SOURCE: Arent, A. Margaret. Introduction to The Laxdoela Saga, translated by A. Margaret Arent, pp. xv-xlii. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1964.

[In the following excerpt from her introduction to her English translation of the Laxdaela Saga, Arent probes the work's literary contexts, authorship, manuscript history, and sources, then concludes by providing an overview of its plot, structure, and style.]

LITERARY BACKGROUND

With the Christianization of Iceland (a.d. 1000), a new era in the life and letters of the nation can be said to have begun, although the conversion was not marked by any great upheaval, politically or culturally. The old shaded off into the new and blended imperceptibly with it. The Church, which gradually brought the culture of southern Europe to Iceland, established schools, and taught the art of writing, did not squelch indigenous traditions, but rather served as the stimulus under which Icelandic letters developed to their height in the thirteenth century.

In this classical period, literary creativity burgeoned in Iceland, preserving poetic forms of the past and developing a new literary genre, the saga. The political scene, however, would seem to preclude this propitious endeavor, for Iceland at that time was in the throes of vindictive feuds and power struggles which sapped the nation's vitality and led to the forfeiture of independence. An age notorious for savageries and depravities of every sort thus also fostered Iceland's finest cultural achievement. The Sagas of Icelanders which were produced in this atmosphere depict the heyday of the Commonwealth, the days when Iceland enjoyed political autonomy and lived under a code of honor based on personal dignity and worth. It is perhaps not so puzzling that in the midst of moral and social disintegration there were those for whom the past loomed large in nostalgic reminiscence. On the one hand, as a kind of tribute to the heroic age of greatness, the sagas revitalized the past. On the other hand they combined the essential substance of the bygone days with the experience of contemporary developments. In this discrepancy between the cultural reference and the cultural context lies some of the fascination and enigma of the saga literature.

Iceland was settled late in the ninth century. The emigration from Norway, undertaken by many of the chieftains and petty kings to escape the domination of King Harald Fairhair, marked the last of the major movements of the Viking period. Iceland enjoyed home rule until 1262 when it fell under the Norwegian Crown. In the founding days, the sovereign power lay in the hands of the goðar, chieftain-priests who fulfilled both political and religious functions. A goði's authority (pl. goðar) extended over those who paid dues and worshiped at his temple. In exchange for this privilege and the goði's protection, these followers pledged him their allegiance and support. These quite naturally were the farmers and neighbors in his immediate vicinity. The number of goðar was limited, and the title was generally hereditary. The farmers reserved the right to choose the goði whom they wished to follow, but loyalty to a certain one usually became more or less habitual. The relationship was thus one of mutual trust and agreement—the old Germanic code of loyalty between chieftain and followers.

The years of the Commonwealth saw the establishment of the Althing (a.d. 930), a democratic parliament with a strong aristocratic base. The goðar automatically became members of the ruling bodies of parliament (the legislature and the judicature), and a Lawspeaker was elected to recite the laws at the meeting of the Althing which took place once a year on the plains of Thingvellir in the southwest of the country. As time went on, the goði's obligations became more political than religious, his power territorial. There was no centralized authority over and above the goðar—a weakness in the political structure which left much leeway for internal feuds and later led to power politics and personal aggrandizement.

The old moral order had rested on a sense of personal dignity, honor, and loyalty, and on obligations of kinship. Any injury to one's honor or that of one's kin demanded payment, in blood or money. Theoretically justice was a meting out in kind, like for like, wergild for wergild, one killing for another. In the weighing and balancing of just deserts, a man's worth and station were taken into account. The equalizing of damages, compensation, arbitration, and mutual agreement were self-imposed codes, respected and carried out with a sense of responsibility. The fact that the courts were not empowered to carry out sentence was another inherent weakness, however, which not only condoned but encouraged the taking of the law into one's own hands. Outlawry, fines, and settlements had to be enforced by the plaintiff.

The petty slights and insults to one's honor which occasioned bloody revenge and internecine feuds seem exaggerated and pathetic by present-day standards, yet these were the codes by which men lived, passionately at times, and violently. Justice did not necessarily presuppose killings; there were peaceable men who strove to settle differences in a way that would do both sides honor without the spilling of blood. But it is the other alternative that most captivated the minds of the saga authors, and it is no wonder that they readily saw a parallel in the contemporary scene where vendettas and indiscriminate bloodshed were the order of the day. The honorable code of justice had recoiled upon itself, like the snake swallowing its own tail.

The Icelanders, as their Scandinavian forebears, were polytheistic, although worship of the gods was rather haphazard and had been on the wane throughout the tenth century. The individual therefore was more apt to rely on himself, placing his trust in his own weapons and strength (chapter 40). Superstitious belief in portents, omens, dreams, fetches, and visions of second sight, however, found widespread acceptance. Along with this, the conviction prevailed that life was ruled by an inscrutable destiny, a fatalism that manifested itself in the fortune or misfortunes of individual lives, but which ultimately pervaded all life as a nemesis and sickness at the core, a doomsday from which there was no escape. Christianity could do little to eradicate these deep-seated convictions. Substituting one God for a plurality in whom the people had little faith to begin with is minor compared with any unseating of these more diffuse beliefs which are part of the soul of the folk. It is understandable, too, that this fatalistic belief was readily amalgamated with the Biblical conception of the end of the world and apocryphal omens (cf. the “Voluspá” in the Edda). Thangbrand, after an unsuccessful attempt to convert the Icelanders, returned to Norway and reported to what a sorry pass his mission had come, saying that “to his mind Christianity would never take root in Iceland” (chapter 41).

To some of the more perceptive authors of the day, the fateful destiny toward which the nation was headed in the thirteenth century must also have presented a visible parallel to the age-old belief in fate. In some ways it must have seemed like a fulfillment of a chain of causes begun in the past, a snowballing of the consequences of an ethical system that demanded equal revenge, linking disaster to disaster. What had been present from the beginning in germ was now coming to fruition.

