Instant Download The Growth of The Medieval Icelandic Sagas 1180 1280 1st Edition Theodore M. Andersson PDF All Chapter
Instant Download The Growth of The Medieval Icelandic Sagas 1180 1280 1st Edition Theodore M. Andersson PDF All Chapter
Instant Download The Growth of The Medieval Icelandic Sagas 1180 1280 1st Edition Theodore M. Andersson PDF All Chapter
com
https://ebookname.com/product/the-growth-of-the-medieval-
icelandic-sagas-1180-1280-1st-edition-theodore-m-andersson/
OR CLICK BUTTON
DOWLOAD NOW
https://ebookname.com/product/a-history-of-the-old-icelandic-
commonwealth-islendinga-saga-u-of-m-icelandic-series-jon-
johannesson/
https://ebookname.com/product/innovation-and-growth-from-r-d-
strategies-of-innovating-firms-to-economy-wide-technological-
change-1st-edition-m-andersson-et-al-eds/
https://ebookname.com/product/the-cartulary-of-countess-blanche-
of-champagne-medieval-academy-books-1st-edition-theodore-
evergates-editor/
https://ebookname.com/product/sacred-paths-of-the-west-3rd-ed-
edition-theodore-m-ludwig/
The Selected Letters of Theodore Roosevelt Theodore
Roosevelt
https://ebookname.com/product/the-selected-letters-of-theodore-
roosevelt-theodore-roosevelt/
https://ebookname.com/product/karl-pearson-the-scientific-life-
in-a-statistical-age-theodore-m-porter/
https://ebookname.com/product/adolescent-rheumatology-1st-
edition-boel-andersson-gare/
https://ebookname.com/product/philip-augustus-king-of-
france-1180-1223-jim-bradbury/
https://ebookname.com/product/art-and-science-of-operative-
dentistry-4th-edition-theodore-m-roberson/
THE GROWTH OF THE
M E D I E VA L I C E L A N D I C S A G A S
(1180 – 1280)
Also by Theodore M. Andersson
(1180 – 1280)
Theodore M. Andersson
Cloth printing 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
CONTENTS
A Note on Orthography
vii
Abbreviations
ix
introduction
The Prehistory of the Sagas
1
chapter one
From Hagiography to Hero: Odd Snorrason’s Saga of Olaf Tryggvason
21
chapter two
Sanctifying a Viking Chieftain: The Oldest/Legendary Saga of Saint Olaf
43
chapter three
Creating Personalities: The Saga Age Icelanders
60
chapter four
Defining Political Identities: The Saga of King Magnús and King Harald
86
chapter five
Political Ambiguities: Egils saga Skallagrímssonar
102
chapter six
Turning Inward: Ljósvetninga saga
119
chapter seven
Gilding an Age: Laxdœla saga
132
chapter eight
Two Views of Icelandic History: Eyrbyggja saga and Vatnsdœla saga
150
chapter nine
Pondering Justice: Hœnsa-fióris saga, Bandamanna saga,
and Hrafnkels saga
162
chapter ten
Demythologizing the Tradition: Njáls saga
183
Epilogue
204
Bibliography
211
Index
227
vi Contents
A NOTE ON ORTHOGRAPHY
vii
ABBREVIATIONS
ix
SS Scandinavian Studies
STUAGNL Samfund til Udgivelse af Gammel Nordisk Litteratur
Studien zum Altgermanischen Studien zum Altgermanischen.
Festschrift für Heinrich Beck. Ed. Heiko Uecker: Berlin and New
York: de Gruyter, 1994.
Studien zur Isländersaga Studien zur Isländersaga. Festschrift für Rolf
Heller. Ed. Heinrich Beck and Else Ebel. Berlin and New York: de
Gruyter, 2000.
Th Theodoricus Monachus. Historia de Antiquitate Regum Nor-
wagiensium; An Account of the Ancient History of the Norwegian
Kings. Trans. and ann. David and Ian McDougall; intro. Peter
Foote. Viking Society for Northern Research, Text Series 11. Lon-
don: University College London; Viking Society for Northern Re-
search, 1998.
ZDA Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum und deutsche Literatur
x Abbreviations
THE GROWTH OF THE
M E D I E VA L I C E L A N D I C S A G A S
(1180 – 1280)
Introduction
The Prehistory of the Sagas
This work sets out to clarify how the book-length sagas of medieval
Iceland evolved in literary terms from circa 1180 to circa 1280. This ap-
proach is a departure from previous practice to the extent that the
sagas, in particular those about early Iceland, have seemed to defy
chronological treatment.1 The dating indices are normally not clear
enough to allow for the establishment of a firm chronology. As a result,
surveys of the sagas often organize them in rough groupings or re-
gionally rather than chronologically. The regional principle was, for
example, enshrined in the important series of editions titled Íslenzk
fornrit. In this text series the order of publication moves clockwise
around Iceland, beginning with Egils saga in the West, circling to the
North and East, and coming to a provisional resting place with Njáls
saga in the South.
