Njal's Saga Read online

  The ambiguities of sexuality and wisdom help to make Njála the richly complex saga that it is. A third kind of ambiguity has to do with character. None of the carefully sketched chief players – the list includes Hrut, Hallgerd, Gunnar, Njal, Mord, Thrain, Hildigunn, Skarphedin, Flosi, Kari and Thorhall – is a simple type. They combine good and bad, weak and strong, with all the three-dimensionality of real life. We have seen that Gunnar and Njal do not run to type. Thrain Sigfusson is Gunnar’s uncle and supporter, but compromises himself by agreeing to be present (though not participating) at the slaying of Njal’s servant, Thord Freed-man’s son (Ch. 41–2). In Norway he is at first a loyal supporter of Earl Hakon (Ch. 82), but then deceives the earl when he decides to aid Hrapp (Ch. 88). Back in Iceland he joins his brothers and Hrapp and Hallgerd in abusing the Njalssons, though at the same time he tries to prevent the others from using the epithets ‘Old Beardless’ and ‘Dung-beardlings’ (Ch. 91). He seems to be a man with the right instincts, but too easily persuaded to go against them. Flosi is another example of a ‘mixed’ character (the term is used of Hallgerd in Ch. 33). He is a godi, a forceful and highly respected man, but under great pressure he consents to lead others to the worst crime in the saga, the burning at Bergthorshvol. After the burning the saga very carefully builds up his character again.

  The word ‘fate’ often comes up in discussions of Njála, and to some readers it may seem that the many accurate prophecies of the future and the many omens of disaster mean that the saga consists of a totally determined series of events. Frequent utterances like ‘What is fated will have to be’ (Ch. 13) and ‘Things draw on as destiny wills’ (Ch. 120) support this impression. Njal knows quite early what will be the cause of his death, ‘Something that people would least expect’ (Ch. 55), and after the slaying of Hoskuld he predicts the death of himself and his wife and all his sons, and good fortune for Kari (Ch. III). Njal’s advice, as well as his outright prophecies, often has the force of a prediction. When he advises Gunnar not to kill twice in the same bloodline, for example, the reader knows that of course he will, and when Njal tells him that he will live to old age if he keeps the settlement (Ch. 74), the reader knows that Gunnar will break it, despite his two disclaimers (in Chs. 73 and 74). Warnings and advice are often the equivalent of predictions of violence. So too are goading scenes and changes of complexion – it seldom happens that a goading, or suppressed anger, does not lead to violent action.

  The fact that there is so little suspense for the reader, however, does not mean that on the story level, within the saga, the characters are constrained by fate. At the saga’s most crucial and powerful moments the author stresses the element of free choice: Gunnar chooses to stay in Iceland at the same moment that his brother Kolskegg decides to continue on his way abroad (Ch. 75); Njal is given free exit from the flaming Bergthorshvol, but makes a reasoned decision to remain inside (‘I’m an old man and hardly fit to avenge my sons, and I do not want to live in shame’), as does his wife (‘I was young when I was given to Njal, and I promised him that one fate should await us both,’ Ch. 129); his sons could stay outside where they have a good chance of repelling the attackers, but they go inside to their death because they choose to follow their father’s wishes (Ch. 128). Even the strict requirements of the feud pattern and honour code allow free choice, as Hall of Sida illustrates so nobly.

  LAW

  More than any other family saga, Njal’s Saga is about law. The first person mentioned – though he initiates only one case and is a minor figure in the saga – is described in terms of his ability at law. From Njal’s famous statements that ‘with law our land shall rise, but it will perish with lawlessness’ (Ch. 70) and ‘it will not do to be without law in the land’ (Ch. 97), to the swift conversion to Christianity by means of an arbitrated settlement at the Law Rock (Ch. 105), to the lengthy trial in Chs. 141–4, the author shows a serious concern for law. This interest is also evident from his mastery of legal technicalities, whether he acquired it from lawbooks or from orally transmitted codes. The ‘courtroom’ scenes in Chs. 73 and 141–4 testify to a more than unusual delight in legal formulas and procedures, often to the reader’s dismay. In some cases he seems to have copied down (or remembered) legal phrases without adapting them to the context in the saga. When Mord brings charges against Flosi Thordarson for having ‘assaulted Helgi Njalsson and inflicted on him an internal wound or brain wound or marrow wound which proved to be a fatal wound’ (Ch. 141), the author is slavishly repeating the entire ‘textbook’ phrase, without eliminating the two kinds of wounds that do not apply in this case. Mord’s suit in Ch. 142 contains this statement: ‘I declared all his property forfeit, half to me and half to the men in the quarter who have the legal right to his forfeited property. I gave notice of this to the Quarter Court in which this suit should be heard according to law’ Again, the formulation remains general, when it would have been proper to specify the East Quarter.