At the beginning of the Christian period, Iceland came under the diocese of Bremen, and the influence of the Church was limited. Native Icelanders traveled and were educated abroad; many became bishops in the new church at home. The great distance from Rome, the loose ties with Bremen, and the independent spirit of the Icelanders hampered any real domination by the Church. Men of high rank, the goðar and their sons, reinforced their authority and titles by serving the Church as priests and clerics. The bishops held seats in parliament; celibacy was never successfully enforced among the clergy. Thus here again in the early days of the Church there was no sharp demarcation between ecclesiastical and secular functions. Those schooled under Holy Church were men of the world, secular in outlook and interests. They learned to write under monastic guidance, but what they wrote reflected their own life and culture, their nation's spirit, and their national language.

The Commonwealth was a way of life which had deep roots in the past. It was conservative, even reactionary, tenaciously clinging to the values, traditions, and language of the homeland—a trait not uncommon to a people that has emigrated. They had brought with them a heritage of poetry—mythological and heroic lays that lived on in oral tradition and were later collected and written down in the Edda (ca. 1270). They had particularly gifted poets, the scalds, whose verses have been preserved in many of the sagas; and they no doubt brought along with them the innate desire and ability for storytelling, common to remote and primitive peoples in the preliterate stage.

The craft of writing is usually first exercised on the applied arts, and this too was the case in Iceland. The recording of the laws, translations of didactic religious works, the lives of saints, and the like paved the way for proficiency in narrative expression. A predilection for secular topics, however, apart from the laws, early made itself apparent. There had always been a lively interest in heritage and genealogy since most of the families in Iceland could trace their origin back to kingships and the nobility in Norway. Thus the Icelanders in the eleventh and twelfth centuries committed to parchment works concerning their ancestors, the Settlement of Iceland, and accounts of its Christianization. From the beginning they seemed to have had a sense for history and their place in it. Among some of these early works there is Sæmundr the Wise's History of the Kings of Norway, Ari Thorgilsson's Íslendingabók, and the Landnámabók (The Book of the Settlement, a compilation of the names of the first settlers, their ancestors and descendants, with brief biographical sketches).

When one considers that the most popular and striking figure of the day, King Óláf Haraldsson (died 1030), was both king and saint, the transition from writing saints' lives to Kings' Sagas is quite understandable. The so-called First Saga of Saint Óláf was probably written around 1180. About ten years later, Oddr Snorrason wrote a saga about King Óláf Tryggvason, the king who Christianized Norway and Iceland. (Both of these kings figure as prominent characters in the Laxdoela saga, cf. chapters 40 and 73.) Both Sæmundr and Oddr wrote their works in Latin, but they were so soon translated into the vernacular that we know them only in that form.

In 1190 the diocese under whose jurisdiction Iceland fell was changed from Bremen to Trondheim. Iceland was thus drawn into the religious and political orbit of Norway. At this time it was decreed that no goðar could be ordained unless they renounced their secular title. Although this brought about a clearer separation of Church and State, along with it came tighter control by the Church and closer ties with the Crown in Norway. Bonds with the mother country had never been entirely broken—Icelandic scalds had long been court favorites and there had always been those who sought honor abroad. Now, however, increasing numbers of prominent Icelanders became liegemen to the king, relinquishing more and more their national independence for personal gain.

By this time, however, writers and clerics had become sufficiently exercised in written expression that a lay literature could develop independently of the Church. The Kings' Sagas gradually shed their hagiographic tinge. Snorri Sturluson, who put his stamp on the age of the Sturlungs (1200-62), had not learned Latin. In his Heimskringla (Orb of the World), he recast the Kings' Sagas into a lively and realistic narrative. With contemporary events drawing Iceland into ever closer relationship with Norway, it was natural that authors should turn to recording these connections and tracing the continuity with the mother country. Snorri, and in all likelihood many of the anonymous contemporary writers, was not a mere observer but an active participant in the events of his time.

Like the Kings' Sagas, the Sagas of Icelanders (or Family Sagas) also reflect the genealogical and historical interest of those times. In presentation and form they resemble the Kings' Sagas; in subject matter they too draw on historical material—primarily the lives of Icelanders during the days of the Settlement, but also on the common cultural heritage, legal and religious customs. But these sagas were composed with something else in mind than chronicles, family histories, or documentation, and they rely to varying degrees on historical facts. The authors have formed and organized their material into something more than esthetically pleasing history. The best of them are unified wholes, their structures ordered toward symbolizing an idea in esthetic form. The apex of the period brought forth among others Egils saga, Eyrbyggja saga, Laxdoela saga, and Njáls saga. Despite a certain solidarity of style and similarity of theme and handling, each one will be found unique. Though anonymous, the perceptiveness and predilection of individual authors can usually be detected. They use common themes and devices to suit their own ends, exhibit varying degrees of mastery over their material, and handle their historical sources with greater or less freedom. At such an early stage in the history of European literatures, these sagas boast a narrative style that rings surprisingly modern in contrast to the courtly romances and epic verse forms of contemporary medieval Europe.

MANUSCRIPTS, DATE, AND AUTHORSHIP

The Laxdoela saga is a fine representative of the saga genre created in Iceland in the thirteenth century. The English equivalent of its title would read: The Saga of the Laxdalers. It is both a regional and a family saga. The Laxdalers were the settlers and inhabitants of the Laxárdal, a valley on the western coast of Iceland in the district Dalasýsla at the head of the Hvammsfjord.

Two classes of manuscripts are extant from which we know the story. We are indeed fortunate in having the text whole or in part on six vellums, for in general a vellum is to be preferred over paper copies. The Y-class vellums include a sequel to the story, the Bolla þáttr. There are two complete Y-class vellums that are independent of one another and thus serve as excellent control for editions made from this class. The most famous manuscript of this class is the Möðruvallabók. It is a parchment of two hundred leaves from the first half of the fourteenth century and contains eleven sagas, of which Laxdoela is the tenth in the series.

The Z-class MSS are older and would be preferred, except for the fact that they are all fragmentary. The oldest of these (D2) has been dated ca. 1250. Thus the saga must be at least that old, and some think it likely that this fragment (luckily salvaged from a bookbinding) may even be the archetype of the text.