My book seeks to overcome the chronological impasse, to whatever
extent is possible, by concentrating on the sagas with a relatively se-
cure date. Not surprisingly, these are often the longer ones, with more
scope for textual comparison and more indications of relative date. I
begin with the earliest full-length sagas from the period 1180 to per-
haps 1200: Odd Snorrason’s Saga of Olaf Tryggvason and The Legendary
Saga of Saint Olaf, the latter being a redaction of a so-called Oldest Saga
1
Vésteinn Ólason (1998, 21) writes as follows: “The uncertainties of dating make it
a hazardous venture to speculate about any kind of development during the thirteenth
century.” See also Bö›var Gu›mundsson et al. 1993, 80. This caveat may be taken as
the point of departure for my book. On the paralyzing critical difficulties raised by un-
certain datings, see Würth 1999, 200–206.
1
of Saint Olaf, extant only in six fragments. There follows a discussion
in Chapter 3 of the first sagas about Iceland. These texts are difficult to
date, but I argue that they are early. I then pass on to The Saga of King
Magnús and King Harald—which, with Ljósvetninga saga, I estimate to
have been written around 1220—and two of the most famous and fre-
quently read of the book-length sagas: Egils saga, dated between 1220
and 1240, and Laxdœla saga, dated between 1240 and 1260. Laxdœla saga
appears to have inspired historical sagas on a larger scale, and two of
these are dealt with in Chapter 8. At roughly the same time, or per-
haps a little later, appears a group of chiseled smaller sagas that are
characterized by a strong thematic emphasis, especially on the role
of chieftains: Hœnsa-fióris saga, Bandamanna saga, and Hrafnkels saga.
This thematic focus culminates in Njáls saga, which consensus places
around 1280.
There should be no illusion, however, about the certainty of the
dates given here. Odd’s Saga of Olaf Tryggvason was very probably
composed in Latin between 1180 and 1200, but the Latin text is lost,
and we do not know when the extant Icelandic translation was made.
The Oldest Saga of Saint Olaf is now dated around 1200, but most of it is
lost, and we must use a later redaction known as The Legendary Saga.
When exactly that redaction came into being is quite uncertain, though
it is surely older than the more elegant Heimskringla redaction, usually
dated circa 1225. There are also real doubts about the relative dating of
Odd’s saga and The Oldest Saga, although I hope to have shown in a re-
cent paper (Andersson 2004a) that Odd must have written first. The
Saga of King Magnús and King Harald (in the compendium known as
Morkinskinna) is quite likely to have been written no later than circa
1220, but a dating of Ljósvetninga saga is controversial; I place it around
1220, but others have dated it as late as 1260. The approximate dating
of the remaining sagas is a matter more of consensus than of certainty.
I nonetheless posit a chronology because it allows for a more deci-
sive approach to the development of saga writing in the thirteenth cen-
tury. I argue that this development entails two important trajectories:
on the one hand, a transition from a quasi-folkloristic gathering of tra-
dition to an increasingly focused literary composition culminating in
Njáls saga; on the other hand, a transition from a somewhat scattered
biographical form in the Olaf sagas and the earliest sagas about Ice-
landers to a form in which the narrative is controlled by an ever more
dominant authorial point of view. That is to say, the sagas evolve from
2
The debate has been reviewed in Scovazzi 1960; Andersson 1964; Mundal 1977
and 1990; and most recently in Danielsson 2002a, esp. 231–77.
3
Heusler 1941, 200–239.
4 The most important cumulative exposition of the inventionist view may be found
in the introductions to the Íslenzk fornrit editions, vols. 2–12 (1933 –56). Baetke (1956)
was even more adamantly inventionist.
Introduction 3
later, Carol J. Clover (1986) mediated between the extremes by arguing
that the oral precursors of the written sagas were predominantly
episodic and that the long sagas were a literary innovation; the content
of a long saga may have been familiar to the audience in outline (the
“immanent saga”), but in performance it is likely to have been told in
smaller denominations. Clover’s argument did not call forth a re-
sponse until a paper of my own in 2002, which offered reasons for be-
lieving that there may have been long stories as well as shorter ones in
the oral tradition.
