tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-69939349532739651692024-03-18T22:15:09.628+00:00The Saga-Steads of Iceland: A 21st-Century PilgrimageEmily Lethbridgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12635622083913991862noreply@blogger.comBlogger52125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6993934953273965169.post-69143189193448932352013-05-08T20:07:00.000+01:002013-05-08T20:07:09.319+01:00In Our (Saga) Time <div style="text-align: justify;">
Tomorrow -- Thursday 9th May -- is 'Climbing up day' (Uppstigingadagur, Ascension Day), a public holiday in Iceland and one which, a year ago, I spent engaged in the worldly ascent of the volcano/glacier Snæfellsjökull.</div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SAbBF2lsID0/UYqgI-5vaUI/AAAAAAAACVg/m-Wns4Absws/s1600/Sn%C3%A6fellsj%C3%B6kull+stamp.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SAbBF2lsID0/UYqgI-5vaUI/AAAAAAAACVg/m-Wns4Absws/s1600/Sn%C3%A6fellsj%C3%B6kull+stamp.jpg" /></a>This time round I'm in London (an ascent of Iceland's highest peak, Hvannadalshnjúkur, is scheduled for next weekend) but I'll be sending something of the spirit of Iceland up and out into the atmosphere live via BBC Radio 4 since the Icelandic sagas are the subject of tomorrow's episode of <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qykl" target="_blank">'In Our Time' with presenter Melvyn Bragg</a>. A link to information about the programme (and the podcast of it which will be available to download after the episode's gone out) is <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01s8qx9" target="_blank">here</a>. Saga manuscripts, saga landscapes, and sagas of outlaws are my primary remit though Melvyn has a reputation for liking to keep his guests on their toes so anything could happen... </div>
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Emily Lethbridgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12635622083913991862noreply@blogger.com166tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6993934953273965169.post-85849277578530142722012-10-10T14:01:00.003+01:002012-10-10T14:01:43.246+01:00Gaga and Gerðuberg<br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Random newsflash from Reykjavík: <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-19894500" target="_blank">Lady Gaga</a> is in town to collect a peace award from Yoko Ono... and I'll be talking this evening (in Icelandic) at the <a href="http://www.gerduberg.is/desktopdefault.aspx/tabid-3427/5623_view-1336/" target="_blank">Gerðuberg menningarmiðstöð</a> (Gerðuberg Cultural Centre) in Reykjavík about some of my adventures...photos and anecdotes aplenty for those who aren't hanging out on this rainy grey day in Austurvöllur hoping for a glimpse of Gaga... </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Further information about the event can be found <a href="http://www.gerduberg.is/desktopdefault.aspx/tabid-3475/5844_read-33252" target="_blank">here</a> and a short piece about the Centre published in today's edition of Fréttablaðið is <a href="http://vefblod.visir.is/index.php?s=6450&p=139466" target="_blank">here</a>. </span></div>
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<br />Emily Lethbridgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12635622083913991862noreply@blogger.com82tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6993934953273965169.post-21401643926876188592012-10-01T12:32:00.002+01:002012-10-01T12:32:47.829+01:00William Gershom Collingwood and the Icelandic Sagas in New York<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0Uj4fgorkV4/UGlxZa_H57I/AAAAAAAACUo/ApY9O0WYWyk/s1600/SagaPoster470px.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0Uj4fgorkV4/UGlxZa_H57I/AAAAAAAACUo/ApY9O0WYWyk/s320/SagaPoster470px.jpg" width="176" /></a><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">On Friday 28th September, Icelandic photographer/journalist <a href="http://www.efi.is/index.php?/about/" target="_blank">Einar Falur Ingólfsson</a>'s exhibition 'Saga Sites' opened at <a href="http://www.scandinaviahouse.org/" target="_blank">Scandinavia House</a> in New York. The exhibition will run until January 12th 2013. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Between 2007 and 2009, Einar Falur photographed many of the saga-sites that <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._G._Collingwood" target="_blank">William Gershom Collingwood</a> sketched in the summer of 1897, when he explored the landscapes and settings of the Icelandic sagas. The 'Saga Sites' exhibition displays Einar Falur's photographs alongside Collingwood's watercolours. The juxtaposition of the modern photographs and the 19th-century watercolours generates a compelling dialogue between past and present -- not only the past represented by Collingwood over a century ago, but that of the medieval Icelandic sagas themselves (written down some 700-800 years ago, and telling of events that happened around 1000 years ago). </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Einar Falur's photographs illustrate both how Collingwood enhanced certain features of the Icelandic landscape for dramatic effect and how his representation of thes detail of these landscapes is often remarkably accurate. The exhibition was first shown at the National Museum of Iceland in 2010; it has travelled around Iceland and was also featured at the <a href="http://www.sagenhaftes-island.is/en/iceland-in-frankfurt/" target="_blank">Frankfurt Bookfair in 2011, where Iceland was the Guest of Honour</a>. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Scandinavia House have arranged an exciting series of public events in conjunction with the exhibition; the full programme can be found <a href="http://www.scandinaviahouse.org/events_exhibitions_current.html" target="_blank">here</a>. My and Patrick Chadwick's 2011 short documentary film about <i>Gísla saga</i> and my Sagasteads project, <a href="http://vimeo.com/29594820" target="_blank"><i>Memories of Old Awake</i></a>, is being screened as part of the exhibition; I will give a talk about the film and my project at Scandinavian House in January 1013. </span></div>
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Emily Lethbridgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12635622083913991862noreply@blogger.com41tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6993934953273965169.post-64764950870333890292012-05-20T17:52:00.003+01:002012-05-20T17:52:50.951+01:00Cinema Screens and Podcast Chat...and More Snæfellsjökull News<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">"Memories of Old Awake", Patrick Chadwick's Cambridge Ideas series documentary about my research (online on Vimeo </span><a href="http://vimeo.com/29594820" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">here</a><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">), hit the big screen in Reykjavík a couple of weeks ago when it was screened as part of the <a href="http://www.shortsdocsfest.com/">Reykjavík Shorts and Docs Film Festival</a>. It also showed at the Dada Saheb Phalke Film Festival in India. Gísli Súrsson goes global...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">A 25-minute long chat about the sagas and my travels that I recorded back in January with<i> <a href="http://www.historyextra.com/">BBC History Magazine'</a></i>s editor Dave Musgrove can be downloaded and listened to as a podcast <a href="http://www.historyextra.com/podcast-page">here</a>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Much more excitingly, last Thursday (which was a bank holiday in Iceland on account of its being Ascension Day, "Uppstigningardagur" in Icelandic, literally meaning "Climbing Up Day"), saw me join a few others in the ascent of Snæfellsjökull, ice-axes at the ready and fully crampon-ed (the neat Icelandic word for crampon is "mannbroddur", "man-spike"). A description of the climb and thoughts arising from it will be posted here soon.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">On our way up, up, up...</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"> </span></div>Emily Lethbridgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12635622083913991862noreply@blogger.com34tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6993934953273965169.post-17462299639664426072012-05-08T11:37:00.000+01:002012-05-08T11:37:20.247+01:00Under the Glacier<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I have mentioned <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sn%C3%A6fellsj%C3%B6kull">Snæfellsjökull</a>, the glacier at the western tip of the Snæfellsnes peninsula, before (in a <a href="http://sagasteads.blogspot.com/2011/05/eyrbyggja-saga-i-berserkers-and.html">post on <i>Eyrbyggja saga</i></a>, the saga that is set around this western part of Iceland). Snæfellsjökull is the iconically horned ice-cap rising up behind the trusty old ambulance in the title-photo at the head of this blog...I've had an interesting few weeks and the glacier has been at the centre of a happily serendipitous series of discoveries. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">My parents, sister, and brother-in-law spent the long Easter weekend in Iceland visiting me; I thought a few days around Snæfellsnes would make for a good trip. Which it did on many counts...although unfortunately, they didn't see Snæfellsjökull itself while we were beneath it because of incessant, very heavy rain and very low cloud. Not a lot one can do about the Icelandic weather. At least on their last day in Reykjavík, Mum and Dad glimpsed the captivating landmark shimmering in the distance the far side of the broad Faxaflói bay. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Snæfellsjökull (as I mentioned in my older <i>Eyrbyggja saga</i> post) is the extinct volcano that is the starting-point for the journey to the centre of the earth that Jules Vernes writes about in his <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Journey_to_the_Center_of_the_Earth">book of that name</a>. A couple of weeks ago, I picked up a copy of his <i>Around the World in 80 Days</i> as an evening alternative to saga-reading. Seeing me with the book in my hands, a German friend of mine asked if I knew about the <a href="http://www.gljufrasteinn.is/en/halldor_laxness/">Halldór Laxness</a> Film Festival that was about to take place at a cinema in Reykajvík, and whether I would be interested in seeing a film called 'Kristnihald Undir Jökli' ('Christianity Under the Glacier'). I said yes, but that I had better read the book first, over the weekend.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The book tells of a young man who calls himself 'Umbi' (short for 'umboðsmaður biskups', 'Emissary of the Bishop' > 'Embi' in the English translation by Magnús Magnússon). Umbi is sent to Snæfellsnes by the Bishop of Iceland to try to get an idea of what the local priest (who is beyond eccentric, or perhaps wiser than everyone else in the world put together) is up to. A nice review of the book can be found <a href="http://www.salon.com/2005/03/30/laxness/">here</a>. It is in turn and all at once brilliantly funny, </span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">utterly perplexing,</span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"> deeply philosophical, uncompromisingly serious, a huge spoof, endlessly colourful in the detail Umbi reports and the situations he finds himself in. And in one of the early chapters, lo and behold, a reference to a certain Phileas Fogg, whose journey around the world young Umbi finds more impressive than Otto Lidenbrock's descent into Snæfellsjökull.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I was further drawn in by the way Laxness weaves <i>Eyrbyggja saga</i> into his book. The story of a certain Þórgunna, a strange Hebridean woman who stays at a Snæfellsnes farm called Fróðá (where there are some very strange hauntings), is told in <i>Eyrbyggja</i> and retold in <i>Kristnihald</i>. The mysterious Úa in Laxness's book is in some ways a reincarnation of this remarkable Þórgunna...both are the kind of women who are never seen to wash but are always clean, are never seen to eat but are always plump, are never seen to sleep but are always ready for anything, are never seen to age and one day, just disappear... And then come back from the grave, in a benevolent way.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>Eyrbyggja saga</i> describes how Þórgunna dies, and how -- according to her last wishes as a Christian -- her corpse is carried in a coffin to Skálholt where she wants to be buried, since Skálholt will become one of the two Icelandic bishoprics. The journey is a tough and long one for the coffin-bearers; at one place where they stop for the night they are grudgingly given lodgings but no food. A great clattering noise is heard in the night and when the coffin-bearers investigate, they see the stark-naked Þórgunna risen from the dead, preparing food for them. Þorgunna chastises the miserly host; <i>átu gestir mat sinn, ok sakaði engan mann, þótt Þórgunna hefði matbúit</i> (</span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>Eyrbyggja saga</i>, ed. Einar Ól. Sveinsson 1935, p. 144; </span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">"The guests ate their food and it harmed no-one, though Þórgunna had prepared it"). There's no sequence in the film of <i>Kristnihald</i> of Þórgunna's original naked chef exploits; many beguiling shots of Snæfellsjökull though.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I talked to a few people with Snæfellsnes connections about Laxness's book and the film: "'Well of course Laxness based the character of Pastor Jón partly on X, partly on Y, and partly on Z. And the thread in the book about the red horse and the grey horse who always run away alternately...that episode was directly based on this time when...". And the film was made by Laxness's daughter, Guðný Halldórsdóttir. One of the most remarkable things for me about Iceland is how pieces of the puzzle just seem to fit together like they do nowhere else I know of. A biography in several volumes of the Snæfellsnes priest Árni Þórarinsson (born 1860, died 1948), written by Þorbergur Þórðarson and recommended to me by several people, is next on my reading list; my Snæfellsjökull puzzle will doubtless expand in all kinds of directions. </span></div>Emily Lethbridgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12635622083913991862noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6993934953273965169.post-76654790211977090582012-04-05T13:52:00.000+01:002012-04-05T13:52:51.454+01:00Excess Baggage and Paris in the Spring<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">In February, Sandi Toksvig and BBC Radio 4's "Excess Baggage" team turned up in Iceland for a few action-packed days. The resulting travel programme (produced by Harry Parker) was aired last Saturday morning and can be listened to again online here <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01f1k9z">http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01f1k9z</a>. There's a nice mix of modern and medieval; I had the pleasure of accompanying the team to Þingvellir and I talk a bit about the sagas and the most important rock in Iceland, the law-rock at Þingvellir, towards the end of the programme.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Other fun sagasteads-related news is that over the weekend, I attended the European Independent Film Festival's screening of Patrick Chadwick's film about my project ("Memories of Old Awake", online on Vimeo here <a href="http://vimeo.com/29594820">http://vimeo.com/29594820</a>). It was fantastic to have the chance to admire Patrick's work on the big screen and particularly to listen to the audio (the birds, and the wind and water). A member of the audience made an interesting point in the Q and A session afterwards: "How is it that when the sagas are so full of graphic violence, you have made such a serene and peaceful film?" One of the intriguing aspects of last year's travelling was, sometimes, precisely the disjuncture between the peaceful atmosphere I experienced in certain places, and the brutality of events described in the sagas said to have happened there. Something I will think more on. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Paris on Sunday, with its tulips, bright green chestnut trees, and children sailing boats in the Luxembourg Gardens pond, is a little ahead of Iceland on the spring-front. Crocuses, snowdrops, daffodils are emerging from flower beds in Reykjavík front gardens though; gleðilega páska! </span></div>Emily Lethbridgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12635622083913991862noreply@blogger.com47tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6993934953273965169.post-20983152666090679532012-03-03T13:38:00.000+00:002012-03-03T13:38:20.990+00:00News Round-up<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I am delighted to announce that the short documentary about my project released last autumn ("Memories of Old Awake", produced by Patrick Chadwick for the University of Cambridge) has been selected for competition in the European Independent Film Festival which will be held in Paris, 30th March to 1st April. Further details about the Festival programme and tickets are here </span><span style="color: #1f497d; font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 11pt;"><a href="http://ecu.festivalgenius.com/2012/films/memoriesofoldawake_patrickchadwick_ecu2012" target="_blank">http://ecu.festivalgenius.com/<wbr></wbr>2012/films/memoriesofoldawake_<wbr></wbr>patrickchadwick_ecu2012</a></span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">. "Memories" has already picked up a prize at the Jaipur International Film Festival in January.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PVPBTWmZX7E/T1Ia_4t8YPI/AAAAAAAACG0/T9t5meYHvfk/s1600/Flj%C3%B3tsdalur.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PVPBTWmZX7E/T1Ia_4t8YPI/AAAAAAAACG0/T9t5meYHvfk/s320/Flj%C3%B3tsdalur.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">...Red carpets are universes away from the world I inhabited last year. For those who worried about the somewhat abrupt termination of regular blog posts, all is well! The ambulance and I are safe though now separated (I'm still in Iceland, the ambulance is back in the UK). By the beginning of October, it became clear that it was time to start writing the book about my travels, the sagas, and Iceland...so I retreated to an old turf-roofed and corrugated-iron-walled house in the south of Iceland. No internet connection, an outdoor suspended-bucket shower (a luxury after having no means of washing at all while I was living in the ambulance!), and stunning views south over to the infamous Eyjafjallajökull volcano. And I hammered out the first draft of my book. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I drove the ambulance home to Britain in December and got back just before Christmas; the trip took 10 days. Temperatures in the north of Iceland while I was driving through were just under -30 and I had to scrape off ice that formed on the inside of the windscreen... a fittingly extreme way to end the Icelandic journeying. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-vFWVhJGK02A/T1IZ5I2jeaI/AAAAAAAACGs/PLbMWvyKdW0/s1600/Frozen+go%C3%B0afoss.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="272" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-vFWVhJGK02A/T1IZ5I2jeaI/AAAAAAAACGs/PLbMWvyKdW0/s640/Frozen+go%C3%B0afoss.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Goðafoss, early December</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I'm back in Iceland now and working on medieval manuscripts by day in the <a href="http://www.arnastofnun.is/page/arnastofnun_frontpage_en">Árnastofnun Manuscripts Institute</a>, and on the book and other projects by night...including putting up photos and posts about sagas that I covered but didn't go up on the blog. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">So please check back from time to time!</span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"> Returning to normal city life has taken a bit of adjusting and when the wind howls, I long to be out in the middle of nowhere. One reason why I haven't yet sold on the Embulance! </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"> </span></div>Emily Lethbridgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12635622083913991862noreply@blogger.com35tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6993934953273965169.post-34854101883871267162011-10-10T15:51:00.000+01:002011-10-10T15:51:34.289+01:00Vatnsdæla saga: Place-Names and Petit Point<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-38DAkk-q6L8/TpMEHazvTrI/AAAAAAAACE0/sxodCCU9y60/s1600/Vatnsdalur.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="306" kca="true" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-38DAkk-q6L8/TpMEHazvTrI/AAAAAAAACE0/sxodCCU9y60/s640/Vatnsdalur.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Vatnsdalur, looking north up the valley</span></td></tr>
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</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif";">"As we advance along the rich meadows of the dale, Jörundarfell rises grandly over a magnificent facade of contorted beds of rock, like a bit of the Savoy Alps in general aspect, though not identical in geology. Among the incidents of the valley there is a pretty waterfall ... hanging from the cliffs, -- losing itself half way down in spray, and finding itself again in a stream collected out of the thin fringe of falling rain, in which the iris shines distinct in the afternoon against the black background of the gill" (<em><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif";">Pilgrimage</span></em>, p. 160). As I drove south down Vatnsdalur the other day, the rich meadows Collingwood noted in his description of the valley were barely visible for thick low rainclouds; the waterfall was less of a -fall than a -lift or an upward-kicking of spray because of the winds; and when the clouds eventually lifted, snow could be seen to have dusted itself over the upper reaches of the steep mountain Jörundarfell, and had lined the countless vertical cracks and gullies running down to the lower reaches, producing a sharp inlay effect.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_s9RUvZWHAw/TpMEj6P06XI/AAAAAAAACE4/iY0XvrlwkTc/s1600/Hof.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" kca="true" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_s9RUvZWHAw/TpMEj6P06XI/AAAAAAAACE4/iY0XvrlwkTc/s320/Hof.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hof in Vatnsdalur, Ingimundr's farmstead</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif";">Collingwood thought Vatnsdalur to be one of the most beautiful valleys in Iceland. The saga which tells of the valley's first settlers and their descendants, <em><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif";">Vatnsdæla saga</span></em>, is a rich one too, with a romping mythical-heroic opening section set in Norway that includes giant-killing and princess-marrying; a reluctant emigration to Iceland by the son of the giant-slayer and the princess; local feuds a-plenty over several generations once Vatnsdalur and the surrounding area has been settled; magic of various kinds; prophetic dreams; a <span style="background-color: white;">clowder</span> of cats (really!); and endless anecdotes explaining how one place or another acquired its name...rich picking-grounds for those interested in saga-onomastics.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif";">In the entrance hall of the local school is a vast mural painted by the Catalan artist Baltasar Samper (famous for his frescoes in the church on the island of Flatey) in the <span style="background-color: white;">1980s</span> which presents the saga narrative chronologically in visual form. I was told that all children know of the saga and know the principal episodes in it because of this mural; presently, the saga is being 'retold' in textile-form by a group of local people who began work on the </span><a href="http://www.textilsetur.is/Vatnsdaela/Vatnsdaela.html"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif";">'Vatnsdæla tapestry</span></a><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif";">' this year. The tapestry's design takes its inspiration from the </span><a href="http://www.bayeuxtapestry.org.uk/"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif";">Bayeaux Tapestry</span></a><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif";">; work will continue for a good 10 or 15 years...until the tapestry reaches its projected length of 45 metres...</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif";">In an inversion of the more usual topos at the beginning of the <em><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif";">Íslendingasögur</span></em> where 'independent Norwegian emigrates to Norway after refusing to bow to the tyranny of King Haraldr hárfagri ('Fair-Hair)', Ingimundr -- who is a close friend and ally of King Haraldr -- is reluctant to emigrate to Iceland, calling it an <em><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif";">eyðisker</span></em> ('wasteland skerry'; <em><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif";">Vatnsdæla saga</span></em>, ed. Einar Ól. Sveinsson, Íslenzk fornrit 8 (Reykjavík 1939), ch. 10, p. 27). But a Finnish seeress prophecies that Ingimundr's fate lies on this hostile rock, and says that her prediction will come true -- as a proof, some silver that is in Ingimundr's purse will disappear and he will find it in the place in Iceland where he is ordained to build a farm. A little later, three more supernatural Finns perform an out-of-body exploration of Iceland on Ingimundr's behalf, and survey the area where Ingimundr's fate will lead him, describing the local features of the landscape. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-oJZVcvMSyUo/TpME4_pSRfI/AAAAAAAACE8/G9avbs9mwDQ/s1600/%25C3%259E%25C3%25B3rd%25C3%25ADsarholt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="121" kca="true" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-oJZVcvMSyUo/TpME4_pSRfI/AAAAAAAACE8/G9avbs9mwDQ/s320/%25C3%259E%25C3%25B3rd%25C3%25ADsarholt.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Memorial stone to Þórdís at Þórdísarholt</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif";">Ingimundr sails from Norway with his wife and children; they come into Borgarfjörður in the North-west, and set off to explore the land to the north, naming valleys and natural features as they go. In one fjord, two rams run down a mountain towards them: that fjord they call 'Hrútafjörðr' ('Rams' Fjord'); they come across a large piece of driftwood on a small peninsula in Hrútafjörður and call that place 'Borðeyri' ('Plank-spit'); on a valley that is widely-grown with willow-trees they bestow the name 'Víðidalur' ('Willow Valley'). Eventually, the landscape unfolding before them resembles that which the Finns described for Ingimundr; they reach the mouth of Vatnsdalur ('Water Valley'), and Ingimudr's wife calls a temporary halt to the travelling while she gives birth to a daughter. The baby girl is given the name Þórdís, and the birth-site is given the name Þórdísarholt ('Þordís's coppice'). </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-SFca0aFghXA/TpMFX6mN2tI/AAAAAAAACFA/tUst7MwRlGo/s1600/Hof+Ingimundr+stone.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" kca="true" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-SFca0aFghXA/TpMFX6mN2tI/AAAAAAAACFA/tUst7MwRlGo/s320/Hof+Ingimundr+stone.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Memorial stone to Ingimundr at Hof</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif";">The party continue on down the valley and stop on a grassy slope; here, Ingimundr decides to build his new home. Digging into the hill while building a large temple, Ingimundr finds the silver that had disappeared from his purse back in Norway...The farmstead is called Hof ('farm' or 'temple'). There is more naming around the local area: a female polar-bear and her two cubs who have washed up on Iceland on an iceberg give rise to the name 'Húnavatn' ('Young bear lake'); some sheep who disappear in the autumn and are then found the next spring are remembered in the place-name 'Sauðadalr' ('Sheep Valley'); a boar called Beigaðr gives his name to a hill on which he dies, 'Beigaðarhóll' ('Beigaðr's Hill'). </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif";">The valley is settled widely over time, and the saga narrative proceeds. Ingimundr is killed in a fight by the river in the middle of the valley by a trouble-making outlaw to whom Ingimundr has offered protection; Ingimundr's sons avenge him and the saga then takes up their stories, and then the storie of their sons. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Vatnsdæla saga</i> is truly a multi-generational saga, though local knowledge seemed mostly to focus on Ingimundr, the first settler of the valley. In one vivid episode, one of Ingimundr's sons, Jökull, chases another local trouble-maker called Þórólfr down the valley, catching him up on a moor above the river; when Þórólfr sees that he will not escape, the saga states that ‘he sat down in the <span style="background: yellow; mso-highlight: yellow;"><span style="background-color: white;">bog</span></span> and cried; that place has been called Grátsmýrr (‘Weeping bog’) since’ (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">þá settisk hann niðr í mýrinni ok grét. Þar heitir síðan Grátsmýrr</i>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Vatnsdæla saga</i> ch. 30, p. 83). Jökull gains great renown for ridding the area of this dubious character. </span></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-uO4rHca3Wj8/TpMFwlFcdxI/AAAAAAAACFE/64VbFrwiYgo/s1600/Brei%25C3%25B0ab%25C3%25B3lsta%25C3%25B0ur.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" kca="true" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-uO4rHca3Wj8/TpMFwlFcdxI/AAAAAAAACFE/64VbFrwiYgo/s320/Brei%25C3%25B0ab%25C3%25B3lsta%25C3%25B0ur.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Breiðabólstaður today</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif";">Vatnsdæla saga</span></i><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif";"> is thought to have been written by someone in the <span style="background: yellow; mso-highlight: yellow;"><span style="background-color: white;">Benedictine</span></span> monastery at Þingeyrar (founded in 1133) which sits on a raised open stretch of land in the mouth of Húnaflói, north of Vatnsdalur, and which is visible from miles around. Þingeyrar was the first monastery in Iceland; an event of great significance and with great literary ramifications had taken place in the area some 15 years beforehand, however. Over the winter of 1117/18, under the supervision of a powerful chieftain called Hafliði Másson who lived on a farm called Breiðabólstaður, the laws of the Commonwealth of Iceland were written down in the Icelandic vernacular, for the first time. A memorial stone at Breiðabólstaður marks this vital step in the ‘process of textualisation’ in Iceland, i.e., the shift from an oral culture (prior to 1117/18, the laws were recited by heart by the elected <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">lög(sögu)maðr</i> (‘law (reciting) man’), every summer at the National Assembly (the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Alþingi</i>), one-third at a time over 3 summers) to a literary/manuscript culture. </span><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif";">Aspects of the oral culture never disappeared entirely though – and even fully modernised 21<sup>st</sup>-century Vatnsdalur, something of that spirit still seems to live on. On Saturday afternoon, between 1 and 5pm, people met in the building in the local town Blönduós where the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Vatnsdæla</i> tapestry is being produced, and sewed away at the story of the people of Vatnsdalur as they listened to someone reading aloud from the saga and ‘re-oralising’ the very events their needles were weaving in and out of.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-hklrOXtBst0/TpMGD9duu6I/AAAAAAAACFI/gXpm4jlArL4/s1600/%25C3%259Eingeyrar.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" kca="true" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-hklrOXtBst0/TpMGD9duu6I/AAAAAAAACFI/gXpm4jlArL4/s320/%25C3%259Eingeyrar.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Þingeyrar church</td></tr>
