Gripla - 01.01.1975, Page 136

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GRIPLA
In Þorsteins þáttr stangarhöggs, a pendant to Vápnfirðinga saga writ-
ten some 50 years after the composition of this story, Bjarni becomes
a trúmaðr mikill and, like so many saga heroes, makes a pilgrimage
to Rome.
And finally we come to Njála, the mightiest of the Sagas of Ice-
landers, and about this literary masterpiece we could talk until
doomsday. Almost all of the various means of expressing antipagan
sentiment that we have already touched upon can be found in this
remarkable work of art. We have seen that magic, witchcraft, and
sorcery were said by the author to be the cause of much of the
trouble and tragedy in this story; and, of course, destiny and fortune
also have important functions. But what must be the supreme irony
in the most ironic of all the íslendingasögur is the strange róle played
by Njáll himself. The author states (ch. 20) that Njál’s ‘advice was
sound and benevolent, and always turned out well for those who
followed it’. And yet a careful reading of the saga reveals that Njál’s
nobility and benevolence contribute no less to the disaster and de-
struction of himself and his family than do the malevolent, baleful
forces of pagan sorcery. All of Njál’s planning and scheming, his in-
tellectual efforts to alter and fend off fate are of no avail. It is only
through the transformation of the pagan concept of indifferent, im-
mutable destiny into the Christian concept of benign providence that
death and destruction are transvaluated into spiritual victory. What
would have been total defeat according to the pagan view of life
becomes penance and atonement for the heinous crime and sin com-
mitted by Njál’s flesh and blood against his spiritual son Höskuldr:
‘Verðið vel við ok mælið eigi æðru, því at él eitt mun vera, en þó skyldi
langt til annars slíks. Trúið þér ok því, at guð er miskunnsamr, ok mun
hann oss eigi bæði láta brenna þessa heims ok annars.’
‘Take heart and speak no words of despair, for this will be only a brief
storm, and it will be long before another one like it comes. Have faith in
God’s mercy, for he will not let us burn in this world and the next.’
At the beginning of this paper I stated that I intended neither to
engage in controversy nor to develop a thesis regarding religious bias
in the Sagas of Icelanders. Instead, I wished merely to review with
you a selection of representative passages in which saga writers reveal
their attitudes toward paganism and/or Christianity. In so doing we