Chapter 3

THE ICELANDIC SAGAS

I

ICELAND AND THE HEROIC AGE

The close of Teutonic Epic--in Germany the old forms were lost, but not the old stories, in the later Middle Ages 179

England kept the alliterative verse through the Middle Ages 180

Heroic themes in Danish ballads, and elsewhere 181

Place of Iceland in the heroic tradition--a new heroic literature in prose 182

II

MATTER AND FORM

The Sagas are not pure fiction 184

Difficulty of giving form to genealogical details 185

Miscellaneous incidents 186

Literary value of the historical basis--the characters well known and recognisable 187

The coherent Sagas--the tragic motive 189

Plan of _Njála_ 190 of _Laxdæla_ 191 of _Egils Saga_ 192

_Vápnfirðinga Saga_, a story of two generations 193

_Víga-Glúms Saga_, a biography without tragedy 193

_Reykdæla Saga_ 194

_Grettis Saga_ and _Gísla Saga_ clearly worked out 195

Passages of romance in these histories 196

_Hrafnkels Saga Freysgoða_, a tragic idyll, well proportioned 198

Great differences of scale among the Sagas--analogies with the heroic poems 198

III

THE HEROIC IDEAL

Unheroic matters of fact in the Sagas 200

Heroic characters 201

Heroic rhetoric 203

Danger of exaggeration--Kjartan in _Laxdæla_ 204

The heroic ideal not made too explicit or formal 206

IV

TRAGIC IMAGINATION

Tragic contradictions in the Sagas--_Gisli_, _Njal_ 207

Fantasy 208

_Laxdæla_, a reduction of the story of Sigurd and Brynhild to the terms of common life 209

Compare Ibsen's _Warriors in Helgeland_ 209

The Sagas are a late stage in the progress of heroic literature 210

The Northern rationalism 212

Self-restraint and irony 213

The elegiac mood infrequent 215

The story of Howard of Icefirth--ironical pathos 216

The conventional Viking 218

The harmonies of _Njála_ 219 and of _Laxdæla_ 222

The two speeches of Gudrun 223

V

COMEDY

The Sagas not bound by solemn conventions 225

Comic humours 226

Bjorn and his wife in _Njála_ 228

_Bandamanna Saga_: "The Confederates," a comedy 229

Satirical criticism of the "heroic age" 231

Tragic incidents in _Bandamanna Saga_ 233

Neither the comedy nor tragedy of the Sagas is monotonous or abstract 234

VI

THE ART OF NARRATIVE

Organic unity of the best Sagas 235

Method of representing occurrences as they appear at the time 236

Instance from _Þorgils Saga_ 238

Another method--the death of Kjartan as it appeared to a churl 240

Psychology (not analytical) 244

Impartiality--justice to the hero's adversaries (_Færeyinga Saga_) 245

VII

EPIC AND HISTORY

Form of Saga used for contemporary history in the thirteenth century 246

The historians, Ari (1067-1148) and Snorri (1178-1241) 248

The _Life of King Sverre_, by Abbot Karl Jónsson 249

Sturla (_c._ 1214-1284), his history of Iceland in his own time (_Islendinga_ or _Sturlunga Saga_) 249

The matter ready to his hand 250

Biographies incorporated in _Sturlunga_: Thorgils and Haflidi 252

_Sturlu Saga_ 253

The midnight raid (A.D. 1171) 254

Lives of Bishop Gudmund, Hrafn, and Aron 256

Sturla's own work (_Islendinga Saga_) 257

The burning of Flugumyri 259

Traces of the heroic manner 264

The character of this history brought out by contrast with Sturla's other work, the _Life of King Hacon of Norway_ 267

Norwegian and Icelandic politics in the thirteenth century 267

Norway more fortunate than Iceland--the history less interesting 267

Sturla and Joinville contemporaries 269

Their methods of narrative compared 270

VIII

THE NORTHERN PROSE ROMANCES

Romantic interpolations in the Sagas--the ornamental version of _Fóstbræðra Saga_ 275

The secondary romantic Sagas--_Frithiof_ 277

French romance imported (_Strengleikar_, _Tristram's Saga_, etc.) 278

Romantic Sagas made out of heroic poems (_Volsunga Saga_, etc.) 279 and out of authentic Sagas by repetition of common forms and motives 280

Romantic conventions in the original Sagas 280

_Laxdæla_ and _Gunnlaug's Saga_--_Thorstein the White_ 281

_Thorstein Staffsmitten_ 282

Sagas turned into rhyming romances (_Rímur_) 283 and into ballads in the Faroes 284