Customer Reviews

Orkneyinga Saga: The History of the Earls of Orkney (Penguin Classics)

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There are two ways of reading an Icelandic saga: (1) as a rip-roaring adventure in which people do terrible things to each other and (2) as history involving real events with real people. When I visited the Orkneys last year, I saw many of the actual locales discussed in the saga: the Brough of Birsay, where Saint Magnus grew to adulthood; Earl's Bu, the drinking hall of the earls of the Orkneys; and various places where the saga's chief villain, Svein Asleifarson, axed or burned his enemies, among whom were most of those living at the time.

The saga tells of a 200-year stretch of time when the Orkneys -- islands off the northern tip of Scotland -- owed their allegiance to the Kings of Norway. For the Viking marauders who ravaged Europe, the Orkneys were a friendly refueling stop on the inbound and outbound voyages. The earls ruled not only the islands, but large chunks of the Scottish mainland and most of the Hebrides as well. So widespread were their lands that they were frequently forced into power-sharing arrangements with their kinsmen, which then turned into power struggles to the death. The best instance of this is between the co-earls and cousins (Saint) Magnus Erlendsson and Hakon Paulsson.

It was common in those days, if one had a disagreement, to wait until one's enemy was in his cups; then pile dry rushes against the doors and set them alight. Men, women, and children escaping the flames were hacked to death by waiting swordsmen. This happened not once, but several times in the ORKNEYINGA SAGA. And yet, there is also poetry, craft, and a strange beauty in this book which make it more than a Grand Guignol with Vikings. Here, on the bleak northern edges of civilization, the novel was born while our Western European ancestors were quaking in their boots.

At first, reading an Icelandic saga is like reading a Russian novel: There are all those long names that are so similar to one another. The anonymous author of the sagas couldn't help it: These were their real names.

Today, the men and deeds set forth in the saga are very much a part of the everyday life of the Orkneys. It is, therefore, the one book that you must absolutely read before visiting this remote and fascinating part of Scotland.

Among the half-dozen surviving Scandinavian sagas (most of which are available in Pálsson's English translations), the Orkneyinga is particularly important for the student of early English history and genealogy. The saga traces the lives of the Norse rulers of the Orkney, Faroe, and Shetland islands from the ninth century to the thirteenth. Written down about 1200 A.D. (by an unknown Icelander), it predates the Heimskringla by a generation and was one of Snorri's principal sources.

So why should a peerage genealogist be interested in the Orkneys? Because Turf-Einar, created first earl ("jarl," actually) by Harald Fairhair, was a brother of Hrolf the Ganger, first "duke" of Normandy, both being sons of Rognvald, jarl of More. Various of the Orkney earls also were related by blood or marriage to the rulers of Norway and Denmark and to the Scottish earls of Moray. Because the saga was originally an oral history, it deals in varicolored language and vivid detail and powerful oration -- most of which the translators have managed to preserve in their prose rendition.

If you have any interest at all in the northern lands and in the heroic deeds and blood feuds of an earlier, less gentle time, this volume will hold your attention (but don't forget to take notes).

Surprisingly readable translation of a 700-year old history of the earls of the Orkney Islands. Basically the book is an account of how the various claimants to the earldom of the Orkney islands fought one another for control over several generations. A good balance between political manuvering and actual violence. One can become confused by the similarity in names of several of the characters.

This saga cover eight or ten generations of Norse rulers of the islands north of Scotland, from the 900s up to about 1200AD. Despite its subtitle, it's not a history in the sense that modern reader might expect. Instead, it's more a series of vignettes or anecdotes, strung together in more-or-less chronological order.

Like other sagas, this was put in current form and written down by an Icelander. Until then, the stories had been part of the oral tradition. Small surprise, then, that events of minor interest were dropped and other events dressed up after the fact - despite the book's historical value, it can't always be taken at face value.

This is quite unlike Icelandic sagas in many ways. First, is that Norse paganism was largely supplanted by Christianity. Bishops appeared in positions of power, and pilgrimages to Rome were part of the tale. St. Magnus gets more attention than just about any of the other Earls, even the later ones whose stories had less time to fade.

The difference that struck me most was that, compared to the Icelanders, this was a very violent crowd. They lacked the realtive peace of Icelanders' democratic rule of law and system of courts. Instead, more depended on the authority of kings or of the best-armed thug in the region, not always a clear distinction. Many of the characters, Svein Asleifarson in particular, seemed to rely on twice-annual plundering as their major source of income. Those trips get generally minor attention, as if the vikings were shearing sheep or harvesting grain, instead of reaping plundered loot and human life. I know that peaceful times don't make history, so the stories that are kept always present a skewed view. Still, this sounds like a very different culture.

There's no real plot or character development, and names come and go at a dizzying rate. The translator has provided a glossary of personal names at the end, and that helps keep track of all the players. Still, it's a somewhat dry book by the usual standards of recreational readers.

Anyone interested in medieval Europe, Scotland or Norse culture in particular, will find a lot to like here. It's not the most exciting of the sagas, but gives a remarkable look at a powerful influence on English history.

//wiredweird

The sagas were written down in Iceland as a sort of middle-ground between history and historical novel (in this way, it is not that different from the classical histories we have from, say, Rome). Although this particular saga is unusual in translation in that it occurs outside Iceland, it is part of a larger body of such works which occurred in Iceland in its day.

A number of important things distinguish this saga:

1) Violence. The Orkneys lacked democratic legal institutions found elsewhere in the Norse world and essentially amounted to a purely feudal system. Hence there were none of the checks on violence that occurred in Iceland, Norway, or Sweden.

2) Christianity. The Orkneyinga saga occurs after the conversion of Norway, and it is distinctly Christian (almost proto-Calvanist) in its outlook.

3) Location. It is the only saga to my knowledge which is set in Orkney, Shetland, and North Scotland for the most part.

Hence I think that this is an important saga to recommend all saga-lovers.

I am a fan of all things to do with Orkney and Shetland. The viking history fascinates me. The complex Norwegian/Scottish history of Orkney is extremely interesting. I would recommend this book to people interested in Vikings, western European history and on the distinct culture of Orkney,U.K.

The general concensus by many people is that the Vikings became instant pussies when they finally converted to Christianity. Well think again. This is an almost all post pagan epic and they are as bloodthirsty in this one as they are in any. Lots of inter family killings for the right to have domain over the Orkney Isles, lots of raiding, lots political skullduggery, everything you know and love about these Viking sagas.

This is a marvelous book. I bought it to find out more about the people involved there during Viking times. I found all I wanted to know about that, plus I found a very interesting and entertaining read. The information contained in this saga is priceless.

What an amazing compilation of stories. The Vikings really were horrible, just like Hagar. Written about 1100, 900 years ago, these stories tell the horrible truth about Vikings and what they did to get by, as collected by an unknown author from that time. Life was primitive, just like this book.

I highly recomment this book.