{"id":18853,"date":"2023-10-26T20:07:02","date_gmt":"2023-10-27T00:07:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=18853"},"modified":"2023-10-26T20:07:03","modified_gmt":"2023-10-27T00:07:03","slug":"saga-reading-report-hreidars-tale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=18853","title":{"rendered":"Saga reading report: ‘Hreidar’s Tale’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Saga illustration of King Magnus the Good.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

More saga-licious awesomosity<\/strong> tonight, from The Complete Sagas of Icelanders<\/a><\/em>. This entry is unquestionably a different kind of story \u2013 more of a \u201cclever yokel\u201d yarn than an epic of feud and vengeance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hreidar, our unlikely Icelandic hero, is (we are told) neither handsome nor intelligent. But he\u2019s tall and strong, and a notably fast runner. He has a brother named Thord, who is good-looking and smart, but very short. They\u2019ve inherited property from their father and are quite well to do \u2013 but Hreidar leaves the management of all that to his smarter brother.\u00a0 He is, however, able to get his way when he wants it, simply because Thord lacks the strength to dominate him physically.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hreidar decides he wants to accompany Thord on a merchant trip to Norway. He wants to meet Thord\u2019s friend, King Haakon the Good, and to go somewhere where there are a lot of people around. Thord is dubious; he\u2019s pretty sure Hreidar doesn\u2019t know how to act in society \u2013 especially in a king\u2019s court. But Hreidar asks him \u2013 essentially \u2013 “How you gonna stop me?” So Hreidar sails with Thord.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once in Norway, Hreidar proceeds to act exactly as Thord has feared, but his disingenuous manner amuses Magnus, and he even manages to get himself invited to spend the winter in the king\u2019s court. There he gradually acquires some polish, manages to kill one of the men who serve Magnus\u2019 co-king, Harald Hardrada, and contrives (with the help of his remarkable speed as a runner) to get out of the country with his life and a nice profit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Wikipedia<\/a>, Hreidar\u2019s Tale is considered by scholars one of the earliest written saga stories. My impression is that it may be based on true events, but probably got heavily embroidered over time. Full text (in a different translation) here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

More saga-licious awesomosity tonight, from The Complete Sagas of Icelanders. This entry is unquestionably a different kind of story \u2013 more of a \u201cclever yokel\u201d yarn than an epic of feud and vengeance. Hreidar, our unlikely Icelandic hero, is (we are told) neither handsome nor intelligent. But he\u2019s tall and strong, and a notably fast … Continue reading Saga reading report: ‘Hreidar’s Tale’<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7,13,15],"tags":[4930,4650],"class_list":["post-18853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-reading","category-reviews","tag-hreidars-tale","tag-the-complete-sagas-of-icelanders"],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18853"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18853\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18855,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18853\/revisions\/18855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}