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Gisla Saga Surssonar
This Book Is In German.
136 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1200
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* They are officially published under that name
* They are traditional stories not attributed to a specific author
* They are religious texts not generally attributed to a specific author
Books whose authorship is merely uncertain should be attributed to Unknown.
See also: Anonymous
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 43 reviews
April 8, 2017
Some guy keeps going to talk to your sister, a bit too often, people are saying.
Now, if you were of the TV drama sort, you might raise a fuss. Or you might keep working as reasonable people do - because food is a thing. Then your pops comes to you, says he heard the people talking and, in his reasonable voice, asks to please kill the guy when you have a free moment. Fine. You get off your ass, find the guy and - lay down the facts and can he please stop. Your dad is not impressed, but the guy listens and goes away for a while. As expected, it doesn't last. Your dad calls you a girl. You try talking one more time, and the suitor's dismissive. So you shrug philosophically as he drones on and chop the pest down. Now, back to work. The land won't be tilling itself, you know.
Somehow neither your elder brother, your father or your sister seem very impressed.
These people, man.
Gisli's saga is the story of a normal man turned outlaw. Despite appearances, it mixes an Odysseus-like hero to follow his own code and safeguard against his foes with spirituality and tragedy. The characters surrounding him appear in stark relief: the stalwart, strong-willed Auda, the loyal Vestein, the weak-willed Thorkel, the hounding Eyjolf and Thorgrim's presumption. All these are layered between the two poles of faith, old and new. The old faith is woven atop the thrall's curse through Thorgrim's spell and Gisli's dreams. The new echoes at the fringes and haunts Gisli's dreams as the kind wife.
Speedy, efficient character-building, no one-note characters, father-son conflict, internal conflict, murders, more murders, blood oaths and the beginning of a detective novel. What a delight!
Now, if you were of the TV drama sort, you might raise a fuss. Or you might keep working as reasonable people do - because food is a thing. Then your pops comes to you, says he heard the people talking and, in his reasonable voice, asks to please kill the guy when you have a free moment. Fine. You get off your ass, find the guy and - lay down the facts and can he please stop. Your dad is not impressed, but the guy listens and goes away for a while. As expected, it doesn't last. Your dad calls you a girl. You try talking one more time, and the suitor's dismissive. So you shrug philosophically as he drones on and chop the pest down. Now, back to work. The land won't be tilling itself, you know.
Somehow neither your elder brother, your father or your sister seem very impressed.
These people, man.
Gisli's saga is the story of a normal man turned outlaw. Despite appearances, it mixes an Odysseus-like hero to follow his own code and safeguard against his foes with spirituality and tragedy. The characters surrounding him appear in stark relief: the stalwart, strong-willed Auda, the loyal Vestein, the weak-willed Thorkel, the hounding Eyjolf and Thorgrim's presumption. All these are layered between the two poles of faith, old and new. The old faith is woven atop the thrall's curse through Thorgrim's spell and Gisli's dreams. The new echoes at the fringes and haunts Gisli's dreams as the kind wife.
Speedy, efficient character-building, no one-note characters, father-son conflict, internal conflict, murders, more murders, blood oaths and the beginning of a detective novel. What a delight!
March 22, 2018
This is the story of Gisli. No, not that Gisli. The other Gisli.
Fucking Gisli.
Fucking Gisli.
November 3, 2021
i apologise to any book i might have previously accused of containing too many characters, u got nothing on this
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October 11, 2024Wtf…
January 14, 2021
A nice saga, one of my faves after Laxdæla and Egil's. Aud and Gisli are such a badass couple!
I'm relieved that by the end, Eyjolf is still unsatisfied and dishonorable. Leaves a good feeling in my heart.
The women in this saga are very bold and badass. Aud is the main one, namely when she punches Eyjolf in the nose (and makes him bleed) and tells him to stick his offer [to betray her husband] up his ass. Thordis is a total matriarch as well, namely when she tries to stab Eyjolf by purposely dropping the tray of spoons as a distraction, and then when she divorces Bork right afterward.
**The poetry in this saga is also my favorite I've encountered in the 8 or so sagas I've read.**
I have to say - I was very weirded out by/not at all expecting the way in which Thorkel died. That just came out of the blue and didn't make sense.
Fate and dreams certainly figured prominently in this saga, and it was only a matter of time before Gisli died, but he died heroically, and at least Eyjolf still didn't do too well at the end. Fuck that guy.
**Side note: There's so many Thorgrims in this saga! I'm just like... what is going on. And a bunch of characters with Thor[dis, -kel, ...]. It gets confusing, buckle up.
