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PREFACE
I HAVE heard the question asked, "What interest
can attach to the language and literature of a small and remote island,
the inhabitants of which never exceeded 60,000 in number?" The population
of Iceland has always been insignificant, and its territory barren, but
we must recollect what the race was, which this population represented,
and whose language it is that has come down to us as a living tongue,
on this half desert spot in in the Northern Ocean. The Sagas, of which
this tale is one, were composed for the men who have left their mark in
every corner of Europe, and whose language and laws are at this moment
important elements in the speech and institutions of England, America,
and Australia. There is no page of modern history in which the influence
of the Northmen and their conquest must not be taken into account--Russia,
Constantinople, Greece, Palestine, Sicily, the coasts of Africa, Southern
Italy, France, the Spanish Peninsula, England, Scotland, Ireland, and
every rock and island round them, have been visited, and most of them
at one time or another, ruled by the men of Scandinavia. The motto on
the sword of Roger Guiscard was a proud one--
Appulus
et Calaber Siculus mihi servit, et Afer."
(Raumer,
Hohenstaufen, b. i. circa 473).
The remoteness or insignificance
of Iceland, therefore, affords no adequate measure of the interest which
belongs to its language, its literature, and its history. All this has
been fully discussed by Mr. Laing in his prefaces to the Heimskringla,
and by Mr. Dasent in the essay prefixed to his excellent translation of
the Nial’s Saga. But there is another point of view in which these Icelandic
stories possess a great and peculiar interest in relation to their history
of literature. Taken altogether, they are the first prose literature which
exists in any modern language spoken by the people.
Notwithstanding the fact
that Monsieur Jourdain had talked prose for forty years without knowing
it, good composition in prose is a product of the human intellect of far
slower growth than good poetry. Imagination and metre have always been
in advances of plain facts and prose.
We admit that Greek prose
writers existed in the sixth century before Christ, but that was long
after the birth of Greek poetry; and prose writing ripened only in the
time of Herodotus, when very little more was known about the author of
the Homeric songs than we moderns know at this day.
In what country except
Scandinavia, or in what other modern living language of Europe did there
exist, in the elevenths century, a literature embracing history and prose-fiction?
No doubt there were translations
into Anglo-Saxon from the Latin, by Alfred, of an earlier date, but there
was in truth no vernacular literature. I cannot name any work in High
or Low German prose which can be carried back to this period. In French
prose-writing cannot be said to have begun before the time of Villehardouin
(1204), and Joinville (1202). Castilian prose certainly did not commence
before the time of Alfonso X. (1252). Don Juan Manuel, the author of the
"Conde Lucanor," was not born till 1282. The Cronica General de Espana
was not composed till at least the middle of the thirteenth century. About
the same time the language of Italy was acquiring that strength and softness
which were destined to appear so conspicuously in the prose of Boccaccio,
and the writers of the next century.
Burt "Are hinn frodi,"
who is said by Snorri to have first committed these Sagas to writing,
was born in 1067, and it must be supposed on reasonable grounds that the
earlier ones had assumed their present form before the end of the twelfth
century. It should be remembered, too, that the number of these compositions
is very large, and that they contain both history and fiction. The reader
will find a list of Icelandic works in Mr. Laing’s book, already referred
to. Our existing MSS of them cannot be assigned to a date earlier than
the fourteenth century.
Of these sagas that of
Viga-Glum, now translated, is probably one of the earliest. Bishop Müller
says of it, in his "Saga Bibliothek" (Copenhagen, 1817, b. i. 78): "This
Saga conains important contributions ito the history of manners, legislation,
and religious ideas. It is composed in the pure old language, and is without
doubt one of the earliest written narratives. The events are true. The
most important persons and acts are spoken of in the Landnama. Glum himself
is named in the Valnaliot’s Saga, in the Kristni Saga, and in the Landnama.
His quarrels with Viga Skuta are told with more detail in the Sagas of
the latter. Glum’s son, Vigfuss, is mentioned in many Sagas, and in the
Heimskringla, in Olaf Tryggvesen’s history, chapter 45 (Laing’s Transl.
vol. i. p. 410). His nephew, Thorvald Tafalld, who supported him in his
fights, has also been made the subject of a special little narrative,
which is to be found in Olaf Tryggvesen’s Saga. The annals mention one
of Glum’s exploits under the year 942 or 944. Asgrim, the son of Ellidagrim,
who is named in this Saga, is known to us also in the Nial’s Saga, Floamanna
Saga, and Kristni Saga. Einar, Gudmund’s brother, is often mentioned,
especially in the Liosvetninga Saga."
