Favorite Character of the Sagas

The variance of the sagas makes it difficult to choose a favorite character, but if I had to pick one who I most admired it would have to be Gisli Sursson. He is made into a hero in his saga with such maneuvers as catching spears mid-throw, as well as outsmarting a great many people who wished to do him in. Despite his outlawry, there were many people in Iceland who seemed to respect Gisli Sursson. This trait of righteous rebellion is very intriguing and warrants some great thought about his behavior otherwise. Gisli, his brothers (sworn and otherwise), and his in-laws were devoured by relationship drama, and throughout it all Gisli kept to the pact he had tried to make, he avenged the right deaths and properly buried all who deserved it. In doing so he also took the blame for killing a man whom he did not kill but had plenty of reason to. In a mess of unfaithfulness and slaughter, Gisli and his wife, Aud, remain true to each other and are each other's last motivations for living and holding their morals. For this reason, Aud is probably a second one of my favorite characters and female heroes.

The Saga of Ref the Sly

This saga appears to have many similar aspects to other sagas, but there are still new facts being introduced. For instance, while Ref was building the ship people were surprised that he not only made a beautiful and the largest ocean-going vessel in Iceland but that he was a "simpleton" who did so. This implies that there was something of a class system and that ship-builders were on the higher end of this. Also, the mention of animals was intriguing to me. The gift of a polar bear and walrus parts was intriguing in the least. Yet it shows that both polar bears and walruses were popular creatures in Scandanavia at the time of the sagas.

The Vinland Sagas

The presence of women in these sagas was very impressive. Especially in The Saga of Greenlanders when Freydis slaughtered half an expedition. She was a very manipulative woman finding a way to get what she wanted regardless. However, despite the violent nature of some of the sagas (Egil's in particular) her acts were looked on as such that no one respected even her descendents.

In this saga the appearance of foreigners is more openly acknowledged. It intrigued me greatlly to see a man being referred to as speaking German as I did not even know German was a unified and established language at the time. My other theory is that the monks who wrote the story referenced all people of that general area as being some form of German. Also, bondsmen and freed slaves were all mentioned for the first time since Gisli's saga. What exactly was the difference? and were they common? It is hard to tell from this script.