I'm relieved that by the end, Eyjolf is still unsatisfied and dishonorable. Leaves a good feeling in my heart.
The women in this saga are very bold and badass. Aud is the main one, namely when she punches Eyjolf in the nose (and makes him bleed) and tells him to stick his offer [to betray her husband] up his ass. Thordis is a total matriarch as well, namely when she tries to stab Eyjolf by purposely dropping the tray of spoons as a distraction, and then when she divorces Bork right afterward.
**The poetry in this saga is also my favorite I've encountered in the 8 or so sagas I've read.**
I have to say - I was very weirded out by/not at all expecting the way in which Thorkel died. That just came out of the blue and didn't make sense.
Fate and dreams certainly figured prominently in this saga, and it was only a matter of time before Gisli died, but he died heroically, and at least Eyjolf still didn't do too well at the end. Fuck that guy.
**Side note: There's so many Thorgrims in this saga! I'm just like... what is going on. And a bunch of characters with Thor[dis, -kel, ...]. It gets confusing, buckle up.
October 18, 2026
Actually really funny to me that Gisli could have gotten away with it all if he had just kept his mouth shut for five seconds instead of reciting poetry about the murder he committed. A lesson for us all, I suppose.
March 19, 2023
Shoutout á ættjörð mína, Haukadal í Dýrafirði.
January 15, 2024
1.5/5
i'm just not a saga lover + can't they translate it in a way that makes it enjoyable to read??
the story is good but so hard to get into because of all the 55 random characters sharing a total of 5 names and gisli's poorly translated sonnet
(update)
after reading more about it i'd give it 2 stars just because of the foundation it lays for future nordic literature and cause i liked Aud
i'm just not a saga lover + can't they translate it in a way that makes it enjoyable to read??
the story is good but so hard to get into because of all the 55 random characters sharing a total of 5 names and gisli's poorly translated sonnet
(update)
after reading more about it i'd give it 2 stars just because of the foundation it lays for future nordic literature and cause i liked Aud
January 4, 2025
À noter que les femmes sont les seuls personnages à peu près stables mentalement
3,5
3,5
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November 3, 2026Leste nynorsk oversettelse fra Samlaget. God!
August 27, 2026
Var på kanten av setet hele tia jo. Mange navn….
August 29, 2018
This is perhaps my absolute favorite Icelandic saga, and I'm starting to know it by heart. The characters in this texts are so complex and interesting, and the objective narrator makes for some awesome opportunities to interpret what the characters are feeling solely based on their facial expressions and actions. One example is when the main character murders his sisters lover to protect her honour. In the context of that time, this was a fairly unproblematic act, and it is only many years later when she chooses not to support him in the family feud that we get an inkling of what she actually felt back then. This is an indication that she might truly have been in love and that she has harboured resentment for all these years. The ideological transition from norse mythology to Christianity is also interesting to trace in this saga, and the many understatements create a great comical effect sometimes. My favorite is when Gisle's guts fall out of his torn stomach during a fight, but he just sweeps them up, puts them back in, tightens his belt and keeps on fighting. The tightly would plots runs like clockwork in this amazing work of literary art.
November 6, 2022
Värsta jag läst
February 13, 2020
I very much like the epic form, and Norse mythology is fascinating. Also, the Viking people did great exploration, trade, and settlement of uninhabited lands like Iceland and Greenland (or at least the part of Greenland that they settled). I wanted to see what their literature is like and what insights it might give to their mindset. Of course, the Icelandic sagas all seem to have been written or committed to writing in the 11th and 12th centuries which is about 200 years after the conversion of the Vikings of Iceland. So they refer to a time and culture that no longer existed. For scholars this is a fascinating journey in itself -- discerning what is "original" and what is not.
Since I am not a scholar, I would venture to say only that the sagas (which is another word for stories) had such a grip on the mind that they lasted orally until they were written down. Because they are stories and because their style is a complex form of poetry, they had to have as much interest for listeners as a good Netflix series does for us today. I can imagine the hearing of the saga, the puzzling over it, the enjoyment, the discussion of the characters' actions and motivations, the thrills and suspense, the feelings of exultation or sadness, and so forth. In other words, I think they are pretty much the sort of thing we like today!
Well, what about my first sage, the story of Gisli? There is a great backstory, a very large cast of characters (unfortunately, many have the same name!), plenty of "telling" (which means plenty of room for the hearer to assess motivation and choice), and a consistent arc. Gisli is a very nice man -- good husband, good husbandman, good fighter and killer -- who is declared an outlaw because he took the rules of honor and revenge at face value. The sadness of his story is his flight and concealment during the long years of outlawry, the mental torment of a life disrupted and abnormal (presented by way of the visitation by consistent dreams), his loyalty to his wife Aud and hers to him -- the general hopelessness of a life turned upside-down.