Internal evidence corroborates this dating of the saga. The genealogies in the saga lead both backward and forward. The latter frequently include the names of bishops and priests who lived beyond the frame of the story and take us into the time of composition. The dates of many of these personages are known from church records. A terminus a quo can be derived from the mention of Thorvald Snorrason who died in 1228 (chapter 31). The arrival of Unn in Iceland can be set fairly close to the date 892. (The first permanent settler arrived in 874.) Saint Óláf's death (1030) is mentioned shortly before the end of the saga. The events of the story proper cover then a period of approximately one hundred and fifty years from the ninth into the eleventh century (ca. 892-1030). Roughly one hundred and eighty to two hundred years had thus elapsed between the last events described in the saga (1030) and the composition of the work (sometime after 1228). One might naturally expect that scribes tended to interpolate names bringing the story up to their own time, but there is sufficient evidence that this has not been the case in Laxdoela.

The consciousness of the time discrepancy is evident in the author's expressions contrasting the “then” and “now.” The mention of the ordeal of “going-under-the-sod” (chapter 18)—which was taken just as seriously by the heathen as “Christian men do now [italics mine] when such ordeals are performed”—leads to external evidence that helps narrow down the possible date of the saga. Ordeals were abolished by Cardinal William of Sabena in Norway in 1247, and mention is made in the Icelandic annals of such a change in ordinance in 1248.

Anachronisms in the text such as insignia on shields, the use of courtly words (riddari, “knight”; glaðel, “lance”; kurteisi, “courtoisie”), and the obvious fascination of the author with ostentation and dress point to the influence of the southern romances in the author's own day. Translations of them had begun with Friar Robert's Tristans saga in Norway in 1226, and these romances with their courtly ideals began filtrating into Iceland around 1240-50.

Echoes of contemporary accounts found in the Sturlunga saga (a composite of many sagas and þættir [shorter tales] composed in the thirteenth century about contemporary events and taken to be reliable accounts) have been noted in Laxdoela by Rolf Heller and others.¹ Two events in particular aid in dating Laxdoela. The Deildartungumál (a famous legal case mentioned in the Sturlu saga in the Sturlunga saga) concerns the succession to inheritance in a family that perished in a single shipwreck about 1178. The drowning of Thorstein Surt (Laxdoela, chapter 18) seems to be patterned after the contemporary event. There is not even a hint in the Landnámabók or other sources that Thorstein drowned at all. Either Laxdoela's author has assimilated material still within memory of his day or actually knew the Sturlu saga, and this is not at all inconceivable since it was probably written early in the thirteenth century and in the same district as Laxdoela.

Another incident from contemporary times which the saga author likely incorported occurs in Þórðar saga kakala in the Sturlunga saga: “Then his wife Vigdís Markúsdóttir came up. Ásbjorn dried his bloody sword on her clothes.”² In 1244 Ásbjorn Gudmundarson went with some men to Húnavatnssýsla on this mission. If the author has indeed utilized this episode in the passage where Helgi Hardbeinsson wipes his bloody spear on Gudrún's fine attire (Laxdoela, chapter 55)—suiting the deed to be sure to his own purpose—then Laxdoela must have been written after 1244 and rather soon after.

Laxdoela saga is mentioned by name in other sagas, the earliest reference being in the Eyrbyggja saga, which has been dated around 1250. Thus it is reasonable to assume that Laxdoela was composed between 1228 and 1250, and likely between 1244 and 1248.

Conjectures about the author and place of composition continue to occupy the imagination of many. It has been assumed from geographic orientations within the saga that the place of composition must have been in the local district around the Hvammsfjord, and the favored localities are the two prominent settlements at Helgafell and Hjardarholt. It is probable that the author was a cleric, but all attempts to ascertain his name have been futile.

SOURCES AND ORIGINS

As for the substance of the narrative, we are undeniably presented with echoes from the Landnámabók,³ from the poetic Edda,⁴ from other sagas, and from contemporary accounts found in the Sturlunga saga. Thus we find an amazing amalgamation of material old and new. Evidence of these influences and interdependencies throws light on the author's acquaintance with both the oral and written traditions of his time, but the parallels can by no means be called slavish borrowings. Many of the motifs are so common that proof of actual influence from one saga to another cannot be established with any certainty. And in those cases where the parallels seem obvious and striking, the author of Laxdoela has made something entirely his own out of them.

It has long been a debatable issue how much of the substance of the Family Sagas has come down from oral tradition. What sort of tales were told in the preliterate period we can only guess; how much of them went into the Family Sagas will forever remain unknown. Naturally an indigenous facility in oral storytelling precedes any literate age of poetry, and although reflexes of the former oral techniques are without a doubt discernible in the transitional literature of an early lettered age, these oral devices will continue to be drawn upon only as long as they serve the purposes of the new medium, where they have become, properly speaking, literary devices. It must be remembered, too, that a real connection between oral presentation and written literature did exist at the time of the composition of the sagas, for they were meant to be read aloud.

There are many indications that point to a teller-to-audience directive: “Now let us return to Iceland and see what has been going on there since Thorkel went away” (chapter 58), or the perfunctory announcement of a newcomer to the saga: “There was a man by the name of. …” Oral clichés such as “people say,” “that is the talk of people,” and so forth are found on nearly every page. It is not surprising that a written story should now properly seem to be a told story. But there are signs that the techniques are already on the verge of becoming hackneyed and outworn. The important thing, as far as the author's sources are concerned, is that oral technique be distinguished from the handing down of the content of the story. The author has drawn on all of his experience—the literature he knew, the historical material available to him, a form of presentation accepted and familiar in his day, episodes from contemporary events—and transformed them in his own creative imagination to suit his master design.

