[In the following essay, Schach offers a brief overview of the subject, story, and artistry of the Laxdaela Saga.]

LAXDæLA SAGA

Like Egils saga, the “story of the people of the Laxárdal” begins at the time when Harald Fairhair is extending his dominion over the whole of Norway, and the picture of the king is similar in both sagas. The introduction is equally long in both works, although considerably more intricate in Laxdæla. Greed for money and power, which motivated most of Egil's deeds and misdeeds, is also a major theme in this work. Otherwise the two stories are very dissimilar. Laxdæla relates the story of a family, the descendants of Ketil flatnef, for several generations. Whereas Snorri derived much of his information from skaldic poetry and konungasögur, the anonymous author of Laxdæla derived his inspiration from Eddic lays, from a wide variety of sagas and chronicles, and from current events.¹

The nucleus of the story is the love triangle involving Kjartan Ólafsson, his cousin and foster brother Bolli Thorleiksson, and Gudrún Ósvifrsdóttir, all of them descendants of Ketil. W. P. Ker characterized this story as “a modern prose version of the Niblung tragedy, with the personages chosen from the life of Iceland in the heroic age, and from the Icelandic traditions.”² The question that formerly occupied students of this saga is to what degree the author was indebted to Eddic poetry on the one hand and to oral traditions on the other. Einar Ólafur Sveinsson represented what might be called the older conservative view. According to him, the nucleus of the story existed as a coherent oral tale, and “the events as they occurred were seen in the light of the heroic lays.”³ What little information we have about the historical personages whose names are borne by the saga characters suggests, however, that many of the crucial events of the story could not have happened as there described. A. Margaret A. Madelung demonstrated in her literary analysis of Laxdæla that the work is “of one piece.” Heinrich Beck has recently shown that the Niflung tragedy provided a design that embraces not just the nucleus but the entire saga. And Rolf Heller has furnished cogent evidence that Laxdæla is an artistic creation of the thirteenth century.”⁴

On a trading voyage to Norway, Kjartan's grandfather Höskuld buys a slave named Melkorka, who pretends to be mute. One day Höskuld overhears her speaking to their son Ólaf pái (“Peacock”) in Irish. She now reveals that she is an Irish princess and some years later sends Ólaf to visit her father Mýrkjartan. Off the coast of Ireland, the ship runs aground, and a band of hostile natives approach and demand ship and cargo as stranded goods. At this point, the author describes the young hero. “Ólaf walked forward to the prow, and he was dressed thus. He wore a coat of mail and had a gilded helmet on his head. He was girded with a sword, and the guard and pommel were adorned with gold, and in his hand he carried a barbed spear, chased and finely inlaid. He held a red shield before him, on which a lion was traced in gold” (chap. 21).

Mýrkjartan chooses Ólaf over his own sons to succeed him, but Ólaf wisely declines the honor, declaring it better to have “brief honor than lasting shame.” In Norway he is welcomed warmly by King Harald gráfeld and even more warmly by Gunnhild, who offer him any office he wishes if he will remain at the Norwegian court. But Ólaf insists he must return to his “noble kinsmen” in Iceland, and in parting the king gives him a merchant ship. Upon his return to Iceland with precious gifts from two kings, Ólaf marries Thorgerd Egilsdóttir, to whom, according to Egils saga, we are indebted for the poem Sonatorrek. Their son is Kjartan, the central figure of the story. On his deathbed Höskuld tricks his legitimate sons into agreeing to a large inheritance for Ólaf. In order to placate his enraged brother Thorleik, Ólaf offers to foster Thorleik's son Bolli. Thus Kjartan and Bolli grow up together and become inseparable companions. Both are tall, handsome, strong, and dexterous, but Bolli is described as “second only to Kjartan in all skills and accomplishments” (chap. 28).

