Færeyinga Saga
Introduction
INTRODUCTION
We have got as far as the single story, but, on examination, it turns out to be, like the Icelandic Sagas of the same period, really a compilation, and though there is no small art shown in the composition, it has not been the compiler's care to smooth the joints out, or to disguise the qualities of the different factors in his compound. Obviously the Saga as we have it falls into ten fairly equal sections (which have been noted and numbered for the reader's convenience) as below:----
§ I. Tale of Thrond's trick at Haleyre, ch. 2-3. (2)
§ II. The slaying of the Brethren, ch. 4-9.
§ III. The boys and the outlaw, ch. 10-16, and part of ch. 26.
§ IV. The Wicking days of Sigmund, ch. 17-21.
§ V. Sigmund revenges his father, ch. 22-27 (loss part of ch. 26).
§ VI. Sigmund brings the Faith to the Færeys, ch. 28-33, 34. (3)
§ VII. The murder of Sigmund, ch. 35-41.
§ VIII. How Thrond would never pay scot to St. Olave, ch. 42-47.
§ IX. The wickedness of the Thorlaessons, ch. 48-51.
§ X. Thrond outwitted and the Thorlacssons slain, ch. 51-57, 58. (4)
As was pointed out in a little paper on Saga-growth, written in 1893 and printed in Folk-lore, v. 97, these sections are of various origin.
Sects. IV. and IX. are fictitious matter, absolutely of the same kind as those miserable episodes that disfigure Nial's Saga and many more, and show the sad decay of taste for true epic prose in the post-classic centuries, which had begun to care for other things than native traditions. (5)
Sect. III. is an old tale (part of which survives in our Jack and the Bean-Stalk and in theEddic poem of Thor and his mate visiting the giant---The Lay of Hymi, C.P.B., i. 220, 511) tacked into the story of Sigmund with considerable skill; the anecdote of the bear-killing is also a bit of old story fitted in to illustrate the young hero's promise (almost an obligatory part of Icelandic Sagac biography), though it was hardly needed after that Spartan sentence, "Grátum eige, frænde, en munum leingr." This section is pretty and neatly inserted, but it never formed part of the original story, and there is a lack of that pith and grip which the true classic style invariably shows somewhere or other.
Let us turn to more veracious matter.
Sect. I. resembles in style the early parts of Laxdæla Saga: the revelation of Thrond's nature by the simple recital of his acts and words, without a single phrase of comment, is Homeric, and Homeric in the right Odysseian vein.
Sect. II. has been a little abridged or maltreated; the scene between Hafgrim and Snæulf is completely enigmatic as it stands; it seems as if one of the Færey ballads had preserved echoes of the tradition on which it is founded, for there is evidently a good racy piece of character badly reported or unknown to the compiler or the scribe behind the chapter as it has come down to us. The quarrel over "man-matching," the suit and the ill-will it entails, are almost Saga common-places, but they are necessary epic adjuncts here. Noble is the scene where the little boys sit and see the desparate defence of the two brave men without a word, so that the hard-headed, quick-witted old heathen Bearne was moved to stand up for them against his more prudent and harder-hearted nephew.
