Die Saga von den Leuten auf Eyr. Eyrbyggja Saga.

by Unknown, Klaus Böldl (translator)

An Icelandic saga which mixes realism with wild gothic imagination and history with eerie tales of hauntings. It dramatizes a 13th century view of the past, from the pagan anarchy of the Viking age to the settlement of Iceland, the coming of Christianity and the beginnings of organized society.

Genres: Medieval, Classics, History, Mythology, Poetry, Literature, Nonfiction

248 pages, Hardcover

First published January 10, 1250

About the author

Books can be attributed to "Unknown" when the author or editor (as applicable) is not known and cannot be discovered. If at all possible, list at least one actual author or editor for a book instead of using "Unknown".

Books whose authorship is purposefully withheld should be attributed instead to Anonymous.

Reviews

[Markus · Rating 3 out of 5]

Next up in a series on treasures from the Medieval imagination: a mysterious ghost seal coming up from the floor and flopping around until hit sufficiently by wooden clubs and heroically driven away. Strangely, the episode was meant to be horrifying rather than hilarious.

[Yules · Rating 3 out of 5]

Things I learned from the Icelanders about ghosts:

1) Ghosts can get butt-naked if they feel like it.
2) Ghosts can cook you dinner, and it won’t taste any worse for being cooked by a ghost.
3) Ghosts can take the form of seals whom you literally have to club.
5) Ghosts are corporeal and can fight you, even going so far as to attack you in the bathroom.
6) Ghosts can convert people and animals into fellow ghosts.
7) Ghosts can be prosecuted at court for “walking around the homestead without permission, and depriving people of both their life and health.” They will comply with a sentence passed to evict them.

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

You've got to love a story about a feud that spans centuries and whose original motivating factor was a poop.

This is one of those old Icelandic sagas that everyone would like to have read but never seem to get around to reading. It's a history of the settlement of Iceland and the introduction of Christianity. But there are also ghosts and spears through throats and stuff, so it's a lot of fun, too.

The most obvious hazard in this book is the reader's status as stranger in a strange land. Unless you're a time traveling Viking, all of this is likely to be unfamiliar territory for you. There are more Thorolfs and Thorirs and Thorleifs and Thorbrandssons and Bjorns and Altabjorns and Bjornsons than anyone is likely to want to shake a stick at, making the long list of characters (in a short book, I might add) immensely more confusing than the last tome about Russian aristocracy you read.

It's a funny little book. It can't seem to pick a subject and stick with it, which is why you should make sure to read a good introduction to the work before you embark. As you're reading, it's hard to keep in mind what's really happening and how it relates to what you've already read.

But as with its distant cousins the Iliad and the Arthurian legends, the persistent and thorough reader will be rewarded with a wealth of great scenes, short stories, and characters. If there's a unifying theme in this book, it's that men are fickle creatures, and what better theme could you have for an ancient text than that?

[Magnús Jochum Pálsson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eftir á að hyggja er þetta ruddalega juicy Íslendingasaga. Hér er að finna baráttu tveggja norna, afturgöngur ills gamlingja, blóðregn, andsetinn sel og andsetinn kálf, afturgöngur, ýmiss konar klækjabrögð og morð.
Ástæðan fyrir því að hún fær ekki fullt hús stiga er að vissu leyti einnig kostur hennar, hún er mjög bútakennd, en þar að auki er Snorri bara ekki alveg nógu sterk aðalpersóna eins og aðrar frægari hetjur.

[Øystein Brekke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ei veldig episodisk islendingesoge. Det handlar om eit heilt område, med fleire ætter og eit enormt persongalleri. Eg klarte ikkje å halda oversikta over alle saman og kva forhold dei hadde til kvarandre frå begynnelse til slutt. Men det var ikkje _så_ farleg heller, for det var ganske klart oppdelte delar. Ei og ei konflikt, frå start til blodig slutt. Og så braka det laus ein annan stad i neste episode. Og episodane var klart fortalde og ganske artige. Det er ganske mykje overnaturleg i denne soga, spesielt om den irriterande Torolv Bægjefot, som er plagsom i live, men endå meir plagsom som død. Islandske spøkelse var ikkje noko å spøka med.

[Leif · Rating 4 out of 5]

A confusing, deeply strange book about feuds, uneasy transformations, and the permeable border between life and death. Some words cause harm; many desires bring death; and, perhaps worst of all, the best men and women die while the merely clever and mediocre survive. Snorri the Priest is at the edges of most things, but structurally he's merely the red thread for Ariadnes and Theseuses to follow errantly as they pursue their own battles with societal conflict.

