Njal's Saga (52 page)

4.
pay him a red skin for his grey one
: A proverbial way of saying ‘make someone shed (red) blood for the shabby (grey) treatment he gave'.

1.
‘
That's what you said the other time
…
but then you were hunting men'
: The ‘other time' that Njal refers to was the similar scene at the end of Ch. 44.

2.
to help Hogni
: Skarphedin helped Hogni avenge his father, Gunnar of Hlidarendi, in Ch. 79.

1.
They decided that Ketil
…
to agree to peace
: A section of the Codex Regius text of the
Grágás
(‘Grey-goose') lawbook deals with the division of compensation for a slaying among the members of the kin group, and the wording here seems to reflect those provisions. See ‘The Wergild Ring List', in
Laws of Early Iceland
, pp. 175-85. Dividing the compensation money becomes an issue on three occasions in this saga (with Lyting in Ch. 98, with Amundi in Ch. 106, and with Thorgeir Skorargeir in Chs. 146–7), but normally in the family sagas there is only talk of a lump payment of compensation.

1.
There was a man named Flosi
…
daughter of Herjolf the White
: Flosi Thordarson, the last major character to be introduced in the saga, has a rich ancestry with parallels in
The Book of Settlements
. Noteworthy antecedents are the Norwegian hersir Bjorn Buna and the settler Helgi the Lean.

1.
There was a man named Hall
…
Thidrandi Geitisson
: Hall of Sida's genealogy, traced back to a Norwegian earl, indicates his importance. He will play no strong role in the plot, but will stand out as an advocate of peace and reconciliation and one of the most noble characters in the saga.

2.
whom Kari was to slay in Wales
: The slaying of Kol Thorsteinsson by Kari will take place in Ch. 158. Other cases of anticipation of an event to be narrated later occur in Ch. 77 (Thorvald the Sickly) and Ch. 101 (Glum Hildisson).

3.
Thidrandi, whom, it is said, the dísir killed
: The story alluded to here is told in the saga of Olaf Tryggvason in the fourteenth-century Icelandic manuscript
Flateyjarbók
(vol. i, pp. 419-21 of the 1860-68 edn.), just prior to the story of Thangbrand's mission to convert Iceland. The young Thidrandi, contrary to the advice of a seer, went outside one night and encountered nine women in black riding from the north with swords, who struck him mortally in spite of nine women in white on white horses who came riding from the south. The event was interpreted to signify the coming change of faith, the nine women (
dísir
) in black being personal spirits of Thidrandi's family who were unhappy about what was to come. This story of a young man who goes outside at night and experiences supernatural beings on horseback resembles the story of Hildiglum in Ch. 125 of
Njal's Saga
. For an English translation of ‘Thidrandi Whom the Goddesses Slew', see
Eirik the Red and Other Icelandic Sagas
, translated by Gwyn Jones (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1961), pp. 158-62.

4.
There was a man named Thorir
…
Thorgrim the Tall
: Holta-Thorir and his three sons were mentioned in Ch. 20, where it was specified that he was the brother of Njal. The sons of Holta-Thorir will later be responsible for avenging the burning of Njal. Skorargeir's proper name is Thorgeir.

1.
the relationship
…
is very precarious
: Flosi is referring to the fact that Njal's sons killed Hoskuld's father Thrain Sigfusson, and the possibility that the peaceful settlement made for Thrain's death (in Ch. 93) could be broken.

2.
Skafti Thoroddsson
: According to AriThorgilsson's
Book of the Icelanders
, written in the early twelfth century, Skafti was responsible for the establishment of the Fifth Court, usually dated around 1004. This chapter
of Njal's Saga
presents a deviant and unlikely version; see Glossary under ‘Fifth Court'.

3.
cases involving the offer or acceptance of payment for assistance in legal suits
: In this saga, though not in
Grágás
, payment for legal service is equated with a bribe to a witness or judge. This will become an issue in Ch. 144 with Eyjolf Bolkverksson, who in Ch. 138 accepts a gold bracelet when he agrees to act as lawyer for Flosi.

