Hello and welcome to another episode of
“Saga Stories” from the Reykjavík Grapevine. My name is Dr Matthew Roby
from the University of Iceland and today we're going to be talking about one of
the most famous of all of the Íslendingasögur, that is Njáls saga. Njáls saga was written in the late 13th century and
is first attested in manuscripts from around the turn of the 14th century. And it is
also the longest of all of the Íslendingasögur, hailed especially for its intricate weaving
of narrative threads throughout the saga. In fact, people who are reading
sagas for the first time, one of the common problems that they have is
understanding exactly why things happen later in the saga, which are actually set up in events
– sometimes seemingly insignificant events and relationships – that are established much earlier.
And Njáls saga is a prime example of that. It shows how feud violence develops according to a
sort of a snowball effect: lots of seemingly small events building up and triggering an avalanche of
violence. Njáls saga therefore shows the tragic and self-perpetuating nature of feud violence,
which, if the sagas are to be believed, continue to plague Iceland throughout the commonwealth
period. But Njáls saga also shows how the law can be used as a guard against this self-perpetuating
feud violence. It contains some episodes that show the success of law in preventing feud and a few
episodes that show the tragic lack of success of the law at stopping feud violence. And we
begin the story of Njáls saga here at Hlíðarendi, which was the farmstead of one of the
heroes in the early part of Njáls saga, whose name is Gunnarr. He's known as
Gunnarr á Hlíðarenda or Gunnarr of Hlíðarendi. Gunnarr is a handsome,
brave hero and a great fighter and, like many heroes in the Íslendingasögur, he
goes off as a young man to a trip to Scandinavia, where he wins renown doing various deeds
and act. And then he comes back to Iceland and then goes to the Alþing where he meets his
future wife, Hallgerðr, who is known as one of the best matches in Iceland at the time, well
known for her long legs and beautiful hair. Now Gunnarr gets engaged to Hallgerðr at the
Alþing, despite receiving advice against it from a number of people, including from her uncle, who
warns him of Hallgerðr’s bad temperament. But they do get married and Hallgerðr and Gunnarr return
to Hlíðarendi to live. Now, a few years after they get married, there is a particularly bad winter
and lots of people are running out of supplies. But Gunnarr, as a consummate hero, very generous,
gives to all of the farmers who come to ask for supplies who are running short. And, because
of that, Gunnarr himself runs low on supplies, so he rides to the house of a neighbor
called Otkell and asks whether he can have some of his supplies to survive the winter. And
despite the generosity that Gunnarr has shown, Otkell refuses. He refuses to sell or give any of
his winter supplies to Gunnarr. One of the people who's with Gunnarr suggests that they just take
what they need by force and, if they really want to, they can leave the fair payment for it. But
Gunnarr refuses: he says, “I will not be a thief.” Now, one of Gunnarr’s good friends is Njáll,
who – as the name of the saga suggests – is another of the saga's main characters.
Njáll is a wise man, very skilled in law, and a great peacemaker. And he's a good friend
of Gunnarr and he hears about this refusal to give supplies and he provides Gunnarr with
ample supplies to survive the winter. Now, the following summer, when both Gunnarr and Njáll
are at the Þing, Hallgerðr tells one of her slaves to go and steal provisions from Otkell’s farm.
Now, obviously there's a great difference between the situation that they were in in the
winter and this situation in the summer. During the winter, everyone is struggling to have
enough food and so the transactions of supplies show the great benevolence of people like Gunnarr
and Njáll and the great stinginess of people like Otkell. But, of course, now it's high summer:
everyone has enough to eat, but Hallgerðr sends this slave to steal from Otkell just out of spite,
just out of revenge. And she tells him to steal butter and cheese and burn down the storehouse,
so that the crime will be covered up. When Gunnarr returns from the Þing, he's
served cheese at his house at Hlíðarendi, but he is suspicious about it, because he knows
that he didn't have any cheese, and he asks her where she got it from. She replies in a coy way,
but in a way that makes it clear that she has not only stolen the cheese, but is also very proud of
having done so. And at that point Gunnarr does a very famous thing: he slaps her in the face,
and says “I refuse to be married to a thief,” although they do stay married, of
course. But Hallgerðr then says “I will remember this slap and I will avenge it
if I can.” Now we fast forward a little bit. Gunnarr is involved in a series of feuds,
including one feud that arises from this theft of cheese, and another feud that
arises from a row at a horse fight. And, during these feuds, Gunnarr kills a great
deal of men in self-defence, often when he's ambushed by many men. But with Njáll’s help
– remember, he's a great lawyer – Gunnarr is able to escape the legal consequences of most of
these killings, until finally he ends up being sentenced at the Alþing to lesser outlawry.
