Matt Clayton - Tales from the Viking Age: Captivating Legendary and Historical Sagas

Tales from the Viking Age

Captivating Legendary and Historical Sagas

Copyright 2020

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Introduction

B etween the twelfth and the fifteenth centuries, Icelandic scribes were busily at work writing down what had formerly been orally transmitted stories containing both prose and snippets of poetry. Dubbed sagasfrom the Icelandic sgur , meaning story, myth, or historythe manuscripts diligently copied by medieval scribes preserve histories and pseudo-histories along with imaginative works about dragons, giants, and larger-than-life heroes. Within the total corpus of Icelandic sagas are the Fornaldursgur , or legendary sagas, and the slendingasgur , or sagas of Icelanders, which are sometimes also known as family sagas. These are two of the main subgenres of sagas.

As the name suggests, the legendary sagas are works of fiction. It is in these sagas that we meet all manner of fantastic creatures, read of the exploits of heroes and villains, and occasionally see the gods peek in to steer events or punish evildoers. The sagas of Icelanders, by contrast, are largely historical works that tell the stories of the families who left continental Scandinavian lands to settle Iceland beginning in the late ninth century. However, these historical sagas are not entirely untouched by the fantastic, since they also occasionally contain episodes that involve magic or the supernatural.

Before the advent of Christianity, writing other than runes used for inscriptions or incantations was unknown in Viking lands. Iceland was officially converted to Christianity around the turn of the eleventh century, so the stories that began to be written down in the centuries that followed occasionally are presented through a Christian filter, or have had certain aspects altered in order to conform with Christian doctrine and belief.

This current volume presents three Viking sagas. Two are legendary sagas, while the third is historical. The Saga of King Heidrek the Wise centers in part on the dwarf-made magic sword, Tyrfing. Tyrfing was originally made for King Svafrlami, but when he loses it in battle to Arngrim the Berserker, it becomes an heirloom of Arngrims house, passed down from generation to generation. We can therefore see that even the legendary sagas can conform to certain features of the sagas of Icelanders through a focus on the story of a particular family, following the doings of each successive descendant, who functions as a protagonist in their part of the tale.

The Saga of rvar-Oddr is a lengthy tale about the exploits of the hero Oddr. Doomed to live a 300-year lifespan only to be killed by a serpent hiding inside the skull of his long-dead horse, Oddr goes from battle to battle and raid to raid, conquering human opponents and giants alike. Oddr lives by both his wits and the strength of his arm which, as we shall see, comes in handy when dealing even with friendly giants. Oddr is something of a peripatetic hero, appearing in other sagas besides his own. We will have already seen Oddr fighting alongside his friend Hjalmar in The Saga of King Heidrek the Wise before we encounter him in his own tale.

The final saga in this volume is a historical one, dealing with the late tenth- and early eleventh-century Viking voyages to what is now northeastern Canada. The stories of these voyages are told in two historical works, The Saga of the Greenlanders and The Saga of Eirik the Red , which together are known as The Vinland Sagas . Here, we follow Bjarni Herjolfsson as he discovers this new land when he is blown off course on his way to Greenland, and then the voyages of Eiriks sons and daughter and others of Eiriks Greenland settlement, who make their own attempts to settle in a new place rich in wild grapes, salmon, and other good things.

Whether fantastical or historical, the Viking sagas show us very human characters behaving in very human ways. We see courage and villainy, sorrow and joy, and strength and weakness play out in these complex stories whose creators and first audiences lived over a thousand years ago.

The Saga of King Heidrek the Wise

L ike many other Icelandic sagas, The Saga of King Heidrek the Wise which is also known as the Tyrfing Cycle and the Heverar Saga is not solely about the title character but rather is a tale encompassing the history of several generations of the same family, of which Heidrek is but one descendant. In the first parts of the saga, we learn about Heidreks forebears and about the history of the enchanted sword, Tyrfing. The earliest sections of the saga are relatively short, but each successive section increases in length until we get to the portion that deals with Heidrek himself, which forms the bulk of the narrative.

At first, it might seem difficult to understand how Heidrek merits the nickname the Wise. Heidrek is malicious and impulsive, delighting in starting fights and sowing dissension among the men of his fathers court. His final mischievous act at that court is to throw a stone that accidentally kills his brother, which leads to Heidreks banishment. Before Heidrek is forced to leave, his father gives him some advice, which Heidrek vows to disregard. In the story that follows, we see how Heidreks disregard for rules turns into a kind of wisdom all its own, although in the end, Heidrek must pay a heavy price for his ruthlessness and overweening pride.