Saga Tourism in the 21st Century



Krumskelda in Mýrar

In lieu of a pending report on a couple of the northern sagas -- Ljósvetninga saga and Valla-Ljóts saga -- that I was working on over easter in between milking cows in Eyjafjarðarsveit, I thought a few remarks on 'saga tourism' in 21st-century Iceland might be of interest to those following this blog. This is something I've become increasingly aware of since beginning my project to read all of the sagas in situ around Iceland over the course of this year -- and I've been interested to see how local organisations have and are working hard at presenting 'their' saga to visitors to the area by marking sites or places connected to these sagas with information boards or monuments of various kinds. Around Mýrar, for example, a number of cairns have been set up at important places in Egils saga (e.g. the photo above -- the cairn at Krumskelda, where Skalla-Grímr is said to have buried his silver...watched over by some hardy horses when I was there in March). 



Parchment being prepared
at Gásir's Miðaldadagar
2009
(photo from their gallery
at http://www.gasir.is/) 

Last Friday, at a one-day annual conference hosted in Reykjavík by the 'Icelandic Saga Trails Association' ('Samtök um sögutengda ferðaþjónustu'), I had the chance to meet a number of people involved in the saga tourism business (and gave a presentation outlining my project). The Saga Trails Association comprises about 30 saga-related local museums and heritage sites around the country which engage with and present medieval Icelandic history and culture to tourists. A map showing the location of each of the members of the Association can be found here as part of the STA website. At some of these sites, medieval-themed re-enactment festivals are held in the summer -- and visitors can observe and participate in recreations of aspects of medieval life. 

Iceland has typically been a destination for those attracted by the prospect of fire-and-ice-related adventure, but saga tourism is a growing business -- and the potential in Iceland to build on locally-based cultural projects and initiatives already established is great...as Inga Hlín Pálsdóttir (from the 'Promote Iceland'  marketing division Íslandsstofa), emphasised in her opening presentation. 'Because the sagas remain a part of how Icelanders view rural landscapes, and indeed how Icelanders view themselves as a nation, saga-related travel is a way of meeting the local culture through environment' writes Kári Gíslason in a post on literary tourism in Iceland on his blog (the full post, from 27th August 1020 is here). Kári lectures in creative writing and literary studies at Queensland University of Technology in Australia and publishes on the Icelandic sagas; his book The Promise of Iceland comes out in August this year...and will no doubt address the subject of saga tourism in Iceland amongst other lines of enquiry and reflection. 



Detail from the Krumskelda cairn
(see photo top right)

But it is crucial that the development of saga-related tourism in Iceland must be done in a sensitive, informed, and responsible way however. Coming from the other academic 'side', I enjoy the different perspectives that re-enactment, for example, can bring to the study of history and culture but draw the line at attending 'Genuine Viking Feasts' and enforced communal horn-drinking feel and break out in a cold sweat thinking about the extreme manifestation of saga tourism -- Iceland being turned into one huge medieval theme park...not that this seems to be on the cards, thank goodness. One of the strengths of the Saga Trail Association, it seems to me, is the autonomous and local nature of the individual participating members: I have enjoyed seeing the different approaches and emphases at the museums/sites I have visited so far and look forward in the coming months to seeing what the sites I haven't yet made it to have to offer.

The Promise of Spring in Iceland has seemed something of a vain hope for much of the past couple of weeks. Though buds are visible on trees and the occasional daffodilly and crocus are valiantly unfurling their bright petals -- the 'first day of summer' (an official public holiday) was about 10 days ago -- several inches of snow fell in Reykjavík on Saturday night and into the early hours of Sunday morning -- by which time it was the First of May. Hmm. I'm off to the West Fjords on Thursday for some Gísla saga action and a spot of filming which promises to be great fun...the Ljósvetninga saga report will come soon, and then an update from the Wild West... gleðilegt sumar to all reading meanwhile!

Love in a cold climate...



