The Eddas
In the 1220's, an Icelander named Snorri Sturluson composed a monumental
guide to Norse poetic literature which he titled Edda. (What did
"Edda" mean? No one knows for sure, but probably either "Grandmother" or
"Poetics.") This poetic literature - called "skaldic verse" after the
skalds, the poets who practiced it - was a complex, highly developed form
of poetry characterized by alliteration rather than rhyme, stress-based
meter, and elaborate figures of speech. Snorri wrote the Edda, he
says, because he feared that the knowledge and practice of this poetry was
being lost, and he wished to rescue it.
The work is organized in three parts. The first part, "The Deluding of
Gylfi," consists of stories about the gods, presented in an instructional
manner. The second, "Poetic Diction," is a catalog of kennings, with
supporting background information from myth and legend. (What is a
"kenning"? It's a literary device, a complicated metaphor, that often
requires a certain amount of background knowledge to understand. For now,
let's just say that Cockney rhyming slang is transparent by comparison.)
The third part is the "Account of Meter," and consists of a poem in praise
of King Hakon of Norway, 102 stanzas long, each stanza in a different
meter, with prose commentary. It is the first part that is usually
translated as Snorri's Edda; the last part is essentially untranslatable
except as an academic exercise.
Years after Snorri's book was "rediscovered" in the 17th century, a
manuscript was found that appeared to be Snorri's source: a collection of
Old Norse poems about gods and heroes, some of which matched verse
fragments quoted by Snorri. On the assumption that this collection was
indeed the source for most of "The Deluding of Gylfi," it was called the
"Elder Edda" and Snorri's work the "Younger Edda." (In fact, that
manuscript appears to have been transcribed about half a century
after Snorri wrote his work; nowadays, they are usually called the
"Poetic Edda" and the "Prose Edda.")
The heroic tales in the eddas are part of the same cultural milieu as other
old Germanic epics (in Old High German or Anglo-Saxon): similar characters,
similar memories of the legendary past, similar heroic ethos. The stories
of the gods, on the other hand, are unique to the Scandinavian tradition:
there are no German or Anglo-Saxon parallels. (Interesting note on the
"memories of the legendary past" item: in the German tradition, Attila the
Hun is remembered as a good guy, in the Scandinavian tradition as a bad
guy. Make of that what you will.)
The Sagas
The sagas, in general, have a historical (or at least pseudo-historical)
setting, are the approximate length of a modern novel, have a very
distinctive literary style, and are always anonymous. They are usually
grouped into three categories: the Family Sagas - set in Iceland, very
domestic, very realistic; the Kings' Sagas - set abroad (in Norway,
specifically), more formal and self-consciously "historical"; and Sagas of
Ancient Times - set long ago and/or far away, ranging from the heroic to
the outright fantastic. And besides the full-length sagas, there were
shorter pieces called thaettir - short stories rather than novels,
if you will. Let me go into each of these areas a little more fully.
The Family Sagas, or Sagas of Icelanders, include the most typical
and the most famous sagas, the ones most of us mean when we say "sagas."
They are usually presented as local history: the story of an individual, a
family, or a district. There may be some low-level supernatural elements -
ghosts, prophetic dreams, etc. - but the overall tone is very realistic and
down-to-earth. The best and most powerful - Njal's Saga, Laxdaela Saga,
Egil's Saga - rank with the greatest world literature. (Egil's Saga is
attributed to Snorri Sturluson, he of the Prose Edda.)
One of the great questions about the sagas is how factual they are, whether
they should be read as history or fiction. The question arises because of
the time elapsed between the events related and the time of writing down:
the most famous of the Family Sagas were composed in the 13th century, but
take place between 900 and 1050. (There are a few sagas that were written
within years of the events they tell of. One of these is the Sturlunga
Saga, about Snorri Sturluson and his family - maybe you've heard of
Snorri?) While it was once the tendency to view the Family Sagas as
examples of the faithful oral preservation of history, it is now recognized
that the style is clearly literary; not so much oral history, they are more
closely akin to historical novels. As E.V. Gordon says, "the importance of
the oral story in the development of the Icelandic saga cannot be ignored,
but it can be exaggerated." The anonymous authors doubtlessly drew on some
amount of local oral history (and/or family gossip) for the germ of their
stories, but they drew as well on written chronicles and genealogical
lists, and mostly on their creativity and art. (And on bits they
"borrowed" from each other.)
The Kings' Sagas are lives of the kings of Norway. (But written in
Iceland, so the recurring theme of Icelanders making a big impression at
court should not be taken as literal, historical truth.) The Kings' Sagas
include the earliest sagas we know, and established the traditional
historical/biographical saga style. They evolved from an earlier (early
12th century) tradition of saints' lives; the transition to the saga genre
is generally fixed at a life of St. Olaf (king of Norway 1015-1028),
composed in the 1170's, which is historical enough to be considered a
secular saga of the king rather than a religious life of the saint.