Of the gothic elements here, there's a range of interesting figures from Thorgunna the pious woman to evil old Thorolf Twist-Foot. Not only was the conversion to Christianity an object of interest for the Icelandic scribes, but so too was the nature of social disease and the way that it sinuously intercedes itself when it might be thought buried and laid to rest. And, when unrest walks the lands, so too do those dead peoples who have been touched by it. Meanwhile, those who live in (I see you, Snorri) cannot help but be changed by their turbulent times.

Equally of interest is the worldly nature of the Icelandic world as ships come and go with people of many geographical origins intermixing and travelling the world. And the there's the structure of the telling itself, which causes scholars no end of labour in untwisting the depths and turns of the narrative and of the vast cast who populate these narrative sketches.

All in all, Eyrbyggja Saga may not have the consistency of the best of the sagas--it's no Njal's Saga--but there's a lot here to entertain and educate, especially for those who are interested in the gothic or the cosmopolitan side of the medieval Icelandic world. Dive in!

[Brenden Quirk · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fun Saga that fills in a lot of background and minor characters in Laxdaela saga and others. There are fun supernatural encounters and plenty of battles to keep it interesting. Like most sagas, there is also a solid amount of legal drama (half of which results in violence regardless). An enjoyable Saturday read for sure.

[Kit · Rating 4 out of 5]

not quite as gripping as the collection titled Hrafnkel's Saga, but there are some terrific stories in this 13th c history of 10th c Iceland. Ghosts, battles, monster cattle, and clans coming to blows over whether or not to poop exclusively on a rock out in the sea.

[Eadweard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not quite as good as other sagas, it just doesn't have anything that makes it stand out, it's about a feud (surprise) between clans, in the background is the coming of christianity to Iceland. This one was even a bit too character heavy for me, name dropping people here and there.

[Alexander · Rating 4 out of 5]

This work is a nostalgic take on Iceland's 10th century past written in the 13th century. It is concerned with the shift from pagan to Christian, the formation of laws and customs and the development of major families within a confined region of Iceland. It proved to be one of the more difficult sagas I've read. There are numerous names and families and I found myself having to constantly consult the list of families the editor provides at the onset. There is also a tendency to digress, which makes this saga feel fractured at times. The editor's introduction breaks up the saga into separate parts and that is a handy way of approaching this work. Stick with it and you'll be treated to ghost stories and magic mixed in with murder, adult, and full fledged battles amid a still developing society. Fans of the genre will enjoy the numerous allusions to other sagas as there are a smattering of familiar characters popping up in the story.

[Katrin · Rating 3 out of 5]

third and last of the icelandic sagas that i'm reading for my university course. this one was the shortest of the three and maybe the most confusing. there is one main character, maybe, snorri the priest. other than that we have so many characters and so many stories that are difficult to tie together if you aren't an expert one these stories. i liked a lot the supernatural pieces of the saga with dead men walking again, with dead animals coming to live and such stuff. entertaining read, but once again you'd have to read much more literature on the sagas to really understand them.

[Nicki Markus · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eyrbyggja Saga is another highly enjoyable Icelandic medieval saga. This one blends history with inter-family conflicts and unquiet spirits, and shows the interesting passage from paganism to Christianity. Perhaps not my favourite of the sagas overall, but a highly entertaining read all the same.

[Steven "Steve" · Rating 5 out of 5]

The tales of two communities in Iceland written possibly within living memory. There were more supernatural events in this saga than others I’ve read. There are so many names and people involved that feel like filler between the interesting tales.

[Louise · Rating 2 out of 5]

So. Many. Names. For the most part of the book I thought I wouldn’t be able to remember any of them, but at some point I had at least a general understanding of who some were. Some of the stories are fun and weird, but it all drowns in pages and pages of family relations, names and places I forget as soon as I read them. That about 80% of all characters, male and female, have names that in one way or another incorporate Þór doesn't help. If you have an interest in old Icelandic literature, it’s worth reading, but personally I would prefer a more modern translation that focuses on the different stories and leaves out the rest.

[Bud Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

This one is noted for the heightened elements of the supernatural throughout. “As the summer wore on, it became clear that Thorolf wasn’t lying quiet, for after sunset no one out of doors was left in peace.”

[Dimitri]

With only Njals Saga as a reference, this one felt a lot less cohesive and I was more frequently if not always confused about who was who. May have been more rewarding if I made better use of the list of characters in the back. It didn't really feel like there were pro and antagonists like in Njals Saga. Nonetheless, I loved all the creepy ghost stories and the terrifying dapple calf.

[Skúli Garðarsson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Skemmtileg saga og vel lesin.

