Njal's Saga (3 page)

A concentrated form of such intelligence is prophecy, a gift reserved for
a special group, according to the statement in Ch. 114 that ‘Snorri was called
the wisest of the men in Iceland who could not foretell the future.' An
unusual number of persons in
Njal's Saga
possess this gift. Njal is
of course the main figure here. To mention just two examples: he knows that if Gunnar
kills twice within the same bloodline and then does not keep the settlement for the
second killing, he will be killed; he also knows, far in advance of the burning, what
will be the cause of his death (Ch. 55). Hrut Herjolfsson is another man with prophetic
power. In the opening chapter of the saga he is able to look at the young Hallgerd and
predict both that
many men will suffer because of her (and they do,
not least Gunnar) and that she will steal (which she does). Hrut frequently makes wise
predictions, as when he foresees that Gunnar will suffer for having taken
Unn's dowry by force, and that he will later turn to Hoskuld and Hrut for
friendship (Ch. 24).

Other characters too have their share of intelligent foresight: Glum knows
in advance that Hallgerd will not have him killed (Ch. 13); Helgi Njalsson's
second sight enables him to see trouble in Scotland for Earl Sigurd (Ch. 85); the old
woman Saeunn curses the chickweed which she knows will be used to set a fire at
Bergthorshvol (Ch. 124); Bjarni Brodd-Helgason knows that the man who undertakes
Flosi's defence will die (Ch. 138). Many other examples will strike the
reader's attention. Whether plain intelligence or a special gift of prophecy,
there is an impressive amount of clear thinking in
Njála
.

Foresight and advice-giving go hand in hand, for the man who can predict
the outcome of things is best equipped to give advice. Hrut and Njal are the two who
most effectively and consistently combine these two skills. However, giving good advice
is one thing, and following it is another. Gunnar, the chief beneficiary of
Njal's advice, is a clear-headed man with a good and non-violent nature
(‘I want to get along well with everyone,' Ch. 32), but he fails all
too often to heed good advice and warnings. He follows to the letter Njal's
advice on how to reclaim Unn's dowry (Ch. 23), Kolskegg's advice to
offer Otkel compensation for the theft (Ch. 49) and Njal's legal advice (Chs.
64–5). But he goes to the Althing against Njal's wishes (Ch. 32); he
neglects to take the Njalssons along with him to Tunga, as he had promised (Ch. 60); he
declines Asgrim's offer of company just before the ambush at Knafaholar (Ch.
61); he not only ignores Olaf Peacock's advice to travel in large numbers (Ch.
59), but declines Olaf's invitation to move west to Dalir when his life is in
greatest danger (Ch. 75); in his final scene he refuses his mother's advice
not to shoot one of the enemy's arrows back at them, and this contributes to
his defeat (Ch. 77). Much of this may be regarded as part of the heroic code –
the hero stands alone, he defies his enemies – but it is also imprudent.

Most crucially, after he has killed twice in the same bloodline,
Gunnar neglects to follow the second part of Njal's
advice: not to break the settlement made for the killing (Ch. 55, repeated in Ch. 73).
By deciding to remain in Iceland (Ch. 75), thus breaking the settlement, Gunnar seals
his own fate.

There are a large number of proverbial sayings attributed to the
characters in
Njal's Saga
, over fifty, and some are repeated twice or
even three times. They emphasize the importance of intelligent wisdom, and in nearly
every case they are uttered by good and wise characters; an exception is Sigmund in Ch.
41, but when he, after being told by Gunnar to avoid Hallgerd's advice, states
that ‘Whoever warns is free of fault', we can suspect insincerity,
or even sarcasm, behind his words – he quickly ignores Gunnar's
warning. Sometimes the proverbs have a resonance for the story as a whole, such as the
twice-repeated statement that the effect of one's actions is often two-sided,
or ‘cold are the counsels of women', or ‘the
hand's joy in the blow is brief (repeated three times). Akin to the proverb is
the pithy saying, such as Rannveig's comment when she hears that Hallgerd is
planning to have one of Njal's servants murdered: ‘Housewives have
been good here, even without plotting to kill men' (Ch. 36).

One final form of intellectual activity – telling the truth or
lying – needs to be mentioned, for it contributes significantly to the
unfolding of the saga. In addition to his wisdom and prophetic powers, Njal is known as
a truth-teller. Hogni Gunnarsson says of him that ‘he never lies'
(Ch. 78), and similar statements are made on two other occasions. Hjalti Skeggjason and
Runolf of Dal are also labelled as men who tell the truth, and many of the good
characters, like Hrut and Hall of Sida, gain authority because they can be trusted. On
the other hand there is some notable lying in the saga – Skammkel lies to
Otkel (Ch. 50), Thrain lies to Earl Hakon (Ch. 88), Mord lies to Hoskuld and to the
Njalssons (Chs. 109–10) – and their lies always have evil
effects.

