Oldtidssagaernes verden

Abstract

The Sagas of Olden Days—references to the fornaldarsögur in English vacillate between Sagas of Antiquity and Sagas of Ancient Times; I suggest we coin a more Germanic name, Sagas of Olden Days—have not received much attention by scholars within the field of Old Norse-Icelandic. According to the romanticist scholar N.M. Petersen, who valued saga texts according to their historical credibility, the sagas of olden days were “without historical characters, imbued with confused memories of ancient times patched up with absurd fairy-tales” (in his “Bidrag til den oldnordiske Litteraturs Historie,” published posthumously [1861], p. 277). That the Sagas of Olden Days were considered late arrivals made them even less attractive in the eyes of the historically minded critics.When in the early twentieth century scholars’ focus shifted from historical validity to aesthetic accomplishment, the fornaldarsögur once again were left behind, eclipsed by the (from a literary point of view) more attractive family sagas. In the second half of the twentieth century, a revived historicity came to dominate, not in the nineteenth-century notion of sagas as reliable source material, which was gone forever, but as late and distorted versions of oral tales whose more authentic form could be glimpsed through a study of the formulas employed by present time singers of tales from the Balkans and elsewhere. Once again, the Sagas of Olden Days were left by the wayside: too marked by influence from other medieval literature to parade as oral products.The prioritizing of lost oral versions and the identification of formulae that took a particularly strong hold among North American saga scholars did not yield much in terms of an understanding of the world of the sagas, their themes, and the view of the world embedded in them. That is exactly what the book under review does.Annette Lassen is one of the most prolific scholars of her generation. In addition to her own research, she has edited a Danish translation of the entire bodies of the Sagas of Icelanders (5 volumes, 2014) and of the Sagas of Olden Days (8 volumes, 2016–19). And now she has published a treatise on the world of the Sagas of Olden Days, in which she argues that this body of texts, rather than confused memories and absurdities, develops a coherent world of its own worth dealing with.Lassen builds her argument slowly and meticulously, employing a considerable number of examples, allowing for exceptions and carefully considering counterarguments. In the chapter on the sagas’ (lack of) historicity, she does allow for certain elements to mirror historical events, for example Ragnarr loðbrók, in the saga named for him, who is a credible version of one Reginherus documented through other sources. Despite this and other instances of intended historical veracity, “there is a striking mismatch between the saga and the underlying historical events” (p. 49).Here is how she views her material: “Even though we must assume that some elements of the sagas of olden days originate in oral reports and tales about antique heroes, the sagas, as they are transmitted to us, are literature, that is to say, composed in writing” (p. 13). She proceeds to a mapping of the literary background, whose visibility in the texts is so blatant that no one could have been under the illusion that the stories overall are ‘for real.’ They rest on four pillars, all of them literary: Nordic and Germanic ancient poetry, written histories, and French courtly epics. Her observations on stylistic influence are precise and instructive. So is her summing up: although motives and plots may be derived from European literature, “the saga writers never reuse their inspiration perfunctorily” (p. 25).In short encyclopedic chapters Lassen informs the reader about the transmission of the texts and the traditional subgenres, based either materially: sagas of heroes, Vikings, or fairytales; or attitudinally: comedy or tragedy.Lassen's composition is based on suspense. Having defined her material and its parts, presented the arguments for and against history, and discussed the four sources of European influence, she turns to the interesting question: how did these sagas come into being and how were they perceived at the time of their composition?Lassen quotes evidence that the Sagas of Olden Days have served as entertainment at weddings and that King Sverrir (d. 1202) is on record for the statement that “such tall stories make for the best fun.” “Tall stories” ( Danish “løgnehistorier”) has been one of the many names for these sagas, which, of course, added to the disdain in which they were held by