Gisli Sursson's Saga and The Saga of the People of Eyri

by Martin Regal

  Despite its chaotic surface appearance, this main part of the saga (Chs. 13–48) turns out to have a tightly woven underlying fabric, but the rest of the plot, where there is no interweaving of strands, is looser in composition. When Iceland is converted to Christianity, special mention is made of the fact that Snorri the Godi becomes a spokesman for the new faith. This is important because it makes him a representative of the new order. The ensuing chapters contain an independent tale, the wonders of Froda river, which are reported to have happened in the very first year of the conversion to Christianity. This is a mysterious account of strange, evil powers and revenants of a more traditional type, and again Thurid is at the centre of the events. An elderly foreign woman appears on the scene, and her death spawns mysterious and monstrous events: evil spirits are unleashed, and accidents and some sort of plague cause the death of many people, who all return as ghosts and haunt the place. A formal legal process is instigated against the ghosts to drive them away, and when they finally leave, consecrated water and sacred relics are carried around the house, and a mass is sung. Thus secular and spiritual powers are united in an ideal match and restore the natural order.

  The final extended narrative is a lively and entertaining account of a dastardly leader of band of robbers who bullies some of Snorri’s thingmen. Snorri takes action, killing the leaders and dissolving the band, by which he demonstrates not only his determination and skilful leadership, but also his sense of humour.

  Concluding the plot are two folktale-like episodes that can be interpreted as aftermaths to the two main strands of the middle section of the saga: the first (Ch. 63) describes how the spirit of Thorolf Lame-foot reappears in the form of a bull and kills one of his and Arnkel’s enemies, which can be taken as a belated revenge for Arnkel; in the second (Ch. 64) we are introduced to an elderly man in a distant mysterious country who turns out to be Bjorn, the Champion of the Breidavik People, Snorri’s most prominent adversary in the second strand of the plot. Bjorn has therefore survived the feud, although he could not be accommodated in the space that Snorri occupied. With its summary of the last twenty years of Snorri the Godi’s life and the enumeration of his children and some of their descendants, the final chapter reinforces the pseudo-historical mode of the narrative.

  Narrative art – humour and irony

  Whichever manuscript version we read, the style of The Saga of the People of Eyri is concrete, broadly rational in thought and bristling with dry humour. Irony and understatement are characteristic devices, and the style is more polished than that of Gisli Sursson’s Saga. For all the objective impression given by the style, the author is skilled at discreetly influencing the reader’s sympathies. In Chs. 26 and 27, for example, we are told about the slaying of Vigfus at Drapuhlid and how his widow Thorgerd immediately rides from one chieftain to another to seek their assistance in bringing a case against the killers. In the end she is forced to dig up her husband from his grave and ride to another farm with his head. The saga apparently remains undisturbed by any qualms about the treatment dealt out to the poor woman. She is described as a true heroine, fiercely loyal to her dead husband’s honour. However, when we read her own words carefully, they shed clear light on her sufferings and how cruelly she is treated by her own and her husband’s kinsmen, who are loath to risk their honour on her behalf.

  While the saga may take an intermittent interest in ordinary farmers, its point of view is that of the uppermost class in society, the chieftains. The class bias becomes very clear in its portrayal of working men and slaves, who are invariably ridiculed for their stupidity and lack of courage. When the Scot Nagli, scared out of his wits, flees from the fighting in Mavahlid he meets a couple of slaves who become smitten by his fear, and they all run off a promontory to their deaths (Ch. 18). Arnkel’s slaves abandon him when he is under attack from a large band of men and forget (or pretend to forget) to tell his people about it when they return home (Ch. 37). If a slave has courage, like Egil the Strong in Alftafjord, he is presented as lacking in intelligence. Egil’s desire for freedom is described with some sympathy, but it leads to his death. The tale of his attempt to kill Bjorn the Champion of the Breidavik People in Ch. 43 is an ironical masterpiece: ‘Egil felt it would be only a little while before he earned for himself everlasting freedom.’ Inevitably, the outcome is the complete opposite: he has only a few hours left to live. Egil’s surprise attack on Bjorn, which he foresees as a great heroic act which will open his door to freedom, is a humiliating anticlimax: ‘when he went to step across the threshold, he trod on the loose tassel. When he tried to step forward with his other foot, the tassel held fast, causing him to trip, and he fell forward on to the floor of the hall. There was a huge thud as if the skinned carcass of a cow had been thrown down on the floor.’ This is one of many examples of the way this saga leaves the final interpretation of events to the reader. The humour of the concrete and detailed description of Egil’s fatal journey can only be enjoyed in full by a reader who is attentive to the minutest of details, who in the end will have to decide whether this is black comedy or a mixture of contempt with compassion.

