Sagas of Iceland · Part 8 · Ghosts, love and law · B2–C1
Laxdæla Saga: Gudrun and Kjartan
Part 8 of the Sagas of Iceland: Laxdæla saga, the great love tragedy of the north. Gudrun, the most beautiful and clever woman in Iceland; Kjartan, the man she loved; and Bolli, his foster-brother, who married her. A delay, a lie, a stolen headdress, and a killing; and, at the end, Gudrun’s famous words: “I was worst to him I loved best.” Wish / if only, should have, the third and mixed conditionals for regret, and the language of jealousy and love, with Philo, Sophia, Marcos and Demetria. The saga includes a killing, told briefly.
Tonight is the saddest of the sagas, and the one Icelanders have loved best for eight hundred years. Gudrun was the most beautiful and the cleverest woman in Iceland. She loved Kjartan, and Kjartan loved her. And she married his best friend.
Because Kjartan stayed too long in Norway, and his friend came home first with a story that wasn’t quite a lie. It’s a story about regret, Demetria, and English has a whole grammar for regret: if only, I wish, I should have.
The Laxárdalur valley, west Iceland, around the year 1000
Laxdæla saga (“The Saga of the People of Salmon River Valley”) was written in the 13th century, perhaps by a woman, some scholars think, because women are at its centre. Its heroine, Gudrun Ósvífursdóttir, is beautiful, intelligent and proud. As a girl she has four dreams, which a wise man explains: she will have four husbands.
Kjartan Óláfsson is the most admired young man in Iceland, and he and Gudrun love each other. But Kjartan sails to Norway with his foster-brother and best friend, Bolli, and asks Gudrun to wait three years. In Norway, Kjartan becomes a friend of King Olaf and of the king’s sister, Ingibjörg, and stays longer than he promised. Bolli comes home alone and tells Gudrun that Kjartan seems happy with the king’s sister. Gudrun, hurt and proud, marries Bolli.
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