Njal's Saga (4 page)

The fact that there is so little suspense for the
reader, however, does not mean that on the story level, within the saga, the characters
are constrained by fate. At the saga's most crucial and powerful moments the
author stresses the element of free choice: Gunnar chooses to stay in Iceland at the
same moment that his brother Kolskegg decides to continue on his way abroad (Ch. 75);
Njal is given free exit from the flaming Bergthorshvol, but makes a reasoned decision to
remain inside (‘I'm an old man and hardly fit to avenge my sons, and
I do not want to live in shame'), as does his wife (‘I was young
when I was given to Njal, and I promised him that one fate should await us
both,' Ch. 129); his sons could stay outside where they have a good chance of
repelling the attackers, but they go inside to their death because they choose to follow
their father's wishes (Ch. 128). Even the strict requirements of the feud
pattern and honour code allow free choice, as Hall of Sida illustrates so nobly.

More than any other family saga,
Njal's Saga
is about
law. The first person mentioned – though he initiates only one case and is a
minor figure in the saga – is described in terms of his ability at law. From
Njal's famous statements that ‘with law our land shall rise, but it
will perish with lawlessness' (Ch. 70) and ‘it will not do to be
without law in the land' (Ch. 97), to the swift conversion to Christianity by
means of an arbitrated settlement at the Law Rock (Ch. 105), to the lengthy trial in
Chs. 141–4, the author shows a serious concern for law. This interest is also
evident from his mastery of legal technicalities, whether he acquired it from lawbooks
or from orally transmitted codes. The ‘courtroom' scenes in Chs. 73
and 141–4 testify to a more than unusual delight in legal formulas and
procedures, often to the reader's dismay. In some cases he seems to have
copied down (or remembered) legal phrases without adapting them to the context in the
saga. When Mord brings charges against Flosi Thordarson for having ‘assaulted
Helgi Njalsson and inflicted on him an internal wound or brain wound or marrow wound
which proved to be a fatal
wound' (Ch. 141), the author is
slavishly repeating the entire ‘textbook' phrase, without
eliminating the two kinds of wounds that do not apply in this case. Mord's
suit in Ch. 142 contains this statement: ‘I declared all his property forfeit,
half to me and half to the men in the quarter who have the legal right to his forfeited
property. I gave notice of this to the Quarter Court in which this suit should be heard
according to law' Again, the formulation remains general, when it would have
been proper to specify the East Quarter.

Although the author earnestly endeavours to give the impression of the
full and proper procedure around the year 1000, the legal details reflect his own time
rather than that of the saga age. Laws were first written down in Iceland in 1117, and
some of the phraseology in the saga corresponds word-for-word with passages in the
Grágás
(‘Grey-goose') legal texts,
written down in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries – not as an official
lawbook, but as private copies of the law.
Njála
also has borrowings
from a later code, the
Jamsiða
(‘Iron-side'),
introduced from Norway in 1271.

Njála
is not only a law saga, it is an Althing saga.
Many of the most important scenes in the saga, and not only legal scenes, take place at
the annual general assembly at Thingvellir. In the text, and in the translation, the
simple form ‘Thing' often appears, but we can assume, unless
informed otherwise, that the reference is to the Althing at Thingvellir rather than to
one of the local assemblies.

The Althing is often, but not always, the place where a feud could be
regulated. The three ways in which this might be done are neatly summed up in a dialogue
between Hildigunn and Flosi in the famous whetting scene in Ch. 116:

‘What action can I expect from you for the slaying, and what
support?' she asked.

Flosi said, ‘I will prosecute the case to the full extent of the
law, or else make a settlement that good men see as bringing honour to us in every
way.'

She spoke: ‘Hoskuld would have taken vengeance if it were his
duty to take action for you.'

A legal case settled by the courts, arbitration (whether by a third party
or directly between the two principals), or blood vengeance –
these are the three possibilities. In
Njal's Saga
there are many
feuds and many killings, and a number of cases are brought to the Althing for trial, but
not one legal case is ever concluded. Even though the percentage of adjudicated cases is
low in the sagas in general, and even though arbitration and vengeance were socially
acceptable elements of feud, one would hope that court trials would have a higher score
than zero in a saga so obsessed with law.

