Víga-Glúms saga
Víga-Glúms saga (
Plot
Glúm's grandfather, Ingjald, was a son of Helgi inn magri (the Lean), the settler of Eyjafjörður, and farmer at Þverá (later the site of Munkaþverá monastery). Glúmr is the youngest son of his son Eyjólfr, and initially unpromising. After Eyjólfr's death, his second son also dies and soon after that his infant grandson, and the son's wife inherits half the farm; her father, Þorkell enn hávi (the Tall), and his son Sigmundr take the half where the house is and start to encroach on the half where Glúmr and his widowed mother Astrid live. Glúmr goes to Norway to visit his maternal grandfather, the chieftain Vigfúss, who warms to him after he defeats a marauding berserker, and presents him with three family heirlooms, a black cloak, a gold-inlaid spear and a sword, saying that he will prosper as long as he keeps them. Meanwhile, Sigmundr has been pressuring Astrid to leave her land, the boundary fence has been moved, and Þorkell and Sigmund have accused two reliable farmhands of Astrid's of slaughtering two of their cattle, and in settlement of a court case about this, deprived her of her right to farm a famously ever-fertile field, Vitazgjafi, which the two halves of the family had been working in alternate years. (The two carcasses are later found trapped under a snowdrift.) When Glúmr returns, he speaks the first of several skaldic verses about the injustice, beats cattle belonging to Þorkell and Sigmund that are loose on his and his mother's land, and laughs uncontrollably, which we are told he was in the habit of doing when the killing mood came on him. He then goes out to Vitazgjafi when Sigmund is mowing hay there, has Sigmund's wife sew him a replacement fastening for his cloak, then kills Sigmund with the spear.
That winter, Glúmr sees in a dream Vigfúss' personal spirit,[n 1] a giant woman, walking towards Þverá; she is so large that her shoulders brush the mountains on each side of the valley. Þórarinn of Espihóll, another powerful chieftain in the area, is both Sigmund's father-in-law and another descendant of Helgi the Lean; he reluctantly brings a case against Glúmr at the next Althing, but Glúmr's arguments and supporters prevail and Þorkell is forced to sell his half of the farm to Glúmr for less than half its value and to leave after six months. Before he goes he offers an ox to Freyr at his temple nearby, which the god accepts.
For forty years Glúmr is a powerful man in the district. He marries Halldora and has two sons and a daughter. He arranges the marriages between his cousin Arnórr and Þórgrímr Þórrisson and daughters of the chieftain
In a battle between Glúmr and his allies (including the fugitive Vigfúss, whom his father hails by another name to conceal his presence) and the men of Espihóll and their allies touched off by Þórgrímr's son killing Arnórr's son, Glúmr himself kills Þórarinn's brother Þorvaldr krókr (Hook); however, he persuades Guðbrandr, the twelve-year-old son of Þorvarðr Ǫrnólfsson, who has stirred up matters between the two families, to claim the death. This is the killing that the other side then decide to prosecute; Glúmr succeeds in evading conviction at the regional assembly and at the Althing the case is settled providing he swears an oath in three temples in Eyjafjörður that he did not do it. Glúmr swears an ambiguous oath on the temple ring, first in the local temple of Freyr.[n 2]
Glúmr has now given away the cloak and spear given to him by his grandfather Vigfúss, and in a dream he sees his dead kin seeking to intercede for him with Freyr, who however remembers Þorkell's ox and is implacable. He is again prosecuted for the killing of Þorvaldr, and under the settlement reached, is required to give half the Þverá farm to Þorvaldr's son in compensation and to sell the other half and leave once the winter is over. He fails in his attempts to trick the new owner's men, and is finally forced to leave after the new owner's mother informs him that she has carried fire around the land, which constitutes formally claiming it. He farms at Möðruvellir in
Manuscripts and dating
Víga-Glúms saga is preserved complete only in the mid-14th-century
Two sections of the saga appear to be interpolations. The episode featuring Víga-Skúta is also found in a different version in his own saga,
Themes and reception
Víga-Glúms saga has been relatively unpopular amongst the Sagas of Icelanders, partly because of Glúmr's unlikeability,[10] partly because it and the other Eyjafjörður sagas are poorly preserved.[9]
Scholars have drawn on the saga for information on hereditary luck;[11][12] in Fortælling og ære (1993), Preben Meulengracht Sørensen used it as a major example in his examination of honour in the sagas.[13]
In his 1940 edition, Turville-Petre pointed to an implied conflict between the cults of Freyr, with whom Glúmr's family had traditionally been associated in Iceland, and of
Notes
- ISBN 9780862410841, p. 69, note 1.
