion of adjectives and com­
pound nouns, often abstracts, with frequent repetition for the sake of
parallelism or antithesis; abundant alliteration; and a preference for
participial verbal forms in imitation of Latin usage. It is true that such
features are also typical of the antique learned style that we find, for
example, in the Homily Books, but now they are piled up and employed
to excess. The emergence of this style is connected with general develop­
ments in European Latin writing in the thirteenth century, where we
find growing preference for the elaborate and bombastic. There were
practitioners of this style in Iceland in the latter half of the thirteenth
century — it is found fully-fledged in the Jóns saga baptista by the priest,
Grimr Holmsteinsson (died 1298), for instance — but its great age was
the fourteenth century, with Bergr Sokkason, sometime abbot of
Munkaþverá in Eyja§örður, as its best-known exponent.
To illustrate this development and the phenomenon we dub the
“florid style” I quote a short passage (1) from an old translation of a life of
St Nicholas preserved in a manuscript fragment of about AD 1200 and the
corresponding passage (2) from the magniloquent Nikulas saga made by
Abbot Bergr a century and a half later.

(1) There was a rich merchant who wasted great wealth in

drinking and in many other ways of spending and never
noticed until he was nearly penniless. But because he was
ashamed to become publicly dependent on others, he went to
a certain Jew who owned a house a short way from him — he
was well endowed with riches — and the merchant asked him
to let him have money on loan and so ease his wretchedness.
(2) There was a certain merchant in Licia, close to Myrra, sailing
from one country to another, wondrously rich for a space
with every kind of wealth that is customary in those parts, a
140 HAGIOGRAPHY. SAINTS’ LIVES

shrewd man and skilful in making gains of the sort the world
prefers. But inasmuch as this world is deceitful and mutable,
leading some men to prosperity from loss and destitution, but
stripping others of their goods and adorning them with the
reproach of poverty, so as time goes by the aforementioned
merchant takes care of his wealth unwisely, preserving his
daily state very grandly with drink and delicacies, making
substantial feasts for lay lords with honourable presents of
precious things, lavishly providing liquor and lodging for
players and vagabonds who sing his praises, and all so impro-
vidently that he never looks around until his last penny is
spent and he has tumbled from the seat of honour into the
reproach and blush of disdain, for no one is ready to bow
before him once money cannot provide recompense. Now, rich
as he had been, so much the heavier his misfortune to bear, if
he must become a beggar to public view in the place where he
was born. Therefore he considers his options, making trial to
see whether any Christian will let him have money on loan,
but he finds nobody who is willing to lend or part with his
goods except in return for full security. But when this hope is
completely dissipated, he visits a certain Jew, mightily rich in
gold and silver, to whom this kind of business was customary,
asking him to let him have a certain sum in gold on loan ...

Sagas of apostles. Sagas of saints

The Norwegian scholar, C. R. Unger, was a prolific editor of Norwe-
gian-Icelandic hagiographic literature. We still rely for the most part on
his editions, even though they are bound to seem rather out of date. He
published separate substantial volumes covering the main hagiographic
kinds and reproducing the bulk of the sources.
Lives of the apostles were translated early, naturally enough for after
Christ himself they are the foundation stones of the Church. The oldest
more-or-less complete manuscript containing saints’ lives — AM 645
4to, mentioned above — has seven sagas of apostles in it. The biggest
and finest codex of these sagas of apostles, however, is Skarðsbók,
written about 1350 or soon afterwards, which by some mysterious
means landed in England early in the nineteenth century. Then it was
bought by a group of the major Icelandic banks at a London auction in
1965 and presented as a gift to the Icelandic nation. The texts in this
SAGAS OF APOSTLES. SAGAS OF SAINTS 141

Unidentified saints. Part o f an eleventh-century carved panel in the so-called

Ringerike style from Flatatunga in Skagafjörður. Photo: Gisli Gestsson.
142 HAGIOGRAPHY. SAINTS’ LIVES

large volume have varying origins: some are aricient, some are in the
younger “florid style”. The most voluminous is the so-called Tveggja
postola saga Jons ok Jakobs (on John and James the Greater, sons of
Zebedee). It is a compilation in the “florid style”, based on older
independent texts concerning these apostles and a number of other
medieval sources.
Unger published a large collection called Heilagra manna sögur in 1877.
These are the vitae and acta of saints other than apostles: martyrs,
Fathers of the Church, confessors and so on. The protomartyr Stephen
is there, so are Sebastian and Placidus — also known as Eustace — who
was put to death under Emperor Hadrian and was a very popular figure
in the middle ages (there is a twelfth-century drápa in dróttkvætt on him,
cf. p. 112 above). Holy virgins who suffered horrible torments for their
faith are well represented by Agatha, Cecily, Catherine and not least by
Margaret — her aid is precious in childbirth, so her saga was especially
important — indeed, it was one of the very few heilagra manna sögur that
were copied and circulated long after the Reformation in Iceland. At the
end of the life of St Cecily there is an account of two miraculous cures
attributed to her intercession which took place in Borgarfjörður in the
late twelfth century. The vows to St Cecily were instigated by the priest
Brandr Porarinsson, whose church at Husafell was dedicated to God,
the Blessed Virgin and St Cecily. The three great Fathers of the Church,
Ambrose, Augustine and Gregory, all have a saga. The first Augustinus
saga was written by Runólfr Sigmundarson, abbot of the Augustinian
house of Þykkvabær (died 1307). By far the longest text in this collection
of Unger’s is a translation of the Vitae patrum — the Historia Lausiaca of
Palladius and other sources on the Desert Fathers, the fourth-century
monks of Egypt.

Individual works
Manu saga is the title given to a massive collection of material pub­
lished by Unger in 1871. It is not an entirely felicitous title for the life of
St Mary is little more than an introduction to a vast number of miracle
stories from many different countries and ages. A fourteenth-century
source attributes a Manu saga to the priest Kygri-Björn (Hjaltason),
who is known to have worked both at Hólar and Skálholt; he died in
1238. But the use of later sources in the preserved text of the saga shows
that it must have been compiled after his time. Many of the miracle
stories exist in two or more versions that vary in style and often illustrate
INDIVIDUAL WORKS 143
the development of the “florid” manner. There is much work still to be
done on tracing the connections between these translations and their
Latin sources.

A saga of St Thomas Becket, archbishop of Canterbury, martyred in

1170, exists in two complete recensions and in fragments of two others.
St Thomas’s death caused a great stir throughout Christendom and he
had his admirers and imitators in Iceland too — Hrafn Sveinbjarnarson
(died 1213) and Bishop Guðmundr Arason (died 1237) among them.

Barlaams saga okJosaphats is a Norwegian translation of a very popular

piece of edifying literature about the son of an Indian king who is
converted to Christianity by the hermit, Barlaam. In the Guðmundar saga
Arasonar by Arngrimr Brandsson (c. 1350) it says that Håkon the
Young, son of King Sverrir, had translated the work “in a notable
style”. Håkon died in 1204 and it seems unlikely that the saga is so
antique, both because of its mannered style and its relations with later
thirteenth-century writings. Scholars have consequently preferred to
associate it with Håkon “the Young”, son of King Håkon, who died in
1257, six years before his father, and they have emended “translated” to
“caused to be translated” (létsnara for snarabi). But now the emendations
begin to pile up, and it is safer to disregard the attribution in Arngrimr’s
Gubmundar saga altogether — it is after all by no means a contemporary
source.

We have no evidence to show that the whole Bible was translated into
Icelandic in the middle ages but it is conceivable that it was. All that we
have is a translation or paraphrase of the beginning of the Old Testa­
ment down to the end of the Second Book of the Kings. This text is
known as Stjórn (how old this name is, is uncertain), probably a
reference to God’s “governance” in the world. It divides into three main
parts. Part 1 goes only to Exodus 18 but is very extensive because the
biblical text is throughout accompanied by a detailed exposition drawn
from the work of medieval commentators. Part 2 goes to the end of
Deuteronomy: a comparatively plain translation though with some
abridgment. Part 3 starts with Joshua and ends with Kings II: it is a
mixture of translation and paraphrase in the medieval manner but
without any substantial omissions or additions.
It is clear that these three parts were originally independent and were
merely linked together in the archetype of the manuscripts we possess.
144 HAGIOGRAPHY. SAINTS’ LIVES

(Further investigation may show that the process of composition was

still more complex.) In the prologue we are told that “the worthy Lord
Håkon, crowned king of Norway, son of King Magnus” had this book
put into Norse; and a later heading says: “Here begins the second part
of this work [made] at the dictate of Håkon, crowned king of Norway.”
Hákon Magnússon reigned in Norway from 1299 until his death in
1319. Some scholars doubt whether any significance can be attached to
these references to him, or believe that they are relevant only to Part 1
(Genesis and Exodus 1 —18). Part 3, the last and largest section, can
hardly have resulted from Hákon’s initiative because its language and
style have features which suggest an origin in the thirteenth century, a
generation or two before his reign. It used to be thought that Stjórn was a
wholly Norwegian work, mainly because of the references to King
Håkon, but the possibility of Icelandic provenance has recently been
canvassed. It has been pointed out, for example, that Icelandic allitera­
tion (on kl-, kn-, hr- as opposed to Norwegian I-, n-, r-) is found
extensively in Part 3. Parts 1 and 2 have many complexities and further
research on their origins is highly desirable.

The work called Gybinga saga, saga of the Jews, is a translation, largely
based on Maccabees I, to which two legends, those of Pontius Pilate and
Judas Iscariot, are appended. The probable source of these two legends
is indicated by Jon Helgason in his article “Gyðinga saga i Trondheim”,
Opuscula V. Bibliotheca Arnamagnœana X X X I (1975). At the end of the
saga it is stated that Brandr Jonsson, priest, later bishop of Hólar,
translated the book from Latin into Norse, along with Alexanders saga
(which follows Gybinga saga in AM 226 fol., the main manuscript); and
did so at the behest of King Magnus Hákonarson. This attribution has
caused much controversy. Some scholars believe that Gybinga saga and
Alexanders saga are so unlike in style that they can hardly be by the same
man and accordingly ascribe only the one or the other to Brandr. Other
scholars refuse to associate him with either work and dismiss the
testimony of the manuscript out of hand.

Mention may finally be made of the tales called ævintýri, which were
extremely popular in the later middle ages. In modern Icelandic the
word is used of marchen, fairy-tales, but the medieval ævintyri are Christ­
ian exempla, entertaining short stories that inculcate a pious lesson. They
are not far removed from some of the edifying episodes that occur in
saints’ lives, and in both the overt moralising tends to spoil the art of the
Plate 10
God on his throne. Miniature from Stjórn^ century. - Photo: Arne Mann Nielsen.
Plate 11
The Blessed Virgin. Illustration in a Calendar, 14th century. - Photo: Arne Mann
Nielsen.
INDIVIDUAL WORKS 145
story-telling and diminish the modern reader’s enjoyment. Not always
though, and there are some gems in the great collection published by
Hugo Gering in his Islendzk Æventyri (1882—3).
Jón Halldórsson, a Dominican from Bergen, who was bishop of
Skálholt 1322—39, set store by such exempla and told or recorded them,
probably both. A þáttr a f Jóni Halldórssyni includes two ævintyri which Jón
himself was supposed to have experienced while studying in Paris and
Bologna; and elsewhere we are told of a little book “made up of those
entertaining tales which the worthy Lord Bishop Jón Halldórsson told
people for their amusement”.
The association with Bishop Jon led scholars to think that all such
exempla were written or translated in the fourteenth century, and Latin
sources were discovered for some of them. But it has recently been
shown that a fair number of such texts were translated from English and
probably not before the middle of the fifteenth century.

After the middle part of the thirteenth century we have little evidence
of fresh translations of saints’ lives into Icelandic until the early
sixteenth century, when the end of the old dispensation was in sight.
Possibly we shall discover that activity in this field was more continuous
than now appears. Interest in hagiographic literature certainly
remained alive, as we can tell from the constant copying of early texts.
Early in the sixteenth century the Icelandic magnate, Björn Þorleifs-
son of Reykhólar, translated a large collection of saints’ lives from Low
German. His autograph manuscript is in Perg. fol. nr 3 in the Royal
Library, Stockholm (published as Reykjahólabók by Agnete Loth, Edi-
tiones Arnamagnæanæ, Series A, 15 —16, 1969—70). Björn may have
felt a special need to have as many saints as possible on his side, for he
had become involved in bitter wrangling over his patrimony, disputes
that had even led to bloodshed. As time went on, he came to benefit
from the friendship and support of Bishop Ögmundr of Skálholt. Björn,
who died about 1550, must have been a good son of the Church.
His chief source was the Low German collection called Passional or
Der Heiligen Leben, a late fourteenth-century adaptation of the Legenda
aurea (cf. p. 135). The Passional was first printed in 1471 and rapidly
became popular. Björn Þorleifsson worked from a printed text, probably
the first time a printed source was ever put into Icelandic. The
collection contains lives of several saints who had not hitherto enjoyed
much veneration among Icelanders, such as Christopher, George and
Anna, the mother of the Blessed Virgin — and not forgetting Gregory
10 Eddas and Sagas
146 HAGIOGRAPHY. SAINTS’ LIVES

who had had a child by his own mother and spent years tethered to a
rock out in the ocean until he was finally rescued and raised to the papal
throne.
But the Reformation was just round the corner and the new order saw
to it that Bjorn’s collection had no opportunity to compete for popular
favour or fame. Some people may think it not much of a loss for the
language of the translation is heavily affected by German, a miscegena­
tion which will stand comparison neither with the older saints’ lives nor
with the writings of the Protestant reformers who were about to appear
on the scene.
 Kings’ sagas
Origins
Sagas are the outstanding literary achievement of the Icelanders, but
their origins and early development remain mysterious in many ways.
One main reason for this is the loss of so many early manuscripts — and
not a little of the literature with them - and we must be grateful to the
scribes of younger generations for what was saved.
In pondering the germination of saga-writing, two points come to
mind.
(1) As we saw, the oldest works on Icelandic national and personal
history include anecdotes that have a certain kinship with saga narra­
tive, though briefly told and tersely phrased. In chapter seven of
íslendingabók Ari tells of the events at the General Assembly when
Christianity was accepted and refers to Teitr, his “fosterer”, as his
source. There are fewer traces of Latin influence on his style at this point
than elsewhere in íslendingabók, and he gives the reader a lively impres­
sion of the action and the people involved. The impetuous Hjalti
Skeggjason recites an insulting couplet about the pagan gods at the Law
Rock and is banished for blasphemy. His defiant attitude is the same
when he breaks the law by returning to Iceland and riding to the
Assembly while still under sentence of exile. We see the kinsmen and
friends of the newly-arrived Christian chieftains riding to meet them,
and the whole party advancing in battle array to join the Assembly,
with the heathen party fully armed and formed up to receive them: it
seemed that bloodshed was inevitable in this tense situation, but
somehow it was avoided. We see how Þorgeirr Ljósvetningagoði the
Lawspeaker settled down under his cloak, and we even hear part of the
speech he made that rescued people from their predicament and intro­
duced a new official faith in Iceland: “But now that seems to me good
counsel that we too do not let those prevail who are most eager to go at
148 KINGS’ SAGAS

each other, but let us so mediate the matter between them that each side
may get part of his case, and let us all have the same law and the same
religion. It will turn out to be true that, if we rend the law asunder, we
shall also rend the peace.”
As noted earlier, the first Landnámabók records included a variety of
tales that were part and parcel of the histories of the colonisers and their
descendants, explaining how and why particular places were settled and
particular family relationships established. Such anecdotes made the
factual reports more attractive and entertaining. Take for example the
story of Löðmundr in Sólheimar and Þrasi in Skógar, which must have
come from Kolskeggr. There was a great flood in the stream called
Fúlalækr and by his wizardry Þrasi turned the spate east in the direction
of Sólheimar. Löðmundr’s slave saw it and said the sea was surging
towards them from the north. “Löðmundr was then blind. He told the
slave to fetch him what he called sea in a tub, and when he came back,
Löðmundr said, ‘This does not seem like sea-water to me.’ Then he told
the slave to go with him to the water — ‘and stick the point of my staff in
the water .5 There was a ring in the staff and Löðmundr held on to the
staff with both hands and bit on the ring. Then the waters began to fall
back westward in the direction of Skógar. Then they each kept turning
the water away until the two of them met beside a certain gully. Then
they agreed that the river should flow by the shortest course it had to the
sea. The river is now called Jökulsá and is a Quarter boundary.” This
“glacier river” divided the East and South Quarters.
(2) A problem to consider is whether the first sagas on native subjects
were perhaps inspired by foreign stories which had been put into
Icelandic from Latin. The narratives that might chiefly come into
question in this early period would be translated saints’ lives, some of
which exist in very ancient manuscripts (cf. p. 135). It is true that
dating early manuscripts is a tentative business and errors of a few
decades either way are quite possible. We are never dealing with
originals either and chance dictates whether the derivative copies we
inherit are older or younger. But obviously originals precede transcripts,
and it is noteworthy that the oldest saga texts to be preserved are sagas
of saints, heilagra manna sögur. In manuscripts dated to about 1200 or the
first decades of the thirteenth century we find lives of Mary, Nicholas,
Silvester (two texts), Erasmus and Basil. A manuscript assigned to the
twelfth century contains lives of Eustace, Blaise and Matthew. Because
of Norwegian features in the language these last are usually assumed to
be Norwegian in origin, but they could have been translated in Iceland
ORIGINS 149
for there is no sign that the manuscript itself was ever in Norway. There
are at least eight sagas of saints in manuscripts that are older than any
sources containing sagas on native subjects. We then have three
vernacular texts preserved in manuscripts from about 1220—30 but
certainly put together around or before 1200: the Miracle Book of St
Þorlákr (Jarteinabók Porláks helga), the Compendium of the Histories of
the Kings of Norway (Agrip a f Nóregs konunga sögum), and the Oldest
Saga of St Óláfr (Elsta saga Óláfs helga). The lost manuscript of íslend-
ingabók copied by Jón Erlendsson (p. 121) must also have been written
about 1200. In these instances we see that some of the most ancient
pieces of literature are preserved in some of the most ancient manu­
scripts. The number of early copies of saints’ lives shows that translation
of such texts was in full swing in the latter part of the twelfth century,
and the first of these must certainly antedate any original saga-composi­
tion in the vernacular.
So far there have been no thorough studies of the ways in which such
hagiographic narratives, whether in Latin or translated, might have
influenced the native sagas — and this is not the place to embark on so
difficult an undertaking. A distinction has been made between a
“learned” style, found in translated hagiography and other ecclesiastical
literature, and a “popular” style, found in native composition on native
subjects. The distinction is built however on a very small number of
stylistic features; and the texts investigated are not a wholly well-
balanced selection. Recent studies have made it clear that alleged
characteristics of the “learned” style do not figure much in the oldest
heilagra manna sögur and are by no means unknown in the oldest sagas on
native themes (cf. pp. 136-138 above).
Everything suggests that the native sagas had their roots in two kinds
of narrative: oral reports of events in the comparatively recent past, and
written accounts of saints and associated church literature. The oral
stories were probably very much like those we hear today from
knowledgeable people with an easy flow of talk: brief and unadorned,
with little or no direct speech, though sometimes an apt response is
included. From the written stories interested men learnt how to put flesh
on the bones, how to make a written style on the basis of the spoken
word (with some influence from Latin), how to construct rounded
narratives and how to enliven them with telling dialogue. As Gabriel
Turville-Petre said, “Thus, they helped the Icelanders to develop a
literary style in their own language, and gave them the means to express
their own thoughts through the medium of letters. In a word, the
150 KINGS’ SAGAS

learned literature did not teach the Icelanders what to think or what to
say, but it taught them how to say it 55 (Origins of Icelandic Literature, 1953,
p. 142).

The first saga

We have a few scraps of information about the development of
vernacular saga-writing in the latter part of the twelfth century. In
Heimskringla Snorri speaks of an Icelander named Eirikr Oddsson and
says:
Eirikr wrote the book called Hryggjarstykki. That book tells of
Haraldr gilli and his (two) sons and of Magnús the Blind and of
Sigurðr slembir, down to their deaths. Eirikr was a sensible man
and at this time spent long periods in Norway. He wrote some of
his account following what was told him by Håkon Belly, landed
man (lendr madr) of the sons of Haraldr. Håkon and his sons were
in all these quarrels and counsels. Eirikr names still more men who
told him of these events, sensible and truthful men who were at
hand to hear or see what occurred; and some things he wrote from
what he himself heard or saw.
Unfortunately these remarks by Snorri are not clear enough to be very
helpful. It is not obvious whether Eirikr’s book ended with the death of
Magnús the Blind and Sigurðr slembir (or slembidjákn) after the battle
of Holmengrå in 1139, or after all the sons of Haraldr gilli were dead —
that is, not until 1161. One can get a fair idea of what Hryggjarstykki was
like from Morkinskinna and Heimskringla, which take long passages from it
with little alteration. Parts indubitably from it include those on the
career of Sigurðr slembir. In these Morkinskinna is doubtless closer to
Hryggjarstykki than Heimskringla is. They bring us as close as we can get
to Eirikr Oddsson’s matter and manner.
We do not know at precisely what point Ari concluded his konunga avi,
but it is reasonable to think that he brought them down to c. 1 1 2 0 , as he
did his Icelandic material. The king of Norway then was Sigurðr the
Jerusalem-farer, half-brother of Þóra, daughter-in-law of Sæmundr
Sigfusson. The narrative in Hryggjarstykki began therefore at about the
time when A ri’s history ended, and with the death of King Sigurðr and
the advent of Haraldr gilli one of the most frightful periods of Norway’s
history was launched. The monk Theodoricus, or Þórir, Norway’s first
native historian, writing in Latin c. 1180, stopped his account with the
THE FIRST SAGA 151
death of King Sigurðr because, he says, it is “totally unfitting to consign
to the memory of posterity the crimes, killings, perjuries, parricides,
pollution of sacred places, contempt of God, depredations suffered no
less by religious than by all the people, abduction of women and other
abominations that would take long to enumerate.” This is the half-
century of Norwegian history before Theodoricus wrote and to some
extent at least the age described in Hryggjarstykki.
As one might expect, Eirikr Oddsson learnt much from Ari. He is
anxious to establish facts truthfully and accurately and, like Ari, cites
source-men. “Eirikr Oddsson who first wrote this account says that he
heard Einarr Pálsson in Bergen tell of these events.” “Bishop ívarr
declared that the time he found himself most deeply affected of all was
when ívarr dynta was taken ashore to the block and he embraced them
before he went and wished them a happy reunion. Guðríðr Birgisdóttir,
sister of Archbishop Jon, told it to Eirikr Oddsson in this way.” Eirikr
was told of the capture and torturing to death of Sigurðr slembir by
Hallr, son of Þorgeirr the physician Steinsson, who was a retainer of
King Ingi. After that episode neither Morkinskinna nor Heimskringla cites
any source-man traceable to Eirikr Oddsson, and this is an indication
that he ended his work with the events of 1139.
But in some respects Hryggjarstykki looks forward to saga narratives as
we know them, and it is the nearest we have to a pioneer work in their
development, though of course it is the sagas that tell of contemporary
or recent events which it resembles most closely, i.e. Sverris saga and the
sagas of the Sturlungs (pp. 152, 187). The author is in the thick of
things, records minor details, mentions a host of names. Such features
indicate that as literary works the sagas sprang primarily from oral
reporting and story-telling and were not mere imitations of foreign
written narrative. Accounts of contemporary affairs come first, sagas
about the past follow. Unfortunately we cannot take the Hryggjarstykki
passages we know as fully satisfactory evidence of the language and style
of the earliest sagas, for we cannot be sure how far Eirikr Oddsson’s own
words are exactly preserved in Morkinskinna and Heimskringla.
The date of Hryggjarstykki is important for the chronology of saga­
writing. As I mentioned above, it may have ended with the events of
1139, and it has been argued that it was primarily intended as a
biography of the ill-fated Sigurðr slembir, on whose behalf partisan
claims to sainthood were made soon after his death. If so, Eirikr must
have completed his work by c. 1150 or even earlier; but if, as some
scholars believe, he continued his account down to 1161, then a date of
152 KINGS’ SAGAS

composition c. 1165 must be thought probable. The earlier date allows

more time for the flourishing literary activity we must postulate in
Iceland in the last decades of the twelfth century. On the other hand, it
may perhaps be wrong to think that Eirikr Oddsson was an isolated
chronicler, even though his is the only name we know. The last part of
Heimskringla, right up to where it ends in 1177, is obviously based on
some written contemporary narratives. It is conceivable that when Karl
Jónsson began his historical writing around 1185, he represented an
Icelandic school of historians, whose existence might be implied, though
it cannot be plainly proved, by the laudatory references to Icelandic
cultivation of the past found in Danish and Norwegian works written
between about 1180 and 1 2 1 0 .

Abbot Karl Jónsson

After long years of internecine strife in Norway, part described in
Hryggjarstykki, it looked as though peace would dawn with the accession
of the boy-king, Magnus, in 1161, and the regency of his father, Earl
Erlingr skakki. Snorri describes Erlingr as “a good governor and
authoritative, reckoned rather harsh and severe; and what mattered
most was that he allowed few of his opponents to stay in the country,
even though they were willing to submit to his terms, and because of
that there were many men ready to join rebel bands as soon as they were
formed against him.” When King Magnus grew up, he turned out to be
an easy-going young man, fond of games and girls and generally
popular. He and his father also had the full support of the Church, and
Magnus, whose royal blood came only through his mother, had been
crowned by Archbishop Eysteinn Erlendsson — the first Norwegian
king ever to be consecrated by coronation.
But things changed suddenly when a priestling from the Faroes,
Sverrir, who called himself son of King Sigurðr munnr Haraldsson,
came to Norway and made himself the leader of a little band of ragged
partisans who wanted to see him on the throne. Few such desperate
struggles have been undertaken with such high hearts. But Sverrir’s
triumphant progress is one of history’s marvels. Gradually he suc­
ceeded, with brilliant propaganda and equally brilliant strategy, and
finally defeated and killed King Magnus and Earl Erlingr and secured
the submission of the archbishop. From 1184 he was Norway’s king, but
not unchallenged for he had many threats of rebellion and many
ABBOT KARL JÓNSSON 153
disputes with the Church to weather. He died in 1202, his bishops in
exile and he himself under a papal ban.
Just about the time when Sverrir destroyed Magnus and seemed
secure on the throne, a retired abbot from the Benedictine monastery of
Pingeyrar in North Iceland, Karl Jónsson by name, arrived in Norway.
He stayed for some years and began to write the saga of Sverrir, at the
king’s own dictation. “That account does not go very far,” it says in the
saga’s prologue, “some of his battles are described there.” But, it
continues, “the later part of the book was written following the accounts
of men who remembered these things, for they themselves had seen and
heard these events and some had been in battles with King Sverrir.
Some of these happenings were committed to memory by men who
wrote them down as soon as they had newly occurred, and they have not
been altered since.”
There has been much dispute over the significance of these words in
the prologue. The extent of the first part — called Gryla — written at
Sverrir’s dictation has seemed especially problematic, as has also the
actual extent of Abbot K arl’s authorship —did he write part of the saga
or all of it? The favoured view at the moment is that Gryla went only to
the Hirtubrú battle in 1178, i.e. to chapter 31. After that the narrative
style changes and the attitudes of Sverrir’s antagonists are better
represented. On the other hand, the whole saga makes such a unified
impression that it is most likely the work of one writer. Abbot Karl
returned to Iceland in 1188. He resumed the abbacy at Pingeyrar and
remained in office until 1207. He died in 1213. It seems most likely that
after recording chapters 1—31 with Sverrir as his informant, he con­
tinued to collect more material during his years in Norway. In Iceland
he went on collecting and writing, doubtless in stages, until he finished
the whole saga in the first years of the thirteenth century, soon after
Sverrir’s death in 1202.
Like Hryggjarstykki, Sverris saga is a “contemporary” saga, put together
in a similar way but as a far more ambitious and substantial structure.
Many factors contributed to its success: the development of saga-writing
in the last decades of the twelfth century; Abbot K arl’s own distinctive
literary talent; the superb subject-matter for story-telling that Sverrir’s
career provided; and not least the many brilliant speeches made by the
king at fateful moments in the action. It has sometimes been claimed
that the saga is propaganda for Sverrir’s cause but that is too hasty a
judgment. The value of the saga certainly resides in the portrait it
154 KINGS’ SAGAS

presents of Sverrir himself, but equally in the objectivity achieved by the

author in balancing Sverrir and his opponents. He does not play down
King Magnus’s popularity and good qualities, for example, and shows
genuine lack of bias when he lets the reader see Sverrir through the
unfriendly eyes of his enemies - as an impostor, Satan’s minion - and
the saga is so coloured by their judgments that few historians nowadays
are prepared to believe that Sverrir really thought he was the son of
King Sigurðr munnr. But from the saga we learn too that his confidence
never wavered, there is no shadow of doubt in his mind that his mission
is just — in a way he proved his royal birth by his deeds, even if he never
did by any church-supervised ordeal.
Snorri learnt much from Abbot Karl: how history is shaped by great
men, how mighty antagonists can be set off against each other, how men
can sway others with eloquence at times of crisis. Snorri is more neutral
still, more objective, more economical in his rhetoric, but on the other
hand, the speeches of Sverris saga seem more natural and life-like. It is an
admirable thing — and one that well shows the impartiality of Icelandic
saga authors — that a Benedictine abbot should write so judicious an
account of an apostate king who at the end of his life was under the ban
of the pope in Rome, and at the same time be able to present the king’s
struggle for his cause as a deeply-felt response to a sacred call.

Boglunga saga relates the struggle between the Baglar and Birkibeinar
factions in Norway after King Sverrir’s death, so that it fills the gap
between Sverris saga and Hákonar saga Hákonarsonar, i.e. 1202—17. It is a
good historical source, based on eyewitness accounts, but is less
interesting as a literary work. It is preserved in two versions, which
differ in both content and preservation. The shorter version, which is
biased towards the Baglar faction, is less detailed and goes only as far as
1208. The longer version, which is biased towards the Birkibeinar
group, is preserved only in a Danish translation from the sixteenth
century by Peter Claussön Friis. For a long time it was thought that the
shorter version was the more original, but now scholars tend to believe
that it is an adaptation, made for political reasons, of the first part of the
longer version.

Synoptic histories
Among the earliest works on the history of the kings of Norway are
two brief Latin surveys made by Norwegians late in the twelfth century.
SYNOPTIC HISTORIES 155

The writing of kings’ sagas flourished in the monastery at Pingeyrar about theyear
1200. There Abbot Karl Jónsson wrote the saga of King Sverrir Sigurdarson, and
the monks Oddr Snorrason and Gunnlaugr Leifsson wrote sagas about King Óláfr
Tryggvason. Above: the monastery’s seal, a drawing from about 1700 in the
manuscript AM 217 8vo. Ami Magnússon Institute, Reykjavik. Photo: Johanna
Ólafsdóttir.

One is called Historia de antiquitate regum Norvagiensium, written by a man

whose name, probably Þórir, is latinised as Theodoricus. He is thought
to have been a Benedictine monk of Nidarholm. He begins his work with
Haraldr Fairhaired and ends with Sigurðr the Jerusalem-farer (1130),
as noted above. Various things suggest that he wrote his book in the
period 1177—80. He says he got his information from Icelanders, who
are especially knowledgeable about the ancient kings, recalling what is
told in their antique poems (qui hæc in suis antiquis carminibus percelebrata
recolunt). He seems to be referring only to personal contacts with
Icelanders, not to written works, although obviously the books of
Sæmundr and Ari were in circulation at the time. Theodoricus turns his
essay into a typical medieval exercise, with long digressions that have no
bearing on Norwegian history. He does appear however to transmit a
synopsis of what Icelandic oral traditions, supported by old poetry, told
of the early Norwegian kings. When we find the same material in
subsequent writings, it can be difficult to decide whether it came from
Theodoricus or from the oral Icelandic sources he had used.

The other synoptic work in Latin is the anonymous Historia Norvegiæ.

The author and Theodoricus must have been working at about the same
time but neither knew the other’s book. The Historia is extant in a
manuscript thought to have been written c. 1450 in Orkney. It opens
156 KINGS’ SAGAS

with a geographical account of Norway and its colonies, and the history
proper begins with the dynasty of the Ynglingar in Sweden. It ends
abruptly with the arrival of St Óláfr Haraldsson in Norway, but
whether the work is defective or whether the author really stopped there
is uncertain, though from his prologue we see that his original intention
was to write more. He knew various Latin authors but was especially
influenced by Adam of Bremen’s Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiæ pontificum,
written c. 1070.

A third synoptic work from this early period is extant, this time in the
vernacular and preserved in an Icelandic manuscript from the first part
of the thirteenth century. It is called Ágrip a f Nóregs konunga sögum
(Compendium of the histories of the kings of Norway), usually Ágrip for
short. It is related to both Theodoricus and Historia Norvegiœ, borrowing
directly from the former, possibly also from the latter. It has recently
been suggested that a lost common source for Historia Norvegiœ and
Agrip was A ri’s first íslendingabók or the konunga ævi contained in it, but
this seems doubtful, partly because the source used in Norway must
have been more substantial than we can reasonably suppose A ri’s work
to have been. In addition to these and perhaps other written sources, the
author of Agrip also followed oral tradition, chiefly relating to Trønde-
lag. This and the accurate Trøndelag topography persuade most scho­
lars that the book was composed there. A copy of it soon came to
Iceland, however, and Icelandic historians were quick to incorporate
matter from it in their works.
The style of Ágrip is learned and latinate and it has been suggested
that it is a translation from Latin. This is quite uncertain, however, and
it may just as well represent a pedantic and rhetorical vernacular style,
not dissimilar from what may be found in some sagas of saints and in
orations in Sverris saga. In his short book the author strides through the
history of the Norwegian kings but still finds time for a variety of
anecdotes and accounts of extraordinary events that appealed to him.
He wastes few words on Haraldr Fairhaired’s struggle to impose his rule
on all Norway, for example, but spends much more time on the love-
story — complete with witchcraft — of the king and his Lapp mistress,
Snjófríðr.
Ágrip proved an important source for later kings’ sagas. Authors used
the facts it recorded as the kernels of more elaborate narratives. They
adopted its lively anecdotes and took them as models for new stories. In
SYNOPTIC HISTORIES 157
Heimskringla, for instance, Snorri borrowed the whole tale of Snjófríðr
and hardly altered a word.

Royal saints and Icelandic authors

The literature produced by the Benedictines of Þingeyrar towards
and about 1200 shows the dual origins of Icelandic saga-writing. On the
one side, we have Abbot K arl’s Sverris saga, a “contemporary” saga
based on oral sources and a development from the concise factual
recording of Ari and the first Landnámabók. On the other side, we have
“histories” of long-dead kings of Norway presented as Christian heroes,
works that were modelled on saints’ lives from abroad and in some cases
first composed in Latin themselves, full of exaggeration and supernatu­
ral intervention. These are chiefly represented by “lives” of Óláfr
Tryggvason and St Óláfr Haraldsson.
Two Þingeyrar monks wrote Latin lives of Óláfr Tryggvason. One
was Oddr Snorrason, about whom we know nothing except that his
family is traced in Landnámabók and Sturlunga saga and the generation-
count shows that he lived in the second half of the twelfth century. We
learn that he was in priest’s orders and a monk at Þingeyrar from a
passage near the end of the extant Icelandic versions of his book about
Óláfr Tryggvason. We know rather more about Gunnlaugr Leifsson, his
fellow-monk at Þingeyrar, because he plays a part in accounts of Bishop
Guðmundr Arason of Hólar (1203—37). He was at first a supporter of
the bishop but his enthusiasm waned as time went on. He is referred to
as “the most outstanding cleric and the most benevolent man” in the
north of the country, and as “the most competent man in Latin in all
Iceland”. As well as a life of Óláfr Tryggvason, he wrote a Latin life of
St Jón Ögmundarson of Hólar, now known only in Icelandic versions
(p. 182). He composed a rhymed Latin office for the feast of St
Ambrose, and translated the Prophecies of Merlin into fomyrdislag from
the Latin of Geoffrey of Monmouth. He died in 1218 or 1219.
There are indications that Gunnlaugr’s life of Óláfr Tryggvason was
more detailed and extensive than Oddr’s, but since Gunnlaugr seems
certainly second in the field this is not surprising. Oddr evidently knew
and used Theodoricus and Gunnlaugr knew and used Oddr. Some lines
in Flateyjarbók are on the literary work of the two monks. There we
find: “And subsequently Gunnlaugr says that he showed the saga of
King Óláfr to Gizurr Hallsson, and the said Gizurr kept the book for
158 KINGS’ SAGAS

two years, and afterwards, when it came back to Gunnlaugr, he himself

emended it where Gizurr thought necessary.” Gizurr Hallsson died in
1206, so Gunnlaugr must have written the first draft of his work by 1204
at the latest. Theodoricus influenced Oddr, and his book was written in
Norway about 1180 or a little before. In round terms we can therefore
say that the two Pingeyrar works on Óláfr Tryggvason belong to the last
twenty years of the twelfth century. Oddr’s work is customarily dated c.
1190, Gunnlaugr’s just before 1200.
Both Latin texts were quickly put into Icelandic, possibly by the
authors themselves or under their supervision. Once vernacular writing
was thoroughly fashionable, works composed in Latin were likely to
suffer neglect and in fact neither Oddr’s nor Gunnlaugr’s Latin text has
survived. We have no Icelandic version of Gunnlaugr’s work either,
though a quantity of material in later texts and a series of additions to
the Great Saga of Óláfr Tryggvason, compiled early in the fourteenth
century, are thought to come from it. What can otherwise be safely
attributed to Gunnlaugr is very hard to say, but he is generally credited
with a body of material concerning the conversion of the Icelanders to
Christianity, found in the Great Saga and to some extent in other sources.
Oddr’s Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar thus stands as our chief witness to the
royal hagiography of the Pingeyrar monks. The text is preserved in two
manuscripts which contain rather different versions and in a small
fragment of a third. The longer version is thought to be closer to the
original but it too has undergone some revision. As well as using
Theodoricus, as was mentioned above, Oddr followed Sæmundr and
Ari, as far as they went, and refers to them both by name. Their works
gave him a framework of fact which he filled out with stuff from oral
tradition and story-telling, selected and shaped in accordance with the
general conventions of saints’ lives. Much that Oddr tells of Óláfr
Tryggvason is pure legend, including motifs that have their origin in the
Bible or other Christian literature. It is generally assumed that Oddr
was himself responsible for adapting such tales and that he introduced
them in order to demonstrate Óláfr Tryggvason’s sanctity, even though
he was “not known for miracles after his death”, as the author acknow­
ledges in his prologue. It is also possible, however, that oral traditions
about Óláfr Tryggvason had already attracted legendary stories of this
kind in greater measure than is generally conceded. Oddr’s frequent
references to oral report suggest this (“Some men will have it . . . but
others say . . .”), and oral traditions about the facts — legendary or
otherwise —of Óláfr Tryggvason’s life and death were certainly current.
ROYAL SAINTS AND ICELANDIC AUTHORS 159
We see from Hallfreðr’s memorial dráþa that it was rumoured straight­
way after the battle of Svold that the king was still alive.
Oddr is delighted by Óláfr Tryggvason’s superb abilities, his courage
and the divine favour he enjoyed, and he describes with particular
enthusiasm his missionary efforts in Norway and his ruthless oppression
of pagans and warlocks. The saga is not well constructed as a whole but
some episodes are told with remarkable skill. The description of the
approach of Óláfr’s fleet before the final battle, culminating in the
advent of Ormrinn langi, all seen through the eyes of the watching kings
of Denmark and Sweden, is deservedly famous. Snorri took it over in
Heimskringla, as he did other passages from Oddr, though not without
improvements here and there.
The lives of Óláfr Tryggvason by Oddr and Gunnlaugr represent an
important stage in the development of saga-writing. On the one hand
they show the influence of the realistic contemporary histories, Hryggjar-
stykki and Sverris saga; on the other, they follow foreign patterns, com­
posed as they originally were in Latin and full of supernatural elements
and hagiographic conventions. They are the first sagas that deal with
the distant past and have roots both in native oral tradition and in
foreign literature: they point the way forward to Snorri Sturluson and
the anonymous authors of the sagas of Icelanders.

St Óláfr Haraldsson, Óláfr Tryggvason’s namesake and successor,

had to have a saga too. The first prose composition on the great saint of
the North was in Latin and meant for liturgical use. We have a passio et
miracula, in shorter and longer versions, made by Archbishop Eysteinn
(died 1188), and a related vernacular text in the Norwegian Homily
Book from c. 1200. From the early thirteenth century we have a few
fragments — found in a binding in the Riksarkiv, Oslo —of an Icelandic
manuscript containing bits of what is now generally known as the Oldest
Saga of St Óláfr (Elsta saga Óláfs helga) — when it was originally
composed is hard to tell. We have a full version of it in the so-called
Legendary Saga of St Óláfr (manuscript DG:8 II in the University Library,
Uppsala, c. 1250), which can be taken as an adequate representative of
the Oldest Saga if two evident accretions are disregarded. These addi­
tions, which differ in language and style from the remainder, concern St
Óláfr’s missionary efforts and miracles that took place after his death. It
is largely because of this extra matter that this version acquired the
“legendary” label, although the Oldest Saga itself clearly also contained
many hagiographic elements.
160 KINGS’ SAGAS

The connections between the Oldest Saga and the Pingeyrar lives of
Óláfr Tryggvason are not direct and of small significance. Altogether
the Oldest Saga belongs to quite a different world. It was put together in
Icelandic from the start and its style, though in some ways rather
primitive and fumbling, has few “learned 55 characteristics. The author
evidently knew some of the synoptic works, including Ágrip, but the
staple of the narrative consists of a variety of more-or-less unconnected
episodes, often with Icelanders as principal actors in them. In this
respect the Oldest Saga is a precursor of Morkinskinna, a history of kings
which is also largely made up of separate tales, and of the independent
þættir and sagas of Icelanders. It was probably composed in a very
different atmosphere from that of the monastery at Pingeyrar. Since
Agrip was known to the author, it cannot have been written before c.
120 0 , but the date of the early manuscript fragments shows it cannot
have been written long after that period either. The clumsy style and
imperfect construction may mean that the art of saga-writing was still in
chrysalid state, or that the author was a novice, or possibly both.
On the basis of Oddr’s work Gunnlaugr Leifsson produced a more
elaborate life of Óláfr Tryggvason. Similarly, on the basis of the Oldest
Saga Styrmir Kárason, prior of the Augustinian house of Viðey, pro­
duced a longer, revised life of St Óláfr Haraldsson. Styrmir’s book
suffered the same fate as Gunnlaugr’s: it has been lost save for some
excerpts quoted in Flateyjarbók and some chapters included in the Great
Saga of St Óláfr which, like the Great Saga of óláfr Tryggvason, was
compiled soon after 1300.
Styrmir died in 1245 but he must have written his Óláfs saga helga well
before that. It is believed to have been Snorri’s chief source for his Saga
of St Óláfr, so Styrmir’s book must have been in existence by 1230.

Thus at the beginning of the thirteenth century three kinds of

histories of the Norwegian kings were in existence: (1) concise synoptic
works, like the books of Sæmundr and Ari and like Ágrip; (2) “con­
temporary 55 accounts, like Hryggjarstykki and Sverris saga; and (3) histo­
ries in Latin and Icelandic of the missionary monarchs, Óláfr Trygg­
vason and St Óláfr Haraldsson. Scholars have for the most part
assumed that separate sagas had also been composed on other indi­
vidual rulers, but since any that may have existed have disappeared, it
is safer to leave them out of the picture.
MORKINSKINNA AND FAGRSKINNA 161

Morkinskinna and Fagrskinna

The next stage in the development of kings’ sagas saw the composi­
tion of new surveys of Norwegian history that were much longer and
more detailed than the earlier ones. These were free revisions of older
texts supplemented by matter drawn from the verse of court-poets, from
oral tradition — some of which was undoubtedly associated with the
verse —and from the imaginations of the authors themselves. The first of
these new surveys to be preserved is Morkinskinna which may be said to
be a continuation of Óláfs saga helga since it begins with the reign of his
son, Magnus the Good. Much obscurity surrounds the original Morkin­
skinna and the alterations it underwent to reach the state in which we
know it. Sources used by the original author are no longer extant in
original form, and the work was certainly changed and augmented in
scribal transmission. Many of the þættir which make Morkinskinna such
entertaining reading, for example, were not in the text from the begin­
ning — in some instances we have them as independent texts which are
evidently closer to the originals than the Morkinskinna versions. Refer­
ences to particular people known from other sources have led to the
conclusion that the first Morkinskinna was composed about 1220, but it
may be necessary to reconsider that dating because the references in
question could themselves be the result of editorial innovation. All we
can say for certain at present is that Morkinskinna was written before
Fagrskinna, and that Fagrskinna was written before Snorri’s Heimskringla.
That Morkinskinna has an antique origin is suggested by certain features
of language and style, and no less by the uneven construction — the
author gets things in the wrong chronological order, repeats himself,
even contradicts himself. Some of the confusion is doubtless because he
is cobbling discrepant sources. But in its present shape Morkinskinna
certainly marks an advance on Oddr’s Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar and the
Oldest Saga of St Óláfr. Some episodes are told in masterly fashion —
though some of them are to be credited not so much to the Morkinskinna
writer as to the authors whose work has been adapted in the compila­
tion we now have. Snorri profited more from Morkinskinna than from any
other book he knew, and he worked most of its material into his histories
of the Norwegian kings from Magnus the Good onwards, though often
with improvement of arrangement and style.
Snorri rejects a good deal from his sources, not least some of the
miraculous tales associated with the two Óláfrs, and of course it can be a
matter of opinion whether he was always right in his choice of material.
11 Eddas and Sagas
162 KINGS’ SAGAS

It has also been maintained that he did not always improve on Morkin-
skinna — or not as we should like — and sometimes omits things that we
would gladly see retained. It has been pointed out, for example, that
while Morkinskinna tells some curious tales to illustrate the madness from
which Sigurðr Jórsalafari suffered in his last years, Snorri makes little of
this subject and merely says that the king often suffered from “restless­
ness” (staðleysi). But one does not have to dig very deep to discover why
Snorri should avoid any blot on the memory of this famous king: he was
the uncle of Jon Loptsson, Snorri’s fosterfather at Oddi.
The name Morkinskinna — “dark vellum” — was originally bestowed
on the volume containing these early kings’ sagas, though many Ice­
landic codexes are blacker, and has since become established as the
name of the work itself. The manuscript is unfortunately defective.

The next compilation, Fagrskinna — “fair vellum” — got its name in

the same way, but we cannot tell with what justification because the
codex was destroyed in the great fire of Copenhagen in 1728 —
fortunately it also existed in paper copies that have survived. Fagrskinna
is not only Heimskringla"s nearest precursor but is also most closely
comparable to Snorri’s work in covering the reigns of all the Norwegian
kings from Hálfdan the Black (Haraldr Fairhaired’s father) to Magnus
Erlingsson — Snorri differs only in including Ynglinga saga as the prelude
to his dynastic history. But in other respects Fagrskinna and Heimskringla
are vastly different. Fagrskinna is a mere fraction of the length of
Heimskringla, and the author was neither outstandingly original nor
outstandingly artistic. For the most part he copied older writings
without significant alteration: his chief contribution was to abridge his
sources and fit them into his framework.
The greater part of Fagrskinna is abstracted from Oddr’s Óláfs saga
Tryggvasonar, the Oldest Saga of St Óláfr and Morkinskinna, but the choice
of matter and the relative proportions of the narrative are very strange.
The author is most happily expansive when he comes to describe great
battles — yet he completely neglects the most famous battle of all, the
battle of Stiklestad, which other sources describe at length. This is one
reason why it has been suggested that Fagrskinna was put together
hastily and unsystematically. But there are also reasons for not taking
this view. Elsewhere the author gives the impression of being a realistic
and critical historian — much more so than the writers of his chief
sources. He completely ignores all their supernatural tales, for example,
and often departs from them when he thinks other sources more reliable.
MORKINSKINNA AND FAGRSKINNA 163
He turns especially often to ancient poetry and cites stanzas in support
of his version of events. In this critical, scholarly approach he was a
model for Snorri to follow, and one can often see that Snorri in fact
prefers his concise narrative to the accounts of other sources — though
he seldom fails to brighten and vivify it.

Sagas of rulers outside Norway

Denmark figures in some degree in all the sagas of the Norwegian
kings but separate sagas were also devoted to the Danish rulers.
Skfoldunga saga begins in the mists of time and traces a good twenty
generations from Skjöldr son of Óðinn to Gormr the Old (died c. 950).
The original text is lost but much of it is preserved in a Latin translation
or retelling by Arngrimur Jonsson the Learned (1568—1648), and some
matter from it is preserved in other sources. The so-called Sögubrot a f
fornkonungum is thought to be the remnants of a younger recension of
Skfoldunga saga. Snorri refers to Skfóldunga saga in Heimskringla, and in his
Edda he took from it the story of Hrólfr kraki. The saga-author made use
of an ancient genealogy of the men of Oddi, who traced their descent
from the Skjöldungar. He also used old poetry, including Gróttasöngr and
Rígsþula (pp. 39, 80), and oral narratives. He must have composed his
saga about 1200, a pioneer work in Icelandic literature since it is both
the earliest “saga of ancient times” we possess and the first Icelandic
history of the kings of Denmark — a great pity it is so poorly preserved.

The first Danish historians belong to this same period, but they wrote
in Latin. In the 1 190s Sven Aggesen wrote his Brevis historia regum Dacie
as an appeal to Danish patriotism. He began with Skjöldr and ended
with the submission of the Pomeranian Duke Bugislav in 1185. His
younger contemporary, Saxo Grammaticus, finished his much more
ambitious work, Gesta Danorum, some time before 1219. He begins his
history in the mythical past, devotes the first eight books to the pagan
rulers, the ninth to the conversion period in the tenth century, and the
remaining seven to the subsequent reigns, ending in 1185, as Sven
Aggesen had done. More history and less legend appears from Book X
onwards. The prehistoric part has much in common with Icelandic
fomaldarsögur, and in his prologue Saxo says that he got much material
from Icelanders. Some stories told by Saxo cannot be paralleled in
Icelandic sources, but that of course need not mean that they never
existed among the Icelanders. There is immense variety in traditional
164 KINGS’ SAGAS

tales and there is no/feason to suppose that every story current in

twelfth-century Icbfand found written record for posterity.

Knýtlinga saga concerns the descendants of a King Knutr — probably

not Knutr the Great of Denmark and England (died 1035) but some
ancient Knutr named in the lost first part of this saga, where Skfóldunga
saga was probably a prime source. Knytlinga saga is a much later work
than the others mentioned so far, probably not written until c. 1260—70.
The extant text begins with Haraldr Gormsson (died c. 986). It ends at
about the same time as the Danish histories, i.e. with the conclusion of
the Wendish wars, though as a historical source it is naturally much
inferior to them. The saga is certainly related to the Danish histories but
exactly how is hard to tell. It is thought most likely that the author used
the same sources as Sven Aggesen, but he also knew Saxo, though
possibly not at first hand. He also takes some material from Heimskringla
and it was evidently his intention to produce a whole history of the kings
of Denmark similar to Snorri’s work on the kings of Norway. He
consequently gives pride of place to St Knutr (died 1086), just as Snorri
devoted a third of his work to St Óláfr. This parallel brings the
Sturlungar to mind as likely instigators of Knytlinga saga, and in fact
there is a reference in it to Óláfr hvítaskáld Pórðarson, Snorri’s nephew,
who spent some time at the court of King Valdemar the Victorious.
Óláfr, who died in 1259, is thought to have been responsible for much of
the matter in the saga and even perhaps its author.
It is customary to count some other sagas with settings outside
Iceland among kings’ sagas, even though the leading men in them are
not royalty. The outstanding ones are Orkneyinga saga, Jómsvíkinga saga
and Færeyinga saga. They are all notable pioneering narratives, written at
the end of the twelfth or the beginning of the thirteenth century.

Orkneyinga saga was the first of them, put together just before or about
1200 — it has also been suggested that some of its twelfth-century
episodes found record very soon after their occurrence. It is thus both a
saga of the past and of the present, and its importance in the develop­
ment of saga-writing in general depends on the way the author created
or shaped stories of the distant past to match the more detailed and
elaborate accounts he had of recent events. Connections have been
pointed out between the great Orkney families and the men of Oddi and
also with the family at Hvassafell in Eyjafjörður, descendants of
Porgeirr Hallason. Like Hryggjarstykki, Orkneyinga saga is probably to be
SAGAS OF RULERS OUTSIDE NORWAY 165
taken to represent the native, layman’s mode of saga-making — unlike
that of the contemporary Latin authors at Þingeyrar who were more
affected by foreign models and a learned style.

Jómsvíkinga saga is a strange work, telling of a tough breed of Vikings

who held the Jomsborg fortress in Wendland in the period round AD
1000. The site of this nest of pirates has never been discovered and most
of what is told of the Jomsvikingar is enveloped in legendary glamour.
After they had forced Sven Forkbeard, king of the Danes, to agree to
their demands, he had a mind to vengeance and consequently invited
them to a funeral feast, where he tricked them into vowing extravagant
vows. Earl Sigvaldi solemnly swore to attack Norway and either kill
Earl Håkon, its ruler, or drive him out of the country — and his
comrades followed suit. The centrepiece of the saga is their foray to
Norway and their battle with Earl Håkon in Hjörungavágr. At first the
Jomsvikingar had the better of it, but when Håkon sacrificed his son and
called on Þorgerðr Hölgabrúðr for victory, a great unnatural storm
arose and Sigvaldi’s men suffered heavy losses. Finally he and many
others fled while those who stayed were killed or captured. An unforget­
table tale is told of the fate of the captives. The Vikings are bound in a
long rope and executed one after another, each making some defiant
remark before his death. This grim spectacle is reminiscent of scenes in
the heroic poems in the Edda or in some of the fornaldarsogur written long
afterwards — and indeed, Jómsvíkinga saga has been called a uheroic lay
in prose”. Some Icelanders fought on Hákon’s side in the battle, and the
saga quotes verse by Icelandic poets and cites Icelanders as source-men
for parts of the narrative. We cannot test the reliability of such refer­
ences, but it is reasonable to suppose that Vigfúss Viga-Glumsson and
Einarr skálaglamm, both well-known poets, had much to tell about this
bloody battle when they got back to Iceland. What they told was then
remembered, embroidered and augmented over more than two hundred
years until some brilliant unnamed author wrote Jómsvíkinga saga shortly
after 12 0 0 .

Færeyinga saga was probably the last of these three sagas to be written,
though hardly later than c. 1210. The events belong to the distant past,
chiefly to the days of the missionary kings, Óláfr Tryggvason and Óláfr
Haraldsson, and we must assume that the narrative is based on Faroese
traditions. The central character is Þrándr í Götu, a complex personal­
ity, staunchly loyal to the pagan faith and the old laws of the Islanders,
166 KINGS’ SAGAS

ruthless and ingenious in dealing with the emissaries of the Norwegian

king. Glamour surrounds Sigmundr Brestisson who brings Christianity
to the Faroes and forces baptism on Þrándr, but it is not long before he
is murdered, and other agents from the king meet mysterious ends.
Finally the scales are balanced. After his lieutenants are destroyed and
his fangs drawn, Þrándr dies — so the saga suggests — from impotent
vexation.
Færeyinga saga has several features typical of an early stage in the
development of saga-writing, both in composition and style, but it also
has many novelties. The author’s method is to sow suspicion in the
reader’s mind, especially suspicion of Þrándr and the web of his
cunning, and later saga-writers learnt a great deal from this approach.
In fact, Færeyinga saga is closer to sagas of Icelanders than to kings’
sagas, not so much because Faroese and Icelandic conditions were
similar as because evidence is lacking for the veracity of the story he is
telling; he refers to no old poetry, no native written sources, no foreign
histories. In approaching Færeyinga saga literary historians are on the
same slippery slopes as they are in approaching íslendinga s'ógur: fact and
fiction, local tradition and the author’s imagination, can hardly be told
apart.

Fagrskinna must have been written about 1220. By then the Icelanders
and Norwegians possessed a large collection of kings’ sagas: synoptic or
compilatory works, both longer and shorter, as well as separate sagas on
individual rulers past and present. But no large-scale work had been
composed to compare in scope and detail with these individual treat­
ments. Now a surpassing scholar and author arrives on the stage, who
took all the varied work of his predecessors, melted it down and reforged
it into a comprehensive history of the kings of Norway from the dim
legendary past to the advent of King Sverrir. This author was such a
master stylist and such a profound historian that after his time people
gave up writing sagas about the past kings of Norway and merely added
lives of those who followed Sverrir on the throne in the thirteenth
century.

Snorri Sturluson
Snorri was born in 1179 (or possibly in 1178), son of Sturla Þórðarson
of Hvammur í Dölum, a nouveau riche chieftain who had gained power by
using his intelligence and practising ruthless violence. To the great good
SNORRI STURLUSON 167

Snorri’s warm-water pool at Reykholt. “One evening when Snorri sat in the pool
there was talk o f leading men. They said there was no chieftain like Snorri, and no
chieftain could compete with him on account o f the kinsmen he had by marriage.
Sturla Bdrðarson had stood guard over the pool and he conducted Snorri back to the
house; he let f l y with this verse in Snorri’s hearing: cYou have kinsmen by marriage
like those the word-wise prince o f Lejre got in days o f old —injustice always comes
o f f badly.’ ” — The kinsmen by marriage spoken o f were Snorri’s sons-in-law,
Gizurr Porvaldsson, Kolbeinn the Young, and Porvaldr Snorrason o f Vatnsfjörður.
The “prince o f L ejre” in Sturla’s verse was Hrólfr kraki, king o f the Danes, who
fou gh t with his father-in-law , K ing Adils o f Uppsala, and was later attacked and
killed by his brother-in-law, Hjorvarbr. Photo: Gisli Gestsson.

fortune of Icelandic literature, Snorri was brought up in one of the most

cultured homes in the country, as foster-son of Jón Loptsson, Sæmundr
the W ise’s grandson, at Oddi. When Snorri grew to manhood, he
entered the stakes for wealth and power, and won both. He ran a
magnificent estate at Reykholt in Borgarfjörður, owned many goðorð and
much land, allied his family by marriage to the leading chieftains in
Iceland, had two spells of office as Lawspeaker, and twice spent periods
abroad at the court of the Norwegian king and with other magnates in
Norway and Sweden. In the conflict between King Håkon and Duke
Skúli, Snorri supported the duke, and when Håkon had defeated and
168 KINGS’ SAGAS

killed Skuli, he looked on Snorri as a traitor and had him assassinated at

his home in Reykholt one dark autumn night in 1241. It was a queer
trick of fate that, before he died, Snorri had erected a memorial to the
Norwegian dynasty grander than any other royal line has ever received.
Snorri’s book of kings’ sagas has come to be called Heimskringla, from
the opening words of Ynglinga saga: Kringla heimsins, sú er mannfólkit
byggvir, er mjök vágskorin — “The circle of the world which mankind
inhabits has many sea inlets.” The work begins with an account of the
kings of myth and legend who ruled in Uppsala in Sweden. The dynasty
then moved to Norway, and we come closer to real history with the reign
of Hálfdan the Black in Vestfold and of his son, Haraldr Fairhaired, the
first ruler of all Norway. Each king has a separate saga in due chrono­
logical order but the saga of Óláfr Haraldsson, king and martyr, is by
far the most extensive — not surprisingly since he was Norway’s patron
saint and rex perpetuus Norvegiœ. The whole work ends with the advent of
Sverrir — Abbot K arl’s Sverris saga made a continuation unnecessary.
Snorri gives some account of his sources and method in his Prologue.
He names only one historian — Ari Þorgilsson — and otherwise sets
most store by scaldic poetry because it provides contemporary evidence.
He says: “It is the way of poets to praise most the man in whose
presence they stand. But no one would dare to recount before him as
deeds of his what everyone who listened, and he himself, knew to be
groundless and fabled. That would be mockery, not praise.”
Many of the works used by Snorri are still extant, though some only
in later recensions than those he knew. His treatment of them varies
greatly. When an existing narrative seems to him sufficient, he makes
little or no alteration, but when necessary he has a marvellous way of
bringing dead matter to life. But in spite of the sparkle Snorri can add,
he remains a far more critical historian than his predecessors were. The
qualities of Heimskringla were soon recognised, so much so that earlier
texts were often neglected in its favour and so lost for ever; and
sometimes Snorri’s rewritten versions of older texts were used to replace
original chapters in those very works — as happened in parts of
Orkneyinga saga and Færeyinga saga, where we cannot now reconstruct
what their authors wrote and have some chapters only in Snorri’s guise.
This means however that we do not always have the comparative
material which would show us how Snorri worked.
Snorri first wrote Óláfs saga helga which was later included in
Heimskringla as well as being preserved as a separate work. Snorri’s
artistic skill as a writer reached its highest point in this saga, which
SNORRI STURLUSON 169
makes up a third of Heimskringla, even though it covers only 15 years of
Norwegian history. Óláfr was the most revered of all the Nordic saints
and much had been written about him, Snorri’s saga providing the
climax of a long development. Nowhere are Snorri’s narrative powers
more expansively employed and nowhere are his characters more varied
and real, not only Óláfr himself but also the whole range of people who
revolve around him in war and peace.
Snorri’s main source was undoubtedly the Óláfs saga by Styrmir
which, as mentioned above, we know only in fragments. The fragments
show that Styrmir, following the fashion of previous saga writers was
concerned to present Óláfr as a holy man, a true saint, who was already
working miracles in his youth, even when on Viking raids.
The author of Fagrskinna was more realistic and down to earth, and
discarded all the saintly material concerning Óláfr; Snorri, however, not
only tried to follow the sources, but also to establish the historical truth.
In his saga Óláfr begins as a warlike Viking, but gradually develops in
character, through experience and various hardships, until he emerges
as a holy man on the bloody battlefield of Stiklestad. It is noteworthy
that Snorri does not let any explicit miracles take place while the king is
still alive, though there are marvels suggestive of miracles in Óláfr’s
later years. On his last expedition to Norway, and especially in the
battle of Stiklestad, he is seen more and more in a holy light, and thus it
comes as no surprise when a great number of miracles occur
immediately after he has fallen.
Snorri sometimes likes to present a portrait of his main characters
when ending a narrative episode or saga. He paints such a portrait of
Óláfr, but not at the end of his saga, where it would be out of place in
the account of his emergence as a saint. Instead Snorri describes Óláfr’s
character at the end of the saga of his brother, Haraldr the Hardruler,
who fell in battle in England in 1066. In order to avoid the responsibility
of passing worldly judgment on the saint, Snorri puts the following
comment into the mouth of Halldórr Brynjólfsson, “a wise man and a
mighty chieftain”:

I was held in high regard by both brothers and I knew the

characters of both of them very well. I have never known two men
more alike. They were both highly intelligent, very brave and
daring in battle, greedy for wealth and power, of domineering
temper, aloof, active in governing and stern in punishing. King
Óláfr forcibly converted his people to Christianity and the true
170 KINGS’ SAGAS

faith and harshly punished those who turned a deaf ear. The
chieftains would not put up with his justice and impartiality and
raised an army against him and killed him in his own domain.
That was why he became a saint.
King Haraldr, on the other hand, went to war for fame and
power and forced everyone he could to submit to him, and it was
in another king’s domain that he was killed. In their daily lives
both these brothers were careful of their conduct and of their
dignity. They were both widely travelled and men of great enter­
prise, and as such became outstanding and famous far and wide.

Snorri is a realistic saga-writer in comparison with those who had

previously written about St Óláfr, although his realism is often only on
the surface of the narrative — a feature which, in fact, applies to many
Icelandic sagas which relate events of times long past. Snorri totally
omits some supernatural descriptions and alters others, adding his own
rational explanations. Thus in the Legendary Saga the young Viking Óláfr
sails straight through a peninsula in the lake Lögrinn (Mälaren) in
Sweden, but Snorri has him “dig a canal across Agnafit out to the sea”
and lets his ship sail out with the flood. This may seem more probable at
first, but in fact it is also a rather far-fetched explanation. Snorri
does not totally disregard the supernatural elements in his sources,
however. An example of this is the story of the Lappish witch, Snæfríðr,
which he adapts from Agrip with only a few changes, or the witty story of
Arnljótr gellini, who moves at magic speed on his skis and kills a
giantess who like Polyphemus had eaten peaceful travellers.
Light can be shed on Snorri’s working methods by comparing
Heimskringla with various other sources which have been preserved, e.g.
Oddr Snorrason’s Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar, the Oldest Saga of St Óláfr (the

The inventory of the church at Reykholt (HeykjaholtsmáldagiJ has entries in

several hands, the oldest dated to about 1185. It begins: “The church at Reykjaholt
is endowed with all the home-estate and all its produce. 20 cows go with it, a two-
year-old bull, 150 ewes. ” Snorri Sturluson crops up in the inventory: “Magnús and
Snorri donate half each the reliquary standing on the altar, and this is church
property in addition to what is already listed. The church further owns the bells
which Snorri and Hallveig have donated . . .” It has been suggested that this part of
the inventory may have been written by Snorri himself. Reproduced herefrom a 19th
century facsimile.
172 KINGS’ SAGAS

Legendary Saga) and Morkinskinna. Bjarni Aðalbjarnarson has made a

telling comparison of the respective passages in Morkinskinna and
Heimskringla where the brother-kings, Eysteinn and Sigurðr the Jeru-
salem-farer, compare their achievements — and it is worthwhile for a
reader to consider the passages for himself. Morkinskinna is lively and
entertaining, but Snorri gives the exchange a dramatic tension and
shape so that the episode becomes a classic example of his art.
Snorri also makes noticeable improvements to Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar
and the Legendary Saga, and indeed these are more primitive works than
Morkinskinna. An interesting comparison can be made of the dialogue
between St Óláfr and his young half-brothers as presented in the
Legendary Saga, ch. 27 and in Óláfs saga helga in Heimskringla, ch. 76. The
narrative in the Legendary Saga is rather stiff and not particularly
memorable, but in the hands of Snorri it becomes a polished piece of
prose with various classical rhetorical features. One of these is the
pointed build-up of triadic groupings. In the Legendary Saga there are
only two brothers; in Snorri’s version there are three, and the youngest
is by far the most courageous and ambitious. In the Legendary Saga the
episode ends vaguely and lamely, but in Snorri’s version the anecdote
reaches a telling climax when Óláfr says to Ásta of her three-year-old
son Haraldr: “You are bringing up a king here, mother.”
Snorri’s original creative power is clearly evident in the exchanges
between his main characters in which he sometimes gives them long,
coherent speeches. Many of these conversations are based to some
extent on his sources, but he always gives them a new and more telling
significance, making the replies sharper and much more to the point,
often letting them give a clear indication as to what will happen later in
the saga. Disputes are presented with admirable fairness, every charac­
ter putting forward his case clearly and logically so that the reader
cannot help believing each speaker in turn. The conversations in
Heimskringla often have a broader background and a wider purpose than
is normally the case in the sagas, for they are to explain clashes between
opposing factions or nations — kings against powerful landowners,
Christianity against heathendom for example. Snorri has great admira­
tion for the wealthy landowner who undauntedly presents the people’s
case against the king. A good example is Ásbjörn of Meðalhús, who at
the Frostaþing speaks against Håkon the Good’s proclaiming of Chris­
tianity (Hákonar saga góða, ch. 15):

We yeomen thought, King Håkon, he says, that when you had

SNORRI STURLUSON 173
held the first assembly here in Trøndelag and we had accepted you
as king and received from you the title to our ancestral possessions,
that we had reached as high as the sky. Now we no longer know
whether we have attained our liberty, or whether you are going to
enslave us once more, and in extraordinary fashion, by making us
reject the faith of our forefathers . . . We are all willing to serve you
and have you as our king while any one of us yeomen here at this
assembly still lives — provided that you, king, show some modera­
tion and ask of us only what we can give you and what we can
rightly do. But if you are so high-handed in pursuing this and use
force and tyranny against us, then all of us yeomen have decided to
turn from you and take another leader, who will let us choose
freely the faith we wish to have. You must make one of these
choices, king, before the assembly is over.
Another example is Þorgnýr the Lawman who speaks at the Uppsala
assembly and demands that King Óláfr of Sweden should keep peace
with Kin? Óláfr of Norway. Snorri ends his speech like this (óláfs saga
helga, ch. 80):
But if you will not do what we say, we shall set upon you and kill
you and not put up with hostility and injustice from you. That is
what our forefathers have done - at Múlaþing they threw five
kings into a well because they were full of arrogance, just as you
are towards us. Now be quick and say which choice you want to
make.
It is tempting to think that Snorri, himself a great squire, saw himself
as the counterpart of these Nordic magnates. Admittedly, as the fore­
most Icelandic chieftain of his day, he had undertaken to bring Iceland
under the sovereignty of the Norwegian king. But he had done virtually
nothing to pursue the matter and had indeed expended more effort on
bringing the country under his own sway than under that of the king.
And in Óláfs saga helga (ch. 125) he gives to Einarr of Þverá the most
eloquent speech ever made in defence of Icelandic independence. Óláfr
had asked the Icelanders to make him a present of “the island or skerry
ofFEyjafjörðr which they call Grimsey”. The Icelanders sought Einarr’s
opinion — “He seems to us,” they said, “to see clearest in most matters.”
He replied:
I have been chary of words in this matter because no one has asked
me about it. But if I must give my opinion, then I think that what
the people of this country should do is not to subject themselves to
tribute to King Óláfr and to any such burden as he has laid on the
174 KINGS’ SAGAS

Norwegians. We shall be submitting not only ourselves to bondage

but, as well as ourselves, all our sons and all our kindred who live
in this country, and this land would never be free or rid of that
slavery. And even though this king is a good man, as I well believe
he is, it will happen, as it always has with any change of kings, that
some are good and some are bad . . . As far as Grimsey is
concerned, if no food supplies are taken out of the island, it can
easily support an army, and if a foreign army sat there and were
sailing out in their longships, I think many a cottar would reckon
himself under siege.
Snorri undoubtedly used Sverris saga as a model for the speeches in
Heimskringla, especially when he lets a king or commander speak
stirring words before battle in the manner of Sverrir. Sverrir’s speeches
are, it is true, usually more vigorous and sharper, but we can take it that
this is because they are based on the recollection of men who actually
heard the king’s words. The exhortations before battle in Heimskringla
are certainly sensible and logical, like other speeches composed by
Snorri for his characters, but they lack a certain vitality and conviction
compared with Sverrir’s speeches: they are the calculated utterance of a
wise author sitting at his desk and not hasty words delivered in the heat
of battle. Snorri’s impartiality and tolerant approach are clearly shown
by the fact that he puts one of his best and most stirring speeches into
the mouth of the Danish Bishop Sigurðr just before the battle of
Stiklestad. Having been driven from Norway by the great yeomen of his
country, King Óláfr has gathered support in Sweden and returned to
regain his throne. It will not be long before he is resurrected as a royal
martyr from the bloodsoaked battlefield, but all the same Snorri gives
Bishop Sigurðr a powerful speech in which he reminds his audience of
all the violent acts of King Óláfr’s career:
And what man of standing can there be here who has not some
great injury to pay him back for? Now he comes with a foreign
host, most of them outcasts and footpads and other bandits. Do
you think he will be soft on you now when he comes with these
ruffians, considering the ravages he inflicted even when all his own
men tried to stop him? . . . The thing to do now is to march against
them and kill off these ruffians for eagle and wolf to batten on, and
let them all lie where they are cut down, unless you feel like
dragging their corpses among brushwood and boulders!

After that speech by Bishop Sigurðr the reader is indeed persuaded that
SNORRI STURLUSON 175
it will take martyrdom to save the reputation of this ill-starred tyrant,
Óláfr Haraldsson.
From a modern hypercritical viewpoint it is certainly possible to find
fault with Snorri’s history. He does not look for sociological explana­
tions of the course of events, merely for human ones. He is not at all
reluctant to adapt his sources as he sees fit and even to write whole new
chapters of his own in order — rightly or wrongly — to clarify connec­
tions and make his narrative more alive. But in the eyes of his contem­
poraries this was how history should be written —and there is a lot to be
said for it. And there is no doubt that, along with his imaginative vision
and dramatic talent, Snorri also approached his sources with acute
critical powers and a deep insight into the logic of cause and effect in the
historical process.
Heimskringla has appeared in a number of Norwegian translations
during the last two hundred years and become a sort of patriot’s Bible in
Norway. It was a prime source of inspiration in the Norwegian struggle
to break out of the Swedish union in the nineteenth century, just as the
sagas of Icelanders inspired the Icelandic independence movement. It
was thanks to Snorri more than to any other single person that the
Norwegians finally regained their national sovereignty. After five cen­
turies of foreign rule they once more got a king of their own, the Danish
Prince Carl. When he ascended the throne he became Håkon VII,
taking the name of that predecessor of his who once upon a time had
ordered the execution of the great saga-author of Reykholt.

