[In the following excerpt, Magnussen summarizes the plot, theme, style, and historical and literary contexts of the Laxdaela Saga.]

Of all the major Icelandic sagas, Laxdæla Saga has always stirred the European imagination the most profoundly. More than any other of the classical prose sagas of medieval Iceland it is essentially a romantic work; romantic in style, romantic in taste, romantic in theme, culminating in that most enduring and timeless of human relationships in story-telling, the love-triangle. Gudrun Osvif's-daughter, the imperious beauty who married her lover's best friend against her will and then, in a rage of jealousy, forced her husband to kill her former lover and forfeit his own life thereby, is enshrined for all time in the gallery of great tragi-romantic heroines in world literature.

It was written by an unknown author around the year 1245, as nearly as can be deduced, at a time when the Age of Chivalry was at its fullest flower in continental Europe, when knights were dedicated to the service of the Church against the infidel, and tournaments and courtly love were the standard pastimes of the feudal aristocracy. Laxdæla Saga reflects a European outlook and attitude more than any of the other major sagas of the thirteenth century; and yet it is also one of the most essentially Icelandic of all the sagas, the truest of the Family Sagas proper, a dynastic chronicle that sweeps from generation to generation for 150 years from the Settlement of Iceland by the Norsemen late in the ninth century. In this sense, in the care with which the dawn of Iceland's history is recorded and interpreted in saga terms, Laxdæla Saga is also something of a national epic, giving to this young nation's past a dignity and grandeur which it seemed to lack in comparison with older and more powerful neighbour-states.

Although Laxdæla Saga is best known for the love-story of Gudrun Osvif's-daughter, it is a much more complex saga than that; indeed, the ‘Gudrun episode’ comes relatively late in the saga (Chapter 32 onwards), and the pattern of the saga in the earlier chapters is not immediately apparent to the modern reader—particularly one who is waiting impatiently for Gudrun to take the stage. And yet it is vitally important to discern and understand this saga pattern, as thirteenth-century audiences would have had no difficulty in doing; the early episodes not only set the scene for the Gudrun tragedy but also give it more texture and meaning, for Gudrun and the men who loved her are caught up in an extraordinary web of conflicting kinships and loyalties. Far from being a series of disconnected episodes, the early action of the saga has an intense bearing on what follows; for Laxdæla Saga is a saga of property as well as passion, a story of lands as well as loves, and the great diversity of character and incidents in the early stages are all designed to show how the wealth and property inherited by Gudrun's lover, Kjartan Olafsson, were amassed by his ancestors. It is only when Kjartan's standing is established that the author turns to another branch of the Laxriverdale family, and the two family streams meet in fatal confluence.

It is not easy to find a meaningful analogy for this particular form of saga pattern. Perhaps it could be compared to the course of a long river, starting in a slow trickle and splitting into two streams, but gradually increasing in volume and power as new tributaries swell its waters; these tributaries give the saga-pattern a herring-bone effect in places, for the author often jumps from the main flow to trace a tributary right from its source. When the two major streams converge again the river develops an irresistible current that sweeps everything along with it; the central tragedy forms currents which the characters are helpless to avoid, and which only the strongest can survive. Finally, the saga flows into broader, calmer waters, a serene estuary as the survivors of the tragedy drift tranquilly to their old age and quiet deaths.

Throughout its course, the saga changes in texture in the same way as the nature of a river is determined by the terrain through which it flows. Laxdæla Saga begins in the remote past, in a different land, with different customs and different problems; Iceland is then virgin territory, and the river drives its own path where it will as it comes pouring down from the mountains of the pagan, rather mysterious hinterlands of history. With it, it brings the glacial debris of its past, the boulders and silt that it sweeps down into the lusher reaches to create hidden currents and rapids as it moves through a deceptively lyrical, Christianized lowland landscape. Indeed, one of the most memorable aspects of Laxdæla Saga is the way in which the style and nature of the story alter subtly as the generations succeed one another.

The saga opens in Norway with a fleeting glimpse of the heroic period of Scandinavia. As King Harald Fine-Hair of Norway consolidates the power of his throne in the second half of the ninth century, the more independent-minded chieftains decide to emigrate. One of them is Ketil Flat-Nose (does his nickname suggest a Lappish origin?); he himself decides to settle in Scotland, but his sons emigrate to newly-discovered Iceland, and it is to Iceland, too, that his strong-willed daughter, Unn the Deep-Minded, eventually comes after some hazardous adventures in Scotland (Chapters 1-5). It is from one of Ketil's sons, Bjorn the Easterner, and from his daughter, Unn the Deep-Minded, that the two main streams of this family chronicle are descended.

In the first section of the saga (Chapters 1-31) the main narrative follows the fortunes of Unn's descendants. Unn is the archetypal pioneer, a forceful matriarch who establishes dynasties in Scotland, Orkney and the Faroe Islands by marrying off her grand-daughters to carefully-chosen suitors. When she comes to Iceland she lays claim to an enormous area of land in the virgin territory of Breidafjord, on the west coast, which she parcels out to her followers with due regard to their social standing, lineage and intrinsic merit (Chapter 6).

To her grandson, Olaf Feilan, she leaves her own estate of Hvamm (Chapter 7); Olaf Feilan fades from the saga immediately, but three generations later his family line is destined to emerge into the saga again, for his great-grandson, Thorkel Eyjolfsson, becomes the fourth husband of Gudrun Osvif's-daughter (Chapter 68).

It is the family line of another of Unn's grandchildren, Thorgerd, that the saga now follows; for when Thorgerd marries Dala-Koll her dowry is the whole of Laxriverdale (Chapter 5), and it is with the fortunes of the Laxriverdale dynasty, the ‘Laxdalers’ of the title, that Laxdæla Saga is most concerned. Every incident that now follows is seen to have a bearing on the eventual appearance of one of the most illustrious figures in that family, Olaf the Peacock, the father of Kjartan Olafsson.

Dala-Koll is succeeded by his son, Hoskuld Dala-Kollsson (Chapter 7), who quickly establishes himself as a forceful and ambitious chieftain. His widowed mother, Thorgerd, restlessly emigrates to Norway where she marries again and has a son, Hrut Herjolfsson, who is Hoskuld's half-brother (Chapter 8). When she dies, Hoskuld takes possession of her whole estate, and clearly has no intention of allowing his half-brother to claim his rightful share.

Hoskuld, ever anxious to improve his position, looks for a marriage alliance that will add to his wealth and power, and marries the daughter of a wealthy farmer up north (Chapter 9). But his bride, Jorunn, turns out to be a hard woman, steely-tempered and wasp-tongued, and the marriage, despite a litter of children, is loveless. Two sons are introduced—Thorleik Hoskuldsson, who takes after his mother's side of the family, and Bard Hoskuldsson, who is his exact opposite, sweet-natured and generous-hearted.

