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Title: Egil's Saga (Penguin Classics)
ISBN: 0140447709
Author:
Anonymous
Publicate Date: 2005-04-26
Publish: 2005-04-26
List Price: $15.00
Average Customer Rating: 5.0
Format: Paperback
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $7.79
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $5.95
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1: One of the best of the Icelandic Sagas!
Egil was a classic anti-hero, a warrior, poet, runemaster, traveller, adventurer, took crap off of nobody, had bloodfueds and vendettas that went as high up the ladder as the King of Norway. The guy was everything an Odinist should be. I am a lover of Icelandic Sagas and have read many, if not most of them but this one is one of my favorites.
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2: In my opinion, for whatever it is worth, the best of the eleven or so Sagas I have read...
Egil's Saga, most likely written by Snorri Sturlusson, an Icelandic chieftain, scholar, writer, and storyteller, is a tale regarding his ancestor - a man called Egil Skallagrimsson. This (famously ugly) man was himself well-versed in the arts of poetry, but also had the benefit of being a fierce warrior with a rough sense of honor and something of a soft (shy?) spot for women and children. That isn't to say that some of his deeds were heinous by modern standards, as is to be expected from many noteworthy men from the ages described the saga, but in spite of that one can't help but root for Egil in his personal ventures of achieving respect, wealth, and his (in some ways striking) concept of justice.
(INTRODUCTION TO STORY - SPOILERS)
Like many of the Icelandic Sagas, the tale does not begin in Iceland but rather in Norway - King Harald Tangle-Hair is finishing up the job of uniting the counties of his country under one king and one of the king's who opposes him wants a notable man of his realm, Kveldulf, to support him in an alliance against Harald's enroachment. Kveldulf suspects that King Harald is fated to rule Norway (a prominent theme in Saga literature) and that his own king doesn't have enough luck to fill the palm of his hand (and these are basically the words right out of his mouth). As such, Kveldulf stays home and his king goes to battle and (predictably) loses. In Viking fashion, King Harald is generous to his friends (those who supported him) and brutal with his enemies (those who fought against him who are still alive or their close family) - but Kveldulf, being a man of note in the county he has conquered, is something of an oddity in that he neither supported nor fought against him (why this should be so when King Harald is, in other sagas, more inclined to view those who remained neutral as his enemies is not known to me - probably because they were written by other storytellers or maybe because some of Kveldulf's close kin did support him and it would be poor repayment to drive one of their family out of the country for no offense except not making an offense). King Harald speaks to some of Kveldulf's kin who supported him and asks that the man come see him. Kveldulf has an intuition that, in the long run, his family will receive little good from King Harald should they serve too strongly and so refuses - but promises to maintain good relations with his new king from afar. King Harald takes this in ill stride, thinking he is dealing with some very arrogant people, so Kveldulf's kin who are in his service become insistant. Finally, Kveldulf says he will send, if they are willing, one of his sons. The younger of these, Skallagrim, says he doesn't have much interest in serving the king and suspects he will do badly in a royal court anyway. The older son, Thorolf, is not at home, but Kveldulf assures his kin he'll ask him once he returns from raiding. His kinsmen return to the king and soften things up to make it sound more attractive: Kveldulf will send one of his sons but the more suitable one is not home yet. King Harald accepts that with grace and so forgets about the matter for awhile. Once Thorolf has come home, he is more than willing to join King Harald - after all, the king's men live in greater luxury and honor than anyone else in Norway - and finds that serving the new king is a good position. He thinks little of his father's warning that King Harald will bring their family bad fortune and so goes to see the king. King Harald thinks he has a promising look and so grants him a position among his retinue. They fight in battle together (during which Thorolf makes some friends and reacquaints himself with his kinsmen already serving Harald) and Thorolf is found to be exceptionally brave and strong. When one of his closest companions perish, Thorolf is charged (by his deceased friend) to care for his wife (implying marriage) and to take over the rule of his lands, property, and duties. After receiving the king's