Snorri’s Edda, the Prose Edda as it is sometimes called, is usually

regarded as Snorri’s first work. It is his only book that we can date with
some precision. When he came back from his travels abroad in 1220, he
composed a drápa on King Håkon and Earl Skuli. The poem is known as
Hdttatal, “enumeration of metres”, and consists of 102 stanzas exem­
plifying 100 different metres and stylistic modes. It was modelled on
Håttalykill hinn fomi (p. 110), although Snorri’s sequence is more elabo­
rate and more systematic. It is accompanied by a prose commentary in
the fashion of medieval Latin schoolbooks. The factual content of the
poem is meagre, even for court-poetry, and its poetic qualities are not
such as to impress a modern reader, but of course the poet was
constrained both by the requirements of the form and by his pedagogic
purpose.
Hdttatal was probably the first part of the Edda to be composed, with
the two preceding sections and the prologue added later. In Gylfaginning
176 KINGS’ SAGAS

Snorri tells the myths that explain the diction of scaldic poetry, though
in his delight as narrator and instructor he includes stories not strictly
necessary for this purpose. In Skáldskaparmál he describes the heiti and
the kennings, the terminology and figures peculiar to poetry, a good
many of which bear some relation to the mythology of Gylfaginning. At
appropriate moments he introduces new myths and legends, and he
quotes many examples from ancient poems in support of his explana­
tions.
The Edda begins with a prologue which is thoroughly larded with
foreign learning. Part of Snorri’s doctrine depends on the etymological
equation of Æsir (gods — singular dss) and Asia (the name of the
continent). The Æsir were mortal men from Asia, great men who
emigrated under Óðinn’s leadership to found new homes in the North.
The idea that gods were deified mortals was known among the Greeks
and is especially associated with Euhemerus the philosopher (c. 300
BC), who believed that the Olympians had started life as ordinary
human beings.
Gylfaginning tells of a King Gylfi in Sweden. He journeys to Asgarðr
(the residence of the Æsir) to learn what he can from the “Asians”,
arriving in disguise and calling himself Gangleri, Way-weary. In Valhöll
he finds three kings, sitting on thrones, each one higher than the next.
The one seated lowest is Hdr, High, the next is Jafnhdr, Equally High,
the top one, Pridi, Third. These are names of Óðinn who here appears in
the guise of the Trinity. Gylfi then puts questions to them, asking about
various objects and events in the world of the gods, and the trio give him
full answers. This colloquy structure could have been adopted from
medieval schoolbooks but it is also reminiscent of mythological poems
like Vafþrúðnismál and Grimnismal (p. 38), which also provide instruc­
tion in question-and-answer form. Snorri’s main mythological
source, however, was Vóluspá, in addition to these two; and he occa­
sionally quotes others, including some no longer extant. We must also
assume that not all the mythical stories he knew were preserved in verse

Gangleri in ValholL “He saw three thrones, one above the other, and three men
sitting on them, one on each. Then he asked what the names of those chieftains were.
The man who led him into the hall answers that the one sitting on the lowest throne
was a king (and is called Hdr, and the next is one calledJafnhdr, and the topmost is
called Pridi.'” From the Uppsala manuscript of Snorri's Edda, written c. 1300.
Photo: Jóhanna Ólafsdóttir.
SNORRI STURLUSON

12 Eddas and Sagas

178 KINGS’ SAGAS

— the entertaining story of Þórr’s visit to Útgarða-Loki, for instance, is

not supported by any reference to poetic sources.
Snorri uses the dialogue form for two reasons. It gives the narrative
the liveliness of a stage-play but, at the same time, it absolves him, as a
good Christian, from any responsibility in the propagation of such a
tissue of pagan nonsense. It is all a game, an illusion, a trick played on
King Gylfi, and at the end he stands deluded and solitary in the open
countryside and sees no hall and no citadel.
Snorri originally intended to construct Skáldskaparmál in the same way
as Gylfaginning. It was to be a didactic colloquy between Ægir and Bragi.
But the subject-matter was less suitable for this treatment and the two
characters are soon forgotten, even though the question-and-answer
form is retained for some time. Snorri here explains the inherited poetic
diction, the kennings in all their variety and the heiti (p. 87). This is the
core of the Edda as a handbook of poetics, and it was certainly the part
which was most assiduously used by later versifiers. But it also has value
because of the mythological and heroic tales Snorri brings in here and
there. Many stanzas and even whole poems — including Pórsdrápa and
Gróttasöngr — are preserved only here; and if people are not much
impressed by Snorri’s talent as the poet of Hdttatal, they can comfort
themselves with the thought that he has left us a remarkable anthology
of early poetry in his Edda.
Snorri’s Edda is woven of many strands. In intention it is a book of
instruction in native poetics and it was used as such in Iceland for
centuries. Modern readers who care little for the metrical and stylistic
refinements of the dróttkvœtt tradition now turn to it chiefly for the sake of
Snorri’s stories of gods and heroes. Those stories will not perhaps satisfy
the stern criteria of the source-critic, but Snorri’s genius has coloured
everyone’s ideas of the ancient religion of Scandinavia. And it will be a
long time before any who read them, young and old alike, cease to enjoy
his tales which combine childlike simplicity and mature reflection,
twinkling humour and grave concern.
 Contemporary sagas
The kings’ sagas cover many ages in an unbroken run from remote
antiquity to the time of the authors themselves. But the sequence of
sagas that concern events in Iceland is sundered in the middle by a void
of virtual silence lasting for a century or so, from about 1030 until well
into the twelfth century. The sagas to do with Iceland consequently fall
quite naturally into two groups, sagas of the past and sagas of the
present. The former group we call íslendinga sögur, sagas of Icelanders,
and the second group samtíðarsögur, contemporary sagas. The latter
again fall into two kinds: biskupa sögur, bishops’ sagas, and Sturlunga saga,
the saga — though really a compilation of many sagas — of the
Sturlungar. The period in which the sagas of Icelanders are set, c. 930—
1030, is often called after them and named the “saga age”, sóguóld. The
period dealt with in the contemporary sagas on the other hand is usually
called the “Sturlung age”, Sturlungaöld, after the descendants of
Hvamms-Sturla Þórðarson who played such a prominent part in Ice­
landic affairs in the late twelfth and thirteenth century. One or two
íslendinga sögur take us beyond the end of the “saga age” - the end of
Ljósvetninga saga for example describes events from about 1050 and in
fact has some characteristics in common with contemporary sagas (cf. p.
242). Otherwise only two genuine sagas deal with events in this interven­
ing quiet century, Jons saga helga by Gunnlaugr Leifsson (p. 182) and
Porgils saga ok Hafliða. Both are usually counted among the contempo­
rary sagas but in reality they fall between the two groups of past and
present, written as they were towards a century later than the events
they describe.
It is difficult to explain why this gap should exist. The old explanation
was that, once Christianity was established in the early eleventh cen­
tury, it had such good influence that people gave up killing and feuding,
with the result that nothing sögulegt, nothing worth telling, happened in
Iceland until violence returned with the “Sturlung age”. People took
180 CONTEMPORARY SAGAS

note of what is said of Bishop Gizurr ísleifsson (bishop 1082—1118) in

Kristni saga: “Bishop Gizurr so pacified the country that there were no
major conflicts between chieftains and the custom of carrying weapons
much declined.” Whereas straightway after his death there was strife
between the outstanding men, Þorgils and Hafliði — so the case seemed
clear. It was in accordance with this view that the intervening period
between the söguöld and Sturlungaold was named friðaröld, “peace age”.
In more recent times this interpretation has been called in question.
It has been pointed out that in fact sagas of Icelanders do not as a rule
tell of “major conflicts between chieftains” but much more of differences
between individuals and between families. Various sources reveal that
similar clashes were not unknown in the “peace age” too, while Chris­
tianity did not seem to be much of a pacifying influence in the “Sturlung
age”. I shall not try to offer a new explanation of the dearth of sagas
concerning the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries, but merely
remark that the gap must, it seems, imply that the íslendinga sögur, the
sagas of the past, came into being as a branch of literature separate from
the samtíðarsögur, the sagas of the present, and that the authors of the
former ran no risk of being bewildered by the proximity of the events
they describe.

Bishops’ sagas
We saw above that the first kings’ sagas were of two kinds: on the one
hand, concise works covering the reigns of many kings; on the other,
longer and more detailed works devoted to single monarchs. The sagas
of Óláfr Haraldsson and Óláfr Tryggvason stand out in the second
group, but then the former was an acknowledged saint and the latter
was revered as the apostle of Norway and Iceland.
Something similar can be said of the first sagas of bishops, and it is
not a far cry to consider bishops’ sagas and kings’ sagas as interrelated.
The bishops were after all the only permanent dignitaries known in
early Iceland. It also happened that the Icelanders acquired their first
native saints at just the time when saga-writing began to flourish. These
new cults must to some extent have represented a protective measure
encouraged by Iceland’s leading men in church and state, because
invocation of foreign saints naturally meant that votive gifts left the
country — though in what quantity we have no idea. Neither of the
Icelandic saints suffered the martyr’s death that provided a ready
passport to efficacious glory, but it did happen that just before 1200
BISHOPS’ SAGAS 181
there were hard years in Iceland, and in them men discovered there was
some help to be had in invoking the mediation with the Almighty of
Þorlákr Þórhallsson, bishop of Skálholt, who had died in 1193. The
sanctity of Þorlákr spread benefits over the whole country, and it was
not many months before the men of the North Quarter, which made the
second diocese in Iceland, found themselves reluctant to go on enriching
their southern brethren and discovered a saint of their own to lend them
aid in the unseasonable times that continued to plague them. Their
advocate in heaven was Jon Ogmundarson, first bishop of Hólar, who
had died some eighty years before.
Both saintly bishops soon had accounts of their miracles and lives
composed, Þorlákr by an anonymous author, Jon by Gunnlaugr Leifs-
son, who, having recently finished his Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar, now
turned his attention from a foreign king and martyr to a native bishop
and confessor. The first records of the miracles of the two saints were in
Icelandic, but the first lives were in Latin. They were quickly put into
Icelandic too — possibly, indeed, Latin and Icelandic versions were
produced side by side.
The lives of the Icelandic saints naturally have much in common with
established hagiography — a good deal of it known in early Icelandic
translation — and not least with accounts of some of the great thauma­
turge saints. As we saw, heilagra manna sögur came into being in con­
siderable numbers in the latter part of the twelfth century. Although
Porldks saga and Jóns saga share a common hagiographic inheritance,
there are also substantial differences between them. The former is a true
contemporary saga, written perhaps ten years after the bishop’s death,
while the events of Jon ’s career are seen from nearly a century away.
More is made of Jon ’s miracles — he is supposed to have performed
some in his lifetime — than was needful in the case of Þorlákr, whose
sanctity was established prior to Jon ’s and regarded by many as more
“genuine”. As far as it goes, Þorláks saga can be counted a comparatively
reliable historical source, and whatever doubts may be felt about the
miracles attributed to his intercession, the accounts of them provide
attractively fresh and intimate pictures of ordinary Icelandic life at the
end of the twelfth century.
Bishop Þorlákr was in dispute with lay leaders over the administra­
tion of lands donated to the patron saints of the churches that had been
built on them. His attempts to get the disposal of them put into clerical
hands failed because of the opposition of Jon Loptsson of Oddi. Another
matter at issue between them was that Jon, a married man, also lived
182 CONTEMPORARY SAGAS

with Ragnheiðr, the bishop’s own sister, and had children by her. When
Þorlákr’s sanctity was established and his miracles and his vita recorded,
his successor as bishop of Skálholt was none other than Páll, son of his
sister Ragnheiðr and Jon Loptsson. It is understandable that this
particular scandal was omitted in the first account of Þorlákr’s life —
which was indeed written as the typical vita of a holy man with little
attention paid to his involvement in secular affairs. This was put right in
a second recension, however, which included an account of the dispute
over benefices (staðamál) and the other matters of contention between
the bishop and Jon Loptsson.

Jóns saga is not known in Latin but in three variant Icelandic versions.
Two versions are preserved in medieval manuscripts, the principal texts
being AM 234 fol. (c. 1340) and Stock, perg. fol. nr 5 (c. 1360). In the
nineteenth century it was thought that the former text was closer to the
original, but subsequently scholars reversed that opinion. Now people
have reverted to the nineteenth-century view and consider the latinate
features of the Stockholm text to be a sign of later origin, characteristic
of the “florid style” of the late thirteenth and fourteenth century.
Gunnlaugr Leifsson, monk of Þingeyrar, was faced with problems
when he undertook to make a saint’s life out of what was known of
Bishop Jo n ’s career and to endow him with wonder-working powers —
the bishop had left a good name but hardly a reputation as an adept in
the “white magic” of the Church nor, as far as we know, was his
intercession ever seriously sought for many decades after his death. It is
worth noting that Gunnlaugr had similar problems to solve in his life of
Óláfr Tryggvason. He may be said to have succeeded admirably but,
naturally, at some expense to his credibility. People in consequence
have been unwilling to trust descriptions in Jóns saga which, if true,
would provide extremely interesting and important evidence about life
and education at Hólar and in the northern diocese at the beginning of
the twelfth century. There are of course conventional elements in these
descriptions but we should also bear in mind that Gunnlaugr was in a
position to have reliable information about Hólar in Bishop Jon ’s time,
and the fact that there were people alive who could remember those
days must have exercised some restraint on him. Would he have
ventured to tell what many of his contemporaries knew was pure fiction?
Gunnlaugr’s anecdotes illustrating life and schooling at Hólar are
certainly bright and entertaining, however idealised they may be.
BISHOPS’ SAGAS 183

Sarcophagus o f Bishop Pall Jonsson o f Skálholt (d. 1211), excavated in 1954. Páls
saga., ch. 6, records that Bishop Pall “had a coffin very skilfully hewn out o f stone,
in which he was placed after his death”. Photo: Gisli Gestsson.

The Norwegian kings with no claims to sainthood were at first treated

in cursory synoptic histories, and in similar fashion records of the first
bishops of Skálholt were put together in a “compendium”. The author
chose a name for it himself. “I call this little book Hungrvaka — hunger-
stirrer — for it will have this effect on many uninstructed and even
simple-minded people who read it through, that they will want to know
more about the origins and careers of those notable men of whom only a
little is told on these pages.” He also says that he wants “to attract
young men to learn to read our language, what is written in Norse, laws
or sagas or genealogical lore.” This echoes the First Grammatical Treatise
but the author here includes an extra branch of literature: sagas.
184 CONTEMPORARY SAGAS

Something over half a century lies between the Treatise and Hungrvaka
and in that period saga-writing began.
The author of Hungrvaka is full of admiration for the pioneers of
Christendom in Iceland, but he is also close to Ari and those other
learned men who took up the pen to safeguard the preservation of their
knowledge. He used íslendingabók and a number of other written sources,
including documents no longer extant, and in the manner of Ari he also
refers to the testimony of specific individuals. The concise narrative
inspires confidence, but the tone is eulogistic and some of the detail
included will seem to us of trifling significance.
Hungrvaka can be dated within rather narrow limits. The author refers
to Gizurr Hallsson in Haukadalur as if he had recently died — his obit is
27 July 1206. The conclusion of the book shows that it was written as an
introduction to Porldks saga, which we may presume was newly finished
at that time. The author does not, on the other hand, make any
reference to the career of Þorlákr’s successor, Páll Jónsson, who died in
1211. Páll had a saga of his own written about him, evidently soon after
his death, and this saga shares so many characteristics of attitude and
style with Hungrvaka that they are generally considered to be the work of
one man. We may note in passing that his account of Bishop Páll’s
death and burial was graphically confirmed in 1954 when excavations at
Skálholt brought the bishop’s stone sarcophagus to light in precise
correspondence with what the saga tells us.

The bishops of Hólar who succeeded Jón Ögmundarson in the twelfth

century find passing mention in Hungrvaka but there was no similar
compendium about them and no separate saga on any individual. But at
the outset of the thirteenth century a bishop was elected to Hólar who
was looked upon as a saint by many people and credited with many
marvels long before he died: Guðmundr Arason, called Guðmundr the
Good and often known familiarly in Icelandic as Gvendur góði. Bishop
Guðmundr became deeply embroiled in conflicts with lay chieftains and
not everyone found him saint-like — in any case, the two native saints
the Icelanders had just acquired were doubtless enough to meet their
needs. All the same, and although no official cult of Guðmundr was ever
established, the versions of his saga became more and more works of
hagiography.
The first saga written about Guðmundr Arason seems to have been
the so-called “Priest’s Saga”, Prestssaga Guðmundar góbay on his life up to
his consecration as bishop in 1203. It was incorporated in the Sturlunga
BISHOPS’ SAGAS 185
saga compilation in four sections. There is good reason to believe that it
was written by Lambkárr Þorgilsson (died 1249), a pupil and loyal
follower of the bishop.
Prestssagan was probably not written until after the bishop’s death in
1237. It is odd that it should end just as Guðmundr stood on the
threshold of his dramatic episcopate, but it is conceivable that it was
Lambkárr’s death which prevented the continuation. We should also
recall what the so-called “Middle Saga” of Guðmundr says: some men
had intended to put together a long saga about him and had written “a
mass of documents” (jjölda bréfa) in that connection. They were kept in
the church at Laufás in Eyjafjörður, but when the church burnt down in
1258 they were all destroyed — “and they will never be written again”.
Something was told of Bishop Guðmundr in the other contemporary
histories, especially in Sturla Þórðarson’s íslendinga saga, but no con­
tinuous life existed and it was to be some time before that lack was made
good. Then, probably in the early fourteenth century, three different ver­
sions were produced by combining the “Priest’s Saga” with material from
Sturla’s íslendinga saga and from other sources, written and oral. Version
A is shortest and is known as the “Oldest Saga” of Guðmundr; version B
is longer and called the “Middle Saga” (elsta saga and midsaga respec­
tively). Version C is still unpublished but an edition is in preparation.
Later again, about the middle of the fourteenth century, Arngrimr
Brandsson, abbot of Þingeyrar (died 1361 or 1362) wrote the last and long­
est Gudmundar saga. He had little in the way of novel material but he cer­
tainly wrote in the novel style, rhetorically ornate and heavily influenced
by Latin in diction and syntax. These and other factors have led scholars
to conclude that his work was first composed in Latin, though we now
have it only in Icelandic. This need not be the case, however, for such a
florid style was the ideal of many vernacular authors in the fourteenth
century.

Árna saga deals with the great churchman, Árni Þorláksson, bishop of
Skálholt 1269—98. In many ways it is a continuation of Sturlunga saga
and it has been preserved in the same manuscripts. It ends abruptly in
the winter of 1290—91, but it seems more likely that this is because the
conclusion has been lost than because it originally ended here. The style
of the saga is rather stiff, but that does not affect its value as an
important source of Icelandic history in the last part of the thirteenth
century. It deals in detail with the stadamál (cf. p. 182), the dispute
between Bishop Árni and secular chieftains over the ownership and
186 CONTEMPORARY SAGAS

administration of church property and estates. The dispute ended two

years before Árni’s death with a compromise between him and the
Norwegian king, who had supported the cause of the lay leaders.

Lárentius saga is the last of the contemporary sagas. It more or less

takes up the thread where Árna saga ends and throws important light on
many aspects of Icelandic history in the first thirty years of the
fourteenth century. It is more fluent in style and more enjoyable to read
than Árna saga. Lárentius Kálfsson was ordained priest as a young man
and became a great scholar. He was outspoken and determined and
sometimes got involved in disputes in consequence, especially in Nor­
way, where he supported Archbishop Jörundr in his violent conflict with
the cathedral chapter in Nidaros. For a while Lárentius was imprisoned
and badly treated by the canons. His esteem in Iceland did not suffer,
however, and in 1324 he was consecrated bishop of Hólar; he died in
office in 1331. His saga was written shortly after his death by his faithful
friend and pupil, Einarr Hafliðason (died 1393).

It is not inappropriate at this point to mention the early annals: annals

and bishops’ sagas had some mutual influence on each other. Prestssaga
Guðmundar was constructed on the basis of a set of annals, for instance,
while bishops’ sagas in turn provided a variety of material fitted into the
framework of annal collections.
It is not known when annalistic notices were first made in Iceland:
probably they were entries made in the Easter tables kept by priests in
their churches, as was the common practice elsewhere in Christendom.
This supposition is borne out by the fact that all the oldest Icelandic
annals use Sunday and Easter letters to identify the year in which the
events recorded took place. Annalistic writing as an independent acti­
vity must however have begun by about 1200 or very soon afterwards.
We know very little about that activity for the next three-quarters of a
century. Then, about 1280, a set of annals was compiled or copied
which was to prove very influential — in fact, it appears to have
provided the archetypal nucleus for all the early annal collections we
now possess. Most of them contain a quantity of foreign information,
with external events recorded from the time of Christ’s birth or the
days of Julius Caesar, including the accession of emperors and popes,
plagues, comets, eclipses and so forth. All the annals finish before 1400
with the exception of the so-called Nji annáll, which continues to 1430.
BISHOPS’ SAGAS 187

The seal of Lárentius Kálfsson, bishop of Hólar 1324-3L A drawing made for
Ami Magmsson by Magnus Einarsson of Vatnshorn at the beginning of the
eighteenth century, preserved in AM 217 8vo. Photo: Jóhanna Ólafsdóttir.

This annal marks the end of the ancient history-writing of the Icelan­
ders.
To begin with, annalists took their Icelandic and Norse material
largely from Icelandic sources: first from Ari’s íslendingabók and later
from Hungrvaka and contemporary sagas. Some dates are calculated
according to sagas of Icelanders — Eyrbyggja saga and Laxdæla saga, for
example — but there are others relating to the settlement and saga age
which cannot come from sagas and must be derived from unknown and
probably very ancient sources. As records of information the annals are
most important in covering the period from 1330 to 1430, when people
had given up writing contemporary sagas.

Sturlunga saga
This stage in the development of saga-writing is also represented by a
number of contemporary sagas which describe the conflicts of Icelandic
188 CONTEMPORARY SAGAS

chieftains of the time. They are linked to the bishops’ sagas in subject-
matter but differ from them in outlook and style. Round about 1300
these sagas were gathered into a great compilation which has come to be
called Sturlunga saga. The author or instigator of this collection was
probably Þórðr Narfason the Lawman, of Skarð on Skarðsströnd (died
1308). When the texts were combined in Sturlunga saga, they were
modified in various ways, often abridged, for example, not least when
the same events were described in two different sagas. We can see to
some extent how the editor worked because in at least one case we have
independent versions of the saga he adapted. Modern editors of Sturl­
unga saga have generally tried to divide the text up between the separate
original sources — not an easy task — and the sagas themselves have
various gaps in them.
Sturlunga saga is preserved in two vellum manuscripts of the fourteenth
century, one called KróksQarðarbók (AM 122a fol.), the other Reykjar-
fjarðarbók (AM 122b fol.). The former is about three-quarters whole,
the latter consists only of the remnants of thirty leaves. Fortunately
both versions were copied on paper while they were still more-or-less
complete.

Sturlunga saga opens with a þáttr of Geirmundr heljarskinn, the notable

settler of Skarðsströnd in West Iceland and a Viking of royal blood and
legendary prowess. It was written late in the thirteenth century, perhaps
by the editor of the compilation. The first saga in the collection is Porgils
saga ok Hafliða, which may with some justification be called a con­
temporary saga (cf. p. 179 above), telling of a feud between Porgils
Oddason and Hafliði Másson in the years 1117 —21. There is no reason
to doubt that the author worked up his account from a substantial body
of oral tradition or to question the historicity of the main events: the
author’s detailed knowledge of the people involved and their mutual
relationships argues strongly in favour of this conclusion. The detailed
nature of the narrative has been taken to show that the author was not
far distant from the events and even that he wrote his saga as early as c.
1180. But another point of view has been expressed by Jon Johannesson:
“Notions built on the detail are a delusion, engendered by the way in
which the author pads out his narrative with dialogue, topographical
and historical references, and his own experience of life.”
Porgils saga ok Hafliða contains the famous description of the wedding
entertainment at Reykhólar in 1119 (p. 343). It says there that Hrómundar
saga Gripssonar was used to entertain King Sverrir, “and he declared that
STURLUNGA SAGA 189
such lying sagas were the best pastime”. That could not have been said
before Sverrir sat firm on the throne of Norway, and perhaps not until
after his death in 1202. Later in the saga there is a reference to a hall
built at Staðarhóll by Porgils Oddason: “that hall was still sound when
Bishop Magnús Gizurarson died” — i.e. in 1237. Most commentators
have thought this fix on the bishop’s death is an addition or alteration,
believing the saga must have been written earlier than that, but Jon
Johannesson was prepared to accept it as by the author, who conse­
quently must have worked after 1237. Not everyone will be convinced of
this, however. One may point to archaic elements in the language (e.g. a
comparatively high percentage of preposition ö/, which was obsolescent,
ousted by um, in the first part of the thirteenth century) and to the rather
clumsy composition of the saga as a whole. This problem has not been
studied as thoroughly as it deserves, but Porgils saga ok Hafliða does give
the impression of being a relatively primitive work. If it belonged among
the íslendinga sogur, it would in all probability be regarded as one of the
earliest of them.
Nevertheless, there is much to commend in Porgils saga ok Hafliða. It is
a unique historical source and the first saga to describe a major clash
between chieftains with the men of whole districts arrayed against each
other. W ar is averted and the saga gives the impression that it is an
exemplum demonstrating how disputes should be resolved without
bloodshed — all the same, the threatened conflict is an omen of the
future disintegration and collapse of the Icelandic commonwealth. The
author describes ugly encounters with cold realism, sometimes with
penetrating humour. Least likely to be forgotten are the words of the
priest Skafti when Hafliði claimed eighty hundreds for the loss of the
finger Porgils had chopped off with his axe: “Hafliði whole would cost a
lot if every limb went like that.”
The narrative of Porgils’ approach to the Assembly in 1121 stirred the
admiration of a critic as experienced as W.P. Ker. Bárðr the Black and
his son, Aron, rode ahead to spy on Hafliði’s movements. Under
Armannsfell they fell in with a crowd of men, and their companions
coming up behind them thought they had been captured — they even
thought they could make out a fine horse and a gold-inlaid spear which
Porgils had given Böðvarr, his brother-in-law — and their concern grew
with the fear that Böðvarr had been seized as well. To quote W.P. Ker:

The use of all this, which turns out to be all made up of true eye­
sight and wrong judgment, is partly to bring out Thorgils; for his
190 CONTEMPORARY SAGAS

decision, against the wish of his companions, is to ride on in any

event, so that the author gets a chapter of courage out of the
mistake. Apart from that, there is something curiously spirited and
attractive in the placing of the different views, with the near view
last of all. In the play between them, between the apprehension of
danger, the first report of an enemy in the way, the appearance of
an indistinct crowd, the false inference, and the final truth of the
matter, the Saga is faithful to its vital principle of variety and
comprehensiveness; no one appearance, not even the truest, must
be allowed too much room to itself.
The first contemporary sagas that are both close to the events they
describe and unmotivated by any kind of clerical attitude or purpose are
Sturlu saga and Gubmundar saga dýra. They undoubtedly depend on ample
oral information — something which proves both an advantage and a
disadvantage. They are crowded with people and events, great and
small, all mixed together: decidedly imperfect as works of literary art
but remarkable revelations of life in Iceland at the end of the twelfth
century.

Sturlu saga has the upstart Sturla Þórðarson of Hvammur as its main
character. In Sturlunga saga the work has the title Heidarvigs saga, the saga
of the battle on the moor, referring to the chief event in it, when Sturla
and Einarr Porgilsson of Staðarhóll fought on Sælingsdalsheiði in 1171
— Einarr was son of Þorgils Oddason, protagonist of Porgils saga ok
Hafliða. Sturla had the better of it, “and it was said by most men that
the battle marked the turning point in the reputations of Sturla and
Einarr.55 Although Sturla is the central figure, the author is by no means
a whole-hearted partisan. His verdict is revealed in the famous words
attributed to Bishop Brandr: “No one questions your cleverness but
they are more doubtful of your good nature.55 Various flaws can be
detected in Sturlu saga but it has some excellent narrative passages and
some of its sharp-edged dialogue is comparable with the best in kings’
sagas and íslendinga sögur. One well-known example will suffice. Sturla
and Þorleifr beiskaldi in Hitardalur have been on bad terms but now they
are supposed to be reconciled. The story goes on:
Some time later a great sickness went through the district. It is
told that one evening a man arrived in Hvammr who had come in
from Snæfellsnes and before that from Borgarfjörðr. He was a day-
STURLUNGA SAGA 191
labourer. Sturla sat down to talk to him and asked about many
things. First he asked about his travels, and the other told him.
Then Sturla said, “Is the epidemic bad in the south of the
district?” He said it was. “Did you come to Hitardalr?” said
Sturla. “Yes,” said the traveller. “How was Porleifr?” said Sturla.
“Happily, he was well,” said the traveller. “Yes,” says Sturla, “so
he may be — for all torments are being saved up for him till the
next world.” Now they stopped their talk. The man goes off in the
morning and moves on west into the Fjords through the autumn
and returns near winter. And when winter had just begun he
arrived in Hitardalr. Porleifr was free with his questions and asked
about many things. “Did you come east from the Fjords?” The
traveller says that is so. Porleifr asked, “How has the season been
there?” He says it has been a good year, but a bad sickness was
going round there now. Porleifr said, “Did you come to Hvammr?”
“Yes,” he said. “How was Master Sturla?” “He was well,” the
traveller said, “when I went westward, but he was down with it
when I came back and hard hit.” “So he will be,” said Porleifr; “he
will be suffering now but he will suffer twice as much later on.”

Gubmundar saga dýra is also called “the Saga of Önundr’s Burning”,

from the chief event in it. Here one is in danger of going under in the
welter of people and petty details, even more than in Sturlu saga. But in
his description of tragic events the author rises to noble heights.
Guðmundr dýri Porvaldsson lived at Bakki in Öxnadalur; Önundr
Porkelsson lived first at Laugaland and then at Langahlíð in Hörgárdal-
ur. Quarrels between their assembly-men bring these two chieftains into
conflict. Ingibjörg Guðmundardóttir was married to Porfinnr Önundar-
son but the marriage did little to dampen the hostility. Guðmundr was
slow to act under provocation and behaved as if he took no notice when
his reputation was injured. “Önundr’s men reckoned Guðmundr sat
tight on his sanctuary chair up in Öxnadalr, and they said they would
build a wall across the valley above and below him and then turf it over
and bury his reputation there.” On another occasion they compared
him to a polled ewe that had lost its fleece.
Finally Guðmundr gathered men in great secrecy and attacked
Önundr at Langahlíð. He had ninety followers, Önundr nearly fifty.
Önundr asked who commanded the attackers. “The leadership is of
little account,” answered Guðmundr. “That polled ewe has come down
192 CONTEMPORARY SAGAS

from the valley with most of her fleece off — and the first sheep of the
flock is of no more worth than that. But now she means to do one thing
or the other: lose the rest of her fleece or go back with a fleece that is
whole.55 Önundr and his men defended themselves inside the buildings,
and when Guðmundr and his allies saw it would be hard to dislodge
them, they set fire to the house. Then Porfmnr said to Guðmundr, his
father-in-law, “It is a pity your daughter Ingibjörg is not here.55
Guðmundr answered, “It is a good thing she is not here, though that
would not stop us now.” Some men were allowed to come out but
Önundr and Porfmnr and many others died in the fire. This happened
in the spring of 1197. It was the first time such an attack had been made
in Iceland for nearly two centuries, not since Njáll and his sons were
burnt to death at Bergþórshvoll.
After the burning Jón Loptsson’s arbitration was accepted. He
imposed great sums on Guðmundr and the men who were with him in
the attack. But Jon was old and died the following winter. Then there
was no commanding figure to see that the settlement was kept, and an
endless round of revenge and slaughter began. The author’s account of a
successful attack on some of the burners at Laufás is deeply moving: in
their courage in the face of death they remind us most of the Joms-
vikingar at Hjörungavágr. And the cold-blooded grimness of this ter­
rible time rings in the words uttered by Pórðr of Laufás when he came
home and found his sons lying dead and their killers gone: “We have
fresh carcases to see to here.”
By the end of the saga Guðmundr is the winner and peace has been
restored. He did not bask in his triumph for long. He put thoughts of
worldly reputation aside and took the cowl at Pingeyrar. Remorse and
perhaps the weight of public opinion drove him to seek forgiveness in
the merciful bosom of the Church.
The author tends to come down on Guðmundr’s side but he can
hardly be said to give adequate reasons for his terrible retaliation on
Önundr. But to call the saga an apologia for Guðmundr, as some people
have done, also seems wide of the mark.

There is no doubt on the other hand that Hrafns saga Sveinbjarnarsonar

was composed in order to enhance the reputation of its hero. Hrafn was
put to death by Porvaldr Snorrason of Vatns^örður in 1213, and the
author of the saga portrays him as a saintly figure whose death was a
martyrdom. He links his story as closely as he can to the career of
Guðmundr Arason, and even borrows motifs from the life of St Thomas
STURLUNGA SAGA 193
of Canterbury. The saga thus has something in common with bishops’
sagas and other clerical literature.
Hrafn was also a good physician and the author describes some of his
cures in comparative detail. Since the author seems to have been
familiar with medical textbooks current in Europe, he may have sup­
plied the account of Hrafn’s treatments himself. In that case, they would
tell us little about Hrafn but more about the state of medical knowledge
in Iceland in the mid-thirteenth century. The narrative is not unlike
that of Porgils saga ok Hafliba and Jóns saga helga inasmuch as the author
seems to view the events in comparatively remote retrospect. He
evidently did not write his account before the death of Þorvaldr in 1228
and probably not for some years after that. Since in the prologue,
however, he says that he intends “to write of some events which
happened in our days and among people known to us”, we cannot put
the date of the saga’s composition much after c. 1250.
Hrafns saga is the only one in the Sturlung compilation which is also
preserved complete and independent outside it — we have it indeed in
two variant versions, a longer and a shorter. It is instructive to consider
how the editor of Sturlunga saga treated it, and to make use of conclusions
drawn from the comparison in discussing other sagas he adapted in his
collection. The editor only includes the latter part of Hrafns saga and
makes various changes, sometimes augmenting but more often abridg­
ing his source. Prestssaga Gudmundar was also abridged by him, as
appears from comparison with the version of that text adapted in the so-
called Oldest Saga (p. 185). He or someone seems to have cut Porgils saga
skarda most severely of all — we have independent fragments of this
which show that its original form was extremely prolix. We must
remember though that Porgils saga skarda was not part of the first
Sturlung compilation, but was added in the version represented by
Reykjarfjarðarbók (p. 188).

The core of Sturlunga saga is Sturla Þórðarson’s íslendinga saga^ and

when people talk of Sturlunga saga, they often mean Sturla’s work. It is by
far the most extensive saga in the collection and it also covers the most
significant period in thirteenth-century Icelandic history and on some­
thing approaching a national scale. The art of the contemporary saga
here reaches its highest point.
Sturla was born in 1214, son of Þórðr Hvamms-Sturluson and so
Snorri’s nephew. By temperament he was a man of peace but he could
not avoid being drawn into the conflicts of his time. His moderation and
13 Eddas and Sagas
194 CONTEMPORARY SAGAS

unusual good luck helped him out of many tight corners, even when his
kinsmen were being slaughtered on all sides. The so-called Sturlu þáttr
gives an entertaining account of his first meeting with King Magnus
Hákonarson. Sturla had always been an opponent of the monarchy,
though he had seen no option but to join the other Icelandic chieftains
in swearing oaths of loyalty to King Håkon in 1262. The following year
he was forced out of Iceland and into the king’s hands. Luckily King
Håkon had left Norway on the expedition to Scotland from which he
was never to return. Magnus, his son and successor, received Sturla
coldly and showed him various marks of royal displeasure. On a voyage
with the levy-fleet south along the coast Sturla was on the king’s ship
and was called on to provide entertainment for his men, so he told the
story of Huld the troll-wife “better and with more circumstance than
any of them had ever heard it before. Many crowded forward on the
deck, wanting to catch it as clearly as they could.” The queen noticed
the crowd and next day she sent for Sturla and told him “to have the
troll-wife story with him”. He spent much of the day telling the story to
her and the king. Afterwards Sturla recited a poem he had composed in
honour of Magnus and another in honour of his father. When that was
over, King Magnus said, “I think you recite better than the pope!”
Subsequently Sturla and the king became the best of friends and
Magnus commissioned him to write the saga of his father Håkon,
“following what he himself laid down and the accounts of the wisest
men”. Sturla’s Hákonar saga is a source of the greatest value for Norwe­
gian and to a less extent for Icelandic history in the thirteenth century.
Later he wrote the saga of King Magnus as well, but sadly it is almost
completely lost.
In 1271 Sturla brought to Iceland the new lawbook Magnus had
compiled for the Icelanders (Járnsíða). He had also been appointed the
first lawman under the new dispensation. He died on 30 July 1284, the
day after his seventieth birthday.
The name íslendinga saga is used in the Middle Saga of Guðmundr
Arason (p. 185), which incorporates chapters from Sturla’s work, while
in the prologue to the Sturlung compilation the name used is in the
plural —íslendinga sögur. Sturla takes the death of his grandfather, Sturla
of Hvammur, as his starting-point, so his work appears as a kind of
continuation of Sturlu saga. Where precisely he ended íslendinga saga is a
matter of dispute. Most scholars now think he reached at least as far as
1255 (the battle at Þverá). Some believe he went on to 1264 (the
execution of Þórðr Andréasson) but only treated the events of the last
STURLUNGA SAGA 195
years in a summary fashion — providing the materials for a history
rather than a full and considered account.
O f older contemporary sagas Sturla appears to have known Sturlu
saga, Gudmundar saga dýra and Prestssaga Gudmundar Arasonar; and of the
later ones, Pórðar saga kakala and Porgils saga skarða (Þórðr lived in exile
from 1250, Porgils was killed in 1258). As we saw (p. 125), Sturla
apparently completed his Landnámabók in the later years of his life —
after íslendinga saga, that is — but we do not know exactly when he wrote
the third work attributed to him, Kristni saga, the saga of Christendom in
Iceland, which is found as a sequel to his Landnámabók in Hauksbók. He
describes the conversion and the bishops in Iceland down to 1118, using
a variety of sources, not all of which now exist or not in their original
form. Between them Landnámabók and Kristni saga took Icelandic history
as far as the time of Porgils saga ok Haflida. Thereafter the other sagas we
know in the Sturlung compilation followed on in succession. Sturla’s
own saga-writing seems to have been intended to fill in the gaps that
remained — some of them large — so that the Icelanders were furnished
with a complete history from the settlement down to the time of his own
maturity.
Sturla’s impartial recording has long been commended —all the more
because of the role that he, his kinsmen and friends played in thirteenth-
century affairs. Some of the other sagas in the Sturlung compilation are
much more biased in their portrayal of individual men. Some authors
seem to lay a misplaced emphasis on the Christian virtues of their
approved hero: he is endowed with a zealous piety, and it is not
unknown for the author to report some miraculous sign of God’s favour
revealed to members of the hero’s circle. This is true not only of the
much-harassed bishop, Guðmundr Arason, but also of a layman like
Hrafn Sveinbjarnarson and even Porgils skarði.
We must however bear in mind that Sturla is often our only reporter
of events, and that the two other sagas that chiefly concern the period he
describes, Pórðar saga kakala and Porgils saga skarda, were also written by
partisans of the Sturlungar. The suspicion has sometimes been voiced
that under the serene surface of íslendinga saga some degree of partiality
lies concealed. It has been argued, for example, that Sturla was in
reality hostile to Snorri, his uncle, and portrays him in a worse light
than was justified. This seems doubtful, however, for what we know of
Snorri from other sources on the whole confirms Sturla’s picture of him.
There is more reason to suspect bias in the way he presents the open
enemies of the Sturlungar, for example in the account of Gizurr Por-
196 CONTEMPORARY SAGAS

valdsson in the Örlygsstaðir battle or the account of the sons of Porvaldr

Vatnsfirðingr in the Sauðafell attack. But Sturla’s “goodwill towards
men” brings him to revise his attitude when these same hard antago­
nists of his family themselves face death. He takes no pleasure in their
predicament and indeed his art as a narrator reaches no higher pitch
than in his description of how the sons of Porvaldr met their end and of
the attack by fire on Gizurr at Flugumýri. It is true that by the time of
the latter event Sturla had changed his mind about Gizurr to some
extent, for they had come to terms and Sturla had married his daughter
to Gizurr’s son.
The neutral approach is something Sturla could have learnt from the
authors of sagas such as Sturlu saga and Guðmundar saga dýra. He
resembles them too in the way he introduces a great crowd of people in
his narrative, along with a great mass of minor incident. It is notewor­
thy that he gives the names of all the men who were killed in or after the
battle of Örlygsstaðir, all fifty-six of them, some of them completely
unknown to us — though obviously not to Sturla and his contempo­
raries. In contrast, and unfortunately, he says almost nothing of the
literary activities of the Icelanders in his day and age — though they
must have been very considerable. Still, we can compare a similar
neglect on the part of the classical historians of Rome, who also
concentrate on wars and political conflict: we hear much of their great
men as consuls and commanders and orators, little of them as authors
and poets.
With all his faults Sturla Pórðarson is nonetheless an outstanding
historian and a very effective writer. He brings in many details but
never loses the essential thread of his narrative. It fell to him to record
epoch-making incidents in Icelandic history — the battle at Orlygsstað-
ir, the assassination of Snorri, the burning at Flugumýri — and he did so
with such success that his descriptions are indelibly imprinted on any
reader’s memory. In the superstition and credulity which led him to see
mysterious portents everywhere Sturla was no more than an authentic
Icelander. Dreams and omens are commonplace in his accounts — but
then they are delusions that flourish best in desperate times and they
can add not a little to the atmosphere and impact of the narrative.
Sturla’s writing is simple, clear, natural. He describes as an observer,
allows characters to reveal themselves in words and deeds, but passes no
judgment. Only once is he unable to contain himself, after the Flugu-
mýri burning: “and all thoughtful men reckoned this event among the
most momentous that have happened here in Iceland — for which God
STURLUNGASAGA 197

From Sturlunga saga in KróksJjaröarbók, written c . /36$. 77m compilation o f

sagas telling o f events in Iceland in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries was made c.
1300. The longest text it contains is the íslendinga saga o f Sturla Þórðarson
(1214—84). The passage shown here describes the death o f Snorri Sturluson
(Sturla's uncle) in 1241. It begins: [Simun knutr bað] Arna hauG^tf hann.
Eigi sktf/ hauGM sagði Snorri, haugg [þu sa]gdi Simun. Eigi skal hauG^ø
sagði Snorri. Eptir [þat vejitti Árni honum bana saár ok baáðir þ^'r
Þorstein« vnrøfu] aá honum. ”Simun knutr told Árni to hack him down. £Hack
not at all/ said Snorri. £You hack/ said Simun. ‘Hack not at all/ said Snorri.
After that Ami gave him a death wound and Porsteinn wounded him as w ell.”
Photo: Jóhanna Ólafsdóttir.
198 CONTEMPORARY SAGAS

forgive those responsible in his great mercy and mildness!” Sturla’s

literary skill is greatest in reproducing the spoken word. His dialogue is
sometimes brisk and cutting, sometimes peaked with scorn, sometimes
alive with sardonic humour.

Þórðar saga kakala and Porgils saga skarba both appear to have been
abridged and a good deal revised on their incorporation in the Sturlung
compilation. It is not entirely plain what their relations were with
Sturla’s íslendinga saga. The last scholar to discuss the problem was Jon
Johannesson. He found grounds for concluding that the two sagas were
written before Sturla’s work was done. Sturla then avoided treating
their subject-matter in detail, though here and there he corrected and
supplemented their accounts.
Þórbar saga traces the triumphant career of Pórðr kakali in Iceland in
the years 1242 —50. In accuracy and impartiality the author compares
with Sturla himself, but not in narrative skill. The identity of the author
is uncertain, but he was closely familiar with Pórðr’s activities and
movements, especially in the west of Iceland. It fell to him to report
many impressive events, including two of the biggest battles ever fought
in Iceland, the sea-fight in Hunafloi (1244) and the affray at Haugsnes
(1246), the bloodiest of all Icelandic battles: but his descriptions are
neither as clear nor as moving as Sturla Pórðarson’s account of compar­
able scenes.

As noted above, Porgils saga skarba is only in the Reykjarfjarðarbók

recension of Sturlunga saga. It is chiefly concerned with the years Þorgils
spent in Iceland, from 1252 when he returned from Norway until his
death at Hrafnagil in Eyjafjörður in 1258. There is much to be said for
attributing the work to Porgils’ brother-in-law, Pórðr Hitnesingr — a
man who is in fact only known to us from the pages of this saga. The
author is very well-disposed to Porgils and indeed comes close to
making his death a martyrdom. One can see however from the saga that
Porgils, especially in his younger years, was a truculent bully and a
willing tool in the hands of the Norwegian king.
Porgils saga is even more detailed and elaborate than the rest of
Sturlunga saga, and it was originally a good deal longer (cf. p. 193) -
longer, indeed, in proportion to its time-span than any other text in the
compilation. At a critically dangerous stage in his early career in
Iceland, the ambitious young Porgils is said to have expressed fears that
no saga would be told about him. His fears were unfounded.
STURLUNGA SAGA 199

Svínfellinga saga tells of strife between Sæmundr and Guðmundr, sons

of Ormr Jónsson of Svinafell, and their uncle, Ögmundr Helgason of
Kirkjubær á Síðu. The beginning of the story was probably changed
when it was included in Sturlunga saga, and possibly the account has
been mangled by severe abridgment elsewhere; an unusual measure of
disagreement between the main manuscripts adds to our difficulties.
The author seems intimately acquainted with the facts of the narrative,
but comparison with other sources reveals an occasional mistake, and
this suggests that he wrote long after the events and his memory might
sometimes fail him. He describes tragic scenes and conveys their pathos
with more sensitivity than is usual in the contemporary sagas.
Ögmundr was married to Steinunn, sister of Ormr Jonsson Svinfell-
ingr, and Guðmundr Ormsson was fostered by his aunt and uncle after
his father’s death. Brandr Jonsson, brother of Ormr and Steinunn, was
at this time abbot of the Augustinian house at Þykkvabær (later bishop
of Hólar, 1263—4). It seems to have been the elder brother, Sæmundr
Ormsson, who was the chief cause of the trouble — in Pórðar saga kakala
it says that he was “rather pushing and thought to have the makings of a
great leader”. He cast envious eyes on Ögmundr’s wealth and popula­
rity: it was after all he, Sæmundr, who was born to command in that
district and whose family goðorð gave him authority over Ögmundr’s
neighbours. Sæmundr now married Ingibjörg, daughter of Sturla Sig-
hvatsson (died 1238), and so came to have ties with her uncle, Þórðr
kakali Sighvatsson, who was then the most powerful man in Iceland. At
the same time, when he thought his brother Guðmundr was old enough
to serve his ambitious plans, he got him away from his foster-home with
Steinunn and Ögmundr.
Sæmundr made an abortive attack on Ögmundr at Kirkjubær and
then forced through a sentence of outlawry on him at the Alþingi. In this
he was backed by Þórðr kakali, even though Ögmundr had previously
had a friendly reception from him when in need of help. But Þórðr then
went abroad that same summer, never to return — “and people say that
he left this case in a parlous state behind him,” says the saga.
Ögmundr was in hiding while this went on, but Mistress Steinunn
wept when her nephew Sæmundr came to carry off the farmstock from
Kirkjubær in execution of the sentence of outlawry. A woman said it was
understandable that she should feel this was a great loss. Steinunn
replied, “You will be thinking I am crying over these cattle they are
driving away, but not so — I weep for what I fear will happen later on.”
200 CONTEMPORARY SAGAS

She went to the church and prayed for them all. “She prayed God that
there would be no trouble between them as long as she lived.”
Abbot Brandr went to Sæmundr, his nephew, to try to arrange a
reconciliation and Sæmundr welcomed the proposal. Ögmundr came
out of hiding and went back to Kirkjubær. “A complete truce was now
established between Sæmundr and Ögmundr and full pledges given,
building on the goodwill and counsel of Abbot Brandr and Mistress
Steinunn and Álfheiðr, Sæmundr’s mother, and the intervention of
many other good people.”
Ögmundr is a man of peace, not easily stirred — his popularity is
clearly conveyed by the saga. But as can happen with such men, deep
down his resentment is all the more fearsome. Quietly and with the
utmost duplicity he prepares his revenge. Abbot Brandr trusts him
completely. Sæmundr is at first suspicious but takes heed of Ögmundr’s
words in a friendly letter he sent him the following winter. The letter
said: “Move about the district with not too many followers for the
present, for there is great dearth now at dead of winter and provisions
and hay both hard to come by.”
Then at an opportune moment Mistress Steinunn fell ill and on the
Easter Saturday she died. “Her brother, Abbot Brandr, officiated at her
grave and there were many more people there, for she was dear to
everyone as long as she lived.” Now we know that what must be, will be.
On the Friday after Easter Sæmundr and Guðmundr rode from home
with two companions to visit Abbot Brandr. Ögmundr and his sons and
household-men were lying in wait for them in a hollow a little to the east
of Kirkjubær. “What does this ambush mean, Ögmundr?” asked
Sæmundr. “I thought we were reconciled.” “You shall die, and your
brother Guðmundr too,” said Ögmundr. There were three priests in the
household and the brothers were shriven. Sæmundr was executed first
and meanwhile Guðmundr recited the penitential psalms with the
priests — “and no one could see that he was at all moved at what was
happening, only he pronounced the words rather harder than he had
been doing. He was then eighteen.” When they had finished the psalms,
he said to Ögmundr, “It would still be good to live and I would ask for
quarter, foster-father.” Ögmundr looked away and said, “We do not
dare do that now, my foster-son.” He was as red as blood. Then Guð-
mundr was executed like his brother, and the priests attended to the
bodies.
After this Ögmundr at once sent word to Abbot Brandr and put the
whole matter into his hands and the hands of other men of note. Pride
STURLUNGA SAGA 201
and the flint-hard standards of his time had driven him to deeds of
shame. He accepted without a murmur the judgment imposed on him.
In the spring he moved west to Dalur under Eyjafjöll and lived there
from then on, a poor man.

Arons saga Hjörleifssonar deals with events that fall within the Sturlung
age but, as far as we can tell, it was not written in time to be included in
the first Sturlung compilation (p. 188). It was probably not put together
until about 1350. We have a vellum fragment from about 1400, but as a
whole it is only known in paper copies derived from the codex repre­
sented by the fragment. Arons saga is customarily included in Sturlunga
saga editions.
Aron (died 1255) was a supporter of Bishop Guðmundr Arason and
Sturla Þórðarson tells something of his exploits in íslendinga saga. When
Arons saga was written, oral traditions about him were a good century
old and it is instructive to compare its narrative with Sturla’s “con­
temporary” account. We find that chronology is confused, some details
are forgotten, others are magnified, anecdotes are improved. It is more
surprising, however, to discover that some of the stories are remarkably
similar, even in phrasing. The possibility must of course be conceded
that oral tales about Aron were influenced by the written narrative of
íslendinga saga, and that this influence then comes out in Arons saga —
assuming, as seems quite likely, that the author of the latter did not
know Sturla’s work at first hand. Still, there is no doubt that Arons saga
bears plain witness to the existence of oral traditions living on into the
fourteenth century — though not exactly to their reliability.
Arons saga reminds one of the sagas of the past, the íslendinga sögur that
have their setting in the tenth and eleventh century. The author makes
use of stanzas drawn from three poems on Aron: a memorial drdpa by
Óláfr hvítaskáld (p. 130; died 1259) and two poems by the priest
Þormóðr Óláfsson (who lived in the first half of the fourteenth century)
— Þormóðr composed on Gunnarr of Hlíðarendi as well. Aron was a
bold and venturesome character and the saga has much to tell of his skill
at arms. He was outlawed in 1222, “of forfeit immunity, not to be given
passage, not to be given any saving advice,” and then survived in his
outlawry for some time in Iceland, even making a stay in GeirþjófsQörð-
ur where Gisli Sursson had had his hide-out long before. Various
resemblances have been pointed out between the adventures of these
two outlawed heroes, but how the parallels are to be explained is not
entirely clear.
202 CONTEMPORARY SAGAS

And there is no tragic end to Arons saga, for the author had to respect
his sources. Aron lived through all the dangers that beset him, escaped
to Norway, and even went on pilgrimage to the Holy Sepulchre in
Jerusalem. In the end he had no enemies left, and died of disease in
Bergen in 1255. Aron was hirðmaðr, a sworn retainer, of King Håkon and
the king himself attended his funeral and spoke at his grave: “We shall
make this our final word,” said the king, “that here has died one of the
best fighting-men among all our subjects.”
 Sagas of Icelanders
Introductory
These sagas are so called because they tell of Icelandic men and
women who belonged to the first generations of our people, from the
time of the settlement to about 1030. These brilliant narratives have
outshone all other kinds of sagas. It is because of them that the period
from c. 930 to c. 1030 has been called the “saga age”, and when people
talk of the “Old Icelandic sagas” or simply “the sagas” they are
referring specifically to this group of stories. They have meant much to
Icelanders of later generations, medieval and modern, and they merit all
the attention we Icelanders of the present day can devote to them. The
best of the kings’ sagas and of the eddaic poems are also great works of
art — and one would not like to have to judge the relative merits of any
of this literature — but these are not as close to our hearts as the sagas of
Icelanders are: their settings are foreign and their characters alien. We
still have the physical background of the íslendinga sogar before our eyes,
landscape and place-names are still there. We can even trace our
ancestry to the great men of valour and wisdom, though seldom to the
scoundrels, who people the sagas.
Sagas of Icelanders have given rise to an enormous body of critical
literature but many problems remain unresolved. There are indeed
extraordinary difficulties in the way of coming to critical grips with
them. We cannot identify the author of a single saga, despite more-or-
less plausible attributions to named men proposed by scholars in
modern times. Neither do we know for sure when and where sagas were
written, although again various conjectures have been offered, both of a
particular and a general kind. We do not know what matter in them
comes from oral tradition and what from the imagination of the authors.
And although we assume the existence of oral traditions, we do not
know what they were like: detailed or bare, immutable or variable in
204 SAGAS OF ICELANDERS

content, factual or fictitious, fixed or free in form? But it is in fact natural

to think that events and reactions to events were confused and exagger­
ated in various ways in the course of long oral transmission.
Saga-authors will remain nameless for ever but, all the same, close
reading and careful study enable us to learn a good deal about these
invisible men who created such masterpieces, about their ideas and
attitudes to life. And although the academic problems I have just
mentioned will not soon be solved, we can at least observe the artistic
methods employed by the authors to achieve their marvellous results. It
is true that these methods differ from one saga to another, and that some
of the narrative techniques of the sagas of Icelanders are also found in
other kinds of sagas, particularly in those kings’ sagas that are set in the
far past.

Saga origins. Fact and fiction

We do not know what Icelanders of earlier centuries thought about
the origins of íslendinga sogur, but we may be confident that most people
accepted them as valid history — as they have continued to do to our
own time. The doubts occasionally expressed by earlier scholars about
the historicity of some sagas — Króka-Refs saga, for example, and even
Njáls saga — did not have much impact.
In the nineteenth century the theory was launched — and lasted long
in favour — that these sagas were created and fully formed as oral
narratives, which were subsequently recorded unaltered just as they
were told. The sagas did not have authors in our customary sense of the
word. They were the stock of oral story-tellers who learnt by rote and,
when the time came, dictated them to scribes. There were two circum­
stances — or two elements of wishful thinking — which were especially
responsible for eliciting this theory. If the sagas really represent archaic
tradition and fixed oral transmission, they at once become that much
more reliable as historical sources. They are moreover anonymous —
and does not that imply that they came into being “on the lips of the
people”?
The Norwegian Rudolf Keyser (1803—64) was among the first to
formulate this theory in his discussion of kings’ sagas, and it was fully
developed by Andreas Heusler in Die Anfänge der isländischen Saga,
published in 1914. Heusler called it the Freiprosalehre, “free-prose
theory” — in Icelandic it has been called sagnfestukenning (“theory of
fixed tradition”), which makes more transparent sense than the German
SAGA ORIGINS. FACT AND FICTION 205
or its English gloss. An influential supporter of the theory was the
Norwegian folklorist, Knut Liestøl (1881 —1952), as was also to a great
extent Finnur Jonsson (1858—1934), professor in Copenhagen and a
prolific scholar. But none of these went so far as to deny that scribes and
authors played some part in shaping the sagas, especially the longer
ones.
Views different from those of the free-prose theorists are now in
favour, and they too have a respectable history. Konrad Maurer was a
pioneer in the field with his monograph on Hœnsa-Þóris saga, published
in 1871, and he was followed by Björn Magnússon Ólsen (1850—1919),
the first professor of Icelandic Studies in the University of Iceland,
founded in 1911. Björn published a number of articles and in the years
1914—17 gave some important lectures on saga literature in the Uni­
versity, not all of which have yet been printed. According to him, sagas
of Icelanders were composed by creative writers on the basis of all sorts
of material: old poetry, oral traditions, written sources, literary models,
even contemporary events which the authors transmuted to the credit or
discredit of saga-age men and women. In these respects, sagas of
Icelanders become comparable with those kings’ sagas which are set in
a distant past and which were also being composed at the same time as
the first íslendinga sógur.
Ideas of a long fixed oral tradition are naturally linked to notions of
the value of sagas as sources about the past, their historicity. It is hard
to make definitive pronouncements on the nature and development of
Icelandic oral traditions. Earlier it was assumed that oral traditions
from the saga age had slowly decreased and died out as time passed and
as the stories worth recording had been given their written saga form.
But now it is clear that oral traditions need not necessarily decline or
become more scanty with the passing of time. On the contrary, it is just
as likely that stories expand and thrive and become folk-tales which can
live for a very long time. This is especially the case with so-called
supernatural events. In the matter of the actual literal truth of tradi­
tions, however, the case is just the opposite, for this must inevitably
decrease in the course of time. No one nowadays would expect to find
much history in those íslendinga s'ógur that were written in the later stages
of the genre’s evolution. But sagas written in the early stages have
customarily been regarded as reliable historical sources, almost to the
present day. It is in fact evident that they were written as history —
according to the standards of the time — and when Sturla Þórðarson
lifts material from them in his Landnámabók, he is simply taking them at
206 SAGAS OF ICELANDERS

their face value. Now historians have put them aside and for the most
part ignore them as historical sources. For Icelandic history that
rejection means a vacuum for the tenth and eleventh century. We can
believe that this is going too far in a nihilistic direction, and the real
source-value of this colourful literature is a problem still to be grappled
with.
Rather than count sagas of Icelanders as sources for the saga age, c.
930-1030, some scholars have tended more and more to regard them as
a reflection of the contemporary world of the authors. Others again have
argued that sagas are simply a legitimate offshoot of the literary culture
of medieval Europe, and even that they were written to instil Christian
ideas and moral values. Finally, there are literary gentlemen who, while
paying some attention to the cultural currents of the age in which the
sagas were written, are fundamentally only prepared to consider them
purely as works of literary art and artifice. Any of these vantage points
may give rewarding glimpses into the nature of sagas, but the vision will
certainly be warped that takes a narrow view from only one of them —
no less distorted than that of the myopic believer in sagas as historical
documents. The authors of the sagas did not set about their task as if
they were independent moralists or artists. They were always hobbled
by the purpose of the story they were telling and by sources that were at
the disposal of many people besides themselves: oral reports of what was
traditionally told, verses and anecdotes, complete poems, earlier writ­
ings. The author was not totally free — and neither is the critic. The
historical element in sagas is both a weakness and a strength. The story
is sometimes weighed down by dry information, genealogies, people and
places are introduced in bewildering number and detail. The main
thread may be interrupted by loosely linked digressions. Stanzas are
introduced in a clumsy way and disharmony between prose and verse
results. But the historical element — whether real or operating as a
control over the imagination — is also a compelling source of narrative
strength. However much may be well and wisely said about the art of
sagas, it can never compensate the reader for the loss incurred by
stripping from them their panoply of truth. It has been said that biblical
criticism produced a generation of agnostics and atheists, and one may
perhaps say something similar about modern saga criticism. Rude feet
have trodden on hallowed ground, the radiance has been dimmed,
innocence lost. Readers will prefer to accept “what proves to be more
true” — as Ari put it long ago.
SUBJECT-MATTER AND NARRATIVE METHOD. CHARACTERISATION 207

Subject-matter and narrative method. Characterisation

The term “family saga” (or its equivalent in a variety of languages)
has often been used outside Iceland to describe the íslendinga sogur. It is
not always appropriate and distinguishes them less than adequately
from sagas of other kinds: “contemporary” sagas and kings’ sagas are as
much “family sagas” as the sagas of Icelanders are. Now it is the fashion
almost everywhere to follow the Icelandic practice, as is done here, and
to use íslendinga sögur or sagas of Icelanders as the general designation of
the genre.
Some sagas are, it is true, a chronicle of several generations —
Vatnsdæla saga, for instance, or even Egils saga. But in the latter case,
although much is told of Egill’s forebears and kinsmen, and Þorsteinn,
his son, appears on the scene at the end, it is most natural to regard the
saga primarily as Egill’s life-story. Other sagas, Hallfrebar saga, Gunn-
laugs saga, Grettis saga, for example, are also justly termed biographies
rather than “family sagas”. In other sagas again — Njdls saga is an
outstanding instance — the chief parts are divided among a host of
characters, and they can be thought of neither as the saga of a family nor
as the saga of an individual, even though it is the links between kindred
people and events that bind the narrative together.
Sagas are terse in style and full of meat: incidents follow in swift
succession, many characters appear on the scene. Sometimes it is hard
to know precisely what is going on. But the style never becomes
telegraphic, and the best sagas have a steady, weighty flow, with an
occasional slackening among shallows to relieve the concentration.
People often remark on the “objectivity” of sagas. When characters
are introduced, the author often spends a few words on a description,
both of appearance and temperament. After that they are allowed to
reveal themselves by their words and deeds —just like people in real life.
We are almost never told what a saga-character thought. Sagas are like
stage-plays but the author is behind the scene, exercising remote control
over his characters. We learn only what can be seen or heard, either
immediately or from eye- and ear-witnesses. The author does not
intrude his own judgments of people’s behaviour: at most he says, “This
deed was ill spoken of,” or something similar. Because of this sagas
make a very realistic impression, even when the incidents described are
far from plausible. But if the exaggeration is not carried too far, a
fascinating tension is created between the surface realism of the pre­
sentation and the imaginative power shaping the events.
208 SAGAS OF ICELANDERS

This objectivity is doubtless rooted in the origins of the sagas them­

selves: people were at first putting together oral reports about real men
and women and about events that had recently happened. In conse­
quence everything had to be seen through the eyes of witnesses, heard
through the ears of people present at the scene. This appears obvious
where reports of contemporary events are at issue, but the method was
transferred and applied to the reporting of past events as well. And
gradually the method becomes so engrained that the way of telling a
story is the same whether a traditional oral report actually lies behind
the account or not.
The characters introduced in most European literature of the early
middle ages are cast in simple moulds. They represent this or that
aspect of human nature, pasteboard figures set up to complement or
contrast with each other, and often intended to convey a religious or
moral lesson. Incidental characters and “extras” who appear with

The picture shows Möðruvallabók (AM 132 fol.) and gives some idea of the
appearance of a medieval vellum codex. Such a volume was made up of quires,
usually offour folded leaves, one placed inside the next, making sixteen pages in all.
The quires were sewn together on tapes or cords, like the gatherings of a modern
book, as can be seen in the photograph. The end-boards are of wood, which was the
commonest form of binding. — Möðruvallabók is thought to have been written c.
1350. It now contains 200folios, each c. 34 X 24 cm, eleven of which were written
in the seventeenth century to make good earlier losses. There are eleven íslend-
inga sögur in the volume, arranged topographically: Njáls saga first and then,
moving clockwise round the country, Egils saga, Finnboga saga, Bandamanna
saga, Kormáks saga, Viga-Glums saga, Droplaugarsona saga — but the
last four break the order: Ölkofra þáttr, Hallfreðar saga, Laxdæla saga,
Fóstbræðra saga. — Some of these texts are known complete only in Möðruvalla-
bók. — At the end ø/Njåls saga there is a note which says: “Have Gauks saga
Trandilssonar written here. I am told Porgrimr owns it.” The rest of that quire
was then originally left blank, though it has been scribbled on since. But Gauks
saga was never included in the vellum and has been lostfor ever. — Thefirst known
owner of the book was Magnus Bfórnsson, Lawman, of Munkaþverá (c. 1595—
1662). He wrote his name in it while at Möðruvellir in Eyjafiörður on thefeast of
the Invention of the Cross (3 May) in 1628. His son gave the book to the Danish
scholar, Thomas Bartholin, in 1684, and after Bartholin s death Ami Magmsson
acquired it in 1690. The codex came back to Iceland on 16 July 1974. — Photo:
Jóhanna Ólafsdóttir.
SUBJECT-MATTER AND NARRATIVE METHOD. CHARACTERISATION 209
210 SAGAS OF ICELANDERS

limited functions in sagas of Icelanders are often not dissimilar. But the
chief characters in the best sagas are always composed of many strands,
and although one quality may be dominant, others exist alongside it to
give balance and depth to the characterisation: as a result the persona
often becomes a “problem” character who whets our curiosity. This
feature may also be explained in terms of saga-origins. Human beings
are complex and their words and actions are sometimes hard to
understand, sometimes even contradictory, not least when they are in a
disturbed state or impelled by circumstances beyond their control. In
telling how people behaved, it is usually the elements that make a
striking story that are dwelt on — elements of pathos and tragedy or, in
contrast, of absurdity and comedy. So the people in our written sagas
become — as it were, of their own volition — as complicated and as
incomprehensible as they were or might be in real life.
Two examples — there are many more — may be taken to illustrate
this. For twenty years Viga-Glumr was the greatest chieftain in Eyja-
fjörður, and for twenty years after that he had his equals but was
surpassed by none. Under his leadership there is peace and equilibrium
in the district, and he can arrange marriages for kinsmen and antago­
nists alike. But the sky is not all unclouded. He achieved his position by
killing Sigmundr, the husband of a kinswoman of his — striking him
down in front of her and after she had spoken conciliatory words to him
and done him a service. Glúmr tries to lay the blame for a killing likely
to breed vengeance at the door of an inoffensive youth, and then swears
an ambiguous oath in an attempt to clear himself of the charge. And
when his deeds have finally come home to roost and he is driven out of
his inheritance, then — old and blind as he is — he tries to trick his two
chief opponents into visiting him, letting it be known that he wants to be
reconciled to them — “and I shall not invite them simply to feed them.”
When they refuse the invitation, he is disappointed — “I had thought
that if I went to meet them, I wouldn’t have failed to get one of them” —
he had a dagger drawn under his cloak.
The central figure in Eyrbyggja saga is Snorri the Chieftain. He is no
sort of fighting man but takes advantage of superior numbers and
superior cunning in dealing with enemies. He seizes an opportunity to
attack Arnkell the Chieftain when the latter is alone, unprepared and
heavily outnumbered. Every one of Snorri’s undertakings edge him
towards success until finally he is in a dominant position on Snæfellsnes
and can even exert influence — peaceful influence — in other neighbour­
hoods. But the sympathies of the author, and of many of his readers,
SUBJECT-MATTER AND NARRATIVE METHOD. CHARACTERISATION 211
tend to be more engaged by the luminous though less successful
personalities in the story, by Arnkell and by the swashbuckling poet and
lover, Björn Breiðvíkingakappi. Or so it seems, for there are also critics
who have maintained that Snorri genuinely represents the author’s ideal
of a wise and successful leader who deservedly overcomes all his rivals.
Thus, verdicts on the complex characters in sagas vary in the same
way as opinions about people in real life. When it was the custom to
read sagas aloud as evening pastime on Icelandic farms, the people who
sat with their handwork and listened used to talk about the characters of
the story, and argue about them, just as if they were living in the next
valley.
An admirable feature in some sagas, and one that is generally rare in
early literature, is that a character is not portrayed as static but as under
development. The author of Hrafnkels saga is well aware of the lesson
adversity taught Hrafnkell and conveys it clearly in his story. Hreiðarr
“the foolish” comes from the isolated depths of the Icelandic country­
side and is awkward and ridiculous: but out in the world and in the
company of kings, he becomes a man among men. His adventures teach
him nevertheless that there are two sides to things, and in the end his
good sense directs him homeward again. In the so-called Legendary
Saga of St Óláfr (cf. p. 159), the hero is a holy paragon from youth
upward. But Snorri looked more dispassionately at what was known of
Óláfr’s early years and saw that he had not started that way. In his saga
of St Óláfr the king’s noble qualities develop as he progresses from a
Viking leader who makes a successful bid for the throne of Norway to the
king who is ready to win a martyr’s crown and fall in battle at Stiklestad
(cf. p. 169). A downward path is trodden by Óspakr in Bandamanna
saga. He is a capable man and not a bad sort while he is in charge of
Oddr Ófeigsson’s property and chieftaincy, but when their relations
turn sour — with some fault on both sides — he becomes a malevolent
scoundrel.
Nowadays we expect to find that characters portrayed in novels and
plays undergo some alteration as the story unfolds, but in classical and
medieval literature as a whole authors seldom saw the need for such
change. Good examples of this kind of mutation of personality might be
found in some of the Roman emperors who began as mild and bene­
volent rulers and turned into crazy tyrants under the poisonous influ­
ence of power. But Roman historians seem not to have viewed them in
this way. As far as they were concerned, a man’s inner being remained
the same from start to finish.
212 SAGAS OF ICELANDERS

Saints’ lives, on the other hand, do offer many examples of people

who change from base and wicked to noble and good, but it is seldom
the result of gradual development, rather of sudden conversion from
heathen error to Christian truth — with St Paul as the illustrious
prototype. But we cannot rule out the possibility of external influence on
the portrayal of saga-characters who evolve in the course of the story.
That influence might stem partly from general Christian views of
human personality, and partly from specific instances of growth and
change to be found in hagiographic literature.

Language and style. Dialogue

The language of the íslendinga s'ógur is as much akin to natural
Icelandic speech as it is different from the imported learned style. One
can easily convince oneself of this by comparing a chapter of Njáls saga,
for instance, with any well-told tale recorded directly from a story-teller
of today. Despite the seven centuries between them, the differences are
remarkably small. Even so, doubt has been cast on the idea that saga
style has direct genetic relation to Icelandic speech. It has been pointed
out that early texts, Sverris saga and Heiðarvíga saga for example, have less
of a colloquial stamp than those of later date, like Laxdæla saga and Njdls
saga. It has also been argued that we must not pay too much attention to
comparison with modern Icelandic speech-habits, because it is precisely
from sagas that Icelanders have learnt how to tell stories — and the
similarities reflect literary influence on speech rather than the reverse.
O f course, there must be some element of truth in this claim, but it is a
wild exaggeration to suggest that ordinary Icelandic speech is in some
way derived from a literary saga-language. What we may safely postu­
late is some degree of mutual influence.
Development from a form of language with a pronounced literary
flavour to one with colloquial ease and vigour can be explained in
various ways. The first sagas written in Icelandic were saints’ lives
translated or adapted from Latin. Although their diction appears to be a
natural Icelandic, it is affected in many ways by Latin — the “book
language”, as it was called. Sometimes it is difficult or impossible to
decide whether a given feature of saga-style is authentically native or the
result of imitation of Latin. What are we to say about starting a sentence
with a verb, for example? It is common enough in sagas but is now
unknown in unaffected Icelandic speech. Is this a Latinism or have the
Icelanders changed their habits?
LANGUAGE AND STYLE. DIALOGUE 213
Remembering this foreign element in the first literary language, we
need not be surprised that the evolution was in the direction of a more
purely native mode of expression. Since saga-authors were interested in
promoting a realistic illusion, it was only natural that they should make
their narratives more and more like tales that were told, not written or
read: they wanted to make them sound like traditional oral accounts,
whether they had any background in such transmission from the past or
not. Finally it may be noted that, while saga-style was being perfected in
the course of the thirteenth century, authors were also busily writing
“contemporary” sagas: most of these were firmly based on word-of-
mouth reports and their transfer to written record must have given the
writers a constant touchstone — authentic native anecdote and story
rang in their ears.
A saga-author does not know what his characters are thinking, and he
is not allowed to guess at their disposition or mood. But he hears their
words, and these make manifest their thoughts and opinions. Sagas
usually contain much direct speech and dialogue. These both reveal and
illuminate the mental world of the personae and fill out the narrative,
carry it forward and give it life.
Direct speech in the usage of saga-authors can be seen to have a
variety of characteristics and a definite development. In some of the
oldest sagas, like Gudmundar saga dýra, there is very little direct speech. In
other old sagas people make what amounts to set speeches, long or
short, in a mode that may equally well be of foreign as of native origin. A
protagonist utters at a fateful moment — at an assembly or when a
battle is to be fought. Naturally, men did make speeches on just such
occasions — as Porgeirr the Lawspeaker did at the time of the Conver­
sion (p. 147). We need not doubt that King Sverrir was a brilliant orator,
but at the same time we can observe that the great speeches he makes in
his saga have models and parallels in the works of the classical histo­
rians of Greece and Rome. Probably a literary link was forged between
these examples of Icelandic and classical rhetoric by medieval writings
with which the Icelanders were certainly familiar — typified by Tróju-
manna saga, based on Dares Phrygius and other authors, and Rómverja
saga, based on Sallust and Lucan, where short speeches and formal
orations are frequently allotted to the principal characters.
Gradually speeches in sagas become shorter and colloquial exchange
and authentic conversation become commoner. This art of dialogue
becomes supremely effective in the polished íslendinga sögur of the later
thirteenth century. In them dialogue serves to reveal what is happening
214 SAGAS OF ICELANDERS

both on the surface and deep down in the being of the speakers. The
spoken exchanges turn the story into a stage-play; the words enable us
to penetrate to the heart of the people involved. When Hrafnkell is
about to kill Einarr Þorbjarnarson, he puts his thoughts into words —
and thereby throws light both on his own and on Einarr’s personality:
“I would have forgiven you one such offence if I had not sworn so great
an oath. But you have owned up to it bravely.” If we come to know
Guðrún Ósvífrsdóttir or Skarpheðinn Njálsson, it is largely because of
what they say. It is no accident that Laxdæla saga and Njáls saga have
such a large percentage of direct speech.
Skilful dialogue could also have had foreign models. There is no need
to look far afield, for saints’ lives usually contain many exchanges
between their principal actors. Consider the texts in AM 645 4to, from
the early part of the thirteenth century (pp. 137-8 above.). They have a
good deal of direct speech, cut-and-thrust dialogue which mutatis mutand­
is is quite comparable to the dialogue we find in sagas of Icelanders. But
another influential factor in the creation of the dialogue style of the
íslendinga sögur must have been the “contemporary” sagas, based as they
were on reports of actual events and authentic speech.
As soon as something has happened, people fashion it into an
anecdote or report, often with a memorable remark or speech at the
centre of it. Then, with each re-telling, that utterance is improved, made
still more forceful or mordant: “I can hear the archbishop’s command”;
“I don’t like the look of that frowner”; “I am for Iceland”; “Hafliði
whole would cost a lot” — crisp rejoinders like these and a host of others
recorded in “contemporary” sagas are in no way different from laconic
remarks uttered in sagas of Icelanders. And although the latter must for
the most part have been invented by the authors, some were doubtless
inherited from oral tradition: it is not at all inconceivable that some of
them represent words actually spoken by a saga-hero centuries before
they were shaped as written letters: “Vitazgjafi never failed yet”; “That
was payment for the grey lamb”; “It will always be thawing if this is a
thaw”.

Verse in sagas
Many íslendinga sögur contain solitary verses, verse sequences, even
whole poems. It is of vital importance for many kinds of saga research to
know whether such verse is old or new, whether the attribution is right
or wrong. If the verse is old, it supports the authenticity of the account
VERSE IN SAGAS 215
and shows the narrative is based — ultimately at least — on traditions
transmitted orally — explanatory anecdote must normally have accom­
panied the verse from the start. Even if we are chiefly interested in the
literary art of a saga or its value as a source of information about the
author’s contemporary background, the origin of the verse remains a
matter of crucial importance.
It has long been realised that in sagas written late in the development
of the genre the ascription of stanzas to named poets cannot be taken
seriously. A conclusion is straightforward if the verse shows linguistic
characteristics that reflect changes that took place after the period in
which the saga is set. Even in sagas that are counted among the earliest
we find some stanzas of dubious authenticity. In recent years serious
doubt has been cast on the attribution of the verse in a saga as old as
Kormdks saga and even in Heidarviga saga, one of the most archaic sagas
we have. A very plausible case has been made for regarding the stanzas
of Gisla saga as twelfth-century composition, made a long time before the
saga was put into written shape and intended as an accompaniment to
an oral story about Gisli’s life and death.
It is extremely difficult to find reliable criteria by which to judge the
date of scaldic verse in sagas: is it from the time of the actual events,
from the time when the saga was written, or from some date between the
two (which then gives us two or three centuries to play with)? Ancient
metres remained long in vogue, the distinctive poetic diction changed
but little, pagan imagery and reference lived on into the Christian
period even though markedly pagan allusions were avoided in the more
“official” poetry made in the first generation or two after the Conver­
sion. Ancient word-forms prove little one way or another because
generation after generation of poets borrowed from their predecessors,
partly to meet the strict demands of the dróttkvœtt metre. If young word-
forms appear in a stanza and are evidently there for prosodic reasons,
then the verse as preserved must itself be young. On the other hand, we
must assume that a stanza transmitted orally over a long period is likely
to undergo some alteration — memory and tongue make their slips — so
the core of a verse may be old even though it appears in updated
language.
The stanzas in Gisla saga and in some other íslendinga sögur show that
story-tellers readily inserted verse into the tales they were offering.
Authors of written sagas accepted such verse as authentic or, rather, as
an important, even integral, part of the traditional material they
collected and shaped as literature. It is also conceivable that verse was
216 SAGAS OF ICELANDERS

made for inclusion in sagas as they were being written. Some stanzas in
Njáls saga and Grettis saga certainly originated in that way. Authors come
to insert verse in deference to literary fashion, following older models.
But did the authors of early sagas also feel free to make stanzas to fit into
their stories? Reasons can be found for answering both “Yes” and “No”
to this question.
As I said earlier, sagas of Icelanders can be regarded as the offspring
of kings’ sagas. In the latter verse was used as an important source.
Verse citation then became a literary convention which it was natural to
keep in íslendinga sögur. But some distinction can be made between the
use and disposition of verse in the two kinds of sagas. In kings’ sagas
stanzas are quoted as straight source-material, as an addition to the
prose narrative: “Kormákr Ögmundarson mentions that in the drapa on
Sigurðr”; “And Hallfreðr also tells of these events”. In íslendinga sögur,
on the other hand, stanzas are not normally extraneous to the narrative
but are made part of it, put into the mouth of the actor on stage at the
moment: “Then Egill spoke a verse . . . and again he said in verse . . . ”
Even so, it is often quite unlikely, even inconceivable, that the stanzas
quoted were actually made in the purported circumstances. Verse used
to substantiate the narrative is only cited when it comes from poems by
named poets, and these are then referred to with some identifying detail:
“Porgeirr was fifteen winters old when this killing took place, as
Þormóðr said in Porgeirr’s memorial lay”; “About all these events . . .
Þormóðr Trefilsson made this stanza in HrafnsmdF. These are exception­
al instances and may suggest that the stanzas in question originated in
a different convention from most of those quoted in íslendinga sögur. As a
rule, the immediacy of the verse and its close relationship to the
narrative suggest that in some way both verse and prose were generated
together, whether that was in an oral stage or when the saga was
written.
Discrepancies between verse and prose or the fact that stanzas
include matter not utilised in the story have been taken to prove that the
stanzas antedate the saga. Bjarni Einarsson has considered this problem
in relation to Kormdks saga. He explains both poetry and prose as the
work of one man, arguing that the “discrepancies” disappear as soon as
one reads the stanzas as part of the whole and not as extrinsic to the
saga narrative.
There are however factors which suggest that many stanzas are
antique and their ascription genuine. They are often attributed to
characters who are known as poets in other sources — kings’ sagas,
VERSE IN SAGAS 217
Snorri’s Edda, Skdldatal. In his Edda Snorri sometimes cites verse which
is also quoted in sagas — verse by Egill Skallagrimsson for example —
and it is hard to reject his testimony. Sometimes too the archaic
language of a stanza interlocks so intimately with the rhyme or allitera­
tion of the metrical form that the antiquity of the composition seems
assured.

When were the sagas written?