[Erik Malvick · Rating 3 out of 5]

So, my wife and I are to travel to Iceland in about a month, and through my thorough research of the upcoming trip, I made a point of reading at least one if not more of the historical Icelandic Sagas.

The particular saga here is not one of the "great" Icelandic Sagas. Rather it is one that caught my curiosity because it was set in a region Iceland that has appealed to me the most before our trip. As I found out in reading the saga, the location is not terribly important other than how the local settings relate to each other. The overall location could be anywhere as far as a reader is concerned.

The particular story was a bit more entertaining than I anticipated. It is a work of medieval literature that falls in as a legend. I only say this in that various travel guides, web-sites, and even Iceland museum information suggest that many of the characters are indeed real. To mention any specifically is nearly impossible. The character names are difficult to recall because they are varied at times and then strikingly similar.

My initial goal when I started reading was to try and keep track of every character and location, but as seems to be typical (I am now reading a 2nd saga) you will be introduced to almost 100 people in the first 10 pages. In the case of this saga, you don't even meet the main character until you are over 10% through the story.

The story mostly seems to chronicle the feudal and caste system present in Scandinavia and the history of a specific family, or in this case families that live in the Ere region. This particular saga is in fact set predominantly in Iceland. The background and history are not as developed as Egil's saga of which I'm about halfway through at the moment. Rather, this saga assumes knowledge of that history and continues on.

Having read this one first, I can't say whether the background would have helped. It might have, but once the main character and plot develop, I think a reader can get by fairly easily. While keeping track of characters is complicated, the important characters become obvious when the story gets going, and the reader won't find it too difficult to follow along.

The secondary tier this saga is given is apparent in the translation. The English translation is quite lacking. The grammar and language are quite difficult at times although by repetition the meanings become apparent. Other sagas appear to be written better.

The version I read is an e-book from Project Gutenberg. It was free. Upon seeing the poor translation I picked up a sample of a pay copy from Amazon, and it wasn't any better.

The saga itself is actually a fairly quick and short read. I'm happy I read it. My wife is reading Njal's saga, which the travel books make sound interesting, but it is very long. I think most readers will find a lot of these sagas difficult to read in long sittings. The repetitious yet confusing language and sentence structure can be distracting.

In conclusion, I think this saga is a good way to introduce oneself to the history of Iceland. In general they are nice pieces of medieval literature. They aren't fantastic works by any qualitative standards. These stories are chronicles not Nobel Prize works of literature. Never-the-less, they are fantastic and should be given more prominence in western literature. I found this work to be every bit as entertaining as Beowulf or similar medieval literature.

[George Fowles · Rating 4 out of 5]

(3.5 ⭐) This is a really helpful saga for my dissertation on ghosts and the undead. Lots of undead moments, some of them completely mental just like the other parts of the story. This saga is a little chaotic and jumps a lot between episodes. As usual with Sagas, the names can be hard to keep track of (really handy glossary of people in the back) and the law sections quite dry, but there is enough really weird moments in this saga to keep it an interesting enough read.

[Reread] (4.5 ⭐) I don't know what I was on last time I read this and only gave it 3.5 ⭐ because this might be my favourite saga (it was probably reading fatigue from dissertation work) Its written later than the other sagas so the author packs it full of all the tropes of the sagas and really dramatises the events in a wonderfully gothic way. Yes it's chaotic but it really has everything wild that I love about the sagas with less of the genealogies and long landscape or law suit descriptions. It has some of the best wtf moments. This edition is also great and points out when the text is referencing episodes or people from other sagas.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like most of the Icelandic Sagas, Eyrbyggja Saga is a heady mix of local history and politics, folklore, supernatural legends, and 13th century sensibility trying to make sense of the 11th Century Viking past. Essentially an historical novel, Eyrbyggja Saga is noteworthy for the complexity of its central figure, Snorri the Priest, and for its pervasive irony and grim humor.

[Nate · Rating 4 out of 5]

A VERY interesting saga. More ghosts and supernatural appearances than in most of the others.

[Kate Sherrod · Rating 4 out of 5]

GHOST SEAL YOU GUYS

[Óli Sóleyjarson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ýmis undur og stórmerki.

[S Moss · Rating 3 out of 5]

Life in Iceland: Power and Privilege

Reading this saga you’ll encounter kinship groups that seem determined to extinguish each other in the quest for power and control. It makes one wonder how anyone, except the most cruel and ruthless, survived in Iceland. Without going into most of the characters, many identified by lengthy genealogies, which usually end in some noble ancestor, all of whom share similar names that make keeping antagonistic groups separate, four males and four females are unique enough to stand out from the crowd.

