A feature of Grettir's Saga and several of the other sagas is a combination of deadpan realism with weird material. After 13 brief introductory chapters, we get the story of Grettir, who becomes an outlaw hero and the victim of a chronic affliction caused by his looking into the eyes of the undead Glam during their fierce struggle. Finally Grettir makes his last stand against his enemies on Drang Island, like other places in the saga a real place.

The saga of Grettir is available in two in-print paperbacks, published by Penguin (Scudder) and Oxford World's Classics (Byock). Either should be excellent. The translation I will use is the University of Toronto one by Fox and Palsson, which has several photographs. I think it is out of print. Here, by the way, is an article by Byock about the strange skull of Egil, hero of another of the sagas:

[www.viking.ucla.edu]

The episode of Grettir's fight with the undead Glam is something that I encountered about 50 years ago in Sam Moskowitz's anthology Horrors Unknown, as written up by Frank Harris. His version -- a highlight of the saga -- may be read here:

[storyoftheweek.loa.org]

I hope, though, that some ED folk will take up the entire saga and that we can exchange some comments here. I'll probably post a few remarks whether or not anyone seems interested, as, if nothing else, a resource for later visitors to the forum. Perhaps I/we might read several sagas. This isn't "my" thread, so anyone who wants to start commenting on any saga sure can go ahead whenever. I hope very much, though, that the thread title will be respected and discussion will be restricted to medieval works. Poul Anderson's Hrolf Kraki's Saga is, as I recall, a very free retelling and I'd say probably should be omitted except as something to look at if a reader(s) wanted to discuss a translation of the original. I believe the medieval saga of Hrolf is one of what the Icelanders called the "lying sagas," tales loaded with marvels and regarded as fiction. The saga of Grettir did not belong to this category.

It can be good to just start reading primary sources -- the sagas in translation. But if you want to read a good book about viking culture (the sagas come from the Christian era, but often relate to persons from before the conversion of Norway and Iceland), I recommend that magnificent Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey's book Laughing Shall I Die.

[www.washingtonpost.com]

My friend Lars Walker talks about the sagas here. This video is a little over 20 years old and was made from a VHS recording. There are more recent Walker videos also available on YouTube. The seriously out of date introduction (Lars has published several further novels) is presented by yours truly.

[www.youtube.com]



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 22 Mar 23 | 10:13AM by Dale Nelson.

Live cams from Iceland:

[www.livefromiceland.is]

[www.livefromiceland.is]

(More are available at the same site.)

I hope no one trying a saga for the first time will mind too much the old Icelanders' habit of including "Thor" as an element in personal names. You get used to it. Likewise the saga writers' practice of beginning a few generations back before telling the main story deserves our respect and patience. We may be very individualistic and we may like to think of ourselves as self-made people who establish our own "identities." The saga writers know better...

Chapter 14, p. 24: Two brothers: “Atli was the [older]; he was an honest and quiet man, gentle and peaceable, whom everyone liked.” The “second son was Grettir. As a child he was self-willed, taciturn and harsh, sardonic and mischievous.” His father tells the boy to mind the geese and goslings, which Grettir objects to. His father insists and so Grettir kills the goslings and maims the geese. His father isn’t pleased. It's this second brother who is the subject of the saga. His cruelty to one of his father’s horses is hard to read about. As a youth, Grettir speaks what sounds like a proverb, but a sinister one: “Only a slave avenges himself at once, and only a coward never” (Chapter 15, pg. 28).



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 22 Mar 23 | 11:55AM by Dale Nelson.

Soon afterwards comes Grettir’s first killing, of a slave and in self-defense (p. 30).