A critic may turn to sagas in search of information about the history
of the tenth and eleventh century, or for evidence of the ideas and values
of the writers’ own time, or he may be primarily interested in them as
works of literary art freely created by their authors. Whatever his
attitude, it is clearly of the utmost importance for him to discover when
they were written — and that has proved a hard puzzle to solve. Try as
we will, our attempts are usually fumbling: the authors are anonymous
while the manuscripts are almost all much later than the original works
and in any case difficult enough to date or locate with great precision.
We deal in conjectures and probabilities, backed by evidence that
ranges from the shaky to the strong.
There is much to suggest that the first íslendinga s'ögur were written
about 1200 or at the outset of the thirteenth century. It is usually
assumed that the last were written about the middle of the fourteenth
century, so that the genre as a whole spans about a century and a half.
In fact, little serious work has been done on dating the youngest sagas
and it may be that in future their chronology will be revised and the
whole period extended. There is also some doubt as to which sagas
among later productions should be counted as íslendinga s'ógur: they are
texts which have been neglected and need further study.
In 1958 Einar 01. Sveinsson published a monograph called Dating the
Icelandic Sagas', a slightly amplified version of it appeared in Icelandic
(Ritunartími íslendingasagna) in 1965. In it he discusses various methods
of investigating a saga’s date of origin. In a survey like ours we need
only consider those points that are of prime importance and have
general application.
1. The dating of manuscripts. On the whole it is impossible to date
manuscripts of Icelandic sagas with perfect accuracy, and estimates can
very often have margins of error of several decades. Many sagas are only
preserved in manuscripts which must be much younger than the
original versions. However, manuscripts can sometimes give important
indications as to the date of the composition of the sagas. The oldest
218 SAGAS OF ICELANDERS

fragment of Egils saga, AM 162 A ft fol., is considered to be from the

middle of the thirteenth century, but it is not the original version which,
accordingly, must have been somewhat older. Njáls saga is extant in five
manuscripts or fragments which are all dated to the beginning of the
fourteenth century; this is an important point, because as there are so
many manuscripts they could hardly all be dated very incorrectly, and
thus the original saga cannot be younger than from the end of the
thirteenth century. Finnboga saga is extant in Möðruvallabók, the large
codex containing many Icelandic sagas, which is dated to around 1350.
The saga is thus at least as old as this even though it is full of
exaggeration and has other rather young features.
2. Literary relations. íslendinga sögur make a rather special genre, not
closely related to other literary kinds. Sometimes it is possible to detect
direct influence from other works (e.g. kings’ sagas) which can be dated
with some precision. Not every saga can be profitably compared with
works outside the genre, but relations can be established within the
corpus of íslendinga sögur: then some sagas can be dated with relative
confidence and these provide fixed points on the time-scale. This
method of dating sagas is the most reliable at our disposal as long as it is
used with caution and is not built on superficial similarities.
3. Artistry. Sagas were written over a long period and their modes of
composition naturally underwent substantial change in that time. I
discussed earlier the development of direct speech in sagas and sur­
veyed their literary evolution (pp. 213-214). The chief period of change
seems to have been the second half of the thirteenth century. By then the
tenth- and eleventh-century settings of the sagas had grown remoter, the
quantity of reliable traditional material was diminished, and its lack
was made good by the creative fantasy of the authors.
O f course, the changes were not swift or radical. Links with ancient
reality were not suddenly broken, and the evolution of saga-art is not a
straight unbroken line. Primitive features may be found in works of late
date; some authors are more conservative than others in their narrative
methods and general style. Some sagas which are thought to be late
compositions and whose stories are quite implausible nevertheless have
all the external features of the early sagas. There are other very late
sagas which do contain ancient reminiscences — though these are
usually explained away by postulating the existence of old lost sagas
which have been revised to give them their extant shape.
In general, however, we can perceive gradual changes taking place in
the substance and style of sagas. Lifelike matter and presentation are a
WHEN WERE THE SAGAS WRITTEN? 219
sign of age: fantastic and bombastic elements become more prominent
as time goes by. The experienced reader comes to have an awareness of
such changes and his notion of a saga’s age will depend on his response
to them. Some specific features and motifs are of course demonstrably
young.
The greatest changes were caused by the influence of the imported
“sagas of chivalry” (riddara s'ögur), first translated in Norway, and the
indigenous “sagas of ancient times” (fomaldarsögur) that came in their
wake. Riddara s'ögur were translated at the instigation of King Håkon the
Old, the first king to gain sovereignty over Iceland, so it is not purely
accidental that the influence of such sagas on íslendinga s'ögur more or less
coincides with the end of the Icelandic commonwealth. We cannot say
exactly when they first made an impact but various pointers make
approximately the second quarter of the thirteenth century the likely
period. Courtly ideals made strong headway in Norway during King
Hákon’s reign from 1217, when he came to the throne as a lad of
thirteen, till his death in 1263. He and his advisers made a conscious
effort to civilise Norwegian culture and court-life by adopting European
modes. One step in this policy was to commission translations of French
chansons de geste and romances. King Håkon is said to have had Tristrams
saga translated by Brother Robert in 1226, and this is generally reckoned
to be the oldest of the Norwegian “sagas of chivalry”. Five such sagas
are expressly said to have been made at King Hákon’s instigation but
scholars are inclined to think that this did not amount to the sum of his
patronage. He also inspired the composition of Konungs skuggsjá (King’s
Mirror), a didactic work which is entirely in the same courtly tone.
Judging by works preserved in Sturlunga saga, it was from about 1240
onwards that notions of knightly conduct made a serious impression in
Iceland. As a representative of the new attitudes Þórðr kakali Sighvats-
son is a key figure. He returned to Iceland in 1242 with a mind brimfull
of chivalrous ideals.
In the light of all this we can see that influence from translated riddara
sógur could conceivably have been exerted as early as c. 1230, but it
more probably belongs to a slightly later period, about 1250 and later. It
seems safe to assume that íslendinga s'ögur that appear deeply influenced
by riddara s'ögur or fomaldarsögur were not composed until after the middle
of the thirteenth century.
Space does not permit a full discussion of the complex strands of these
literary influences, but we may examine some typical features.
In sagas affected by the new fashions we find that the appearance of
220 SAGAS OF ICELANDERS

heroes is described with more pomp and circumstance than previously.

Kjartan Óláfsson “was the handsomest of all men ever born in Iceland.
He had well-marked features and a pleasing countenance, the finest eyes
of any man, and fair colouring. He had an abundance of hair, silky
bright and falling in curls . . . ” Dress matches physical beauty. Bolli
Bollason sat “on a gilded saddle . . . [he was] in a tunic of fine red cloth
and had a gold bracelet on his arm, a band of gold lace tied round his
head.” When Kári first met the sons of Njáll, he was wearing “a silk coat
and a gilded helmet; his hair was abundant and fine; this man had a
gold-inlaid spear in his hand.” Skill in the use of weapons and athletic
prowess also make notable advances. As we can tell from his saga, Egill
Skallagrimsson was undeniably a good man to have on your side if it
came to battle and manslaughter, but there was nothing very chivalrous
about his methods — or indeed about his personality altogether. It is
rather different when we are introduced to Gunnarr of Hlíðarendi in
Njáls saga: “He was a man of great stature and strong, best skilled in
arms of all men. He could strike equally well with either hand, and
shoot with either too if he chose, and using a sword he smote so swiftly
that it looked as though three were in the air at once. He was the best
shot with a bow of any man and he always hit whatever he aimed at.
Wearing all his war-gear he could jump more than his own height and
he could jump no less far backwards than forwards. He swam like a seal
and there was not a sport in which anyone need try to compete with
him.”
Emotions are constantly concealed or played down in the earlier
sagas, but now authors permit their characters — especially the women
— to reveal their feelings openly at moments of stress. The older stories
spend few words on love, and love’s sorrow is suffered in silence, but
now Icelandic women give vent to grief and feelings of desolation in the
manner of grand ladies in the romances. Helga the Fair could never
forget Gunnlaugr even after his death and her second marriage: “It was
Helga’s chief pleasure to spread out the cloak Gunnlaugr had given her

Manuscripts of íslendinga sögur are not usually finished with much illumina­
tion, less so than law-books and religious works. The picture here is from
Kálfalækjarbók (AM 133 fo lfi a manuscript of Njáls saga written c. 1300.
Ninety-five leaves remain, but the whole book is in poor condition. In the bow of the
initial H (in minusculeform) at the start of chapter 100 we see a mounted man-at-
arms. — Photo: Arne Mann Nielsen.
WHEN WERE EHE SAGAS WRITTEN? 221
222 SAGAS OF ICELANDERS

and to gaze long upon it.” On her deathbed she asked for her lover’s gift
to be brought to her: “And when the cloak came to her, she sat up and
spread the cloak out before her and gazed at it for a time, and then she
sank back into her husband’s arms, and was dead.”
It is more difficult to find concrete evidence of the influence of written
fornaldarsögur. The problem is twofold. On the one hand, they are much
closer in setting and substance to sagas of Icelanders than riddara sögur
are; and on the other, these stories, or stories resembling them, were in
oral circulation in the period when the older íslendinga sögur were
written. Some motifs that especially belong to fornaldarsögur — single
combat with a berserk, for example — are thought to have been first
introduced in sagas of Icelanders under the influence of such sagas in an
oral stage. Their literary influence is most evident when we find motifs
in íslendinga sögur that are otherwise more-or-less exclusive to the written
fornaldarsögur; or when fomaldarsaga elements appear in demonstrably
young íslendinga sögur. Among such motifs are fights with dragons and
other monsters, breaking into burial mounds, and struggles with
undead grave-dwellers. Occasionally it is possible to demonstrate with
some plausibility that a specific fomaldarsaga passage is the immediate
source of a description in one of the sagas of Icelanders, and that of
course can provide an important clue to the date of origin of the latter.
The characteristic features of saga-writing and its evolution that have
been described here should, if possible, not be confused with those other
narrative elements whose presence or absence is rather to be associated
with the general advance — or decline — of saga-art. Romantic and
fantastic tendencies can co-exist with saga-narrative that is superbly
effective and restrained — as Njáls saga shows best of all. But it is only
with the greatest caution that we should give a verdict on the age of a
saga based on some generalised opinion of the level of its artistry. The
primitive and the decadent are not always easy to tell apart: and what is
archaic to some scholars is bright novelty to others. It is no less
important to remember that some authors are more adroit than others
— and that was as true in the middle ages as it is today. Artistic advance
is not a smooth and straight progression —as one soon sees if one tries to
put modern novels into chronological order on the basis of their literary
merit.
When we look at the whole range of sagas, we can certainly observe a
steady change, and it is perfectly legitimate to attempt to give each
individual work its rightful place. The artistry of a saga may be taken
into consideration but only as a hint — no more — of its age. It is true
WHEN WERE THE SAGAS WRITTEN? 223
that scholars have been by no means reluctant to draw chronological
conclusions from artistic “merit55 — understandably sometimes when
other evidence is virtually non-existent.
In his introduction to the volume of Vestfirbinga sögur in íslenzk fornrit
VI (1943), Björn K. Þórólfsson talks about “amateurish flaws55 in Gisla
saga, “despite the artistry of the author55, and adds: “When faults of such
a kind occur in a saga which otherwise shows the author had great
talents, it may be considered doubtful whether the writer had read such
masterpieces as Egils saga and Laxdœla saga”
A good example of the misuse of this method is found in Björn M.
Ólsen’s comparison of the A and C versions of Ljósvetninga saga. He says:
“If we compare the versions, there is no concealing the fact that the text
of A is in general older and more original than the text of C. For
example, the plans of Guðmundr [riki] and Einarr Konálsson which
begin this section are much clearer and better told in A than in C.55 But
when he turns to what follows this part, Björn reverses this entirely:
“. . . the narrative here is rather confused in A, smoother and neater in
C, but precisely this fact seems to me to show that the narrative is more
original in A .55
Many íslendinga sögur exist in different recensions, two or more, some
complete, some known only as fragments. Often the difference lies in the
fact that one text is more elaborately worded than another, although the
two show no real discrepancy in the substance of the story. Shorter
recensions then generally appear more polished in style and free of
many of the encumbrances that hamper the longer versions. There was
a time when it was usually thought that the shorter text was closer to the
original — an original which had then been spoilt by the needless
prolixity of a later reviser. This was in conformity with the view that the
older the saga, the better it must be: saga-writing was born perfect, we
might say. But the studies of recent years have shown the reverse to be
true: longer recensions, almost without exception, are older and more
original than shorter ones. The following well-known sagas, for in­
stance, are all preserved in two versions, of which the shorter — and
usually the better-preserved of the two — is the younger: Droplaugarsona
saga, Víga-Glúms saga, Gisla saga, Egils saga, Eiriks saga rauba, Bandamanna
saga, Fóstbræbra saga. Sometimes of course, as we had occasion to note
earlier, older recensions have disappeared altogether.
224 SAGAS OF ICELANDERS

Individual sagas
In the past literary historians have generally grouped sagas topo­
graphically, and then as far as possible considered each group chronolo­
gically. In his survey of the development of saga-writing Sigurður
Nordal tried another method, considering first its inception at the
monastery at Þingeyrar (as he believed), then its continuation in the
west of Iceland, and finally its spread over virtually the whole country. I
shall keep more or less to the traditional approach — for various
reasons. Nordal’s method is certainly attractive but in our present state
of knowledge it is impossible to regard it as securely founded. Dating
most of the sagas is still conjectural and the way in which saga-writing
evolved to become a national pursuit is still a mystery. On the other
hand, sagas that tell of events in the same district are often closely
related to each other, and within their confines we can move from one
saga to the next with some confidence. But obviously saga-composition
was not a discrete and isolated activity in each of the major Icelandic
regions, so I shall jump with alacrity over boundaries of district and
Quarter if need arise.

Heidarviga saga is often counted the earliest of all íslendinga sögur,

though it is in fact as difficult to date as any other. It seems in various
ways to be imperfect and primitive — and, as far as that goes, archaic.
The writing is stiff, often downright clumsy, repetitious and ponderous.
The sequence of events is very complicated, and people crop up in the
story without any word as to their origin or connection with the action.
The saga’s relations with other sagas also suggest that it belongs to an
early period, for wherever we can assume a connection the influence
appears to come from Heidarviga saga and not the other way round. One
of the sagas in which borrowing from Heidarviga saga is patent is
Droplaugarsona saga, which is also one of the most ancient texts we know.
All things considered, it seems possible to conclude that Heidarviga saga
was written in the last decades of the twelfth century and in any case not
later than shortly after 1200.
The saga tells of hostilities between the men of Húnaþing and
Borgarfjörður at the beginning of the eleventh century. They fought
their decisive battle on the moorland separating the two districts, the
heidr — whence the saga’s name. This is preceded by a series of
contributory killings and other events. The story has a kind of grandeur.
There are many actors in the drama — though not with as much
INDIVIDUAL SAGAS 225
characterisation to match for only the principal figures are rounded and
consistent. Some of the descriptions have a kind of barbaric magnifi­
cence which may remind us of scenes in the most archaic eddaic poems.
Let us take a single example. Barði Guðmundarson, the leader of the
northerners, killed a Borgfirth man. The dead man was carried home by
his brother. When they meet to do battle on the moor, Barði taunts that
brother and his father, goading them to seek vengeance. “How is it,
Ketill, do you — or the pair of you, you and your father — think you
have nothing to avenge on us? I remember that it was but a short time
ago that you came home, Ketill, bearing a burden on your back as a
present to your father. Now, if you do not remember, here is a witness —
this very sword: his brains are not dry on it yet” — and he shakes the
sword at him — “Do you think you have nothing to avenge, Ketill? Look
here and see that his brains are not dry” —and then he shakes the sword
at him again.
The preservation of Heiðarvíga saga is an instance of the fateful
hazards to which Icelandic manuscripts have been subject. In the
seventeenth century it existed in a vellum manuscript which, along with
others, came to Sweden. The opening part of the saga — it is not certain
how much — was already missing. Árni Magnusson then got part of the
vellum on loan in order to have the saga copied in Copenhagen — it
covered the middle part of the text — but both the original and the copy
were destroyed in the great Copenhagen fire of 1728. Jón Ólafsson from
Grunnavík, Árni’s amanuensis, then wrote out this part of the saga from
memory — this is what we have now and it is certainly better than
nothing. It chiefly tells of Viga-Styrr and his deeds of violence, which
finally bring just retribution —Jón Ólafsson in fact called this part the
“saga of Viga-Styrr”. Part of the vellum had stayed in Stockholm —
thanks to the ignorance of the man who was supposed to forward it to
Árni Magnusson — and there it was re-discovered in the late eighteenth
century. One leaf was missing, however, and various conjectures were
made as to its contents. But we can stop guessing now because a few
years ago the lost leaf — in rather poor shape, it is true — came to light
in the National Library in Reykjavik.

Some of the action of Heiðarvíga saga belongs to Húnaþing. Two other

sagas that also appear to be of some antiquity come from the same
region. These are Kormáks saga and Hallfredar saga, similar in some ways,
very different in others.
The outline of the story in each is so similar that one summary will
15 Eddas and Sagas
226 SAGAS OF ICELANDERS

serve for both. The hero is a poet and his verse is woven into the
narrative. He falls in love with a beautiful girl but is unwilling to marry
her. She is subsequently married to someone else, and the hero feuds
with her husband. He then goes abroad to seek fame and fortune, wins
the friendship of king or regent in Norway, and composes poems in their
praise. As soon as he makes land again in Iceland, he meets his old
sweetheart in a remote spot and they spend one night together. When
they part, she refuses the keepsake he wants to give her. The poet makes
insulting verses about her husband, and the two men try to worst each
other in various ways. The poet is forced to pay atonement for his
improper behaviour and his libellous verse. He goes abroad again and
sails restlessly from country to country. Finally he is so badly injured or
wounded in the side that death must follow: he dies with a verse on his
lips.
Einar 01. Sveinsson edited these sagas in íslenzk fornrit VIII in 1939.
In his introduction he assumes that the stanzas attributed to Kormákr
and Hallfreðr are mostly ancient and rightly ascribed. Since the verse
contains in concentrated form much of the narrative matter, this too
could be accepted as ancient and substantially accurate. On the basis of
these conclusions, he explains the similarities between the two stories as
follows. The careers of the two poets had been alike in various ways.
Oral reports about the pair had a mutual influence and what was most
alike in their stories came to be remembered best. One could also expect
minor characteristics to shift between them. But Einar Ólafur also
thought it most probable “that the author of Hallfredar saga had some
knowledge of Kormáks saga, and some of the similarities between the
sagas result from that.”
Scholars recognised long ago that some of the stanzas attributed to
Kormákr bear the marks of late composition. In some we find similes
that are paralleled in classical and continental verse of various ages. The
most striking parallel that has been adduced is between the impossibilia
of Kormáks saga, stanza 61, and of Horace’s Epode 16:

H eitask hellu r fljota The rocks w ill threaten to float,

h vatt sem korn á vatni, lightly as corn on w ater — I am still
enn em ek auðspöng ungri displeasing to the young land o f
óþekkr, en bjöð sökkva, riches (i.e. wom an) — and the w orld
fœ rask fjöll in stóru w ill sink. The great, glorious hills
fræg í djúpan ægi, will m ove into the deep ocean,
INDIVIDUAL SAGAS 227
auðs áð r ja fn fb g r tróða before a pole o f riches so fair as
alin verði Steingerði. Steingerðr shall be born. (G. T u r-
ville-P etre, S ca ld ic P o e tr y , 1976, p.
49.)

sed iurem us in haec: sim ul imis saxa ren arin t

vadis levata, ne redire sit nefas;
neu conversa dom um pigeat dare lintea, quando
Padus M atin a laverit cacum ina,
in m are seu celsus p ro cu rrerit A ppenninus . . .

B ut let us sw ear to this: So soon as rocks shall

rise from O cean ’s depths and float again, then
let it be no sin to retu rn ! Nor let us be loth to
shift o u r canvas and trim it for the voyage home,
w hen the Po shall wash the M atin ian heights,
when the lofty A pennines shall ju t out into the
sea . . . (C.E. Bennett, H o ra ce. T he O des a n d
E podes. Loeb C lassical L ibrary, 1914, revised
1927, pp. 4 10 -11.)

In 1961 Bjarni Einarsson published his book, Skáldasögur, and in it

came to quite different conclusions about the genesis of Kormáks saga. In
his view it is a purely literary creation and the stanzas in it, or most of
them, were made by the author. He maintains that the love-longing that
finds voice in Kormákr’s poetry is unknown in Icelandic literature
before the advent of the influence of French amour courtois in the years
round 1200. He thinks therefore that Tristrams saga, the most celebrated
love-story of the age, was the prime inspiration of Kormáks saga. Earlier
critics had found frequent discrepancies between verse and prose in the
saga and took them as a sign of the author’s clumsiness in fitting ancient
poetry into his story, but Bjarni considers verse and prose to make one
unity. The stanzas are not sources utilised by the author but an
inseparable part of the saga’s totality. They add matter to what we are
told in the prose, but if we read the whole dispassionately, we find the
discrepancies between verse and prose dwindle to insignificance.
Einar 01. Sveinsson returned to the problem in a paper published in
1966 (in English in Saga-Book of the Viking Society X V II 1 and in
Icelandic in Skimir CXL). He enumerates various antique features of
language and metre in the verses attributed to Kormákr, and he gathers
in many parallels from all over the world to the similes and to the
228 SAGAS OF ICELANDERS

impossibilia of stanza 61, mentioned above. He concludes that these

figures of speech are very ancient and, so to say, universal. They cannot
therefore prove anything about the age of the stanzas ascribed to
Kormákr, and there is no reason why they should not be from the tenth
century. It is notable that in the Latin and the Icelandic we find the
same pair of impossibilia — though admittedly they are not exactly the
same and Horace’s superb irony has nothing to do with love.
I have spent so much space on this controversy because it concerns
matters of great significance for any consideration of the origins of
íslendinga sögur and because it shows how far we are from achieving
definitive results. Arguments exist on either side but final conclusions
are hard to draw. I suspect that, in spite of Bjarni Einarsson’s benevo­
lent admiration and respect for the author of Kormáks saga, many readers
will find it difficult to believe that in this case verse and prose can
possibly be from the same period and by the same man. This is not the
place to delve deeper into the problem, but I may mention a conceivable
solution, as a friendly gesture towards the next enthusiast who tackles
the subject. The suggestion would be that the suspect stanzas were
composed neither by Kormákr nor by the author of the saga, but by a
man of some learning who wanted to add spice to oral tales that were
current about the tenth-century poet. An analogy could be found in the
stanzas of Gxsla saga and indeed in those of a number of other sagas, as
we shall see below. Einar 01. Sveinsson half opened the door to this
solution in his paper on Kormákr and his verses, though he was
personally inclined to think that a large part of the poetry was rightly
attributed to him.
The correspondences between Kormáks saga and Hallfredar saga are so
many and so close that a direct literary relationship between them
seems given. Most things indicate that Kormáks saga is the older of the
two. If Hallfredar saga preceded Heimskringla, put together c. 1230,
Kormdks saga can hardly have been written later than c. 1210—20. Most
people find the narrative rather primitive and unskilful, and the absence
of any patent literary connections with other sagas of Icelanders also
suggests an early date of composition.

Hallfredar saga could have been written quite a long time after Kormáks
saga, although we tend to bracket the two together because of their
similar stories. One certainly has the impression that the art of saga-
composition had made notable strides in the interim. The prose pas­
INDIVIDUAL SAGAS 229
sages in Kormáks saga are like ligaments attached in some process of
reconstitution of the skeleton provided by the verse, but the stanzas of
Hallfredar saga are an adornment to an integrated body of prose narra­
tive: a body quite capable of standing on its own feet. There are some
indications, however, that it is not only the substance of these stories
that is related but that connections exist between the verse as well. Both
poets make poems in praise of their mistresses and poems of tender
sorrow at parting. Both make insulting verse on their rivals. At the end
of their lives both complain of a clamping pain about the heart and on
“the heart’s side”. Postulating a connection between the stanzas in this
way naturally lends support to Bjarni Einarsson’s theories, for he has
come to a similar conclusion on both Kormáks saga and Hallfredar saga. In
his opinion, the latter too is a purely literary piece, composed with
Kormaks saga as its chief model but also with motifs drawn from other
written sources.
Whatever conclusions we come to about oral traditions and the
authority of the stanzas, Hallfredar saga is undeniably a work of literary
art. The narrative is simple and clear, the sequence of events progressive
and unbroken. Hallfreðr is in love with Kolfinna. Ávaldi, her father, is
willing to make a match between them but Hallfreðr does not want to
marry. But when Ávaldi marries her to Gríss Sæmingsson instead,
Hallfreðr’s love blazes up again — as the way is — and he takes every
opportunity after that to show Kolfinna his love and to pick quarrels
with Griss and his friends. Óttarr, Hallfreðr’s father, wants to make
peace between them and he gets Hallfreðr to go to Norway. The second
part of the saga takes place abroad. When Óláfr Tryggvason comes to
the throne of Norway, he stands sponsor for Hallfreðr at his baptism
and has him instructed in the Christian faith. But Hallfreðr remained
attached to the old gods even though he accepted the new. A man called
Kálfr, no friend of Hallfreðr, accused him of carrying an image of Þórr
in his pouch and of sacrificing in private. On one occasion Hallfreðr
went east to Götaland and met great adventures. He married a heathen
woman there and was highly honoured. “The most he did in the way of
Christian observance was to blow a cross over his drink before drinking,
but he did not say many prayers.” On the point of death he recalls his
youthful impetuosity and in the last verse attributed to him expresses
fear for the fate of his soul:

Ek m ynda nu andask, I w ould now die carefree if I

ungr v a r ek h arð r i tungu, knew at the same time m y soul was
230 SAGAS OF ICELANDERS

senn ef sálu minni saved — young I was sharp of

—sorglaust —vissa ek borgit. tongue. I know I grieve not at
Veit ek at vætki of sýtik, all —each man must die —except
valdi Guð hvar aldri I fear Hell —let God decide where I
—dauðr verðr hverr, nema hræðumk shall wear out my time,
helvíti — skal slita.

In the author of Hallfreðar saga we can detect a blithe spirit, a relaxed

and cheerful entertainer. The author of Kormáks saga observes strict
propriety: when Kormákr and Steingerðr meet, “each of them lay on
their own side of the bed-panel” — but the author of Hallfredar saga
describes shameless flirting. Kolfinna is newly betrothed to Griss but
Hallfreðr takes her on his knee with everyone watching, “draws her
towards him and then a few kisses passed.” There is no panel between
them when they sleep together in the shieling, and the author reports of
Hallfreðr’s companions, “it is said that each of them got himself a
woman for the night.” One outstanding story tells of the mission
Hallfreðr was sent on by King Óláfr to blind Porleifr the Wise as
punishment for refusing to become a Christian. Hallfreðr went so far as
to blind Porleifr in one eye, and he also gouges out one eye of Kálfr, his
arch-enemy. When the king is presented with an odd-coloured pair of
eyes, he understands what Hallfreðr has been about and tells him to go
back to Porleifr and complete his mission. “There I am not willing to
go,” says Hallfreðr, “but I will go to Kálfr and gouge out his other eye.”
King Óláfr said they should call a halt there. Hallfreðr then enjoyed
great esteem from the king.
Bandamanna saga is almost unique among íslendinga sögur in being set in
the period about 1050, i.e. after the “saga age” proper. It is also
exceptional because here we have a “little” man — a farmer of small
means — pitting himself against the greatest chieftains in the country —
and winning.
Oddr Ófeigsson was brought up with little love from his father. At an
early age he left him and finally became a very wealthy trader and
landowner. Before going abroad on one occasion he entrusted his farm
and chieftaincy to Óspakr, his steward and friend. Óspakr is described
as difficult and assertive and, when Oddr returns, he avoids handing
over the chieftaincy until Oddr finally has to retrieve it by a show of
force. Óspakr leaves him and gets his own back by stealing sheep from
Oddr’s stock. When Oddr goes with his men to summon him, Óspakr
kills Váli, Oddr’s foster-brother. The case against Óspakr comes to the
INDIVIDUAL SAGAS 231
assembly but has small prospect of success because Oddr has made a
procedural error which can invalidate it. Then old Ófeigr, his father,
comes to his assistance and by persuasive words and judicious bribery
gets the judges to sentence Óspakr to outlawry. Other chieftains cast
covetous eyes on Oddr’s wealth and eight of them band together against
him. Their intention is to prosecute him for the bribery used in the case
against Óspakr. Things look black for Oddr until his father returns to
the fray. He succeeds in setting the confederates at loggerheads with
each other and nullifies their threat. He strengthens his hand by
securing the daughter of one of the confederate chieftains as Oddr’s
wife.
Bandamanna saga is usually regarded as virtually complete fiction.
Eyrbyggja saga refers to Óspakr Glumsson “who contended against Oddr
Ófeigsson in Miðfjörðr”. Since Eyrbyggja saga must be older than
Bandamanna saga, we have to assume that some tradition existed about a
central theme in the latter, the quarrel between Oddr and Óspakr. We
also know an independent Odds þáttr, found in Haralds saga harðráða in
Morkinskinna and other sources. This could have supplied the author of
Bandamanna saga with some of Oddr’s characteristic features and with
knowledge of his seafaring. He is in conformity with the þáttr in setting
his drama in the time of King Haraldr and he chooses known men of
that period as his actors — even though it is hardly likely that the
careers of the confederates so overlapped that they could all have been
parties to one lawsuit. Most of them appear in other sources, but some
of the author’s genealogical information is not obviously derivative and
it often contradicts what we are told elsewhere.
But the author’s most important source was doubtless Ölkofraþáttr. In
this we find the model for the disputed cases at the General Assembly,
and the two works show many parallels in matters of detail. Two of the
band of chieftains are chosen to fix the terms of the settlement and they
divide the task between them — one is to announce the terms, the other
is to be ready to answer the reproaches of the allies they are betraying.
They then decide on a trifling cash award. The other chieftains respond
angrily and then bandy words with the one who opted to face them out
(Broddi Bjarnason in the þáttr, Egill Skulason in the saga).
It used to be generally thought that the saga was the forerunner of the
þáttr because it is more detailed and better worked out: as we have seen
before, the older the work, the more perfect it was likely to be. But in his
introduction to the saga in íslenzk fornrit VII (1936) Guðni Jonsson
showed that the precedence of the þáttr is beyond doubt. The þáttr is
232 SAGAS OF ICELANDERS

beautifully told and very entertaining, but the saga is still more accom­
plished, brilliant both in matter and manner. It has much dialogue and
many speeches, and the dispute at the Alþingi comes over like a live
stage-performance. One may criticise the author for a certain incon­
sistency in the presentation of Oddr Ófeigsson. In acquiring his early
wealth and prestige, he shows great energy and prudence, but then he
slumps and is helpless when balked in the lawsuit against Óspakr. The
character of Ófeigr is all the more convincing in contrast. His feeble
frame and ragged dress conceal a man who has sovereign intelligence
and a wonderful way with words. He winds the confederates round his
little finger. He plays them to the top of his mocking bent.
Bandamanna saga is preserved in two medieval manuscripts, Möðru-
vallabók from the mid-fourteenth century (p. 208) and the so-called
Konungsbók, written c. 1450 (GI. kgl. saml. 2845 4to, Royal Library,
Copenhagen). The texts of these two sources are widely different and
there has been controversy as to which is more original. The íslenzk
fornrit edition prints both texts but with K preferred and given pride of
place on the page. Before that, however, Björn M. Ólsen had argued
that whenever either manuscript had a fuller text than the other, it
should be regarded as superior: in most cases this means preferring M to
K. A similar conclusion was reached by Hallvard Magerøy in his
detailed investigation, Studiar i Bandamanna saga, published in 1957.
Bandamanna saga is younger than Ölkofra þáttr which again must be
younger than Vdpnfirbinga saga and was hardly written before c. 1250 or
perhaps later still. It is often assumed that Bandamanna saga reflects the
author’s attitude to the chieftains of his own time or the recent past, the
age which saw the final decay and dissolution of the Icelandic common­
wealth. They are corrupt and unscrupulous, bickering among them­
selves, avaricious, some of them impoverished. Not long after the middle
of the thirteenth century, when the old oligarchy was in the throes of
disintegration, might seem a reasonable date for the composition of
Bandamanna saga.
If that is so, then Bandamanna saga was written at about the same time
and in the same locality as Vatnsdæla saga — despite the inordinate
differences between them in theme and treatment. There is also some
reason to believe that the first fornaldarsögur were put into written shape
in the same period (though possibly a little later). Within the same time-
span must also be set the “contemporary” sagas of Sturla Þórðarson
(died 1284) and the “florid” Jons saga baptista of Grimr Holmsteinsson
INDIVIDUAL SAGAS 233
(died 1298). The variety of saga-literature is fully evident when we can
observe so many different currents flowing side by side, mingling occa­
sionally but not overmuch, mostly running in their own channels, clear
and fresh.

Vatnsdœla saga has a better claim to the name “family saga” than most
íslendinga sögur. It traces the history of the men of Hof in Vatnsdalur
from their beginnings in Norway until after the Conversion in Iceland.
It is not irrelevant to mention the Conversion in the same breath as this
saga, for Christian ideals are much to the fore in it, and it also includes a
separate section on the missionary efforts of Þorvaldr the Far-travelled
and Bishop Friðrekr.
Destiny compels the patriarch and settler, Ingimundr the Old, to sail
to Iceland, even though he had “made up his mind never to visit . . .
those desolate wastes”. He was a pious heathen, as may be seen from the
fact that he built a temple and called his homestead after it, Hof. At the
same time he was a n im a n a t u r a lit e r C h ristia n a — “a soul Christian by
nature” — as early churchmen called well-disposed pagans. The author
makes much of the h a m i n g ja , or luck, of the family, and that notion can
be called the saga’s L e it m o t if. Indeed, for much of the time all goes
prosperously; the family chieftaincy is in the hands of outstanding men:
Ingimundr the Old, Þorsteinn Ingimundarson, Ingolfr Þorsteinsson,
and finally Þorkell krafla, grandson of a daughter of Ingimundr. But
sometimes this family luck seems more a matter of talk than a matter of
fact. Ingimundr is killed by a villainous scoundrel, Guðbrandr Þor-
steinsson falls at the hands of a hired assassin, Ingolfr dies of wounds
inflicted in a fight against outlaws. But considered more closely, the
“luck” can be seen to be there nevertheless. Ingimundr dies a sacrificial
death in trying to make peace between Hrolleifr and his sons and
conceals his mortal wound to give his killer a chance to escape. Ingolfr
frees his neighbourhood from a plague of predators and shows supreme
valour in his struggle against these bandits.
Although the successive generations of the Hof chieftains give the
author of Vatnsdæla saga a serviceable narrative thread, the construction
is rather loose, and the work falls into a series of tenuously linked
sections. A great many characters are introduced but the author is not
unpartisan and tends to divide them into types: some are sagacious and
magnanimous (Ingimundr, Þorsteinn), some unrelievedly wicked
(Hrolleifr). Neither is the author reluctant to express his own opinion of
234 SAGAS OF ICELANDERS

their virtues and defects. He also has some tendency to an ornate style,
where influence from both works of learning and chivalric sagas can be
detected.
All this indicates that the saga was written comparatively late, but
since some parts of it are re-told in Sturla Þórðarson’s Landnámabók (and
taken up from there by Haukr Erlendsson in his), it obviously antedates
Sturla’s death in 1284, though not necessarily by many years. It has
been surmised that there was an older version of Vatnsdœla saga and it
was this which provided the material in Landnámabók. Comparison
shows, however, that the text used in Landnámabók, as far as it goes, was
very close to the extant saga. Influence from Vatnsdœla saga is further
seen in Kristni saga (p. 195), which has also been attributed to Sturla, but
nothing suggests that influence was exerted by an older recension than
the one we possess. The theory of an older version may thus be
dismissed. It is another matter that the manuscript used by Sturla,
obviously much older than any of our extant copies, naturally had a
superior «text.
Parts of Vatnsdœla saga show a generic similarity to fornaldarsögur and
are particularly reminiscent of Orvar-Odds saga. Some scholars have
thought the author of Vatnsdala saga knew the latter in written form. It is
a problem which needs further consideration. It seems doubtful whether
Orvar-Odds saga in its present shape can be old enough to have influ­
enced Vatnsdæla saga.

Grettis saga. Grettir Asmundarson was the most famous of all Ice­
landic outlaws both because of his strength and courage and because he
survived longest as an outcast, nineteen winters according to his saga.
Stories about Grettir were in oral circulation and various written
sources refer to him, even though his saga was not put together until the
fourteenth century — at least, not in the form we know it. This great
saga gave rise to notions about other outlaws living their lives in the
desert parts of the country and fortified people’s faith both in their
existence and in the existence of “secret places and shadowed dales”,
remote and hard of access but lovelier and greener than our ordinary
settled valleys.
Grettir is referred to in stanza 17 of Haukr Valdísarson’s íslendinga-
drápa (p. 110), where the poet says he killed Þorbjörn öxnamegin in
vengeance for his brother. Snorri Sturluson attributes half a stanza to
Grettir in his Edda (stanza 63 in the saga, lines 1—4). This citation by
Snorri is important, for the general tendency is to regard all the verse in
INDIVIDUAL SAGAS 235
Grettis saga as late composition, even made at the same time as the saga
itself. Grettir’s pedigree appears in Landnámabók (and in other sources),
and reference is made there to two stanzas by him (57 and 5 8 in the
saga). The text is rather fuller in Hauksbók than in Sturlubók. By way
of introduction to the verses, the former says: “Ormr was a son of Þórir
of Garðr. Grettir Asmundarson murdered him [i.e. killed him in a
shameful way]. Grettir composed this on Þórir.” It is generally held that
this comment comes from an old Landnámabók and that it was omitted by
Sturla on purpose. If he did, the reason must have been that Sturla was
interested in Grettir — had probably written something on him — and
had reached a different conclusion as to the nature of his dealings with
the son (or sons) of Þórir.
In Grettis saga there are three references to Sturla Þórðarson. We are
told that the spear Grettir lost when he killed Þorbjörn öxnamegin had
been discovered late in Sturla’s lifetime, “no earlier than the recollection
of people alive now”. When Grettir went to Drangey, “he had been
under sentence for fifteen or sixteen winters, according to what Sturla
Þórðarson has said.” At the end of the saga Lawman Sturla is cited as
saying that no outlaw had been a man of such prowess as Grettir the
Strong, and the three reasons Sturla gave in support of his verdict are
quoted. It is probably now generally accepted that these statements
refer to a written work by Sturla, though we cannot tell whether it was a
short summary chiefly to do with chronology and the bare facts of
Grettir’s career or, as Sigurður Nordal thought, a proper saga, an older
recension of the saga we know. Whatever one’s opinion, it must be
agreed that the first reference offers a good clue to the saga’s age. The
spear was found late in Sturla’s lifetime — he died in 1 2 8 4 — a time still
remembered by people who were alive when the saga was written. If
they were children at the time of the spear’s discovery, that suggests a
date c. 1 3 2 0 —3 0 — perhaps a little earlier, perhaps a little later.
Whether Sturla wrote much or little about Grettir, one thing that is
certain is that the author of the extant Grettis saga made unsparing use of
Sturla’s Landnámabók. He takes long passages of narrative and genealogy
from it, especially in the first part of the saga, but he adds other material
to the stories that redound to the credit of Önundr Woodenleg, Grettir’s
grandfather.
Grettir is mentioned in a number of íslendinga s'ögur and he was
obviously a very well-known man. In Bjarnar saga Hítdœlakappa it is said
that he spent a winter with Björn, living in Grettisbæli, “Grettir’s lair”,
below Vellir. It is told that they swam down the river and were a match
236 SAGAS OF ICELANDERS

for strength. Gisla saga says that Gisli “survived longest of all in
outlawry except for Grettir Asmundarson”. Fóstbræðra saga tells how
Þorbjörg the Stout saved Grettir from hanging; and the Flateyjarbók
text of this saga has an account of the stay of Grettir and the foster-
brothers at Reykhólar. The author of Grettis saga knew these sagas and
other records besides. His Fóstbrœðra saga was a version related to the
Flateyjarbók text but containing the Vatnsfjörður episode which
Flateyjarbók lacks. Comparison with Bjarnar saga and Fóstbrœðra saga
gives a good insight into the author’s methods. He turns succinct
narrative into an expansive account, with new words and new matter
spun from his own mind. The saga is a great fiction constructed from
many different materials. Sometimes place-names spark a story —
though there is no doubt that the saga itself has given rise to place-
names too. Sometimes the author invents a connection with other sagas
— when he brings in Barði’s refusal to have Grettir’s help in the
Heiðarvíg, for example. In Heibarviga saga itself there is no mention of
Grettir and what the author of Grettis saga does is to put his hero in the
place of Porvaldr of Sléttadalur - and embroider it all in his customary
fashion.
But it is not only to older sagas that the author turns for matter or
ideas. He introduces a number of motifs of foreign origin and some
episodes are analogues of famous pieces of European literature. This
comes out clearest in the story of the vengeance taken for Grettir’s death
by his brother, Þorsteinn drómundr, out in Constantinople, and of
Porsteinn’s romance with the Lady Spes. There is obvious influence
from tales about Haraldr the Hardruler’s service with the Varangians in
Byzantium, but connections can also be traced with Tristrams saga, with
a story in Disciplina clericalis (of the twelfth century), and with a
widespread tale of a dimwit husband who is tricked by his wife and her
lover. Grettir’s struggle with Glámr, and still more his encounter with
the trolls in Bárðardalur, have many resemblances to BeowulFs fights
with Grendel and his dam in the Old English epic. The exchange
between Grettir and the servant girl at Reykir is reminiscent of a bawdy
story in Boccaccio’s Decameron. Other examples could be mentioned.
Boccaccio wrote too late to have had any influence on the author of
Grettis saga (assuming the date of the saga given above is acceptable),
and we do not know how the ideas for this and other scenes reached
him. Some probably came straight from books we know — from Brother
Robert’s Tristrams saga, for example — but others again from literary
sources that are lost and from oral story-telling.
INDIVIDUAL SAGAS 237
There may not be much historical truth in Grettis saga — except in
passages reproduced from older sources — but the saga has an inner
truth, an imaginative truth, of its own. Apart from the first and last
sections (the stories of Önundr and of Spes), it is Grettir’s saga
through and through — everything revolves around him. He is a brave
man and a bonny fighter, he is handsome and intelligent, with a quick
tongue to match — yet he is condemned to live half his life as an outcast
from society. Jökull, his uncle, fearful of the outcome of Grettir’s
meeting with Glámr, says, “Good luck and good parts are different
things.” Grettir’s lucklessness, which especially seems to follow from
Glámr’s curse, is certainly in the forefront of the author’s mind, but
there is more to it than that. His lot is determined not only by
malevolent fate but by elements in his own personality. As a youngster
he is already headstrong and wilful, and as he grows up, his awareness
of his own strength and bravery makes him overweening. After his first
voyage abroad, “Grettir’s pride was so swollen that he thought nothing
beyond him.” When he tries to retaliate for Barði’s refusal to accept his
help, Barði says, “Now your arrogance knows no bounds.” In the
church in Nidaros Grettir strikes a boy who taunts him, and King Óláfr
then calls him “a man of ill luck” and goes on to speak of his impatience.
The two factors — bad luck and arrogance —come tragically together in
his greatest exploit when he destroys Glámr. From then on his bad luck
is inescapable and his pride shattered. For the rest of his life he roamed
the country as an outlaw, so tormented by fear of the dark that he did
not dare to be alone when night fell.
There are clear signs in Grettis saga that the art of saga-writing is in
decline. The characters do not have the individual depth and variety of
those in Njáls saga, for example. There is a superfluity of extravagances:
monsters, trolls and half-trolls boldly occupy the scene. Most of the
people are ciphers who serve to set off Grettir in some way. Women
appear to give Grettir and others an opportunity for dalliance, from the
skipper’s wife on Grettir’s first voyage to the servant girl at Reykir, not
forgetting Spes, Þorsteinn’s playmate in Constantinople. The only
exceptions are Ásdís, who is a model of a loyal mother, and the spirited
Þorbjörg in VatnsQörður — and she is lifted from Fóstbræbra saga, where
she is one of several outstanding women.
Grettir, however, is not only the character of whom most is told, he is
also the character who is most skilfully drawn, and it is his portrayal
which keeps the saga together. Some critics have detected some incon­
sistency in him, find him swinging between poles, now harsh, now kind,
238 SAGAS OF ICELANDERS

now irritable, now moderate, now energetically active, now dully pas­
sive. But this is to misread the situation. A single man can easily
compass the contrarieties described in Grettir — and he becomes more
human, more real, precisely because of them. And even though the
author may not be a versatile master of characterisation, he has other
admirable qualities. He is humorous and fond of fun — and he mostly
lets Grettir keep the humour alive. It makes a counterweight to Grettir’s
desolate fate and shoots entertaining gleams through the saga’s tragic
gloom. The author has a special predilection for proverbs, most of which
he allots to Grettir. Folktale motifs give him pleasure too, and he is
probably chiefly responsible for linking them to Grettir, though of
course some of the connections may have been made before him — that
he was capable of creating his own legends cannot be doubted. There is
no doubt either of his skill as a narrator and as a fabricator of lifelike
scenes — as when Hallmundr draws the reins from Grettir’s grasp and
Grettir is left looking at his empty hands. As sheer lighthearted
entertainment the description of Grettir’s dealings with the berserks on
Háramarsey is superb, while a scene of bitter tragedy is conveyed when
Illugi, Grettir’s brother, young and loyal and brave to the end, is taken
away to be executed on Drangey. But the art of the author excels most of
all in the description of Grettir’s meeting with Glámr, an unforgettable
episode, full of tension and terror.

Finnboga saga is in Möðruvallabók and cannot therefore have been

composed later than the first half of the fourteenth century. Finnbogi the
Strong is named in Landnámabók and must have lived about the middle
of the tenth century. For the most part his saga is a concoction of
material adapted from written sagas, folk-legends and märchen. The
episode concerning the dealings of Finnbogi and Bergr the Brave with
the sons of Ingimundr is paralleled in Vatnsdæla saga, but the differences
between them are remarkable. We can ascribe them partly to variant
oral traditions and partly to the partisan attitude of the authors — with
the writer of Finnboga saga showing particular zeal on behalf of his hero.
Whether the author of Finnboga saga used an older written source or
whether he was familiar with unrecorded oral traditions about the men
of Víðidalur and Vatnsdalur of long ago cannot perhaps be finally
decided, but in view of his methods generally, the former postulate
seems much more likely.

Pórðar saga hredu exists in two versions, one complete, the other
INDIVIDUAL SAGAS 239
fragmentary (the Vatnshyrna text). Various suggestions have been
made to account for the large differences between the versions. The
latest editor, Johannes Halldórsson (in íslenzk fornrit X IV , 1959),
inclines to a theory previously advanced by Björn M. Ólsen. This
explains the two versions as independent compositions, each fashioned
round a kernel of historical fact which came to the authors from oral
tradition. But in either version the saga appears to be almost pure
invention, not on the model of fornaldarsögur or riddara s'ögur, however,
but as an imitation of older sagas of Icelanders. Þórðr is a great
champion who defends himself against the simultaneous attack of many
enemies. He is chiefly famous however for his skill as a woodworker and
builder, the craftsman who made the halls at Flatatunga and Hrafnagil
and many other houses.

Sagas from EyjaQörður and Þingeyjarþing are connected in various

ways because the districts are in such close vicinity. The oldest of them
might be Víga-Glúms saga. The only complete text of this is in Möðru-
vallabók and represents an abridgment. Two fragments written c. 1400
have a fuller and more original text (AM 445c 4to and AM 564a 4to).
On the other hand, the saga as we have it contains some parts which
appear to be interpolations or at least have a different origin from the
main narrative. These are the story of Ingolfr (the Hlöðu-Kálfr epi­
sode), the account of Glumr’s dealings with Víga-Skúta, and the
Ogmundar þáttr dytts (only known in the fragmentary version). Still, as
the saga stands in Möðruvallabók, it makes a firm unity, and the
extrinsic episodes are not greater digressions than may be found in a
good many other sagas.
In style and narrative art Víga-Glúms saga is comparable with Vápnfirð-
inga saga, and both might be from the first half of the thirteenth century.
It is one of a group of sagas in which the biography of a single character
is traced from childhood to life’s end. Most such sagas are sagas of
poets, with the narrative buttressed by stanzas attributed to the hero.
Viga-Glums saga may be said to belong with these for the text contains a
good many verses ascribed to him, but otherwise it most resembles Egils
saga for here, as there, the hero lives as the leading man in his district
and finally dies at a great age, blind and feeble.
Viga-Glumr came of distinguished families on both sides. His pater­
nal great-grandfather was the settler, Helgi the Lean, and his maternal
grandfather was Vigfuss hersir of Voss in Norway. Þverá in Eyjafjörður
was his inheritance, the site when the saga was written of a monastery
240 SAGAS OF ICELANDERS

and a great centre of learning (hence the modern name, Munkaþverá).

But as a youth, Glumr is a backward “coal-biter” type, and his mother
suffers from the bullying and grasping ways of her kinsmen by marriage,
Porkell the Tall from Mývatn and his son, Sigmundr, who have moved
into Þverá. Glumr leaves to make a name for himself on a visit to his
grandfather Vigfúss in Norway. He succeeds so well that on parting
Vigfuss gives him three heirlooms, cloak, spear and sword. He declares
that as long as Glumr keeps these objects his honour will not suffer, “but
if you part with them, then I fear what will happen.”
When Glumr comes home, he “gets up onto his feet”, as the saga puts
it, and kills Sigmundr on the cornfield called Vitazgjafi, “the reliable
giver”. He follows up his victory with unmitigated severity and drives
Þorkell the Tall out of Þverá. For twenty years he is the outstanding
chieftain in Eyjafjörður, and then for another twenty years he has his
equals but is surpassed by none. Finally he overreaches himself in a
piece of duplicity and is exiled from the district, while Einarr Eyjólfsson,
later called Einarr Þveræingr, comes into Glumr’s family estate.
The saga is full of incident and the narrative concentrated, so that it
may seem rather hard reading at first. It tends to divide into self-
contained sections, and this not only where we may suspect passages to
be interpolated or of discrepant origin. But the saga is free of exagger­
ation and every part is nicely balanced. Glumr’s antagonists get a fair
deal from the author — he even calls them “lawskilled men and bold-
hearted”. Vigfuss Viga-Glumsson is known as a great warrior from
accounts of the famous battle of Hjörungavágr, fought between Earl
Håkon of Hlaðir and the Jomsvikingar (cf. p. 165), but in the saga here
he not only turns out to be morally inferior to Bárðr Hallsson, his rival,
but in the end can only defeat him in single combat with the aid of his
companions.
Gods and destiny are introduced as the arbiters of men’s lives and
actions. In a dream Glumr sees the family fetch walking up the valley to
Þverá: “She was so big that her shoulders touched the mountains on
either side.” Visible symbols of the family luck are the three objects
given him by Vigfuss in Norway. When Glumr parts with them, his
defeat is at hand. Luck turns her back on him, and the god of his
ancestors has also withdrawn his favour. But the reader is not per­
suaded by all these supernatural explanations — and in reality the saga-
author is not either. If we look closer, we can find explanations to
account for the course of events in the nature and conduct of the people
themselves. Is it not Glumr’s own duplicity rather than Freyr’s anger
Plate 12
Beginning o f the Saga o f St Óláfr by Snorri Sturluson. The illustration looks fo r ­
ward to the end o f the saga and shows the king's death at Stiklarstadir in the yea r
1030. From the manuscript Flateyjarbók, late 14th century. - Photo: Johanna
Ólafsdóttir.
o
Plate 14
Hrafnkelsdalur, with Snæfell in the background. uHrafnkell made a habit o f riding over the moors in summer time. Jokuls-
dalr was then fu lly occupied up as fa r as the bridges. Hrafnkell rode up over the Fljótsdalr moor and saw where an uninhabit­
ed dale went in from fókulsdalr. It looked to him a more promising place to live than the other dales he had seen up to then
Hrafnkels saga Freysgoða, ch. 2. - Photo: Sveinbfdrn Rafnsson.
Plate 15
“Þórólfr [M ostrarskegg] called the headland between Vigrafjörðr and H ofsvogr
Pórsnes. A great hill stands on this headland. Pórólfr had such reverence fo r that
hill that no one should look towards it with unwashed fa ce and neither people nor
animals should be killed there. He called that hill H elgafell and believed that he
would go into it when he died and all his kinsmen on the headland” (Eyrbyggja
saga, ch. 4). - The picture shows H elgafell. - Photo: Hjdlmar R. Bárðarson.
INDIVIDUAL SAGAS 257
Björn loves Oddný eykyndill, “loveliest of women and a lady of high
spirit”. She is to wait three years in her betrothal to him while he is
abroad. But his neighbour, Þórðr Kolbeinsson, wins her by underhand
means while Björn is performing feats of derring-do in distant lands. He
overcomes the champion Kaldimarr who has been ravaging the realm of
the king of Russia, and while in England with Knutr the Great he slays
a winged dragon. These tales are totally fantastic and relate to fornaldar-
s'ógur and even riddara sögur. Our thoughts go back to Tristrams saga:
Tristram defeated the champion Mórhold and later destroyed a winged
dragon in Ireland.
The tone changes when Björn comes home and we are lifted from a
foreign fairy-tale world into Icelandic reality. The swashbuckler who
had led Viking forays at the head of two hundred men now goes to stay
with Þórðr, his rival, at Hitarnes “with three four-legged possessions,
two horses and a dog; he rode one horse and had the other on a tether.”
Then come rather lengthy and repetitive accounts of the taunts
exchanged between Björn and Þórðr; insulting verses fly between them,
some of them not at all seemly. There is a gap in the middle of the saga
— exactly how big we cannot tell. When the text resumes, Björn is
married and living up the valley at Vellir. But the ill-feeling between
him and Þórðr is as strong as ever, despite the distance between them.
Finally Þórðr gathers many men and attacks Björn, who falls after a
brave defence.
Most scholars assume that the author of Bjarnar saga made great use
of oral tales, and regard that as the reason for the saga’s poor organisa­
tion and its patches of feeble narration. But the inadequacies of the saga
can hardly be blamed on a glut of oral sources — and the best parts
should be put down to the author’s credit. His finest achievement is his
description of Bjorn’s death, and its prelude and aftermath, where he
brilliantly conveys the stark, savage forces at work in that drama.
To explain the inferior parts of the saga one might perhaps suggest
that the author had too much old poetry at his disposal and was
reluctant to ignore it and not fully competent to utilise it. In this case,
the fewer the verses, the better the story-telling. The verse is
undoubtedly older than the saga and it was taken on trust by the author,
even though nowadays people doubt whether it is all correctly attri­
buted — in this saga as in other sagas of Icelanders.
The study of the stanzas in Bjarnar saga is made all the more difficult
by the poor preservation of the text as a whole. The greater part of it
exists only in paper manuscripts, and probably only one of them has
17 Eddas and Sagas
258 SAGAS OF ICELANDERS

independent value. The vellum it was copied from was defective — the
gap in the middle was mentioned earlier and the beginning of the text,
up to the point where Þórðr marries Oddný, is also missing. The loss is
partly made good by an extract from the opening chapters, copied from
a manuscript now lost, which was included in the Bergsbók recension of
Óláfs saga helga.
Two other manuscripts of Óláfs saga have a short passage on Björn
which cannot have been derived from Bjarnar saga itself, although
similar matter is found there. It tells of a hose-garter which King Óláfr
gave Björn and which accompanied Björn into the grave. Later, when
the churchyard at Vellir was dug up and the bones removed to the
churchyard at Hitardalur, the garter was found as good as new in the
grave. Elsewhere in Bjarnar saga the author reports that Björn built a
church at Vellir, dedicated to Thomas the Apostle: “and Björn com­
posed a good drápa about him - so Runólfr Dálksson (miswritten
Dagsson in the manuscript) said.” Runólfr Dálksson is named in the list
of priests made by Ari fróði in 1143 (p. 123), and in Sturlu saga he is
mentioned in connection with events that took place about 1170 — he is
there called “a high-born cleric”. Sigurður Nordal made the plausible
conjecture that the information about the church at Vellir and the
passage about Björn in Óláfs saga helga both came from some short
record made by Runólfr. Possibly that was a work which supplied the
author of Bjarnar saga with other material as well.

A new world dawns in Gisla saga Súrssonar. The emotions of the people
involved in the story are revealed far more openly than in any of the
other sagas so far described. At first sight this might seem a sign of late
composition, for there is no doubt that, as time went on, saga-authors
conveyed more and more frankly a wide range of sentiment and
sentimentality. But in the case of Gisla saga it seems more likely to be a
peculiarity of the author, for its relations with other works suggest that it
must be one of the older íslendinga sögur.
The saga both benefits and suffers from the strong passions displayed
in it. There is poignant tragedy in the tangled situation: as in the heroic
poems of the Edda, we find friends and foster-brothers, brothers and
sisters, husbands and wives, all set at hostile odds. But it is a tangle
difficult for an artist to deal with, those passions are hard to control.
Sympathy and antipathy can become bias, emotional involvement can
lead to extremes that are either too harsh or too delicate.
The description of Gisli’s night-killing of Þorgrímr at Sæból will not
INDIVIDUAL SAGAS 259
be forgotten by anyone who has read it, but critics find blemishes in it
all the same. Gisli’s ill-explained actions in tying cows’ tails together
and fixing the door so that it cannot be opened from the inside seem to
be reminiscences of the killing of Helgi Ásbjarnarson in Droplaugarsona
saga. In those days when girls read sagas in Iceland, Gisli was a
favourite hero (cf. the famous novel by Þorgils gjallandi, Upp vib fossa,
published in 1902), but some were shocked by his coldblooded approach
to the sleeping Þorgrímr:
Gisli now goes on through the room to the bed-closet where
Þorgrímr and Þórdís, his sister, slept, and the bed-closet door was
ajar. Gisli goes up into the closet and gropes about. He touches her
breast and she is sleeping on the outside. Þórdís spoke: “Why was
your hand so cold, Þorgrímr?” — she thought he had put it on her.
Gisli then warms his hand in his shirt and stands there on the bed-
closet floor meanwhile. And now he feels for Þorgrímr’s neck and
wakes him. Þorgrímr spoke: “Do you want me to turn towards
you, Þórdís?” — and he thought she was waking him. Gisli then
pulled the clothes off him with one hand and with the other he
stabs the spear through him and down into the bed.
Or what are we to make of the way Gisli fools his slave, Þórðr the
Timid, by getting him to change clothes with him, with the result that
Þórðr is taken for Gisli and gets a spear through him? Did the author
have such a lordly contempt for slaves that he thought their lives
worthless? That does not seem the answer when we come to the episode
with the slave-woman, Bóthildr, on Hergilsey: she gave Gisli staunch
help and was to be given freedom in reward.
Manuscript texts of Gisla saga contain a number of brief comments
which are not strictly necessary for the narrative. They have been a
stumbling-block to editors, who have mostly wanted to excise them and
have sometimes fancied they could find warrant for their surgery in the
manuscript stemma they believed in. The saga is known in two versions,
a longer and a shorter. They differ most in the opening chapters, much
less as the story progresses. The general view has been that the shorter
version is closer to the original; the longer version has been revised and
expanded for the worse by a later editor. Most recently, however, it has
been argued that the reverse is true: the longer version may contain a
few interpolations but in general represents the original more authen­
tically.
Naturally enough, there is more of the kind of stuff an editor might
260 SAGAS OF ICELANDERS

like to excise in the longer version — the redactor of the shorter version
had the same kind of aversion to it as modern critics tend to have. But
there have also been modern editors who want to cut this or that from
the shorter version too — sometimes with the excuse that a passage is
unparalleled in the longer version — but then we find that they by no
means agree on what should be deleted. Obviously the whole approach
is unacceptable. Whether we like it or not, what one text has in the way
of small extras over the other must generally be assumed to come from
the original version of the saga.
The story begins with a Norwegian prelude, after which Gisli’s family
move to Iceland and settle on land in Haukadalur in Dýrafjörður. In the
first main section of the saga events then lead inexorably to the killing of
Vésteinn, followed by Gisli’s revenge on Porgrimr. Gisli understands
the way things are going and tries to stave off disaster, but in fact his
attempts to prevent it only bring it closer. At the same time they give the
reader an ominous inkling of what is to come. After the secret killing of
Porgrimr, Gisli betrays his guilt in a half-riddling stanza, and is
prosecuted and outlawed.
The shorter version of the saga — which is the text everyone usually
reads — does not say who killed Vesteinn, but most people have
unhesitatingly identified Porgrimr as the culprit. It has also been
proposed, however, that Porkell, Gisli’s brother, did the stabbing — it
was he after all who had the personal grudge against Vésteinn. Since it
was impossible for Gisli to raise a hand against his own brother,
vengeance had to fall on Porgrimr. This novel solution, however attrac­
tive, must be discarded. We must not forget that the killings are
foreshadowed in the abortive ceremony of fosterbrotherhood, when it is
Porgrimr who refuses to bind himself to Vésteinn, and Gisli who refuses
to bind himself to Porgrimr. And the longer version of the saga says
explicitly — and so does Eyrbyggja saga — that Porgrimr killed Vésteinn.
The second main part of the story tells of Gisli’s career as an outlaw.
He survived longer in outlawry than anyone except Grettir Ásmundar-
son — for eighteen winters, according to the longer version of the saga.
The first years are passed over rapidly, the last seven treated in some
detail. This concentration seems chiefly due to the author’s use of verse
attributed to Gisli. From these stanzas and the accompanying prose, we
learn that Gisli has attendant dream-women — “and one is good to me
and always gives me flawless counsel, but the other always tells me what
seems bad to me and forebodes me nothing but evil.” In his dream he
entered a house, where he recognised kinsmen and friends who sat there
INDIVIDUAL SAGAS 261

“And when it is least expected3 Gisli turns about and runs up to the b lu ff called
Einhamarr and away from the cliffs. There he makes a stand and defends himself.
This took them by surprise. It seems to them their job is getting much harder —fo u r
men dead and themselves wounded and tired. There comes a lull in the attack. Then
Eyjólfr eggs them on very hard and promises them big rewards i f they get Gisli.
Eyjólfr had picked men with him fo r bravery and hardihood” (Gisla saga
Surssonar, chapter 35). — Photo: Vilmundur Jonsson.

drinking. There were seven fires, and his better dream-woman told him
that these seven that were still alight signified how many winters he had
yet to live. She promises him bliss in the next world and takes him into a
well-furnished house, with cushioned seats. But as the story goes on, the
worse dream-woman comes to Gisli more and more often and splashes
and pours blood over him. Gisli is racked by thoughts ever more
troubled and fearful, and comes to be so afraid of the dark that he
cannot stay alone in his hiding-place — “as soon as he closes his eyes,
the same woman always appears to him.” Because of the torment he
endures, his life seems already at an end by the time his last battle is to
be fought. He defends himself manfully and dies as a hero should, with a
verse on his lips:
262 SAGAS OF ICELANDERS

Vel hygg ek þótt eggjar Fain am I though finely

itrslegnar mik biti, Forged bright edges bite me;
þá gaf sínum sveini My sire’s true sword-temper
sverðs minn faðir herðu. Shows in his son’s life-close.
(George Johnston, The Saga of Gisli,
1963, p. 58.)

The prose and verse together give such a convincing impression of a

real man in a real predicament that a single reading of the saga may well
leave us fully persuaded of the authenticity of the poetry attributed to
Gisli. But as soon as we stop to think, doubts crowd in. To believe in
Gisli’s dream-women requires a fair dollop of superstition. Christian
influence and scriptural echoes are found in the dream-stanzas, hardly
plausible in the mind of a tenth-century pagan, even if he had been
prime-signed in Denmark. On the other hand, there are no valid
grounds for attributing the verse to the author of the saga: the stanzas
are not perfectly integrated into the narrative, sometimes even at odds
with it. The explanation that remains is that they were composed in
connection with oral stories told about Gisli, most probably in the
twelfth century. We must note however that we cannot be sure that all
the stanzas were the work of one poet or one period, or tell whether their
oral contexts were precisely the same as in the saga. It is conceivable
that the dream-stanzas made a self-contained unit in a pre-literary
stage, needing only brief descriptive comment to explain them.
Auðr, Gisli’s wife, supports him with unflinching loyalty in his
outlawry and fights by his side at the end. Her strength never fails,
despite Gisli’s disturbed mind and the blandishment and intimidation
of enemies. The antithesis of this staunch pair are Gisli’s brother,
Porkell, and the woman he marries, Asgerðr. The almost frivolous
expression Asgerðr gives to her preference for Vesteinn is the fateful
cause of the tragedy that follows. Porkell is a man of idle hands and
moody mind, who manipulates black magic and murder from behind
the scenes, and who lacks the will and courage to stand by his brother
when he is in desperate need. But he is flesh and blood all the same — he
loves his brother as far as his nature permits, kicks his snowy shoes
under the bed to hide his guilt, and is bold and adroit in warning him of
Börkr’s attack. And Þórdís, Gisli’s sister, is no less human in the violent
way she swings from one passion to another: first she denounces her
brother in revenge for the death of her husband, later she tries to kill
Eyjólfr the Grey in revenge for the death of Gisli.
One of the weaknesses of the saga is that the author does not make
INDIVIDUAL SAGAS 263
more of Gisli’s antagonists. Börkr and Eyjólfr are little more than
faceless straw-men, and when they are on stage, they are played down
as blustering cowards. The result is a lack of balance in the story, and
Gisli’s own stature is diminished when he is locked in strife with enemies
who are not made to appear worthy of him.
Gisla saga is thus not one of those íslendinga sögur that have all-round
claims to artistic success. The narrative is sometimes loosely linked,
some episodes seem illogical, the people are not always clearly por­
trayed and occasionally appear inconsistent. The saga seems full of
contrasts: at once primitive and modern, realistic and exaggerated, cold
and emotional, deadly serious and crassly humorous, colourfully adven­
turous and deeply ironic. But it is these very ambiguities that affect us so
powerfully, creating doubt and tension in our minds as we read. It is
impossible to put down this little book unmoved or ungrateful to the
author who undertook so ambitious a theme, even if his creative powers
were not totally equal to the task.

The author of Eyrbyggja saga refers to Gisli’s death and to other events
in his story in such a way as to make it plain that he knew his saga as a
written work. Verbal correspondence is greater between Eyrbyggja saga
and the longer version of Gisla saga, one sign among several that this
version is closer to the original text.
In other respects the two sagas are very dissimilar. The author of
Gisla saga tells of tragic events and is keenly interested in the psychology
and mental strife of his characters. The author of Eyrbyggja saga has a
scholarly bent — his interest lies in resurrecting truth and establishing
chronology. The saga belongs to Snorri’s “school” and was probably
written in his neighbourhood and possibly in his lifetime. Sturla Þórðar-
son had a high regard for Eyrbyggja saga, as he had for Egils saga too, and
fattened his Landnámabók with a lot of material from both.
Relations between Eyrbyggja saga and Laxdæla saga are more problema­
tic, and the question as to which of them was written first has caused
much discussion. The sagas are set in the same part of Iceland and to
some extent concern the same people, yet they have remarkably little
material in common. We badly need a definitive textual edition of
Eyrbyggja saga for without it we cannot be entirely sure of our answers to
these problems. But even so, we cannot avoid some consideration of
them.
We must first note that the last chapter of Eyrbyggja saga refers to
Laxdæla saga by name, and in the same breath as Heidarviga saga,
264 SAGAS OF ICELANDERS

mentioning that Snorri the Chieftain figures in both of them. But this
chapter, which compresses information about Snorri into a few para­
graphs, rather distances itself from the main part of the saga and could
well be a supplement — or the reference to Laxdæla saga could be an
addition. This reference will not suffice on its own to prove how the
sagas are related.
Einar 01. Sveinsson has consistently argued that Eyrbyggja saga is
older than Laxdæla saga. He maintains that it is more antique in every
way, and it shows no sign of the influence of riddara sögur such as can be
seen in Laxdæla saga. He thinks the latter was written around 1250, and
he believes that the author of Eyrbyggja saga could not possibly have been
as well supplied as he evidently was with orally preserved information if
he was writing after that date, at some time in the second half of the
thirteenth century. There are some particular resemblances between
verse in Eyrbyggja saga and stanzas cited in Sturlunga saga that were made
in the 1220s: Einar thinks these were influenced by a written Eyrbyggja
saga. Finally, he believes that a passage in Hauksbók proves that
Eyrbyggja saga was used in Styrmir’s Landnámabók — which was certainly
not made after 1245, the date of Styrmir’s death.
Other scholars have declined to accept Einar 01. Sveinsson’s argu­
ments. The influence on stanzas quoted in Sturlunga saga — if it exists —
could have been exerted at an oral stage. The passage in Hauksbók is
explained as a combination of material from Styrmisbók and Sturlubók
— which is the normal source of Haukr’s text. But the point which is
regarded as most important is that the author of Eyrbyggja saga passes
quickly over matter which is to be found in Laxdæla saga.
It might of course be possible to turn this round and argue that it was
the author of Laxdæla saga who avoided repeating what was already told
in Eyrbyggja saga. Why, for instance, does he not introduce Snorri the
Chieftain in the ordinary way or tell us anything about his earlier years?
The reason might be that this had already been thoroughly done in
Eyrbyggja saga.
Snorri the Chieftain is the character who binds together the separate
parts of the narrative in Eyrbyggja saga. His portrayal is one of the most
brilliant we find in any saga. It is outstandingly successful because the
author knows him so intimately and understands him so well but, at the
same time, has no great affection for him. The rest of the characters are
disposed around him — and a remarkable portrait gallery it is — most of
them with distinctive, individual lineaments. Þórarinn of Mávahlíð, the
man of peace who is forced into bloodshed and whose stanzas on his
INDIVIDUAL SAGAS 265
predicament were a source for the author. Arnkell the Chieftain, a born
leader who abhors violence and pays with his life because there is not
room on Snæfellsnes for two such leaders as him and Snorri. Björn
Breiðvíkingakappi, something of a swaggerer but as charming as he is
bold, on good terms with Þuríðr, Snorri’s married sister, mistress of
Fróðá, who bears Bjorn’s child and is the subject of his longing love-
poetry. Steinþórr of Eyri, the best fighting-man you could find but not
one who always plays quite fair, as is seen in the Alftafjörður battle.
Þórgunna from the Hebrides, whose capacities are of no ordinary kind
and whose mysterious death is the root of the terrifying marvels at Fróðá
that follow. The other women are either furies or angels of peace — like
Auðr of Mávahlíð who is so anxious to prevent further bloodshed that
she tells no one that her own wrist has been severed in the fighting. But
the slaves in the story act despicably and reap their reward — the author
was a true-blue aristo.
On the surface Eyrbyggja saga seems cold-blooded enough — it has
none of the sentimentality of Gisla saga or Laxdæla saga, but underneath
we detect a firm sense of humour which may sometimes dissolve into
ironic derision. In effect Eyrbyggja saga is a “regional” history of
Snæfellsnes from the settlement down to the beginning of the eleventh
century. Manuscripts record its full title as “the saga of the men of
Þórsnes, Eyrr and ÁlptaQörðr” - and justly so. Eyrbyggja saga is merely
a convenient abbreviation. The saga falls into separate sections in
consequence — “every farmstead has its history” — and its piecemeal
nature makes it difficult for a reader to take it in as a unity and keep it
all clear in mind. But individual episodes are superbly told and, given
the way the work was conceived and its strands interwoven, its whole
composition must be counted a masterpiece.

O f all sagas of Icelanders Egils saga is most closely related to the

kings’ sagas in its subject-matter, while its narrative art is very like that
of Snorri’s Heimskringla. A lengthy section at the beginning of the saga is
set in Norway and tells of the dealings of Kveldulfr and his sons with
King Haraldr Fairhaired. In the end the king destroys Þórólfr Kveld-
úlfsson, because of the slanders of the sons of Hildiríðr; Kveldulfr and
his second son, Skallagrimr, wreak what vengeance they can and set sail
for Iceland. Skallagrimr becomes one of the first settlers, taking land in
Borgarfjörður, all of it that lies between the rivers that flow to the sea
there, and he lived at Borg. But that was not the end of dealings between
his family and the kings of Norway. Þórólfr Skallagrimsson was on
266 SAGAS OF ICELANDERS

friendly terms with Eirikr Bloodaxe and became his retainer, but Egill,
his brother, fell foul of the king and killed a few of his followers for him.
The brothers fought for King Athelstan of Wessex in a great battle in
Britain at a place the saga calls Vínheiðr - it is usually identified as
the battle fought in 937 at Brunanburh (wherever that was — probably
in Lancashire). Þórólfr fell in the battle. Egill subsequently married his
widow, Asgerðr, and returned to Iceland. He was householder at Borg
after his father and died an old man.
Many stanzas are cited in the saga — most of them attributed to Egill
— and three longer poems ascribed to him are also preserved in
conjunction with it (pp. 100-103). The attribution of these poems —at least,
of Sonatorrek and Arinbjarnarkviða — is generally regarded as valid, and
most scholars are prepared to accept the majority of the occasional
stanzas as by Egill too. Some stanzas however do appear to be the work
of following generations but, as we have seen, such later verse-making is
a factor to be reckoned with even in the earliest sagas.
Any opinion as to the value of the saga as a historical source will
naturally depend to a large extent on how far we credit the attribution of
the verse to Egill. The stanzas contain a quantity of factual information
which, if accepted, will vouch for the truth of the saga-narrative. Egils
saga makes a realistic impression, resembling those kings’ sagas which
preserve a fair balance between the desire to tell a good story and the
desire to maintain a critical standard. But it is a long span between the
events and the time of writing — about three hundred years on average
— and things go astray in a shorter period than that. The author
doubtless needed to eke out his material, and we can in fact see that

Egill Skallagrimsson raises a “shame pole” against King Eirikr Bloodaxe and
Queen Gunnhildr. “He took up a pole of hazel and went onto a jutting rock which
faced into the country. Then he took a mare’s head and stuck it on the top of the pole.
Then he pronounced a curse and said this: Here I set up a shame pole and I point
this shame to fa ll on King Eirikr and Queen Gunnhildr ’ — and he pointed the
mare’s head towards the mainland — 7 point this shame to fall on all the spirits
who inhabit this land, so that they all lose their way, and may none of themfind or
hit on his habitation until they have driven King Eirikr and Gunnhildr from the
country. From Egils saga, ch. 57. In the following spring, after the return of
his brother, Håkon, fosterson of King Athelstan, King Eirikr fled from Norway
and never came back. The statue pictured here is by Gustav Vigeland. Photo:
Vigelandsmuseet, Oslo.
INDIVIDUAL SAGAS 267
268 SAGAS OF ICELANDERS

various bits of his narrative parallel what is found in earlier literary

works. Behind the realism of the presentation there are many signs of an
active creative imagination.
The story is full of highly-charged drama, contrasting characters are
carefully juxtaposed, causes are attacked and defended with spirited
oratory, while some of the chief people — and those in whom the author
evidently takes most delight — act at given moments with a barbarity
hardly paralleled in other íslendinga sögur. In these features the simila­
rities to Heimskringla are distinctive, and, as is well known, it has long
been conjectured that Snorri Sturluson was the author of the saga as
well as of his great set of konunga sögur. But there is a scholarly see-saw in
this as in other matters, and as soon as one critic finds reason to reject
Snorri’s authorship of Egils saga, along comes another with new evi­
dence to support it. A similar style and vocabulary, a similar grasp of
historical logic, a similar ability to get inside the skin of a character, a
similar gift for drama, a similar skill in presenting powerful antagonisms
and contrasts, a similar willingness to see both sides of a case: these are
all equally present in both Heimskringla and Egils saga.
The sons of Hildiríðr slander Þórólfr Kveldúlfsson — who was
“popular with everybody” — and King Haraldr believes them — as we
may be inclined to do ourselves because they make their case so
plausible. And they are so successful in achieving Þórólfr’s downfall that
in the end his own actions may even be said to lend some weight to their
accusations.
To take another example. Egill is at odds with Eirikr Bloodaxe, he
erected a “shame-pole” against him and killed one of his sons. Eirikr is
forced to leave Norway and retires to England. He rules in York with his
queen, Gunnhildr, and in his retinue is Arinbjörn hersir, an old friend of
Egill’s and a kinsman ofÁsgerðr, his wife. Gunnhildr’s witchcraft rouses
the storm that wrecks Egill’s ship at the mouth of the Humber. He has
no alternative but to throw himself on Eirikr’s mercy. Gunnhildr, full of
malice, brings up all the charges there are against Egill and urges Eirikr
to have him killed out of hand. But Arinbjörn skilfully defends his friend
and at the end does not hesitate to turn his pleading into a threat: “No
one will call Eirikr a greater man if he kills a peasant’s son, a foreigner,
who has put himself into his power. If he does want to grow great from
this, then I shall grant him that satisfaction by seeing to it that these
events will be rather thought worth the telling, for Egill and I will now
stand together so that in meeting one you will meet both. You will buy
INDIVIDUAL SAGAS 269
Egill’s life at a dear price then, king, if the terms are that we are all laid
low, my men and I.55
Arinbjörn advises Egill to make a poem in praise of King Eirikr, and
in the course of the one night’s grace he has, he composes a twenty-
stanza drápa in a brand-new metre. Next day he recites it before the king
and gets his head as a reward. The poem was afterwards called “Head-
ransom”.
Egill Skallagrimsson is portrayed with a spectacular grandeur which
makes him unrivalled among all the great men we meet in the sagas of
Icelanders. He is like his father and grandfather in appearance, big,
with harsh irregular features, bald at an early age; and his ferocity and
the supernatural strength that frenzy can lend him are also inherited.
But inside his morose and craggy exterior he also has the nobility of the
two Þórólfrs — his uncle who fell at the hands of King Haraldr
Fairhaired himself and his brother who died fighting for King Athelstan
at Vínheiðr. The call to adventure out in the world rings in Egill’s ears
and is slow to fade. Óðinn has bestowed on him the craft of poetry which
brings him relief after the death of brother and sons. Under his cloak he
dreams of the lovely lady who had been the wife of his dashing brother,
Þórólfr, and in the end he wins her. He appears an extraordinary
mixture of god-given inspiration, human sensitivity, and brutish coarse­
ness and greed. No such personality ever emerged, of his own accord as
it were, from the story-telling of generations. Only a genius of the
stature of Snorri could have created so savage a portrait of so admired a
character and still made him into a man who looms, erect and compel­
ling, high above all others.
Whether Snorri wrote Egils saga or not, its connections with
Heimskringla are plain. An explanation that has gained currency in
recent years is that Egils saga was written before Heimskringla, which
means not later than in the 1220s. On the other hand, there is some
evidence to suggest that Heimskringla was the earlier work — though that
need not upset the theory that Snorri was the author of the saga. In fact,
Snorri’s career allows a convenient space to which the composition of
Egils saga might be assigned, that is the year or two between his return
to Iceland in 1239 and his murder in the autumn of 1241. He lived
quietly in that period, and it is hard to believe he was unoccupied. In
attempting to refute the attribution of Egils saga to Snorri, some scholars
have maintained that there is a notable difference between the presenta­
tion of the kings of Norway in Heimskringla and the saga: they are
270 SAGAS OF ICELANDERS

glamorised in the one, blackened in the other. But in his last years we
recall that Snorri was an opponent of the Norwegian king, and this
might account for a change in his attitude. We could —if we felt like it —
fancy that Snorri’s hostility to King Håkon led him to recall the tenth-
century dealings of his ancestors with that same king’s forebears — and
that he was in no mood to see the early members of the dynasty in a
favourable light.