It was therefore against the backdrop of declining interest in the oral
tradition that in 2002 three new books, one by Gísli Sigur›sson and two
by Tommy Danielsson, suddenly revived the problem and reinvigo-
rated the debate.5 These three books are broadly conceived, clearly for-
mulated, and, in my opinion, convincing. Gísli Sigur›sson studies the
sagas of the Icelandic East Fjords and concludes that they are not lit-
erarily connected but, rather, overlap because they are based on a
knowledge of similar traditions: where the texts roughly coincide, it is
not because one author borrowed from another but because the au-
thors had a common fund of oral traditions inherited from the Saga
Age (ca. 930–1030). Danielsson provides the most comprehensive saga
study to date, focusing on the most famous East Fjord saga, Hrafnkels
saga. He concludes that it is probably not an imaginative fiction, as
Sigur›ur Nordal argued in a widely read monograph from 1940, but a
literary recasting of an orally transmitted story about a Saga Age dis-
pute. In a second volume he focuses on the oral transmissions in the
sagas about Norwegian kings. Thus both scholars reach entirely rec-
oncilable conclusions that reemphasize the oral components in the
sagas.
Despite this convergence, both scholars are quite guarded in what
they say about the form of the oral traditions. Gísli Sigur›sson, though
he believes in the existence of commonly known oral traditions and
accepts Clover’s concept of an “immanent saga”—that is, a general
narrative outline familiar to many people but not “performed” until a
version was set down in writing—nonetheless insists that very little
can be known about the antecedent traditions, since they were com-
pletely transmuted when they passed into written form.6 Tommy
5
I have reviewed these important books in Andersson 2004b, 505 –27.
6 Gísli Sigur›sson 2002, 39, 51, 325–27.
7
Danielsson 2002a, 304.
8
The word “elusive” figures in the subtitle of Danielsson 2002a: “Fallet med den
undflyende traditionen” (the case of the elusive tradition).
9
This phrase is the title of the final section in Danielsson 2002b (385 –95), but it un-
derlies both his 2002 books generally. See in particular 2002a, 303.
Introduction 5
Reykjahólar in 1119,10 a passage that would seem to guarantee the recit-
ing of fornaldarsögur (legendary sagas), the most famous incident of sto-
rytelling is recorded in one of the flættir (semiindependent tales) in The
Saga of King Magnús and King Harald (the subject of Chapter 4).11 Ac-
cording to this episode, a young Icelander comes to King Harald’s court
in Norway and asks to be received. The king inquires whether he has
any accomplishments, and the young man replies that he can tell sto-
ries. He is therefore welcomed and entertains the court with his stories
until Christmas draws near. Then he becomes downcast, and the king
surmises that he has run out of stories just as they are needed most for
the holidays. The Icelander confirms the truth of the king’s intuition,
noting that he has only one story left but that he is afraid to tell it be-
cause it is the tale of Harald’s own foreign adventures. The king has no
objection to hearing his own deeds recited, but he advises the Icelander
to hold the tale in reserve for the upcoming holiday season. He also un-
dertakes to make the story last for the whole duration of the holidays.
The conclusion of the matter is worth reproducing in full:
Thus it came about that the Icelander told the story. He began on Christ-
mas and carried on for a while, but soon the king asked him to stop. The
retainers began to drink and comment that it was a temerity for the Ice-
lander to tell this story and to wonder how the king would react. Some
thought that he told the story well, but others were less impressed.
The holidays advanced. The king paid close attention to the timing
and with his forethought contrived that the story was concluded as the
holidays came to an end. On the thirteenth day, when the story had been
finished earlier in the day, the king said: “Aren’t you curious to know,
Icelander,” he asked, “what I think of the story?”
“I am afraid to ask, sire,” he said.
The king said: “I am very pleased with it. It is perfectly faithful to the
actual events. Who taught you the story?”
He replied: “It was my custom back in Iceland to go to the assembly
meeting every summer, and every summer I learned something of the
story from Halldór Snorrason.”12
10 The Reykjahólar episode was reviewed most recently in Danielsson 2002a, 233 –
35.
11 The episode is translated from Morkinskinna by Andersson and Gade, 222–23. See
also Heusler 1941, 204 –5; H. M. Heinrichs 1975 and 1976; Danielsson 2002a, 231– 33.
12 Morkinskinna, trans. Andersson and Gade, 223.
13 There is a special fláttr about Halldór in Morkinskinna (ibid., 187– 94). See also Jan
de Vries 1930.
14 Liestøl provides a full discussion of the problem of historicity, esp. in his last
Introduction 7
refers.15 The fullest illustration of the interdependence of prose and
verse is found in Egils saga.
Although the researches of Gísli Sigur›sson and Tommy Danielsson
make it plausible that there were extensive saga traditions in the thir-
teenth century, there are limitations to what we can read out of the tale
of the storytelling Icelander at King Harald’s court. His subject matter
pertains to contemporary history, not to the bygone days revived both
in the kings’ sagas and in the sagas about early Icelanders. To be sure,
the Icelander at Harald’s court has a whole repertory of stories, some
of which could have been about ancient historical lore, but we cannot
be certain. In the extensive prose literature passed down from thir-
teenth-century Iceland there is not a single episode visualizing a sto-
ryteller who reproduces the deeds or adventures of past kings or of
Icelanders who lived in the Saga Age.
