Thing is, I’m a Grinch when it comes to Christmas. At times the demand that everyone be at his or her best, no matter what storms lurked beneath made this a lonly time. Later, as a student of theology, examinations took place just after new years. So after a few days of holymaking, reading and some stress. Still later as a pastor, the stress of not botching the sermon.

I love the Christmas message though. Stength in the guise of a babe. Purposeness in the wandering of the wise. Peace within times of trouble. Grace where none should be found.

This year I found grace where I didn’t expect any, hope where I thought none was to be.  I find the Magnificat of Bach nourishing, the Messiah by Händel, Poulenc’s Gloria and odd pieces of Mozart, Brahms and others absolutely so.

Once in awhile I stuble accross something that really hits it for me, like Greg Palmers video, on top of this blog. His words resonate in my belief in a miracle of God, of life, of us, that we have it in us to change the most hopeless into something of great beauty – sometimes inspite of ourselves:

Anyway, the teams I supported were Fram and Tottenham Hotspurs, because I lived in a Fram neighborhood and because I’d seen the Spurs play in Iceland and in Germany. What I really liked is play myself, especially as a goalkeeper. What I really missed was news of KSC, the local team of my hometown in Germany, Karlsruhe.

You have to know this about Karlsruhe. It’s not what we would call a rich team. It’s not very successful either. In fact, when asked about it the other day by a student of mine, I told him that for every game they win, they lose about two. To the extent that they never stay for long in the Bundesliga, the German premier league. “So how come you support them, and how do you stand it?”, he asked.

“Well, they’re my home team (a bit like supporting the Red Sox if you’re Bostonian, no matter what), and you either develop a stoic temprament or use valium to calm your nerves”, I said.

“What do you do?”, he asked. “I go nuts,” I said.

Well, it really helps to go nuts once in awhile. There is no describing the rollercoasterride the team has in store for it’s fans. At the moment they are right under the top of the league, second only to the increadibly rich and successful Bavarians of Munich, Bayern München, who are titled “the record champions” for the number of titles they’ve earned through the years.

So, as a distant fan of my team, I wear their scarf to work and drink my coffee out of one of their mugs, and look forward to tell my mates in school how well we’re doing. This will have to do, but I do dream of going to the Wildparkstadion and shout “Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe” with the rest of them. Finally we are able to feel really proud of our boys.

During the last four days, I walked this path along with 24 students, two teachers and one 19 year old SARS member. You should know that walking this stretch of land is considered a rite of passage of sorts in Iceland, for many reasons I’d like to explore. For one, you walk. Whether you carry everything with you (15 kg backpack) or have somebody take the bulk of your luggage to the different hut’s, you are in for 10 – 15 km walks each day through varied landscape. You have hills and rivers, desert and forrest and an odd mountain you may climb. There are glaciers, a lake, hot springs and even an obsidian field.

You can camp or you can rent a cot in a hut, share the night with strangers. However you go, how fast you go (from three nights/four days walk to a 5 – 8 hour marathon), you’re in for an adventure.

Obviously, walking the Laugavegur with young boys aged 13 is a challenge. And we were challenged, but in a good way. Four days walking is like a smelteroven – you learn the strengths and weaknesses of the individuals – and yourself. If things go well, the boys will trust you. If not, well, good luck and prepare for long nights awake.

I learned that if you can cook and tell stories, things tend to go well. They liked my mashed potatoes, my fried fish, my stories from the church and the stories of Nasreddin Hoja. Some even liked my ramblings about the Second World War.

One of my fellow teachers commented, that this was the first time she walked the Laugavegur without doing any shopping. It was also her first time to walk the Laugavegur hike. Pictures will be posted as soon as they are developed and scanned.

As a storyteller the saga makes new demands on the reader. What seems flat at the first glance, take the episode of Ásgrímur the blind Höskuldsson (bastard son of bastard son of Njáll) and Lýtingur (Þráin Sigfússon’s (and nephew of Gunnar, son in law to Hallgerður, Gunnars wife) brother in law). Both are introduced in chapter 98, when the stage is set for the killing of Höskuldur Njálsson, the first of Njál’s sons to fall. Characters are described in a superficial manner, the ill temperedness of Lýtingur and his brothers, their willingness to take up arms and do malice. When the stage is set, actions of grave importance occur, are laid to rest while the story of Iceland’s acceptance of christianity is told, and as a epilogue for both the killing of Höskuldur and the new way of thinking and doing things, Ámundi is healed of his blindess just long enough to avenge for his fathers death in chapter 106. In a supple way the christian reader is challenged to think a new thought. Is there really a difference between the old way of “heiðni” and the new way of christianity (see also the next chapter!) – will christianity be able to check the spirit of Lamek (Genesis 4, 23-24)? Will christianity be strong enough to create a cosmos of law out of the chaos, the hand of man makes?1 How good are our eyes really, when we think we see the will of God? In other words, did Ámundi miss an opportunity to leave Lýtingur as a seeing man? As a storyteller, you may think of the minimalist presentation on the fringes of the plot as merely a field of bones, but by reading deeper, with open eyes, a nuanced and thoughtful tapestry unwinds, set in the core of being a human.