</tbody></table></span> </div>Emily Lethbridgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12635622083913991862noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6993934953273965169.post-92082219959481505432011-10-02T19:33:00.000+01:002011-10-02T19:33:40.242+01:00Insult Verses and Death-By-Scissors: Bjarnar saga Hítdælakappa<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-hCEYL5RLA0U/ToikMEv9q5I/AAAAAAAACEg/zBCDvrgG0Xg/s1600/H%25C3%25ADtardalur2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" kca="true" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-hCEYL5RLA0U/ToikMEv9q5I/AAAAAAAACEg/zBCDvrgG0Xg/s320/H%25C3%25ADtardalur2.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Hítárdalur, looking north into the valley</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">In my last post, I wrote about the tragic love between Gunnlaugr ormstunga ('serpent-tongue') and the beautiful Helga in fagra ('the fair'), and about how after Gunnlaugr dies fighting his treacherous rival-in-love, Hrafn, Helga is remarried and eventually dies herself, gazing at a cloak Gunnlaugr once gave to her. The farmstead on which Helga died, Ytri-Hraundalur, is in the Mýrar district in north-west Iceland, close to a long valley called Hítárdalur -- the location of much of the action of another saga about a poet and tragic lover, <em>Bjarnar saga Hítdælakappa</em>.</span></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div align="justify" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><em>Bjarnar saga</em> states that Björn was raised with his uncle at Borg: Björn's maternal grandmother was a sister of Egill Skalla-Grímsson, and Skalla-Grímr was Björn's great-grandfather (see my earlier post of <a href="http://sagasteads.blogspot.com/2011/03/egils-saga-in-past-and-present-1.html">25th March</a> on <em>Egils saga</em> and Borg). This makes Björn -- I realise for the first time myself now -- a cousin of Helga the fair, who was the daughter of Egill's son Þorsteinn...the <a href="http://www.icelandreview.com/icelandreview/daily_life/?cat_id=16539&ew_0_a_id=262375">Icelandic obsession with genealogy</a> is starting to rub off on me... </span><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Beyond the genealogical overlap and the geographical proximity of <em>Bjarnar saga</em> and <em>Gunnlaugs saga</em>, the protagonists of these two sagas -- Björn and Gunnlaugr -- are both poets and the sagas share a common plot (a plot that is found in two further sagas about poetic protagonists, <em>Kormáks saga</em> and <em>Hallfreðar saga</em>, both of which will be covered soon): the tragic love-triangle. And now for some story-telling on a rainy Sunday afternoon...</span></div><div align="justify" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div align="justify" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Björn is a promising young man: <em>snimma mikill vexti ok rammr at afli, karlmannligr ok sæmiligr at sjá</em> (<em>Bjarnar saga</em>, ed. Sigurður Nordal and Guðni Jónsson, Íslenzk fornrit 3 (Reykjavík 1938), ch. 1, p. 112; 'very large in stature at a young age and physically powerful, manly and becoming in appearance'). He falls in love with the beautiful and noble-charactered Oddný eykyndill ('Island-candle') whom he visits on the island of Hjörsey where she lives -- and many people in the district reckon it will be a good match if Björn marries Oddný, with him being the finest of men and well bred. So Björn is engaged to Oddný -- but he longs to go abroad to make his name and fortune -- and thus the betrothal is fixed for a period of 3 years but if Björn doesn't return after that time, Oddný will be married to someone else, and Björn must send a message back to Iceland if he will not make it back. </span></div><div align="justify" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-YrR8GXeA0dI/ToiqepIlhII/AAAAAAAACEo/3ouEmeyXmAg/s1600/Hv%25C3%25ADt%25C3%25A1rnes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" kca="true" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-YrR8GXeA0dI/ToiqepIlhII/AAAAAAAACEo/3ouEmeyXmAg/s320/Hv%25C3%25ADt%25C3%25A1rnes.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Hítarnes, Þórðr's (and later Oddný's) home</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">(with view over to the Snæfellsnes peninsula)</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div align="justify" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">All goes well and Björn is treated generously at Eiríkr jarl's court in Norway, where another poet from the north-west of Iceland is also visiting. Although previously in Iceland, Björn had been on the receiving end of a certain amount of mockery and abuse from this man, Þórðr Kolbeinsson, Björn and Þórðr are on good terms over the winter, and one evening as they drink together (Björn was more affected by the alcohol than Þórðr, the saga notes), the conversation turns to Oddný and the question as to when Björn intends to head home. Not immediately, says Björn -- which Þórðr says sounds unwise when he has such a treasure as Oddný waiting for him back in Iceland. Þórðr suggests he takes a token and a message back for Oddný from Björn -- the gold armband that the jarl has given Björn might do -- and Björn, after hesitating, agrees. In the morning, Björn rather regrets saying so much to Þórðr and thinks he may have trusted him overly...</span></div><div align="justify"><br />
</div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">And these misgivings prove -- after a few sentences and a voyage by sea -- to be all too well founded. Þórðr delivers Björn's message (that he still intends to return to marry Oddný) and gives her the ring -- but treacherously, he adds a false post-script to Björn's message and claims that Björn has made over the betrothal to him should he die or not return to Iceland. Meanwhile, Björn is sent to Russia where he wins a great duel but is badly wounded; by the time he gets back to Norway at the end of the next summer, three years have passed and he all the boats sailing to Iceland have left...Þórðr marries Oddný; Björn hears the news and won´t go back to Iceland now, preferring rather to go to England where he kills a dragon. Björn runs into Þórðr back in Norway on one occasion and vows to fight him next time they meet; only his respect for King Óláfr (who has come to power now) prevents him from challenging Þórðr to a duel immediately. Eventually, Björn does return home (as, 1000 years later, do most Icelanders abroad, unless they are útrásarvíkingar on the run). And the feud between Björn and Þórðr -- the subject of the rest of the saga -- begins in earnest. </span></div><div align="justify"><br />
</div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">At first, this feud is conducted verbally and the two men exchange insult verses in which they communicate accusations of cowardice and deviant sexual behaviour or origins, with escalating seriousness. On one occasion, a local man and his farmhand discuss the relative insulting value of the verses Björn and Þórðr have composed about each other while busy with the outdoor task of charcoal-burning. Björn had composed a poem called 'Grámagaflím' ('Grey-belly Satire') in which he describes how Þórðr's mother had eaten a slimy rotten fish she found by the side of a lake and thereby conceived Þórðr. The farmhand has never heard anything to rival this poem in the gravity of its insult but his master thinks the poem that Þórðr composed about Björn and which is known as 'Kolluvísur' ('Cow Verses') is worse. He won't recite it at first despite the farmhand's urging since if Björn hears anyone perform it aloud he will kill them without having to pay compensation, since the transmission of such insult 'níð' verses in medieval Iceland was prohibited by law. Eventually he gives in -- only for Björn to leap out from behind a tree and strike him a deadly blow<span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif";">...tantalisingly, we, as the readers of the saga, never get to judge the which of the two poems is the more scurrilous for ourselves.</span></span></div><div align="justify"> </div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0cAW9496kLs/ToikA111HRI/AAAAAAAACEc/17Rv9mu5io4/s1600/H%25C3%25ADtardalur1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" kca="true" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0cAW9496kLs/ToikA111HRI/AAAAAAAACEc/17Rv9mu5io4/s320/H%25C3%25ADtardalur1.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The red track to Hítarvatn (looking south)</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif";">Eventually – after a series of physical confrontations, various characters’ deaths, and some bad dreams which trouble Björn and anticpate his approaching death – Þórðr and a band of men travel to the end of Hítárdalur where Björn’s farm, Hólmr, is situtated beside the lake (Hítárvatn). I spent a night here, following a winding up-and-down, and sometimes bright red, track past the last farm in the valley and through lava-fields and bare sandy stretches. It’s sheep round-up time in the saga (as it was when I was in the area) and Þórðr’s men divide up into three groups of six, not knowing which route Björn will be taking, but covering each path. Björn decides to go out to trim the manes on some horses: he won’t let his bad dreams dictate his actions and he ignores his wife’s pleading to stay at home. Björn and a boy cross the river where it runs out of the lake and walk the path towards where the horses are, at Hvítingshjalli (so-named after one of Björn’s horses, Hvítingr; ‘-hjalli’ is a shelf or ledge along a mountain-side – I looked over towards this place from where I parked the ambulance overnight). The boy sees six men come towards them; “I’m going to hunt that bear (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">björn</i>) that we all want to catch”, cries one of the men. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-y-jjAcoiuRw/Toir_K6gaYI/AAAAAAAACEw/556ccJNAMf0/s1600/edward+scissorhands.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" kca="true" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-y-jjAcoiuRw/Toir_K6gaYI/AAAAAAAACEw/556ccJNAMf0/s200/edward+scissorhands.jpg" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif";">Björn won’t run and he sends the boy away after the horses; there is a bloody fight and Björn defends himself strongly killing some of his opponents. Other attackers arrive, including Þórðr (and a boy, who is nominally Þórðr’s and Oddný’s son, but actually fathered by Björn), and Björn continues to fight using the shears he brought out with him to cut the horses’ manes. I wonder whether Björn was the prototype for <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Scissorhands">Edward Scissorhands</a>... All marvel at Björn’s valiant defence but eventually Þórðr causes Björn to fall and he then chops off Björn’s head. It was sobering to think of such merciless violence being conducted in this now-deserted place; thoughts about Björn’s death, coupled with the slightly oppressive silence of the place, made the night I spent there a rather cold and dark one. </span></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif";">Þórðr, having decapitated Björn, ties the head to his saddle and rides back to Björn’s farm where he announces news of Björn’s death to his wife, and then to Vellir, about half-way down the valley, where Björn’s parents live. In a scene which has a close parallel with <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Grettis saga</i> (and Grettir’s enemy throwing Grettir’s head at his mother’s feet, see post of <span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://sagasteads.blogspot.com/2011/09/sheep-past-and-present-and-grettis-saga.html">September 11th</a></span>), Þórðr casts Björn’s head before his mother. “I recognise the head,” says Björn’s mother, “And you may recognise it too because you were often terrified by the same head before, when it was attached to its body” (“<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Kenni ek höfuðit ... ok kenn mættir þú, því at fyrir inu sama höfði gekktu optliga hræddr, meðan þat fylgði bolnum</i>”, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bjarnar saga</i> ch. 33, p. 205). When Oddný hears of Þórðr's killing of Björn she grieves and dies herself shortly <span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">afterwards...</span></span></div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify"><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2kUcJyfg7ks/Toip8mO5iaI/AAAAAAAACEk/63QeM5k_hY0/s1600/H%25C3%25ADt%25C3%25A1rvatn.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="177" kca="true" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2kUcJyfg7ks/Toip8mO5iaI/AAAAAAAACEk/63QeM5k_hY0/s400/H%25C3%25ADt%25C3%25A1rvatn.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Hítárvatn; Hvítingshjalli on the left-hand shore</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table> <div align="justify" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Driving back down Hítárdalur the next morning, I stopped to walk along the river in search of some stones that form a chain across the river known variously as 'Grettisstikklur' or 'Grettisstillur' (‘Grettir’s stepping- or leaping-stones’). In chapter 19 of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bjarnar saga</i>, and chapter 61 of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Grettis saga</i>, mention is made of how Grettir, on the run as an outlaw, spends time hiding out in a lair ('Grettisbæli') on the mountain Fagraskógarfjall, on the western side of Hítárdalur, not far from Vellir, where Björn lived when he was not further up the valley at Hólmr. Björn and Grettir try each other’s strength and are said to be equally strong; on one occasion, they entertain themselves by hauling these stones into the river ‘which have never been moved since, neither by the power of flooding water, nor ice-floes, nor glacial flooding’ (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">er aldri síðan hefir ór rekit, hvárki með vatnavöxtum né ísalögum eða jöklagangi</i>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Grettis saga</i>, Íslenzk fornrit 7, ed. Guðni Jónsson, p. 188). A note in the edition of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Grettis saga</i> comments that these huge stones could never have been arranged thus by humans and must be a natural phenomenon – but then again, for better or worse, they don’t make men like Grettir or Björn nowadays...</span></span></div><div align="justify" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tcMye1UWc3A/ToirKFp6MgI/AAAAAAAACEs/Hf_ahRp4jUI/s1600/Grettisstikklur.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" kca="true" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tcMye1UWc3A/ToirKFp6MgI/AAAAAAAACEs/Hf_ahRp4jUI/s640/Grettisstikklur.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Grettisstillur/Grettisstikklur?</span></td></tr>
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</div>Emily Lethbridgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12635622083913991862noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6993934953273965169.post-76114181398591570412011-09-27T18:17:00.000+01:002011-09-27T18:17:59.889+01:00Saga-Steads Documentary!<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I am pleased to announce that Patrick Chadwick's documentary about my project, "Memories of Old Awake", was released by the University of Cambridge yesterday as part of their 'Cambridge Ideas' series. It was filmed in May in the West Fjords, and focuses on <em>Gísla saga Súrssonar</em>.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">A short press release accompanies a link to the film on the University website here <a href="http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/video-and-audio/cambridge-ideas-memories-of-old-awake/">http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/video-and-audio/cambridge-ideas-memories-of-old-awake/</a></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Or you can go straight to Vimeo to watch it here <a href="http://www.vimeo.com/29594820">http://www.vimeo.com/29594820</a></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Or to YouTube here <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Z4_BhW1sI8">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Z4_BhW1sI8</a></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Enjoy! </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-MBmh0Z8BXqA/ToIEadS7N4I/AAAAAAAACEY/tszyaSCxSeM/s1600/Hallmundarhraun.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="316" kca="true" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-MBmh0Z8BXqA/ToIEadS7N4I/AAAAAAAACEY/tszyaSCxSeM/s640/Hallmundarhraun.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Autumn colours and mosses on Hallmundarhraun</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div>Emily Lethbridgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12635622083913991862noreply@blogger.com22tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6993934953273965169.post-18448875420207557482011-09-25T17:38:00.000+01:002011-09-25T17:38:48.633+01:00Romeo and Juliet of The North: Gunnlaugs saga ormstungu <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-EvoU9NwSrk4/Tn35IhPWXWI/AAAAAAAACEA/CzXUlQKdp04/s1600/Hraundalur.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><img border="0" hca="true" height="266" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-EvoU9NwSrk4/Tn35IhPWXWI/AAAAAAAACEA/CzXUlQKdp04/s400/Hraundalur.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">View towards Grímsstaðamúli (and Ytri Hraundalur), Borgarfjörður</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table> <div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"></span></em></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>'Þat var helzt gaman Helgu, at hon rekði skikkjuna Gunnlaugsnaut ok horfði þar á löngum. Ok eitt sinn kom þar sótt mikil á bæ þeirra Þorkels ok Helgu, ok krömðusk margir lengi. Helga tók þá ok þyngð ok lá þó eigi. Ok einn laugaraptan sat Helga í eldaskála ok hneigði höfuð í kné Þorkatli, bónda sínum, ok lét senda eptir skikkjunni Gunnlaugsnaut. Ok er skikkjan kom til hennar, þá settisk hon upp ok rakði skikkjuna fyrir sér ok horfði á um stund. Ok síðan hná hon aptr í fang bónda sínum ok var þá örend'</em> ('Helga's greatest joy was to spread out the cloak 'Gunnlaugr's gift' and gaze on it for a long time. At one time, a great sickness came to Þorkell's and Helga's farm, and many succumbed to this wasting disease for a long time. Helga became ill but couldn't stay in bed. One evening Helga sat in the hall and her head sunk onto her husband Þorkell's lap, and she had the cloak 'Gunnlaugr's gift' sent for. And when the cloak was brought to her, she sat up and spread out the cloak in front of her and gazed on it for a while. And then she sunk back again into her husband's arms and breathed her last'; <em>Gunnlaugs saga ormstungu</em>, ed. Sigurður Nordal and Guðni Jónsson, in Íslenzk fornrit 3 (Reykjavík, 1938), ch. 13, pp. 106-107). </span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><em>Gunnlaugs saga ormstungu</em> ('The Saga of Gunnlaugr Serpent-tongue')-- is one of the most romantic and tragic of the <em>Íslendingasögur.</em> It was one of the most popular and well-known sagas in Britain in the 19th century on account of its subject-matter, comparatively short and simple plot, and small cast of characters; <a href="http://morrisedition.lib.uiowa.edu/frithiof.html">William Morris's 1875 translation of the saga</a> into English made it widely available to the British and American public. The story is, in essence, one of doomed love: Gunnlaugr ormstunga Illugason falls in love with Helga in fagra ('the beautiful') Þorsteinsdóttir and she is promised to Gunnlaugr for three years while he travels abroad to acquire honour and wealth. Another Icelander, Hrafn Önundarson, also loves Helga and asks her father for her hand. When Gunnlaugr doesn't return, Helga is -- unwillingly -- betrothed to Hrafn; Gunnlaugr finally arrives back in Iceland on the night of Helga's and Hrafn's wedding, too late. Gunnlaugr and Hrafn fight a public duel at the National Assembly (the Alþingi) the following summer; the result is disputed and duelling is subsequently banned in Iceland. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2f0y_NjGqGA/Tn3-9KD38_I/AAAAAAAACEQ/OmMhribOvY0/s1600/Helga+from+Danish+translation3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" hca="true" height="254" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2f0y_NjGqGA/Tn3-9KD38_I/AAAAAAAACEQ/OmMhribOvY0/s320/Helga+from+Danish+translation3.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Helga dies in Þorkell's lap; from a Danish</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">translation of the saga (1900)</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">So Gunnlaugr and Hrafn agree to meet in Norway to fight again. The two men rendezvous at the agreed place: <em>"Þat er nú vel, er vit höfum fundizk"</em> ("It's good that we have met now"; <em>Gunnlaugs saga</em> ch. 12, p. 101) Gunnlaugr states. The two men fight; Gunnlaugr chops off Hrafn's leg but Hrafn uses a tree-stump to prop himself up. Hrafn asks Gunnlaugr to fetch him some water and promises not to betray Gunnlaugr by attacking him if he uses his helmet as a vessel; Gunnlaugr removes his helmet and fills it with water for Hrafn. Hrafn reaches out with his left hand to take the helmet, and strikes Gunnlaugr a terrible blow on his head with his right hand. "You have betrayed me evilly now, and ignobly, when I trusted you" says Gunnlaugr <em>("Illa sveiktu mik nú, ok ódrengiliga fór þér, þar sem ég trúða þér"</em>, <em>Gunnlaugs saga</em> ch. 12, p. 102); "That's true," answered Hrafn, "but this forced me to it, that I will not grant you the embrace of Helga the fair" (<em>"Satt er þat ... en þat gekk mér til þess, at ek ann þér eigi faðmlagsins Helgu innar fögru"</em>, <em>Gunnlaugs saga</em> ch. 12, p. 102). The fight continues and Hrafn dies; Gunnlaugr dies three days later from wounds he sustained. Back in Iceland, the fathers of both men are visited in their dreams by their blood-drenched sons; later, confirmation of the outcome of the fight is brought to Iceland. Helga is married to a man called Þorkell Hallkelsson and bears many children by him but she never stops loving Gunnlaugr. She holds on to him and his memory by gazing at the cloak Gunnlaugr gave to her -- a cloak that Gunnlaugr received when at the court of King Aðalráðr (Æthelred) of England as a reward for a praise-poem composed in Aðalráðr's honour. </span></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-AvX7BxyyYlI/Tn37c9wZXhI/AAAAAAAACEI/TdKGZAn7gt4/s1600/Gilsbakki+.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" hca="true" height="200" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-AvX7BxyyYlI/Tn37c9wZXhI/AAAAAAAACEI/TdKGZAn7gt4/s320/Gilsbakki+.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Gilsbakki today</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">"The story of the tragic fate of the lovers is a northern counterpart to Romeo and Juliet", wrote <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._G._Collingwood">William Gershom Collingwood</a> in his 1899 book <em>A Pilgrimage to the Saga-Steads of Iceland </em>(at p. 48). Collingwood -- and William Morris, ahead of Collingwood in the 1870s -- visited Gilsbakki in Hvítársíða/Borgarfjörður where Gunnlaugr was born: "The present church and parsonage lie among rich meadows on a height overlooking the valley with its lava field and thick copsewoods, and beyond, a fine panorama of glacier-clothed mountains. On both sides of the site deep gills entrench it -- whence the name, and perhaps in ancient times added some strength and security to the position. They are at any rate richly picturesque -- a fit setting for the love story whose memories haunt the place", wrote Collingwood (<em>A</em> <em>Pilgrimage</em>, p. 48). It seems that the farm buildings at Gilsbakki have always been more-or-less on the same site (the site was dug by archaeologists from Brown University in the USA a couple of years ago; photos of the excavation can be seen <a href="http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.203922624125.171852.65232674125&type=1">here</a>); the spot where according to the saga Gunnlaugr, aged 12 and longing to travel abroad, laid out goods he took from his father's storehouse only to be denied them and permission to travel by his father, must have been somewhere up behind the present farm-house. </span></div> <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The 'gil' or gully at Gilsbakki, looking south</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Today, the turf-roofed-farmhouse that Collingwood and Morris would have found, and that Collingwood painted (a b/w image of Collingwood's picture can be found <a href="http://timarit.is/view_page_init.jsp?pageId=4288249&issId=291651&lang=4">here</a>, bottom left), has been replaced by modern stone buildThe ings; the fine views across the lava-and birch-carpeted valley below the farm (and the sides of the gil or gully on which account the farm is named Gilsbakki, 'bank of the gully') have not changed much, though the glacier Langsjökull is said to have diminished, and the glacier on the mountain Ok has all but disappeared. Mild September sun was lighting up the valley when I visited Gilsbakki and the colours now are stunning: rich oranges and deep reds contrasting with the greyish-green mosses that enfold the flattish outcrops of lava. Inside the farmhouse, a copy of Collingwood's painting of the old farm hangs on the wall, and a copy of the small watercolour portrait Collingwood produced of the then farmer's three-year-old daughter is in a photo-frame on a bookshelf. When the Icelandic photographer Einar Falur Ingólfsson visited Gilsbakki to photograph the place as part of <a href="http://einarfalur.blogspot.com/2010/04/saga-steads-in-footsteps-of-wc.html">his project following in Collingwood's footsteps</a>, he photographed the current farmer's then six-year-old daughter as well as the farm from the same spot chosen by Collingwood to paint his picture: this continuity regarding the significance of the place as a 'saga-stead' or site, from the 'Saga-Age' when the events in the saga are said to have happened (the late 10th and early 11th centuries) to the 19th century, and over into the 21st century, delighted me. </span></div> <br />
