Narrative
Njal's Saga
Njáls saga
Anonymous · 1280
Synopsis
In the south of Iceland, between 960 and 1020, the wise Njáll Þorgeirsson, a jurist with prophetic gifts, and Gunnar of Hlíðarendi, a formidable warrior, generous and unsuspecting, are bound by a friendship that both want to keep in peace. But the hatred between their wives, the beautiful and unpredictable Hallgerðr and Bergþóra, sets off a series of killings in their households, which the two friends settle with compensation. Yet the ties of blood impose their duties, old offences revive, and Njáll's sons, through their recklessness, drag the family into the feud.
Context
The saga is thought to have been composed between 1270 and 1290 by an anonymous author; a seventeenth-century tradition attributed it to Sæmundr the Learned. He probably used written sagas, but he owes most of it to oral tradition. Njáll and Gunnar existed, and other sources mention their deaths; the historical part of the narrative remains debated. About sixty manuscripts and fragments survive, twenty-one of them medieval, a rare number, the oldest, Gráskinna and Þormóðarbók, dating from around 1300. The edition by Einar Ólafur Sveinsson, in 1954, is authoritative, and the saga often shows public life at the Althing.
Who it is for
A long saga, with many characters and genealogies; several French translations, including that of Régis Boyer.
Prizes and reception
The longest and most accomplished of the sagas of Icelanders, often regarded as the peak of the genre; in English since 1861.