4.
bought land at Ossabaer
…
and settled there
: Ossabaer is about ten kilometres
from Bergthorshvol. Hildigunn's stipulation above that she and Hoskuld live in the east (i.e. at Svinafell) after their marriage has been ignored, probably because of Hoskuld's deep trust in Njal; see the comment he makes after Hildigunn's stipulation.

1.
Hoskuld Njalsson
: It is important to keep the two Hoskulds apart: Hoskuld Thrainsson, Njal's foster-son, is now at Lyting's feast with his relatives (his father was a Sigfusson); Hoskuld Njalsson, the victim in this passage, is Njal's natural son with Hrodny. As a Njalsson, he is an enemy to the Sigfussons, since his half-brother Skarphedin killed Thrain Sigfusson.

2.
I have not received compensation for my brother-in-law Thrain
: As the husband of Thrain's sister and not related to Thrain by blood, it is to be expected that Lyting did not receive a share of the settlement money for the slaying of Thrain; see Ch. 93.

3.
that other woman
: The Icelandic word which Hrodny uses for Bergthora,
elja
, means concubine or a woman who shares a man with another woman. In this extreme situation the concubine Hrodny is indulging in heavy sarcasm at the expense of the legitimate wife Bergthora.

4.
His nostrils are still open
: It was the custom in the north to close the eyes, mouth and nostrils immediately after death.

1.
…
they'll keep to whatever I decide
: Compare a similar conversation between Njal and Gunnar, in Ch. 43.

1.
Olaf Tryggvason
: King of Norway from 995 to 1000.

1.
the sign of the cross
: The Icelandic word is
prímsigning
from Latin
prima signatio
, a rite preliminary to baptism.

1.
Hall, who was then three years old
: Hall (Thorarinsson) lived from 995 to 1089 and fostered the historian Ari Thorgilsson (1068–1148) at Haukadal from 1075 to 1089. In Ch. 9 of his
Book of the Icelanders
Ari writes, ‘Hall, who was both of good memory and truthful, remembered that he was baptized and that Thangbrand baptized him when he was three years old, one year before Christianity was made law here.'

1.
Hjalti Skeggjason was outlawed for mocking the gods
: On account of the verse he uttered in Ch. 102 calling Freyja a bitch and Odin a dog. In the same chapter it is said that he went abroad, and thus he was sentenced to outlawry
in absentia
.

1.
Thorgeir
…
Thorkel the Long
: In other sources Thorgeir the Godi of Ljosavatn is the son, not the grandson, of Thorkel.

2.
Thorgeir spread a cloak over his head
…
and no one spoke to him
: This and the detail of Hall's payment of money to Thorgeir, just above, have been especially intriguing to scholars of the Conversion. Did Hall bribe Thorgeir? Did they agree beforehand that Christianity should be adopted? Did Thorgeir lie under the cloak for an entire day in order to ascertain the will of his gods – or simply to prepare his speech? These and further questions cannot be resolved here.

3.
‘
This will be the foundation of our law
…
no punishment'
: Some of the language here echoes the Conversion account in
The Book of the Icelanders
, Ch. 7. Only in this saga are the exposure of children and eating horse-flesh banned, in addition to pagan worship, at the time of the Conversion. In the parallel account in
The Book of the Icelanders
, for example, only pagan sacrifice is banned.

1.
I have received no compensation
: Amundi is a parallel case to Lyting in Ch. 98. Neither had a strong claim to compensation according to early Icelandic law, Lyting as a sister's husband, Amundi as an illegitimate son.

1.
people have stopped being my thingmen and gone over to Hoskuld
: Mord and Valgard have two good reasons to resent Hoskuld: his new assembly place at Hvitanes has replaced the old one at Thingskalar, and he has attracted many of Mord's thingmen to himself. In commonwealth Iceland men were free to select their own godi; they were not required to support the one living closest.