  Snorri the Godi himself makes many ironical statements, sometimes even reported in indirect speech. A man named Alf the Short plays a role in Snorri’s dealings with the robbers in Bitra. He is described as a coward who makes much fuss, and his main accomplishment, being an extremely swift runner, has a comic ring to it in the context. Another character in the same episode, Thrand Strider, is his exact opposite as far as courage and fighting skills are concerned. He walks great distances and is the most prominent of Snorri’s men in the decisive fight. Ch. 61 tells how Alf the Short has run a long distance to report to Snorri about harassment by robbers: ‘He strongly urged Snorri to go north at once to attack Ospak and his band. But first Snorri the Godi wanted to find out from the north whether they had done anything more than push Alf the Short out of the way…’ Snorri’s contempt for the man can be deduced from his words, but they are understated and entail no outright criticism or mockery.

  Snorri the Godi is rather an unusual hero for a saga. He is neither particularly strong nor brave, nor is he much of a fighter, although he repeatedly leads groups of men to battle. But Snorri is more intelligent than any of his opponents, which can be judged not only by his actions and their results, but also by his comments on other people and their actions and by the characteristic irony and dry humour of his words. Moreover, some explicit comments about his wisdom are made by both the narrator and certain characters: for example, ‘Snorri was a wise man and had foresight about many things, a long memory and a predisposition to vengeance. He gave his friends good counsel but his enemies felt the chill of his strategies’ (Ch. 15). Snorri is also an atypical saga protagonist insofar as he is not always a prominent player in the events themselves. Frequently conflicts arise between other people, and at a later stage Snorri is drawn into them in his capacity of godi. His antagonists often seem to enjoy a more sympathetic portrayal than he does, and they may win temporary victories. Characters such as Arnkel or Bjorn certainly have more traditional heroic qualities and they gain honour in their dealings with him, but in the end Snorri carries the day when Arnkel is killed and Bjorn is forced to leave the country for good.

  Reality and myth

  The events described in The Saga of the People of Eyri, from Ketil Flat-nose’s sojourn in the Hebrides until the death of Snorri the Godi, are supposed to have taken place in the period from around 870 until 1030, although the main action would have been in the last two decades of the tenth century. The introduction, the account of the Christianization of Iceland and the genealogical information in the very end of the saga serve to give it the character of history or chronicle. Reinforcing this impression are several comments on the difference between the customs of former times and the time the story is told (see for instance Chs. 4 and 38). All this enhances what could be called the ‘reality effect’, to borrow Roland Barthes’ term, rather than the ‘realism’
of the saga.11 The same effect is achieved through the moderation of descriptions in general. Fighting is usually recounted without significant exaggeration or displays of heroics. Thus when Arnkel valiantly defends himself against fifteen attackers, his weapon is not the gleaming sword of a hero but the running-blade from a sled, and he does not kill or maim any of his assailants, as Gisli Sursson would surely have done. These trivial details in no way detract from the essentially heroic nature of his defence, but would have made it sound more real to the ears of the original audience. For modern readers such a narrative style is probably no less effective than the elevated style of heroic epos, and many parallels could be pointed out in realistic novels, crime fiction and westerns.

  Strangely enough, the abundant descriptions of marvellous or supernatural events are also rendered in realistic style. On one level the stories of ghosts and monsters become even more effective or shocking when not distinguished from the reality of the everyday world than they would be in the consciously wrought setting of, say, a Gothic novel. The first appearance of other-worldly phenomena is as early as Ch. 11, when Thorstein Cod-biter has drowned and the shepherd has a vision of how the drowned men enter a mountain and are welcomed by Thor-stein’s father. This strongly atmospheric scene opens up a new dimension in the world of the saga. The immediate warning it provides of Thorstein’s death is a well-known phenomenon from folklore. Here it is as if a curtain is suddenly drawn from the hidden world of the dead, then just as suddenly falls again. Apart from the shepherd’s vision no contact is established between the two worlds, and the course of events taking place in the saga is in no way affected, but the narrative effortlessly glides into the sphere of the marvellous and uncanny both here and elsewhere.

