Njal’s Saga

(The Story of Burnt Njal)

(ca. 1280)

   Njal’s Saga is the best-known and most admired of the Old Icelandic sagas. At 400 pages in modern editions, it is also by far the longest, and with some 600 characters, the most complex as well. Like most family sagas, its action concerns a bloodfeud, this one extending over a period of 50 years. Events in the saga take place from about 930 to 1020. Thus they overlap the conversion of Iceland to Christianity in 1000, which plays a significant part in the story. At the center of the action is the lawyer, farmer, and sage Njal Thorgeirsson of Bergthorsknoll, who is burned alive in his own home, along with most of his family. The saga is divided into two main sections, telling two separate but related stories. Chapters 1–81 are concerned with Njal’s friend Gunnar of Hlidarend, a hero who, through the malevolence and envy of his wife,Hallgirth, drives away his own friends (all but the loyal Njal) and commits acts that bring upon him a sentence of outlawry.When he refuses to leave Iceland, he is attacked in his home by a horde of his enemies. He defends himself heroically, killing many of his attackers, but when his bowstring is destroyed and he begs Hallgirth for strands of her hair to repair it, she refuses out of revenge for a slap he had once given her. Ultimately Gunnar is killed.

   Much of the first half of the saga is also the story of Njal, Gunnar’s wise and generous friend. Chapters 82–159 tell Njal’s own story, and that of his quarrelsome sons. After a dispute with Thrain Sigfusson, Njal’s sons attack and kill Thrain. Njal tries to head off a feud by adopting Thrain’s son Hoskuld as his own foster son. But Njal’s sons quarrel with Hoskuld and kill him as well. Flosi Thordarson, the uncle of Hoskuld’s widow, takes up the feud, refuses any settlement, and ultimately leads an assault on Njal’s farm at Bergthorsknoll, where he burns Njal and his sons alive. Kari Solmundarson, Njal’s son-in-law and the only surviving male member of his family, prosecutes the burners and kills some of them before finally reconciling with Flosi in the final chapter of the saga.

   More than 50 manuscripts of Njal’s Saga are extant, the earliest of which date from the late 13th century.Written around 1280, it is one of the later sagas, and its style suggests its author was well-educated and highly literate. Many scholars believe the author used a number of written sources, but others argue that the saga is a traditional narrative based mainly upon oral sources. As with all sagas, the historicity of Njal’s Saga is difficult to determine. Both Gunnar’s death and the burning of Njal at Bergthorsknoll are corroborated by the historical text Landnamabok (Book of settlements), but there are a number of anachronisms and other errors in fact, so the story must be assumed to be an imaginative retelling of historical events.

   One problem for scholars of Njal’s Saga has been the unity of the text. The two disparate halves, as well as the length of the saga, have suggested to some that the text we have is in fact a combination of two separate sagas. Others, however, have pointed to thematic parallels in the two parts. Both halves deal with tension between the old, pagan violence of feuds and the new, Christian values of peace and settlement of disputes by law. Njal, who accepts Christianity, is constant in his opposition to the old culture’s demand for revenge, and although Gunnar strives to be like Njal, he gives in to the old ways. Both ultimately die in blood feuds, but the new ethic seems to prevail in the end,with the peaceful settlement between Flosi and Kari.

   Bibliography

   ■ Allen, Richard F. Fire and Iron: Critical Approaches to Njal’s Saga. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1971.

   ■ Jón, Karl Helgason. The Rewriting of Njal’s Saga: Translation, Ideology, and Icelandic Sagas. Buffalo, N.Y.:Multilingual Matters, 1999.

   ■ Lönnroth, Lars. Njal’s Saga: A Critical Introduction. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976.

   ■ Magnusson, Magnus, and Hermann Palsson, trans. and introduction Njal’s Saga. Harmondsworth, U.K.: Penguin, 1960.

   ■ Sveinsson, Einar Olafur. Njal’s Saga: A Literary Masterpiece. Edited and translated by Paul Schach. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1971.