Tonight we begin a new journey, further north than any Greek ship has ever sailed: to an island of ice and fire at the edge of the world. Nine hundred years after our time, Norse farmers and their families will sail there in open boats and build a society with no king at all.
Sagas of Iceland · Part 1 · An introduction · B1
The Saga Age
Part 1 of the Sagas of Iceland: how Norse settlers reached an empty island in the North Atlantic, founded one of the world’s oldest parliaments, and told the stories of their families that were written down three centuries later as the sagas. The present simple for summaries, the passive for sources and history (the sagas were written down in the 13th century), and the language of history and legend, with Philo, Sophia, Marcos and Demetria.
SOPHIA
MARCOS
No king? Then who’s in charge?
SOPHIA
The law, Marcos, and the people who meet every summer to recite it. And their descendants will write down the stories of their families: the sagas. Stories of feuds, outlaws, poets, ghosts and voyages to unknown lands, told so plainly that you can almost hear the people speak.
PHILO
Written by the families themselves? Then we must ask how much is history and how much is story.
Before you read
Iceland, from the 870s to the 13th century
The Settlement. Around 870, Norse settlers, mostly from Norway, with Irish and Scottish slaves and wives among them, sailed to Iceland, which was almost empty except perhaps for a few Irish hermits. According to the Book of Settlements (Landnámabók), the first permanent settler was Ingólfur Arnarson, who threw the wooden pillars of his high seat into the sea and built his farm where they came ashore: the place is now Reykjavík. In about sixty years, the whole habitable coast was settled.
The Althing. In 930, the chieftains founded a national assembly, the Althing, which met for two weeks every summer at Thingvellir, the “Assembly Plains”. There was no king: a Lawspeaker recited the laws aloud from the Law Rock, a third of them each year, and disputes were judged in courts. The Althing still meets today, in Reykjavík, and is often called one of the oldest parliaments in the world.
The sagas. The Sagas of Icelanders (Íslendingasögur) are about forty prose stories about the families of the Settlement and the following generations, roughly 870 to 1030. They were written down by unknown authors in the 13th and 14th centuries, two or three hundred years after the events, so historians treat them as a mixture of history, family tradition and brilliant literature. Many manuscripts were collected by the scholar Árni Magnússon and taken to Copenhagen; some were lost in the fire of 1728, and the most precious were returned to Iceland from 1971 onwards, welcomed by huge crowds.
A people that remembers its stories remembers who it is.
The story
Retold for this lesson from the Book of Settlements (Landnámabók), the Book of the Icelanders (Íslendingabók) and the Sagas of Icelanders.
In the year 874, the old books say, a Norwegian chieftain called Ingólfur Arnarson sailed west across the open sea towards an island that sailors had seen only once or twice: a land of black mountains, glaciers, steaming springs and empty green valleys. As his ship came near the coast, Ingólfur did what his people did when they did not know where to settle. He threw overboard the two carved wooden pillars of his high seat, the chief’s chair in his hall, and said that where the gods brought them ashore, there he would make his home.
For three years his slaves searched the coast for the pillars. At last they found them in a bay where steam rose from the hot springs, and Ingólfur built his farm there. He called it Reykjavík, “Smoky Bay”. Others followed: families from Norway fleeing a harsh king, settlers from the Norse colonies in Ireland and Scotland, and the Irish and Scottish people they brought with them, some as wives and many as slaves. In sixty years, every good piece of land along the coast had an owner.
There was no king in Iceland, and the settlers did not want one. Instead, in the year 930, the chieftains agreed to meet every summer at a great plain beside a lake, between two walls of rock. They called it Thingvellir, the Assembly Plains, and the assembly the Althing. From a high rock, the Lawspeaker recited the laws aloud, a third of them each summer, because they were not yet written down. Courts heard cases, feuds were settled with payments, and those who broke the peace badly could be declared outlaws, outside the protection of the law.
For three hundred years, the families of Iceland told stories about those first generations: who settled where, who married whom, who killed whom and how the feud ended, who sailed west and found new lands. Then, in the thirteenth century, unknown writers began to set these stories down on calfskin. They wrote in a plain, quiet style, without saying what anyone thought or felt, only what they did and said. And that is why, eight hundred years later, the sagas still feel alive.
Read: the island of ice and fire
PHILO
Read the story and the background. Who were the first settlers? What was the Althing? When were the sagas written down, and why does that matter?
SOPHIA
Then answer Section A.
The present simple for summaries
MARCOS
The saga tells how Ingólfur finds his farm. In Njáls saga, a wise lawyer tries to keep the peace.
SOPHIA
When we summarise a story we use the present simple: The saga begins in Norway. In the end, the hero dies. When we tell it as history, we use the past.
The passive for history and sources
DEMETRIA
Iceland was settled around 870. The Althing was founded in 930. The sagas were written down in the 13th century. They are kept in Reykjavík today.
SOPHIA
be + past participle, with by for who did it. Perfect for history: The manuscripts were returned by Denmark.
History or legend?
PHILO
According to the Book of Settlements, Ingólfur was the first settler. Historians believe there may have been Irish monks there before. The pillars story is probably a legend.
SOPHIA
Words for weighing a source: according to, historians believe / doubt, probably, possibly, a tradition, a legend, evidence. The sagas are wonderful stories; they are not always history.
Sophia’s comparison: the law read aloud
PHILO
Our Torah commands that every seventh year, at the feast of Tabernacles, the whole law must be read aloud before all the people, men, women and children, so that everyone hears it. A people that hears its law together keeps it together.
SOPHIA
And in Athens, the laws of Solon were written on wooden boards for every citizen to read, and the citizens themselves met in the Assembly to decide. The Icelanders, with no king, did something very like it: the law belonged to everyone.
Sophia’s summary
| Words and forms | Use | Example |
|---|---|---|
| the saga tells how… / in the end… | present simple for summaries | The saga tells how Ingólfur found his farm. |
| was settled / was founded / were written down | the passive for history | The Althing was founded in 930. |
| according to / historians believe | weighing sources | According to the Book of Settlements… |
| settler, settlement, assembly, law, feud, outlaw, saga | saga words | The settlers founded an assembly. |
| a legend / evidence / probably | history or legend | The pillars story is probably a legend. |
Practice
Read the story for Section A, then do the rest. Press “Check my answers” at the end. You can try again as many times as you like.
A · The story
Read the story and choose the best answer.
1. When was Iceland settled?
2. Who is remembered as the first permanent settler?
3. What was the Althing?
4. What did the Lawspeaker do?
5. When were the sagas written down?
6. Why must we read the sagas carefully as history?
B · Grammar and vocabulary
Write the missing word or words.
7. Iceland was around 870. (settle)
8. The Althing was in 930. (found)
9. The sagas were written in the 13th century.
10. The saga how Ingólfur found his farm. (tell, summary)
11. to the Book of Settlements, Ingólfur came first.
12. The pillars story is a legend. (likely)
C · Right or wrong?
Is the sentence correct English?
13. “The sagas were wrote in the 13th century.”
14. “The Althing was founded in 930.”
15. “The saga tell the story of a family.”
16. “According to tradition, Ingólfur came first.”
Talk and write
Discussion and writing
Found a society. Your group has landed on an empty island. Write the five most important laws, and decide how disputes will be settled. Use the present simple and the passive.
Discuss. 1. Can a society work without a king or a government? 2. Why do you think Icelanders wrote down their family stories? 3. How should we read a story written 300 years after the events?
Write (100–120 words). Summarise the settlement of Iceland in the present simple, and explain where our information comes from, using the passive.