First, is Snorri, the putative “hero” of the saga, described in chapter 15. A man of “medium height and rather slight build, a handsome, regular-featured man with a fair complexion, flaxen hair, and a reddish beard. He was usually even-tempered, and it was hard to tell whether he was pleased or not. He was a very shrewd man with unusual foresight, a long memory, and a taste for vengeance. To his friends he gave good counsel, but his enemies learned to fear the advice he gave. As Snorri was now in charge of the temple, he was called Snorri the Priest. He became a man of great power and some people envied him bitterly.” His pagan beliefs and role as priest aren’t explained, other than to indicate the position gave him prestige and power, but he did not become a fair administrator of complaints brought to him, siding always with his own kin. The fact that his original name was Thorgrim, which was changed to Snorri, meaning turbulent or warlike because he was such a difficult child, hints that his personality wasn’t as “even-tempered” as claimed, which is also shown by the many examples where he seeks vengeance for trivial slights.

According to the introduction, one of the main sources for the information used in writing this saga was Snorri’s daughter Thurid (13), who can hardly be expected to be objective about her ancestor. In addition, the online class on Icelandic sagas says that a probable author of the saga was a cleric at the religious center, which is favorably mentioned in the saga. Toward the end of Snorri’s dubious career he gave up paganism and became a great advocate of Christianity, having enough “second sight” to see the direction of the future, and it would hardly be fitting for a Christian cleric to point out too obviously that Snorri’s behavior was far from the epitome of just, fair governance, not to mention Christian values. Thus whenever anyone objects to Snorri’s frequent murders or appropriations of property or land, they are “enemies,” not people with rightful claims as they often were. Snorri, along with other Icelanders, gathered large crowds of followers to attend any of the court sessions that would be judging claims of wrongful death or other misbehavior. The clear intent of such crowds was intimidation or, if that didn’t work, starting fights to disrupt the assembly. Since his numerous daughters were married to members of different groups, his affiliations were extensive and could be called upon for help in coercing opponents, not to mention swaying decisions during court sessions. No one could claim that his behavior exemplified models for the future, beyond his judicious decision to drop paganism in favor of Christianity.

But his lawlessness goes even further, and he’s frequently having to defend himself against murders of other Icelanders, whom he considered too powerless to resist or too powerful to be ignored. This was the case with Arnkel, who received the highest praise of anyone in the saga. After Snorri is outraged that people at his feast think Arnkel is the “greatest man” in Iceland (chapter 37) , he revives some slight as the reason to assemble fifteen men and attack and kill Arnkel while he’s making a haystack with two slaves. “Arnkel was mourned by everyone, for of all men in pagan times he was the most gifted. He was remarkably shrewd in judgement, good-tempered, kind-hearted, brave, honest and moderate. He came out on top in every lawsuit, no matter with whom he had to deal, which explains why people were so envious of him, as is shown by the way he met his death” (37). Here we see a nice example of blame shifting: Arnkel had made people envious because he won so many lawsuits and thus he was killed. Unless he won unfairly, this should hardly be grounds for killing him. But just before this it’s clear Snorri had urged his clansmen to kill Arnkel because he had won lawsuits ginned up by Snorri, such as that against Geirrid for being a witch (16). This undoubtedly enraged Snorri, who could never stand to be opposed, much less defeated. As the ruling, power-hungry chieftain, even if an opponent wins a just decision that is no reason to stop hating and trying to kill him. Toward the end of the saga the chieftain Thorstein of Hafsfjord Island, rather distant from Snorri’s main haunts, withdraws from the assembly controlled by Snorri, the saga explaining, Thorstein “was not pleased with the way Snorri and his supporters seemed to have got the better of him. After that Thorstein and his kinsmen set up an Assembly” (56) elsewhere. “Not pleased” again makes it seem Thorstein’s a sore loser, but in fact he simply recognizes he’ll never get fair treatment where Snorri is in power.

Another example of the harsh treatment of men who didn’t desire endless fighting is Thorarin the Black, “a big strong fellow, ugly to look at and taciturn, but normally very quiet, with the reputation of being a man of peace…he had a valuable farm. He was so anxious not to get involved in things, his enemies said there was as much of the woman in him as there was man” (15). Unfortunately, his mother even eggs him on to fight, and the malicious Odd, who had chopped off Thorarin’s wife’s hand, claims that Thorarin had done it, trying to make him even more a laughing stock. When Thorarin returned to his mother after a deadly altercation, he makes a verse, “I defended my honour,/ fought, fed the eagles/….but I don’t care to boast--/ bloodshed’s not my business” (18). However, he had killed the brother-in-law of Snorri and despite being supported by Arnkel, he knew his days in Iceland were numbered, which he explains in interesting poems in chapter 19. In quiet desolation he says, “People pictured me/ as a man of peace,/ for I tried to beat back/ the powers of bitterness,/ but worthy ways/ can still lead us to war,/ soon the worldly, gay widow/ will understand my words” (19). Although disconsolate, he says he has faith in justice with Arnkel arguing his case, but when Snorri shows up to summon him with eighty men, then burns a boat that he might have used to escape, Thorarin knows his only recourse is to leave Iceland, thereby depriving the country of a man who could have helped establish a gentler ethos. Snorri has him declared an outlaw and takes over his farm, which he had always coveted.