The rune-stone at Borg
(a replica; the original is in the Þjóðminnjasafn) 

In the churchyard at Borg in Mýrar, the district in which Egils saga is set -- said to be the oldest consecrated churchyard in Iceland, established in 1002 CE -- there is a narrow pentagonal basalt stone from Mount Baula, measuring approximately 125 cms. Along its length, it is incised with runes. In 1753, the stone was examined by Eggert Ólafsson and Bjarni Pálsson who were travelling around Iceland gathering information about the country on behalf of the Danish crown (their account was published in 1772 under the title Vicelavemand Eggert Ólafsson's og Landphysici Bjarni Pálsson's Reise igjennom Island; an English translation published in 1805 can be found online here). Eggert and Bjarni noted that the stone was in bad repair -- broken into three pieces -- and the runes were difficult to make out but they nonetheless concluded that they read 'Here lies Kjartan Ólafsson' and the stone marked the final resting place of this hero from Laxdæla saga, who died around 1003 CE and whose body was taken to Borg and buried there, according to this saga.



Detail from the rune-stone at Borg

An examination of the stone in modern times has revealed that it actually dates from the later part of the 15th century and the runes in fact read 'her : huiler : halur : hranason' ('Hér hvílir Hallur Hranason'; 'Here rests Hallur Hranason'). Nevertheless, on seeing the stone for myself, I decided that travelling north from Mýrar to Dalir, where Laxdæla saga unfolds and Kjartan died, would make a nice progression. Moreover, one of the principal characters in Laxdæla saga, Þorgerðr Egilsdóttir is (as her second name suggests) the daughter of Egill Skalla-Grímsson of Egils saga fame (see posts of Sunday 20th March, Friday 25th March, Saturday 2nd April); Kjartan Óláfsson was Þorgerðr's and her husband Óláfr pái ('Peacock') Höskuldsson's son -- and thus Egill's grandson. 

Laxdæla saga has always been one of my favourite sagas. It is an immense, epic tale of tragic love; it is more 'romantic' in character and in its descriptive detail than many of the other sagas; and amongst the characters who feature in the saga, there are several remarkable and strong women. The portrayal of these women and the focus and presentation of the narrative has led some to argue that it must have been written by a woman... 

Looking east up the Laxá

So I drove north from Egils-saga-territory to Hvammsfjörður in order to read the saga of the people of Laxárdalur. W. G. Collingwood writes that 'The valley of the Laxá ['Salmon-River'] is well-known to English readers from William Morris's [1870] poem of "The Lovers of Gudrun", which epitomises Laxdæla saga, and tells the tale of the family that lived at the two great houses of Höskuldstead and Herdholt' (Pilgrimage, p. 122). The 'argument' at the beginning of Morris's poetic retelling of the central part of the saga narrative (which was published as part of his work The Earthly Paradise) reads as follows: 'This story shows how two friends loved a fair woman, and how he who loved her best had her to wife, though she loved him little or not at all; and how one of these two friends gave shame to and received death of the other, who in his turn came to his end by reason of that deed' (The poem can be found online as a digital book here).  



Höskuldsstaðir

Morris's 'two friends' are Kjartan Óláfsson and Bolli Þorleiksson. Kjartan was born at Höskuldsstaðir, on the southern side of the Laxá river. The saga describes him at length and with a string of superlatives: as well as being strong and the most accomplished of all men at sports and fighting, Kjartan was allra manna fríðastr, þeira er fæzk hafa á Íslandi; hann var mikilleitr ok vel farinn í andliti, manna bezt eygðr ok ljóslitaðr; mikit hár hafði hann ok fagrt sem silki, ok fell með lokkum ... Kjartan var hverjum manni betr á sik kominn, svá at allir undruðusk, þeir er sá hann (Laxdæla saga, ed. Einar Ól. Sveinsson, Íslenzk fornrit 5 (Reykjavík, 1934), ch. 28, pp. 76-77; 'the most handsome of all men who have been born in Iceland; he had exceptional features and a well-formed face, the best-eyed of men and light in colour; he had a great quantity of hair which was as beautiful as silk, and fell in locks ... Kjartan was better-formed than any man, so that everyone who looked at him marvelled'). Kjartan was brought up with his foster-brother and cousin Bolli Þorleiksson, who was also handsome, strong, and accomplished: the saga states that Þeir unnusk mikit fóstbræðr (Laxdæla saga, ch. 28, p. 77; 'the foster-brothers loved each other greatly').

The hotpot at Laugar, changing-room (with underfloor
heating) in the sweet turf-roofed wooden hut...

