{"id":18856,"date":"2023-10-27T19:36:53","date_gmt":"2023-10-27T23:36:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=18856"},"modified":"2023-10-27T19:36:53","modified_gmt":"2023-10-27T23:36:53","slug":"saga-reading-report-the-tale-of-the-story-wise-icelander-and-ivar-ingamundarsons-tale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=18856","title":{"rendered":"Saga reading report: ‘The Tale of the Story-wise Icelander,’ and ‘Ivar Ingamundarson’s Tale’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"\/
12th Century bust of King Eystein I of Norway.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I have a couple more saga tales<\/strong> for you tonight, and then I expect I\u2019ll be able to do some regular reviews again. I have finished at last the endless book I was reading (which will be reviewed elsewhere) and am back on my usual reading schedule. Except that I\u2019m busy with a couple projects too. And that\u2019s a nice problem to have, especially after this year of idleness and indigence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyway, each of tonight\u2019s two tales from The Complete Sagas of Icelanders<\/a><\/em> is short, but they also offer points of interest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first tale<\/strong> is peculiar in that neither the Icelandic hero nor the king he served is mentioned by name. However, it\u2019s not impossible to guess the latter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Tale of the Story-wise Icelander\u201d introduces us to an unnamed young Icelandic man who goes to Norway to serve an unidentified king. When the king asks him what he can offer in return for a place at his table, he says he knows many stories he can tell. Given the chance to \u201csing\u201d for his supper, he proves to be as good a raconteur as advertised.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, as Christmas approaches, the king notices that the young man\u2019s spirits are low. The king guesses that he\u2019s run out of stories. The young man admits that he has only one story left to tell, and he\u2019s reluctant to repeat that one. It turns out it\u2019s the story of the king\u2019s own travels. The king says he\u2019s particularly eager to hear this story. The young man may, he says, tell a part of it (serial-wise) every night during the Christmas season, and the king will help him to space the episodes out so they\u2019ll last through the season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When it\u2019s all over, the young man is reluctant to hear what the king thought of it, but the king tells him he liked it very well. He asks where the young man heard it from, and the young man says he heard it from Halldor Snorrasson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that\u2019s how we can figure out who the king is. Your average modern reader won\u2019t know this, but you are fortunate to have me for your guide. For Halldor Snorrasson was a companion to King Harald Hardrada<\/a> (who keeps turning up in these stories). Moreover, Halldor and Harald parted company under strained circumstances, Halldor not entirely sure Harald wasn\u2019t planning to hang him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So that\u2019s the first story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second story<\/strong> is possibly my favorite saga fragment of them all. It\u2019s a pure human interest story, featuring my favorite Norwegian king \u2013 who seems to have invented modern counseling techniques in the 12th<\/sup> Century. King Eystein I<\/a> was the quieter brother of King Sigurd the Crusader, and left a reputation for kindness and Christian charity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The story is called \u201cIvar Ingamundarson\u2019s Tale.\u201d Ivar was a member of King Eystein\u2019s court, a poet and a friend to him. He had a brother who came to join him in Norway, but soon grew jealous of Ivar\u2019s place at court and decided to go home. Ivar asked him to give his love to the girl he hoped to marry in Iceland, but the brother, out of jealousy, courted the girl himself and married her. When Ivar learned this, he was plunged into depression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

King Eystein, noticing this, asked Ivar what he could do to help. He made a number of suggestions \u2013 he could introduce him to some nice girls; he could give him property to manage; he could give him money to travel. Ivar isn\u2019t interested in any of these things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now read this speech, from King Eystein\u2019s mouth:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cIt\u2019s getting difficult for me now because I have tried everything I can think of. There\u2019s only one thing left now and it\u2019s not worth much compared to those which I\u2019ve already offered, and yet one can never tell what\u2019s best. So come and see me every day after the meal when I am not engaged in urgent business and I will chat with you. We\u2019ll talk about this woman in every way you like and we can think of. I\u2019ll make time for this, because it sometimes happens that people can cope more easily with their grief by talking about it. And I\u2019ll also make sure that you never leave my presence without a gift.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

It probably won\u2019t surprise you to learn that this plan worked, and after a time Ivar was his old self again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now I ask you \u2013 did you expect to find something like that in a 13th<\/sup> Century book?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have a couple more saga tales for you tonight, and then I expect I\u2019ll be able to do some regular reviews again. I have finished at last the endless book I was reading (which will be reviewed elsewhere) and am back on my usual reading schedule. Except that I\u2019m busy with a couple projects … Continue reading Saga reading report: ‘The Tale of the Story-wise Icelander,’ and ‘Ivar Ingamundarson’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":[4932,4650,4931],"class_list":["post-18856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-reading","category-reviews","tag-ivar-ingamundarsons-tale","tag-the-complete-sagas-of-icelanders","tag-the-tale-of-the-story-wise-icelander"],"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\/18856","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=18856"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18856\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18858,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18856\/revisions\/18858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}