Six Sagas of Adventure (4 page)

Finally,
Bósa saga
draws on several narrative types that are widespread in legendary sagas and that can also be seen in pagan myths. The saga’s first episode, for all that it may have been influenced by Russian
byliny
or French
chansons de geste
, fits a pattern called “The Unjust Patriarch” by John McKinnell. A king or other patriarchal figure commits an injustice that brings him into conflict with his sons, but a seeress takes the sons’ side against him and threatens him with a prophecy or curse. This pattern appears in episodes of
Ynglinga saga
and in
Hrólfs saga kraka
, and related stories frame the Eddic poems
Völuspá
and
Baldrs draumar
.
[79]
Bosi and Herraud’s great fight with the monsters and ogre-priestess in the temple draws on McKinnell’s “Thor pattern”, with some variations. Like the god Thor in a number of his encounters with giants, Bosi has a companion, wins the help and sexual favors of a female partner on his journey, crosses a body of water to reach the lair of the ogres, and battles a strong female giant along with a male figure (the male giant in the Thor myths has presumably been replaced with the bull and vulture in
Bósa saga
). Several details of Bosi and Herraud’s battle in the temple seem to draw on the related “Bear’s Son” pattern, and also appear in sources as far-flung as
Grettis saga
and
Beowulf
.
[80]
In this case, there has probably been no direct borrowing, but widespread diffusion of a number of motifs.

The saga was popular, judging from the 43 manuscripts of it that have survived, ranging from the 15
th
century to 1903.
[81]
The version translated here is that printed in
Fornaldarsögur Norðurlanda
,
[82]
which in turn follows Otto Jiriczek’s 1893 edition, whose text is primarily based on AM 586 4to but with corrections supplied from other parchment manuscripts.
[83]
In particular, the three sex scenes have been erased in AM 586, and Jiriczek restored them based on a different manuscript, AM 510 4to.
[84]
I have also checked the text against Sverrir Tómasson’s edition of 1996, substantially the same but with a few variant readings from other manuscripts, as well as useful notes and commentary.
[85]
Jiriczek also published a younger recension of this saga based on paper manuscripts, the oldest of which dates from 1663. Hermann Pálsson and Paul Edwards’s English translation first appeared in 1968; a slightly revised edition is currently still in print.
[86]
The only other English translation to date is George L. Hardiman’s on-line translation (
http://tinyurl.com/bosasaga
).

The Saga of Sturlaug the Hard-Working

Sturlaugs saga
rivals
Hrólfs saga Gautrekssonar
in its “kaleidoscopic” eclecticism: almost every event and device in it appears elsewhere. Some characters and episodes are paralleled in other legendary sagas, or in other types of sagas. Others are drawn from myths, perhaps only half-remembered by the time the saga was composed. Still others come from chivalric tales, folk tales, or learned medieval lore.
Sturlaugs saga
has such diverse contents that it rather freely switches genres, passing from heroic romance to bridal-quest tale to slapstick comedy and back.
[87]

Sturlaugs saga
’s quality becomes clearer when one realizes that much of the saga is parody, even more so than
Bósa saga
. The compiler of the saga took ample advantage of opportunities to spoof the conventions of heroic legend. Kings in the legendary sagas are supposed to be bold, daring, and always attentive to their honor and repute—but here we get the chicken-hearted King Harald Goldmouth. Female giants are often depicted as ugly, immodest, and none too bright, but Hornnefja takes the stereotype to one of the most ludicrous extremes in the
fornaldarsögur
.
Sturlaugs saga
also
borrows motifs from better-known sagas, altering them in ways that strongly suggest a deliberate spoof: where
Völsunga saga
and
Tristrams saga
present two young and beautiful lovers who sleep together with a sword between them to preserve their chastity,
Sturlaugs saga
gives us a lascivious old crone who heads off her own lust for the young hero by putting a log between them in bed. The dialogue abounds in dry wit, often in counterpoint to the grotesque action. There’s even a breaking of the fourth wall, when Sturlaug reminds his stay-at-home father that if they don’t get out and about, their saga will be a short one.
[88]

Sturlaugs saga
is not a “bridal-quest” saga as such, but three episodes in it resemble bridal quests. In the first episode, which is reminiscent of King Gautrek’s courtship in
Hrólfs saga Gautrekssonar
, King Harald Goldmouth is getting on in years when his wife dies and his counselors advise him to remarry. Unlike the wise Gautrek, who allows Ingibjorg to choose her husband, Harald acts like a berserk suitor, threatening his would-be father-in-law with death and refusing to ask Asa’s consent. When a real berserk suitor turns up and demands Asa’s hand, Harald is humiliated, and his attempts to get out of dueling with the berserk only put Asa out of his reach forever.
[89]

