Applications 21. “. . . við it fyrsta hǫgg.”: Some Thoughts on the Episode of Ámundi the Blind in Brennu-Njáls saga.
Richard L. Harris, English Department, University of Saskatchewan [heorot@sasktel.net]
This paper is concerned with approaches to the analysis of an immediately post-Conversion episode of Njáls saga, a brief, strange and violent account of vengeance taken by Ámundi the Blind upon Lýtingr of Sámstaðir for the killing of his father. It is a passage invariably noticed, usually with some merriment, by students in my classes, and upon which there is no clear consensus of scholarly or literary critical interpretation. I think that a paroemiologically informed awareness of the conceptual background of the narrative as a whole can be helpful at this point to our understanding of the composer’s likely purpose in shaping and placing it as he does.
Ámundi the Blind. In Chapter 106, Ámundi the Blind suddenly emerges on stage at the Þingskálaþing, seeking compensation from Lýtingr of Sámstaðir for killing his father, Hǫskuldr, a bastard son of Njáll. Having himself led to the slayer’s booth, he asks how Lýtingr “what compensation will you pay me. I was born . . . out of wedlock and I have received no compensation.” (106.182.) [See HANDOUT, below.] Lýtingr responds that he has paid compensation in full to those legally entitled to receive it—“I committed an evil deed, but I paid heavily for it.” Because, as he mentions, Ámundi, like his father, was illegitimate, he had no particular right to compensation by existing law. Nevertheless, in a subsequent speech, he seems to appeal to another law, one recognizing a new and more personally sensitive basis for compensatory rights: “I don’t find that . . . just before God, seeing that you struck so close to my heart. I can say this – if I were sound in both my eyes, I would either have compensation for my father or take blood revenge, and may God settle between us!” (106.182.) When Ámundi then suddenly gains his sight he praises God, “Praise be to Go, my Lord! Now it can be seen what He wants.” immediately sinking his axe into Lýtingr’s head. He thus takes the vengeance he seems to have conditionally vowed in his peculiarly Christian version of a heitstrenging, and after this his blindness returns. (106.183.)
Finnur Jónsson reacted to the story with aversion, declaring that Ámundi’s triumphant cry praising God, smacked of blasphemy, seemingly a perversion of a miracle legend. (248.) Finnur Jónsson’s revulsion suggests one immediate interpretation, that this is a false miracle, its fruits destructive of human life and therefore devoid of goodness, produced not by God but by Satan, however sympathetic figures in the story may themselves seem to view it in their early and unsophisticated acquaintance with Christianity. One cannot but be reminded of the adage whose origins are attributed, though I think mistakenly, to Martin Luther that “Where God builds a church, the Devil builds a chapel next door.” And the arousal of inimical spirits by the new Christian presence is witnessed in other anecdotes of the Icelanders’ conversion.
Njáll, proverbially wise and perspicacious, is the only figure of the narrative who utters any comment suggesting the value the composer attaches to this event. When Ámundi reports the killing of Lýtingr to Njáll, he responds sympathetically, seeming to refer to that same sensitivity to relationship as Ámundi’s novel reference to the blow having struck “so close to the heart”: “You are not to be blamed for that . . . for such things are preordained, and when they occur they are a warning not to decline the claims of close kin.” (106.182-3.) Lars Lönnroth appealed to concepts of Natural Law and the Augustinian idea of Rightful War to justify Ámundi’s actions, Njáll’s approval, and God’s apparent complicity in these events. (145) Ian Maxwell proclaimed, “Our sympathies are with Ámundi,” appealing to the “symmetry of poetic justice” linking Lýtingr’s killing of Ámundi’s father with the blind Ámundi’s revenge. (38) T. M. Andersson wondered whether it was “a miracle, or the mockery of a miracle?” (198)
Andrew Hamer notices “an obvious ethical problem in God’s apparently performing a miracle—the granting of sight to a man blind from birth—in order that he may commit a revenge killing.” He insists that “if the author treats the old ideology of vengeance sympathetically, as it operated within the pre-Christian world, he reveals in his portrayal of events during the first period after the Conversion his feeling that that ideology has no place in a Christian society.” (125) Hamer’s extensive studies in medieval theology seem to me to render weight to his opinion among those others that have been ventured upon this problem, but I wonder whether we may not seek answers even more productively within the narrative contexts and their presumed thematic significance.