Telling the truth or its opposite forms an important part of the
saga's large interest in reporting, telling news, spreading information. The
saga as a whole claims at a number of places – with expressions such as
‘It was said that' – to be a true report of what,
according to tradition, really happened. The author scrupulously interrupts his
account of the battle at the Althing to say that ‘though a
few of the things that happened are told here, there were many more for which no stories
have come down' (Ch. 145). Within the saga there are constant references to
what people are saying. ‘The slaying of Gunnar was spoken badly of in all
parts of the land' (Ch. 77). ‘Here they ended their talk, but this
became a topic of conversation among many' (Ch. 91). A person's
honour depended on public opinion: when a settlement is made for Hallgerd's
theft and Skammkel's lie, the narrator reports that ‘Gunnar had much
honour from this case. People then rode home from the Thing' (Ch. 51). We
understand that the settlement was reported all over the country by those who had been
at the Althing, and that Gunnar's reputation was enhanced in this way. The
Iceland of
Njal's Saga
is alive with talk, and pregnant with proof of
the power of words.

Unfortunately for the decent people in the saga, much of the talk is lies,
and in particular slanderous lies about a man's effeminacy, which was
inseparable from cowardice in the Old Norse way of thinking – together they
indicated that a man was not fully a man. The worst defamation of all was to say that a
man was not merely effeminate, but in fact played a woman's part in a
homosexual relationship. Sexual slander against women consisted in a charge of lechery.
Hallgerd's comment on Bergthora's deformed fingernails (Ch. 35) may
be an instance of this; a clearer case is Skarphedin's calling Hallgerd
‘either a cast-off hag or a whore' (Ch. 91).

It is regrettable that Mord Gigja made public the marital problems between
Hrut and Unn, but at least no lie was told. Slander gets under way in Ch. 35, when
Hallgerd calls attention to Njal's beard-lessness, and it becomes deadly
serious in Ch. 44 when Hallgerd invents the nicknames ‘Old
Beardless' for Njal and ‘Dung-beardlings' for his sons,
implying that their beards would not grow unless they put dung on their faces. Hallgerd
gets Sigmund to compose verses on this theme, and of course these verses and
Hallgerd's epithets circulate. In retribution the Njalssons (i.e. sons of
Njal) slay Sigmund, their first act of violence. Later, in Ch. 91, Hallgerd revives the
epithets when tension between the Njalssons and the Sigfussons is at its highest, and
again the Njalssons are provoked to swift and appropriate
revenge.
Ancient Norwegian law, and presumably Icelandic law as well, sanctifies blood revenge
for sexual defamation.

Since men are not supposed to weep in the world of the sagas, unlike the
Homeric world, another form of sexual slander is to accuse a man of weeping. Skammkel
spreads the word that Gunnar wept when Otkel's horse ran at him (Ch. 53), and
at the burning Gunnar Lambason taunts Skarphedin with weeping (Ch. 130). Later, in
Orkney, when Gunnar Lambason falsely states that Skarphedin wept at the burning, he is
immediately slain by Kari (Ch. 155).

Two of the most highly charged scenes in this highly dramatic saga turn on
sexual matters. When Hildigunn whets her uncle Flosi to take blood revenge for the
slaying of her husband Hoskuld Thrainsson, she challenges him in the name of his
‘courage and manliness', or else he will be ‘an object of
contempt to all men' (Ch. 116). The word translated as
‘manliness' here could also be translated as
‘masculinity' – Hildigunn's insinuation is that
Flosi will be less than a man if he fails this duty. In the scene at the Althing where a
settlement has been made for the slaying of Hoskuld (Ch. 123), Flosi questions the gifts
which Njal placed on the pile of compensation money and revives Hallgerd's
insulting epithet ‘Old Beardless'. Skarphedin responds with the
coarsest and bluntest sexual insult in the saga, alluding to a rumour (no doubt an
invented one) that Flosi is used as a woman by the troll of Svinafell (Flosi's
farm). This insult of course ends all hope of a peaceful settlement.

