Six Sagas of Adventure (3 page)

The oldest surviving manuscript of the shorter saga is AM 567 XIV g 4to, dated to around 1400; unfortunately, it is only a single page. The manuscripts that Ranisch used for the shorter saga are different enough from each other that he did not establish a single critical text.
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I translated Ranisch’s manuscript L, which he based on two nearly identical paper manuscripts, AM 194c fol. and AM 203 fol. Ranisch corrected errors in L using the allied Manuscript M (Holm. 1 fol. and ÍB 165 4to).

The Saga of Hrolf Gautreksson

Manuscript L of
Gautreks saga
concludes the saga with what is usually considered the opening of a separate saga,
Hrólfs saga Gautrekssonar
.
Hrólfs saga
might be the most eclectic of all the legendary sagas, bringing together details and motifs from other
fornaldarsögur
, chivalric romances, folktales, and learned medieval texts. Yet these disparate materials have been woven together skillfully, with vivid descriptive passages and a long and winding plot that hold the reader’s interest.

Hrólfs saga
is the oldest “bridal-quest romance” in Icelandic literature—one whose entire plot is driven by a man’s quest for a suitable wife. The multilayered “bridal quest” plot of
Hrólfs saga
appears in other European romances of the same age, and was probably inspired originally by the legend of Tristan and Isolde, which was translated into Norse in 1226.
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However, even if the basic plot was borrowed, the Icelandic author used it to create a richly developed, vivid saga. The basic bridal quest is repeated four times: King Gautrek, his son King Hrolf, his other son Ketil, and Hrolf’s sworn brother Asmund each strive to win suitable brides for themselves. Each quest is more difficult: King Gautrek has to fight off a jilted rival, but King Hrolf has to fight his own would-be bride before she will submit to him. Hrolf and Ketil have to invade Russia with an army and defeat twelve ferocious berserks—and the bride’s father’s armies—before winning Ketil’s bride. Finally, Hrolf, Ketil, Asmund, Hrolf’s ally and former enemy Thorir, and Hrolf’s own wife must all join forces in order to defeat the sorcerous King of Ireland and win a bride for Asmund. This sort of plot development wouldn’t feel out of place in a video game, in which a player must defeat a series of ever more difficult “bosses” in order to keep advancing.

