More on the Brothers Grimm bicentennial

Posted on by
6

Earlier this month, I posted a piece on the 200th anniversary of first edition of the Brothers Grimm’s collection of German fairytales: http://wp.me/pYql4-2sw.

Yesterday the Sacramento Bee printed an article on this treasure trove of folklore and some of the worldwide activities the bicentennial has inspired (“The Grimm brothers from many angles,” by Jan Ferris Heenan, http://www.sacbee.com/2012/10/28/4939548/the-grimm-brothers-from-many-anglesin.html).

Of particular interest is the publication of a new collection, The Annotated Brothers Grimm by Harvard professor, Maria Tatar. At $35, it’s not cheap, but since I don’t do Playstation and Christmas is coming up…

In the 45 years after 1812, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm published six more editions which were eventually translated into more than 160 languages. In the Bee article, Jan Heenan explains that the Grimm brother’s motivation was partly political – Napoleon had conquered the German states and the Grimms sought to preserve something “authentically German.” They also understood the irreversible changes taking place because of industrialization. Farms, towns, and forests, the birthplace of traditional tales for millennia, were emptying out as economic change drove people into cities and factories.

“These stories were the television and pornography of an earlier age,” said author John Updike, and the summaries of earlier versions of the tales makes this clear. Rapunzel got pregnant, the stepmother wanted to eat Snow White’s liver and lungs, and in some versions, Red Riding Hood disrobes for the wolf. Not the stuff of Disney, but according to Maria Tartar, the originals offer something more important for adults:

“These are stories that show you no matter how bad it is…if you use your wit and have courage, you can get back home again. Even if we know in the real world that you don’t always survive, these are the stories that tell you…you do have a chance.”

Tartar’s book is the new number one on my wish list.

Reflecting on 400 posts

Posted on by
11

It’s taken me a while to write about reaching this milestone, partly because I’ve been busy, and partly because it’s hard to wrap my mind around a number this big.  The only wise thought that comes to mind is, “Wow, that’s a lot of posts.”

Writing has always been a mode of discovery for me, a way of digging below the surface noise of the mind and excavating what I am really thinking/feeling/imagining at any particular point in time.  I like the image of archeology – writing as inner spade work.

Fiction most often reveals where imagination wants to go, while blogging typically tells me what I really think about the topic at hand.  I don’t much care for this western way of categorizing awareness.  I prefer the Tibetan conception where  “mind” resides at the heart chakra and includes thought, feeling, perception, imagination, and intuition – all the shifting contents of consciousness.  That seems closer to our lived experience.  When I say, “This is me,” I point to my heart not my head.

But I digress.

I am grateful to every one of my readers – I wouldn’t be doing this without you!  The realization that others find something useful in what I write is as thrilling now as it was when I first wrote stories in grade school.  I was especially gratified with your interest and encouragement for my exploration of Njal’s Saga.  I invested a lot of time and effort, and I’ll remember your response the next time such a major project tugs at my attention.

I don’t have any clear roadmap for the next 100 posts – it wouldn’t be exploration if I knew where I was going.  I hope you’ll ride along and continue to post your wonderful reactions!

Alternate futures

Posted on by
5

Last night, I gave up five innings of the Giants National League pennant victory to watch the presidential debate.

I sacrificed the five run 3d inning in hopes of hearing the candidates answer a single question that moderator, Bob Shieffer, asked about 40 minutes in:  “What is your vision of America’s place in the world?”

Seconds later, a voice-over interrupted with tornado warnings for several counties north of here.  By the time it ended, the candidates were talking about the economy.  I waited for Shieffer to lead them back to the question he’d asked, but it never happened.  Same old, same old, I guess – the same dysfunctional vision I wrote about in January, in a post called, “Sabre-rattling over oil:  better get used to it.” http://wp.me/pYql4-1AT

This was the first of several posts about the ideas of Col. Andrew Bacevich, a Vietnam veteran, West Point graduate, and currently a professor of History and International Relations at Boston University.  Like George McGovern, the first man I ever voted for as president, who died earlier this month, Bacevich is a warrior who hates warfare.