One effect of all the slander, even though based on lies and distortions,
is to destabilize the opposition between masculine and feminine that is typical of the
family sagas. The slander calls attention to some realities – a hero who
cannot grow a beard, two heroes (Gunnar and Hrut) who in one way or another cannot
satisfy their wives, and so on – which challenge traditional male and female
roles. Added to this is the fact that the events of the saga are more shaped by women
than appears at first glance. Women are sometimes married without being consulted, and
they occasionally serve as passive counters in the game of power, but the first eighteen
chapters are determined by the desires and needs of three women, Queen Gunnhild, Unn and
Hallgerd (who avenges herself for being married
against her will);
Bergthora and Hallberd plot the reciprocal killings in Chs. 35–45, leaving
their husbands to pick up the pieces; Hallgerd's derisive epithets, as we have
seen, provoke two major killings; and the whetting of Flosi by Hildigunn sets the course
towards the catastrophical burning, rather than the peaceful settlement Flosi would
otherwise have accepted. It would be nïve to call
Njal's
Saga
a man's saga.

If there is ambiguity in the treatment of sexuality, there is also
ambiguity with regard to wisdom. The pessimistic tone of the saga derives largely from
the fact that intelligent and good people (intelligence being a necessary part of
goodness), making decisions of their own free will, cannot avert disaster. Worse, it
appears that intelligence is uneven (as Hallgerd says of Njal in Ch. 44, derisively, but
perhaps with a grain of truth). Time and again the actions of the wisest man in Iceland
are the seeds of disaster. By helping Gunnar win back Unn's dowry, he makes
her marriage with Valgard possible, and the fruit of this marriage is Mord Valgardsson.
By advocating the Fifth Court and thus procuring a godord for Hoskuld Thrainsson (Ch.
97), he makes Hoskuld a likely target for slaying. The very procedure he proposes for
the Fifth Court concerning the reduction of the number of judges from forty-eight to
thirty-six (Ch. 97) becomes the technicality by which the suit for the burning is
quashed (end of Ch. 144). We have already mentioned his misguided gift (of a robe and
pair of boots) at the settlement for the slaying of Hoskuld Thrainsson (Ch. 123). His
final piece of advice, that his sons come inside the house at Bergthorshvol rather than
face the attackers outside, seems almost perverse in view of the fact that he has
foreseen the coming conflagration. Like Gunnar when he changed his mind about leaving
Iceland, Njal just seems to give up. One of Iceland's greatest saga scholars,
Sigurdur Nordal, found ‘the complication of goodwill and ill-fate, wisdom and
failure' so great in
Njála
that he called the saga
‘a symbolic fable of the vanity of human wisdom'.

The ambiguities of sexuality and wisdom help to make
Njála
the richly complex saga that it is. A third kind of
ambiguity has to do with character. None of the carefully sketched chief players
– the list includes Hrut, Hallgerd, Gunnar, Njal, Mord, Thrain, Hildigunn,
Skarphedin, Flosi, Kari and Thorhall – is a simple type.
They combine good and bad, weak and strong, with all the three-dimensionality of real
life. We have seen that Gunnar and Njal do not run to type. Thrain Sigfusson is
Gunnar's uncle and supporter, but compromises himself by agreeing to be
present (though not participating) at the slaying of Njal's servant, Thord
Freed-man's son (Ch. 41–2). In Norway he is at first a loyal
supporter of Earl Hakon (Ch. 82), but then deceives the earl when he decides to aid
Hrapp (Ch. 88). Back in Iceland he joins his brothers and Hrapp and Hallgerd in abusing
the Njalssons, though at the same time he tries to prevent the others from using the
epithets ‘Old Beardless' and ‘Dung-beardlings'
(Ch. 91). He seems to be a man with the right instincts, but too easily persuaded to go
against them. Flosi is another example of a ‘mixed' character (the
term is used of Hallgerd in Ch. 33). He is a godi, a forceful and highly respected man,
but under great pressure he consents to lead others to the worst crime in the saga, the
burning at Bergthorshvol. After the burning the saga very carefully builds up his
character again.

The word ‘fate' often comes up in discussions of
Njála
, and to some readers it may seem that the many accurate
prophecies of the future and the many omens of disaster mean that the saga consists of a
totally determined series of events. Frequent utterances like ‘What is fated
will have to be' (Ch. 13) and ‘Things draw on as destiny
wills' (Ch. 120) support this impression. Njal knows quite early what will be
the cause of his death, ‘Something that people would least expect'
(Ch. 55), and after the slaying of Hoskuld he predicts the death of himself and his wife
and all his sons, and good fortune for Kari (Ch. III). Njal's advice, as well
as his outright prophecies, often has the force of a prediction. When he advises Gunnar
not to kill twice in the same bloodline, for example, the reader knows that of course he
will, and when Njal tells him that he will live to old age if he keeps the settlement
(Ch. 74), the reader knows that Gunnar will break it, despite his two disclaimers (in
Chs. 73 and 74). Warnings and advice are often the equivalent of predictions of
violence. So too are goading scenes and changes of complexion – it seldom
happens that a goading, or suppressed anger, does not lead to violent action.