A final interesting male is Thorolf Twist-Foot, the malicious father of Arnkel, whose evil nature simply won’t die. His first act is to kill a childless man and take his farm because he didn’t get the amount of inheritance he thought he should get. He even bribes Snorri to prosecute his son Arnkel, giving him some wooded land owned by Arnkel, and later when dissatisfied that Snorri hadn’t made Arnkel suffer enough, turns to Arnkel to seek revenge on Snorri, claiming he would find “pleasure, which you grudge me, of seeing you two fight it out” (33). Then he suddenly dies, perhaps out of spite, and his heavy, stiff corpse is almost impossible to move. With difficulty he’s buried, but not for long because later his ghost returns to kill many and haunt everyone living in any area where he had kin.

By the end of the saga, the sporadic incidents of witchcraft or mysterious happenings are becoming more frequent, just as the country is turning to Christianity, and one of the more unique involves two women, who are depicted more thoroughly than any others in this saga. One is Thurid, sister of Snorri. Soon after the death of her first husband, Thorbjorn the Stout, one of his brothers, Bjorn, begins to pay attention to her, which Snorri objects to. On the whole Snorri opposes the clan to which Bjorn belongs and wants Thurid married to Thorodd who belongs to the clan that opposes Bjorn’s. Even after the marriage, Bjorn still comes around, so Thorodd and his men attack Bjorn, are defeated, and Snorri ensures that Bjorn is outlawed, despite the fact that he was defending himself from attack. However, when Thurid later gives birth, the child looks more like the handsome Bjorn, as everyone notes. Bjorn achieves great fame abroad as the Breidavik-Champion, and when he returns he sees his likeness in the boy. Disgruntled, Thorodd soon plots on Bjorn’s life, and in an incident similar to the assault on Arnkel. Snorri decides to attack Bjorn when he’s haymaking. But when he and his men arrive, Bjorn grabs Snorri and has a knife at his chest, prompting Snorri and his men to reconsider their plans and not kill him but allow him to leave Iceland for good. Later some shipwrecked Icelanders seek shelter on a presumably Irish island and meet a man, who is a king and knows both Snorri and Thurid. The man sends a sword to the boy Kjartan and a ring to his mother, and warns the Icelanders not to try to find him again, as the people he rules are treacherous and show no mercy to strangers.

While this love affair is going on, other aspects of Thurid are revealed when she encounters the Hebridean trading woman, Thorgunna. She is immediately envious of the foreigner’s “elegant clothes and rich adornment” (50) and wants to buy them, but Thorgunna refuses to sell. Thurid’s vanity causes her to ask the woman to stay with her, in hopes she might be able to acquire some of her belongings. Thorgunna agrees to do weaving and haymaking to pay for her accommodation and unpacks her belongings, which include “a set of bedclothes, beautifully made. She spread English sheets on her bed, laid a silk-covered quilt on top, then took bed-curtains from the chest and a canopy as well. It was all so marvellous, no one could remember having ever seen anything like it” (50). The hard-working, fifty-something Thorgunna gets along best with Kjartan, now a handsome young man, but otherwise is hard to get along with and rarely talks. As a Christian, she goes to mass every morning but apparently is also aware of mysterious, supernatural forces.

