Njal’s Saga is the best-known and most admired
of the Old Icelandic sagas. At 400 pages in modern
editions, it is also by far the longest, and with some
600 characters, the most complex as well. Like
most family sagas, its action concerns a bloodfeud, this one extending over a period of 50 years.
Events in the saga take place from about 930 to
1020. Thus they overlap the conversion of Iceland
to Christianity in 1000, which plays a significant
part in the story. At the center of the action is the
lawyer, farmer, and sage Njal Thorgeirsson of
Bergthorsknoll, who is burned alive in his own
home, along with most of his family.
The saga is divided into two main sections,
telling two separate but related stories. Chapters
1–81 are concerned with Njal’s friend Gunnar of
Hlidarend, a hero who, through the malevolence
and envy of his wife, Hallgirth, drives away his own
friends (all but the loyal Njal) and commits acts
that bring upon him a sentence of outlawry. When
he refuses to leave Iceland, he is attacked in his
home by a horde of his enemies. He defends himself heroically, killing many of his attackers, but
when his bowstring is destroyed and he begs Hallgirth for strands of her hair to repair it, she refuses
out of revenge for a slap he had once given her. Ultimately Gunnar is killed.
Much of the first half of the saga is also the
story of Njal, Gunnar’s wise and generous friend.
Chapters 82–159 tell Njal’s own story, and that of
his quarrelsome sons. After a dispute with Thrain
Sigfusson, Njal’s sons attack and kill Thrain. Njal
tries to head off a feud by adopting Thrain’s son
Hoskuld as his own foster son. But Njal’s sons
quarrel with Hoskuld and kill him as well. Flosi
Thordarson, the uncle of Hoskuld’s widow, takes
up the feud, refuses any settlement, and ultimately leads an assault on Njal’s farm at Bergthorsknoll, where he burns Njal and his sons alive.
Kari Solmundarson, Njal’s son-in-law and the
only surviving male member of his family, prosecutes the burners and kills some of them before
finally reconciling with Flosi in the final chapter
of the saga.
More than 50 manuscripts of Njal’s Saga are
extant, the earliest of which date from the late
13th century. Written around 1280, it is one of the
later sagas, and its style suggests its author was
well-educated and highly literate. Many scholars
believe the author used a number of written
sources, but others argue that the saga is a traditional narrative based mainly upon oral sources.
As with all sagas, the historicity of Njal’s Saga is
difficult to determine. Both Gunnar’s death and
the burning of Njal at Bergthorsknoll are corroborated by the historical text Landnamabok (Book
of settlements), but there are a number of
anachronisms and other errors in fact, so the story
must be assumed to be an imaginative retelling of
historical events.
One problem for scholars of Njal’s Saga has
been the unity of the text. The two disparate
halves, as well as the length of the saga, have suggested to some that the text we have is in fact a
combination of two separate sagas. Others, however, have pointed to thematic parallels in the two
parts. Both halves deal with tension between the
old, pagan violence of feuds and the new, Christian
values of peace and settlement of disputes by law.
Njal, who accepts Christianity, is constant in his
opposition to the old culture’s demand for revenge, and although Gunnar strives to be like Njal,
he gives in to the old ways. Both ultimately die in
blood feuds, but the new ethic seems to prevail in
the end, with the peaceful settlement between Flosi
and Kari.
Bibliography
Allen, Richard F. Fire and Iron: Critical Approaches to
Njal’s Saga. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh
Press, 1971.
Jón, Karl Helgason. The Rewriting of Njal’s Saga:
Translation, Ideology, and Icelandic Sagas. Buffalo,
N.Y.: Multilingual Matters, 1999.
Lönnroth, Lars. Njal’s Saga: A Critical Introduction.
Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976.
Magnusson, Magnus, and Hermann Palsson, trans.
and introduction Njal’s Saga. Harmondsworth,
U.K.: Penguin, 1960.
Sveinsson, Einar Olafur. Njal’s Saga: A Literary Masterpiece. Edited and translated by Paul Schach.
Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1971.