Strong Women: A manifestation of Christian values in the Icelandic family sagas
The Íslendingasögur (The Sagas of the Icelanders or Family Sagas) feature stories about prominent Icelandic families from 850-1050 AD, authored anonymously, narrated like history. In the 20th century, scholarship shifted these works from a historical lens to a literary one. It became apparent that the era in which these stories were committed to text, the late 13th and early 14th centuries, was so far removed that it was not an accurate representation of the post-colonial period in Iceland, rather a reflection of 13th century ideas, morals and values reflected in narrative form. In 1964 Pálsson published Siðfræði Hrafnkels sögu, which not only brought to light the overlooked overt Christian themes presented in the Íslendingasögur but arguably forever changed the way academics would interact with the sagas.
Many of the Íslendingasögur feature ‘strong women’ as key characters, central to themes and narrative development. They often offer greater substance and agency, fictional or not, than their European and contemporary counterparts. This can be seen particularly in the avenues and accruement of divorce, marriage and clerical marriages that Jochens (1980, 1986) discusses compared to the Grágás laws when examining historical veracity. Iceland officially became Christian in 999/1000 AD, meaning many of the Íslendingasögur take place before official conversion. Interestingly, many feature Christian themes, ethics, and values alongside blatant conversion pandering. These themes, alongside the ‘foresight’ of the coming better faith, often foretold by a pagan, highlight how these stories reflect the agendas of the 13th and 14th centuries and the educated people who wrote them. We will never know with certainty who committed the sagas to text but by the time they were written down Iceland had been Christian for 200 years. While those writing the sagas, with most academic arguments supporting clerics or those educated by churchmen, may have been versed in Norse myth and legend, they were Christians living in Christian societies for centuries, educated in biblical and classical texts. Their formal education came from places of systematic and institutionalised Christian centres of learning and they had no way of accurately describing a Norse/Dane pre-Christian society. Nor were they inclined to do so, as this does not fit the message of continuity seen through the sagas.
In examining strong women within the sagas, we can see propaganda pushing a Christian agenda of right and wrong, good and evil and the place of a woman in Christian Iceland. This depiction of women can be seen through the actions of ‘strong women’ who function admirably within a Christian context. Parallelled against women, who when viewed through a western second and third wave feminist lens in the 21stC would be considered strong. However these women function outside of the acceptable Christian construct of the early medieval period and therefore are often labelled with unfavourable terms. The manifestation of Christian virtues, or lack thereof, in the sagas often denote those who will fail and those who will flourish and equally as significant how we remember them. Strength found in women real or literary has been a constant and shifting dynamic throughout time. What makes a good woman, a strong woman, a weak woman or an evil woman often shifts with the audience that is receiving and accepting the information. Woman’s Lore by Sarah Clegg takes a singular ancient female deity passed from culture to culture and tracks their reception, acceptance, rejection and arc over 4000 years. Classic cases beyond an in depth study like Clegg’s exist in abundance such as the shifting narrative arc for Monica Lewinsky and and the absolution of the women falsely persecuted as witches in the 16th and 17th centuries. The same can be seen in the sagas as the audience and time has shifted who is strong and good has begun to be interpreted differently. As is the beauty of history it allows each generation to read the past and see it anew.
