Week Four Reaction: The Saga of Gunnlaug Serpent-Tongue

I was very interested in the aspects of this saga that reflect myths of other cultures concerning love triangles and prophecies. I find it fascinating that the same types of stories evolve in places isolated from each other in time and distance. The themes that can be traced in multiple cultures’ stories must reflect elements of human life that are the most commonly shared experiences by all people.

I also found it easier this week to navigate the story without an objective narrator. The characterization was more obvious to me. I found fate to be the most important theme of this saga. I was also interested in how Helga contributed to the image I have of Viking women, and in the proverbs listed throughout the saga. These proverbs are insightful because they reflect what the society valued as a whole.

The writing style is simplistic and easy to understand, but I find that it also takes away some of the dramatic effect. This story, told in modern prose, would most likely induce a more emotional response because of the tragedy. As it stands, I as a reader felt slightly detached from the emotions of the characters because I was more focused on other elements of the story.

Week Three Reactions: 6 Short Tales

This week we read 6 short tales from The Sagas of the Icelanders, and I found some common themes among them, both regarding the stories themselves and my reactions to them.

First off, I struggled as a reader to navigate these stories without a narrator. In many of the tales there were two sides of an argument, and I did not know which side I was meant to sympathize with because I just had to go off of the dialogue. This problem was compounded by the fact that in most cases, the men on both sides of a dispute had visible flaws, many times the same ones of pride and stubbornness.

King Harald of Norway appears in most of these tales, and in each one he is presented differently. He is not a very likeable man in some, like when he makes his court stop eating before they are finished and no one will tell him they are still hungry. In others he seems very kind, like when he gives Halldor Snorrason a ship to sail home to Iceland, but then when Halldor doesn’t have a crew Harald tells a lie to all the other men preparing to sail home in order to get Halldor a ship.

The Tale of Audun from the West Fjords and the Tale of the Story-Wise Icelander made me question how the Vikings felt about King Harald, whether they re-told tales of his actions because they admired him, or despised him. In the Tale of Audun, Audun somehow sails from Greenland to Norway to Denmark with a bear on his longboat, and refuses to give the bear to King Harald, even though Norway and Iceland were close, and Denmark was an enemy. In the Tale of the Story-Wise Icelander, neither the king or story-teller were named. Given how important lineage was to the Vikings, I found this extremely surprising. Halldor Snorrason is mentioned, however, leading me to believe the king that is so kind to the anonymous storyteller is in fact King Harald. After reading 5 tales he is in, I am still uncertain of Harald's personality, motives, and popularity amongst his people.

The introduction to this book led me to believe that these stories would be about ordinary men living ordinary lives, but all of the tales except The Tale of Thorstein Staff-Struck concerned men following the kings around, living the courtly life. Also, the Tale of Thorstein Staff-Struck directly opposed the preconceived notion of Vikings as bloodthirsty savages. The men in the story did fight, but they also had mercy and wanted to avoid fighting despite the societal pressure to do so to defend their honor.

I am very curious about why these particular stories were re-told for years, especially the shorter ones. Unlike Aesop’s fables, they do not seem to present a moral or significant insight into Viking life. They do not seem particularly entertaining, or to recount Viking history like Homer’s Iliad. I am very puzzled about this.