The second and third bridal-quest episodes are part of a section that seems to have been added to the saga later. The second is very brief and almost an afterthought: Sighvat comes to King Dag of Russia to ask for his daughter Ingibjorg’s hand on behalf of his sworn brother Aki. Dag refuses, Sturlaug invades, and the matter is resolved. The third bridal-quest-like episode is much more elaborate: Sturlaug’s man Framar has sworn to marry Ingigerd, the daughter of King Ingvar of Ladoga. Ingigerd has the right to choose her own husband, and although she is not said to hate the idea of marriage, she has rejected every suitor. Framar fares no better; his attempt to press his suit is courteously turned down, apparently because he is presumptuous to think that she would marry a man of lesser rank. His attempts at subterfuge, playing on the princess’s compassion, fail completely as well; it takes armed intervention by Sturlaug to finally win the princess’s hand. The entire episode is strongly reminiscent of
Nítíða saga
, whose heroine is also beautiful, wise, and especially skilled at healing. Unlike Ingigerd, Nitida rules a realm in her own right, and is thus a “maiden king” figure. However, Ingigerd and Nitida both refuse all offers of marriage from men whom they judge to be of lesser stature—and, quite unusually for “maiden kings”, both of them refuse courteously, without attacking or humiliating their suitors, except in response to a suitor’s attack or trick.
[90]
More specifically, both Ingigerd and Nitida foil a suitor’s attempt to disguise himself by means of a sorceror’s magic,
[91]
and both allow a suitor to live in their household in disguise for some time, before revealing that they know perfectly well who he is.
[92]
The presence of all these motifs in
Sturlaugs saga
and
Nítíða saga
suggests direct influence, if not outright parody. Certainly the rather jarring ending of
Sturlaugs saga
subverts the plot of
Nítíða saga
by reverting to something much more typical of a maiden-king saga: while Nitida freely chooses a man who has won her respect, Ingigerd is forced into marriage when Sturlaug’s hosts conquer her land and kill her father. (How Ingigerd feels about all this is not a subject the saga author chose to examine too closely.)
[93]

The episode of the raid on the temple in Bjarmaland is descended from the more historical account in
Ólafs saga helga
, as is the account in
Bósa saga
mentioned above. This time, however, the monsters and traps in the temple have grown so egregiously monstrous that they become parodic. (To modern readers, this part may resemble an Indiana Jones movie). In
Sturlaugs saga
, the “Voyage to the North” has cross-fertilized with learned medieval lore about the monstrous races to be found at the ends of the earth. Ancient Greek authors had compiled accounts of strange peoples at the far edges of the known world: giants, cannibals, pygmies, headless men with faces on their chests, and so on. Drawing on their accounts, Pliny the Elder located a race of dog-headed men in India,
[94]
known as the Cynocephali. Later authorities adopted, modified, and embellished his accounts, and lists and depictions of the monstrous “Plinian races” are fairly common in medieval maps and learned texts, some of which were translated into Norse.
[95]
That said, the Norse lists have seemingly duplicated the dog-men; they mention the dog-headed
Cenocephali
, but also list the Hundings (
Hundingjar
, “dog-people” or “dog-descendants”) as men whose chins have grown down to their chests, and who are as savage as dogs, but who are not actually said to be dog-headed.
[96]
The tradition that dog-headed or otherwise doglike people lived on the Baltic coast or in Russia goes back at least to the 7
th
or 8
th
century.
[97]
Adam of Bremen, whose work was well known in Scandinavia, mentions that Cynocephali live on the Baltic coast, adding that they speak by barking.
[98]
It’s possible that the Hundings were ultimately borrowed from his work;
[99]
the fact that the Hundings’ chins grow down to their chests (
var haka þeira gróin í bringuna
) might be a translator’s interpretation of Adam of Bremen’s statement that they “have their heads on their breasts”.

Not all the pieces of
Sturlaugs saga
are put together skillfully. A few loose plotlines are left dangling (did the giantesses of Austrvík ever resolve their inheritance dispute?). Some episodes seem a little gratuitously macabre, such as the killing of Hornnefja and the death of Frosti and Mjoll. And the ending may leave us somewhat cold; even though it’s fairly common for saga heroes to win an unwilling bride by force of arms, we might have been hoping for Framar to win Ingigerd’s love by his wits and cleverness, not by wholesale slaughter. Perhaps for these reasons,
Sturlaugs saga
has not been the most highly esteemed saga; it was not translated into English until 1969, and has attracted relatively little critical attention.
Yet it was popular enough in Iceland—forty-nine manuscripts have survived, written between about 1400 and 1896, a fairly typical number for a
fornaldarsaga.
[100]