Sen. George McGovern (1922-2012) flew 35 bombing missions over Germany in WWII and ran for president in 1972 on a peace in Vietnam platform.

Bacevich pulls no punches in The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism (reviewed here http://wp.me/pYql4-2kX).

Rereading key passages recently, Bacevich’s anger became even more apparent – the anger of a patriot who sees his country sliding down a slippery slope to disaster.  His core thesis is that in turning away from President Carter’s 1980 call for energy independence – never mind the lip-service it gets every four years – the United States has squandered lives and wealth in a hopeless series of wars aimed at compelling the rest of the world to play by our economic rules:

“For the United States the pursuit of freedom, as defined in an age of consumerism, has induced a condition of dependence – on imported goods, on imported oil, and on credit.  The chief desire of the American people, whether they admit it or not, is that nothing should disrupt their access to those goods, oil, and credit…The chief aim of the U.S. government is to satisfy that desire, which it does in part through the distribution of largesse at home…and in part through the pursuit of imperial ambitions abroad.”

Bacevich argues that the status quo benefits those in power in Washington:

“…rather than addressing the problem of dependence, members of our political class seem hell-bent on exacerbating the problem…To hard-core nationalists and neoconservatives, the acceptance of limits suggests retrenchment or irreversible decline.  In fact, the reverse is true.  Acknowledging the limits of American power is a precondition for stanching the losses of recent decades and for preserving the hard-won gains of earlier generations going back to the founding of the Republic.”

In a 2008 interview with Bill Moyers, Bacevich said, “I happen to define myself as a conservative,” yet when you read his prescription for addressing the ills he enumerates, they parallel those of Dr. Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate for president. Moyers interviewed Stein on September 7: http://billmoyers.com/segment/jill-stein-and-cheri-honkala-on-third-party-politics/

Dr. Jill Stein, Green Party presidential candidate

Dr. Stein graduated summa cum laude from Harvard Medical School, and has specialized in environmental health.  She got her start in politics with a successful effort to pass a referendum to reform election spending in Massachusetts.  Reality set in when the Democratically controlled legislature overturned the people’s will in an unrecorded vote.

Both mainstream presidential candidates refer to their “plans” to create jobs, though they haven’t offered specifics.  Stein has a plan too:  cut defense spending in half and use the money to fund a “Green WPA” which would train and employ many of those now unemployed to work toward true energy independence.

In a 2008 interview with Moyers, Bacevich answered the obvious objection that cutting defense spending would jeopardize national security.  Those persons and groups that wish us harm are ““akin to a criminal conspiracy…Rooting out and destroying the conspiracy is primarily the responsibility of organizations like the FBI, and of our intelligence community, backed up at times by Special Operations Forces.  That doesn’t require invading and occupying countries.”  Events last year proved him correct.

***  

What chance do ideas like these have of making it into the mainstream?  Little or none at present, but I don’t think that is the point.  Ideas rooted in reality can be seeds that sprout over time.  The first Earth Day was a peripheral event, but it has picked up momentum every since.

Bacevich repeatedly stresses that not all limits are bad, and despite the title of his book, affirms that he does believe in American exceptionalism  “if American exceptionalism implies that there are certain qualities that make the United States of America a special place, a wonderful place– a place worthy of a patriot’s love.”

In the course of their critiques, both Bacevich and Stein affirm that it’s love of country and citizens that motivates their efforts to change what’s broken.

After all, what other nation on earth could have invented the World Series?

Stories, Dreams, Politics, and Baseball

Posted on by
4

Yesterday, I struck up a conversation with another San Francisco Giants fan about the possible conflict between the National League Championship Series and Monday’s Presidential Debate.  The Giants are down three games to two.  If they pull off a win tonight, the final game will be Monday.