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</tbody></table></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">There are no place-names on the Gilsbakki land that commemorate Gunnlaugr; the one place-name there that is associated with Gunnlaugr and his story rather commemorates his brother Hermundr, who according to tradition -- not the saga -- was buried in the so-called Hermundarhóll ('Hermundr's hill'). Directly to the west of Gilsbakki, however, in Hraundalur in Borgarfjörður, there is a striking hill called Helguhóll ('Helga's hill'). This place is not named in <em>Gunnlaugs saga</em> -- but it is not far from the farm to which Helga moved (Hraun(s)dalr, now Ytri-Hraundalur, a summer-house rather than a working farm) after marrying Þorkell, and on which she died. Local tradition there, at some point in time, for some reason, connected Helga with this hill...a short article by Bjarni V. Guðjónsson about the hill that I was pointed towards suggests that perhaps it was a place where Helga found refuge, where she sat on summer evenings looking out over the plains below and over to Borg (where she was born -- being the daughter of Egill Skalla-Grímsson's son Þorsteinn; see posts of <a href="http://sagasteads.blogspot.com/2011/03/borgarnes-in-bitter-cold.html">20th March</a>, <span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://sagasteads.blogspot.com/2011/03/egils-saga-in-past-and-present-1.html">25th March</a>, <a href="http://sagasteads.blogspot.com/2011/04/egils-saga-in-past-and-present-2.html">2nd April</a></span> on Egill, <em>Egils saga</em>, and Borg), where she might have found some peace from the trials of love she suffered in her life... </span></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">A slightly lighter-relief rendering of the saga (Gunnlaugr's and Hrafn's final duel) can be found <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aP_eSltaUVg&feature=related">here</a>...you've got to love these saga re-enactments on YouTube... </span></div></div>Emily Lethbridgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12635622083913991862noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6993934953273965169.post-89674882224655037892011-09-18T22:29:00.000+01:002013-05-08T20:10:04.366+01:00Grettir´s Head...and his Family´s Strandir Origins<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Rune at work photographing Eiríksjökull</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">My pursuit of the outlaw Grettir Ásmundarson and his trails across and around Iceland has been continuing over the past week. I remember first reading <i>Grettis saga</i> as a BA student at Cambridge -- parts of his saga and a good number of the many verses in it were then set-texts for the Old Norse-Icelandic language and literature paper -- and I remember enjoying the saga especially then. It's an endlessly rich and entertaining read: Grettir is a magnetic figure, a giant amongst saga-protagonists, not just for his troll-wrestling and swimming feats and prodigious verse-composition and the frequent recourse he makes to pithy proverbs, but for his weaknesses too (his fear of the dark despite his superlative physical strength is poignant) and for the way that he is, simply, unlucky, in the way that events seem to conspire against him.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">In the last post (<a href="http://sagasteads.blogspot.com/2011/09/sheep-past-and-present-and-grettis-saga.html">September 11th</a>) I wrote about Drangey and how Grettir met his death there in the 19th year of his outlawry. There are probably more place-names around Iceland -- rocks, caves, other landscape features -- with his name in them than any other character in the sagas. Many of these commemorate moments or episodes during his long period as an outlaw: places where he is said to have hidden out, where he tested or showed off his strength by heaving huge boulders around... One place I wanted to explore was Arnarvatn, north of Eiríksjökull and in the north-western part of the Highlands: <i>Grettis saga</i> states that <span style="background-color: white;">'Grettir went up onto Arnarvatnsheiði and built a hut there, the remains of which can still be seen, and lived there because he wanted do something other than rob, and got himself a net and a boat and caught fish to feed himself. He thought it very dreary on the mountains because he was so afraid of the dark'</span> ('<i>Grettir fór upp á Arnarvatnsheiði ok gerði sér þar skála, sem enn sér merki, ok bjósk þar um, því at hann vildi nú hvatvetna annat en ræna, fekk sér net ok bát ok veiddi fiska til matar sér. Honum þótti daufligt mjök á fjallinu, því at hann var mjök myrkfælinn</i>', <i>Grettis saga</i> ed. Guðni Jónsson (Reykjavík 1936), ch. 54, p. 178). In the notes of the edition of the saga I've been using, I read that the outlines of this hut beside the lake can still be seen -- over 700 years or so after the saga was written down -- and the place-names Grettistangi (a long spit that protrudes into the lake) and Grettishöfði (cliffs which loom over the lake) testify to the tradition that Grettir dwelt there for a time. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I met up with Norwegian <a href="http://www.runemolnes.com/">photographer Rune Molnes</a> who's been travelling around Iceland taking photos -- and we headed off together south down Miðfjörður (past Grettir's home, Bjarg, about which more anon) and up onto Arnarvatnsheiði. There were stunning views of Eiríksjökull along the way, and a beautiful herd of horses grazing by a river. We got to the lake, followed the track around and -- as dusk drew on -- combed the stretch of land beside the lake where the outlines of 'Grettisskáli', Grettir's hut, was said to be. I ran from one hummock to another and to the end of Grettistangi and back, the evening-sunshine blinding me and my hopes being raised again and again as I thought I'd found the spot, only to be dashed on closer examination... finally though, we stumbled on the outlines of something that was clearly man-made. Elated, I tried to take pictures in the failing light -- credit is due to Rune here for stepping in as a human tripod when I needed to be taller than my natural 5'4". Was this 'Grettisskáli'? I wanted to believe it was -- and maybe it really was -- though as always, the question of the relationship between places such as these and their identification with mentions in the sagas reared its knotty head. Equally, the grassed-over foundations of what then turned out to be 2 huts could have been shelters built by later hunters... Whatever the 'truth', I still find the extent that, all over Iceland, there are such traditions associating saga-characters with specific places in the landscape and borne out by place-names, riveting. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Grettistak at Bjarg...the big rock, that is...</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Grettir's head -- which his enemy Þorbjörn Öngull hewed off his corpse to parade in front of people as proof of his deed -- is said to be buried at Bjarg, Grettir's home, under a stone that is known as Grettisþúfa ('Grettir's tussock'). I knocked on the door at Bjarg, met the present farmer and his brother, talked about <i>Grettis saga</i> with them and was shown the striking memorial to Grettir's mother, Ásdís, raised on Bjarg land in 1974 and incorporating four cast-iron plaques by the artist Halldór Pétursson which depict scenes from the saga featuring Ásdís. Grettir's mother was a strong woman: the saga describes how Grettir's relationship with his father was always strained but how Ásdís was always supportive of Grettir, giving him a family heirloom, the sword Ættartangi (which comes into another saga set in the area, <i>Vatnsdæla saga</i> -- to be covered in a blogpost soon), when he was first outlawed and had to leave home. I walked up onto the heath above the farm at Bjarg to seek out an enormous 'Grettistak' boulder which Grettir is said to have lifted...it must be about twice my height; one of the two farmer-brothers at Bjarg told me how they used to climb up onto it for fun as kids. Some of these 'Grettistök' are more likely than others...Grettir would have had to have been a giant to have lifted this one. I took up the offer of a bit of physical exercise by helping the Bjarg farmers round up their sheep...and laughed at the collection of stones at the foot of the outdoor staircase up to the front door which they joked are their exercise stones.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Kaldbak</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">It was Grettir's great-grandfather Önundr who settled first in Iceland, after emigrating from Norway following a battle against King Haraldr hárfagri in which he lost his leg and gained the nickname 'tréfót' ('peg-leg'). Önundr didn't establish the farm at Bjarg, but landed in the east on the Langanes spit, sailed west into Húnaflóa, and finally claimed land on the eastern stretch of the West Fjords known as Strandir after staying with Auðr/Unnr in djúpúðga of <i>Laxdæla saga</i> fame (<span style="background-color: white;">see <a href="http://sagasteads.blogspot.com/2011/04/laxdla-saga-2-unnr-deepminded-matriarch.html">post of 24th April</a></span>). Önundr built a farm at Kaldbak, lookng south over a small bay called Kaldbaksvík -- north of Bjarnarfjörður. Kaldbak is the name of a mountain on the southern lip of Kaldbaksvík; <i>Grettis saga</i> describes how Önundr looked over at this mountain, which was covered in snow, and spoke a verse lamenting how he has left behind his family, and exchanged his Norwegian land and inheritance for this cold landscape. Early chapters in the saga describe events that took place along the Strandir coast: a dispute over the rights to a beached whale that is found on a skerry called Rifssker (just off the Reykjanes peninsula north of Kaldbak), and how the bay called Trékyllisvík got its name after some merchants were wrecked and lost their ship, a broad-bottomed boat called Trékyllir. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Looking into Kaldbaksdalur over Kaldbaksvatn</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">When he died, Önundr was buried in a mound at the end of Kaldbaksdalur -- the mound is named Tréfótshaugur ('Peg-Leg's Mound') in <i>Grettis saga </i>and he has one of the funniest epitaphs in the sagas: 'he was the most bold and agile one-legged-man in Iceland' ('<i>hann hefir fræknastr verit ok fimastr einfættr maðr á Íslandi</i>', <i>Grettis saga</i> ch. 11, pp. 25-26). I drove up the Strandir coast to find Peg-Leg's grave... Autumn is very much in evidence here -- the leaves on scrub and bushes on the hillsides are turning all bright fiery shades of orange, red, pink, yellow, and sheep were being rounded up here too this weekend. Hiking in to the end of the Kaldbaksdalur valley took longer than it might have done...on account of the vast quantities of beautiful blueberries that kept presenting themselves to me (I was surprised by this, as it's been cold the past week and most berries have perished in the overnight frosts). Eventually I reached the end, and ate my sandwich in the sunshine looking over at the mound -- in fact, there seemed to be two. One was enormous, a great pointed pile of rock and rubble; the second smaller (though still not inconsiderable) and more believably man-made...again, I wondered whether the story about Önundr's burial here might have been attached to the place at some point after his 'real' or historical death and burial...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">It wasn't only <i>Grettis saga</i> that was directing my footsteps along Strandir though -- several places along the coast come into a number of other sagas and I have been enjoying the challenge of working out the overlap between them in terms of their geography, genealogy, and the events they relate. A character called Finnbogi inn rammi ('the strong') -- another saga character renowned for his strength -- ended his life at a place called Finnbogastaðir in the Trékyllisvík bay, whence he moved after being driven from the Víðidalur valley in Húnavatnssýsla by the sons of Ingimundr inn gamli ('the old'). Finnbogi's story is told in <i>Finnboga saga</i>; that of Ingimundr's sons in <i>Vatnsdæla saga</i>; both sagas describe the feud. Much of the action in <i>Vatnsdæla saga</i> takes place in Vatnsdalur -- where events in two further sagas, <i>Kormáks saga</i> and <i>Hallfreðar saga</i>, also take place...but these sagas are for future posts; for the present I will sign off and enjoy the luxury of a one-off night in the cosy <a href="http://www.djupavik.com/">hotel at Djúpavík</a>...a belated birthday</span><span style="font-family: Georgia;"> present to myself, for I am now 32 and my aging bones could not resist the temptation of a night reading and writing *inside* a real house on my way back south down Strandir... </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7jwGYzcPmR8/TnZhdxeIEnI/AAAAAAAACD8/Tkp6D0mbWkk/s1600/Finnbogasta%25C3%25B0ir.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><img border="0" height="426" rba="true" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7jwGYzcPmR8/TnZhdxeIEnI/AAAAAAAACD8/Tkp6D0mbWkk/s640/Finnbogasta%25C3%25B0ir.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Looking over to Finnbogastaðir in Trékyllisvík</span></td></tr>
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Emily Lethbridgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12635622083913991862noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6993934953273965169.post-83724146024300237212011-09-11T22:33:00.004+01:002011-09-11T22:42:35.078+01:00Sheep Past and Present, and Grettis saga<div style="text-align: justify;"> <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-P1j9UxMh6DA/TmzgERPP92I/AAAAAAAACCw/EFRJKV_-tUE/s1600/Sheep+at+Reykir.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="291" nba="true" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-P1j9UxMh6DA/TmzgERPP92I/AAAAAAAACCw/EFRJKV_-tUE/s640/Sheep+at+Reykir.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Sheep may safely graze...my breakfast companions this morning</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fV1xTLbjoy0/Tm0qGXyKMsI/AAAAAAAACDY/gv57wUO5sRw/s1600/Sheep....jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" nba="true" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fV1xTLbjoy0/Tm0qGXyKMsI/AAAAAAAACDY/gv57wUO5sRw/s320/Sheep....jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Rounded-Up Sheep</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Last weekend, I helped round up the sheep in one part of Eyjafjarðarsveit (in the north of Iceland) -- something I've done each autumn for the past four years. Farmers send their sheep up into the mountains early in the summer to graze, and they're rounded up and driven down in September...to fill freezers for the winter and be turned into all kinds of sausage/pate/smoked- pickled- or minced-meat goodies... </span><span style="font-family: Georgia;">The sheep-roundup is a co-operative local operation and in this and in other ways, I don't imagine the basic methods have changed for hundreds of years, though communication on the hillsides and moors is made easier now thanks to walkie-talkies, and some ride quad-bikes or motocross bikes rather than horses or walk. Those rounding up the sheep will string out over a designated area and move forward together in a line, shouting and whistling to drive the sheep down and into a herd; this herd is then driven into a sheep-fold and the individual sheep are then sorted by the farmers according to the identification tag in their ear. It's a big local community event and many people turn up to watch or get involved in the sheep-sorting part of the process, if they weren't out there rounding up the sheep to begin with. </span></div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-NLj4Oq2wJYA/Tmzg6G3fdQI/AAAAAAAACC4/_PwJsKc0p18/s1600/Sheep+sorting+in+Vatnsdalur.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" nba="true" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-NLj4Oq2wJYA/Tmzg6G3fdQI/AAAAAAAACC4/_PwJsKc0p18/s320/Sheep+sorting+in+Vatnsdalur.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Sheep being sorted in Vatnsdalur</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">The sound of hundreds of sheep bleating away together, and the sight of them hopping along in a woolly mass, makes for a hugely entertaining spectacle: they are funny creatures. My delight at sheepish behaviour is nothing new however: the famous saga outlaw Grettir Ásmundarson seems also, at times, to have had a soft spot for sheep though more often he rustles them from local farmers for his supper. There is a rather pitiful description of a dusky-coloured wether in the remote Highland valley Þórisdalur, whose lamb Grettir takes and eats in his 8th or 9th year as an outlaw: after 'Mókolla' loses her lamb, she goes up to Grettir's hut every night and bleats, so that Grettir cannot sleep; Grettir regrets killing the lamb on account of this disturbance ('<em>En er Mókolla missti dilks síns, fór hon upp á skála Grettis hverja nótt ok jarmaði, svá at hann mátti enga nótt sofa; þess iðraðisk hann mest, er hann hafði dilkinn skorit, fyrir ónáðum hennar</em>', <em>Grettis saga</em>, ed. Guðni Jónsson, Íslenzk fornrit 7 (Reykjavík 1936), ch. 61, p. 200). </span></div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KOb5M0dWp1M/TmziZK0W4QI/AAAAAAAACC8/GWPpafmHXRI/s1600/Drangey+and+Kerling+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="184" nba="true" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KOb5M0dWp1M/TmziZK0W4QI/AAAAAAAACC8/GWPpafmHXRI/s320/Drangey+and+Kerling+2.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Drangey and Kerling, looking north</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Grettir spent the final three years of his life on the island of Drangey in Skagafjörður; when he arrived on the island (with his younger brother Illugi, and a thief/servant called Glaumr), <em>Grettis saga</em> states there were around 80 sheep grazing there, belonging to local farmers. After a couple of years, Grettir and the others have eaten their way through all of these, but they allow one ram to live -- as a source of (presumably badly-needed) entertainment. This ram was '<em>hösmögóttr at lit ok hyrndr mjök. At honum hendu þeir mikit gaman, því at hann var svá spakr, at hann stóð fyrir úti ok rann eptir þeim, þar sem þeir gengu. Hann gekk heim til skála á kveldin og gneri hornum sínum við hurðina</em>' (<em>Grettis saga</em> ch. 73, p. 237; 'grey-bellied in colour and with big horns. They had much fun with him, for he was so tame that he stood outside and ran after them wherever they walked. He went home to the hut in the evening and rubbed his horns against the door').</span></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-L73JH_x-0X8/Tmzi3vlfvOI/AAAAAAAACDA/zQiPaGRqBCU/s1600/Drangey+Uppg%25C3%25B6nguv%25C3%25ADk.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" nba="true" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-L73JH_x-0X8/Tmzi3vlfvOI/AAAAAAAACDA/zQiPaGRqBCU/s320/Drangey+Uppg%25C3%25B6nguv%25C3%25ADk.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Uppgönguvík</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Grettir survived longer as an outlaw than any one else in Iceland and there are countless places around the country where he is said to have hid out in a cave or built a shelter, or demonstrated his strength by lifting a large rock (known as a 'Grettistak' or 'Grettishaf'). According to the saga, Grettir installed himself on Drangey after his sojourn in Bárðardalur, where he fought two trolls/giants (see my previous <a href="http://sagasteads.blogspot.com/2011/08/highland-horseback-excursus-and-mention.html">post of 30th August</a>).</span><span style="font-family: Georgia;"> Grettir's younger brother Illugi is determined to accompany him; their mother Ásdís, on saying her farewells, knows she will never see her sons again, and that they will be overcome by treachery. Drangey is a perfect defensive stronghold: '<em>hon var grasi vaxin, en sjábrött, svá at hvergi mátti upp á komask, nema þar sem stigarnir váru við látnir, ok ef upp var dreginn inn efri stiginn, þá var þat einskis manns færleikr, at komask á eyna</em>' (<em>Grettis saga</em> ch. 69, p. 225; 'It was grown over with grass, but with steep cliffs down to the sea, so that noone could come up onto it except where the ladders were, and if the upper ladder was pulled in, then noone had the strength to get onto the island'). The island rises up sheer in the middle of Skagafjörður, with the rock-stack Kerling to its south.</span></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-rfPAaOfo_fM/TmzkJ3PFd7I/AAAAAAAACDE/JwfCTC-pYVk/s1600/Grettisbrunnur.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" nba="true" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-rfPAaOfo_fM/TmzkJ3PFd7I/AAAAAAAACDE/JwfCTC-pYVk/s320/Grettisbrunnur.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Grettisbrunnur</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Grettir, Illugi and Glaumr built a hut on a grassy patch at the south-eastern end of the island: this part of the island is now known as Kofabrekka ('Hut-slope'). Other place-names on the island commemorate Grettir's time there: the only water source on the island is called 'Grettisbrunnur' ('Grettir's well'), a certain cliff-face is called 'Grettissteinar' ('Grettir's stones'), and another cliff-face, Hæringshlaup ('Hæringr's leap'), is said to be where a Norwegian assassin named Hæringr, who had amazingly managed to scale the cliffs, ran back and fell off the cliff down to the rocks below after Illugi approached to fight him. Grettir had an ally who lived on the farm at Reykir on the Reykjaströnd shore (the western side of Skagafjörður) and rowed him out to the island secretly: on one occasion, when the servant Glaumr carelessly lets the fire go out, Grettir swims to the mainland to get fire...and warms up after his swim in the natural hotspring at Reykir.</span></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-__iguHDk_TY/Tm0buZf5dqI/AAAAAAAACDQ/WDd5PE3-lbo/s1600/Reykir.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="133" nba="true" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-__iguHDk_TY/Tm0buZf5dqI/AAAAAAAACDQ/WDd5PE3-lbo/s200/Reykir.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Reykir from the sea</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-PA_-oqXBJ4c/Tm0bABGr6TI/AAAAAAAACDI/ePjyYqpi6lQ/s1600/Grettislaug.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="132" nba="true" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-PA_-oqXBJ4c/Tm0bABGr6TI/AAAAAAAACDI/ePjyYqpi6lQ/s320/Grettislaug.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Sign at the hotpot at Reykir </span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Today, this hotpot is known as Grettislaug ('Grettir's Bath'), and a boat departs from Reykir to the island in the summer. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia;">I stayed at Reykir last night in the Embulance: there were northern lights, after a pink and grey sunset in which I lost myself while soaking in Grettislaug, and I woke this morning to a pearly sunrise over Skagafjörður and the sound of breakers crashing on the shingle a few metres from where I'd parked the van. And most exciting of all, I joined a short tour out to the island this morning...something which I have been waiting and hoping for for days. William Gershom Collingwood describes how he 'steamed into the fjord, rolling in the swell of the open sea after rough weather, [as] the sunset died away in purple and rosy light on the hills, and gave place to a cold twilight, with a moon that silvered the snowy summits. Drangey stood grim and grey upon the water, seeming unapproachable, with bare sides and bare top, the most inhospitable of abodes' (A Pilgrimage to the Saga-Steads of Iceland, 1897, p. 169). It's an island that has exerted a great hold on the saga-saturated imagination for centuries. </span></div><span style="font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">We didn't go up onto the island -- which I will have to do next summer now -- but it was remarkable to sail around it and examine it up close. Although it looks like a solid mass from the mainland, in fact its contours and cliffs are not at all regular and, particularly on the western side, there are a number of small headlands or peninsulas that jut out into the water and form a couple of bays (one of which is known as Uppgönguvík, literally 'Climbing-Up-Bay', where one ascends the island via ladders and a small track). The colours struck me too -- warm honey-yellows, thick white crusts of birdshit, a black seam that runs on a rough horizontal through some of the cliff-faces, the green of the grassy slopes on the island's crown. The water-source, Grettisbrunnur, is visible from the sea, being on a small grassy ledge, accessed by a ladder and with a sheer drop to the sea below; one can see too the slope where Grettir's hut is said to have been...tantalising. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-MPR6VULLrL0/Tm0bUH57mGI/AAAAAAAACDM/__i9ZGC-I3o/s1600/Drangey+and+Kofabrekka.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="162" nba="true" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-MPR6VULLrL0/Tm0bUH57mGI/AAAAAAAACDM/__i9ZGC-I3o/s320/Drangey+and+Kofabrekka.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The southern end of Drangey; </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Kofabrekka is the higher grassy slope</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Grettir died on Drangey -- but only after a witch cast a spell on a log which washed up on the island, and off which Grettir's axe glanced into his leg when chopping it up for firewood. The wound Grettir sustained caused his leg to swell up monstrously and turn black; this rather incapacitated him when his enemies finally managed to get up to the top of the island. 'Hösmagi [the grey-bellied sheep] is knocking at the door, brother', said Illugi; 'and is knocking rather hard and without mercy', said Grettir; and at that moment the door burst open' (<em>'Þá mælti Illugi: "Knýr Hösmagi hurð, bróðir," segir hann. "Ok knýr heldr fast," sagði Grettir, "ok óþyrmiliga;" ok í því brast sundr hurðin</em>', <em>Grettis saga</em> ch. 82, p. 259). Grettir is overpowered despite his brother's valiant attempt to defend him; 'there was no defence from him, because he was already near dead from the leg-wound; the thigh was suppurated all the way up to his guts; they dealt him many wounds, but little or no blood came from him ('<em>Varð þat engi vörn af honum, því at hann var áðr kominn at bana af fótarsárinu; var lærit allt grafit upp at smáþörmum; veittu þeir honum þá mörg sár, svá at lítt eða ekki blæddi</em>', <em>Grettis saga</em> ch. 82, p. 261). Grettir's principal enemy Þorbjörn Öngull cuts off Grettir's hand to plunder his famous short-sword Kársnaut (acquired after fighting a trollish zombie in his burial mound in Norway), and then cuts off his head with the same sword. Þorbjörn later presents Grettir's mother with Grettir's head at the family farm at Bjarg (I head there tomorrow), and is eventually killed himself by the same sword by another of Grettir's brothers in Constantinople.</span><br />
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</div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">The closing words of the saga present the verdict on Grettir's life as formulated by Sturla lögmaðr ('lawspeaker') Þórðarson, who lived in the 13th century and was a poet and writer as well as a key political figure of his time. Grettir was the greatest of all outlaws, for three reasons, Sturla proclaimed: first, he was the wisest of all outlaws, because he survived longer than any other outlaw and was never overcome while he was healthy; second, he was the strongest man in Iceland of his time and better at dealing with the walking dead and other monsters than other men; finally, because he was avenged in Constantinople, as no other Icelander has been, and this by his brother Þorsteinn drómundr who was an exceptionally blessed/lucky man. Bedtime now for me -- with my hair stiff with sea-salt, a bright moon shining over the Embulance, and my head full of thoughts of Grettir; the story of his encounter with another revenant-troll, Glámr, will be told in the next instalment. </span> </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"></div> <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Drangey and Kerling</span></td></tr>
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<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"></div>Emily Lethbridgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12635622083913991862noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6993934953273965169.post-80259710355804726222011-08-30T01:14:00.000+01:002011-08-30T01:14:21.540+01:00A Highland Horseback Excursus (and a Mention of Grettis saga)<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-eTKutmLEaKs/Tlwnx502BtI/AAAAAAAACCk/owJxXHa7gFc/s1600/Spreng+desert.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" qaa="true" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-eTKutmLEaKs/Tlwnx502BtI/AAAAAAAACCk/owJxXHa7gFc/s640/Spreng+desert.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Horses in a makeshift corral somewhere in the Icelandic Highlands</span></td></tr>