When we look to the Íslendingasögur for strong women, we often find that a virtuous woman and an immoral woman are apparent in the texts, if not pitted directly against each other. This can be seen clearly in the Grænlendinga saga (GS) and the Eiríks saga rauða (ES). These sagas tell a similar tale; however, each varies in their depth of detail on certain aspects. The GS is considerably briefer and features only two prominent women, Guðrið and Freydís, creating a sharper comparison. From the outset, the audience is aware which of these women is strong in the appropriate way. Freydís is introduced as overbearing and ambitious, whereas Guðrið is both striking and demure, an “exceptional woman” who defers to men’s wishes; both are among the few women to make major voyages. We learn the scope of Guðrið’s goodness when her husband Thorvald rises from the dead to give her a prophecy. The prophecy makes it immediately clear that Guðrið is a good Christian woman. On the other hand, Freydís lies and cheats from the moment she sets off for Vinland, is rude and demanding, dresses as a man and tricks her husband via the Germanic-Nordic narrative trope of ‘whetting’ to kill their business partners and men. Jochen describes this as an act often committed by women using words to whip men into action when they find revenge or violence the only reasonable option and their male counterpart has not acted in a timely manner. After the murders, the men are unwilling to kill the remaining women, so Freydís commits this monstrous act herself swearing her party to secrecy. When her last surviving brother Leif finds out, he curses her line, a common trope, “that her descendants will never prosper”, marking the end of the audience’s knowledge of Freydís. It is critical to keep in mind that a Christian author has purposefully chosen not to shed further light on her pagan past, Quinn points out that it is the saga writer themselves who takes revenge on Freydís a woman who never converts by silencing her story while venerating the “bishop-rich family line of Guðrið”’. Conversely, with Guðrið, we are privy to her whole life story; pilgrimage to Rome, establishment of a nunnery and her descendants, who include some of Iceland’s firsts bishops. Guðrið’s embodiment of Christian values allows not only herself to prosper but ensures the line of her descendants is recorded.
Guðrið, much like Guðrún in Laxdæla saga who despite being the protagonist for much of the revenge-based drama, at times assuming the whetting device, is redeemed through her wisdom, beauty, motherhood, and devotion to the church. Said to be the “first nun and anchoress in Iceland”, her descendants feature in prominent religious roles whereas Freydís’ short-term gain by evil methods dooms everyone in her line. However, it should be highlighted that even though Guðrið is presented as a virtuous woman, being a woman means she is not above reproach. There is a short sequence where she appears to favour another man while her husband lies dying, and the sentiment appears reciprocated. As the ancestress of religious figures, this is often disregarded. After his death, they are timidly affectionate; however, Thorvald’s prophecy stops it all. An indication of how easily women, descendants of the original sinner Eve, may fall off the Christian path and require the guidance of men; an intrinsic characteristic of Christianity. Nevertheless, Freydís is never mentioned (unlike her brothers) as a converter. She is a representation of the pagan past best forgotten and Guðrið of the coming Christian future to be exalted in history.
The ES, while similar in the overall storylines, is far more embellished and fanciful than the GS. This version features magic, prophecy, poetry and heavy description, lacking the commonly laconic features of the Íslendingasögur. These thematic and style changes make up the bulk of the arguments that see the GS as being written prior to the ES, however Gywn Jones points out they could simply be differing local versions of a common Icelandic tradition. This saga introduces us to Aud the deep-minded, a devout Christian and the archetype of a strong woman with agency and autonomy unmatched in the Íslendingasögur. The audience receives a heightened view of Guðrið’s devotion to the church, and her dereference to men’s rule. When the little-Sybil comes to tell fortunes, she requires assistance in chanting warlock songs. Guðrið reluctantly admits to the knowledge but is unwilling to participate as she is a “Christian woman”. Pressed by the men in the room, she partakes and is consequently told a blessed fortune, including that her progeny “will shine a light brighter than I [the sybil] have the power to discern”. The ‘light brighter’ indicating the bishop is descended from Guðrið, affirming the importance of female lineage in Christian Iceland. The second piety to Christian ethics occurs from Thjóðhild, Eirík’s wife. Thjóðhild puts aside her husband the moment she converts, building a church praying daily, refusing to have anything to do with Eirík unless he converts. This is an excellent example of a strong woman who denies her husband out of faith and belief and a clear indication of expected devotion to the church. A third act of piety occurs when Guðrið reappears in the story, with her dead husband giving a prophecy aligning with the GS. Except now amidst the ES telling, she is instructed to give their money to the church and cease the custom of burying the dead in Greenland in unconsecrated ground. Quite the diversion from the GS and a clear indication of the tithe expectations and values of 13th C Christians and practices echoed. Freydís once again takes