Grænlendinga saga is preserved in Flateyjarbók. The beginning is lost,

and the opening part provided in modern editions is put together from
passages in the expanded Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar (p. 158) and Landnáma-
bók. The lost beginning told of the discovery and settlement of Green­
land, while the sequel concerns voyages to Vinland the Good and other
places. Eiriks saga rauda tells of the same people and events but very
differently. A principal difference is that Eiriks saga makes Leifr the
Lucky the discoverer of Vinland, while Grænlendinga saga credits the
discovery to Bjarni Herjólfsson. Eiriks saga was commonly regarded as
the more authentic and trustworthy account, not least because it agreed
with other texts that were highly esteemed as reliable sources, such as
Heimskringla and Kristni saga.
This established view was first questioned by Sigurður Nordal (Saga­
litteraturen, Nordisk Kultur VIIIiB, 1953, pp. 248—9): “These two
sagas . . . are so independent of each other that the most natural
explanation seems to be that they were written at about the same time
but in different parts of the country. Eiriks saga takes the view, which can
be traced back to Gunnlaugr Leifsson and is also taken by Snorri in
Heimskringla, that it was Leifr Eiriksson (the missionary!) who had the
honour of discovering Vinland, while Grænlendinga saga gives instead the
name of the otherwise unknown Bjarni Herjólfsson, which, in spite of
some implausible points, may well be the older and more genuine
tradition.”
Jon Johannesson made a closer study of the problem in an essay in
Nordæla (1956; in English in Saga-Book of the Viking Society X V I 1, 1962).
He observes that Eiriks saga must have been written after 1264 because
Brandr Sæmundarson figures in a genealogy in it as Bishop Brandr “the
first”, plainly in order to distinguish him from Bishop Brandr “the
second”: the former was bishop of Hólar 1163—1201, the latter, Brandr
Jonsson, just for the two years 1263—4. This would suit the assumption
that the author of Eiriks saga made use of Sturla Þórðarson’s Landnáma-
bók. In Grænlendinga sagay on the other hand, Bishop Brandr is referred to
INDIVIDUAL SAGAS 271

Christianity came to Greenland from Norway in the opening years o f the eleventh
century, about the same time as it came to Iceland. The Greenlanders built many
churches and established a cathedral at Gardar in Einarsfjörður. The picture shows
the ruins o f a large monastery, dedicated to St Óláfr and St Augustine, built in
Ketilsfjörður. Photo: Nationalmuseet, Copenhagen.
272 SAGAS OF ICELANDERS

without any qualification — and it is certainly the first Bishop Brandr

who is meant. The natural conclusion is that this text was written before
the second Bishop Brandr was consecrated, i.e. before 1263, and
Gmnlendinga saga is consequently older than Eiriks saga.
Jon then discusses the tale told in Eiriks saga of how Óláfr Tryggvason
sent Leifr Eiriksson to preach Christianity in Greenland. On his voyage
he discovered Vinland and saved some shipwrecked sailors and got his
nickname, Leifr the Lucky. Similar accounts are found elsewhere,
notably in Heimskringla and Kristni saga, but in all probability they all
stem from the same source, the Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar by Gunnlaugr
Leifsson (p. 157), as Nordal suggested. The Gmnlendinga saga account is
evidently unrelated to Gunnlaugr’s work and its derivatives. But if the
author of the saga was not familiar with Gunnlaugr’s version — which
rapidly became well known and was accepted by the foremost scholars
of the thirteenth century — then it is natural to conclude that he wrote
before Gunnlaugr, whose Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar was composed about
1200. In that case, Gmnlendinga saga is one of the oldest sagas we have,
written while Brandr Sæmundarson was bishop, between 1163 and
1201.
The author of Eiriks saga elected to follow Gunnlaugr’s account and
that choice necessitated a number of deviations from Gmnlendinga saga.
The differences between the two can be traced to this. We should on the
other hand not rule out the possibility that the author of Eiriks saga had
other written sources at his disposal besides Gmnlendinga saga and Óláfs
saga Tryggvasonar either as Gunnlaugr wrote it or in some related version.
There are some weak links in Jon Johannesson’s chain of argument
summarised here.
1. We cannot be certain that Gunnlaugr included an account of
Leifr’s mission to Greenland and discovery of Vinland, because Gunn­
laugr’s óláfs saga is lost and its reconstruction largely conjectural.
Heimskringla is the earliest text with this story in it — though we may be
sure Snorri did not invent it.
2. Even if the account was in Gunnlaugr’s work and the Gmnlendinga
saga was made at a later date, the author of the latter need not have been
familiar with it. He could have been writing before the Leifr story
became common knowledge in the course of the thirteenth century.
Alternatively, if he was familiar with it, he could nevertheless have had
reason to depart from it for his own purposes. There are many instances
of comparable deviation — it is what Jón Jóhannesson thinks the author
of Eiriks saga did in his treatment of Gmnlendinga saga.
INDIVIDUAL SAGAS 273
3. We can attach no significance to the reference to Bishop Brandr
without any qualification in Grœnlendinga saga. The name could have
come straight from an older written genealogy which the author repeat­
ed without a second thought. Jon Johannesson assumes the author of
Eiriks saga did just the same sort of thing in different contexts.
4. Grœnlendinga saga and Eiriks saga have many passages that are both
alike and unlike. It is difficult to dispel the thought that these represent
separate notation of traditional accounts that had diverged in their oral
existence, and that this is the chief reason why the two sagas have such
differences.
5. Jon Johannesson notes that there is only one instance of direct
verbal correspondence between Grmlendinga saga and Eiriks saga, but
this is an extraordinary dearth if in fact the one saga was an immediate
source of the other. Jón cites the A and C texts of Ljósvetninga saga as a
parallel (cf. p. 241), but though these vary, they have many more
examples of literal correspondence than this.
6. Last but not least, one might stand Jon ’s conclusion on its head
and argue that Grœnlendinga saga was derived from Eiriks saga. In the
former we find a report of discoveries of new lands by Bjarni Herjólfsson
and a report of the way in which names were bestowed on the new-found
countries. The account of the naming seems undeniably related to the
narrative of Eiriks saga, and in that case it might be plausibly main­
tained that the author of Grœnlendinga saga was attempting to cobble
sources together. Bjarni finds the new countries but is oddly reluctant to
explore them (was this to leave something for Leifr to do?). Later Leifr
undertakes their exploration and gives them names (like Karlsefni and
his companions in Eiriks saga), and then comes across the shipwrecked
sailors on his way home — and “was afterwards (“ever afterwards” in
Eiriks saga) called Leifr the Lucky”, as it says in both sagas.

Laxdæla saga is commonly regarded as the first of the íslendinga s'ógur to

show the influence of the courtly ideals and chivalrous literature which
flourished in Norway under King Håkon (died 1263) and his son, King
Magnus (died 1280). Pomp and splendour are more evident in it than in
sagas usually regarded its precursors: pomp in arms and armour and
dress, splendour in physical beauty and manly prowess. Kjartan Óláfs-
son “was the handsomest of all men ever born in Iceland. He had well-
marked features and a pleasing countenance, the finest eyes of any man,
and fair colouring. He had an abundance of hair, silky bright and falling
in curls . . . ” Bolli Bollason “was so great a dandy . . . that he would
18 b.ddas and Sagas
274 SAGAS OF ICELANDERS

only wear fine cloth and satin and all his weapons were gold-adorned.”
(For further instances cf. p. 220). In Laxdœla saga this love of chivalric
show is most pronounced in chapter 63, when a shepherd boy describes
to Helgi Harðbeinsson the appearance and gear of his attackers in such
detail that Helgi can identify each of them from his tale. Courtly
influence is also revealed in a novel feeling for love between man and
woman — and especially for the sorrow love can bring. Hrefna only
lived a little while after Kjartan’s death “and people say she died of a
broken heart”. Guðrún’s words to Bolli, her son, are best known of all.
He asked which man she had loved most and she answered, “I was
worst to him I loved best.” Such magnificent outward show and such
tenderness of feeling are not to be found in the sagas we have so far
discussed, and not in any of the kings’ sagas either, whether by Snorri or
his predecessors. “Contemporary” sagas suggest that courtly influence
began to make itself felt in Icelandic society from about 1240 onwards.
This gives a terminus for Laxdœla saga but it does not imply that it must
have been written soon after that date or in that first decade.
And despite its chivalric features, Laxdœla saga is not to be regarded as
a saga of chivalry. It firmly belongs among the íslendinga sögur and has a
rightful place with the sagas so far considered. The courtly elements are
there as spice, not substance. The narrative divides into two main parts.
In the first part the author gathers his material together and weaves
various strands which will contribute to the design of the second major
part: this represents a neighbourhood history from the settlement down
to the end of the tenth century. When Guðrún Ósvífrsdóttir appears on
the scene, however, everything begins to revolve around her and the
different strands start to come together. But not all at once, for it is only
when the foster-brothers, Kjartan and Bolli, are introduced that the
narrative finds the theme which will engross it until the end of the story.

From Laxdæla saga, ch. 78. It begins: fra þW er sagt eitt huert sin« at B(olli)
kom til Helgaf(ells) þtú at G(uðrunu) þotti avallt gott er harm kom at
fi/zna hö7za — “It is told that on one occasion Bolli came to Helgafell, for Guðrún
was always pleased when he came to see her. ” In thefollowing lines Bolli asks her
which man she had most loved. She replies with remarks on her four husbands. He
tells her she has not answered his question and, when he presses her, she finally
makes herfamous admission (lines 17—18): þeim war ek vest er ek vnna mest
- “I was worst to him I loved most.” Árni Magnússon Institute, Reykjavik:
AM 132fol. (Möðruvallabók). C. 1350. Photo: Jóhanna Ólafsdóttir.
INDIVIDUAL SAGAS 275
276 SAGAS OF ICELANDERS

In this structure Laxdæla saga resembles a number of sagas of Icelan­

ders. An author has two sorts of material: on the one hand, remote and
shadowy tales from the first settlements, genealogies, legends connected
with place-names; and on the other, younger and more detailed
accounts of moving events. The ancient stuff makes a natural introduc­
tion and foundation for what is to be the main story, but the preliminary
matter in Laxdæla saga is set against a wider background, and its
component parts are consequently more varied and extensive, than in
earlier sagas. It can happen that a reader finds his interest faltering and
his grasp of all the threads slipping until the story of Guðrún at last
begins.
Laxdæla differs from all other sagas in the prominence it gives to
women in the story. Unnr djúpúðga reigns like a queen over her
followers and allots them land with prudence and precision, a benevo­
lent figure for all her stateliness and authority. Melkorka in her slavery
keeps her thoughts to herself, pretends to be dumb but chatters to her
little son in secret. Blue-blooded Þorgerðr Egilsdóttir feels no need to
conceal her scorn when marriage to that same boy grown to manhood is
proposed to her — her father cannot expect her to accept “that slave-
woman’s son”. And she is fierce and hard when she later urges her sons
to take vengeance for the death of Kjartan, their brother. The author
knows Egils saga inside out and finds it fitting to make Þorgerðr take
after her father in such obvious ways. A complete contrast to her is
Hrefna Asgeirsdóttir, who fades away like a plucked flower when she
hears of the death of her husband.
But Guðrún stands lofty above them all. Once on the stage, then the
centre of it is her only place — if she had been a man, the saga would
probably be named after her. She is the greatest of all the women
portrayed in the sagas. The major chapters of her life are foreshadowed
in the four dreams which Gestr the Wise interprets for her. She is
described like this: “Guðrún was the most promising girl of all who were
then growing up in Iceland, both in looks and mind . . . so refined in
taste that whatever other women had in the way of finery in those days
seemed childish and tawdry in comparison . . . She was the best
informed of women and the best spoken. She was an openhanded
woman.” She was upset when Kjartan decided to go abroad without
consulting her, and said she would make no promises about waiting for
him for three years. But when Bolli proposed to her, she said: “I shall
marry no one as long as I know Kjartan is alive.” She rises to superb
heights in her liberality when she saves Gunnarr Þiðrandabani and
INDIVIDUAL SAGAS 277
gives him the ship that can take him abroad. But she sinks correspond­
ingly low when she meanly gets her brother to steal treasures that are
precious for their worth and associations from Kjartan and Hrefna, his
king’s gift of a sword and her fine head-dress. She seems truly feminine
in her love of gorgeous things and in her seething jealousy, but she is a
fury when she drives Bolli to attack Kjartan and eggs on her sons in set
terms to avenge their father.
Her resemblance to valkyrie figures of eddaic poetry is self-evident
and has often been commented on. She plays the part of Brynhildr
Buðladóttir. Like her, she cannot have the nonpareil she loves and incites
her husband to destroy him. It could be that heroic poetry had already
had a shaping influence on tales told about Guðrún before the saga was
written — but if it is a matter of direct imitation, then we must put the
“eddaic” realisation of her character down to the author’s credit — he
was perfectly capable of it.
There are not many verbal correspondences between the saga and
eddaic poetry, though they occur here and there. One of the many
memorable instances of the spoken word in the saga is Guðrún’s
jubilant expression of derisive anticipation after the death of Kjartan:
“But I mention last what seems to me worth most — that Hrefna will
not go laughing to bed this evening.” That sounds like an echo from the
Sigurðarkviða kin skamma (pp. 62-3):

Hló þá B ryn h ild r Then B ryn h ild r

B u ðladóttir daughter o f Buðli
einu sinni laughed once
a f öllum hug, w ith all her heart
er hon til hvilu when she could hear
h eyra knátti the piercing lam ent
gjallan gråt from the bed
G júka dóttur. o f G ju ki’s daughter.

As is often the case with romantic or romantically-inclined writers,

the author of Laxdæla saga takes least trouble over the portrayal of his
favourite men. In this connection it has been said that he could have
adapted Guðrún’s own words as a motto: I was worst to those I loved
the most. Despite the superficial courtliness, the saga has in most
respects the fundamental realism of earlier sagas of Icelanders — but
even so, Kjartan and Bolli Bollason appear a pair of handsome dum­
mies when compared with Guðrún and Þorgerðr. When íslendinga s'ógur
had the status of holy writ in Iceland and it was a common custom to
278 SAGAS OF ICELANDERS

assess and compare the characters in them, sensible people were known
to opine that Kjartan could not have been a very intelligent man. His
father, Óláfr, is similarly beautiful to look at — when he was twelve
years old, people used to come from other districts to “marvel at his
wonderful shapeliness” — but in his prime, the glamour fades and he
takes on a new guise as the sturdy manager of his estates and the
respected leader of his district. No one has any doubts about his
intelligence, and we cannot help but admire his desire for reconciliation
and his patience.

Bolli Bollason is still a youth when the story ends, and the author
merely remarks that he turned into ua man of many parts and popular”.
Some later reader who found this unsatisfactory took up his pen and
composed an independent þáttr to tack onto the end of the saga. In this
Bolla þáttr Bolli is associated with a number of other people, most of
them new in the story - mere ciphers the lot of them, a collection of
goodies and baddies. The whole piece is pure invention and artistically
much inferior to Laxdæla saga.

The author of Hænsa-Þóris saga treats his subject-matter very freely —

but then he cites no verse in support of his story and may not have had
much in the way of oral tradition to restrain him. A contribution of his
own is clearly seen in the account of the case after the burning of Blund-
Ketill, where the same sequence of events is described time and again,
with some slight variation, until many chieftains are implicated. This is
not the sort of matter that was likely to live in oral tradition. The same
can be said of other episodes, as Sigurður Nordal points out in his
introduction to the saga in íslenzk fornrit III (1938).
But we have to accept the chief incident, the burning at Ornólfsdalur,
as a historical fact, because Ari refers to it in íslendingabók. The odd thing
is that A ri’s brief account differs in some important respects from that of
the saga, most strikingly in the identification of the victim of the
burning. The saga says this was Blund-Ketill, Ari says it was Þorkell,
his son. Another discrepancy is that the saga presents Hersteinn as
Blund-Ketill’s son, while Ari makes him Þorkell’s son.
Landnámabók — i.e. Sturlubók and Hauksbók — agree with the saga in
reporting that it was Blund-Ketill who died in the fire, and so do the
early annals which record the burning s.a. 962 (Flateyjarannáll s.a. 963).
These sources were once generally preferred but Konrad Maurer, in
Über die Hœnsa-Þóris saga (1871), demonstrated that Ari was more
INDIVIDUAL SAGAS 279
reliable in every respect. He also argued that Sturla had followed the
saga in his recension of Landnámabák, often following it in preference to
his main Landnáma source. Since then, scholars have universally
accepted Maurer’s conclusions and have looked on Sturla’s choice of a
recently written saga in preference to the venerable and trustworthy Ari
as one of the clearest instances of his uncritical approach.
But there are many points to note. The reason for the burning was
that Blund-Ketill took hay without permission from the wealthy Hænsa-
Þórir in order to dole it out to tenants of his in a hard winter. These
circumstances have drawn attention to a novel article in the laws of
Jónsbók^ which said that hay could be lawfully taken from anyone who
had it to spare and be sold, on condition that enough was left to keep the
owner’s stock until summer. This article caused great dissension at the
General Assembly of 1281, and in the petition sent to the king on
matters concerning the new law-book the Icelanders specifically asked
for its alteration. In the Grågås laws such appropriation of another
man’s property was strictly forbidden. It is very tempting to connect the
composition of the saga with these disputes, and indeed direct parallels,
both of substance and phrasing, can be found between the saga and
Jónsbók. But if the saga was not written until 1281 or later, it is hard to
think that it influenced Sturla, who died in 1284. In a paper on this
problem published in 1977 (in Opuscula septentrionalia, a Festschrift for
Ole Widding), I came to an opposite conclusion: it was Sturla’s
Landnámabók, or a recension related to it, which influenced the author of
Hœnsa-Þóris saga. The confusion between Blund-Ketill and Þorkell
Blund-Ketilsson must have arisen in oral transmission. The saga itself
was composed in the last decades of the thirteenth century, when
controversy raged hottest over the Jónsbók law concerning appropriation
of surplus hay.

There was a time when Fóstbræbra saga was counted as antique as

Heiðarvíga saga: they were the oldest of all íslendinga sögur, written about
1200 or very soon afterwards. More recent studies have shown however
that it is a much younger work, written towards 1300. The evidence for
this date of composition is found in the saga’s literary relations, direct or
indirect. It will be remembered that the saga contains a number of
strange digressions, so-called klausur, “passages, clauses”, whose syntax
and vocabulary betray late origin and strong signs of clerical or learned
style. It was once thought that these passages were interpolations — a
conclusion which appeared to be warranted by their absence in Hauks-
280 SAGAS OF ICELANDERS

bók, the oldest manuscript. But further study has shown that, in fact,
there are traces of some of the klausur in Hauksbók: and the rest must
have been excised by the editor who was busy abridging the saga.
The saga takes its name from the foster-brothers, Porgeirr Hávarsson
and Þormóðr Bersason, called Kolbrúnarskáld. Both are brilliantly
portrayed. Þormóðr the poet is a vacillating character, as is proper
enough. He is attached to Pordis of Ögur but does not want to marry
her. Later he makes love-poetry about Þorbjörg kolbrun — “dark-brow”
— in Arnardalur, and his nickname comes from her. Porgeirr is valour
personified — at the age of fifteen he avenges his father and thereafter
kills on the slightest provocation. But he has little interest in women —
he said it was a shameful misuse of his strength to crawl over girls. The
Flateyjarbók text has some extra passages with far-fetched illustrations
of his intrepid courage and his attitude as a cold-blooded connoisseur of
killing. Thus, he did not call for help even though the angelica stalk he
was hanging on to was nearly out by the roots and there was a sheer
sixty-fathom cliff beneath him. And when the shepherd from Hvassafell
leant forward on his staff and stretched out his neck, Porgeirr sliced off
his head. “He had not done anything to offend me,” said Porgeirr, “but
the fact was that I could not restrain myself when he stood in such an
ideal position . . . ”
When Porgeirr was at his most arrogant, he once asked Pormóðr
which of them he thought would win if they fought it out between them.
“I don’t know,” answered Pormóðr, “but I do know that this question of
yours will put an end to our companionship, under a roof or on the
road.” A champion like Porgeirr cannot be expected to die in his bed.
He was attacked on his ship in Hraunhöfn on Melrakkaslétta in the far
northeast of Iceland and was overcome after a valiant defence. He had
notched up thirteen killings and learned men calculate he was just
under thirty years old. But no better illustration of the obligations of
honour observed in those days can be found than in Pormóðr’s conduct
after Porgeirr’s death. Despite their sudden rupture, he now spares
nothing and no one, neither himself nor others, in his efforts to avenge
his blood-brother. First he took his place as a sworn retainer of St Óláfr
and then sailed to Greenland, where in all he killed five men in revenge
for Porgeirr’s death. After that he returned to King Óláfr in Norway and
stood by him to the last, making a memorable end with his royal master
in the battle of Stiklestad. The Legendary Saga and Snorri’s Ólá/s saga
have related accounts of Þormóðr’s death, and it is clear that Snorri and
INDIVIDUAL SAGAS 281
the author of Fóstbrœðra saga knew the same saga — or possibly sagas —
of St Óláfr.
An important source utilised by the author was poetry attributed to
Þormóðr, of which he cites many stanzas. Nearly half of them are said to
be from the memorial lay — erfidrápa — which Þormóðr composed on
Porgeirr. If the term drápa was used in a technically correct way, then
probably a good deal of the poem is lost, since none of the preserved
stanzas includes a refrain section. But possibly the term erfidrdpa was
used more loosely in the saga-author’s time and might refer to a
sequence without refrains. Some scholars have doubted the antiquity
and attribution of the drdpa but hardly, it seems, for compelling reasons.
More doubt attaches to some of the occasional stanzas, not least those
which Pormóðr is supposed to have composed — with an arrow lodged
in his heart — after the battle of Stiklestad: as Jon Helgason observes,
“There won’t be many who labour at versifying in such a state.” But the
author of Fóstbræðra saga doubtless accepted all the verse in good faith —
and he had good precedent for, long before his time, writers of kings’
sagas had vividly added to the “truth” of their narratives by quoting the
stanzas of the dying Þormóðr.
In addition to Óláfs saga helga and Þormóðr’s poetry, which came to
him in fixed form, it is usually assumed that the author drew on
extensive oral tales about the foster-brothers. But the closer one studies
the saga, the clearer it becomes that it is packed with literary motifs —
so packed, indeed, that it is difficult to find much room for oral tradition
at all. The saga belongs with those íslendinga sögur that are on their way
to becoming pure novels. Constant repetition of the same or similar
elements shows that the author had to stretch his material as far as it
would go. Trivial dialogue exchanges are common, sometimes remini­
scent of the direct speech found in fornaldarsogur. consider, for example,
the exchange between Illugi Arason and Helgi selseista in chapter 14.
The people in the story are presented in ways reminiscent of Grettis saga:
minor characters are not individualised but the chief actors are fully and
vividly portrayed; and between them Porgeirr and Þormóðr have some
of Grettir’s traits. The story of Þormóðr’s exploits in Greenland is
admirably told: what he lacks in physical prowess is made up for by his
undaunted courage, intelligence and luck. And the account of his death
at Stiklestad is also unforgettable, even though much of it builds on
Óláfs saga helga, including the stern pathos of his death-chant:
282 SAGAS OF ICELANDERS

U ndrask öglis landa The tree o f h aw k’s ground [the

eik h ví vé r erum bleikir, wom an] wonders w hy I am pale:
fár ve rð r fagr a f sárum , few become fair from wounds —
fann ek ö rva drif, svanni. I met the driving snow o f a r­
M ik fló m álm r inn dökkvi rows, lady. D riven with force
m agni keyrðr í gögnum , the dark m etal flew through me,
hvasst beit h ja rta it næsta the perilous iron bit sharp —
hættligt já rn er ek væ tti. next to my heart, I fancy.

The Oldest Saga of St Óláfr (p. 159) contains a separate Pormóðar þáttr,
doubtless first composed by the author for that text. The þáttr has
usually been printed from Flateyjarbók, where the text, though fuller,
does not give a true impression because the end of it is a conflation of the
Oldest Saga and Fóstbrœðra saga. Originally, the two were quite indepen­
dent. The þáttr tells quite a different story from the saga, describing
Þormóðr’s stay with Knutr the Great in Denmark and his first meeting
with St Óláfr.

Gunnlaugs saga ormstungu has been the best known and the most
popular of all sagas outside Iceland, though its reputation has suffered
somewhat in the last generation or two. In íslenzk fornrit III (1938)
Sigurður Nordal noted that “the Icelandic text has been printed at least
twenty-four times before this and nearly sixty translations published (if
we include some slightly abridged versions).”
It was in fact the elegant and thoughtful introduction which Nordal
wrote for this edition which marked the turning-point in the saga’s
fortunes. He notes certain artistic flaws in the saga, and dwells espe­
cially on its lack of consistent realism. But he also acknowledges that it
was precisely the flaws in the saga which accounted for much of its
popularity. “Gunnlaugr Snake-tongue, who does not limp while both
his legs are the same length and who risks his life to bring his wounded
enemy a drink of water, is just how people want their Viking to be:
tough, arrogant, magnanimous, a man who plays fair. Helga the
Fair, the swan who sits passive while eagles fight for her and who
tenderly fondles her grief when, with death at hand, she spreads out the
cloak Gunnlaugr had given her, is close kin to Ophelia and Gretchen
and many other women portrayed in modern literature. She is far closer
to the nineteenth-century ideal of womanhood than the viragos of
ancient days who compassed men’s deaths and put their feelings second
to their pride. And, not least, it is more in keeping with the sentiments of
INDIVIDUAL SAGAS 283
our age to fight a duel for the sake of a beautiful woman than to indulge
in murderous competition on account of an all too prickly sense of
honour, as the custom was in the saga age.”
This verdict of Nordal’s on Gunnlaugs saga was the outcome of long
deliberation on saga-problems and part of a wider study. Soon after­
wards he published his paper on Hrafnkels saga (p. 251), which increased
the fame of that story as much as his work on Gunnlaugs saga reduced its
reputation. But when Sigurður talks o f “our age”, he is talking of a time
that was past: behind his judgment of Gunnlaugs saga lies the end of one
epoch and the beginning of another. For over half a century sentimental
literature has not enjoyed much esteem anywhere, for a variety of
historic reasons. If some tenderness of heart is unavoidable, it should at
least be concealed under a hard-boiled exterior. Sigurður Nordal’s
verdict coloured critical opinion —but it was itself coloured by the views
of a new literary movement.
Naturam expelles furca, tarnen usque recurret. Love and love’s tragedy are
part of life and will not easily be eradicated from literature and other
art. Readers “sacrifice in secret” and go back to older literature if they
find themselves deprived. Literary taste goes in waves, and who can tell
whether unashamed emotionalism may not reappear in some unex­
pected vogue.
The main theme is patterned in brief in the dream which Þorsteinn
Egilsson has at the outset of the story. Like Þorsteinn, the reader
suspects what must come, but he does not know for certain and still less
does he know how it will happen. Thereafter the story flows on in a
straightforward sequence. The main characters are introduced: there
are not many of them and, as is suitable in a romantic work, they are not
very complicated personalities. At first sight there seems little to choose
between Gunnlaugr and Hrafn: both are poets, ambitious, brave, good
fighting men . . . But it soon appears that in some qualities they are
quite unlike, and this difference between them has a vital influence on
the course of events. Gunnlaugr is demanding and haughty, outspoken
and sometimes rash, but always honest. Hrafn has more guile, he can
dissimulate his anger when necessary. But he is a knave at heart and
cheats Gunnlaugr at fateful moments — he lies in order to win Helga,
Gunnlaugr’s betrothed, and he gives Gunnlaugr a mortal wound with a
last treacherous blow. “Don’t deceive me, then,” says Gunnlaugr, as he
agrees to bring Hrafn water. That imperative shows that he knows
Hrafn — and the sequel shows he had good cause to utter it. It is in this
284 SAGAS OF ICELANDERS

contest between the rivals that the author displays a sharp-edged

realism which lifts the saga above the ordinary level of romantic love-
stories.
Everyone agrees that Gunnlaugs saga belongs with the younger íslend-
inga sögur, probably written in the latter part of the thirteenth century.
The author evidently knew Egils saga, Laxdœla and Eyrbyggja] the saga’s
relations with Bjarnar saga Hítdælakappa were discussed above (p. 256). In
assessing its date of composition critics take into account both its
literary associations and its markedly romantic character.
The romantic tendency and comparatively late date of the saga have
persuaded scholars that the author treated with the utmost freedom any
information he had from oral sources and added matter of his own
invention as he pleased. One of the points argued by Björn M. Ólsen in
a paper published in 1911 was that the author was responsible for nearly
all the verse attributed to Gunnlaugr and Hrafn. Scholars have since
regarded these stanzas with grave suspicion, though they vary in what
they reject. No one has a very high opinion of their value as poetry —
they are not up to the standard of Gunnlaugr (but how can we tell?) or
of “Poet-Hrafn”, as he is called in Landnámabók. It does not help that the
best stanza in the saga, Brámáni skein brúna, is given to Kormákr in
Kormdks saga — and seems more at home with the verse of that saga than
with the other poetry of Gunnlaugs saga. It has also been noted that some
of the stanzas simply could not have been composed in the circum­
stances described — but of course that stricture applies to verse in other
sagas as well.
Snorri however cites a half-stanza found in the saga and attributes it
to Gunnlaugr. And Sigurður Nordal points out that some of the
digressions from the main story and some of the saga’s structural flaws
can in fact be explained by assuming that the author was basing his
narrative on stanzas which he knew and did not want to ignore. In that
case the stanzas must have been made before the saga was written. But,
as Nordal remarks, whether they are correctly attributed is another
matter, and it is entirely probable that at least some of them were
composed to accompany unwritten stories told about Gunnlaugr, Hrafn
and Helga.
There are other reasons for thinking that the author made some use of
orally-preserved accounts. The essential events were of a tragic kind
likely to be remembered from one generation to another, though not
without accretion and embroidery. The author of Egils saga, who
certainly wrote his work well before the author of Gunnlaugs saga settled
INDIVIDUAL SAGAS 285
to his task, twice refers to those events as if they were common
knowledge: he speaks of Helga the Fair “over whom Gunnlaugr Snake-
tongue and Poet-Hrafn contended”.
Although Gunnlaugs saga has recently enjoyed less favour than before,
we should not allow that to blind us to its qualities. Its classic tragic
theme lifts it above time and space, and a new literary taste may well
restore it to esteem. While we wait for this to come, we need not
discourage anyone from enjoying it for what it is. Nor need we worry
much if it once more plays a part in shaping a new generation’s ideas
about men and women in early Iceland: life seen whole has room for
Gunnlaugr and Helga.

The last phase of composition of sagas of Icelanders belongs to the

fourteenth century, perhaps to the early fifteenth century too. Fornaldar-
sögur and home-produced sagas of chivalry were extremely popular
and influenced the development of tslendinga sogur (pp. 219-222). The
youngest of these last tend to offer a mosaic of motifs drawn from native
and foreign sources but are virtually empty of well-informed history.
Some sagas of this “novelistic” kind, with settings in the saga age, were
written in the west of the country.

Sagas which represent revisions of older narratives occupy a special

place. Harðar saga Gnmkelssonar ok Geirs is referred to in Sturla’s Land-
námabók, so its first version must have been made comparatively early in
the thirteenth century. We only know it in complete shape, however, in
a young recension, the oldest manuscript of which is from the latter part
of the fifteenth century, where it has the title Hólmverja saga. The opening
also exists in another manuscript, where it is slimmer in substance and
briefer in expression. This has been generally regarded as a fragment of
the older saga known to Sturla, possibly here in an abridged form. In
some ways, however, this text looks like an excerpt from the complete
recension we have, and it is best to reserve judgment pending further
enquiry.
There are elements in the saga which put it on a par with the fantastic
sagas of the fourteenth century: Hörðr’s mound-breaking to win the
treasures of Sóti the Viking for one. The verse in it is clearly fourteenth-
century work. Many of the characters are inventions of the author,
though some have authentic origins, and it is reasonable to suppose that
the destruction of the Holmverjar, the main event in the saga, reflects a
real incident of long ago. Hörðr Grimkelsson is referred to in Landnáma-
286 SAGAS OF ICELANDERS

bók as “the leader of the Holmsmenn”, and the same source says of Torfi
Valbrandsson that he “played the biggest part in wiping out the
Holmsmenn”. Hauksbók says specifically that Hörðr was killed on
Geirsholmur, and this is probably original in Landnámabók rather than
an insert from the first Hardar saga. But various other elements in the
story are more easily rejected than authenticated.
The theme has a certain grandeur besides the thread of romance. An
Icelandic farmer’s son wins fame abroad and marries the daughter of
the earl of Götaland. Back on his home ground in Iceland, he is struck
by misfortune and becomes the leader of a gang of bandits, but he and
his company are finally destroyed by his uncle. What we remember best
is probably the tale of how Helga, his young widow, swims to the
mainland from their islet-refuge along with her two small sons —
“Helga’s Sound is the name of it now.” But the author does not
concentrate as he might on the central themes, his structure is shaky, his
descriptions full of exaggeration. We know little about the earlier Hardar
saga, but the mishmash we have does not suggest we have lost much of a
masterpiece.
At the end of the saga the writer refers to Styrmir the Wise (died
1245). He reports that Styrmir thinks Hörðr was one of the most notable
outlaws, for three reasons which he cites. Some people have concluded
from this that Styrmir wrote the original Hardar saga, but it is doubtful
whether so much should be read into it. If it were true, Styrmir’s
opinion could have been given verbally or in some short note. We recall
that similar remarks occur at the end of Grettis saga and are there
credited to Sturla Þórðarson. Perhaps the author of Hardar saga wanted
to vie with that authentication and found a still more venerable autho­
rity in Styrmir.

Kjalnesinga saga was written by a man who was thoroughly familiar

with the district which forms the background to his story. He is indeed
an enthusiastic inventor of people named after farms in the area. He was
well-read in older sagas and borrowed from them, but he also drew on
local traditional lore which he then linked to his imaginary characters.
He goes to Eyrbyggja saga for his description of the temple of Þorgrímr
the Chieftain. When Esja hides Bui and burns a damp peat to make
smoke and stench in the house, he models the scene on Grima’s
concealment of Þormóðr in Fóstbrædra saga. He often turns to fornaldar-
s'ógur for material, especially Orvar-Odds saga — his description of Bui
Andríðsson is reminiscent in many ways of the description of Oddr. One
INDIVIDUAL SAGAS 287
of the incidents not pillaged from a book but probably of local, unwrit­
ten origin is the wrestling between Bui and Jökull, his son, which ends
with Bui’s death. A fatal contest between father and son is a widespread
motif, famous for example from the Old High German Hildebrandslied (p.
31). Elements in certain Irish tales have been found to provide espe­
cially close parallels to the episode in Kjalnesinga saga.
Some manuscripts have a separate þáttr of Jökull Buason as an
appendix to the saga. It was written later than the saga and is still more
fantastic, totally at home in the world offornaldarsögur and riddara sögur.

In its extant form Flóamanna saga is one of the fanciful sagas of the
fourteenth century, put together from bits of Landnámabók, legendary
and even hagiographic material. Some traditional tales can however be
detected in the later part of the story, and their presence suggests that
the saga was re-created from an older version. The hero is Þorgils
Þórðarson Orrabeinsstjupr and the saga could be appropriately named
after him. There are impressive elements in the account of his voyage to
Greenland — he suffers extremes of hardship, his wife dies and later his
son — a baby he has suckled himself — dies too. But these disasters
deserved a better narrator.

Hávarðar saga ísfirbings is another saga that must have existed in an

earlier version than the one we know now — like Hardar saga, Gull-Póris
saga and Svarfdæla saga. Sturla used an older text in his Landnámabók,
referring to it once as “the saga of Þorbjörn and Hávarðr the Lame” and
once as “the saga of the men of ísafjörðr”. He takes some genealogies
from the saga and re-tells a chapter of it. Sturla’s material is notably
different from what is told in the preserved saga, and it seems most
likely that the author of the latter was working from memory as well as
altering as he saw fit.
He had no compunction about adding fictions of his own either, for
the saga is full of typical fourteenth-century fantasy. Þormóðr of Bakki,
the zombie laid low by Óláfr bjarnylr, is reminiscent of Glámr in Grettis
saga and was doubtless modelled on him. The “coal-biter”, Atli the
Little, seems most at home among fornaldarsaga figures. There are only
two sorts of people: Hávarðr and everyone on his side are good,
Þorbjörn Þjóðreksson and all his lot are bad. Þorbjörn kills Óláfr
bjarnylr, Hávarðr’s son, without provocation, and Hávarðr then takes
to his bed and stays there, more or less inactive, for three years. After
that he responds to his wife’s egging and leaps up full of vigour. He
288 SAGAS OF ICELANDERS

gathers men, attacks Þorbjörn and kills him and his two brothers in
revenge for Óláfr.

Gull-Þóris saga is also called Porskfirdinga saga, and it is the latter name
which Sturla used in his Landnámabók. The version he had in his hands is
now completely lost. The preserved text contains much exaggeration,
which suggests that it is a good deal changed from the original recen­
sion. Þórir gets his nickname by winning masses of gold from Vikings
who had turned into dragons and sat on their treasure in a cave north in
fabulous Dumbshaf. The tale was also told that Þórir himself turned
into a dragon and settled down on his gold in the waterfall later called
Gullfoss in Djupidalur.
Bdrbar saga Snæfellsáss is a story about landvœttir — “land-spirits” —
and trolls, put together from passages in Landnámabók, various marchen
motifs and place-name legends. The principal character, Bárðr, is son of
Dumbr, king of the giants in Hafsbotn, “Ocean’s gulf’ —Dumbshaf was
named after him. Bárðr moves to Iceland and becomes the supernatural
patron of the men of Snæfellsnes. The latter part of the saga chiefly
concerns his son, Gestr. Some scholars have thought this part was
tacked on by a later editor, like the þáttr of Jökull at the end of Kjalnesinga
saga, but a clear-cut division between the sections is not as visible here
as there.
The best things in the saga are the verses — few in number but
remarkably varied in tone. One of them describes the fishing banks off
Snæfellsnes, another refers menacingly to the fate of a solitary fisherman
— this one has been set to a modern tune and few people hearing it
suspect that the words were composed in the fourteenth century:
Ú t reri einn á báti O ut alone he rowed his boat,
In gjald r i skinnfeldi . . . In gjald r in cloak o f fur . . .

The most affecting part of the prose story concerns Helga Bárðardótt-
ir. She drifted on an ice-floe to Greenland where she became the
mistress of Miðfjarðar-Skeggi. Back in Iceland she must be parted from
him, and from then on she roamed restless about the country. Memories
of her childhood home and longing for her lover merge in her
melancholy verse:
Sæl væ rak H appy I should be
e f sjá m ættak if I could see
A ðalþegnshóla A ðalþegnshólar
ok O ndvertnes, and Ö ndvertnes,
Plate 16
Part o f Berserkjahraun on Snœfellsnes, where the berserks, Halli and Leiknir3
cleared a road and built a wall fo r Viga-Styas told in Eyrbyggj
28. - Photo: Björn Rúriksson.
Plate 17
“I dreamt, ” says Flosi, “that I thought 1 was at Lómagnúpr and that I went out
and looked up at the mountain. And it opened and a man came out o f the mountain
and was in a goatskin coat and had an iron sta ff in his hand. He cried out as he
came and called on my men, some sooner, some later, and named them by name . . .
And I asked him his name. He said his name was Járngrímr. I asked where he
was bound. He said he was bound fo r the Alpingi. eWhat w ill you do there?' I
said. He answered: ‘First I shall clear the panels, then the courts, and then a
battle-field fo r the figh tin g men3. . . Then he struck his sta ff down and there was
a great crash; then he went into the mountain, and a fea r came over me" (Njáls
saga, ch. 133). - Lómagnúpur seen from the south. - Photo: Hjálmar R. Bárðar-
son
INDIVIDUAL SAGAS 289
B urfell, Bala, B urfell and Bali,
báða L óndranga, both the L óndrangar,
H eiðarkollu H eiðarkolla
ok H reggnasa, and Hreggnasi,
D ritvík r möl the pebbles o f D ritvik
fy rir durum fóstra. at my fosterer’s door.

Viglundar saga tells the love-story of Viglundr and Ketilríðr. They are
long kept apart and Viglundr — or rather the saga-writer on his behalf
— composes sorrowful stanzas on his beloved. But after suitable trials
they are finally re-united at the end of the saga. This was one of the very
last íslendinga sögur to be written, a fact amply demonstrated by the
atmosphere of the story and by the palpable influence of other kinds of
younger literature, fornaldarsögur, riddara sögur and fslendinga sögur. The
most obviously influential of all was Friðþjófs saga, from which the
author adopted the whole framework of his narrative.

Króka-Refs saga is pure fiction but skilfully composed and very

entertaining. Refr, said to be a nephew of Gestr Oddleifsson (p. 276), gets
his nickname from his cunning which never fails him at need. His
bewildering word-play when reporting the death of Skálp-Grani to King
Haraldr the Hardruler is probably his best-known stratagem — indeed,
some of his circumlocutions have become so established that they can be
heard in the Icelandic of today.

The south country is the setting of only one saga from the prime
period of saga-writing —but it is worth a whole fistful of others. Njáls
saga, Brennu-Njdls saga, Njdla is the longest of all íslendinga sögur, so vast
and complex that it was long thought to be a compilation of at least two
separate texts, a Gunnars saga and a Njáls saga. But we can quote with
approval — as is often done — the words of A.U. Baath (who otherwise
made much of the notion that sagas were regularly made by putting
severalþœttir together): “In its present form Njdls saga was written by an
author who had such sovereign command over his material that, when
he wrote the first line, he had - so to say — the last line already in his
head.” And Einar 01. Sveinsson has shown beyond all doubt that the
saga is the work of one author, a unity from beginning to end.
Even so, we must assume that this author — more than most others
indeed — had many sources of many kinds to work on. We can
distinguish three main groups: (1) written accounts of people and
19 Eddas and Sagas
290 SAGAS OF ICELANDERS

events; (2) traditional oral accounts; (3) other literary works which the
author took as models and adapted for his own creative purposes.
The use of a number of immediate literary sources can be demon­
strated with a high degree of probability. The author knew written
genealogies, very likely in several collections, and traces pedigrees on
their authority, sometimes so far back that we meet whole strings of
names. Their extent has led some scholars to think of dismissing them as
interpolations, but this family history is so firmly locked into the whole
story that such rejection cannot be countenanced. The pedigrees give
the saga a semblance of history, and they give the reader a rest from the
action-packed narrative. The lengthy rehearsal of legal formulas in the
lawsuit at the General Assembly has the same effect. They offer a lull
between great events as well as being dramatic in their own right, like
court-room scenes in modern thrillers and films.
The author obviously knew and benefited from many earlier sagas,
íslendinga sögur, kings’ sagas, fornaldarsogur, “contemporary” sagas.
Sometimes such sources provide him with both the substance and the
detail for his portraits (e.g. Hrútr Herjólfsson in Laxdœla saga, Snorri
goði in Eyrbyggja saga). Sometimes he relies on his audience to know
famous incidents from earlier works. It seems certain that he obtained
his account of Pangbrandr’s mission and the conversion of the Icelan­
ders from a written source, which he modified and possibly abridged.

From Njáls saga, ch. 75. Gunnarr of Hlidarendi and his brother, Kolskeggr,
were banished for three years. Starting at the end of the fourth line we read:
azman d(ag) eptir byr hann snemmendiss ferb sina tz7 skips - “Next day he
gets ready early for his journey to the ship.” It goes on: “And then he told all his
people that now he would be riding off for good, and that upset them but yet they
hoped he would come back again. Gunnarr embraced each one when he was ready
and they all came out to see him on his way. He jabs down his halberd and vaults
into the saddle and he and Kolskeggr ride off. They ride on towards Markarfljót,
then Gunnarr's horse stumbled and hejumped clear from the saddle. He chanced to
look up at the sweep of the Slope and the homestead at Hlidarendi and said (lines
13-15): fogr er hliðin sva at mer hefir hon alldri iam fogr synz bleikzr
akrar ok slegin tun ok mun ek riða heim aptr ok fora huergi - Fair is the
Slope and it has never looked to me sofair as now, cornfields white to harvest and
homefields mown, and I shall ride back home and go not at all. Ami Magmsson
Institute, Reykjavik: AM 132 fol. (Möðruvallabók). C. 1350. Photo: Johanna
Ólafsdóttir.
INDIVIDUAL SAGAS 291

« M to k if
292 SAGAS OF ICELANDERS

This Kristni þáttr is definitely not an interpolation, as some people have

suggested it is. It provides an interlude between mighty conflicts in the
narrative, and the introduction of the new faith paves the way for the
stern Christian moral of the latter part of the saga. A ri’s account of the
Conversion in íslendingabók is a source, direct or indirect, for the Kristni
þáttr, whose text is also related to the story of the Conversion given in the
expanded Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar (p. 158).
A further source whose use by the author is regarded as indisputable
was an independent account of the battle of Clontarf, the so-called
Brjáns saga (after Brian Boruma, the Irish high king who was killed but
won the battle), which also provided matter for Porsteins saga Síðu-
Hallssonar (p. 249) and possibly for Orkneyinga saga (p. 164).
Minor influences from a variety of other written sources that are now
lost can also be plausibly assumed. They include a saga about Mörðr
gigja and the men of Fljótshlíð, which was also used in Sturla’s
Landnámabók, and a Gauks saga Trandilssonar, which is referred to in an
entry in Möðruvallabók, the great codex of íslendinga sögur in which Njáls
saga has pride of place (see p. 208). The author learnt from Gauks saga
that Gaukr and Asgrímr Elliða-Grímsson were fosterbrothers and that
Asgrimr killed Gaukr.
The indirect profit the author of Njáls saga had from earlier sagas is no
less noticeable. We can see how he picks up details here and there,
incidents and personal characteristics, even phrases from narrative and
dialogue, and re-fashions them to serve in new contexts. He learnt most
from Laxdæla saga which he knew intimately and which, wittingly or
unwittingly, he had in the forefront of his mind as he wrote. It is very
instructive to compare these two sagas if one wants to understand and
appreciate the methods of the author of Njáls saga.
After this cursory review of the author’s written sources, we may turn
to what he probably gleaned from oral stories and consider the possible
nature of those stories. Where can we draw the boundary lines between
literary sources and oral tradition, between imagination and history, in
Njdls saga?
I remarked earlier (pp. 218 if.) on the gradual development of saga­
writing. Events of the saga age became more and more remote,
traditional tales were variously transformed, historical accuracy dwin­
dled, and authors compensated by borrowing from books and by taking
older sagas as models. In these respects Njdls saga stands somewhere
between the old and the new, though it chiefly belongs with the older
sagas which we sometimes call “classic”. Its transitional nature makes it
INDIVIDUAL SAGAS 293

Njáls saga, ch. 92: “Skarphedinn takes a running jump and clears the channel
between the ice-banks, gets his balance and hurls himself into a slide - the ice was
very slippery and he went as fast as a flying bird. ” A drawing by Gunnlaugur
Scheving.

however difficult to answer the questions posed at the end of the last
paragraph. The author had such creative power that he inevitably set
aside claims of history and tradition in pursuit of his objectives. But he
deploys historical fact and antique genealogy in such a way that, under
the influence of a certain air, carefully cultivated, of calm objectivity, we
are persuaded to believe what he sets before us.
Njáll, son of Þorgeirr gollnir, is mentioned in Landnámabók, which also
says that he was burnt to death in his house at Bergþórshvoll with six or
seven other people. In his Edda Snorri cites a half-stanza by “Brennu-
Njáll”. Early annals record the burning of Njáll, usually s.a. 1010. Kári
Sölmundarson also figures in Landnámabók and is called Sviðu-Kári in
Sturlubók, Brennu-Kári in Hauksbók — Kári “of the singeing” and
Kári “of the burning”. Kristni saga refers to Brennu-Flosi, and so do
several sagas of Icelanders and kings’ sagas. Most of these sources are
older than Njdls saga.
Various other sources antedating Njdls saga make mention of Gunnarr
of Hlíðarendi. Landnámabók tells of his fight with Otkell of Kirkjubær “by
the fence at H of’ and with Egill of Sandgil at Knafahólar. These are
evidently more reliable accounts, and less is made of the numbers of
men killed by Gunnarr than in the saga. But Gunnarr was clearly famed
294 SAGAS OF ICELANDERS

in story as a great champion and his last defence was especially well
remembered. Landnáma and Eyrbyggja saga both refer to it, and it is
spoken of in a verse by Þorkell elfaraskáld (cited in Njdls saga) and in the
íslendingadrápa by Haukr Valdisarson (p. 110). The poetry and Landndma-
bók agree in crediting him with two enemies dead and sixteen wounded
before he himself fell — figures that must have been derived from a
common source. Landnámabók and Njdls saga also largely agree on the
identity of the leaders of the attack on Gunnarr: Gizurr the White, Geirr
goði and Starkaðr from under Þríhyrningur. (Haukr Valdisarson names
only Gizurr.)
All things considered, it seems likely that the author had more
reliable information about Gunnarr than about Njáll. It is conceivable
— though hardly possible to prove — that he had a written account of
Gunnarr’s career: perhaps a short þdttr — the answer to which Einar 01.
Sveinsson inclines in his introduction to the saga in íslenzk fornrit XII
(1954) — or perhaps a whole saga — the conclusion reached by Björn
M. Ólsen in his unpublished lectures of seventy years ago. It is then
worth noticing the differences between the verse quoted in the first part
— “Gunnarr’s saga” — and that in the second — “Njáll’s saga”. In the
first part there are only two proper stanzas: the one by Þorkell elfara-
skáld, mentioned above, and the one Gunnarr is heard reciting in his
grave, which would appear to have been composed for him rather than
by him. In the second part we find a good number of stanzas of very
varied origin: some are very old, some from much later times, some
perhaps even composed by the saga-author himself. Editors or scribes
then made still more verses to insert in the saga, especially, it seems, to
redress the balance between the two parts of the saga in this respect (see
Einar 01. Sveinsson, íslenzk fornrit XII, pp. 465-80).
By this I do not mean to claim that there is no history in the latter
part of Njdls saga. Old and trustworthy sources confirm that Njáll was
burnt to death at Bergþórshvoll along with members of his household.
Excavation has proved that the farmstead there did indeed burn down
at some time in the first two centuries of the settlement. The names
Brennu-Flosi and Sviðu-Kári must depend on their association with a
house-burning. Kári is probably also referred to in a verse by Móðólfr
Ketilsson, which appears old and correctly attributed (see íslenzk
fornrit XII, pp. 335—6):

S tafr lifir einn, þ ar er inni A single m an o f N jáll’s house­

unnfúrs v ið ir brunnu hold lives, w here men burnt
INDIVIDUAL SAGAS 295
— syn ir ollu því sn jallir indoors — the bold sons o f
Sigfúss — Níals husa. Sigfúss were the cause o f that.
Nu er, G ollnis sonr, goldinn Now, son o f G olln ir [N jáll],
— gekk eldr o f sjöt rekka, the death o f valian t H öskuldr
ljóss brann h y rr i husum — is repaid — fire trod over the
H öskulds bani ins röskva. home o f men, bright flam e burnt
in the buildings.

This stanza may prove the burning of Njáll and the escape of Kári,
but it does not accord particularly well with the saga. It suggests that
the sons of Sigfuss led the attack and were seeking revenge for Höskuldr
(their nephew), whose death was Njáll’s responsibility. A general
conclusion to be drawn is that we should be chary of trusting anything
in Njáls saga which is not to be found in independent sources. And
indeed we hardly need source-criticism of this kind to make us suspect
the reliability of the author, seeing how constantly he succumbs to the
temptation to tip the scales in favour of the extravagant.
People familiar with the lie of the land and the history of Pingvellir
can pinpoint where each victim fell in the battle at the Alþingi. The
burning of Bergþórshvoll is described as if by an eye-witness — it also
shows a good many parallels to the burnings of the Sturlung age as
recounted in “contemporary” sagas. But if we examine these graphic
narratives closely, we perceive that they contain one implausible inci­
dent after another. Who believes that Skarpheðinn could hit Gunnarr
Lambason in the eye with Þráinn’s molar at that range and with such
force that the eye hung from its socket and Gunnarr fell off the roof? Or
that the sons of Njáll “trod the flames” until Grimr fell down dead? Or
that the fire raged so close to Kári that the cutting edge of his sword
turned blue and soft from the heat?
Some readers fail to appreciate Njáls saga because they cannot get
over the exaggerations and improbabilities. But we should refrain from
magnifying the saga’s defects, for they are closely allied to its virtues.
They are not the result of the author’s carelessness — they are what he
aimed at. Sigurður Nordal compared Njála to a mellow fruit, luscious
just because its ripeness is on the turn; de Vries compared it to
woodland in autumnal panoply. People complain that the sequence of
events in some episodes is not logical enough, but is that not because the
author wants to create vivid pictures, show life in all its variety, prompt
questions rather than provide neat answers to everything? Why does
Njáll not reply when Flosi asks who put the silk robe on top of the pile of
atonement money at the Assembly? Why does he refuse to make a stand
296 SAGAS OF ICELANDERS

out of doors and insist on going into the house when Bergþórshvoll is
attacked? Does he trust Flosi as a man of honour? Is he doomed and
therefore bound to be the instrument of his own death and defeat, as
Skarpheðinn thinks? Or does he want to die a martyr’s death in
atonement for the crime of his sons, as some critics now suggest? Why at
the end is Hildigunnr married to Kári, considering the dastardly part he
had played with the sons of Njáll in killing her first husband, Höskuldr,
and the awesome thirst for vengeance she had then shown? Did the
author know from genealogies that this marriage had taken place, or
was it the result of his desire to establish a final equilibrium? Questions
like these and many more besides well up inside us as we read this saga.
Icelanders of the past have discussed them at length — sometimes
violently.
This very fact is irrefutable evidence of the surpassing quality of this
centuries-old book. We see the events unfold, we hear the men and
women talk — we know them like the people we live among. Usually the
author’s sympathies are kept in reasonable check, but he certainly
admired some of his characters and detested others —in this, as in other
things, he wavers on the brink of excess. But all his portraits are firmly
drawn — the dark have their lighter tones, none is so bright that it is not
set off by some shadow. A crowd of people appear on the scene, but each
one is effectively endowed with an individuality which distinguishes and
brings to life. And in spite of the mass of people and incident, the saga is
extraordinarily easy to read and follow. The patterned structure, the
clear presentation, and the simple, supple, incisive language — not far
from polished Icelandic of today — all help to that end. We might
compare the saga to a great ocean where mountainous seas and flat
calms alternate. In each separate section there is a heave and swelling, a
climax and fall — antagonists clash and then the struggle subsides,
peace reigns. Sections join to make larger parts where the same pattern
is repeated: waves surge higher and higher until they comb and foam —
then after the shattering turbulence, there is stillness for a space.
One sign of the popularity of Njáls saga is the fact that it exists in more
copies than any other saga. We have it, complete or fragmentary, in
some twenty medieval manuscripts. No saga has enjoyed so much

Njáls saga, ch. 112: “Hildigunnr woke up andfound that Höskuldr was out of
bed and gone . . . She and two men with her go to the cornfield. There they find
Höskuldr killed." A drawing by Porvaldur Skúlason.
INDIVIDUAL SAGAS 297
298 SAGAS OF ICELANDERS

esteem, whether among ordinary folk at home or among men of learning

abroad. Young minds are seized by its hyperbole and glamour, its easy
style and dramatic scenes. At the same time, there is such breadth and
depth of wisdom in it that adults can read it again and again and always
find something new. The famous literary critic, W.P. Ker, said that
Njáls saga was one of the great prose works of the world. And Helgi
Haraldsson of Hrafnkelsstaðir, a contemporary Icelandic farmer, has
declared that in Njáls saga answers to all life’s problems can be found.
 íslendinga þættir
Characteristics. Sources
Some shorter stories or tales —usually called þáttr, plural þœttir —that
have Icelandic heroes are customarily counted with the íslendinga s'ógur.
They can be divided into two groups, according to whether their main
action takes place in Iceland or abroad. The latter are more numerous
and they are preserved incorporated in or closely associated with kings’
sagas. They are very often regarded as forming a link between the kings’
sagas and the íslendinga sögur proper. Some seem to have been composed
at the outset as part of a king’s history; others were originally indepen­
dent and subsequently built into a king’s saga. In some instances we
have pattir preserved both independently and as part of the saga of a
foreign ruler.
Peettir are very unevenly apportioned between kings’ sagas. There are
noþœttir in Oddr’s óláfs saga Tiyggvasonar, for example, while the equally
ancient Oldest Saga of St óláfr (and the Legendary Saga) has a number of
episodes with Icelanders as the central figures. These all seem to have
been included in this saga from the start, and the same seems to be true
of the pcettir in Heimskringla (though in modern editions of pœttir these
have been abstracted and printed separately). Morkinskinna, on the other
hand, certainly contains a good many pœttir which originally existed as
separate entities. Other stories of similar kind were introduced in
compilations such as we find in Flateyjarbók and the collection of kings
sagas in the recension identified with the Hulda and Hrokkinskinna
codexes. It may often be a matter of opinion whether a particular
episode is classed as a þáttr or as an integral part of the saga in which it is
found. In the volume ofpattir edited by Þorleifur Jónsson and published
by Sigurður Kristjánsson in 1904, forty texts were included. A later
edition, prepared by Guðni Jónsson (1935), added ísleifsþáttr biskups and
by now distinguishing between Halldórs páttr Snorrasonar I and II made
300 ÍS LEN DING A ÞÆTTIR

forty-two þœttir. Nine of these take place largely or entirely in Iceland, the
other thirty-three are associated with the following Norwegian rulers:
Haraldr Fairhaired 1
Earl Hákon Sigurðarson 1
Óláfr Tryggvason 2
Earl Håkon, Óláfr Tryggvason (Earl Eirikr) 3
St Óláfr 6
Magnus the Good and Haraldr the Hardruler 14
Magnus Bareleg 1
Sigurðr the Jerusalem-farer and Eysteinn 4
Magnus Erlingsson 1
The large number associated with Magnus the Good and Haraldr the
Hardruler gives food for thought. We must bear in mind, however, that
most of these are in Morkinskinna, supplemented by others in Hulda-
Hrokkinskinna, works which only begin their history with the return of
young King Magnus to Norway in 1035. It may thus be an accident of
transmission that so many þœttir fall in his reign and in that of his uncle,
co-regent and successor, Haraldr the Hardruler. It might also be
thought that traditions from times earlier than theirs were too sparse to
allow the composition of many þœttir on Icelanders who had been
associated with previous rulers of Norway. Obviously, however, that is
not an explanation which will account for the dearth of þættir from the
reigns of the kings who followed them — who certainly had Icelanders
among their visitors and retainers. We can only conclude that the
preponderance in the reigns of Magnús and Haraldr was the result of
literary fashion and accidents of transmission — these kings were
magnets who attracted þœttir. Many of the tales have a polished literary
form, which they are not likely to have acquired in oral transmission. It
is common to find in them, for example, a steady progress towards a
calculated climax (e.g. Audunar þáttr, Halldórs þáttr). Some þættir are
closely related to one another, and direct influence of one þáttr on
another is sometimes demonstrable, though authors seldom fail to
introduce some lively modification in what they receive from an earlier
work. It has been noted that two very different attitudes to King
Haraldr the Hardruler appear in the þœttir. In some he is a good and
open-handed lord (Audunar þáttr, Stúfs þáttr, Porsteins þáttr sögufróða, and
more), while in others he is a close-fisted and vengeful tyrant (Halldórs
þáttr, Odds þáttr Ófeigssonar, Hreibars þáttr heimska).
Like íslendinga s'ógur, þœttir vary in form and quality. Some are
CHARACTERISTICS. SOURCES 301
humorous and amusing, like Hreiðars þáttr and Sneglu-Halla þáttr. Some
inculcate an improving lesson, like Auðunar þáttr and Þorsteins þáttr
stangarhöggs. The best are perfect miniatures and belong among the great
short stories of the world.

Individual þættir
Halldórs þáttr Snorrasonar. Halldórr was the son of Snorri the Chieftain
(p. 210). In his youth he accompanied Haraldr the Hardruler to Byzan­
tium and shared his adventures in the ranks of the Varangian Guard, as
told in Morkinskinna (and Heimskringla). Snorri Sturluson says that
Halldorr brought this story to Iceland — and by “this story” he means
the account of King Haraldr’s exploits abroad, his útfararsaga. We may
recall that in Þorsteins þáttr sögufróða Þorsteinn says that he had picked up
that “saga” about King Haraldr when Halldorr told it at the Alþingi (p.
306). In Morkinskinna (and in Hulda-Hrokkinskinna) there is, however, a
separate þáttr of Halldórr Snorrason, which was originally independent.
It tells how the friendship between him and the king gradually cooled
after their return to Norway. Halldorr’s obstinacy and pugnacity come
up against Haraldr’s royal pride, which swells after his elevation to the
throne. At the end there is open enmity between them. After an exciting
episode in which he daringly exacts his due from the king, Halldórr sails
away to Iceland and spends the rest of his life at Hjarðarholt.
Some commentators think that the þáttr shows the shape of stories as
told by “saga-men”, but that seems doubtful. In its recorded form the
þáttr shows clear signs of composition by an author working to literary
patterns. There is a steady purpose amid the variety of incident, a
calculated development leading to a climax in a mode not characteristic
of oral stories. People are invented or known figures are summoned onto
the stage to fulfil this or that function in the progress of Halldorr’s
dealings with the king (Þórir Englandsfari, Bárðr upplenzki, Sveinn of
Lyrgja). The author’s disregard of historical circumstance is shown by
the fact that, according to him, Snorri the Chieftain was still alive when
Halldórr left Norway — when that famous man had been dead for
something like twenty years.
In the main narrative of Morkinskinna Halldórr appears in the same
light as in the þáttr^ though he and Haraldr do not collide while they are
comrades under the Greek emperor. It seems most likely that the author
of the þáttr knew the original Morkinskinna text and created his own work
of art on the basis of what he learnt from it.
302 ÍSLENDINGA ÞÆTTIR

Another þáttr of Halldórr Snorrason is found in Flateyjarbók. It is

believed to be a later work than the one we have just discussed, but since
its action belongs to a slightly earlier stage in Halldórr’s career, it is
denoted Halldórs þáttr /, and the Morkinskinna story Halldórs þáttr II. Here
there is a story within a story, to do with the saintliness of Óláfr
Tryggvason. The inner tale is put into the mouth of Einarr þambar-
skelfir and builds on the ancient legend — contradicted already by
Hallfreðr in his memorial lay (p. 105) —that King Óláfr had survived the
battle of Svold.

Stúfs þáttr is in Haralds saga hardráða in Morkinskinna and other manu­

scripts; it also exists in a separate version in some vellums. The latter is
considered to be on the whole closer to the original. Stúfr was a son of
Þórðr köttr Þórðarson, so a grandson of Guðrún Ósvífrsdóttir and a
close kinsman of Ari fróði. The þáttr is an entertaining tale of his
encounter with King Haraldr. Stufr amuses him by reciting many
poems by other poets and finally offers a poem of his own. This last (if it
ever existed) is not known today, but we do have fragments of a
memorial poem made by Stufr on King Haraldr. This is mentioned in
the Morkinskinna version of the þáttr, where it is called Stúfs drápa or Stúfa.

Auðunar þáttr vestfirzka is in Morkinskinna but was originally an inde­

pendent creation, like Halldórs þáttr Snorrasonar. The latter is conceived
first and foremost as a picture of a craggy individual, but Audunar þáttr is
both a portrait and an exemplum, illustrating tenacity and resolve,
justice and the fulfilment of obligations — and the reward that such
good qualities duly bring. Auðunn never deviates from the path of
rectitude, from the time he sets off with his bear to visit King Sveinn of
Denmark until his return to Iceland to provide for his mother. His
antagonists, the shadows that deepen the perspective, are Áki, the
greedy steward of King Sveinn, and the retainers who laugh at him
when he comes back from his pilgrimage, “bald and rather wretched-
looking”. Auðunn is balanced by King Sveinn and King Haraldr. With
all Sveinn’s great gifts heaped upon him, Auðunn seems in the ascen­
dant: but perfect equilibrium is attained and the circle truly completed
in the final scene with King Haraldr. It takes Auðunn a long time to
count up Sveinn’s gifts, one after another, and at the end King Haraldr
admits that he would not have rewarded him so lavishly — but “Did he
reward you further?” “Certainly, lord,” says Auðunn, “reward me he
did. He gave me a ring which I have on my arm, and said it might
INDIVIDUAL P Æ T T IR 303
happen that I lost all the presents, and he said I would still not be
penniless if I had the ring; and he told me not to part with it unless I
owed so much to some man of rank that I wanted to give it to him. And
now I have met him, for you had the chance to take both from me, my
animal and my life, but you let me go in peace to a place other men were
not allowed to visit.”
Reading this short story, we not only marvel at the economy and
symmetry of the narrative, where there is not a word too many or too
few, but feel warm at heart in the company of such a good soul as
Auðunn and such magnanimous rulers as Sveinn and Haraldr. It is not
for nothing that Auðunar þáttr has always been so popular. It has been
translated in dozens of languages, and the original has been printed
more often than any other piece of Icelandic prose.

Hrómundar þáttr halta tells of a feud in Hrútafjörður late in the tenth

century. It was written before Sturla’s Landnámabók because he gives an
abstract of it. Three stanzas are attributed to Hromundr in the þáttr, and
Sturlubók contains others attributed to his sons. Those said to be by
Hrómundr have archaic and idiosyncratic features and are probably
authentic. He hears a raven croaking by the roof-opening early in the
morning — an omen of death which he does not let prey on his mind:
V a ra t m ér i dag dauði, D eath was not decided for me to­
d rau g r fla tv a lla r bauga day nor tom orrow , w ielder o f the
- búum sk við Ilm ar já lm i shield — I make ready for
áðr - né gær o f ráðinn. battle first.
R œ ki ek litt þótt leiki L ittle I care though
litvö n d r Heðins íitjar the sword plays on shields
— áðr v a r oss o f m arkaðr - my life-span was earlier
ald r — við rauða skjöldu. determ ined for me.

Great events are described swiftly and tersely — some authors might
have made a longer story of it. Twelve Norwegians spend the winter on
a neighbouring farm, loud-mouthed and aggressive. Hrómundr accuses
them of stealing stud-horses and gets them outlawed at the Alþingi.
Now the Norwegians have got inside the defences he has built round his
steading and only he with his two sons and a grandson of fifteen are
there to meet them. They kill seven of the attackers and drive the others
off — but Hromundr and one of his sons are dead and the lad wounded
almost beyond hope of recovery.
304 ÍSLENDINGA ÞÆTTIR

Sneglu-Halla þáttr is found in variant versions in Morkinskima and

Flateyjarbók. Each represents a revision of the original text. In the
Flateyjarbók version the language has been “modernised” to some extent
and the tale is more extravagantly told. In Morkinskima the story has
been abridged —some of the coarser elements in the Flateyjarbók text are
among the omissions.
The þáttr tells of Halli’s stay at the court of King Haraldr the
Hardruler and of his encounters with the king and his retainers,
including Þjóðólfr the poet (p. 108) and Einarr fluga. Halli is quick­
witted, never short of an answer, and always gets the better of an
opponent. It is witty and amusing comedy but we can hardly believe it
tells us anything reliable about what life was like in King Haraldr’s
retinue.

Hreibars þáttr heimska is another humorous tale set in Norway at the

time when Magnus the Good and Haraldr the Hardruler were co­
regents. Hreiðarr is described at the outset as an “ugly man and with
hardly wits enough to look after himself’. This is how he appeared to
others, but beneath his uncouth exterior he is a man of sense and ready
speech and a superb craftsman to boot. A rare portrait but true to life -
there have been a good many Hreiðarrs in Iceland and they have not
disappeared entirely yet, despite the effects of our compulsory schooling
and frenzied mobility. It is not as if Hreiðarr does not alter and develop
when he leaves his isolated countryside and comes among great men in
Norway — he has the capacity to change. He not only learns what he
most desires — how to get angry — but his temperament is also
generally affected and he steadily matures in his sojourn in the outside
world, as the author shows us with great skill and economy. But it is all
in moderation, success does not go to his head, he will never have
courtly dress on his back: it suits him best to settle down on his farm up
in Svarfaðardalur where, for good reason as we can see, he becomes a
man of note in the locality. If the writer goes too far, it is at the end of
the story when he says that Hreiðarr had “made up those antics which
he put on in the early part of his career”. Were they not rather natural
responses on his part, both conscious and unconscious?

Ögmtmdar þáttr dytts is really two stories, one about Ögmundr, the
other about Gunnarr helmingr — who got his nickname “h a lf’ because
he liked parti-coloured clothes. Ögmundr, on the other hand, was called
“dint” because he suffered a blow from the back of an axe wielded by a
Plate 18
The Icelanders submitted to King Hákon Hákonarson o f Norway in 1262-4. King Magmls
Hdkonarson gave them a new code o f laws in keeping with the acknowledgment o f royal au­
thority and changed conditions generally. The new code o f 1281 was called Jónsbók^ after
an Icelandic lawman who played a part in its compilation and was responsible fo r bringing
it to Iceland. See pp. 363f f . Miniature from Skarðsbók, a 14th century copy o f the Jons-
bók. - Photo: Jóhanna Ólafsdóttir.
INDIVIDUAL P Æ T T IR 305
certain Hallvarðr in Norway. The þáttr is in manuscripts of the
expanded Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar (p. 158) and, because Ögmundr was a
kinsman of Viga-Glumr, it is also incorporated in the longer version o f
his saga, which we have only in fragments (p. 239). When Ögmundr
came back to Iceland, Glumr reproached him for not avenging the blow.
Later Ögmundr wiped out his disgrace by killing Hallvarðr, with the
aid of Gunnarr helmingr — which is where the two tales join.
After Hallvarðr’s death Gunnarr fled to Sweden, where Freyr was
held in great veneration. The god, or his simulacrum, was given a young
and beautiful girl as a handmaid and they believed she played the part
of the god’s concubine. Gunnarr sought the help of this girl and stayed
with her for a time. They travelled round with Freyr attending festivals
— “when he has to vouchsafe men a prosperous season”. Gunnarr
smashed the Freyr image and took over his job. As time went on, people
noticed that Freyr’s “wife” was pregnant and “the Swedes were now
highly delighted with this god of theirs; the weather was fair too and
everything so promising of a good season that no one remembered a
time like it.”
Gunnars þáttr helmings has occasioned much interest and comment
because scholars have found it a valuable source of information about
the religious practices of the ancient Scandinavians. But the truth is that
the contents of Gunnars þáttr can all be traced to classical myths and
Christian ideas, and it is virtually worthless to the student of Scandina­
vian paganism.

Gunnars þáttr Þiðrandabana is connected with Droplaugarsona saga and

Vápnfirðinga saga but through its characters rather than through its
events. Þiðrandi, the man killed by Gunnarr, was Þorkell Geitisson’s
brother and consequently, as in the saga, also a cousin and fosterbrother
of Bjarni Brodd-Helgason. After the killing Gunnarr lives as a fugitive,
first among people in the east of the country but then he is sent for
safekeeping to Guðrún Ósvífrsdóttir at Helgafell on the other side of
Iceland. At that time Guðrún was betrothed to Þorkell Eyjólfsson.
When Þorkell arrives for their wedding, he recognises Gunnarr and
wants him thrown out. When Guðrún hears this, “she says it is the same
to her if she doesn’t have that Þorkell Eyjólfsson for a husband, and let
him go as he came.” Þorkell let the matter drop and the wedding took
place. Guðrún helped Gunnarr to get away from Iceland and fitted him
out generously.
This incident is told in a similar way in Laxdœla saga, where even more
20 Eddas and Sagas
306 ÍSLENDINGA ÞÆTTIR

is made of Guðrún’s spirited response. The author there refers to

Njardvtkinga saga, and it is generally believed that this is Gunnars þáttr
under another name. The þáttr must then have been written before
Laxdœla saga, but after Droplaugarsona saga, since the author appears to
assume his audience’s familiarity with this work.

Ölkofra þáttr is a comic tale with the Alþingi as its setting. Þórhallr
brewed beer for sale at assemblies and did well out of it. Because of his
occupation and his characteristic headgear he was called ölkofri, “ale-
hood”. He made the mistake of accidentally burning down a stretch of
woodland belonging to six chieftains. They got together and planned to
mulct him of a great sum. But with the aid of Broddi Bjarnason and his
brother-in-law, Þorsteinn Síðu-Hallsson, he invalidated their case. The
story is very reminiscent of Bandamanna saga (p. 232) and there is
undoubtedly a connection between them: theþáttr is usually reckoned to
have been the model for the saga. Some scholars think that the þáttr, like
Bandamanna saga, is a critique of the corrupt state of the chieftain class in
the thirteenth century.
A reader nowadays may find the þáttr rather heavy going because of
the antique legalities that occupy the author. But take these in one’s
stride and the þátir can be enjoyed to the full for the brilliance of its style
and wit. The characters are firmly delineated, though with some
extravagance. The portrayal of Ölkofri himself is an outstanding suc­
cess. Sometimes we simply cannot tell whether his tears of misery are
real or feigned —just as we are left in doubt by old Ófeigr’s tottery state
in Bandamanna saga.

Porsteins þáttr sögufróða is set at the court of Haraldr the Hardruler.

Þorsteinn entertains the king’s men with stories, and finally at Christ­
mas when his store is exhausted he tells the king’s own útfararsaga — the
tale of his journey to Constantinople and exploits with the Varangians.
He said he had learnt it from listening to Halldorr Snorrason at the
Alþingi. The episode in the þáttr has often been taken as proof of the art
of story-telling among the Icelanders and the part played by sagas as
oral entertainment. If we lend it such import, however, it can only be in
symbolic terms. The útfararsaga of Haraldr as told in Morkinskinna (and
Heimskringla) is made up of colourful migrant tales of diverse origins —it
is not a story Porsteinn would ever have told the king to his face. Most
probably the þáttr is the invention of someone who had read Snorri’s
INDIVIDUAL P Æ T T IR 307
words in Heimskringla: uHe — Halldórr Snorrason — brought this story
to Iceland.”

