Þorgeirr Hávarsson: A Headless Footnote

Fóstbræðra saga ('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 post of 14th June), 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...

One place I could not visit when I was exploring Fóstbræðra saga 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').

Hraunhafnartangi, looking south
Þorgeirsdys is to the left of the lighthouse as pictured

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' (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; Fóstbræðra saga, 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... 

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. 

Þorgeirsdys looking east

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...

From the foot of Þorgeirsdys

From Eastern Parts II: Brothers in Arms, or Droplaugarsona saga

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 (mikill maðr vexti ok vænn ok sterkr, gleðimaðr ok hávaðasamr. Hann vildi ekki um búnað hugsa. Vígr var hann manna bezt, Droplaugarsona saga 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 (mikill maðr vexti ok afrendr at afli, hljóðlátr ok stilltr vel. Hann var búmaðr mikill, Droplaugarsona saga ch. 2, p. 142). These two men were thought to have the greatest potential of all the young men in the district.

The old farmhouse at Arnheiðarstaðir

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“ („Rjúpur skulum vér veiða“, Droplaugarsona saga 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“ („Vit höfum veitt torðyfil einn“, Droplaugarsona saga 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.

Lagarfljót from the western side

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.

Vopnalág in Eyvindardalur, where Helgi
Ásbjarnarson is said to have hidden
(the hill with the scooped-out centre)

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: „Aldri var ek fagrleitr, en lítit hefir þú um bætt“ (Droplaugarsona saga 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.       

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 Gísla saga Súrssonar 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...

Grímsbás (under the rock overhang)

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.  

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 (‚Grímr‘s settled area‘), and taking on the saga that is set in Vopnafjörður, Vápnfirðinga saga, in which Krossavík features too. But these Grímr-place-names notwithstanding, Droplaugarsona saga 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...   

Upper panel of the famous medieval carved door panels
at Valþjófsstaðir church, in Droplaugarsona saga territory
(the originals are in the National Museum)

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  – 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 Droplaugarsona saga, Ketill þrymr – found buried in Norway, as Droplaugarsona saga and Fljótsdæla saga recount?...

For further reading on Grímr-place-names, and on Arneiðr and the silver hoard, see

·    Helgi Hallgrímsson, 'Grímshellir og Grímsbás', Múlaþing 15 (1987), 117-31

·    Helgi Hallgrímsson, ‚Arneiður og Droplaug: Frásögn af tveimur fornkonum á Austurlandi‘, in Greinar af sama meiði, helgaðar Indriða Gíslasyni sjötugum (Reykjavík, 1998), pp. 359-74

·    Þór Magnússon, ‚Silfursjóður frá Miðhúsum í Egilsstaðahreppi‘, Árbók hins íslenska fornleifafélags (1980/1981), 5-20 (available online here, with photos of the hoard  http://timarit.is/view_page_init.jsp?pageId=2054967)

From Eastern Parts I: Hrafnkels saga Freysgoða

The most famous saga set in the east of Iceland is Hrafnkels saga Freysgoða. 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...

Aðalból today, looking south down Hrafnkelsdalur

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 („Eigi veldr sá, er varar annan“, Hrafnkels saga Freysgoða ch. 3, ed. Jón Jóhannesson, Íslenzk fornrit 11, Reykjavík 1950, p. 102).

Faxagil, south of Aðalból

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.

Looking north up Hrafnkelsdalur

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‘ (Ok lýkr þar frá Hrafnkeli at segja, Hrafnkels saga ch. 10, p. 133).    

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 Hrafnkels saga ‚fits‘ or can be reconciled with what is to be found in the local area in modern times.

Hrossageilar, above Aðalból, where Sámr and
his men left their horses before going down
to Aðalból to torture Hrafnkell??

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‘) (Er þar ok kölluð Eyvindartorfa ok Eyvindarfjöll ok Eyvindardalr, Hrafnkels saga 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‘)‘ (heita þar síðan Hrossageilar, Hrafnkels saga 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‘)‘ (Heitir þar síðan Freyfaxahamarr, Hrafnkels saga ch. 6, p. 124).  

Many of the places named in Hrafnkels saga—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 today 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 Hrafnkels saga 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).

Basalt formations with moss

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 Hrafnkels saga 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. Other examples are Eyvindartorfa (where Eyvindr was buried, see above) and Freyfaxahamarr (where the horse Freyfaxi met his death, see above).

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...  

From the southern foot of Hrafnkelsdalur

For those who want to read more about Hrafnkels saga and place-names, one place to start is with an article by O. D. Macrae-Gibson, ‘The Topography of Hrafnkels saga‘, published in the Saga-Book of the Viking Society 19 (1974-77), 239-63, and accessible online at http://www.vsnrweb-publications.org.uk/Saga-Book%20XIX.pdf. Further references to previous scholarship can be found therein.

Njáls saga II: The burning at Bergþórshváll

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 Hrafnkels saga Freysgoða, Droplaugarsona saga, and Vápnfirðinga saga.  

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 Njáls saga 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. 

Bergþórsvhvoll today; Þríhyrningur to the right

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 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 (Brennu-Njáls saga 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 Njáls saga describes how Skarpheðinn kills a man called Þráinn Sigfússon – by gliding across the ice-covered Markarfljót river with breathtaking speed (fór hann svá hart sem fogl flygi, Brennu-Njáls saga 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’).

Skarpheðinn kills Þráinn on Markarfljót

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: ‘Þú ert it mesta forað ok vildir, at vér tækim þat upp, er öllum oss gegnir verst, ok eru köld kvenna ráð’ (Brennu-Njáls saga 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.

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’ (‘Em ek ófúss þess at láta svæla mik inni sem melrakka í greni’, Brennu-Njáls saga 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 Njáls saga 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: ‘Hvárt mun Skarpheðinn hafa kveðit vísu þessa lífs eða dauðr?’ (Brennu-Njáls saga 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’ (‘Nú höfum vér fingit mikinn mannskaða. Megu vér nú ok vita, er þetta hefir at borit, hvert heillaleysi vér höfum’, Brennu-Njáls saga ch. 130, p. 338).

Skarpheðinn

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’ (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’, Brennu-Njáls saga 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...      

Approach to Bergþórshvoll
(modern house is to left, out of the frame)

Collingwood described Bergþórshváll as standing ‘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‘ (A Pilgrimage to the Sagasteads of Iceland, 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‘ (Journals of Travel in Iceland 1871-1873, 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‘ (Journals, p. 45).

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 Njáls saga and notes the archaeological investigations conducted there, but the place felt empty. My sense that the time has passed for Njáls saga 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, *everyone* talked about Njáls saga, in all kinds of contexts, and addressing all kinds of Njála-related issues. I left Njáls saga country feeling a little sad.

Landmannalaugar

   

Landmannalaugar

Landmannalaugar