The Conversion Interpolation and its aftermath. The 6 chapters preceding Ámundi’s adventure, 100 through 105, at the center of Njáls saga, which recount the Christian Conversion of Iceland, seem interpolative in their location, interrupting as they do that incipient chain of retributive actions discussed above. At the center of the conversion episode, the prescient Gestr Oddleifsson, one of Iceland’s earliest Christian converts, consoles King Óláfr’s robustly militant missionary Þangbrandr as he contemplates the limits of his success in attempting to bring the new faith to a recalcitrantly heathen populace. Gestr reassures him: “You’ve done most of the work . . . even though others may be destined to make the faith law. As they say, a tree doesn’t fall at the first blow.” (103.179.) And of course, like Gestr’s prophecies everywhere in Icelandic literature, this proves to be the case. Soon after their conversation, Christianity is adopted at the Alþing after the memorably formed decision of the pagan Þorgeirr goði of Ljósavatn that all Icelanders should agree to adhere to one law under the new faith.
The subsequent chapters of Njáls saga are surely, among other things, also a study of the impact of Christianity, its spiritual assumptions and its ethical boundaries, upon the Icelandic population, a study thus of the varying degrees of acceptance of, and sensitivity to, those tenets emanating from the essential concept of redemption through forgiveness.
(1) Among the highlights of such witness we recall Hildigunnr’s rage as she casts her husband’s blood clotted cloak over her uncle with the challenge, “In the name of God and all good men I charge you by all the powers of your Christ and by your courage and manliness, to avenge all the wounds which he received in dying – or else be an object of contempt to all men.” (116.195.) The audience, already aware that in character she is “an unusually tough and harsh-tempered woman,” is not likely to be surprised by the lack of sympathy for, let alone understanding of, the Christian message that she reveals here. (95.163.)
(2) Hǫskuldr Þráinsson, the husband over whose death she rages, was the opposite, restrained and gentle in heathen times, and then, at his death and by then presumably a Christian, utterly pacific and receptive of God’s will. When in heathen times Njáll tested his character before fostering him he found the boy harbored no ill will over Skarpheðinn’s having killed his father: “Your answer is better than my question,” said Njal, “and you will be a good man.” (94.162) When Skarpheðinn later kills him, his last words are those of a Christian, “May God help me and forgive you.” (111.188)
(3) Síðu-Hallr, among Iceland’s first converts, demonstrates the ultimate influence of Christianity upon the pagan revenge ethic of feud when he explicitly foregoes the maintenance of face in order to bring about settlement over the burning of Njáll. Declaring that he will show himself “a man of no importance,” and he uses here the Icelandic term “lítilmenni,” ‘a small person, of low condition,’ he proposes, “All men know what sorrow the death of my son Ljot has brought me . . . but for the sake of a settlement I’m willing to let my son lie without compensation and, what’s more, offer both pledges and peace to my adversaries.” (145.274 & 275) Like Hǫskuldr Þráinsson, his understanding of the ethical implications of the new faith seems mature.
(4) It is interesting that Njáll, wise, indeed prescient, and proverbially honest, is presented by the composer as insufficient in his understanding of the new faith to whose coming he has expressed himself as most receptive. His sympathy for Ámundi’s sudden vengeance is couched, however, in his approval of revenge ethic, and this attitude is explicit in his refusal to accept mercy at the burning of Bergþorshvóll: “I will not leave, for I’m an old man and hardly fit to avenge my sons, and I do not want to live in shame.” (129.221) As the flames built up around the house he had encouraged his family, “Have faith that God is merciful, and that he will not let us burn both in this world and in the next.” His spiritual receptivity to the Christian concept of human foregiveness as a concommitant of salvation has never reached the stage attained by Síðu-Hallr and Hǫskuldr Þráinsson, however, and he seems oddly deficient in this conservatism.
