THE ICELANDIC SAGAS
I
[Iceland and the Heroic Age]
| The close of Teutonic Epic—in Germany the old forms were lost, but not the old stories, in the later Middle Ages | [179] |
| England kept the alliterative verse through the Middle Ages | [180] |
| Heroic themes in Danish ballads, and elsewhere | [181] |
| Place of Iceland in the heroic tradition—a new heroic literature in prose | [182] |
II
[Matter and Form]
| The Sagas are not pure fiction | [184] |
| Difficulty of giving form to genealogical details | [185] |
| Miscellaneous incidents | [186] |
| Literary value of the historical basis—the characters well known and recognisable | [187] |
| The coherent Sagas—the tragic motive | [189] |
| Plan of Njála of Laxdæla of Egils Saga | [190] [191] [192] |
| Vápnfirðinga Saga, a story of two generations | [193] |
| Víga-Glúms Saga, a biography without tragedy | [193] |
| Reykdæla Saga | [194] |
| Grettis Saga and Gísla Saga clearly worked out | [195] |
| Passages of romance in these histories | [196] |
| Hrafnkels Saga Freysgoða, a tragic idyll, well proportioned | [198] |
| Great differences of scale among the Sagas—analogies with the heroic poems | [198] |
III
[The Heroic Ideal]
| Unheroic matters of fact in the Sagas | [200] |
| Heroic characters | [201] |
| Heroic rhetoric | [203] |
| Danger of exaggeration—Kjartan in Laxdæla | [204] |
| The heroic ideal not made too explicit or formal | [206] |
IV
[Tragic Imagination]
| Tragic contradictions in the Sagas—Gisli, Njal | [207] |
| Fantasy | [208] |
| Laxdæla, a reduction of the story of Sigurd and Brynhild to the terms of common life | [209] |
| Compare Ibsen's Warriors in Helgeland | [209] |
| The Sagas are a late stage in the progress of heroic literature | [210] |
| The Northern rationalism | [212] |
| Self-restraint and irony | [213] |
| The elegiac mood infrequent | [215] |
| The story of Howard of Icefirth—ironical pathos | [216] |
| The conventional Viking | [218] |
| The harmonies of Njála and of Laxdæla | [219] [222] |
| The two speeches of Gudrun | [223] |
V
[Comedy]
| The Sagas not bound by solemn conventions | [225] |
| Comic humours | [226] |
| Bjorn and his wife in Njála | [228] |
| Bandamanna Saga: "The Confederates," a comedy | [229] |
| Satirical criticism of the "heroic age" | [231] |
| Tragic incidents in Bandamanna Saga | [233] |
| Neither the comedy nor tragedy of the Sagas is monotonous or abstract | [234] |
VI
[The Art of Narrative]
| Organic unity of the best Sagas | [235] |
| Method of representing occurrences as they appear at the time | [236] |
| Instance from Þorgils Saga | [238] |
| Another method—the death of Kjartan as it appeared to a churl | [240] |
| Psychology (not analytical) | [244] |
| Impartiality—justice to the hero's adversaries (Færeyinga Saga) | [245] |
VII
[Epic and History]
| Form of Saga used for contemporary history in the thirteenth century | [246] |
| The historians, Ari (1067-1148) and Snorri (1178-1241) | [248] |
| The Life of King Sverre, by Abbot Karl Jónsson | [249] |
| Sturla (c. 1214-1284), his history of Iceland in his own time (Islendinga or Sturlunga Saga) | [249] |
| The matter ready to his hand | [250] |
| Biographies incorporated in Sturlunga: Thorgils and Haflidi | [252] |
| Sturlu Saga | [253] |
| The midnight raid (a.d. 1171) | [254] |
| Lives of Bishop Gudmund, Hrafn, and Aron | [256] |
| Sturla's own work (Islendinga Saga) | [257] |
| The burning of Flugumyri | [259] |
| Traces of the heroic manner | [264] |
| The character of this history brought out by contrast with Sturla's other work, the Life of King Hacon of Norway | [267] |
| Norwegian and Icelandic politics in the thirteenth century | [267] |
| Norway more fortunate than Iceland—the history less interesting | [267] |
| Sturla and Joinville contemporaries | [269] |
| Their methods of narrative compared | [270] |
VIII
[The Northern Prose Romances]
| Romantic interpolations in the Sagas—the ornamental version of Fóstbræðra Saga | [275] |
| The secondary romantic Sagas—Frithiof | [277] |
| French romance imported (Strengleikar, Tristram's Saga, etc.) | [278] |
| Romantic Sagas made out of heroic poems (Volsunga Saga, etc.) and out of authentic Sagas by repetition of common forms and motives | [279] [280] |
| Romantic conventions in the original Sagas | [280] |
| Laxdæla and Gunnlaug's Saga—Thorstein the White | [281] |
| Thorstein Staffsmitten | [282] |
| Sagas turned into rhyming romances (Rímur) and into ballads in the Faroes | [283] [284] |