After a strange cloudburst soaks her with blood, she takes to her bed, opines that “this illness would be her last” and commands people to follow her instructions about her belongings. She wants a gold ring sent to Skalholt, which she declares will be highly venerated, and the priests there must sing Mass for her. She gives the envious Thurid her scarlet cloak “to make her less unhappy about the disposal of the rest of my things,” tells them to cover their expenses by selling other belongings, except for her bed and its coverings, which must be burnt. She warns she doesn’t want “to be responsible for all the trouble people will bring on themselves if they don’t respect my wishes.” While Thorodd is ready to follow instructions, Thurid pleads to keep the quilt, bed-curtains and canopy. Immediately problems occur on the trip to the cemetery, when they are refused over-night hospitality and suddenly a naked woman, Thorgunna, shows up in the house to make a meal. Back home the moon begins to behave oddly, portending death. Soon Thorodd’s workers are dropping dead, a seal is emerging into the floor of a room, Thorodd and his men are drowned, and begin to reappear at home, dripping wet to sit by the fire. Then the men killed by Thorolf’s ghost show up covered in earth. Soon out of thirty servants only seven were left, eighteen having died and five fled. When Thurid too falls ill, Kjartan grabs the bed furnishings and burns them, they summon the dead people and legally tell them to stop trespassing, Thurid improves, and in the spring Kjartan hires new servants. Now most ghosts are banished, except for Thorolf, buried on a hill, so they disinter him, roll him to the seaside and burn him. Thereafter he reappears as a large grey-bull, who can never be caught, impregnates a cow, who bears a bull calf whose bellow “isn’t a natural creature’s voice. It’s a monster’s. You should kill the ill-omened beast” (63). The farm’s new owner hesitates, until the bull gores and kills him, thus ending the saga’s supernatural events and allowing Christianity to take over.

Previously there is an interesting short section where Thorolf’s daughter Geirrid, apparently a good witch, instructs two men in her special arts, arousing the envy of the evil Katla, who uses spells to confuse men looking for her son accused of misdeeds (15, 20) and is finally executed along with him. A couple of incidents with beserks and renegade vikings rounds out the saga, with a touch of everything mainly violent or frightening to suit the tastes of readers in medieval Iceland.

[Isen · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Eyrbyggja Saga deals with family conflict and zombies in eastern Iceland. The artistic vision, so to speak, seems to be to capture everything that happened in a geographic location, rather than to specific characters or specific story arcs, and as a result there's not much plot to speak off. There are various episodes, with various degrees of interconnection, and affecting a shared pool of characters. Towards the end of the book these episodes get pretty interesting and self-sufficient, and at that point the book could be read as a collection of short stories set in medieval Iceland, which would make for an interesting read. The earlier parts of the book, however, are difficult to digest as there the episodes intrude on, and interrupt each other, there is a huge cast of faceless characters all of whom are called Thor something, nd the whys and wherefores of their feuding is very difficult to untangle. Defenders of genealogies will argue that introducing all these characters at the start was important for the intended audience of the sagas, as they could trace their own ancestors that way, and that I say the intended audience are free to leave a five star review. Those of us who are not related to Thorstein Thorleif son of Thorsnesson should vote with their conscience.

This is a translation by William Morris and Eirikr Magnusson, and it's a mixed bag. At times it captures brilliantly the pithy shit-talking that we associate with the Viking Age, at others it's nigh unreadable due to the queer assumption that you can stick English words into Icelandic sentences and assume the result works. The following passage captures both:

Then came up Alf the Little and bade them not take the whale. Uspak answered: "Come not nigh, Alf; thin is thy skull and heavy is my axe, and far worse than Thorir shalt thou fare, if thou makest one step further forward."

This wholesome counsel thus taught him Alf followed.

Thin is thy skull, and heavy is my axe! Great stuff. But what about "This wholesome counsel thus taught him Alf followed"? This isn't German. You can't just stick a verb at the end, throw a bunch of shit in the middle, and call the result a sentence. This is at its worst in the various songs that end chapters in the saga:

The feeder of swans
Of wound-wave, in Swanfirth
Made the erne full
With feeding of wolfs’ meat.
There then, let Snorri
Of five men the life-days
Cut off in sword-storm:
Such way shall foes pay.

That's the Babblefish school of translation, right there.

The resolution of the demon-bull episode also seems to be missing in this version, which makes the story more realistic, but a whole lot less interesting. A cow licks the ashes of a dead man and gives birth to a bull calf. The local witch cries that the calf is evil and must be slain. The owner of the calf refuses to, and lets the calf life. The calf quickly grows into a colossal bull, and then... Nothing happens. It's just a bull. Ghosts aren't real.

[Philip of Macedon · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is yet another thoroughly enjoyable and fascinating Icelandic saga, as they all are. Not among the very best of the ones I've read, but still brimming with personality, exciting historical details and obscure legendary figures, action, engrossing episodes, many generations of warriors and poets and chieftains and seafarers and farmers, surprising humor, and that captivating blurring of reality and myth that runs through all Icelandic sagas.

And like all Icelandic sagas it seems to jump from story to story, which are often seemingly unrelated, sometimes held together only by a single minor character, but all having in common the geography and culture and the fact that someone here in this minor tale is an enemy or relative or victim of someone in the events you read about previously. Snorri the priest is a central and constantly recurring character, but there really is no main character or characters. The lovely thing about these kinds of sagas is that the people and culture and geography are the main characters, no handful of specific individuals.