Common themes link the various quests together into a very satisfying narrative. Marianne Kalinké has pointed out that Gautrek’s bridal quest sets the tone for the rest of the saga. Ingibjorg makes a careful and reasoned decision to marry Gautrek—thus avoiding the usual disastrous ending of “May-December” marriages in medieval literature. Their son Hrolf will inherit not only Gautrek’s generosity, but Ingibjorg’s reason and moderation, as seen when Hrolf is given the throne ahead of his impetuous older brother Ketil, and again when he holds back from pursuing Thornbjorg until he feels the time is right. The slander that divides Gautrek and Hring and almost brings them to blows foreshadows the slander that threatens to divide Hrolf and King Ælle of England—in both cases, good sense ultimately prevails.
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Finally, in many episodes throughout the saga, a woman acts as a wise counsellor, either urging caution and prudence, or else encouraging a man to honor his ties of loyalty. Gautrek’s queen Ingibjörg and Hring’s queen talk sense into their husbands when slander has brought them almost to blows. King Eirek’s queen Ingigerd has significant dreams, interprets them correctly, and urges her husband to act honorably towards Hrolf. Hrolf’s queen Thornbjörg often counsels her husband, and is not above reproaching him when he refuses to help his sworn brothers, while King Halfdan’s daughter reproaches her foster-father Thorir for refusing to fight King Hrolf. Such a role may have been widespread in pre-Christian Germanic culture; Tacitus famously states that German men respected their women’s foresight and prophetic abilities, “so they neither scorn to consult them nor slight their answers”
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; and Old English poetry depicts queens as advising their menfolk.
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Old Norse poems such as
Sigrdrífumál
depict women as giving wise counsel; while women in the “sagas of Icelanders” are noted for inciting their menfolk to deeds of violence,
Hrólfs saga
depicts women urging their men to make peace and act with gentleness, much more often than they urge their men to fight.
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The second of the bridal quests is one of the first appearances in Norse-Icelandic literature of the
meykongr
or “maiden-king.” A maiden-king is a woman who rules a land and wields power in her own right, and who is not interested in marriage, primarily because it would mean giving up power. Would-be suitors are humiliated and sent packing, if not injured or killed. The hero must use all his wits and skills in order to win the hand of the maiden-king, and he may fail more than once before he succeeds. He may have to humiliate the maiden-king, sometimes raping her or otherwise treating her cruelly, before she will finally submit to marrying him. There are
meykongr
figures in a number of the
riddarasögur
and romances, and it’s been suggested that the
meykongr
was imported into Icelandic literature from Continental romance. But older Norse sources are also not short of women who fight like men and reject marriage and womanly roles, usually because there is no male in the family: the goddess Skaði in the myths, Brynhild in the Völsung legend, Hervör in
Hervarar saga
, and valkyries and shieldmaidens in a variety of texts
.
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Thornbjorg in
Hrólfs saga Gautrekssonar
is very probably a composite figure, drawing on imported romances and folk tales, but also based on native traditions of shieldmaidens and woman warriors.
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In many sagas, the
meykongr
probably serves to express social anxiety about gender roles, a real concern in medieval Iceland. At a time when the Icelandic aristocracy was trying to consolidate power, marriage was a crucial way for families to form alliances and strengthen their political position. Men depended on women’s willingness to be married off; any woman who tried to “buck the system” could have destroyed her family’s position. By showing the independent, haughty
meykongr
outwitted, humiliated, and forced to agree to marriage, these sagas affirm a patriarchal social order, encouraging women to follow traditional roles.
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That said,
Hrólfs saga Gautrekssonar
is one of a few
meykongr
sagas that subverts this purpose. Unlike most of the
meykongar
, Thorbjorg actively adopts a male social role, training with weapons, fighting quite capably, and forcing her followers to treat her as a man, even though they must know that she is biologically female. Whereas some of the
meykongar
suffer torture and rape from their suitors, Hrolf is careful to respect Thorbjorg, stopping Ketil when he has mocked her with an obscene joke.
Although Thorbjorg turns to womanly pursuits such as embroidery after her defeat, she has no qualms about taking up arms once again when her husband faces danger in Ireland. This makes Thorbjorg a unique character in the sagas. By shifting readily between male and female roles, and “performing” both with skill, she demonstrates the artificial nature of the gender roles that the sagas supposedly uphold.
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Through all the tests that he faces, King Hrolf is consistently portrayed as an ideal ruler. Unlike his brother Ketil, he refuses to act impulsively, but he moves quickly and decisively once he has decided that the time is right, and he is careful to learn from his own and others’ mistakes. At the same time, he always takes good care of his close companions, and uses his generosity and calm temper to turn enemies into friends.
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Even the stories of Hrolf’s adventures in England, which at first seem to slow the plot down, reinforce our sense of Hrolf’s bravery, loyalty, and wisdom; in this, they resemble the various
þættir
inserted into the “kings’ sagas”, which use individual encounters and incidents to demonstrate the kings’ personal qualities.
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Torfi Tulinius points out similarities between the description of King Hrolf and descriptions of several prominent 13
th
-century Icelandic chieftains in
Sturlunga saga
, which were written at about the same time as
Hrólfs saga.
Even before Iceland’s submission to the Norwegian crown in 1262, Icelandic chieftains had begun to internalize the values and attitudes of medieval kingship. The saga’s portrayal of King Hrolf is thus a comment on a very real concern at the time it was composed: what would be an ideal king?
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A fragment of
Hrólfs saga Gautrekssonar
(AM 567 XIV b 4to) has been dated to the year 1300, the oldest known manuscript of a
fornaldarsaga.
Sixty-six manuscripts in all are known to have survived, the youngest dated 1898.
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The text translated here appeared in Guðni Jónsson and Bjarni Vilhjálmsson’s
Fornaldarsögur Norðurlanda
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, which in turn was derived from Rafn and ultimately based on the 17
th
-century paper manuscript AM 590b-c 4to, also the source for the longer
Gautreks saga
. Lee Hollander has pointed out that many personal names and several incidents seem to be shared between this saga and the “saga of Icelanders”
Vatnsdæla saga
, and suggests that
Hrólfs saga
might have been written at the monastery of Þingeyrar, close to Vatnsdal, not long after
Vatnsdælasaga
was written in the same location.
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The Saga of Bosi and Herraud

Compared to the first two sagas,
Bósa saga ok Herrauðs
signals a shift in the development of “adventure tales.” The hero Bosi is not of royal descent, and his vigor and sexual appetite contrast humorously with the royal, handsome, popular, but rather drab Herraud. Many sagas of all genres begin with the genealogy of the protagonists, but the grand and improbable genealogies that open the saga have been interpreted as a joke which the saga’s audience would have understood right away.
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The most obvious joke appears when Bosi briefly breaks the fourth wall, when he tells his foster-mother that he doesn’t want it written in his saga that he’d accomplished anything by trickery that should be considered a sign of manhood.