At this point the saga abruptly turns aside to explore the first of the ‘herring-bone’ tributaries. A man called Hrapp of Hrappstead is briefly introduced, a disagreeable Hebridean (like so many other stock villains in this and other sagas) who is excessively brutal to his neighbours (Chapter 10). He is one of Hoskuld's neighbours in Laxriverdale; but his significance in the saga-pattern is not fully apparent until after his death (Chapters 17-18); for Hrapp's ghost haunts the farm at Hrappstead so viciously that the people flee from it. When Hrapp's brother-in-law, Thorstein Black the Wise, attempts to settle there he and all his immediate family are drowned as they are sailing across Breidafjord; and the disaster is attended by an enormous seal with human eyes. … Thus, through Hrapp's baleful supernatural activities, the Hrappstead lands remain deserted and ownership falls into the hands of a farmer in another district, Thorkel Fringe, who has no desire to farm them himself (Chapter 18). This is an important sub-theme in the saga; but its significance does not emerge until some time later, when the Hrappstead lands are bought by Olaf the Peacock (Chapter 24). So it is on this haunted estate, its name changed to Hjardarholt but still shadowed by the malignant shade of Hrapp, that Kjartan Olafsson grows up.

Immediately after Hrapp of Hrappstead is first introduced another important sub-theme is begun, with the entry of another of Hoskuld Dala-Kollsson's neighbours, Thord Goddi (Chapter 11). This is an even more tortuous tributary, but it, too, leads towards Olaf the Peacock, as follows: Thord Goddi is married to a mettlesome woman called Vigdis Ingjald's-daughter (a grand-daughter of Olaf Feilan, incidentally, cf. Genealogical Table No. 5); the two of them become involved in giving shelter to a penniless outlaw, Thorolf, who had killed the brother of a powerful local chieftain, Ingjald Saudisle-Priest (Chapter 14). When Ingjald comes to kill the outlaw, Vigdis and her craven husband fall out; Vigdis routs the visitors and divorces her husband for his cowardice. Then Vigdis tries to claim half the marital estate in a divorce settlement; but to prevent her getting her hands on any of his money, Thord Goddi goes to Hoskuld Dala-Kollsson and makes over all his wealth to him in trust for Hoskuld's son, Olaf the Peacock, whom he now takes into fosterage, being childless himself (Chapter 16).

But we have over-run the story in following these two meandering tributaries to the point where they flow into the main narrative stream; for they are digressions from the story of Hoskuld Dala-Kollsson, whom we left in Chapter 9 newly married to Jorunn. Hoskuld now decides to go abroad to fetch timber from Norway with which to build himself a home suited to his stature in the community (Chapter 11). But timber is not, apparently, his only aim, for while he is abroad he buys himself a beautiful young concubine (Chapter 12). Jorunn of the steely temper is little pleased when he brings this domestic acquisition back to Iceland; but her jealousy is only really aroused when it is revealed that the concubine is no mere slave-girl but a lady of impeccable aristocratic birth—Melkorka, the daughter of an Irish king (Chapter 13). Hoskuld, however, is delighted with this revelation, for he always laid great store by wealth and breeding; and now he gives all his love and devotion to the illegitimate son his concubine had borne him—Olaf the Peacock.

When Hoskuld's half-brother, Hrut Herjolfsson, comes to Iceland and claims his share of their mother's estate Hoskuld refuses to hand it over, and a bitter quarrel between the brothers ensues; but the quarrel is settled just short of fratricide (Chapter 19). Hoskuld is now mellowing into old age, and our attention turns to the growing brilliance and renown of Olaf the Peacock, the apple of his father's eye. His mother, Melkorka, is anxious that he should go to Ireland to vindicate his noble lineage, and to provide him with the necessary capital (and to spite Hoskuld) she marries a local farmer, Thorbjorn the Feeble (Chapter 20). Olaf sets off on a triumphant progress abroad, and meets his grandfather in Ireland (Chapter 21). King Myrkjartan fêtes him and flatters him, and even offers him the succession to the throne, but Olaf politely declines and returns to Iceland in a blaze of glory (Chapter 22). Back in Iceland, Hoskuld plans for Olaf an ambitious dynastic marriage into the family of the great warrior-poet, Egil Skalla-Grimsson of Borg. The daughter, Thorgerd, at first refuses to marry a mere concubine's son, but is dazzled and swept off her feet when Olaf turns up to woo her in person (Chapter 23). Olaf now buys the deserted lands of Hrappstead, as was mentioned earlier, and builds himself a handsome manor there, renaming it Hjardarholt (Chapter 23).

In contrast, Olaf's half-brother, Thorleik Hoskuldsson, lives up to the mean strain in his mother's ancestry, and gets involved in a brief flare-up of trouble with his uncle, Hrut Herjolfsson (Chapter 25).

Now Hoskuld Dala-Kollsson dies; on his death-bed, intent to the last on enhancing Olaf's standing, he manages to bequeath a third of the estate to Olaf by a trick—much to the displeasure of Hoskuld's disgruntled legitimate son, Thorleik (Chapter 26). In order to staunch the ill-feeling between them, Olaf magnanimously offers to foster Thorleik's son, Bolli (Chapter 27); so now Bolli Thorleiksson goes to stay at Hjardarholt, where he is brought up with his cousin and foster-brother, Olaf's eldest son, Kjartan Olafsson (Chapter 28).

Now the stage is set for the next generation to take over. Under the benign influence of Olaf the Peacock, Kjartan and Bolli grow up together absolutely devoted to one another, two young men of outstanding prowess and accomplishments; yet of the two, Kjartan always has the edge on Bolli, and Bolli grows up in the shadow of his more brilliant cousin (Chapter 28). With these two, the House of Hoskuld has reached its fullest flower; but two small episodes now cast a shadow of apprehension over this lyrical mood. Olaf the Peacock has a very disagreeable dream, ominously portending that he will see his favourite son drenched in blood one day (Chapter 31); and his daughter, Thurid, marries a rogue Norwegian, Geirmund the Noisy, whom Olaf had reluctantly brought back to Iceland from a voyage abroad (Chapter 29). When that marriage disintegrates, a sword with a curse on it comes into Olaf's family—the sword ‘Leg-Biter’, which is fated to cause the death of the most brilliant scion of the family; and the sword is given by Thurid to her cousin, Bolli Thorleiksson (Chapter 31). And with these fleeting shivers on the clear, sunlit waters of the river, the first section of the saga ends.

The second section, the core of the whole saga (Chapters 32-56), opens with the entry of the other main dynastic line from Ketil Flat-Nose—the descendants of Bjorn the Easterner: Osvif Helgason of Sælingsdale and his daughter Gudrun. In the same breath we hear of a minor property transaction in which Osvif buys some upland grazing in Sælingsdale on which to pasture his livestock in summer; and that shieling is to be the scene of tragedy later (Chapter 32).

And now one crucial chapter clenches the whole story together, through the medium of a sage, Gest Oddleifsson, who can foretell the future. In the course of one day he utters three prophecies that are to shape the rest of the saga narrative (Chapter 33).

He meets Gudrun, his kinswoman, a beautiful, self-confident young girl of only fourteen or fifteen, who tells him about four strange dreams she has had and asks him to interpret them. In one stroke her whole destiny is laid bare to us (as it was already known to the saga audience) when Gest Oddleifsson predicts that she will have four husbands. Later that day he comes to Hjardarholt at Olaf the Peacock's invitation; Gest has never seen the two cousins, Kjartan and Bolli, before, but now as he watches them swimming with some friends he prophesies with tears in his eyes that one day Bolli will stand over Kjartan's body, and earn his own death thereby. In a third, minor prediction, Gest prophesies that one day he himself and Osvif Helgason will be much closer neighbours (this comes true in Chapter 66, when they are buried in the same grave at Helgafell).