Einar, here referred to
by Bishop Müller, was a remarkable person in Icelandic history. He was
the brother of Gudmund the Powerful, and the direct descendant of Helga,
the sister of Ingald, Glum’s grandfather. When Olaf, King of Norway, wanted
to obtain the island of Grimsö with a view to encroaching the independence
of Iceland, Einar addressed to his countrymen one of the simplest and
most striking speeches ever made on behalf of freedom. He counselled them
to have nothing to do with the king, except in the way of gifts or voluntary
presents which could not be mistaken for tribute. This speech will be
found in Mr. Laing’s Heimskringla, vol. ii. p. 188.
With regard to the intrinsic
merits of the narrative, the reader must judge for himself. The picture
of society which it presents to us is not one of pastoral simplicity and
repose, but the actors in it are real men and women, not merely lay figures,
and the events are for the most part those of every-day life. Bloodshed
and violence are common, and a man’s consideration in the community depends
mainly on his won courage and on his wealth yet the condition of things
contrast favourably with that prevailing in most countries at a far later
date under the fuedal system. The bulk of the population were free; they
made their own laws, and executed them themselves, and we see among them
the working of those principles of constitutional freedom which in most
countries of Europe have long since perished. One peculiarity too they
have which is especially interesting to us. They exhibit in a most remarkable
degree that idolatry for forms of law, which sometimes causes the substance
of justice to be disregarded as secondary to the form, but which, on the
other hand, in our own country, has perhaps more than once saved the kernel
by preserving the husk, when both would otherwise have perished. I believe
it is a curious fact that the Normans retain to the present day a reputation
for litigiousness as compared with other French provinces.
Viga-Glum, or "Murdering
Glum," the hero of this story, is not by any means a perfect character,
even when measured by the standards of the time in which he lived; but
the author tells us that for twenty years he was the first man in Eyjafirth,
and for twenty years more there was no better man there. He is described
as one who was naturally indolent, shy, and moody; but when once he could
be brought to act, his courage and determination were indomitable. he
was thoroughly unscrupulous; neither blood nor false oaths stood in his
way when he had to achieve a purpose. It might be said of him, as of Autolycus,
the grandfather of Ulysses (Od. xix. 395). His humour is sometimes childish,
as is the story of Kálf; and sometimes savage, as when he asks the wife
to put a stitch into his cloak just before he turns round and kills her
husband, apparently for no object but to show his thorough coolness and
indifference. The finishing touch to this part of his character is added
by the peculiarity, that whenever he was intent on slaying a man, he was
apt to be seized with a fit of uncontrollable laughter which ended in
tears.
There is something very
striking too in the description of the old heathen, stone-blind, who hopes
before he dies, yet to slay by treachery one at least of his enemies,
and rides out to meet them with a drawn sword under his cloak.
Among the incidents of
the story, that of Eyiolf killing the Berserker is to me particularly
interesting. It is one of many such in the Sagas, as for instance in the
Egil’s Saga and the Grettir’s Saga. Here we find the type of the old common-stock
stories of romance about distressed damsels rescued by knights from giants’
but we see this type exemplified in everyday life, as if it were something
that might happen to any man the next morning; and as we are told in the
Grettir’s Saga it did happen very often in Norway when those pests of
the society of that day, the Berserkers, were allowed to make their way
in the world, and advance their fortunes as professional bullies. 1
The story is not always
intelligible unless the reader keeps in mind the personal relations of
the actors, and I have therefore appended to the translation two or three
pedigrees of the families to which they belonged. With regard to the Icelandic
text it should be observed that there is but one manuscript of any value,
the others being mere transcripts. The obscurities arising from this fact
are especially felt in the scraps of poetry, which are often very difficult
to make out. They have very little merit and I have done no more than
paraphrase their general meaning; but they could not be omitted altogether,
as in one or two cases the story turns upon their contents. In the prose
narrative I have adhered to the original as closely as was consistent
with my desire of presenting to the English reader a translation that
could be read without being very stiff and tiresome, but I am by no means
sure that I have attained this object.
I ought not to close this
Preface without acknowledging the assistance which I have received from
Mr. Dasent and especially from Mr. Vigfusson, the Editor of the "Eyrbyggia
Saga," printed at Leipzig in 1864. Another friend, the Right Honourable
Robert Lowe, has permitted me to prefix to this book a Greek Epigram of
his addressed to Iceland, which is worthy of his reputation as a classical
scholar. I only wish that his public occupations would allow us to profit
by his acquirements in the language and literature of the North.
EDMUND HEAD
London, December, 1865.
Footnotes
1 See Grettir’s
Saga, chap. xix. 40.
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Preface
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