the role of the depraved woman; however much diminished in the ES, she moves from a treacherous woman with agency to a literary trope. Maintaining a level of violence, she still takes up arms this time against the Skraelings, bears a breast and shocks them into running away. She is still presented as wilful, violent, and conniving, all while heavily pregnant and assumes masculine energy when she picks up a sword, implicitly signaling she can outperform everyone else's masculinity. While not all academics agree with the Amazonian comparison, undoubtedly the portrayal of female masculinity disrupts the inherent maleness of masculinity. The men committing the sagas to text likely had exposure to classical literature, this scene, exposing her breast, screams of the Amazons of ancient Greek epics. The amazon reading is favored by Kirsten Wolf however Oren Falk counters this, they argue that in classical and medieval literature the Amazon has been used as “trouncing-fodder for male champions rather than as archetypes of virtuous female derring-do”. When Freydís picks up the sword she does so with intent, whetting (sharpening) the sword with her own body, Gareth Evans neatly highlights that Freydís uses her female body to prepare for a masculine act, the masculinity here is “primed and proceeds from a female body”. This would have been the ultimate perversion for early medieval authors and audiences. In both the GS and the ES Freydís holds too much agency to simply be a medieval interpretation of an amazon, however the links are there but again this roots her and her personality in a deeply pagan world. The women of Eirík’s saga who convert are the ones who are praised and remembered, and those who stick to pagan ways, like Leif’s summer romance with erudite occultist Thórgunna, and Freydís emulating less than acceptable femininity are relegated to monstrous and bizarre. A picture of the past is painted that best suits the authors and patrons. One can easily see Freydís and Guðrið as archetypes of Eve and the Virgin Mary. These texts do more than highlight the Christianity of the 13th century in Iceland, they advocate for everyone to put aside any pride in their Viking pasts and fully embrace the church’s ways by highlighting the prosperous descendants of those in the texts who do so. It is difficult in the historiography of every era preceding the dominance of Christianity to determine the relationship between conversion and the narrative of it, Siân Grønlie points out that it is common to find the narrative of conversion retrospective and rationalised. Written during an era in Icelandic history where the conversion years are over, christianity has held sway for 200 years and from the 12th C Icelandic hagiography is on the rise this is exactly what we see in the sagas. These saga interpretations by the time of their commitment to text rationalise and retrospectively outline Christian acts, words and foresight to make Christianity's arrival and success seem inevitable.
Women are present in many of the Íslendingasögur, and while those of Njál’s Saga and Eyrbyggja are still today widely read favourites of the genre, there is perhaps none better when examining women than that of the tragic-drama-romance Laxdæla Saga. This saga places women at the forefront and with such clear voices and agency that Kress and Jesch have posed the possibility that it holds the most evidence of female authorship. Jesch highlights Footes’ note that “the sagas themselves offer us prime information about the audiences who first heard and approved them”. Each storyline within the saga is actively progressed through the female characters’ actions, clearly composed with a female audience in mind. The timeline predates conversion in Iceland. Therefore, many of the plot hints at the coming religion, and the endings of many key characters are mirrored based on their conversion status. It is perhaps the closest reflection of continental European literature during the popularity of chivalric knights and maiden romances and, like the ES, lacks the laconic aspect often associated with sagas predominantly when describing emotions. With a grander introduction to Unn (Aud) the deep-minded and the slave to princess transformation of Melkorka, the saga mainly revolves around the love triangle of Guðrún. At a glance, nostalgia for the age of settlement plays a more significant role, as we follow Unn’s descendants, than the age of conversion, particularly compared to Njál’s saga and the similar timeframes. Njál’s saga deeply covers the lead up to conversion and subsequent outcomes. However, through the actions and outcomes of the women in Laxdæla Christian values are reflected to the audience.
An issue when identifying Christian themes that are not presented as overtly as “the child was sprinkled with water” lies in early Christianity’s porous nature. It was easily moulded, accepting of finding ways to incorporate long-held local custom and beliefs and remaking them as Christian; a key aspect of its early success. The universal morals of honour, revenge, love and female subservience, or lack thereof, as plot devices predate Christianity. Therefore, the idea that the representation of good and strong women in the family sagas symbolising emerging Christianity is not emphatically true. What we can examine here are instances when women hold some autonomy and yet continue to defer to their male relatives. We must note that often when we think of strength in literature we think of freedom, however as Kress highlights women in Old Norse Literature not free, often their strength comes from the resistance of their oppression, even though they never succeed.
