Njal's saga

I have just finished rereading Njal's saga. There is probably no book length work I have read, in English or Icelandic, more often since my first encounter with it as an undergraduate student in 1967. I enjoyed it this time, as always, but my enjoyment was tinged with concern. What would any readers of this blog make of it?

It was not hard to identify aspects which could be offputting. The genealogies, which the old Magnus Magnusson and Hermann Palsson Penguin version relegated to footnotes, are one. If you know saga literature, there is an interest in encountering names you have met in other sagas, and in tracing interrelationships, but for the reader new to sagas they are probably an irritation. The Njal's saga author's apparent fascination with legal technicalities, which distinguishes this saga from all the others, does have some historical interest and serves to raise the tension before the great fight breaks out at the Althing, but it probably tries the patience of most readers.

But perhaps the main stumbling block for modern readers is the seemingly incessant cycle of 'tit-for-tat' slayings, often involving improbable sword strokes which hew off heads or limbs. (They have been described as the fantasies of a people who had to live with blunt and far less effective weapons.) I think one has to accept that this had an interest for the saga author and his original audience that it does not have for us. The original hearers and readers, and Icelanders for centuries afterwards, doubtless believed that they were hearing about the deeds of ancestors. The characters had a reality for them that they do not have for us.

Hopefully the modern reader can accept these things as aspects of a literature from a different time and place, and as contributing to one of the glories of this saga, its rich and rounded picture of a society. To a remarkable degree Njal's saga ranges over Iceland, and over virtually all levels of society. It has a rich gallery of memorable characters, and while there are stereotypes, even minor characters are often interestingly fleshed out. (A fairly minor example is Bjorn the White, who when first introduced seems no more than a comic cowardly boaster, but who turns out to be capable of just a little more, and gains stature as a result.)

Njal's saga is remembered particularly for its major characters, notably Njall, Bergthora, Gunnar, Hallgerd, Flosi, and Kari. It probably needs to be acknowledges as rather 'masculine' literature, but some of the female characters do take on considerable depth and complexity.

Another powerful characteristic is its success in creating memorable scenes. Few readers forget Gunnar's fateful decision to go back to his farm and abandon plans for exile abroad (the wording of which most educated Icelanders have by heart), his last stand in the presence of his treacherous wife, or the burning of Njall, Bergthora, and their family. But even minor scenes can be well done. An example is the first scene in the saga, which sees the brothers Hoskuld and Hrut together at table, and Hoskuld very realistically seeking praise from his brother for his beautiful daughter Hallgerd, then a child. Hrut does what is asked, but cannot quite refrain from adding a note of foreboding, creating for a time a coldness between the brothers. Hallgerd, of course, does turn out to be a thief, and far worse. It is noteworthy that we last encounter her as the friend of Killer-Hrapp, a worthless rogue who is strangely attractive to women.

I would share the general view that this is the finest of the Sagas of Icelanders. Perhaps now I am a bit less certain that I would recommend it as the one to be read first. Maybe The Saga of the People of Laxdale , also in Penguin, might have been a better choice. Seriously proposed as possibly having a female author, the saga has a central narrative focusing on Gudrun Osvifsdottir (mentioned briefly in Njal's saga), her four marriages, and her central role in a famous 'eternal triangle'. Or perhaps two short sagas, The Saga of the Greenlanders and Eirik the Red's Saga, translated in the Penguin volume The Vinland Sagas, might be a better place to start. They tell a fascinating story about the Norse discovery of America about the year 1000 and the attempts to found a settlement there, but they are also interesting stories of family life in Greenland and the attempted American colony.

I do look forward to reading some reactions to this saga.