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<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Time to break the silence that has reigned over this blog the past couple of weeks by posting a short update about my recent activities... I'm currently in town (Reykjavík, that is) and getting over the shock of being catapulted into urban life after an exhilarating 7 days on horseback, touring with Sigurður Björnsson's <a href="http://www.riding-iceland.com/index.html">Riding Iceland</a> outfit (Siggi also organised the highly-recommended <em>Njáls saga</em> horseback tour I participated in in June, see <a href="http://sagasteads.blogspot.com/2011/07/njals-saga.html">post of 6th July 2011</a>). </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">The trip was over the central Icelandic Highlands, mostly following the centuries-old <a href="http://nat.is/travelguideeng/plofin_sprengisandur.htm">Sprengisandur</a> route from the north-east to the south: a distance of around 300 kms. It's impossible to travel across the interior for most of the year -- and even in the summer the conditions can be difficult. The weather can be unpredictable and the logistics with regard to feeding the horses required for such a trip have to be worked out carefully...bags of hay planted in strategic places in advance, since there is almost nothing for the horses to graze on otherwise for long stretches.</span></div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-z5omLnz94QY/Tlvxba5gdKI/AAAAAAAACCY/UlWEyyjRkHw/s1600/Grettir.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" qaa="true" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-z5omLnz94QY/Tlvxba5gdKI/AAAAAAAACCY/UlWEyyjRkHw/s320/Grettir.jpg" width="196" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Grettir Ásmundarson</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">(as depicted in a 17th-century </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Icelandic manuscript)</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">We set off from Bárðardalur: a long, shallow valley in the north which is mentioned in the saga about the outlaw-hero Grettir Ásmundarson (<em>Grettis saga</em>), being the location of one of Grettir's several troll/monster combats. Grettir hears of the destruction being wreaked on farms in Bárðardalur and travels there to relieve the locals of their trollish troubles. One particular farm, at Sandhaugar, has suffered attacks by a mysterious troll-woman on two consecutive Christmases, with first the farmer and then a farmhand disappearing. Grettir arrives at Sandhaugar on Christmas Eve, carries the widowed wife and daughter from the farm together on his arm over the swollen river so they can attend the Christmas service in church, and waits back at Sandhaugar for the monster's annual. A huge wrestling match inside the house ensues; the fight spills out of the splintered house and continues all night, with Grettir finally managing to chop off the troll-woman's right arm on the edge of a great chasm. She plunges into the chasm and disappears behind a waterfall. After Christmas, Grettir decides to return to the place of the troll-woman's disappearance in order to see what is behind the waterfall and to prove the veracity of his account of the fight, which has been doubted by the local priest: the priest accompanies Grettir and agrees to watch the top of the rope Grettir uses to let himself down with. </span></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Grettir dives through the waterfall and finds a great cave which is lit by a log fire and contains an enormous recumbent giant. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Grettir seizes a pike and attacks the giant, spearing him in the stomach so that his guts spill out of the cave and into the river beyond the waterfall. The priest assumes the worst, abandons his position, and after finishing off the giant, Grettir is forced to haul himself back up the rope...taking with him the bones of two men he finds in a bag. He deposits the bones in the church, together with a stick on which he has carved two runic verses describing what had happened. Grettir is hidden by the people of Bárðardalur that winter, and heads out to the island of Drangey in Skagafjörður in the spring -- where he eventually loses his life...more on this to come in a future post. </span></div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-o0Y9CDL1j88/TlwlXfccyzI/AAAAAAAACCc/8uBIYTHAsjc/s1600/Spreng+packhorse.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" qaa="true" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-o0Y9CDL1j88/TlwlXfccyzI/AAAAAAAACCc/8uBIYTHAsjc/s200/Spreng+packhorse.jpg" width="138" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Trusty packhorse</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">And so back to the horsetrip...We stayed in isolated mountain huts and sheep-round-up shelters, sometimes travelling with minimal kit loaded onto a couple of packhorses, at other times with a well-provisioned car meeting us at pre-arranged locations. We were 8 riding, with a herd of nearly 50 horses: this many because it's necessary to change horses regularly (every two hours or 20 kms or so) on account of the terrain being so challenging. I will never cease to be amazed at the stamina, strength, and willingness of the Icelandic horses -- and their physical beauty. There can be few sights more captivating than riding at the back of the herd (the horses follow those mounted up front, running loose, and are driven on and rounded up when necessary by the riders at the back): the long string of them, all imaginable shades of rich colours with thick tails and manes flowing free, trotting ahead into the far distance. Or, when the mist rolled in one afternoon, the sight of them disappearing into the enfolding greyness, so that from my position at the back, after a short time, it wasn´t possible to see more than 2 or 3 horses ahead.</span></div></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2fD7ZAeL5Sk/Tlwmucv1E7I/AAAAAAAACCg/1nzbieSGy_E/s1600/Spreng+Eyvindarkofi.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="187" qaa="true" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2fD7ZAeL5Sk/Tlwmucv1E7I/AAAAAAAACCg/1nzbieSGy_E/s400/Spreng+Eyvindarkofi.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Horses grazing at Eyvindarkofi</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">It was mesmerising as well to experience the Highland landscapes in this way and at this pace: to watch far-off mountains come into closer focus, appear and disappear as we rode over plains and up and down hills. Through monochrome valleys that were punctuated by shockingly vivid stripes of neon green moss fringing streams or rivers; over vast stretches of flat compacted rock inlaid with the tiniest growths of stubborn hardy-leafed plant; the central glacier Hofsjökull to our right in the west, and the great glacier Vatnajökull to our left in the east; the sudden appearance of lush meadows strewn with wild flowers where the ruins of a remote shelter built by the 18th-century outlaw Fjalla-Eyvindur can be seen; the rainbow-tinted Kerlingarfjöll mountain range appearing to the south-west of Hofsjökull, with the peaks of the mountains Loðmundur and Snækollur highlighted by evening sun. And the round ringing clop of horses' hooves as striking dry rock after crossing a river or stream. </span></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;">T<span style="font-family: Georgia;">omorrow, back up north for a reunion with the Embulance (abandoned in Eyjafjörður while four wheels were exchanged for four legs); a bit of autumnal sheep-rounding up next weekend, and then back on the saga-steads trail...summer break now officially over here, so more sagas and saga-related reports here shortly. </span> </div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Mn9EcYfJ0ho/TlwoU7BRlTI/AAAAAAAACCo/vyCdTzZxHaY/s1600/Spreng+2+greys.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" qaa="true" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Mn9EcYfJ0ho/TlwoU7BRlTI/AAAAAAAACCo/vyCdTzZxHaY/s320/Spreng+2+greys.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Two greys on a plain</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>Emily Lethbridgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12635622083913991862noreply@blogger.com19tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6993934953273965169.post-45924701255646820242011-08-15T12:56:00.000+01:002011-08-15T12:56:09.125+01:00A North Icelandic Antidote to Saga-Steads Romanticism: Reykdæla saga<div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_jjLwWEfDWA/Tkfb_LnxjvI/AAAAAAAACB0/jxOnUXY3nGU/s1600/Cairns+between+Egilssta%25C3%25B0ir+and+M%25C3%25BDvatn.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="241" naa="true" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_jjLwWEfDWA/Tkfb_LnxjvI/AAAAAAAACB0/jxOnUXY3nGU/s640/Cairns+between+Egilssta%25C3%25B0ir+and+M%25C3%25BDvatn.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Cairns and landscape somewhere between Egilsstaðir and Mývatn</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Recently, I was musing on how more often than not in this blog I seem to stress the continuity and connections between the time-period that the sagas describe (roughly, from the latter decades of the 9th century to the mid-11th century) and the present-day landscapes of Iceland... Although one of the major premises of the project builds on the fact that there is continuity, it occurred to me that posting something of an antidote to this assumption might be a good and useful corrective to tendencies towards rose-tintedness. And conveniently, in accordance with the serendipitous way in which this project continues to unfold and grow, one saga, <em>Reykdæla saga ok Víga-Skútu</em>, presented itself as a perfect case study to this end.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Time, natural forces, and the activities of man, have of course brought about all kinds of change to the landscapes around Iceland. I have touched on some of these in previous posts: erosion of different kinds, rivers changing their courses, road-building and the modern building of reservoirs to harness hydro-electric power. The sagas themselves hint at how the landscape in the 13th century had, apparently, changed over the preceding three or four centuries following the settlement of the island -- as those who established themselves there had cleared land of trees, begun to cultivate it and built farmsteads, and introduced livestock. Over the past 1000 years, volcanic eruptions in different parts of the country have altered its physical appearance to differing degrees. And over the past century or so, major changes have been wrought on the landscape by the movement of people from individual farms scattered across the countryside to rapidly expanding urban centres. Urban demographics in Iceland are fascinating: in 1801, the population of the capital Reykjavík was around 600; by 1901 it had grown to over 6000; by 2001, to over 110,000 (this figure not including the Greater Reykjavík Area...add another 100,00 or so). The population of Siglufjörður, which was a tiny village in the north until the herring industry took off, exploded to over 3000 permanent residents (plus several thousand more annual summer workers) during the first half of the early 20th century when the place became the biggest herring-fishing boom-town in Iceland...and then shrunk again dramatically when the herring industry collapsed: the present population of the town is around 1300. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-aLDKyWPNaKA/Tkfc2TASrXI/AAAAAAAACB4/vgWlK8kTdaw/s1600/Hverir2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" naa="true" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-aLDKyWPNaKA/Tkfc2TASrXI/AAAAAAAACB4/vgWlK8kTdaw/s320/Hverir2.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Bubbling mudpot at Hverir</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">The region around the great lake <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%BDvatn">Mývatn</a> ('Midge Lake') in the north of Iceland is one of the country's biggest natural attractions. It is situated on the boundary of the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates and is a highly volcanic area. One can spend days exploring the betwitching and seemingly-bewitched pillar-like lava formations at Dimmuborgir, tephra craters such as that at Hverfjall, boiling mudpools and bright sulphurous deposits at Hverir, and the Krafla caldera and geothermal area... Mývatn is also the region where much of the action of <em>Reykdæla saga ok Víga-Skútu</em> ('The Saga of the People of Reykjadalur and of Killer-Skúta') takes place. It's a saga which tells of petty acts of thievery, disputes over honour, acts of unscrupulous cunning in order gain political and social ascendancy -- and much though I hate to admit to this, it´s not a saga that I find the most interesting or engaging...When I arrived at Reykjahlíð, a village on the northern shore of the lake, my spirits sank. </span></div><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Ohyg6w_V7lQ/TkfdcdeL1mI/AAAAAAAACB8/T2g2tfhtOyM/s1600/Sk%25C3%25BAtusta%25C3%25B0ir+from+Sk%25C3%25BAtusta%25C3%25B0ag%25C3%25ADgar.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="178" naa="true" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Ohyg6w_V7lQ/TkfdcdeL1mI/AAAAAAAACB8/T2g2tfhtOyM/s320/Sk%25C3%25BAtusta%25C3%25B0ir+from+Sk%25C3%25BAtusta%25C3%25B0ag%25C3%25ADgar.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Skútustaðir from Skútustaðagígar</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">I had visited Mývatn and stayed in Reykjahlíð a few years ago...in September, when it was relatively quiet; more recently, I drove through it in January. This time round with the tourist-season in mid-swing, it was hardly possible to cross the road without being mown down by a never-ending procession of shining white campavans; everywhere, sturdily booted and outdoor-gear-suited tourists clutched cameras and guidebooks. I had no idea where the Settlement-Age farm Reykjahlíð which is mentioned in the saga was located amongst the built-up environment (hotels, 2 campsites, cafes, supermarket, petrol station, bank, tourist information centre etc) of the place now... </span><span style="font-family: Georgia;">At Skútustaðir (at the southern end of Mývatn), where the character named in the saga's title, the chieftain Víga-Skúta, is said to have established his farm, there are several farms, some kind of community centre, two hotels, a petrol station, a cafe, and a large carpark for those exploring the psuedo-craters that border the lake (these are known as 'Skútustaðagígar'). I was delighted to see a short mention of Killer-Skúta on an information board...though I wondered whether the choice fact about him, that he owned 'the famous axe Fluga', might be rather puzzling to anyone who does not know the saga. I followed the trail around the pseudo-craters, stumbled over a small girl who was having a wee in a ditch, waved my camera around a bit and nodded at others diligently snapping away. I wondered what Víga-Skúta would have made of the place as it is today, and also thought about how the early settlers explained the odd geological formations in the area... </span></div> <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VxfviKc5ZR8/TkflGJ-1qmI/AAAAAAAACCM/vYaBzmU_TUk/s1600/Leyningsbakki.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" naa="true" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VxfviKc5ZR8/TkflGJ-1qmI/AAAAAAAACCM/vYaBzmU_TUk/s320/Leyningsbakki.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Leyningsbakki</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">The saga is in two parts, and the first part takes place to the north-west of Mývatn in the Reykjadalur valley and follows events in the life of Víga-Skúta's father, the chieftain Áskell goði. The highly-principled Áskell lived at a place called Hvammr by the river Laxá ('Salmon River' -- which runs from Mývatn along a north-western axis through Laxárdalur, and out into the sea), and the saga describes how, foreseeing his imminent death on account of a local feud, Áskell tells his followers precisely where he wished to be buried -- because he likes the lie of the land there. <em>Ok nú fara þeir, þar til er þeir koma þar, sem heitir Leyningsbakki. Ok þá mælti Áskell, at þar vildi hann vera grafinn, þá er hann andaðisk, ok þótti þar vera gott landslag, ok sagði, at hann vildi ekki fé hafa með sér. Nú svara þeir frændr hans, at þess skyldi langt að bíða, at hann þyrfti niðr at grafa</em> (<em>Reykdæla saga ok Víga-Skútu</em>, ed. Björn Sigfússon, Íslenzk fornrit 10, Reykjavík 1940, ch. 16 p. 198; 'And they travel on now until they come to a place which is called Leyningsbakki ('Hidden Bank/Slope'). And then Áskell said that he wanted to be buried there when he died, and he thought the landscape there was good, and said that he didn´t want any belongings buried with him. Now his kinsmen answer that it would be a long time before he needed to be buried'). </span></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Tt0R4YC92Pg/TkfeP2BGzpI/AAAAAAAACCA/NmmwrdipXCc/s1600/Power+station+at+Lax%25C3%25A1+Reykjadalur.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" naa="true" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Tt0R4YC92Pg/TkfeP2BGzpI/AAAAAAAACCA/NmmwrdipXCc/s320/Power+station+at+Lax%25C3%25A1+Reykjadalur.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Power station at Laxá on the site of Hvammr</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table> <span style="font-family: Georgia;">I drove to Reykjadalur, and knocked on the door of the farm at Presthvammur, where Áskell's farm Hvammr is thought to have been located. I learnt from the current farmer at Presthvammur that the farm had been moved at some point in the late middle ages...and that the grown-over foundations ('tóftir') of the earlier farm -- which editorial notes to the saga claimed were still visible -- were now somewhere under the Laxá hydro-electric power station that was built at some point in the 20th century besides the river. Ahh... The farmer knew of the place-name Leyningsbakki, however, and pointed me towards a place downstream from the site of the power-station, which is roughly where Leyningsbakki is thought to be...though the river has changed course and eaten away at the land. There is still a steep bank there, so I wasn´t hopelessly disappointed. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/--489AcD1XRo/TkfffT5YN2I/AAAAAAAACCE/PwI4IwRS_FA/s1600/H%25C3%25BAsav%25C3%25ADk%252C+whale-tour-boats.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" naa="true" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/--489AcD1XRo/TkfffT5YN2I/AAAAAAAACCE/PwI4IwRS_FA/s320/H%25C3%25BAsav%25C3%25ADk%252C+whale-tour-boats.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Whale-watching tour boats, Húsavík</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Back besides Mývatn, after a frustrating episode in which the Embulance carkeys were locked inside the cab (I took the driver-side door apart a few weeks ago to fix the window which had got stuck when rolled completely down...since then the door has taken to locking itself from the inside which can be inconvenient; thankfully on this occasion a local farmer with a coathanger came to my rescue) and just when I was feeling that this saga was a hopeless case, things turned around. One chapter in the saga amused me -- and included some potentially fruitful place-name material. Three Norwegian brothers arrive on a ship that puts in at Húsavík (now the whale-watching capital of Iceland...) and spend the winter with the troublesome Þorbergr although a man called Glúmr Geirason (who lived at another farm besides Mývatn called Geirastaðir), had invited them to stay with him. Each one of these three brothers owned a valuable and famous weapon from which their nicknames were derived: the first brother Vagn possessed a spear and was known as Vagn 'spjót'; the second, Nafarr, had a short sword and was called Nafarr 'sax'; the third, Skefill, had a sword and was called Skefill 'sverð'. Þorbergr stirs up conflict and in an attempt to frame Glúmr and his father Geiri, accuses the father and son of theft. The matter blows up into a pitched battle in which the three Norwegian brothers are killed and buried with their weapons -- which are subsequently dug out of the men´s graves and find their way into new hands. </span></div><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">These weapons are in one sense the focus of this part of the narrative: and local place-names around Geirastaðir which are not mentioned in the saga commemorate the men and their deaths. Local tradition says that Vagn died at Vagnabrekka ('Vagn's slope'); Nafarr died at Nafarssker ('Nafarr's skerry'); Skefill died at a place called Skefilshólar ('Skefill's hills'); and all three were buried in Kumlabrekka ('Burial-mound slope'). I knocked on the door of the farm at Geirastaðir -- and, goldmine! Finnbogi, in his 80s, who was born and grew up there, and had moved back to the place after some decades in Akureyri, took me on a guided tour of the area, showed me the sites of each of these four places, chatted about some of his theories regarding them, and passed on an astonishing amount of information about the names and explanatory anecdotes of almost every other rock/slope/natural feature in the vicinity. He was a remarkable source of knowledge and exactly the kind of character that is making this project so rewarding and enjoyable, and the sagas so much more than narratives that exist within the covers of printed editions. Even when things seem bleak, it´s only a matter of time before I chance upon someone like Finnbogi and all excitement is rekindled. In addition, a great deal of archaeological excavation has been going on recently around Mývatn (particularly at <a href="http://www.nabohome.org/cgi_bin/explore.pl?seq=3">Skútustaðir</a>, and at <a href="http://www.nabohome.org/cgi_bin/explore.pl?seq=41">Hofstaðir</a>: follow the links to read excavation reports) -- and this adds another dimension to my attempts to connect sagas with their landscapes. This was, then, in the end, an enlightening and encouraging journey of discovery -- to begin with, things were not quite what I expected or hoped but thanks to Finnbogi, <em>Reykdæla saga</em> redeemed itself and even if the events it describes still do not fully capture my imagination, certain parts of it and the local places associated with these parts have taken on a colour and life that they did not have for me before. So a happy ending! </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">I´m off on Tuesday/Wednesday on an extended horseback trip across Sprengisandur, the north/south route over the central Icelandic highlands...blogging will resume at the end of August with a report about another northern saga, <em>Svarfdæla saga</em>, since I most likely won't manage to hook up en route... </span><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TlIyRLX7Ozk/TkfgRGKoKVI/AAAAAAAACCI/eLYw4I_U5dE/s1600/Lax%25C3%25A1+dam+monument.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" naa="true" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TlIyRLX7Ozk/TkfgRGKoKVI/AAAAAAAACCI/eLYw4I_U5dE/s320/Lax%25C3%25A1+dam+monument.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">A monument where a hydro-electric dam </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">on the river Laxá was blown up in 1970 by local farmers</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><span style="font-family: Georgia;"> </span></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>Emily Lethbridgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12635622083913991862noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6993934953273965169.post-22154471548850497122011-08-10T17:18:00.000+01:002011-08-10T17:18:44.024+01:00Circles and Rounds-about Vápnfirðinga saga Country<div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Mjn5JCrI9ic/TkAG5q9dyPI/AAAAAAAACAY/b36gz0-LH0E/s1600/Coat_of_Arms_of_Iceland_2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" naa="true" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Mjn5JCrI9ic/TkAG5q9dyPI/AAAAAAAACAY/b36gz0-LH0E/s200/Coat_of_Arms_of_Iceland_2.png" width="190" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Iceland's Coat of Arms</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Vopnafjörður, in north-east Iceland, is famous on several counts, both medieval and modern. It is home to one of Iceland's four mythical guardian spirits or <em><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landv%C3%A6ttir">landvættir</a></em>, the dragon (the other three are a great bird which resides in Eyjafjörður in the north, a bull based around Breiðafjörður in the west, and a mountain giant who roams around the south-west): all four creatures are pictured on Iceland's coat of arms, and on the obverse of Icelandic coins. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Vopnafjörður was the port from which the greatest numbers of <a href="http://www.vopnafjordur.com/attractions/history-n-culture/roots-in-vopnafjordur">Icelanders set sail for America and Canada</a> after the terrible hardships of life in the east at that time became impossible to endure any longer. Most recently -- and at the opposite end of the financial spectrum -- Vopnafjörður, or the rivers in the area and the <a href="http://www.vopnafjordur.com/activities/angling">salmon</a> in those rivers, have attracted figures such as Prince Charles and George Bush as well as numerous other high-profile tourists...</span></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"> <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GTvq77BJu98/TkAHdWpNSHI/AAAAAAAACAc/yzGMkb1O6dI/s1600/Looking+northeast+from+Hof.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="201" naa="true" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GTvq77BJu98/TkAHdWpNSHI/AAAAAAAACAc/yzGMkb1O6dI/s320/Looking+northeast+from+Hof.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Looking north-east from Hof</span></td></tr>