Sect. V. suffers from the dislocations mentioned in the notes above, and includes (in its wrong place, as we should say) the Earl's gift of the heathen goddess' ring, which is so dramatically to work for Sigmund luck and ill-luck. There is genuine stuff in this section: Sigmund's blunt speeches "at their skulu sækja at virkinu gletting thann," and "at Thrándr thyrfte ekki at fara með gyllingar slíkar, hann mundi aldri á taka," the dialogue with Bearne, the cheery politeness of Thrond, concealing his obstinate craft, and Hacon's prescient conclusion, "eige hafi thit orðit jafnslægir thit Thrándr," are good and classic in style. In chapter 27, relating Sigmund's part in the great sea-fight, the "crowning mercy" (as Dr. Vigfússon put it) of the Earl's career, it has been thought better to follow a text which, though abridged, is more in consonance with other parts of our Saga in manner. The Flateybook text runs as follows. The battle has raged long, and Earl Hacon seeing Bue's desperate slaughter of his men, calls to Sigmund
"to lay his ship alongside Bue and slay that warlock. Sigmund answered, 'It is certain now, Earl, that the great honour that ye have done me I ought to repay you, and also that ye are minded to put me in the greatest jeopardy when ye will have me deal with Bue.' And now Earl Hacon picks out the best and starkest company for Sigmund's ship, and bids him go well forward. Then Sigmund laid his ship alongside of Bue's, and there began the hardest fight between them and their ships companies. Bue dealt mighty strokes, for he was a man of great strength, and many a man bowed before him and lost his life. Now Sigmund eggs on his crew sharply to board Bue's ship, thirty men together forward at the prow. Bue and his fellows turned sharply to meet them, and there began a hard onslaught and a fierce battle. Soon Bue and Sigmund met and crossed weapons. Bue was the stronger man, but Sigmund was the nimbler and the better fencer. Sigmund shifted his weapons in his hands, for he had trained himself to use either hand in sword-play, and against that few men or none could prevail. And with that Sigmund first swept off Bue's right hand at the wrist, and then his left; and when Bue had lost both his hands, he thrust his stumps into the handles of his gold chests that were full of money, and spoke, shouting, 'Overboard all Bue's men!' Then he leapt overboard and never came up again, and Sigmund won the victory for Earl Hacon.
"That is the story of Hallbearn Hale the former, and of Steingrim Thorarinsson, and the narrative of Priest Are Thorgilsson the historian. (6) And now the battle ceased with this which has just been told. And father and son [Hacon and Eric] thanked Sigmund Brestesson for the battle that was just won."
It is clear that neither of the two versions formed part of the original Thrond's Saga.
Sect. VI. is excellent in style, in exact consonance with the best part of the Kings' Lives. Tryggwesson's Herodotean speech is a model in its kind, worthy of Snorre himself. The play between Sigmund, strong in the might of the New Faith and the luck of the king his patron, and Thrond, wily and dexterous, trusting in his witchcraft and in the patriotism of his countrymen, is admirable throughout. Twice Sigmund, in his Christian magnanimity, saves the man that sold him as a slave and would fain have slain him in cold blood. The laconisms that mark the grandest situations in an Icelandic Saga are fine. Sigmund's "of-mikit vald hefi-ec nu feingit Thránde," and Thrond's "ekki mun-ec bregðast vinom mínon hinom fornom," and the king's verdict on Thrond, that "es mín ætlan at thar siti einn hinn verste maðr á aullon Norðrlaundom es hann es." The parley over the ring is good, and the noble faithfulness of Sigmund, who could never forget a past kindness though he could forgive past injuries, is brought out. He has his second warning; Thore had told him of the man who would certainly bring about his death, and now his next best friend advises him that to keep the heathen ring is to lose luck and life; but he chooses to listen to his own heart, and goes on faithful to the death, and the Higher Powers smile on him, though they will not or cannot undo his doom; and the very ring that murders him, by the strangest fate is to bring him at last to a Christian grave in the church he had built.
Notes:
1. The bits in Flateybook are thus distributed:---Chapters 1-26, Sigmund at the Heorunga-Voe battle; chapters 28; 29-33; 34-41; 42-48; 49-58. The apocryphal stuff was already in the Saga, which the Flateybook scribes used, cutting it up to suit their purpose of grouping all the matter they could get together about the contemporary Norwegian king's life. [Back]
2. Chapter 1 is mainly citations from Landnámabóc. [Back]
3. Chapter 34 is a brief historic notice of Sigmund and the young Earls. [Back]
4. Chapter 58 is chiefly an epilogue. [Back]
5. That this pseudo-wicking stuff was of late insertion is evident. One of the markers of its intrusion is seen in chapter 18, where a notice of Sigmund having been made one of Earl Hacon's house-carles (probably a truth, though it is as likely to have happened after Heorunga-Voe battle as before), now in chapter 21, ought to follow. It also seems possible that chapter 23 is out of place as regards the gift of the ring, which one would have fancied to be Hacon's last present to his friend. But as the glosses, which I have sometimes put back to the margin, show, the middle of the Saga is in a rather dislocated state, mainly owing to worthless additions. [Back]
6. This is a gloss referring to the account of the whole battle, probably not necessarily to the part played by Sigmund. For other early notices of this fight, see C.P.B., ii. 41, 48, 49. [Back]
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