HISTORICAL RELIABILITY

Coupled with the issue of the oral saga is the problem of historical reliability. The Free-prosaists, as the advocates of an oral origin are called, assert not only that oral sagas preceded the written works as a substratum but that these sagas were passed down from the time of the events and were thus reliable accounts even to the individual dialogues. This theory has persisted with modifications and concessions down to the present century.⁵ In 1949 Sigurdur Nordal dealt a devastating blow to this theory with his Hrafnkatla,⁶ in which he demonstrated conclusively that the characters and story of Hrafnkels saga are fictitious and that realistic prose can in fact present a semblance of reality so convincing that it has taken scholarship centuries to recognize the genius of the saga authors. The Free-prosaists had always been hard pressed in their argument for an oral folk tradition in free prose that could transmit through centuries historically accurate accounts. The mental arabesques and exceptions required to make the theory plausible have had to yield to more cogent arguments. Several factors contributed to the almost fanatic desire on part of the older generation of scholars and laymen in general to salvage the venerable age and truthfulness of the sagas: (1) The saga literature was discovered at the beginning of the seventeenth century, a time when national interests in Scandinavia ran high. Each nation vied with the other in obtaining the valuable codices, and each sought to find in them proof of a past grandeur. Even the mythological sagas were taken as bona fide history, and the Kings' Sagas and Family Sagas were naturally taken at face value. Some of this “belief” in the sagas continues to the present day. (2) Especially in the case of the Family Sagas it seemed obvious that the accounts were reliable—most of the characters could be attested and were known to have lived; the genealogies in the main were accurate; the time and setting were real; the farmsteads stand today in their original places with the names of their owners of a thousand years ago. (3) Since the Family Sagas went back to the time of the events, they were felt to have preceded the composition of the Kings' Sagas. Nordal has argued for a reversal of the chronology—the Family Sagas begin with biographical sagas of scalds who were court poets in Norway. These sagas then are a transition from the Kings' Sagas, both in content and form. The Kings' Sagas made use of scaldic verses as sources for the facts and episodes about the kings, and the verses were incorporated into the sagas. In sagas about scalds, their verses were naturally part of the narrative. Thus it came to be assumed that verses in a saga indicated authenticity of the content. In the Family Sagas these could then very well be invented to give the appearance of valid tradition and verification. From time immemorial the poet has captured his audience by appealing to the credibility of his tale. It is therefore not to be wondered at that the saga authors would want their stories to seem true. The devices they used to create the illusion are discussed below, pp. xxxviii-xxxix. (4) The direct narrative prose and dialogue were naïvely taken at face value as discursive language and oral recounting. Critics failed to consider the possibility of artistic semblance and the poetic use of language, especially in free prose.

According to the various conjectures concerning the oral origin of the sagas, they were deemed more or less historical. Some Free-prosaists assumed that the sagas were amalgamations of separate parts—the þættir theory. These þættir were collected and put together by a redactor or scribe. The more a saga exhibited a unity of structure, the more changes it had undergone, the more it deviated in other words from its original purity and genuineness. Thus unity of composition came to be a decisive factor in the arguments of oral vs. written, of fact vs. fiction.

The Book-prosaists, as the opposition school is called, place greater emphasis on the artistic nature of the sagas and assign them to the literate period—they are written works of artistic merit, composed by individual authors, who succeeded to varying degrees in unifying their subject matter. The Book-prosaists argued that unity could only be attributable to an author who could view his work as a whole, and that the masterful handling of the materials pointed to a written tradition. Paradoxically, the most radical of the Free-prosaists insisted that the oral tradition could account for everything, both historical reliability and artistic excellence—the earliest sagas, closest to the oral tradition, were the most perfect as compositions, and also the most accurate.

National and romantic interests, wishful thinking, and disregard for adjacent disciplines prevented more objective discrimination. Nordal has shown that the literary endeavors in Iceland do indeed follow an ascending gradient—the best compositions are the latest—and that there are many inaccuracies and deviations from strict historical fact. Scholars are now beginning to ferret out the relationships between sagas, the influences from the thirteenth-century Sturlunga saga, and see the Family Sagas as compositions of individual writers. All of these findings would seem to indicate that the Bookprosaists have won the day. Even the Kings' Sagas can no longer satisfy the requirements of the historical disciplines. It is thus reasonable to concede that the Family Sagas are primarily works of art and belong to the literary discipline, which does not deny that they have a basis in real life, real persons, and events. Yet what the author has made of the cultural and historical material is not history.

In the case of the Laxdoela saga specifically, it has been sufficiently demonstrated that the author has created some fictitious characters and scenes, that the chronology cannot bear too close scrutiny, and that the position of Icelanders abroad is obviously enhanced beyond strict fact. As examples of the cases in point, I might just mention that the genealogy of Óláf the White is confused, that Thorbjorn Skrjúp and his son Lambi are otherwise unattested, that the Mýrkjartan and Melkorka episodes seem to have been invented for the purpose of the story, and that the Helgi Hardbeinsson scene has no historical basis. The main disruption of historical time occurs when young Bolli Bollason appears in the story as a lad of twelve years (chapter 59). No reader who is participating in the illusion of the story, however, would even be aware that a chronological shift, measured by historical time outside the story, had occurred. It is the author's poetic end that justifies the manipulation. The superlative descriptions of the reception of Icelanders abroad in their stereotyped formulations are obvious exaggerations. That Bolli Bollason was the first to be in the Varangian Guard is chronologically impossible (chapter 76).

While comparisons with historical facts, correlation with real time outside the story, sifting of fact from fiction, ferreting out influences and origins are interesting in themselves, such studies do little to illuminate the author's intent in creating the work. Analyses extraneous to the work can only succeed in diverting attention from the work as a whole and as it stands before us. Recent investigations into the sources and materials used by the author rather give the impression of a patching together of fragments from here and there—not much different from the piecing together of þættir, only that now the pieces are from written literature rather than oral traditions. Reducing the end product to all its elements cannot satisfactorily explain its art form and organic unity, for it is more than the sum of its parts. Whatever the origin of technique and substance, whatever prompted the conception in the author's mind, all of it has been rewoven in the author's formative imagination, emerging as a totally new and felicitous creation.

SUMMARY OF THE PLOT

According to the story, Ketil Flatnose, a chieftain in Norway, together with his children and kinsmen, set sail from the homeland in the latter decades of the ninth century. Ketil settled in Scotland, his daughter Unn the Deep-minded in the Breidafjord Dales in Iceland. She claimed all the lands around the head of the Hvammsfjord, including the Laxárdal (literally meaning the “Salmon River Valley,” cf. map). Her brother Bjorn the Eastman also settled in Iceland in the Breidafjord District. The saga sets forth an account of the generations descending from Unn and Bjorn.

The story falls into three interlocking parts. The first or prelude (chapters 1-31) takes up almost half of the book, and the saga has often been criticized for its lengthy introduction. There is such a multiplication of characters and episodes that the reader may feel he is getting nowhere with the plot. These many colorful characters and unforgettable episodes are like vignettes that can be enjoyed in themselves. But upon closer reading, each of these scenes will be found to be subordinate to the whole design, slowly but surely laying the foundation for what is to come, injecting an element that forms the node for the next link in the chain of action.