  Alerted by this description in the introductory section, we are not surprised to find further testimonies that people live on in some sense after death and can make themselves appear to the living or be revealed to them. Of course such events pose a threat when the dead seem to be malevolent and actively interfere

  in the world of the living, but they are described in such a matter-of-fact ‘realistic’ fashion that they obviously were considered, if not natural, then at least possible by the narrator and his audience. The Saga of the People of Eyri abounds in accounts of malevolent ghosts. Examples are Thorolf Lame-foot, who does not stay in his grave in spite of his son Arnkel’s precautions at the burial, and the revenants at Froda river. Thorolf’s story is forcefully told, the reader prepared for drama by the tension of anticipation. When Thorolf eventually dies, angry with his son and most other people around him (‘growing more ill-natured, violent and unjust with the years’), the measures Arnkel takes to stop him leaving his grave to haunt his home are described in great detail: he takes care to approach the body from behind, wraps a cloak around its head so that no one comes to harm through looking in Thorolf’s eyes; he breaks a hole in the wall behind Thorolf’s seat through which he removes the body, as Egil Skallagrimsson does when disposing of his dead father in Egil’s Saga; and then near the bottom of the valley where Thorolf lived he is buried in a ‘strongly built cairn’. Inevitably, the precautions are to no avail and Thorolf does not ‘lie still’, as the saga says; in a vivid piece of scene painting (Ch. 34) his ghost wanders around, frightens and kills cattle, a shepherd, then more people, and eventually drives everyone from the valley. Finally, Arnkel succeeds in burying his father so far away that he is never bothered by his ghost again. Just as in the tale of the wonders at Froda river, where Kjartan alone has the strength of character to stand up against evil powers, the ghost’s power is limited here. Ghosts seem to fear and respect individuals of great courage and integrity. Near the end of the saga, however (Ch. 63), Thorolf starts marauding again, and when his body is dug up it proves to be ‘monstrous to look at. He was as black as Hell and as huge as an ox.’ Fantastic and fear-inspiring as the episode may be, when it ends with the bull killing Thorodd Thorbrandsson and then disappearing, it is none the less related in the same straightforward terms as an event that could happen any day in the Icelandic countryside. Motifs related to the one of a cow licking the ashes of a burnt human body and becoming impregnated with a bull that embodies the

  man’s anger and vengefulness are known from mythology and folklore. They probably enshrine the age-old wisdom that ‘the evil that men do lives after them’.

  The most mysterious happenings of the saga take place at Froda river (Chs. 50–55). Their uncanny atmosphere comes partly from how little background the reader is told. We never hear about Thorgunna’s past, nor what strange kind of magic is attached to the precious things she leaves and wants to be burned. Her devout Christianity gives the narrative a religious flavour. The strange portent of the blood that rains on the hay is a powerful warning of things to come. The head of the seal that appears in the fireplace and the tail sticking out of the pile of dried fish could be incarnations of the devil. Revenants of a more traditional ghost-story type make appearances as well, such as the vivid and chilling image of the silent flock of ghosts who, in increasing numbers, invade the quarters of the living every night. The reader can only conclude that such fantastic events, unthinkable today, were an intrinsic feature of the world in which this saga’s traditions lie, and even acceptable to its audience at the time it was written.

  Magic and sorcery are another supernatural element that not only spices up the action but also affects the course of events. An example is the fate of the people of Mavahlid (Chs. 15–16, 18–22). The story takes place on two levels, as it were, mythical and social. At the mythical level the main antagonists are the sexually attractive witch Katla of Holt and the somewhat older Geirrid of Mavahlid, who is ‘knowledgeable about magic’. It is Katla’s black magic that initiates the feud between Thorarin of Mavahlid and Thorbjorn of Froda river, leaving the chieftains led by Arnkel, who skilfully handle the legal and violent aspects of the conflicts, helpless to deal with the evil witch until Geirrid comes to their assistance.