An instance of this occurs in Laxdæla with Guðrún, a beautiful and clever widow who, supposedly in Icelandic law, holds the power to accept a marriage suit. She is romantically waiting for Kjartan’s return from Norway, which ironically is delayed by Christianity. However, she is persuaded by Bolli, her brothers, and her father to accept Bolli’s suit, Kjartan’s foster brother and best friend, which she had already declined. The blurb of Pálsson’s translation goes as far as to say, “forced to marry”. Here perhaps, we can perceive a situation in which the Christianity of the 13th C is being reflected in the text. Guðrún had already refused Bolli’s proposal and yet, against her wishes, nonetheless ended up married to him during a stage of her life where she should have held her power. This reflects Jochen’s works which highlight the reality of acquiring divorce and consented marriage arrangements in early medieval Iceland, (still preferable to continental Europe) dependent on social status, is not as accessible to women and empowering as the sagas would have us believe. Jochens and Van Deusen further argue that this idea of autonomy over marriage is fictional material presented in the pagan past to push the 13th C Christian model of “mutual fidelity" and “mutual consent” around marriage agreements. Van Deusen asserts the Íslendingasögur functioning like the later Saints’ sagas are mirrors through which the authors could prescribe current social expectations and aspirations.
When looking at the sagas, what is absent is just as important as what is overtly, or subtlety expressed. Literature through the ages is full of great friendships between women; there are terms coined solely to express this relationship like sisterhood, sorority, and clique. The Íslendingasögur are utterly devoid of any genuinely affectionate expressions of female friendship. There is however one expression of true solidarity in Grettis Saga during the trial of Spes of Constantinople. There are more expressions of male-female friendships than there are expressions of sisterhood outside of clearly loving bonds between kinswomen. Women are constantly pitted against each other and, as Van Duesen points out, used as antagonists to tear apart “ideal male friendships”. Like in Njál’s Saga with Hallgerður and Bergþóra’s feuds and Laxdæla with Bolli, Kjartan and Guðrún’s love triangle. She expresses that the saga authors, ecclesiastical men, use the sagas to highlight positive male friendships and the dangers of women participating in interpersonal relationships outside of the house. By doing this, they reinforce the Christian ideals that strong women are those who understand their place and duties are within familial bonds. Being such a female centric text strong female friendships should be able to be found in the Laxdæla saga; however, it is the jealousy and bitterness between strong women that ultimately drives this female-led saga. Highlighting a key component of the Íslendingasögur’s the suppression of the feminine in society (and as Kress states men suppressing their own femininity) when it sits outside the control of men, which is often a catalyst for conflict. This not only underpins social, political and gender constructs of the 13th C but ensures the authors present a past that promotes Christian ideals and perfect male characters alongside flawed women. Flawed characters after all are more nuanced and relatable and the women receiving and accepting these stories needed to be able to connect with them.
The Íslendingasögur feature strong women; however, these women are never allowed to flourish together. There is always a sense of competition, and if not competition, a clear message is relayed through the actions of these women. A message that instructs right and wrong, highlights a woman's duty to family and church, and ignores intrinsic relationships and activities outside of this scope. The women of Grænlendinga saga, Eiríks saga rauða and Laxdæla saga are all used as mirrors for the 13th and 14th century Christian authors to reflect an agenda that pushed church propaganda, even to the point of manipulating shameful pagan pasts to their benefit. Whether women are strong in a positive sense like Aud, Guðrún and Guðrið or strong in a negative lens like Freydís and Thorgils, they each present a canvas on which Christian messaging can be relayed. While modern interpretations might infer different messages, it is essential to remember that these are the versions of the sagas that survive; the contrast between GS and ES highlights this, and that in itself tells us something about the audience who received and accepted these versions. The innate goodness, beauty and wisdom of strong female characters in opposition to treacherous, ambitious and aggressive strong women denotes the success of those who flourish and those who are actively written out of the tales of Iceland. As these texts cannot accurately depict 850-1050 AD in Iceland, our main ability is to assess social and political expectations of women in the 13th and 14th C as seen by Christian men and the literary characters that must have resonated with their audiences.
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