The Icelandic Canadian - 01.04.2006, Qupperneq 30

28
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
Vol. 60 #1
decide that such descriptions are funny or
appalling is not completely relevant; either
way we are struck by the frequency of
them.
This can result in equating saga Iceland
with a violent culture. "Most people con-
sider the society of the Icelandic sagas a
violent one, an excessively violent one for
that matter. The sagas, after all, are stories
of feud, vengeance, and honour."8
Certainly many others have viewed
them as violent. But in stark contrast to this
approach, there has been some considera-
tion of saga Iceland as an overall peaceful
society: Even when several hundred farm-
ers assembled, there were very few deaths.
As seen from the sometimes exaggerat-
ed crisis situations in the sagas, small
groups might be sufficiently motivated to
kill a few of their opponents, but larger
groups found solutions, avoiding large-
scale fighting. As a society Icelanders con-
sistently acted with restraint.9
The feuds which in the sagas seem so
often to result in death were, as Byock
notes, probably not as violent as the liter-
ary account would make them out to be.
"The family sagas often exaggerate situa-
tions of crisis."10 However, that is not to
say that the type of feuding which results in
violent death did not exist:
Icelandic blood feud was a form of
vengeance-taking. It involved deep, smoul-
dering animosities leading to repeated
reprisals.The taking of vengeance was
understood as action that satisfied honour,
and exchanges of violence could go on for a
very long time, frequently over genera-
tions.11
Even as Byock states that violence and
vengeance as presented in the sagas were
actual occurrences on occasion, we are also
reminded once more that "feuding in
Iceland was not always blood feud. At its
simplest, feud involves prolonged animosi-
ty leading to exchanges of insults and/or
violent acts against property or persons,
including injury and even manslaughter."12
(It is important to keep in mind that there
is a distinction between manslaughter and
murder in early Icelandic society.) Even so,
manslaughter seems to the contemporary
reader to be a bit extreme, to say the least.
Why should a supposedly "restrained"
society react so violently in some cases?
What are some of the reasons for these vio-
lent acts? The most common explanation
has in fact already been mentioned twice, a
fact which I point out only to demonstrate
how intertwined the concept is with saga
Iceland; traditionally, the answer has been
the concept of honour.
In an honour-based culture, which
saga Iceland most certainly was, your hon-
our and the honour of your family and kin
was all important:
Honour was more than just a set of
rules for governing behaviour. Honour
permeated every aspect of consciousness:
how you thought about yourself and oth-
ers, how you held your body, the expecta-
tions you could reasonably have and the
demands you could make on others; it
determined the quality of your marriage
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