Renfield (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
darchildre) wrote2014-05-04 02:08 pm
darchildre) wrote2014-05-04 02:08 pm
Entry tags:
Njal's Saga, part 1
Njal's Saga, chapters 1 through 7.
For this reading, I'll be using Robert Cook's translation. This is obviously the first part of this saga, but the previous saga can be found here.
Njal's Saga is what's called a family saga - they're historical accounts describing events that took place in Iceland in the 10th and 11th centuries. It's going to be quite different from the Volsungasaga - family sagas are a lot more down to earth in a lot of ways than legendary sagas. There's more stuff about day to day life in medieval Iceland and fewer dragons. Which is not to say that it won't be exciting. Njal's Saga is, in the main, about a blood feud that lasts around 50 years. So there will be a fight scenes and murders, but also legal drama. We will see a lot of the Thing.
Also, I do want to put in a disclaimer at this point: I do not speak Icelandic. Like, at all. With the Volsungasaga, there aren't as many characters and their names are, mostly, fairly simple. That is not necessarily so in this saga and I can't guarantee that I'm pronouncing character names or place names anywhere near correctly. If you also don't speak Icelandic, that may not matter to you. But if you do, well, I know it bugs me when audiobook readers pronounce names incorrectly*. If I do and you notice, please let me know so that I can correct it. Thanks.
In this section, we meet Hrut, Hoskuld, Mord Gigja, and his daughter Unn. There is a betrothal, an inheritance, a journey to Norway, a cool battle on board a ship, a scandalous royal love affair, a marriage, and a divorce. We sow the seeds for what will grow into a much larger conflict and we learn why you don't want to piss off Norwegian queens, because they'll curse you with hilarious problems and your wife will have to have terribly embarrassing conversations with her father about you.
Chapter 1: So, the Althing is a big outdoor assembly at which laws are made and justice is dispensed. All free men could attend and they were basically the biggest social event of the year. Along with the aforementioned legislative and judicial goings on, they also drew traders and craftspeople, so it was a good place to get things done.
Chapter 2: 60 hundreds - They're using what's called the old Germanic hundred here, which is really 120. Mord is saying that Unn will get 60 x 120 (7200) ells of homespun fabric for her dowry. At the time, a cow was worth somewhere between 72 and 100 ells of homespun, so Mord is pretty rich and this is a pretty great dowry.
Marks of silver and ells of homespun were the two mediums of exchange in medieval Iceland. A mark was 8 ounces of silver, and an ounce of silver was worth 6 ells of homespun. So Hrut's inheritance is equal to 11,520 ells of homespun and thus greatly exceeds the amount of the dowry.
Chapter 4: Ulf the Unwashed is referred to as the leader of King Harald's "guests". This means he's part of a special group of Harald's followers, in charge of internal spying and killing the king's enemies. Basically the medieval Norwegian Obsidian Order.
Chapter 6: When Gunnhild says, "pulling against a powerful man," this is a reference to tug-of-war, which was a common game. They're like the saga equivalent of a baseball metaphor.
Enjoy!
*I have many problems with the aSoIaF audiobooks but the one that finally annoyed me enough to stop listening was the way the reader pronounced "Brienne."
For this reading, I'll be using Robert Cook's translation. This is obviously the first part of this saga, but the previous saga can be found here.
Njal's Saga is what's called a family saga - they're historical accounts describing events that took place in Iceland in the 10th and 11th centuries. It's going to be quite different from the Volsungasaga - family sagas are a lot more down to earth in a lot of ways than legendary sagas. There's more stuff about day to day life in medieval Iceland and fewer dragons. Which is not to say that it won't be exciting. Njal's Saga is, in the main, about a blood feud that lasts around 50 years. So there will be a fight scenes and murders, but also legal drama. We will see a lot of the Thing.
Also, I do want to put in a disclaimer at this point: I do not speak Icelandic. Like, at all. With the Volsungasaga, there aren't as many characters and their names are, mostly, fairly simple. That is not necessarily so in this saga and I can't guarantee that I'm pronouncing character names or place names anywhere near correctly. If you also don't speak Icelandic, that may not matter to you. But if you do, well, I know it bugs me when audiobook readers pronounce names incorrectly*. If I do and you notice, please let me know so that I can correct it. Thanks.
In this section, we meet Hrut, Hoskuld, Mord Gigja, and his daughter Unn. There is a betrothal, an inheritance, a journey to Norway, a cool battle on board a ship, a scandalous royal love affair, a marriage, and a divorce. We sow the seeds for what will grow into a much larger conflict and we learn why you don't want to piss off Norwegian queens, because they'll curse you with hilarious problems and your wife will have to have terribly embarrassing conversations with her father about you.
Chapter 1: So, the Althing is a big outdoor assembly at which laws are made and justice is dispensed. All free men could attend and they were basically the biggest social event of the year. Along with the aforementioned legislative and judicial goings on, they also drew traders and craftspeople, so it was a good place to get things done.
Chapter 2: 60 hundreds - They're using what's called the old Germanic hundred here, which is really 120. Mord is saying that Unn will get 60 x 120 (7200) ells of homespun fabric for her dowry. At the time, a cow was worth somewhere between 72 and 100 ells of homespun, so Mord is pretty rich and this is a pretty great dowry.
Marks of silver and ells of homespun were the two mediums of exchange in medieval Iceland. A mark was 8 ounces of silver, and an ounce of silver was worth 6 ells of homespun. So Hrut's inheritance is equal to 11,520 ells of homespun and thus greatly exceeds the amount of the dowry.
Chapter 4: Ulf the Unwashed is referred to as the leader of King Harald's "guests". This means he's part of a special group of Harald's followers, in charge of internal spying and killing the king's enemies. Basically the medieval Norwegian Obsidian Order.
Chapter 6: When Gunnhild says, "pulling against a powerful man," this is a reference to tug-of-war, which was a common game. They're like the saga equivalent of a baseball metaphor.
Enjoy!
*I have many problems with the aSoIaF audiobooks but the one that finally annoyed me enough to stop listening was the way the reader pronounced "Brienne."