At Laugar in Sælingsdalur, on the inner northern side of Hvammsfjörður (which Collingwood describes as 'resembl[ing] a top boot, laid down, with its heel to the East and its toe to the North', Pilgrimage, p. 115), Guðrún Ósvífrsdóttir grew up, 'the most promising of woman who had grown up in Iceland, both in appearance and in intelligence ... of all women, the most wise and most articulate' (hon var kvenna vænst, er upp óxu á Íslandi, bæði at ásjánu ok vitsmunum ... Allra kvenna var hon kænst ok bezt orði farin, Laxdæla saga, ch. 32, p. 86). There were -- and are -- natural hot springs at Laugar (I sat in the recently rebuilt hotpot, alone, in the rain, looking around at the snow-dappled mountain-sides and thinking about Guðrún), and the saga tells how the wise and prescient Gestr Oddleifsson stops off there on a short visit. Guðrún has had four strange dreams in which she throws an ill-fitting headdress into a stream, loses a valued silver ring in a lake, falls and in doing so breaks a cherished gold ring on a stone, and finally, loses a heavy gold helmet studded with gemstones which falls from her head into Hvammsfjörður. Guðrún describes these dreams to Gestr, hoping for his interpretation: Guðrún will have four husbands, and her feeling for the worth of each object -- and reaction to its loss -- symbolises the outcome of each marriage. 

Some years later, Guðrún is back at Laugar with two marriages behind her, and Kjartan is a regular visitor there; Þat var allra manna mál, at með þeim Kjartani ok Guðrúnu þætti vera mest jafnræði þeira manna, er þá óxu upp (Laxdæla saga, ch. 39, p. 112; 'It was everyone's opinion that it Kjartan and Guðrún seemed to be the most equal match of those who had then grown up'). But Kjartan determines to go abroad to Norway, buys a ship, and makes his travel plans. Guðrún longs to accompany him but is refused... At the Norwegian court, Kjartan is held to be the most exceptional man ever to have come from Iceland...with Bolli a close second; they convert to Christianity, and eventually, Bolli goes back to Iceland though Kjartan remains in Norway and doesn't take up Bolli's offer to send any specific message back to Guðrún. Bolli marries Guðrún, and when Kjartan does return to Iceland, he marries a woman called Hrefna. Kjartan eschews Bolli's efforts to rekindle their closeness; jealousy and bitterness and petty-minded acts of theft and insult on both sides develop into open feud -- and Guðrún urges Bolli to avenge their household for the insults Kjartan has directed at them.

The scene is set for an ambush when Kjartan is riding through Svínadalur: Guðrún's brothers attack but Bolli stands by; Kjartan sets his back against a large rock and defends himself against the onslaught. "Bolli frændi, hví fórtu heiman, ef þú vildir kyrr standa hjá?" (Laxdæla saga, ch. 49, p. 153; "Cousin Bolli, why did you leave home if you wanted to stand still to the side?") calls Kjartan to Bolli, and Guðrún's brothers urge Bolli on to take action -- they will be deeply shamed if Kjartan escapes now. So Bolli draws his sword and turns on Kjartan. When Kjartan sees this, he throws down his weapons saying that though Bolli is about to commit a terrible kin-slaughter, he would rather receive his deathblow from Bolli ("Víst ætlar þú nú, frændi, níðingsverk at gera, en miklu þykki mér betra at þiggja banaorð af þér, frændi, en veita þér þat", Laxdæla saga, ch. 49, p. 154; "Certainly you intend now to commit a shameful deed, cousin, but it seems much better to me to receive death from you, cousin, than to grant the same to you"). Bolli deals Kjartan his deathblow without answering, gathers up the fatally-wounded Kjartan in his arms, and Kjartan dies on Bolli's lap.



Kjartanssteinn in Svínadalur

A short distance to the east of the road that runs north/south through Svínadalur, a little south of a gully ('gil') called Drífandagil, is a large stone. The stone stands on a small hill the other side of the stream that runs along the road; it is known as Kjartanssteinn ('Kjartan's stone'; photo to left, the dark silhouette against the snow in the upper right quartile of the picture). The stone is marked on maps of the area though I could not find out when it first acquired the name 'Kjartanssteinn'. Local people who I talked to all commented that the puzzle with regard to this stone is that its location south of Drífandagil does not fit perfectly with the details in Laxdæla saga concerning the ambush and killing of Kjartan. According to the saga, the ambushing party rides to Svínadalur and takes up position beside a gully called Hafragil. Kjartan rides south down the valley towards Hafragil -- and the attack takes place here, by a large stone.