Later, considering which program I want to watch vs. the one I should watch, I thought of how clear it’s become to me that this election is not about the candidates themselves, but about the visions, or perhaps more accurately, the stories about America they embody.  Most people seem less than thrilled by the candidates themselves, but everyone takes the stories seriously.

A high school history teacher planted the seeds of this understanding decades ago.  At the time of another presidential election, he suggested that most voters are swayed by an image of times past, a story of “the good old days,” which probably never existed.  He argued that the imagination of the conservatives of his day echoed the television show, Bonanza.

The Cartwrights (l-r), Adam, Little Joe, Ben, and Hoss. Public domain.

Ben Cartwright and his three sons carved a fine spread out of the wilderness – they did it on their own, by the sweat of their own brows, thank you very much.  The only hint of government was the Virginia City sheriff, and generally the Cartwrights told him what to do and not vice versa.

In a similar manner, liberals dream of Kennedy’s “Camelot” and its precursor, The New Deal.  For the generation that came of age during The Great Society and the War on Poverty, “less government” is a codeword for Charles Dickens’ London: “Are there no prisions?  Are there no workhouses?”

Scrooge meets Ignorance and Want. Public domain.

And whenever you hear a politician of any persuasion invoke “family values,” you can bet their story embodies the world of Norman Rockwell.  Anyone grow up in a family like this?

Norman Rockwell mural. Public domain, courtesy Oregon Historical County Records Guide.

We’re dealing with powerful stuff here – nothing drives us more than our dreams, which means we need to be careful.  I liked Bonanza and still enjoy Norman Rockwell, but I try not to bring them into the voting booth.  Kids learn how to separate dreams from the world of make-believe:  they know that “I want to be a doctor” is different from “I want to fly like Super-man.”  What kids know, politicians seem to forget.

Tomorrow night, the presidential candidates are scheduled to discuss “foreign policy.”  Webster’s Dictionary defines policy as, “1.  wise, expedient, or prudent conduct or management.  2. a principle, plan, or course of action, as pursued by a government, organization, or individual, etc.”

I expect to hear a story that goes like this:  “We are number one and if you want to keep it that way, vote for me.”  I’m not so sure we’ll hear much about policy, aka, “wise, expedient, or prudent conduct or management.”  For that we often have to look to outsiders.

I’ve done precisely that over the last few months, and was startled to find a clear and feasible foreign policy articulated with very similar features from both a liberal and a conservative point of view.  There’s a beautiful story in there too, one involving national renewal through shared effort and dedication.  A dream, to be sure, but it doesn’t require Superman.  This will be the topic of a post in the coming week.

Meanwhile, though I’ll be watching the debate, I’ll have my phone set to the instant scoreboard app.  “The Giants are number one,” is a dream that could happen, but if Superman is listening, we’re not above asking for help!

*** Update, Sunday Night ***

The Giants won, 6-1, so there will be a game 7!

Njal’s Saga: some concluding remarks.

Posted on by
11

1879 title page in Swedish. Public domain

It took me a while to get the gist of  Njal’s Saga. The first time through, I could have used a Cast of Characters; much of the effort was just keeping track of people whose names I couldn’t pronounce.  In rereading key sections aloud with the group in Iceland – the mode of presentation the author intended – the drama and human passion began to emerge.  And as I read these passages again while writing posts for this blog, a larger picture appeared.

Njal’s story is framed by the end of an era.  The best minds of the time made wrong decisions and couldn’t hold back the tides that swept outworn institutions away.  The suffering was intense and the body count was high.  “Things fall apart, the center cannot hold,” said Yeats at a similar time.

As I read of the battle at Thingvellir, a moment of near civil war, I kept thinking of similar periods.  Of the fall of Troy, the Mahabharata war, the end of the Roman Empire, and the “great war” in Europe.  And I thought of our own time, that Andrew Bacevich likens to the period of the Peloponnesian War, when the Athenian empire bled itself dry.  We know our current mode of living cannot be sustained.  We know that our leaders don’t have the wisdom the times demand, and like Matthew Arnold, we find ourselves, “Wandering between two worlds, one dead the other powerless to be born.”