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<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">The saga that is set around Vopnafjörður, <em>Vápnfirðinga saga</em> ('The saga of the people of Weapon-Fjord') was the last of the eastern sagas on my list to work through. I have written in recent posts about some of the connections -- genealogical, geographical, narrative -- between these eastern sagas and <em>Vápnfirðinga saga</em> is no exception here. One of the two key places in <em>Vápnfirðinga saga</em>, Krossavík, is where Grímr Droplaugarson of <em>Droplaugarsonar saga</em> hid out after murdering Helgi Ásbjarnarson (see <a href="http://sagasteads.blogspot.com/2011/07/from-eastern-parts-ii-brothers-in-arms.html">post of 29th July</a>). A local man who was born and grew up on the farm at Krossavík came with me for a spin about the countryside in the Embulance and pointed out the places associated with Grímr around Krossavík land, as well as passing on countless other anecdotes attached to local places.</span></div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PBkgYKPcsOk/TkAEt1G0N-I/AAAAAAAACAM/DeIkl75_kf4/s1600/Krossav%25C3%25ADk.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="218" naa="true" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PBkgYKPcsOk/TkAEt1G0N-I/AAAAAAAACAM/DeIkl75_kf4/s400/Krossav%25C3%25ADk.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Krossavík </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">(the land slopes down to the sea to the left of the photo) </span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia;"><em>Vápnfirðinga saga</em> is not a very long one and it deals for the most part with the close friendship, and subsequently deadly enmity, between two brothers-in-law: Brodd-Helgi Þorgilsson who lives at Hof, and Geitir Lýtingsson who lives at Krossavík. The rift between the two men comes after a Norwegian merchant is murdered: Brodd-Helgi and Geitir at first divide the Norwegian's possessions between them, but the goods are later taken from Brodd-Helgi and Geitir by another man who delivers the possessions to the dead Norwegian's family. It is unclear what becomes of two precious things (a gold arm-ring and a casket), however, and the friendship between Brodd-Helgi and Geitir is poisoned by mutual suspicion. Tension is compounded when Brodd-Helgi abandons his terminally-ill wife (Geitir's sister) and announces his betrothal to another woman. The two men take different sides in various local disputes and eventually, one thing leads to another, and Geitir kills Brodd-Helgi. The feud is passed down to the next generation and Brodd-Helgi's son Bjarni then kills Geitir (who was his foster-father) in order to avenge his father's death...then Geitir's son Þorkell tries to kill Bjarni in order to avenge his father´s death...</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-wEWG7nviPuY/TkAFeD8T49I/AAAAAAAACAQ/OT3DJT8Ubto/s1600/Hof+looking+northwest.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="183" naa="true" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-wEWG7nviPuY/TkAFeD8T49I/AAAAAAAACAQ/OT3DJT8Ubto/s400/Hof+looking+northwest.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Hof (the white building to the right of the frame),</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">from Guðmundarstaðir, looking south-west across the valley</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">At a battle that takes place on a peninsula along the coast to the south of Vopnafjörður, both Bjarni and Þorkell sustain wounds -- but the battle is halted after women run out from a nearby farm and throw cloths over the weapons men are wielding. Bjarni offers a settlement package to Þorkell which he accepts, and so the saga ends, at least, with reconciliation...</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">I had the pleasure of being shown around other saga-sites in <em>Vápnfirðinga saga</em> by another local, Cathy -- who (together with her husband Sverrir) came to my rescue after somewhat alarmingly, the Embulance brakes seized up from chronic over-heating as I was descending the infamously steep and long Hellisheiði mountain pass into Vopnafjörður. A terrible smell of burning brakes culminated in a rather dramatic handbrake stop amidst clouds of dust...but all ended happily, thankfully, and the Embulance and I lived to tell the tale and continue to travel. It was an amazing road -- I took no pictures en route as all my energy was focused on staying on the road and negotiating the countless hairpin-bends -- I´d love to drive it again some time...but perhaps in a slightly lighter and more easily manouverable vehicle! </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Cathy is remarkable for many reasons, one of them being her history: her grandparents were amongst the many 'Western' Icelanders who emigrated from Vopnafjörður to the United States, which is where Cathy was born and lived...until she visited Iceland in order to explore her family past, and moved back east for good. A story of emigration come full circle... </span></div><br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HnlhlmzV4eA/TkAGFUP_aII/AAAAAAAACAU/snmmciI1YsQ/s1600/Sheep+at+Gu%25C3%25B0mundarsta%25C3%25B0ir.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" naa="true" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HnlhlmzV4eA/TkAGFUP_aII/AAAAAAAACAU/snmmciI1YsQ/s320/Sheep+at+Gu%25C3%25B0mundarsta%25C3%25B0ir.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Surprised sheep at the abandoned Guðmundarstaðir,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">another farm in <em>Vápnafirðinga saga</em></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Cathy is part of a local group which came together over the winter and, as part of a course on local tourism, read <em>Vápnfirðinga saga</em> and put together a very informative brochure about the saga. The brochure can be picked up in the tourist information and cultural centre (housed in an old merchant warehouse building called Kaupvangur) in Vopnafjörður, and it includes a map on which all of the farms mentioned in the saga are marked. Interestingly, it seems that the formation of this group has ignited a spark of local interest in the saga which wasn´t widely present before. On asking various people, it seemed that knowledge of, and interest in the saga hasn´t particularly been a part of life in Vopnafjörður for past generations... Now though, the saga is taught in the local school, and various <em>Vápnafirðinga saga</em>-related projects and activities are afoot. I spent a delightful hour leafing through a pile of pictures produced by school-children illustrating scenes and characters from the saga: one of my favourites was a brightly-coloured picture of a local farmhouse -- a farm which features in the saga, and on which the grandparents of the artist live today. The next post -- on <em>Reykdæla saga ok Víga-Skútu</em> -- will be something of an antidote to the all-too-often romantic temptations of seeing continuity between past and present in Iceland as far as the sagas and the places in them are concerned...but I left Vopnafjörður musing on how this saga, at least, seems to be one that has come full circle too, as far as its place in local consciousness is concerned. </span></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div> <br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-JAxWFkHYCD8/TkAI0i9QkGI/AAAAAAAACAg/nT1pgyyCF5M/s1600/Cairns+on+the+way+north+from+Vopnafj%25C3%25B6r%25C3%25B0ur.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="336" naa="true" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-JAxWFkHYCD8/TkAI0i9QkGI/AAAAAAAACAg/nT1pgyyCF5M/s640/Cairns+on+the+way+north+from+Vopnafj%25C3%25B6r%25C3%25B0ur.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Cairns on Sandvíkurheiði, on the way north from Vopnafjörður</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table> <br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div></div>Emily Lethbridgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12635622083913991862noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6993934953273965169.post-74851147634378978312011-08-02T17:54:00.000+01:002011-08-02T17:54:51.222+01:00Þorgeirr Hávarsson: A Headless Footnote<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>Fóstbræðra saga</em> ('The Saga of the Sworn-Brothers'), which is set for the most part in the West Fjords and which I wrote about earlier this year in May when I was there (see <a href="http://sagasteads.blogspot.com/2011/06/wild-westerners-fostbrra-saga-and.html">post of 14th June</a>), tells the story of two immensely strong and brave warriors and friends (Þórmóðr Kolbrúnarskáld Bersason and Þorgeirr Hávarsson) who swear to avenge each others' deaths...</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">One place I could not visit when I was exploring <em>Fóstbræðra saga</em> locations around the West Fjords was the site where Þorgeirr fought his last battle, died, and was buried...because this place is in north-east Iceland, on the peninsula called Melrakkaslétta ('Arctic fox plain'). Þorgeirr is attacked by his enemies there in the bay/harbour called Hraunhöfn, on board his ship: there is a violent battle and Þorgeirr kills 14 men before eventually being overcome. Once fallen, Þorgeirr's head is chopped from his trunk by a man called Þórarinn ofsi ('the overbearing'). </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FplKKrLX7Wo/Tjgq2A90Q-I/AAAAAAAAB_0/Wn9Ht8Ga9bA/s1600/Hraunhafnartangi.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="228" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FplKKrLX7Wo/Tjgq2A90Q-I/AAAAAAAAB_0/Wn9Ht8Ga9bA/s400/Hraunhafnartangi.jpg" t$="true" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Hraunhafnartangi, looking south</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Þorgeirsdys is to the left of the lighthouse as pictured</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">The saga narrator tells us how further bodily mutilation is inflicted on Þorgeirr's corpse out of anatomical curiosity: 'Some men say that they cleaved him to the heart and wanted to see what it was like, him being the courageous man he was, and men say that his heart was rather small; and some men believe it to be true that the heart of a courageous man is smaller than that of a coward, because men say there is less blood in a small heart than a big one, and say that the amount of blood in a heart is concomitant with fear, and men say thus the heart of a man drops/throbs in the breast when the blood and heart is stirred up in a man' (</span><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><em>Svá segja sumir menn, at þeir klyfði hann til hjarta ok vildu sjá, hvílíkt væri, svá hugprúðr sem hann var, en menn segja, at hjartat væri harla lítit, ok höfðu sumir menn þat fyrir satt, at minni sé hugprúðra manna hjörtu en huglaussa, því at menn kalla minna blóð í litlu hjarta en miklu, en kalla hjartablóði hræzlu fylgja, ok segja menn því detta hjarta manna í brjóstinu, at þá hræðisk hjartablóðit ok hjartat í manninum</em>; <em>Fóstbræðra saga</em>, ed. Björn K. Þórólfsson and Guðni Jónsson, Íslenzk fornrit 6, Reykjavík 1943, ch. 17 pp. 210-11). In the version of the saga found in the manuscript called Hauksbók, Þorgeirr's heart is said to be no bigger than a walnut, hard as a callous, and without any blood in it... </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">After the battle, Þórarinn ofsi rides off to Eyjafjörður with Þorgeirr's head in a bag: Þórarinn and his men amuse themselves en route by taking the head out and mocking it...until they take fright at its horrible appearance (its eyes stare back at them, open-wide, and the tongue lolls out of the open mouth) and they bury it not far from a place called Naust. Back on Melrakkaslétta, local men clear up the aftermath of battle, burying the men who have fallen right there because the nearest church at that time was a long way away. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-GJZFNJEI43s/TjgpDeQEFzI/AAAAAAAAB_o/TRE8DoBljKM/s1600/%25C3%259Eorgeirsdys+distance.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="195" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-GJZFNJEI43s/TjgpDeQEFzI/AAAAAAAAB_o/TRE8DoBljKM/s400/%25C3%259Eorgeirsdys+distance.jpg" t$="true" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Þorgeirsdys looking east</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">There is a lighthouse on Hraunhafnartangi ('Lava-harbour-point') now, and not far from it is a huge stone cairn, known as Þorgeirsdys ('Þorgeirr's cairn'). The peninsula is bleak and windswept, grey boulders piled up high along the shoreline and endless driftwood and tangles of old fishing-nets that have been washed ashore. I walked out to the cairn, after having read a small notice that explains why the cairn is so huge: it is a tradition to add a stone to the cairn, and then to walk clockwise around it, making a wish for others' happiness and good luck while doing so. My stone added, and my wishes sent up to the sky, I wandered back to the Embulance -- thinking about Þorgeirr and the distance between his head and body, and feeling somewhat vulnerable as far as my own head was concerned as angry arctic terns (kría in Icelandic) dive-bombed and screeched angrily at me for disturbing their otherwise completely uninhabited patch...</span><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-knRVQA-DBZU/TjgqIGnYL9I/AAAAAAAAB_w/z4WscPg5MyU/s1600/%25C3%259Eorgeirsdys+close.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-knRVQA-DBZU/TjgqIGnYL9I/AAAAAAAAB_w/z4WscPg5MyU/s320/%25C3%259Eorgeirsdys+close.jpg" t$="true" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">From the foot of Þorgeirsdys</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table></div>Emily Lethbridgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12635622083913991862noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6993934953273965169.post-68715421479477974142011-07-29T13:24:00.001+01:002011-07-29T17:16:24.327+01:00From Eastern Parts II: Brothers in Arms, or Droplaugarsona saga<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="IS" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: IS;">Two sons, Helgi and Grímr, were born to a couple (Þorvaldr and Droplaug) who lived at a place called Arneiðarstaðir (today Arnheiðarstaðir) on the western side of the long lake Lagarfljót, in the east of Iceland (the present-day capital of the east, Egilsstaðir, sits on east of the northern end of this lake, in which Iceland‘s equivalent of the Loch Ness Monster, the Lagarfljót serpent or Lagarfljótsormurinn, is said to reside...). Helgi, the elder, was ‚a large man, promising and strong, cheerful and self-assertive‘ who was not interested in thinking about farming, but the best of men as far as skill with weapons was concerned (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">mikill maðr vexti ok vænn ok sterkr, gleðimaðr ok hávaðasamr. Hann vildi ekki um búnað hugsa. Vígr var hann manna bezt</i>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Droplaugarsona saga</i> ch. 2, p. 140, ed. Jón Jóhannesson, Íslenzk fornrit XI, Reykjavík 1950). The younger son, Grímr, was also large and strong but silent and composed, and a good farmer (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">mikill maðr vexti ok afrendr at afli, hljóðlátr ok stilltr vel. Hann var búmaðr mikill</i>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Droplaugarsona saga</i> ch. 2, p. 142). These two men were thought to have the greatest potential of all the young men in the district. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2srrSUhApRI/TjKj_aXxkvI/AAAAAAAAB-g/Z_7XQBWTRvk/s1600/Arnei%25C3%25B0arsta%25C3%25B0ir.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="195" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2srrSUhApRI/TjKj_aXxkvI/AAAAAAAAB-g/Z_7XQBWTRvk/s400/Arnei%25C3%25B0arsta%25C3%25B0ir.jpg" t$="true" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The old farmhouse at Arnheiðarstaðir</span></td></tr>
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="IS" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: IS;">The saga of these two brothers, the ‚sons of Droplaug‘ (who was their mother, and whose name they take rather than that of their father‘s, on account of their father dying early in their lives) takes place for the most part around the Lagarfljót lake – which, at 25kms running on a north-east/south-west axis, is one of the longest lakes in Iceland. At the ages of 13 and 12, respectively, Helgi and Grímr kill a man called Þorgrímr torðyfill (‚dung-beetle‘) who had been spreading slander about their mother. They travel to a farm called Eyvindarár on the other side of the Lagarfljót lake, where their aunt lives, rise up early in the morning, and when their aunt asks where they are off to, they answer „We shall hunt ptarmigan“ (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">„Rjúpur skulum vér veiða“</i>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Droplaugarsona saga</i> ch. 3, p. 145). On their return to Eyvindarár a little later, when their aunt asks what they hunted, they answer „We hunted down a certain dung-beetle“ (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">„Vit höfum veitt torðyfil einn“</i>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Droplaugarsona saga</i> ch. 3, p. 146). This killing does not go down well with a local man called Helgi Ásbjarnarson, since the dead Þorgrímr dung-beetle was one of his men. The greater part of the rest of the saga tells of the escalating feud between the brothers and Helgi Ásbjarnarson: tense local politics, disputes over missing sheep, conflict over the courting of a married woman and other episodes all contribute to the escalating tension and enmity between the two sides.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Kej4bCXiqXQ/TjKkXLws0pI/AAAAAAAAB-k/UF19t991lDA/s1600/Lagarflj%25C3%25B3t+from+western+side.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="210" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Kej4bCXiqXQ/TjKkXLws0pI/AAAAAAAAB-k/UF19t991lDA/s400/Lagarflj%25C3%25B3t+from+western+side.jpg" t$="true" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Lagarfljót from the western side</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="IS" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: IS;">Both sides gather support and have spies out about the area to watch on each other‘s movements; eventually, Helgi has a dream in which it seems to him that the brothers travel exactly the route they are embarked upon in reality, down into Eyvindardalr (on the north-eastern side of Lagarfljót) to a place called Kálfshváll – where it happens that Helgi Ásbjarnarson is hiding nearby, waiting to ambush the brothers. Helgi dreams that the brothers are attacked by 18 or 20 wolves, one of which is bigger than the others, another of which leaps up at Helgi‘s chin and mouth...at which point Helgi wakes up. The dream is interpreted as being a sign that a band of men (with Helgi Ásbjarnarson as their leader) are lying in wait for the brothers; Helgi Droplaugarson refuses to turn back, however. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-0NTeKnvRze0/TjKkmlkNp8I/AAAAAAAAB-o/LaNCFK9Ii7I/s1600/Vopnal%25C3%25A1g+Eyvindardalur.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="177" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-0NTeKnvRze0/TjKkmlkNp8I/AAAAAAAAB-o/LaNCFK9Ii7I/s320/Vopnal%25C3%25A1g+Eyvindardalur.jpg" t$="true" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Vopnalág in Eyvindardalur, where Helgi </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Ásbjarnarson </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">is said to have hidden </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">(the hill with the scooped-out centre)</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="IS" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: IS;">The brothers come down into Eyvindardalr and head towards the ford by Kálfshváll; it is still winter and the river is frozen. 18 men run towards Helgi and Grímr who turn off the path and up towards the edge of a gully: a great battle takes place and Helgi demonstrates his agility and prowess with weapons. A man called Hjarrandi hews at Helgi‘s face and hits him on the mouth: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">„Aldri var ek fagrleitr, en lítit hefir þú um bætt“</i> (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Droplaugarsona saga</i> ch. 10, p. 164; „I was never good-looking, but you haven´t helped much“), quips Helgi. Helgi takes his beard in his mouth and bites on it; he looks over and sees that his brother has fallen, is hit by a spear, and dies himself. The brothers‘ aunt hears of the battle, and sends her son to the battle-field to recover Helgi‘s and Grímr‘s bodies. Helgi is buried at Eyvindarár in a mound but it turns out that Grímr is not actually dead, and he is nursed back to life...to exact vengeance on Helgi Ásbjarnarson for the death of is brother. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="IS" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: IS;">Grímr hides out in various local places and then strikes, killing Helgi Ásbjarnarson in his bed on his farm at Eiðar. This scene is an interesting one – and many of the details concerning how Grímr sneaks into the farmhouse at Eiðar (how he ties together the tails of the cattle in the cowshed in order to inhibit people‘s pursuit of him later, for example, and is clad lightly in a shirt and linen underclothes without shoes) have very close parallels in the description in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Gísla saga Súrssonar</i> of how Gísli kills Þorgrímr at night in his bed. There is certainly some close textual relationship between the two sagas here – but scholars have debated which of the two sagas borrows from the other and recasts the scene. After killing Helgi, Grímr flees north to a farm at Krossavík in Vopnafjörður where his kinsman Geitir Lýtingsson lives. He hides out there for a while, then escapes to Norway, and then dies from a wound he picks up while fighting a viking called Gauss...</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Kb4_nOowoKE/TjKlITyynPI/AAAAAAAAB-s/H-rumljVEd4/s1600/Gr%25C3%25ADmsb%25C3%25A1s.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Kb4_nOowoKE/TjKlITyynPI/AAAAAAAAB-s/H-rumljVEd4/s320/Gr%25C3%25ADmsb%25C3%25A1s.jpg" t$="true" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Grímsbás (under the rock overhang)</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="IS" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: IS;">I was shown, and told about, various places around Lagarfljót where Grímr is said to have hidden, and which contain the element ‚Grímr‘ in them. Grímstorfa ('Grímr's turf') can be seen when driving out along the road from Egilsstaðir/Fellabær, on a mountain called Hafursfell, where a number of trees grow out from the rock high up. This place is not named in the saga, but it´s mentioned in a folk tale – though this folk tale also records an alternative tradition that the place-name is associated with a different Grímr. I climbed down to another Grímr-place, Grímsbás ('Grímr's stall') – a low overhang of rock forming a cave by a waterfall, with what seems to be a man-made wall running along the outer mouth of the cave. The slopes by the waterfall were studded with birch trees, and grasses and wild flowers grew high and abundantly. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="IS" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: IS;">Outlaws and heroes on the run seem to capture the imaginations of past generations of Icelanders almost more than anything else, if the number of place-names around the country associated with these characters‘ hideouts are anything to go by...From Lagarfljót I travelled north up to Vopnafjörður with the dual aim of visiting Krossavík and finding Grímr‘s hideouts there (there‘s a gully known as Grímsgjá, in which Grímr is said to have hidden, a large stone halfway up the mountain behind the farm called Tjaldsteinn (‚Tent-stone‘) which Grímr is said to have used to construct a woollen tent with, and a slope on the same mountain called Grímsbyggðir (<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="background: yellow; mso-highlight: yellow;"><span style="background-color: white;">‚Grímr‘s settled area‘</span></span>),</span> and taking on the saga that is set in Vopnafjörður, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Vápnfirðinga saga</i>, in which Krossavík features too. But these Grímr-place-names notwithstanding, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Droplaugarsona saga</i> doesn´t seem to be a saga that has a central place in many local people‘s consciousness today. There is an information sign beside the road that leads out of Egilsstaðir and towards Fagridalur, close by where the battle of Eyvindardalur was fought but little else around the area. The saga was closer to the hearts and in the imaginations of people who lived in the area one or two generations ago though: south of the farm at Arneiðarstaðir where the brothers were born and grew up is a farm called Droplaugarstaðir...which was built in 1942, and on which, at one time, lived two cousins who were both called Droplaug... <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-myFRdfEfuGI/TjKldhYkoRI/AAAAAAAAB-w/DWLxPOGejxs/s1600/Val%25C3%25BEj%25C3%25B3fssta%25C3%25B0ir+kirkja+door+panel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-myFRdfEfuGI/TjKldhYkoRI/AAAAAAAAB-w/DWLxPOGejxs/s320/Val%25C3%25BEj%25C3%25B3fssta%25C3%25B0ir+kirkja+door+panel.jpg" t$="true" width="317" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Upper panel of the famous medieval carved door panels</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">at Valþjófsstaðir church, in <em>Droplaugarsona saga</em> territory</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">(the originals are in the National Museum)</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="IS" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: IS;">And another link with the saga-age past has been put forward by a local historian (Helgi Hallgrímsson, whose parents built Droplaugarstaðir). In the summer of 1980 the biggest silver hoard ever found in Iceland was uncovered on a farm called Miðhús, on the outskirts of Egilsstaðir, not far from Eyvindarár. It had been a hot summer and the family had been building a new house: a muddy patch by the house had dried up cracked open and on her way out to call the family in for food, Edda, who lives there still, stumbled on something stuck in the ground. When her family came in, their hands were filled with bracelets and twists of silver. Was this the silver that Arneiðr <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>– from whom the farm Arneiðarstaðir takes its name, a woman of noble Shetland descent who was captured and enslaved, then bought and married by one of the first eastern settlers and the first person to be named in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Droplaugarsona saga</i>, Ketill þrymr – found buried in Norway, as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Droplaugarsona saga</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Fljótsdæla saga</i> recount?...</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="IS" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: IS;">For further reading on Grímr-place-names, and on Arneiðr and the silver hoard, see </span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;"><span lang="IS" style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: IS; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span lang="IS" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: IS;">Helgi Hallgrímsson, 'Grímshellir og Grímsbás', <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Múlaþing</i> 15 (1987), 117-31</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;"><span lang="IS" style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: IS; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span lang="IS" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: IS;">Helgi Hallgrímsson, ‚Arneiður og Droplaug: Frásögn af tveimur fornkonum á Austurlandi‘, in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Greinar af sama meiði, helgaðar Indriða Gíslasyni sjötugum</i> (Reykjavík, 1998), pp. 359-74 </span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;"><span lang="IS" style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: IS; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span lang="IS" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: IS;">Þór Magnússon, ‚Silfursjóður frá Miðhúsum í Egilsstaðahreppi‘, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Árbók hins íslenska fornleifafélags</i> (1980/1981), 5-20 (available online here, with photos of the hoard <a href="http://timarit.is/view_page_init.jsp?pageId=2054967">http://timarit.is/view_page_init.jsp?pageId=2054967</a>)</span></div><span style="font-family: Georgia;"></span>Emily Lethbridgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12635622083913991862noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6993934953273965169.post-4278554350556375892011-07-21T19:06:00.000+01:002011-07-21T19:06:38.946+01:00From Eastern Parts I: Hrafnkels saga Freysgoða<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2-sW35cOuKI/TicufqIYJyI/AAAAAAAAB8g/njjlMiBt1yg/s1600/Driving+to+Hrafnkelsdalur%252C+sheep.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="195" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2-sW35cOuKI/TicufqIYJyI/AAAAAAAAB8g/njjlMiBt1yg/s400/Driving+to+Hrafnkelsdalur%252C+sheep.jpg" t$="true" width="400" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="IS" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: IS;">The most famous saga set in the east of Iceland is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hrafnkels saga Freysgoða</i>. The saga is relatively short and its plot is simple; with regard to interpretation, however, it is a highly ambiguous saga in many ways and more has been written about it—and what its ‚message‘ may be—than about many other sagas put together. It is a narrative about power, certainly, and what it takes to hold on to power, but it is by no means a black-and-white picture... </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2RQJYF4kXQ4/TicvPgzcgQI/AAAAAAAAB8k/bZ85ve1bd-E/s1600/A%25C3%25B0alb%25C3%25B3l%252C+south+down+Hrafnkelsdalur.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2RQJYF4kXQ4/TicvPgzcgQI/AAAAAAAAB8k/bZ85ve1bd-E/s320/A%25C3%25B0alb%25C3%25B3l%252C+south+down+Hrafnkelsdalur.jpg" t$="true" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Aðalból today, looking south down Hrafnkelsdalur</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="IS" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: IS;">The eponymous Hrafnkell establishes a farm at a place called Aðalból, in Hrafnkelsdalur (to the west of the long narrow lake Lagarfljót, at whose head is the modernday capital of the east, Egilsstaðir). He is a devotee of the god Freyr, becomes a powerful and overbearing chieftain (and acquires the by-name ‚Freysgoði‘, or Freyr‘s priest‘), and owns a horse which he names Freyfaxi. Hrafnkell vows he will kill anyone who rides this horse. Einarr, the son of a poor neighbour, is employed as Hrafnkell‘s shepherd: Hrafnkell tells him he may ride any one of his horses except Freyfaxi—doing so will result in death. ‘Forewarned is forearmed‘, comments Hrafnkell (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">„Eigi veldr sá, er varar annan“</i>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hrafnkels saga Freysgoða</i> ch. 3, ed. Jón Jóhannesson, Íslenzk fornrit 11, Reykjavík 1950, p. 102). </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-m3AaHoI52uk/Ticvz3AsfLI/AAAAAAAAB8o/ak_tJgRg4Ms/s1600/Faxagil.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-m3AaHoI52uk/Ticvz3AsfLI/AAAAAAAAB8o/ak_tJgRg4Ms/s320/Faxagil.jpg" t$="true" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Faxagil, south of Aðalból</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="IS" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: IS;">One day, however, Einarr cannot find the sheep. He decides to make use of a horse to search for them, but all of the horses run off with the exception of Freyfaxi. Einarr mounts Freyfaxi and goes off to look for the sheep, which he eventually finds back at the place where he started his search. Freyfaxi runs home to Aðalból, sweating and foaming at the mouth; Hrafnkell sees the horse has been ridden, and kills Einarr to avenge this. Einarr‘s cousin Sámr takes on the legal case against Hrafnkell—Hrafnkell laughs at this—but after gaining the support of powerful brothers from the West Fjords, Sámr wins the case at the Alþingi (the national assembly) despite being very much the underdog. After returning to the east, Sámr subjects Hrafnkell and his men to gruesome torture at Aðalból (tying them together and hanging them up by means of threading a rope through their hamstrings, until the blood runs out of their eyes), and Sámr then gives Hrafnkell the choice of death or keeping his life but moving out of the district. Hrafnkell chooses to move away, and Sámr takes up residence himself at Aðalból. Hrafnkell moves east and establishes a new farm which is called Hrafnkelsstaðir. Freyfaxi is driven over a cliff and drowned in a pool; Hrafnkell‘s temple to Freyr is destroyed. </span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Ia7eXmkTA1w/TicwN9ilOlI/AAAAAAAAB8s/CC9pDdwXsEU/s1600/Daisies+and+fjallagras%252C+north+up+Hrafnkelsdalur.