The definitive book in this category is the Heimskringla, a
compilation of separate sagas of individual kings, from legendary
prehistory through 1177. Heimskringla was composed ca. 1230, and is
attributed to Snorri Sturluson. (Remember Snorri?)
The Sagas of Ancient Times (fornaldarsogur) developed later.
They include stories of the Germanic heroic and legendary past: the
Volsunga Saga (based on heroic poems in the Poetic Edda), Hrolf Kraki's
Saga (a legendary king of Denmark), and Thidrek's Saga (legends of
Theodoric the Ostrogoth); later they included stories adapted from the
heroic past of other lands: Karlamagnus Saga (Charlemagne), Trojumanna Saga
(the Trojan War), sagas of King Arthur and Alexander the Great. By the
late saga period, under the influence of the French romances, they included
utterly fantastic stories, set in imaginary countries. These fantasies
were called "lying sagas," to distinguish them from the more historical
ones, so we know the distinction was recognized in period.
The thaettir, or short stories, were often self-contained
episodes within longer sagas (kings' sagas especially), or inserted between
full-length sagas in big collections. They were in the same literary
style, and the same setting, as the longer sagas. The best and most famous
example of the genre is, of course, "Audun's Story," a touching story of a
young man, his polar bear, and two kings.
The literary style of the sagas is very pronounced. The single most
distinctive feature of this style is its strict third-person objectivity:
the saga never tells a person's internal thoughts or feelings.
Character is portrayed with skill and psychological insight, but
objectively, by words and actions, never by authorial comment.
(This ties in with the tradition of anonymous authorship.) Other features
of the saga style are: realism, to a degree unparalleled in medieval
literature; dramatic situations, without lapsing into melodrama; the use of
dialogue to further the development of the story; and a bone-dry sense of
humor, with heavy use of dramatic understatement.
In the Current Middle Ages
The eddas and sagas are stories; they are wonderful stories -
humorous, dramatic, very accessible to the modern mind - and so the most
obvious application of this literature to the SCA is in the art of
storytelling. Technically, while storytelling as entertainment is well
attested within the sagas, saga-telling is not - all the evidence of
sagas in period is as written stories, read out of a book. But
don't let that stop you: the Icelandic corpus is a rich source and should
be mined for all it's worth.
I would advise SCA storytellers to stick with thaettir, isolated
episodes from longer sagas, or a single eddic story at a time, until they
are very good and they have an audience that is used to the style.
(For instance, your local audience has grown with you, or you're at an
event with a Norse theme and a well-read crowd.) I once did Njal's Saga in
weekly installments at Jongleurs' practice for two months, and then two
big, blow-out nights at Pennsic - but the audience at Pennsic was the same
one I'd been building up for the two previous months, plus people like Duke
Cariadoc who knew exactly what they were in for. I would not recommend
just kicking off a bardic circle with it.
Another frequent and obvious use of the literature is for onomastic
research (that's documenting Norse names). For this purpose, I suggest the
lists of names in the back of Penguin editions of the sagas: looking
through the lists from just a couple of sagas will give you a good idea
what names were common. But avoid the long lists of names in the eddas:
these are names of giants, elves, dwarves, etc., and are not
(necessarily) human names.
And obviously, in using the sagas for any purposes of documentation,
remember that literally centuries may have gone by between the time the
events are reported as happening, and the time the saga was created.
Further Reading
I highly recommend the Penguin Classics editions of the sagas: they are
generally excellent translations, the introductions and commentary are
useful (but I would say save them for your second reading - for the first
time, just plunge right in!), they have maps and the afore-mentioned
glossaries of names. For a first introduction to the genre, I particularly
recommend the anthology, Hrafnkel's Saga and other stories:
Hrafnkel's Saga is short for a full-length saga, the "other stories" are
thaettir (including "Audun's Story"), and all are interesting and
accessible. The greats like Njal's and Egil's are (of course) the best,
but if this article is the first you've heard of them, don't start out with
them.
Seven Viking Romances (also a Penguin edition) is a collection of
fornaldarsogur, and includes the most fun piece of period erotica
I've ever read. Highly recommended as a break from the strict realism of
the Family Sagas.
Sir Bela of Eastmarch (writing as Poul Anderson) has done novelizations of
a historical saga (The Last Viking, about King Harald Hardradi,
perhaps the closest historical prototype to Conan the Barbarian) and of a
Saga of Ancient Times (Hrolf Kraki's Saga, full of such basic
fantasy elements as curses, shapeshifters, magic swords, etc.). Both are
really good reads.
Good luck, ... and may the Norse be with you.