serious scholars.Contemporaries of these sagas knew better; it is not only readers of the twenty-first century who entertain different values than those of the historically minded scholars. Lassen quotes a thirteenth-century Icelander who, when asked about a certain saga, states that “it is a good saga because it is well told” (p. 36, my italics).Lassen's original contribution culminates, and her suspense is released, in the longest chapter of the book called “Oldtidssagaernes samfund,” which delivers more than the modest word “samfund” (society) suggests. This is where the “world” of those sagas and their philosophy are exposed.The chapter is a mapping of not only social roles, but also of a variety of male and female identities, berserks, effeminate men, vindictive women. Not to forget outsiders like the poor old single woman commanding sorcery, and the young Finn woman commanding men's lust.Lassen carefully points out when an immediate evaluation, that is, a modern reader's bias, is countered by the text. A case in point is the scene from Hrólfs saga kraka when Queen Ólöf avoids getting laid by humiliating her suitor King Helgi: getting him drunk, shaving him bald, smearing him with tar, putting him in a skin bag, and having him brought back to his ship. We moderns tend to applaud her act, Lassen says, and then reminds us that the narrator does not.The sagas of olden days often depict a hero of an individualized type. In the Family Sagas, the young men leave home to return home after whatever action they were destined for; in the Sagas of Olden Days, the up-and-coming youngster leaves his humble agricultural roots for good to spend the rest of his life in a more lofty or risky environment. While family ties are paramount in the Family Sagas—that is how they got their name—friendship may top kinship in the Sagas of Olden Days. A young man is entitled to choose his own loyalties rather than having them dictated by birth.That, of course, is where the values of French courtly epic emerge. When it comes to love, the epicenter of the French genre, the Sagas of Olden Days are more liberal than the courtly tales. Yes, there is courtly love. There is also disaster; love may cause chaos and disruption, as in Friðϸjófs saga frækna, but the Sagas of Olden Days show a more down-to-earth approach to the amorous relationship among the genders. Lassen quotes a graphic depiction of love-making from the Bósa saga ok Herrauðs which is absolutely hilarious, and absolutely unthinkable in a Family Saga.There are intriguing love stories like that between the man Ketill and a semiwitch Hrafnhildr, leading to family conflicts that appear surprisingly close to modern love trouble (p. 87). There are scenes where masculine virtues and adoration of male strength are turned inside out and ridiculed: A man cuts his enemy's hand off at the wrist, then all five toes on one foot, and finally the other arm. That is only the beginning: “He cuts his buttocks leaving them hanging by the skin down to the hollow of his knees.” Lassen notes that this reminds her of the Black Knight in Monty Python's “Quest for the Holy Grail.” A fine way to remind us that humor is essential to the philosophy of the Sagas of Olden Days. Put more seriously, “men are constantly walking the hair-thin borderline between honor and disgrace” (p. 97). Lassen adds a note on the afterlife of the fornaldarsögur via romanticism all the way through Tolkien, Game of Thrones, and Vikings.The final part of Lassen's book is a series of succinct synopses of thirty-five fornaldarsögur and -ϸættir, much like how Theodore M. Andersson wound up his The Icelandic Family Saga (1966) with synopses of the twenty-four Íslendingasögur and -ϸættir that were his material. In fact, the service Lassen is doing to the Sagas of Olden Days equals what Andersson did to the Icelandic Family Sagas. Her book might as well have carried the subtitle he chose for his, “an analytic reading.” Her well-wrought prose serves as both a primer and original scholarship. Students of Scandinavian in the United States deserve an English translation of Oldtidssagaernes verden.In her 2011 dissertation—“Odin på kristent pergament” —Lassen did what the title of that book (Odin on Christian parchment) suggested; she analyzed the Odin we see in texts written by Christians with purposes of their own, rather than reconstructing an Odin we do not see, a philologist's version of WYSIWYG of the digital age. In Oldtidssagaernes verden, she proceeds in accordance with that principle, “what you see is what you get” rather than “what you guess.” And she demonstrates that she knows better than most how to see what we have got.