A venerable custom on this blog is my post-Viking event saga review. During reenactment events I like to (at least most of the time) read from The Complete Sagas of Icelanders, to keep myself from (further) violating authenticity standards through reading off my Kindle device. During the Scandinavian Festival in Moorhead I read three sagas, two of them connected, all of them weird to various degrees. We’re getting into late sagas here, and weirdness goes with the territory.

The Saga of the People of Kjalarnes

The first one is The Saga of the People of Kjalarnes, which deals with early settlers in the area around Reykjavik. It’s also interesting because it depicts early Christian-heathen conflicts, and features one of the few saga descriptions of a heathen temple (historians consider this description pretty much worthless as evidence).

Helgi Bolan is an early Iceland settler, and we’re told he welcomed a group of Irish immigrants who were Christian. (I believe these people should probably be considered mixed Norse-Irish, ones who fled Ireland following military reverses in the Emerald Isle. These people would have thought of themselves as Norse, but had converted to Christianity.)

Every saga begins with a can of genealogical worms, and this can finally brings forth the saga’s main hero, Bui Andridsson. Bui is an open “Christian,” and is actually prosecuted at the Thing assembly for false religion. He is outlawed but (interestingly) simply ignores it. Nobody seems to be able to do much about it, because he’s such a skillful fighter. He has a foster-mother who keeps egging him on to desperate acts, justifying it by saying that his fate is already determined, so there’s no point playing safe. He finally burns Helgi Bolan’s temple down, killing a man in the process. (I think we’re supposed to sympathize with Bui, but objectively he sounds like a jerk.)

Outlawed, he flees to Norway, where the king sends him on a quest to the giant Dofri (identified with Dovre mountain in Norway; this element connects this saga to lesser-known legends about King Harald Fairhair). While staying with Dofri, Bui cohabits with the giant’s daughter, who is (we are told) very tall but very beautiful. (The mind boggles.)

Later he returns to Iceland where he’s finally killed fighting with Jokul, his own son, born to the giant’s daughter, whom he’s never met. The saga ends by telling us that they don’t know what happened to Jokul, but read on…

Jokul Buason’s Tale

Somebody must have wanted a sequel about the patricide Jokul, because that’s the next story in the collection. This is a saga that seems to have no historical basis at all, and so it runs wild along fairy tale lines. In his adventures, Jokul encounters a couple of giant sisters. He and his companion kill one, but spare the other, and she becomes their useful and devoted slave (giant psychology would seem to be somewhat different from human psychology).

The saga goes on to take Jokul, in the end, to the land of the Saracens, where he rescues a prince and princess. He marries the princess and succeeds her father as king of the Saracens.

To live, one assumes, happily ever after.

Gold-Thorir’s Saga

Gold-Thorir’s Saga returns us, tenuously, to some connection with the real world. Gold-Thorir is Thorir Oddsson, who as a young man vows sworn-brotherhood with a group of other young men. They go out to have adventures. They rob a grave mound, where the ghost prophecies great wealth but a bad end for Thorir. After that, we’re told, Thorir’s personality changes.

They go on to assault a clutch of dragons in a cave, managing to kill the dragons and seize their treasure. As their leader, Thorir is awarded the larger share of the loot.

[One peculiarity of this saga is that a few pages are missing. They weren’t lost, but were erased, probably with the intention of re-using them (not uncommon with old book manuscripts). Someone wrote in a summary of the missing material, but we don’t know if it’s authentic.)

In his old age, we are told, Gold-Thorir becomes increasingly sour and antisocial. Finally, according to the saga, he actually turns into a dragon. And his treasure disappears.

That, you must admit, is a dramatic ending.