It's nearly impossible to keep the many dozens of names straight through all the hundreds of years over which these stories take place, especially when half of them are some variation on the name Thor, and many people in fact have the exact same name, but there's a helpful index and encyclopedia of all character names at the end of the book. There are also family trees at the beginning, covering only the people of primary importance, who still number around thirty or forty, but this won't keep you straight for long. I enjoy this complexity, however. It's fun to figure out who is related to who, and how, and to realize the scope of the narrative as it covers some two or three hundred bloody and beautiful years of Icelandic Viking generations.

[Ruth · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great saga that gets even better toward the end.
About 2/3 of the way through, the conflict changes dramatically. The previous 2/3 are about feuding; the latter 1/3 deals with the advent of Christianity and the hauntings of various "ghosts"/draugr. Lol. It's pretty comical actually.

Overall
1) I was so angry when poor Ulfar was killed. He just wanted to ride home with his new gifts from Arnkel. If I could, I would go back in time and massacre Thorolf Twist-Foot (and maybe Spa-Gils) with an AR-15 or something. Poor Ulfar.

2) I feel bad for Ospak; the scene where he rows into view on his 12-oar boat is just so weirdly adorable and pulls at me. Definitely some inexplicable reason. I recognize that Ospak acts objectively like a douche the whole time. BUT I know, too, that he's stealing for survival (times were tough) or because he's a psychopath, both of which are fine by me.

3) Thorgunna came out of nowhere. But her plot line was super interesting.

4) I love that we get closure about Bjorn and am happy that he is doing more than well. I definitely wish though that he could've stayed with Thurid and Kjartan instead of leaving Iceland to save Thurid's legitimate husband from shame.

5) I found it hilarious that Thorolf Twist-Foot and his son Arnkel hated each other. Also that the draugr were literally just sitting by the fire while the homeowners were trying to eat a meal and not make eye contact.

6) The content of this saga is influenced by and effuses Christian evangelical propaganda. It's important to understand but definitely makes me hate Christianity more.

In all, a great saga, and very worth reading. The translations felt a bit foreign to me at first, as they were more conversational and fluid (?) than others I've encountered - I suspect I'd previously grown used to the more straightforward translations in the Smiley Icelanders book.

[Stephen · Rating 5 out of 5]

A strange book, eerily Gothic and hilariously funny at once, set on Iceland's Snaefellsnes Peninsula, at a time when Iceland was the Wild West of Europe. (Many years later, Snaefellsnes became the portal to the center of the earth in Jules Verne's great sci-fi novel.)

I drove around Snaefellsnes on a trip to Iceland this January. It really does help to have visited the place to imagine the bizarre and breathtaking backdrop to this saga, where a baffling lineage of people named after Thor run away from the King of Norway on the one hand, then feud over whether they should have to waste leather on their shoes to go out and shit on a sea-rock instead of shitting within sight of a holy mountain. Characters to the last man... and woman.

"Eyrbyggja Saga" has one of my favorite passages in Old Norse literature, about the sorcery of Katla and the transfigurations of her son Odd.

During a great feud over stolen horses, Odd Katlason had cut off the hand of a woman named Aud in order to humiliate her husband, Thorarin the Black, who had been insulted as a weakling. Thorarin then butchered his accusers -- but not Odd, who eluded vengeance.

Later that winter, Thorarin and his friends finally go out to hunt down Odd, who was living on the farm of his mother, Katla, reputed to be a witch. The weird events that follow are simply fantastic, darkly funny, though ultimately horrible. What's amazing is that this was written in Iceland in the 13th century and set in the 10th, in the last days of the Viking age.

Here's the tale, part witchcraft, part scurrilous spaghetti Western:

"Geirrid of Mavahlid sent word to Bolstad that she had found it was Odd Katlason who had chopped off Aud's hand. She said she had learned this from Aud herself, and more, that Odd had been boasting about it to his friends. When Thorarin and Arnkel heard the story, they set out from home twelve strong and rode over to Mavahlid. They spent the night there and in the morning rode on to Holt [Katla's farm]. People there saw them coming, but Odd was the only man at home just then. Katla was sitting in the living room, spinning, and told Odd to sit down beside her. 'Keep quiet,' she said, 'and sit still.'

"She told the women to stay in their usual seats. 'And keep quiet,' she said. 'I'll do the talking.'

"Arnkel and his men came up to the farmstead and went straight in. As they walked into the living room, Katla greeted them and asked the news. Arnkel said he had none to speak of and asked for Odd. Katla said he had gone south to Breidavik, 'but if he were at home, he wouldn't try to avoid you,' she said. 'We've no doubt about your being men of principle.'

"'That's as it may be' said Arnkel, 'but we're going to search the house.'

