Reading Respose #2

To begin, I found the preface given by the translator to be helpful for me as a beginner reader of the sagas. I liked knowing the general gist of the saga before I started reading it. It helped to orient me to the general plotline, as well as to the focus and purpose of the saga (i.e., fate).

For the most part, I enjoyed the plotline of this saga. It kind of reminded me of the old princess tales I read/watched as a kid in which the noble princes fight for the hand of the beautiful princess. When Helga was sent away into hiding from her father as a baby, I was reminded of Princess Aura in Sleeping Beauty (sent to live in hiding from the queen as an infant). However, this saga had a more serious tone and ending than those tales. As the preface indicates, this was a tragic story—no one could obtain happiness: Gunnlaug never obtained his rightful wife; Hrafn got the girl but lived in a loveless relationship in which he was both emotionally and physically reminded he wasn’t wanted; Thorkel also suffered from living in a loveless relationship with Helga, and lived very unhappily after her death; Helga loved a man she could never have, had no say in her future, and mourned the loss of her true love; and all their relatives had to live with their tragic (and somewhat unnecessary) deaths.

I noticed that there was a lot of emphasis put on features in this story. The men that were the best were “manly,” “handsome,” “athletic,” “wise,” etc. Men who did not have all these features pretty much didn’t make it into the sagas because they weren’t worth talking about. Gunnlaug himself was “manly” and very good at poetry. On the female side, Helga was praised only because she was the most beautiful in Iceland. Her purpose seemed more as a pawn in the wedding than the celebrated bride, for she was given no say in her future husband. Her beauty was quite useful to bring about the fated deaths of the two men, though, so perhaps that is why this is her only stressed trait.

While the style of writing is different than what I am used to, I find myself kind of liking the fact that once a character had served their purpose in the saga, they simply were “now out of this saga” (p.564). The Icelanders didn’t mess around with characters or events that they felt didn’t add to the story’s meaning/purpose. I also enjoyed the concept of fate in this saga. The dream’s straightforward foreshadowing of later events gave me as a reader something to look forward to. I felt it also let me focus more on the characters because I didn’t have to focus as much on the already-outlined plot.

Reading Response to Sagas #1

With this first experience with Icelandic sagas, I found that as the introduction described, the sagas were told with an unadorned prose that successfully told the tale and moral of the stories. What stuck out to me most from these stories were the traits of the characters. While this was also touched upon in the introduction, I found for myself that honor was one of the most important values in their culture. This could be seen on p. 681 where it was more important to Thorarin as a father to see his son Thorstein die trying to regain his honor than be a coward. Thorarin later proves the importance of honor again as he tries to avenge his son’s “death” with an attempted stabbing of the “killer,” Bjarni (p.683).

Another important concept in these sagas was upright character and generosity. For example, “The Tale of Audun from the West Fjords” tells of Audun’s good virtue in his gift and his religious journey, as well as King Harald’s, for permitting Audun to live. This pays off for both in the end, as Audun not only gets to keep his life, but gets all he needs to live back in Iceland, and King Harald receives a gold ring. Generosity can be seen with King Svein in his numerous gifts and kindness to Audun.

The sagas also seem to incorporate some humor into their stories, as in the poems of Sarcastic Halli to Queen Thora and in with Thorstein and Thorkel the Thin (the demon). This helped me as a reader to enjoy the sagas more as well as make them a little more realistic than preachy, since humor is part of the day-to-day life.

I also wondered what the forfeit cup was on p.688 that Halldor had to drink. Maybe I missed that in the introduction…?