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="212" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Ia7eXmkTA1w/TicwN9ilOlI/AAAAAAAAB8s/CC9pDdwXsEU/s320/Daisies+and+fjallagras%252C+north+up+Hrafnkelsdalur.jpg" t$="true" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Looking north up Hrafnkelsdalur</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="IS" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: IS;">Hrafnkell prospers on his new farm and builds up his power again; he abandons his devotion to the god Freyr. Some years later, Sámr‘s brother Eyvindr returns to Iceland after a stint abroad. Hrafnkell learns that Eyvindr is travelling to visit Sámr at Aðalból; pursues him, and kills him in order to exact vengeance on Sámr. Sámr finds his dead brother, raises a burial mound over him. Hrafnkell goes home to Hrafnkelsstaðir, calmly has a meal, and then sets off to Aðalból where he gives Sámr the same choice of options that Sámr offered to him before: to die, or to live (with shame) and move out of Aðalból. Sámr chooses the latter and moves back to his farm at Leiksskálar. Hrafnkell dies of sickness and is buried in a mound at Aðalból; his sons take over his chieftancy and become powerful men themselves. ‚And there concludes what there is to say about Hrafnkell‘ (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ok lýkr þar frá Hrafnkeli at segja</i>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hrafnkels saga</i> ch. 10, p. 133). <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="IS" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: IS;">The saga has long been a test-case in the debate over whether the sagas are essentially 13th-century fiction, or have their origins in oral traditions about historical events that were passed down from one generation to the next and finally inscribed on parchment several hundred years after the times these events are said to have taken place. Much scholarly ink has also been spilt over the extent to which the presentation of local topography in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hrafnkels saga</i> ‚fits‘ or can be reconciled with what is to be found in the local area in modern times. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-LTfMDXCy_Nw/TicwxZs8E4I/AAAAAAAAB9I/lyo52WxMWBk/s1600/Hrossageilar%252C+north+up+Hrafnkelsdalur.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-LTfMDXCy_Nw/TicwxZs8E4I/AAAAAAAAB9I/lyo52WxMWBk/s320/Hrossageilar%252C+north+up+Hrafnkelsdalur.jpg" t$="true" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Hrossageilar, above Aðalból, where Sámr and </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">his men left their horses before going down</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">to Aðalból to torture Hrafnkell??</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="IS" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: IS;">There are a number of occasions in the saga where place-names are explained as having come into existence after certain events: the saga notes, for example, how places around where Sámr‘s brother Eyvindr was killed by Hrafnkell are known variously as Eyvindartorfa (‚Eyvindr‘s turf‘),Eyvindarfjöll (‚Eyvindr‘s mountain‘) and Eyvindardalr‘ (‚Eyvindr‘s valley‘) (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Er þar ok kölluð Eyvindartorfa ok Eyvindarfjöll ok Eyvindardalr</i>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hrafnkels saga</i> ch. 8, p. 130; ‘That place is now called Eyvindartorfa and Eyvindarfjöll and Eyvindardalr‘). The spot where Sámr and his men concealed their horses above the farm Aðalból before driving Hrafnkell away ‚has since been called Hrossageilar (‚Narrow glen/lane of horses‘)‘ (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">heita þar síðan Hrossageilar</i>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hrafnkels saga</i> ch. 5, p. 119). And the spot from where the horse Freyfaxi was driven to his death ‚has since been called Freyfaxahamarr (‚Freyfaxi‘s cliff‘)‘ (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Heitir þar síðan Freyfaxahamarr</i>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hrafnkels saga</i> ch. 6, p. 124). <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="IS" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: IS;">Many of the places named in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hrafnkels saga</i>—individual farmsteads, shepherd‘s cots, natural features such as rivers and gullies—can be found on a map, though as always, it is possible to debate whether the identification of these places <u>today</u> corresponds with where they were (or were thought to be) at the time when the saga was written, and again, at the time when the events that the saga describes took place. The farm at Aðalból itself is one example of this—was the Aðalból of the saga located where the modern Aðalból is today, or was it originally somewhere further south in the valley? Some of those who have written about topography and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hrafnkels saga</i> have questioned the ‘fit‘ between the saga‘s description of the natural features around Aðalból, and the lie of the land in which the present Aðalból is set. Others are certain that the saga Aðalból was located where the modern Aðalból is, though the valley has not been continuously inhabited from the saga-age to present times, due to volcanic ash falling at different times (after the volcano Hekla erupted in 1185, for example, the valley seems to have been deserted until the late middle ages when it was resettled). </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-LgUliwjIUbs/TicxX7cIZ1I/AAAAAAAAB9M/8wJN9XzFZS8/s1600/Basalt+and+moss.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="187" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-LgUliwjIUbs/TicxX7cIZ1I/AAAAAAAAB9M/8wJN9XzFZS8/s320/Basalt+and+moss.jpg" t$="true" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Basalt formations with moss</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="IS" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: IS;">The present Aðalból was dug by Sigurður Vigfússon in the late 19th century and identified a mound there which may or may not be Hrafnkell‘s mound...it is said to be his, at any rate (and Sigurður wrote that the human bones found in it must be Hrafnkell's). Other sites in the valley have been excavated too: archaeologists have identified a total of 20 dwelling places from early times, 16 of which were apparently abandoned after the 1185 Hekla eruption. Some places named in the saga cannot be (or have not been) identified at all—though local people and scholars of the saga have walked hill and dale to find them. One site that was long sought out was the location of the shepherd‘s cot Reykjasel, mentioned in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hrafnkels saga</i> in conjunction with the shepherd Einarr‘s fated searching for Hrafnkell‘s missing sheep. A local man who had been pondering the location Reykjasel for many years finally stumbled upon it, literally, while rounding up sheep in an autumn fog, shortly before construction (or destruction, depending on one´s perspective) work begain on the infamous Kárahnjúkur dam and reservoir in 2005. The site was excavated hurriedly in 2005 before the land was flooded and turned into the Hálslón lagoon that feeds the Kárahnjúkur hydro-electric power-plant. <span lang="IS" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: IS; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">Other examples are Eyvindartorfa (where Eyvindr was buried, see above) and Freyfaxahamarr (where the horse Freyfaxi met his death, see above).</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="IS" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: IS;">The saga continues to draw people to the remote Hrafnkelsdalur valley, however—on the present farm there is accommodation, a petrol pump, and a bar which goes by the name of ‘Sámsbar‘...and in which I am writing up this post. When I asked the owners why the bar is named after Sámr and not Hrafnkell, they replied that they found him to be a more sympathetic character...and so he is in many, though not in all, ways (here I think of his hamstringing of Hrafnkell). But the victory of the underdog turns out to be short-lived—perhaps it would have been more enduring had Sámr killed Hrafnkell as he was urged to do by others...but this is an uncomfortable equation/conclusion. „Svona er lífið“ (‚Such is life‘), an Icelander might say... <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-51DD1_UeOjA/TicxwomwArI/AAAAAAAAB9Q/WyCDqqYu1_A/s1600/North+from+Tunguspor%25C3%25B0ur.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="177" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-51DD1_UeOjA/TicxwomwArI/AAAAAAAAB9Q/WyCDqqYu1_A/s400/North+from+Tunguspor%25C3%25B0ur.jpg" t$="true" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">From the southern foot of Hrafnkelsdalur</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="IS" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: IS;">For those who want to read more about <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hrafnkels saga</i> and place-names, one place to start is with an article by O. D. Macrae-Gibson, ‘The Topography of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hrafnkels</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">saga</i>‘, published in the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Saga-Book of the Viking Society</i> 19 (1974-77), 239-63, and accessible online at <a href="http://www.vsnrweb-publications.org.uk/Saga-Book%20XIX.pdf">http://www.vsnrweb-publications.org.uk/Saga-Book%20XIX.pdf</a>. Further references to previous scholarship can be found therein. </span></div>Emily Lethbridgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12635622083913991862noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6993934953273965169.post-921876980561697452011-07-15T22:28:00.001+01:002011-07-16T17:44:52.971+01:00Njáls saga II: The burning at Bergþórshváll<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">A week or so ago, the bridge over Mýrdalssandur in the south was swept away by a flash glacial flood. While repairs are underway, all traffic heading east of Vík must therefore either follow the ring-road north and around in a clockwise direction, or else must take on the Nyrðra-Fjallabak back route which, via Landmannalaugar, skirts through the highlands north of Mýrdalsjökull, and rejoins the main road at the eastern end of Mýrdalssandur. The Embulance is a Land Rover, after all, so I thought I´d take on this challenge... It was challenging -- I lost count of the number of rivers I had to ford (4-wheel drive very much engaged, diff lock on...cue alarming clouds of steam rising out of the bonnet and from the underside of the vehicle). But we made it. And the drive was spectacular, though I was concentrating so hard for the most part that I didn´t have the energy to take many photos en route. We shall see now what the east has to offer: sagas to hand for this next stint are three, namely <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hrafnkels saga Freysgoða</i>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Droplaugarsona saga</i>, and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Vápnfirðinga saga</i>. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif";">I´m on my way east here...but the weather is dreary and dim and damp and I´ve stopped at a campsite at a place called Stafafell in Lón, near the eastern tip of the vast Vatnajökull glacier...While I wait for brighter weather to come along, I thought I´d put up a short <em><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif";">Njáls saga</span></em> Part II post as promised in my last one, this time focusing on the dramatic high-point of the saga -- the burning of Njáll's farm at Bergþórshváll, which is said to have taken place exactly 1000 years ago. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ByqwiVczF1Q/TiCn6VqwSOI/AAAAAAAAB8A/Y4Kw6Oc_qJI/s1600/Berg%25C3%25BE%25C3%25B3rshvoll+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="172" m$="true" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ByqwiVczF1Q/TiCn6VqwSOI/AAAAAAAAB8A/Y4Kw6Oc_qJI/s400/Berg%25C3%25BE%25C3%25B3rshvoll+2.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Bergþórsvhvoll today; Þríhyrningur to the right</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif";">After the narrative about Gunnarr of Hlíðarendi and his death (related in the last post), the saga focuses on Njáll’s sons. Njáll’s eldest son, Skarpheðinn, is amongst the most vividly-drawn male characters in the sagas: he is described as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">mikill maðr vexti ok styrkr, vígr vel, syndr sem selr, manna fóthvatastr, skjótráðr ok øruggr, gagnorðr ok skjótorðr, en þó löngum vel stilltr. Hann var jarpr á hár ok sveipr í hárinu, eygðr vel, fölleitr ok skarpleitr, liðr á nefi ok lá hátt tanngarðrinn, munnljótr nökkut ok þó manna hermannligastr</i> (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Brennu-Njáls saga</i> ch. 25, p. 70, ed. Einar Ól. Sveinsson, Íslenzk fornrit XII, Reykjavík 1954; ‘a large man and strong, well skilled in arms, who could swim like a seal, the most swift-footed of men, rash in resolving disputes and fearless, straight-speaking and quick-speaking, but composed most of the time. He had curly chestnut hair, good eyes, was pale-coloured and with sharp features, hook-nosed and his teeth stuck out prominently, he was rather ugly in the mouth but nevertheless the most warlike of men’). One of the most sharply-depicted battles in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Njáls saga</i> describes how Skarpheðinn kills a man called Þráinn Sigfússon – by gliding across the ice-covered Markarfljót river with breathtaking speed (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">fór hann svá hart sem fogl flygi</i>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Brennu-Njáls saga</i> ch. 92, p. 233; ‘he travelled as fast as a bird flying’) and sinking his axe into Þráinn’s head. As part of the subsequent settlement, Njáll fosters Þráinn’s son Höskuldr and arranges Höskuldr’s marriage to a woman called Hildigunnr, and a new chieftancy is created and bestowed on Höskuldr who gains the nickname ‘Hvítanessgoði’ (‘chieftain of Hvítanes’). </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Yvef6krdBPo/TiCrQoeXw4I/AAAAAAAAB8M/Gv3cybVtTaY/s1600/Skarphe%25C3%25B0inn+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="161" m$="true" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Yvef6krdBPo/TiCrQoeXw4I/AAAAAAAAB8M/Gv3cybVtTaY/s320/Skarphe%25C3%25B0inn+2.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Skarpheðinn kills Þráinn on Markarfljót</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif";">Höskuldr is later killed by Skarpheðinn (accompanied by the other Njálssynir and Kári Sölmundarson) when one of the few truly evil characters in the sagas, Mörðr Valgarðsson, sows seeds of discontent between Njáll’s sons and Höskuldr. Höskuldr’s widow, Hildigunnr, keeps Höskuldr’s blood-encrusted cloak and thrusts it at her uncle Flosi when he comes to visit. It was Flosi who gave Höskuldr the cloak in the first place and Hildigunnr’s act lays responsibility for avenging Höskuldr’s death on Flosi, who is not optimistic about this task: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">‘Þú ert it mesta forað ok vildir, at vér tækim þat upp, er öllum oss gegnir verst, ok eru köld kvenna ráð’</i> (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Brennu-Njáls saga</i> ch. 116, pp. 291-2; ‘You the greatest monster and want us to take that course which will be worst for all, and the counsels of women are cold’). Attempts at legal reconciliation at the Alþingi (the national assembly) fail; Flosi gathers support, and a band of 100 men travel to Bergþórshváll to carry out the act of vengeance. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif";">Various supernatural portents anticipate the momentous act of the burning of Bergþórshváll and poignantly, Njáll´s wife tells the family to choose what they want to eat for their last supper. Njáll tells everyone to go inside the farm in order to defend themselves when the attackers arrive, but they have no chance against fire; typically, Skarpheðinn would rather be outside, having no wish to suffocate like a fox in a lair’ (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">‘Em ek ófúss þess at láta svæla mik inni sem melrakka í greni’</i>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Brennu-Njáls saga</i> ch. 128, p. 326). Though Njáll and others are offered truce and the chance to leave the blazing house, they remain inside. Njáll, his wife Bergþóra, and a young boy they are fostering retire to bed, pulling an ox-skin over them and crossing themselves in God’s name. Kári Sölmundarson (who is married to one of Njáll's daughters) manages to break through burning rafters and escapes: he extinguishes the flames that have taken hold of him in a nearby ditch (which the saga notes is subsequently called Káragróf (‘Kári’s pit’) – one of the few instances in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Njáls saga</i> of events being used to explain place-names) and disappears under the cover of smoke. It is Kári who later pursues Flosi in order to avenge the burning and deaths of those who were inside: this comprises the final part of the saga. Skarpheðinn is trapped between the roof and the gable-end and cannot move; from outside, as the flames fire up and die down, a verse is heard from inside. Gunnarr of Hlíðarendi’s son Grani asks: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">‘Hvárt mun Skarpheðinn hafa kveðit vísu þessa lífs eða dauðr?’</i> (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Brennu-Njáls saga</i> ch. 130, p. 337; ‘Has Skarpheðinn composed this verse alive or dead?’). Everyone in the house dies and the burners leave the site, and ride to the mountain Þríhyrningr to watch movements around the district for 3 days. Flosi comments on the deed: ‘Now we have brought about a great loss of lives. We may also know now, those who have brought it about, what ill-luck we have’ (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">‘Nú höfum vér fingit mikinn mannskaða. Megu vér nú ok vita, er þetta hefir at borit, hvert heillaleysi vér höfum’</i>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Brennu-Njáls saga</i> ch. 130, p. 338). </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1uXnUhP0iyM/TiCotL92IvI/AAAAAAAAB8E/vcRsB0FGYp8/s1600/Skarphe%25C3%25B0inn.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="246" m$="true" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1uXnUhP0iyM/TiCotL92IvI/AAAAAAAAB8E/vcRsB0FGYp8/s320/Skarphe%25C3%25B0inn.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Skarpheðinn</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif";">When the remains of the burnt farm are examined, Njáll (and Bergþóra and the boy) are found to be unburnt underneath the ox-skin, though one finger on the boy which had stuck out from beneath the skin is charred: a miracle. Skarpheðinn is found burnt from the feet up to his knees, but not above: ‘he had bitten through his lip. His eyes were open and not swollen. He had driven his axe so hard into the gable that it had sunk in up to the middle of the blade, and had not softened’ (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hann hafði bitit á kampi sínum. Augu hans váru opin ok óþrútin. Hann hafði rekit øxina í gaflaðit svá fast, at gengit hafði allt upp á miðjan fetann, ok var ekki dignuð’</i>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Brennu-Njáls saga</i> ch. 132, p. 343). When Bergþórshváll was dug by archaologists in 1883, 1855, 1927-28, 1931, and finally 1950-52, various artefacts came to light. On one occasion, a kind of white powder was found...and was explained as the remains of the skyr (a kind of yoghurt made of whey that was a staple part of Icelandic diet since early times) that Bergþóra had called to be poured over the flames...<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; mso-ansi-language: IS;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif";"></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-afJVgu71mZE/TiCpkYXPaAI/AAAAAAAAB8I/g6DI-tYwDWM/s1600/Berg%25C3%25BE%25C3%25B3rshvoll+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" m$="true" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-afJVgu71mZE/TiCpkYXPaAI/AAAAAAAAB8I/g6DI-tYwDWM/s320/Berg%25C3%25BE%25C3%25B3rshvoll+1.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Approach to Bergþórshvoll <br />
(modern house is to left, out of the frame)</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif";">Collingwood described Bergþórshváll as standing ‘</span><span lang="IS" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; mso-ansi-language: IS;">on its twin hillocks among marshes, the broad Affall winding between it and the sands of this harbourless and surf-beaten shore, with the Westman Islands rising sharply from the sea-line, twelve miles away, and Eyjafell standing nobly over the flats to eastward‘ (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pilgrimage to the Sagasteads of Iceland</i>, p. 24). He has little else to say about the place other than it being the site of the tragic burning; William Morris, on the other hand, writes of exploring the area and gives free rein to his imagination. ‘The longest of the three mounds, which lay west from the house, rightly or wrongly, gave one strongly the impression of having been the site of Njal´s house: it was about 200 feet long and sloped steeply away into the flatter slope of the field: from its top one looked south across the grey flats with a thin greyer line of sea and the Westman Isles rising out of it‘ (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Journals of Travel in Iceland 1871-1873</i>, p. 43. Morris is shown ‚the traditional places about the stead‘—‚Flosi‘s Hollow‘ and ‚Kári‘s Garth‘—and he notes ‘how much the present Icelanders realise the old stories‘ (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Journals</i>, p. 45). </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif";">I found Bergþórshváll to be a strange place and I found it hard to match the violent scene of the burning with the location as it is today: a modern house now stands on one of the hills and there was noone around to ask where Káragróf, for example, is thought to be. An information board describes the burning as told in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Njáls saga</i> and notes the archaeological investigations conducted there, but the place felt empty. My sense that the time has passed for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Njáls saga</i> as a narrative that lives in the landscape (something I mentioned in the last post) seemed to be confirmed by a number of people I met and talked to, for various reasons. Of course there are people in the area who know the saga back-to-front, but as a piece of written literature rather than as living local stories. The poignancy of this time passing was driven home when I ventured into the old age home: one or two old people there told me how in previous times, <span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">*everyone* talked about <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Njáls saga</i>, in all kinds of contexts, and addressing all kinds of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Njála</i>-related issues. I left <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Njáls saga</i> country feeling a little sad. </span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-drZU5-EiEPs/TiCwkun7VdI/AAAAAAAAB8U/SBAKrOYPkmU/s1600/Fjallabak+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" m$="true" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-drZU5-EiEPs/TiCwkun7VdI/AAAAAAAAB8U/SBAKrOYPkmU/s320/Fjallabak+2.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Landmannalaugar</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"> </span></span></span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-X88QBIfN01M/TiCwPyaIWcI/AAAAAAAAB8Q/YmknH-9khwI/s1600/Fjallabak+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="167" m$="true" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-X88QBIfN01M/TiCwPyaIWcI/AAAAAAAAB8Q/YmknH-9khwI/s320/Fjallabak+3.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Landmannalaugar</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-cy11F5IVghk/TiCw9w3jvXI/AAAAAAAAB8Y/DzPR9lRc0HM/s1600/Fjallabak+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" m$="true" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-cy11F5IVghk/TiCw9w3jvXI/AAAAAAAAB8Y/DzPR9lRc0HM/s320/Fjallabak+1.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Landmannalaugar</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Emily Lethbridgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12635622083913991862noreply@blogger.com23tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6993934953273965169.post-72639696637161236652011-07-07T13:16:00.000+01:002013-05-08T20:11:02.817+01:00Petrol stations and priests...<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">...A short piece on petrol stations and priests -- and their place in my project -- broadcast earlier this morning on the BBC R4 programme 'From our own Correspondent'...</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01292v1">http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01292v1</a> (at 00:10:58 into the programme). </span>Emily Lethbridgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12635622083913991862noreply@blogger.com356tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6993934953273965169.post-16343494740417452032011-07-06T12:13:00.001+01:002013-05-08T20:11:32.040+01:00The South: Country of Burnt Njáll<div style="font: 12.0px Georgia; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-align: justify;">
