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Tjängvide rune stone
Viking ground transportation
Egil Skallagrimsson
"The bow chisels the smooth sea into spraystorms"
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- KA
- Washington State university Honors College Faculty-led trip to Spain & Portugal summer 2011
For 9/28
ReplyDeleteI found this reading particularly difficult because there were so many family histories! Occasionally an entire chapter was dedicated to one character’s entire family relation. I guess this emphasizes the importance of kinship, and I think shows connection to earlier Greek and Roman cultures. I wondered during the attack on Njal’s home that as Helgi was trying to escape dressed as a woman if that would have been seen as a dishonorable act. I would think so, but it was not addressed in the text at all. I was confused as to the significance of Njal’s body being unburned and so ‘radiant.’ In the end I was surprised it ended up being Kari and Flosi. I feel like it should have been named Kari’s or Flosi’s saga, not Njal’s.
I was also surprised that Njal was out of the saga long before its end. I guess it is called Njal's Saga because most of the events have something to do with him, and he is the character that is present the most in the Saga. The Saga even ends with "And there I end the Saga with the burning of Njal" pg 355. What I found interesting was the ready acceptance of Christianity in Iceland. I wonder how much of that is from how the original was written and how much is added from the monks translations.
ReplyDeleteRe: Katie's Helgi escaping from the house dressed as a woman. I thought it was more of a trojan horse approach to trying to make an attack, for Helgi definitely put up a fight before having his head cut off. Had escaped, however, they probably would have thought him cowardly for leaving his family to die.
ReplyDeleteI was kind of astonished by Njal literally laying down to die. I realize now that I have no idea how old he was because time seems to pass so quickly and very few of the characters seem to age and become elderly. Anyway, I never thought of Njal as old enough to give up and just take death, though this does fulfill what he said to Gunnar much earlier in the story about how he would die in an unexpected way.
For 9/28:
ReplyDeleteI would agree with Ken in how it seemed shocking that Christianity spread fairly quickly and easily throughout Iceland. Something I wasn't expecting however was that the Icelanders, with the conversion to Chrisianity, didn't seem to have any problems with killing people. Also, in general it would seem that across Europe it was still an ok practice as long as the reasoning was just in the eyes of God. If there should be a problem with your actions, it seems that all one had to do was make a pilgimage to Rome and receive absolution from the Pope. This is done by Flosi during his exile before returning to Iceland (pg 309).