Porsteins þáttr stangarhöggs is a continuation of Vápnfirðinga saga

inasmuch as Bjarni Brodd-Helgason is one of the two main figures in it.
The author builds his portrayal of him on the saga’s account and makes
direct reference to the battle of Böðvarsdalur. The other main character
is Porsteinn, who got his nickname “rod-stroke” because he took a blow
from a goad used at a horse-fight. Both men are equally peaceable but
when Porsteinn has killed three of Bjarni’s men who slandered him,
Bjarni challenges him to a set duel. During the fight Porsteinn twice
allows Bjarni to rest: first he lets him have a drink, then he lets him tie
his shoe-lace. When they start the third round — it is Bjarni’s turn to
strike and Porsteinn stands defenceless before him — Bjarni stops the
duel and takes Porsteinn into his service in place of the three men he had
killed.
This is one of those complex stories which prompt questions and
reflections. Did Bjarni, who was the older man, really get tired, or was
he only testing Porsteinn by implying his need for intermissions? And
was he testing both his sense of honour and his courage before offering
him a place in his service? Why did Porsteinn not take advantage of
Bjarni when he drank from the brook or tied his shoe? Because he was
“an exceptional man”, as Bjarni calls him? Or is the explanation found
rather in Porsteinn’s own rejoinder: “I had opportunities against you
today when I could have been treacherous, if my ill hap had run
stronger than your luck”? Does he perhaps know that in reality he
cannot defeat Bjarni, who is so brave that he uses a blunt sword and is
merely playing with him? Or does he, a poor man’s son, fear the revenge
of the powerful clan behind Bjarni? These are only some of the solutions
offered to the problems posed by the deeds and words of the actors
presented by the penetrating author of Þorsteins þáttr.

Some further þættir are chiefly designed to add to the glorification of

the great missionary kings, Óláfr Tryggvason and St Óláfr Haraldsson.
Porvaldsþáttr tasalda is associated with Víga-Glúms saga because Porvaldr
is Glumr’s nephew and plays a small part in his uncle’s story. The þáttr
tells however of a mission undertaken by Porvaldr at the behest of Óláfr
Tryggvason. He is sent to force an important man called Bárðr to accept
Christianity. He succeeds, not least because he has a cloth bound to his
308 ÍSLENDIXGA ÞÆTTIR

chest with the names of God on it. In Hrafns þáttr Guðrúnarsonar (or
Hrafns þáttr Hrútfirðings) it is invocation of St Óláfr which resolves the
predicament Hrafn finds himself in. He is a stubborn, pugnacious
character and it happens that he kills a sheriff of King Magnus — of
course, not without provocation. For a time he is a fugitive but is finally
reconciled to King Magnus, thanks to the support of Sighvatr the poet
(p. 106), who has called on St Óláfr for aid. The story is a concoction of
various well-known motifs found in earlier sagas and was meant not
only to entertain but also to confirm and strengthen its hearers and
readers in Christian faith and goodwill. The aftermath of Stiklestad is
also reflected in Porgrims þáttr Hallasonar which, like Hrafns þáttr, is built
into Magnús saga góða. It tells of partisan rancour and fighting among
Icelanders in Norway, some of whom support Kálfr Arnason while their
opponents are on the side of young King Magnus because of their
devotion to his father.

With Porleifs þáttr jarlsskálds we are back in the time of Earl Håkon the
Mighty (died 995). The þáttr is partly dependent on Svarfdæla saga (in its
older version) but is otherwise based on a variety of marchen motifs.
Håkon is said to have plundered Porleifr’s goods and hanged his
companions. Þorleifr retaliated with such powerful denigratory verse of
the kind called níð that terrifying marvels came to pass in the earl’s hall.
Later on the earl infused a “tree-man” with magic potency and sent this
Porgarðr to Iceland, where he killed Porleifr at the Alþingi. In later
centuries men could point out Porleifr’s burial mound there, until it
was encroached upon by the river, Oxará.

The action of two more þœttir belongs to the reign of Haraldr the
Hardruler. In Porvarbs þáttr krákunefs Porvarðr, an Icelander, comes to
the king and offers to make him a present of a very fine sail. The king
will not accept it, so he gives it to Eysteinn orri, the king’s brother-in-
law. Eysteinn repays him handsomely and his gifts are in some degree
reminiscent of King Sveinn’s to Auðunn (p. 302) - King Haraldr’s part
in the story, however, is quite different from his role in Aubunar þáttr.
When he sees the fine sail, he is sorry he refused it — and Eysteinn, who
is the real hero of the tale, again displays his munificence by presenting
it to King Haraldr.

The only link between Odds þáttr Ófeigssonar and Bandamanna saga (p.
232) is the person Oddr himself. The author of the saga doubtless lifted
INDIVIDUAL Þ Æ T T IR 309
his name and his characteristic ability as a sailor and merchant from the
þáttr. The author of the þáttr, on the other hand, seems to have taken the
name of Einarr fluga and his characteristics from Sneglu-Halla þáttr (p.
304). In the story here King Haraldr suspects that Oddr or his men have
been trading with the Lapps without leave. He makes several searches
for the trade-goods from Lappland but Oddr takes the advice of his
friend, Porsteinn, and always hides them successfully. Each time the
king realises too late where they must have been concealed. This hunt-
the-thimble game is reminiscent of Earl Hákon’s search for Hrappr on
Þráinn Sigfusson’s ship — the author of Njáls saga probably knew Odds
þáttr.

Finally, there is a þáttr which chiefly involves a Norwegian magnate of

the early twelfth century. In Gull-Asu-Pórbar þáttr (or Asu-Pórðar þáttr),
which is found both separate and in Morkinskinna, Ingimarr of Askr
makes three attempts to seize and execute Þórðr, always returning with
a bigger band of followers until he finds Þórðr protected by no less a
person than King Eysteinn himself. This þáttr is one of those written in a
terse, forceful style and appears to be very old. It is a literary work
through and through — perhaps pure fiction but possibly sprung from
some faint recollection of an actual incident.
 Sagas of chivalry
Origins
We have more than once had occasion to speak of Norwegian literary
activity — which was by no means divorced from Icelandic writing in
this early period. Iceland was converted to Christianity by Norwegian
agency, and Christian culture came to the country partly from Norway,
partly straight from Britain and western Europe. The Church in Iceland
first came under the metropolitan of Hamburg-Bremen, then from 1104
under the archbishop of Lund in Denmark. After the creation of the
metropolitan see of Nidaros, in 1152/3, the Icelandic bishops were
henceforth suffragans of a Norwegian archbishop. Writings of funda­
mental Christian import were thus bound to be closely related in both
countries. And a little over a century later, when the Icelanders became
tributary to the Norwegian crown, the links between the two countries
became closer still. Throughout the early middle ages, indeed to c. 1400
when both nations came under Danish rule, Icelanders always had most
dealings with Norwegians. After that — partly because of the ravages of
the plague in Norway — Danish sway was supreme, but for five hundred
years before that, from the settlement period onwards, Norway and
Iceland made one cultural region. It is most appropriate therefore to
consider the medieval literature of Norwegians and Icelanders as a
common heritage, though modern nationalist sentiment sometimes
strives to keep the two apart. This survey was primarily written as a
contribution to a history of Iceland, so more emphasis has inevitably
been laid on the Icelandic share in that literature.
Norwegian literature has also always had difficulties to face in
competition with Icelandic. It never existed in such variety or ampli­
tude. Probably — though it cannot be proved — much more Norwegian
than Icelandic literature has been lost in the course of time. A third
point is that a good many works which we know were written in Norway
312 SAGAS OF CHIVALRY

in the early middle ages are only preserved in Icelandic manuscripts. If

we have a text only in Icelandic copies, it is obviously hard to demon­
strate Norwegian origin, and a succession of such copies undoubtedly
brought about a gradual Icelandicisation of the attitudes, taste and
language of the work in question.
Writing in Norway must have begun at about the same time as in
Iceland, though evidence for that early literacy is less abundant.
Norwegian laws were recorded in the same period as Icelandic laws, or
quite probably rather earlier. Early Norwegian law seems to have been
less affected by reforming and codifying tendencies than Icelandic law,
so the statutes of the old law-provinces of Gulaþing and Frostaþing now
seem more primitive and archaic than the Grågås texts. They open
windows on a distant world and are more illuminating sources of
information about pre-Christian and early Christian times than the laws
of Grågås are.
The oldest eddaic poems are thought to be the work of Norwegian
poets and they are magnificent monuments of Norse genius and culture
from the period before and during the settlement of Iceland. We have
scaldic poetry attributed to named Norwegian poets from the same
period and from later in the tenth century, but very little Norwegian
verse from about 980 onwards. We may suspect that this is not because
Norwegians stopped making poetry but because what they made has
not been preserved.
Religious writings were translated and composed in Norway at an
early stage. We have the Norwegian Homily Book and the Miracles of St
Óláfr, both of which go back well into the twelfth century. Saints’ lives in
texts showing Norwegian characteristics exist in very old manuscript
fragments and doubtless such works were put into the vernacular in
Norway at an early date. But the bulk of such literature is now found
only in Icelandic copies and decisions about its ultimate provenance are
problematic.
The oldest histories written in Norway appear to be the two Latin
works discussed on pp. 154-156. Further, the work called Ágrip a f Nóregs
konunga s'ógum (p. 156) is thought to have originated in Norway, though
now known only in an Icelandic copy. It too is one of the earliest
specimens of Norse history writing in our possession.
There are however few signs of Norwegian literary activity in the age
which saw the birth of scholarly writing and saga composition among
the Icelanders. The first historian to write in Latin was the Icelander,
Sæmundr, and the first to write in the vernacular was the Icelander, Ari.
ORIGINS 313

“On the Sunday after the Feast o f the Nativity o f the Blessed Virgin the princess
was wedded to K ing Magnus with great pomp. K ing Magnús then came to his
wedding fea st and both the kings were in the stone hall and the archbishop and all
the suffragan bishops . . . and the choicest men.” This is from Sturla Þórðarson’s
description in Hákonar saga o f the marriage o f King Magnús the Lawmender and
Ingibfórg, daughter o f K ing Erik IV Ploughpenny o f Denmark, in 1261. The
“stone hall” was Håkonshallen, still standing in Bergen and mentioned here fo r the
fir st time. It was a notable architectural symbol o f the grow ing pow er o f the
Norwegian monarchy. Photo: Øyvind Berger.

The first Norwegian historian we know by name, Theodoricus, refers

particularly to Icelandic source-men — so does his younger contempo­
rary, Saxo Grammaticus, in Denmark. When that most remarkable of
Norwegian kings, Sverrir Sigurðarson, wanted a saga composed to
record his incredible successes, he chose an Icelandic scholar, Abbot
Karl Jonsson of Þingeyrar, to wield the pen. And most of the other
314 SAGAS OF CHIVALRY

twelfth- and thirteenth-century works on the kings of Norway are

demonstrably by Icelandic authors.
At the beginning of the thirteenth century fresh life stirs in Norwegian
interest and enterprise in literary fields — and it would make less of an
impact if the preceding period had not been so generally torpid. As one
might expect, the inspiration for these new departures came from
abroad: twelfth-century Europe. A single man was chiefly responsible
for this new burgeoning of Norwegian literature, one who as well as
learning and zeal, also had the power to produce results.
When Hákon Hákonarson was elected king by the Birkibeinar in
1217, he was thirteen years old. Sturla Þórðarson wrote his biography —
full of informative detail and correspondingly dull to read. Håkon was
an illegitimate son of Håkon Sverrisson. In the first part of his reign he
had frequently to take the field against other pretenders to the throne,
but after the death of Duke Skúli Bárðarson, his father-in-law and rival,
in 1240, he ruled in peace until his own death in 1263. He got the nick­
name “the Old” to distinguish him from his son, Håkon “the Young” —
but this crown prince died before his father, in 1257.
King Håkon is not portrayed with the glamour of his grandfather,
Sverrir, and his career was not so full of dramatic incident, but few kings
of Norway have been as prosperous or influential. He was a pupil at
school in Nidaros when he was set upon the throne, and he remained a
lover of learning and literature all his life. Matthew Paris from the great
monastery of St Albans in England and a capable judge of such matters
visited Norway in 1248 and he speaks of the king as bene literatus. His
Latin was good enough for him to follow the Latin books that were read
to him as he lay on his death-bed: though as his strength failed, he had
works in the vernacular, norrænubækr, read to him instead. Saints' lives in
Norse were read to him first, then sagas of the kings of Norway from the
beginning until they ended with the saga of Sverrir, his grandfather.
Whenever he was awake, they read to him continuously, by day and
night, until he breathed his last.
In his long reign Håkon proved a prudent, even cautious, ruler, but
he was also farsighted and effective. He did for Norway what the first
Augustus did for Rome. After long turbulence he established lasting
peace, in Iceland as well as Norway. He introduced new laws to govern
the succession to the throne and so put an end to the everlasting
dynastic strife which had torn Norway apart, or always threatened to,
ever since the days of Eirikr Bloodaxe in the early tenth century: now
ORIGINS 315
the succession was ordered in accordance with fixed rules based on
primogeniture and legitimacy.
Håkon was a great builder of churches and monasteries. He actively
promoted the townships and organised and strengthened the country’s
defences. His most famous building is the handsome stone hall which
still stands in Bergen, his capital. He was ambitious to extend his
dominions and he succeeded in bringing Iceland and Greenland under
his sway without recourse to war. He was eager to maintain the
authority of the Norwegian crown over the Hebrides and Man and it
was in pursuit of this aim that he led his fleet against the Scots in 1262.
He died on that expedition in the following year, laid low by sickness in
Kirkwall in Orkney. His surviving son, Magnús, later called “Law-
mender”, had then been his co-regent for six years.
King Håkon was anxious to model his realm on the leading nations of
Europe. Like foreign rulers at the time, he believed his royal power was
from the Almighty, and to confirm it he got the pope to send Cardinal
William of Sabina to preside at his coronation, celebrated with great
ceremony in Bergen in 1247. He maintained lasting connections with
Emperor Frederick II, that great promoter of the arts whose realms
stretched from the Baltic to Sicily. But Norway’s chief commercial and
other dealings were with England — and the import of all kinds of
learning and literature went with them. Håkon and Henry III were
good friends, exchanging letters and gifts. Håkon also had connections
with France and Spain, and his ambassadors went as far as Tunis,
bringing prized falcons to the Soldan. The most famous of all the
journeys made on his behalf was the convoy of his daughter, Kristin, to
Spain with a splendid retinue, where she chose Don Philip, brother of
the king of Spain, as her husband.
This period in European history is often called the age of chivalry and
it was the ideals of knighthood which Håkon introduced in Norway.
They lay behind his interest in fortification and military matters, and
they were the cause of the courtly customs and feudal titles he ordained
for his retinue — his followers were no longer “landed men” and
“servitors” but barons and knights, who were addressed as herra, “lord”.
And one part of his endeavour to make the Norwegians a cultivated
nation was the commissioning of translations of contemporary Euro­
pean literature.
When the Roman Empire collapsed, the classical literature of Greece
and Rome was largely forgotten, but around AD 800, in the time of
316 SAGAS OF CHIVALRY

Charlemagne who saw himself as the heir of the Roman emperors, there
was the first of the several “renaissances” the western world has
experienced. Classical literature was rediscovered in the Carolingian
age and the following centuries, when learning and literature flourished
under the protection and patronage of great men both lay and clerical.
Many Latin writings saw the light of day, chiefly religious and philo­
sophical in character but with some history and even belles lettres among
them. At the same time, no vernacular had been without its creative
elements, sometimes in oral forms only, sometimes in written modes
when scribal arts had been acquired after conversion to Christianity. It
is true that most of what was first written in languages other than Latin,
whether in verse or prose, was religious or didactic, along with occasion­
al pieces of history, chiefly of annalistic or chronicle kind. In the period
we are considering, however, the foreign literature of greatest signifi­
cance for Norway and Iceland was of quite a different kind. These
foreign works were all in verse and may be divided into two main
groups.
One group comprises anonymous epic works which have sometimes
been called “popular” or ascribed to “the people” — on the assumption
that names of “people’s poets” get forgotten rather easily. In Germany
such poems were the successors of ancient heroic lays, and to some
extent they treat the same themes as the eddaic poetry. The best-known
is the Nibelungenlied, from the twelfth century. Stories of Sigurðr the
Dragon-slayer, Brynhildr and Gunnarr are among the subjects of this
great poem — and very different they are too from those we know in the
Edda. The narrative thread of the Nibelungenlied has more continuity but
its artistry seldom matches that of the best eddaic lays. Probably
Wagner’s operas have done most to keep alive some interest in this early
medieval German poetry.
The French had their own poetry of the heroic and epic kind, different
from that of the German school, and it is of more concern to the
literature of Norway and Iceland. Most of the French chansons de geste, as
they are called, are anonymous. As their generic name suggests, they
seem originally to have been sung or chanted in some way. That must
reflect their popular origins as oral entertainment, while the romances
in contrast were made to be read from books. The Chanson de Roland is
the best-known and doubtless the oldest of preserved chansons de geste —
on the battle of Roncevaux, a theme which lived on to be treated in
many forms, through centuries and over continents, with Icelandic saga
and Faroese kuœði among them.
ORIGINS 317
The other group consists of courtly poems or romances, romans courtois.
They were composed in aristocratic and educated circles and we usually
know the names of the poets. France — or the whole domain where
French language and culture were dominant — was the nursery of this
courtly literature. The genre began in the twelfth century and soon
enjoyed a tremendous vogue, the fashion spreading rapidly to other
countries where French influence was strong, England and Germany in
particular.
A characteristic feature of the romances is delicate and elaborate
analysis of human feelings: the thoughts and emotions of the actors in
the plot are dwelt on at length, often conveyed through their own words,
in dialogue, soliloquy or “interior monologue'’. A hero’s tragic love for
a married lady is often the theme. The leading men are not only
formidable warriors, as in the epic literature, but are also celebrated for
their courtesy, munificence and magnanimity. Thomas’s poem on Tris­
tan - to be spoken of later - is an example of the roman courtois.
But the most famous of all the poets is Chretien de Troyes.
Another division of early romance literature depended on the origins
of the subjects the poets treated: there were three great “matters”, of
Greece and Rome, of Britain, and of France (matiere de Rome, matiére
de Bretagne, matiere de France). Stories in the first group were ulti­
mately derived from classical literature and were especially concerned
with the Trojan war and the siege of Thebes. The “British” matter was
ultimately of Celtic origin and told tales of King Arthur and his knights
and of Tristan and other heroes. The matter was preserved in Wales
and Ireland, but the source nearest to hand lay in Brittany on the
Channel coast, a settlement made by British inhabitants of southwest­
ern England retreating before the conquering Angles and Saxons in the
fifth and sixth century. The “matter of France” was represented by the
stories of the chansons de geste, with Charlemagne and his twelve peers at
the forefront of the poets’ interest.
Minor kinds also existed, like the romans d’aventure and the fabliaux.
The former kind resembles the lais on subjects from the “matter of
Britain”, but they are kept separate because their action is not set in the
“British” — “Breton” or Celtic — world. The romance of Flores and
Blanchefleur is of this kind. Fabliaux are short verse narratives, comic
and satiric in mode, with subjects often drawn from everyday life.
It is important to remember that national and linguistic boundaries
were not the same in the early middle ages as they are today. Celtic­
speaking peoples occupied Wales, Cornwall and Brittany (as remnants
318 SAGAS OF CHIVALRY

still do) — we may recall that the Norse name for Wales was Bretland,
Cornwall was Kornbretaland, and Brittany was sometimes called Sybra-
Bretland, “southern Britain” or, as we might say, “the Wales of the
south”. French, on the other hand, was not confined to France but was
also the natural language of the upper classes in England once the
Norman Conquest was complete. The Norse name for “French” was
valska, the language of the Valir of Valland. Geographically Valland
referred especially to France south and east of Flanders and Normandy
and Brittany, and south and west of Lorraine and Burgundy, but the
name valska was not specific. Like the English name “Welsh”, it referred
originally to what was foreign and is the language spoken by foreigners.
The most unmistakably alien were unintelligible Celts — whereas the
speech of Saxons and English was recognised as akin to Norse; and of
course in the British Isles and Normandy there were substantial settle­
ments made by Scandinavians in the course of the Viking Age. On the
whole, Icelanders who went abroad in that period would not have great
linguistic problems in Scandinavia or England or among Frisians and
Saxons. Slavonic, Celtic and Romance languages posed problems of
quite a different order.
The British Isles were the great mixing area and they formed a vital
bridge — though not the only one — between Norse and Romance
worlds. Many of the courtly poems translated for King Håkon were of
Anglo-Norman rather than continental French origin. A difficulty in the
way of all this study, however, is that so much early medieval Romance
literature has been lost. There are no texts in existence which are
precisely the same as those used by the Norse translators. Sometimes it
happens that the Norse version is the only extant representative of the
work in question — its French or Anglo-Norman original has disap­
peared entirely.
These chivalrous romances were the fashionable literature of culti­
vated circles in Europe when the young King Håkon first thought of
looking abroad to find suitable matter for his Norwegian court. They
could not fail to attract his attention. We do not know whether he
undertook any translation or was himself an author, but the initiative
lay with him and he had men of letters in his service. The Norse
translations are all in prose and we refer to them by a term already used
in various works from the fourteenth century, riddara s'ógur, “sagas of
knights” or, more usually, sagas of chivalry. The term is used in­
differently whether the sources were romans courtois or chansons de geste;
and it also covers a third kind, represented by a few translations of
ORIGINS 319
medieval pseudo-histories, like Trójumanna saga, based on Dares Phry-
gius, and Breta sögur, based on Geoffrey of Monmouth (p. 332).

Individual works
Manuscripts of Tristrams saga have a short prologue which describes
how the translation came into being: “ 1226 years had passed since the
birth of Christ when this story was written at the behest and ordinance
of the worthy lord King Håkon, and Brother Robert performed it and
wrote it up as best he knew how, with these words which now follow in
the story and as shall now be told.”
There is no reason to doubt that the substance of this prologue is
genuine and faithful to fact, even though the wording has probably
undergone some alteration and the date given may be wrong — corrup­
tion of numbers is very frequent in old manuscripts. Relying on the date,
however, scholars are generally inclined to believe that this was the first
translation commissioned by Håkon, because in 1226 he was only
twenty-two years old and it seems unlikely that he could have begun his
career as an active patron of literature much before that. Comparative
study tells us what the prologue neglects to mention, viz that the source
of the translation was a roman de Tristan by a Norman poet called
Thomas, who worked at the court of Henry II of England in the 1 170s.
Unfortunately we have only fragments of his poem, sufficient though to
demonstrate it was certainly the source of Brother Robert’s version and
to illustrate his methods as a translator.
The king and his clerk could hardly have chosen a better representa­
tive of fashionable foreign literature, for this is one of the most beautiful
and moving themes of all time. As I mentioned, the story of Tristan is
Celtic in origin. It is not quite certain when it was first put into a book
but we have two other written versions from about the same time as
Thomas’s poem, one from North France and one from Germany. One of
the best-known treatments of the story is Gottfried of Strassburg’s
Tristan (c. 1210), which was finally completed by other hands. It
presents the story in its entirety and later gave Wagner the substance of
his libretto for Tristan und Isolde, Mention may also be made of the
surpassingly beautiful Icelandic ballad called Tristrams kvæði (p. 377
below) — but these are only one or two of the most famous works
inspired by this immortal love-story.
Tristram, or Tristan, was the greatest and handsomest champion at
the court of King Mark of Cornwall, his uncle and foster-father. Mark
320 SAGAS OF CHIVALRY

sends him to Ireland to seek a queen for him, ísönd (as she is called in
Norse), known as “the Bright”, daughter of the Irish king. Tristram
destroys a dragon ravaging the countryside there and is in a fair way to
winning the beautiful ísönd as a reward, but he shows his nobility by
remembering his duty to King Mark and pleading his uncle’s suit
instead. Inadvertently he and ísönd drink a love-potion which had been
intended for ísönd and Mark, and after that they are bound to each
other by indissoluble bonds of love: in reality, their love was already
kindled, and the potion is a symbol of their passion and their sad fate.
The middle part of the story tells of their tribulations and the random
stolen hours they have together: King Mark becomes suspicious and
cruelly jealous. They deceive and placate him but time and again
succumb to temptation and always cover themselves with new subter­
fuge. For a time they find a paradise in solitude, hiding out in the
wasteland, but the king discovers them and takes ísönd away with him.
Tristram now leaves the country and marries a lady who in the extant
manuscripts of the saga has the same name as ísönd — but this was
probably not the case in the original translation because in Thomas’s
poem the ladies have different names. Even so, Tristram never forgets
his first love. Finally he is wounded in battle by a poisoned sword. He
knows no one can save his life except ísönd, who had cured him from
the venom of the dragon in Ireland. He sends her a message and orders
his men to hoist sails striped white and blue if they are returning with
her on board. ísönd willingly responds to Tristram’s tokens and on the
voyage they set the sails as Tristram ordered. After a hard passage of ten
days they approach land. Tristram asks his wife to tell him what canvas
his messengers sail under. “They sail with a black sail,” she answers.
When Tristram hears that, he turns savagely to the wall, calls out
ísönd’s name thrice, and dies as he utters it a fourth time. When ísönd
steps ashore, she hears the lamentations of the people and the sound of
bells. She goes to Tristram’s corpse, prays for them both, puts her arms
round his neck and dies. Tristram’s wife had them buried one on each
side of the church: “But it happened that from each grave grew a tree, so
tall that the branches intertwined over the roof-ridge of the church, and
from that can be seen how great was the love between them.”

It is reasonable to think that with his Tristrams saga and other

translations Brother Robert established the methods to be followed by
later makers of riddara sögur. This applies both to his treatment of the
content and to the particular diction and style he adopted. The French
INDIVIDUAL WORKS 321

Isoud by Tristram’s sickbed. A drawing by Aubrey Beardsley.

21 Eddas and Sagas

322 SAGAS OF CHIVALRY

sources were in verse but Robert used prose from the start — naturally
enough, for there was no northern tradition of epic poetry — in Iceland
the rimur of the fourteenth century and later were the first long narrative
poems and in mainland Scandinavia we find nothing comparable before
the Eu/emiavisorna from about 1300. Robert was not however willing to
forgo all the loftiness of style of the originals in pedestrian everyday
prose and he created a special riddara saga style, rather ornate and
verbose but with supple and lyrical qualities as well. We may say that it
is a style woven of three strands. One is the native saga style, which
Scandinavian scholars tend to call by the dubiously apt term “folkelig”
— “popular”. The second is the latinate learned style sometimes used in
translating religious works into Norse. Among its characteristics are
many adjectives and descriptive embroidery, alliteration and rhyme,
parallelism in enumeration, and other elements foreign to everyday
speech. The third strand is the poetic language of the original French,
which naturally influenced the translations in some degree. This riddara
saga style is called “høvisk stil” by Scandinavian scholars — “courtly
style” in English, hefbarstill in Icelandic.
We may justly say that the efforts of Robert and the other early
translators to create a decorated prose well suited for re-telling the
French romances were crowned with remarkable success. Most of the
sagas of chivalry are preserved only in Icelandic manuscripts, including
Tristrams saga which we have complete only in seventeenth-century
paper copies. It is to be assumed that the long succession of Icelandic
transcripts affected the original diction in ways that tended to harmo­
nise it with the familiar style of the native sagas. But even though the
Icelanders did not retain the courtly style in a pure form, it had its own
effect on Icelandic literature, offering authors a variety of fresh devices,
to be found not only in the riddara sögur made in Iceland but also in
several of the later Islendinga sögur and various works of other kinds.
Two texts of riddara saga kind, Elis saga ok Rósamundu and Strengleikar,
exist in very old Norwegian manuscripts and therefore offer good
examples of undiluted courtly style. Comparison with Icelandic manu­
scripts of Elis saga reveals that, though much has been changed, a good
deal of the original diction nevertheless remains. The same is doubtless
true of Tristrams saga. As an instance we may take the beginning of the
saga where Tristram’s father is introduced:

In Wales there was a youth, the handsomest of men in bodily

beauty, the freest with rich gifts, power-wielding and wealthy in
INDIVIDUAL WORKS 323
rich castles and townships, adept in many arts, the doughtiest in
knightly deed, trustiest in every trait of nobility, wise and wary in
counsel, prudent and prescient, complete in every feat beyond all
men who at that time were in that kingdom; and this knight was
called by the name of Kanelangres. Toward the hard he was all
hard and toward the fierce all fierce. He had with him so great a
number of trusty knights and resolute retainers that he wanted
more men in his train than his means could support. And
inasmuch as he was the freest with gifts and the most amiable in
behaviour and the most stalwart in battle, by his strength, valour
and joustings he won such great estates and rich takings from his
enemies that in a few years his power and repute prospered with
many resources.

Brother Robert made changes in the content of the stories too, but in
this he was much less successful. His aim was to turn the French
romances into Norse sagas — which he evidently knew and esteemed
highly. Probably he worked in the belief that his audience was incapable
of appreciating other kinds of literature. But the romans courtois were
created on quite different terms — they could not be changed into sagas
without some degree of maltreatment. As was said above, the poets
devoted much care to the psychology of their characters, describing
their states of mind at great length, sometimes directly, sometimes
through dialogue or even monologue. These hardly suited in stories of
the native Norse kind where the convention was to appear to tell only
what the author or reporter had himself seen and heard. Robert
disposed of this difficulty by dispensing with practically all the
psychological description and all the mental processes and monologues
and by drastically cutting the long exchanges in direct speech. But that
meant excision of vital parts, a destruction of the essence of the poems,
and in consequence the chivalric sagas compare favourably with neither
the original French poems nor the realistic Icelandic sagas which
provided Robert with his native models.

The Tristan legend is “British”, i.e. Celtic, but most of the stories
dealing with the “matter of Britain” concern King Arthur and his
knights of the Round Table. King Arthur is remembered as a famous
British leader at the time of the Saxon conquests in the fifth and sixth
century. According to legend, he regaled his champions at a great round
table where all sat without regard to degree. Little is known about the
324 SAGAS OF CHIVALRY

historical King Arthur and all the preserved stories and poems about
him were made more than five hundred years after his death. Geoffrey of
Monmouth in the twelfth century was one of the earliest “sources” (cf.
below on Breta sögur), but the greatest of all the poets of the Arthurian
cycle was Chretien de Troyes at the end of that century, a contemporary
of Thomas, the Tristan poet. One of Chretien’s best-known romances is
Yvain, or “the Knight of the Lion”, re-told in several countries, including
Norway: “And here ends the story of Sir íven which King Håkon the
Old had turned from French into Norse” is the way the northern
translator concludes his tale. íven is one of Arthur’s champions. He
overcomes another knight, guardian of a forest and magic spring, and
marries his lady. But his chivalric conscience drives him to seek
adventures and he leaves his wife, promising to come back a year later.
He does not appear at the appointed time and his wife demands the
return of her ring from him. He now roams the forests and suffers
various hardships, but meets benevolent ladies who help him. He frees a
lion from the claws of a dragon, and the lion follows him like a faithful
dog thereafter: a celebrated motif in the story which in Iceland is found,
for example, on the carving of the door from Valþjófsstaðir. Finally íven
returns and is reconciled to his wife through the intervention of Lúneta,
her lady-in-waiting. This theme of conflict between the claims of love
and the claims of duty was real enough in an age of warring barons and
distant crusades. In Chrétien’s poem the action is built on close
description of the thoughts and feelings of the principal characters, but
in the Norwegian version only the adventures remain and the result is a
more-or-less unmotivated sequence of episodes. ívens saga was parti­
cularly popular in Scandinavia, notably in Sweden. The story is told in

The Knight of the Lion. The church-door from Valþjófsstaðir, carved about 1200.
C(Thefirst scene of the story is in the lower panel where everything is in motion: a
horse and a hawk rush on and a knight mounted on the horse thrusts his sword
through a winged dragon which writhes in its death-throes; a lion which owes its life
to the knight, extracts itselffrom the dragon ’s claws. The next scene, in the upper
panel, shows the knight riding his horse at a gentle, measured pace, with the hawk
perched quietly on the horse’s neck and the lion trotting along with head held high
behind its rescuer. The last scene is at the right-hand end of the upper panel: the lion
crouches, grieving and dying, on the knight’s grave; there is a cross on the grave and
a church in the background. Below the lion it says in runes: 6See the mighty king,
here buried, who slew this dragon’” (Kristján Eldjdrn). Photo: Gisli Gestsson.
INDIVIDUAL WORKS 325
326 SAGAS OF CHIVALRY

one of the so-called Eufemiavisorna, Swedish poems in knittelvers com­

posed about 1300 for Queen Eufemia, the Swedish wife of Håkon V of
Norway.

Two other Arthurian tales translated from poems by Chretien are

Erex saga and Parcevals saga. The first is badly preserved in late paper
manuscripts and is a mere shadow of its French original. Parcevals saga,
with the Valversþáttr as its sequel, is a good deal better preserved but, as
usual, shows large omissions of Chrétien’s text. The translator cannot
be seriously blamed for the looseness and obscurity of the narrative for
in this case the original suffers from the same defects. We get, for
example, only a vague idea of the Holy Grail, a mysterious object which
occurs in numerous romances. Various knights attempt to achieve its
quest but only the one who is absolutely pure in mind and body can be
successful. Some stories told that the Grail was the chalice used at the
Last Supper, and then by Joseph of Arimathea to collect the blood that
dripped from the side of the wounded Saviour on the Cross.

Two romans that belong to no cycle, both pretty stories, were trans­
lated as Partalopa saga (Parte'nopeus de Blois) and Flores saga ok Blankiflúr
(Floire et Blancheßeur). The second of these is the source of one of the
Eufemiavisorna mentioned above.
Flores was the son of the king of Saracen land — Serkland — and
Blankiflur the daughter of a Christian lady of France enslaved there.
They were born on the same day and loved each other from childhood.
The king was not pleased at the prospect of a slave-woman’s daughter
as the wife of his princely son and sold Blankiflur as a slave to the king of
Babylon, who wanted to marry her. When Flores heard what had
become of her, he set off for Babylon and smuggled himself in a basket of
flowers into the tower where Blankiflur lived among the king’s hand­
maidens. The king found them there, sharing one bed, was naturally
furious and planned a horrible death for them. But Flores slew a great
champion in single combat and so proved his love and his royal descent.
All was forgiven. He married Blankiflur and became a Christian.

Mottuls saga, “the saga of the mantle”, one of the five stories explicitly
said to have been translated at the command of King Håkon is on the
other hand an example of the fabliau genre. King Arthur invites guests
from distant lands to celebrate Easter with him. A young man turns up
with a beautiful mantle, whose property is that it will only fit a chaste
INDIVIDUAL WORKS 327
woman. The king orders the ladies of his court to try it on, one after
another, and then much is revealed: not only that they have been
unfaithful to their husbands but in what ways they have set about it. But
in the end one lady is found who has been loyal to her lover. Not
surprisingly, this was a popular tale, and we have early rimur on the
subject, Skikkjurimur.

But the translation which is bound to seem to us the most memorable

of all those commissioned by King Håkon is the collection of tales called
Strengleikar. These short lais were originally sung to instrumental music
— which explains the Norse title they are given — but the translations
are of course in prose. The poet says her name was Marie — usually
identified with the lady called Marie de France — and she dedicated her
work to an unnamed king — probably Henry II of England.
There are two main reasons why we respond more readily to Streng­
leikar than to the other translations from Romance. The first is that the
Norse version is very close to the original, with few omissions or
alterations. We are not merely told of the events but the thoughts and
feelings of the characters are also brought home to us: the pangs of
lovers who must part, the bliss of reunion. The second is that these lais
in prose are preserved in an ancient Norwegian manuscript and are the
most authentic representative we know of the chivalric literature of
thirteenth-century Norway. A modern Icelandic reader may find the
language a little strange, but we soon discover it has a peculiar beauty of
its own — the translator was a stylist of genius who had learnt much
from Brother Robert. The tales belong in a romantic dream-world. Love
is the great theme — lovers suffer separation and hardship but finally
come together — or most of them do. Sir Guiamar is wounded by a
dying hind who puts an enchantment on him. A mysterious ship carries
him to a tower where an aged nobleman keeps his wife shut up behind a
high wall. She cures the stranger but irresistible love springs up between
them. Their liaison becomes known and Guiamar is forced to leave in
his ship. But at parting she folds his shirt with incomparable skill and he
fastens a belt firmly round her bare body — these were to be everlasting
tokens of their love, for only she could unfold his shirt, only he loosen
her belt. In the end her grief becomes unbearable — she finds she can
slip out of her tower through unlocked doors and Guiamar’s good ship
carries her to her lover, though with more adventures and suspense on
the way.
328 SAGAS OF CHIVALRY

But love’s transport can lead to disaster, as the Tveggja elskanda Ijóð,
the “two lovers’ lat\ shows. A king in Normandy announced that his
daughter would be given in marriage only to the man who could carry
her to the summit of the huge mountain that towered over his castle.
Her young sweetheart took her in his arms and carried her up the
mountainside — she had a magic potion in a little phial which he was to
taste when he grew tired. But “because of the joy he had in the maiden,
he forgot his drink. As the maiden felt him flagging, she said,
‘Sweetheart,’ she said, ‘drink your drink for I feel you tiring, drink and
renew your strength.’ But he answered, ‘I have ample strength,
sweetheart, my heart is not faint, so on no account will I rest.’ When he
got two-thirds of the way up, he almost fell down in a swoon. The
maiden begged him with many pleas: ‘Sweetheart,’ said she, ‘drink your
potion.’ But he would not listen to her words or believe what she said,
and went a great way with her, and then reached the summit with her
and in much suffering. There he collapsed and never stood up again,
and all his heart flowed out of him, and like that he lay there, dead from
exhaustion.” —As for the princess, she fell down and died of grief beside
her lover. A stone tomb to receive them both was built there on the
mountain.

One of the finest and most touching of the lais is Laustiksljóð — “the lai
of the nightingale”. A young knight is in love with his neighbour’s wife.
At night he listens to the song of the nightingale calling his mate to make
love among the leaves and blossom. The lady realises what her
sweetheart does and stands by her window to hear the nightingale too.
Displeased at this, her husband has the nightingale snared and flings
the dead bird into her bosom. She takes the little corpse, wraps it in a
cloth woven with gold thread and sends it to her lover. He at once has a
casket of gold, adorned with gems, made to receive it and there lays the
nightingale to rest, closing the box with a golden lock. “This happening
went round all Brittany, and out of this happening the Bretons made the
lai they call the lai of Laustik.”

We come now to the epic chansons de geste, the other main kind of
French poetry represented in Norse translation. In Elis saga it says,
“And Abbot Robert made the translation and King Håkon, son of King
Håkon, had this Norse book translated for your pastime.” It seems
virtually certain that this Robert is the same as the Brother Robert who
was responsible for Tristrams saga — only now he has been promoted in
INDIVIDUAL WORKS 329
his order. In all probability few people nowadays would find reading
Elis saga a pleasing pastime — it was not chosen with the same felicitous
taste as the roman de Tristan, for its original, Ehe de St Gille, is rated one of
the poorest chansons de geste we have. There is some echo of the crusades
in the vast pitched battles against the paynim, but it rings hollow and
the characters are too shadowy to rouse our interest. Critics find the
language of the French poem uninspired, and Robert has tried to
compensate by adopting a clangorous courtly style — which we can be
sure we are reading in a form close to what Robert wrote, for the bulk of
the saga is extant in an old manuscript — the one that also has
Strengleikar in it. The saga is found complete — indeed, with additions —
in Icelandic manuscripts. Comparison between the Norwegian and
Icelandic versions provides useful guidelines for considering other works
of this kind that are known only in Icelandic copies.

Flóvents saga is of particular value because it is a translation of an

otherwise lost chanson de geste. But the most remarkable of all the Norse
translations is the so-called Karlamagms saga. This is not a single work
but a translation of a number of chansons de geste, welded into one great
sequence of narratives, most probably cobbled together after the poems
had been translated. Formerly it was thought that the whole work was
translated in Norway in the reign of Håkon the Old. Some traits of the
saga suggest, however, that the translator — at least of most of the þœttir
— was an Icelander. All the extant manuscripts appear to be Icelandic
— a fragment (NRA 61) generally regarded as Norwegian has now been
shown to be the work of an Icelander who affected Norwegian habits in
his script. On the basis of the major manuscripts, scholars normally
distinguish an A and a B redaction, the former older than the latter. But
there are various indications that the separate parts led separate
existences, and it is proper to consider each one individually.
The part called a f Runzivals bardaga - on the battle of Roncevaux - is
the outstanding piece in the whole Karlamagms saga — but then it is
based on the finest of the French epics, the Chanson de Roland.
Charlemagne, Charles the Great (Karlamagnus in the North, from
the Latin form, Carolus Magnus), who died in 814, was understandably
a revered figure in the stories and poems of succeeding ages. And like
King Arthur, he had a group of supremely valiant knights around him,
his twelve peers. When Sighvatr the poet explained to St Óláfr why he
had taken the liberty of baptising the king’s newborn son with the name
Magnus — he was later to be known as King Magnus the Good — he
330 SAGAS OF CHIVALRY

said of the child’s great imperial namesake, “He was the best man I
know ever to have been in the world.” Charlemagne converted or tried
to convert the neighbouring heathen and won wide renown for his
efforts on behalf of Christendom. His struggle against the Moors in
Spain was especially famous. The Chanson de Roland treats of his Spanish
campaign and the action fought at Roncevaux. The Norse version -
here Roland appears as Rollant — is a good deal altered in comparison
with the original and a good deal for the worse too — important parts
are omitted and a number of wildly fantastic episodes added.
The Chanson de Roland is thought to have been first composed about
1100 and once the story had achieved that masterly form it was rapidly
carried to other countries. In its popularity and in the variety of
treatment it received it can be compared with the tale of Tristan. The
Roland theme made greatest headway of all in Italy — where the hero
becomes Orlando — best known from Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso, the
Italian classic from the beginning of the sixteenth century. But this work
is a far remove from the Chanson de Roland and its qualities owe more to
Ariosto’s genius and the poetry of his own Italian precursors than to the
original French epic. This last was rediscovered by nineteenth-century
Romantics and since then the fame of Roland has spread far and wide.
In Iceland Grimur Thomsen made the poem called Olifant, after
Roland’s renowned horn, and took his motto from the Rollantsrimur of
Þórður á Strjugi, composed late in the sixteenth century and popular for
centuries:
En R olland fell við R unsival A nd R oland fell at Roncevaux
og rid d arar m argir fríðir. and rad ian t knights aplenty.

The narrative of the Chanson has some slight historical foundation.

Roland was one of Charlemagne’s commanders and led the rearguard in
the Spanish campaign of 778. In the pass of Roncesvalles in the Pyrenees
they were attacked and overwhelmed by Basque forces. In the Chanson
(and in Karlamagms saga) Roland is the emperor’s nephew and the
foremost of his paladins. He had two possessions of great price, the
sword Durendal and the horn Volifant (Dýrumdali and Olifant in the
translation). The battle lasts most of the day with three great onslaughts
— the attackers are of course Saracens in the poem. As numbers wane
on the French side, Roland blows his horn so loud that the emperor
hears the blast fifteen miles away. But the traitor Ganelon (Gvinelún)
persuades him not to regard it. Only when Roland blows a third time —
INDIVIDUAL WORKS 331
with the blood starting from his mouth in his effort —does Charlemagne
turn back to reinforce him. He comes too late. Roland is dead and all the
twelve peers and all their men.

Piðriks saga a f Bern is comparable to Karlamagms saga. It is extant in an

old Norwegian manuscript and a number of later Icelandic ones. Pidriks
saga must have been put together in Norway in the latter part of the
thirteenth century, at a time when commercial and other contacts with
Germany were flourishing at the expense of older relations with Eng­
land. Karlamagms saga is built on French epic poems — Pidriks saga is
similarly built on German poetry that told of ancient heroes.
In many other respects, however, the two compilations are markedly
unlike. Description in Karlamagms saga is often elevated to a pitch of
chivalric splendour. In Pibriks saga the outlook seems more bourgeois,
the actions and circumstances of individuals — even of princely birth —
are often rather unrefined. It has been assumed that the reason for this
is that the poems followed in the translation were middle-class rather
than courtly entertainment. Some German poems on the same subjects
are known but in very different versions from those used for Pibriks saga
— any immediate sources of the saga seem to have been lost for ever.
One of the major reasons for appreciating Pibriks saga is thus that it tells
us something about heroic legends and literary culture in thirteenth-
century Germany.
The central figure is Theodoric the Great, king of the Ostrogoths,
who subdued the Roman Empire in 493 and reigned till his death in
526, with Verona as his chief residence. (In the German poems this
becomes Bern and Theodoric is Dietrich or Didrik, Norse Þiðrikr,
-rekr.) He attracted a large circle of heroes into his legendary orbit,
some of whom we know from the heroic poems of the Edda. We meet
Viðga, son of Velent the smith — better known to us as Völundr. We
meet Hildibrandr and Sigurðr Fáfnisbani, Jörmunrekr and Atli king of
the Huns (cf. p. 55). The story sometimes concentrates on such figures
and forgets Þiðrikr entirely. Because the saga is so badly arranged,
scholars have tended to assume numerous interpolations and additions
in the preserved version, but the general opinion now is that we should
lay the blame for the mess at the door of the translators who first put the
various poems together to make the Norse prose version. The narrative
is so clumsy and disorganised that as a whole it gives little pleasure, but
there are some good bits in it; and as second-hand evidence of the state
332 SAGAS OF CHIVALRY

of German letters in the thirteenth century it must be highly rated, as

mentioned above. It may also be that it exerted more influence on
Icelandic literature than has been suspected hitherto.

Some texts that are usually counted with riddara sögur were not trans­
lated from either French or German but from Latin. They are works of
fiction — though looked upon as history in the middle ages —and cast in
a mould resembling in some features that of the stories of chivalry.
Trójumanna saga, “the saga of the Trojans”, is extant in three different
versions. The oldest of them is for the most part a translation of the De
excidio Troiae, which claimed to be a version of a work attributed —
falsely of course — to Dares Phrygius, named in the Iliad as priest of the
temple of Hephaistos. In fact it seems to have been put together in Latin
from the start, at some time in the fifth century. It draws its material
from the Iliad and other ancient sources. The later Icelandic versions
show a number of variations and accretions, taken especially from the
Ilias Latina, a Latin version of the Iliad probably made in the first
century. Some additions from classical poets, Vergil and Ovid among
them, are also found.

Brela sogur, “sagas of the Britons”, are linked with Trójumanna saga
because the descent of the royal line of Britain is traced to Brutus,
fugitive from the sack of Troy — in Icelandic manuscripts the two texts
usually go together. But Breta sögur have quite different origins, for they
were translated from Geoffrey of Monmouth’s notorious Historia regum
Britanniae, written c. 1135. Geoffrey’s work partly deals with legends of
King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table. Its fabulous material
and lively style ensured the Historia great popularity for centuries — it
was regarded as an authoritative work and used as a source by poets of
the romans courtois, Chrétien de Troyes and others who composed on the
“matter of Britain”.
It is likely that most of the translations from French sources were
made in Norway, including those that are not specifically attributed to
King Hákon’s initiative. Works from Latin on the other hand may well
have been translated in Iceland — regarded as they were as serious
history, not poetic entertainment designed to promote courtly ideals.
We know that Gunnlaugr Leifsson, monk of Þingeyrar (died 1218, see p.
157), translated the “prophecies of Merlin” from Geoffrey of Mon­
mouth’s Historia. His verse translation, Merlínusspá, mostly in fomyrdis-
lag, is included in Breta sögur. Probably the prose translation of the
INDIVIDUAL WORKS 333

K ing Arthur and his knights at the Round Table. A woodcut from a fourteenth-
century French miniature.

Historia was made not long after Gunnlaugr produced his poem in the
first years of the thirteenth century. That translation is more likely to
have been made in Iceland than in Norway.

To these half-sisters of the riddara sögur must be added Alexanders saga,

a prose translation of a long Latin poem, the Alexandreis by Gautier
334 SAGAS OF CHIVALRY

(Walter) of Chåtillon, whom the saga-author calls “meistari Galterus”.

The Latin original was composed at the end of the twelfth century, the
translation probably not long after 1250 — if we are to take seriously the
information given in one of the two main manuscripts of the saga, which
tells us that the work was done by Bishop Brandr Jonsson (died 1264).
The statement is repeated at the end of Gydinga saga in the same
manuscript and not everyone believes it. True or not, there are many
points which suggest that the translation was made about that time, and
it is certainly an Icelandic work, as the alliteration shows. The transla­
tion is superb and has stirred the admiration of many readers, from Árni
Magnusson to Halldor Laxness. Árni had it in mind to produce an
edition of it and Halldor was the prime mover behind its first Icelandic
printing in 1945. The translator sticks close to the matter but obviously
is no word-for-word man — even if that were possible when turning
verse into prose. He was well schooled both in the native Icelandic saga-
style and in the courtly manner of the Norwegian translations, but he
goes his own way with the result that in many respects the language of
Alexanders saga is unique in Icelandic literature.
Naturally the translation could not have succeeded so well if the
original had not been a work of quality. It is a clear narrative in flowing
hexameters though with many elaborate similes. When the translator
finds the rhetoric or the excurses altogether too much of a good thing, he
hides behind the author and adds, “so Master Galterus says”, or
something of that sort. Gautier chiefly followed a “history” — mixed
with fable — by Curtius Rufus, a Roman author of the first century,
whose work was a source of a number of extravagant tales in the middle
ages. Special attention is paid to the presentation of Alexander —we see
how his pride grows as his career prospers. Alexanders saga can be looked
on as an exemplum illustrating that kind of excessive pride which the
Greeks called hubris.

The work that properly takes pride of place in thirteenth-century

Norwegian literature is Konungs skuggsjá, “the king’s mirror”. In spirit it
is closely allied to the ideals of chivalry and the literature that enshrined
them, which is why it is mentioned at this point. In the prologue the
writer says, “And the book is given a fair name, for it is called Speculum
regale. And it is called a ‘royal mirror’ because it deals with the manners
of kings as with those of other men, since indeed the king is highest by
title and it is his duty to follow the fairest customs, along with his court
and all in his service.”
INDIVIDUAL WORKS 335
In the middle ages the title speculum, “looking-glass”, betokened a
pedagogic work treating good manners and pious conduct. Such works
were especially composed to provide instruction for princes, a model for
them to follow — they were supposed to see themselves in the book as in
a mirror. There is every reason to believe that the Norwegian specimen
was written on the initiative of King Håkon the Old for the benefit of his
sons, Håkon and Magnus, born in 1232 and 1238 respectively. Its date
of composition is therefore likely to have been about 1250. It is in the
classic colloquy form of medieval school-books. A son comes to his wise
and experienced father to seek answers to his questions — and the
answers fill most of the book. In the prologue the author says he will
treat the “skills and manners” of four classes: merchants, kings “and
other great leaders and the men who follow and serve them”, clerics and
finally farmers. Only the first two classes are discussed in the book we
have, and it is thought that the author never finished it as he had
intended.
The son says that he most wants to be a merchant in his first years
and accordingly is given advice on the ways of responsible merchants
and information about the knowledge they need — including the course
of the heavenly bodies and the movements of the sea. Among this is a
description of three countries with whom the Norwegians had close
commerce, Iceland, Greenland and Ireland, and of the seas surrounding
them. The author knew a lot about Iceland and had much of interest to
tell, though he dwells most willingly on the marvellous features of the
country — volcanoes and hot springs are the chief of his Icelandic
memorabilia. He produces reasons for believing that the fires of hell burn
in Iceland rather than in Sicily (which is where they were located by
Gregory the Great and others): “I do not doubt,” he says, “that there
are more places of torment in Iceland than just in the fire, and that is
why in that country there is an oppressive burden of glaciers and frost
no less than of fire.” He devotes many lines to a description of whales
and other great fish in the Iceland and Greenland seas, most of it
accurate description but with some admixture of the fabulous, as when
he talks of the monster of the Greenland ocean called hafstrambi. His
account of Ireland on the other hand is largely on the fantastic wonders
of that country — but in this case the author relies on fabulous foreign
writings, not on eyewitness reports.
The real “king’s mirror” is in the second and larger part, where the
conduct of the king and his men are discussed. The author proffers
advice on dress, hair style and the fashion in beards, and every aspect of
336 SAGAS OF CHIVALRY

courtly behaviour. He makes a sapient comparison between the murrain

that can fall on cattle and crops and the canker that can come in the
body politic of a nation. Famine can be relieved by supplies from
neighbouring countries where conditions are better but “if the canker is
in the people and the customs of the country, then the greatest damage
results, for money can buy from other lands neither good customs nor
good sense once those that existed in a country are destroyed or spoilt.”
Members of the court also need to train themselves in the use of arms of
every kind. Some of the author’s information about arms and armour is
taken from foreign books and it is unlikely that all the armaments he
discusses were in use in Norway — some things indeed he appears to
have misunderstood. But in other respects the descriptions are in good
accord with what we know of life at the court of King Håkon and the
court regulations (Hirdskrå, p. 363) that were followed there.
The author of Konungs skuggsjá was an educated man, experienced in
affairs, just and devout. He makes extensive reference to the Bible and
other good books. The trinity of qualities essential for a king’s man
comprised sound sense, moral rectitude and polite manners. When God
was to judge Adam and Eve after the Fall, he turned for counsel to four
divine maidens, Truth, Peace, Justice and Mercy. As we saw, the book
is a source of welcome information about the physical world of Iceland
and Greenland, but it is preeminently valuable for the insight it gives us
into the state of Norwegian society in the mid-thirteenth century. The
author is not free of superstition, but that hardly affects the value of his
descriptions and his independent observations, for example of the
course of the sun and the length of the day in his own latitudes. His
illustration of the relationship of the earth to the sun takes the form of an
acute and entertaining parallel between them and an apple suspended
in front of a candle: “From that one can now observe that the globe of
the earth is spherical and is not brought equally near the sun in every
part. But where its curvature comes closest to the course of the sun, it is
there by far the hottest, and some of those lands which are directly
opposed to its unshielded rays are uninhabitable. But lands which are
placed where it approaches them with oblique light may well be lived in,
though some are hotter than others.”
Both the learned style and the courtly style find their echoes in the
diction of Konungs skuggsjá. To us it may seem ornate and rather
cumbrous, but in terms of its time, context and intention it must be
judged a brilliant performance. The vagaries of the winds of summer
and winter are described in passages of personification unique in Norse
INDIVIDUAL WORKS 337
literature. In summer the southwest wind is gentle “and as the day
declines he takes with cheerful countenance the temperate glow and
warm beams, shows for his part signs of reconciliation and concord, all
anger set aside, invites mighty waves and steep rollers to subside with
diminishing strength, and for full reconciliation with his neighbours he
calls forth fertile dews and blows softly with warm breath.” But when
winter comes, “he weeps in bitterness of heart with great rainstorms,
frowns above his tear-besprent beard, puffs out his cheeks under a thick-
clouded sky, blows furiously with chill rainsqualls, brings forth mightily
stout waves and deep-bosomed billows with boat-hungry breakers, and
invites all the gales of ocean to run wild in pugnacious rage.”

Icelandic sagas of chivalry

Norwegian riddara sögur soon became known in Iceland and they there
exerted a multifarious influence, as was noted earlier. They affected the
diction and even the matter of native stories, though in varying degree.
They were among the incentives which led to the recording of the
traditional tales that now began to be worked up as fornaldarsögur. As we
saw, works of related kind were themselves translated in Iceland,
though from Latin rather than French. The most significant result of
these literary imports from Norway was, however, the impetus they
gave to a new branch of saga-writing in the shape of riddara s'ögur home­
made in Iceland. These new stories proved extremely popular and led a
long existence, continuing to appeal to a wide audience to our own day,
not least in the form of rimur. More than thirty home-produced sagas of
chivalry are thought to be medieval in origin although, as was observed
earlier, there is often only a fine line to be drawn between them and
fornaldarsögur. Such stories were even made after the middle ages were
over. Rimur preserve a number of otherwise lost riddara sögur, just as they
do lost heroic sagas — Filipó saga, Mdbilar saga, Reinalds saga, for
example, are known in metrical form but not in prose.
These stories and their rimur offspring were not highly esteemed in the
days of the Enlightenment and later — as the history of their publication
shows. Only about half of them had actually appeared in print (often in
poor editions) when Agnete Loth edited most of the remainder, fifteen in
all, in five volumes issued in the years 1962—5 (Late Medieval Icelandic
Romances, Editiones Arnamagnæanæ, Series B 20—24). Each text there
is based on a single manuscript source, but the idea was first and
foremost to make these little-known texts available.
22 Eddas and Sagas
338 SAGAS OF CHIVALRY

The Icelandic riddara sögur are not legitimate offspring of their Norwe­
gian namesakes. They have much fomaldarsaga matter in them, which
blurs the distinction between the genres, as we have said more than
once. Märchen motifs and narrative elements of indeterminate origin are
also common in them. The influence from the religious learned style is
more conspicuous.
There are times when one suspects that a saga in this group may after
all be a version of a foreign original which is lost or at least undetected.
Magus saga, for example, makes use of some of the same material as is
found in the French Quatre fils Aymon, but the correspondence between
them is not close, and possibly the author of the saga knew the story
from hearsay. Magus saga is found in a manuscript of some age and is
generally reckoned one of the first home-made riddara sögur, perhaps
composed as early as c. 1300 or not long afterwards. A later version of
the saga is eked out with various tales, only tenuously connected with
the main plot. Another story which seems relatively ancient is Konráðs
saga keisarasonar, which contains a number of interesting narrative
motifs.
One distinction between riddara sögur and fornaldarsögur is made by
referring to the geographical location of the adventures. Cederschiöld
made a valuable edition of some of the sagas of chivalry in 1884 and
called it Fornsögur Subrlanda. The Icelandic riddara sögur are sometimes
set in western or southern Europe, sometimes in Byzantium or Egypt or
Ethiopia, sometimes even in India or other remote oriental lands. The
characters are often given exotic names, Kirjalax, Ermedon, Marmoria,
Filaktemia, but sometimes they sound more familiar, Konráð, Vil-
hjálmr and even Sigurðr. The narrative methods are like those
employed by writers of heroic sagas, the characters are ciphers and little
more than examples of good and bad. Battles are fought between
mounted hosts and knights joust with each other, but in single combat
various weapons proper to the Norse world are wielded. Love is a great
theme, in the manner of the continental tales, and is often the
mainspring of the action, but there is little sentiment and no attempt is
made to describe the personal feelings of the characters. The same may
be said of the marchen motifs. These sometimes resemble those found in
fomaldarsögur — wicked stepmothers, enchantments, hazardous quests,
heroes who start life as “coal-biters”, trolls and highwaymen. Others
belong rather with the tales of continental origin: magic carpets and
bewitched cloaks, charms and potions, and lions who give aid to heroes.
People nowadays set little store by these home-made tales of chivalry.
ICELANDIC SAGAS OF CHIVALRY 339
They suffer in comparison with other works and are overshadowed by
the classical sagas. Nevertheless they have their qualities and deserve
more respect and study than they have had. The threads of their
material often lead us out into the wide world, and they were the chief
original contribution to prose literature made by Icelanders in the late
middle ages. They delighted many generations, both in their everyday
garb of prose and in their Sunday-best in the rimur: popular literature
that really belonged to the people. To the Icelanders in their poverty
they revealed remote dream-worlds where pleasure and plenty reigned.
 Heroic sagas
Character and date
The term fornaldarsögur^ literally “tales of ancient times”, “tales of
antiquity”, is now often rendered “heroic sagas” in English. Their full
úÚz,fomaldars'ógurNorburlanday is taken from the first complete edition of
these tales, published by Carl Christian Rafn in 1829—30. Here the
term “antiquity” is used in a specific sense, of the period before the
colonisation of Iceland and before the time of Haraldr Fairhaired.
Historic times can be said to start with Haraldr, while before his day we
have the prehistoric or folklore age of Norway. The stories are de­
signated “of Scandinavia” because that is where most of them take
place, particularly in Norway; and even if some of them go beyond
Scandinavia in the usual limited sense of the word, still the outlook is
Scandinavian, the setting is the sphere of activity of Scandinavian
Vikings, for instance in the British Isles or Russia. By this means heroic
sagas are distinguished from wonder-tales or other fictions which take
place outside the Scandinavian ambience, namely the so-called riddara
sögur, the sagas of chivalry (see above). Translated sagas of chivalry
obviously differ from heroic sagas not only in scene but also in matter
and treatment; but sagas of chivalry put together in Iceland have many
motifs in common with heroic sagas, so there is often a fine line between
the two categories. It was to some extent a matter of chance what tales
were included in Rafn’s three volumes; but the genre has been defined
by reference to his edition ever since, and most of the fabulous stories set
in foreign lands which were not included in it have been classed as sagas
of chivalry. But it would be altogether more appropriate for instance to
class as heroic sagas tales such as those of Sigurðr fótr, Vilmundr
viðutan, Áli flekkr and Þjalar-Jón. Some written heroic sagas have been
completely lost, while the substance of some has been preserved in rimur.
342 HEROIC SAGAS

Examples are the tales of Hrómundr Gripsson (see below), Haraldr

Hringsbani, Andri and Ormarr.
On the other hand the older heroic sagas are related to those kings’
sagas which take place in the far past, such as Snorri’s Ynglinga
saga and also Skfóldunga saga, which no longer survives in its original
form. But in the view of contemporaries these sagas were valid autho­
rities, to be classed with other more veracious kings’ sagas written in the
latter part of the twelfth century and the earlier part of the thirteenth.
As long as the learned tendency prevailed in Icelandic historical writing
it was not thought proper to record the extravagant and fantastic heroic
sagas. But as the thirteenth century wore on, the outlook changed and
many factors combined to confer the accolade of written record on
heroic sagas. Histories of the Norwegian kings of well-attested periods
had gradually been written. The dry-as-dust scholarly attitude gave
way before a delight in amusing stories. Fictional tales from the
continent were transformed into Norse sagas. It is generally agreed that
the oldest heroic sagas were written down about the middle of the
thirteenth century or soon after. Still, it is necessary to scrutinise their
age more closely, and it is worth considering whether they might not be
altogether younger than has been supposed. Certainly those sagas of
Icelanders most closely related to the heroic sagas in matter and diction
are all dated to the fourteenth century. The oldest manuscript contain­
ing heroic sagas survives in two parts, in the Arnamagnæan collection in
Copenhagen and the Royal Library in Stockholm; some think that it
was written early in the fourteenth century, others date it to c. 1350.

Oral narrative
Sources and studies indicate that the older heroic sagas are largely
based on oral narrative. At first sight it might seem improbable that
these tales should depend on oral traditions about people and events
dating from five to seven centuries before the tales were written down.
But it should be observed that here we are dealing with a kind of oral
tradition different from that of accounts regarded as literally true.
Folktales can soar above the seas of time, they never die but take on
different forms in the memory and on the lips of many generations.
Reciters and authors have commonly realised that they were dealing
with fantasy, and accordingly treated their material with a free hand,
unshackled by the bonds of erudition.
ORAL NARRATIVE 343
Now for some examples to show that heroic sagas were recited to
entertain and to inform, before they were ever written.
1. In Porgils saga ok Hafliða there is a famous account of a marriage-feast
at Reykhólar on Barðaströnd in the summer of 1119. It gives some
description of the kind of entertainment provided: “Hrólfr of Skálm-
arnes told a tale of the Viking Hröngviðr and Óláfr liðsmanna-
konungr, of robbing Þráinn the berserk’s mound, and of Hrómundr
Gripsson — with many verses to it. This story was told to entertain King
Sverrir, and he reckoned such made-up stories the most amusing.
Nevertheless people trace their ancestry to Hrómundr Gripsson. Hrólfr
himself composed this story. The priest Ingimundr told the tale of Ormr
Barreyjarskáld with many verses and a flokkr composed by Ingimundr
himself at the end of the story; yet many well-informed people accept
this story as true.”
It is not known for sure when Porgils saga was written (cf. p. 189), but it
is not really a contemporary document; and also, it appears from the
words introducing this literary recital that some people did not believe
it: “Things are related which many now dispute and deny all knowledge
of; for many are ignorant of the truth, taking invention for truth and
truth for fabrication.” But Porgils saga is likely to be older than recorded
heroic sagas, so its author must have had some grounds for thinking that
such stories were recited extempore, in his own time at any rate, if not
earlier. The story told by Hrólfr of Skálmarnes was later written down,
but it has not survived. Before it was lost, the rimur of Hrómundr
Gripsson, the Griplur, were composed and from them the present
Hrómundar saga was made. It tells of the same people mentioned in the
Reykhólar narrative, and the material is the typical stuff of heroic sagas.
It has some relation to the Helgi lays of the Edda and also to narratives
by Saxo Grammaticus; the indications are that Hrólfr based his story on
ancient heroic lays. Ormr Barreyjarskáld has a few lines of verse
attributed to him in Snorri’s Edda but is otherwise unknown. It is
assumed that this story was also a heroic saga, but obviously there is no
proof.
2. On Hennøy in Nordfjord (Sogn) on the Norwegian coast there are
some runes inscribed on a big rock by the shore which are attributed to
the period around 1200. The main inscription runs thus: “Here the men
stayed who came from Giantland in a ship laden with gold, and it is
inside this rock.” The inscription points to the existence of oral tales
related to heroic sagas. Giantland (Risaland) is mentioned in Örvar-Odds
saga.
344 HEROIC SAGAS

3. Saxo Grammaticus, writing c. 1200, begins his History of the Danes in

remote antiquity, and the first nine books could be described as a series
of heroic sagas. Among his authorities he makes special mention of the
Icelanders, for he says they were particularly well up in ancient lore. He
states that he based a considerable part of his work on their narratives.
Later in Saxo’s text we hear of a certain Arnoldus Tylensis, i.e. Arnaldr
the Icelander, who was in the retinue of Archbishop Absalon and who
entertained King Valdemar with his stories. It is thought that the
person meant is Arnaldr Þorvaldsson, included in the list of poets in the
Edda, but otherwise unknown. The material in the first part of Gesta
Danorum shows kinship with the Icelandic heroic sagas, both directly
and indirectly. The narrative is composed of independent episodes, with
frequent reference to poetry which is freely put into the mouths of
characters in the story. The champion spends part of his youth among
trolls and is on good terms with the daughter of the house, who makes
him a tunic immune to the bite of weapons. A berserk lusts after a fair
maiden and challenges her father or guardian to a duel, but the
champion lays the berserk low. Occasionally Icelandic heroic sagas
treat of ancient Danish kings and heroes who also come into Saxo’s
work, e.g. Hrólfr kraki, Haraldr Wartooth and Starkaðr the Old. Some
things in these narratives are similar, some different, and the case is
ambiguous: the discrepancy could arise from divergent traditions that
existed in Iceland, or from different handling by the authors — Saxo on
the one hand, Icelanders on the other. But some of the stories Saxo tells
have never been recorded in Iceland, even though they may have
originated in Icelandic oral tradition.
Axel Olrik, who did much work on Saxo’s sources, assumed that he
had specifically Norwegian informants (as well as Danish). But this
conflicts with Saxo’s own testimony, as already mentioned. It is another
matter that Icelandic traditions were rooted in Norway, insofar as they
were genuine “tales of antiquity” — stories older than the settlement of
Iceland. Things that belong together are bound to match.
4. In the supplement to Skarðsárbók, derived for the most part from
Hauksbók, there is the tale of a Norwegian merchant who told the
history of King Vatnarr Vikarsson “whose howe lies to the south of
Hákonarhella”. Vatnarr later appeared to the narrator in a dream, and
rewarded him with gold from his howe for telling the story.
5. Finally we may notice the report in Sturlu þáttr of the occasion when
Sturla Þórðarson told the story of Huld on the ship of King Magnus the
Lawmender (see p. 194). The story is called “a troll-wife story” and was
ORAL NARRATIVE 345
apparently of the same type as such narratives in the heroic sagas. No
texts exist, and perhaps the story was never written down.

Poems
In the heroic sagas poetry has left various traces, both direct and
indirect. The point has already been made that some of the oldest sagas
were based on ancient heroic poetry. This can be seen both by compari­
son with the Poetic Edda and by the fact that separate verses or whole
sections of poems are included. Thus the eddaic poems about Sigurðr
Fáfnisbani and the Gjukungar are used in Vólsunga saga, and the very
ancient Hlöðskviða is recorded in the latter part of Hervarar saga.
But in these works there are also remnants of poetry that once
accompanied heroic sagas that were orally narrated: it is not very
ancient, but still it is apparently older than the written sagas. At this
point we may recall what is said in Porgils saga about the excellent verse-
sequence which the priest Ingimundr Einarsson composed as a conclu­
sion to the story of Ormr Barreyjarskáld. It is common enough in heroic
sagas for champions to call up times past in song, sometimes at the point
of death. Among such poems may be mentioned Víkarsbálkr in Gautreks
saga} Hrókskviða in Hdlfs saga, the death-song of Örvar-Oddr in his saga,
and the death-lay of Hjálmarr, preserved in both Hervarar saga and
Orvar-Odds saga. It is not unlikely that the sequence composed by the
priest Ingimundr was this kind of retrospect-poetry. The usual metre for
such poetry is fomyrðislag. An exception is the poem wrongly named
Krákumál, which ought to be called Ragnarsmal since it is put into the
mouth of Ragnarr loðbrók in the snake-pit; the metre here is what
Snorri calls háttlausa, dróttkvœtt but for the most part without internal
rhyme. Krákumál is also exceptional in that the author of Ragnars saga
either did not know it or failed to use it; on the other hand, the poem has
influenced the occasional verses in the saga, which shows that they are
older than the saga itself.
In some death-songs the aim is not to review the life and exploits of
the hero but rather to dwell on particular events in a lyrical and elegiac
strain. This is the purpose of the death-song of Hjálmarr in Örvar-Odds
saga (and in Hervarar saga), and of Hildibrandr in the Ásmundar saga
kappabana. These laments or elegies show kinship with some late eddaic
poems such as Helreid Brynhildar and Guðrúnarhvöt (in its latter part).
It may further be observed that Saxo got to know many heroic sagas
in similar form: a narrative guided and supported by verse, some of it in
346 HEROIC SAGAS

the form of very ancient heroic lays, some of it in the form of more recent
compositions. The latter were probably Icelandic, like the later eddaic
poems and the poetry in Icelandic heroic sagas. Saxo reworked these in
long-winded Latin hexameters; his translations retained only the sub­
stance of the original poems, not their form. The most striking of the old
heroic lays rewritten by Saxo is Bjarkamál. The opening verses are
preserved in Norse, and comparison shows how Saxo treated the
original. The so-called Ingjaldskvœbi, pieced together from various poems
or fragments found in Saxo’s work, was probably an old heroic lay.
Later still — and so perhaps Icelandic — is the death-song of Starkaðr
which Saxo likewise rewrites in his history.
The heroic sagas can be divided into three main categories according
to subject: heroic tales, Viking tales and romances. Heroic tales are
regarded as pre-Viking in origin. In subject they are allied to heroic
poems of the Edda and other ancient Germanic heroic lays, and they are
also interwoven with authentic early poetry of this kind, as has been
shown above. Viking tales have a setting on the verge of historic times,
in the early Viking Age, and bear close resemblance to episodes
belonging to the oldest period told of in kings’ sagas and sagas of
Icelanders. Romantic tales are for the most part free of any connection
with particular times, being the invention of authors who used diverse
motifs and models. This classification also accords in the main with the
age of the stories or the time of writing. Heroic tales were the first to be
written down, then the Viking tales, while the romances were composed
in the final stages of Old Icelandic literary history.

Individual sagas
Völsunga saga is considered by many people to be the oldest of all
heroic sagas, written about the middle of the thirteenth century or soon

The prose introducing Fáfnismál in the Poetic Edda says: “Sigurbr and Reginn
went up to Gnitaheiðr andfound there the track made by Fáfnir when he crawled to
water, Sigurbr dug a big pit on the pathway and got inside it. When Fáfnir crawled
off his gold, he breathed out venom and it streamed past over Sigurbr’s head. But
when Fdfnir crawled over the pit, Sigurbr stabbed him to the heart with his sword.
Fáfnir writhed and lashed with head and tail.” The picture shows part of the
carving on the church portal at Hylestad in Setesdal, Norway, dated to thefirst half
of the thirteenth century. Photo: Universitetets oldsaksamling, Oslo.
348 HEROIC SAGAS

afterwards. This dating may need to be revised. There is nothing in its

content to attest such great age, while the style and diction indicate a
later period, and the treatment links it with later stories of other kinds,
as has been suggested above.
The greater part of Volsunga saga is a summary of the heroic poems
recorded — with interspersed prose passages — in the latter part of the
Codex Regius (pp. 55 ff.). Allusion is made in Snorri’s Edda and in
Norna-Gests þáttr to a saga of Sigurðr Fáfnisbani, and some scholars
assume that this refers to a written saga which was then used in Vólsunga
saga and also in Snorri’s Edda and the Codex Regius collection. If this is
the case, then the poems concerned with Sigurðr would have originally
been written down as quotations in the saga and extracted from there in
the eddaic collection. The prose passages in the Codex Regius, which
are especially numerous and rich in material in this part of the manu­
script, would accordingly be remnants of the lost Sigurðar saga Fdfnis-
bana. Howsoever, the last poems of the Codex Regius, which are mostly
free from interspersed prose, cannot possibly have been adopted from a
saga. When the poems diverge, as Atlakvida and Atlamdl do, the author
fuses them together, making his own choice of what seems appropriate.
The author of Volsunga saga had the eddaic collection of poems
complete and unmutilated; consequently a chief merit of the saga is that
it has preserved, better than any other source, the content of those
poems that occupied the present lacuna in the Codex Regius.
Unhappily, only a few stanzas of the lost poems are incorporated in the
saga, and though it gives the gist of the contents it cannot of course be
any substitute for the poems themselves. Various scholars have tried to
arrive at some idea of the “poems of the lacuna” with the help of
Volsunga saga. The results vary widely and altogether the attempt must
be considered a fruitless enterprise.
At the beginning of Volsunga saga an account is given of Sigurðr’s
father King Sigmundr and others of his kin, material not represented in
any other source. Those who believe in a lost Sigurdar saga suppose it was
the source of this information. But there is no unambiguous evidence of
the existence of this saga, and moreover this opening part of Volsunga
saga does not refer to Sigurðr and has little connection with the following
narratives about him (derived from eddaic poems). Some scholars also
assume that a lost poem (or poems) was used in this part. In this
exordium there are various motifs that belong to romance rather than
to heroic poetry: an apple cures a woman of infertility, labour pains
INDIVIDUAL SAGAS 349
continue for six years, men turn into wolves, a leaf has power to heal as
soon as it is laid on a wound.
In the description of Sigurðr in Völsunga saga there is perceptible
influence from Pidriks saga. Some believe that this chapter is interpolated
in Völsunga saga, but there seems no need to assume this; unusual style
can be explained by the impact of a new source. A more likely
explanation has more than once been suggested: that the example of
Pidriks saga, in which ancient Germanic heroic tales were written up
from German poems, moved the author of Völsunga saga to make a
comparable saga from heroic poems extant in Norse/Icelandic.

Another saga demonstrably based on ancient poems is Hervarar saga

(also called Heidreks saga, or in full Hervarar saga ok Heidreks konungs). It is
not built on poems in the Edda (Codex Regius) but on verse not
otherwise preserved; yet it is some compensation that a great deal is
incorporated in the saga and has survived in this way.
Hervarar saga covers the life-span of four generations of mighty heroes
who perform great deeds and have no mind to die in their beds: when
there is no help for it, even close kinsmen are put to the sword. The
connecting thread is the name Angantýr, borne by one leading member
of the family after another, and also the sword Tyrfingr which was
renowned in ancient story. It was the sharpest of swords, “and each
time it was drawn, light gleamed from it like a ray of the sun. It could
never be unsheathed without causing the death of a man and it should
always be sheathed with warm blood on it. No living thing, man or
beast, could see another day after a wound from it, whether the wound
were greater or less. It had never failed in a stroke, nor ever stopped
until it entered the ground, and the man who took it into battle would
win if it was wielded.”
Arngrimr was an outstanding Viking who had twelve sons, Angantýr
being the eldest and boldest, Hjörvarðr the second; all of them were
berserks and great champions. One Yuletide Eve when the chieftain’s
toast was drunk Hjörvarðr swore an oath that he would win the
daughter of Ingjaldr king of Sweden, the maid renowned through all
lands for beauty and accomplishment, and would have no other woman.
Next spring the brothers set off for Uppsala, and Hjörvarðr made his
offer of marriage before the king. Then Hjálmarr the High-hearted
stepped forward and reminded the king of the great support he had
given him in battle and conquest. He asked the king to grant him his
350 HEROIC SAGAS

daughter — “and it is more fitting that you should grant this request to
me than to these berserks, who have done nothing but harm in your
realm and in that of many other kings.” Hjörvarðr then challenged
Hjálmarr to single combat south on Sámsey, and at the appointed time
Hjálmarr arrived with Oddr the Far-traveller, who was called Örvar-
Oddr, Arrow-Oddr. Angantýr had the sword Tyrfingr and Oddr had a
tunic immune to the bite of weapons. Hjálmarr did battle against
Angantýr, and Oddr fought against his eleven brothers. In the end
Oddr laid all the brothers low and Hjálmarr killed Angantýr, but
himself suffered sixteen mortal wounds. Before his death he uttered his
death-song with Oddr as his audience, ending with this verse:
H rafn flýg r austan A raven flies from the east
a f hám meiði, o ff a tall tree,
flýgr honum ep tir follows him flying
örn í sinni, an eagle in com pany:
þeim g e f ek erni it is the last eagle
efstum b ráðir, I shall give carrion to,
sá m un á blóði it is m y life-blood
bergja minu. this one w ill taste.