Of course, there are attitudes that are not modern: The unconcern for the lives of the unimportant like bondsmen or thralls or the handicapped; the demands of revenge. There is however, one aspect of the attitudes that is quite modern -- the pleasure of putting people down, of putting them into a position of seeming weakness of character, and thus lording it over them in this cheap way, gaining stature from the belittling of another and calling it courage and enterprise.
This is not a story about gods and goddesses, divine intervention, or anything like that. It is a story similar to what we might read in the newspapers. It has no great moral. It tells of a man and what happened to him.
Since I am not a scholar, I would venture to say only that the sagas (which is another word for stories) had such a grip on the mind that they lasted orally until they were written down. Because they are stories and because their style is a complex form of poetry, they had to have as much interest for listeners as a good Netflix series does for us today. I can imagine the hearing of the saga, the puzzling over it, the enjoyment, the discussion of the characters' actions and motivations, the thrills and suspense, the feelings of exultation or sadness, and so forth. In other words, I think they are pretty much the sort of thing we like today!
Well, what about my first sage, the story of Gisli? There is a great backstory, a very large cast of characters (unfortunately, many have the same name!), plenty of "telling" (which means plenty of room for the hearer to assess motivation and choice), and a consistent arc. Gisli is a very nice man -- good husband, good husbandman, good fighter and killer -- who is declared an outlaw because he took the rules of honor and revenge at face value. The sadness of his story is his flight and concealment during the long years of outlawry, the mental torment of a life disrupted and abnormal (presented by way of the visitation by consistent dreams), his loyalty to his wife Aud and hers to him -- the general hopelessness of a life turned upside-down.
Of course, there are attitudes that are not modern: The unconcern for the lives of the unimportant like bondsmen or thralls or the handicapped; the demands of revenge. There is however, one aspect of the attitudes that is quite modern -- the pleasure of putting people down, of putting them into a position of seeming weakness of character, and thus lording it over them in this cheap way, gaining stature from the belittling of another and calling it courage and enterprise.
This is not a story about gods and goddesses, divine intervention, or anything like that. It is a story similar to what we might read in the newspapers. It has no great moral. It tells of a man and what happened to him.
December 22, 2019
What do you know, a saga that respects Chekhov's gun.
As the name suggests, The Saga of Gisli the Outlaw concerns Gisli's outlawry. And, surprisingly, little else. The usual panorama of random episodes of Icelandic life is absent here, and almost everything that is mentioned ties back to the main plot.
The Soursop family is involved in a number of feuds over the promiscuous life of Thordess, Gisli's sister. Eventually they flee to Iceland, where they establish prosperous lives until a new feud, in part sparked by Thordess' old antics, leads Gisli to kill a Gothi and suffer outlawry for the deed. He spends thirteen years avoiding capture before being cornered and killed. For a short and tightly written saga, the characters are remarkably complex. Gisli and his family operate in a mesh of honour ties to family and friends, which often clash, and the way they deal with this is more nuanced than what one normally finds in a saga.
This translation, by George Webbe Dasent, is written in simple, modern English. There's not much flourish in the prose, but it's very easy to read.
As the name suggests, The Saga of Gisli the Outlaw concerns Gisli's outlawry. And, surprisingly, little else. The usual panorama of random episodes of Icelandic life is absent here, and almost everything that is mentioned ties back to the main plot.
The Soursop family is involved in a number of feuds over the promiscuous life of Thordess, Gisli's sister. Eventually they flee to Iceland, where they establish prosperous lives until a new feud, in part sparked by Thordess' old antics, leads Gisli to kill a Gothi and suffer outlawry for the deed. He spends thirteen years avoiding capture before being cornered and killed. For a short and tightly written saga, the characters are remarkably complex. Gisli and his family operate in a mesh of honour ties to family and friends, which often clash, and the way they deal with this is more nuanced than what one normally finds in a saga.
This translation, by George Webbe Dasent, is written in simple, modern English. There's not much flourish in the prose, but it's very easy to read.
April 27, 2020
The flattest, most wooden translation I've ever read. I found it horribly written, very confusing (with lots of characters and few names between the lot), and with minimal redeeming qualities. There were some nice moments, like where Aud takes the silver offered her for betraying her husband, the outlawed Gisli, and smacks the man in the nose with it, and when Havard refuses to follow his order to kill her for the assault. There was a touch of humanity on occasion, enough for me to gladly read this again in a number of years in a different translation. But I will never read anything more by George Johnston.
