Sagas, Snorri and Tom

Hello Friends!

I'm going to be taking a completely different path today.  We're still in Iceland which, in my opinion, is the most interesting country imaginable. I was amazed to learn that most modern day Icelanders can proudly trace their ancestry right back to the Book of Settlements {Landnámabók} with over 1000 years of history since the original settlers made their home in the Land of Ice and Fire as it is fondly known. As I shared in my previous entry, here, it could just have easily been nicknamed the Land of Waterfalls.  There will be more on the ice and fire in a future entry.

While there, I availed myself of their literary traditions. They have a rich tradition of sagas, but unfortunately the majority of them are not translated into English. So my research and reading was somewhat restricted, and, I become familiar with the works of Snorri Sturluson.  I also read  the available translated sagas, most notably Njal's Saga, Egil's Saga, and Laxdæla Saga which formed part of my studies towards my degree in Humanities with the University of Maryland.

One of the most memorable things I did while living in Iceland was attend a rare reading of Icelandic poetry and literary extracts in an ancient turf roofed dwelling. A small select group of us sat in the deepening twilight. The room lit only by traditional tallow candles and oil lamps. The Icelandic host read to us in English, Icelandic and Old Norse.  I cannot begin to explain how magical , how spiritual it was to sit there as they would have 100 or more years ago, indeed for a thousand years, in a house built of turf with no mod cons. While photographs were not allowed of the event this is a fairly typical interior, and very similar to where we were sitting for the reading.

Despite many of the earliest sources of their literature being transferred from generation to generation by the oral traditions of story telling and not written down nor attributed, many of the sites mentioned in the old stories are quite visible and known today. For example, 1000 years later, we know exactly where Snorri Sturluson lived and where he was assassinated.  We know where Bergthora is buried. We know the exact spot of the Law Speakers stone at the Alþingi, the site of the Icelandic parliament in Thingvellir, the oldest parliament in the world, and so on.  This knowledge base can probably be attributed to the fact that Iceland is an island and was fairly isolated so that information remained reasonably complete without being disseminated, or contaminated and diluted by outside influences.

Thingvellir in Autumn and Winter

The chasm at Thingvellir which forms part of the divide between the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates and the Öxará River Which leads to a ducking pool where many a wrongly accused woman met her fate accused of witchcraft.

I had many rare privileges while living in Iceland, and one was to stand at the Law Speakers stone one summer afternoon while part of the Laws of Iceland were recited in a modern day reenactment of an Alþingi.  One thousand years ago, it was the job of the Law Speaker to recite from memory one third per year of the Laws of Iceland at the annual gathering of the clan leaders, who came from across Iceland to Thingvellir for the annual meeting, or Alþingi, when law making happened and disputes were resolved.  One such law, for example, was the conversion to Christianity in the year 1,000.  Initially, this conversion was made purely for economic reasons, to facilitate trade with the rest of Europe, already primarily Christian and who were reluctant to trade with the pagan Icelanders.

The Law Speaker's Stone

Snorri Sturluson was a politician and historian, a writer and poet.  He was elected to the position of Law Speaker twice. He composed the Prose Edda which along with the more ancient and anonymous Poetic Edda form the basis of all Icelandic mythology and have influenced many notable modern authors, most notably JRR Tolkien and Ezra Pound.   He was assassinated at the at the age of 61 at his home in Reykholt, allegedly by men hired by the king of Norway.

Snorri Sturluson

The original bathing pool at Reykholt where Snorri was assassinated.

I'm not going to go in depth here otherwise we'd still be here when Spring melts into Summer. The sagas are hard work to read, in part due to the endless rounds of disputes! If you've ever read Tolkien, as I have done many times, I found The Hobbit very easy reading. The Lord of the Rings requires more concentration and focus. The Silmarillion requires an "ology" to read! However, I can find many fascinating connexions and similarities between the old literature of Iceland and Tolkien's writings. This is no new revelation, but it keeps drawing me back, and I have to say it was quite revealing living in Iceland, going from place to place exploring and discovering places that may well have been the source of inspiration for The Lord of the Rings especially. I truly believe that visiting Thingvellir for the first time that I was approaching Helms Deep. Mount Hekla and surrounding lava fields are widely believed to be the inspiration for Mount Doom and Mordor.  

Bubbling geothermal mud pit

Another similarity in Snorri's Edda is a list of names that we instantly recognise as the names of the dwarves in The Hobbit . They're all there: Dalin, Balin, Kili, Fili, Dori, Nori, Ori, Oin, Gloin, Bifur, Bombur and Thorin Oakenshield.  Even Ganalf's name is there!

Perhaps the one thing that I picked up on more than anything is the parallel I drew for a paper I wrote for a UMD university course on Icelandic literature about Tom Bombadil from The Lord of the Rings, and the conversion to Christianity in Nial's Saga.  Whether or not anyone has picked up on this before I do not know, but I certainly impressed my lecturer with my conclusion and received an A+ for my troubles.  

I argued in my paper that the chapters pertaining to Nial's conversion to Christianity could be removed and completely omitted from the saga without it having any overall effects. It happened and there was an end to it. Remove those chapters and it was as if the conversion had never happened. You could read straight across them without losing anything from the remaining text and I feel the same can be said of the Tom Bombadil chapters in Lord of the Rings.  Other than presenting us with a character who cannot be explained, you can remove the chapters surrounding Tom Bombadil from Lord of the Rings and the story would continue as if those chapters had never existed.  Yet Tom is a key character for many of us.

As an aside, if you are familiar with the character Tom Bombadil, you may be aware of the furore Peter Jackson caused when he directed his film trilogy interpretations of the books and he completely omitted the character and relevant chapters surrounding Tom Bombadil and Goldberry.  Despite Tom being a seemingly small and innocuous character, he was an important one, for he was the one true being impervious to the evil of Sauron.  That, my friends, is discussion for another day!

Until next time

stay safe. Stay well.

Debbie xx 

For purposes of ease I am using the anglicised versions of name places.

All photographs in this blog today are digital copies of original 35mm film.