When the king of Sweden’s daughter heard this she was so grief-
stricken that she killed herself. Angantýr and his brothers were buried
with all their weapons in a howe on Sámsey.
The next part of the saga tells of Angantýr’s daughter Hervor, and the
first portion of it is based on the poem called Hervararkviða> often titled
the “Waking of Angantýr” in English. She was a valkyrie who took on
the garb and weapons of a man. She went to Sámsey and asked her
father for the sword Tyrfingr; their exchange of words at the entrance to
the howe occupies the main part of the poem. Afterwards she went to
Guðmundr of Glasisvellir and married his son called Höfundr. Their
sons were Angantýr and Heiðrekr. They were very different in nature.
Angantýr was like his father, well-disposed to every man, but Heiðrekr
did more harm than Angantýr did good, and Hervor loved him dearly.
In the end Heiðrekr killed his brother by throwing a stone at malicious
random, and then his father drove him out.
Then begins the third section of the saga, which concerns Heiðrekr.
He defends the realm of King Haraldr of Reiðgotaland, marries his
daughter and is given control of half the kingdom. Later he does battle
with his father-in-law and kills him, and his wife is so infuriated that she
hangs herself in the hall of the guardian spirit. They had a son called
INDIVIDUAL SAGAS 351
Angantýr, and Heiðrekr had another son, called Hlöðr, by the daughter
of Humli king of the Huns.
As he grew old, Heiðrekr became a great lord and a sage. He entered
into a riddle-contest with a man called Gestumblindi, who was in fact
Óðinn in disguise. The riddles of Gestumblindi are the oldest example
of this kind of contest of wits in Icelandic. There is a riddle to each
stanza, some few in the metre fornyrðislag or a variant of it, but most in
the metre Ijóðaháttr:
H verjar eru þæ r brúðir W h a t ladies are they
er ganga í brim skerjum that walk the fretted rocks
ok eiga eptir firði för? and on the firth print their path?
h arðan beð hafa A hard bed they have
þæ r in ar hvítfÖlduðu konur those white-kerchiefed women,
ok leika í logni fátt. in a dead calm they dance little.

For a long time Heiðrekr solves every riddle, until at last Gestumblindi
asks, echoing Vafþrúðnismál:
Segðu þat þá hinzt Say now last o f all
e f þú ert h verju m konungi vitra ri: if you are wisest o f kings:
H vat m ælti Ó ðinn W h a t was it Ó ðinn said
i eyra B aldri in B a ld r’s ear
áð r hann væ ri á bál hafiðr? before he was raised on the pyre?

“You alone know that, vile creature,” replied Heiðrekr. He drew

Tyrfingr and struck at Óðinn, but he changed into a hawk and flew
away. Óðinn laid a curse on Heiðrekr, that he should meet his death at
the hands of the basest thralls, and this came about soon afterwards.
Angantýr avenged his father sooner than expected, and then held a
great funeral feast in his honour. Next begins the fourth part of the saga,
telling of conflict between the brothers which ends with Angantýr
slaying Hlöðr. This part of the saga is also based on a poem, the archaic
Hlöðskviða, already discussed above (see pp. 73-76). At the end of the
saga come short accounts of Angantýr’s descendants, and lines of
descent are drawn to Ragnarr loðbrók; reference is made to the saga of
Ragnarr and to “kings’ sagas” (probably meaning Skfóldunga saga).
Finally, from an unknown source, there is a survey of the kings of
Sweden down to Filippus (died c. 1118) and Ingi (died c. 1130), sons of
Hallsteinn.
Hervarar saga is in Hauksbók, which was written soon after 1300. Here
the saga is much altered and abridged, but a generally better text
352 HEROIC SAGAS

survives in other manuscripts. There were several intermediate copies

between Hauksbók and the original version, and it is generally thought
that the saga was composed about the middle of the thirteenth century
or soon after. This and Vólsunga saga can be regarded as the most notable
of the heroic sagas. Admittedly the work splits into several parts very
loosely held together. The subject-matter is fantastic, the treatment
stereotyped, and the characterisation slight, features which are shared
by all heroic sagas. But individual episodes are exciting and in some
ways unusual. The chief value lies in the poetry which forms the kernel
of each separate section, in particular the riddles of Heiðrekr and
Hlöðskviða. These poems are indeed incomplete and corrupt, but they
have gleams of fine poetry which light our way into a very ancient
culture.

Hrólfs saga kraka is set in the heroic age; it is estimated that Hrólfr and
his nearest associates lived in the sixth century. This group is found in
ancient heroic poems: the English Beowulf and Widsid, and the Norse
Bjarkamál (which Saxo paraphrases in Latin) and also in Skfóldunga saga,
which survives in the Latin paraphrase of Arngrimur the Learned (p.
163). There are various echoes of Skfóldunga saga in the works of Snorri
Sturluson, his Edda and Ynglinga saga, and it is thought that Hrólfs saga
was also derived in some sense from Skfóldunga saga.
But Hrólfs saga in its extant form is late; it can hardly have been
composed before the late fourteenth century and is preserved only in
paper copies of later times. It looks as if the old tales have changed and
faded. The saga splits into a large number of more or less independent
parts, beginning with an account of Hrólfr’s ancestors and the origin of
his chief warriors; these parts carry different titles in manuscripts and
editions: Fróða þáttr, Helga þáttr, Svipdags þáttr, Böðvars þáttr, Hjalta þáttr.
The most famous of all the royal champions was Bjarki, who was known
as Böðvar-Bjarki because of his valour (bbd = “battle”). The Bjarkamál
were named after him, but in the saga he is wrongly called Böðvarr.
Hrólfr himself plays little part in the saga until it is well advanced. He
is overshadowed by his champions, just as Charlemagne is in the
sequence of stories named after him. Hrólfr was the incestuous offspring
of King Helgi of Denmark and his daughter Yrsa, who later married
King Aðils of Uppsala. Aðils treacherously killed his father-in-law
Helgi, and Hrólfr then became king in Denmark and held court at
Hleiðra (Lejre), named Hleiðargarðr in the story. The latter part of the
saga tells of two great events in which he was concerned: his journey to
INDIVIDUAL SAGAS 353
Uppsala to claim his inheritance from King Aðils, and his final battle
against his sister Skuld and her husband Hjörvarðr. There is a briefer
and more elegant account of the Uppsala expedition in Snorri’s Edda.
Aðils plans to destroy Hrolfr by trickery and sorcery, but he escapes
with the help of his mother Yrsa, and his flight is renowned because he
scattered gold over the plains of the River Fýri (modern Swedish
Fyrisån) to delay Aðils and his men. After that he lived in peace for a
long time. Hjörvarðr was a king in subjection to Hrolfr who was
required to pay him tribute, which Skuld found hard to bear. She was of
elf-descent on her mother’s side and a mighty sorceress, as King Hrolfr
and his champions found to their cost. She assembled an evil rabble and
attacked and killed Hrolfr with all his champions in the famous battle
called Skuldarbardagi after her.
Both these episodes, the Uppsala expedition and the battle against
Skuld, are derived from Skjöldunga saga but are greatly altered and
amplified to suit the taste of a later day. Some scholars think that an
older and better Hrólfs saga once existed and is now lost, but this cannot
be verified. The rimur of Bjarki, composed in the fifteenth century,
suggest a different recension from the one now extant, but it is by no
means certain that this was closer to the original except in a few details.

Another heroic saga that is in some way derived from Skjöldunga saga
is the so-called Sögubrot a f fomkonungum, “Fragment of the history of
ancient kings”, surviving in a manuscript attributed to the early thir­
teenth century. The beginning and end are missing, and there is a
lacuna in the middle. The second part of the Fragment (after the lacuna)
tells of the battle of Brávellir, famous in ancient story. The combatants
were King Haraldr Wartooth of Denmark and Hringr (Sigurðr hringr
in the saga) of Sweden. The outcome of the struggle was the fall of
Haraldr and the accession of Sigurðr to the kingdoms of Sweden and
Denmark. Many champions on both sides are named, and it is clear that
the author drew on an ancient list of champions in a lay which Saxo also
knew and used (the Lay of Bravellir). It was put into the mouth of
Starkaðr the Old, the mightiest champion in the battle. The Brávík of
the saga is on the coast of Östergötland (Bråvik), and the battlefield
would have been about where the town of Norrköping now stands.

Noma-Gestsþáttr, like Volsunga sagay is put together from written heroic

lays, but alongside these it uses written heroic sagas. So it cannot be
very old, and is generally assigned to the early part of the fourteenth
23 Eddas and Sagas
354 HEROIC SAGAS

century. A casual attitude to the subject also suggests a late date: the
author regards heroic tales as fun, and there is a hint of mockery of the
ancient heroes. One example is the contest between Sigurðr Fáfnisbani
and Starkaðr Stórverksson, persons the author is pleased to bring
together. Sigurðr struck Starkaðr’s bottom teeth with his sword-hilt, so
that he lost two molars; one of them was used on a bell-rope in Denmark
“and it weighs seven ounces”.
Norna-Gestr had lived for three hundred years when he came to King
Óláfr Tryggvason in Trondheim and entertained the courtiers with tales
and poems. Predictably, he was able to tell of many things, since he had
been contemporary with the most renowned heroes of antiquity. Gestr
got his nickname from three norns who came to his cradle and foretold
his fate. The youngest of the norns felt herself slighted, and predicted
that the boy should live no longer than the candle burned that was lit
beside the cradle. But in fact this fate resulted in a long life, for another
older sibyl immediately put out the candle, and it was preserved
unburnt. Gestr was baptised at the court of King Óláfr, then lit his
candle and brought his long life to an end.

The sagas that have now been briefly described and classed as heroic
sagas are all adulterated to some extent with other narrative matter and
literary motifs, although they are largely based on antique poems and
heroic tales. There is evidence of ancient heroic matter in a few more
sagas, although in their present form they should properly be classed as
romances.

Hálfs saga ok Hálfsrekka preserves the ancient tradition that Hálfr was
attacked by fire, attested by the kenning “slayer of Hálfr” (= fire) in the
Ynglingatal of Þjóðólfr of Hvin. Apart from this, the saga is not thought
to contain much in the way of heroic material, particularly because it
has various romance motifs, many of them nonetheless striking. There
is the merman who laughs when a man strikes his dog, because he
knows that the dog will thereafter save his master’s life. Óðinn puts life
into a brew with his spittle, and claims in return what lies between the
vat and Queen Geirhildr, i.e. her unborn child. A mountain in the shape
of a man rises from the sea and prophesies in verse. King Hjörleifr heats
a spear in the fire and plunges it into a giant’s eye: a distorted version of
the story of Polyphemus.
This miscellaneous narrative matter and more besides seems to
indicate that the author has picked up his story from here and there.
INDIVIDUAL SAGAS 355
There are some occasional verses or fragments in the saga, as well as
three longer poems attributed respectively to Hálfr’s warriors Innsteinn,
Útsteinn and Hrókr the Black. The poems constitute the real essence of
the saga, and though their age varies, they are all generally reckoned to
be older than the prose. Conversely it has been assumed that an older
recension of Hálfs saga generated some of the poems in the latter part of
the thirteenth century. This was probably the saga Hróks ins svarta which
is mentioned in Geirmundar þáttr heljarskinns (Sturlunga saga I, p. 7) and
which seems to have provided material for this þáttr as well as for Sturla
Þórðarson’s version of the Landnámabók.
The son of Hálfr was father of the Hámundr and Geirmundr who
both took land in Iceland. The last chapter of the saga tells of their birth
and early years. The queen their mother thought them extremely ugly
and exchanged them for a servant’s son, but the poet Bragi revealed the
truth. Landndma and the tale of Geirmundr heljarskinn in Sturlunga saga
have the same account, but the relation between these texts and Hálfs
saga needs to be studied, along with much else that bears upon this
remarkable story.

Gautreks saga, also known as Gjafa-Refs saga, is entitled “a merry tale”,

which is a fair designation. The saga exists in two recensions, a shorter
and a longer one. The birth of King Gautrekr is described at the
opening of the saga, to some extent in the typical romance manner; but
nevertheless the work contains various independent stories worthy of
note. King Gauti the father of Gautrekr came upon some strange people
living in a forest who observed the custom of throwing themselves from
a high rock when age overtook them or life became insupportable, often
for no good reason. The practice was called at ganga fyrir Ættemisstapa,
uto go over the Lineage-cliff”.
In the last part of the saga we hear of Refr Rennisson who was called
Gift-Refr. He began as a backward child, who was driven from home by
his father. He took a fine ox with him, and brought it to Ja rl Neri as a
gift. The jarl was the most miserly of men, and gave him nothing but a
whetstone in return. But with it went the ja rl’s advice which constantly
stood Refr in good stead, and his whetstone became the source of
increasingly rich gifts. In the end Refr won the daughter of King
Gautrekr and the dominion of his protector Jarl Neri.
Between these parts —which are connected, however tenuously — the
longer recension of the saga has a completely unrelated interpolation
about Starkaðr and Vikarr and their warrior prowess. This chapter is
356 HEROIC SAGAS

based on a poem in fornyrdislag which has been called Víkarsbálkr and is

put in the mouth of Starkaðr. Among other things it contains the
remarkable account of how Þórr and Óðinn determined the destiny of
Starkaðr, and of the infamous way in which he killed his foster-brother
Vikarr. The poem is evidently much older than the saga, and is
generally assigned to the eleventh century. This is the one Lay of Starkabr
extant in the vernacular, but Saxo has poems that he puts into the
mouth of Starkaðr (Ingjaldskvœði and others), and it is thought that he
paraphrased more such in prose.

Viking tales are distinguished from heroic tales inasmuch as they take
place later in time — if any chronology can be applied to them at all.
Occasionally people are mentioned who are known from other and more
credible stories, and genealogies sometimes show more or less when the
stories were supposed to take place. But Viking tales are preponderantly
characterised by their subject-matter, although there are no sharp lines
to divide them from heroic tales on the one hand and from romances on
the other. Their themes are seldom tragic as in heroic tales. The Viking,
generally of Norwegian or occasionally Danish origin, sails to Sweden,
north to the White Sea, west to Ireland. He fights by land and sea,
against other Vikings and as often as not against trolls and all kinds of
monsters, and has the upper hand in all trials. His career is a series of
detached minor incidents, larded with motifs from southern romance.

Orvar-Odds saga has long been classed as one of the oldest heroic sagas,
and is indeed listed in the catalogue of books owned by Bishop Árni
Sigurðsson of Bergen (died 1314). The saga exists in recensions of
various length, and has been progressively spun out with various marchen
motifs and monster-tales. The shortest version and the one closest to the
original is in Perg. 4:o nr 7 in the Royal Library, Stockholm, written in
the mid-fourteenth century. It has been printed several times, as for
instance in the second volume of Altnordische Sagabibliothek (ed. R.C.
Boer, 1892), but the latest and longest recension is the one printed in
complete collections offornaldarsdgur, and most Icelandic readers know
Orvar-Odds saga only in this much amplified version.
Oddr was the son of Grimr Shaggycheek and Lofthæna, and he grew
up at a place which has been identified as Berriod on Jaeren in
Southwest Norway. A wise woman foretold that the skull of the horse
Faxi would cause his death. Oddr later killed the horse and buried it
deep in the earth. Thus the horse in fact ensured long life for him, as the
INDIVIDUAL SAGAS 357

Runic inscription from Hennøy, Norway>dating from about 1200. The inscription
points to the existence o f oral tales related to heroic sagas: “Here the men stayed who
came from Giantland in a ship laden with gold, and it is inside this rock. ” Norges
innskrifter med de yngre runer IV.

unburnt candle did for Norna-Gestr. As a further guarantee of

invincibility and battle-luck, his father gave him arrows which always
hit the mark and flew back to the bow, and an Irish princess gave him a
silken tunic immune to the bite of weapons. Now he could safely wander
the world and contend against superior force, both doughty Vikings and
malevolent beings armed with supernatural powers. He went to the
White Sea and robbed a rich grave-mound, and to Ireland where he
married Ölvör the fine needlewoman. He even went as far as Palestine,
and on the way was baptised by Abbot Hugo in Sicily. In Bjálkaland he
fought great battles, but most famous of all was the battle that he and
Hjálm arr the High-hearted waged against Angantýr and his brothers on
Sámsey. When Oddr had lived three hundred years he was voyaging
past his youthful haunts on Jæren. He landed, and where there had been
358 HEROIC SAGAS

fair slopes the ridge was eroded. Oddr stumbled over the exposed skull
of old Faxi, when a serpent darted out of the skull and inflicted a mortal
sting. Oddr was cremated on Jæren, as the wise woman had predicted.
Some people believe that Örvar-Odds saga was based on very old oral
traditions about this antique Norwegian Viking. As corroboration they
point out that he appears in other works. The Lay of Brdvellir mentions
him, both in the Fragment and in Saxo’s work, where he is connected
with Jæren; in another passage Saxo speaks of King Oddr ofjæren, who
may be the same person. It is also maintained that the account of the
battle on Sámsey in Hervarar saga is based on oral traditions unrelated to
Örvar-Odds saga. But even if some tales of Örvar-Oddr were current, the
written saga — this complex assembly of multifarious Viking stories and
southern romances — is more like the work of an Icelandic author at his
desk than the product of Norwegian oral tradition.
Örvar-Odds saga has always been very popular in Iceland, as may be
seen for instance from the large number of manuscripts and their
variations. To be sure, Oddr is invincible and the outcome is predeter­
mined in every battle, the descriptions are superficial and the variety
restricted, as is usual in these stories. But nevertheless there is enough
invention to arouse expectation and keep it alive to the end of the saga.
Oddr is the living image of a true Viking. He is an agile fighter and
fearless in all trials. He readily accepts the conditions of partnership
with Hjálmarr the High-hearted: never to eat raw flesh or drink blood,
never to rob merchants or farmers and never to force women as captives
to their ships. He has been accepted as the pattern of a man who attacks
all the evils of life, pursues monsters and destroys them at every
opportunity. He refuses the patronage of Óðinn and dies a true Chris­
tian. He says his body is to be laid in a sarcophagus and burnt, “because
he did not want heathens to have disposal of it”.

Ragnars saga loðbrókar exists in full form in only one manuscript, where
it serves as the continuation of Vólsunga saga. The stories are connected
insofar as Aslaug, the daughter of Sigurðr Fáfnisbani and Brynhildr,
becomes the second wife of Ragnarr. The particular chapter linking the
stories tells how Heimir of Hlymdalir, foster-father of Áslaug, travelled
with the child in his harp-case to Norway, where an old man and
woman murdered him for gain and reared Áslaug, whom they called
Kráka. It is usual to regard this chapter as the beginning of Ragnars saga,
and this is in keeping with the subject-matter, since Áslaug much more
than her husband can be called the chief character of the saga. As Kráka
INDIVIDUAL SAGAS 359
the peasant’s daughter she touches the heart of the famous campaigner
and sagely surmounts the trials he lays upon her. As the valkyrie
Randalin she directs the fourfold expedition of her sons to Sweden to
avenge her stepsons. This saga has more varied characterisation than
usual, which raises the narrative above the normal monotony of the
heroic sagas.
As well as Áslaug, her sons make their mark — the sons of Loðbrók —
especially ívarr called the Boneless, who can meet all dangers and from
time to time uses stratagems well known in romance or antique litera­
ture. When he plans to gain a foothold in England, for example, he
employs the same trick as the princess Dido in days of old when she got
the land to build Carthage. But the city that ívarr founded was called
London, “the largest and finest city in all the lands of the North”. So it is
not for nothing that another shorter saga related to Ragnars saga is
named after his sons and called Ragnarssona þáttr. It seems to depend on
an older lost recension of Ragnars saga as well as on Skjöldunga saga and
perhaps other sources.
But although Ragnarr loðbrók is almost brushed aside in the saga
about him and although Icelandic traditions about him were apparently
wearing thin at the beginning of the fourteenth century, there is no need
to doubt that he and his sons actually lived. There is information about
them in reliable sources, including some from England, on account of
the raids they made there. These men must have lived in the ninth
century. The poem Krákumál, already mentioned, was doubtless com­
posed in the twelfth century. Ari the Wise dated the start of the
settlement of Iceland in relation to the time “when ívarr son of Ragnarr
loðbrók put to death St Edmund king of the English”. Also, the poet
Sighvatr Þórðarson had heard how ívarr killed another English king by
cutting the blood-eagle on his back:

O k Ellu bak A nd on E lla’s back

at let hinn er sat ív a rr, who was
ív a r r ara m aster o f Y ork,
J ó rv ík skorit. had an eagle cut.

Finally, and briefly, just a few of the later heroic sagas may be
mentioned, those that may be called romances.

Friðþjófs saga hins frœkna owes its modern reputation chiefly to the
accomplished rendering of the story by the Swedish poet Tegnér at the
360 HEROIC SAGAS

beginning of the nineteenth century. The subject was a gift to a

romantic poet and his readers: a miniature Tristram-tale diverted into
the current of the Norse heroic saga. Friðþjófr and Ingibjörg are lovers
from childhood but are prevented from marrying by the pride of her
wicked brothers. She is married off to an old king, Hringr; Friðþjófr
arrives in disguise, and spends the winter in high favour at court. He
convinces the king of his strength and chivalry, so that Hringr in a
death-bed scene bestows both kingdom and queen upon him. Thus the
saga ends in benign romance style, and indeed the characters have all
the cast of romance: the brothers are altogether bad, the lovers chaste,
and the aged king both wise and benevolent. When the king puts his
winter-guest to the proof, Friðþjófr hurls away the sword so as not to fall
into temptation. Ingibjörg takes all that comes, quietly and patiently.
She is a gentle swan-like beauty of the same type as Helga the Fair, and
indeed the influence of Gunnlaugs saga is evident, although the stories end
differently.
Friðþjófs saga stands out from other heroic sagas because its structure
is all of a piece and the narrative rapid and compressed, so that much
material is covered in a few words; this also is due to influence from
Gunnlaugs saga or other íslendinga sögur. Another excellence of the story is
the verse put into the mouths of Friðþjófr and other heroes. Andreas
Heusler was of the opinion that in this saga the lighter style of Icelandic
occasional verse in simple metre reached its peak.

Ásmundar saga kappabana tells of the half-brothers Ásmundr and Hildi-

brandr. They fought a battle which ended in Ásmundr killing his
brother. Saxo has the story in a similar form but with different names. A
few verses are included from the death-song of Hildibrandr, and their
content agrees rather more closely with Saxo’s rendering than with the
prose of the saga. Among other things it emerges there that Hildibrandr
had killed his own son. This fact and the name of the warrior point
towards the German Hildebrandslied, which lacks the ending, as has
already been said (p. 31).

Hrólfs saga Gautrekssonar is extant in two recensions of differing length.

The longer one is printed in most editions, the shorter only once (ed. F.
Detter, 1891). Nevertheless the shorter recension exists in older manu­
scripts and is regarded as more authentic in various ways. As the name
indicates, the saga is associated with Gautreks saga: the chief hero, King
INDIVIDUAL SAGAS 361
Hrólfr, is Gautrekr’s son. But otherwise Hrólfs saga is of a totally
different stamp, a typical example of Viking story or romance, which in
many ways resembles Örvar-Odds saga. Among foreign motifs may be
instanced the tale of Polyphemus and also a fight against a lion,
supposed to take place in England.

G'óngu-Hrólfs saga has nothing but the name in common with the
mighty Viking leader who subdued Normandy in the early tenth
century. The parents of this Hrólfr were Sturlaugr the Strenuous and
Ása the Beautiful. The saga is one of the longest heroic sagas, copious in
material and yet pretty consistent in pattern. It is patently a literary
creation, which is conventionally located in the world of Icelandic sagas
and partially adapted to it. Two well-known romance motifs may be
mentioned: the search of the hero for a fair maiden with a hair of her
head as the clue; and the account of a faithless servant who deceives his
master and treats him infamously.

Áns saga bogsveigis is one of the better of the late heroic sagas; it is
entertaining and well told. As his nickname indicates, Án was the most
skilled of archers, but in course of time he meets his match in the art,
namely his son Þórir Long-leg. A wrestling match between father and
son ends less terribly than is usual in heroic lays and sagas. The son
displays the fine ring which Án gave him before his birth, and so all
turns out for the best.

Ketils saga hangs and Grims saga lobinkinna tell of the grandfather and
father of Örvar-Oddr, and for this reason they are sometimes placed in
front of his saga in manuscripts. But actually they were written quite a
bit later, and have little that is original. The former takes its material
principally from older heroic sagas, the latter draws on romances (with
trolls, enchantment and the like).

Bósa saga is especially well-known for some obscene passages telling of

the hero’s dealings with three farmer’s daughters; yet it is uncertain how
much of this was originally part of the saga, since it is cut or expanded in
manuscripts according to the taste of the copyist. Older than the saga
itself is the string of curses which the foster-mother of Bósi declaims over
his father, King Hringr. This Busluban, “imprecation of Busla”, is taken
as notable evidence of ancient incantations or augury; it recalls among
362 HEROIC SAGAS

other things Vólsungakviða and Skírnismál (pp. 51 and 38), and there is a
related recital of curses in Saxo’s work reproducing a series known to
him in the vernacular.

S'örla þáttr, extant in Flateyjarbók, tells of the everlasting battle of the

Hjaðningar, a theme widely current in ancient lays and stories, includ­
ing Bragi’s Ragnarsdrápa and Snorri’s Skáldskaparmál. Soria saga sterka, a
very late and derivative heroic saga, also takes its name from this hero.

Hdlfdanar saga Eysteinssonar is one of those monotonous accounts of

battle and more battle, yet sparks of poetry come through; for instance,
when Hálfdan sees the ungloved hand of the fair lady with its fine ring:
“You shall seek and yearn for this hand with its ring and glove, and find
no peace until the one who withdrew it replaces it as willingly in your
palm.” If this were more skilfully sustained, it would make a pleasing
exemplum of patient love finally rewarded.

Yngvars saga víðfórla stands on the margin between heroic sagas and
kings’ sagas, since the action takes place no earlier than the eleventh
century and deals to some extent with historical people and events.
Ingvarr was a Swedish warrior who made a famous expedition through
Russia to Serkland. In Sweden there are some thirty rune-stones erected
in memory of men who fell “in the East with Ingvarr”.
 Jónsbók
The work that was read and copied more often than any other in the
middle ages in Iceland - and for centuries afterwards too - was not a
book of sagas or poems but a book of laws: Jónsbók. This was a new code
compiled at the instigation of King Magnus Hákonarson, who, on the
death of his father in 1263, became the sole ruler of Norway and her
satellites. Håkon the Old had energetically extended the power of the
Norwegian crown and succeeded in pacifying both Norway and Iceland
after a long period of internal strife. Magnús continued his father’s
policy and reorganised his administration in tune with the times. He
revised local laws in Norway and ultimately produced a national code;
he made new municipal laws (Bœjarlóg), and a new code for his officers
of state and the retainers bound to him by personal allegiance
(Hirdskrå). He attempted to introduce a new ecclesiastical code as well,
but opposition from clerics, headed by the archbishop, kept him short of
his goal. Finally, he sent two new law-books to the Icelanders, with a
mere ten years between them.
Norway was divided into four principal law-provinces: Frostaþing
(chiefly Trøndelag and regions north of there), Gulaþing (west-coast
Norway), Eiðsivaþing (south central Norway), and Borgarþing (the
Oslofjord region). (The last two lay close together and are sometimes
counted a single province.) From ancient times these different parts had
had different laws, and many of their provisions were now out of date.
In the 1260s King Magnus first had the laws of each province revised
separately, but none of these revisions is now extant in its original form.
He then sent a new law-book to Iceland, known as Járnsíða, doubtless
because iron was a feature of the binding. Its text is believed to have
been based on the lost revision of Gulaþingslög or Frostaþingslög, though
some sections were derived from the old native laws of Iceland (Grågås,
pp. 117 ff).
Járnsíða met with opposition at the Althing of 1271, chiefly because it
364 JÓXSBÓK

Crime and punishment. The section on theft in Jónsbók includes this regulation:
“I f a th ief is discovered, the stolen goods are to be tied to his back in the commune
where he is arrested and he is to be taken in bonds to the official . . . and the official
is to fin d a man to execute him and every th ief likewise. " The illustrations are from
AM 147 4to (Heynesbók), a Jónsbók manuscript from about 1500. In the right-

often departed from Icelandic legal custom. We recall that the gam li
sáttmáli ofl262 had promised the Icelanders that they should “obtain . . .
Icelandic law .” Járnsíða on the other hand was mostly based on Norwe­
gian law, and it is even called norrœn — that is, in this case, Norwegian.
Scholars in the field of legal history also find it a rather sloppy
compilation, at least in comparison with its successor. Nevertheless,
after three bouts of argument, the Icelanders accepted the new code in
the years 1271—3, though they did not have to live long with it.Járnsíða
is now preserved, with one small lacuna, only in Staðarhólsbók, AM 334
fob, one of the two main codexes containing Grågås.
It is noteworthy that Járnsíða is the only one of King M agnús’s early
codifications to survive. His work as a legal reformer seems to show a
JÓNSBÓK 365

hand picture a thief, with the sheep he has stolen tied on his back, is led before the
official (sýslumaður, íis h e r iff,) , who has the lawbook open in fron t o f him. In
the left-hand picture a petty th ief is being f o g g e d while, to the left, an out-and-out
thief, one who has been fo u r times convicted o f stealing, hangs on the gallows.
Photo: Jóhanna Ólafsdóttir.

natural and beneficial development from his code for Gulaþing, intro­
duced in 1267, to Jónsbók, sent to Iceland in 1281.
King M agnus’s law-books for the separate provinces have not sur­
vived because he subsequently produced a unified code for the whole
country, the so-called Landslog, adopted by the main provincial assem­
blies in Norway 1274—6. Some of the articles in this, especially those to
do with assembly procedures, took local conditions into account. The
Landslog remained in force in Norway throughout the middle ages and
even longer, until they were gradually superseded by reformed and
novel legislation. In the sixteenth century and later the code was used in
Danish translation because officials in Norway, many of whom were
foreign in any case, could no longer understand the old language.
366 JÓNSBÓK

When work on the Landslog was finished, attention turned to a new

code for the Icelanders, since both the king and his Icelandic subjects
had cause to be dissatisfied with Járnsíða. The identity of the compilers
of the new law-book is not known, but the Lawman, Jon Einarsson, is
believed to have been prominent among them. He at least brought the
code to Iceland and it has been named after him ever since.
Jónsbók draws its material from the Landslog and Grågås, with some
articles retained from Járnsíða and some new-minted laws as well. The
Landslog provided the model for the arrangement and general scope of
the book, but approximately one article in three is based on Grågås. The
cobbling of the sources is so skilful that the seams are hardly visible. The
language of the sections from Grågås is often modernised and simplified
and successful efforts were made to reduce the ambiguity of some of the
articles in the old native laws.
The work on Jónsbók must have been finished, or virtually so, when
King Magnus died in the spring of 1280. Jon Einarsson and Loðinn
leppr, a trusted agent of the king’s, were sent to Iceland with it that
summer. In the summer of 1281 they submitted it to the Althing for
approval. As had happened with Járnsiða ten years earlier, the Iceland­
ers found various provisions in Jónsbók unacceptable. Arni Þorláksson,
bishop of Skálholt, was the chief antagonist. He fought against what he
saw as encroachment on canon law and the rights of the Church, and
Árna saga (p. 185) has some vivid reports of exchanges between him and
Loðinn leppr on the subject. Compromise was finally achieved and a
majority of the assembly men accepted the new code. A number of
outstanding differences were referred to the decision of the king and
archbishop, and some of them were settled by subsequent amendments.
With all respect for the old laws of the Icelandic commonwealth,
most people today will agree that Jónsbók, like the Norwegian Landslog,
marks a great improvement on them. Its enactments are clearer in
expression than those of Grågås, while the penalties it stipulates are
generally less severe. Executive authority, which had found no express
formulation in the old laws, is now put firmly into the hands of royal
officials. Private vengeance is forbidden, and instead of outlawry as the
ultimate sentence, essentially with individual responsibility for its
enforcement, a scale of penalties is introduced — fines, floggings and
death — all exacted in formal accordance with the law. Judges are
enjoined to be just and moderate and to judge “as they are willing to
answer for it before God” and “their conscience”. In any doubtful case
judgment should err on the side of leniency rather than severity.
JÓNSBÓK 367
Jónsbók was the last of King Magnus’s codes and the best composed of
them. Initial opposition to it sprang chiefly from the Icelanders’ loyalty
to their old ways and their suspicion of the royal power. But as time
passed, the new law-book became extremely popular and highly
regarded. It was common for youngsters to learn to read from Jónsbók
and afterwards they came to know it almost by heart. The code
regulated people’s lives for centuries, in big matters and small, in
company with Scripture and other books of the Church, and some
Jónsbók articles are still in force today. The law-book exists in more
manuscripts than any other medieval Icelandic work: there are no fewer
than some 250 of them. Many of these manuscripts are handsomely
written and decorated, and these are the best sources we have to show
us what Icelandic pictorial art was like in earlier times. And it was the
Icelanders who first gave the king who instigated its composition the
cognomen which deservedly celebrates his achievement. He is always
called Magnus lagabœtir—Magnus the Lawmender.
 New forms
It has long been thought that the only kinds of literary novelty in
Iceland in the late middle ages were in verse form, notably the rimur and
a large body of devotional poetry; sagas were not composed after about
1350, and annalistic writing came to an end a generation or two later.
The so-called Nýi annáll ends in 1430 and that was the swan-song of the
great medieval tradition of historical writing in Iceland — or so it was
thought. After that people put pen to parchment only to indite letters
and charters until the Reformation called forth a new prose literature.
But there are grounds for challenging this common opinion. For some
reason authors certainly stopped writing about the history of their own
times, whether in the form of connected narrative or of annalistic record.
The reasons for this lapse have been sought in bad seasons, the ravages
of disease, and foreign oppression. Probably the climate did worsen and
there were undeniably visitations of deadly plagues, but whether it is
possible to blame them in any real degree for the alleged decline in
Icelandic prose literature is open to doubt. It is altogether more likely
that we have to recognise a change in taste which directed literary effort
along new paths. And in all probability some original prose writing
continued throughout the period.
The major division into secular and religious kinds of writing still
obtains in the late medieval period. Among secular works the heroic and
chivalric sagas were the most popular, and their language, manuscript
history and mutual relations suggest that there was no pause in their
composition down to the Reformation. And we have one notable and
ambitious translation of saints’ lives from the beginning of the sixteenth
century (see p. 145), which shows there was no abdication of the will to
make prose literature in this field too before the “torrent of twilight
monstrosities rained down”, to use one unfriendly description of the
work of the Protestant reformers.
Furthermore, there were close links between verse and prose. Forn-
24 Eddas and Sagas
370 NEW FORMS

aldarsögur and riddara sögur were turned into rimur, devotional poems were
based on saints’ lives in prose. In substance both kinds of verse were
quite unoriginal: the poets stick close to the narratives they are versify­
ing, never or rarely adding but quite frequently omitting —often indeed
only selecting episodes from longer prose works to put into verse. There
are links between rimur and religious verse too: both met the needs of the
same society and both were sung rather than declaimed. That society
was one where orthodox piety reigned. It is not surprising that perhaps
the earliest rima we know is on St Óláfr and the battle of Stiklestad,
where there was a joint appeal of the Christian and the militant.
Rimur were probably first used to accompany dancing as well (cf. p.
380 below), but there was also a special kind of verse used for this
purpose. We may begin by surveying this dance-poetry, which was one
of our most remarkable medieval innovations both in matter and form.

Ballads
Icelandic ballads — sagnadansar — were first recorded in the seven­
teenth century and then they had lived so long in oral tradition that
nobody knew how old they were. The collectors called them fornkvœði,
“ancient songs”, and this name has stuck though people question its
aptness in view of the fact that we have much older scaldic and eddaic
verse. The fornkvœði are the Icelandic branch of a great international
genre — ballades, ballads, Volkslieder, folkeviser, folkvisor — or simply kvœði
to the Faroese because they represent their national poetry par excellence.
The name “ballad” signifies a dance-song (cf. the words “ball” and
“ballet”), which is what a ballad originally was.
We know of no dancing in early Scandinavia and the pastime does not
appear to have been introduced there until the eleventh or twelfth
century. We lack the sources to trace its origins in Iceland and else­
where in the North. The earliest references are in Icelandic texts but it is
unlikely that Icelanders took up dancing before other Scandinavian
nations. In fact, not everyone is prepared to accept the testimony of the
oldest sources on the grounds that they are not contemporary with the
periods they purport to describe.
The life of St Jon, bishop of Hólar (1106—21), ascribed to Gunnlaugr
Leifsson (p. 182), is the first work to mention some kind of dance. Bishop
Jon did his best to stamp out this immoral pastime. In the A-text of the
saga the passage goes like this:
BALLADS 371
That sport was popular among the people which is not decent —
where verses are exchanged from man to woman and from woman
to man, verses that are shameful and scurrilous and not fit to be
heard. But he had that abolished and totally forbade the practice.
He was unwilling to listen to amorous poems and verses and
would not allow them to be recited, but he was not able to get rid
of them altogether.
There is no particular reason to doubt that dancing existed at the
beginning of the twelfth century in Iceland, and it is quite certain that it
did by about 1170 — we have a reference to it then in Sturlu saga, which
is a well-informed source based on good contemporary reporting. We
find the word dans used in these early texts both of the dance itself and of
the verse sung or recited to accompany it. These dances must however
have been different from those that were later fashionable both in the
nature of the texts sung and probably in the manner of dancing. The
oldest dance-songs are sometimes referred to as the “early” or “lyrical”
form. We have little evidence to work on, but it looks as though the
accompaniment consisted of single strophes of a lyrical character. In
Sturla Þórðarson’s ístendinga saga we are told that people gerdu dansa
marga, “made many dance-verses”, in mockery of Loptr Pálsson; and
elsewhere in the same account Sturla quotes a satiric verse on him and
his uncle, Sæmundr Jónsson, which is generally counted an example of a
“dance-verse”:
L optr er i Eyjum , Loptr in the Islands
b itr lundabein, bites on puffin-bones,
Sæ m undr er á heiðum, Sæ m undr on the m oorlands
ok etr berin ein. spits out berry-stones.

But the one absolutely reliable thirteenth-century identification of a

“dance-verse”, or a fragment of one, comes in the account of the
execution of Þórðr Andréasson. Þórðr rides captive and foresees his
death:
O k þá hrökkti Þ órðr hestinn A nd then Þ órðr gave his horse
u n d ir sér ok kvað dans þenna the switch and sang this dance-
við raust: verse in a loud voice:
M in ar eru sorgir H eavy are my sorrows,
þungar sem blý. heavy as lead.

That was in 1264. By that time, perhaps long before, novel forms of
poetry are thought to have been introduced as dance-accompaniment in
372 NEW FORMS

Scandinavia. This kind of poetry told a story but had a lyrical refrain,
repeated according to fixed rules. The “dance-verse” of Þórðr Andréas-
son would make a good refrain for a ballad of this new kind. Possibly
such verse sequences for dance use were already fashionable in Iceland
and Þórðr was quoting a known refrain. But some scholars believe that
the single strophes of the “early” or “lyrical” dance-songs were adopted
as refrains when the narrative came into fashion, and Þórðr’s dans can be
explained as one of them.
It remains a fact, in any case, that the ballad refrains are distinct in
origin from the ballad texts themselves. They are compact lyrical lines,
often with a note of sorrow or menace. Sometimes they sound like
fragments detached from a larger whole —one senses an unwritten story
behind them: they are mysterious, prompting questions and rousing
anticipations. They are repeated stanza after stanza, sometimes with
minor variations, existing both in antithesis to the main movement of
the ballad and in some intimate connection with it — it is clear that they
were often made or selected to reinforce, directly or obliquely, the main
theme of the story-poem they accompany:
Ó lafu r reið með björgum fram Ó lafu r rode the crags along
— villir hann, stillir hann, — gone astray, softly stray,
hitti hann fyrir sér álfarann found house o f faery on his w ay,
— þ ar rau ðu r loginn brann, — w here red the flames all play,
blíðan lagði byrinn undan blew the breeze so gently under
björgunum fram . the crags along.

We talk of narrative ballads but their character is more dramatic than

epic: they are acted rather than told. There is much direct speech and
exchange between characters and in between come quick flashes of
description which both illuminate and are sparked off by the words of
the actors — what is missing is left to the imagination of the audience to
supply.
The origin and early development of ballads in Scandinavia are
obscure and much discussed. Theories are in a state of flux and there is
no need here to rehearse the facts and fancies of the contending
arguments. A marked difficulty in any enquiry is caused by the absence
of early written texts. In Norway, for example, there was practically
nothing collected until the nineteenth century, when the nationalist
movement woke people’s interest in the treasures of local tradition.
The dances performed with ballad accompaniment were group
BALLADS 373
dances, with the participants probably holding hands in a circle, as in
the Faroes today, where the tradition has lived on unbroken. One or two
singers with well-stocked memories and good voices sang the ballad
itself and everyone joined in the refrain. Many Scandinavian texts are
translations of ballads from abroad, the oldest possibly direct from
France but most of the later ones from the British Isles and Germany —
natural sources in view of the northern countries’ main commercial and
other connections in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. But once
the ballad was planted in Scandinavian soil, it grew vigorously and
independently — new poems were created and new subjects embraced.
Very few ballads found record in the middle ages themselves, and when
collecting finally began, not least as the result of the antiquarian
interests of renaissance scholars and men of letters, they had ceased to
be used as dance-accompaniment — everywhere, that is, except in the
Faroes. The Danes took the lead both as the most prolific makers of
ballads and as their first recorders — manuscript collections of ballads
were made in Denmark in the sixteenth century and the first printed
edition of them was issued in Ribe in 1591. It was probably this
publication which did most to persuade the Icelanders of the value of
their fornkvæbi and the desirability of collecting and copying them.
Collections began to be made in Iceland in the latter part of the
seventeenth century. The pioneer was Rev. Gissur Sveinsson, brother of
Bishop Brynjólfur Sveinsson, who lived at Álftamýri in Arnarfjörður in
the far northwest. His manuscript collection dates from 1665.

Ballads differ from most genres in being the common property of the
whole of Scandinavia, sometimes of a larger region still. Some of them
are found in more or less the same form in all the northern countries. In
the late middle ages, when the ballads chiefly flourished, the differences
between Icelandic and the other Scandinavian languages were such as
to make a comparatively drastic degree of adaptation necessary if the
result was to sound at all natural. In fact, we find a good many
Danicisms, e.g. undir hliba (under lide), hæga loft (høje loft), grór (for
grær), vintr (for vetur), and the verb forms gå and stå {ganga, standa). The
metres are also adopted from the foreign originals, very different from
traditional Icelandic forms. In the translations alliteration is largely
dispensed with and there is no internal rhyming, but end-rhyme, of a
rather irregular kind, is used instead. Sometimes the stanza is a rhymed
couplet with part of the refrain interposed:
374 NEW FORMS

Elen beiddi föður sinn,

— laufið á þann linda —
“Lofaðu m ér til vökunnar in n .”
— A llt er óhæ gra að leysa en að binda.

Another common form is a quatrain followed by the complete refrain;

the usual rhyme scheme is a b c b, e.g.:
Sveinn kóngur á skeiðunum
siglir á m ilium landa,
K n ú tu r er í Borginni,
festir frú til handa.
— H vað syrgir þig, liljan, svo såran?

It is customary to make a broad division between East Scandinavian

(Danish and Swedish) ballads and West Scandinavian (Norwegian and
Faroese) ballads, but characteristic features of substance and style do
not always accord with the geographical demarcation. In general the
Icelandic ballads seem closer to the Danish-Swedish group, even in
cases where there is reason to believe we have early ballads which came
from or by way of West Scandinavian areas.
Attempts have also been made to classify Scandinavian ballads in
smaller groups according to their subject-matter. The so-called ridder­
viser — ballads of chivalry — are probably the oldest group and are
particularly well represented in the Danish tradition. They belong to the
feudal world of the early middle ages and their themes are mostly
unknown outside Scandinavia. Many of the Icelandic ballads belong to
this group and were introduced from Denmark. In contrast, the so-
called kæmpeviser — heroic ballads — are thought to be of Norwegian, or
possibly Faroese, origin. They draw their material especially from
fornaldarsögur and other heroic tales, including the cycle of Sigurðr the
Dragon-slayer and other stalwarts known from the lays of the Edda.
Icelandic ballads that can be counted of this kind are Eyvindarrima and
Þorgeirsríma. Ballads which tell of historical figures and have some basis
in historical events are known from Sweden and more especially from
Denmark. Only one comparable fornkvæði is known in Icelandic, Gunn-
arskvæði, on Hallgerðr’s theft and Gunnarr’s death as told in Njáls saga. It
has a refrain which refers to a lost Hrings saga ok Tryggva (which we know
at second hand from the rimur called Geðraunir):
A þingi A t meeting
betur unni B ryn h ild u r Hringi. BrynhikTs love for Hring
was not fleeting.
BALLADS 375

Ólafur liljurós with thefairy maidens (see p. 372). A drawing by Johann Briem.

Ballads called “naturmytiske viser55 in Danish, and usually referred to

as supernatural ballads in English, tell of various beings who inhabit
other worlds and of their dealings with mortals. Stafróarkvaði and
Elenarljóð are of this kind, as is also the Ballad of the sea-troll who
376 NEW FORMS

becalmed the king’s ship and the only inducement he would accept to
lift the enchantment was the lovely boy who sat on his mother’s lap:
K ó n g u rin n og drottningin L ordly king and lady queen,
á þann sunnudag on that one Sunday
héldu sinum skipunum sailed out in their vessels fair
á það m yrk va haf. on the som bre w ave.
- Enginn veit til angurs fy rr - No one knows w hat g rie f is
en rcyn ir till he meets it.

But the best-known of all the supernatural ballads is Ólafur liljurós (cf. p.
372), still frequently sung at Icelandic parties.
Mention may finally be made of a number of comic ballads which tell
of a variety of absurd events, like the one about the housewife who kept
her husband hard at work but not always with the happiest results:
Bóndinn upp á ofninn fór C lim bed up on the oven then,
og átti að sækja salt, salt is w h at he’s after,
greip hann ofan í öskupoka seized upon the ash-bag there
og skem m di sm jörið allt. and ruined all the butter.

Ballads of chivalry and supernatural ballads are the most notable

among the Icelandic stock. “In some of these poems the happiness of a
human being is pitted against dangerous and mysterious powers of
nature,” says Jon Samsonarson in his study and anthology called Kvœði
og dansleikir (I —II, 1964). “The elfin lady lives in the rock-wall and lures
a human being to join her, the night-troll comes to the window after
dark and sings to the waking girl inside . . . Here we meet the horse with
power of human speech who turns out to be a prince and it is safer for
anyone who rides him not to utter any word to him. Here we meet the
knight who suffers no wound until the damsel speaks his name. Harp-
strings are made from the hair of a deceived girl and speak in human
tones; a harp is played and everything is powerless at the sound of its
music; down on earth children weep their mother out of the skies . . .
But most we hear of love and the fate of lovers. The maiden sleeps in a
soft-appointed chamber or builds a bower and wears a diadem of gold
on her head — the knight comes riding and she lets the diadem fall and
puts on bridal linen . . . but she can also take sword in hand to wreak
vengeance.”
Some scholars fancy — not implausibly — that in the ballads’ heyday
people who were accustomed to the strict scaldic measures were not
much impressed by the loose form and foreign-sounding diction of the
BALLADS 377
new poems. But it remains true that poetic feeling and inspiration have
greater play in the free-flowing garb of the ballads than in the tight-
fitting uniform of dróttkvœði and rimur. In modern times ballads and
popular verse of related kinds have been a constant source of renewal for
Icelandic lyric poetry. However remote we may feel the middle ages to
be, we still cannot fail to be moved by the ballad of Ólafur liljurós who
was stabbed by the sharp blade of the elfin lady, or excited and touched
by the ballad of Tristram who fought with the “heathen dog” — “Many
got a bleeding gash from their slash” — and then, mortally wounded, is
kept from cure by his hard-hearted and jealous wife. But sadness is
softened when he and his sweetheart join hands after death in the shape
of the green trees that grow from their graves and twine their branches
together over the church-roof — counter to the plans of mortals and to
the ballad’s mournful refrain: Peim var ekki skapad nema ad skilja — “All
that fate imposed on them was parting.”

Rimur
The rimur constituted another notable literary innovation, long narra­
tive poems in short stanzas representing versifications of written sagas.
They are normally composed in a series of cantos (hence the plural
rimur), often with a change of stanza-form from canto to canto. The
longevity of the genre was remarkable. It flourished for five hundred
years, from the fourteenth to the nineteenth century, and even now
poets try their hand at rimur or imitations of them. They provided a
welcome relaxation in times of poverty and isolation, carrying their
audiences into worlds exotic and magnificent. They played a special
part in keeping Icelandic a living and unspoilt language, for their
diction is complex and poet and audience needed ample linguistic
resources, the one to make, the other to appreciate these reams of
stanzas. They were also delivered to a particular kind of music, chanted
to the tunes known as stemmur, very attractive and effective in the mouth
of a good singer — the nearest the Icelanders ever got to operatic
recitative.
The early rimur are also valuable sources of information of various
kinds. They tell us something about the history of Icelandic — rhymes
may substantiate old word-forms, for example. In this respect they are
comparable to scaldic poems — and suffer from the same drawbacks
inasmuch as we are seldom able to date either kind of verse with
complete accuracy. Linguistic forms are sometimes used to date rimur,
378 NEW FORMS

as they are to date scaldic poetry, and the same caution must be
observed in both cases.
The value of rimur for literary history is no less evident. They often
follow lost saga-versions that represented earlier stages of the text than
any we have preserved. Sometimes their prose originals have been
totally or largely lost, and it is only through rimur that we know the
substance of numerous heroic and chivalric sagas. This is true, for
example, of Andra saga, Ormars saga, Haralds saga Hringsbana, Hromundar
saga Gripssonar (cf. p. 343), Hrings saga ok Tryggva and Grims saga ok
Hjdlmars. A lost íslendinga saga is reproduced in Skáld-Helga rimur. We can
see that the saga-author treated his story in a romantic and fantastic
way, so it was doubtless among the last of the sagas of Icelanders to be
written.
If a saga-source is no longer known, it is inevitably a matter of
opinion to some extent whether a rimur poet had it in front of him in
written form. But the general practice of versifying existing prose
narratives and of following the sources very faithfully clearly justifies the
assumption of lost written texts in cases where no original is extant.
Skíða rima is an exception, see pp. 381-384 below.
The rimur have their own metrical forms which, in spite of a good deal
of variation, fundamentally obey the same rules and make a
homogeneous group. The earliest of the basic forms is the quatrain type
called ferskeyttur hdttur (ferskeytla). This example comes from the Óláfs
rima Haraldssonar by Einarr Gilsson, which is in Flateyjarbók (c. 1390) :
M ilding haföi m enntir þæ r
er m estar voru í heim i,
hvergi fræ gra hilm i fæ r
hvorki a f gleði né seimi.

Another basic quatrain type is called stajhenda. This example is from

Soria rimur.
S tý rin skulfu en stundu bond,
stó rar fálu b áru r lönd,
bifaðist lau ku r en bendist rá,
b ran d a gleypti kólgan blá.

The third old metre is braghenda, where the stanza has three lines, the
first with its own alliteration. This example comes from Prymlur, based
on Prymskvida in the Edda:
RÍMUR 379
Ý ta r bjuggu Á sa-Þ ór sem eg vil greina,
settu á bringu breiða steina,
b lóðrautt guil og pellið hreina.

Finally stuðlafall may be mentioned. It is rare in the earliest rimur but

occurs in Blávus rimur, counted among the oldest rimur by Björn K.
Þórólfsson in his authoritative Rimur fyrir 1600 (1934):
Sóm ir va ria að syrgja þegna dauða,
hyggjum það meðan veröldin vinnst
v aria þ eirra líkinn finnst.

Opinions may differ as to how many of the stanza-forms should be

counted basic. As time went on, variations were multiplied many times
over: lines are extended or truncated and internal rhyming may become
as complex as in the following ferskeytla variant from Landrés rimur.
Spottaði h rotta spennir menn,
sá sprund lest m undu gilja,
K ris tu r tv istra r kennir enn
kæru skæran vilja.

There are still many obscurities surrounding the origins and antece­
dents of rimur poetry, though the last few years have seen a number of
new contributions toward the elucidation of the problems. It used to be
thought that rimur were an isolated Icelandic phenomenon, born of a
marriage between native scaldic poetry and imported ballads. The
practice of telling a story in verse was supposed to have come about
under the influence of ballads, and the ferskeytla was considered to be a
ballad stanza braced up with strict rhyme and alliteration in accordance
with the traditions of scaldic verse. On the other hand, scaldic diction
was the source of the heiti and kennings which abound in the rimur —
elements of style which remained fundamental throughout their long
history. Rimur poets used Snorri’s Edda, especially Skáldskaþarmál, as
their chief manual. But in this, as in other matters, scholars failed to
bear in mind the ever-fertile connections Icelanders had with foreign
parts. In a number of papers and in his book about the Icelandic ballads
Vésteinn Ólason has now shown that the most likely models for rimur
metres were not ballad stanzas but other forms used both for Latin and
vernacular verse elsewhere in Europe in the medieval period. He also
shows that in their treatment of the narrative — which differs markedly
from the manner of story-telling in ballads — rimur can be seen to have
prototypes and parallels in the late medieval narrative verse of other
380 NEW FORMS

countries, not least England. Davíð Erlingsson has further demon­

strated that various rhetorical devices and elaborations of vocabulary
used as tags and line-fillers by rimur poets are in imitation of foreign, in
this case German, verse.
But it can hardly be denied that ballads and rimur lived side by side as
close relations at one time. We have for example not only the Óláfs rima
Haraldssonar, on the battle of Stiklestad, but also the ballad called
Ólafsvísur, which tells of the conception and birth of St Óláfr’s son,
Magnus the Good. It appears too that rimur were also used as dance-
accompaniment in early times. The poets sometimes refer to their rimur
as dans, and in Sörla rimur, which are thought to be ancient, the poet says
in so many words that people danced to his verse:
Því m á eg varia visu slá, I know for sure that I can hard ly
veit eg það til sanns, strike up w ith a stanza but that,
þegar að rekkar rím u fá as soon as people get a verse,
reyst er hún upp við dans. it is sung aloud for a dance.

G ap a þ eir upp og gum sa h art They gape aloft and energetically p lay
og geym a v aria sin, the fool and hard ly keep control o f
h öld ar dansa h ra lla snart them selves: men dance with frantic
e f heyrist visan min. speed once m y verse is heard.

The gap between ballads and rimur may not have been wide to begin
with but they soon went their separate ways. The ballads dominated the
dance until finally the forms of dancing appropriate to them went out of
fashion, probably before the end of the medieval period we are sur­
veying here. Rimur became longer and longer, with more and more
cantos included: now whole sagas are versified whereas previously only
parts of them or shorter tales had been treated (as, for example, in Óláfs
rima Haraldssonar, Þrymlur, Lokrur and Völsungs rimur). The rimur find their
niche as a kind of worksong, household entertainment as folk sat at their
carding and spinning of a quiet evening, and the stemmur used were
probably the direct offspring of the tunes once sung by the dancers. As
we saw, the rimur inherited the ancient scaldic diction, with its special
heiti and elaborate kennings — a great art once called a ‘‘skill unblem­
ished” — but there was some confusion of the ancient rules as time
passed by and the complex language and the complex metres made a
straightjacket for the poets, constricting their individuality and hamper­
ing the free flight of their poetic fancy.
A feature which gradually developed as a peculiarity of the rimur is
found in the so-called mans'óngvar, “maid-songs”, sequences of lyrical
RÍMUR 381
stanzas, usually unconnected with the narrative itself, which introduce a
canto. The tone is often one of melancholy and regret. The poet laments
the mutability of love and the loneliness of old age; he expresses his
reluctance to make poetry — but he forges on nevertheless. Foreign
parallels to mansöngvar have been pointed out: the dejected love-poetry of
French troubadours and German minnesingers, and even some kinds of
lyrical preludes to narrative poems. Rimur without mansöngvar or with
only occasional stanzas addressed to the audience are considered to be
among the oldest - Prymlur (from Þrymskvibá), Lokrur (on Þórr’s visit to
Utgarða-Loki), Völsungs rimur (based on the first part of Völsunga saga)
and others. Later it became the regular custom to have a mansöngur at
the start of each canto, a practice which has prevailed to our own time.
Most often the mansöngvar are a string of platitudes, more or less
elegantly expressed but repeated by one poet after another.
As I said earlier, the stories told in rimur are virtually always taken
from written sources. Heroic sagas and sagas of chivalry were chiefly
favoured, which accords with the general popularity of such stories in
the later middle ages. Rimur composed on themes known from eddaic
poems and other sources, both mythological and heroic, have been
mentioned once or twice in the foregoing but they do not represent a
large group. A few rimur take material from íslendinga sögur and kings’
sagas, e.g. Grettis rimur (on Grettir’s youthful exploits) and Þrændlur
(based on Fœreyinga saga — the name is derived from that of Þrándr i
Götu).

Skiba rima is unique both in subject-matter and treatment and it is the

one medieval rima which we can now read with unalloyed pleasure.
There was possibly a tale - or a joke of a tale - behind it, as a
laconic entry sub anno 1195 in Gottskálksannáll suggests: “Skíði had his
dream.” In the rima Skíði is a vagrant who drifts from one well-known
twelfth-century chieftain in the west of Iceland to another: Þorgils
Oddason of Staðarhóll, Sturla of Hvammur and Þorleifr beiskaldi of
Hitardalur. He gets the poorest reception at Þorleifr’s and it is here that
he experiences his elaborate dream. At Óðinn’s command, Ása-Þórr
himself comes to fetch Skíði to act as judge in the dispute between
Heðinn and Högni — Heðinn is refusing Högni the hand of his
daughter, Hildr the Slender. Skíði is seated on the high seat besides
Óðinn and receives gifts from him. He then declares his verdict, solving
the problem by saying that he will marry Hildr himself. She said she
had no objection if her father agreed, and they are formally betrothed:
382 NEW FORMS

Skíði rétti skitna hönd, Skíði proffered a filthy fist,

skyldi hann fastna Hildi, fastened H ildr to him,
Ó ðinn g a f honum Indíalönd Ó ðinn gave him all he list,
og allt það hann kjósa vildi. with all India w ould endue him,

Now the reason why Skíði dreamt he was among these trolls was
because he had failed to cross himself earlier in the evening, but at this
ceremonial juncture in his dream he made a hasty sign of the cross —
this enraged the gods and sparked off a great brawl in Valhöll, with gods
and famous heroes of old joining in, King Hálfr and Starkaðr and
Sigurðr Fáfnisbani among them. But no one did greater deeds than
Skíði:
H ann barði i hel þá B ald r og Njörð, He bashed to death both B ald r and
bæði Loka og Hæni, Njörör,
fim m tíu lét hann falla á jö rð , both Loki and H æ nir thereafter,
en fleygði tó lf í mæni. fifty he m ade to fall to earth
and flung up tw elve to a rafter.

Finally Sigurðr pulls Skíði out through the doorway and Gnoðar-
Ásmundr throws his butter-box so hard at Skíði’s brisket that he wakes
up at the blow.
Skíða rima makes one of a goodly fellowship of tales that burlesque
martial deeds and fabulous exaggeration, from Don Quixote to Benedikt
Gröndal’s Heljarslóðarorrusta in the nineteenth century and Laxness’s
Gerpla in our own. Some close parallels to the rima have been found in
German comic poems of the late middle ages, and very probably there
are relations between the Icelandic and German examples that await
further investigation. But there is not much point in thinking of the rima
as a serious attack on fantastic stories, much less as some kind of
polemic homily: the poet’s overriding purpose was to amuse, and he
certainly succeeds. In an excellent essay accompanying his edition of the
poem in 1869 Konrad Maurer pointed out how appropriate it was to set
the action in a dream where anything can legitimately happen, no
excess is inconceivable. There is a great contrast between the dirty and
greedy vagrant and the heroes of Valhöll whose very names call mighty
exploits to mind. Naturally, Skíði does not entirely stop being himself

Skíði the vagrant. A drawing in J S 231 4to (Pingeyrabók), a manuscript from the
end of the eighteenth century. Photo: Johanna Ólafsdóttir.
RÍMUR 383
384 NEW FORMS

even in his dream — dreaming is the poor man’s refuge and relief. The
rima is most successful of all in blending wretched everyday reality and
the grandeur of a superior world. And as often happens, there is no great
step between dreaming and waking, between reality and imagination.
Skíði wears out two pairs of shoes in his long journey of a single night. In
his bundle they find a tooth of Fáfnir the dragon weighing ten pounds.
No less remarkable was the transformation of his butter-box, which had
been empty the evening before:
Þ ar v a r komið í þ rífornt sm jör, T herein was butter thrice-aged come,
það v a r ú r Á síaveldi. that was from realm o f Æ sir.

A number of later sources attribute Skíða rima to various named poets,

Einar fóstri, Sigurður fóstri and Svartur of Hofsstaðir. Jón Þorkelsson
championed the ascription to Svartur, and he is sometimes cited as the
author even in recent editions and literary histories. He is said to have
been a poet of Ólöf hin rika of Skarð (died 1479/80). But doubt attaches
to all the sources in question and in any case we know next to nothing
about the poets mentioned.
The early rimur — and the same may be said of the rimur of later
centuries too — played a vital part in the Icelanders’ way of life, in the
preservation of their language and in people’s awareness of its riches.
But as literature they are now bound to appear as little more than
lifeless monuments of the past. We cannot say they are never read but, if
they are, it is solely for practical purposes — chiefly by scholars
investigating lost sagas and saga-vers ions. The dilatory progress made
with their publication is another sign of the general lack of interest in
them. Some of the oldest rimur have been edited from time to time, and
Finnur Jonsson made a useful contribution with his two volumes of texts
and a glossary volume (Rímnasafn I —II, 1905 —22; Ordbog til . . . rimur,
1926 —8). Nevertheless many medieval rimur remain unpublished, and
no branch of medieval literature is in general so badly served. More
than a score of pre-reformation rimur still await publication. It is hoped
that a new series published by the Árni Magnusson Institute in Iceland
(íslenzkar midaldarimur I-, 1973-) will remedy this grave deficiency in
the course of the next few years.
RELIGIOUS VERSE 385

Religious verse
Devotional poetry and rxmur are by far the most voluminous kinds of
medieval Icelandic verse we possess. The earliest of the religious poems,
including some probably not composed before the fifteenth century, are
in Finnur Jonsson’s Den norsk-islandske Skjaldedigtning I —II (1912 —15).
The later poems are in Jón Helgason’s íslenzk miðaldakvœði 1:2 —II
(1936 —8).
Some of the oldest religious verse was discussed earlier in this book
(pp. 111—114). These poems are counted as scaldic poetry, reasonably enough
since the makers used scaldic forms and style, though they generally
avoided kennings containing pagan allusions. This general mode was
maintained to the end of the medieval period, but poets also introduced
a number of new metres and stanza-forms in imitation of foreign
models. Religious verse of this kind was intimately connected with
veneration of saints, so the Reformation cut off its inspiration at source.
The last of the makers of religious poetry we know was also the last
Catholic bishop in Iceland, Jón Arason ofHólar, executed in 1550.

We may look more closely at a selection of the poems and at those

authors whose identity is more or less established. The most famous of
all such poems — no matter of what period — is Lilja — a hundred
stanzas in hrynhendur hdttur (p. 86) and firmly and elegantly constructed.
The exordium, stanzas 1—25, tells the history of the world from the
Creation to the Annunciation. In stanzas 26 —75 we hear of the
Annunciation itself and of the birth, life, passion and death of Jesus,
then of the Ascension and finally of the Day of Judgment. This central
part (the stejjabalkur) is divided by a pair of half-stanza refrains [stef]
which come at regular intervals. The first is in stanzas 26, 32, 38, 44 and
50:

Sé þér d ýrð meö sannri prýði, G lo ry be to Thee, and honour,

sunginn heiðr a f öllum tungum Sung by m ankind’s m yriad voices,
eilífliga með sigri og sælu, Everlasting bliss and trium ph,
sæmd og vald þitt m innkist aldri. Excellence and might unwaning.

The second is in stanzas 51, 57, 63, 69 and 75:

Æ vinliga með lyktum lófum Everm ore with hands uplifted

lo f ræ ðandi á kné sín bæði Falling dow n on knees before Thee,

25 Eddas and Sagas

386 NEW FORMS

skepnan oli er skyld að falla, Every m an, in bounden duty,

skapari minn, fy rir ásján þinni. M y C reator, must adore Thee.
(Charles V enn Pilcher, I cela n d ic
C hristian C la ssics, M elbourne
1950, pp. 27, 33.)

The last part of the poem (the so-called slæmur), stanzas 76—100,
contains the poet’s personal confession and his prayers to the Virgin
Mary, the lily who gives the poem its name. So the poet presents his
work to Mother and Son together:
Inn krossfesti, k raftr inn hæsti, T hou, the C rucified, the Highest,
K ris tr er fjórir b rod d ar nistu, C hrist, whom once the four nails
þér býð eg og þinni m óður pierced,
þetta verk er í einn stað settag. I to Thee and to T h y M other
D edicate this com position.
(C harles V en n Pilcher, I cela n d ic
C hristia n C la ssics, p. 45.)

But Lilja is neither a connected history of the world nor a simple

paean of praise. The narrative element is conveyed by picturing the
central events where mighty antagonists meet: powers of good and evil,
Christ and his Mother opposed to the old enemy, Satan. And this great
drama is brought home incisively to us by the poet’s immediacy, he
speaks to us and for us in his own person. We join him in his wonder and
horror at what he has to tell and we listen with open ears to his string of
invocations, which reach their height at the end of the poem in a
despairing and anguished plea for mercy at the Day of Judgment.
This poem so impressed people in days gone by that it was said that
“Every poet wishes he had composed L ilja” Its popularity can also be
gauged from the fact that the great Lutheran bishop, Guðbrandur
Þorláksson (1541 —1627), included it in his notable anthology of Chris­
tian poetry, the Vísnabók printed in 1612, though with some modifica­
tions to excise the chief papistical elements. Many things help to
account for this warm acceptance: the flowing eloquence, the grand
scale of the conflict between good and evil, the poet’s sincere and ardent
devotion, and not least his easy style, simple word-order and straightfor­
ward diction, which made the work much more readily intelligible than
the usual religious poetry of earlier periods. The twelfth-century Harm-
sol, for example, has disjointed syntax and a wealth of kennings, but the
poet of Lilja opposes and avoids this style which he says is imposed by
the régime of Snorri’s Edda. He maintains that it is most important that
RELIGIOUS VERSE 387
people should grasp the fundamental sense of the words, the true
“understanding” of the poem:
V a rð a r mest til allra orða M ost im portant ’tis that rightly
undirstaðan sé réttlig fundin, O f all w ords be found the m eaning,
eigi glögg þótt Eddu regla Though the rules obscure o f Edda
undan hljóti að víkja stundum . M ust be set aside when needful.
(C harles V en n Pilcher, I cela n d ic
C hristian C la ssics, p. 45.)

In a sixteenth-century manuscript the author of the poem is referred

to as Brother Eysteinn. Old sources, annals and documents, introduce
us to a monk of Elgeseter in Norway called Eysteinn Asgrimsson, who
held high offices in the Icelandic Church around 1350 and in the years
following. Early annals also speak of a Brother Eysteinn of the Pykkva-
bær monastery, who was alleged to have beaten his abbot in 1343 and
was fettered by the neck in punishment. Later writers conflate these
pieces of information and think they all refer to the same man, but
scholars nowadays are inclined to doubt whether this is justified. They
consider it more likely that Eysteinn of Elgeseter was a Norwegian, and
consequently unlikely to have composed such an intensely Icelandic
poem as Lilja. In that case, choice must fall on the frail and fractious
monk of Þykkvabær — if one is in fact prepared to put any trust in the
rather late sources that purport to give us the name of the poet of Lilja.

As one might expect, Lilja proved extremely influential. The hrynhend-

ur háttur was more often than not referred to as Liljulag, and many
resounding poems in praise of holy men and women were composed in
that measure and in the uncomplicated style favoured by the Lilja poet.
The longest of these, and the best-known after Lilja, is called Rosa,
another of the Blessed Virgin’s many symbolic names. A sixteenth-
century manuscript attributes it to Sigurður the Blind (cf. p. 397). In
reality, however, his name and the title are prefixed to another poem in
the manuscript, a poem properly known as Milska. Since little is known
about Sigurður the Blind, this does not matter much. It has been said of
Rosa that it would have seemed a notable poem if Lilja had been lost.
With one hundred and thirty-three stanzas Rosa is longer than Lilja, but
in other respects it generally falls short of its great model.

We are better informed about two makers of devotional poetry who

lived at the end of the Catholic period in Iceland. Hallur Ogmundarson
388 NEW FORMS

was a priest in the northwest of the country in the first half of the
sixteenth century. Numerous poems are attributed to him. The most
famous of them is Gimsteinn, also called Krossdrápa, one hundred and
twenty-five stanzas in the Lilja metre, skilfully composed — as are his
other poems — but with little trace of originality or deep personal
feeling.

Apart from the half-apocryphal Brother Eysteinn, by far the most

celebrated poet of pre-reformation times was Bishop Jon Arason —
though it may well be that his fame has caused him to be credited with
more verse than he actually composed. There is no doubt of his
authorship of two poems, Píslargrátur and Davíðsdiktur. The latter is
preserved only in Bishop Guðbrandur’s Vísnabók of 1612, and it may be
that the Protestant editor found it necessary to purge it of Roman
blemishes. Its subject-matter is limited and not particularly papistical
— an exposition of Psalm 51, David’s repentance and prayer for mercy
when Nathan the prophet came to reproach him after he had sinned
with Bathsheba. The poem is marked by moving eloquence and deep
devotion, and shows that Bishop Jon deserved his reputation as a maker
of religious verse, even if the sources which cite him as the author of
other poems are not entirely trustworthy. The finest and most famous of
these other poems is Ljómur, “Beams of light”. It is on the history of
man’s salvation, like Lilja and Rosa, but the poet makes swift progress
for in the principal manuscript in which it is preserved the poem
contains only thirty-seven stanzas. The stanza-structure is the same as
in Davíðsdiktur and it has a similarly eloquent style. People have noted
with interest that stanzas 3 1 —2 voice the belief that on Judgment Day
the intercessions of the Virgin and St John win grace even for the
damned. The poem was very popular in Iceland and in the Faroes too —
where it is still sung as a hymn:
H æ stur heilagur andi, Highest, holy spirit,
him na kongurinn sterki, heavens’ rule fulfilling,
lofligur líttu á mig, lauded, look on me;
signaður á sjó og landi, o rb ’s and ocean’s m erit,
san n u r í vilja og verki, earnest in work and w illing,
heyrðu eg heiti á þig: hear me hailing thee:

A cope used by Bishop Jón Arason (d. 1550), made in the early sixteenth century,
probably in Arras in Flanders. Photo: Gisli Gestsson.
RELIGIOUS VERSE 389
390 NEW FORMS

F orða þú m ér fjandans pínu og díki, Safe I p ray from S a ta n ’s pit

svo feikna kvölunum öllum frá restore me,
m ér víki, from searching torm ents keep me
m ér veit þú það, M aríu sonurinn I im plore thee,
ríki, o f that, O M a ry ’s m ighty son,
m æ la kynni eg nokkuð svo þér líki. assure me,
m ay m y w ords find favou r yet
before thee.

In addition to the poems attributed with some degree of probability to

named individuals, there is a great deal of anonymous devotional verse
preserved. Just as the most extensive prose works of hagiography are
concerned with the life and miracles of the Virgin, so too the greater
part of the religious verse is in her honour. The poems are sometimes
hymns of praise, sometimes accounts of her life on earth, sometimes
celebrations of a single miracle performed through her intercession to
bring cure and comfort to the afflicted. These lyrical sequences are
sometimes pearls of poetry, with a keener thrust than the grand
treatments of Creation and Salvation and more expressive of personal
feeling and a trusting heart. A Mary poem printed in íslenzk miðaldakvœði
II 162—8 (and well-known from Sigurður Nordal’s íslenzk lestrarbók
1400—1900, 1924) offers a good example, though too long to quote in full
here. The opening verse will show that the form is one of those
harmonious stanza-structures adopted from abroad in the late middle
ages, with Icelandic alliteration added — a stanza-type which remained
popular with poets down to the nineteenth century:
H eyrðu hjálp in skæra, H ear me, helpm eet candid,
him naríkis blóm , h eaven ’s blossom sweet,
mig tekr m örg að h ræ ra much are against me banded
m ótgjörð viskutóm , mischiefs indiscreet —
það er hin hæ sta huggan mín it is the chiefest cheer o f mine
að d ikta nokkuð, drottins brúðr, to turn my singing, sovereign bride,
um d ýrð arverk in þín. to saving works o f thine.

Secular poetry
Early in this century Jón Þorkelsson planned to publish a complete
edition of all the verse-texts, other than rtmur, known from the period
1400—1550, but only a single volume appeared, and then not until
1922—7 (Jón died in 1924). The title-page issued with the third part in
SECULAR POETRY 391
1927 calls the work Kvæðasafn eptir nafngreinda islenzka menn fra miðöld.
The collection did not however include poems attributed to Jon Arason.
Some of the ascriptions are dubious — as in the case of Skíða rima (cf. p.
384) - and some of the authors are no more than names to us. Jon
Helgason’s new edition of the religious poetry in íslenzk miðaldakvœði —
starting where Finnur Jonsson’s Skjaldedigtning stops — made up for the
varied deficiencies of Jón Þorkelsson’s work. A good deal of the secular
verse of the later middle ages has also been published: works attributed
to named poets are in Jon Porkelsson’s inadequate Kvæðasafn (along
with religious verse also associated with named poets), and another
important source is Ólafur Davíðsson’s íslenzkar þulur og þjóðkvœði
(1898—1903). We may look at a small selection of these late medieval
poets and poems.

An otherwise unknown poet called Snjólfur made a poem in runkent

metre on the battle fought at Grund in Eyjafjörður in 1361, when the
governor of Iceland, Smiður Andrésson, and the lawman, Jon Gutt-
ormsson, were killed. But we have no other verse commemorating
contemporary events until the time of the Reformation around the
middle of the sixteenth century.

Loftur Guttormsson (died 1432) of Möðruvellir in Eyjafjörður, gov­

ernor of half-Iceland 1427 and one of the richest and most powerful men
in the country, has long been looked upon as the outstanding poet of the
fifteenth century. Paper manuscripts from later centuries attribute a
clavis metrica to him, or rather two, usually called Hdttalykill hinn skemmri
and Hdttalykill hinn meiri — the “shorter” and the “bigger key of metres”.
The latter longer one is not really a clavis but a chain of love-poems and
verses, some of which also exist in independent circulation. In fact, there
are no valid grounds for associating this collection with Loftur, and the
attribution, which is only found in a single manuscript from the latter
part of the eighteenth century, should be dismissed. If variant versions
of the “shorter” Hdttalykill are conflated, it expands to all of ninety
stanzas, but the earliest manuscript — itself not older than the sixteenth
century (Stock, perg. 4:o nr 23) — contains only twenty-eight stanzas
and does not mention the name of the poet. There are linguistic reasons
for rejecting some of the additional stanzas in later manuscripts. A work
on the Reformation in Iceland ascribed to Jón Gizurarson of Nupur (c.
1590—1648; printed in Safn til sögu islands I) retails a legend about the
Hdttalykill composed by Loftur. He is said to have made it for his
392 NEW FORMS

mistress, Kristin, and sent her a few verses of it at a time, ten times ten
all told, and they were found in the sleeve of his doublet when he died.
One may believe this or not, but the concluding verse in some manu­
scripts, and as printed in Kvœðasafn, p. 64, suggests there may be some
truth in it:
L optur ljóðum sleppti L optur loosed these verses
við lineik sina K ristin u . for his lady, K ristin .