Does Njal’s Saga offer any insight for times like these?

Not directly, for simple platitudes would be of no help.  It does offer up a number of vivid characters, some of whom manifest courage and generosity in the face of disaster, and others whose self-centered designs bring the disasters about.  We can’t help but ask ourselves who we want to emulate.  And something very interesting happens at the end of the tale.

By the end of the saga, Kari, who survived the killing of Njal, and Flosi, the chieftan who led the killers, have hunted and fought each other across Iceland, Scotland, and Ireland.  Both crossed Europe on foot to seek absolution in Rome.

Flosi returns to Iceland first.  Kari’s ship is wrecked on the coast in a winter storm, though his crew survives.  They wash up near Flosi’s homestead, and make their way there during a blizzard.  When they arrive, the saga tells us Flosi recognized Kari at once and “jumped up to meet him and kissed him, and then placed him in the high seat by his side.  He invited Kari to stay there for the winter.  Kari accepted.  They made a full reconciliation.  Flosi gave Kari the hand of his brother’s daughter, Hildigunn.”

The next summer, Flosi set out for Norway in a ship in bad condition, that he said was “good enough for an old man doomed to die.”  The ship was never seen again.  Kari named one of his sons, Flosi, and this Flosi’s son grew up to be “the most distinguished man of that line.”

Marriages like this, in folklore and myth, are never one dimensional affairs – a sacred marriage also takes place that brings new life to our broken world.  The Pandava line survives the Mahabharata war, and Aeneas leads the survivors out of Troy.  Monks on the coast of Ireland preserve the wisdom of Rome, and poppies grow in Flanders field.

The sacred marriage in alchemy. Public domain.

For the rest of us, who won’t see a new dawn anytime soon, we can remember the words of Tolkien, who was inspired by the sagas of Iceland as he wove his own account of surviving Mordor, a hell he experienced first-hand at the Battle of the Somme.

“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” Frodo tells Gandalf.

“So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times.  But that is not for them to decide.  All we have to decide is what to do with the times we are given.”

Njal’s Saga, part 3

Posted on by
3

Gunnar looks back at his home, 1898 illustration. Public domain.

In order to follow this discussion, it will help if you’ve read two earlier posts:

  1. Njal’s Saga, an Introduction: http://wp.me/pYql4-2sS
  2. Njal’s Saga, part 2: http://wp.me/pYql4-2tb

Scholars suggest that the author wove together two separate stories, an oral “Gunnar’s Saga,” and a related but distinct, “Njal’s Saga.”  Both men die during attacks on their homes.  Historically 18 years passed between the events; Gunnar died in 992 and Njal around 1010.  In the last third of the saga, Njal’s son-in-law, Kari, mounts a campaign of revenge against the killers which threatens the stability of the nation.  A pitched battle breaks out at the Althing, the National Assembly, which was sacred ground where fighting was forbidden.  When reconciliation finally comes, it signifies the dawn of new vision of life and its purpose.

Once the saga gets going, certain scenes come alive like movies – I know there’s a screenplay here…

***

Soon after Gunnar and Hallgerd were married, they attended a feast with Njal and his wife, Bergthora.  In no time, the two women were at each other’s throat.  The insults grew so extreme that Gunnar dragged Hallgerd out of the hall. Soon after that, she had one of Bergthora’s slaves killed.  Bergthora paid her back in kind, initiating a feud that escalated and took the life of free retainers and then kinsmen on both sides.

The killings took place while the husbands were at the Althing which  convened for two weeks every summer.  Aside from social activities, this was the time for legal action on matters the lower courts couldn’t settle.  It was also where “compensation” for killings was determined.

