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
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…?
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