It is by no means easy to give a straightforward account of the plot in this first section, for although a thread follows the succeeding generations and leads to a culmination, the reader is constantly called upon to relate back and forth, picking up threads that have been temporarily dropped, comparing and substantiating what he has heard before. The movement is not strictly cumulative, gaining momentum to the end. The sweeping dramatic impulse, once begun, is offset by a leisurely epic pace. The action halts at intervals, introducing yet another character and episode, reflecting back, rounding out what has been prepared and hinted.

Generation after generation of Unn's side of the house marches past, each successive one perhaps a bit more illustrious than the former. There are quarrels, disagreements, and battles among the kinsmen, but all with their temporary assuaging of ill feelings. The characters and situations prepare the reader for the same types of themes in the central action, laying before him a mural of the saga world and accustoming him to the social and moral ordering of that world. The characters we meet have some of the stuff in them that makes the main characters what they are—Óláf Feilan, Hoskuld, Óláf Peacock—all have in them something of a Kjartan, the hero of the story. Unn, Jórunn, Vigdís, Melkorka are not so much different from Gudrún, the heroine of the main theme.

It might perhaps be useful to the reader to give some glimpses in preview so that the rambling and diversified introduction may take on continuity with the main theme. Unn, the matriarch of the family, sets the tone for the story, planning wise marriages, generously parceling out her land claim, and keeping her dignity to the end. The plot moves forward with the birth of Hoskuld, Unn's great-great-grandson, one of the most illustrious figures in the saga. He journeys abroad and purchases a concubine. With a few masterful strokes, the author sets before us the brightly colored tent of Gilli with the twelve concubines behind the curtain, Hoskuld's transactions with Gilli, and the weighing of the purse. Then we catch a glimpse of this rare beauty whom Hoskuld has bought for three times the price of an ordinary bondwoman. It turns out that she is the daughter of the Irish King Mýrkjartan. She gives birth to a son by Hoskuld, who is Óláf Peacock, the father of Kjartan.

Before Óláf's career is launched with the claiming of his royal pedigree and the wooing of his bride, the saga takes time to introduce us to the neighbors of Hoskuld. The story of Hrapp, his haunted farm, and ghost walkings holds our interest through many chapters. Other neighbors of Hrapp and Hoskuld are Thórd Goddi and Vigdís. The two of them get involved in the sheltering of an outlaw, as a result of which Vigdís divorces Thórd, who is then forced to give over all his property to Hoskuld and to foster Hoskuld's son Óláf. After Hoskuld's death Óláf and his half brothers Thorleik and Bárd divide the paternal inheritance in thirds, much to the discontent of Thorleik. The argument between Óláf and Thorleik is settled when Óláf offers to foster Thorleik's son Bolli (Thorleiksson), by which time Óláf's own son Kjartan has been born to him out of his marriage with Thorgerd Egilsdóttir. The coming together of the foster brothers Kjartan and Bolli brings the generations to a culmination. With the extraordinary prowess and accomplishments of these brilliant and gallant lads the prelude comes to a happy close.

The main theme (chapters 32-56) is sounded with the entrance of the other side of Ketil's house into the saga—Gudrún and her father Ósvíf, the descendants of Bjorn the Eastman. Essentially this main theme relates a tragedy in the personal lives of Kjartan, Bolli, and Gudrún, who are bound together in love and friendship, but for whom fate has preordained hatred and killings. It is a tale of a love triangle with all its subterfuges, vicious insinuations, retaliations, and heartaches, presented with the detachment and subtle discernment so typical of the sagas.

Chapters 32-33 serve as an interlude, setting the stage for all the subsequent action. In these two chapters the prophetic statements of Gest (the prophet-seer par excellence in the saga) follow one upon the other in rapid succession. From here on the plot is easy to follow for it is a denouement of what has been predicted. Kjartan's life and death hang by two swords that come into the family—the one, Footbite, owned first by the scoundrel Geirmund and later by Bolli, has a curse on it that will be the death of that member in the family hardest to lose. The sword Konungsnaut, a gift of the king to Kjartan, carries with it a protective blessing. Through the curse and the blessing the two swords are juxtaposed, their powers pitted one against the other. Gest predicts that Bolli will “stand over Kjartan's crown and thereby reap his own death.” The antagonism between the foster brothers arises over their love for Gudrún.

Gudrún Ósvífsdóttir—high-spirited, strikingly beautiful, sharp-tongued, witty, proud, vain, ambitious, fiercely jealous, calculating, and unrelenting in venting her hurt pride—directly and indirectly instigates the death of her two lovers. Her life is laid before her in four dreams, foretelling her four marriages. Lifted from the context all these previews of the lives of Kjartan, Bolli, and Gudrún provide the scaffolding for the remainder of the saga. Subordinate premonitions and hints throughout the narrative substantiate and strengthen the inevitability of their fates. The suspense is not based on ignorance, but on the incompletion of a foreknown completion. What is so fascinating about the story is thus to watch and see how the natural involvements of the characters and the demands of the moral code of revenge play hand in hand with what fate has already predicted.

After the fulfillment of Gudrún's first two marriages, which are full of exciting and amusing episodes, we are told of the friendship between the house of Óláf and the house of Ósvíf—a bond which is strengthened by the close friendship of the three young people. It is here that the fates of Kjartan and Bolli become intertwined with that of Gudrún in the fulfillment of her third dream.

Óláf, prescient and cautious, has premonitions of the impending breach between the two families. But Kjartan, unheedful of his father's foreboding, continues to frequent the hot spring at Laugar where he and Gudrún can enjoy each other's company. Bolli always goes along, and it is not hard to guess that he may secretly be nurturing an affection for Gudrún, despite the fact that the author has camouflaged it under the foster brothers' habit of always being together—“no matter where they went.”

Kjartan—impetuous, gallant, eager for fame and glory—hastily decides to journey abroad, leaving Gudrún behind. Kjartan and Bolli, their friendship unimpaired, journey together to Norway, where the rivalry between them first flares to the surface. The ruffled feelings and undercurrent of envy on Bolli's part remain subdued and controlled while attention is turned to another problem. The king of Norway has been exerting pressure on the heathen to accept the new religion. During the altercations in the Christianizing of Iceland, Kjartan is held hostage, whereas Bolli is permitted to sail for home.