Two other poems, Mansöngur and Mariuvisur, attributed to him in

some manuscripts and printed as his in Kvæðasafn, are certainly pro­
ducts of a later age. So we leave Loftur, once a poet of national stature,
with his glory and worldly wealth intact but stripped of most or all of his
poetic treasure. It may be some comfort in the circumstances to find
that Háttalykill resembles its early medieval precursors, Rögnvaldr’s
Háttalykill and Snorri’s Háttataly in the way in which the exigencies of
metrical illustration are met at the expense both of substance and poetic
verve.

In his Kvœðasafn Jón Porkelsson ascribes another comic poem besides

Skíða rima to the poet called Svartur Þórðarson of Hofsstaðir. This is the
Skauflialabálkur, which might indeed be from the same period as the rima.
Jón Þorkelsson’s evidence comes from the end of the poem which goes
like this in a late manuscript:
H efur bálk þennan This sequence,
og barngælu a children’s rhym e,
sett og sam ið shaped and styled
S v a rtu r á Hofsstöðum. S v a rtu r o f Hofsstaðir,

The difficulty is that in Grœnlandsannál from the first part of the seven­
teenth century Skaufhalabálkur is ascribed to Einar fóstri, said to have
been a poet in the service of Björn Einarsson the Jerusalem-farer (died
1415); and to prove it a final stanza is quoted:
H efur bálk þenna This sequence,
og b arngæ lur children’s rhym es,
ort ófim legur composed unskilful
E inar fóstri. Einar fóstri.

Perhaps the stanzas originally belonged to different poems, but how we

are going to tell which is rightly attached to Skauflialabálkur is hard to
say.
SECULAR POETRY 393
The poem tells of an old fox, Skaufhali — “bushy-tail” — who is
nagged by his dragtail wife to go ahunting. He kills a polled grey wether
and is homeward bound — but things turn out for the worse because up
comes a shepherd with his dog. Reynard dives deep into a hole among
the rocks but the shepherd jabs his staff into the hole and breaks three of
his ribs. He drags himself home in a bad way and on his deathbed tells
his story and recalls his past exploits, like the champions of the heroic
sagas. He chiefly comforts himself with the thought that a still more
vicious sheep-biter will be born in his line:
H ann m un m ann gera He will un-flock
m argan sauðlausan m any a man
og aldri upp gefa and never cease from
illt að vinna. w orking evil.

This poem is notably tripping and entertaining, the diction simple

and clear — not that there is anything poverty-stricken about the
vocabulary, as an accumulation like the following may show:
H ef eg með ströndu I have regu larly made m y w ay
strokið ja fn lig a along the shore
og heim a ja fn a n and sniffed the middens
um hauga snuðrað, at the farm s;
bitið h e f eg álar, I have chewed straps,
bellt klippingum , fallen upon shorn skins,
rifið a f þönum ripped from the fram e
rétt húð hverja. every stretched hide.

The fun partly lies in the way everyday things are described in high-
flown terms. This is reminiscent of Skiba rima and it could well be that
the two poems are the work of the same man. And Skauflialabálkur joins
Skíba ríma, Kötludraumur and the best of the ballads as the prime
examples of Icelandic poetry of late medieval origin which modern
readers find easiest to appreciate.

The most impressive poem of the later middle ages, however, belongs
in a different line — a “complaint” called Heimsósómi, “World’s dis­
grace”, by Skáld-Sveinn — unknown except for his name. The diction is
vigorous but with some traces of foreign influence that point to a date
late in the period: but hardly later than the opening of the sixteenth
century because in the Vísnabók of 1612 it is counted among “old”
poems. There is no easy and empty preamble but a burst of unusual
poetic energy right from the start:
 NEW FO RM S

Hvað mun veröldin vilja? W h a t w ill the w orld be wanting?

H un veitist um svo fast It revolves so hard
að h enn ar hjólið snýst. that its wheel spins and spins.
Skepnan tekur að skilja C reation begins to understand
að skaplig setning brast that fitting ord er has failed
og gam lan farveg ílýr. and deserts its ancient course.
H am ingjan ven d ir hjóli niður Fortune turns her wheel down to the
til ja rð a r, ground,
h áfu r eru til einskis vansa possessions are put to every evil use,
sparðar, lands and gold and estates are all
leggst í spenning lönd og gull at hazard,
og garðar, but less heed is paid to w hat is m ore
en gætt er síður hins er m eira im portant.
varðar.

(The word háfur, fem. pi., is from German haben,)

Heimsósómi is an outspoken onslaught on lords and leaders who
oppress poor peasants, despise good men and think only of enriching
themselves more and more. The criticism is general, no explicit refer­
ences are made, and it is doubtful whether it is possible or worth trying
to identify individuals as the objects of the poet’s attack. He does not fail
to remind the rich that their goods are of no benefit to them in the next
world:
Þú ert ei gerr a f grjóti Y ou are not m ade o f stone
og getur ei klæðzt með stål, and cannot clothe y o u rself in steel
þú flytu r ei fé með þér. — you take no m oney with you.

The poem is one of the many “complaints” made far and wide in the
countries of Europe in the late middle ages. Others are known in
Iceland too, but Heimsósómi is so greatly superior to them in vigour and
eloquence that none of the others provides a possible model or worthy
parallel. The stanza-form is of foreign origin but became established in
Icelandic - it is the same as in Davíðsdiktur and Ljómur (p. 388 above).
The “complaint” became a popular genre in Iceland — from post­
reformation times may be mentioned such notable examples as Bjarni
Borgfirðingaskáld’s Aldasöngur, Hallgrímur Pétursson’s Aldarháttur, and
several poems by Stefán Ólafsson and Eggert Ólafsson. The general
attitude remains the same but naturally the particular criticisms change
from age to age and in accordance with the personal circumstances of
the poets.
SECULAR POETRY 395
A standard eddaic metr e, fornyrbislag (p. 33), was kept alive in the late
middle ages in a variety of narrative poems. Their subjects are no longer
ancient heroic legends but folk-tales and fairy-tales — which accords
with the fashion in other popular literature of the period, fomaldarsögur,
riddara sögur and rimur. Admittedly we cannot be precise in dating such
narrative fornyrbislag verse but it seems most likely that its origins are to
be sought in the last decades of the pre-reformation age. The oldest
manuscript sources are from the seventeenth century, when the poems
circulated orally and were regarded as ancient works by unknown poets.
They were recorded from various informants and consequently exist in
variant versions. They have not yet been satisfactorily edited and those
available in print are chiefly to be found in Ólafur Davíðsson’s íslenzkar
þulur og þjóbkvæbi.

The substance of the poem called Snjáskvœði is closely related to the

folk-tale about Snotra printed in Jón Árnason’s collection (íslenzkar
þjóðsögur og ævintýri, ed. Árni Böðvarsson and Bjarni Vilhjálmsson,
1954—61, I 109—11). The tale has a stanza, Deildu tvær um dauðan kálf
which also appears in the kvœði but in fornyrbislag:

M an eg að deildu, I rem em ber they contended —

m innstu þess, konungur, recall that, king —
d rósir ungar dam sels youthful
urn dauðan kálf. o ver a dead calf.

Kringilnefjukvœbi tells of a lady under enchantment who brings up her

niece and marries her to a prince and so frees herself from the spell. At
the end of the poem there is a variant of the folk-tale þula, Köttur úti i
myri. Gullkársljób tells the story of a princess who was put in a castle and
forced to sew, but she could make no progress until the dwarf Gullkár
came to help her: he is really a prince under a spell.
These story-poems are generally told in an even style, nimble but not
ambitious. But sometimes a note of melancholy beauty is heard, as in a
stanza like the following, which is reminiscent of the laments of eddaic
poetry:

Svo er okkar Love between us

ást i m illi likened m ay be
sem hus standi to a house leaning
h allt í brekku, lorn on hillside:
396 NEW FORMS

svigni sulur, braces buckling,

sjatni veggur, balks subsiding,
sé van viðað, it’s frail-tim bered —
völdum bæði. faults on both sides.

The best known of all the story-poems is Kötludraumur, which is found

in many copies and with large variations. The folk-tale it tells is
associated with people known from Landnámabók. Katla — who in the
early source is Þorkatla — was the wife of Master Már on Reykjanes.
While he was away at the assembly, she fell asleep and slept soundly for
four days. One of the hidden people, Álfvör, lures her to her home and
forces her to sleep with her son, Kár. There were all kinds of splendour
in the elfin hall and the entertainment was of the finest, but Katla can
take no pleasure there:
M iklu ann eg I love M á r
M ávi h eitara far too ard en tly
en eg með yðu r to be able to take
yndi taki. delight in you r com pany.

K ár then gives her leave to go home but tells her on parting that they
will have a son. As she leaves, she hears his heart break. The son Katla
had by her supernatural lover was Ari Másson, a respected chieftain
and the forefather of a notable line.

Love-poetry of various kinds stood in high favour in the late middle

ages. It tends to be fragmentarily preserved. Good examples are to be
found in Jón Samsonarson’s Kvædi og dansleikir (II, pp. 37-199). They
have much in common with the mansöngvar of the rimur, one poet repeats
another, seldom with any note of personal experience or genuine
emotion. But the matter itself — love-longing and love’s joyful celebra­
tion — is enough to conjure up grand images and start the blood pulsing
through our veins:
Þó að eg fari urn Island allt Even though I go through the whole
eyðisveitir að kanna, o f Iceland to explore its deserts,
út i heim, austur urn geim, out into the w orld and east over
fæðist engin fegri nein the ocean, I shall find no one
leynt hjá ljufum svanna. hidden aw ay who is born fairer than
that darling m aid.

Related to these love-lyrics are various songs in sad mood, rigmaroles

SECULAR POETRY 397
and children’s rhymes, some of which are attributed to elves or other
supernatural beings. The little child of a human mother and one of the
hidden people cries and cries and will not be comforted. Then someone
comes to the window and sings a cradle song which has since been
known as Ljúflingsljóð (Ijúflingur, “dear one”, is a name for an elf-man).
It begins:
Soil, soil sonur minn. Sleep, sleep, m y son,
Sefu r selur í sjó, The seal sleeps in the sea,
svan u r á báru, the swan on the w ave,
m ár í hólm i — the gull on the islet —
m anngi þig svæ fir — nobody lulls you —
þ orskur í djúpi. the cod in the deep.
Sofðu, eg unni þér. Sleep, for I love you.

As the end of the Catholic period draws nearer, we have better

information about some named poets but even now there are many
doubts about attributions and naturally we must assume the loss of a
mass of material which could have filled out the picture for us. A stanza
supposed to have been composed by Jon Arason in 1530 refers to the
four leading poets of the age, one in each Quarter of the country:
Ö ld segir afbragð skálda People say th at in the west
E inar prest fy rir vestan, E inar the priest is the ch ief o f poets;
H allsson h ró ð ra r snilli in the south the son o f H allu r
hefur kunnað fy rir sunnan, has understood the genius o f poetry;
Blind hafa b ragn ar fundið in the east men have found
bragtrau stan fy rir austan, B lindur a trusty maker;
G unni get eg að sönnu truly I say th at in the north
greiðorður sé fy rir norðan. G unni has a fluent tongue.

Einar prestur was probably Einar Snorrason (father of Bishop Mar-

teinn of Skálholt, died 1576), who held the benefice of Staður on
Ölduhryggur, but we know no verse that can be attributed to him. Jón
Hallsson was a respected magnate in the south country who died well on
in years in 1538. There are three poems on old age in the 1612 Visnabok,
all called Ellikvœði, one of which is ascribed to him. It is a well-made
poem, beginning with an amusing description of the tribulations of old
age and ending with words of contrition and an injunction to exercise
Christian resignation. Sigurður blindur was allegedly the poet of Rosa
(p. 387) and late sources say that he also composed rimur, though Björn
K. Þórólfsson is doubtful whether he can be the author of all that are
398 NEW FORMS

attributed to him. Gunni must be Gunni Hallsson who spent many

years at Hólar in the first part of the sixteenth century. A seventeenth-
century manuscript refers to him as Hólaskáld and ascribes to him the so-
called Ólafsvísur (on St Óláfr, the fourth set of verses with that title in
Jón Helgason’s íslenzk mibaldakvœði> II 444—59).
If Jón Arason really made the stanza just cited, we can understand
why he did not mention the other outstanding poet in the north, because
that was himself. In addition to the devotional poems that are certainly
or doubtfully said to be his (p. 388 above), various pieces of occasional
poetry are associated with his name. It is doubtless again the case that
his fame has caused him to be credited with more than he is entitled to,
but we may be confident that he composed some of it, not least the very
personal poem on his dealings with Bishop Marteinn and others of the
Lutheran reformers. This is in fact the first poem we have had on
contemporary affairs for the best part of two centuries:
V ík u r hann sér í V ið eyjarklau stu r, He turns aside to the V iðey
víða trui eg hann svam li hinn gam li. m onastery:
V ið D anska v a r hann d ja rfu r og I think the old m an splashes far
hrau stur, and wide.
dreifði hann þeim á flæ ðar flaustur A gainst the Danes he was bold
með brauki og bram li. and b rave,
he scattered them onto old tubs o f
boats
w ith noise and tum ult.

Bishop Jon was beheaded in Skálholt in the autumn of 1550. His

execution marked a sharp cleft between old and new. The literature
which had been intimately associated with the outlook and customs of
the Catholic Church, and which had been predominant in Iceland since
the Conversion at the beginning of the eleventh century, died there with
him. By then, it is true, the old culture had become petrified and sterile
in many ways, and to some extent the Reformation introduced a new
freshness and flowering. But with it also came greater concentration of
authority in the hands of the Danish monarchy, increasing Danish
interference in Icelandic affairs, and a degrading degree of impoverish­
ment among the Icelanders. Jón Arason’s farewell verse may be counted
a fitting epilogue to the long medieval chapter in Iceland’s history, a last
sigh for the country’s independence and its old forms of Christian
culture:
SECULAR POETRY 399
V ondslega hefir oss veröldin blekkt, Sham elessly has the w orld
vélað og tælt oss nógu frekt, deceived us,
e f eg skal dæ m dur a f danskri slekt, im pudently enough tricked and
og d eyja svo fy rir kóngsins mekt. cheated us,
if I am to be condem ned by men
o f D anish breed
and so die a victim o f the king’s might
 Bibliography
A uthors and titles o f works given in the text are not norm ally repeated in the
following lists. These include the p articu lar sources o f some m aterial presented
in the above su rvey but are otherw ise intended only as a guide, chiefly to more
recent editions and studies which the au th o r can recom m end w ith some confi­
dence. M an y articles on early Icelandic literatu re ap p ear in:

K u ltu rh istorisk L eksikon f o r nordisk m id d ela ld er , ed. Lis Jacob sen , G. R ona et al.,
I - X X I I , 19 5 6 -7 8 .
K in d lers L itera tu r L exikon, ed. G . W o ern er et al., I—V I I , 19 6 5 -7 2 .
R eallex ik on d er G erm an isch en A ltertum sk unde. Begründet von Joh an n es Hoops.
Zweite . . . A uflage, ed. H. Beck et al., in progress from 1968.
D ictio n a ry o f th e M id d le A ges} ed. Jo sep h R. S trayer, in progress from 1982.

For translations o f sagas see especially:

D. K . F ry, N orse S a g a s T ra n sla ted in to E n glish . A B ib lio g r a p h y , 1980.

A bb reviation s used in the bibliographical lists are:

B O N IS B ib lio g r a p h y o f O ld N o rse-I cela n d ic S tu d ies, ed. H. Bekker-Nielsen for

the R oyal L ib rary, C openhagen, in progress from 1963.
ÍF íslen z k fo r n r it , in progress from 1933 (see alphabetical list below).
H a n d list O. W idding, H. Bekker-N ielsen, L .K . Shook, The Lives o f the
Saints in O ld Norse Prose. A H andlist, in M ed ia ev a l S tu d ies
X X V , 1963. (A new edition revised by Jø rg e n H. Jørgensen is
forthcom ing.)

P a g e s 9 -1 9 A n ew la n d
9 D ie G erm ania d es T a citu s, ed. R. M uch. 3rd. edn., ed. H. Jan k u h n ,
W . Lange, 1967.
T a citu s, T he A grico la a n d the G erm an ia, tr. H. M attin gly, rev. S.A .
H andford, 1970.
26 Eddas and Sagas
402 BIBLIOGRAPHY

10-11 J o r n a n d is seu J o r d a n i . . . d e G etarum . . . o r ig in e , cd. T. M om m sen,

M onum cnta G erm aniae H istorica, A uctorum antiquissim orum
tomi v. pars prior, 1877.
T he G oth ic H istory o f J o r d a n e s , tr. C .C . M icrow , 1915.
Jo rd an is, G oteso ga , tr. S. Skard, 1932.
T he R u ssia n P rim a ry C h ro n icle, tr. S.H. Cross, O .P. Sherbow itz-
W etzor, 2nd edn., 1953.
G w yn Jo n es, A H istory o f th e V ikings, 2nd edn., 1984.
P. Foote and D .M . W ilson, T he Viking A ch ievem en t, 2nd edn., 1980.
11-19 J ó n Joh an nesson , A H istory o f the O ld I cela n d ic C om m on w ea lth , ís le n d -
in g a sa g a . . . tr. H arald u r Bessason, 1974.
Björn Þorstcinsson, T h in g v e llir, tr. P. Foote, 1987.
A .S . and H. Ingstad, T he d isco v ery o f a N orse settlem en t in A m erica :
ex ca va tion s at L ’A nse aux M e a d o w s, N ew fo u n d la n d , 19 7 7-8 4.
G w yn Jo n e s, T he N orse A tlan tic S a g a , 1964.
Ó lafur H alldórsson, G rön la n d í m ib a ld a ritu m , 1978.
K n u d K rog h , Erik den R ød es G rønland, 1982.
Björn Þorsteinsson, tslen sk m id a ld a sa g a , 1978.
- I s la n d , tr. Preben M culcngracht Sørensen, 1985.
S a ga I sla n d s I -, ed. Sigurður Lindal, 1974—.

P a g es 21-24 T he m a jo r p e r io d s
2 1-2 2 Sigurður N ordal, S a ga littera tu ren , Nordisk K u ltu r V I II: B, 1953.
E. M oltke, R un es a n d th eir o rig in . D enm ark a n d e ls e w h e r e, 1985.
Sven B.F. Jan sso n , T he R u n es o f S w ed en , 2nd edn., 1987.

P a g es 2 5 -8 2 E ddaic p o etr y
H alldor H crm annsson, B ib lio g ra p h y o f the E d d a s, Islandica 13, 1920.
Joh an n S. Hanncsson, B ib liogra p h y o f the E ddas. A supplem ent . . . ,
Islandica 37, 1955. Bibliography to 1962 is in A cta P h ilo lo g ica
S ca n d in a vica 2 6 -2 9 , 1964—71; and from 1963 in B O N IS . Sec also
Josep h H arris, Eddie poetry, in O ld N ors e - I c e la n d ic L itera tu re: A
C ritica l G u ide, Islandica 45, 1985.
W hole or p art editions o f note are: N orræn fo r n k v æ b i, ed. S. Bugge,
1867, repr. 1965. E dda, ed. G. Neckel, 5th edn., ed. H. K u h n ,
1983. E d d a d ig te I—III, ed. J o n Helgason, 2nd/3rd edns., 19 6 2-5 .
E dduk væ bi, cd. Ó lafu r Briem , 1968. T vå r k vidur fo r n a r [V ölundar-
kviða, A tlak við a], ed. J ó n Helgason, 1962. K v ib u r a f G otum o g
H únum [H am ðism ál, G u ðrú n arh vöt, H löðskviða], ed. Jó n
Helgason, 1967. T he P o e tic E dda I [A tlakviða, A tlam ál, G uðrún-
arh vöt, H am ðism ál], cd. U rsu la Dronke, 1969. E ddica m in ora ,
ed. A . H eusler and W . Ranisch, 1903, repr. 1974.
Im portant general surveys: by J a n de V ries in his A ltn ord isch e L it­
era tu rg esch ich te’, 2nd edn., 1964—7; by J o n Helgason in N orges o g
BIBLIOGRAPHY 403
I sla n d s d ig tn in g , Nordisk K u ltu r V I II: B, 1953; and by E inar 0 1 .
Sveinsson, íslen z k a r bók m en ntir í fo r r ió ld I, 1962.
Edda texts in the present volum e are m ostly cited from J o n Helga-
son’s edn., E d d a d ig te I—III.
G u stav L indblad, S tu d ier i C odex R eg iu s a v a ld re E ddan , 1954.
2 6-2 9 W . K rau se, D ie S p ra ch e d e r u rn ord isch en R u n en in sch riften , 1971, pp.
16 9 -7 0 .
3 0 -3 1 B e o w u l f a n d th e F ig h t a t F in n sb u rg, ed. Fr. K la eb er, 3rd edn., 1950.
H ildebrandslied in A lth och d eu tsch es L eseb u ch , ed. W . Braune, K .
H elm, 16th edn., ed. E.A. Ebbinghaus, 1979.
J ó n H elgason, H ildibrandskviða, in R itgerð a k orn o g rœ d u stú fa r, 1959,
pp. 6 1 -7 7 (first printed in S k im ir 123, 1949).
3 2 -3 3 D eo r, ed. K . M alone, 4th edn., 1966.
W idsith , ed. K . M alone, 1962.
Stefán E inarsson, W ídsíð = V íðföru ll, in S k írnir 110, 1936, pp. 164—
190.
D a s N ib elu n g en lied , ed. K . B artsch, 16th edn., ed. H. de Boor, 1961.
4 0 -4 4 V óluspá, ed. Sigurð ur N ordal, 2nd edn., 1952; tr. B.S. Benedikz
and J . M cK in n e ll, 1978.
4 4 -4 7 H á va m á l, ed. D .A .H . Evans, 1986.
6 6-6 8 F. G enzm er, D er D ichter der A tlak við a, in A rkiv f ó r nordisk f i l o l o g i
42, 1926; cf. U rsu la D ronke, T he P o e tic E dda I, pp. 4 2 -3 .

P a g es 83-114 S ca ld ic p o etr y
Lee M . H ollander, A B ib lio g r a p h y o f S k ald ic S tu d ies, 1958. Bibliogra­
phy to 1962 is in A cta P h ilo lo g ica S ca n d in a vica 26—29, 19 6 4 -7 1; and
from 1963 in B O N IS . See also R oberta Frank, Scaldic poetry, in
O ld N o rse-I cela n d ic L itera tu re: A C ritica l G u id e, Islandica 45, 1985.
Full editions: D en n orsk -islan dsk e S k ja ld ed ig tn in g, ed. F innur Jón sson ,
19 12 -15 . D en n orsk -islän dsk a S k aldedik tn in gen , ed. E.A. K ock,
19 4 6 -9 . G ood anthologies: S k a ld isch es L eseb u ch , ed. E.A. K ock
and R. M eissner, 1931. S k ja ld evers, ed. J o n H elgason, 1962.
R ecent studies: J o n H elgason, N orges o g Isla n d s d ig tn in g , in Nordisk
k u ltu r V I I I : B, 1953. G. T u rville-P etre, S ca ld ic P o e try , 1976.
R ob erta Frank, O ld N orse C ourt P oetry. T he D róttk væ tt S tanza, Is­
landica 42, 1978. H ans K u h n , D as D róttk vœ tt, 1983.
M uch scaldic verse has been reconsidered in the saga editions in
ÍF , which should be consulted. Scaldic verse quoted here n or­
m ally follows I F texts when they contain it, otherw ise F innur
Jó n s s o n rs S k ja ld ed igtn in g.
F. Paasche, K risten d o m o g k vad, 1914, repr. 1948 in his H edensk ap o g
k risten dom .
W . Lange, S tu dien z u r ch ristlich en D ich tu n g d er N ord germ a n en 1000-
1200, 1958.
404 BIBLIOGRAPHY

8 7 -8 8 O n poetic language: R. M eissner, D ie K en n in g a r d er S k alden, 1921.

E. M arold , K en n in gk u n st, 1983. M . Clunies-R oss, S k áldsk aparm ál,
1987.
O n technical term inology: G. K reu tzer, D ie D ich tu n gsleh re d er
S k alden, 1974.
93 Skáld atal is edited in volum e III o f E dda S norra S tu rlu son a r, sum pti-
bus Legati A rnam agnæ ani, 18 4 8 -8 7 , repr. 1966, and in E dda
S norra S tu rlu son a r, ed. G uðni Jón sson , 1949.
97 A slak Liestøl, R uner frå Bryggen, Viking 1963; idem, bibliography
in N orges in n sk rifter m ed d e y n g r e ru n er, V I 1, 1980, p. viii.
100 O dd N ordland, H q fu dla usn i E g ils sa g a , 1956.
Jó n H elgason, H öfuðlausnarhjal, in E inarsbók . A fm œ lisk veð jq til E in­
a rs ÓL S u ein sson ar, 1969.
D. H ofm ann, Das R eim w ort giQ r in . . . Hpfuðlausn, in M ed ia ev a l
S ca n d in a via 6, 1973.
110 H áttalykill enn forni, ed. Jó n Helgason and A nne H oltsm ark,
1941.
113-114 B jarne Fidjestøl, S ó la rljóð . Ty d in g o g tolk n in gsg ru n n la g, 1979.

P a g es 115-133 An a g e o f lea rn in g
F innur Jon sson , D en oldn orsk e o g o ld isla n d sk e L ittera turs H isto rie,
19 2 0 -2 4 , II, pp. 9 0 9 -4 6 .
G. T u rville-P etrc, O rigin s o f I cela n d ic L itera ture, 1953.
F. Paasche, N orges o g I sla n d s L ittera tur, 2nd edn., ed. Anne H olts­
m ark, 1957, pp. 2 7 0 -3 3 6 .
117 F irst G ra m m a tica l T rea tise, ed. Einar Haugen, 2nd edn., 1972; The
F irst G ra m m a tica l T rea tise, ed. H reinn Benediktsson, 1972.
117— 120 H alldor H erm annsson, T he A ncient L a w s o f N orw a y a n d Icela n d , Is-
landica 4, 1911, repr. 1966.
G rågås I—III, ed. V ilh já lm u r Finscn, 18 5 2-18 8 3, repr. 1974; tr. V il-
h jálm u r Finsen, 1870; D ie G rau gan s, tr. A. H eusler, 1937; L a w s o f
E arly I cela n d I, tr. A . Dennis, P. Foote, R. Perkins, 1980 (from
which the English version o f the passage on p. 119 is taken).
12 0 -127 íslendingabók and Landnám abók: Sec bibliographies under Pages
17 9 -2 0 2 below.
Stan d ard editions: íslen d in ga b ó k . L andnám abók , ed. Jak o b Bene­
diktsson, Í F I, 1968. L andnám bók I— III, ed. Finnur Jón sson ,
1900. L andnám abók . M ela b ók , ed. F innur Jón sson , 1921. S k arðsár-
bók, ed. Ja k o b Bcnediktsson, 1958.
A translation o f the Sturlubók version o f L andnám abók is in T he
B ook o f S ettlem en ts, tr. H erm ann Pálsson and P. Edw ards, 1972.
J ó n Jóh an nesson , G erd ir L andnám abók ar, 1941.
Sveinbjörn Rafnsson, S tu d ier i L andnám abók , 1974.
B IB L IO G R A P H Y 4-05

123—124 H alldór H crm annsson, S æ m und S ip fú sson a n d the O d d a veria r, Islan-

dica 22, 1932.
129—130 D en fø r s t e o g anden gra m m a tisk e a fh a n d lin g i S norres E dda, ed. V .
D ahlerup and F innur Jon sson , 1886. D en tred je o g f j æ r de g r a m m a ­
tisk e a fh a n d lin g i S n orres E dda, ed. Björn M. Ólsen, 1884. T he so-
c a lle d S econ d G ra m m a tica l T rea tise, cd. F. D. R aschcllå, 1982.
130 T he A rn a -M a gn æ a n M a n u scrip t 674 A 4to, E lu cid a riu s, ed. Jo n Helga-
son, M an u scrip ta Islandica 4, 1957. A strid Salvcscn, S tu d ies in
the vo ca b u la ry o f the O ld N orse E lu cid a riu m , 1968.
A lkuin i n orsk -islan dsk o v erlev e rin g , ed. Ole W idding, 1960.
Bibliography o f St G reg o ry’s Dialogues in H a n d list, p. 311; see also
T he L ife o f St. G regory a n d h is D ia lo gu es, ed. H reinn Bcncdiktsson,
1963.
132 V eraldar sa g a , ed. Ja k o b Benediktsson, 1944.
H alldor H crm annsson, T he I cela n d ic P h y sio lo g u s, Islandica 27, 1938.
Je n s V ellev, J o n n a Louis-Jensen, in R om ansk e S ten a rb ejd er 2, ed.
Je n s V ellev, 1984, pp. 7—62.
13 2 -133 L eiðarvísir in A lfræ d i íslen fk I, ed. K r. K ålu n d , 1908.
Jo y c e Hill, From Rom e to Jeru salem : an Icelandic itinerary o f the
m id-tw elfth century, in H a rva rd T h eo lo g ica l R ev iew 76, 1983.
W orks on com putus (Rim begla) in A lfræ d i íslenzk II, ed. N.
Beckman and K r. K å lu n d , 1914—16.

P a g es 135-146 H a gio gra p h y . S a in ts’ liv e s

B ibliography in H a n d list, supplem ented by B O N IS.
M ajo r collections, all edited by C .R . Unger: P osto la sö gu r, 1874;
H eila gra m anna s ö g u r I—II, 1877; M a n u sa g a , 1871.
13 6 -14 0 M . N ygaard, Den lærde stil i den norrøne prosa, in S p r o g lig -h is to ­
risk e S tu d ier tileg n e d e P r o fe ss o r C .R. U n ger, 1896.
Jo n a s K ristjån sson , Learned style or saga style? in S pecu lu m nor-
roenum . N orse S tu d ies in m em ory o f G abriel T u rv ille-P etre, 1981.
142 J ó n Steffensen, M arg rétar saga and its history in Iceland, in S a ga -
B ook 16, 19 6 2 -6 5 ; in Icelandic in his M ea n in g o g m ein sem d ir, 1975.
143 T hom as sa g a erk ibysk ups, ed. C .R . U nger, 1869; ed. Eirikr M agn-
ússon, 18 7 5-8 3.
Stefán K arlsson , Icelandic Lives o f Thom as A. Beckct: questions
o f authorship, in P ro ceed in g s o f the F irst In tern a tio n a l S a ga C on fer­
en ce, 1971.
B a rla a m s ok J o s a p h a ts sa g a , ed. M . R indal, 1981.
14 3 -14 4 S tjórn , ed. C .R . U nger, 1862; recent bibliography in I.J. K irb y ,
B ib le T ra n sla tion in O ld N orse, 1986. Einar 0 1 . Sveinsson, A thuga-
sem dir um Stjörn , in S tu dia cen ten a lia in hon orem m em oria e B enedik t
S. P óra rin sson , 1961.
406 BIBLIOGRAPHY

144 G yb in ga s a g a , ed. G u ðm u n du r Þorláksson, 1881; a new edition is in

prep aration under the auspices o f Stofnun A rn a M agnússonar á
íslan d i.
A lex anders s a g a , ed. F in n u r Jon sson , 1925.
O . W idding, Það finnur h ver sem um er hugað, in S k írnir 134,
1960.
E inar 0 1 . Sveinsson, A th ugasem d ir um Alexanderssögu og G yð-
ingasögu, in S k írn ir 135, 1961.
144—145 M ib a ld a æ v in ty ri þ ý d d ú r ensk u, ed. E inar G. Pétursson, 1976; cf.
idem , in G ripla 4, 1980.
A lfred Jako b sen , S tu d ier i C la m s s a g a , 1964.
H istorien t il B isk op J o n til S k álh olt, tr. H. Bekker-Nielsen, 1964.

P a g e s 147-178 K in g s ’ s a g a s
H alld or H erm annsson, B ib lio g r a p h y o f th e S a ga s o f th e K in g s o f N or­
w a y a n d rela ted S a g a s a n d T a les, Islandica 3, 1910. The S a ga s o f the
K in g s . . . , Islandica 26, 1937. Subsequent bibliography in A cta
P h ilo lo gica S can din avica and BO N IS. See also Theodore M . Anders-
son, K in g s’ sagas, in O ld N o rse-I cela n d ic L itera tu re: A C ritica l
G uide, Islandica 45, 1985. K u rt Schier, S a ga litera tu r, 1970.
15 0 -15 2 B jarni G uðnason, F yrsta sa g a n , Stu d ia Islandica 37, 1978.
15 2 -15 4 S v erris s a g a e tte r C od. A M 327 4to, ed. G . Indrebø, 1920; for editions
from oth er m anuscripts see bibliographies listed above.
L. H olm -O lsen, S tu d ier i S c e n e s sa g a , 1952.
Lárus H. B löndal, Um u p p m n a S v errissö gu , 1982.
154 K n u t Helle, O m k rin g B q g lu n g a sq g u r, 1958.
H elle Jen sen , F ragm enter a f et kongesagahåndskrift fra det 13. å r­
hundrede, in O p u scu la 6, Bibliotheca A rn am agn æ an a 33, 1979.
154—156 T heodoricus and H istoria N orwegiae in M on u m en ta H istorica N orve-
g iæ , ed. G. Storm , 1880, repr. 1973.
1 5 6 - 157 Å grip, ed. B jarni Einarsson, in Í F 29, 1985.
1 5 7 - 159 S a g a Ó lá fs T ry g g v a so n a r a f O ddr S n orra son munk, ed. Finnur Jon sson ,
1932.
158 Ó lá fs s a g a T ry g g v a so n a r en m esta I—II, ed. Ó lafur H alldórsson, 1958—
61.
159 P a ssio e t m ira cu la B e a ti O lau i, ed. F. M etcalfe, 1881.
15 9 -16 0 O tte B m d styk k er a f den æ ld ste S a ga om O lav den H ellig e , ed. G . Storm ,
1893.
Jo n n a L ouis-Jensen, Syven d e og ottende brudstykke. Fragm entet
A M 325 IV a 4to, in O pu scu la 4, Bibliotheca A rn am agn æ an a
30, 1970.
ó l a f s s a g a h in s h elg a . E fter . . . D ela ga rd iesk e sa m lin g nr. 811, ed. O .A .
Jo h n se n , 1922. Ó la fs s a g a h in s h elg a . D ie „ L egen d a risch e S a g a ” . . . ,
ed. A n n e H einrichs et. al., 1982.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 407
160 D en sto re S a ga om O lav den h e llig e , ed. O. A. Joh n sen and Jó n Hclga-
son, 1941.
1 6 1 - 162 M ork insk inna, ed. F innur Jón sson , 1932.
Jo n n a Louis-Jensen, K o n g es a g a s tu dier. K o m p ila tio n en H ulda-H rok k in-
sk inna, 1977.
1 6 2 - 163 F a grsk in n a , ed. F innur Jón sson , 19 0 2 -3 ; cd. B jarni Einarsson, in Í F
29, 1985.
1 6 3 - 164 S k fóld u n ga sa g a and K n jtlin g a s a g a , ed. B jarni G uðnason, in Í F 35,
1982.
163 Sven Aggesen, Brevis historia regum Dacic, cd. M .C1. G ertz, in
S crip tores m in ores h istoriæ d a n icæ m ed ii æ vi, 1917-22; S ven A ggesøn s
H istorisk e S k rifter, tr. M .C1. G ertz, 1916, repr. 1967.
S ax onis G esta D an oru m , ed. J . O lrik, H. R acdcr, F. Blatt, 1931-57.
Saxo G ra m m a ticu s, H istory o f th e D an es, B ook s F IX , tr. P. Fisher,
com m entary by H. Ellis D avidson, 1980. Saxo G ram m aticu s . . .
B ook s X -X V I, tr. Eric C hristiansen, 19 8 0-8 1.
1 6 4 - 165 O rk n eyin ga s a g a , ed. Sigurður N ordal, 19 13-16; cd. Finnbogi G uð-
m undsson, Í F 34, 1965.
165 J ó m s v ík in g a sa g a , ed. Ó lafu r H alldórsson, 1969. The S a ga o f the J o m s -
vik in gs, tr. N.F. Blake, 1962.
1 6 5 - 166 F æ reyin ga sa g a , cd. Ó lafu r H alldórsson, 1987. T he F a roe I sla n d ers'
S a ga , tr. George Jo h n sto n , 1975.
1 6 6 - 178 S igurð ur N ordal, S n orri S tu rlu son , 1920.
Introductions (P. Foote, Jacq u elin e Sim pson) in H eim sk rin gla , tr.
S. Laing, Parts O ne and T w o, E verym an ’s L ib rary, 1964.
M arlene C iklam ini, S n orri S tu rlu son , 1978.
S n orri dtta a ld a m in n in g, Sögufélag, 1979.
168—175 H eim sk rin gla , ed. F innur Jón sson , 18 9 3-19 0 1; ed. Bjarni A ðal-
b jarnarson, Í F 26—28, 1941—51.
170-171 G. T u rville-P ctre, The first three hands o f the R cykjaholts mál-
dagi, in S a ga -B o o k 12, 19 3 7 -4 5 .
17 5 -17 8 For bibliography o f S n o rri’s Edda see references under Pages 2 5 -
82 above.
E dda S norra S tu rlu son a r, ed. F innur Jón sson , 1931. S n orri S turluson.
E dda. P ro lo g u e a n d G y lfa g in n in g , ed. A. Faulkes, 1982. The P rose
E dda, tr. A . Faulkes, E verym an ’s L ib rary, 1987.
M . C lunies Ross, S k áldsk aparm ál, 1987.

P a g es 179-202 C on tem p ora ry sa g a s

H alldor H erm annsson, B ib lio g ra p h y o f the I cela n d ic S a ga s a n d M in o r
T a les, Islandica 1, 1908; idem, T he S a g a s o f Icela n d ers . . . A
S u p p lem en t . . . , Islandica 24, 1935. Jó h a n n S. Hannesson, The
S a g a s o f Icela n d er s . . . A S u p p lem en t . . . , Islandica 38, 1957.
408 BIBLIOGRAPHY

B ibliography for 19 5 6 -6 2 is in A cta P h ilo lo g ic a S ca n d in a vica 2 6 -2 9 ,

19 6 4 -7 1, and from 1963 in B O N IS .
18 0 -18 6 B isk u pa sö g u r , gefnar ut a f Hinu íslenzka bókm entafélagi, 18 5 8-7 8.
B ysk u p a sq g u r [p rincipally H ungrvaka, Þorláks saga, Páls saga],
ed. J o n H elgason, 19 3 8 -7 8 .
1 8 4 - 185 G udm undar s ö g u r bisk ups I, ed. Stefán K arlsson , 1983 ( I I - I V in pre­
p aration ).
1 8 5 - 186 A rna s a g a bisk ups, ed. Þ orleifur H auksson, 1972.
186 L au ren tiu s s a g a bisk u ps, ed. A rn i Björnsson, 1969.
Jø rg e n H. Jørgen sen , B is p e s a g a e r - L au ren tiu s s a g a , 1978.
P. K op pen b erg, H a g io g ra p h isch e S tu dien zu den B isk u p a sö g u r , 1980.
1 8 6 - 187 Isla n d sk e A n n aler in d til 1578, ed. G. Storm , 1888, repr. 1977.
1 8 7 - 202 S tu rlu n ga s a g a , ed. K r. K å lu n d , 1906—11. S tu rlu n ga s a g a , ed. Jo n Jo -
hannesson, M agnus Finnbogason, K ristján E ldjárn, 1946. Sep­
arate editions o f note are: P o r g ils sa g a ok H a flid a , ed. U rsula
Brow n, 1952; H ra fn s s a g a S vein b ja rn a rson a r, ed. G uðrún P. Helga-
dóttir, 1987.
O n ind ivid u al texts in Stu rlu n ga saga, see especially Björn M . 0 1 -
sen, U m Stu rlu n gu , in S a fa til sö g u is la n d s III, 1902, and Jó n Jó -
hannesson’s introduction in vol. 2 o f S tu rlu n ga s a g a , 1946.
189 W .P . K e r, E pic a n d R om a n ce, 1897 (and rep r.), pp. 2 3 8 -9 .
193—198 P étur Sigurðsson, U m íslend in ga sögu Stu rlu Þ órðarsonar, in S a fn
til s ö g u I sla n d s V I, 19 3 3 -5 .
195 Á rn i Pálsson, Sn orri Sturluson og íslendingasaga, in his Á vid o g
drei/, 1947.

P a g e s 20 3-29 8 S a g a s o f I cela n d er s
B ibliography: see under Pages 17 9 -2 0 2 ; further, C aro l J . C lover,
Icelandic F am ily Sagas, in O ld N o rse-I cela n d ic L itera tu re: A C rit­
ica l G uide, Islandica 45, 1985. K u rt Schier, S a g a litera tu r, 1970.
Björn M . Ó lsen, U m íslendingasögur, in S a fn til sö g u is la n d s V I,
19 2 9 -3 9 . S igurð ur N ordal, S a ga littera tu ren , in Nordisk K u ltu r
V III:B , 1953. T heodore M . A ndersson, T he P rob lem o f Icela n d ic
S a ga O rig in s: a h is to r ica l su rv ey, 1964.
M ost o f the sagas m entioned in this chapter are edited in IF , see
pp. 4 11-4 13 . Editions o f texts not in that series are noted below,
along w ith a few oth er editions and studies o f p articu lar in­
terest.
2 2 5 -2 3 0 B jarni E inarsson, S k á ld a sögu r, 1961; To S k a ld esa ga er, 1976.
2 3 0 -2 3 3 B a n d a m a n n a s a g a , ed. H allvard M agerøy, 1981.
2 3 9 -2 4 1 V íga-G lúm s s a g a , ed. G. T u rville-P etre, 2nd. edn., 1960.
2 5 0 -2 5 4 H ra fn k els s a g a , ed. J ó n H elgason, 3rd. edn., 1959.
B jarne Fidjestøl, H rafnkels saga etter 40 års gransking, in M a a l o g
BIBLIOGRAPHY 409
M in n e 1983. Inger Larsson, H rafnkels saga Freysgoða. En
bibliografi, in S crip ta Isla n d ica 34, 1983.
258—263 G isla s a g a S u rsson a r, ed. A gnete Loth, 1956 and repr. T he S a ga o f
G isli, tr. G eorge Joh n sto n , 1963 and repr.
T heodore M . A ndersson, Som e am biguities in G isla saga. A b al­
ance sheet, in B O N IS 1969. G uðni Kolbeinsson and Jo n a s
K ristján sso n , G erð ir G íslasögu, in G riþla 3, 1979. A lfred Ja k o b ­
sen, N ytt lys o ver G isla saga Surssonar, in G ripla 5, 1982.
2 7 0 -2 7 3 Sven B. F. Jan sso n , S a gorn a om Vinland, 1944. Ó lafur H alldórsson,
G rön la n d í m ið a ld a ritu m , 1978.
2 7 9 -2 8 2 Jó n a s K ristján sso n , Um F ó stb rœ ð ra sögu , 1972.
2 8 5 - 2 86 H a rð a r s a g a , ed. Stu re H ast, 1960.
2 8 6 - 287 Helgi G uðm undsson, Um K ja ln es in g a s'ógu, Studia Islandica 26,
1967.
287 F lóa m a n n a s a g a , ed. F innur Jón sson , 1932.
R ichard Perkins, F lóam an n a sa g a , G a u lverja b æ r a n d H aukr E rlen d sson ,
Stu d ia Islandica 36, 1978.
288 G u ll-P óris sa g a , ed. K r. K å lu n d , 1898.
2 8 8 - 289 B á r d a r s a g a S n æ fellsá ss, ed. G u ðb ran d u r Vigfússon, 1860.
2 8 9 - 298 Einar Ó l. Sveinsson, Á N jálsbú ð. Bók um m ik id lista verk , 1943; N já ls
s a g a : A L itera ry M a sterp iece, tr. Paul Schach, 1971.
R ichard F. A llen , F ire a n d Iron . C ritica l A p p roa ch es to N jd ls sa g a , 1971.
Lars L önnroth, N jd ls sa g a . A C ritica l In trod u ction , 1976; cf. P. Foote,
New dim ensions in Njáls saga, in S ca n d in a vica 18, 1979.

P a g e s 299-309 ís le n d in g a þ æ ttir
B ibliography: see under Pages 17 9 -2 0 2 and 2 0 3 -2 9 8 . A ll the þ æ ttir
m entioned are edited in I F , see pp. 4 11-4 13 . Note also: T w o I c e ­
la n d ic S tories [H reiðars þ áttr, O rm s þ áttr], ed. A . Faulkes, 1967
and repr.; U tv a lgte þ æ ttir f r a M ork insk inna, ed. T o r U lset, 1978.
Jo se p h H arris, G en re and n arrative structure in some íslendinga
þæ ttir, in S ca n d in a via n S tu d ies 44, 1972; idem, Them e and genre
in som e íslend in ga þæ ttir, in S ca n d in a via n S tu d ies 48, 1976.

P a g es 311-339 S a g a s o f ch iv a lr y
M arian n e E. K a lin k e and P.M . M itchell, B ib lio g ra p h y o f O ld N orse-
I cela n d ic rom a n ces, Islandica 44, 1985. M arianne E. K alinke,
Norse R om ance, in O ld N o rse-Icela n d ic L itera tu re: A C ritica l G uide,
Islandica 45, 1985. K u rt Schier, S a ga litera tu r, 1970.
3 3 1 -3 3 2 F or Þiðreks saga bibliography see under Pages 3 4 1-3 6 2 .
T heodore M . A ndersson, A n interpretation o f Þiðreks saga, in
S tru ctu re a n d m ea n in g in O ld N orse litera tu re, ed. Jo h n Lindow et al.,
1986.
3 3 4 -3 3 7 K o n u n g s sk u g g sid , ed. L. H olm -O lsen, 2nd edn., 1983.
410 BIBLIOGRAPHY

S tu d ier o v er K o n u n g s sk u g g siá , ed. M . T veitane, 1971.

T he K i n g ’s M ir ro r, tr. L .M . Larson, 1917, repr. 1973.

P a g es 341-362 H eroic sa g a s
H alldor H erm annsson, B ib lio g ra p h y o f the M y th ica l-H ero ic S a g a s, Is-
landica 5, 1912; idem , T he S a g a s o f the K in g s a n d the M y th ica l-
H eroic S a ga s. T w o . . . S u p p lem en ts, Islandica 26, 1937. Subse­
quent bibliography in A cta P h ilo lo g ica S ca n d in a vica and B O N IS .
K u rt Schier, S a g a liter a tu r, 1970.
P. Foote, Sagnaskem tan: R eykjahólar 1119, in his A u rva n d ilstá ,
1984.
A slak Liestøl, in N orges in n sk rifter m ed d e y n g r e ru n er IV , ed. M . O l­
sen, 1957, pp. 2 2 6 -4 2 .
344 For Saxo see bibliography under Pages 147-178.
3 4 5 - 346 E ddica m in ora , ed. A . H eusler and W . Ranisch, 1903, repr. 1974.
M ost o f the sagas m entioned here are in F orn a ld a r sö g u r N ord rla n d a ,
ed. C .C . Rafn, 18 2 9 -3 0 , and in subsequent prints derived from
this edition. O nly a few recent editions and studies are noted
here.
3 4 6 - 349 T he S a ga o f th e V olsungs, ed. and tr. R .G . Finch, 1965.
3 4 9 -3 5 2 T he S a ga o f K in g H eidrek th e W ise [H ervarar saga], ed. and tr. C.
Tolkien, 1960.
3 5 2 -3 5 3 H ró lfs s a g a kraka, ed. D. Slay, 1960.
353 S ö gu b ro t a f fo m k o n u n g u m , ed. B jarni G uðnason, in Í F 35, 1982.
354—355 H d lfs sa g a ok H álfsrek k a , ed. H ubert Seelow, 1981.
3 5 8 -3 5 9 B jarni G uðnason, G erð ir og ritþróun R agnars sögu loðbrókar, in
E inarsbók . A fm æ lisk veðja til E inars Ó l. S vein sso n a r, 1969.
R ory M cT urk, The extant Icelandic m anifestations o f R agnars
saga loðbrókar, in G ripla 1, 1975.
360 E.F. H alvorsen, O n the sources o f the A sm u n dar saga kappabana,
in S tu d ia N orvegica II, 1951.

P a g es 36 3 -3 6 7 J ó n sb ó k
Já rn síð a (H ákonarbók) in N orges g a m le L ove I, ed. R. K eyser and
P. A . M unch, 1846.
J ó n s b ó k , ed. Ó lafu r H alldórsson, 1904, repr. 1970.
M . R indal, The legislation o f K in g M agnus Håkonsson, in C orpus
cod icu m N orvegicoru m m ed ii a e v i, Q uarto Series V I I, 1983.
Sigurð ur Lindal, Lögfesting Jón sb ók ar, in T ím a rit lö g fr œ ð in g a 32,
1982.
367 H alldor H erm annsson, I llu m in a ted M a n u scrip ts o f the fón sb ók , Islan ­
dica 28, 1940.

P a g es 369-39 9 N ew fo r m s
T he pioneer work on late m edieval poetry was J ó n Þorkelsson’s
BIBLIOGRAPHY 411
O m d ig tn in g en p å I s la n d i d et 15. o g 16. å rh u n d red e, 1888. It rem ains
im portant.
369 Nýi an n áll, in Isla n d sk e A n n aler in d til 1578, ed. G. Storm , 1888.
3 7 0 -3 7 7 D anm ark s g a m le F olk eviser, ed. Svend G ru n d tvig et. al., 18 5 3 -19 7 6
(vols. 1-10 repr. 19 6 6 -6 7 ).
íslen z k fo r n k v æ b i I—II, ed. Svend G ru n d tvig and J ó n Sigurðsson,
1854—85.
íslen z k fo rn k v æ b i. Isla n d sk e fo lk e v is e r I—V I I I , ed. J o n Helgason, 1962—
81.
V ésteinn Ó lason, T he tra d itio n a l b a lla d s o f I cela n d , 1982.
3 7 7 -3 8 4 R id d a r a -n m u r, ed. Th. W isén, 1881.
R ím n a sa fn I—II, ed. F innur Jon sson , 19 0 8-2 2.
íslen z k a r m ib a ld a n m u r, in course o f publication by Stofnun Å rn a
M agnússonar á íslan d i (vols. 1-4 , ed. Ó lafur H alldórsson,
19 7 3 -5 ).
W illia m A . C raigie, S ýnisbók íslenzk ra rim n a I—III, 1952 (with in­
troductions in Icelandic and English).
F in n u r Sigm undsson, R xm natal, 1966.
Stefán Einarsson, R eport on rim ur, in J o u r n a l o f E n glish a n d G er­
m a n ic P h ilo lo g y 54, 1955.
Shaun F.D. Hughes, R eport on rim ur, in J o u r n a l o f E n glish a n d
G erm a n ic P h ilo lo g y 79, 1980.
B jörn K . Þórólfsson, R im u r f y r i r 1600, 1934.
380 D avíð Erlingsson, B ló m a b m a l i rim um , Studia Islandica 33, 1974.
3 8 5 -3 9 0 See bibliography under Pages 8 3 -114 .
H ans Schottm ann, D ie islä n d isch e M a rien d ich tu n g, 1973.
P. Foote, L atin rhetoric and Icelandic poetry, in his A u rvan dilstá,
1984.
B ish o p G u b b ra n d ’s Vísnabók 1612, M onum enta typographica Islan­
dica V , 1937.

Sagas, þættir and other works

edited in íslenzk fornrit

Á grip a f Nóregs konunga SQgum, Í F 29, 1985.

Á grip a f sQgu D anakonunga, Í F 35, 1982.
A u ð u n ar þ áttr vestfirzka, Í F 6, 1943.
B andam anna saga, Í F 7, 1936.
B ja rn a r saga H ítdœ lakappa, Í F 3, 1938.
412 BIBLIOGRAPHY

Brandkrossa þáttr, Í F 11, 1950.

Brands þ áttr Qrva, Í F 4, 1935.
D raum r Þorsteins Síðu-H allssonar, Í F 11, 1950.
D roplaugarsona saga, Í F 11, 1950.
Egils saga Skalla-G rím sson ar, Í F 2, 1933.
Eiríks saga rauða, Í F 4, 1935, and Viðauki, 1985.
Eyrbyggja saga, Í F 4, 1935.
Fagrskinna - Nóregs konunga tal, Í F 29, 1985.
Finnboga saga, Í F 14, 1959.
Fljótsdæ la saga, Í F 11, 1950.
F óstbrœ ðra saga, Í F 6, 1943.
G isla saga Súrssonar, Í F 6, 1943.
Gísls þ áttr Illugasonar, Í F 3, 1938.
G rettis saga Á sm u n darson ar, Í F 7, 1936.
G rœ n len d in ga saga, Í F 4, 1935.
G rœ n len d in ga þáttr, Í F 4, 1935.
G u ll-Á su -Þ ó rð ar þ áttr, Í F 11, 1950.
G unnars saga Keldugnúpsfífls, I F 14, 1959.
G unnars þ áttr Þ ið randabana, Í F 11, 1950.
G unnlaugs saga, Í F 3, 1938.
H alldórs þæ ttir S n orrason ar, Í F 5, 1934.
H allfreðar saga, Í F 8, 1939.
H ávarð ar saga ísfirðings, Í F 6, 1943.
H eiðarvíga saga, Í F 3, 1938.
H eim skringla, Í F 2 6 -2 8 , 1 9 4 1 - 5 1 .
Helga þ áttr ok Ú lfs, Í F 34, 1965.
H rafnkels saga Freysgoða, I F 11, 1950.
H rafns þ áttr G u ðrú n arson ar, Í F 8, 1939.
H reiðars þ áttr, Í F 10, 1940.
H róm undar þ áttr halta, Í F 8, 1939.
H œ nsa-Þóris saga, Í F 3, 1938.
íslendingabók, Í F 1, 1968.
Jök u ls þ áttr B úasonar, Í F 14, 1959.
K jaln esin ga saga, Í F 14, 1959.
K n ýtlin g a saga, Í F 35, 1982.
K orm áks saga, Í F 8, 1939.
K róka-R efs saga, Í F 14, 1959.
Landnám abók, Í F 1, 1968.
L axd œ la saga, Í F 5, 1934.
L jósvetninga saga, Í F 10, 1940.
M agnúss saga lengri, skem m ri, I F 34, 1965.
Njáls (Brennu-N jáls) saga, Í F 12, 1954.
Odds þ áttr Ó feigssonar, Í F 7, 1936.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 413
Ófeigs þ áttr, Í F 10, 1940.
O rkn eyinga saga, Í F 34, 1965.
R eykdœ la saga ok V íga-Skú tu , Í F 10, 1940.
Skjgldunga saga, Í F 35, 1982.
Sncglu-H alla þáttr, Í F 9, 1956.
Stúfs þáttr, Í F 5, 1934.
S varfd æ la saga, Í F 9, 1956.
S g rla þáttr, Í F 10, 1940.
V alla-L jóts saga, Í F 9, 1956.
V áp n firðinga saga, Í F 11, 1950.
V a tn sd œ la saga, Í F 8, 1939.
V íga-G lúm s saga, Í F 9, 1956.
V íg lu n d ar saga, Í F 14, 1959.
V gðu-B rands þáttr, Í F 10, 1940.
Þ órðar saga hreðu, Í F 14, 1959.
Þorgrím s þ áttr H allasonar, Í F 9, 1956.
Porleifs þ áttr jarlssk áld s, Í F 9, 1956.
Porm óðar þ áttr, Í F 6, 1943.
Þorsteins saga h víta, Í F 11, 1950.
Porsteins saga Síðu-H allssonar, Í F 11, 1950.
Porsteins þ áttr A ustfirðings, Í F 11, 1950.
Þorstcins þ áttr stangarhgggs, Í F 11, 1950.
Porsteins þ áttr SQgufróða, Í F 11, 1950.
P orvalds þ áttr tasalda, Í F 9, 1956.
P o rva rð ar þ áttr krákunefs, Í F 6, 1943.
Æ vi S n o rra goða, Í F 4, 1935.
Q gm undar þ áttr dytts, Í F 9, 1956.
Q lkofra þ áttr, Í F 11, 1950.

T he following ís le n d in g a sö g u r and þ œ ttir will soon appear in Í F 13: H arðar saga,

B árðar saga, Porskfirðinga saga, F lóam anna saga, Porsteins þ áttr forvitna,
Pórarins þ áttr Nefjólfssonar, Porsteins þ áttr uxafóts, Egils þ áttr Síðu-H alls-
sonar, O rm s þ á ttr Stórólfssonar, Porsteins þ áttr tjaldstœ ðings, Bergbúa þáttr,
K u m lb ú a þ áttr, S tjö rn u -O d d a d raum r.
 Index
Absalon, archbishop 344 Ambrose, Saint 142, 157
acta 136, 142 America 16
acta apostolorum 135 amour courtois 227
Adam 336 Ancient lay of Guðrún, see Guðrúnar
Adam of Bremen 156 kviða hin forna
Aðalból 250 Ancient lay of Hamðir, see Hamdis-
aðalhending 84—5 mál
Aðalreykjadalur 133 Ancient lay of Sigurðr, see Brot af Sig-
Aðalþegnshólar 288 urðarkviðu
Aðils, king of Uppsala 167, 352-3 Ancient lay of the Völsungs, see Vols-
Agatha, Saint 142 ungakviða hin forna
age of chivalry 315 Andra saga 378
age of learning 22, 115, 117, 132 Andri, in Andrarimur 342
Age of Settlement 12, 14, 18, 21, 23, 187, Andvari 59
203 Anfänge der isländischen Saga (Heusler)
Age of the Commonwealth 15 204
Agnafit 170 Angantýr Arngrímsson 349-50, 357
Alcuin 130 Angantýr Heiðreksson 74—5, 351
Aldarháttur (Hallgrímur Pétursson) 394 Angantýr, Hervör’s son 350
Aldasöngur (Bjarni Borgfirðingaskáld) Angles 317
394 Anglo-Saxon poems 31-2
Alexander the Great 334 Anglo-Saxons 33
Alexanders saga 144, 333-4 Anna, Saint 145
Alexandreis (Gautier of Chåtillon) 333 annals 186-7
Alexandria 130 Annunciation 385
Alfræði islenzk 132 Apavatn 106
alliteration 29, 31-2, 35-6, 84-6, 118-19, Apennines 227
139, 144, 217, 322, 373, 378, 390 Arasteinn 51
Alsace-Lorraine 116 Ari Másson, in Kötludraumur 396
Altgermanische Metrik (Sievers) 33 Ari Porgilsson the Wise 12-13, 15, 117-18,
Altnordische Sagabibliothek 356 120-26, 129-30, 133, 147, 150-51, 155-8,
Alvitr, Hlöðvér’s daughter 77-8 160, 168, 184, 187, 206, 246, 255-6, 258,
Alvíss 38 278, 292, 302, 312, 359,
Alvíssmál 38 Arinbjarnarkviða (Egill Skallagrimsson)
Alþingi, see General Assembly 101, 266
416 INDEX

Arinbjörn hersir Þórisson 100, 268-9 Ágrip af Nóregs konunga sögum 149, 156,
Ariosto 330 160, 170, 312
Arnaldr Þorvaldsson 344 Ái (Great-grandfather), in Rígsþula 39
Arnamagnæan collection in Copenhagen Áki, steward of King Sveinn 302
342 Álfheiðr Njálsdóttir 200
Arnardalur 280 Álftafjörður 265
Arneiðarstaðir 246 Álftamýri in Arnarfjörður 373
Arngrimr, Viking 349 Álftanes 251
Arngrimr Brandsson 143, 185 Álfvör, in Kötludraumur 396
Arngrimr Þorgrímsson 241 Áli flekkr 341
Arngrímur Jónsson the Learned 163, 352 Án bogsveigir 361
Arnkell the Chieftain 210-11, 265 Ans saga bogsveigis 361
Arnljótr gellini 170 Árheimar 74—5
Arnoldus Tylensis (Arnaldr the Iceland­ Ármannsfell 189
er) 344 Árna saga 185-6, 366
Arnórr Þórðarson jarlaskáld 29, 44, 55, Árni beiskr 197
87, 108-9 Árni Böðvarsson 395
Aron Bárðarson 189 Árni Magnússon 126, 187, 208, 225, 334
Aron Hjörleifsson 201-2 Árni Magnússon Institute, Reykjavik 13,
Arons saga Hjörleifssonar 201-2 130, 155, 274, 290, 384
Arras in Flanders 388 Árni Sigurðsson, bishop of Bergen 356
Arrow-Oddr, see Örvar-Oddr Árni Þorláksson, bishop 185-6, 366
Arthur, king 317, 323-4, 326, 329, 332-3 Ása the Beautiful 361
Arv 252 Asa-Þórr, see Þórr
Ascension 385 Ásbjörn of Meðalhús 172
Asia 9, 176 Ásdís Bárðardóttir, G rettir’s mother 237
Askr 41 Ásgarðr 176
Athelstan, king 99, 266, 269 Ásgerðr Bjarnardóttir, Egill’s wife 100,
Atlakviða 35, 58, 61, 63, 65-6, 68, 70-72, 266, 268
74, 348 Ásgerðr Þorbjarnardóttir 262
Atlamál 70, 348 Ásgrímr Elliða-Grímsson 292
Atlantic 17 Ásíaveldi 384
Atli Buðlason, king 48, 55-6, 61, 63-8, 70, Áskell the Chieftain 243
77, 331 Aslaug, daughter of Sigurðr Fáfnisbani
Atli lays 64 358-9
Atli the Little 287 Ásmundar saga kappabana 31, 345, 360
Attila, king of the Huns, see Atli Buðla- Ásmundr kappabani 360
son Ásta Guðbrandsdóttir 172
Auðr of Mávahlíð 265 áttvísi (genealogy) 125-6
Auðr Vésteinsdóttir 262 Ávaldi skegg Ingjaldsson 229
Auðunar þáttr vestfirzka 300-303 Babylon 326
Auðunn vestfirzki 302-3, 308 Baffin Island 15
Augustine, Saint 142, 271 Baglar 154
Augustinus saga 142 Bakki in Öxnadalur 191
Augustus, emperor 314 Baldr, god 42-3, 104, 351, 382
Austad 68 Baldrs draumar 26
Austmarr, see Baltic Bali 289
INDEX 417

Ballad of the sea-troll 375 Bjarni Aðalbjarnarson 172

ballads 370-77, 379-80 Bjarni Borgfirðingaskáld 394
ballads of chivalry (ridderviser) 374, 376 Bjarni Brodd-Helgason 248, 305, 307
Baltic (Baltic Sea) 9, 11, 95, 315 Bjarni Einarsson 216, 227-9, 256
Bandamanna saga 208, 211, 223, 230-32, Bjarni Herjólfsson 15, 270, 273
249, 256, 306, 308 Bjarni Kolbeinsson, bishop 111
Barðaströnd 343 Bjarni “the number-wise55 133
Barði Guðmundarson 225, 236-7 Bjarni the Wise 122
Barlaam 143 Bjarni Vilhjálmsson 395
Barlaams saga ok Josaphats 143 Bjálkaland 357
Barri 38 Björn Breiðvíkingakappi Ásbrandsson 87,
Bartholin, Thomas 208 211, 265
Basil, Saint 148 Björn Einarsson the Jerusalem-farer 392
Bathsheba 388 Björn Hítdælakappi Arngeirsson 235,
baugatal 118 256-8
Bárðar saga Snæfellsáss 288 Björn Jónsson of Skarðsá 125
Bárðardalur 236 Björn M. Ólsen 205, 223, 232, 239, 251,
Bárðr (a Norwegian) 307 253, 284, 294
Bárðr Dumbsson Snæfellsáss 288 Björn K. Þórólfsson 223, 379, 397
Bárðr Hallason 240 Björn Sigfússon 242, 244
Bárðr the Black 189 Björn Þorleifsson 145—6
Bárðr upplenzki 301 Black Sea 48
Beardsley, Aubrey 321 Blaise, Saint 148
Bede, priest 132 Blankiflúr 326
Benedikt Gröndal 382 Blávus rimur 379
Bennett, C.E. 227 Blessed Virgin (Virgin Mary) 112, 142,
Beowulf 31-2, 236, 352 145, 148, 313, 386-8, 390
Bergen 97, 145, 151, 202, 313, 315, 356 Blindur, see Sigurður the Blind
Bergr Sokkason 139 Blund-Ketill Geirsson 278-9
Bergr the Brave 238 Boccaccio 236
Bergsbók 258 Boer, R.C. 356
Bergþórshvoll 192, 293-6 Bolla þáttr 278
Bern (Verona) 331 Bolli Bollason 220, 273--f, 277-8
Berriod 356 Bolli Þorleiksson 274, 276—7
Bersöglisvísur (Sighvatr Þórðarson) 107—8 Bologna 145
Bibliography of Old Norse-Icelandic Book of Revelation 43
Studies 254 Book of Settlements, see Landnámabók
Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana 144 Book of the Icelanders, see íslendingabók
Billingr’s daughter 45 Books of the Kings 143
Birkibeinar 154, 314 Borg á Mýrum 255, 265—6
bishops5 sagas (biskupa sögur) 128, 179— Borgarfjörður 98, 142, 167, 190, 224, 265
80, 186, 188, 193 Borgarþing 363
Bjarkamál 90, 346, 352 Borghildr, mother of Helgi Hundingsbani
Bjarka rimur 353 54
Bjarki (Böðvar-Bjarki) 352-3 Borr, sons of 41
Bjarnar saga Hitdælakappa 235-6, 249, Botn in Hvalfjörður 251
256-8, 284 Bósa saga 361

27 Eddas and Sagas

418 INDl-X

Bósi 361 Brynjólfur Sveinsson, bishop 25-6, 121, 373

Bóthildr, slave-woman 259 Buðli, king 62
braghenda 378 Bugge, Alexander 55
Bragi, god 96, 178 Bugislav, duke 163
Bragi Boddason the Old 72, 85, 88, 93, Burgundians 48
95, 355, 362 Burgundy 318
Brandr Jónsson, bishop 144, 199-200, Busla 361
270, 272, 334 Buslubæn 361
Brandr Sæmundarson, bishop 190, 270- Búi digri 111
73 Búi Andríðsson 286-7
Brandr Þórarinsson 142 Búrfell 289
Brálundr 54 Byzantium, see Constantinople
Brávellir 353 Bæjarlög 363
Brávík (Brávik) 353 Böðvarr Ásbjarnarson 189
Breiðabólstaður in Vesturhóp 118 Böðvarr, Egill’s son 101
Breiðafjörður 120 Böðvars þáttr 352
Brennu-Flosi, see Flosi Þóröarson Böðvarsdalur 248, 307
Brennu-Kári, see Kári Sölmundarson Böðvildr, princess 76—80
Brennu-Njáll, see Njáll Þorgeirsson Böglunga saga 154
Brennu-Njáls saga, see Njáls saga Börkr Þorsteinsson hinn digri 262-3
Breta sögur 319, 324, 332 Bååth, A.U. 289
Bretagne, see Brittany Caesar, Julius 186
Bretland, see Wales Caithness in Scotland 82
Bretons 328 Canterbury 143, 193
Brevis historia regum Dacie (Sven Agge- Carolingian age 316
sen) 163 Carthage 359
Brian Boruma 292 Catherine, Saint 142
Britain (British Isles) 266, 311, 317-18, Cecily, Saint 142
332, 341, 373 Cederschiöld, Gustaf 338,
British Museum 79 Celts 318
Britons 332 Cesarea 137
Brittany (Bretagne) 317-18, 328 Channel 317
Brjáns saga 249, 292 Chanson de Roland 316, 329-30
Brodd-Helgi 247-9 chansons de geste 48, 219, 316-18, 328-9
Broddi Bjarnason 231, 306 Charlemagne (Charles the Great, Karla-
Bronze Age 9 magnús) 316-17, 329-31, 352
Brot af Sigurðarkviðu (Fragment of a Sig- children’s rhymes 397
urðr lay, Ancient lay of Sigurðr) 59-61, chivalric sagas, see riddara sögur
63, 70 Chretien de Troyes 317, 324, 326, 332
Brunanburh 266 Christ (Jesus, the Savior) 105, 111-12, 132,
Brutus 332 135, 140, 326, 385-6, 390
Bryggen in Bergen 97 Christian poetry, see religious verse
Brynhildarkviða, see Sigurðarkviða hin Christianity (Christian faith, belief,
skamma Christendom) 22-3, 31, 64, 105, 109,
Brynhildr Buðladóttir 55, 57-60, 62-4, 112, 115-16, 121-2, 138, 143, 147, 158,
70, 277, 316, 358 166, 172, 179-80, 184, 186, 195, 229,
Brynhildur, in Geðraunir 374 255, 271-2, 307-8, 311, 316, 330
INDEX 419

Christopher, Saint 145 Darraðarljóð 82

Cimbri 10 Dating the Icelandic Sagas (Einar 0 1.
clavis metrica 391 Sveinsson) 217
clavis rhythmica 110 David, king 388
Clement, Saint 137 Davíð Erlingsson 380
Clontarf 82, 249, 292 Davíðsdiktur 388, 394
Codex Regius (Konungsbók, Eddaic Day of Judgment 385-6, 388
poetry) 21, 25-6, 36, 40, 47-9, 51, 54-5, De excidio Troiae 332
58-62, 64, 70-71, 73, 76, 84, 89, 348-9 Decameron (Boccaccio) 236
Codex Regius (Grågås) 118 Dedication Homily 128
Codex Regius (Snorri’s Edda) 80, 111 Den norsk-islandske Skjaldedigtning, see
Codex Wormianus 39, 129 Skjaldedigtning
Columbus 16 Denmark 32, 61, 86, 90, 92, 108, 159,
commonwealth, see Icelandic com­ 163-4, 262, 282, 302, 311, 313, 352-4,
monwealth 373-4
Compendium, see Ágrip Denmark’s increment (the island of Sjæl­
computus 133 land) 93
Constantinople (Byzantium) 236-7, 301, Deor (Deor’s lament) 32, 72, 76
306, 338 Desert Fathers 142
contemporary sagas (accounts, relations, Deuteronomy 143
histories, samtíðarsögur) 103, 152-3, Deutsche Versgeschichte (Heusler) 34
157, 160, 179-81, 185-8, 190, 193, 195, Dialogues (Gregory the Great) 130
199, 207, 213-14, 232, 242, 255, 274, didactic poems 57, 110
290, 295 Dido, princess 359
Conversion 44, 111, 133, 163, 213, 215, 233, Dietrich (Didrik), see Þiðrikr
292, 316, 398 Diplomatarium Islandicum 123
Copenhagen 162, 205, 225, 232 Disciplina clericalis 236
Corfu 137 Divine Comedy (Dante) 113
Cornwall 317-19 Djúpidalur 288
courtly style (heföarstíll) 322, 329, 336, Dnieper (Danpr) 74
court poets 109, 161 Don Philip 315
Creation 385, 390 Don Quixote (Cervantes) 382
Curtius Rufus 334 Donatus 130
Cuthbert, Saint 10 Drangey 235, 238
Cyclopes 130 Draumr Þorsteins Síðu-Hallssonar 249
Dagr Högnason 51-2 drápa 92, 94, 98-100, 104-5, 109-12, 142,
Daidalos 77 159, 175, 216, 258, 269, 281
Dalir 166 Dritvík 289
Dalur under Eyjafjöll 201 Droplaugarsona saga 208, 223-4, 245-7,
dance-songs (-verses), see ballads 252, 255, 259, 305-6
Danelaw 11 dróttkvæði, see scaldic poetry
Danes 10-11, 31, 80-81, 93, 165, 167, 373, dróttkvætt (dróttkvæðr háttr) 33-4, 84—7,
398 89-95, 97, 103, 109, 142, 178, 215, 345
Dante 113 Dublin 11, 82, 249
Danube 9 Duggals leizla (Visio Tnugdali) 43—4
Dares Phrygius 213, 319, 332 Dumbshaf 288
Dark Ages 10 Durendal, Roland’s sword 330
 420 INDEX

Dýrafjörður 260 Einarr Þórisson 249

Dýrumdali, see Durendal Einarsfjörður 271
East Way 11 Einhamarr 261
Edda, see Eddaic poetry or Snorri’s Edda Eiríkr Bloodaxe, king 86, 95-6, 100, 266,
Edda collection, see Eddaic poetry 268-9, 314
Edda (Great-grandmother), in Rígsþula Eiríkr Hákonarson, earl 300
39-40 Eiríkr Oddsson 150-52
Eddaic metre 34, 395 Eiríkr the Red 15, 122
Eddaic poetry (Edda lays, Edda Sæ- Eiríks saga rauða 17, 223, 270, 272-3
mundi multiscii, eddukvæði) 21, 24—6, Eiríksmál 95—6
28-36, 39, 48-9, 54-5, 64-5, 70, 72, 76, Elen, in Elenarljóð 374
83-5, 89, 94-5, 98, 101, 110, 113, 165, Elenarljóð 375
203, 225, 258, 277, 312, 316, 331, 343, Elgeseter 387
345-6, 348-9, 370, 374, 378, 381, 395 Ehe de St Gille 329
Eddu regia (the rule of the Edda) 88 Elis saga ok Rósamundu 322, 328-9
Editiones Arnamagnæanæ 145, 337 Ella, king 359
Edmund, Saint 11, 359 Ellikvæði 397
Egedius, Halfdan 107, Elsta saga Óláfs helga (Oldest saga) 149,
Eggert Ólafsson 394 159-62, 170, 282, 299
Egging of Guðrún, see Guörúnarhvöt Elucidarius 130
Eggjum stone 28 Embla 41
Egill of Sandgil 293 end-rhyme 30, 32, 373
Egill Skallagrimsson 86, 98-103, 207, England 10-11, 32-3, 72, 90, 92, 95, 116,
216-17, 220, 255-6, 266, 268-9 128, 140, 163, 169, 257, 268, 314-15,
Egill Skúlason 231 317-19, 327, 331, 359, 361, 380
Egill, Volundr’s brother 76-7 Enlightenment 337
Egils saga 21, 101, 207-8, 218, 223, 239, Epode 16 (Horace) 226
251, 263, 265-6, 268-9, 276, 284 Erasmus, Saint 148
Egypt 142, 338 Erex saga 326
Eiðsivaþing 363 Erik Ejegod, king 109
Eilífr Guðrúnarson 104—5, 111 Erik IV Ploughpenny, king 313
Einar fóstri 384, 392 Erlingr skakki, earl 152
Einar ÓL Sveinsson 217, 226-8, 264, 289, Ermanaric, king of the Ostrogoths, see
294 Jörmunrekr
Einar Snorrason 397 Erpr 65, 94
Einarr Eyjólfsson Þveræingr 173, 240-41, Esja 286
248 Ethiopia 338
Einarr fluga 304, 309 Eufemia, queen 326
Einarr Gilsson 378 Eufemiavisorna 322, 326
Einarr Hafliðason 186 Euhemerus 176
Einarr Konálsson 223 Eustace, Saint 112, 142, 148
Einarr Pálsson 151 Eve 336
Einarr skálaglamm Helgason 104, 165 exempla 113, 144—5
Einarr Skúlason 109, 112 Exodus 143—4
Einarr þambarskelfir 302 Eyjafjöll 201
Einarr Þorbjarnarson 214, 250 Eyjafjörður 37, 139, 164, 173, 185, 198,
Einarr Þorgilsson 190 208, 210, 239-40, 243-4, 391
INDEX 421

