Narrative
Grettir's Saga
Grettis saga Ásmundarsonar
Anonymous · 1320
Opening lines
Önundur hét maður. Hann var Ófeigsson burlufóts Ívarssonar beytils. Önundur var bróðir Guðbjargar, móður Guðbrands kúlu, föður Ástu, móður Ólafs konungs hins helga.
There was a man called Önundur. He was the son of Ófeigur Burlufótur, son of Ívar Beytill. Önundur was the brother of Guðbjörg, mother of Guðbrandur Kúla, father of Ásta, mother of King Ólafur the Saint.
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from sagadb.org
Synopsis
Son of Ásmundr, Grettir is a strong, rebellious and quarrelsome boy. At fourteen, he kills a man in a dispute and is banished for three years; in Norway, he faces in his burial mound the revenant Kárr, guardian of a treasure, then berserkers. Back in Iceland, he destroys the ghost of the shepherd Glámr, who was ravaging the countryside, but the dying man curses him: he will fear the dark, and luck will abandon him. In Norway again, he accidentally sets fire to a house whose occupants perish, and the Althing declares him an outlaw.
Context
The saga, written around 1320 according to Britannica, in the fourteenth century in any case, is one of the last sagas of Icelanders; its oldest manuscript dates from a little before 1400. Its author is unknown, but he may have drawn on an account of Grettir's life by Sturla Þórðarson, and he borrows motifs from the common Germanic stock, those found in Beowulf. The first thirteen chapters tell of the hero's family, starting with his great-grandfather Önundr Tree-foot; the last follow his half-brother Þorsteinn drómundr as far as Constantinople. Eiríkr Magnússon and William Morris translated it into English in 1869.
Who it is for
A long saga, in prose mixed with stanzas, in which law, humour and the fantastic sit side by side; in French from Gallimard.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as one of the finest sagas of Icelanders; translated into French as early as 1933 by Fernand Mossé.