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GRIPLA
order of the original. The less a translator interferes the better”
(Maxwell:390).
Maxwell was more concemed with words than with word order, and he is
especially perceptive regarding the ease with which modem English idiom
can distort thirteenth-century Icelandic: “very precocious” for allbráðgQrr
contains “a hint of ridicule or at least apprehension” not intended by the au-
thor; “Morris’s ‘very quick of growth’ is awkward but nearer the mark” (387).
Johnston’s articles discuss many issues, however briefly: vocabulary, shifting
tenses, word order, syntax and the verses. The present article will begin with
a look at two nineteenth-century translators and then pass to the question of
vocabulary, after which it will discuss the topics raised by Johnston, and fur-
ther topics as well. My argument will be that literal translation must take into
consideration a wide range of aspects of saga style, most of which are capable
of being closely imitated in modem English.
Maxwell’s article is a review of the translation of Eyrbyggja saga by Paul
Schach and Lee M. Hollander (who translated the verses).5 Johnston’s first
article illustrates its points about close translation into modem English with
citations from his version of Gísla saga, which was to appear in 1963.6 His
later article goes over the same ground, with reference mainly to William
Morris. The present article, which like Maxwell’s will not deal with the thomy
problem of the verses, is based on English translations of Njáls saga, of which
there have been four to date:
• The Story ofBurnt Njal, translated by George Webbe Dasent (Edin-
burgh: Edmonston and Douglas,1861).
• Njál’s Saga, translated by Carl F. Bayerschmidt and Lee M. Hollander
(New York: The American-Scandinavian Foundation,1955). Referred
to below as “B-H.”
• Njal’s Saga, translated by Magnus Magnusson and Hermann Pálsson
(London: Penguin Books, 1960). Revised version in The Icelandic Sagas,
edited and introduced by Magnus Magnusson (London: The Folio Soc-
iety, 1999), 493-753. The Penguin version is referred to below as “MM-
HP.” For completeness the 1999 Folio Society version is given when it
differs, but the comments below refer to the 1960 Penguin version.
5 University of Nebraska Press, 1959.
6 The Saga of Gisli, translated from the Icelandic by George Johnston, with Notes and an Essay
on the Saga of Gisli by Peter Foote (London: J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd., 1963).