blessing, Thorolf does so and thus becomes very rich and famous. Among the duties assigned to him is the collection of taxes (from Lapps) and in this he excels (for they both respect and fear him). For a long time Thorolf enjoys this sort of good fortune, but sadly slander (lies) are thrown about by men who mean him evil (because he received their kinsmen's property ahead of them) and King Harald hears it - most of these ugly rumors revolve around Thorolf wanting to kill Harald and seize the throne of Norway out from under him. This understandly leads to some conflict and misunderstandings, eventually accumulating in the king relieving Thorolf of most of his lands and duties and bequething them to the men who had told the lies about him. Thorolf takes this in stride (for he still has plenty of wealth, servants, and warriors) and goes to build in a new house in the north where he lives just as grandly as before. In the end, however, Harald's anger grows so great that he marshals an army against Thorolf and the two clash at his new household. Thorolf has many men loyal to him and so puts up a valiant fight, but is ultimately cut down by the king himself. The king notes that, in spite of the the perceived wrongs he implemented against him, Thorolf is a good warrior and that he should receive due honor (allowing the men who served him to be spared and a proper burial). Sadly, this does little to allay the grief of Kveldulf or Skallagrim. Both of them have ill feelings toward the king and contemplate revenge, but ultimately decide it would be best to just leave Norway and head for Iceland (where many worthy men who dislike or fought against King Harald have gone for safety). After some trouble with the king's men who assault them, Kveldulf and Skallagrim make good of their escape. Ultimately, however, Kveldulf dies and is laid to rest at sea. His coffin miraculously floats all the way to Iceland - in keeping with his father's last words, Skallagrim builds his household near where his father's coffin came to shore. It is here he has two children - an elder, named Thorolf after his deceased brother, and a younger, named Egil (the main protagonist and namesake of the story - hence, Egil's Saga). The rest of the story (which I will no longer relate) pretty much follows Egil's life story (from childhood till death) throughout a hundred or so pages of aweseome classical drama written in masterful prose written by a skilled (and probably famous, if it was indeed written as most historians suspect, by Snorri) storyteller.
(END SPOILERS)
I've read a couple of the sagas (as the title says, eleven) and this one's the first of them. As such, it should be expected I feel a strong loyalty toward it. Putting that aside, however, this saga has objectively been considered one of the top three, and sometimes top two, of the genre (of about - I think - forty or so, give or take some tales which aren't really sagas but are written in a similiar style by the same class of writers) ... in short, whether your a veteran looking to expand his horrizon or a newbie to the Icelandic Sagas, this is no mean place to start. It is a thrill from beginning until end.
On a side note - I never acutally bought this version. I have the Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition Sagas of the Icelanders which has 8 of the Icelandic Sagas, the first of which is (predictably) Egil's Saga. Thus it is the same edition published by the same company, but you might want to consider buying the Deluxe Edition (it's on this website - just search for 'Sagas of the Icelanders') so that you can have this and 7 more (plus some tales) for just a little more than this is worth.
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3: Ian Myles Slater on: A Victorian Meets a Viking
The story of Egil son of Grim the Bald (Skalla-Grim) is one of the prose works from medieval Iceland known as sagas, and of the major sagas it probably most closely approximates the image popularly associated with the word. The story is multi-generational. It features Viking adventures, and its primary hero is a devotee of Odin, god of kings, warriors, and poets. The hero's grandfather is rumored to be a werewolf, and the hero, himself both warrior and skald (poet), has thrilling encounters with berserkers and outlaws, and engages in a feud with a (perfectly historical) king, Eric Bloodaxe, whose wife (later the Queen-Mother) is a sorceress.
Anyone expecting the hero to be a handsome Norseman from a storybook is going to be in for a shock, though. There are several such, including Egil's beloved brother, but, like some of his relatives, Egil himself is actually outstandingly ugly. And his behavior varies from the admirable to the repellent -- even in Viking-Age eyes. (An explanation for some of this has been proposed recently, pointing out stray details in the verse and prose that suggest a now-recognizable medical disorder, possibly genetic.)