<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Njáls saga</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">. Where to begin with the saga that is reckoned to be the jewel in the saga crown? In addition to its peerless reputation, at over 450 pages in the Íslenzk fornrit edition (</span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Brennu-Njáls saga</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">, ed. Einar Ól. Sveinsson, Reykjavík 1954), it is by far the longest of the </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Íslendingasögur</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">: the logistics of mapping this saga onto and around the landscapes of the south of Iceland (where the greater part of its action unfolds) filled me with no small sense of trepidation.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">A circular email was sent round some months ago advertising a 4-day ‚</span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Njáls saga</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> on horseback‘ tour organised by a company called </span><a href="http://www.riding-iceland.com/index.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Riding Iceland</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">, and led by Dr Jón Karl Helgason, a professor of Icelandic literature at the University of Iceland. I signed up for the tour...and thus took on the challenge of </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Njála</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">. </span></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Mjgkn4RQjpw/ThQ_otSQ4YI/AAAAAAAAB7c/Lmf-p7P-pIk/s1600/3+hosses+crop.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="220" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Mjgkn4RQjpw/ThQ_otSQ4YI/AAAAAAAAB7c/Lmf-p7P-pIk/s320/3+hosses+crop.jpg" width="320" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The tour proved to be a physically exhilarating and immensely thought-provoking experience. I supplemented the </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Njáls saga</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> days with an inital 3 days helping to drive the herd of horses south from a farm between Geysir and Gullfoss to Vellir (the farm on which <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Njáls saga <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">begins)</span></span></i></span>, where the tour commenced, and back north again for another 3 days after the tour had formally come to an end. Amongst other river encounters, this involved half an hour of riding through the mighty glacial river Þjórsá at a ford called Nautavað -- a crossing point for over 1000 years on account of the riverbed there comprising lava rather than sand which is constantly displaced by the currents. Grey waters churn around the herd of loose horses who instinctively strike off downstream with the current and must not be followed; I contemplate the extraordinary dizzying sensation and feeling of not moving forward at all when looking down at the swirling waters enveloping me and my horse, this suspicion being simultaneously contradicted by my horse‘s steady muscular exertions and the gradual nearing of the opposite bank. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The </span><a href="http://www.riding-iceland.com/tour-njals-daybyday.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">itinerary</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> took us from one </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Njáls saga</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> site to another – but not by adhering to the chronological progression of chapters and events in the written saga. In this, I was struck even more by the way that the events that make up any one saga can be ‚read‘ very differently through the physical exploration and familiarisation of the landscapes in which they are set, as opposed to an armchair or desk-based linear reading of that saga from the first chapter through to the last. Specific places in a local area bear three-dimensional witness to the narrative that has written itself into and around the topographical features of the landscape, become embodied in grassy slopes, rocky screes, open plains, riverbanks. As one moves around a district, this leads one to a sense of any one saga as a much more flexible entity – a narrative whose component parts can be processed mentally in any order, as individual places one encounters present their stories and associations – and I am beginning to think that this is a different and very powerful theoretical framework within which to understand the sagas, or at least a means of gaining insights into understanding how local Icelanders might have received or processed the saga set in their district from the medieval period onwards. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">In terms of its structure, </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Njáls saga</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> can be said to be formed of three main narratives: firstly, that of Gunnarr of Hlíðarendi (one of the most perfect of saga heroes) and his eventual feud-related death at the hands of enemies; then that of Gunnarr‘s close friend, the wise Njáll of Bergþórshváll, and his and others‘s deaths when their farm is burned by a band of men lead by Flosi Þórðarson; and finally, that of Kári Sölmundarson and his pursuit of vengeance for the burning of Bergþórshváll, both in Iceland and abroad.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IIDJZjn_Ofk/ThRABv0yU_I/AAAAAAAAB7g/slSQ4Guq0YA/s1600/%25C3%259Eri%25CC%2581hyrningur+from+Reynifell.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="157" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IIDJZjn_Ofk/ThRABv0yU_I/AAAAAAAAB7g/slSQ4Guq0YA/s320/%25C3%259Eri%25CC%2581hyrningur+from+Reynifell.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Þríhyrningur from the north at Reynifell</span></span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The landscape of </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Njáls saga</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> is dominated by the single mountains and mountain-ranges that come in and out of one´s line of sight in varying panoramic configurations as one rides around the area: the volcanic Hekla, snow-streaked, not mentioned in N</span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">jáls saga</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> but a powerful presence; Þríhyrningur (‚Three-Corners‘) which is a pivot around which much </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Njáls saga</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> action revolves; the strange isolated Stóra-Dímon which rises jagged from the flats of the Landeyjar region, beside the wide shifting sands and streams of the Markarfljót river; then to the east the ranges of Tindfjallajökull and the infamous Eyjafjallajökull. These features have remained a constant in the landscape of this part of the south, though much else has changed significantly over the millennium between the events of </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Njáls saga</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> and the present day. The course of the Markarfljót river has shifted continuously over time; volcanic eruptions over past centuries have left their lava-sprawling marks across the region; deforestation, erosion, and modern drainage have altered the prospect of great stretches of land; endless violet-blue lupins introduced to halt erosion in recent decades now carpet hillsides, plains, lava-fields. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HALDtu3_26w/ThRAbzad_2I/AAAAAAAAB7k/_p6RRl9Ui48/s1600/Markarfljo%25CC%2581t+from+Sto%25CC%2581ra+Di%25CC%2581mon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="141" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HALDtu3_26w/ThRAbzad_2I/AAAAAAAAB7k/_p6RRl9Ui48/s320/Markarfljo%25CC%2581t+from+Sto%25CC%2581ra+Di%25CC%2581mon.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
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looking east into Fljótshlíð/Eyjafjallajökull<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> </span> </span></span></span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">On the green slopes at Hlíðarendi, from where one looks south down across the Landeyjar plains and over to the Vestmannaeyjar – when cloud or volcanic ash caught in the winds isn't shrouding the distance -- Gunnarr lived with his wife Hallgerðr. Hallgerðr is exceptionally and troublingly beautiful and note is made several times throughout the saga of her long blonde hair. On gazing on her as a young girl, Hallgerðr‘s uncle Hrútr Herjólfsson (who plays a part in </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Laxdæla saga</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">) wonders how ‚thieves‘ eyes‘ have come into the family: a detail which later becomes significant. Hallgerðr is a hard woman who had been married twice before Gunnarr, and had lost both husbands to the axe of her dastardly foster-father Þjóstólfr. The first husband was killed with Hallgerðr‘s approval, the second was a great loss to her. Chapters after Hallgerðr has married Gunnarr narrate the growing tensions and conflict between Hallgerðr and Njáll‘s wife, Bergþóra: insults and the initiation on both sides of a series of eye-for-eye killings do not destroy the deep friendship between Gunnarr and Njáll, however. Famine prompts Hallgerðr to send a slave to steal cheese and butter from a neighbouring farm; when Gunnarr finds out, he slaps Hallgerðr for this greatest and most shameful of crimes.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Hlíðarendi today, looking north from the road</span></span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Collingwood writes of the way in which at Hlíðarendi, „scenery and romance are inseparable...no modern traveller can fail to note that the one place of all the world where a man, in those distant and rude days, chose deliberately to die, rather than go out into exile from it, was so magnificently situated“ (</span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Pilgrimage</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">, p. 30). Gunnarr is exiled by law for a period of 3 years as the consequence of a feud; he prepares to leave the country and rides south from Hlíðarendi with his brother Kolskeggr. Chapter 75 of the saga describes how the brothers ride towards the Markarfljót river: </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">þá drap hestr Gunnars fæti, ok stökk hann ór söðlinum. Honum varð litit upp til hlíðarinnar ok bæjarins at Hlíðarenda ok mælti: „Fögr er hlíðin, svá at mér hefir hon aldri jafnfögr sýnzk, bleikir akrar ok slegin tún, ok mun ek ríða heim aptr ok fara hvergi“</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> (</span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Brennu-Njáls saga</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">, p. 182; 'Then Gunnarr‘s horse stumbled, and he fell from the saddle. He looked up to the slope and the farm at Hlíðarendi and said: „Fair is the slope, such that I think I have never seen it so beautiful, pale fields and mown homefield, and I will ride back home and not travel on“'). A place – or a stretch of land -- called Gunnarshólmi is the spot from where local people believed Gunnarr looked back at his homestead: Gunnarr‘s remark is one of the most poignant and famous phrases in saga literature. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Gunnarr, by Snorri Arinbjarnarson</td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Shortly afterwards, Gunnarr is attacked in his farm by his enemies after they learn he is alone apart from Hallgerðr‘s and his mother‘s company. Gunnarr puts up a superlatively heroic defence and the passage describing the fight incorporates some classically sardonic saga humour. </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Þorgrímr Austmaðr gekk upp á skálann; Gunnarr sér, at rauðan kyrtil berr við glugginum, ok leggr út með atgeirinum á hann miðjan. Austmanninum varð lauss skjöldrinn, ok spruttu honum fætrnir, ok hrataði hann ofan af þekjunni, gengr síðan at þeim Gizuri, þar er þeir sátu á vellinum; Gizurr leit við honum ok mælti: „Hvárt er Gunnarr heima?“ Þorgrímr svarar: „Vitið þér þat, en hitt vissa ek, at atgeirr hans var heima.“ Síðan fell hann niðr dauðr </span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">(</span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Brennu-Njáls saga</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">, p. 187; 'Þorgrímr Austmaðr (The Norwegian) went up onto the hall; Gunnarr sees that a red kirtle appears at the window, and thrusts through it at (Þorgrímr‘s) middle with his long-spear. The Norwegian dropped his shield, and lost his footing, and tumbled down off the roof; he goes over to where Gizurr and the others were sitting on the field. Gizurr looked at him and said: „Is Gunnarr at home?“ Þorgrímr answers: „You may find that out for yourselves, but I know that his spear was at home.“ Afterwards he fell down dead'). </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Gunnarr holds off his enemies until his bow-string breaks. He asks Hallgerðr to give him two locks of her famous hair which she and his mother can twist into a replacement bow-string. ‚„Does anything depend on it?“ she says. „My life depends on it,“ says Gunnarr, „because while I make use of my bow they will never be able to attack me.“ „Then I shall,“ she says, „remind you of the slap, and I don´t care whether you defend yourself for a long or a short time.“ „Each has their own mark of distinction,“ says Gunnarr, „and I won‘t ask you any longer for this“‘ (</span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">„Liggr þér nokkut við?“ segir hon. „Líf mitt liggr við,“ segir hann, „því at þeir munu mik aldri fá sóttan, meðan ek kem boganum við.“ „Þá skal ek nú,“ segir hon, „munu þér kinnhestinn, ok hirði ek aldri, hvárt þú verr þik lengr eða skemr.“ „Hefir hverr til síns ágætis nökkut,“ segir Gunnarr, „ok skal þik þessa eigi lenga biðja“</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">, </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Brennu-Njáls saga</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">, p. 189). </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Collingwood describes how, in 1897 when he visited, he was shown ruins said to be those of Gunnarr‘s hall beside the then-modern farmhouse, though Collingwood expresses doubts over the attribution on the basis the „slope is so steep that it is hardly likely they [the ruins] can mark the site of the principal residence“ (</span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Pilgrimage</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">, p. 30). There is no farm at Hlíðarendi today, though a church stands on the land. There was no-one around to ask about the location of Gunnarr‘s howe or mound, sketched by Collingwood (and which the saga relates opened up on a couple of occasions when the shepherd and serving-maid were passing by, revealing Gunnarr singing and reciting verses happily), nor the smaller mound said in past times to mark the grave of Gunnarr‘s faithful Irish hound Sámr. The manager of the local </span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1149961656"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">‚</span></a><i><a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1149961656"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Njáls saga</span></a></i><a href="http://www.njala.is/en/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">‘ museum</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> in Hvolsvöllur said that he had met the last farmer of Hlíðarendi in the late 1970s and been shown these spots and others connected with the saga; this farmer is no longer living, and it seems that local knowledge about Hlíðarendi (and other places around the district associated with the saga) has diminished to the point where in many cases, such extra-saga place-names and locations are not much more than shadowy remembrances or the subject of speculation. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">It seemed remarkable to me that this should be the case given the acclaimed place of </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Njáls saga</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> in the canonical </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Íslendingasögur</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">; in the next post, something of Njáll and Bergþórshváll will be presented, along with further notes considering the extent to which </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Njáls saga</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> seemed, to me, to be alive in the local landscapes in which it is set. But if the precise location of Gunnarr‘s mound—or a mound said to be Gunnarr‘s, at any rate—has been lost, his reputation as one of the most peerless of saga heroes still live</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">s on. Thus </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Hávam</span></span></i><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">ál</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">: <i>Deyr f</i></span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">é, / deyja fr</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; line-height: 19px;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">ændr, / </span></span></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; line-height: 19px;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">deyr sjálfr et sama; /</span></span></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; line-height: 19px;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">ek veit einn, / </span></span></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; line-height: 19px;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">at aldri deyr: / </span></span></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; line-height: 19px;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">dómr um dauðan hvern <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">("Cattle die, kinsmen die, you yourself will die too; I know one thing that never dies: the honourable reputation of each dead man").</span></span></span></i></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lupins, beside Gunnarssteinn</td></tr>
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Emily Lethbridgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12635622083913991862noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6993934953273965169.post-89027988746787215542011-06-14T08:31:00.001+01:002011-06-16T06:37:40.389+01:00Wild Westerners: Fóstbræðra saga and Hávarðar saga Ísfirðings<div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">My <em>Gísla saga</em> pilgrimage concluded, I set off on the trail of the other sagas set around the West Fjords, namely <em>Fóstbræðra saga</em>, <em>Hávarðar saga Ísfirðings</em>, and <em>Gull-Þóris</em> (or <em>Þorskfirðinga</em>) <em>saga</em>. There is some geographical overlap between <em>Fóstbræðra saga</em> and <em>Hávarðar saga</em>: apart from this being convenient as far as my route-planning was concerned, charting this 'on the ground' added to my growing sense of how the sagas can usefully be read in ways other than as linear narratives which unfold page-by-page, from Chapter 1 to The End. Before embarking on this mobile research trip, more often than not I just did not make connections between sagas with regard to places that reoccur in more than one saga, though I always found the way that a certain event or scene sometimes crops up in multiple sagas of interest. It is a great luxury to have the opportunity to explore Iceland in such a leisurely fashion and travelling around Iceland could never be anything but an adventure, sagas or no sagas. However, there is no doubt that the map of the country I am building up in my head while I travel is a vital resource for my further study of the sagas, and my awareness of exactly how various places in individual sagas are related to each other, and how individual places are important in multiple sagas, is constantly being strengthened.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>Fóstbræðra saga</em> is a little different from some other sagas in a number of ways. Rather than focusing on one protagonist, it deals with the lives of two protagonists simultaneously, Þorgeirr Hávarsson and Þormóðr Kolbrúnarskáld Bersason, following their joint and individual exploits. The narratorial voice throughout the saga is especially distinctive too--and from time to time, to a degree unusual in the sagas, this voice communicates judgements or comments on events, sometimes even observations about human anatomy. Þorgeirr is born at a place called Jökulskelda, on the eastern shore of Mjóvafjörður (this fjord cutting inland on a north/south axis on the southern side of Ísafjarðardjúp); Þormóðr is born at a place called Dyrðilmýri, along the Snæfjallaströnd shore on the northern side of the Ísafjarðardjúp. Þorgeirr is first described as being <em>bráðgörr maðr ok mikill vexti ok sterkr ok kappsfullr; hann nam á unga aldri at hlífa sér með skildi ok vega með vápnum</em> (<em>Fóstbræðra saga</em>, ed. Guðni Jónsson, Íslenzk fornrit VI, ch. 2, p. 123; 'A man developed at a young age, large and strong and very vigorous; at a young age he learned to protect himself with a shield and fight with weapons'); Þormóðr is <em>þegar á unga aldri hvatr maðr ok hugprúðr, meðalmaðr vexti, svartr á hárslit ok hrokkinhærð</em> (<em>Fóstbræðra saga</em> ch. 2, p. 124; 'At once, at a young age a bold man and stout-hearted, of medium height, with curly black hair'). Early in the saga, the two swear an oath of blood-brotherhood: 'They thought more indeed about honour in this world than about glory of joys of the other world. Thus they made a firm agreement that the one of them who lived longer should avenge the other' (<em>Meir hugðu þeir jafnan at fremð þessa heims lífs en at dýrð annars heims fagnaðar. Því tóku þeir þat ráð með fastmælum, at sá þeira skyldi hefna annars, er lengr lifði</em>, <em>Fóstbræðra saga</em> ch. 2, pp. 124-5). </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">along Snæfjallaströnd)</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-uOZM0r5lb98/TfZwEL5b3mI/AAAAAAAAB6I/40awXYdbCPU/s1600/Dyr%25C3%25B0ilm%25C3%25BDri+looking+west.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="101" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-uOZM0r5lb98/TfZwEL5b3mI/AAAAAAAAB6I/40awXYdbCPU/s200/Dyr%25C3%25B0ilm%25C3%25BDri+looking+west.jpg" t8="true" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Dyrðilmýri (in the sunlight, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">looking west along Snæfjallaströnd)</span> </td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Þorgeirr in particular is a trouble-making character and gets involved in many local conflicts: the powerful chieftain Vermundr inn mjóvi at Vatnsfjörður attempts to bring some peace to the area by ordering both Þorgeirr's and Þormóðr's families to move to Borgarfjörður and over to the Laugadalur valley (on the peninsula between Skötufjörður and Mjóvarfjörður), respectively. After various adventures (more often violent than not) around the West Fjords (particularly the <a href="http://www.nat.is/travelguideeng/plofin_hornstrandir2.htm">Hornstrandir</a> peninsula) and abroad, Þorgeirr is killed and Þormóðr takes on the task of vengeance--a course of action which takes him over to Greenland in pursuit of Þorgeirr's killer, a man called Þorgrímr trolli Einarsson. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">I wanted more than anything to walk for a few days around Hornstrandir and especially to get to the vast cliffs at Horn to look for Þorgeirstó ('Þorgeirr's Tuft') which is where, according to one text of the saga (in the Flateyjarbók manuscript) Þorgeirr, while gathering the herb/plant <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angelica_archangelica">angelica</a>, has a brush with death when the ground under his feet crumbles away. He grabs the root of an angelica plant and hangs 60 fathoms above the rocks on the shore below; out of pride, he will not call on Þormóðr to save him though to fall would mean a certain death. When Þorgeirr does not rejoin Þormóðr, Þormóðr goes to look for him and shouts out whether Þorgeirr hasn´t yet gathered enough angelica: <em>Þorgeirr svarar þá með óskelfri röddu ok óttalausu brjósti: "Ek ætla," segir hann, "at ek hafa þá nógar, at þessi er uppi, er ek held um."</em> (<em>Fóstbræðra saga</em> ch 13, p. 190; 'Þorgeirr answers then with a steady voice, fearless in his breast: "I think", he says, "that I'll have enough when this one, which I´m holding onto, is uprooted"). Þormóðr finds Þorgeirr and pulls him to safety. </span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-kLvQzctj-wc/TfZ1zeqgclI/AAAAAAAAB6M/MLxDlLNysqQ/s1600/Bolungarv%25C3%25ADk+from+above.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="190" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-kLvQzctj-wc/TfZ1zeqgclI/AAAAAAAAB6M/MLxDlLNysqQ/s400/Bolungarv%25C3%25ADk+from+above.jpg" t8="true" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The edge of a snow precipice above Bolungarvík</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">I didn´t get out to the northern fringe of Hornstrandir--impossible endless winter weather conditions and my being on my own meant that this would not have been the most sensible of expeditions. But I did hitch an afternoon boatride from Bolungarvík over to a bay on the western tip of Hornstrandir called Aðalvík, with a few people who were heading off for short stints in their summer houses, so I had the chance to marvel at some of the sheer cliffs, teeming with screaming birds, and to look down along Jökulsfirðir along which some scenes in <em>Fóstbræðra saga </em>take place. Collingwood wrote that 'this inhospitable coast' is--or was, at his time--inhabited by 'the least known and most forlorn of Icelanders' (<em>Pilgrimage</em>, p. 113). It is the </span><span style="font-family: Georgia;">least accessible part of Iceland now, sometimes described as the last 'wilderness'; the last permanent settlements were abandoned around the mid-20th century<strong> </strong>and the whole area is now a nature reserve. I will return!</span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-c1uFMH6M03I/TfZ2a1qno9I/AAAAAAAAB6Q/7Bz-BumTlfI/s1600/Laugab%25C3%25B3l%252C+view+from.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-c1uFMH6M03I/TfZ2a1qno9I/AAAAAAAAB6Q/7Bz-BumTlfI/s320/Laugab%25C3%25B3l%252C+view+from.jpg" t8="true" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">View north from Laugaból</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">I drove down the southern shore of Ísafjarðardjúp following the road in and out of each of the seven narrow fjords that branch off it, and then back along the northern shore of Djúpið ('The Deep') as far as Dyrðilmýri, Þormóðr's birthplace. The views across Ísafjarðardjúp were breathtaking: dark heavy layers of cloud hanging along the flat-topped and still snow-covered mountains, mirroring their horizontal plane. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia;">A little further west of Dyrðilsmýri are the grassed-over foundations of Hávarðsstaðir--the second home of the eponymous Hávarðr of <em>Hávarðs saga</em>. <em>Hávarðs saga</em> turns on vengeance too--but that of a father (Hávarðr) for his son Óláfr, who is killed by the overbearing and villainous chieftain Þorbjörn illi Þjóðreksson. Þorbjörn illi, at the time when <em>Hávarðar saga</em> takes place, lived at Laugabóli in Laugadalur--the farm to which Þormóðr Kolbrúnarskáld and his family move on the orders of Vermundr, as told in <em>Fóstbræðra saga, </em>and a nice example of the kind of geographical saga-stead overlap that I´m becoming more aware of as I travel, as explained above. I spent a night at Laugaból with the remarkable and heroic woman who has lived there for the past 80-odd years: her life-story is one of tragic family losses and personal fortitude that makes for a powerful modern-day saga, and which has been told by Reynir Traustason (see <a href="http://landogsaga.is/section.php?id=56&id_art=2357">here</a>). </span></div><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Wm_oW0yiiP8/TfZ25OKSZnI/AAAAAAAAB6U/_qPky_-Bxdo/s1600/Vatnsfj%25C3%25B6r%25C3%25B0ur.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="133" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Wm_oW0yiiP8/TfZ25OKSZnI/AAAAAAAAB6U/_qPky_-Bxdo/s200/Vatnsfj%25C3%25B6r%25C3%25B0ur.jpg" t8="true" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Outline of the Viking Age hall</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">and central hearth, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Vatnsfjörður</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Vatnsfjörður, where Vermundr lived, was a stop en route--and here, I found much to examine. The church-and chieftain-site was an important place from the Settlement period until the Reformation in the mid-16th century, and it has been thoroughly dug by archaeologists over the past few years. Excellent signs have been set up with details about the buildings excavated so far, and various notable finds uncovered. One can walk amongst the outlines of the Viking Age farm complex (hall and outbuildings), and those from the second area of occupation which dates from the later Middle Ages; information about the site, which is still being investigated, can be found <a href="http://www.nabohome.org/cgi_bin/explore.pl?seq=47">here</a>. </span></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Grettisvarða at Vatnsfjörður,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">(the modern church below to the right;</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">the excavated site is to the left)</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Vermundr was married to an exceptionally strong woman (a <em>kvenskörungur mikill</em>) called Þorbjörg in digra ('the stout'), sister of Kjartan Óláfsson of <em>Laxdæla saga</em>; she had notable forebears on both sides, being the daughter of Óláfr pá (himself the son of the Irish princess Melkorka and Höskuldr Dala-Kolsson; see <em>Laxdæla saga</em>) and Þorgerðr Egilsdóttir (daughter of Egill Skalla-Grímsson; see <em>Egils saga </em>and<em> Laxdæla saga</em>). There is a neat example of saga-character and material overlap here, with regard to Vatnsfjörður, <em>Fóstbræðra saga</em> and <em>Grettis saga</em> (which I will write about in full in a future post), and also another place that features in <em>Fóstbræðra saga</em>, Reykjahólar where Þorgeirr spends periods of time with his kinsman Þorgils Arason (now Reykhólar, on the Reykjanes peninsula at the bottom south-east end of the West Fjords). </span></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">The beginning of the Hauksbók text of <em>Fóstbræðra saga</em> tells the story of how Þorbjörg digra saved the outlaw Grettir Ásmundarson from execution by local farmers in the Vatnsfjörður area. On the hill-side above Vatnsfjörður stands a large cairn which is known as Grettisvarða ('Grettir's cairn')--and the stepped or terraced hill-side itself is known as Grettishjalli (a 'hjalli' is a shelf or ledge on a mountainside): local tradition attributes the building of the cairn to the outlaw Grettir Ásmundarson though in all probability it is younger and was built as part of a wider defensive network. The story about Grettir's capture is found in <em>Grettis saga</em> too, in which saga there is also an episode which tells how Grettir and the two blood-brothers Þorgeirr and Þormóðr spend a winter with Þorgils at Reykhólar...and the tension between Þorgeirr and Grettir. On one occasion, the three are row out to an island to collect an oxen for their host. The going is difficult on the way back with all three rowing (Grettir in the stern, Þorgeirr amidships, and Þormóðr in the bow) and there some sharp wordplay between Þorgeirr and Grettir: 'Frýr nú skutrinn skriðar', says Þorgeirr to Grettir--'Now the stern is hanging'. 'Ekki skal skutrinn eptir verða ef allvel er róið frammi', answers Grettir--'The stern will not be left behind if the rowing amidships is good'... How I could have done with these three--or even one of them--to convey me around the tip of Hornstrandir and around to Horn...</span></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The tongue of Drangajökull, as seen at the end of the Kaldalón fjord</span></td></tr>
