01 | Saga Land | The story of Gunnar

Broadcaster and author Richard Fidler, with this friend the writer Kari Gislasen, travel across Iceland to discover the Sagas – the ancient tales of Viking love, war and humanity. This episode tells the story a famous Viking warrior, Gunnar, and his destructive love affair with the most beautiful and dangerous woman in Iceland, Hallgerd. And Richard and Kari have another mission during their time in Iceland: to try and find out if Kari is related the one of the country’s greatest saga writers. Credits: Writers - Richard Fidler and Kari Gislason Producer - Richard Fidler Sound Engineer - Steve Fieldhouse Music composition - Richard Fidler Saga Land https://harpercollins.com.au/products/9780733339707 is written by Richard Fidler and Kari Gislason, published by Harper Collins/ABC Books, 2018

• 0:00Speaker 00

  ABC Listen, podcasts, radio, news, music and more.

• 0:07Speaker 01

  Hey, Teagan Taylor here from Life Matters. When you think of grandparents, what comes to mind? Maybe a secret stash of lollies? Well, grandparents aren't just spoiling the grandkids anymore. They're raising them and paying the bills. This July on Radio National, The Grandparent Trap explores the joys and pressures of being a modern grandparent.

• 0:29Speaker 01

  The Grandparent Trap and much more on Life Matters. Search for Life Matters on ABC Listen or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 0:37Speaker 02

  Welcome to ABC Rewind. Hilary Harper here to bring you a magical series presented by Richard Fidler from The Conversations podcast. About a decade ago, Richard and his friend, the writer Kari Gislasen, travelled to Kari's birth country, Iceland, to discover the sagas, ancient tales of Viking love, war, honour and humanity. But there's another kind of connected reason for their visit to the wildly beautiful island. They're trying to solve a mystery in Kari's family history. Here's Richard.

• 1:23Speaker 03

  My friend Kari is a Viking.

• 1:27Speaker 03

  Last year, he told me he was going to Iceland. I said, I was coming with him.

• 1:35Speaker 03

  Kari Gislasen is an author and an academic. We've been friends for some years. He lives around the corner from me and our families hang out together. Kari even looks the part of a Viking. He doesn't have a beard or wear animal skins, but he is six foot four and he struggles to get comfortable while flying in an economy seat. Have you ever killed anyone with your bare hands?

• 1:55Speaker 04

  Not yet, Richard.

• 1:58Speaker 03

  Kari was born in Iceland and he's lived there for long stretches of his life. As a young man, he drifted away, but he found his way back through the sagas of Iceland, the family stories of the first Icelanders from the Viking Age.

• 2:13Speaker 04

  The sagas are some of the best stories ever written. This was a rich culture that left no real material artefacts. There are no grand buildings, there are no ruins. Everything disappeared, except the stories.

• 2:31Speaker 03

  They're a way of finding ourselves right into the mind of a Viking man and a Viking woman.

• 2:38Speaker 04

  I totally believe that. I think we can meet the Vikings in these stories.

• 2:45Speaker 03

  These are tales of blood feuds and dangerous women. There are fugitives and warrior poets and men and women, brothers and sisters, who were forced to kill the ones they loved the most. So Kari and I came up with this plan. We would go to Iceland and we would tell the stories of four Viking men and women. And we'd do this in the locations where these stories actually happened. We would travel across Iceland, hiking into fields and across rocky fjords and farms to speak the words of Kari's Viking ancestors into the stones and streams of Iceland.

• 3:25Speaker 03

  And there's something else, another much more personal reason to go to the land of the sagas. Kari only ever met his Icelandic father four times in his life. And on their last meeting, he gave Kari something, a gift that was a name, that was a mystery.

• 3:47Speaker 04

  No one ever knew who my father was. Mum had made a promise to my father when she first fell pregnant. He asked her to never reveal who he was. He was a married man. He had five children. It was a small country where everyone knew everyone's business. But he did ask her to protect his identity for the sake of his family life.

• 4:14Speaker 03

  So when you say he wanted her to protect his identity, the only way he could do that was by concealing your identity?

• 4:21Speaker 04

  Indeed. And mum didn't write any name down on the birth certificate. She didn't want to reveal him, but then again, she didn't want to invent a different name. And it took me 27 years to break the secret that my mother had kept. In the end, it fell to me to decide that I wanted the world to know who my real father was. And when I was 27, I wrote to my siblings, my father's children that he'd had with his

• 5:06Speaker 04

  wife before I was born. And I introduced myself to them in a letter and they welcomed me into the family.