In a moment at the Alþing when litigation approaches over the burning, the composer emphasizes with bitter irony the tragic difficulties of Christianity’s assimilation in this society whose order has been traditionally guarded through the maintenance of face and the extraction of compensation or vengeance for injuries. Hallbjǫrn inn sterki, preparing to badger Eyjólfr Bǫlverksson into undertaking the defense of the burners, a task which traditionally rendered a lawyer liable to lethal retribution, does so using Gestr’s proverb: “A tree doesn’t fall at the first blow, friend . . . just sit here with us for a while.” (138.247)
Hǫskuldr Þráinsson, when Lýtingr pleaded with him for support in settlement over his whimsically foolish killing of Ámundi’s father, remarked “This was to be expected of you . . . You acted very rashly. Here is proof of the saying that the hand’s joy in the blow is brief.” (99.171) This proverb is uttered once in each of the three parts of Njáls saga, in each case by a speaker of valued opinion, and as comment upon actions of a killer which prove to have far-reaching repercussions, defining the nature of conflicts in their respective sections. In fact, a centralizing theme of the saga is that such hastily taken and ill-considered acts of vengeance are destructive of the ever fragile stability with which the social order is imbued in a feud based system. Under the New Law of Christianity, forgiveness and reconciliation replace the robust adversarial method of the Old Law of Heathendom.
Hamer says “God performs . . . two acts in the story: he gives Ámundi his sight, and he takes it away again.” (129) Careful reading shows that Ámundi asked for sight as a means to a choice. He made a bad choice, violence over compensation, and God then showed his displeasure. In the paroemially reinforced context of the Njála narrative the joy of violence is brief and violence ceases to be a viable option, but the road to spiritual and ethical acceptance of this new reality is complex, painful and lengthy, as the preludic story of Ámundi’s blind search for justice anticipates.
Applications 21. Handout. “. . . við it fyrsta hǫgg.”: Some Thoughts on the Episode of Ámundi the Blind in Brennu-Njáls saga.
Comments on proverbs in the Old Icelandic sagas:
Powell. “These idioms and saws, and such laconisms . . . are the very life-blood of a true Saga; where they abound, they are the infallible tests of good traditions ripened on the lips of good narrators; where they are absent, the story is the work of the scribe writing from his head without the geniune impulses of the story-teller before his audience.” (Introduction, xxxix)
Vigfússon. “These saws are to a Saga what the gnomic element is to a Greek play.” (II, 492)
Allen. Proverbs are placed in the mouths of “reliable spokesmen whose pronouncements on events and persons indicate what ought to be thought of them.” (107)
Lönnroth. Notices that “wise community spokesmen . . . tend to state their views in brief but succinct speeches, where they can make use of legal quotations, proverbs, and other kinds of generalized statements often highlighted by their rhetorical form.” (88-89)
And Ong, on the pre-literate thought process: “Fixed, often rhythmically balanced expressions of this sort and of other sorts can be found occasionally in print, indeed can be ‘looked up’ in books of sayings, but in oral cultures they are not occasional. They are incessant. They form the substance of thought itself. Thought in any extended form is impossible without them, for it consists in them.” (35)
The Problem: Ámundi’s qualified vow of compensation or vengeance, his gift of sight, and its retraction:
ÍF XII. 106. 273. “Eigi skil ek, . . . at þat muni rétt fyrir guði, svá nær hjarta sem þú hefir mér hǫggvit; enda kann ek at segja þér, ef ek væra heileygr báðum augum, at hafa skylda ek annathvárt fyrir fǫður minn fébœtr eða mannhefndir, enda skipti guð með okkr!” When Ámundi then suddenly gains his sight he praises God: “Lofaðr sé guð, dróttinn minn! Sér nú, hvat hann vill.” And, seeming to conclude thus that God condones vengeance, he kills Lýtingr and again loses his sight.
A. Paroemial reflection upon the slow and complex reception of the Christian world-view: “at eigi fellr tré við it fyrsta hǫgg.”
1. Gestr Oddleifsson in conversation with Þangbrandr Vilbaldús son on the legal and popular reception of Christianity in Iceland:
ÍF XII. 103.268-9. “Flutta ek á þingi,” segir Þangbrandr, “ok varð mér þar erfiðligast um.” “Þú hefir þó mest at gǫrt,” segir Gestr, “þó at ǫðrum verði auðit í lǫg at leiða. En þat er sem mælt er, at eigi fellr tré við it fyrsta hǫgg.”
ASB 13. 103. 243. 14. 14.15. eigi – hǫgg, ein sprichwort, das. c. 138, 29 nochmals vorkommt.