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</div></div>Emily Lethbridgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12635622083913991862noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6993934953273965169.post-2074117665901503702011-06-06T12:24:00.000+01:002013-05-08T20:12:16.358+01:00Gísla saga 2: The Outlaw Years<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="IS" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: IS;">In the last post, I mentioned some of the events described in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Gísla saga Súrssonar</i> that lead up to the point in the saga when Gísli Súrsson becomes an outlaw... Forced to leave his farmstead in Haukadalur, the saga relates how he survived on the run for 13 years before finally being hunted down and killed by his enemies. Gísli‘s outlaw years are the subject of the second half of the saga, which is an intriguing mix of almost slapstick-style or <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">fabliaux</i> comedy on the one hand, as Gísli gives his pursuers the slip through pulling off various cunning tricks, and on the other, heightened and doom-driven prose as Gísli‘s final hour approaches. The prose is punctuated by verses uttered by Gísli, often about the frequently blood-drenched nightmares that disturb his sleep. Poignantly, Gísli comes to be afraid of the dark (as is another famous outlaw, Grettir, after he is cursed by the revenant Glámr...a post on <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Grettis saga</i> will appear at some point over the summer months!).</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Geirþjófsfjörður</span></td></tr>
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<span lang="IS" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: IS;">Gísli relies on friends and family to support him as an outlaw and he spends periods of time in different places hiding out. Help is not always forthcoming, however: the consequence of a spell that the sorceror Þorgrímr nef conjures, on the orders of Börkr—who must capture Gísli in order to avenge the death of his brother, Þorgrímr, at Gísli‘s hands. One place where Gísli spends summers in hiding is in a fjord south of Dýrafjörður (where Haukadalur is) called Geirþjófsfjörður, which branches off the bigger Arnarfjörður. Geirþjófsfjörður can only be accessed by walking down from the heath above it, or from the water by boat. Its remoteness made my expeditions down into it to explore the places named in the saga even more of an adventure into the unknown.</span></div>
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<span lang="IS" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: IS;"></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="IS" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: IS;">Gísla saga</span></i><span lang="IS" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: IS;"> tells of how Gísli‘s wife, Auðr, had a farmstead in Geirþjófsfjörður—and grassed-over mounds known as Auðartóftir (‚Auðr‘s ruins‘) where this farm stood are marked and easy to find, on the level plain at the end of the fjord. I had a packed lunch (together with a local Gísli expert, who came with me for the first trip down into the valley, and my filming Cambridge Ideas companion) with my back up against one side of Auðartóftir, the sun (welcome, after days of snow and sleet and minimal visibility) shining down on us. There is a modern farmhouse not far from Auðartóftir—but the last inhabitants left some time in the 1950s/60s, and the fjord and valley have been deserted since then. It must have been a remarkable thing to have lived and farmed down by this fjord, with places associated with Gísli‘s last years and death visible on all sides, both those that are named in the saga, and other places that incorporate his name in some way and testify to a tradition of engagement with the saga beyond the printed page. It‘s a beautiful valley—and its gentle contours, as well as the rivers and waterfalls that fall from the heaths above and run down noisily through huge gullies into the fjord, took me by surprise. I had imagined a much starker, darker, grimmer, silent backdrop for Gísli‘s last fugitive months. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">One of Gísli´s hideouts</span></td></tr>
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<span lang="IS" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: IS;">The saga describes how Gísli had various small hideouts around the valley—two of these are marked, and a third, unmarked but clearly visible, was pointed out to me. I stood IN one of Gísli‘s hideouts and listened to birds calling, and water gurgling. According to the saga, Gísli only spent time in Geirþjófsfjörður over the summer—when the leaves on the birch and rowan trees—though these trees do not grow to a great height—would provide greater cover. But it struck me that this must have been a precarious security since a spy—such as Njósnar-Helgi in the saga, who is sent into Geirþjófsfjörður by Börkr‘s sidekick Eyjólfr inn grái to ascertain Gísli‘s whereabouts—looking down on the valley, might quickly notice the shaking of greenery in one spot or another... And after pushing through some of these tangled thickets for a short spell, I appreciated that being chased through such woods (as Gísli is, at certain points in the saga) would not have been a simple matter either. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span lang="IS" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: IS;">The saga‘s account of Gísli‘s last hours and his final battle is a powerful piece of narrative. His end is nigh and utterly inevitable, but the narrative tension is nonetheless built up and up right until the climax of his last fight, which itself is dramatically staged and presented. It is the last night of summer and Gísli is with his wife Auðr and their foster-daughter at the farm but he cannot sleep, so the three of them walk from the farm to one of the hide-outs, to the south of the farm and beneath some cliffs. The weather is close and there is a heavy dew: as they walk, their cloaks leave trails behind them, and Gísli lets shavings from a runestick that he is carving fall unheeded too. When they get to the hideout, Gísli tries to sleep but dreams of two loon-birds fighting each other, covered in gore. The voices of approaching men are heard—it is Eyjólfr with a band of 15 men and they have followed the trails from the farm to the hideout. Gísli, Auðr and the girl run up onto the cliffs—these now bear the name Kleifar, and are marked with a sign—and Eyjólfr and his men attack from below. </span></div>
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<span lang="IS" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: IS;">Auðr has armed herself with a wooden club and beats Eyjólfr, driving him back down; she is captured and Gísli utters the memorable words ‚I have known for a long time that I married well, though I did not know just how well married I was. But you helped me less than you might have done or intended to, although your attack was good, because they would both have gone the same way now‘—i.e., had Gísli attacked Eyjólfr, he would have killed him as he has others (‚<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Þat vissa ek fyrir löngu, at ek var vel kvæntr, en þó vissa ek eigi, at ek væra svá vel kvæntr sem ek em. En minna lið veittir þú mér nú en þú mundir vilja eða þú ætlaðir, þó at tilræðit væri gott, því at eina leið mundu þeir nú hafa farit báðir</i>‘, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Gísla saga</i> ch. 34, p. 112). The attackers press on and up and Gísli kills two more men—four are now dead. When least expected, Gísli runs off and up onto a rocky outcrop close by, called Einhamarr, and defends himself from there.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Einhamarr, view north from the top</span></td></tr>
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<span lang="IS" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: IS;">Men climb up and ‚<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">er atsóknin þá bæði hörð ok áköf, ok fá þeir nú komit á hann sárum nökkurum með spjótalögum, en hann versk með mikilli hreysti ok drengskap. Ok fá þeir svá þungt af honum af grjóti ok stórum höggum, svá at engi var ósárr, sá er at honum sótti, því at Gísli var eigi missfengr í höggum</i>‘ (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Gísla saga</i> ch. 35, p. 114; ‚the attack was both hard and furious, and they manage to wound him somewhat with spear-thrusts, but he defended himself with great courage and valour. And they receive such a heavy onslaught of rocks and blows from him that none was unwounded of those he attacked, because Gísli was not inaccurate with his blows‘). Gísli is speared in the stomach and his guts spill out; he gathers them up in his shirt and ties them in with his belt. Then he calls for a pause, states that they will get the end they want, and then speaks his last verse—in which he claims his courage comes from his father. After this, Gísli leaps from the rock and drives his sword into the head of one of the attackers, cleaving him down to the middle, and dying himself. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<span lang="IS" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: IS;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span lang="IS" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: IS;">I sat on top of Einhamar and read all of this—in the sunshine, looking down onto the plain where Auðartóftir are, and over to Kleifar. I found it hard in some ways to reconcile the details of the scene—violent shouts, clashing of weapons, blood and guts—with the peace of that rock as I sat, read, thought on it...I wondered if I was falling into the trap of reading the sagas—and imagining episodes within them—as though they are history rather than narratives that occupy the hazy space between history and fiction. </span></div>
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<span lang="IS" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: IS;">Certainly, it seemed to me that for local people, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Gísla saga</i> was more history than fiction—and Gísli might have died only decades ago rather than many centuries, in some cases. I think it would have been impossible to find a local person who did not know something of Gísli—that he lived in Haukadalur, at the very least—and many in the area know Gísli‘s story not necessarily through reading the saga, but because of his presence in the landscape, and the way that the events in the saga play out in local places, and the way that people have always passed on stories about Gísli in these landscapes. And this is not a passive tradition in present times either—in different ways, local people still actively engage with the saga and see it as their local heritage. There have been concerted efforts to present the saga to those unfamiliar with it and new to the area in the form of very well-made information boards raised at key places mentioned in the saga, for example. But most absorbingly, I experienced the spontaneous composing of verses about Gísli and places in the saga at first hand—in a perfectly natural context, not an artificial one. And I had to compose a verse about Gísli myself, in return...and thus found myself engaging with Gísli and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Gísla saga</i> creatively in the way that Icelanders have for many hundreds of years—and in some places, still do. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-zQldNvG3DhY/Tey3xmnDg4I/AAAAAAAAB5c/72ZW2GexdAM/s1600/G%25C3%25ADsli%2527s+steinn.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="292" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-zQldNvG3DhY/Tey3xmnDg4I/AAAAAAAAB5c/72ZW2GexdAM/s640/G%25C3%25ADsli%2527s+steinn.jpg" t8="true" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">A joke in/by nature...or perhaps created by Gísli?</span></td></tr>
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Emily Lethbridgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12635622083913991862noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6993934953273965169.post-5268457690333201752011-05-29T14:28:00.000+01:002011-05-29T14:28:03.403+01:00From Snæfellsnes to the West Fjords: Gísla saga Súrssonar<div style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="IS" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; mso-ansi-language: IS;">I promised a second post on <em>Eyrbyggja saga</em> and the Snæfellsnes peninsula -- but events have taken various turns the past couple of weeks and time is flying...and so I have made an executive decision to move straight on with a post on <em>Gísla saga</em> so as not to leave you all too far behind as I move on! More about <em>Eyrbyggja</em> (and there is so much to say) will be worked into the book... </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="IS" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; mso-ansi-language: IS;">On the geography of Iceland and the location of the West Fjords (Vestfirðir), William Gershom Collingwood wrote, delightfully: „The map of Iceland has been sometimes drawn by school-boys as an eider-duck, quacking with wide opened beak; the head whereof is that great peninsual of the north west between Breidifjord and the Arctic Ocean, and its lower mandible Snæfells-nes. In our pilgrimage we have now got into the duck‘s mouth: next we propose to make the tour of the head before returning to the neck for further explorations over the ruffled quills of the back“ (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A Pilgrimage to the Sagasteads of Iceland</i>, p. 107). </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="IS" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; mso-ansi-language: IS;">This upper westernmost part of Iceland that stretches its many clawlike fingers out into the Atlantic is one of the most visually spectacular and dramatic parts of Iceland: I approached and entered the region from the water, via the ferry that runs across Breiðafjörður from Stykkishólmur to Brjánslækur on the southern coast of the Vestfirðir, a journey of a little over 2 hours or so. The roads that follow the shorelines of the many fjords that comprise this western peninsula and wind their way, hairpin-bending, up over the heaths and mountain passes between valleys (often with great deep drifts of snow still – though the dark night hours have been banished by now, spring is still slower to show itself here than it is further south) are for the greater part unsurfaced and it is challenging driving in places. Though Icelanders comment frequently on the fact that the Embulance is a left-hand-drive vehicle, i.e. with the steering wheel on the right, and call it ‚silly steering‘, this actually has proved a rather useful feature as I can keep an eye on the edge of the road to my right much more easily...and make sure that I don´t fall off it when negotiating tight bends or passing oncoming vehicles.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-KQnuikkEE9A/TeJBZ4LkttI/AAAAAAAAB4w/EFYq7D9r9hI/s1600/Dynjandisvogur.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-KQnuikkEE9A/TeJBZ4LkttI/AAAAAAAAB4w/EFYq7D9r9hI/s320/Dynjandisvogur.jpg" t8="true" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">View along Dynjandisvogur into </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Árnarfjörður from Dynjandi</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span lang="IS" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; mso-ansi-language: IS;">From Brjánslækur I headed straight up north over Dynjandisheiði, spending the night beside the great waterfall Dynjandi en route to Dýrafjörður, where the outlaw-hero Gísli Súrsson and his family established their homestead(s) after emigrating from Norway around 952 C.E.. Dynjandi – true to its name – thundered mightily like so many lanes of motorway traffic through the night; I walked up the waterfall (or waterfalls, since there is a series of them, each kicking up sparkling spray), the only soul there, at 11pm and looked west along into Arnarfjörður where low clouds in faint pinks and smudgey greys were building up and catching the light from the late evening sunset. </span><span lang="IS" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; mso-ansi-language: IS;">After reaching Hrafnseyri on the northern shore of Arnarfjörður the next morning (the home of the 13th-century chieftain Hrafn Sveinbjarnarson, whose life is outlined in the contemporary saga <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hrafns saga Sveinbjarnarsonar</i>), I took the road north up over Hrafnseyrarheiði and down into Þingeyri, which sits on the southern shore of Dýrafjörður. </span></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span lang="IS" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; mso-ansi-language: IS;">After refuelling I drove straight on west along the fjord, to Haukadalur, which was only 10 minutes or so further on. The weather was bright and the sky blue – and my arrival in Haukadalur was an intense moment to which I had long looked forward. I wrote my PhD thesis on <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Gísla saga</i> – but until now, had never made it out to the Vestfirðir to explore the actual places where the saga unfolds. A couple of sentences in a book about the history and settlements in the Vestfirðir that I looked at while I was in Haukadalur made a strong impression on me: ‚Úr fornsögum er Haukadalur í Dýrafirði betur þekktur en flestir aðrir staðir í Vestfjörðum því allir þræðir í Gísla sögu Súrssonar mætast hér í einum punkti‘ (‚Haukadalur in Dýrafjörður is better known from old stories than most other places in the West Fjords because all the threads in Gísla saga meet here at one point‘, Kjartan Ólafsson, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Vestfjarðarit I: Firðir og fólk 900-1900. Vestur -Ísafjarðarsýsla</i>, 1999).</span></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-djGnDzyBgu4/TeJCosIcWLI/AAAAAAAAB40/untW-fiLPjw/s1600/Haukadalur+foot+.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-djGnDzyBgu4/TeJCosIcWLI/AAAAAAAAB40/untW-fiLPjw/s320/Haukadalur+foot+.jpg" t8="true" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Looking south down Haukadalur</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="IS" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; mso-ansi-language: IS;">Gísla saga</span></i><span lang="IS" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; mso-ansi-language: IS;"> is not overly long – about 80-odd pages in the Penguin Classics translation; structurally and stylistically, the narrative is articulated with consummate artistry. It is one of the more widely-read sagas in Iceland on account of its being on the school-syllabus for several decades; a famous (famous at least in Iceland, and in the world of Old Norse/medieval Icelandic saga studies...) film of the saga was made too, by the director Águst Guðmundsson in the 1980s too – the only film of a whole saga of which I am aware. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Gísla saga</i> is sometimes described as a medieval murder mystery: at the heart of its plot are two violent murders. The Scandinavian crime novel phenomenon (Arnaldur Indriðason, Yrsa Sigurðardóttir to name but two world-popular Icelandic crime-writers) is not a new one... </span></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span lang="IS" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; mso-ansi-language: IS;">Gísli and his family build a farmstead at Sæból in Haukadalur after arriving from Norway; Gísli‘s sister Þórdís is soon married to Þorgrímr ‚Freysgoði‘ Þorsteinsson (there‘s a connection here to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Eyrbyggja saga</i>, Þorgrímr appearing therein; Þórdís eventually ends up on the Snæfellsnes peninsula too—Snorri the chiefain in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Eyrbyggja saga</i> is Þórdís and Þorgrímr‘s son), Gísli to Auðr, and Þorkell to Ásgerðr. Þórdís and Þorgrímr take up residence in Sæból, and Gísli and Þorkell (together with their wives) build a second farmstead at Hóll and live together there. Gísli is hard-working and conscientious whilst Þorkell is less inclined to work, and one morning Þorkell lies down after breakfast and overhears a conversation between his wife Ásgerðr and Gísli‘s wife Auðr in which he learns that his wife has feelings for – and is possibly having, or had an affair with -- Auðr‘s brother, Vésteinn. Þorkell and Ásgerðr move out of Hóll over to Sæból where Þorgrímr and Þórdís live, and a rift grows between the brothers and the two households; a damage-limitation attempt by Gísli to bind the four men (Gísli, Þorkell, Vésteinn, Þorgrímr) together with a blood-brotherhood oath fails. Vésteinn returns from a trading voyage and arrives in Haukadalur to visit his sister and Gísli; that night, an unnaturally violent storm blows up and while Gísli and his men go out to rescue the hay, Vésteinn is murdered while he lies in his bed by an unidentified intruder who then escapes. </span></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span lang="IS" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; mso-ansi-language: IS;">The spear is left in Vésteinn‘s corpse and Gísli pulls it out and recognizes it as the reforged fragments of a cursed family sword that Þorkell took with him when he parted with Gísli and moved to Sæból. Gísli is obliged by virtue of his marital ties to Vésteinn, and his blood-brotherhood bond, to avenge Vésteinn‘s death. The evidence suggests that the murderer must have come from Sæból: thence Gísli goes by cover of night some time later, wading down the stream that runs beside both farms so he does not leave tracks in the snow. On entering Sæból, and making his way silently into his sister and brother-in-law Þorgrímr‘s bed-closet, Gísli, in turn, impales Þorgrímr with the same spear Grásíða that he pulled out of Vésteinn‘s dead body. After Vésteinn‘s death, winter-ball games on the frozen pond at the mouth of the valley were held by the Haukadalur men; Vésteinn was buried in a mound at the western end of the pond. Þorgrímr is buried at the eastern end of the pond, and the ball-games are again held on the pond. After a clash with another player, Gísli pauses for a moment, looks up at Þorgrímr‘s mound, and recites a riddling verse in which he acknowledges his responsibility for Þorgrímr‘s death. Þórdís, who is now married to Þorgrímr‘s brother Börkr, overhears Gísli‘s verse, remembers it, unravels it, and reports its substance to Börkr – who now must kill Gísli in order to avenge Þorgrímr‘s death. </span></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"> <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-0_TBl4b1dRs/TeJDbZm8e_I/AAAAAAAAB44/fKOveiGSjkg/s1600/Haukadalur+pink+night.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-0_TBl4b1dRs/TeJDbZm8e_I/AAAAAAAAB44/fKOveiGSjkg/s320/Haukadalur+pink+night.jpg" t8="true" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Seftjörn, looking west down Dýrafjörður</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table> <div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span lang="IS" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; mso-ansi-language: IS;">The pond, Seftjörn, is still there at the fjord-end of Haukadalur, with a natural bank separating it from the beach and sea just below. It has silted up considerably but green shoots of the rushes which the inhabitants of Sæból and Hóll gathered to strew on their hall floors were pushing out of their pale, winter sheaths; the rushes will grow to over my height, I was told. Great numbers of birds – gulls, oyster catchers, geese, ducks -- flew up into the air calling shrilly as I walked down to the pond. The two mounds aren‘t visible now though Vésteinn‘s was, partially at least, when the Icelandic archaeologist and antiquary Sigurður Vigfjússon examined the valley in the early 1880s. A house, enclosed by trees, stands on the site where Vésteinn‘s mound rose (now called Vésteinshólt); at the other end of the pond, where Þorgrímr‘s mound was, the concrete/stone foundations of buildings put up there in the late 19th/early 20th century can be seen. At one point, the population of the valley numbered over 100 and there were a couple of shops or trading centres, a small school, and the first ice house in the west of Iceland. </span></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span lang="IS" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; mso-ansi-language: IS;">Now, one elderly but completely independent woman lives in the valley; I also met a farmer who keeps his horses and sheep there (lambs were tripping around outside in the field beside his barns); the remaining few houses are used as summer-houses. A grassed-over track runs down to the ruins of the 19th-century settlement by the pond – it must have been on this slope that Þórdís sat and overheard Gísli‘s fateful verse; the mouth of the river (Haukadalsós) where the family put in with their boat and belongings on first arriving in Iceland, and where subsequent voyages were concluded, is just to the east. And the other side of the Haukadalsós is Saltnes, the small promontory between Haukadalur and the neighbouring Meðaldalur where the sorceror Þorgrímr nef and his witch-sister were stoned to death.</span></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-RQg27iSCm8E/TeJExB6HGQI/AAAAAAAAB48/ySdRa429YRs/s1600/G%25C3%25ADslaaugu.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="156" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-RQg27iSCm8E/TeJExB6HGQI/AAAAAAAAB48/ySdRa429YRs/s320/G%25C3%25ADslaaugu.jpg" t8="true" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Gíslaaugu ('Gísli's</span> <span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Eyes')</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span lang="IS" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; mso-ansi-language: IS;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">What struck me most forcibly was the size and dimensions of the valley, and how densely settled it must have been with all of the farmsteads named in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Gísla saga</i> standing (6 in total, according to the saga: Sæból and Hóll, and four more at points either side of the central river, up the valley), compared with other ‚saga‘-valleys I´ve explored elsewhere in Iceland. The valley is not a large one: it's approximately</span> 5 kms long, and 500-800 metres wide at its broadest points; at its southern end, the highest mountain in the Vestfirðir, Kaldbak (998m), rises starkly. It would have taken a matter of minutes to walk from Sæból to Hóll or vice versa: the strained relations between the two households take on an immediacy that I had not appreciated when reading and thinking about the saga up until this point--and the valley is so bare, with very little cover for any kind of private activity. </span></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span lang="IS" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; mso-ansi-language: IS;">The faint foundations of the three buildings that comprised Sæból (a hall, cow-barn, and hof) are just traceable in the middle of a hay field south of Seftjörn; the farmer‘s son says that his tractor bounces over them when he ploughs/mows the field. The site of Hóll was on a low hill south-west of Sæból, which is now known as Gíslahóll. In fact, there are two hills: the southernmost and slightly higher one has the clearly visible foundations of a couple of modern (19th/20th century) cow-sheds on its crown; the lower, northern one is where Gísli‘s farm Hóll would have stood. It is a good spot with visibility up, down, and across the valley. Back down Gíslahóll, in the field below to the north of it, are a couple of pools where water wells up: the stream that this water fed ran north to the pond past Sæból and was the stream that Gísli waded along the night of his murder of Þorgrímr. The pools have the slightly sinister name of Gíslaaugu (‚Gísli‘s eyes‘) now; the stream no longer runs its natural course, having been diverted into a ditch, but a slightly sunken channel betrays where it lay.</span></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span lang="IS" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; mso-ansi-language: IS;">I followed the stream--or the traces of its original course--as far as I could, thinking about Gísli watching over the valley through the two Gíslaaugu pools, over 1000 years later. Gísli is outlawed after his riddling verse admitting his murder of Þorgrímr is unravelled by Þórdís -- and the second half of the saga describes his 13 years on the run while pursued by Þorgrímr's brother Börkr, whose responsibility it is to avenge Þorgrímr's death. The past few days have been spent visiting some of the places Gísli hid out as an outlaw (while filming for the 'Cambridge Ideas' series--very exciting--the documentary will be beautiful and will be released in August!)...so in the next post, I´ll be following Gísli's outlaw tracks. </span></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pLTZNCucAf8/TeJJOrHKdpI/AAAAAAAAB5A/oAP0etcO6zs/s1600/Seftjorn+looking+north+crop.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="312" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pLTZNCucAf8/TeJJOrHKdpI/AAAAAAAAB5A/oAP0etcO6zs/s640/Seftjorn+looking+north+crop.jpg" t8="true" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Looking north over Seftjörn at Mýrafell</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span lang="IS" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; mso-ansi-language: IS;"> </span></div></div>Emily Lethbridgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12635622083913991862noreply@blogger.com5