But today, there is no large stone besides Hafragil, which is some 5kms south of the stone known as Kjartanssteinn. Is the saga 'right' in locating the fight by Hafragil -- where perhaps there once was a large stone which subsequently rolled away? Is the stone known as Kjartanssteinn today the 'right' stone, and did the attack 'actually' take place a little to the north of where the saga tells us it happened? Did the 13th-century saga author know of a stone in the area which in local tradition was connected in some way to Kjartan and his death, and which prompted him (or her...) to include the detail that Kjartan set his back against a large stone while he defended himself? Is the identification of the large stone south of Drífandagil as Kjartanssteinn a nice example of the natural human desire to locate a momentous event described in a powerful narrative physically in the landscape? "This is where the great hero Kjartan Óláfsson died! Right here, on this very spot..." The tragedy and pathos of the scene is focused and becomes concrete, the veracity of the narrative is confirmed by the landscape. 

Who knows. Behind these questions are lines of debate that have been pursued by saga-critics throughout the history of saga scholarship; I do not hope or intend to answer questions revolving around the extent to which the sagas are 'true' or not, on the basis of their fit in the physical landscape. But what a deep thrill to sit in the hotpot at Laugar thinking of Guðrún and her dreams, and to walk up to Kjartanssteinn with the desperate image of Kjartan's death at the hands of his foster-brother and best friend in my mind -- the resonance of remarkable characters and events from a long-past era coming together with the present.       

Egils saga in the past and present (2)

Streetsign in Borgarnes

Streetsign in Borgarnes
(with Landnámssetrið behind)

It is impossible to spend any length of time in Borgarnes and the Mýrar area and to remain oblivious to Egils saga and its place in the region's history and identity. Most of the street names in Borgarnes commemorate characters in the saga and several large cairns (some with accompanying explanatory signs) have been raised at places which feature in the saga. Þorgerðr Brák was an ambátt ('bondwoman') in Skalla-Grímr's household who fostered Egill as an infant: she is described as being 'a large woman, strong as a man and well-versed in magical lore' ('hon var mikil fyrir sér, sterk sem karlar og fjölkunnig mjök', Egils saga, ed. Sigurður Nordal, Íslenzk fornrit II (Reykjavík, 1933), ch. 40, p. 101). The saga relates how, when Egill was 12 years old, the winter-time ice-hockey-like-game knattleikr was played just south of Borg, on the ice of the small bay Sandvík. Egill and his friend Þórðr Granason played against Skalla-Grímr and the game went their way while the day lasted; when the evening drew in, however, as Skalla-Grímr's inherited werewolf/shapeshifting traits came out, he  grows in strength and seizes Egill's friend Þórðr, driving him down onto the ice with the result that he dies instantly. Egill is Skalla-Grímr's next target -- but at this point, Þorgerðr Brák steps in and exclaims 'Hamask þú nú, Skalla-Grímr, at syni þínum' (Egils saga ch. 40, p. 101; 'You're now taken by a fit of berserk-like rage towards your own son!').

Skalla-Grímr grabbed Þorgerðr, but she escaped his grasp and ran all the way down the Digranes/Borgarnes peninsula, chased by Skalla-Grímr. When she reached the end of the peninsula, the saga describes how she threw herself into the water to swim to safety; Skalla-Grímr cast a great stone after her and it hit her between the shoulders, 'ok kom hvártki upp síðan; þar er nú kallat Brákarsund' (Egils saga ch. 40, p. 102; 'and neither of the two came up afterwards; that place is now called Brákarsund ('Brák's Channel')). A cairn stands at the end of the Borgarnes peninsula marking the spot where this part of the saga narrative took place; a bridge now connects the peninsula with the small island, Brákarey, that lies just off the peninsula, and on which local buses are parked and a handful of workshops stand.

Egill composes Sonatorrek 
(Statue at Borg byÁsmundur Sveinsson; on the left, 
Þorgerðr hands a harp to Egill, on the right, with a
gaping hole where his heart and stomach should be)

There is no more in Egils saga about Þorgerðr Brák other than the short description of her quoted above and the few lines which outline the violent climax of the knattleikr. Her story, however, has been made into the subject of the one-woman play 'Brák' written and performed by Brynhildur Guðjónsdóttir and still showing at the National Theatre in Reykjavík. One creative idea that the play presents is that it was Brák who nurtured Egill's poetic talents. The prose of the Icelandic sagas is famously silent as far as the elucidation of saga-characters' inner thoughts and emotional responses is concerned. In the one-man play 'Mr Skallagrímsson', written and performed (at the Landnámssetrið in Borgarnes) by Benedikt Erlingsson, however, Egill's relationship with Þorgerðr Brák, with his father Skalla-Grímr, brother Þórólfr, and others in the saga, are explored from a sympathetic, human perspective, to the end that Egill -- nominated as 'Badass of the Week' on this um interesting website and whose throat-biting, vomiting, excessively violent behaviour in the saga is often unattractive to say the least  -- might be seen almost as a tragic figure.