It is nonetheless difficult to believe that these matters were excluded
from the storytelling repertories, since they came to dominate the writ-
ten literature of the thirteenth century. An episode from Njáls saga
shows that Saga Age events could at least be imagined as the stuff of
storytelling. The episode occurs near the end of the saga when Flosi
Thórdarson and his companions have been exiled from Iceland for
their part in the burning of Njál and his household. They come to
Mainland (largest of the Orkney Islands), where they are entertained
by a certain King Sigtrygg and two jarls. Their hosts are curious about
the news from Iceland, in particular the burning of Njál and his fam-
ily: “Gunnar Lambason was charged to tell the story and he was seated
on a chair.”16 It happens to be Christmas Day, and at that very moment
Njál’s avenger Kári Sƒlmundarson and his companions arrive at the
hall and listen to the story as they stand outside:
King Sigtrygg asked: “How did Skarphedin [Njál’s son] hold up during the
burning?” “Well enough at first,” said Gunnar, “but he ended in tears.” He
gave a very biased version of the whole story and told a lot of lies.
That is too much for Kári, who rushes in, recites a stanza, and lops off
Gunnar’s head.
15 See the summary discussion in Frank 1985, 176 –77; and Danielsson 2002b, 234.
16 ÍF 12:442– 44. The translations are mine, but the full context can be read in Njáls
saga, trans. Magnus Magnusson and Hermann Pálsson, 343; or trans. Robert Cook,
297–98.
17
ÍF 6:229 –34. The most recent translation is by Martin S. Regal; see The Complete
Sagas of Icelanders, 2:329– 402.
18
The episode in Fóstbrœ›ra saga is interpreted this way in Heller 1977.
19
Gísli Sigur›sson 2002, 253– 55.
Introduction 9
beit less specific, of live oral traditions in thirteenth-century Iceland.
Gísli Sigur›sson has mounted a powerful case that the sagas of the East
Fjords were orally inspired, not literarily. The narrative variants that
they embody suggest not a single, monolithic literary formulation but
mutable traditions that could be set down differently by different au-
thors. The problem of saga variants used to be studied on the basis of
variant redactions of one and the same text, notably Ljósvetninga saga
and Bandamanna saga, but it has emerged fairly clearly that these are
cases of literary variation.20 With Gísli Sigur›sson’s book the focus has
shifted to the study of narrative variations found in quite different
texts. The implication of this shift is that there was a widespread
knowledge of the Saga Age traditions and that depending on the con-
text, they could be used rather freely.
The existence of substantial oral traditions is further evinced by the
variation in the genealogical records. These variants are close enough
to suggest common knowledge of family relationships but not close
enough to suggest that genealogies were transferred unchanged from
one text to another.21 It is therefore fair to surmise that Icelanders in
the thirteenth century knew about their Saga Age ancestors and knew
how they were related to one another, without reference to written
records. It may also be fair to suppose that they knew about their an-
cestors in a narrative context, because the sagas are by no means dry
family records; on the contrary, they are dramatic stories of conflict and
intrigue. We could of course imagine that the oral traditions provided
only family information and genealogical details and that the dramatic
plots were contrived by the saga authors as they wrote. The dramatic
effects are so ubiquitous and so recurrent in form, however, that it is
hard to believe they were invented independently by two or three
dozen saga writers, without precedent in an anterior storytelling style.
These effects are more likely to have been inherited storytelling con-
ventions, presumably attached to the cast of characters familiar from
Saga Age traditions.
So far, we may perhaps conclude that there were living traditions
about kings and leading Saga Age figures and turn next to the ques-
20 Close studies of the variant redactions were made by Magerøy (1956 and 1957).
21
Björn M. Ólsen published a long series of papers in ÅNOH (1904, 1905a and b,
1908, 1910, 1920) in which he argued that the saga genealogies were generally deriva-
tive from the genealogies of Landnámabók. But see Gísli Sigur›sson 2002, 193 –201, and
his summary statement, 343–44.
22
Ármann Jakobsson 2002, 42– 43, 54, 68–71, 87– 88.
23
Heusler 1941, 205.
Introduction 11
to imagine a situation in which the whole court comes to a standstill
for the sake of a fifteen-minute recital. Even half an hour would be a
modest estimate.
