THE STORY OF BURNT NJAL Sir George Webbe Dasent Translator

SIR GEORGE DASENT'S PREFACE(ABRIDGED.)What is a Saga? A Saga is a story, or telling in prose,sometimes mixed with verse. There are many kinds of Sagas, of alldegrees of truth. There are the mythical Sagas, in which the wondrousdeeds of heroes of old time, half gods and half men, as Sigurd andRagnar, are told as they were handed down from father to son in thetraditions of the Northern race. Then there are Sagas recounting thehistory of the kings of Norway and other countries, of the great line ofOrkney Jarls, and of the chiefs who ruled in Faroe. These are all moreor less trustworthy, and, in general, far worthier of belief than muchthat passes for the early history of other races. Again, there are Sagasrelating to Iceland, narrating the lives, and feuds, and ends of mightychiefs, the heads of the great families which dwelt in this or thatdistrict of the island. These were told by men who lived on the veryspot, and told with a minuteness and exactness, as to time and place,that will bear the strictest examination. Such a Saga is that of Njal,which we now lay before our readers in an English garb. Of all the Sagasrelating to Iceland, this tragic story bears away the palm fortruthfulness and beauty. To use the words of one well qualified tojudge, it is, as compared with all similar compositions, as gold tobrass.[1] Like all the Sagas which relate to the same period ofIcelandic story, Njala[2] was not written down till about 100 yearsafter the events which are described in it had happened. In themeantime, it was handed down by word of mouth, told from Althing toAlthing, at Spring Thing, and Autumn Leet, at all great gatherings ofthe people, and over many a fireside, on sea strand or river bank, or upamong the dales and hills, by men who had learnt the sad story of Njal'sfate, and who could tell of Gunnar's peerlessness and Hallgerda'sinfamy, of Bergthora's helpfulness, of Skarphedinn's hastiness, ofFlosi's foul deed, and Kurt's stern revenge. We may be sure that as soonas each event recorded in the Saga occurred, it was told and talkedabout as matter of history, and when at last the whole story wasunfolded and took shape, and centred round Njal, that it was handed downfrom father to son, as truthfully and faithfully as could ever be thecase with any public or notorious matter in local history. But it is noton Njala alone that we have to rely for our evidence of its genuineness.There are many other Sagas relating to the same period, and handed downin like manner, in which the actors in our Saga are incidentallymentioned by name, and in which the deeds recorded of them arecorroborated. They are mentioned also in songs and Annals, the latterbeing the earliest written records which belong to the history of theisland, while the former were more easily remembered, from theconstruction of the verse. Much passes for history in other lands on farslighter grounds, and many a story in Thucydides or Tacitus, or even inClarendon or Hume, is believed on evidence not one-tenth part sotrustworthy as that which supports the narratives of these Icelandicstory-tellers of the eleventh century. That with occurrences ofundoubted truth, and minute particularity as to time and place, as todates and distance, are intermingled wild superstitions on severaloccasions, will startle no reader of the smallest judgment. All ages,our own not excepted, have their superstitions, and to suppose that astory told in the eleventh century,--when phantoms, and ghosts, andwraiths, were implicitly believed in, and when dreams, and warnings, andtokens, were part of every man's creed--should be wanting in these marksof genuineness, is simply to require that one great proof of itstruthfulness should be wanting, and that, in order to suit the spirit ofour age, it should lack something which was part and parcel of popularbelief in the age to which it belonged. To a thoughtful mind, therefore,such stories as that of Swan's witchcraft, Gunnar's song in his cairn,the Wolf's ride before the Burning, Flosi's dream, the signs and tokensbefore Brian's battle, and even Njal's weird foresight, on which thewhole story hangs, will be regarded as proofs rather for than againstits genuineness.[3]