Reading the saga for the first to last time
So how does a reader approach a saga? What tools are there to help one dig? First let me point out which text to read.

If you read Icelandic, there is an excellent edition from the 1970’s. It’s accessible online as a html file (webpage), download is free. You can import it into a word processor, print it out and put it in a folder so that you can write your thoughts in the margins of the text without cannibalizing the precious book you may or may not have standing in your bookshelve. You also benefit from the possibility to search within the text for names, words, phrases as in every other computer generated file. The same applies for the english and other translations that are “out there” on the public domain. There is an exellent translation from the end of last century by Robert Cook, available from Penguin, published under Penguin Classics in 2001.

Now that we have the question of the text out of the way, lets turn to the genealogies. They are of supreme importance to the plot. Njáls saga is a story of family gone berserk, of politics being made by intermarriage and by revenge being extracted inspite of earlier friendships being in place. The writer of the saga connects the characters to important families in the 13th century Iceland, the age of the Sturlunga, the last days of the republic. In that way it becomes the protohistory of the time of writing and the intristic questions becomes a relevent one for the first readers. Can we use the best of our abilities, law, faith, character to stem the tides of revenge, hunger for power and pressure from abroad to maintain the society as it is? To get a handle on the geneologies, you may want to draw up mindmaps2 of the characters as soon as their anchestry is mentionend, their descendents are named and how they marry. Allow for quite a number of loose pages.

The geography is important too, Njáls saga is a story of families coming to power, Gissur the white, for instance, living in Mosfell, just across the river from Skálholt, the seat of the bishop, is the father of Ísleifur, Icelands first. Gissur is also, coincidentally, one of the main characters in the lawsuits and the leader of the armed attack against Gunnar Hámundason of Hlíðarendi, the first hero of the story. He marries his daughter Þorkatla to Mörður Valgarðsson, one of the major antagonists in Njála and forfather to the Odda family (Sæmundur the learned, Kolbeinn ungi of the 12th and 13th century). A good edition of the saga will have a number of maps to help find the seats of power and flesh out the enormous importance the events have for the peace of the country. But nothing beats having a good map of Iceland, whether an old fashioned folded one, a specialized one or — Google Maps. Most, if not all of the farms mentioned are still to be found on the better maps of Iceland. Some knowlege of the powerstructures of Icelands 13th century results from this, since Njála is something of the commentary of how these powers came to be.

Timeline is important. The saga happens over the course of 50 years or more. The Penguin edition has a timeline, and so have some of the sites that pop up when you look through www.google.com for material on Njál’s saga. Or you might want to make your own. Have paper and pencil ready!

Finally, having other important sagas sitting in the bookshelve or on the computer disk will be of help, especially if the printed editions include a “who is who” in the sagas, so that the persons can be traced. Gissur, for instance figures in the saga of the Icelanders, his conterpart in Njáls saga, Snorri goði figures in Ölkofra saga, and so on and so forth. A storyteller will gain from the added information about these people, when describing their character, ancestry and importance.

The methodology described above will never grow old, it applies to the first and to the last reading of the saga. As a storyteller and as a teacher you will be able to use this method to make the plot and the people come alive and relevant.

The problem of being a non-Icelander
The non-Icelandic storyteller will have problems of pronouncing the names of characters, if, after coming to this point of my presentation, he or she still feels has any buisiness repeating these stories.

Reading Icelandic, you need to know that the letters sound differently from what you are acostumed to, there are a few extra letters, that sound like something you might use, and, if you have spoken to Icelanders, fresh from Iceland, you might have noticed that they tend to put the accent on the first syllable of the words they speak. That’s normal, considering that in Icelandic the accent is on the first syllable of words. Gunnar (not prononced gunner!) is GUnn(a)r, normal g, a u almost but not quite unlike the u in “furniture”, two n make for a fast n sound, a small a, like in “give me a beer, now!” and finally an almost silently breathed rolled r – like in, Edinburgh pronounced by a Scotsman living in the place.