In Chapter 18 (pp. 36ff.) we have the first supernatural episode, in which Grettir breaks into an unpleasantly odorous grave-barrow to steal treasure. (Robert E. Howard would have written this up in pulp style as the climax of a story.) The saga-writer, however, uses the same objective and laconic style he employs in other passages. He notes horse-bones in the mound, suggesting a pagan rite in which an animal is sacrificed to accompany the dead. The writer says that Grettir, feeling around in the darkness, encounters a chair’s back and can tell that someone is sitting in it; Grettir continues to plunder the grave anyway, and the mound-dweller attacks him. ...Having overcome this draug, Grettir knows what to do with the corpse to keep the creature from walking.


The episode soon after with Grettir defending vulnerable women from the lustful berserkers is like a Conan episode, except, again, that the saga author doesn't write it up in pulp style.

Chapters 32-35 give us the crucial episode of the hauntings at Thorhallsstead. Some dreadful creature disturbs the folk there and Thorhall finds it very difficult to employ a shepherd. Along comes an intimidating man from Sweden, Glam. We do not see the struggle between Glam and the haunter on Christmas Eve. Thereafter the creature does not return, though its huge footprints are visible; but Glam’s body is found, hideously swollen and discolored.

It proves impossible to take it to the church for a Christian funeral. Not even a team of oxen can move the corpse. A priest is brought to the scene, but Glam’s body has disappeared. However, when the priest leaves, the body is immediately found. “Eventually they abandoned the attempt to bring Glam to church, and buried him in a cairn just where he was.”


Then, in the laconic style of a saga, we read: “A little later the people found that Glam was not lying quiet. Terrible things happened; many men fell unconscious at the sight of him, and others lost their sanity. Soon after Christmas, people began to see him walking about the farmhouse and were terrified by him; many of them fled away. Then Glam began to sit astride the roof at night and beat it so furiously with his heels that the house came near to breaking. Soon he was walking about day and night, and men hardly found the courage to go up the valley, even on urgent business. All this was a great calamity for the people in the district” (Chapter 32, p. 73). Before long, Glam “laid waste all the farms” in the region (Chapter 33, p. 75).


Grettir arrives on the scene and is able to defeat Glam, in a manner which has led many to suspect some kind of connection with Beowulf and the battle with Grendel in Hrothgar’s uninhabitable hall. A common ancestor is possible. The battle is exciting enough, but what’s particularly dreadful is the curse Glam lays on Grettir and the faintness that comes over the warrior as, astride the monster, he looks into Glam’s eyes. Glam prophesies that Grettir from now on will be unlucky and will always see Glam’s eyes (Chapter 35, p. 79). And though Grettir is victorious, he finds thereafter that he has less control of himself than before, and is admittedly now afraid of the dark, seeing “phantoms” and so needing company (p. 80).


As his ill luck would have it, on one occasion during a sojourn in Norway, Grettir performs the feat of swimming across a channel of icy water to fetch fire for shivering merchants. He steals the fire and returns with it, but the next day, when the people he has been travelling with want to visit the camp across the water, they find it has burned and only bones are left. Grettir is not at fault for this and wants to clear his name. He gets audience with King Olaf and is eager to submit to the ordeal of carrying heated iron in order to prove his innocence. He fasts and, on the appointed day, walks towards the church. A youth unknown in the town comes up to Grettir and grossly insults and mocks him, and Grettir hits him and knocks him unconscious. Some people think he killed the lad.

Strangely, no one knows “where the boy had come from or what became of him afterwards.” Some think the youth was not a human being at all. In any event, by committing this act of violence Grettir has forfeited his chance at the ordeal to prove his innocence as regards the burning. The king says Grettir must return to Iceland, and can only say too that, if ever a man was “accursed,” that man is Grettir (Chapter 39, p. 86).