In this pivotal chapter the destinies of Gudrun and Kjartan (who have not yet met) are juxtaposed; and from now on, the saga narrative flows strong and clear as these prophecies are worked out.

Gudrun marries her first husband, much against her will, at the age of fifteen; he is a wealthy but pusillanimous man called Thorvald Halldorsson, whom she divorces after two years (Chapter 34).

Next she marries a man called Thord Ingunnarson; Thord is already married to a fierce-tempered woman called Aud, whom he divorces in order to marry Gudrun (at the cost of a vengeful sword-thrust that mutilates his chest and arm). The marriage between Thord and Gudrun is very happy; but now Thord tangles with a family of evil Hebridean sorcerers (Kotkel and his family), and is drowned by their spells (Chapter 35). Kotkel and his family are eventually wiped out, but not before they have embroiled the luckless Thorleik Hoskuldsson in yet another violent quarrel with his uncle, Hrut Herjolfsson (Chapter 37). The outcome of this is that Thorleik goes abroad for ever, leaving his son Bolli with Olaf the Peacock at Hjardarholt (Chapter 38).

And now Gudrun, with her second marriage over, meets Kjartan Olafsson, who starts making frequent visits to see her at the natural hot-spring baths in Sælingsdale. There is close friendship between their parents, Olaf and Osvif; but Olaf is obscurely uneasy at the growing love between Kjartan and Gudrun (Chapter 39). And always the faithful Bolli tags along with Kjartan, the inseparable companion who always comes second.

Kjartan is eager to seek fame and fortune abroad. He decides rather abruptly to go to Norway, and asks Gudrun to wait three years for him as his betrothed. Gudrun is put out by the suddenness of his decision and refuses, and they part rather huffily. Kjartan sails off to Norway, accompanied as always by Bolli (Chapter 40). They sail straight into trouble, for the King of Norway, Olaf Tryggvason, is putting tremendous political pressure on Iceland to accept Christianity. Kjartan's almost superhuman accomplishments are readily appreciated by King Olaf, and for the first time Bolli's submerged resentment of his more brilliant cousin breaks to the surface. They and their companions eventually are baptized, but Iceland is still proving stubborn; so King Olaf keeps Kjartan and three other Icelanders hostage in Norway in an attempt to exert more pressure on the leading chieftains of Iceland. Bolli is not held, however; and in the year 1000 (the third year of Kjartan's absence) Bolli returns to Iceland, leaving Kjartan with King Olaf enjoying the favour of the king's sister, Ingibjorg.

The first thing Bolli tells Gudrun when he returns to Iceland is that Kjartan looks as if he intends to settle in Norway, especially in the light of his intimate friendship with Ingibjorg. Then he proposes to Gudrun himself, and eventually Gudrun, grieved by Kjartan's apparent perfidy but much against her will none the less, is pressurized by her father and brothers into marrying Bolli (Chapter 43).

The following year, Kjartan Olafsson returns. News that Iceland had accepted Christianity reached Norway in the spring of the year 1001, and the moment that Kjartan is released by King Olaf he hurries to Iceland, brusquely breaking off his affair with Princess Ingibjorg—who nevertheless shows her regality by giving him an immensely valuable gold-woven head-dress as a wedding-present for Gudrun; and King Olaf gives him a sword which has the power of making him immune to all other weapons for as long as he carries it (Chapter 43). When Kjartan discovers that Gudrun is already married to his foster-brother he shows no outward signs of emotion; and soon he is persuaded to get married himself. His choice falls, casually enough, on Hrefna Asgeir's-daughter (sister of his former partner abroad, Kalf Asgeirsson), a girl as demure and sweet as Gudrun is ambitious and imperious; and to Hrefna he gives the coveted head-dress (Chapter 45).

The fierce jealousies and resentments inherent in this tense situation soon break out, despite Olaf the Peacock's constant efforts to keep the peace. Kjartan rudely snubs a generous gift offered by Bolli; in revenge, Gudrun's brothers steal Kjartan's sword, the sword that would have kept him safe from all weapons. And at a feast, Hrefna's priceless head-dress is also stolen mysteriously. Kjartan gives vent to his fury by humiliating Bolli and Gudrun and her family, by besieging their home for three days and denying them access to the outdoor privy (Chapter 47).

There is now open enmity between the two houses; and after some further spiteful exchanges, Gudrun at last goads Bolli and her brothers into making an attempt on Kjartan's life. They ambush him as he rides home down Svinadale with only two companions. Kjartan fights them off while the reluctant Bolli stands aloof; but when Bolli at last joins in the battle, Kjartan throws down his weapons rather than fight his own foster-brother, and Bolli grimly and silently strikes him dead—with the sword ‘Leg-Biter’ (Chapter 49).

In a chilling passage, Gudrun gloats over Kjartan's death, and the grief it will cause Hrefna. But Bolli, deeply repenting what he has done, knows her better, and recognizes the frustrated love that has inspired the jealous rage in her breast. Hrefna moves north to her family home, where she dies of a broken heart (Chapter 50).

Olaf the Peacock strives desperately to heal the awful breach that has opened in his family; for three years, until his own death, he manages to secure an uneasy peace. But when his moderating influence is gone, Kjartan's brothers, goaded on by their mother Thorgerd (no less fierce and unforgiving than Gudrun herself), plan their revenge on Bolli. Helped by their uncle, Melkorka's son Lambi Thorbjornsson, and a warrior called Helgi Hardbeinsson, the Olafssons set upon Bolli in the summer shieling that Osvif had once bought, and kill him there (Chapter 55). Gudrun is pregnant at the time; and when one of the killers, Helgi Hardbeinsson, meets her and wipes his bloody spear on her sash, he prophesies that her unborn son will eventually cause his own death in revenge. The following spring, Gudrun gives birth to Bolli Bollason (Chapter 56).

The last section of the saga (Chapters 57-78) tells of the long and complex plans that Gudrun laid to avenge her husband Bolli, and of the final fulfilment of the prophecies. Once again, the author introduces two men in juxtaposition who are going to have a marked effect on Gudrun's destiny—Thorgils Holluson and Thorkel Eyjolfsson (Chapter 57). And now the complexities of kinship become very dense, for Thorgils is himself a descendant of Bjorn the Easterner, and as such is related to Gudrun, as well as to her dead husband, Bolli Thorleiksson, and her dead lover, Kjartan Olafsson; and he is also related, distantly, to Thorkel Eyjolfsson, through Ketil Flat-Nose.

