Færeyinga Saga
Introduction
The next section, VII., which tells of Thrond's victory and Sigmund's pitiful death, is of the very best, comparable to the greatest Icelandic Sagas: the attack, the swimming scene, the murder, the spirit-raising, are thoroughly original, based on fine tradition, ripened by good telling, till it assumes the perfect epic form. Thrond's warning, wrung from him partly by compunction, partly by the bitter remembrance of that hour when he was forced under the edge of the axe to "forsake his old friends," is the third Sigmund has had, but his loyalty to his father will not permit him to listen to it. His escapes and ready resource in danger remind one of parts of Gisle's Saga. There seems a little blur where Sigmund's sword drops; something forgotten or left out by mistake to explain the loss. Was the ring somehow concerned? Mark the callous brutality of the murderer's two speeches---"Lágt ferr nú haufðingi vorr," and "ok es gullhringr hans harðla digr," and the proud scorn of Thurid, facing her foes sword in hand, for the first time brought into personal collision with the man she is to overcome in the end. The brief tragic dialogue in the swimming scene is beyond praise.
Sect. VIII. draws out the character of Thrond and his evil kinsmen, and their successful resistance to the Christian royal party in the island and to the sainted king himself. There is possibly very little traditional basis for all this; possibly even Carl of Mœre is but a creation of the Saga-teller, but the story is well told. Thrond's saws and proverbs are apt, Sigurd's cool business-like evasion, and all the humour of the payment of the scot (which contrasts admirably with the earlier difficulties over money between Sigmund and Thrond), are evidently carefully worked up, and give variety while the plot is going on quietly toward the inevitable judgment. The epilogue at the end of chapter 47 marks a stage in the story, and ought perhaps to come after chapter 48.
The first chapter of the next section really belongs to Sect. X., while the rest of Sect. IX. is wretched flimsy, fancy stuff, merely intended to illustrate the wickedness of the Thorlacssons, and amuse the patient listeners by drawing out the tale and heightening the anticipation of the deferred catastrophe.
The dream in chapter 53 is of course part of the traditional story, and though Laf Thoresson may be mythical, he is not so needless to the story as the obviously unreal Thorhall and Thorwald. There is a little art in that Shakspearean touch of the differentiation of the two ruffians, Sigurd and Thord, in chapter 51, Thord being "of milder mood" and of more instinct; as we are to see in the next section, where he scents the coming death, though Sigurd is unconscious and full of confidence as any fey man ever was. It is Thord, too, whose wooing is, ironically, made to cut the cord, as it were, that kept the avenging blade suspended over the three murderers' heads.
The last section, of which the women Thurid and Thora are the heroines, while Laf is a pious implement in their hands, is the worthy end of the history. It is markedly original in line, and evidently based on good tradition, while the plot is minutely and skilfully worked out into full detail. Thrond's luck, if he had but known it, departed with Sigmund; the ring that gave the young convert a hero's death and a blessed grave could not, though it dealt out prosperity for years to the old heathen, help him to withstand the Christian women's fortune. (7) That Thrond, who had outwitted great kings and keen captians, skilled merchants, and his own familiars who knew his repute, Thrond who had the power to make the winds and the seas obey him and knew how to raise the dead, should be finally and completely outwitted by a woman, was the bitterest irony. That he, who had dealt so cruelly with the two boys he had orphaned, should come to love a little child of their blood, and by losing him against his will lose all else at the same moment, this is a marvellous and memorable ruling of Weird rounding off the whole tale in true Sophoclean completeness. (8)
The Saga, then, as it is here Englished and printed, consists of a Thrond's Saga built up by a thirteenth-century Icelander out of Færayese traditions of their two heroes, Thrond and Sigmund. To this Saga additions were made from folk-tales and from imagination, at a later date, by some ingenious and learned compiler with a love for chronology, before the Saga fell into the hands of the scribes of the MSS. of the Norwegian Kings' Lives in the fourteenth century, and they from the Kings' Lives probably added a little to the Saga, which they cut up and distributed (as they did other Sagas) in among their other matter in chronological order. It is in this shape it has reached us, and it is here translated according to the handy textus receptus published by Carl Christian Rafu at Copenhagen, 1832 (with Danish and Færeyese versions, map and introduction).