The recitals referred to above in Fóstbrœ›ra saga and Njáls saga also
seem to presuppose a more extended narrative. Listeners abandon
other activities and gather around to devote their full attention to a sto-
ryteller. The length of time implied in this setting is particularly ap-
parent in Fóstbrœ›ra saga. Here one of the listeners is able to leave the
recital in order to seek out Thormód and apprise him that he is miss-
ing a good story. Such a break in itself might amount to fifteen min-
utes, and yet the messenger is in no apparent fear that he will lose the
thread of the story. It appears, then, that such storytelling sessions
could be quite long or, at least, could be extended in such a way as to
become long.
There are also stylistic reasons for believing that stories could be
told at considerable length.24 Some of the rhetorical practices that
characterize the plots of the written sagas suggest as much: narrative
dilation, elaborate premonitory devices, parallel actions, a gradual
mounting of complex tensions, and a conspicuous taste for retardation.
If these ubiquitous devices in the written sagas are a heritage from oral
storytelling, then the oral stories must have been of some length. Di-
lation, retardation, and a gradual buildup of plot are not techniques
appropriate to short oral stories. To be sure, they could be attributed
to writing authors, but the literary inspiration of such a style is hard to
locate. It is not a draft on any of the literary traditions of the Middle
Ages—hagiography, chronicle, or romance.
In discussing oral stories we need to ask not only how long they
were but also how stylized they were. Were the oral prototypes in some
sense factual or informational, or were they narratively streamlined
and dramatic? Or were they both? The genealogical accounts, place-
name traditions, and colonizing reports are certainly more on the in-
formational side, but there are clear indications of a dramatic style. A
strikingly large percentage of the written sagas is accounted for by di-
alogue.25 Dialogue is already fully developed in the short flættir, which
Introduction 13
and severe problems in the motivation of the action, yet the final sec-
tion on the Battle of Svƒld is as consistently dramatic as any account to
be found in the classical sagas. Here we find an awkward literary con-
trivance and a fully evolved oral tale side by side. This mismatch cer-
tainly suggests that Olaf’s biography was not orally performed as a
whole and that the first attempt at a total narrative was a rather clumsy
literary experiment.
That impression is reinforced by The Legendary Saga, which is a close
copy of the largely lost Oldest Saga of Saint Olaf. The Legendary Saga is
compositionally even less satisfactory than Odd’s saga. For the most
part it simply threads together a series of separate anecdotes extracted
from clusters of skaldic verse. But it also provides a brilliant exception,
the story of how King Olaf converted the recalcitrant heathen chieftain
Dala-Gudbrand (“Kristni fláttr”). The anecdote is a storytelling gem,
interpolated into The Oldest Saga presumably by the author of The Leg-
endary Saga and presumably from a separate source.28
Like the story of the Battle of Svƒld, this anecdote bears all the marks
of an orally perfected tale, but in one respect it is quite different. It is
not a traditional tale about a hero of the North, like Olaf Tryggvason,
but a literary invention based on a hagiographic pattern known as the
thaumaturgic duel. It shows therefore that oral style (what we think
of as “saga style”) could be separated from traditional contexts and
placed in the service of literary innovation. I return to the implication
of this stylistic separability later, but The Legendary Saga as a whole con-
firms the impression left by Odd’s saga that the composition of a long
biography was initially a difficult project and a strictly literary under-
taking, with no support from a single prior oral narrative. It assumes
only bits and pieces of tradition, the joining of which was a literary
task.
The perfection of a long narrative form was achieved with remark-
able speed, however. Both Odd’s Saga of Olaf Tryggvason and The Leg-
endary Saga are compositionally flawed, but as early as 1220—if our
dating is reliable—the long narrative form appears fully developed in
The Saga of King Magnús and King Harald and in Egils saga. That there
were oral traditions about Harald and Magnús is assured by the recital
of the young Icelander at Harald’s court, and Egil’s adventures must
29 This was the fundamental assumption in Heusler’s theory of the saga (last stated
Introduction 15
This is the assumption from which Gísli Sigur›sson and Tommy
Danielsson have liberated us. Danielsson’s haunting image of det
muntliga havet, the open sea of orality,30 suggests that there is no hard
and fast form, only an ebb and flow. A teller or writer dips into the great
expanse of tradition and shapes some part of it, but the ocean image is
so shifting and amorphous that it becomes difficult to say anything
about the tradition. This impasse makes Gísli Sigur›sson and Tommy
Danielsson hesitant to dicuss the tradition, but some categories of nar-
rative are so recurrent in the written sagas that they must have some
precedent in the oral tradition. I suggest seven such categories:
All this material would have been available to saga authors in the
thirteenth century, but we do not need to assume that it was cast in a
particular form. It is more likely that the authors collected and corre-
lated the narrative, choosing whatever seemed relevant to the story in
hand. In other words, the selection of narrative material was quite free:
the author could not only pick and choose among the narrative inci-
dents and details but could also determine the main thrust of the story
to be told. If the written sagas had been carried over verbatim from, or
even modeled closely on, the oral prototypes, the general thrust would
presumably have been quite similar from one saga to the next, but the
sagas as we have them include a number of different modes. Among
them I would single out three types that are particularly frequent in
the extant texts.
