Narrative
Gisli Sursson's Saga
Gísla saga Súrssonar
Anonymous · 1250
Synopsis
In tenth-century Iceland, Vésteinn, brother of Auðr, Gísli's wife, is killed at night in his bed while he is Gísli's guest. Gísli suspects his own brother-in-law, Þorgrímr, husband of his sister Þórdís; honour demands vengeance, but striking a member of one's own family is unthinkable. Gísli nonetheless kills Þorgrímr. Nothing proves his guilt, but he is prosecuted and outlawed, and for thirteen years leads the life of a fugitive, hunted by the dead man's kin, amid the dreams and verses that punctuate the narrative.
Context
The writing down is placed in the first half of the thirteenth century, most scholars leaning towards the years 1225 to 1250, without decisive proof. The saga survives in thirty-three manuscripts and fragments, in three versions: a fragment from around 1400, a short version carried by the Eggertsbók, from the second half of the fifteenth century, from which most of the other copies descend, and a long version, known from two eighteenth-century transcriptions of a lost medieval manuscript, the Membrana regia deperdita. The versions differ chiefly in the opening, which is set in Norway.
Who it is for
A short narrative, in prose interspersed with stanzas, readable in French; the verses call for notes.
Prizes and reception
Translated into English as early as 1866 by George Webbe Dasent, and adapted for the screen in Iceland in 1981 under the title Útlaginn.