Egill the Poet, drawn by Guðmundur Þorbjarnarson 
of Borg, aged 6/7. Egill's ability to touch his nose
with his tongue symbolises his poetic talent.

'Mr Skallagrímsson' is a two-hour tour-de-force and an outstanding demonstration of how the sagas (or their component narrative episodes) may have been passed down orally prior to their written composition in the 13th/14th centuries, and were certainly subsequently 'performed' from the manuscripts in which their texts were copied to the assembled members of farm-households, during the long winter evenings, right up until the early 20th century. Benedikt Erlingsson tells Egils saga -- which runs to around 300 pages in printed editions/translations -- with no props, no special effects, and without the expectation that the audience should know the saga well or at all. The energy in his performance when I saw the show was extraordinary and the audience were drawn in and held from start to finish, laughing unrestrainedly for much of the duration of the play -- sometimes at direct quotations from the saga itself. How about that for making the sagas accessible and immediate to audiences today... 

Another way in which Egils saga is made immediate and concrete for those interested in the saga in the 21st century is through archaeological research connected with the saga that has been conducted (and is still ongoing) in the area, especially at Mosfell (back towards Reykjavík), the farm to which Egill moved in his old age, and where he died and was buried. Major excavations have been undertaken here by the Mosfell Archaeological Project (MAP) team headed by Jesse Byock of the University of California in Los Angeles. A full outline of the project and reports covering the excavations so far can be found on the MAP website.

Egils saga relates how initially, Egill was buried in a pagan burial mound but when the country converted to Christianity a decade or so later, Egill was exhumed and his bones laid to rest in the newly-consecrated chuch at Mosfell. When a new and larger church was built 150 years later, Egill was exhumed for a second time by a famous descendant of his, Skapti Þórarinsson, a priest and a learned man. On this occasion, the unusually large size, weight, and appearance of Egill's skull -- the outer surface was ridged all over like a scallop-shell -- provoked interest: the saga describes how Skapti placed the skull on the churchyard fence and hewed at it with an axe to see how thick it was. Remarkably, the blow from Skapti's axe had no result other than that the skull turned white at the point of the impact. Not a bad thing for a viking to have such an indestructible skull, comments the saga...see here, however, for Jesse Byock's argument (published in the Scientific American) that Egill may have suffered from the bone condition known as Paget's Disease. Egill's bones have not yet been found and exhumed for a third time...presumably he is still resting in peace somewhere, and perhaps best to leave him be for the next millennium?

Egils saga in the past and present (1)

The year is 891 CE and Skalla-Grímr Kveld-Úlfsson ('Baldheaded-Grímr, son of Evening-Wolf') sails to Iceland from Norway. Skalla-Grímr's father, Kveld-Úlfr (so called because he is a shapeshifter, his human characteristics being taken over by wolfish ones when the evening draws in), sails in convoy but becomes weaker and weaker from post-berserkr exhaustion as the ships approach the new land. Kveld-Úlfr orders a companion on his ship: 'Þér skuluð bera kveðju mína Grími syni mínum, þá er þér finnizk, ok segið honum þat með, ef svá verðr, at hann kemr til Íslands, ok beri svá at, þótt þat muni ólíkligt þykkja, at ek sjá þar fyrir, þá taki hann sér þar bústað sem næst því, er ek hefi at landi komit' (Egils saga Skalla-Grímssonar, ed. Sigurður Nordal, Íslenzk fornrit II (Reykjavík, 1933), ch. 27, p. 71; 'You shall bear my greetings to my son Grímr, when you find each other, and tell him this too, if it happens that he comes to Iceland, and if it turns out that -- although it seems unlikely -- I am there ahead of him, then he shall settle in the place next to where I have come to land'). 