If you killed a man, even in self defense, you confessed it in front of witnesses.  A hidden killing was treated as murder and could result in exile for life.  A killing confessed was manslaughter and terms of compensation could be set:  a slave was worth seven ounces of silver, a freeman fifteen, and a kinsman as much as 200.  It may seem cold, but the system was designed to break the cycles of revenge that the old ethic of “honor” and blood retribution entailed.

Gunnar and Njal tried to keep up with the legalities of the killings-for-hire their wives initiated, but it became harder as stakes were raised.  Each killing drew more people, bound by family and friendship, into the feud.  Into this deadly mix came Mord Valgardsson, son of Unn,  who despised Gunnar and Njal.

If Hallgerd spawned chaos and harm, she did so in a half-unconscious manner.  She was reactive, without clear designs or premeditation.  Mord, by contrast, was cunning, able to weave elaborate snares for his enemies.  Our tour leader, Robert Willhelm, pointed out the similarity of Mord’s name to Mordred, King Arthur’s  son and nemesis.

During a famine, Hallgerd sent a servant to steal food from a man who refused to sell any to her husband.  When Gunnar, with his concept of honor, discovered the theft, he slaped his wife, who had already buried two husbands who hit her.  Hallgerd warned Gunnar that she would never forget the blow.

Njal prophesied that if Gunnar killed two members of the same family and broke the legal settlement for the killings, he would die soon after.  Through trickery, Mord ensured that Gunnar killed the son of a man he’d already slain.  In addition to a financial settlement for the killing, the Althing court sentenced Gunnar to three years in exile.

In one of the most poignant scenes, as Gunnar and his brother rode to the harbor, Gunnar’s horse slipped while fording a river.  Springing off the horse, Gunnar looked back at his farm and said, “Lovely is the hillside – never has it seemed so lovely to me as now, with its pale fields and mown meadows, and I will ride back home and not leave.”

That autumn, Mord sent word that Gunnar was home alone and 40 of his enemies mounted an attack.  Firing arrows from the second floor, Gunnar killed two assailants and wounded eight.  Then a man named Thorbrand got close enough to cut Gunnar’s bowstring.

Gunnar defending his home, 1898. Public domain.

Gunnar turned to his wife and asked for two strands of her waist length hair for a new bowstring. Hallgerd said, “Does anything depend on it?”

“My life depends on it,” Gunnar said, “for they’ll never be able to get me as long as I can use my bow.”

“Then I’ll recall,” she said, “the slap you gave me, and I don’t care whether you hold out for a long or short time.”

Gunnar wounded eight more attackers before he finally fell, exhausted and wounded in fifteen places.  One of the attackers said, “His defense will be remembered as long as this land is lived in.”

Gunnar’s mother was ready to kill Hallgerd who fled the house.  Gunnar’s friends raised a burial mound, and one night, as two of Njal’s sons passed by, they saw the mound open.  Four lights shone and cast no shadows.  The brothers heard Gunnar’s spirt sounding content as it spoke skaldic verse.

***

Gunnar embodied the old warrior ideal of life and death with honor that won you a place in Valhalla.  The dark side of this ethos was an unending string of killings that threatened the nation itself.  Things were about to change.  Shortly after Gunnar’s death, a Christian missionary named Thangbrand arrived in Iceland.  He wasn’t the sort of evangelist you want on your doorstep, since he carried a crucifix in one hand and a sword in the other and didn’t much care which he used.

One autumn morning, as Thangbrand celebrated mass, a man named Hall of Sida approached.  “In whose memory are you celebrating this day?” he asked.

“The angel Michael’s,” Thangbrand said.

“What features does this angel have?”  Hall asked.

“Many,” said Thanbrand.  “He weighs everything that you do, both good and evil, and he is so merciful that he gives more weight to what is well done.”

Hall said, “I would like to have him for my friend.”