1.
neither side took a decision unless the other agreed
: This phrase echoes, with heavy irony, the similar phrase used at the end of Ch. 97 describing the close amity between Hoskuld Thrainsson and the Njalssons, the very amity that Mord is now seeking to destroy.

1.
‘
I don't think they can be blamed for that' said Hoskuld
: Mord has just implied that the Njalssons provoked Amundi into killing Lyting (Ch. 106), and Hoskuld correctly denies that they were involved.

2.
I don't want that
: It is common in the sagas for a hero to turn down an offer of safety when in great danger, and in this case there is a verbal echo which links son to father: Hoskuld's father Thrain uttered nearly the same words in Ch. 92, shortly before he was killed.

3.
He had also fostered Thorhall
…
one of the three greatest lawyers in Iceland
: The adoption of Thorhall, whose legal skills will soon become useful, was also reported in Ch. 27, where he was called the greatest lawyer in Iceland. Thorhall will be called one of the three greatest lawyers in Iceland again in Ch. 135, and in Ch. 142 we learn that Njal predicted he would be the greatest lawyer in Iceland, if put to the test (as he is in that chapter).

1.
…
that will cause serious damage to their case
: Mord's audacious scheme is that if he acts as plaintiff the suit will be invalid once it is revealed that he was in fact one of Hoskuld's slayers. Thorgerd, it should be remembered, is Hoskuld's mother and the widow of Thrain Sigfusson.

1.
the nose is near to the eyes
: See note 4 to Ch. 12 above.

1.
our day-meal
: Chief meal of the day but eaten around nine in the morning.

2.
Arnor Ornolfsson
…
at the Skaftafell Assembly
: This fight is recorded in
The Book of Settlements
, in the Icelandic Annals under the year 997, and in
The Saga of the Sons of Droplaug
, with the difference that the avenging sons are Kolbein and Flosi, not Kolbein and Egil.

3.
Cold are the counsels of women
: This phrase also appears in
The Saga of Gisli
and
The Saga of the People of Laxardal
. Its use by Chaucer's Nun's Priest (‘Wommennes conseils been ful ofte colde') indicates that it may have been a common proverb.

4.
as red as blood, as pale as grass, and as black as Hel itself
: The threefold simile, providing three of the 148 similes counted in the Sagas of Icelanders, gives powerful emphasis to Flosi's overwrought state. ‘Hel' is the Old Norse word for both the goddess of death and the place of the dead, corresponding to the Greek Hades. The word has been adapted in English for the Christian concept of Hell as a place of eternal punishment.

5.
when I married you to my brothers daughter
…
in all things
: This wedding and this promise have not been mentioned, nor indeed has Thraslaug, Flosi's niece and wife of Ingjald. Ingjald, Thraslaug and Hrodny do not appear in any sources other than this saga.

1.
My sister forunn will not expect me to avoid helping you
: Gizur's sister Jorunn is Asgrim's mother.

2.
You're Skafti Thoroddsson
…
in his flour sacks
: Skarphedin's insult against one of the most prominent and respected Icelanders of the early eleventh century (see note 1 to Ch. 56 and note 2 to Ch. 97 above) is effective: Skafti not only disguised himself and escaped in an undignified way he also associated with slaves and had a strip of turf, usually raised for a solemn purpose such as swearing brotherhood or an ordeal, cut in order to conceal himself. Skafti remembers this insult in Ch. 139, when he refuses aid for a second time, and Gizur the White compares him unfavourably with his father. In the battle at the Althing (Ch. 145) Skafti is wounded through the calf and dragged into the booth of a sword-sharpener, and the saga writer states specifically that he receives no compensation for this wound. This treatment of an important lawspeaker as vain, cowardly and ineffectual is reminiscent of the insults directed by Broddi Bjarnason against some leading chieftains, including Skafti, in
Olkofri's Saga
. The story contained in Skarphedin's insult is not recorded elsewhere.