Gripla - 20.12.2007, Page 54

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of them: saga characters sometimes mention the memorizing of verses that
can then become records of events (Grettis saga:205). A second obvious in-
dication of an oral context is the emotions that seem to arise in witnesses
when they observe certain deeds (249; Vƒlsunga saga:40).11 Examples of
word-of-mouth praise, then, could be interpreted as one of the most important
kinds of communication within the oral societies depicted in the sagas. How-
ever, after one notes the interaction and emotion that usually surround fame-
worthy actions, one’s analysis would seem to come to a frustrating standstill,
because typical passages such as my chosen excerpts from Grettis saga seem
so unrevealing. Most of the time, the narrative voice notes the essentials of a
character’s reputation without further comment. No wonder that critical
study of word-of-mouth fame, the passages that depict it, and the emotions on
view during these descriptions have grown so scarce (cf. Waugh 1997a:249-
255). Such critical neglect also occurs because of attitudes that dominate lite-
rary criticism. Typically, these attitudes arrive from a highly ‘literate’ under-
standing of compositions and of the creative process, and literate critical com-
munities have a habit of treating (at least eventually) most of the material and
ideas that they analyze (for instance, heroic deeds) as abstract concepts.12 In
contrast, as Walter Ong says, oral societies typically value the ‘situational’
over the ‘abstract’. One might even argue that, for oral societies, actions exist
only within their situations (1982:49, 51). Saga-writers who are involved in
depicting an oral society, then, if they are conscious of a battle between oral
and written traditions as the period in which they are writing suggests,13 would
perhaps feel justified in including — perhaps, even feel obligated to include —
these situations along with their requisite actions. Correspondingly, readers
might expect the sagas to spell out relations between actions and situations at
significant junctures of a character’s reputation-building. However, the saga
authors (or narrators) remain remarkably reticent about exactly what happens
between a performer and a witness during such a moment, except in a very
few instances.
In one of these exceptional instances in Njáls saga, Skarpheðinn Njálsson,
a particularly competitive character, leaps across a river and slides along a
11 For more on the emotions that are behind the sharing of stories about heroic deeds, see Caie
1976:31.
12 Note the abstraction of the concept of the hero in, for example, Frye 1957:33, 319-320.
13 Almost certainly saga-writers could not distinguish between oral performance and literate
performance in the way that critics can now. Nevertheless, these writers are likely to betray at
least some aspects of the clashing of oral and literate traditions.