  Although the author earnestly endeavours to give the impression of the full and proper procedure around the year 1000, the legal details reflect his own time rather than that of the saga age. Laws were first written down in Iceland in 1117, and some of the phraseology in the saga corresponds word-for-word with passages in the Grágás (‘Grey-goose’) legal texts, written down in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries – not as an official lawbook, but as private copies of the law. Njála also has borrowings from a later code, the Jamsiða (‘Iron-side’), introduced from Norway in 1271.

  Njála is not only a law saga, it is an Althing saga. Many of the most important scenes in the saga, and not only legal scenes, take place at the annual general assembly at Thingvellir. In the text, and in the translation, the simple form ‘Thing’ often appears, but we can assume, unless informed otherwise, that the reference is to the Althing at Thingvellir rather than to one of the local assemblies.

  The Althing is often, but not always, the place where a feud could be regulated. The three ways in which this might be done are neatly summed up in a dialogue between Hildigunn and Flosi in the famous whetting scene in Ch. 116:

  ‘What action can I expect from you for the slaying, and what support?’ she asked.

  Flosi said, ‘I will prosecute the case to the full extent of the law, or else make a settlement that good men see as bringing honour to us in every way.’

  She spoke: ‘Hoskuld would have taken vengeance if it were his duty to take action for you.’

  A legal case settled by the courts, arbitration (whether by a third party or directly between the two principals), or blood vengeance – these are the three possibilities. In Njal’s Saga there are many feuds and many killings, and a number of cases are brought to the Althing for trial, but not one legal case is ever concluded. Even though the percentage of adjudicated cases is low in the sagas in general, and even though arbitration and vengeance were socially acceptable elements of feud, one would hope that court trials would have a higher score than zero in a saga so obsessed with law.

  That no conflict is settled in court in Njála is part of a larger irony, and no doubt a deliberate irony, since it is so obvious in the saga: law, even the elaborate law code of medieval Iceland, is incapable of controlling violence. As the saga progresses, there is increasing emphasis on blood vengeance, and after the burning at Bergthorshvol Kari refuses to consider any other form of settlement.

  The third alternative, arbitration, is used with some effect in Njála, especially in the early part. The killings of Hallgerd’s first two husbands are both settled peaceably by her father Hoskuld and her uncle Hrut, so satisfactorily that the offended parties (Osvif and Thorarin) are both said to be ‘out of the saga’ (end of Chs. 12 and 17). It is a relief to see a character leave the saga with dignity – and the assurance that no more trouble will come from him. Unfortunately this will not be the case in the remainder of the saga. There will be many arbitrated settlements (especially at Njal’s suggestion) and many acts of blood vengeance, but none of them will put an end to v
iolence. Even with the six reciprocal killings initiated by their wives, escalating dangerously but nonetheless settled amicably between Njal and Gunnar (Chs. 35–45), there is a false sense of security. For the fifth killing in this series, of Thord Freed-man’s son by Sigmund and Skjold, Njal makes a settlement with Gunnar and asks Skarphedin to keep it. Skarphedin agrees – ‘but if anything comes up between us, we shall have this old hostility in mind’ (Ch. 43).

  Old hostilities, lying under the surface but waiting to erupt in bloodshed, constitute the underlying narrative thread. The principal one goes straight from the slaying of Thord Freed-man’s son (Ch. 42), to that of Thrain Sigfusson (Ch. 92), to that of Hoskuld Thrainsson (Ch. in), to the burning at Bergthorshvol (Chs. 129–30). The direct links between these four acts, though sometimes overlooked by the reader, explain much of what is going on and illustrate the volatile nature of feud. When the Njalssons set out to kill Thrain in Ch. 92 they have a verbal exchange with their father that echoes the one they had in Ch. 44, when they set out to avenge Thord. After this conversation, when Kari asks Skarphedin why he killed Sigmund the White, Skarphedin’s answer is straightforward: ‘He had killed Thord Freed-man’s son, my foster-father.’ The killing of Thord – at which Thrain was a consenting presence – has led to the need to kill Thrain now (though Thrain has since given the Njalssons additional reason to kill him). The old hostility between the Njalssons and the Sigfussons, of whom Thrain was the most prominent, had been there all the time.