That no conflict is settled in court in
Njála
is part of
a larger irony, and no doubt a deliberate irony, since it is so obvious in the saga:
law, even the elaborate law code of medieval Iceland, is incapable of controlling
violence. As the saga progresses, there is increasing emphasis on blood vengeance, and
after the burning at Bergthorshvol Kari refuses to consider any other form of
settlement.

The third alternative, arbitration, is used with some effect in
Njála
, especially in the early part. The killings of
Hallgerd's first two husbands are both settled peaceably by her father Hoskuld
and her uncle Hrut, so satisfactorily that the offended parties (Osvif and Thorarin) are
both said to be ‘out of the saga' (end of Chs. 12 and 17). It is a
relief to see a character leave the saga with dignity – and the assurance that
no more trouble will come from him. Unfortunately this will not be the case in the
remainder of the saga. There will be many arbitrated settlements (especially at
Njal's suggestion) and many acts of blood vengeance, but none of them will put
an end to violence. Even with the six reciprocal killings initiated by their wives,
escalating dangerously but nonetheless settled amicably between Njal and Gunnar (Chs.
35–45), there is a false sense of security. For the fifth killing in this
series, of Thord Freed-man's son by Sigmund and Skjold, Njal makes a
settlement with Gunnar and asks Skarphedin to keep it. Skarphedin agrees –
‘but if anything comes up between us, we shall have this old hostility in
mind' (Ch. 43).

Old hostilities, lying under the surface but waiting to erupt in
bloodshed, constitute the underlying narrative thread. The principal one goes straight
from the slaying of Thord Freed-man's son (Ch. 42), to that of Thrain
Sigfusson (Ch. 92), to that of Hoskuld Thrainsson (Ch. in), to the burning at
Bergthorshvol (Chs. 129–30). The direct links between these four acts, though
sometimes overlooked by the
reader, explain much of what is going on
and illustrate the volatile nature of feud. When the Njalssons set out to kill Thrain in
Ch. 92 they have a verbal exchange with their father that echoes the one they had in Ch.
44, when they set out to avenge Thord. After this conversation, when Kari asks
Skarphedin why he killed Sigmund the White, Skarphedin's answer is
straightforward: ‘He had killed Thord Freed-man's son, my
foster-father.' The killing of Thord – at which Thrain was a
consenting presence – has led to the need to kill Thrain now (though Thrain
has since given the Njalssons additional reason to kill him). The old hostility between
the Njalssons and the Sigfussons, of whom Thrain was the most prominent, had been there
all the time.

The slaying of Hoskuld Thrainsson is the next inevitable link in this
chain, but it is not easy for the reader to comprehend the slaying of this innocent,
non-violent man, Njal's beloved foster-son, especially since the killers are
Njal's own sons. The overt reason is the slander spread by Mord Valgardsson,
at the prompting of his father. If this were the only reason, the Njalssons would appear
very gullible and foolish, but there are two underlying motivations. One has to do with
power (and perhaps a touch of jealousy). Njal did not trouble to find a godord for
Skarphedin, his oldest son, or even a prominent marriage. The much younger Hoskuld, on
the other hand, is well married and on the way to becoming a powerful godi, as Valgard
noticed. That might be tolerable in itself, but there is the additional fact that
Hoskuld is the son of Thrain Sigfusson. Old hostilities do not die. (One might even
question the wisdom of Njal's fostering the son of his own sons'
bitter enemy.) The other motivation for the killing has to do with the rules of feud.
Lyting's killing of Hoskuld Njalsson (Ch. 98) required vengeance by the
Njalssons, and when Lyting is killed by Amundi in Ch. 106, the Njalssons direct their
vengeance quite properly at the most prominent member of the offending family, who
happens to be Hoskuld Thrainsson, their own foster-brother. It is a tragic clash of
loyalties, and the Njalssons follow the course they think they must.

The two greatest crises in the saga, the death of Gunnar and the burning
at Bergthorshvol, both occur when an arbitrated agreement
has been
broken. It was agreed that Gunnar should go abroad for three years after killing
Thorgeir Otkelsson. When he breaks the agreement and decides to remain at home (Ch. 75)
he invites the attack which will cause his death, as Njal has warned him. Later, the
settlement which good men have carefully arbitrated for the slaying of Hoskuld is
nullified by the unforgivable insults exchanged by Flosi and Skarphedin (Ch. 123).