• 5:16Speaker 04

  And on the day that I met my father for the first time after writing to them, he said to me, Kari, what are you doing with your life? I said, well, I'm in literary studies. I'd like to be a writer. He said, ah, that makes sense. Oh, why? You know you're related to Snorri Sturlason, don't you?

• 5:44Speaker 03

  Snorri Sturlason. Snorri Sturlason is only the most famous Islander who ever lived. He's like their Shakespeare and George Washington, all rolled into one. A medieval Icelandic statesman, poet and author.

• 6:03Speaker 04

  Snorri was a saga author who had died in 1241.

• 6:08Speaker 03

  But is it true that Kari is actually descended from Iceland's greatest literary figure, the great man of the sagas? Well, the answer is, we just don't know. Kari hasn't been able to find out. There's a roadblock. That's because Kari has no official connection to his father through the birth certificate.

• 6:26Speaker 04

  Because of the way that the genealogical trees are documented, I haven't yet been able to find out for sure whether I am related to Snorri or not.

• 6:38Speaker 03

  So that right there became our ulterior motive for going to Iceland, to find out if what Kari's father told him is actually true. To do this, we need to go to Iceland's vast genealogical database that connects today's Icelanders all the way back to their Viking ancestors. That way, we can see if Kari really is directly descended from the greatest of the saga authors.

• 7:03Speaker 03

  And so we got on a plane to Iceland, the land of the sagas, saga land.

• 7:19Speaker 03

  Reykjavik, Iceland's capital, is a small city, just around 200,000 people, but it's pretty arty and kind of cool. The sagas are everywhere here. Translations of the sagas are front and centre in bookshops. There are images of saga heroes on posters and tea towels. Icelandair's business class is even called saga class.

• 7:41Speaker 04

  All these people would know the sagas. Now, they get them at school. It's like Shakespeare for Icelanders.

• 7:52Speaker 03

  We're in the Arni Magnusson Institute in Reykjavik. It's the place that stores the original saga documents. We've come to see Gudrun Naudal.

• 8:01Speaker 05

  I'm the director of the institute. We are the custodians of the medieval manuscripts.

• 8:06Speaker 03

  These are obviously really incredibly precious documents. Are they in some kind of, I don't know, 10 miles underground in a nuclear proof bunker or something, Gudrun? Have you got something like that?

• 8:14Speaker 05

  Well, they have a bunker, you could say that. Yes, exactly. They're very important. They're our national culture, if you like.

• 8:21Speaker 03

  How old were you when you were introduced to the sagas, Gudrun?

• 8:24Speaker 05

  I was very young. I think, I was just thinking this. I think I was probably about 10, 11 when I read my first sagas. But you were given a book and you said, try to read a saga and you did.

• 8:42Speaker 03

  The first saga story we want to tell is the story of a Viking man from the 10th century called

• 8:49Speaker 04

  Gunnar of Lithrendi.

• 8:51Speaker 03

  Gunnar can trace his line of ancestors, deep into the Viking past.

• 8:56Speaker 04

  There was a woman called Ranve. She was the daughter of Sigfus. Son of Sigvater. She married Haumundur. Who was the son of Gunnar. Son of Beuger. Haumundur's mother was called Ratnildur. Daughter of Storofus. The son of Henker. Was the brother of Rapp. The law speaker. Ranve. And Haumundur had a son, his name was Gunnar.

• 9:18Speaker 03

  Gunnar was an Islander. He went to Norway for a while, and then he returned to Iceland with wealth and honour. That summer, he came to the annual assembly at a place called

• 9:29Speaker 04

  Thingvætliar.

• 9:30Speaker 03

  On paper, that reads like Thingvalia.

• 9:32Speaker 04

  Thingvætliar.

• 9:33Speaker 03

  Thingvætliar. Yeah, whatever, man.

• 9:37Speaker 03

  Thingvætliar is a gorge. It's a rift forged by the rupture of tectonic plates. It's essentially the gap in the surface of the earth between Europe and North America. And when you walk into Thingvætliar, you see these two slate grey cliff walls on either side of you. And there's a stream with grassy banks and little sprays of summer flowers. It's a naturally grand and ceremonial place.

• 10:09Speaker 03

  And so in the Viking Age, Iceland's chieftains and farmers and their families would come here to Thingvætliar each summer and make the laws of Iceland. It was a kind of parliaments.

• 10:21Speaker 03

  Kari and I sat down in the place where one day, a thousand years ago, Gunnar came into Thingvætliar. And people couldn't stop looking at Gunnar because he seemed to have everything.