Gudrun has by now moved from Sælingsdale to Helgafell, by exchanging homes with her great friend and mentor Snorri the Priest (Chapter 56). And now Thorgils Holluson begins to pay court to her assiduously. Gudrun is more concerned to have her late husband avenged, and will not even think of remarrying until that is achieved—and certainly not marrying Thorgils Holluson. But when her son, Bolli Bollason, is twelve years old and ready to fulfil his destiny as his father's avenger, Snorri the Priest thinks up an ingenious scheme whereby Thorgils Holluson can be used to further Gudrun's ends. Gudrun makes him an ambiguous promise of marriage on condition that he leads a punitive expedition against one of Bolli's killers, Helgi Hardbeinsson (Chapter 60). Bolli Bollason goes with him, and after a fierce defence Helgi is killed—by Bolli (Chapter 64). Gudrun now explains to Thorgils the ambiguity in her promise of marriage—she had only promised to marry no other man in the land than him, and Thorkel Eyjolfsson, whom Snorri the Priest had already decided should be her fourth husband, was abroad at the time. Thorgils leaves in a rage, and soon Snorri engineers his death to leave the way completely clear for Thorkel Eyjolfsson (Chapter 67).

Gudrun now marries Thorkel, who becomes a great chieftain (Chapter 68). Soon, however, Thorkel goes abroad to fetch timber for a church he intends to build at Helgafell; in Norway the king chides him for arrogance and forecasts that the timber will never be used for church-building (Chapter 74). That prediction comes true when Thorkel is drowned in Breidafjord, after taking part in an abortive attempt to purchase Hjardarholt (the property theme is never long absent in this saga). And so Gest Oddleifsson's four-fold prophecy about Gudrun's marriages is finally fulfilled (Chapter 77).

And now the survivors of this complex dynastic tragedy live out their lives. Bolli Bollason becomes a man of great pomp and magnificence, living in a blaze of chivalric courtliness; he marries Snorri's daughter, Thordis, and inherits his estate in Sælingsdale, the estate that Gudrun and Bolli had once owned. Gudrun's son by her fourth marriage, Gellir Thorkelsson, becomes a man of great influence and piety, and dies on his way home from a pilgrimage to Rome.

And Gudrun herself, after her passion-racked life, becomes a nun and Iceland's first anchoress; when she dies she is very old, and blind, and she is buried at Helgafell.

But before she dies, her son Bolli Bollason comes to see her. He is curious to know one thing about his mother's life: he asks her, ‘Which man did you love the most?’

The old widow answers evasively at first, and merely gives a perfunctory catalogue of the qualities of her four husbands. But Bolli is insistent, and asks again, ‘Which man did you love the most?’ And now Gudrun answers, ‘I was worst to the one I loved the most.’

It is the final, enigmatic confession of a woman seeking serenity and expiation after a cruelly passionate life; and Bolli is satisfied by it.

‘And there this saga ends.’

Such is the bare outline of the ‘plot’ of the saga, the sequence of events that make up its narrative framework. Summarized in this way, it implies a certain historicity; but the concept of historicity has to be approached rather carefully in the Icelandic sagas. In the past, they have sometimes been treated as literal historical truth, because they could be shown to fit, more or less accurately, into the general context of the known early history of Iceland.

As far as Laxdæla Saga is concerned, most of the major characters are undoubtedly historical personages, and many of the major landmarks in their lives are corroborated by other historical sources. The Icelandic Annals, for instance, which briefly chronicle outstanding events year by year, record some of the main points of reference:

963 birth of Snorri the Priest (Gudrun's friend)
979 birth of Thorkel Eyjolfsson (Gudrun's fourth husband)
997 King Olaf Tryggvason sends Thangbrand to Iceland
1000 Christianity adopted in Iceland
1003 Kjartan Olafsson killed (Gudrun's lover)
1007 Bolli Thorleiksson killed (Gudrun's third husband)
1026 Thorkel Eyjolfsson drowned
1031 death of Snorri the Priest
1073 death of Gellir Thorkelsson, aged sixty-four (Gudrun's son by her fourth husband)

In addition, Landnámabók (Book of Settlements) makes sporadic references to Gudrun's husbands, which corroborate the fact that she was married four times—the central theme of the whole saga:

‘The sons of Osvif were outlawed for the killing of Kjartan Olafsson. Osvif's daughter was Gudrun, the mother of Thorleik (Bollason), Bolli (Bollason), and Gellir (Thorkelsson).’

‘… Thorvald Halldorsson, who married Gudrun Osvif's-daughter.’ (Gudrun's first husband, Chapter 34.)

‘… Thord Ingunnarson, who married Gudrun Osvif's-daughter.’ (Gudrun's second husband, Chapter 35.)

‘… Bolli Thorleiksson, who married Gudrun Osvif's-daughter.’ (Gudrun's third husband, Chapter 43.)

‘… Bolli Thorleiksson, who married Gudrun Osvif's-daughter. They had six children. … Gudrun had previously been married to Thord Ingunnarson. Her last husband was Thorkel Eyjolfsson.’ (Gudrun's fourth husband, Chapter 68.)

It's not really surprising that Laxdæla Saga should be so well informed about Gudrun Osvif's-daughter, for Gudrun was the great-grandmother of Iceland's first vernacular historian, Ari Thorgilsson the Learned; and it is hard to avoid the conclusion that Ari the Learned (1068-1148) was a major source for Gudrun's life-story. The only extant historical work which can be ascribed to Ari with absolute certainty is Íslendingabók (or Libellus Islandorum, the Book of Icelanders), which he wrote around the year 1127; but he was in all probability one of the compilers of the original version of Landnámabók (Book of Settlements) in the first half of the twelfth century, and it is also thought by some scholars that he was the prime source of information for the entries in the Icelandic Annals.

On two occasions in Laxdæla Saga, Ari the Learned is specifically cited as a historical source (Chapters 4, 78); but such appeals to historical authority are not unusual in other sagas, and give no indication of the special importance of the family connexion between Gudrun and Ari the Learned for the creation of Laxdæla Saga. Gellir Thorkelsson, Gudrun's son by her fourth husband, was the father of Thorkel Gellison, who was Ari's uncle (Chapter 78); and in Íslendingabók and Landnámabók, Thorkel Gellison is cited more than once as a significant source of information, particularly for Ari's account in Íslendingabók about the Icelandic colonists in Greenland (cf. The Vinland Sagas, Penguin Classics, 1960, p. 26):

Erik the Red went out to colonize Greenland fourteen or fifteen years before Christianity came to Iceland, according to what Thorkel Gellison was told in Greenland by a man who had himself gone there with Eirik the Red.

Elsewhere in Íslendingabók, Ari refers to him as ‘my uncle Thorkel Gellison, who could remember far back’.

.....

There are several … echoes of contemporary events in Laxdæla Saga which point to a deliberate manipulation of material for artistic ends, especially the rather complicated succession to the inheritance in the family of Thorstein Black the Wise when they all drowned in a single shipwreck (Chapter 18); there was a very similar legal wrangle in 1178, recorded in Sturlunga Saga—and the suspicion that the author of Laxdæla Saga may have borrowed this theme is strengthened by the fact that there is no suggestion in any other extant source that Thorstein Black the Wise, or any of his family, died by drowning. The story seems to have been invented in order to explain how the deserted lands of Hrappstead came into the possession of Thorkel Fringe.

Similarly, the many dreams and prophecies which the author uses to tauten the material of his narrative are essentially literary devices that cannot by definition be historically true—whether he himself invented them, or whether some of them had already accreted to various episodes of the story before he worked his material into its present literary form.