The saga’s view of kingship and chivalry is rather less respectful than in the preceding sagas; instead of the generous King Gautrek or the paragon King Hrolf, we get the rather irascible and small-minded King Hring. It’s quite plausible that this is a wry comment on Iceland’s political situation: Iceland had submitted to Norwegian rule in 1262, but by the mid-1300s, Iceland had became a nearly powerless backwater. The royal governorship of Iceland was freely auctioned off to the highest bidders, who were free to earn their investment back by imposing heavy taxes. It’s not surprising that
fornaldarsögur
and
riddarasögur
from this time portray kings and heroes failing to live up to ideals of wise and honorable behavior.
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King Hring’s beloved bastard son Sjod (“Purse”), who collects the royal taxes and extorts extra money for his own profit, sounds rather like a royal official in medieval Iceland.

What’s attracted the most attention are the three scenes in which Bosi seduces young women. While the
fornaldarsögur
and
riddarasögur
show concern that well-born ladies maintain their virginity until contracting a “proper” marriage, reflecting the concerns of the Icelandic aristocracy, Bosi’s three paramours are of lower social standing and thus are free not only to have sex, but to enjoy it immensely.
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Their sexual encounters are described in unusually explicit detail: the Icelandic sagas as a rule are reticent about sexual intercourse; if they mentioned it at all, they use euphemisms like “he lay down next to her” or “he turned towards her,” or perhaps if the saga author was feeling especially daring, “he enjoyed himself with her” or “he laid his arm over her.”
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Anything more explicit than that is usually presented in verse, in which references to intercourse are camouflaged in complex figures of speech.
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What saves
Bósa saga
’s sex scenes from being pornographic are the funny metaphors that Bósi and his partners use to describe what is going on—unlike the complex puns and metaphors of skaldic poetry, which obscure what is going on to all but a few,
Bósa saga
’s transparently obvious metaphors let everyone in on the joke. They seem to be derived from foreign literature: Bósi’s second encounter borrows the erotic metaphor of watering a “foal” at a “well” from a French fabliau called “
La damoisele qui ne pooit oïr parler de foutre
” (“The girl who could not bear to hear talk of fucking”).
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The other two sex scenes in
Bósa saga
use similar erotic metaphors that probably also derive from the fabliaux, although specific sources for these episodes have not been identified.
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Aside from the sex scenes,
Bósa saga
shows several other influences. The first part of the saga may have been influenced by traditional Russian
byliny
of Vasilij Buslajevich. Vasilij’s patronymic is close to the name of Bosi’s foster-mother Busla, and his wranglings with the citizens of Novgorod bear a resemblance to Bosi’s conflict with King Hring and his men.
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On the other hand, the saga, or at least its first episode, may also have drawn on the French
chanson de geste
of
Huon de Bordeaux
, or the German tale
Herzog Ernst.
In both of these, the hero is slandered to his king by a jealous counselor; after a series of hostilities, he is exiled along with a trusty companion and loyal retainers. The hero then sets out on a dangerous quest to exotic lands from which he eventually returns with great treasures won, eventually finding reconciliation with the king.
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The French
Romance of Fergus
, which may have been a source for
Huon de Bordeaux
, is perhaps even closer: here the hero Fergus is a peasant at King Arthur’s court who is sent on a quest to a Black Chapel, where he must defeat the guardian and take a magical horn and veil. On the way, Fergus stays with a woman who falls in love with him. After completing his first quest, Fergus goes out again to take a magic shield from a castle where it is guarded by a hag and a dragon; he slays the hag by cutting her hands off, causing her to lose her strength, and then kills the dragon. Later, he must kill the hag’s husband and son, before finally winning his wife and her lands.
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Bósa saga
also uses a plot device found in other sagas, the “Voyage to the North.”
The temple and idol of the god Jómali
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are located in Bjarmaland; the likeliest location for Bjarmaland is on the shores of the White Sea. There is plausible documentation in several sources that Norwegians did sail around the northern tip of Norway and into the White Sea; the earliest, a late 9
th
-century account in Old English by a Norseman whose name is given as Ohthere, mentions hunting walruses for their ivory tusks and dealing with the
Beormas
, the same people as the
Bjarmar
in Norse sources.
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There are other voyages to Bjarmaland described in the “king’s sagas” and historical annals.
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That said, in the world of the legendary sagas—which began to be written at roughly the time that actual voyages to the White Sea were coming to an end—Bjarmaland is the home of powerful magicians, giants, and monsters.
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A substantial account of a Bjarmaland voyage in
Óláfs saga helga
probably inspired the “Voyage to the North” found
Bósa saga
and three other
fornaldarsögur
: A hero of humble origins is ordered to collect a valuable item from a temple in the far north. A foster-parent provides advice and aid. After various adventures, the hero finds the temple, kills its priestess and/or other guardians, seizes the precious artifact, and destroys the temple.
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