With his openness to new ideas and the simple way he voices his spiritual longing, Hall becomes the first convert.  In 999 or 1000, the Althing declared Christianity to be the new religion.  Mord continued to work behind the scenes fomenting trouble for Njal and his sons, and around the year 1010, 100 armed men attacked Njal’s home and burned it, with him and most of his family inside.  Only Kari of Orkney, Njal’s son in law, escaped.  He raised a force to attack the burners, and at the next Althing, when the retribution process broke down, a pitched battle erupted at Thingvellir, the spiritual heart of the nation.

Battle at Thingvellir. Public domain.

During a lull in the fighting, members of the assembly intervened to arrange a truce.  Hall of Sida stood between the combatants and said, “All men know what sorrow the death of my son Ljot has brought me.  Many will expect payment for his life will be higher than for the others who have died here.  But for the sake of a settlement I’m willing to let my son like without compensation, and what’s more, offer both pledges and peace to my adversaries.”

Things have changed.  A few decades earlier, such a statement would have cost Hall his honor, but the saga says that when he sat down, “much good was spoken about his words, and everybody praised his goodwill.”

The combatants submitted to judgement.  Cash payments were levied as well as three years exile from Iceland for the combatants.  During the exile, they slew each other in Orkney and along the coast of Ireland, but finally, when the leaders returned to Iceland, they pledged friendship to each other.  The old ways had cost too much in blood and suffering.  The survivors had no stomach for anymore fighting.  The saga ends with a sense that a new wind was blowing through the land.

Next:  reflections on the story.

Njal’s Saga, part 2

Posted on by
2

Map of Iceland, 1761. Public domain.

A man named Hrut had a stepbrother named Hoskuld.  One day Hoskuld held a feast and Hrut was there.  Hoskuld called to his daughter, Hallgerd, who was playing on the floor with other girls.  Hallgerd “was tall and beautiful, with hair as fine as silk and so abundant that it came down to her waist.”

Hoskuld asked Hrut what he thought of his daughter.  Hrut didn’t answer at first so Hoskuld asked again.  Hrut finally said,  “The girl is quite beautiful, and many will pay for that, but what I don’t know is how the eyes of a thief have come into our family.”

For a long time after that, the brothers did not speak to each other.  Hoskuld sent his daughter to a man named Thjostolf to foster her.  “It was said that he did nothing to improve Hallgerd’s character.”

***

As we meet Hallgerd at the opening of the saga, and several important themes begin to unfold.

  • Character is fixed and largely immutable.  Our culture is built on the notion of repentance and change – “I once was lost but now I’m found,” but this is absent from the nordic pagan worldview.  Hallgerd will start a bloody feud with another woman’s family in the first part of the story.  Even when her intentions are good, chaos follows in her wake.  She will have three husbands; each will think he can handle her, and each will die a violent death.
  • Another important theme is the equality of women.  In no other medieval tradition have I seen women with foster fathers.

***

Hallgerd’s uncle Hrut became engaged to a woman named Unn, but before the wedding, like many young Icelandic men, he travelled to Norway to seek fame and fortune.  He won an honored place in the king’s court and captured a fair amount of booty after defeating a group of vikings in a sea battle.  Most importantly for the story, the king’s mother, Gunnhild invited him to her bed.  This was an offer he couldn’t refuse (though he didn’t seem to want to), for not only did Gunnhild have the ear of the king, but she was skilled in magic.

When it was time for Hrut to leave, Gunnhild asked if he had a girl back home.  Hrut said he did not.  Gunnhild put her arms around him, kissed him, and said, “I cast this spell:  you will not have sexual pleasure with the woman you plan to marry in Iceland, though you’ll be able to have your will with other women.  Neither of us comes out of this well, because you did not tell me the truth.”

Hrut married Unn, but because of the curse, he could not please her sexually.  After conferring with her father, Unn divorced Hrut, but he kept her dowry,  creating a seed of conflict that reverberates through the story.