Indeed, it sometimes seems as if the more vivid, the more ‘real’, the more compellingly visualized a scene in an Icelandic Saga is, the less likely it is to be historically ‘true’. The only valid ‘historicity’ in the sagas is not so much what it tells us about the history of Iceland as what it tells us about thirteenth-century attitudes to the history of Iceland. The saga-writers were not trying to write history in our sense of the term; they were trying to create an acceptable image of the past. And like great composers, they took themes, the written or unwritten folk-tunes of the nation's past, so to speak, and orchestrated them with their own literary skill and intellectual interpretations. To understand the historical value of the sagas, we have to understand what history meant to a saga-writer and his thirteenth-century audience.

Laxdæla Saga is strung between two historical poles, the two most significant events in the early history of Iceland—the Settlement, from about 870 onwards, and the Conversion to Christianity in the year 1000. These two major national events form the background of the whole saga age, and permeate most of the major sagas. In Laxdæla Saga they form a twin polarity, for the physical demands of the Age of Settlement and the intellectual demands of the Age of Christianity affected the motivation of people in markedly different ways. They thicken the texture of the narrative and give extra meaning to it. In some sagas, like Njal's Saga, for instance, the Conversion is the more important of the two events; the events leading to the Conversion are described at considerable length, and the impact of Christianity on the major characters has a decisive effect on the course and the meaning of the narrative. In Laxdæla Saga the Conversion has one decisive effect on the plot, because it is the year that Kjartan Olafsson spends in Norway as a hostage while King Olaf Tryggvason was putting political pressure on Iceland that cost him the chance to win Gudrun's hand in marriage; but apart from that, the impact of the Age of Christianity is not explored so subtly as in Njal's Saga. In Laxdæla Saga the Age of Settlement is the more meaningful.

We know a great deal about the Age of Settlement as a whole, chiefly from Landnámabók, whose extant versions record the names and families of some 400 of the original settlers and brief anecdotes about them. This and other accounts of the Settlement may not be entirely reliable; but this was how the Icelandic antiquarians saw the birth of their nation, and, to them, remembering the past was not an idle pastime, but a matter of extreme importance.

In the first place, it had a functional importance. It was necessary to remember how much land was claimed by each settler, and how the land was claimed. Future land-claims would always relate back, through the memory of witnesses, to the various stages of ownership that the land had passed through—who had inherited from whom, how extensive the land was, where the boundaries lay; in Laxdæla Saga there is an example of the kind of trouble that could arise over a forgotten or disputed boundary title, when Hrut Herjolfsson inadvertently settled a freed slave on land that actually belonged to his neighbour (Chapter 25). This kind of necessary remembering helped to create a detailed tapestry of the physical landscape of the early settlements, which was further picked out with vivid folk etymologies of how places got their names—this is where Unn the Deep-Minded lost her comb, which is why it is called Kambsness, and this is the headland where she had her breakfast one morning long, long ago, and that is why it is called Dogurdarness (Chapter 5). Such anecdotes tell us nothing about the real life of the early Icelandic pioneers, but they throw an interesting light on the devoted interest that Icelanders of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries took in their ancestors.

Their purpose, like that of so many historians, was to justify the present in terms of the past. This is argued quite explicitly in Landnámabók:

It is often said that writing about the Settlements is irrelevant learning, but we think we can all the better meet the criticisms of foreigners when they accuse us of being descended from slaves or scoundrels, if we know for certain the truth about our ancestry. And for those who want to know ancient lore and be able to trace genealogies, it is better to start at the beginning than to come in at the middle. And indeed, all civilized nations want to know about the origins of their own society, and the beginnings of their own race.

In precisely the same frame of mind, Geoffrey of Monmouth concocted a totally fictitious History of the Kings of Britain [Geoffrey of Monmouth, The History of the Kings of Britain, translated by Lewis Thorpe, Penguin Books, 1966.] in c. 1136 (the same period as the early Icelandic historians were documenting their own past), inventing for Britain a respectable past by promoting an obscure British war-leader of the early sixth century called Arthur to the status of a Christian Emperor of Europe descended from Rome. No one wants to be accused of being ‘descended from slaves or scoundrels’, and all nations tend to idealize their past. In Laxdæla Saga this idealization is positively romantic; the kings of Norway are wheeled on to the stage merely to fête and to flatter the illustrious Icelanders who visit them—Hoskuld Dala-Kollsson, Hrut Herjolfsson, Olaf the Peacock, Kjartan Olafsson, Bolli Bollason. Nobility of lineage is given excessive importance and colours the whole narrative; the saga constantly emphasizes the splendour and style in which the tenth-century men of Laxriverdale lived, and how they were accepted as men of high importance in the royal courts of Scandinavia. The author's admiration for aristocratic genealogy knows no bounds, particularly in the case of Olaf the Peacock; the revelation that Olaf's mother Melkorka is in reality an Irish princess of the blood royal and not merely a slave concubine is crucial to the family's history. Olaf's sumptuous acceptance by his grandfather, King Myrkjartan of the Irish (Chapter 21), is a triumphant refutation of the lurking sneer about his birth that breaks to the surface every now and again—from Hoskuld's wife, Jorunn (‘That concubine's son certainly has the wealth to ensure that his name is long remembered’, Chapter 24); from the girl Olaf wanted to marry, Thorgerd Egil's-daughter (‘… if you want to marry me to a concubine's son, no matter how handsome and flashily dressed he is’, Chapter 23); from the princess Ingibjorg of Norway (‘I want the women of Iceland to see that the woman whose company you have been keeping in Norway isn't descended from slaves’, Chapter 43). What is really poignant about the author's attitude is that he was depicting these tenth-century Icelanders as the intimates, if not quite the equals, of kings at a time when thirteenth-century Iceland was being relentlessly crushed of its independence by the power-politics of the kings of Norway.

The harsh reality of Iceland's dwindling political independence in the thirteenth century (Iceland was eventually annexed by the crown of Norway in 1262), and the decades of savage internal strife that contributed to it, lent a desperate nostalgia to the image of the pioneering Age of Settlement. Relatively speaking, the birth of the Icelandic nation was very recent. To the twelfth-century historians, the Pagan Age was only three generations away (and easily bridged by reliable memory), and another three generations would take them right back to the beginnings. And these beginnings had been extraordinarily traumatic.

The Age of Settlement stands out in stark contrast to the Viking Age out of which it was born. Elsewhere the Scandinavian intrusions had been brutally disruptive, but in Iceland there had been nothing to disrupt, no long-established civilization to plunder or take over; the country was uninhabited except for a few Celtic monks who had come there in search of solitude, and who fled when the first Norsemen arrived. The newcomers did not even have to face up to the hostility of indigenous natives as their descendants had to do a century later, when they tried to colonize North America and were repulsed by the Red Indians. They were free to carve up the virgin island as they thought fit; and from out of the chaos of the Viking Age behind them, they had the opportunity of establishing a new system of order without interference from other states. They had come for a variety of reasons. Many, like Ketil Flat-Nose and his family (Chapter 2), seem to have believed they were escaping from the tyranny of King Harald Fine-Hair in Norway, and this may well be true—blended perhaps with the hope of being able to make a better livelihood in Iceland (‘for they … heard … there was excellent land there … for the taking’, Chapter 2). Others were outlaws, forced to leave Norway ‘because of some killings’, like Eirik the Red and his father (The Vinland Sagas).