On his death, Kveld-Úlfr's coffin is thrown overboard following his final instructions. The coffin is washed into the fjord now known as Borgarfjörður -- and the place where it is driven ashore, and where it is subsequently interred after being found, is known afterwards as Kveldúlfshöfði ('Kveldúlfr's headland'). The place where Skalla-Grímr's ship took land was named Knarrarnes ('Merchant-ship headland'), one of the larger islands of the hundreds of skerries that pepper the sea to the east of the Mýrar peninsula, described by W. G. Collingwood as  'a romantic fringe of ness and voe' (W. G. Collingwood, Pilgrimage, p. 56; photo of Collingwood below).
   



W. G. Collingwood on horseback,
Iceland 1897



Thus Skalla-Grímr 'built a house at Borg, one of the highest of the castle-like holts that rise above the mires ... We can stand on Egil's Borg and see in the sunset to northward, above wide rolling grass land, a long range of peaks from Eiríks-jökul and Baula to Snæfell fifty miles over the bay. To the south, close at hand, rises Hafnar-fjall, steep and scarred, above the blue fjord and rocky Borgarnes.' (Collingwood, Pilgrimage, p. 56, 59). There was no sunset to illuminate the mountains along the Snæfellsnes peninsula during the days I spent exploring Mýrar with Egils saga in hand: snow had buried the land and constant clouds concealed the mountains to the north and east. Nor was there much evidence of the Eden-like abundance of flora and fauna that, according to the saga, the new settlers discovered, and from which many of the names these men bestowed on places derive: 'var þar mýrlendi mikit ok skógar víðir, langt í milli fjalls ok fjöru, selveiðar gnógar ok fiskfang mikit ... fundu þeir þar andir margar ok kölluðu Andakíl ... þá kómu þeir á nes eitt lítit ok veiddu þar álptir nökkurar ok kölluðu Álptanes' (Egils saga, pp. 72-72; 'there was a great expanse of moor-land and it was widely-forested, a great distance between the mountains and the shore, plentiful seal-hunting and great stores of fish ... they found many ducks there [in one place] and called it Andakíll ('Duck-inlet') ... then then came to a certain small headland and hunted some swans there and called it Álptanes ('Swan-headland')').



Álptanes church from the shoreline

I drove down to Álptanes -- a journey of c. 30 kms or so from Borgarnes which took a good 45 minutes in the Embulance, what with the road being so snow-choked -- and began to get a sense of the expanse and relative flatness of the Mýrar country. The tide was out and there were great stretches of black sand between the exposed skerries; oily ribbons of water incised sinuous channels through the dark sands. Climbing up onto the outcrop of rock to the east of the church and the current farm buildings it was possible to see for miles: east across the fj0rd over to the sharp flanks of Hafnarfjall, north-east over to Borgarnes, west and south-west over the skerries on which numerous ships have foundered (the most famous in recent times being the French schooner Pourquoi Pas?, wrecked in 1936 on its way back from a research-expedition headed by Jean-Baptiste Charcot in Greenland).

It was to Álptanes that the 3-year-old Egill rode from Borg, on his own, after his father Skalla-Grímr refused to let him come with him and others to a feast that Egill's maternal grandfather was holding at Álptanes one spring, saying that Egill didn't know how to behave in public when there was heavy drinking. Egill is given a warm welcome by his grandfather when he enters the farmhouse: men are merrily drunk and composing verses as entertainment and Egill offers one up himself (Egils saga ch. 31, pp. 81-82; my translation):

Kominn emk enn til arna Yngvars, þess‘s beð lyngva, hann vask fúss at finna, fránþvengjar gefr drengjum; mun eigi þú, þægir, þrévetran mér betra, ljósundinna landa linns, óðar smið finna.

Prose order: Kominn emk enn til arna Yngvars, þess’s gefr drengjum lyngva fránþvengjar beð; vask fúss at finna hann; þú mun eigi, þægir ljósundinna linns landa finna þrévetran óðar smið betra mér. Translation: I have come to Yngvarr’s hearth, he who gives to heroes the bed of the flashing-thong of the heather [snake > gold];  I was eager to find him; you will not, thruster of the gleaming twisting land of the serpent [gold > generous man], find a three-year-old crafter of poetry better than me.



Egill is given three sea-snail-shells and a duck's egg as payment for his poetic exertions; verses attributed to him -- both single ones, and longer poems such as the famous Höfuðlausn ('Head-Ransom') and Sonatorrek ('Terrible Loss of Sons') -- are worked into the saga prose throughout the long narrative. Sonatorrek is Egill's articulation of his grief at losing his dearly-loved son Böðvarr, who drowns after his boat is capsized in Borgarfjörður. Böðvarr's corpse is washed onto Einarsnes, a headland a short distance to the east of Borg, across a small creek; Egill has Böðvarr's body laid beside that of his father Skalla-Grímr's, in the burial mound he had raised for Skalla-Grímr on Digranes (now Borgarnes, and in a small public park). 

