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fits of serving kings.23 other saga forms also parti ci pate in this. In my 1995
book La « Matière du Nord » I write about legendary sagas, which are prose
narratives often based on older eddic lays that sing the adventures of heroes
of the very distant nordic past. the thesis I defend there is that in the re­
telling (and often re-invention) of these tales, the authors were working
through contra dic tions and constraints that were all related to the evolu­
tion of Icelandic society towards models which were dominant in southern
europe.24 In order to create an identity for them selves as members of the
Icelandic chieftain class – the social group that was in a posi tion to produce
literature – they exploited material they perceived as belonging to their
past much in the way French and English trouvères had used the three
“matières”, that of Rome (romans antiques), france (chansons de geste) and
Bretagne (romans courtois).
Historical events, social change and cultural production all show that
Icelandic society and culture were evolving along the same lines as other
societies and cultures during the same period. Once this is established, we
are in a position to ask why the literature of medieval Iceland is, despite
this, so intensely original.
Integrating the other
In a recent monograph on one of the most important of the sagas of
Icelanders, Egils saga Skalla­Grímssonar, I attempt to interpret the saga by
putting it into the con text of the first half of the 13th century when it is
believed to have been com posed.25 the saga tells us of several generations
of the same family. Originally from Norway, they flee to Iceland at the end
of the 9th century because king Harald finehair’s unification of the coun­
try leads to a conflict in which he takes the life of Þórólfr Kveld-Úlfsson,
the most valiant member of his generation of the family. Þórólfr’s younger
brother, Skalla-Grímr, settles the area of Borgarfjörður in western Iceland
23 Ármann jakobsson, Staður í nýjum heimi, 285–287.
24 torfi H. tulinius, La « Matière du Nord ». Sagas légendaires et fiction dans la littérature island­
aise en prose du XIIIe siècle (Paris: Presses de l’université de Paris­Sorbonne, 1995). english
translation: The Matter of the North. The Rise of Literary Fiction in 13th century Iceland, transl.
Randi C. eldevik (odense: odense university Press, 2002).
25 torfi H. tulinius, Skáldið í skriftinni (Reykjavík: Hið íslenska bókmenntafélag, 2004).
tHe SeLf AS otHeR