The work-a-day life of medieval Iceland, with law-suits arising from it, central to the majority of the Sagas of the Icelanders, shows up only at intervals, as the action ranges from the Arctic Circle to England, and the central North Atlantic to the eastern Baltic.
"Egil's Saga" is thought by some to be the earliest of the "Sagas of the Icelanders," and is in some ways a good, although atypical, introduction to them. Egil's circle of friends, enemies (especially Queen-Mother Gunnhild), and family members (most notably his equally formidable, if much more attractive, daughter, Thorgerd) show up in other sagas, especially "Njal's Saga' and "Laxdaela Saga."
Egil was counted as an ancestor by Snorri Sturluson, the author of the "Prose Edda," an explanation of myths, heroic legends and traditional verse forms, and of the "Heimskringla," a massive history of Norway through biographies of its kings. Snorri is one of the few Icelandic authors of the period whose name and attributed works both survive. The temptation to assign this saga to him is understandable, and has been championed by distinguished scholars. It doesn't seem to have been shared by the medieval scribes who transmitted the text.
The theory was accepted by the first English translator of "Egil's Saga," W.C. Green, whose version of 1893 was (inevitably) based on an obsolete edition of the text. He rendered it into a rather stuffy, and prudish, modern English, despite the more elegant examples of Dasent's "Story of Burnt Njal" and the whole library of translations by William Morris and Eirikur Magnusson. The Reverend Green also could not resist moralizing over "good" and "bad" elements in Egil's character, in a way that would at best have amused the old pagan. (And misses the mark even more, if one accepts that the short-tempered Egil was in pain from Paget's Disease long before other, debilitating, symptoms became marked in later years.)
It has the advantage of being out of copyright, though and, in addition to the Kessinger reprinting, various versions are available on-line, including at least one which claims to have been revised to bring it closer to the Icelandic original, not least by restoring some passages omitted to avoid giving offense to Victorian sensibilities. (In Reverend Green's world, men don't need to "go outside" after drinking all night for any *specified* reason...)
Green's translation has some annoying minor features, too. He followed the dubious practice of tacking on vowels to names, to make sure his readers could tell the boys from the girls. So Gunnhildr -- everyone else's Queen Gunnhild -- shows up as Gunnhilda, and the lady Hildirid (Old Icelandic Hildiridhr) becomes Hildirida. Perhaps Reverend Green should have remembered that Gunnhild was reported to be a sorceress, and known to be spiteful (a prominent factor in this saga, and several others, including the great "Njal's Saga") before meddling with her name!
As for the poems, which are one of the glories of the work; let us just say that Green's English versions are lacking in any obvious merits, technical or literary, but could have been much worse; at least, they aren't too bad to read.
Anyone reading Green's translation, even an "improved" version, should remember that it is NOT a perfect introduction to the sagas in general, or to this one in particular. And the saga has been fortunate in its twentieth-century translators; there have been five later renderings in English
Green's version was followed, over a generation later, in 1930, by a careful, elaborately annotated, translation by E.R. Eddison, whose fantasy novel "The Worm Ouroboros" and historical novel of Viking-Age Sweden, "Styrbiorn the Strong," both had been published in the 1920s. He greatly admired Dasent and Morris and Magnusson, whose influence is evident on every page; but he rather outdid them.
Eddison's version, originally issued by Cambridge University Press, is not for everyone, but has many merits. Alas, that original printing is hard to find, and expensive, and the reprinting by Greenwood in 1968, and is not always available either. A new, reasonably priced, reprinting is much to be desired. Given the prices usually asked for it, my advice to the curious would be to try a library. (I count myself fortunate to have acquired a copy in the 1970s.)
Now, as far as the quality of the translation goes, views are mixed. It helped that Eddison was able to use an advance text of what was then the latest scholarly edition, published in 1933, which was still the standard for the next three translations.
However, Eddison's attempt to approximate the sounds and syntax of Old Norse with an English style using as many related words as possible, instead of more familiar equivalents derived from French or Latin, takes getting used to; and some people never do. Eddison is, of course, rather scornful of Green, both for his Victorian English and his prudishness. But he is rather more programmatic than the other Victorians he took as models.