Whatever their motives for coming, they were a disparate collection of people. Most of them were pagan, but some were already Christian, or had come into close contact with Christianity in the British Isles. Most were of Scandinavian blood, but some were Celtic or of mixed Norse and Celtic blood, first-generation Norsemen from the Scottish islands and Ireland. No one can be sure precisely where they came from, or precisely how mixed a population it was. But the mere fact of not having a common adversary to resist them must have made the problem of organizing the settlers politically into a coherent state all the more difficult. It has been suggested (by the late Barði Guðmundsson) that one reason why the new nation settled down so quickly into an organized state may have been because the bulk of the original settlers perhaps belonged to one particular tribe in Scandinavia (the Heruli?) whose community identity had not been completely lost by the time Iceland was discovered. This tribe would have had distinctive customs that marked them out from other Norwegians and would account for some of the distinctive, non-Norwegian features that have puzzled scholars about the new Icelanders—people who buried their dead instead of cremating them, people with a system of voluntary allegiance to priest-chieftains that was anti-monarchist in spirit, people with a tradition of esoteric ‘court-poetry’ that was almost exclusively composed by Icelanders, either in Iceland or in royal courts abroad. Such a tribe would have been more reluctant than most to tolerate the increasing centralization of political power in Norway when King Harald Fine-Hair was strengthening his authority over the whole country (cf. Chapter 2). It is certainly a striking theory, but it can be no more than a speculation that attempts to explain the astonishing feat of organization that the early pioneers brought about—a feat that the twelfth- and thirteenth-century antiquarians looked back on with amazement and awe.

As soon as the country was fully settled, despite the fact that it was larger than Ireland, with primitive communications and no village communities and no royal court to provide a focus, a common law was accepted for the whole country. The foundation of the Althing, the General Assembly, in a.d. 930, was a remarkable achievement to come out of that raw, impactual period; what characterized pagan Iceland and early Christian Iceland above anything else, setting it quite apart from any other medieval European country, was a dynamic veneration for law and order. The early Icelanders owed no allegiance to king or earl; their allegiance was primarily to the concept of law—and it is worth noting that law-breakers were sentenced not to death or imprisonment, but to outlawry. To be a member of society was at once a privilege and an obligation, and anyone who violated the law of society forfeited his right to remain within that law, within that society; they were banished from Iceland. That was how Iceland protected itself against disruptive elements.

The major flaw in this system was that the state had no executive power to enforce its punishment; that was left to society at large, which in most cases meant in effect the aggrieved party, if it was strong enough. The sagas constantly deal with themes of violence; this was not, as is often assumed, from any admiration for killings and vengeance, but arose from a deep concern about the seriousness of violent action, of taking the law into one's own hands. The saga-writers were interested in exploring these effects; they were more concerned with the motivation and consequences of violence than with the violence itself; death was only important in the effect it had on the people who caused it, and the people who suffered from its consequences.

In the sagas, crime is seen as a crime against society, rather than a crime against individuals; and more often than not it is the outcome of irregular relationships, a crime against the natural order of things. There are a remarkable number of irregular relationships in Laxdæla Saga, all of which lead to trouble; failures to ‘observe … kinship properly’—like Hoskuld and Hrut (Chapter 19), and Olaf and Thorleik (Chapter 27); flawed marriages—like that of Thurid and Geirmund which introduces the fatal sword ‘Leg-Biter’ (Chapter 30), of Hoskuld and Jorunn which introduces Melkorka (Chapter 12), and above all the flawed marriage of Gudrun and Bolli which Gest had prophesied (Chapter 33). The most important moral and ethical concept in early Icelandic society was drengskapr, the idea of fairness of conduct; a crime like Bolli's in killing his fosterbrother could only come about when he lost—even though only momentarily—his sense of fairness, his sense of propriety of conduct. Anyone who takes up the wrong sort of challenge in the sagas, as a result of responding to the goadings of others, always comes out the loser in the end.

In the sagas it is not the great warriors who are the heroes, the men who could kill most people with fewest strokes; it is the sages, the men of moderation, the men like Njal of Bergthorsknoll or Olaf the Peacock who understand the awful futility of violence and devote their lives to combating it. There is less real admiration for Kjartan Olafsson, the peerless, than for his father, Olaf the Peacock, the man of peace, the man of wisdom and responsibility who constantly thinks in terms of the good of the whole community: ‘He was extremely well-liked, for whenever he intervened in other people's affairs he did it in such a way that everyone was satisfied’ (Chapter 24). To him, vengeance was a purely negative attitude—‘Bolli's death would not bring back my son’, (Chapter 49)—and it was only after his death that the bitter anti-social hatreds he had striven to keep in check erupted again.

This idealization of the concept of law and order was in some ways no doubt a reflection of the nostalgia of thirteenth-century Icelanders, beset as they were by violence and political treachery on a scale undreamed of in the tenth century. They saw their hard-won freedom, their independent political institutions, being destroyed before their eyes; so it is little wonder that they thought of the tenth century as being more secure, more stable. And the most stabilizing influence, to them, seemed to be the chieftains, many of whom are heavily idealized. Unn the Deep-Minded sets the pattern in Laxdæla Saga, a standard of large-mindedness and concern for the community; it was the role of chieftains to protect, to supervise, to give cohesion to society—a role from which the thirteenth-century chieftains had abdicated so disastrously. And so, in retrospect, the thirteenth-century Christian writers in Iceland seldom felt or expressed rancour towards paganism; indeed, the author of Laxdæla Saga goes out of his way to do the opposite—‘Pagans felt their responsibilities no less keenly when performing such ceremonies than Christians do now when ordeals are decreed’, (Chapter 18).

But this tolerant attitude towards paganism, and even approval of the society which practised it, does not conceal the fact that the thirteenth-century authors were keenly aware of the barrier between themselves and the past—the barrier of Christianity. In so far as they were writing ‘history’, it was a very stylized history, a stylized image of the past that was being held up as a guiding light for later generations; and the very antiquarianism so evident in Laxdæla Saga is a measure of this. The thirteenth-century Christian man of learning, as our author undoubtedly was, could know something about the external phenomena of paganism, but he could not know the attitudes, the ethics; he could know details of ritual worship—but he could not know the real relationship between priest and worshipper, for instance, or fully understand the relationship between priest and gods.

Nor, surely, could he know about the emotions and motivations of people who had lived and died two centuries or more earlier. Emotions are ephemeral; the events remain, but they are interpreted in retrospect, subjectively, according to the experience of the individual. And one of the striking aspects of Laxdæla Saga which sets it a little apart from the other classical sagas is the extent to which the author describes the actual emotions felt by his characters.