Upon his arrival, Bolli loses no time in paying court to Gudrún and wins her hand, much to the dismay of his foster father Óláf. Snatching the bride is the feather in his cap that bolsters his pride. The motives are nowhere made explicit; Bolli himself would be the first to deny that he deliberately acted against his foster brother.

Upon Kjartan's return, the interplay of emotions, the fury of passion and resentment are at first restrained, only to break through periodically in whiplash insinuations or be repressed in poignant silences. But the pent-up emotions cannot be contained for long. Three festive parties harbor the seeds of hatred and revenge. At the first one Kjartan refuses Bolli's gift of a stud of horses. Subsequently he marries the sweet and gentle Hrefna, the very opposite in temperament to Gudrún. At the next party, Gudrún, who can scarcely suppress her jealousy, inveigles Hrefna into letting her see the fabulous headdress which Kjartan had brought from Norway and which had been meant for her, Gudrún, as a wedding gift. It is touching to see how the guileless Hrefna obliges Gudrún, taking her to the storehouse where it is safely kept in a chest. Slowly unfolding it, Gudrún has not a word to say—her reticence expresses more than any words could. When the party ends, the sword Konungsnaut is stolen by Gudrún's brothers. It is recovered, but without its scabbard, so that Kjartan never carries it again. The protective sword will thus not be ready when Kjartan needs it most.

At the third party, Hrefna's expensive headdress disappears, never to be found again. Now the breach is irreparable; hostilities and spiteful acts ensue until Gudrún finally eggs Bolli on into killing Kjartan. Bolli regretfully draws the sword Footbite and the first part of Gest's prophecy is fulfilled.

After the peaceful Óláf dies, Kjartan's mother and brothers take up the revenge. They make a raid on Bolli in a dairy hut, where he fights a lone defense against fearful odds. Helgi Hardbeinsson deals Bolli a fatal wound and predicts that the child Gudrún is then carrying in her womb will be the death of him, Helgi. With this the main theme comes to a close—Gudrún's third dream and all of Gest's prophecies concerning the fates of Kjartan and Bolli have come to completion.

The postlude (chapters 57-end) is a working out of all the remaining prophecies—revenge for Bolli and Gudrún's fourth dream. Gudrún's friend and mentor, Snorri Godi, cunningly plans out both, securing for Gudrún the death of Helgi Hardbeinsson (just as Helgi had predicted) and a great chieftain as a fourth husband (just as her dream indicated). Gudrún lives out her life in remorse and mourning, confessing to her son Bolli Bollason which man she loved most: “To him I was worst whom I loved most.” The saga has come full circle, the passions of hatred have been spent; the reader's expectations have all been fulfilled.

UNITY OF COMPOSITION, TECHNIQUE, AND STYLE

Prophecy and fulfillment as an enactment of destiny set the pattern for the structure of the narrative. Popular belief in portents, curses, dreams, visions of second sight and the like are all utilized as a convenient literary convention in which to couch the oracles of fate. Their presence is neither fanciful nor artificial, but part of real life. With a fine sensitivity for human nature, the author cloaks these sudden flashes of insight in the ambiguity and uncertainty that human beings are wont to ascribe to premonitions, and they are so subtly imbedded in the natural circumstances that they are even likely to be overlooked. Thus the characters are able to shrug them off as something inexplicable, and the reader is left in some apprehension and doubt whether it will actually come true, how it will happen, and when.

Fate never operates as a deus ex machina. Very deftly the author has amalgamated the natural and the supernatural causes. The characters follow the dictates of their own hearts and the demands of the moral law, neither flinching before what is ordained nor attempting to avert the inevitable. The involvements of the characters are always precisely what the plot demands, and the plot allows only those characteristics to predominate which further the action and suit the design. Plot and character are thus reflections of one another.

The structure of the plot rests on preparation and subsequent fulfillment, just as destiny is the coming to completion of what was present in embryo from the beginning. In the light of this, one can also better assess the function of the prelude. Every thread of the narrative is knotted and tied. The author never forgets, and if the reader does, he will be reminded. The little phrase occurring with such frequency in the saga: “You would not have brought this up, if you did not know where it was to land,” admirably sums up the author's working method. He never “brings something up” without reason, and he always knows where it is leading, “where it will come down.”

This structure is carried out in miniature in the subordinate episodes and scenes, each minor hunch ultimately finding, sometimes over great spans, its complementary statement of fulfillment. The phrases “if I don't miss my guess,” “it will come as no surprise to me,” and so forth reappear with such consistency that the reader may take them as a cue to heed well what is said, to look for a consequence later.

In addition to outright prophetic statements the author employs other devices to carry through the same formal concept of anticipation and completion. The characters are introduced by perfunctory adjectives; later in the action they act out in word and deed these traits assigned to them. The reader then knows beforehand what to expect of them. Since character and plot are so mutually dependent, the characters are apt to appear as types. Strikingly many are those who are “unfair” and “hard to deal with,” or tagged as “a big man and strong,” “a paragon among men (women).” And not only are we prepared for the types of characters, but also for the characters themselves through their inconspicuous inclusion in genealogical listings long before they enter the stage of action. Snorri Godi, for instance, is mentioned in a genealogy as early as chapter 7 but does not take part in the story until chapter 36; Gudrún's family branch is included in chapter 2 and is not picked up again until chapter 32; and the list of such examples could be greatly enlarged. Thus it has not been found prudent to leave these seemingly superfluous genealogical listings out of the translation and relegate them to footnotes, as some translators have done.

Until now the genealogies have been the last stronghold of appeal in the argument for the chronicle nature of the sagas (the modicum of historicity left to them undisputedly); their integral function in enhancing the esthetic design has been overlooked. For the modern reader, less interested perhaps in genealogy and unacquainted with the characters from other sagas (the sagas are often complementary—the light focusing on certain characters in one saga, who then fade into background figures in another), genealogical charts have been inserted in this edition at those places where the reader is most likely to get lost in the maze, or where a refresher is needed to bring new characters into relationship with the family lineages already mentioned.