Introduction 17
Thus the author of a saga was free not only to choose particular
narrative incidents but also to lay down an overall narrative mode or
style. Again, it seems unlikely that the mode was predetermined by
the oral story, because the modes are so intermixed in the written sa-
gas that they must also have been intermixed in the oral stories. There
are no pure biographies, no pure regional sagas, no pure conflict sto-
ries. Instead, the modes are usually combined. Thus Egils saga is pre-
dominantly biographical but also regional and dramatic. Bjarnar saga
Hítdœlakappa is equally dramatic and biographical. Ljósvetninga saga is
equally dramatic and regional. Eyrbyggja saga is regional but also bio-
graphical in its treatment of Snorri go›i (Snorri the Chieftain). Laxdœla
saga, regional and highly dramatic, concludes with a biographical fo-
cus on Gudrún Ósvífrsdóttir. The emphasis, or combination of em-
phases, was up to the individual author, and we may surmise that at
the oral level the teller exercised the same options. Each teller must
have made individual decisions on style as well as matter.
Given that dramatic narration is peculiar to subject matter that
seems to have passed through an oral filter for a considerable period
of time, dramatic style must have been characteristic of the oral stories
as well. The oral traditions, the oral stories fashioned from them, and
the ultimate written sagas were all polymorphous, but tellers settled
on particular stories and gave them a particular form. Writing authors
did exactly the same thing: they chose a particular matter and fitted it
to a particular mode. There is, however, no reason to suppose that a
given written saga corresponded to any particular oral story, unless we
imagine that a skilled storyteller was fond of a particular story, prac-
ticed it, and eventually elected to cast it in writing. Thus the oral sto-
ryteller and the saga author could conceivably have been one and the
same person, but it is equally conceivable that they were quite differ-
ent people.
The sagas that appeal to modern readers most are the traditional and
dramatic feud or conflict sagas. They strike us as being the most liter-
arily polished texts and the most exciting stories. They must have had
something of the same effect on early audiences too, but medieval lis-
teners probably had a broader appreciation of the sagas than we do.
The sagas about the discovery of Vinland, sagas, which have little nar-
rative verve, would have struck them as interestingly otherworldly,
whereas the chronicle and regional sagas, which to our taste are over-
burdened, would have compensated with an abundance of genealog-
32 See “Sturlu fláttr” in Sturlunga saga, ed. Örnólfur Thorsson et al., 2:765 –66; and
Introduction 19
were both long and short forms of transmission. In Odd Snorrason’s
Saga of Olaf Tryggvason we find evidence of short anecdotal transmis-
sions unrelated to a larger narrative sequence, but we also find, in the
epic finale on the Battle of Svƒld, a fully developed narrative replete
with the dramatic devices that characterize the sagas in their full flow-
ering. In The Legendary Saga the anecdotal mode is predominant, but
here too we find an episode (“Kristni fláttr”) that exemplifies saga art
at its best. In The Saga of King Magnús and King Harald the anecdotal
tradition continues to be palpable, especially in the interlarded flættir,
but the author structures the narrative as a whole in a more decisive
and purposeful way by investing it with a political viewpoint. The
compositional development is less obvious in the sagas about early
Icelanders than in the kings’ sagas because the author of Egils saga ap-
pears on the scene when the compositional problems of the long form
have already been resolved. The author depends to a large extent on
anecdotal materials underpinned by Egil’s verse, but these materials
are subsumed in a biographical frame taken over from the kings’ sagas
and no less controlled by a political outlook than The Saga of King Magn-
ús and King Harald.
The author of Ljósvetninga saga rejects the tradition of the king’s saga
in order to trace a regional conflict that is strictly Icelandic. The author
of Laxdœla saga and that author’s imitators return to the model of Egils
saga by adopting a multigenerational form. But Laxdœla saga goes one
step further by modeling the core of the story on the Norse legend of
Brynhild and Sigurd. In the shorter sagas of the late thirteenth century
and in Njáls saga, both the biographical form and the generational
structure are resolutely abandoned in favor of a drama of ideas. In all
these sagas the outcroppings of tradition gradually recede as author-
ial autonomy and literary innovation become increasingly evident.
The old question of whether the sagas, as we have them, are traditional
or literary is misleading because the sagas are part of a continuum in
which both traditional and literary components evolve over time. The
way they combine is a question that must be explored anew for each
saga in turn.
The Traditions
1 ÍF 1.1:4.