While still in Norway, Grettir stays with a prosperous farmer named Einar. During Christmastide, some “troublemakers” led by the berserker Snækoll come out of the forest. Snækoll demands that the farmer turn over his beautiful daughter to him. The farmer looks to Grettir for help. Grettir says neither the farmer nor he are willing to give up the young woman. The berserk begins to work himself up into the fearsome rage for which berserks are notorious, howling and biting the rim of his shield. While Snækoll’s mouth is still open, Grettir kicks the bottom of the shield and dislocates the berserk’s jaw; then he kills him by sword. The farmer rewards Grettir with “fine gifts” (Chapter 40, p. 88). But in the next scenes, while Grettir is staying with his brother Thorstein, his brother tells Grettir that he’d have been better of with slenderer arms but better luck. Grettir accepts this; “‘The old saying is true, that no man is his own creator’” (Chapter 41, p. 89). We have more wealth and remarkable technology, and can sustain, sometimes, for a long time the delusion that we are self-creators. But here Grettir and the traditional wisdom he cites are wiser than our culture is.

Dale Nelson Wrote:
> The episode soon after with Grettir defending
> vulnerable women from the lustful berserkers is
> like a Conan episode, except, again, that the saga
> author doesn't write it up in pulp style.

I'm very much enjoying the parts of this I have read so far. I think I understand what you mean about it reading like a Conan episode. On the one hand, Grettir is portrayed as larger than life and of dealing with multiple opponents. On the other hand, he employes credible strategies that make these achievements feel more plausible than a simple superhero fantasy. It is almost as if the fight scenes are written by someone who knew a little about fighting.

Dale Nelson Wrote:
> The saga of Grettir is available in two in-print
> paperbacks, published by Penguin (Scudder) and
> Oxford World's Classics (Byock). Either should be
> excellent.

Here's Magnusson & Morris' public domain translation from 1869:
[www.gutenberg.org]

Here's another public domain translation, not sure whose - maybe the 1914 version by G.A. Hight?
[www.gutenberg.org]

No opinion on relative merits, though I like the old-fashioned language of the Magnusson-Morris version.

Translations/adaptations can make a difference. I was just comparing passages on the death of Thorhall's daughter. Morris has "... when autumn came, the hauntings began to wax again; the bonder's daughter was most set on, and fared so that she died thereof." But Baring-Gould has "his little girl's health had given way under the repeated alarms of the winter; she became paler every day; with the autumn flowers she faded, and was laid beneath the mould of the churchyard in time for the first snows to spread a virgin pall over her small grave,", which sounds like Baring-Gould is taking considerable liberties.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 26 Mar 23 | 02:23AM by Platypus.

Dale Nelson Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Soon afterwards comes Grettir’s first killing,
> of a slave and in self-defense (p. 30).

Self-defense is a debatable point. From Skeggi's perspective Grettir is a robber is who is trying to take his meal-bag by force. Grettir imagines the meal-bag may be his own, but we never really find out the truth of the matter. Also, Grettir is so strong that once he wrests the ax from Skeggi's hand, Skeggi is no further threat, and killing Skeggi with his own ax is perhaps little more than bad temper.

That, at any rate, is the impression I get from the Magnusson/Morris translation.

The author of this saga keeps telling us how unlucky Grettir is, but gives us so many clues of his bad temper and bad character as the real causes of his many ills that one wonders if the author is being a little coy.

None of which takes away from Grettir being an amusing character.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 26 Mar 23 | 10:32PM by Platypus.

I finished this. I've heard it theorized that the final episodes, when Grettir's half-brother Thorsteinn visits Micklegard to avenge him, is written by a different hand. But my impression is that the author is merely aware that Thorsteinn and Grettir are very different characters, and that this is the main reason for the different nature of the later episodes.

A fair number of supernatural episodes and/or references in Grettis Saga - more than I expected, since I was led to believe the Glam episode was unique in this regard.

- Grettir tell his company that rock-trolls killed Skeggi, whereupon they paraphrase Aragorn - Trolls in broad daylight? You expect us to believe that?

- The superstition that ghostly night-fires burn above hidden treasure.

- The slaying of the barrow-wight.

- The episode of the hauntings on Shadow-Vale, which kills Glam, leading to his own undead hauntings (vampire-contagion style though it seems that Glam's own godlessness is also a factor).

