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Njal's Saga, part 1
May. 4th, 2014 02:08 pmNjal'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.
( Some explanatory notes. )
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.
( Some explanatory notes. )
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."