FJ Proverb word 411. Page 192. tré – eigi fellr tré við hit fyrsta hǫgg Nj 544. 741. ‘Ikke falder træ for det første hugg’. Aasen: “Det fel ikkje tre med fyrste hogg’. GJ (var.: eik).
TPMA 10. 111. SCHLAGEN/battre/to hit 1. Der erste Schlag 1.1. Auf den ersten (einen) Schlag fällt die Eiche (der Baum) nicht1 Nord. 35 En þat er sem mælt er, at eigi fellr tré við et fyrsta hǫgg Und es verhält sich, so wie gesagt wird, dass ein Baum nicht auf den ersten Schlag fällt NJÁLS SAGA 103, 14 (= JÓNSSON, ARKIV 411). 36 Eigi fellr tré við et fyrsta hǫgg Ein Baum fällt nicht auf den ersten Schlag NJÁLS SAGA 138, 29 (= JÓNSSON, ARKIV 411). 37 Primitus inflictum non corruit arbor ob ictum. – Træ faller eij aff førsthe hwgh Durch den zum ersten Mal geführten Schlag fällt der Baum nicht zu Boden. – Übers. wie 17 LÅLE 829.
2. Hallbjǫrn in sterki as he cynically prepares to persuade Eyjólfr Bǫlverksson to undertake the virtually suicidal task of the defense of the Burners:
ÍF XII. 138. 367. Hallbjǫrn sterki þreif til hans ok setti hann niðr6 í millum þeira Bjarna ok mælti: “Eigi fellr tré við it fyrsta hǫgg, vinr,” segir hann, “ok sit hér fyrst hjá oss.” 6hjá sér b.v. í RK.
B. The varied reception of Christian teaching:
1. Hildigunnr Starkaðardóttir.
Whetting Flosi Þórðarson to vengeance for the slaying of her husband, rejecting his Christ:
ÍF XII. 116.291. “ek sœri þik fyrir all krapta Krists þíns ok fyrir manndóm ok karlmennsku þína, at þú hefnir allra sára þeira, er hann hafði á sér dauðum, eða heit hvers manns níðingr ella.” (116.291.)
2. Hǫskuldr Þráinsson.
Pre-Christian restraint.
ÍF XII. 94.236-7. “Veiztú,” segir Njáll, “hvat fǫður þínum varð at bana?” Sveinninn svarar: “Veit ek, at Skarðheðinn vá hann, ok þurfu vit ekki á þat at minnask, er sætzk hefir á verit ok fullar bœtr hafa fyrir komit.” “Betr er svarat,” segir Njáll, “en ek spurða, ok munt þú verða góðr maðr.”
A Christian death.
ÍF XII. 111.280-1. En er Hǫskuldr sá hann, vildi hann undan snúa; þá hljóp Skarpheðinn at honum ok mælti: “Hirð eigi þú at hopa á hæl, Hvítanessgoðinn” – ok høggr til hans, ok kom í hǫfuðit, ok fell Hǫskuldr á knéin. Hann mælti þetta: “Guð hjálpi mér, en fyrirgefi yðr!”
3. Síðu-Hallr.
Explicit willingness to forego maintenance of face in the interests of reconciliation.
ÍF XII. 145.408. Hallr af Síðu stóð upp ok kvaddi sér hljóðs, ok fekkst þegar. Hann mælti: “Hér hafa orðit harðir atburðir í mannalátum ok málasóknum. Mun ek nú sýna þat, at ek em lítilmenni: vil ek biðja Ásgrím ok þá menn aðra, er fyrir málum þessum eru, at þeir unni oss jafnsættis.” Fór hann þar um mǫrgum fǫgrum orðum.
ÍF XII. 145.411-2. Hallr af Síðu mælti: “Allir menn vitu, hvern harm ek hefi fingit, at Ljótr, son minn, er látinn. Munu þat margir ætla, at hann muni dýrstr gǫrr af þeim mǫnnum, er hér hafa látizk. En ek vil vinna þat til sætta at leggja son minn ógildan ok ganga þó til at veita þeim bæði tryggðir ok grið, er mínir mótstǫðumenn eru. Bið ek þik, Snorri goði, ok aðra ina beztu menn, at þér komið því til leiðar, at sættir verði með oss."