The final legal scene in the saga (Chs. 141–4) is the longest,
dramatizing finally and fully both the intricate complexity of the law and the futility
of the law, even in face of the fact that the burning at Bergthorshvol was an
unjustifiable act. After the lengthy formulaic presentation of the suit against the
burners, Eyjolf Bolverksson (Flosi's lawyer) makes a number of attempts, using
the fine points of the law, to quash the case. Thorhall Asgrimsson is able to meet each
objection and save the case. It is a fine battle between the best lawyers in the land,
told from the point of view of the spectators and creating the excitement of a good
tennis game in which the advantage alternates between the two sides:
‘Everyone.… agreed that the defence was stronger than the
prosecution… they agreed that the prosecution was stronger than the
defence.' Finally Eyjolf serves his final ace (end of Ch. 144), to which there
is no answer. In a proper court this would have been the end of the procedure, but in
Njal's Saga
it is the occasion for violence. No scene better
illustrates the failure of law and the failure of the Althing than when the lawyer
Thorhall thrusts his spear into his infected leg, hobbles to the Fifth Court and kills
the first kinsman of Flosi's that he meets, thus initiating the total disorder
of the battle at the Althing (Ch. 145). ‘With law our land shall rise, but it
will perish with lawlessness.'

The pagan Germanic ethic of honour, courage and the blood feud is well
illustrated in
Njála
. Men fight and die to enhance or at least
preserve their good name. Hrut and Gunnar and Skarphedin and Kari and Flosi are noble
men in the old mould, moved by a keen
sense of personal honour. The
saga has a pleasing abundance of epic situations – fights against overwhelming
odds, heroes who set out on a journey despite warnings of danger, men caught in a
difficult position because of divided allegiances. The narrative derives much of its
impetus and interrelatedness from the rules of feud and the requirements of honour.

But there is another, softer strain in the saga. Njal, the central figure,
never lifts a weapon, and he gains respect because of his jurisprudence, his prophetic
wisdom and his good will. Gunnar, in many ways the perfect Germanic hero, fights (in
Iceland at any rate) only when provoked to do so, and with great reluctance. Hoskuld
Thrainsson never lifts a weapon, not even the one he is carrying on that fateful day
when he is slain in his own field. Snorri the Godi is one of the most respected men in
the land, but when Skarphedin taunts him for not having avenged his father, his answer
is that of a mild man: ‘Many have said that already, and I'm not
angered by such words' (Ch. 119).

The person in the saga who illustrates this strain most steadily is Hall
of Sida. His first action in the saga is to accept Christianity for himself and his
household (Ch. 100). Repeatedly his voice is the voice of peace and conciliation: as
spokesman for the Christian side, it is he who at great risk asks the pagan Thorgeir to
decide which faith should prevail in Iceland (Ch. 105); after Flosi has been whetted to
blood vengeance by Hildigunn, Hall tries to persuade him to make a peaceful settlement
(Ch. 119); when the trial for the slaying of Hoskuld is thwarted, Hall persuades Flosi
to accept arbitration (Ch. 122); when Flosi, after the burning, has paid an insulting
visit to Asgrim, Hall tells him frankly that he went too far (Ch. 136); when Thorgeir
and Kari have started on their course of revenge for the burning, it is Hall who
performs the diplomatic task of persuading Flosi and Thorgeir to be reconciled (Chs.
146–7). Most impressive of all are his determined action to end the battle of
the Althing, in which his son Ljot has been killed, and his plea to both sides to make a
settlement: ‘Hard things have happened here, both in loss of life and in
lawsuits. I'll show now that I'm a man of no importance. I want to
ask Asgrim and the other men who are behind these suits to grant us an even-handed
settlement' Shortly after, in order to facilitate the
settlement, he adds:

All men know what sorrow the death of my son Ljot has brought me. Many will
expect that payment for his life will be higher than for the others who have died
here. But for the sake of a settlement I'm willing to let my son lie
without compensation and, what's more, offer both pledges and peace to my
adversaries. (Ch. 145)