Now the sagas themselves are notable for an unadorned prose, so the very concept of Eddison's translation was criticized by scholars who reviewed it at the time -- although they added that they found that the result was better than Eddison's theory.
They did not complain that Eddison's versions of Egil's major poems (which are extremely impressive) are carefully annotated because they badly need the explanations. The language of the skalds (the high-class poets of the medieval Scandinavian world) was esoteric and convoluted in its own time, Egil was renowned for impressively "hard" poems, and Eddison's choice of language and style is unquestionably appropriate for the verse, if not the prose.
It took thirty years for the next version to appear, a much more colloquial translation by Gwyn Jones, for the American-Scandinavian Foundation, was published in 1960, and reprinted in 1970. Jones' version is less "full-bodied" than Eddison's, but still an impressive rendering of the saga's lean prose. (Although I can't agree with Christine Fell's view that his was "the first readable English version.") Jones' treatment of Egil's poems is lucid, but hardly even attempts to emulate Eddison's feat of producing verse in something like the original meters. It too, unfortunately, is out of print, but, unlike Eddison's translation, Jones' is often available, at comparatively reasonable prices. It too could do with a reprinting!
This leaves three more recent versions. The translation, as "Egils' Saga," by Christine Fell, with the poems translated by John Lucas (a sensible division of labor), was published in the old Everyman's Library in 1975. It was included in Everyman Paperbacks in 1985, with some revisions, and reprinted in 1993 with additional bibliography, but seems to be out of print. It may be picked up in the current Everyman Paperback Classics series. I certainly hope so, since it is very readable, although I at first found the prose a little flat after long familiarity with Eddison. The notes and indexes are the closest approximation to Eddison's in a translation, and the scholarship is obviously much more up-to-date than 1930.
(For those who are truly serious students, the Viking Society for Northern Research has announced a new (2003) edition of the Icelandic text, as "Egils Saga," edited by Bjarni Einarsson, with annotations in English, available through Cornell University Press [not seen]. This should supersede the commentary in any existing English translation.)
The Fell / Lucas translation was followed immediately by a Penguin Classics version by Hermann Palsson and Paul Edwards (1976), which is quite enjoyable. The Glossary of Proper Names is a fairly good index of the characters, and the maps are usable. Footnotes provide translations of some place-names, and a few other details, but the legal issues at stake in various parts of the saga, and the major historical problems whenever Egil brushes up with documented events, cry out for annotation.
The five-volume translation series of "The Complete Saga of the Icelanders," published in 1997, includes Bernard Scudder's version of "Egil's Saga." His translation takes the lead place in a recent (2000) Penguin Classics volume, "The Sagas of the Icelanders," a massive trade paperback based on "The Complete Sagas." It is there one of ten sagas, and seven shorter tales.
It was also announced as a separate volume in the Penguin Classics for Spring 2005 (as "Egil's Saga," of course), which I have not yet examined. Scudder's version is similar in style to the Jones, Fell, and Palsson and Edwards translation, and his rendering of the poems aims at the meaning more than the style, following Jones and Palsson and Edwards, rather than Eddison or (the less extreme) Lucas in trying to give an impression of the artistry of the verse.
In practical terms, for most people this comes down to Green, in one an on-line or other digital version, and a translation from Penguin; probably Scudder's, if it is the only one Penguin keeps in their catalogue.
Reprintings of Eddison, Jones, and Fell would all be welcome; although a version of Green is not without interest, too.
I would NOT advise relying on any version of Green's translation exclusively, but it might be consulted if convenient -- and its electronic forms may be searchable, which can be handy if you have fast connection. Various publishers have offered e-book pdf versions of it, which are even handier.
For those interested in a modern fiction writer's view of Egil and his associates, the late Poul Anderson's "Mother of Kings" is an interesting quasi-historical novel in which Egil is a major character. (I call it quasi-historical because, as Anderson warns, the story adopts attractive medieval legends about Gunnhild on some key points, instead of following the historical evidence; and a fantasy interpretation, although not required, is not ruled out.).
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