The success of these thirteenth-century interpretations depended to a large extent on the intellectual and emotional capacity of the individual authors, and their own observations of human nature. The saga-writers were highly articulate authors whose intention was to create an atmosphere of actuality, and sagas are judged nowadays by the success with which they achieved this; they are praised for their objectivity, the cool impartiality with which they present events, whether good or bad. In some measure, this objectivity was natural to the learned medieval mind, which saw men not as good or evil but as a sum of actions, a synthesis of many elements both good and bad. Theology classified actions, rather than people; in the sagas, the only thoroughly evil people, the scoundrels like Hrapp and Kotkel, are symbols rather than characters; the others are a compound of both good and bad, of noble impulses and base motives, of fine and wicked deeds. Here, the book-learning of the thirteenth century helped to broaden the author's natural talents; and Laxdæla Saga is above all the product of a sophisticated, keenly-trained European mind.

Mercifully, the Icelandic Sagas have now lost most of their old Germanic glamour. They are now being treated at last as serious medieval literature, shorn of the spurious romanticism so dear to the nineteenth century. Past generations of scholars have often tended to see the sagas as products of the Noble Savage mind, as tribal expressions that realized tribal dreams; others have regarded them as great artistic achievements of the Native Genius, their authors being untutored and uninfluenced by current European ideals and tastes. Laxdæla Saga is certainly a home-grown product, sprung from Icelandic soil; but it also has its roots in European civilization, in the civilized medieval mentality of Europe—and one of its purposes, it could be argued, was to Europeanize Iceland's image, to give Iceland a European context.

This can be seen most clearly in the Gudrun-Kjartan-Bolli situation, where three distinct European cultures meet. Gudrun, partly at least, is a product of the heroic Germanic spirit; Kjartan, more complex, is a product of the Celtic medieval Christian spirit—but more than that, he is a composite of conflicting cultures and attitudes, of saint and warrior and knight combined; while Bolli, and more particularly his son Bolli Bollason, represents the European Age of Chivalry (it is only when Bolli finally breaks away from Kjartan in Norway and ceases to play second fiddle to him that he emerges as a character in his own right).

Take Gudrun first. In the native literature, there is a clear model for Gudrun. In the Edda, a collection of heroic and mythological poetry, the Nibelungen cycle tells the powerful and tragic story of Brynhild and her lovers. Brynhild, the Valkyrie, loves the peerless hero Sigurd Fafni's-Slayer, but is tricked into marrying the second-best, Sigurd's sworn-brother, Gunnar, while Sigurd marries Gunnar's sister, Gudrun. Like the Gudrun of Laxdæla Saga, Brynhild becomes fiercely jealous when she realizes how she has been tricked, and goads her husband Gunnar into having Sigurd killed (unlike Bolli, he has scruples about actually killing his sworn-brother himself). Brynhild commits suicide after Sigurd's death, and Sigurd's widow now marries Brynhild's brother, Atli, and Atli later kills Gunnar.

The Edda situation is obviously rather more intricate than the Laxdæla Saga situation, but the core of it is undoubtedly very similar; and there are also some suggestive verbal echoes between the two. The author clearly knew the Edda poems; indeed, it would be surprising if he had not known them, for this pagan legacy of heroic poetry was greatly treasured in thirteenth-century Iceland—vellum manuscripts of them were being copied out during that period, particularly the great Codex Regius; and Snorri Sturluson, the historian, was working on his Prose Edda, in which he retold some of these poems, not long before Laxdæla Saga itself was written. But one should beware of making too much of the parallels; our author was bound by historic facts to a certain extent (he could not, for instance, allow Gudrun to commit suicide over Kjartan's death); there were few gaps in the historic framework to give him any room to manoeuvre. We are more concerned with the literary affinities which influenced his interpretation of the emotions involved in the situation. Gudrun's reactions are in essentially the same spirit as those of her pagan ancestress.

Kjartan's career, on the other hand, seems to be envisaged as a Christian victory; and here there are some fascinating parallels with Celtic literature, quite apart from the overtly Christian aspects of his life—the conversion to Christianity by King Olaf Tryggvason in Norway, the strict observance of fasts, and so on. There are some really striking similarities between the death of Kjartan and the death of a sixth-century Irish saint, St Cellach of Killala. Both of them observed a very strict fast throughout Lent (people came from miles around just to look at Kjartan, Chapter 45); both are killed a few days after Easter, by a former friend and kinsman; in both there is an ominous dream on the Wednesday night after Easter (An Brushwood-Belly's dream at Hol, Chapter 48); Cellach is described as being ‘poor and feeble’ from fasting, and there is a strong suggestion that Kjartan, too, was recuperating from the rigours of a long fast (‘He was only slightly wounded, but very weak with exhaustion’, Chapter 49).

The parallels seem too close to be mere coincidence, and certainly the manner of Kjartan's death has a flavour of Christian martyrdom about it, for Kjartan achieves the ideal, flawless art of dying a Christian death. But despite the attempt to make him a Christian hero (‘He was a man of great humility, and so popular that everyone, man or child, loved him’, Chapter 28), Kjartan's actions fell far short of any Christian ideals and sprang rather from a pagan ethic—pride and self-reliance, a fierce concern for his ‘honour’ if it meant losing face, a capacity for brutal and coarse retaliation against Bolli and Gudrun.

This Christian wash on Kjartan's portrait is by no means the only echo from Celtic literature in the saga. For instance, Hrapp the Hebridean asks to be buried standing upright in his grave under the threshold of his house, ‘So that I can keep an even better watch over my house’, (Chapter 17); and St Cellach's father, the King of Connacht, had himself buried in just the same way, with his face to the north confronting his enemies, who were unable to attack his kingdom until they had disinterred him and buried him again in Sligo with his face turned downwards. Similarly, Hrut Herjolfsson's foray against Hoskuld Dala-Kollsson's livestock in pursuit of his claim to his mother's estate (Chapter 19), is nothing more nor less than a classic Irish cattle-raid (táin bó)—one of the very few cattle-raids in the Icelandic sagas. And even the colouring of the four horses that Bolli tries to give to Kjartan (Chapter 45)—white, with red ears and red forelock—is a curiously unnatural colour for a horse; but it is a common colouring motif for cows in Irish legends, particularly magic cows. In a saga as deeply concerned with Ireland as Laxdæla Saga is, where a major theme is Kjartan's descent from King Myrkjartan of the Irish, it is hard to think of these echoes as merely accidental, although it would be a mistake to try to define these influences too strictly in terms of specific literary borrowings. They should be seen rather in spatial terms (they could have been brought to Iceland from various sources long before the saga was written) illustrating the author's literary eclecticism.

The third major literary strand is the flavour of courtly chivalry, which is represented at its most thorough in the portrait of Bolli Bollason. These influences were making themselves felt very strongly in Norway and Iceland from the second quarter of the thirteenth century onwards, starting with the translation of Tristram's Saga from French into Norse by one Brother Robert (presumably an Englishman?) in 1226 at the behest of King Hakon Hakonsson of Norway (d. 1263). A stream of translations followed—Charlemagne's Saga, the Chanson de Roland, Le Mantel Mautaillé, Elie de Saint Gille, Floire et Blanceflor, Chrêtien de Troyes' Conte del Graal, and the lais of Marie de France; all these and many others quickly circulated throughout Iceland, and soon inspired a vast number of translations, adaptations, and new compositions in the vernacular, a great torrent of popular literature that continued to be written for several centuries.

