The Laxdaela Saga (Saga of the people of Salmon
River Valley) is a 13th-century Icelandic saga
telling the tragic story of eight generations of the
descendents of Ketill Flatnose. Set in Norway, Scotland, and Iceland, the saga covers the period from
the settlement of Iceland in the ninth century
through the country’s acceptance of Christianity in
1000. The saga is remarkable in its emphasis on
strong woman protagonists, which has led to speculation that the anonymous author was a woman.
Laxdaela Saga begins as Ketill Flatnose flees Norway to escape the tyrannical policies of King Harald Fairhair. He settles in Scotland. His daughter,
Unn the Deep-Minded, leaves Scotland for Iceland
with her grandchildren a generation later, and there
becomes established as matriarch of a large family
and holds sway over a significant portion of land at
Breidafjord in western Iceland. She dispenses land
to her kinsmen and to others, who later quarrel over
boundaries as Iceland becomes more settled.
The main action of the saga concerns three of
Ketill’s descendants in the seventh generation: Gudrun Osvifsdottir, Kjartan Olafsson, and Bolli
Thorleiksson, whose love triangle has been compared with that of Brynhild, Sigurd, and Gunnar in
the heroic tradition recounted in the Elder Edda
and elsewhere. Gudrun loves Kjartan, but like
Brynhild, she is denied his love. She marries Kjartan’s foster brother Bolli, and (once again like
Brynhild) plots vengeance on her former love with
her new husband. Bolli ambushes Kjartan and kills
him. Bolli himself is killed later in retribution for
Kjartan’s murder, and Gudrun ultimately urges her
sons to take vengeance for their father’s death.
After this is accomplished, she marries again. In
her old age, after the advent of Christianity in Iceland, Gudrun becomes the first nun and anchoress
in the country. The saga ends with her death.
Laxdaela Saga is clearly based on historical
events, as evidenced by the records in the 12thcentury Icelandic Landnamabok (Book of settlements). However, the author’s sense of chronology
and historic detail is flawed. Still, the appeal of the
saga is not its historicity but its presentation of Gudrun, the most memorable of all saga heroines, and
the tragic conflicts that lead to familial enmity and
a seemingly endless cycle of vengeance. These
things are conventional in Icelandic family sagas.
Less conventional are the author’s interest in physical appearances, dress, and manners (suggesting an
acquaintance with courtly ROMANCE), and the author’s focus on strong female characters who are at
the center of the action both in the opening chapters (with Unn) and the main body of the text (with
Gudrun). Indeed the saga could be called the first
biography of a secular woman in medieval Europe.
For this reason some scholars have suggested a
woman author. Others, because of the scholastic
learning evident in the text, have suggested a clerical author. In either case the turbulence and internecine feuds that form the subject matter of the
saga may be intended to mirror the political situation of the author’s own time, Iceland’s infamous
Sturlung Age (1230–64), a period of turbulence,
treachery, and civil war.
Bibliography
Andersson, Theodore M. The Icelandic Family Saga:
An Analytic Reading. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University Press, 1967.