- Glam's curse, which haunts Grettir for the rest of the story.

- Thorir, ruler of a remote valley where Grettir hides, is regarded by Grettir as a giant and a half-troll. This does not stop Grettir from messing around with his daughters.

- The goodwife thinks Grettir might be a troll, after he carries her and her daughter across a ford.

- The goodwife's house is then invaded by a female troll, who is stronger than Grettir. The day dawns while Grettir wrestles with her above a river, and she turns to stone.

- Gettir later dives into the river to find the underwater entrance to a troll lair. This reminded me of Beowulf's expedition to the lair of Grendel's mother.

- The pagan sorceress uses a tree curse, which leads to Grettir's end.

Did I miss anything?

We meet berserkers as well, and the slaying of such human monsters are numbered among Grettir's better deeds. But in this case, at least, they seem to be little more than ordinary men.



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 27 Mar 23 | 12:12AM by Platypus.

I'm still reading the Fox and Palsson version, Platypus, but I'm glad you found Grettir's Saga worth reading. As you point out, it has plenty of weird elements.

A good one to read next might be Eyrbyggja Saga, which has an amazing "door court" scene.

Following chapters exhibit Grettir’s strength and also his ill luck, as he fights off ambushes but arouses ever more enmity. Banished from most men’s dwellings, he lives as a brigand and sheep-stealer, giving ever more people cause of grievance against him. He finds hospitality with a marginally human host, Thorir, called a “giant” and a “half-troll.” Grettir later boasts that “he had had a great deal of fun with Thorir’s daughters, and they liked it too, for there were not many visitors around.” Grettir remembers Lent, but “observed the fast… by eating only suet and liver” (p. 130). The significance of this remark might be interpreted in more than one way. It could mean that Grettir, banished from the Christian community, still tries to honor human ways, and, restricted to a meat diet, denies himself a pleasing variety of cuts from the sheep, getting sufficient calories and nutriments to keep going, but denying himself some of the pleasures of the table; or the detail could be meant as a bit of ironic humor, that in his present career, while law-abiding folk are keeping the Lenten fast, Grettir has so little regard for it that he feeds richly on fried liver, a delicacy. His sport with the half-troll’s daughters suggests that Grettir isn’t doing the best he can to live as a Christian.

A reflection: In the setting of this time and place, there are no jails or prisons. When a crime has been committed, the matter may be settled on their own by negotiations between chieftains representing the parties concerned, or the persons at odds may appeal to the Law-Speaker at the annual Althing assembly. Compensation may be agreed upon in the form of pieces of silver. The disputed matter may also be the occasion of the origin, or the continuation, of a blood-feud. A criminal may be sentenced to outlawry. Anyone finding him may kill him without incurring legal penalty. People are not supposed to shelter and feed outlaws, although it seems they may give him assistance and then send him away. My sense is that, at this time, Iceland is to be thought of as becoming Christian, and that Grettir’s outlawry would mean that he is deprived of the sacraments – not that we ever see Grettir praying or exhibiting other signs of piety. His virtues are natural ones of courage, endurance, and, I suppose, keeping his word.

Grettir is terribly unlucky. Remember that he volunteered to dispose of the undead Glam on behalf of others, not to defend a household of his own. (His older brother inherited the family property.) But Glam’s curse has the effect, as it were, of working Grettir’s ever greater withdrawal from, or ejection from, the society of mankind. It's as if he is gradually becoming less human himself.

This reminds me of the Icelandic folktale "Trunt, Trunt, and the Trolls in the Fells," which may be read here:

[archive.org]


In the Icelandic tale, a member of a group of searchers after edible moss is attracted away from human society and becomes more and more trollish himself.

(Incidentally, that tale has reminded me of Blackwood's "Wendigo." In both you have people in a remote setting and one of them is withdrawn by a supernatural summoner and becomes less human -- that sort of idea.)