Egill carries his dead son Böðvarr
to Skalla-Grímr's mound



Skalla-Grímr's and Böðvarr's mound
(in the park in Borgarnes)







At Borg, 'the historical homestead, still partly built of oak-beams carved and moulded in the ancient times' that Collingwood found on the site (Pilgrimage, p. 59) is no longer there; a Pre-Raphaelite-style altarpiece painted by Collingwood at the time of his visit, paid for by the then-incumbent priest, hangs above the altar in the small wooden church, however. A cairn has been raised on the rocky borg ('dome-shaped hill') itself marking the place as an 'Egils saga site', and a striking sculpture by the famous Icelandic sculptor Ásmundur Sveinsson which represents Egill in the process of composing Sonatorrek stands between the sea and the church and vicarage. Modern responses to Egils saga are rich in this area, and beyond: this evening, I attend a performance of the one-man-play 'Mr Skallagrímsson' at the Landnámssetrið; the next post will report on this, and gather together some other modern 'retellings' or material engagements with the saga...Egils gull, anyone?   

Borgarnes in the bitter cold

From the marshes of the south-west to the swamps (mýrar) of the north-west: after some happy and warm days in Reykavík, I set off north yesterday with the intention of spending the next two weeks around Mýrasýsla. It has snowed and snowed over the course of the past week but the time has come to resume work in the field despite the bitter cold (the water in my 5-litre plastic water cans froze overnight...). 

The young Egill
(exhibit at the Landnámssetrið)

Mýrasýsla is rich in saga-sites and home to one of the most famous of all of the Íslendingasögur, Egils saga Skalla-Grímssonar. The protagonist of this saga, Egill Skalla-Grímsson, is one of the most colourful and ambivalent of all characters featured in the sagas. He is dark in appearance and unrelentingly difficult in temperament; he composes his first verse at the age of three; notches up his first killing at the age of six; and his long life is a series of violent encounters that take place in Iceland, Norway, England, and further afield.   

My first port-of-call in Mýrasýsla -- given the challenging conditions outside -- was the excellent Landnámssetrið (Settlement Centre) in Borgarnes which describes itself not so much as a museum as an 'installation'. The Centre houses two permanent exhibitions, both of which are navigated around with informative and entertaining audio-guides. The first exhibition covers the settlement of Iceland at the end of the 9th century and includes exhibits on Viking Age sea-faring and why and how the country was first settled, the flora and fauna that the new settlers found on the island, and how Iceland got its name (Landnámabók, 'The Book of Settlements' relates that it was initially called Snæland ('Snow-land') by Naddoddr, the 9th-century Norwegian who first sighted the island after being blown off-course on a voyage; it was then renamed Garðarshólmi ('Garðar's Island') by a Swede, Garðarr Svavarsson, who visited a few years later; and finally Ísland ('Ice-land') by the Norwegian Hrafn-Flóki Vilgerðarson). There are also a couple of fantastic 3-dimensional relief maps which show exactly where the first settlers established themselves around Iceland, and around the Borgarnes area.

A woodcut representation of Egill
(exhibit at the Landnámssetrið)

The second exhibition presents the principal episodes of Egils saga via audio-guide and various creative representations of scenes from the saga -- wooden sculptures, tableaux, woodcuts, a horse's head mounted gorily on a pole (Egill's níðstöng, or 'scorn-pole', which he sets up against the sorceress queen Gunnhildr and her husband, King Eiríkr blóðøx 'bloodaxe' of Norway). I enjoyed the exhibition's retelling of Egils saga very much, as did two German tourists who I had met the night before at an Ásatrú meeting (more on this in a future post...) and  for whom the exhibition was a first taste of the Icelandic sagas. 

The sun is at last breaking through the clouds...and tomorrow I head to Borg, Egill's farm, where I will meet the priest of the church there and begin my pilgrimage to the Egils saga sites in the area. W. G. Collingwood describes Mýrar as 'low and undulating, a wide stretch of swampy pasture-land ... beset with rocky holts which break the general level of the ground like waves in a stormy sea' (Pilgrimage, p. 54); I will hope for a safe passage and more on Egils saga will be posted shortly.