4. Njáll, on the fortunate approach of Christianity.
ÍF XII. 99.255. Njáll sagði þá: “Svá lízk mér sem inn nýi átrúnaðr muni vera miklu betri, ok sá mun sæll, er þann fær heldr. Ok ef þeir menn koma út hingat, er þann sið bjóða, þá skal ek þat vel flytja.”
On Ámundi’s slaying of Lýtingr:
ÍF XII. 106.274. “Ekki má saka þik um slíkt,” segir Njáll, “því at slíkt er mjǫk á kveðit, in viðvǫrunarvert, ef slíkir atburðir verða, at stinga eigi af stokki við þá, er svá nær standa.”1 1stinga eigi af stokki við e-n: bægja einhverjum frá, varna manni; stokkr líkl. setstokkur; orðatiltæki þetta mun upphaflega merkja: hrinda manni úr sæti. – Í öndverðu voru þeir synir einir arfgengir, sem skilgetnir voru, en það smábreyttist (sbr. Grág. III, 583-4); hér í sögunni verður vart skilnings á málstað óskilgetinna (sbr. E. Ó. S.: Sturlungaöld 67; Um Nj. 60).
On God’s mercy:
ÍF XII. 129.328. Njáll mælti til þeira: “Verðið vel við ok mælið eigi æðru, því at él eitt mun vera, en þó skyldi langt til annars slíks. Trúið þér ok því, at guð er miskunnsamr, ok mun hann oss eigi bæði láta brenna þessa heims ok annars.”
On his unwillingness to continue living when his sons are unavenged:
ÍF XII. 129.330. “Eigi vil ek út ganga, því at ek em maðr gamall ok lítt til búinn at hefna sona minna, en ek vil eigi lifa við skǫmm.”
C. An Assortment of Scholarly and Literary Critical Views on the Ámundi Episode, taken mostly from Hamer, pp. 124-133:
Hamer: “It will here be argued that, if the author treats the old ideology of vengeance sympathetically, as it operated within the pre-Christian world, he reveals in his portrayal of events during the first period after the Conversion his feeling that that ideology has no place in a Christian society.” (124-5) “. . . an obvious ethical problem in God’s apparently performing a miracle—the granting of sight to a man blind from birth—in order that he may commit a revenge killing.” (125)
Finnur Jónsson. Ámundi’s triumphant cry praising God, “ist nach unserem gefühl eine blasphemie; die ganze (selbstverständlich erdichtete) geschichte sieht aus wie eine misslungene nachbildung einer legende.” (248)
Einar Ól. Sveinsson. “We recall how Ámundi blindi was miraculously given sight, exactly as it occurs in legendary works—and the phraseology of the passage indicates the nature of its source—so that Ámundi can perform such an unchristian act as to take blood vengeance on his father’s slayer.” “. . . the expression ‘Christian influence’ may be somewhat ambiguous.” (178 & 179)
Ian Maxwell. “Our sympathies are with Ámundi” . . . “the symmetry of poetic justice links Lýtingr’s killing of Njálls son with Ámundi’s vengeance on Lýtingr.” (38)
Lönnroth. “In the case of Ámundi, the laws of the Indepencence era did not give him any automatic right to receive compensation since he was an illegitimate son of Hǫskuldr Njálsson. Yet, in the author’s opinion, Natural Law gives him such a right and when Lýtingr refuses to recognize this, he justly becomes—through God’s intervention—the victim of Ámundi’s revenge.” (145)
T. M. Andersson. “Is it a miracle, or the mockery of a miracle?” (198)
D. The Central Theme Brennu-Njáls saga, expressed in the proverb “at skamma stund verðr hǫnd hǫggvi fegin”: The pre-Christian ideal of judicious restraint in the conduct of the feud system of reconciliation under the Old Law, evolving under the New Law of the Christian Conversion into the proposition that only forgiveness provides the ultimate resolution of conflict:
1. Rannveig’s iteration (to Sigmundr Lambason, on the slaying of Þórðr Sigtryggsson “leysingjason”):
ÍF XII. 42. 109. Rannveig mælti, móðir Gunnars: “Þat er mælt,5 at skamma stund verðr hǫnd hǫggvi fegin, enda mun hér svá; en þó mun Gunnarr leysa þik af þessu máli. En ef Hallgerðr kemr annarri flugu í munn þér þá verðr þat þinn bani.”6 5Sigmundr b.v. í S. 6Gunnar viðhefur sama orðtæki, þegar hann ávítar Sigmund (111. bls.), sbr. gína flugu í vísu Úlfs Uggasonar í 102. kap. Orðtækið er dregið af því, þegar menn veiða lax eða silung með flugu.