• 10:33Speaker 04

  He was handsome, he could swim like a seal, he was a great swordsman, a bowman, he travelled widely, he was athletic. The saga says that he could jump as far backwards as he could forwards.

• 10:48Speaker 04

  And that he didn't mount his horse the way other men mounted their horses. He would run up behind it with his halberd and dig it into the dirt and project himself into the saddle.

• 11:00Speaker 04

  Gunnar has come back from Norway. He's wearing a beautiful cloak. And he's done big things abroad. And he's walking through these rifts. And he sees the most beautiful woman that he's ever seen. Her name is Halgeth. And as soon as they see each other, something passes between them.

• 11:26Speaker 04

  They know that they want each other. Gunnar asks her to sit down with him. And he tells her about his travels.

• 11:37Speaker 04

  Eventually, he asks her, are you married? And she says, you can't possibly be interested in that.

• 11:47Speaker 04

  He says, well, what if I am?

• 11:50Speaker 04

  She answers, then you should go and speak to my father and my uncle.

• 11:56Speaker 04

  When Gunnar went to see her father and her uncle, they said to him, Gunnar, we like you. You're a good man. We don't think you should marry our daughter. She'd been married twice. She was married to a man she didn't love and who she'd been forced to marry. And when she expressed her displeasure to her foster father, he found a new resting place for his axe in the head of her husband. She then married a man that she did love. And when they had a falling out and Halgeth was upset, against her wishes, her foster father once again found a new resting place for his axe.

• 12:38Speaker 04

  She'd lost two husbands, one she didn't mind losing, the other that she grieved.

• 12:44Speaker 04

  But Gunnar knew what he wanted. Something very basic had passed between them. And they needed each other. And against the advice of a kinsman, Gunnar married Halgeth and took her back to his farm.

• 13:09Speaker 04

  It was never going to be easy, I don't think, for Halgeth to settle in. Here was this new woman, and a rather proud one. And naturally enough, there was some resistance to her arrival.

• 13:23Speaker 04

  Gunnar's best friend, Nyarl, who was a lawyer, could tell that Halgeth's arrival would not bring good luck to Gunnar of Lithrendi. But he invited Gunnar and Halgeth to a feast to be held at Nyarl's farm. Gunnar and Halgeth went to the dinner. But straight away, there was a problem with the seating arrangements. Halgeth wasn't given the seat of honour that she expected. And immediately, there was animosity between Halgeth and Nyarl's wife.

• 14:02Speaker 04

  The two women hated each other.

• 14:07Speaker 04

  They began their own duel, their own feud. And they conducted it, first of all, through their slaves. They had their slaves kill one another.

• 14:18Speaker 04

  But eventually, the feud escalated until it got quite close to the level of Gunnar and Nyarl.

• 14:28Speaker 04

  The friends were able to stop it going too far. And for a moment, there was some peace in the district. But Halgeth had made her mark.

• 14:38Speaker 04

  And when a period of austerity began, and there was a lack of supplies in the area, Gunnar went to visit one of the neighbouring farmers, a guy called Ottkell, and asked him for provisions for hay. He refused, and Halgeth was furious.

• 14:59Speaker 04

  She sent another slave to Ottkell's farm and told him to raid the place, destroy what he could, and bring something back for her ladder.

• 15:11Speaker 04

  He came back with cheese.

• 15:15Speaker 04

  The next time Gunnar had visitors, Halgeth came out with this cheese and served it to his friends. And Gunnar reeled back and said, where did you get the cheese, Halgeth?

• 15:29Speaker 04

  She answered, don't concern yourself with domestic matters, Gunnar.

• 15:36Speaker 04

  He hit her across the face.

• 15:41Speaker 04

  She said, I will remember that blow.

• 16:01Speaker 03

  Gunnar's farm, Lithrendi, is about a day's ride on horseback from Thingvætliar, on the south coast of Iceland. Lithrendi means end of the slope, and it's on a very grassy hill that runs down to the plains.

• 16:15Speaker 04

  What was happening in this area was that someone of Gunnar's standing was beginning to attract enemies, people who were jealous of him. And they began to band together. There was slander about Gunnar, people tried to bait him into fights.

• 16:35Speaker 04

  And eventually, a big fight broke out near here, near his farm.

• 16:41Speaker 04

  And Gunnar killed a number of his enemies.

• 16:45Speaker 04

  At the end of it, he turned to his brother and said, why do I find it harder to kill than other men do?