The saga was probably composed after 1300, but the oldest surviving manuscript is dated to about 1400. This oldest manuscript, AM 335 4to, is so badly faded that Rafn’s edition and most later ones have been based on AM 173 fol., a paper manuscript copied down about 1700. Guðni Jónsson and Bjarni Vilhjálmsson’s text in
Fornaldarsögur Norðurlanda
is essentially a reprint of Rafn’s text.
[101]
However, Otto Zitzelberger was able to restore the text of AM 335 from photographs made under ultraviolet light. I have based my translation on AM 173 but have checked and emended my translation using Zitzelberger’s text of AM 335, which is very close to AM 173.
[102]
AM 335 and AM 173 both belong to the older recension of the saga, known as the A recension; this text is more loosely organized and makes frequent use of folktale and fairy tale motifs, often in triads (three suitors, three giantesses). A separate, later version, the B recension, is more tightly knit, with fewer characters, but stronger and more vivid characterization and somewhat greater literary sophistication. The B recension omits some minor characters and reduces the roles of others.
[103]
Zitzelberger translated both recensions into English; the only other English translation is Peter Tunstall’s 2008 translation online (
http://tinyurl.com/sturlaug
).

The Saga of Hrolf the Walker

Göngu-Hrólfr
, “Walking-Hrolf,” so huge that no horse can carry him, shares his name and size with Rolf or Rollo, the Viking leader who conquered Normandy in 918. But a name is all they share: the hero of
Göngu-Hrólfs saga
is quite non-historical.
[104]
His saga incorporates  a familiar range of borrowed motifs. The horse Dulcifal ultimately derives from Alexander’s horse Bucephalus; the swallow bringing the golden hair of the maiden comes from the Tristan legend; the Otherworldly stag-hunt makes another appearance, although not parodied as in
Gautreks saga
; and plenty of motifs are shared with folktales and other legendary sagas. All of these are put together with undeniable spirit and good humor, nowhere more than in the digressions in which the author appears to step out of the story to defend his work to his audience against claims of exaggeration and unreliability. Yes, he says, the story tells of incredible events, but only fools would assume that their own limited experience is a trustworthy guide to the entire realm of possibility. If wise men of old have recorded such things, it’s not nice to question their authority. And anyway, the story is only meant as simple entertainment! Such
apologiae
, as they have been called, are found in other sagas, including at the beginning of
Bósa saga
and at the end of
Hrólfs saga Gautrekssonar
, but
Göngu-Hrólfs saga
has no fewer than three: at the beginning, at the end, and in the middle of chapter 25.

Perhaps the most fun aspect of this saga is watching the character of Hrolf grow and develop. Hrolf begins as an inept and unambitious figure, rather similar to the
kólbítr
(“coal-biter”) of many a saga, or the
askeladden
(“ash-lad”) of Scandinavian folk tales. Passing through a series of harder and harder challenges and reversals of fate, and growing in strength, capability, and ambition, he ends up marrying a king’s beautiful daughter and ruling a kingdom in his own right. Audiences must have “loved to hate” his opponent Vilhjalm, one of the most devious characters in the sagas, who switches from fawning servility to outrageous self-promotion at the drop of a hat—with just enough genuine cruelty in his makeup that we’re glad to see him hanged in the end.

If the legendary sagas comment on contemporary social issues, it may not be out of line to see Vilhjalm as another satire of the royal officers that exercised authority in the 14
th
century and onward. Whereas the chieftains of the Icelandic Commonwealth had depended on support “from below”, from their supporters, Iceland’s union with the crown of Norway and later of Denmark marked a radical change in the purpose and function of the aristocracy. All power now came “from above”—from God by way of the king—and would-be nobles no longer needed the support of those who ranked below them. To maintain and advance their status, they needed to cultivate the favor of their superiors, while exploiting and punishing those on whom they once mutually depended.
[105]
And as was discussed for
Hrólfs saga Gautrekssonar
, Icelandic aristocrats in the 14
th
century were keen to consolidate their power by contracting advantageous marriages. Whether or not any specific royal official in Iceland was a model for Vilhjalm, surely there must have been officials who were servile towards their superiors, cruel towards their inferiors, and frantically eager to climb the social ladder by marrying upwards.

That said, the conflict between these two principals is mostly stage-managed by opposing supernatural forces. Without their constant presence, Hrolf and Vilhjalm would probably never have met, nor done anything worth telling a story about. As an undead mound-dweller, King Hreggvid sets the rescue of his daughter into motion by shapeshifting into a bird and dropping one of her hairs into Thorgnyr’s lap. Grim Aegir, as we later find out, appears to Vilhjalm in a dream and gets him to deceive Hrolf and try to win a princess of his own. The elf-woman with the stag, and then King Hreggvid himself, counter Grim Aegir by getting Hrolf into situations where they can give him the magic items that he will need to survive and triumph.
[106]
Mondul the dwarf first appears as an antagonist, but once Hrolf has beaten him but spared his life, he provides magical help without which King Eirek and Grim Aegir could never be conquered. For much of the saga, Hrolf seems almost passive, accepting what happens to him, but unable or unwilling to control his destiny.