This means that the person who has been made a lesser outlaw has to leave Iceland if they can
for three full years. And if they are found in Iceland not trying to leave, they can be killed
with impunity during that three-year period. So Gunnarr and his brother Kolskeggr are
both sentenced to lesser outlawry at the Þing and they're getting ready to leave, to sail
out from Iceland from the bay here at the Markarfljót river. And so Gunnarr and Kolskeggr
get on their horses here at Hlíðarendi and ride towards the shore. Now, before Gunnarr reaches the
Markarfljót river, his horse happens to stumble and Gunnarr is unseated. He's thrown off his
horse and he ends up falling down, but facing his farmstead. And he is captivated by the beauty that
he sees in front of him, of his own farmstead. And he utters a very famous line, he says: “Fögr er
hlíðin, svá at mér hefir hon aldri jafnfögr sýnzk, bleikir akrar og slegin tún, ok mun
ek ríða heim aptr ok fara hvergi” (which means: “Fair is the hillside, such
that it might never have seemed so fair to me, pale fields and moan meadows, I will ride home
again and travel nowhere.”) So, at this point, because Gunnarr is choosing
to stay in Iceland despite being an outlaw, he's basically sentencing himself to death.
He knows that people will be after him, but Gunnarr goes about his business as usual, as
if he hasn't been outlawed. And then at the next Alþing the next summer, he's sentenced to full
outlawry. Now Gunnarr’s enemies – one of whom is named Mörðr Valgarðsson, who is a prosperous
farmer in the region who is jealous of Gunnarr’s success – they plan an attack against him here
at Hlíðarendi, and the attack goes like this: Gunnarr has a dog, a guard dog, that was given to
him by his brother-in-law Óláfr pái, whom we spoke about in our video at Þingvellir. He's given
him this guard dog called Sámr, which is a dog that is both clever and strong. And people think
that Gunnarr cannot be defeated while Sámr lives, because he will always alert Gunnarr to danger. So
they begin by trying to lure the dog away. But the dog sees that the people are armed and ready for
battle, he can tell that there's going to be an attack, and he starts barking and attacking them.
One of the attackers kills Sámr and he lets out an enormous howl that Gunnarr hears from his house
and, therefore, knows that his death is coming. Then they send one man to the farmstead to see
whether Gunnarr is home and he tries to look through one of the windows to see. But Gunnarr is
ready with his halberd (that's a big pole-axe). He sticks it through the window and kills this
attacker – well, he sticks it through the window and pierces the attacker and, before the attacker
dies, he returns to the group and they say, “well, was Gunnarr home?” And the attacker says, “I don't
know whether Gunnarr is home, but his halberd certainly is.” So then they launch several attacks
on the farmstead, but they keep being beaten back, because Gunnarr has his bow and arrow, and he
keeps shooting from afar so they can't get close. At this point Mörðr, the jealous farmer, suggests
that they burn him inside his farm, but the other attackers don't think that's a good thing, because
it's shameful to burn such a hero in his farm and not fight him properly and honorably. So, Mörðr
comes up with an idea to attach ropes to the roof of the farm and then twist them around poles
to drag the roof off the farmstead, which they then proceed to do. So now Gunnarr is inside his
house, but the house is roofless, and one of the attackers manages to get in and cut his bowstring,
so now he can no longer shoot at them from afar, and they might be able to launch a successful
attack. It's at that moment that Gunnarr turns to Hallgerðr, his wife, and asks her, “could you
give me two locks of your hair, so that you and my mother can twist them into a bow string and I
can restring the bow and keep defending myself?” Hallgerðr says, “what depends on it?” Gunnarr
says, “my life depends on it.” And she then reminds him of the slap that he gave her earlier
in the saga and refuses to give him this hair. So now, Gunnarr is defenceless, and the attackers
managed to surround, overpower, and kill him. During this last stand, Gunnarr manages to kill
two of his attackers and wound sixteen of them, and even the attackers admit that this was an
incredibly stout defense, an incredibly brave last stand and one that will be remembered
for as long as Iceland is inhabited.