Like other saga writers, the “Laxdæla artist” (Heusler) employed foreshadowing to strengthen the cohesion of his story, to maintain suspense, and to create the illusion that the fate of the major characters was inevitable. When still unmarried Gudrún has four dreams, which the sage Gest interprets as predictions of her four marriages. Gest further foretells the slaying of Kjartan by Bolli and the death and burial of himself and his friend Ósvíf. When Kjartan begins to visit Gudrún at her home at Laugar, Ólaf has forebodings that their friendship will not bring good luck to them or their families. Kjartan does not share his father's pessimism. “Kjartan continued his visits in his usual way, and Bolli went with him” (chap. 39).

Before going abroad, Kjartan asks Gudrún to remain unmarried for three years, but Gudrún refuses, declaring that his decision to leave the country is rash. In Norway Kjartan competes with Ólaf Tryggvason in an aquatic contest, which the king barely wins. The role played and the lines spoken by Hallfred vandræðaskáld in Odd's biography (chap. 40) are here assigned to Bolli (chap. 39). The king, depicted in this story as benign and benevolent, patiently persuades Kjartan to submit to baptism (after he has threatened to burn Ólaf in his hall), and Bolli and the crew follow his example. When the ban on sailing to Iceland pending acceptance of Christianity by the General Assembly is lifted, Bolli returns home, but Kjartan remains for another year at the Norwegian court. Bolli convinces Gudrún that Kjartan plans to marry the king's sister Ingibjörg and with the support of her kinsman persuades her to marry him. This episode seems to have been influenced by Bjarnar saga.

Upon returning to Norway, Kjartan marries a woman named Hrefna. Gudrún's love for him turns to jealousy and hatred. Ólaf's forebodings are fulfilled. Insults are exchanged between the two families. Kjartan bluntly refuses Bolli's gift of a stud of beautiful horses. At Gudrún's instigation, Kjartan's sword, the gift of Mýrkjartan, and Hrefna's precious headdress, a gift from Ingibjörg originally intended for Gudrún, are stolen. Kjartan retaliates by forcing the cancellation of a land sale to Bolli and by besieging the house at Laugar for three days to prevent the inhabitants from using the outdoor privies.

Like Brynhild in the Niflung tragedy and Sigríd the Haughty in Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar, Gudrún now demands that her husband kill her former lover or else lose her favor. Bolli reluctantly accompanies Gudrún's brothers to ambush Kjartan but remains aloof from the fighting as long as possible. When Bolli finally makes his attack, Kjartan throws away his sword with the crushing words, “It is truly a dastardly deed, kinsman, that you are about to do, but I think it far better to receive death from you, kinsman, than to give it to you” (chap. 49). Without speaking a word, Bolli deals Kjartan his death blow, and he holds him in his arms as he dies.

When Bolli arrived at Laugar, Gudrún asked him what time it was, and Bolli replied that it was about three o'clock (nón).

Then Gudrún said, “Morning tasks are of different kinds. I have spun yarn for twelve ells of cloth, and you have killed Kjartan.”

Bolli replied, “That luckless deed would not soon leave my mind even if you did not remind me of it.”

Gudrún said, “I don't regard that as a luckless deed. It seemed to me that you enjoyed greater esteem the winter Kjartan was in Norway than now, when he has trodden you underfoot since he returned to Iceland. But last but not least, what seems best to me is that Hrefna will not be laughing when she goes to bed tonight.”

Then Bolli said, and he was very angry, “I think it unlikely that she will pale more than you at this news. And I suspect that you would have been less shocked if we were lying dead on the field and Kjartan had brought you the news.”

Gudrún now saw how angry Bolli was and said, “Don't say such things, for I am very grateful to you for the deed. I feel certain now that you will not do anything to displease me.”

