These rulers loved to be surrounded by men who could entertain them and their guests during the long winter evenings, or at festivals, and took great pride in having poems made about them.
“One summer an Icelander came to King Harald, who asked him what he knew. He said he knew some sagas. The king said: ‘I will receive thee, and thou shalt join my hird this winter, and always entertain my men when they want it, whoever asks thee.’ He did so. He was soon well liked by the hird; they gave him clothes, and the king himself gave him a good weapon. This went on till near Yule, when the Icelander began to look sad; the king saw it, and asked him for the reason, and he said it was his variable temper. The king answered: ‘That is not the reason, but I will guess it; I suspect that thy sagas are now all told, for thou hast always entertained every man who asked thee this winter, and often by night and day; now thou dost not like the sagas to be wanting during Yule, but wilt not tell the same sagas again.’ The Icelander said: ‘Thy guess is right; the only saga that remains is one which I dare not tell here, for it is your Utfarar saga’ (saga of Harald’s voyage to the Holy Land). The king answered: ‘That is a saga which I am most curious to hear; now thou shalt not recite before Yule, for people are now very busy, but the first Yule-day thou shalt begin this saga and tell part of it; then there will be great drinking, and they cannot sit long listening to it. I will manage that the saga shall last during Yule, and thou wilt not find while thou tellest it whether I like it well or ill.’ Accordingly the Icelander began his saga first Yule-day, and after he had told it a short while the king told him to stop. People then began to talk much about this entertainment; some said it was very bold of the Icelander to tell this saga, and had doubts how the king would like it; some thought he told it well, others less well. The king took good care that they listened well; he managed that it lasted as long as Yule. The thirteenth day the king said: ‘Art thou not curious to know, Icelander, how I like the saga?’ He answered: ‘I am afraid to hear, lord.’ The king said: ‘I think it very well told, and nowhere is the truth deviated from; but who taught thee?’ He answered: ‘I used in Iceland to go to the Thing every summer, and every summer I learnt a part of the saga which was told by Haldór Snorrason.’ The king said: ‘It is not strange that thou knowest it well, as thou hast learnt it from him, and this saga shall be of use to thee; thou art welcome to stay with me as long as thou wilt.’ He stayed with the king that winter, and in the spring the king gave him some good wares to trade in, and he became a thriving man” (Harald Hardradi, c. 6).
Saga-telling seems to have taken place also in England.
“Then Játvard the good (Edward Confessor), son of King Adalrad (Ethelred), was chosen king in England. He remembered the friendship of his father Adalrad with King Olaf Tryggvason. He adopted the custom of telling on the first Easter-day the Saga of King Olaf Tryggvason to his chiefs and hirdmen” (Flateyjarbók, i. 506 (Olaf Tryggvason’s Saga)).[[280]]
Some poets used poetry as their mode of speech.
“Sigvat scald had been a long time with King Olaf, who had made him his marshal. Sigvat was not quick of speech in unbound words (prose), but poetry was so easy to him that song flowed from his tongue as fast as he talked; he had made journeys to Valland, and during these he had come to England and met Knut the powerful” (St. Olaf’s Saga (Heimskringla), ch. 170).
There were two well-known forms of poetry.
The Drapa, a heroic laudatory poem, generally written in memory of a deceased man, and Flokk, a shorter poem.
The memory of some men was extraordinary; the blind scald Stuf recited before King Harald Hardradi in one evening thirty songs; in answer to a question he said that he knew at least half as many more longer drapas.
An Icelander, named Stuf, went to Norway, and stayed with a bondi in Upplönd. To him came King Harald Hardradi on a visit, and sat talking to Stuf.