But one of the intriguing things about all this is that the setting is so specific. You can look at a map and have a pretty good idea, even sometimes an excellent idea, of where something is supposed to have happened. Likewise the details about various historical persons would make it possible to get pretty close to a date for when the events are supposed to have happened. This contrasts with, say, the Iliad and the Odyssey – anyway, as far as I know, the Greeks didn’t concern themselves with figuring out when the narrated events were supposed to have happened.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 28 Mar 23 | 12:07PM by Dale Nelson.

Dale Nelson Wrote:
> Grettir is terribly unlucky. Remember that he
> volunteered to dispose of the undead Glam on
> behalf of others, not to defend a household of his
> own. (His older brother inherited the family
> property.) But Glam’s curse has the effect, as
> it were, of working Grettir’s ever greater
> withdrawal from, or ejection from, the society of
> mankind. It's as if he is gradually becoming less
> human himself.

Glam declares that the weird will doom him become an outlaw and always live alone. My impression, though, is of an ironic reverse effect, that that the curse in the end forces Grettir to seek human company, and to find solitude unendurable. Hence, it indirectly leads to his doom, only one year shy of the 20-year limit for outlawry.

Yes, that's true. It's from the point of view of others, but not Grettir himself, that he must seem to be uncanny.

The saga ends with material mentioning the Varangian Guard, and that's having me thinking about a pen-friend (email, mostly). His name was Benedikt S. Benedikz, and he was an historian, librarian, and translator, who wrote a book about the Varangians, which I haven't read.

[www.mbl.is]

Ben and I corresponded for a few months leading up to his death in 2009. He had known Tolkien, and it was an article by him in a Tolkien fanzine that caught my eye and led to our acquaintance:

[tolkiengateway.net]

I hadn't retired yet and didn't have unlimited time, but maybe I should have made time to read Ben's book and to draw him out more about the sagas. Incidentally, he made a translation of a play "The Wish," based on a legend of an Icelandic magician. This translation was used for a performance in Durham, England. I guess it was pretty impressive for an amateur theatrical.

[en.wikipedia.org]

The legend (of Loftur) may be found in a book with plenty of "weird" interest, Jacqueline Simpson's Legends of Icelandic Magicians -- worth looking into if you can find a copy of this Mistletoe publication. Ben wrote the introduction!

Ben knew Simpson, who, so far as I know, is still alive, and whose book of Icelandic folktales is exceptionally interesting, as I've probably said here before.

[www.amazon.com]



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 29 Mar 23 | 09:57PM by Dale Nelson.

I have confirmed with the publisher that its special offer for The Complete Sagas of Icelanders boxed set is still good. It's funny to see that sellers at abebooks.com are offering the set for over a thousand dollars.

[www.sagas.is]

Compare:

[www.abebooks.com]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 30 Mar 23 | 09:12AM by Dale Nelson.

Hrolf Kraki's Saga in Eirik the Red and Other Icelandic Sagas may be recommended to sword-and-sorcery fanatics, because I don't know if there's a medieval work that's closer in style to that kind of pulp fantasy. (There are one or two other translations in print, but I refer to the one I've read three times now.)

Grettir's Saga is one of the Sagas of Icelanders, while Hrolf Kraki is a Saga of Times Past, and so lacks the historical dimension, the emphasis on feud and character, of the other. It seems to be basically just a fast-moving, imaginative adventure. Odin appears in it. His comic book demeanor, as the wise "All-Father," is absent here as elsewhere in medieval sources. Here he is a one-eyed evil spirit whom one of King Hrolf's champions longs to thrash -- for, yes, this saga is about Hrolf's champions and lacks a focus on one protagonist.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 31 Mar 23 | 12:44PM by Dale Nelson.

I've watched some of the video about Egil's Saga here, and thought I'd mention it to those interested. I'm not quite sure what the speaker is doing with the pronunciation of some names, but his qualifications are better than mine. The landscapes, though, are impressive.

[www.youtube.com]