So, we've come a few kilometers south of
Hlíðarendi to the shores of the Markarfljót river, leading southwards toward the sea. And it is here
where the scene of one of the most epic battle scenes of Njáls saga takes place. Around the
time of Gunnarr’s death, a number of characters make trips to Norway, among them some of Njáll’s
sons and also Þráinn Sigfússon, who is a relative of Hallgerðr and Gunnarr by marriage. And while
in Norway… while in Norway, Þráinn helps a very malicious man named Hrappr escape from Hákon jarl,
the ruler of Norway at the time. But it's actually the other Icelanders who are in Norway – the
sons of Njáll – who are held accountable for this crime. They are attacked and, in fact, they
are imprisoned. Now, when they return to Iceland, the sons of Njáll go to where Þráinn is living to
try and seek compensation for the shame that they experienced in Norway on his behalf. But Þráinn
and Hrappr and Hallgerðr are there at the house and they dismiss the claims of the Njálssons,
and they even insult them. They insult their masculinity and send them away. So, a little while
later, Njáll wakes up at his home, Bergþórshvoll, to find his sons up and dressed for battle. And
he asks them where they're going, and they say, “we're going to hunt for sheep.” But of course,
that's not true. They have information from their mother that Þráinn is travelling with a small
group of men somewhere around here. He's heading… he's heading westwards, and they live just to
the east. So, they have dressed for battle and they come here to the Markarfljót river to do
battle. Now, this also takes place in winter, so – as it is now – the Markarfljót is partially
frozen. There are large slabs of ice on each side and apparently there are there are even beautiful
arcs of ice going partially over the river. And how the battle unfolds is that there are seven
men in Þráinn’s party, and they are on one of the eastern banks and the sons of Njáll are here on
the on the western shore. And they're preparing for battle when Skarpheðinn, who is one of Njáll’s
most fearsome sons – a very large man and a very strong man – he leaps over the river, landing on
the sheet of ice that Þráinn and his men are on, and he jumps with such force that, when he lands
on the ice, he starts to slide, apparently as fast as if he was flying. He flies on this ice through
Þráinn’s party, so fast that nobody can hit him, and he manages with his large battle
axe to hit Þráinn in the face, killing him and knocking his teeth onto the ice.
So, you can see that it's a very epic, a very cinematic battle that takes place, and possibly
threatens the whole peace of the region. So, it's four o'clock and you can see that
the sun is already setting here in Iceland, but we've arrived at the third and
final location of our Njáls saga tour. This is the site of Bergþórshvoll, which was the
home of Bergþóra, hence the name, who was the wife of Njáll. It's where Njáll, his wife, and their
sons lived in the sagas. The saga is also called Brennu-Njáls saga, which means “The Saga of
Burnt Njáll”, and that's because, at this site, attackers burned Njáll and his family inside their
home in one of the tragic scenes of the saga. And this scene arises in part because
of the killing we just discussed. The killing of Þráinn Sigfússon on the Markarfljót
river threatened the peace of the entire district, but Njáll manages to organize a legal settlement. And, in order to cement that settlement, he
also fosters Þráinn’s son, Höskuldr Þráinsson. And he loves Höskuldr as much as any of his own
sons, and does a lot to improve his condition: he gets him a chieftainship and he also
gets him a very eligible wife Hildigunnr. Now, Mörðr Valgarðsson, who you might remember
was the farmer who was jealous of Gunnarr, he then becomes jealous of the success that
Njáll’s foster son Höskuldr is having. And so, although, as I said, Þráinn’s death was settled
legally, Mörðr uses the idea that there might be lingering enmity between the two sides – between
the allies and relatives of Gunnarr and the allies and relatives of Njáll – he uses the idea that
there might be still lingering enmity there to drive a wedge between the sons of Njáll and
Höskuldr. In particular, he's able to use lies, like that there is still this lingering enmity
and other deceits, to convince the sons of Njáll that Höskuldr is against them. And he manages
to convince them to kill him in a tragic scene, while he's just sowing crops in his
field. And after the death of Höskuldr, there are many people who mourn his death, but
nobody more so than his foster father Njáll. Now, they almost managed to achieve a legal settlement
that might prevent further feud violence after the death of Höskuldr, but at the Alþing,
this unfortunately falls through at the last moment, in a very interesting scene, in fact.