ASB 13. 42. 96. 9. 13.14. skamma – fegin, ein allit. sprichwort, das in der saga noch zweimal (c. 99,9 u. 134,3) angefürht wird. Vgl. auch Saxo gramm. (ed. Holder) 13726: nec diu manum ictu exhilarari solere.
FJ Proverb word 196. Page 99. hǫgg – . . . skamma (stutta) stund verðr hǫnd hǫggvi fegin Nj 178. 521. 703, K. ‘Stakket stund glæder hånden sig ved (sit) hug’ (ti hævnen kommer hurtig). Almindelig i brug.
Gering 9. hǫgg (nr. 196b). – Zu den dreimal in den Njála überlieferten sprichwort: skamma stund verðr hǫnd hǫggvi fegin vgl. Saxo (ed. Holder) 13726: nec diu manum ictu exhilarari solere. S. auch Rosenberg, Nordb. aandsliv 1, 245.
TPMA 10. 120. SCHLAGEN/battre/to hit 16. Die Hand freut sich nicht lange am Schlag Mlat. 217 credo euenturum uobis, quod uulgo dici assolet, ferienti interdum breue percussionis gaudium fore, nec diu manum ictu exhilarari solere Ich glaube, es wird für euch herauskommen, was man allgemein zu sagen pflegt, dass für den, der schlägt, manchmal die Freude des Schlagens kurz sei und sich die Hand nicht lange am Schlag zu freuen pflege SAXO GRAMM. 137, 25. Nord. 218 Þat er mælt, at skamma stund verðr hǫnd hǫggvi fegin Das wird gesagt, dass die Hand sich (nur) kurze Zeit am Schlag freut NJÁLS SAGA 42, 9 (= JÓNSSON, ARKIV 196. JÓNSSON 82). 219 Mun hér sannaz þat sem mælt er, at skamma stund verðr hǫnd hǫggvi fegin Das wird sich hier deutlich zeigen, was man sagt, dass die Hand sich (nur) kurze Zeit am Schlag freut NJÁLS SAGA 99, 9 (= JÓNSSON, ARKIV 196). 220 Nú er svá orðit, sem mælt er, at skamma stund verðr hǫnd hǫggvi fegin Nun ist es so gesprochen, wie es gesagt wird, dass die Hand sich (nur) kurze Zeit am Schlag freut NJÁLS SAGA 134, 3 (= JÓNSSON, ARKIV 196). 221 Stutta stund verdur hond hoggi feigenn (Nur) kurze Zeit freut sich die Hand am Schlag KÅLUND 88 (= JÓNSSON, ARKIV 196).
2. Hǫskuldr Þráinsson’s iteration (to Lýtingr of Sámstaðir, on the slaying of Hǫskuldr Njálsson):
ÍF XII. 99.253. “Slíks var þér ván,” segir Hǫskuldr, “þú fórt rasandi mjǫk. Mun hér sannask þat, sem mælt er, at skamma stund verðr hǫnd hǫggvi fegin, enda þykki mér nú sem þér þykki ísjávert, hvárt þú munt fá haldit þik eða eigi.”
3. Hallr of Síða’s interation (to Flosi Þórðarson, on the burning of Njáll and his family):
ÍF XII. 134.349. Hallr mælti: “Nú er svá orðit, sem mælt er, at skamma stund verðr hǫnd hǫggvi fegin. Ok er sá nú allr einn í þínu fǫruneyti, er nú hefr eigi hǫfuðs, ok hinn, er þá fýsti ins verra.4 En liðveizlu mína em ek skyldr at leggja til, alla slíka sem ek má.” 4hefja hǫfuðs sbr. hefja handa KdeS 22913; – er þá fýsti ins verra Y, Gr K? (eggjaði . . .); er þá eggjaði ins verra (versta verks R), er eigi var fram komit RSv.
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