Njál's Saga PDF
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N JA L ’S SAGA TRANSLATED WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY MAGNUS MAGNUSSON AND HERMANN PÁLSSON PENGUIN BOOKS Penguin Books Ltd, Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England Viking Penguin Inc., 40 West 23rd Street, New York, New York 10010, U.S.A. Penguin Books Australia Ltd, Ringwood, Victoria, Australia Penguin Bôoks Canada Ltd, 2801 John Street, Markham, Ontario, Canada 1.3R IB4 Penguin Books (N.Z.) Ltd, 182-190 Wairau Road, Auckland 10, New Zealand This translation first published i960 Reprinted 1964, 1966, 1967, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1974« 1975. 1976, 1977, 1979, 1980, 1982, 1983, 1986 Copyright © Magnus Magnusson and Hermann Pálsson, i960 All rights reserved Made and printed in Great Britain by Hazell Watson & Viney Limited, Member of the BPCC Group, Aylesbury, Bucks Set in Linotype Pilgrim Except in the United Sûtes of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on'the subsequent purchaser TO EINAR ÓLAFUR SVEÍNSSON CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 9 NOTE ON THE TRANSLATION 33 NJAL’S SAGA 37 GENEALOGICAL TABLES 357 GLOSSARY OF PROPER NAMES 363 NOTE ON THE CHRONOLOGY 375 MAPS 377-8 INTRODUCTION Njal’s Saga is the mightiest of all the classical Icelandic sagas. It was written in Iceland by an unknown author in the last quarter of the thirteenth century - somewhere around the year 1280, as nearly as can be deduced; and, from the outset, it has always been regarded as the greatest of the vast, uneven, and (to the English-speaking world, alas) largely unfamiliar prose literature of Iceland in the Middle Ages. Its early popularity can be seen from the fact that more vellum manuscripts of Njal’s Saga have survived than of any other saga (twenty-four, some of them very fragmentary). Succeeding generations of Ice landers have endorsed this immediate affection, and the repu tation of the saga has emerged enhanced from 150 years of rigorous scholarly examination. Njal’s Saga is an epic prose narrative about people - people who lived in Iceland, intensely and often violently, some 300 years before this saga was written. It would be as misleading to call it a history as to call it an historical novel. The saga is broadly based on authenticated historical event, its material is drawn from oral traditions and occasional written records, but it is given life and force and significant artistic shape by the creative genius of its anonymous author. The original manu script of the saga has not survived; the earliest extant MS. is from c. 1300, that is to say approximately twenty years later. Our text of Njal’s Saga is, according to latest scholarly opinion, two or perhaps three removes from the original. Readers unfamiliar with Old Icelandic literature may find it helpful to be shown Njal’s Saga in its historical perspective; for it was written at a crucial period of Iceland's early history, both literary and political, which had an important effect on its composition. Iceland was discovered and settled by land-hungry Norse men late in the ninth century a.d. - some 400 years before Njal’s Saga was written. It was the last convulsive movement of peoples in the great Scandinavian migrations that had already sent Viking ships to Russia, to the British Isles, to France, even 9 to North Africa. But Iceland, let it be said, was never a Viking nation, in the popular conception. This new nation, a composite of settlers from Scandinavia and the Norse colonies in Ireland and the Hebrides, numbering at most perhaps 60,000, quickly established a unique parliamentary commonwealth (in 930), which finally broke down only a few years before Njal’s Saga was born. It is difficult to believe that the author was not affected by the events of his lifetime - the years of savage in ternal strife, murderous intrigues, and ruthless self-seeking power-politics that led, in 1262, to the loss of the independence that her pioneers had created. It had been an independence based on law and the rights of the individual - ‘With laws shall our land be built up but with lawlessness laid waste,’ as Njal says in Chapter 70. In an age where his land had indeed been laid waste by lawlessness, the author could look back to an age which must have seemed truly heroic in comparison, when a man’s pride and honour were more dearly prized pos sessions than wealth or even life itself. There was strife enough between men, yes; but it was strife over human principles, not politics. Alongside the progressive deterioration of civil order and integrity in Iceland there had been a compensatory develop ment of literary awareness. Vernacular prose-writing in Jceland started in the early years of the twelfth century, functional and fragmentary at first, but growing steadily in output, in crafts manship and stature and artistry. The written language was exercised strenuously and extensively on all the familiar sub jects of medieval literature - saints’ lives, historical chronicling, treatises, translations of foreign books on religion, philosophy, poetry, education, astronomy, travel. . . . But as well as this mass of ‘applied’ learned and literary activity, of what one might call ‘official’ literature, there was evolving a unique type of literary entertainment called saga. By the end of the twelfth century, sagas were being written about life in Iceland from the earliest stages of her history down to contemporary times, as well as biographies of the past and present kings of Norway. Saga-writing grew apace throughout the thirteenth century, with such great achievements as Heimskringla, Egil’s Saga, Laxdcela Saga, and Gisli's Saga as well as a host of others; and at the apex (but not the end) of saga development came Njal’s 10
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