darchildre: the master reading war of the worlds (reading)
Njal's Saga, chapters 44 through 50.

Woohoo, finally got it done! Sorry for the delay.

In which Hallgerd makes up a seriously nasty nickname for Njal and his sons, for which Njal's sons are avenged. We are also reintroduced to Mord Valgardsson - remember him? Okay, remember Hrut's first wife, Unn? And how she remarried a guy named Valgard and they had a son named Mord? That's this guy. Also there's a famine, which leads to Hallgerd making poor decisions and also forensic investigations into cheese theft. Hallgerd is once again causing trouble for Gunnar, but this time it's with someone who isn't so forgiving or wise as Njal.

I really kinda love the cheese theft episode. I mean, on the one hand, yes, stealing any kind of food during a famine is big deal. But on the other hand, the image of Mord intently putting together a cheese like a puzzle to find out who committed the theft just makes me so happy.

One brief explanatory note: )


Previous parts of this saga can be found here. All saga posts can be found here.
darchildre: the master reading war of the worlds (reading)
Njal's Saga, chapters 36 through 43.

This section deals almost entirely with the feud between Hallgerd and Bergthora that began with their quarrel in the last section. They begin by killing each other's slaves, then their freedman servants, and finally their kinsmen. At the same time, Gunnar and Njal try very hard not to be drawn into their wives' quarrel, exchanging compensation for each of the deaths their wives cause. Also, we get to see more of Skarphedin, who is pretty great - he grins all the time.


Previous parts of this saga can be found here. All saga posts can be found here.
darchildre: the master reading war of the worlds (reading)
Njal's Saga, chapters 26 through 35.

In this section, Gunnar finds a random Norwegian and goes raiding with him, and there are some seriously awesome battles. (Oh man, the bit where Gunnar catches the spear left-handed and then throws it back and kills a dude! It is so great.) When Gunnar comes back to Iceland (now very rich from all his successful raiding) he meets Hallgerd and immediately wants to marry her, despite warnings from Hoskuld, Hrut, and Njal. So they get married and the wedding feast gets awkward (as is tradition for Hallgerd's weddings) but at least this time it's not Hallgerd's fault. Hallgerd's daughter Thorgerd also gets married. After the wedding, a quarrel begins between Hallgerd and Njal's wife, Bergthora.

Explanatory notes: )

Previous parts of this saga can be found here. All saga posts can be found here.
darchildre: the master reading war of the worlds (reading)
Njal's Saga, chapters 16 through 25.

In this section, Hallgerd's second marriage ends as badly as the first, Thjostolf gets his comeuppance, we hear what happened to Mord Gigja and his daughter Unn (Hrut's first wife and father-in-law - remember them?) and meet their kinsman Gunnar (who gets a whole chapter telling us how awesome he is) and we finally meet Njal. Gunnar and Njal hatch a plan to reclaim Unn's dowry from Hrut. It is a sneaky, sneaky plan that turns out pretty well for them, at least for now. Unn gets remarried and has a son named Mord, who "will be in this saga for a long time." We also meet all of Njal's sons.

Previous parts of this saga can be found here. All saga posts can be found here.

Enjoy!
darchildre: the master reading war of the worlds (reading)
Njal's Saga, chapters 8 through 15.

In this section, there's an aborted feud over Unn's dowry, we are made more familiar with Hallgerd Hoskuldsdottir, she gets married the first time (everyone is pretty sure this is going to end badly and everyone is eventually proved correct), we meet Hallgerd's creepy-ass foster father Thjostolf and Hallgerd's creepy-ass uncle Svan (who does magic!), Hallgerd gets married a second time (which everyone is understandably nervous about), Thjostolf stalks around her wedding with an axe while glowering at everyone like a hilarious nutbar, and we end the segment on an ominous note as Hallgerd's second husband lets Thjostolf move in with them. Also, there is a guy named Osvif, which is ridiculously difficult to say - too many fricatives! I've pretty much never been happier about a "and now he is out of the saga."

Some explanatory notes. )

The previous part of this saga can be found here and the previous saga can be found here. Enjoy!
darchildre: the master reading war of the worlds (reading)
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.

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."

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