  The slaying of Hoskuld Thrainsson is the next inevitable link in this chain, but it is not easy for the reader to comprehend the slaying of this innocent, non-violent man, Njal’s beloved foster-son, especially since the killers are Njal’s own sons. The overt reason is the slander spread by Mord Valgardsson, at the prompting of his father. If this were the only reason, the Njalssons would appear very gullible and foolish, but there are two underlying motivations. One has to do with power (and perhaps a touch of jealousy). Njal did not trouble to find a godord for Skarphedin, his oldest son, or even a prominent marriage. The much younger Hoskuld, on the other hand, is well married and on the way to becoming a powerful godi, as Valgard noticed. That might be tolerable in itself, but there is the additional fact that Hoskuld is the son of Thrain Sigfusson. Old hostilities do not die. (One might even question the wisdom of Njal’s fostering the son of his own sons’ bitter enemy.) The other motivation for the killing has to do with the rules of feud. Lyting’s killing of Hoskuld Njalsson (Ch. 98) required vengeance by the Njalssons, and when Lyting is killed by Amundi in Ch. 106, the Njalssons direct their vengeance quite properly at the most prominent member of the offending family, who happens to be Hoskuld Thrainsson, their own foster-brother. It is a tragic clash of loyalties, and the Njalssons follow the course they think they must.

  The two greatest crises in the saga, the death of Gunnar and the burning at Bergthorshvol, both occur when an arbitrated agreement has been broken. It was agreed that Gunnar should go abroad for three years after killing Thorgeir Otkelsson. When he breaks the agreement and decides to remain at home (Ch. 75) he invites the attack which will cause his death, as Njal has warned him. Later, the settlement which good men have carefully arbitrated for the slaying of Hoskuld is nullified by the unforgivable insults exchanged by Flosi and Skarphedin (Ch. 123).

  The final legal scene in the saga (Chs. 141–4) is the longest, dramatizing finally and fully both the intricate complexity of the law and the futility of the law, even in face of the fact that the burning at Bergthorshvol was an unjustifiable act. After the lengthy formulaic presentation of the suit against the burners, Eyjolf Bolverksson (Flosi’s lawyer) makes a number of attempts, using the fine points of the law, to quash the case. Thorhall Asgrimsson is able to meet each objection and save the case. It is a fine battle between the best lawyers in the land, told from the point of view of the spectators and creating the excitement of a good tennis game in which the advantage alternates between the two sides: ‘Everyone.… agreed that the defence was stronger than the prosecution… they agreed that the prosecution was stronger than the defence.’ Finally Eyjolf serves his final ace (end of Ch. 144), to which there is no answer. In a proper court this would have been the end of the procedure, but in Njal’s Saga it is the occasion for violence. No scene better illustrates the failure of law and the failure of the Althing than when the lawyer Thorhall thrusts his spear into his infected leg, hobbles to the Fifth Court and kills the first kinsman of Flosi’s that he meets, thus initiating the total disorder of the battle at the Althing (Ch. 145). ‘With law our land shall rise, but it will perish with lawlessness.’

  CHRISTIAN AND PAGAN

  The pagan Germanic ethic of honour, courage and the blood feud is well illustrated in Njála. Men fight and die to enhance or at least preserve their good name. Hrut and Gunnar and Skarphedin and Kari and Flosi are noble men in the old mould, moved by a keen sense of personal honour. The saga has a pleasing abundance of epic situations – fights against overwhelming odds, heroes who set out on a journey despite warnings of danger, men caught in a difficult position because of divided allegiances. The narrative derives much of its impetus and interrelatedness from the rules of feud and the requirements of honour.