All these literary tastes and styles meet in the composition of Laxdæla Saga—the clerical religious learning, the courtly literature of chivalry, the antiquarian feeling for history, the sympathy for the old heroic poetry. But there is nothing freakish about the fact that such an author should live and write in thirteenth-century Iceland, combining native traditions and European learning so brilliantly; for thirteenth-century Iceland seemed capable of producing authors of this kind and calibre almost at will. It was a society where opposition between laity and clergy was never sharp, where the same man could be abbot, saga-writer, historian, and Law-Speaker of the Althing (like Styrmir the Learned, who died in 1245), where many of the leading personalities, whether priests or chieftains, belonged to the same great families. Snorri Sturluson, the poet, saga-author, historian and politician (cf. King Harald's Saga, Penguin Classics, 1966, Introduction), was brought up in a church school at Oddi, and his foster-brother was a bishop. Ari the Learned was a priest, a chieftain and a historian. Sæmund the Learned, who wrote the first history of Iceland in Latin (now lost), was also a priest, chieftain and historian.

Many Icelanders studied abroad; Sæmund the Learned studied in Paris; Snorri Sturluson's foster-brother studied in England. Medieval Christianity was the great intellectual uniter, and the monasteries were the great repositories of European learning (it is recorded that soon after the monastery of Helgafell was established in 1184, it had a library of no fewer than 120 books).

There was constant traffic and interchange. In the eleventh century alone, there were six foreign bishops in Iceland, one of whom was Irish (Bishop Jon the Irishman); the others were English or German. In the twelfth century there were priests in Iceland with distinctly English names; and the monastery of Thykkvaby had a number of foreign monks on its strength. There were numerous foreign books available, in original or translation. Geoffrey of Monmouth's works, both the History of the Kings of Britain and the Prophecies of Merlin, were translated into Icelandic by the early thirteenth century, as was a Latin narrative about the destruction of Troy. Abbot Brand Jonsson (d. 1264), of the monastery of Thykkvaby, translated into noble Icelandic prose the celebrated twelfth-century poem Alexandreis by the Frenchman Phillipe Gautier de Chatillon. In the middle of the twelfth century, round about 1155, an Icelandic priest called Nikulas Bergsson, abbot of the Benedictine monastery of Thverriver, in Eyjafjord, composed a guide-book for Icelanders visiting Rome and the Holy Land, basing it on his own four-year pilgrimage throughout Europe.

Such was the literary background against which Laxdæla Saga was written, with full awareness of European literary and intellectual traditions. Interestingly enough, this awareness is reflected, subconsciously perhaps, in the actual narrative of the saga; it is remarkable how often the impact of foreign culture and foreign attitudes are shown to have a disruptive effect on early Icelandic society. Bolli Bollason says (Chapter 72), ‘I have always wanted to travel to southern lands one day, for a man is thought to grow ignorant if he doesn't ever travel beyond this country of Iceland’; but every journey abroad in Laxdæla Saga has a momentous effect, in one way or another—it is Kjartan's absence in Norway, for instance, that loses him both Gudrun and his life. Consider what the saga characters bring back with them—new ideas and new styles, certainly, like Olaf the Peacock and Kjartan Olafsson and Bolli Bollason; cosmopolitan tastes in clothes and weapons; timber for building mansions and churches. But sometimes the weapons have a baleful effect, like the sword ‘Leg-Biter’, or the kingly gifts turn sour, like the gold-woven head-dress, and inspire only jealousy and hatred. Sometimes the timber is ill-fated, like the timber that Thorkel Eyjolfsson brought back to build a new church at Helgafell. Sometimes the people who are brought back play a crucial part in the lives of the characters, like Hoskuld's Melkorka, or Olaf's Geirmund the Noisy. It is almost as if the author, knowing the impact that Norway was having on Iceland's internal politics in the thirteenth century, counterpoints his literary Europeanism with an uneasy recognition of the dangerously dynamic effect that foreign influence can have on a small, self-reliant community—the small, idealized, vulnerable society of early Iceland which he evoked so nostalgically.

We have talked throughout of ‘the author’ of Laxdæla Saga, with the familiarity of long acquaintance. And yet he is totally unknown. No one can even guess who he might have been, although it seems inevitable from the evidence of the saga itself that he must have been a Breidafjord man, a descendant, no doubt, of the Laxriverdale dynasty; and that he must have been intimately connected either with Hjardarholt, the estate that plays so important a part in the early sections of the saga, or Helgafell, which came to have such an important place in Iceland's religious history (Chapter 66). The closest we can come to him, in fact, is a little scrap of manuscript, known as D2, which was salvaged from a bookbinding; this fragment, one worn and somewhat damaged leaf of vellum, which covers Kjartan's return to Iceland after his stay in Norway (Chapters 43-4), has been dated c. 1250—much the oldest of the surviving manuscripts, and therefore very close indeed to the original manuscript of our anonymous author.

Apart from this, we know nothing of him—except that he existed, and that he stamped his genius unmistakably and distinctively on his work. Laxdæla Saga is not, to our minds, so rich and profound a work as Njal's Saga; but it is great and remarkable none the less, a magnificent achievement in the great body of Icelandic literature of which he was so clearly aware. The grand design of the saga is astonishingly dense yet supple, using all the sophisticated literary techniques of saga-writing to impose a masterly coherence on his sprawling material. The whole structure of the saga is constantly tautened by the use of dreams and prophecies and supernatural portents that haunt the reader's memory while they await their fulfilment; and the generations are punctuated by careful descriptions of betrothals and marriages and funerary feasts (indeed love and marriage play an extraordinarily pervasive and multifaceted part throughout the whole saga).

There is about it the air of a pageant—a style that luxuriates in descriptions of ornate occasions, an emphasis on emotion that is akin to mime rather than method acting, a certain repetitiveness of phrasing, a surface glitter. There are any number of superbly visualized scenes, tableaux almost: Melkorka talking to her baby son on a sunlit morning (Chapter 13), Gest Oddleifsson watching the innocent swimmers who are to become central figures in the family tragedy (Chapter 33), the shepherd describing to Helgi Hardbeinsson the circle of men eating breakfast before coming to kill him (Chapter 63). There is a sense of grandeur, of the grandiose, almost, that grows stronger as generation succeeds generation and gives the climacteric tragedy of Gudrun-Kjartan-Bolli a horror and a pity that such brilliance and beauty and prowess should be so cruelly destroyed.

Sometimes one feels the portraits to be overdrawn—Bolli Bollason, in particular, seems to be only a glittering but empty husk of a character (but then, he is never really allowed the chance to come alive); but the superlatives are a distinctive feature of the author's style, and the air of lyricism contrasts effectively with the grim tensions gathering below the surface. And at the end of the saga we are left with the memory of an unforgettable gallery of varied and intensely individual people, the men and women who lived and died in Laxriverdale, both stupid and clever, noble and base, aggressive and peaceful, humble and arrogant, brave and cowardly, generous and mean, obstinate and compliant.

But dominating them all is Gudrun Osvif's-daughter, lovely and imperious, as fierce in hatred as in love, proud, vain, jealous, and infinitely desirable. Like all great women, she remained an enigma all her life; and long after her death we can still argue about her, and admire her, and care about her; and wonder still who it was she really loved the most.