"'Just as you wish, said Katla, and told her housekeeper to carry a light for them and open the store-room. 'It's the only locked room in the house,' she added.

"All they could see was Katla spinning yarn on her distaff. They searched all over the house but found no sign of Odd, so off they went. After they had gone a little way, Arnkel stopped in his tracks. 'I wonder,' he asked, 'could Katla have used her witchcraft to make fools of us? Could it be that the thing we thought was a distaff was really her son Odd?'

"'That would be just like her,' said Thorarin, 'let's go back.' And that's what they did. When the people at Holt saw them coming back, Katla said to the women, 'You stay in the room where you are. Odd and I are going outside.'

"As they left the room, she slipped into the vestibule beside the door and started combing and trimming Odd's hair. Arnkel and his men came rushing inside, and all they could see was Katla playing around with a goat. She seemed to be trimming its forelock and beard and combing its wool. Arnkel and his men went into the living-room but still couldn't see Odd anywhere, and Katla's distaff was lying on the bench. After they made sure Odd had not been hiding there, they walked out of the house and left.

"They came to the spot where they had turned back before. Then Arnkel said, 'Don't you think it could have been Odd masquerading as a goat?'

"'Who knows?' said Thorarin. 'Let's turn back quickly and get hold of Katla.'

"When Katla saw them coming up, she told Odd to take a walk with her. They went outside over to the rubbish-heap, and she told him to lie down beside it. 'Stay here whatever happens,' she said.

"Arnkel and his men came up to the farmstead and rushed into the living room. Katla was sitting on the dais, spinning. She greeted them and said they were becoming quite regular callers, which Arnkel had to admit. His companions grabbed the distaff and started chopping it up.

"'Now that you've broken my distaff,' said Katla, 'you'll be able to tell your people back home tonight that your visit to Holt wasn't entirely wasted.'

"Arnkel and his men searched for Odd inside and out and could find no living creature except for Katla's pet hog lying by the rubbish dump, so they went away.

"When they were halfway to Mavahlid, Geirrid [another witch] came to meet them with one of her servants and asked how they'd got on. Thorarin told her what had happened.

"She said they hadn't made a proper search for Odd: 'I want you to go back once more, and this time I'm coming with you. There's no point in dealing gently with Katla.'

"So they turned back. Geirrid was wearing a blue cloak. The people at Holt saw them coming, and Katla was told there were now fourteen of them, one in bright-colored clothes.

"'That must be Geirrid the witch,' said Katla, 'and this means that something more than sorcery is needed.'

"She stood up on the dais and lifted the cushions where she had been sitting. There was a trapdoor in the floor with a hollow place underneath. She told Odd to get down into it, and then arranged everything as it had been before. As she sat down, she told them a strange feeling had come over her.

"Arnkel and his party came into the room, and this time there were no greetings. Geirrid threw off her cloak, went up to Katla, and pulled a sealskin bag over her head. Her companions tied the bag firmly around Katla's neck. Then Geirrid told the men to break open the floor, and there they found Odd and tied him up. After that, mother and son were taken east to Buland Head, and Odd was hanged there...

"They stoned Katla to death just below the cliffs, then went back to Mavahlid, stayed the night there, and rode home the following day. The news of what had happened soon spread, but no one felt sorry about it. So another winter passed."

[Karen Kohoutek · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some of these sagas are similar to the joke story my used to relate: "A man was born, he lived, and he died. The end." Many characters are introduced at break-neck speed, and suddenly are in exile or something before I even figured out who they were related to! This one more than some of the others I've read. I prioritized it because of its stories about unquiet spirits and the kind of trouble they cause, and that was pretty interesting. There were some classic mean ghosts, and also a story about how a group of returning ghosts was met with a tribunal that legally cast them out! A lot of this book revolves around conflicts between important families in an area, and also conflict within families, and reflects an interesting period when courts and lawsuits became a way of settling differences and punishing crime, but there was still a war-like element to them, with the sides bringing their fighters to court to intimidate others into settlements. So lots of interesting stuff, worth reading if you're interested in Norwegian/Icelandic history, but it has less narrative flow, shall we say, than some others.

[Carfig · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am taking an online course on Icelandic sagas. Even though we're focusing on specific chapters of three sagas, I read the whole saga to get a better idea of what's going on. These people are ferocious and hold a grudge! But interesting storytelling, including elements of ghosts and Berserkers, the settling of Iceland. We focused on the Berserk story. Even though Earl Hakon Sigurdsson (ruler of Norway) warned that the Beserks wouldn't be useful and might be dangerous, Vermund brings them to Iceland. A disagreement ensues, of course. How to get rid of Berserks now?