In those days, the language in England was the same as that spoken in Norway and Denmark, but there was a change of language when William the Bastard conquered England.

The passage above (whose historical truth is disputed by some scholars) represents one of the moments of particular historical interest in The Saga of Gunnlaug Serpent-Tongue, a saga which is not particularly notable in terms of artistry (in my opinion, though saga scholars rate it one of the best – no doubt for reasons readers in translation, like me, can’t well appreciate).

Most of us are familiar with the character Grima Wormtongue in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. This saga would seem to be the source of that name, since the word “orm,” common (I think) both to Old Norse and Old English, can mean worm, serpent, or dragon. However, in the saga, no moral judgment is implied by the name. I wish some information were provided as to why the nickname was bestowed in the first place, but all we’re told is that our Gunnlaug was named after an ancestor called the same thing. I assume it could mean something like “smooth-tongue,” or even “shrewd tongue,” since dragons were thought to be very crafty.

As one reads Gunnlaug’s Saga in The Complete Sagas of Icelanders, as I am (or in the book I’m pushing in this review, the Penguin Collection, Sagas of Warrior Poets), along with other sagas about skalds, one can’t help noticing similarities. Not little similarities in style or theme, but great big similarities that look more like plagiarism. It would appear that when a saga writer wished to write the saga of a skald, he had a ready-made template to follow, and most of them did just that. This increases my respect for the author of Egil Skallagrimsson’s saga (very likely Snorri Sturlusson), for resisting that temptation.

The story goes as prescribed – Gunnlaug Illugasson is tall, handsome, and a fine warrior and poet from his youth. He wants to go abroad as a merchant, but persuades his father to arrange his betrothal to a girl named Helga. The contract calls for her to wait for him three years. At the court of Jarl Eirik in Norway (who’s mentioned, but doesn’t appear as a character, in a couple of my novels) he encounters his rival Ravn. Again following the formula, the two men are polite to one another before the ruler, but privately come to hate each other. Gunnlaug stays abroad past the deadline prescribed in the marriage contract, and Ravn rushes home to claim Helga – who bitterly resents it. The saga departs from the script a bit when the first fight between the two men turns into a general melee which ends with everybody but the principals getting killed. This calamity, the saga writer informs us, is the reason why dueling was abolished in Iceland.

Both men agree to go back to Norway and fight there, but (for some reason) Gunnlaug delays for some time before finally meeting Ravn in a duel fatal to them both. The saga ends with a touching coda telling how Helga mourned Gunnlaug the rest of her life, even though married to a third suitor.

I found Gunnlaug’s Saga a bit of a disappointment, and not only for its boilerplate quality. The main obvious failing in the narrative (in my view) was the omission of a martial resume for the hero. The usual pattern is to tell how he fights in wars for his lord or lords, becoming a formidable fighting man. Gunnlaug fights only one duel in the course of his travels, with a berserker – and he wins that not by skill but by overcoming magic. I felt this was a critical failure in character development.

However, the pathos of the ending was pretty moving.