Færeyinga Saga
Introduction
Of the steps between Gate-beard and Olaf we are told nothing, but we can reckon to Thorbeorn's age from the data the Saga supplies. He died an old man after his eldest son was married, and while Harold Gormsson and his nephew Harold Greyfell were both reigning, before 976 and after 967. Breste and Beine may have been a little older than their cousin Thrond. They fell in 976, and according to the careful scheme of the compiler of our Saga, Sigmund Brestesson was then nine, Ossur Hafgrimsson ten, Thore Beinesson eleven; (9) so that Sigmund leaves his foster-father Wulf at the age of eighteen, 985, (10) and becomes Earl Hacon's house-carle in 987, (11) while Thora is born in 988. The date of the battle between the Wickings of Iom and Earl Eric is, according to the Saga, 994; for Sigmund was then twenty-seven years old. (12) But we cannot attach any importance to this date, and if, as seems likely, the battle of Heorunga-Voe must be set farther back in the great Earl's reign, our Saga will not have much weight against it; any date from 987 would do if, as we may probably believe, Sigmund did take part in the famous sea-fight that freed Norway from Danish suzerainty. Earl Eric was old enough to fight in it, and he died, not an old man yet, in 1023. It was two winters after Tryggwesson's rule began (i.e., after 995) that he sent for Sigmund, (13) and Christendom was taken by the Færey people in 998, a year after. (14) In 1001 (if Olave fell in 1000, as is most likely --- C.P.B., ii. 87) the young Earl sent for Sigmund, who would be then, according to our Saga's reckoning, thirty-three. When Sigmund was slain (our Saga apparently intends him to be in his thirty-sixth year, 1003) Ossur's son was still a boy apparently, for Thrond does not ask Thora's hand for him till two or three years later, say 1006, when Thora would be twenty years old and Laf about the same age. At the time of this marriage, Thoralf, Thora's brother next in age to herself, sets up housekeeping, say at eighteen years of age. (15) Gille and Laf are contemporaries, and Laf is made about the same age as the Thorlacssons (chap. 35); but as Thorlac is older than Thrond, one would have put them as older, for their father died old when Thrond was yet a young man, according to the Saga, and Ossur was a year older than Sigmund. The ninth year of St. Olave was 1023, when he sent for the Færey lawman and nobles. There was "unfrith" in Norway from 1025 to 1028, when Erling was slain, and the king had to flee before the Danish gold and his own subjects' discontent. So that Carl of Mre's death may be set down to 1027, or a little earlier. When the settlement took place between Thrond and Laf, Laf's son Sigmund was three years old, and this is meant to be a year after Carl's death, so that Sigmund's birth would have taken place in 1025, which so far is credible, for Thora would not be more than thirty-nine years old. It was six years later, when Sigmund was nine, (16) that the Thorlacssons were slain in 1034; and here there is a difficulty, for Thurid would be sixty-seven and her wooer about forty-five. (17) It is clear that this was not what was intended by the original story, yet the compiler goes on to fix his date by stating that Thrond's death, which closely followed this, was in the days of Magnus Olavesson --- ergo, after or in 1036.
Laf and Thurid died before 1047, but Thora outlived King Magnus, who died 25th October of that year, aged twenty-four. Laf is called an old man, and he would have been about sixty-seven in 1047. Thurid would have been about eighty. Here again the scheme fits fairly but not exactly. Obviously one cannot avoid the conclusion that all this elaborate chronology is wholly fictitious --- merely the learned compiler's framework on which to peg the various bits of his story in order. The age of Sigmund Lafsson, still a child when he was kidnapped from Thrond by his mother; the statements that Thurid outlived Magnus; that Sigmund Brestesson was very young when his father was slain; that Sigmund had served Earl Hacon; that he survived Olave Tryggwesson --- all this is likely, for it seems to be part and parcel of the traditions on which the whole Saga is really based; but to try and get any more exactness is simply waste of time, for not only have we to do with fictitious details in some cases (such as Sigmund's exploits in the Baltic), but there are no means of checking our results.
There is a certain amount of local tradition in the Færeys on the subject of this story, gathered up by U. V. Hammershaimb in his articles in the Antiquarisk Tidskrift, Copenhagen, 1851, &c., and in his Færøsk Anthologi, Copenhagen, 1886-91. But more important still are the ballads collected by Svabo, Lyngbye and Hammershaimb himself. They have preserved some bits of the tale that the Saga compiler has neglected or not known, and they help to put right the confused geography of the story as the Icelander has handed it down to us. These ballads have been translated out of rough Færeyese into still rougher English (the rhymes, for the sake of closer translation, being sometimes replaced by assonances), and an eclectic version made out of the two texts, that of the Tidskrift and that of the F. kvæði. Rafn gave a prose precis of their contents in the preface to his text. As will be seen, they deal with the apostolate of Sigmund, and end with a brief notice of his death and burial. Sigmund goes out from King Olave Tryggwesson, accompanied by Thangbrand, the famous missionary-priest who fared so ill in Iceland. This is possibly true, but we have no confirmatory evidence.