2 Ibid., 15.
3 Ibid., 21.
21
the Chieftain’s daughter, though we know scarcely more about her
than her name and that of her otherwise unknown husband, Gunnlaug
Steinthórsson. Two redactions of The Book of Settlement refer to her as
“Thuríd the Wise.”4 A minuscule curriculum vitae of her father, known
as “The Life of Snorri the Chieftain,” lists Thuríd as the sixteenth
among his nineteen legitimate children.5 Since Snorri died in 1031,
Thuríd cannot well have been born much after 1025, and she would
have been well up in years by the time Ari consulted her in, let us say,
the 1080s or 1090s.
What makes Thuríd interesting is that she was at the center of so
much historical information. Her father was a towering figure in the
Saga Age, centrally involved in many of the most noteworthy events,
but her information would not have been confined to Iceland. Her
brother Halldór was in the service of King Harald Hardrule of Norway
and was his close companion during Harald’s adventurous early years
in Constantinople. The story recapitulated in the foregoing introduc-
tion relates that an Icelander told of Harald’s adventures in the pres-
ence of the king himself and explains that he had acquired the story
from Halldór in Iceland. Thuríd would have known no less. Halldór is
listed as number eleven among Snorri’s children and would perhaps
have been ten years older than Thuríd. The sagas relate that Halldór
fell out with King Harald after their return to Norway and sailed back
to Iceland in 1051, when his sister Thuríd would have been in her twen-
ties and avid to hear his tales of adventure.6 She would therefore have
had direct access to information about King Harald and, in addition,
King Magnús, with whom Harald shared the throne for some years.
Thuríd would in fact have known about the subject matter in all the
sagas described in the following chapters. She would have known
about King Olaf Tryggvason in connection with his conversion of Ice-
land when her father was in midlife. She was born during the reign of
Olaf Haraldsson and would have been old enough to hear firsthand
reports of his fall at Stiklarstadir in 1030. From her brother she would
have known the stories of King Magnús and King Harald, told at great-
est length in Morkinskinna and reviewed below in Chapter 4. In several
of the sagas about early Icelandic heroes her father was a participant:
4
Ibid., 118 –19.
5 ÍF 4:185.
6 ÍF 5:LXXXVIII.
There was a great assembly dispute between Thórd gellir, the son of Olaf
feilan from Breidafjord, and Odd, who was called Tungu-Odd and came
from Borgarfjord. Odd’s son Thorvald was present at the house-burning
of Thorkel Blund-Ketilsson together with Hœnsa-Thórir in ¯rnólfsdale.
10
ÍF 1.1:11.
11
Gísli Sigur›sson 2002, 318–21.
12
ÍF 1.1:3.
13 The Saga of Olaf Tryggvason, trans. Andersson, 4 – 5.
14 Ibid., 2.
15
Lönnroth 2000, 263; Andersson 2004a.
16 On The Saga of Olaf Tryggvason as hagiography, see esp. Sverrir Tómasson 1988,
261–79.
I was told this story by Abbot Ásgrím Vestlidason, the priest Bjarni
Bergthórsson, Gellir Thorgilsson, Herdís Dadadóttir, Thórgerd
Thorsteinsdóttir, and Ingunn Árnórsdóttir. These people instructed me
in the saga of King Olaf Tryggvason as it is now told. I showed the book
to Gizur Hallsson and corrected it with his counsel.
There was also a chaste maiden named Ingunn under his instruction.
She was no less accomplished in the aforementioned book skills than the
others. She taught many people grammar and instructed anyone who
wished to learn. Thus many became well educated under her guidance.
17
Saga Óláfs Tryggvasonar, ed. Finnur Jónsson, 247.
18 Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar en mesta, ed. Ólafur Halldórsson, 3:66.
19 See Bjarni A›albjarnarson 1937, 85 –86.
20 Ibid., 86; Biskupa sögur, 1:415; Sturlunga saga, ed. Örnólfur Thorsson et al., 1:106.
Bishop Jón died in 1121, and Ingunn could have been his pupil in his
last decade. She may therefore have been contemporary with Ásgrím
Vestlidason, though she may also have lived a little longer.
In any case, Odd’s interest in Olaf Tryggvason clearly goes back to
the middle of his century, when he would have been a child or a very
young man. It is also clear that at least some of his sources were cleri-
cally colored and would have focused on Olaf as a missionary king.
The more secular sources emphasized Olaf’s heroic feats: for example,
the skald Hallar-Stein’s “Rekstefja” and “Óláfsdrápa,” perhaps from
the late twelfth century.22 Odd would not have cited them in his orig-
inal Latin version because of the linguistic gulf, but he surely knew
these poems or their sources. There were thus both ecclesiastical and
secular strands in his information.