  But there is another, softer strain in the saga. Njal, the central figure, never lifts a weapon, and he gains respect because of his jurisprudence, his prophetic wisdom and his good will. Gunnar, in many ways the perfect Germanic hero, fights (in Iceland at any rate) only when provoked to do so, and with great reluctance. Hoskuld Thrainsson never lifts a weapon, not even the one he is carrying on that fateful day when he is slain in his own field. Snorri the Godi is one of the most respected men in the land, but when Skarphedin taunts him for not having avenged his father, his answer is that of a mild man: ‘Many have said that already, and I’m not angered by such words’ (Ch. 119).

  The person in the saga who illustrates this strain most steadily is Hall of Sida. His first action in the saga is to accept Christianity for himself and his household (Ch. 100). Repeatedly his voice is the voice of peace and conciliation: as spokesman for the Christian side, it is he who at great risk asks the pagan Thorgeir to decide which faith should prevail in Iceland (Ch. 105); after Flosi has been whetted to blood vengeance by Hildigunn, Hall tries to persuade him to make a peaceful settlement (Ch. 119); when the trial for the slaying of Hoskuld is thwarted, Hall persuades Flosi to accept arbitration (Ch. 122); when Flosi, after the burning, has paid an insulting visit to Asgrim, Hall tells him frankly that he went too far (Ch. 136); when Thorgeir and Kari have started on their course of revenge for the burning, it is Hall who performs the diplomatic task of persuading Flosi and Thorgeir to be reconciled (Chs. 146–7). Most impressive of all are his determined action to end the battle of the Althing, in which his son Ljot has been killed, and his plea to both sides to make a settlement: ‘Hard things have happened here, both in loss of life and in lawsuits. I’ll show now that I’m a man of no importance. I want to ask Asgrim and the other men who are behind these suits to grant us an even-handed settlement’ Shortly after, in order to facilitate the settlement, he adds:

  All men know what sorrow the death of my son Ljot has brought me. Many will expect that payment for his life will be higher than for the others who have died here. But for the sake of a settlement I’m willing to let my son lie without compensation and, what’s more, offer both pledges and peace to my adversaries. (Ch. 145)

  When we read that one of the leading godis in Iceland calls himself ‘a man of no importance’ and renounces any form of redress for his dead son, we are witnessing the complete antithesis of the old code of honour, in fact a new kind of honour.

  The two strains are neatly counterpointed in the feud between Hallgerd and Bergthora in Chs. 35–45. On the one hand the two women act systematically according to the code of feud, each killing giving the occasion for the next. On the other hand their husbands, who would normally carry out blood revenge, make generous offers of peace on each occasi
on.

  How do these two strains relate to the Christian element in the saga? This element is especially strong during and after the account of the Conversion in Chs. 100–105, although as early as Ch. 81 Kolskegg (Gunnar’s brother) is baptized in Denmark and becomes a Christian knight. Religious terms like ‘baptism’, ‘preliminary baptism’, ‘Mass’, ‘the angel Michael’, ‘responsibility before God’ and ‘God is merciful’ begin to appear after Ch. 100, and at least three memorable utterances catch the ear with their religious overtones: Hoskuld’s dying words ‘May God help me and forgive you’ (Ch. 111); Njal’s plangent cry over that same killing, ‘when I heard that he had been slain I felt that the sweetest light of my eyes had been put out’ (Ch. 122); and Njal’s words of comfort at the burning, ‘Have faith that God is merciful, and that he will not let us burn both in this world and in the next’ (Ch. 129). The battle of Clontarf in the final chapters is pointedly fought between pagan and Christian forces, and the Christian side wins.

  At times the two sets of values, Christian and pagan, intersect in a way that seems strange today. When Hildigunn goads Flosi by throwing Hoskuld’s blood-stained cloak over his shoulders, her words combine Christian imprecation with an appeal to Flosi’s sense of honour: ‘In the name of God and all good men I charge you, by all the powers of your Christ and by your courage and manliness, to avenge all the wounds which he received in dying – or else be an object of contempt to all men’ (Ch. 116). A few lines after Njal spoke the words of Christian comfort quoted above, he declines an offer of free exit from the burning house with these words: ‘I will not leave, for I’m an old man and hardly fit to avenge my sons, and I do not want to live in shame.’ It may be that in such conflations of Christian language and the code of honour we see best how Christianity functions in this saga – not as antithetical to pagan values but as complementary. Christianity did not at first condemn the blood feud, and the noblest pagan virtues were consonant with Christian values.