(chap. 49)

Ólaf protected Bolli as long as he lived, but after his death Bolli was killed. In due course, countervengeance was taken by his son Bolli Bollason, so named because he was born after his father's death. Gudrún became a nun, and when she was quite old, her son Bolli asked her which man she had loved the most. Gudrún tried to evade the question by listing the good qualities of three of her former husbands but at last had to admit, “I was worst to him I loved the most.” This classical quotation from the sagas is “a paradoxically pointed formulation of tragic human experience.”⁵

Turville-Petre characterized Laxdæla saga as “in some ways, the richest” of all the Islendinga sögur, and Andersson commented on the “generosity” of both narrative and personal dimension.⁶ The language is fuller than that of many sagas, and the author took pains to describe and explain emotions. He made skillful use of antithesis and parallelism. Until recently, strong lexical and stylistic influence from the riddarasögur has been assumed, but Rolf Heller has demonstrated that earlier konungasögur were the chief models for Laxdæla. Although we find no demonic, superhuman vikings here, the characters are larger than life, and they stride majestically through the pages of the book. The men characters are somewhat overdrawn in that their descriptions sometimes are more impressive than their deeds. The women characters, however, are superb, from the matriarchal Unn (Aud) the Deep-minded to Gudrún. Enigmatic, imperious, passionate, Gudrún is one of the most fascinating women in saga literature.

More than any other saga writer, the Laxdæla artist had an eye for visual beauty, for pomp and pageantry. His description of Bolli Bollason upon his return from Constantinople, where he had served in the emperor's bodyguard, may serve as one example for many:

He was dressed in clothing made of silk wrought with gold, which the king of Miklagard [Constantinople] had given him, and over this he had a scarlet cloak with a hood. He was girded with the sword Fótbít [“Leg-biter”], of which the guard and pommel were inlaid with gold and the hilt bound with gold. He wore a gilded helmet on his head, and at his side he carried a red shield adorned with a knight inlaid in gold. In his hand he carried a lance of a kind that is popular abroad, and wherever he and his followers took lodging, the women paid heed to nothing else but to gaze at Bolli and at the finery of himself and his men. With such courtly splendor Bolli rode through the countryside with his retinue until he came to Helgafell. Gudrún was very happy to see her son Bolli.

(chap. 77)

Laxdæla has been ascribed to various men including Sturla Thórdarson, Ólaf Thórdarson, and Snorri Sturluson.⁷ Snorri must be eliminated on lexical and stylistic grounds. Whoever the author was, it is certain that he was a member or a close acquaintance of the Sturlung family.⁸

Notes

1. The sources of Laxdæla are thoroughly discussed by Heller in his monograph Die Laxdæla saga. Die literarische Schöpfung eines Isländers des 13. Jahrhunderts (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1976).

2. W. P. Ker, Epic and Romance. Essays on Medieval Literature, 2d rev. ed. (New York: Macmillan & Co., 1908), p. 209.

3. Einar Ól. Sveinsson, ed., Laxdæla saga, Îfslenzk fornrit, vol. 5 (Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka fornritafélag, 1934), p. lxvii.

4. See A. Margaret A. Madelung, The Laxdæla Saga: Its Structural Patterns (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1972), p. 13; Heinrich Beck, “Brynhilddichtung und Laxdæla Saga,” in Festgabe für Otto Höfler, ed. Helmut Birkhan (Vienna: W. Braumüller, 1976), pp. 1-14; Rolf Heller, Die Laxdæla Saga (Berlin, 1976), pp. 150-52.

5. Hallberg, The Icelandic Saga, p. 137.

6. Turville-Petre, Origins, p. 246; Andersson, The Icelandic Saga, p. 171.

7. See Marina Mundt, Sturla Þórðarson und die Laxdæla saga (Bergen-Oslo-Tromsö: Universitetsforlaget, 1969); Hallberg, Óláfr Þórðarson hvítaskáld; A. Margaret A. Madelung, “Snorri Sturluson and Laxdœla: The Hero's Accoutrements,” in Saga og språk: Studies in Language and Literature, ed. John M. Weinstock (Austin, Texas, 1972), pp. 45-92.

8. See Heller, Die Laxdœla Saga, pp. 151-52.