Odd Snorrason had written sources as well. He refers to both Sæ-
mund Sigfússon and Ari Thorgilsson, presumably to the latter’s lost
“kings’ lives.” There is in addition a close match between the early
parts of his narrative and the narrative found in the historical epitome
De Antiquitate Regum Norwagiensium, written in Norway by a monk
named Theodoricus sometime around 1180.23 Scholars have argued
that Theodoricus’s work was also among Odd’s sources, but it is
equally possible that both Odd and Theodoricus drew on Sæmund
and Ari in such a way that their narratives came to resemble each other
closely.24
Whatever the immediate written sources, they seem to have deter-
mined the outline of Odd’s saga. The initial phases tell of the death of
Olaf ’s father, how the orphaned infant was smuggled abroad, how he
spent years in servitude but came to be fostered and honored in Rus-
sia, and how his early military exploits culminated in conversion on
the Scilly Isles. The sequel traces his return to Norway and how he
21
Biskupa sögur, 1:241.
22
See Skj, IA:543 –52 and 573–78; IB:525 – 34 and 567–74.
23
MHN, 3– 68; Th.
24
The Saga of Olaf Tryggvason, trans. Andersson, 6 –7.
In the first twenty-five chapters Odd follows roughly the lead of his
written sources, although the narrative of Olaf’s escape from Norway,
enslavement in the Baltic, and rise to eminence in Russia is greatly ex-
panded over and above the accounts in Theodoricus’s De Antiquitate and
the other synoptic histories (Historia Norwegiae and Ágrip af Nóregs kon-
unga sƒgum). The explanation must be that Odd’s informants had fuller
oral versions of this period than could be found in the short written his-
tories. There is also an account of Olaf’s early adventures and marriage
in Wendland, an episode not foreshadowed in the synoptic histories and
more likely to be innovation than tradition. I return to it below.
On the death of Jarl Hákon and Olaf’s accession to the throne, the
synoptic histories are fairly full, but once Olaf is installed on the throne
there is virtually nothing about his Christian mission, merely a sum-
ming-up of his successes. Here Odd intervened with a great quantity
of anecdotal material in chapters 26– 60 of his saga. Since there is no
written precedent for this part of the narrative, and since the organi-
zation is loosely additive, the section seems most likely to be based on
oral anecdotes. We learn of the forcible conversion of the Orkney Is-
25 MHN, 147–52.
28 Ibid., 20 –23.
29
Lönnroth 1975, 43.
But the present Olaf Tryggvason, after he lost the realm in the great bat-
tle that he fought on Orm inn langi (the Great Serpent), was taken away
from us so that mortal men cannot know clearly what the nature of his
saintliness is. Nor has it been revealed what signs and miracles are con-
nected with him, but no one doubts that he was sent by God. God also
made him more outstanding than other kings and admirable in all provi-
dential ways. For that reason we must all praise the name of the Lord
Jesus Christ for this man, to whom he granted such great power and dis-
tinction, in the same way we praise God for King Olaf the Saint.33
This passage looks like the final summation, the final exaltation of
Olaf before he meets his fate at Svƒld. It is the logical point at which to
wind up his career and turn to his last days. The transition begins well
enough with the construction of Olaf’s legendary ship the Great Ser-
pent (chapter 53), on which he is destined to succumb. But then, as if
by afterthought, Odd reverts to his missionary activities. He describes
Olaf ’s appearance and eloquence one last time and, less to the point,
recounts how he convenes yet another assembly in Thrándheim, de-
molishes an idol of Thor, and kills the chieftain Járnskeggi of Yrjar and
converts his terrified followers. That this retrospective positioning of
a conversion episode is not inspired by chronological considerations
becomes clear at the end of chapter 54: “After the killing of Járnskeggi
and after the king had entered into a distinguished marriage with the
queen Thyri, he repudiated Járnskeggi’s daughter Gudrún.”34 Since
the marriage to Thyri was reported much earlier, in chapter 46, the pres-
ent chapter should have been positioned in that context. The follow-
ing chapter (55) is no less misplaced; it is in fact a duplicate of chapter
37, in which Olaf executes the recalcitrant heathen Hróald on Godey.
Chapter 55 identifies Olaf’s victim as Hróald in Moldafjord, far to the
south, but the descriptions are so similar that the two passages must
be variants of the same incident.
33
Ibid., 102.
34 Ibid., 105.
35 Ibid., 136.
36 Magerøy 1998, 77; Würth 1998, 38, 48, 56, 59, 71, 82.
37 Thus Odd’s telling of Olaf ’s flight from Norway may have drawn inspiration
40
Ibid.
41
Ibid.
42
Ibid., 122.
43
Ibid., 123 –24.
A haszon.
A forgalom és az árak.
Kereslet és kínálat.