***   

More important themes appear:

  • Consistently in this saga, characters act in ways contrary to common sense and their own best interest.  Hrut knows Gunnhild is a prophetic sorceress.  Why would he deny having a girl back home, when there’s no indication that she even cares before he lies?  Perhaps the author appreciates how confused we can get at critical moments.  Perhaps everyone who has ever had a “What was I thinking” moment can identify with Hrut.
  • Related to this is the place of magic in the saga – it exists, but on the periphery, and when it appears, it’s a two-edged sword at best and harmful most of the time.
  • Once again we see the equality of women.  Both men and women can divorce their spouse by simply declaring themselves divorced in front of witnesses.
  • Romance and sexuality are not central to the saga, except as inciting incidents, but when they occur, they are dealt with in a frank and earthy manner.  When Unn’s father sees his daughter moping after her marriage, he persuades her to speak.  Unn says, “When he comes close to me, his penis is so large that he can’t have any satisfaction from me, and yet we’ve both tried every possible way to enjoy each other, but nothing works.”  The audience would not have been shocked, though it’s easy to imagine snickers and winks as the mead was drunk in the hall.

***

About the time Hrut returned from Norway, Hoskuld arranged a marriage for his daughter, Hallgerd.  In those days, women were charged with running the household and ensuring there was food for the family and retainers through the long winters.  Hallgerd was “bountiful and high-spirited,” and when her husband, Thorvald, berated her for running short of food, Hallgerd insulted him.  He struck her and stalked out of the house.  When Hallgerd’s foster-father, Thjostolf, saw her bleeding, he set off after Thorvald, and killed him.

Hallgerd was married a second time, to a man named Glum.  Though she loved him, a day came when “they had a strong exchange of words” and Glum struck her.  Once more, though she begged him not to, her foster-father killed her husband.

At this point, we meet the first of two principle characters in the story.  Gunnar of Hlidarendi fit the ideal of the nordic warrior.  He was “big and strong and an excellent fighter.  He could swing a sword and throw a spear with either hand…and he was so swift with a sword that there seemed to be three in the air at once.  He shot with a bow better than anyone else, and…he could jump higher than his own height, in full fighting gear…He swam like a seal and there was no sport in which there was any point in competing with him.”

After describing his martial skills, the narrator adds that he was a hunk and “very well off for property.”  As we get to know Gunnar, we find that his character matches his resume.  He’s a generous, open hearted man, honorable to a fault, and a warrior who doesn’t like to fight.  He’s related to Unn, however, and when he recovers her dowry by force, he begins to make enemies, including Unn’s second husband, another of the “bad seed” characters that populate the saga and guarantee that Gunnar will have to fight.

Gunnar at the Ranga River, where he and his two brothers defeat 30 men. 1898 illustration. Public domain.

Gunnar’s close friend, Njal supplies the wisdom Gunnar sometimes lacks. Njal (pronounced knee-AHL) was “well off for property and handsome to look at…so well versed in the law that he had no equal, and he was wise and prophetic, sound of advice and well-intentioned, and whatever course he counselled turned out well. He was modest and noble-spirited, able to see far into the future and remember far into the past, and he solved the problems of whoever turned to him.”

The strange thing about Njal was his inability to grow a beard.  Though he fathered three sons and three daughters, his enemies used this anomaly to suggest there was something lacking in his manhood.  It seems to me that legendary seers, from Tiresias to Merlin to Black Elk are always lacking in some of the cultural norms of manhood.  In particular, Njal never fights though he counsels those who do.  He and Gunnar make up for what the other lacks.  Both prospered, in large part, because Gunnar followed Njal’s advice – up until the day he met Hallgerd.

Gunnar and Hallgerd at the Althing, (the National Assembly). 1898 illustration. Public domain.

The day they met, Gunnar and Hallgerd “talked for a long time.”  Then Gunnar sought out her father to ask for her hand in marriage.  Njal told Gunnar,”Every kind of evil will come from her when she moves east.”  This time Gunnar didn’t listen to his prophetic friend.

To Be Continued