The excellent and idiomatic scene in which Sigmund lands and surprises Bearne, and makes friends with him over a feast, looks like good tradition; and the Saga, as we have it, is weak and poor just where those incidents would have come in beautifully. (18) Sigmund's voyage to the west coast of Great Dimun under "Greenyscore," his dialogue with Thorbeorn, who (probably by mistake) replaces our Thore, his escalade of the cliff and talk and fight with Össur, are also good; and though the Saga is not quite as bad here as it is over Bearne's interview with Sigmund, we can hardly help regretting that the compiler, if he knew the ballad incidents, did not make use of them. Össur's dying request and prophecy (if prophecy there was, as in our version of the ballad) are also strong traditional matter. We remember the Conqueror's mockery of the dead Harold, and King Laoghaire's burial upright in the rathwall, facing the men of Leinster to all time "because he hated them." The death of the two path-warders is very likely traditional. That Tryggwesson taught Sigmund his deadly trick of fence, jars with the express words of our Saga. (19) The parallelism of Harold Iron-pate's request and Thore's and Sigmund's answer we may ascribe to the ballad-man's style. The "runs" as to sailing remind us of the "galley runs" so common in Irish and Scots tales, as does the "wrestling run." The ballads were sung and danced down to quite recent times, possibly still. (20) They are not very old, as they are distinctly non-alliterative.
I.
In Norway there dwells a christened man,
Ye Norway men, dance so fair and free!
And Olave Trigasson is his name.
Hold your peace, ye good knights all!
Ye Norway men, dance so fair and free!
King Olave he made a feast so fine
In honour of God and Mary mild.
The king to his footboys twain gave call,
"Go fetch me Sigmund here in the hall!"
They had not spoken but half the word,
When Sigmund was standing before the board.
Sigmund fell on his bended knee,
"Christ sain thee lord! What wilt with me?"
"O thou shalt win to the Færeys west,
And there shall go with thee Tambar the priest;
"In the Færeys there dwells an evil man,
And Thrond o' Gate it is his name;
"Thrond o' Gate his name will be,
Good Sigmund, bring him hither to me!"
"O is he a champion good in fight,
Or is he a warlock cruel of might?"
"He is not a champion good in fight,
But he is a warlock cruel of might."
Sigmund spake a word to the king,
"Methinks he will not be easy to bring."
The king took Sigmund by the hand,
"I give thee half of the Færey-land."
They went out and along the sand
Where the ships were lying off the land;
They loosed out of the fair, fair bay
The best boat that every in Norway lay.
The sea-waves broke as they break on a reef,
But out by Lindisness they keep.
They hoisted their sail so high on the mast,
And away to the Færeys they sailed so fast.
Out on the wild, wild sea they keep,
And the ship she well-nigh sunk in the deep.
It was two long nights and long days three
Before they might the Færeys see.
As soon as the Færeys hove in sight,
Hard by Mewness he steered aright.
The sea-waves broke as they break on a reef,
But right to Mewness his course he keeps;
The sea-waves turned to yellow and blue,
And the sea-sand over the deck it flew;
The sea-waves turned like fire to see,
But Sigmund never a whit feared he.
One long night and two long days
Sigmund outside of Gate he lay.
"Though it cost us body and soul,
To the Sound of Gate we may not go;
"Though it cost us life and limb,
To the sand of Gate we may not win;
"To the sand of Gate we may not come,
Thrond is raising his spells so strong!"
Sigmund by the helm he stood:
"Thrond methinks is wonderful wood!"
Sigmund let words of anger fall,
"Cursed be Thrond and his household all!"
Sigmund spake a word that day,
And they turned the good ship's head away.
Notes:
9. The compiler reckons by 9, 18, 27, and probably, 36. Chapters 7 and 9, and 35, 36, 37. [Back]
10. Chapter 13. [Back]
11. Chapter 18. [Back]
12. Chapters 26 and 27. [Back]
13. Chapter 28. [Back]
14. Chapter 30. [Back]
15. This has been all carefully worked out by the compiler. [Back]
16. Chapter. 56. [Back]
17. Carl is a problematic person, and while it is likely St. Olave had as much trouble with his scot as Earl Hacon a generation earlier, the details are by no means above suspicion. If we put the slaying of the Thorlacssons about 1010, we shall have a probable date; but the death of Thoralf must have preceded this, or he, not Laf, would have been the proper avenger of Thurid's wrongs. The whole business of the scot is a clever episode, elaborated and brought into the story to give diversion, and its inclusion, as we have seen, necessitates a grave chronologic difficulty. [Back]
18. The unaccountable behaviour of Snæulf, as far as regards the feast, looks almost like a confused recollection of Bearne's clever and well-timed hospitality. [Back]
19. The "men in brass" looks like an anachronism, but the sacks and butts full of weapons seem archaic. One remembers Tryggwesson's arm-chests in the Long Serpent. [Back]
20. The dance-step is thus described: Left, forward scrape and lift; right follows and takes its place (bis); right, step back, left follows it (semel); and so on da capo to 6/8 time. [Back]
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