And so then, the relatives of Höskuldr are now bent on blood revenge, and they are led by Flosi,
who is the uncle of Höskuldr’s wife, Hildigunnr. So, after the settlement falls through,
various people here at Bergþórshvoll have premonitions of disaster. Both Njáll and
Bergþóra can foresee the deaths of their family and the destruction of their homestead. And
a woman who is living with them – Bergþóra’s former foster mother, who is still a pagan –
even has a prophecy that the farm will be burned, and she even warns him about it. But all of the
family of Njáll show great fatalism in the face of all of these premonitions, because they do nothing
to try and flee, they do nothing to try and avert the coming disaster. They simply wait for it. And
on the night of the burning itself, this fatalism continues to be shown, to an even greater extent,
arguably. Flosi and the rest of the burners arrive at Bergþórshvoll and Njáll and his sons come out
of the house. And it seems like there might be a battle between the two sides. And at that point,
the burners are not quite sure how it's going to go: they're not even sure that they're going to win,
necessarily, or that they're going to win very easily. But at that moment, Njáll decides to
order his whole family back inside the house, even though people have warned him that the house is
going to be burned. And when he makes this order, his son Skarpheðinn even repeats that warning: he
says, “I don't think we should go inside, because they're just going to burn us inside the house,
but we're going to follow your advice anyway.” So they go into the house and the burners
light the fire. The house starts to set on fire and Njáll continues to show this fatalism, this
unwillingness to do anything to avert his fate, because, once the fire is lit, the burners offer
various groups the chance to leave the house: women, children, and servants. And they
call Njáll to the door and they say, “you and Bergþóra can also come out, because you
had nothing to do with the death of Höskuldr, and you're both old.” But they
both choose to stay in the house. Njáll says that “because I'm an old man, I don't
want to live in the shame of not being able to avenge my sons after this burning.” And Bergþóra
says, “I was given to Njáll at a young age, and I intend to die with him here.” So they
return to the house even though it's on fire and, in fact, they have a sort of a saintly death. They
take their equally innocent grandson to their bed, they cross themselves and surrender themselves
to God, pull an ox hide over themselves, and just wait to be consumed by the flames. And
then, increasing the idea of this saintliness, once the burning has happened, and they're
going through the rubble to try and find bodies, they pull this ox hide up, and they find Njáll and
Bergþóra and the grandson's body almost entirely uncorrupted, which in medieval texts is usually
a sign of saintliness. Now you might remember that when they were trying to kill Gunnarr in
his house, the idea of burning him in was called shameful. Mörðr was trying to say, “let's burn him
in because these attacks aren't working,” and the rest of the attackers said, “no, that's shameful.”
And this was also believed of the attack at Bergþórshvoll as well. Even the attackers
themselves, while they are burning in Njáll and his family, they say, “this is a wicked deed,
and it will be remembered as quite shameful.” And in fact, this is true. The rest of the saga
narrates how one of the people who does manage to escape the burning – Kári, Njáll’s son-in-law
– he managed to escape and he tracks down many of the burners, killing them in vengeance for
this wicked deed. And the saga ends ultimately with him making peace with the lead burner, Flosi,
and marrying Höskuldr’s former wife, Hildigunnr. So it's a very interesting tale of the burning,
it's very tragic, of course, it's one of the tragic climaxes of the saga. And it shows how
characters in the sagas, in particular in this case Njáll and his wife, they surrender themselves
to fate. They're both Christians at this point, and so they could be surrendering themselves to a
Christian fate. Like I said, their death is quite saintly. But ultimately, this is something
that is common to many saga characters, pre- and post-Christianization. They often
accept their fate willingly, stoically, and that's part of the ethos of the sagas. So that's it for today's episode on Njáls saga.
We hope you enjoyed it. If you did enjoy it, please remember to like, comment,
and subscribe below, and please look out for future “Saga Stories” from
the Reykjavík Grapevine in the future. My name is Dr Matthew Roby from the University
of Iceland, and I'd like to thank you for watching. Bye bye.
We had to do a tour like this in high school, It was very underwhelming to say the least, as it was mostly the guide pointing at totally empty fields saying stuff like "this is where it's thought that this happened" and " this was possibly the sight of .."
Not the most exiting field trip , and this was way pre-smartphones..sigh.
That was hella good, watched the whole thing. Read the book in school 20 years ago, nice to get a recap :)
There's a whole bunch of those signs in the area. Because the buildings aren't there anymore, they are often in overgrown and unused areas. I always liked coming across them when going for a walk and trying to envision the scenes that took place there. I even came across some in Þórsmörk.