Snorri Sturluson

Gandalf

Have you read any books or heard any tales where Norse gods and heros appear? Have you met Odin and Thor, frost giants or dwarves, or heard about Ragnarok?  It turns out that there’s really only one source for this impressive and rich mythology — the thirteenth-century Icelandic works of Snorri Sturluson, which are called Eddas or sagas. 

If you’ve read the work of Tolkien, you have encountered a version of Sturluson’s creations, as Tolkien acknowledged — including the names of many of his characters (though he did invent hobbits and promoted Gandalf to a lofter position). Neil Gaiman’s American Gods?  His Norse gods who reappear in America first appeared in Sturluson’s works. In childhood did you read retellings of these myths? The first one to write them down (or maybe to invent them) was Sturluson. In fact:

“Snorri influenced writers as various as Thomas Gray, William Blake, Sir Walter Scott, the Brothers Grimm, Thomas Carlyle, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Robert Browning, Richard Wagner, Matthew Arnold, Henrik Ibsen, William Morris, Thomas Hardy, J. R. R. Tolkien, Hugh MacDiarmid, Jorge Luis Borges, W. H. Auden, Poul Anderson, Günther Grass, Gabriel García Márquez, Ursula K. LeGuin, A. S. Byatt, Seamus Heaney, Jane Smiley, Neil Gaiman, and Michael Chabon.” (Song of the Vikings, p. 6)

I was very interested to learn the extent of Sturluson’s responsibility for what one naively would think to be a body of mythology from wider sources. I was also interested to read many details of his creative endeavor, and to picture the characters and landscape backgrounds in my mind’s eye as I read about them.

Heiðrún, the cosmic goat

Egil Skallagrimsson was one of the many characters described in the Icelandic sagas called Eddas.
In the book Song of the Vikings, the author Nancy Marie Brown describes the saga’s Norse heros and gods.

“Egil’s Saga is one of the best, as well as one of the earliest, of the Icelandic sagas. Many scholars believe Snorri wrote it, perhaps while he lived at Borg, more likely toward the end of his life. Not only does it center on his kinsman Egil, ancestor of his mother, Gudny, it depicts the landscape surrounding Borg in a way that only someone who lived there could.” (p. 45)

 

This book is full of very detailed descriptions of the historic figures who lived in medieval Iceland, and who played a role in the life and work of Snorri Sturluson (1179-1241). I find it a bit tedious to read because it overwhelms one with all these details, though in a way it’s fascinating. For example, we learn about Snorri and his wife (or partner) Gudrun;

“When Snorri moved to Reykholt in 1206, Gudrun came with him. Officially she was his housekeeper, in charge of the weaving and clothes making, the laundry and housecleaning, the dairying and cheese making, ale brewing and cooking, and overseeing the multitude of female chores involved in running a large household. She and Snorri had several children but only one lived past childhood: their daughter Ingibjorg, who was born in 1208.

I’m sufficiently overwhelmed that I don’t feel able to write a real review of this book, but I am still enjoying the thought of how amazingly much is known about Snorri. For example:

“Snorri’s family estate of Hvamm (Grassy Slope) was tucked into a lush green bowl at the inward tip of a deep island-studded fjord in the West of Iceland. Sheltered by jagged hills, it was one of the few great estates without a sweeping view. Its first settler was a woman, Aud the Deep-Minded, the only female chieftain Iceland ever had.” (p. 42)

Among other things, reading this book made me think about our visits to Iceland and Greenland, where we saw the landscapes that inspired the background of the Eddas. Here are a few photos — 

A mural in Iceland (2021). Maybe with Vikings.

Review and photos © mae sander.