  Sexuality is an undercurrent in the saga, releasing forces which threaten social stability and are hard for the mechanisms of power and authority to control. Katla’s attempt to seduce the young Gunnlaug and her jealous revenge when she does not succeed lead to the killing of many men and the destruction of the Mavahlid family. The illicit love affair between Thurid and Bjorn causes much disruption and costs many lives. Thurid’s vanity is also the cause of the strange events at Froda, which begin when evil powers associated with Thorgunna and her treasures are released. It seems that Thorgunna’s Christianity, practised with great devotion, holds in check these powers that are somehow connected with a past, possibly in the Hebrides where she is said to have her roots, about which the saga is confoundingly silent. It is tempting to read a Christian moral into this story, namely that Thurid is being punished for her infidelity and her wilfulness. But this is certainly not a simple cautionary tale, because she survives, and the only person at Froda who is endowed with the strength and integrity to oppose the evil powers and finally lead the process of driving them out is Kjartan, the offspring of her illicit love affair with Bjorn.

  The female characters of The Saga of the People of Eyri are hardly described at all, with the exception of the Hebridean Thorgunna and the witch Katla, although a fairly clear picture is also given of her rival, Geirrid. There is no portrayal of the physical appearance of Thurid, who plays the most important female role, although it is obvious that she must have been an attractive woman with a strong will of her own. Married first to a much older man and after his death to a man who is rich but described in contemptuous terms, she does not hesitate to go her own ways. To a certain extent she plays the role of ‘femme fatale’ in The Saga of the People of Eyri, just as her mother Thordis does in Gisli Sursson’s Saga. Thordis is involved in the action of Gisli Sursson’s Saga from the outset, albeit mainly passively, and in the episode that unites the two sagas she tries to take action herself by attacking her brother’s killer and subsequently renouncing her
husband Bork. Thurid is more marginal in the action and seems to lack the strength to oppose the strong will of her brother Snorri. When she contravenes Thorgunna’s explicit wishes about burning her belongings, Thurid’s motive is pure desire for luxurious possessions, while her action also demonstrates the power she exerts over her weakling husband. Indeed, her dealings with Thorodd are more reminiscent of the comic quarrel and reconciliation of Asgerd and Thorkel in Gisli Sursson’s Saga, Ch. 9, than of her mother’s tragic life. Thus the fateful influence of female sexuality that is so destructive in Gisli Sursson’s Saga is present but subdued and in the end brought under control in Snorri the Godi’s saga.

  The chieftain and the heroes – decentralized narrative

  The male sphere of action, centred around Snorri the Godi, is radically different from the female and mythical sphere. It is forward-looking and deals with social and practical problems, and its underlying concern is the mechanics and consolidation of secular power. Nevertheless, although Snorri the Godi is at the centre of the plot, figuratively speaking the sun of the solar system, other characters and episodes in orbit around him are given close attention for their own sake. Arnkel is a traditional kind of hero, a typical representative of early Icelandic society like Gisli, modest and unaggressive but a man who guards his honour zealously and defends himself bravely against insurmountable odds. His tale could be read separately as a tragedy about the downfall of a hero who succumbs to the schemes of less heroic figures. Bjorn the Champion of the Breidavik People is a romantic, almost chivalric, type. A born survivor, he realizes when the time has come to leave the scene and seek new pastures. Thus the saga tells an intertwined cycle of tales, with different protagonists who personify different values. This is the main reason for its apparent incoherence on first reading, an impression that gradually recedes. The different strands and episodes of The Saga of the People of Eyri ultimately advance the main story in contrast, for instance, to the cycles of King Arthur, where his court is the same when the knights return from their adventures. The saga as a whole is governed by an interest in the affairs of society, which are perceived as best handled by strong chieftains such as Snorri the Godi. However, long sections focus on and sympathize with individuals who do not fit into such a society. An aspect of this decentralization of the narrative is that the main characters of the various episodes differ significantly from each other – and it is the central figure, Snorri, who diverges most from the traditional saga hero mould. This difference is highlighted by the contrasts between Snorri and his maternal uncle Gisli. As a traditional hero, the latter is firmly anchored in a world which already belonged to the past by the time the saga was written. His character and his fate are one, and after a glorious last stand he is doomed to be destroyed, leaving no offspring; his weapon and the symbol of his dismal fate is the sword Grey-blade. In spite of all his good qualities his stubborn vengefulness is a threat to society. His nephew Snorri, on the other hand, is not a hero by any stretch of the imagination and his fate is unheroic: his weapon is his intelligence, he survives into a peaceful old age and brings forth a thriving family. He is the creator of his own fate and a stabilizing force in society.