Gisli Sursson's Saga and The Saga of the People of Eyri (Penguin Classics)

These two sagas would hardly be my first choice to introduce anyone to the great Icelandic "literature" of the medieval era. Other sagas - Burnt Njal, for instance - have more unity and more character development, and can rightly be considered 'works of art'. Gisli Sursson's Saga is, more typically, a kind of historical DNA, or what Richard Dawkins has called a "meme" - a unit of cultural memory. For most of Iceland's isolated and impoverished history, an Icelander's most valuable possessions were his DNA and his genealogy. That DNA is as valuable as iridium to geneticists today, and almost all of the sagas begin with a chapter or two of genealogy. Gisli's Saga begins with a slew of names, nearly all of them variants of Thor - very dry reading for anyone seeking a good adventure story. If you persist, however, Gisli's Saga becomes just that, a rip-roaring tale of outlawry and a heroic last stand; transpose it to Japan and it would make a fabulous samurai film. The themes of conflict of loyalties are very well depicted in Gisli, once the family links have been established.Written by a different scribe at a different time, the Saga of the People of Eyri narrates some of the same events and depicts some of the same folk as Gisli Sursson's Saga. It's a sprawling and convoluted history of the settlers of one region of Iceland, more a necklace of short tales than a proto-novella like some of the most readable sagas. Broken apart, several of the short tales would make excellent literary material, but the whole Saga of Eyri is less than the sum of its parts as literature.The literary genius of the Icelandic sagas is 'ex post facto' anyway; their deepest interest is historical. These two sagas fit well together as historical source material about the transition in Iceland and all Scandinavia from the old religion of Thor and Odin to the new beliefs of Christianity. All of the existing sagas were put in their surviving forms by Christian writers many generations after the events described, but the writers of these two sagas seem to have been less enthralled by the new faith than the majority of later scribes. The accounts of the old faith - customs of worship, sacrifice, sanctity, 'values' - are remarkably ample and impartial here, while the arrival and 'hostile takeover' of the new faith gets hardly more than a 'fait accompli' announcement. I get a subtle feeling of reluctance from both of these sagas - reluctance to surrender the old values and the codes of behavior they justified. Gisli, never a Christian, and Snorri the Godi, nominally a Christian, are the most prominent characters in the two sagas, and they live by the same 'viking' code to the bloody end. It's quite interesting, also, to notice that superstition, witchcraft, prophetic dreams, and especially appearances of ghosts become far more frequent and frightful in the Saga of the People of Eyri AFTER the establishment of Christianity as the official religion of Iceland.Martin Regal and Judy Quinn have done a fine job of translating these sagas into more sprightly and idiomatic English than some of the other translators in the Penguin series. They've shown a knack of retaining some of the gristle of Old Icelandic. What do you suppose "elf-frighteners" refers to? The willful deposit of "elf-frighteners" on the sacred grounds of one family's temple by men of another family leads to a multi-generational feud. You'll have to read The saga of the people of Eyri to learn the earthy truth.

I bought this for the Saga of Gisli Sursson, simply because I had already read the Saga of the People of Eyre ( Eyrbyggja Saga (Penguin Classics) ).Both these stories center around politics and law in the Icelandic republic. I found both to be informative regarding Icelandic society, religion, and history (the Eyrbyggja Saga includes a description of a pagan temple which does not suggest a back projection of Christian church designs, for example). The stories are good stories but additionally provide a sort of quasi-historical record.In some respects, these are some of the best studied sagas in the tradition. They have been the subject of many works including  A Piece of Horse Liver: Myth, Ritual and Folklore in Old Icelandic Sources , Viking Age Iceland (Penguin History) , and  Medieval Iceland: Society, Sagas, and Power . However they aren't to be read as novels.If you are looking for suspenseful stories, there are better sagas out there ( Seven Viking Romances (Penguin Classics)  and  The Saga of King Hrolf Kraki (Penguin Classics)  come to mind), but if you are looking for important sagas with perhaps a bit less literary value, these are key ones to read.

I had to order this novel for a World Literature class. The translation was clear, and easy to read. Penguin Publishing always does a fantastic job of including interesting and relevant appendices, and auxiliary information to enhance the experience and understanding of their works. If you have an interest in Middle Ages family drama sagas, this book is fantastic.

Enlightening.

This book is a great introduction to the Icelandic Sagas. Very readable, and a fascinating window into a people, a culture, and a legal system that is very, very different from anything in the modern day.

Stunning world literature. This tragic drama about a man of honor is unappreciated.

One of the lesser sagas... if you're new to Icelandic literature start with Egil, Njal or Grettir's saga.