Njal's Saga Read Free Page A

non-historical) events and
     persons, combined with a strong consciousness of his country’s history and
     social institutions. He apparently also worked with written sources, including
     genealogies, a book of laws, accounts of the Conversion (Chs. 100–105) and of
     the battle of Clontarf (Chs. 153–7) and works in Icelandic based on foreign
     sources such as the
Dialogues of
Gregory the Great
(see the note to Flosi’s dream in Ch. 133). It is impossible to disentangle
     the four components in the saga – authentic history, the inventions of oral
     tradition, written sources and the contribution of the thirteenth-century author
     – but the saga shows so many signs of careful artistry that one is inclined to
     believe in a master craftsman at the final stage, perhaps even a writer who, as the
     Swedish poet and critic A. U. Bååth put it long ago, had the last line
     of his saga in mind when he wrote the first.
    The last sentence of the saga in most manuscripts refers to it as
Brennu-Njáls saga
, which can be translated either ‘the
     saga of the burning of Njal’ (with an emphasis on the act of burning) or
     ‘the saga of Njal of the burning’ (i.e. of Njal who endured the
     burning). In either case this term (used as the title in most modern editions) points to
     the two things which are central, a man and a burning. The laws make it clear that
     burning a man’s house was a heinous crime, punishable by full outlawry even if
     no persons were burned (
Laws of Early Iceland
, p. 169). The saga itself shows
     burning to be shameful as well as heinous. In the attack on Gunnar in Ch. 77, the option
     of burning was proposed by the malicious Mord Valgardsson, but firmly rejected. In the
     attack on Bergthorshvol, Flosi’s own words before starting the blaze reveal
     his awareness of the shame attendant on such a deed (Ch. 128). The saga, like the
     tradition behind it, was fascinated by this horror. In one way or another all the events
     in the first part of the saga lead to the non-incendiary killing of Gunnar; all of the
     subsequent events, as well as many of the earlier events, lead to Njal’s death
     by burning. After this climax there are still twenty-nine chapters in the saga
     (131–59); these are more than a coda, they are a necessary settling of scores
     and a hard-won return to equilibrium.
    The man Njal is not the hero one expects from a work called
     ‘saga’. His introductory description (Ch. 20) shows him to be an
     older man (or at least a man with grown children, as becomes clear in Ch. 25), known for
     his wisdom, his gift of prophecy, his skill at law, and – a surprising
     physical detail – his inability to grow a beard. Further, the beardless
     titular hero of this saga never kills, never fights, and is only once shown to carry a
     weapon, a rather useless short axe (Ch. 118). His neighbour and good friend Gunnar, on
     the other hand, is thevery model of the blond, blue-eyed Viking,
     described chiefly in terms of his unmatched physical skills (Ch. 19). His two battles
     against Viking raiders abroad (Ch. 30) prove him to be the greatest of Icelandic
     fighters. His tragedy is that back in Iceland he is dragged into quarrels with men of
     inferior worth who envy his greatness and eventually bring him down. Njal and Gunnar
     form an ideal complementary pair, wisdom and strength, and Gunnar profits from
     Njal’s advice and legal skills as long as he can – and then, in
     effect, gives up.
    The presence of Njal at the centre of the saga is a sign that the emphasis
     is not on overt displays of masculine prowess, though of course there are a generous
     number of personal combats, carefully described with a connoisseur’s eye to
     every movement, every swing of the sword and thrust of the spear, every gaping or
     severing wound. Many of these encounters, however, are not altogether heroic. Gunnar is
     on his own when he