Eyjar (Vestmannaeyjar) 371 Flanders 318, 388

Eyjólfr Þórðarson the Grey 256, 261-3 Flatatunga 141, 239
Eyrbyggja saga 92, 110, 123, 187, 210, 231, Flateyjarannáll 278
247, 255, 260, 263-5, 284, 286, 290, 294 Flateyjarbók 40, 157, 160, 236, 270, 280,
Eyri 265 282, 299, 302, 304, 362, 378
Eysteinn Ásgrímsson 387 Fljótsdalur 251
Eysteinn, brother 87-8, 387-8 Fljótsdæla saga 254
Eysteinn Erlendsson, archbishop 152, 159 Fljótshlíð (Hlíðin) 290, 292
Eysteinn Magnússon, king 172, 300, 309 flokkr 92, 343
Eysteinn orri 308 Flores and Blanchefleur (Floire et Blan-
Eyvindará 252 chefleur) 317, 326
Eyvindardalur 245, 252 florid style 139, 142-3, 182, 185
Eyvindarfjöll 252 Flosi Þórðarson 249, 293-6
Eyvindarrima 374 Flóamanna saga 287
Eyvindr Bjarnason 252 Flores 326
Eyvindr skáldaspillir Finnsson 96-8 Flores saga ok Blankiflúr 326
fabliaux 317, 326 Flóvents saga 329
Fagrskinna 95, 161-2, 166, 169 Flugumýri 196
fairy-tales 76, 144, 257, 395 Fnjóskadalur 242
family sagas, see fslendinga sögur folkeviser 370
Faroes 152, 166, 373, 388 folk-tales (-legends) 205, 238, 252, 395
Faroese 370 Foote, Peter 46
Faroese kvæði 316 fornaldarsögur (sagas of ancient times,
Faustinus 137 mythical tales, heroic sagas) 22-4, 31,
Faustus 137 93, 104, 110, 163, 165, 178, 219, 222, 232,
Faxi 356, 358 234, 239, 244, 257, 281, 285-7, 289-90,
Fáfnir 55-7, 59, 64, 346, 384 337-8, 341-6, 349, 352-4, 356-7, 359-
Fáfnismál 55, 57, 346 62, 369-70, 374, 378, 381, 393, 395
Fenja, giantess 80-81 fornkvæði, see ballads
Fenrir (Fenrisúlfr) 97, 111 Fornsögur Suðrlanda 338
ferskeytla (ferskeyttur háttur) 378-9 fornyrðislag 33, 82, 84-5, 109, 157, 332,
Fiðr, see Lapp 345, 351, 356, 395
Fifth Court 15 Fourth Grammatical Treatise 129-30
Fight at Finnsburg 31 Fóstbræðra saga 92, 208, 223, 236-7, 279,
Filipó saga 337 281-2, 286
Filippus Hallsteinsson, king 351 Fragment, see Sögubrot
Finn, king 31 Frakkland (the land of the Franks) 116
Finnboga saga 208, 218, 238 France 11, 48, 116, 315, 317-19, 326, 373
Finnbogi the Strong 238 Franks Casket 76, 79
Finnbyggðir 86 Frederick Barbarossa, emperor 132
Finnr Hallsson 126 Frederick II, emperor 315
Finnsburg fragment 48 Frederick III, king 26
Finnur Jónsson 33-4, 205, 384—5, 391 Freyfaxahamar 252
First Grammatical Treatise 117, 120, Freyfaxi 252
125-7, 129-30, 183-4 Freyja 39-41
Fitjar 96 Freyr 38, 41, 240, 250, 252-3, 305
Fjordane 14 Freyshólar 253
422 INDEX

Freysnes 253 117, 121-2, 133, 147, 199, 231-2, 279,

Friðrekr, bishop 233 290, 295, 301, 303, 306, 308, 363, 366
Friðþjófr, king 360 Genesis 144
Friðþjófs saga hins frækna 289, 359-60 Geoffrey of Monmouth 157, 319, 324, 332
Frisia 31 George, Saint 145
Frisians 318 Gerðr Gymisdóttir 38
Frostaþing 172, 312, 363 Gering, Hugo 145
Frostaþingslög 363 Germani (Germans) 9, 30, 32
Fróða þáttr 352 Germania (Tacitus) 30
Fróðá 265 Germanic legend 58
Fróði, king 80-81 Germanic metre 32—4, 36, 85
Fúlalækr 148 Germanic verse 30-36
Fyrisån (River Fýri) 353 Germany 32, 48, 116, 132, 316-17, 319,
Færeyinga saga 164—6, 168, 381 331, 373
Gallehus horn 35 Gerpla (Halldor Laxness) 382
Gamli (Brother Gamli) 112 Gesta Danorum (Saxo) 31, 72, 163, 344
gamli sáttmáli 364 Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiæ ponti-
Ganelon (Gvinelún) 330 ficum (Adam of Bremen) 156
Gangleri (Way-weary) 176 Gestaþáttr (Guests’ Section) 44, 4b
Garðar in Greenland 271 Gestr, see Norna-Gestr
Garður in Kelduhverfi 235 Gestr Bárðarson 288
Garmr 42-3 Gestr Oddleifsson the Wise 276, 289
Gata 381 Gestumblindi 351
Gaukr Trandilsson 292 giant, giantess 38—43, 57, 63, 80, 288
Gauks saga Trandilssonar 208, 292 Giantland (Risaland) 343, 357
Gautar, see Geatas Gimsteinn 388
Gauti, king 355 Gissur Sveinsson, rev. 373
Gautier of Chåtillon (Walter, meistari Gizurr Grýtingaliði 75
Galterus) 333-4 Gizurr Hallsson 132, 157-8, 184
Gautrekr, king 355, 361 Gizurr ísleifsson, bishop 116, 118, 121, 180
Gautreks saga 345, 355, 360 Gizurr the White 116, 294
Geatas (Gautar) 32 Gizurr Þorvaldsson 167, 195-6
Geðraunir 374 Gísl Illugason 55, 109
GeQun 93 Gisla saga Súrssonar 110, 215, 223, 228,
Geirhildr, queen 354 236, 246, 256, 25B-9, 261-3, 265
Geirmundar þáttr heljarskinns 355 Gisli from Götaland 116
Geirmundr heljarskinn 188, 355 Gísli Súrsson 110, 201, 215, 236, 256, 258-
Geirr goði 294 63
Geirröðr, giant 105 Gjafa-Refs saga, see Gautreks saga
Geirröðr, king 38 Gjuki, king 58, 61, 63, 65, 277
Geirshólmur 286 Gjúkungs, see Niflungs
Geirþjófs^örður 201 Glámr 236-8, 287
Geisli (Einarr Skúlason) 109, 112 Glúmr Eyjólfsson (Víga-Glúmr) 210,
Geitdalur 250-52 239-41, 244, 305, 307
Geitir Lýtingsson 247—8 Glymdrápa (Porbjörn hornklofi) 94
Gellir Þorkelsson 120 Gnipahellir 42—3
General Assembly (Alþingi) 14—15, 23, Gnitaheiðr 55, 59, 346
INDEX 423

Gnoðar-Ásmundr 382 Grímsey 173—4-

god, goddess 36-43, 57-8, 89, 96-7, 99, Grimsnes 106
102, 109, 111, 147, 176 Grimur Thomsen 330
goði (goðar) 14, 16 Grípisspá 55
goðorð 14, 167, 199, 251, 255 Gríss Sæmingsson 106, 229-30
Goðþjóð (Gothland) 74 Gronlandia Antiqua (Þormóður Torfa-
Gollnis sonr, see Njáll Þorgeirsson gollnis son) 17
Gordon, E.V. 251 Gróttasöngr 80-81, 163, 178
Gormr the Old, king 163 Grótti 80-81
Goths (Gotar) 32, 73-5 Grund in Eyjafjörður 391
Gottfried of Strassburg 319 Grunnavik 225
Gottskálksannáll 381 Grýla 153
Grammatical treatises 92 Grænlandsannál 392
Gramr, Sigurðr’s sword 55, 57, 59 Grænlendinga saga 17, 270, 272-3
Grani, Sigurðr’s horse 57, 59, 61 Gronlandia, see Greenland
Granmarr, sons of 51, 54 Guðbrandr Þorsteinsson 233
Grågås 117-20, 279, 312, 363-4, 366 Guðbrandur Þorláksson, bishop 386, 388
Great Plague 18 Guðmundar saga Arasonar 44, 143, 185
Great Saga of Óláfr Tryggvason 158, 160 Guðmundar saga dýra 103, 190-91, 195-6,
Great Saga of St Óláfr 160 213
Greece 213, 315, 317. Guðmundr Arason, bishop 113, 143, 157,
Greenland 15-17, 70, 86, 111, 122, 271-2, 184-6, 192, 194-5, 201, 243
28Q-81, 287-8, 315, 335-6 Guðmundr dýri Porvaldsson 191-2
Greenlanders 16, 70, 271. Guðmundr of Glasisvellir 350
Greenlandic Atlamál, see Atlamál Guðmundr Ormsson 199-200
Gregory, Saint, in Passional 145 Guðmundr the Good (Gvendur góði), see
Gregory the Great 130, 142, 335. Guðmundr Arason
Grendel 32, 236 Guðmundr the Mighty (ríki) 223, 242-3,
Gretchen 282 245
Grettir Ásmundarson 234—8, 260, 281, 381 Guðnijónsson 231, 299
Grettis rimur 381 Guðný BÖðvarsdóttir 255
Grettis saga 207, 216, 234-7, 251, 254, Guðrídr Birgisdóttir 151
281, 286-7 Guðrún Gjúkadóttir 55, 58-68, 70-71, 77,
Grettisbæli 235 277
Griplur 343 Guðrún Hreinsdóttir 256
Grfma, in Fóstbræðra saga 286 Guðrún Ósvífrsdóttir 120, 214, 255-6,
Grimhildr 58, 61 274, 276-7, 302, 305-6
Grimnir 38 Guðrúnarhvöt (Egging of Guðrún) 65,
Grímnismál 38, 57, 176 71-2, 345
Grimr Droplaugarson 245—6 Guðrúnarkviða I 61-2
Grimr Gunnsteinsson eyrarleggr 241 Guðrúnarkviða hin forna (Guðrúnarkviða
Grimr Hólmsteinsson 139, 232 II) 60-62, 64
Grimr Njálsson 295 Guðrúnarkviða III 63
Grimr Shaggycheek (loðinkinni) 356 Guiamar 327
Grimr Svertingsson 251 Gulaþing 14, 312, 363, 365
Grims saga loðinkinna 361 Gulaþingslög 363
Grims saga ok Hjálmars 378 Gulf of St Lawrence 15
424 INDEX

Gull-Ásu-Þórðar þáttr (Ásu-Þórðar þáttr) HafrsQörðr 65, 94

309 Hafsbotn (Ocean’s gulf) 288
Gullfoss in Djúpidalur 288 hagiographic literature (hagiography),
Gullkár 395 see saints’ lives
Gullkársljóð 395 Halla Lýtingsdóttir 247
Gullrönd Gjúkadóttir 62 Hallar-Steinn 110
Gullveig 41 Halldor Laxness 334, 382
Gull-Þóris saga (Þorskfirðinga saga) Halldórr Brynjólfsson 169
287-8 Halldórr Snorrason 301-2, 306-7
Gundaharius, king of the Burgundians, Halldórs þáttr Snorrasonar I and II 299-
see Gunnarr Gjúkason 302
Gunnarr, Egill’s son 101 Hallfreðar saga 105, 207-8, 225-6, 228-30
Gunnarr Gjúkason 35, 48, 55-6, 58-60, Hallfreðargata 251-2
62—4-, 66-8, 70, 316 Hallfreðarstaðir 250-51
Gunnarr Hámundarson of Hlíðarendi Hallfreðr, Hrafnkell’s father 250-52
201, 220, 290, 293-4, 374 Hallfreðr Óttarsson vandræðaskáld
Gunnarr helmingr 304—5 105-6, 159, 216, 226, 229-30, 302
Gunnarr Lambason 295 Hallgerðr langbrók 374
Gunnarr Þiðrandabani 276, 305 Hallgrímur Pétursson 394
Gunnars saga 289, 294 Hallmundr, Grettir’s friend 238
Gunnars þáttr helmings 305 Hallr Órækjuson 122
Gunnars þáttr Þiðrandabana 246, 305-6 Hallr Ótryggsson 243
Gunnarskvæði 374 Hallr Þorgeirsson 151
Gunnhildr, queen 95-6, 100, 266, 268 Hallr Þórarinsson 110, 120
Gunni Hallsson Hólaskáld 397-8 Hallsteinn, king 351
Gunnlaugr Leifsson 155, 157-60, 179, Hallur Ögmundarson 387
181-2, 270, 272, 332-3, 370 Hallvarðr háls 305
Gunnlaugr ormstunga (snake-tongue) 111- Hallveig Ormsdóttir 170
ugason 220, 256, 282-5 Hamburg-Bremen 311
Gunnlaugs saga ormstungu 207, 249-50, Hamðir 65, 93
256, 282-5, 360 Hamðismál (Lay of Hamðir) 29, 35, 58,
Gunnlaugur Scheving 293 65, 71-2, 74
Gunnlöð 45 Hamlet (Shakespeare) 245
Guttormr Gjúkason 58-9 Hansen, Ernst 81
Gyðinga saga 144, 334 Haraldr Fairhaired, king 11-13, 21, 85,
Gylfaginning 38, 88, 175-6, 178 94-5, 108, 110, 124, 155-6, 162, 168, 265,
Gylfl, king of Sweden 93, 176, 178 268-9, 300, 341
Gymir 95 Haraldr gilli, king 150
Göngu-Hrólfr, see Rollo Haraldr Gormsson, king 164
Göngu-Hrólfs saga 361 Haraldr Hringsbani 342
Götaland 107, 116, 229, 286 Haraldr, king of Reiðgotaland 350
Hadrian, emperor 142 Haraldr the Hardruler, king 108-9, 169—
Hadubrand 31 70, 172, 231, 236, 289, 300-304, 306,
haðarlag 85 308-9
Hafgerðingadrápa 111 Haraldr War-tooth, king 344, 353
Hafliðaskrá 118 Haralds saga haröráða 231, 302
Hafliði Másson 117, 180, 188-9, 214 Haralds saga Hringsbana 378
INDEX 425

Haraldskvæði (Hrafnsmál) (Þorbjörn Háttatal (Snorri Sturluson) 109-10, 175,

hornkloíl) 65, 83, 94—5 178, 392
Harðar saga (Harðar saga Grímkelssonar háttlausa 345
ok Geirs) 285-7 Hávamál 26, 44-5, 47, 57, 113
Harmsól (Brother Gamli) 112, 386 Hávarðar saga ísfirðings 287
Hastings 11 Hávarðr the Lame 287
Haugsnes 198 Head-ransom, see Höfuðlausn
Haukadalur 116-17, 120, 184, 255, 260 Hebridean 86
Haukr Erlendsson 125—6, 234, 264 Hebrides 265, 315
Haukr Valdísarson 110, 234, 249, 294 Heðinn Hjarrandason 381
Hauksbók 22, 40, 125, 130, 132, 195, 235, Heðinn, Helgi Hjörvarðsson’s brother 50
264, 278, 280, 286, 293, 344, 351-2 Heiðarkolla 289
Haustlöng (Þjóðólfr of Hvin) 83, 95 Heiðarvíg 236
Håkon Aðalsteinsfóstri the Good, king Heiðarvíga saga 212, 215, 224-5, 236,
96-7, 172, 266 245-6, 256, 263, 279
Håkon Belly 150 Heiðarvígs saga, see Sturlu saga
Håkon Hákonarson the Old, king 16, 109, Heiðrekr, king 74—6, 350-52
143, 167, 175, 194, 202, 219, 270, 273, Heiðreks saga, see Hervarar saga
314-15, 318-19, 324, 326-9, 332, 335-6, heilagra manna sögur, see saints’ lives
363 Heiligen Leben (Passional) 145
Hákon Hákonarson the Young 143, 314, Heimdallr 39, 41, 104
335 Heimir of Hlymdalir 358
Hákon Magnússon, king 144 Heimskringla 21, 89, 96, 104, 107, 123,
Håkon Sigurðarson, earl 104, 165, 240, 150-52, 157, 159, 161-4, 168-70, 172,
300, 308-9 174-5, 228, 265, 268-70, 272, 299, 301,
Håkon Sverrisson, king 143, 314 306-7
Håkon V of Norway 326 Heimsósómi (Skáld-Sveinn) 393-4
Hákonar saga góða 172 heiti (appellations) 87, 176, 178, 379—80
Hákonar saga Hákonarsonar (Sturla Hel 42, 113
Þórðarson) 109, 154, 194, 313 Helga Bárðardóttir 288
Hákonarhella 344 Helga Haraldsdóttir 286
Hákonarmál (Eyvindr skáldaspillir) 83, Helga Ingjaldsdóttir 246
96-7 Helga Krakadóttir 250
Hálfdan Eysteinsson 362 Helga þáttr 352
Hálfdan the Black, king 11, 13, 124, 162, Helga Þorsteinsdóttir the Fair 220, 256,
168 282-5, 360
Hálfdanar saga Eysteinssonar 362 Helgafell 274, 305
hálfhnept (half-chopped) 87 Helgakviða HjÖrvarðssonar 50—51
Hálfr, king 354—5, 382 Helgakviða Hundingsbana I 51, 54—5, 64
Hálfs saga ok Hálfsrekka 345, 354—5 Helgakviða Hundingsbana II 51, 70
Hámundr heljarskinn 355 helgar þýðingar, see þýðingar helgar
Hár (High) 176 Helga’s Sound 286
Háramarsey 238 Helgi Ásbjarnarson 245-6, 259
Hárbarðsljóð 38 Helgi Droplaugarson 245
Háttalykill hinn forni 110, 175, 392 Helgi Haraldsson 298
Háttalykill hinn meiri 391 Helgi Harðbeinsson 274
Háttalykill hinn skemmri 391—2 Helgi Hjörvarðsson 49-50
426 INDEX

Helgi Hundingsbani 49, 51-4, 343 Hippodes 130

Helgi Högnason 51 Hirðskrá 336, 363
Helgi, king of Denmark 352 Hirtubrú 153
Helgi lay, see Helgakviða Historia de antiquitate regum Norvagi-
Helgi selseista 281 ensium (Theodoricus) 155
Helgi the Lean (Helgi magri) 239 Historia Lausiaca (Palladius) 142
Heljarslóðarorrusta (Benedikt Gröndal) Historia Norvegiæ 155-6
382 Historia regum Britanniae (Geoffrey of
Helluland (flagstone-land) 15, 17 Monmouth) 332-3
Helreið Brynhildar (Brynhildr’s ride to History of the Danes, see Gesta Danorum
Hel) 63, 345 Hftardalur 125, 190-91, 258, 381
Hennøy in Nordfjord 343, 357 Hitarnes 257
Henry II of England 319, 327 Hjadningar 362
Henry III of England 315 Hjalli, slave 70
Hephaistos 332 Hjalta þáttr 352
Herford in Westphalia 116 Hjalti Skeggjason 147
Hergilsey 259 Hjarðarholt 88, 104, 301
Herkja, A tli’s handmaid 63 Hjálmarr the High-hearted 345, 349-50,
Hermóðr, god 96 357-8
Hermundr Ulugason 256 Hjörleifr, king 354
heroic ballads (kæmpeviser) 374 Hjörungavágr 165, 192, 240
heroic epics 48 Hjörvarðr Arngrímsson 349-50
heroic legend 76, 83, 88, 395 Hjörvarðr, Skuld’s husband 167, 353
heroic poetry (poems, lays) 30-32, 36, Hlaðir 240
47-9, 51, 53-4, 58, 63-5, 70, 72-3, 76, Hleiðargarðr 352
90, 165, 258, 316, 331, 343, 345-6, 348- Hleiðra (Lejre) 352
53, 361, 381 Hlégestr 35
heroic sagas, see fornaldarsögur Hlíðarendi 201, 290
Hersteinn Blund-Ketilsson 278 Hlöðr Heiðreksson 74—5, 351
Hersteinn Þorkelsson 278 Hlöðskviða (The battle of the Goths and
Hervarar saga (Heiðreks saga) 49, 73-6, the Huns) 29, 49, 58, 65, 73, 345, 351-2
345, 349, 351, 358 Hlöðu-Kálfr 239
Hervararkviða (Waking of Angantýr) 350 Hlöðvér, A lvitr’s father 78
Hervör Angantýsdóttir 350 Hnikarr (Óðinn) 57
Hervör Heiðreksdóttir 75 Hnaef, prince of the Danes 31
Heusler, Andreas 34, 204, 360 Hof in Rangárvellir 293
hexameter 31 Hof in Vatnsdalur 233
Heynesbók 364 Hof in Vopnafjörður 247-8
Hildebrandslied 31-2, 35, 48, 287, 360 Hofsstaðir in Þorskafjörður 384, 392
Hildibrandr (Hildebrand) 31, 331, 345, Hollander, Lee M. 108
360 Holmengrå 150
Hildigunnr Starkaðardóttir 296 Holy Grail 326
Hildiríðr, sons of 265, 268 Holy Sepulchre 202
Hildr the Slender 381-2 Homeric poems 36, 48
Himinfjöll 54 homilies 128
Himmerland 10 Homily Book, the Icelandic 128, 130
Hindar^all 57-9 Homily Book, the Norwegian 159, 312
INDEX 427

Homily Books (Icelandic and Norwegian) Hrolleifr, in Vatnsdaela saga 233

139 Hrókr the Black 355
Honorius Augustodunensis 130, 132 Hróks saga ins svarta 355
Horace 101, 226-8 Hrókskviða 345
Hordaland (Hordland) 14, 108 Hrólfr Gautreksson, king 360-61
Hólar 23, 116-17, 121, 133, 142, 144, 157, Hrólfr (Göngu-Hrólfr) 361
181-2, 184, 186-7, 199, 270, 370, 385, Hrólfr kraki, king 163, 167, 344, 352-3
398 Hrólfr of Skálmarnes 343
Hólmgarðr, see Novgorod Hrólfs saga Gautrekssonar 360-61
Hólmverja saga, see Harðar saga Hrólfs saga kraka 352-3
Hólmverjar (Hólmsmenn) 285-6 Hrómundar saga Gripssonar 188, 343,
Hrafn, a Norwegian merchant 247 378
Hrafn Hrútfirðingr 308 Hrómundar þáttr halta 303
Hrafn Haengsson, lawspeaker 122 Hrómundr Gripsson 342-3
Hrafn Sveinbjarnarson 143, 192-3, 195 Hrómundr halti Eyvindarson 303
Hrafn Önundarson (Poet-Hrafn) 283-5 Hrútafjörður 303
Hrafnagil 198, 239 Hrútr Herjólfsson 290
Hrafnkatla (Sigurður Nordal) 251-3 Hryggjarstykki 150-53, 159-60, 164
Hrafnkell Freysgoði Hallfreðarson 211, Hrymr, giant 43
214, 250-51, 253 Hrynhenda (Arnórr Þórðarson) 108-9
Hrafnkell Hrafnsson 250 hrynhenda (hrynhendr háttr) 86, 98, 385,
Hrafnkels saga Freysgoða 211, 250-54, 387
283 Hröngviðr, Viking 343
Hrafnkelsdalur 250 Hugo, abbot in Sicily 357
Hrafnkelsstadir in Árnessýsla 298 Huld, story of 344
Hrafns saga Sveinbjarnarsonar 192-3 Huld, troll-wife 194
Hrafns þáttr Guðrúnarsonar (Hrafns Hulda 299
þáttr Hrútfirðings) 308 Hulda-Hrokkinskinna 300-301
Hrafnsmál (Raven lay) (Þormóðr Trefils- Humber 100, 268
son) 92, 216 Humli, king of thé Huns 74-5, 351
Hrafnsmál, see Haraldskvæði Humlungr (Hlöðr) 75
Hrafnsmál (Sturla Þórðarson) 85 Hundingr 51
Hrappr Örgumleiðason 309 Hungrvaka 183—4, 187
Hraunhöfn 280 Hunland 74-5
Hrefna Ásgeirsdóttir 274, 276-7 Huns (Húnar) 31, 48, 64, 66-8, 75, 331,
Hreggnasi 289 351
Hreiðarr heimski (Hreiðarr the foolish) Húnaflói 198
211, 304 Húnaþing 224—5
Hreiðars þáttr heimska 300-301, 304 Húnmörk 67
Hringr, king, in Friðþjófs saga 360 Húsafell 142
Hringr, king, in Geðraunir 374 Húsavík 125
Hringr, king, in Bósasaga 361 Húsdrápa (Úlfr Uggason) 88. 104
Hringr (Sigurðr hringr), king 353 Hvamms-Sturla, see Sturla Þórðarson of
Hrings saga ok Tryggva 374, 378 Hvammur
Hrisateigr 241 Hvammur in Dalir 166, 190-91, 194, 381
Hroðgar, king at Lejre 32 Hvassafell in Eyjafjörður 164
Hrokkinskinna 299 Hvassafell in Borgar^öröur 280
428 INDEX

Hveralundr 42 Ingjaldr illráði, king 95

Hvin 85, 354 Ingjaldr (í skinnfeldi) 288
Hvöt, see Guðrúnarhvöt Ingjaldr, king of Sweden 349
Hylestad 346 Ingjaldr Niðgestsson 246
Hymir, giant 39 Ingjaldr Þorvaldsson 246
Hymiskviða 39 Ingjaldskvæði 346, 356
hymns of praise 46, 390 Ingólfr (Arnarson), settler 11
Hyndla, witchwoman 40 Ingólfr Þorsteinsson 233
Hyndluljóð 40 Ingólfr Þorvaldsson 239
Hænir, god 382 Ingvarr, Swedish warrior 362
Hænsa-Þórir 279 Innsteinn, in Hálfs saga 355
Hænsa-Þóris saga 205, 278-9 Ireland 10-11, 109, 257, 317, 320, 335,
Höðbroddr Granmarsson 51-2, 54 356-7
Höðr, god 42-3 Isidore of Sevilla 132
Höfuðlausn (Head-ransom) (Egill Skalla- Islendzk Æventyri 145
grimsson) 86, 100-101, 269 Italy 330
Höfundr, son of Guðmundr of Glasisvellir itinerarium 133
350 Itys 68
Högni Gjúkason 55-6, 58-9, 64-8, 70 ísafjörður 287
Högni, Hildr’s father 381 Isleifr Gizurarson, bishop 116, 121-2
Högni, Sigrún’s father 51, 54 ísleifs þáttr biskups 299
Höll in Borgarfjörður 110 íslendinga saga (Sturla Þórðarson) 185,
Hörðaknútr, king 108 193-5, 197-8, 201, 371
Hörðar 108 íslendinga sögur (sagas of Icelanders,
Hörðr Grímkelsson 285-6 family sagas) 22, 24, 48, 92, 101, 103,
Hörgárdalur 191 136, 159, 166, 179-80, 189-90, 194, 201,
Höskuldr Þráinsson Hvítanessgoði 295-6 203-8, 210, 212-20, 222-4, 228, 230,
Håkon VII (Prince Carl) of Norway 175 233, 235, 242, 255-8, 262, 265, 268-9,
Håkonshallen 313 273-4, 277, 279, 281, 284-5, 289-90,
Icelandic ballads (Vésteinn Ólason) 379 292-3, 299-300, 322, 360, 378, 381
Icelandic commonwealth 14—16, 18, 189, íslendinga þættir (see also þáttr) 299
219, 232, 366 íslendingabók (Book of the Icelanders)
Icelandic sagas 11, 316, 323 (Ari the Wise) 12-13, 117, 120-21,
Iliad 332 123-6, 129, 133, 147, 149, 156, 184, 187,
Ilias Latina 332 278, 292
Illugi Arason 281 íslendingadrápa (Haukr Valdisarson)
Illugi Ásmundarson 238 110, 234, 249, 294
India 338, 382 íslenzk fornrit 223, 226, 231-2, 239, 244,
Ingi Hallsteinsson, king 351 253, 278, 282, 294
Ingi Haraldsson, king 151 fslenzk lestrarbók 1400-1900 390
Ingibjörg, in Friðþjófs saga 360 íslenzk menning (Sigurður Nordal) 103
Ingibjörg, daughter of King Erik IV 313 íslenzk miöaldakvæði 385, 390-91, 398
Ingibjörg Guðmundardóttir 191-2 fslenzkar miðaldarímur 384
Ingibjörg Sturludóttir 199 íslenzkar þjóðsögur og ævintýri 395
Ingimarr of Askr 309 íslenzkar þulur og þjóðkvæði 391, 395
Ingimundr Einarsson, priest 343, 345 ísönd (Isoud) 320-21
Ingimundr Þorsteinsson the Old 233 fvarr, bishop 151
INDEX 429

ívarr dynta 151 Jons saga baptista (Grimr Holmsteins­

ívarr Ingimundarson 256 son) 139, 232
Ivårr Ragnarsson (I varr the Boneless) 11, Jons saga helga 116, 120, 179, 181-2, 193
359 Jónsbók 279, 363-7
íven (Yvain) 324 Jóreiðr, mother of Ari the Wise 120
ívens saga 324 Jórsalaland 137
Jacobus de Voragine 135 Jórunn Einarsdóttir 248
Jafnhár (Eqally High) 176 Jórvík, see York
James the Apostle 142 Judas Iscariot 144
Jarl, in Rígsþula 40 Justa 137
Jarteinabók Þorláks helga 149 Jutes (Jótar) 108
Járnsíða 194, 363-4, 366 Jutland 10
Jerusalem 43, 132, 137, 202 Jæren 356-8
Jews 132, 139-40, 144 JökuII Bárðarson 237
John the Apostle 142, 388 Jökull Búason 287-8
Johnston, George 262 Jökulsá on Sólheimasandur 148
Jordanes 10 Jörmunrekr (Ermanaric), king 32, 47-8,
Joseph of Arimathea 326 55, 64-5, 72-3, 93, 331
Joshua 143 Jörundr, archbishop in Nidaros 186
Johann Briem 375, Kakalahóll 242
Johannes Halldórsson 239 Kaldimarr, champion in Bjarnar saga
Jómsborg 165 257
Jómsvíkinga saga 164-5 Kanelangres, Tristram’s father 323
Jómsvíkingadrápa 111 Karljónsson, abbot 152-5, 157, 168, 313
Jómsvíkingar (Jómsvikings) 110, 165, 192, Karl the Red 245
240 Karl (Yeoman), in Rígsþula 40
Jón Arason, bishop 385, 388, 391, 397-8 Karlamagnús, see Charlemagne
Jón Arnþórsson, priest 247 Karlamagnús saga 329-31
Jón Árnason 395 Karlevi stone 91
Jón Birgisson, archbishop 151 Karlsefni, see Þorflnnr karlsefni
Jón Einarsson, lawman 366 Katla (Þorkatla), in Kötludraumur 396
Jón Erlendsson 121, 149 Kálfalækjarbók 220
Jón Gizurarson of Núpur 391 Kálfr, Hallfreðr’s enemy 229-30
Jón Guttormsson, lawman 391 Kálfr Árnason 308
Jón Halldórsson, bishop 145 Kár, in Kötludraumur 396
Jón Hallsson 397 Kári Sölmundarson 220, 293-6
Jón Helgason 31, 144, 281, 385, 391, 398 kennings (kenningar) 39, 54, 85, 87-90,
Jón Jóhannesson 125, 188-9, 198, 252, 94-5, 99, 105-6, 109, 112, 176, 178, 379-
270, 272-3 80, 385-6
Jón Loptsson 16, 124, 162, 167, 181-2, 192, Ker, W.P. 189, 298
247 Ketill Þorgautsson 225
Jón Ólafsson from Grunnavík 225 Ketill Þorsteinsson, bishop 120-21
Jón Samsonarson 376, 396 Ketilríðr Hólmkelsdóttir 289
Jón Þorkelsson 384, 390-92 Ketils saga hængs 361
Jón Ögmundarson, Saint 116, 133, 157, Ketilsfjörður 271
181-2, 184, 370 Keyser, Rudolf 204
Jónakr, king 65 King’s Mirror, sjá Konungs skuggsjá
430 INDEX

kings’ sagas (lives of kings) 92, 97-8, 103, Kristni þáttr 292
120, 124, 147, 154-7, 161-4, 166, 168, Kronos 68
179-80, 204, 207, 216, 218, 255, 265-6, Krossavík 247-8
268, 274, 281, 290, 293, 299, 314, 342, Krossdrápa 388
351, 362, 381 Króka-Refs saga 204, 289
Kirkjubær in Síða 199-200 Króksfjarðarbók 188, 197
Kirkwall 315 Kveldúlfr Bjálfason 265
Kjalnesinga saga 286—8 kviðuháttr 85, 95
Kjartan Óláfsson 220, 255, 273—4, 276-8 Kvæðasafn eptir nafngreinda íslenzka
K járr 35 menn frá miðöld 391-2
Klaufi Snækollsson 245 Kvæði og dansleikir I-II (Jón Samsonar-
Knafahólar 293 son) 376, 396
Knight of the Lion 324 Kygri-Björn Hjaltason 142
knittelvers 326 kæmpeviser, see heroic ballads
Knútr, Saint 164 Kötludraumur 393, 396
Knútr the Great, king 92, 164, 257, 282 Köttur úti í mýri 395
Knútur, king, in a ballad 374 Kálund, Kristian 132
Knýtlinga saga 164 Labrador peninsula 15
Koöran Guömundarson 242-3 Labyrinth of Daidalos 77
Kolbeinn Arnórsson the Young 167 Lagarfljót 253
Kolbeinn Tumason 113 lais 317, 327-8
Kolfmna Ávaldadóttir 105, 229-30 Lambkárr Þorgilsson 185
Kolfinnr, brother of Þorgerðr silfra 248 Lament of Oddrun, see Oddrúnargrátr
Kolskeggr Hámundarson 290 Lancashire 266
Kolskeggr the Sagacious 125—6, 129, 148 Landnámabók (Landnáma, Book of
Konr ungr 40 settlements) 12, 124-7, 129, 148, 157,
Konrad, emperor 132 195, 205, 234-5, 238, 244, 249-53,
Konráðs saga keisarasonar 338 263-4, 270, 278-9, 284-8, 292-4, 303,
konunga sögur, see kings’ sagas 355, 396
konunga ævi (Ari the Wise) 123, 150, 156 Landrés rimur 379
Konungs skuggsjá (Speculum regale) 219, Landslog 365—6
334, 336 Langahlíð 191
Konungsbók, see Codex Regius Lapp (Fiðr) 119, 156, 309
Konungsbók (Bandamanna saga) 232 Lappland 309
Kormákr Ogmundarson 103-5, 216, Late Medieval Icelandic Romances 337
226-8, 230, 284 Laufás 185, 192
Kormáks saga 104-5, 208, 214-16, 225- Laugaland 191
30, 256, 284 lausavísur 90, 92, 97-100, 103, 106, 109
Kornbretaland (Cornwall) 318 Laustiksljóð (lai of Laustik) 328
Kráka (Áslaug) 358 Law Council (legislature, lögrétta) 14,
Krákumál 345, 359 118
Kreka, Attila’s wife 63 Law Rock 147
KringilneQukvæði 395 Lawspeaker 118, 122-3, 133, 147, 167
Kristin, daughter of Håkon the Old 315 Laxdæla saga 120, 187, 208, 212, 214, 223,
Kristin Oddsdóttir 392 255, 263-5, 273-4, 276-8, 284, 290,
Kristján Eldjárn 324 292, 305-6
Kristni saga 180, 195, 234, 270, 272, 293 Lay of Brávellir 353, 358
INDEX 431

Lay of Hamðir (Ancient lay of Hamdir), Lorraine 318

see Hamðismál Loth, Agnete 145, 337
Lay of Starkaðr 356 love-lyrics 396
Lárentius Kálfsson, bishop 186-7 Lóndrangar 289
Lárentius saga 186 Lucan 213
learned style 115, 139, 149, 165, 279, 322, Lund 311
336, 338 Luther, Martin 19
legenda 135-6 Luneta, in ívens saga 324
Legenda aurea 135, 145 Lyrgja 301
Legendary Saga of St Óláfr 159, 170, 172, Lýtingr Brodd-Helgason 248
211, 280, 299 Löðmundr in Sólheimar 148
Leiðarvísan 112 lögrétta, see Law Council
Leiðarvísir ok borgaskipan (Abbot Niku- Lögrinn (Målaren) 170
lás) 132-3 lögsögumanna ævi 123
Leifr Eiriksson the Lucky 15, 270, 272-3 Maccabees 144
Leitmotif 233 Mageröy, Hallvard 232
Lejre 32, 167 Magnús Bareleg Óláfsson, king 55, 109—
Licia 139 10, 124, 300
Liestöl, Knut 205, 252 Magnus Björnsson, lawman 208
Lilja 87-8, 385-88 Magnus Einarsson 187
Liljulag (Lilja tune) 87, 387 Magnús Erlingsson, king 152-4, 162, 300
Limfjord 70 Magnus Gizurarson, bishop 189
Lincoln 116 Magnús Hákonarson the Lawmender,
Lindisfarne 10 king 144, 194, 273, 313, 315, 335, 344,
lives of kings, see kings’ sagas 363-7
lives of saints, see saints’ lives Magnus Óláfsson the Good, king 107-8,
Liknarbraut 113 124, 161, 300, 304, 308, 329, 380
ljóðaháttr 36, 45, 94-6, 113, 351 Magnus Pálsson, priest 170
Ljóðatal 45 Magnus saga góða 308
Ljómur (Jón Arason) 388, 394 Magnus the Blind, king 150
Ljósavatn 242 Maine 15
Ljósvetninga saga 179, 223, 241, 243, 273 Man 315
Ljósvetningar 242 Mansöngur (a poem) 392
Ljúflingsljóð 397 mansöngvar (maid-songs) 111, 380-81,
Loddfáfnir 45 396
Loddfáfnismál 45 Margaret, Saint 142
Loðbrók, see Ragnarr loðbrók Marie de France 327
Loðinn leppr 366 Mariu saga 142
Loeb Classical Library 227 Marfu sonurinn, see Christ
Lofthæna 356 Marfuvisur 392
Loftur Guttormsson 391-2 Mark, king 319-20
Loire 11 Markaríljót 290
Lokasenna 30, 39 Markland (forest-land) 15-17
Loki Laufeyjarson 39, 41-3, 104, 382 Markus Skeggjason, lawspeaker 109, 122
Lokrur 380-81 Markus Þórðarson 126
London 140, 359 Marteinn Einarsson, bishop 397-8
Loptr Pálsson 371 Mary, see Blessed Virgin
432 NDEX

Massachusetts 15 Mjöllnir, Þórr’s hammer 39

Mathidia 137 Moors 330
matiére de Bretagne 317, 323 Morkinskinna 150-51, 160—62, 172, 231,
matiére de France 317 243, 256, 299-302, 304, 306, 309
matiére de Rome 317 Mosfell in Mosfellssveit 251
Matinian heights 227 Móðólfr Ketilsson 294
Matthew Paris 314 Mórhold, champion in Tristrams saga
Matthew, Saint 148 257
Maurer, Konrad 205, 278-9, 382 Munkaþverá (Þverá) in Eyjafjörður 132,
Måbilar saga 337 139, 173, 208, 239-40
Mågus saga 338 Múlaþing 173
Máhlíðingavísur 110 Múli 133
málaháttr 33, 85, 94—6 Myrkviðr (Mirkwood) 67, 74
Málsháttakvæði (proverb poem) 111 Myrra 139
Málskrúðsfræði (doctrine of rhetoric), see mythical-heroic sagas (tales), see forn-
Third Grammatical Treatise aldarsögur
Már on Reykjanes 396 mythological poetry 26, 30, 36, 38-9, 49,
Mávahlíð 264 57, 76, 80, 104, 176, 381
Mediterranean 11 myths, mythology 38—9, 83, 88, 95, 112,
Meðalhús 172 168, 176, 178, 305
Melabók 125-7 Mývatn 240
Melamenn 126 Möðruvallabók 101, 104, 208, 218, 232,
Melkorka Mýrkjartansdóttir 276 238-9, 246, 255, 274, 290, 292
Melrakkaslétta 280 Möðruvellir in Eyjafjörður 208, 391
memorial poem (lay, erfidrápa) 95—6, 101, Mörðr gigja Sighvatsson 292
105, 109, 159, 201, 281, 302 Möttuls saga 326
Menja, giantess 80-81 märchen (marchen motifs) 144, 238, 288,
Mercator 17 308, 338, 356
Merlin 332 Nathan, prophet 388
Merlínusspá 157, 332 National Library, Reykjavik 225
Metamorphoses (Ovid) 68 Nationalmuseet, Copenhagen 271
metre 30-33, 35-6, 39, 45, 82-7, 89, 92-3, Neri, earl 355
95, 98, 100, 103, 108-13, 175, 215, 227, Nestorian Chronicle 11
269, 345, 373, 378, 385 New Brunswick 15
Middle Saga (miðsaga) of Guðmundr Newfoundland 15
Arason 185, 194 Nibelungenlied 32, 70, 316
Mið^arðar-Skeggi 288 Nicholas, Saint 137, 139, 148
MiðQörður 231 Nidarholm 155
Miðgarðsormr (World Serpent) 39, 93, Nidaros 112, 186, 237, 311, 314
104 Niflungs, Niflungar (Gjúkungs, Gjúkung-
Migration Age (Migration Period) 28—9, ar) 49, 67, 345
32, 47 Nikulás, abbot of Munkaþverá 132-3
Milska 387 Nikulás saga 139
Miracle Book of St Þorlákr, see Tarteina- níð 308
bók Níðuðr, king 76-80
Miracles of St Óláfr 312 Njarðvíkinga saga 306
miracula 136 Njála, see Njáls saga
INDEX 433

Njáll Þorgeirsson gollnis 192, 220, 293-6 Oldest Saga of St Óláfr, see Elsta saga
Njáls saga (Njála) 82, 204, 207-8, 212, Olifant (Grimur Thomsen) 330
214, 216, 218, 220, 222, 237, 249, 251, Olrik, Axel 344
254, 289-90, 292-6, 298, 309, 374 Olympians 176
Njárar 77 Ophelia 282
Njörðr, god 41, 382 Opuscula Septentrionalia (Festschrift for
Noah’s Ark 12 Ole Widding) 279
Nordfjord in Sogn 343 Ordbog til . . . rimur (Finnur Jónsson)
Nordisk Kultur 270 384
Nordæla (Afmæliskveðja til Sigurðar Nor­ Origins of Icelandic Literature (Gabriel
dals) 270 Turville-Petre) 150
Norges Indskrifter med de ældre Runer Orkney 85, 90, 108, 110-11, 155, 164, 249,
27 315
Norges innskrifter med de yngre runer Orkneyinga saga 110, 164, 168, 292
357 Orlando Furioso (Ariosto) 330
Normandy 11, 318, 328, 361 Ormarr, in Hervarar saga 75
Normans 11 Ormarr, in Ormarsrimur 342
Norna-Gestr 354, 357 Ormars saga 378
Norna-Gests þáttr 348, 353 Ormr Barreyjarskáld 343, 345
Norrköping 353 Ormr Jonsson 199, 247
Norsemen 77, 111 Ormr Þórisson 235
North Sea 10, 12 Ormrinn langi 159
Northmen 10-12, 133 Oslofjord 363
Northumberland 10 Ostrogoths 47, 331
Novgorod (Hólmgarðr) 11 Otkell of Kirkjubær 293
Nóregs konungatal 123 Ovid 68, 332
Núpur 391 Óðinn 38, 40-42, 44-5, 52-3, 57, 89,
nýgervingar 99 95-6, 102, 163, 176, 269, 351, 354, 356,
Nýi annáll 186, 369 358, 381-2
Oddi in Rangárvellir 25, 117, 162—4, 167, Ófeigr Skíðason 231-2, 306
181, 247, 255 Ófeigs þáttr 241
Oddný eykyndill 256-8 Ólafsvísur (ballad) 380
Oddr Ófeigsson 211, 230-32, 249, 308-9 Ólafsvísur (religious poem) 398
Oddr Snorrason 123, 155, 157-62,'170, Ólafur Davíðsson 391, 395
299 Ólafur liljurós 372, 375-7
Oddr the Far-traveller, see Örvar-Oddr Óláfr bjarnylr Hávarðsson 287-8
Oddrún Buðladóttir 63 Óláfr Eiríksson, king 173
Oddrúnargrátr (Lament ofOddrún) 63-4 Óláfr Haraldsson, Saint 90, 105-7, 109,
Odds þáttr Ófeigssonar 231, 300, 308-9 112, 156-7, 159-60, 164-5, 168-70,
Odes and Epodes (Horace) 227 172-4, 175, 180, 211, 237, 258, 271, 280-
Old English poetry (verse) 34, 48, 86 82, 300, 307-8, 329, 370, 380, 398
Old High German poetry (verse) 30-31, Óláfr Haraldsson the Quiet, king 109
34, 48, 287 Óláfr hvítaskáld Þórðarson 101, 109, 130,
Old Saxon verse 34 164, 201
Old Testament 143 Óláfr liðsmannakonungr 343
Oldest Saga of Guðmundr Arason 185, Óláfr pái Höskuldsson 88, 104, 278
193 Óláfr Tryggvason, king 105-6, 110, 155,
28 Eddas and Sagas
434 INDEX

157-60, 165, 180, 182, 229-30, 272, 300, Priscian 130

302, 307, 354 Procne 68
Óláfs rima Haraldssonar 378, 380 Promontorium Vinlandiæ 17
Óláfs saga helga 89, 160-61, 168-9, 172-3, Prophecies of Merlin, see Merlínusspá
258, 280-81 Prose Edda, see Snorri’s Edda
Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar 123, 158, 161-2, Pyrenees 330
170, 172, 181, 270, 272, 292, 299, 305 Quarter 14, 121, 124-6, 148, 181, 224, 245,
Ólöf hin ríka of Skarð 384 250, 252, 255-6, 397
Óspakr Glúmsson 211, 230-32, 249 Quarter Court 14—15
Óttarr Innsteinsson 40 Quatre fils Aymon 338
Óttarr Þorvaldsson 229 Rafn, Carl Christian 341
Palestine 357 Ragnarr loðbrók (Ragnarr Shaggy-
Palladius 142 breeks), king 11, 93, 345, 351, 358-9
panegyric poems (poetry) 86, 90, 98, 109 Ragnars saga loðbrókar 345, 351, 358-9
Panotii 130 Ragnarsdrápa 72, 83, 85, 88, 93-5, 362
Papacy 18 Ragnarsmál, see Krákumál
Parcevals saga 326 Ragnarssona þáttr 359
Paris 11, 116, 145 ragnarok 40, 43
Partalopa saga (Parténopeus de Biois) Ragnheiðr Þórhallsdóttir 182, 247
326 Randalín (Áslaug) 359
passio 135-6 Randvér, son of Jörmunrekr 65, 72, 94
passio et miracula Beati Olavi 159 Rannveig, in Málsháttakvæði 111
Passional, see Der Heiligen Leben Rannveig, vision of 44
Patera 137 Rán, goddess 102
Paul (Paulus), Saint 138, 212 Reformation 19, 24, 98, 117, 142, 146, 369,
Páll Jónsson, bishop 116, 182-4, 247 385, 391, 398
Páls saga 183 Refr (Króka-Refr) 289
Peter Claussön Friis 154 Refr Rennisson (Gift-Refr) 355
Peter, Saint, the Apostle 137-8 Reginn 55-7, 59, 346
Philomela 68 Reginsmál 55, 57
Physiologus 130, 132 Reinalds saga 337
Pilate, Pontius 144 Rekstefja (Hallar-Steinn) 110
Pilcher, Charles Venn 386-7 religious verse (Christian poetry, hymns)
Píslargrátur 388 36, 111, 370, 385-6, 388, 390-91
Placidus, Saint 142 Remains of ancient Icelandic Christian
Plautilla 138 lore (Leifar fornra kristinna fræða is-
Plácitusdrápa 112 lenzkra) 130
Po (Padus) 227 Reykdæla saga 243^1
Poet-Hrafn, see Hrafn Önundarson Reykholt 167-8, 170, 175
Poetic Edda, see Eddaic poetry Reykhólar 145, 188, 236, 343
Polyphemus 170, 354, 361 Reykir in Reykjaströnd 236-7
popular style (folkelig stil) 149, 322 Reykjaholtsmáldagi 170
Pos tola sögur 137-8 Reykjahólabók 145
praise-poems 90, 92, 94, 97-8, 100, 103, Reykjanes 396
106, 109 Reykjarfjarðarbók 188, 193, 198
Prestssaga Guðmundar Arasonar Reykjavik 12, 14, 23, 34, 130, 155, 274, 290
(Priest’s Saga) 184-6, 193, 195 Rhine 9, 48, 55-6, 59, 64, 67, 116
INDEX 435

rhyme (rhyming, hendingar) 30, 83-4, Rósa 387-8, 397

86, 94, 217, 322, 345, 373-4, 377, 379 runes, rune-stones, runic inscriptions
Rhyming poem 86, 94 (quotations) 28-9, 57, 357, 362
Ribe 373 runhenda (runhent metre) 86, 100, 391
riddara saga style, see courtly style Runólfr Dálksson, priest 258
riddara sögur (sagas of chivalry) 22, 24, Runólfr Sigmundarson, abbot 142
219, 222, 239, 257, 264, 287, 289, 311, Runsival, see Roncevaux
318, 320, 322-3, 337-8, 341, 369-70, Runzivals bardagi 329
378, 381, 395 Rurik, Swedish Viking 11
ridderviser, see ballads of chivalry Russia 257, 341, 362
rigmaroles 396 Rúnatal 45
Riksarkiv, Oslo 159 Ræningr 95
Rindr, goddess 104 Röðulsfjöll 50
Ringerike style 141 Rögnvaldr heiðumhæri 95
Risaland, see Giantland Rögnvaldr Kolsson, earl 110, 392
Ritunartimi fslendingasagna (Einar 01. Safn til sögu islands 391
Sveinsson) 217 saga age (söguöld) 23, 179-80, 187, 205-6,
Rigr 39 230, 256, 283
Rigsþula 39, 163 Saga of King Heidrek the Wise, see Her-
Rikini 116 varar saga
rima (rimur) 24, 98, 111, 322, 327, 337, Saga of Önundr’s Burning, see Guð-
339, 341, 343, 353, 369-70, 374, 377- mundar saga dýra
82, 384-5, 390, 392, 395-7 saga style 212-13, 322, 334
Rimbegla 133 Saga-Book af the Viking Society 227,
Rimnasafn 384 270
Rimur fyrir 1600 (Björn K. Þórólfsson) Sagalitteraturen (Sigurður Nordal) 270
379 sagas of ancient times, see fornaldarsögur
Robert, brother 219, 236, 319-20, 322-3, sagas of apostles 140
327-9 sagas of chivalry, see riddara sögur
Rogheimr 49 sagas of Icelanders, see íslendinga sögur
Roland (Rolland) 330-31 sagas of saints, see saints’ lives
Rollantsrímur (Þórður á Strjúgi) 330 sagnadansar 370
Rollo (Göngu-Hrólfr) 11 saints’ lives (sagas of saints, hagiographic
Roman de Tristan (Thomas) 319, 329 literature, heilagra manna sögur) 24,
Roman Empire 315, 331 128, 135-7, 139-40, 142, 144-6, 148-9,
Romans 9 156-9, 181-2, 184, 212, 214, 312, 314,
romans courtois 317-18, 323, 332 369-70, 390
romans d’aventure 317 Salgofnir, cock 53
Rome» 10, 106, 112, 132, 137, 154, 196, 213, Sallust 213
314-15, 317 Salvation 390
Roncevaux (Roncesvalles) 316, 329-30 Samaria 138
Rouen 11 samtíðarsögur, see contemporary sagas
Round Table 323, 332-3 Sandgil 293
Royal Library, Copenhagen 232 Saracen land, see Serkland
Royal Library, Stockholm 128, 145, 342, Saracens 330
356 Satan 132, 386, 390
Rómverja saga 213 Sauðafell 196
436 INDEX

Saxo Grammaticus 31, 72, 163-4, 313, Sigurðr Hlöðvisson, earl 249
343-6, 352-3, 356, 358, 360, 362 Sigurðr hringr, see Hringr
Saxons 317-18 Sigurðr lays 64
Sámr Bjarnason 250 Sigurðr slembir 150-51
Sámsey 350, 357-8 Sigurör the Dragon-slayer, see Sigurðr
scaldic poetry 24, 29, 54-5, 82-5, 87-90, Fáfnisbani
93-4, 97-8, 103, 105, 109, 111-12, 168, Sigurðr the Jerusalem-farer (Sigurðr Jór-
227, 312, 370, 377, 379, 385 salafari) Magnússon, king 150-51, 155,
Scotland 10, 82, 194 162, 172, 300
Scots 315 Sigurður fóstri 384
Scripture 22, 367 Sigurður Kristjánsson 299
Sebastian, Saint 142 Sigurður Nordal 73, 103, 224, 235, 251-4,
Second Grammatical Treatise 129 258, 270, 272, 278, 2 8 2 ^ , 295, 390
Second lay of Guðrún, see Guðrúnarkviða Sigurður Stefánsson, rektor at Skálholt 17
hin forna Sigurður the Blind (Sigurður blindur)
secular poetry 390-91 387, 397
Sefafjöll 53 Sigvaldi, earl 165
Seine 11 Sigyn, Loki’s wife 42
Serkland (Saracen land) 326, 362 Silvester, Saint 148
Setesdal 68, 346 Simon Magus 137-8
Settlement Age, see Age of Settlement Sinfjötli Sigmundarson 96
Sexstefja (Þjóðólfr Arnórsson) 109 Síða 199
Shakespeare, William 245 Símun knútr 197
shield-poem 88, 95 Sjælland 93
Sibyl (völva) 40-43, 354 Skafti Þórarinsson, priest 189
Sicily 137, 315, 335, 357 SkagaQörður 141
Sievers, Eduard 33-4 Skallagrímr Kveldúlfsson 265
Sigfússynir (sons of Sigfuss) 295 Skarð on Skarðsströnd 188, 384
Sighvatr Þórðarson 84, 106-8, 308, 329, Skarðsá 125
359 Skarðsárbók 125, 344
Sigmundr Brestisson 166 Skarðsbók 140
Sigmundr Völsungsson 53, 55, 96, 348 Skarðsströnd 188
Sigmundr Þorkelsson 210, 240 Skarpheðinn Njálsson 214, 249, 293,
Signý Völsungsdóttir 68 295-6
Sigrdrífa 57 Skaufhalabálkur 392-3
Sigrdrífumál 57-8 Skaufhali 393
Sigríðr, foster-daughter of Skuta 243 Skáldasögur (Bjarni Einarsson) 227
Sigrún Högnadóttir 51-4 Skáldatal (enumeration of poets) 93-4,
Sigurðar saga Fánisbana 348 217
Sigurðarkviða hin skamma (Short lay of Skáld-Helga rimur 378
Sigurðr) 58, 62-3, 277 Skáldskaparmál, part of Snorri’s Edda
Sigurðr, Danish bishop 174 88, 176, 178, 362, 379
Sigurðr Fáfnisbani 49, 55-65, 316, 331, Skáld-Sveinn 393
345-6, 348-9, 354, 358, 374, 382 Skálholt 17, 23, 106, 116-17, 121, 136, 142,
Sigurðr fótr 341 145, 181-5, 255, 366, 397-8
Sigurðr Haraldsson munnr, king 152, 154 Skálmarnes 343
Sigurðr Hákonarson Hlaðajarl 103, 216 Skálp-Grani 289
I NDEX 437

Skeggi Bjarnason 122 Snorri’s Edda 22, 25-6, 30, 33, 38-9, 41,
Skikkjurimur 327 55-6, 72, 80, 84, 88-9, 92-3, 100, 104,
Skíða rima 378, 381-2, 384, 391-3 109, 111, 129-30, 163, 175-6, 178, 217,
Skíði, in Skíða rima 381—2, 384 234, 293, 343-4, 348, 352-3, 379, 386-7
Skíði, in Svarfdæla saga 245 Snorrungagoðorð 255
Skirnir, Freyr’s servant 38 Snotra, fairy 395
Skirnir, periodical 227 Snæfellsnes 120, 190, 210, 265, 288
Skírnismál 38, 362 Snæfríör, see Snjófríðr
Skjaldedigtning (Den norsk-islandske Sogn 12, 14, 343
Skjaldedigtning) 385, 391 Sonatorrek (Sad loss of sons) (Egill
Skjöldr, son of Óöinn 163 Skallagrimsson) 101, 266
Skjöldunga saga 163—4, 342, 351-3, 359 Sólarljóð 113
Skj öldungar 163 Sólheimar in Mýrdalur 148
skothending 84-5 Sóti the Viking 285
Skógar under Eyjafjöll 148 Spain 315, 330
Skriðudalur 250-51 Speculum regale, see Konungs skuggsjá
Skrælingeland 17 Spes, lady, in Grettis saga 236-7
Skuld, Hrólfr kraki’s sister 353 St Albans 314
Skuldarbardagi 353 staðamál 182, 185
Skúli Bárðarson, earl, later duke 109, Staðarhóll in Saurbær 189-90, 381
167-8, 175, 314 Staðarhólsbók 118, 364
Skúta, see Víga-Skúta Staður on Ölduhryggur (Staðarstaður)
Skútu þáttr 244 120, 397
Skútustaðir 243 stafhenda 378
Skögul, valkyrie 88 Stafróarkvæði 375
Slagfiðr, Völundr’s brother 77 Starkaðr Barkarson from under Þríhyrn-
Slavs 11 ingur 294
Slope, see Fljótshlíð Starkaðr the Old (Starkaðr Stórverksson)
slæmr 92 93, 344, 346, 353-6, 382
Smiður Andrésson 391 Star-Oddi Helgason 133
Sneglu-Halla þáttr 301, 304, 309 stef 92, 385
Sneglu-Halli 304 Stefán Einarsson 32
Snjáskvæði 395 Stefán Ólafsson 394
Snjófríðr Svásadóttir 156-7, 170 stefjabálkr 92, 385
Snjólfur, poet 391 Steingerðr Þorkelsdóttir 104, 227, 230
Snorri goði, see Snorri the Chieftain Steingrímr Örnólfsson 244
Snorri Markusson 126 Steinólfr Arnórsson 241
Snorri Sturluson 16, 21, 25, 30, 33, 38—40, Steinröðarstaðir in Hrafnkelsdalur 250
42-4, 55, 84, 87-9, 93-5, 99-100, 104, Steinunn Jónsdóttir in Kirkjubær 199-200
106, 109-10, 123, 130, 150, 152, 154, 157, Steinþórr Þorláksson of Eyri 265
159, 161-4, 166-70, 172-6, 178, 193, stemmur 377, 380
195-7, 211, 217, 234, 255-6, 263, 265, Stephen, Saint 142
268-70, 272, 274, 280, 293, 301, 306, Stikles tad 90, 106, 162, 169, 174, 211, 280-
342, 345, 352, 362, 392 81, 308, 370, 380
Snorri the Chieftain (Snorri goði) Stjórn 143—4
Þorgrímsson 92, 122-3, 210-11, 255—6, Stockholm 128, 145, 182, 225
264-5, 290, 301 Stone Age 9
438 INDEX

Stord 96 Svartr the outlaw 248

Strengleikar (Marie de France) 322, 327, Svartur Þórðarson of Hofsstaðir 384, 392
329 Sváva Eylimadóttir 50-51
Studiar i Bandamanna saga (Hallvard Sveinbjörn Rafnsson 125
Magerøy) 232 Sveinn, king, in a ballad 374
stuðlafall 379 Sveinn of Lyrgja 301
Sturla Bárðarson 167 Sveinn Úlfsson, king 302—3, 308
Sturla Sighvatsson 199 Sven Aggesen 163—4
Sturla Þórðarson, historian 85, 109, 125, Sven Forkbeard, king 165
127, 185, 193-8, 201, 205, 232, 234-5, Sverrir Sigurðarson, king 124, 143, 152-5,
244, 263, 270, 279, 285-8, 292, 303, 166, 168, 174, 188-9, 213, 313-14, 343
313-14, 344, 355, 371 Sverris saga 151, 153—4, 156-7, 159—60,
Sturla Þórðarson of Hvammur (Hvamms- 168, 174, 212
Sturla) 166, 179, 190-91, 194, 255, 381 Sviðu-Kári, see Kári Sölmundarson
Sturlaugr the Strenuous 361 Svipdags þáttr 352
Sturlu saga 190-91, 194—6, 258, 371 Svínafell in Öræfi 199
Sturlu þáttr 194, 344 Svínfellinga saga 199
Sturlubók 125-6, 235, 264, 278, 293, 303 Svold 105, 159, 302
Sturlung age (Sturlungaold) 179-80, 201, Sweden (Svíþjóð) 84, 90-91, 116, 156, 159,
255, 295 167-8, 170, 173-4, 176, 225, 305, 324,
Sturlunga saga (Sturlung compilation) 350-51, 353, 356, 359, 362, 374
92, 151, 157, 179, 184-5, 187-8, 190, Swedes 11, 93, 305
193-5, 197-9, 201, 219, 242, 256, 264, Syðra-Bretland, see Brittany
355 Syria 137
Sturlungar 164, 179, 195, 255—6 Sæból in Dýrafjörður 258
Sturlungaold, see Sturlung age Sælingsdalsheiði 190
Stúfr Þórðarson 302 Sæmundar Edda, see Eddaic poetry
Stúfs drápa (Stúfa) (Stúfr Þórðarson) 302 Sæmundr Jónsson 371
Stúfs þáttr 300, 302 Sæmundr Ormsson 199-200
style 30-32, 39, 93, 99-100, 105-6, 109, Sæmundr Sigfússon the Wise 25, 116, 120—
112-13, 115, 136, 139, 141-4, 147, 149, 21, 123-4, 150, 155, 158, 160, 167, 312
153, 156, 159-61, 166, 185-6, 188, 207, Sævarstöð 78
212-14, 218, 234, 239, 244, 249, 252, Sögubrot a f fornkonungum (Fragment of
254-6, 268, 279, 298, 306, 309, 320, the history of ancient kings) 163, 353,
322, 332, 334, 336, 338, 348-9, 360, 358
374, 379, 385-8, 395 söguöld, see saga age
Styrmir the Wise Kárason 125, 160, 169, Soria rimur 378, 380
264, 286 Soria saga sterka 362
Styrmisbók 125, 127, 264 Sörla þáttr, in Flateyjarbók 362
Suður-Þingeyjarsýsla 133 Sörla þáttr, in Ljósvetninga saga 241
Sunnudalur 248 Sörli, son of Guðrún Gjúkadóttir and
supernatural ballads 375 King Jónakr 65, 73, 93
Surtr, giant 43 Tacitus 9, 30
Svanhildr, daughter of Sigurðr Fáfnisbani Taming of the Shrew (Shakespeare) 245
65, 71-2 Tegnér, Esaias 359
Svarfaðardalur 244—5, 304 Teitr ísleifsson 116, 120-22, 147
Svarfdæla saga 244—5, 287, 308 Tereus, king of Thrace 68, 70
INDEX 439

Teutones 10 Urðr 104, 111-12

Thebes 317 Úlfdalir 77
Theodoric the Great, see Þiðrikr Úlfheðinn Gunnarsson, lawspeaker 122
Theodoricus, monk 150-51, 155-8, 313 Úlfljótslög 122
Third Grammatical Treatise (ó láfr Ülfr Uggason 88, 104
hvítaskáld) 101, 129-30 Útfararsaga 301, 306
Thomas Becket, Saint 143, 192 Útgarða-Loki 178, 381
Thomas, poet 317, 319-20, 324 Ütsteinn, in Hálfs saga 355
Thomas the Apostle 258 Vafþrúðnir 38
Tolkien, Christopher 74 Vafþrúðnismál 38, 57, 176
Torfeus, see Þormóður Torfason Vagn Akason 111
Torfi Valbrandsson 286 Valdemar the Great, king 344
tregróf (row of woes) 71 Valdemar the Victorious, king 164
Tristan (Tristram) 256-7, 317, 319-24, Valföðr (Óðinn) 41
330, 360, 377 Valhöll 52-3, 95-7, 176, 382
Tristan (Gottfried of Strassburg) 319 Valir 318
Tristan und Isolde (Wagner) 319 Valla-Ljóts saga 245
Tristrams kvæði (ballad of Tristram) 319, Valland 318
377 Valvers þáttr 326
Tristrams saga 219, 227, 236, 257, 319-20, Valþjófsstaðir 324
322, 328 Vanir 38, 41
Trojan war 317 Varangian Guard 301
Trojans 332 Varangians 236, 306
Trondheim 354 Vatnarr Vikarsson, king 344
Troy 332 Vatnsdalur 233, 238
Trójumanna saga 213, 319, 332 Vatnsdæla saga 207, 232-4, 238
Tryggðamál 119 VatnsQörður 167, 192, 236-7
Trøndelag 156, 173, 363 Vatnshorn in Haukadalur 187
Tune stone 27-8 Vatnshyrna 239
Tunga (Hróarstunga) 250 Váli, Oddr Ófeigsson’s fosterbrother 230
Tunis 315 Vápnfirðinga saga 232, 239, 246-7, 249,
Turks 124 252, 305, 307
Turville-Petre, Gabriel 87, 149, 227 Velent the smith, see Völundr
Tveggja elskanda ljóð 328 Vellekla (gold-dearth) (Einarr skála-
Tveggja postola saga Jóns ok Jakobs 142 glamm) 104
Tyrfingr, sword 75, 349-51 Vellir in Hitardalur 235, 257-8
töglag (toglag) 85 Veraldar saga 132
Uber die Hœnsa-Þóris saga (Konrad Vergil 332
Maurer) 278 Verona, see Bern
Unger, C.R. 140, 142 Vestfirðinga sögur 223
Universitetets oldsaksamling, Oslo 68, Vestfold 168
346 Vesturhóp 118
University Library, Uppsala 159 Vémundr kögurr Fjörleifarson 243-4
University of Iceland 205 Vésteinn Ólason 379
Unnr djúpúðga 276 Vésteinn Vésteinsson 260, 262
Upp við fossa (Þorgils gjallandi) 259 Via Ostensis 138
Uppsala 25, 167-8, 173, 176, 349, 353 Viðey 160, 398
440 I NDEX

Viðeyjarklaustur 398 völva, see Sibyl

Viðga, son of Velent 331 Västergötland 116
Viðurs þýíl (Óðinn’s theft) 102 Wagner, Richard 319
Vigeland, Gustav 266 Waking of Angantýr, see Hervararkviða
Vigelandsmuseet, Oslo 266 Wales 317-18, 322
Vigfúss hersir 239-40 Way-weary, see Gangleri
Vigfúss Víga-Glúmsson 165, 240 Weland, see Völundr
Viking Age 10, 12, 101, 318, 346 Wendish wars 164
Vikings 10-12, 47, 99, 165, 282, 285, 288, Wendland 165
341, 346, 349, 356-8 Wessex 266
Villingaholt 121 Westphalia 116
Vilmundr viðutan 341 White Sea 356-7
Vilmundur Jónsson 261 Widding, Ole 279
Visio Tnugdali, see Duggals leizla Widsið 32, 72, 352
vita (vitae) 136, 142, 182 William, Duke of Normandy 11
Vitae patrum 142 William of Sabina, cardinal 315
Vitazgjafi 214, 240 Wilson, David M. 46
Víðidalur 238 World Serpent, see Miðgarðsormr
Víðimýri in Skagafjörður 113 Yggr (Óðinn) 104
Víga-Glúmr, see Glúmr Eyjólfsson Ynglinga saga 95, 162, 168, 342, 352
Víga-Glúms saga 208, 223, 239, 243-4, Ynglingar 156
247, 307 Ynglingatal (Þjóðólfr of Hvin) 85, 95, 354
Víga-Skúta (Skúta) Áskelsson 239, 243-4 Yngvars saga víöförla 362
Víga-Styrr 225 Yngvi, king 124
Víglundar saga 289 Yngvildr Faircheek 245
Víglundr Þorgrímsson 289 York (Jórvík) 86, 100, 268, 359
Víkarr 355-6 Yorkshire 100
Víkarsbálkr 345, 356 Younger lay of the Völsungs, see Helga-
Vínheiðr 266, 269 kviða Hundingsbana I
Vínland (wine-land) 15-16, 270, 272 Yrsa, Hrólfr kraki’s mother 352-3
Vísnabók 386, 388, 393, 397 Yvain, see íven
Volkslieder 370 Zebedee 142
Voss 239 Pangbrandr, missionary 290
Vries, Jan de 295 þáttr (þættir) 92, 103, 160-61, 188, 231,
Vöðu-Brands þáttr 241 241-3, 256, 278, 282, 287-9, 294, 299-
Völsunga saga 55, 58, 68, 72, 345-6, 309, 329, 355
348-9, 352-3, 358, 381 Þáttr af Jóni Halldórssyni 145
Völsungakviða hin forna (Ancient lay of Þáttr of ívarr Ingimundarson 256
the Völsungs) 51, 53-4, 362 Þáttr o fjöku ll Búason 287-8
Völsungs 49, 52 Þiðrandi Geitisson 305
Völsungs rimur 380-81 Þiðrikr, -rekr (Þjóðrekr, Dietrich, Theo-
Völundarhús 77 doric the Great) 63, 331
Völundarkviða 49, 70, 76 Þiðriks saga 70, 72, 76, 331, 349
Völundr (Velent) 32, 49, 76-80, 331 Þingeyjarþing 239, 243
Völuspá 21, 26, 29, 38, 40, 43-4, 176 Þingeyrabók 382
Völuspá hin skamma (the short Völuspá) Þingeyrar 117, 153, 155, 157-8, 160, 165,
30, 40 182, 185, 192, 224, 255, 313, 332
INDEX 441

Þingvöllur (Þingvellir) 14, 295 Þorkell hákr Þorgeirsson 242-3

Þjalar-Jón 341 Þorkell krafla Þorgrímsson 233
Þjóðólfr Arnórsson 108, 304 Þorkell Súrsson 260, 262
Þjóðólfr of Hvin 85, 94-5, 354 Þorkell the Tall 240-41
Þjóðrekr, see Þiðrikr Þorkell Þjóstarsson 251
Þjóstarr, father of Þjóstarssynir 250-51 Þorlákr Runólfsson, bishop 120-21
Þorbjörg kolbrún Glúmsdóttir 280 Þorlákr Pórhallsson, Saint 116, 136, 181-2,
Þorbjörg the Stout 236-7 184, 247
Þorbjörn hornklofí 65, 94 Þorláks saga 181, 184
Þorbjörn Þjóðreksson 287-8 Þorleifr beiskaldi Þorleiksson 190-91, 381
Þorbjörn öxnamegin 234—5 Þorleifr jarlsskáld Ásgeirsson 308
Þorfinnr karlsefni 16, 273 Þorleifr Jónsson 299
Þorfmnr Önundarson 191-2 Þorleifr of Botn 251
Þorfinnsdrápa (Arnórr jarlaskáld) 29, 44 Þorleifr the Christian 247
Þorgarðr (tree-man) 308 Þorleifr the Wise 230
Þorgeirr gollnir 293 Þorleifs þáttr jarlsskálds 308
Þorgeirr Hallason 164 Þormóöar þáttr 282
Þorgeirr Hávarsson 92, 216, 280-81 Þormóðr Kolbrúnarskáld Bersason 90,
Þorgeirr Ljósvetningagoði Þorkelsson, 92, 106, 216, 280-82, 286
lawspeaker 147, 213, 242 Þormóðr of Bakki 287
Þorgeirr Steinsson 151 Þormóðr Óláfsson 201
Þorgeirr Þjóstarsson 251 Þormóðr Trefilsson 92, 216
Þorgeirsríma 374 Þormóðr Þjóstarsson 251
Þorgerðr Egilsdóttir 101, 276-7 Þormóður Torfason (Torfæus) 17
Þorgerðr Hölgabrúðr 165 Þorskaíjörður 251
Þorgerðr silfra 248 Þorskfirðinga saga, see Guli-Þóris saga
Þorgils Gellisson 120 Þorsteinn drómundr Ásmundarson 236-7
Þorgils gjallandi 259 Þorsteinn Egilsson 207, 283
Þorgils Oddason 180, 188-90, 381 Þorsteinn, friend of Oddr Ófeigsson 309
Þorgils saga ok Hafliða 103, 179, 188-90, Þorsteinn Guðinason 197
193, 195, 343, 345 Þorsteinn Ingimundarson 233
Þorgils saga skarða 193, 195, 198 Þorsteinn Síðu-Hallsson 120, 249, 306
Þorgils skarði Böðvarsson 195, 198 Þorsteinn stangarhögg 307
Þorgils Örrabeinsstjúpr Þórðarson 287 Þorsteinn surtr Hallsteinsson 133
Þorgnýr the Lawman 173 Þorsteinn sögufróði 301, 306
Þorgrímr, unknown saga-owner 208 Þorsteinn the Fair Þorfinnsson 249-50
Þorgrímr Óttarsson 243 Þorsteinn the White Ölvisson 249
Þorgrímr the Chieftain Helgason 286 Þorsteins saga hvíta 249
Þorgrímr Þorsteinsson 246, 256, 258-60 Þorsteins saga Síðu-Hallssonar 249, 292
Þorgríms þáttr Hallasonar 308 Þorsteins þáttr stangarhöggs 301, 307
Þorkell Blund-Ketilsson 278-9 Þorsteins þáttr sögufróða 300-301, 306
Þorkell elfaraskáld 294 Þorvaldr Ingjaldsson 246
Þorkell Eyjólfsson 120, 256, 305 Þorvaldr of Sléttadalur 236
Þorkell Geitisson 247-8, 305 Þorvaldr Snorrason of VatnsQörður 167,
Þorkell Gellisson 122, 126 192-3, 196
Þorkell Gíslason 111 Porvaldr tasaldi Steingrímsson 307
Þorkell (or Þorvaldr) Grímsson 246 Þorvaldr the Far-travelled 233
442 INDEX

Þorvalds þáttr tasalda 307 Þórólfr Skallagrímsson 99, 251, 265-6,

Þorvaldur Bjarnarson 130 269
Þorvaldur Skúlason 296 Þórr (Ása-Þórr) 37-9, 41, 93, 104, 178,
Þorvarðr krákunef 308 229, 356, 379, 381
Þorvarðr Þorgeirsson 243 Þórsdrápa (Eilífr Guðrúnarson) 111, 178
Þorvarðs þáttr krákunefs 308 Þórsnes 265
Þóra Hákonardóttir 61 Þrasi in Skógar 148
Þóra Magnúsdóttir 150 Þráinn Sigfússon 295, 309
Þórarinn loftunga 92 Þráinn the berserk 343
Þórarinn Ragabróðir, lawspeaker 122 Þrándr í Götu 165-6, 381
Þórarinn Skeggjason 122 Þriði (Third) 176
Þórarinn svarti Þórólfsson of Mávahlíð Þrymlur 378, 380-81
110, 264 Þrymr, giant 39
Þórarins þáttr ofsa 242 Þrymskviða 30, 39, 378, 381
Þórdís of ö g u r 280 Þræll (Slave), in Rígsþula 40
Þórdís Súrsdóttir 256, 259, 262 Þrændlur 381
Þórdís Þórólfsdóttir 251 Þuríðr Barkardóttir of Fróðá 265
Þórðar saga hreðu 238 Þuríðr Þorleifsdóttir 251
Þórðar saga kakala 195, 198-9 Þverá in Eyjafjörður (Þverá hin litla)
Þórðarbók 125 194
Þórðr Andréasson 194, 371-2 Þverá, see Munkaþverá
Þórðr (Gull-Ásu-Þórðr) 309 Þykkvabær 112, 142, 199, 387
Þórðr Hítnesingr 198 þýðingar helgar (sacred exposition) 127-8
Þórðr hreða Þórðarson 239 Ægir, god 102, 178
Þórðr kakali Sighvatsson 195, 198-9, 219 Æsir 39, 41-3, 176, 384
Þórðr Kolbeinsson 257-8 Ætternisstapi (Lineage-clifi) 355
Þórðr köttr Þórðarson 302 Ævi Snorra goða 123
Þórðr Narfason 188 ævintýri 144-5
Þórðr Sturluson 193, 256 Ögmundar þáttr dytts 239, 304
Þórðr the Timid 259 Ögmundr dyttr 304-5
Þórðr Þorkelsson 242 Ögmundr Helgason 199-200
Þórðr Þórarinsson of Laufás 192 Ögmundr Pálsson, bishop 145
Þórður á Strjúgi 330 Ögur 280
Þórður Jónsson of Hítardalur 125 Öland 91
Þórgunna from the Hebrides 265 Ölduhryggur 397
Þórhaddr, killed by Þorsteinn Síðu-Halls- Ölkofra þáttr 208, 231-2, 306
son 249 Ölkofri, see Þórhallr ölkofri
Þórhallr ölkofri 306 Ölvör, wife of Örvar*Oddr 357
Þórir Englandsfari 301 Öndvertnes 289
Þórir Helgason 242 Önundr Woodenleg (tréfótr) Öfeigsson
Þórir Long-leg 361 235, 237
Þórir (Gull-Þórir) Oddsson 288 Önundr Þorkelsson 191-2
Þórir Skeggjason of Garður 235 Örlygsstaðir 196
Þórir, see Theodoricus Örnólfsdalur 278
Þóríðr Snorradóttir 122 Örvar-Oddr (Arrow-Oddr) 286, 345, 350,
Þórólfr Kveldúlfsson 265, 268-9 356-8, 361
INDEX 443

Örvar-Odds saga 234, 286, 343, 345, 356, Østfold 27

358, 361 Öxará 242, 308
Östergötland 353 Öxnadalur 191
 EDDAS
AND
SAGAS
This book presents the history of Icelandic litera­
ture from the earliest times to the Reformation,
Because no comparable work has hiterto been pub­
lished in a major international language, it fulfills a
pressing need.
For Icelanders the Eddas and sagas are still an ac­
cessible body of living literature. They were a high
point in the literary achievement of the European
Middle Ages and are Scandinavia’s most important
contribution to world literature.
The author, Dr. Jónas Kristjánsson, is an interna­
tionally recognized scholar and author. He is Direc­
tor o f the Árni Magnússon Institute in Reykjavik,
which is responsible for the study and preservation
o f the Old Icelandic manuscripts.
The translator, Dr. Peter Foote, Professor emer­
itus at University College, London, a distinguished
scholar and writer, is widely known for The Viking
Achievement, written in collaboration with Sir David
Wilson, Director of the British Museum.

HID ÍSLENSKA BÓKMENNTAFÉLAG