Thrond is so plainly the hero of the Saga, that it can only have been a religious scruple that made the scribes evade giving it his name. There being no real title for the story, it has been thought best to give Thrond the honour due to him. His character is romantically used by the Saga-teller, who rounded the stray anecdotes of him and his heroic kinsmen into complete story form. He is made a Louis XI. (as Dr. Vigfússon said, Sturlunga Saga, I. xcv.), and as bad as he can be without wholly forfeiting the observer's sympathy, in order to enhance the dramatic contrast. Historically he represents the conservative opposition to the New Faith and all it meant---to wit, the influence of the Norwegian kings and the accompanying consequences, including the predominance of the family that managed to secure the royal favour and the lucrative but sometimes onerous collection of the royal scot, a tax by no means favourably viewed, and in reality a drain without any due return (save perhaps the upholding of better peace) upon the island's resources. One cannot but admire the stubborn crafty old fox setting all the good powers of heaven and earth cheerily at defiance through a long and laborious life. Only great skill could have rendered the pious hero Sigmund so attractive as he is throughout the story without destroying all one's sympathy for his treacherous foe and destroyer, Thrond; but in his fidelity, his unselfishness, his mercy, his marvellous prowess and his guileless speech Brestesson is still, like Beowulf and Gunnar, a real man, not a mere Tennysonian lay-figure. The blameless Laf's triumph is rendered acceptable by his hereditary mission as avenger, by his patient reticence and his swift obedient action when the psychologic moment has come. The other personages that are developed are the Earl, generous, wily, reticent, suspicious of a man till he has tried him, devoted to his false gods; a fine contrast to Tryggwesson, the earnest, eloquent, persuasive, fervent champion of the New Faith, not content to stand second even to a dead man in his friend's hearts; a noble figure, grander than any the North could show till Gustavus came. Olave the Saint is business-like, persistent, with an uncanny knowledge of men's natures; we have only a glimpse of him, but it is a true one; we see him without the glamour of martyrdom which made him, a Henry II. in reality, into the "Thomas of Norway" for later generations. Thore, the faithful comrade, only once or twice shown any individual trait. He is as unselfish as Sigmund himself. He knows that "stone dead hath no fellow," and he advises Sigmund to that intent, but in vain. Sigmund never listens to him, though he is always ready to die for him. The last time he gives a counsel, before Sigmund resolves to swim for it, he was probably right, but as before he is content to follow the friend who will lead him wrong, and he has his reward, for "in death they were not divided." The women Thurid and Thora are worthy of their mates; courage, patience, the instinct to know how and when to act, are theirs for generations. Thurid can even master her tremendous pride in order to win her revenge, and Thora keeps her presence of mind in the midst of the greatest danger to her child, and saves all by her stratagem. Of the lesser figures there is little to be said; they are sufficiently characterised for their places by a few bold strokes. One recalls among them especially Raven, the honest skipper; Carl, the over-confident but gallant outlaw; Thorkel, the careful foster-father; Ragnhild, shrewd, brave, keen-witted woman, the "nut-brown maid" of Scandinavian prose; Thorhall and Thorwald, two miserly wittols; Hafgrim, the proud, jealous, hot-tempered, but not over-wise nobleman, who falls by Thrond's craft; Snæulf, shrewd, crabbed, honest, no respecter of persons; Bearne, cool in danger, with a warm heart and a keen eye for a bargain.
Grim, the patriarch of the Færey settlers, whom we know from Landnámabóc (Are Thorgilsson's Icelandic Domesday Book), is the first person with whose chronology we have to deal in this Saga. He must have been a famous man in his life, for "he was worshipped when he was dead for good seasons, and was called Cambann." We do not know where his sepulchral barrow stood, save that it was not in Iceland. The word Camban one naturally takes for Irish. The full Scandinavian prænomen was probably Thorgrim, and that would suggest the west coast of Norway for the origin of the family, and make Grim a countryman of his renowned namesake the patriarch of Iceland, Wether-Grim, lord of Sogn in Norway. Thor is the chief element in our Grim's descendant's names: Thorsteinn scrofe and Thorólfr smjörr are his son and grandson; and as the latter was an Icelandic settler contemporary with Helge magre, Camban should have flourished in the early half of the ninth century. One would like to know his story; but the lives of those Scandinavian pioneers that led the way to the Western Isles have been forgotten, and we are lucky when we light upon their names. One may suppose Grim's Færey settlement to have fixed Thorshaven as its centre, and there on Thingness was the chief mootstead of the Færeys till at least the thirteenth century.
Of Aud, the ancestress of the great Eastrey family, we know more from Landnámabóc, for she was one of the most distinguished of the settlers of Iceland. She was the widow of Anlaf the white, king of Dublin, and it was the death in battle of her son Thorstan the Red, a great warrior, who had much power in North Britain, that determined her to seek a new home for herself, her family, and her twenty freemen in the far North-West. Many of the best-known Icelanders---e.g., the Sturlungs---trace back to her. She was a Christian, like her brother Helge beolan, and "she had her place of prayer at Cross-hillocks (in the Dales by Hwam); there she had crosses set up………Aud was a worshipful lady. When she was well stricken in years, she bade to her house her kinsmen and son-in-law and prepared a costly feast. And when the feast had lasted three nights, then she gave gifts to her friends and counselled them wise counsels. She said that the feast should last three nights more, declaring this should be her funeral feast or arval. The next night she died, and was buried on the shore below high-water mark, as she had ordered, for she would not lie in unhallowed ground, seeing she was a christianed woman" (Landn., i. 4, and ii. 14-15).
Notes:
7. In the original tradition the ring must have fallen to Thrond's share. He would not let it go, but take it as fee for his trouble. It should then have turned up in connection with the catastrophe somehow; we may imagine the little Sigmund carrying it off with him, and Thora having it made into a chalice for Scufey church. [Back]
8. Thrond even forswears his heathendom so far as to teach the child he loves the Paternoster, but he evades the Credo because he could not say it himself, and teaches him a well-known sleep-charm universal in Teutondom from Sweden to Iceland and from England to Bavaria. [Back]
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