Another important means by which the author facilitates relating back and forth and carrying through the strands of narrative is through repetition in the lexical items. The author does not need to state explicitly, as he so often does, that a prophecy has now run its course, or that “now” it was the same “as before”—this he also does by re-using the linguistic pattern. Furthermore the same device is effectively employed to evoke comparisons between themes, scenes, and characters. Despite the wealth of episodes and characters, a basic structural pattern is thus brought into focus. Indeed, it is only by the linguistic components that many of the relationships and juxtapositions can be recognized. As a guide for the fuller enjoyment of the saga, I shall illustrate a few of them:

Vigdís rewards the slave Ásgaut with the money ill-gotten by her husband Thórd saying: “Now the money has fallen into better hands” (chapter 16). Subsequently Thórd turns over all his property to Hoskuld and Óláf to safeguard it from Vigdís who has divorced him and would like to get half his property in settlement. Thórd on this occasion says to Hoskuld: “… now the money has fallen into better hands” (ibid.). Repetition of the phrase evens out their play, tit for tat.

The Irish are intimidated by the appearance of Óláf's warlike vessel and “a murmur of discontent” runs through their group (chapter 21). Upon seeing the cavalry of the Irish king Mýrkjartan, “a murmur of discontent” over the odds passes through Óláf's ranks, thus neatly equalizing through the repeated phrase the two sides in their fear and strength.

Geirmund owned a trusty sword, which he always carried with him: “This sword he called Footbite, and he never let it very far out of his sight” (chapter 29). At the party at Hjardarholt, where Kjartan's sword is stolen, it is said: “Kjartan had not been carrying his sword Konungsnaut around with him while going about these duties, although he was rarely in the habit of letting it very far out of his sight” (chapter 46). The reader already knows the roles assigned to each of the swords, and the lexical repetition in describing them is no accident on the part of the author. It underscores their juxtaposition.

Throughout the saga the lexical repetitions are a guide to the structure of the saga and the intent of the author. They are not brought in arbitrarily, nor are they evidence of lack of imagination—a rote parroting of formulae. The number of parallels and pairs is astonishing, and they serve a deliberate function: Kjartan and Bolli Thorleiksson are characterized in similar phrases, yet are also counterparts; Kjartan has his match in Bolli Bollason; Gudrún hers in Thorgerd, and her counterpart in Hrefna. These relationships are always indicated by parallel and contrasting phrases. Two brothers of opposite temperaments are a regular theme in the saga, and parallels of all sorts abound. These repeated themes with their similar phrases either may point up a fulfillment of the expected or may set up equalities of matching and counterbalancing.

Another type of repetition in the saga which exceeds twofold occurrence I call recurrence, for the phrases become stereotyped and formulaic, running on indefinitely. One might possibly see in them crystallizations of oral clichés that have now been used in the new medium. The whole technique of repetition as a literary device no doubt derives from similar techniques known to oral traditional poetry. The recurring phrases are particularly noticeable in the activities in the round of existence—birth and marriage proposals, careers abroad, and deathbed scenes. Again the reader is placed in a known and closed world, just as he was with the prophecies. There are no essential surprises. The element of chance is all but eliminated, just as destiny cancels chance. And this limited and foreknown world is reflected in the language of the saga—we know what to expect even as to the lexical choices.

Since the author has integrated the supernatural sphere (fate) with the moral realm (code of honor and revenge)—the one being the reflection of the other—the structural devices of repetition and recurrence symbolize the formal aspects of both. Repetition is a type of apparition of destiny, in that it underscores the fulfillment. On the other hand it balances the score, in a like-for-like compensating that mirrors the code of justice in its equal retaliation aspect. Recurrence enhances the sense of a predetermined and calculated world—life caught in its own mesh of formulae—inescapable, unalterable. On the other hand recurrence represents the run-on chain of endless revenge killings, the other aspect of the moral order.

The author also works with units of three, thereby reinforcing the tripartite division of the saga and the dominance of three main characters. There are, for example, three parties, each one patterned after the other; three goadings; three drownings, and three land sales, each with their reappearing motifs.

It would be tempting to multiply the examples of the author's technique, lest the subtleties be missed, for this overruling design permeates every level of the saga. But it would go beyond the purpose of this introduction to enumerate them further.⁷ Suffice it to say that the reader's attention should be drawn to these repetitions and parallels, which I hope have survived in the translation.

If an analogy were to be given, I suppose the bargaining process itself, the evening of sides and meting out of justice would serve as the most apt image to express what the saga is about. There is a marked preference for weighing of evens and odds, of equalities and inequalities in every sort of dealing—be it comparison of men and their worth, wergild compensations, land sales, skirmishes, horse trades, or marriage contracts. The pulling back and forth, evening the trade, sizing up the odds, considering that a neighbor has “much land and little cattle,” or “little land and much cattle” are all conspicuous elements throughout the saga.

The up-down, back-forth movement related to the weighing and balancing process sets up a counter-rhythm to the dramatic sweep of destiny that carries the action forward—it is a measured step and counterstep. The primacy of the natural sequence of prelude, central theme, and postlude (the chronological progression of “before,” “now,” and “after”—historical time) is thereby somewhat weakened—a good indication that the story moves in virtual time not practical time. But enough of the semblance of real time is retained in the succession of the generations to insure the likeness to historical account.

Something remains to be said of the over-all tone and style. Here again the author works with contrasts and alternations. There is a certain discrepancy between the restrained and precise form and the violence of the content—a fact which lends an ironic cast to the whole. This quality is especially conspicuous in the ambiguity in idioms, the tension between the apparent meaning and the significant meaning. Also part of the ironic tinge lies in the anonymity and impartiality of the author-creator who sees everything from above, something like fate operating from behind the scenes. To observe not so much what is being said, but how it is being said is one of the most interesting features in reading the saga.

The general splendor and formulaic superlative expressions also stand in contrast to the restrained presentation—hyperbole alternating with litotes. The background of ennobled reality heightens the tragic happenings. It is the most illustrious of the race that are doomed for a tragic end. Likewise there is a contrast between periods of relative calm and stormy violence. The saga rarely affords us descriptive passages, but the following reference to the weather sums up this type of alternation admirably: “The weather was squally, gusting to a sharp gale when the showers came on, but with scarcely any breeze between times” (chapter 18). Sunshine and gaiety almost always harbor a thundercloud that grows increasingly more menacing, turning the casual into the inevitable. We are plunged from hope to despair, from merriment to apprehension, where the first is almost the prerequisite for the second. The comic and tragic often stand side by side.