Sounds complicated, doesn’t it? Well, Gunnar is one of the easy names, a bit like Gissur or Snorri, where the double letters make for a fast first syllable and an almost silent last … no, not that silent. Names like Ámundi also have the accent on the first (didn’t I say that all words do? You can take that to the bank, no exeptions come to mind), never, Never say ÁmundI. Á like in “ouch”, u like a ü in German and an i which is almost like the i in “finished”, the second one, that is. Say it fast for a few times and you’ll soon be there.
If you feel like strangeling me now, do bear in mind that I am having fun at your expense. It is the perfectly normal Icelandic thing to do. We are the desendents of both the Norse and Irish, which is why it’s so much fun to be an Icelander abroad and drink a draught — or five at the local Celtic watering hole.

You may want to consider skip over this last subchapter and just pronounce names and places as they are written in your edition of the saga, according to the rules of pronounciation of your prefered language. GD&R.

On being a character
Sometimes, most of the times the writer doesn’t seem to agree with a character he writes about. His prejudice has had immence influence in how a person, say, Hallgerður Höskuldsdóttir, Gunnar’s wife, is conceived. Only lately, with the advent of feminist chriticism has her reputation improved so that young Icelandic girls want to model themselves after her character. Now, Hallgerður is a woman who will not be slapped without consequences (hence three times a widow), she has a sharp toungue in her mouth and will resort to violent means if provoked. But she is also a person who tried to look after her men, well, the second and third — in a fashion that is.

After some intense reading, I did find that Gunnar is a bit two-dimensional for my tastes and that Kári is an understated superman in all aspects of being a superman. Flosi and Hrútur also have hidden depths, that come to light if you look for it. If you are at any time of your reading Njála reminded of tragedy of Greek origin, you are not far off.

Reputation, understatement and poetry a the characteristics a character will aspire to. Of all, the reputation is the currency of immortality, reputation will outlive the Gods, as the Völuspá claims. An isult, whether spoken or a slap in public constitutes a loss of face and reputation. Again and again will a character seek to avenge for a word of insult — blood will be drawn. This will become extremely clear in the last chapters of Njála, when we look for the reasons of Kári Sölmundarson’s revenge of Njál’s, the sons of Njál’s and his own sons death. It’s also, I believe, the reason for Hallgerður’s actions on her own and on Gunnars behalf (chapters 47 – 48). An insult can be just as powerful a reason for vengance as an injury or wrongful death. You avenge or loose face yourself, if you are next in line to avenge.

Some of the poingant utterings of characters are understated. Just as Shakespeare uses rhymed duplettes to make a point, the sagawriter enjoys a good turn of phrase:

“Good are your gifts, but more I treasure your friendship and those of your sons.”
(Gunnar to Njáll, who is all to him, giver of advice, friendship, legal aid and, finally vengeace)

“Troubles have increased, old girl.”
(Björn from Mörk to his wife after killing a few but not all of the burners with Kári)

A supreme example of combining poetry and action will be found in chapter 155, poetry in Njála is one means of comic release but also a way of persuasion and of making a point. More often than not it’s use of “kenning” makes it hard to decipher, so a good printed edition is imperative to have, well, that or a degree in Icelandic literature.

Literature, history, theology and the art of being a human being
As in all good literature, the big questions are addressed. What remains are questions of where individual motives are taken from. I’ve already mentioned Lamek and the dichotomy of chaos-cosmos. You may also want to search for incidents of salvation, forgiveness, the image of Christ, reconcillation and let the saga ask you which direction you want to take once the image and the scripture is clear in your mind.

All in all, as with the great literature of the world, Njáls saga will inspire you to think new thoughts, voice your opinions and believes in new and exiting ways, explore the problem of being a human from the perspective of an society bound by laws but more by a personal bond to other people and finally, most of all to honor and reputation, for what is a man alone? A man is a man’s joy, said the old heathen code of ethics (Hávamál).

For many Icelanders in the past, biblical scripture and the saga’s were the most important things a person could read. Both concern the art of being a human being. In that spirit, one Icelander has crossed both the Arctic and Antarctic on foot. He carried one book in his backpack for the long evenings alone with himself. The saga of the burnt Njáll.

So, without further ado, I hereby declare this blog open to all and sundry.

I expect to keep my day to day stuff out of this, if you follow my blogroll, you might come accross comments I make on other people’s blogs. But I think I’ll keep this simple and not too professional. So, what you’ll get are stories and pictures.