I give it two stars for the scholarly matter following the text. Often I gave up after a single chapter of the text to go read some notes, which were surprisingly engaging. The translation deserves -1 star and the story itself 2 or 3 - it is not one of the more interesting sagas. I would not recommend this to anybody who hasn't read the rest of the sagas.
I give it two stars for the scholarly matter following the text. Often I gave up after a single chapter of the text to go read some notes, which were surprisingly engaging. The translation deserves -1 star and the story itself 2 or 3 - it is not one of the more interesting sagas. I would not recommend this to anybody who hasn't read the rest of the sagas.
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May 13, 2023Du som prövat svärdet,
det brukar sägas
att det värsta är att göra
ont och ändå veta. (s. 27)
Vid gott mod är jag,
fast välhamrade eggar
biter mig. Hårt härdad
blev jag av min fader.
Detta blev Gíslis sista strof. Och så snart som han hade sagt den, tog han ett språng ner från klippan och måttade svärdet mot huvudet på Þórð, Eyjólfs släkting, och klöv honom ända till bältet. Men ner över honom föll också Gísli och var i samma stund livlös. Alla Eyjólfs följeslagare var illa sårade. Gísli dog med så många och stora sår att det tycktes ofattbart. Det sägs att han aldrig vek undan, och de kunde inte märka att hans sista hugg var svagare än det första.
Så slutade Gíslis liv, och alla säger att han var den tappraste man som funnits, även om han inte i alla delar var lyckosam. (s. 46)
May 22, 2017
Didn't particularly like this one. Gisle is cowardly little rat, just look at the stunt he pulled on Tord. And he refuse to take the consequences for his actions. I hate the fact that he is portrayed as this grand man when he is nothing but a creep and a coward. He touches a woman's breasts while she sleeps before killing her husband (who is also sleeping) for crying out loud!
Also, I feel like I say this all the time about these sagas, but the Norwegian transliteration is trash and it should be redone so that it would be easier to understand.
Also, I feel like I say this all the time about these sagas, but the Norwegian transliteration is trash and it should be redone so that it would be easier to understand.
January 8, 2025
"Wife so fair, so never failing,
So truly loved, so sorely cross'd,
Thou wilt often miss me wailing,
Thou wilt weep thy hero lost.
But my soul is stout as ever ,
Swords may bite, I feel no smart
Father! better heirloom never
Owned thy son than hardy heart."
So few Norse sagas contain such a love story as the one between Aura and Gisli. This is so rare for this type of fiction to express emotions and feelings that I was absolutely flabbergasted. Overall, a highly recommended saga that doesn't compare nor ressemble the others
So truly loved, so sorely cross'd,
Thou wilt often miss me wailing,
Thou wilt weep thy hero lost.
But my soul is stout as ever ,
Swords may bite, I feel no smart
Father! better heirloom never
Owned thy son than hardy heart."
So few Norse sagas contain such a love story as the one between Aura and Gisli. This is so rare for this type of fiction to express emotions and feelings that I was absolutely flabbergasted. Overall, a highly recommended saga that doesn't compare nor ressemble the others
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 3, 2024
Alors difficile de donner une avis sur les sagas, ce sont des récits assez particuliers qui sont la base des récits épiques et de la mythologie scandinave. Cela reste un récit assez difficile à lire par la particularité de la narration mais j'ai quand même apprécié ma lecture. J'ai aimé suivre les aventures de ses personnages et leur destin.
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October 9, 2025Utgåvan jag läste (2016, Bokförlaget Faethon) hade ett bra efterord som förklarade vad som hände + lite kontext. Behövligt, då själva sagan på egen hand bokstavligen fick mig att somna här och där. Inte min typ av litteratur (ännu i alla fall).
April 1, 2018
Wonderfully fast-paced page-turner, dealing with issues of infidelity, revenge and exile!
November 28, 2019
True norse metal.
Read in norwegian
Read in norwegian
Read
August 30, 2021Hvil i fred Vestein 👑 en ung spiller drept for tidlig 🚣🔥💯
September 6, 2021
Actually a Norse saga that's properly paced for once and doesn't have too many characters.
November 21, 2024
completely justified, would get along very well with Beowulf
June 13, 2025
It is a great book and it feels like reading the Middle Earth histories of Tolkien
September 15, 2026
For school
November 2, 2026
tor-folk
March 2, 2025
massa grabbar som heter Torkel dödar varann över bollsport o brudar
Displaying 1 - 30 of 43 reviews