Although the central theme is basically tragic, the postlude ends on an upbeat. The genealogies continue, the life process begins anew, balance is restored. This is essentially the comic rhythm, and it is probably for this reason that some of the tragic impact is lost. Perhaps the formal structure is too mechanical, too pat, the detachment too great for us to become really involved with the characters. Be that as it may, the author has combined the comic and tragic elements to enhance his basic notion. Destiny and the moral code are brilliantly displayed in the precision of his form which reflects the rigidity and mechanical quality of this conception of life. Although its romantic theme sets it apart from most of the other sagas, and although Gudrún is one of the most well-drawn characters in saga literature, Laxdoela is not primarily a story of character development. It is more than a tragedy of human beings; it is the tragedy of a way of life.

Out of his “givens” and within the framework of his all-pervasive design, the author has created a vivid illusion of historical actuality. With a sureness of touch he has woven his pattern, arranging his material from the past and present. The historical material, the occasional but deliberate appeal to authority (by using Ari Thorgilsson's name [the founder of Icelandic historical discipline] and including poems), the lavish use of proper names and proper settings all contribute to the illusion of actuality. We are in a real place, in a real time, and with real persons. It is the arrangement of these factors in a pattern that lifts the work outside of history and gives it symbolic significance beyond its discursive content. The author's awareness of the irretractable demands of wounded honor, of the lust for revenge and the greed for power, his perception of an unavoidable destiny, his dark consciousness of the inescapable entanglements of life “then” and “now” made it possible for him to conceive a work that embraces the spirit of the Commonwealth as well as the spirit of the Sturlunga Age. It can delight the twentieth-century reader with its freshness and unstilted idiom, its sensitivity to human nature, its cool detachment, and tautness of structure.

Notes

1. Parallels between the Sturlunga saga and Laxdoela saga were first noted by Kr. Kålund, Aarbøger for nordisk oldkyndighed (1901), p. 387; by Guðbrandur Vigfússon, Origines Islandicae, II (1905), 137; by Finnur Jónsson, Litteratur historie (2nd ed.; København, 1920-24) II, 551; by Andreas Heusler, Deutsche Litteraturzeit (1932), p. 2469. Einar Ó. Sveinsson, in his introduction to the Laxdoela saga (Íslenzk fornrit [Reykjavík, 1934], V, xxxii-xxxiv) discusses those passages in Laxdoela that indicate the influence of Sturlunga saga and aid in dating the Laxdoela. Cf. also Einar Ó. Sveinsson, Dating the Icelandic Sagas (Viking Society for Northern Research, Vol. III; London: University College, 1958), p. 73. Rolf Heller has recently gathered together all the passages from the Sturlunga saga which exhibit striking parallels with Laxdoela and which must have influenced the author. Cf. Rolf Heller, “Laxdoela saga und Sturlunga saga,” Arkiv för nordisk filologi, LXXVI (1961), 112-33.

2. Cf. Þórðar saga kakala in the Sturlunga saga, edited by Jón Jóhannesson, Magnús Finnbogason, and Kristján Eldjárn (Reykjavík, 1946), II, chapter clxxxiv (supplementary fragment), 283.

3. Cf. the article by Björn M. Ólsen, “Landnámabók und Laxdæla,” Aarbøger for nordisk oldkyndighed (1908), pp. 151-232. The version used by the author of Laxdoela seems to have been an earlier redaction than the extant one of Landnámabók.

4. Laxdoela shows evidence that the author has been influenced by the Eddic poems, especially in the characters of the women—Melkorka, Thorgerd, and Gudrún. There are also many thematic parallels (in some cases even in the very wording) between Brynhilde and Sigurd on the one hand and Gudrún and Kjartan on the other. But the Gudrún of the saga also reflects the Edda Gudrún as well as Brynhilde. Association was probably made through the sameness of the names. This is also no doubt the case where the saga Gudrún has attracted the author to the Gudrún in Guðmundar saga dýra (in the Sturlunga saga), from which he assimilated some themes. Some of the more striking passages for comparison are: Edda, “Guðrúnarkviða I” (verses 9 and 10), and Laxdoela chapter 13, where Melkorka has been forced to serve the master and mistress of the house in the shoes and stockings episode, and in the master's (Hoskuld's) relationship to the servant; Edda, “Grípisspá” (verse 53), and Laxdoela chapter 33, where Gudrún mentions that Gest could have given fairer prophecies if the dreams had so warranted; Edda, “Guðrúnarkviða II” (verse 30), and Laxdoela chapter 42, where Bolli says that Gudrún may be sitting some years husbandless; Edda, “Guðrúnarhv¸ot” (verse 2), and Laxdoela chapter 48, where Gudrún eggs her brothers on to attack Kjartan; Edda, “Sigurðarkviða in skamma” (verse 30), and Laxdoela chapter 49, where Gudrún gloats over Hrefna's grief that she won't be going to bed laughing that night; Edda, “Sigurðarkviða in skamma” (verses 31 and 32), and Laxdoela chapter 49, where Bolli tells Gudrún that she wouldn't have turned less pale at the news that he (Bolli) had been killed instead of Kjartan; Edda, “Guðrúnarkviða I” (verse 1 and the refrain lines in verses 2, 5, and 11), and Laxdoela chapter 50, where it is stated that Hrefna died of a broken heart; Edda, “Brot Sigurðkviða” (verses 8 and 10), and Laxdoela chapter 55, where Thorgerd praises Steinthór for the “work of his hands” in killing Bolli.

5. A work as recent as Marco Scovazzi's La Saga di Hrafnkell e il problema delle saghe islandesi (Editrice Libreria Paideia, 1960) takes issue with Nordal's Hrafnkatla and reasserts the oral and historical origin of this saga.

6. Sigurður Nordal, Hrafnkatla, Íslenzk fræði 7 (Reykjavík, 1949). An English translation by R. George Thomas (Cardiff, 1958) has appeared under the title: Hrafnkel's Saga Freysgoða: A Study.

7. I refer the reader to my forthcoming publication, The Structural and Formal Elements of the Laxdoela saga, Vol. XL of Islandica (Cornell University Press).