- ^ The Old Norse "at ek vark at þar, ok vák at þar, ok rauðk at þar odd ok egg" means "that I was at that place, and I struck at that place, and at that place I reddened point and edge" but sounds identical to a poetic usage, "at ek varkat þar, ok vákat þar, ok rauðkat þar odd ok egg", which means "that I was not there, and did not strike there, and there I did not redden point and edge" - McKinnell, pp. 119–20 and note 3.
References
- ISBN 9780198111177, p. li; Turville-Petre refers to AM 564a as Vatnshyrna.
- ^ Turville-Petre, pp. xxx–xxxi.
- ^ Turville-Petre, pp. xxii, xxxii.
- ISBN 9780862410841, p. 12.
- ^ Turville-Petre, pp. xxiii–xxv.
- ^ a b McKinnell, p. 10.
- ^ Turville-Petre, pp. xxxiii–xxxviii.
- ^ McKinnell, pp. 11–12.
- ^ The Journal of English and Germanic Philology88.2 (April 1989) 272–74.
- ^ Heather O'Donoghue, "Snorri Sturluson's Edda. Translated by Anthony Faulkes; Viga-Glums saga. Translated by John McKinnell; Hrafns saga Sveinbjarnarsonar. Translated by Guđrún P. Helgadóttir", Reviews, The Review of English Studies 40.157 (February 1989) 107–09.
- ^ Folklore100.2 (1989) 256.
- ^ The Modern Language Review36.3 (July 1941) 426.
- ^ Jenny Jochens, "Preben Meulengracht Sørensen, Fortælling og ære: Studier i Islændingesagaerne", Reviews, Speculum 70.2 (April 1995) 402–05.
- OCLC 846586355, pp. 69, 165–66.
- ^ Turville-Petre, pp. xiii–xv; Myth and Religion of the North, pp. 267–68.
- The Journal of American Folklore114.451 (Winter 2001) 125–26.
- ISBN 9780812235111, pp. 184–91, 203.
- ^ Richard L. Harris, "Víga-Glúms saga and the Ofsi of Godless Men", Seventh annual Fiske Conference on Medieval Icelandic Studies, Norsestock 7, Ithaca, New York, May 31 – June 3, 2012.
Editions
- Þorgeir Guðmundsson and Þorsteinn Helgason, ed. Ljósvetnínga saga, Svarfdæla saga, Valla-Ljóts saga, Vemundar saga ok Vigaskútu, Vígaglúms saga. Íslendinga Sögur 2. Copenhagen: OCLC 3004458.
- Guðmundur Þorláksson, ed. Glúma og Ljósvetninga saga. Íslenzkar Fornsögur 1. Copenhagen: OCLC 499617762.
- Valdimar Ásmundarson, ed. Víga-Glúms saga. Íslendinga sögur 19. Reykjavík: Sigurður Kristjánsson, 1897. OCLC 23564932.
- OCLC 634004219. pp. 431–66.
- OCLC 3676279.
- ISBN 9780198111177.
Translations
- OCLC 561339246.
- OCLC 573080.
- Alan Boucher, tr. The Saga of Viga Glum. Iceland Review saga series. Reykjavík: Iceland Review, 1986. OCLC 18095095.
- John McKinnell, tr. Viga-Glums Saga: With the Tales of Ögmund Bash and Thorvald Chatterbox. The New Saga Library / UNESCO Collection of Representative Works, Icelandic Series. Edinburgh: Canongate/UNESCO, 1987. ISBN 9780862410841.
- (revised version) "Killer-Glum's Saga". In: The Complete Sagas of Icelanders, Including 49 Tales. ed. Viðar Hreinsson, Robert Cook et al. 5 vols. Volume 2 Outlaws Warriors and Poets. Reykjavík: Leifur Eiriksson, 1997. ISBN 9979-9293-2-4. pp. 267–314.
- (revised version) "Killer-Glum's Saga". In: The Complete Sagas of Icelanders, Including 49 Tales. ed. Viðar Hreinsson, Robert Cook et al. 5 vols. Volume 2 Outlaws Warriors and Poets. Reykjavík: Leifur Eiriksson, 1997.
- George Johnston, tr. The Schemers & Víga-Glúm: Bandamanna Saga & Víga-Glúms Saga. Erin, Ontario: The Porcupine's Quill, 1999. ISBN 9780889841895.