The Icelandic Canadian - 01.06.1982, Page 19

THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
17
into stormy weather in the Ireland seas and
had to be abandoned. On board was a small
boat which was big enough to hold only
half the crew. “Because the boat will not
take more than half our men,” announced
Bjami, “my proposal is that we draw lots
for the boat, for this ought not to go by
rank.” He himself drew a lot for the small
boat. When he had taken his place in the
boat, an Icelander (he is not named) who
was still on the ship and who had followed
Bjami from Iceland, cried, “Do you mean
to leave me here, Bjami?” “That is how it
must be now,” replied Bjami.
“Very different were your oaths to my
father,” he replied, “when I left Iceland
with you, than that you would desert me
like this. You reckoned then that you and I
should share the one fate.”
“That cannot be,” Bjami told him.
“But get down here into the boat and I will
get back on board ship, since I find you so
concerned to live.”
And Bjami Grimolfsson fulfilled his
destiny in true Viking ‘style’.
King George V of Great Britain used to
say that La Boheme was his favourite opera
because it was the shortest. A saga-buff
could well say that Njal’s saga is his
favourite saga because it is the longest; but
it is more than the longest; it is the greatest.
Professor Gwyn Jones calls it Iceland’s
supreme work of art but not a lonely giant.
From this saga which holds up a mirror to
the Icelanders in which we can see them in
many varied aspects of their daily life, I
offer two examples of the Viking’s sense of
‘style’.
Gunnar of Hlidarendi was a prince of
men in every way. “He was tall and
strong,” records the Saga, “and well
skilled in the use of arms. He could wield a
sword and shoot equally well with either
hand, and he could deal blows so swiftly
that three swords seemed to flash through
the air at the same time ... In full armour
he was able to leap higher than his own
height, and just as far backwards as for-
wards. He swam like a seal, and indeed
there was no sport in which it availed
anyone to compete against him. It has been
said that no man had been his equal... He
was the most well bred of men, hardy in
every respect, generous and even tem-
pered, a faithful friend, but very careful in
the choice of friends.”
This man, the paragon of Viking virtues,
through an undeserving woman, became
involved in a series of blood feuds. After
many fierce conflicts, against great odds,
in which he killed many men, he was out-
lawed by the Law Mount. His brother,
Kolskegg, “a noble fellow who knew no
fear,” was always at his side. He was also
outlawed. They were travelling on horse-
back to the sea coast to take ship for Den-
mark. Gunnar’s horse suddenly stumbled
and he was thrown. As he lay on the
ground he looked back at his farmstead.
Slowly, he got to his feet and told his
brother that he could not leave Iceland, that
he was realizing for the first time what he
would be leaving. A Canadian poet, Gael
Turnbull, put these words in his mouth. He
speaks them from his burial mound:
1 looked back
and saw the land that I knew
and the paths I had trod with my feet
and the walls I had built with my hands
and the sheep I had marked on the fells
and the hay here in the meadow
ready to mow
for me to mow
Did they think 1 would quit?
Though they took my breath,
I kept what I loved.
Gunnar tried to persuade his brother not
to leave Iceland.
“That shall not be!” answered Kols-
kegg. “I will not betray the trust others put
in me, neither on this occasion, nor on any
other. This is the one and only thing which
will separate us. Tell my kinsman and my
mother that I never intend to see Iceland