• 16:55Speaker 04

  He was good at it, but he hated it.

• 17:00Speaker 04

  He consulted his best friend, the lawyer, Nyarl, on almost everything. And Nyarl gave him this piece of advice. He said, never kill twice in the same family.

• 17:14Speaker 04

  Gunnar replied, I wouldn't do that. Nyarl said, but if you do, you must accept the settlement that's made for you by men of goodwill.

• 17:24Speaker 04

  And Gunnar agreed.

• 17:33Speaker 04

  His enemies kept at him and eventually Gunnar killed Ottkell, the farmer who had refused him provisions. And when Ottkell's son came after Gunnar, as he was honour bound to do,

• 17:49Speaker 04

  Gunnar was forced to kill him as well.

• 17:54Speaker 04

  And so against his own nature, Gunnar had killed twice in the same family. And the matter was referred to the parliament, to Thingvætli, for arbitration and settlement.

• 18:09Speaker 04

  Gunnar wasn't really to blame for that attack and for that death. They had attacked him and provoked him constantly. But all the same, men of goodwill came up with this settlement. Gunnar had to go away for three years of exile, after which he could come back. And Jál said to him, if you accept this settlement, you will prosper and you will live an honourable and long life in Iceland. And Gunnar agreed to it. He'd leave for three years with his brother.

• 18:42Speaker 04

  They rode down from here, from this farm, down the slope.

• 18:49Speaker 04

  But as he rode down, his horse tripped on something and Gunnar jumped off.

• 18:57Speaker 04

  He looked up at this field and said, "Fjögur er klíðin." "The slope is beautiful. I will not go."

• 19:11Speaker 04

  His brother was shocked and said, "Don't please your enemies by doing this. I can't stay with you in Iceland." But Gunnar insisted and he rode back on his own to his farm.

• 19:26Speaker 04

  Halget was very pleased that he was back.

• 19:31Speaker 04

  His enemies really now had to attack him. He'd broken the settlement and the next move was theirs. They approached this farm and they began their attack. Gunnar had a bow and he was able to keep them at bay with it. He could kill with this weapon and no one was going to get to him while he had it. They made one attack and it failed. They made a second attack where they tried to get in from the top and Gunnar thrust his halberd up and kept them out.

• 20:02Speaker 04

  And they were about to give up and were turning away from here.

• 20:07Speaker 04

  When Gunnar spotted an arrow on the side of the roof. His mother said, "Don't grab it." But Gunnar thought it would be fun to humiliate his enemies with one of their own arrows. And so he put his arm out and reached for it. And as he did so, they saw the glint of a gold band on his arm and thought, "If he needs one of our arrows,

• 20:34Speaker 04

  he must be in trouble. He's running out." And they turned back.

• 20:40Speaker 04

  This time they had a plan. They got rope and they put it around the roof and they heaved the roof off the place and began their attack from above.

• 20:55Speaker 04

  Gunnar still had his bow, but eventually the bowstring broke.

• 21:01Speaker 04

  He looked at Halget, saw her long hair and said, "Halget, lend me some of your hair. I need it to repair my bow."

• 21:13Speaker 04

  She said, "Does very much depend upon this."

• 21:17Speaker 04

  He said, "My life depends upon it, Halget."

• 21:22Speaker 04

  She answered, "In that case, let me remind you of that time you hit me. I refuse."

• 21:36Speaker 04

  After that, Gunnar had nothing to defend himself with. He was exposed and they came in at him and they stabbed him with their swords and with their spears and he was exhausted. Until finally, he died here in front of Halget.

• 22:10Speaker 03

  That moment when Gunnar falls off his horse and he says,

• 22:14Speaker 04

  "Fjögur er klíðin." "The slope is beautiful. I will not go."

• 22:21Speaker 03

  That line is like the most famous line to Icelanders. Every Icelander knows that phrase.

• 22:26Speaker 04

  Over the centuries, it's come to mean how important it is to love this country and to stay here for that love.

• 22:34Speaker 04

  Because it is a hard place to live. And I've always felt that if you want to stay here, you have to make a choice to stay here.

• 22:40Speaker 03

  So Kari, there's this moment in the saga where Gunnar hits Halget for stealing the cheese. It's a really shocking moment. And in return, she refuses to give him that lock of hair for his bow. And so he dies. Why is she doing that? Is that, what is that? Is that punishment or revenge or what?

• 23:00Speaker 04

  It's not punishment or revenge, I don't think.

• 23:04Speaker 04

  Halget's honour is just as important as Gunnar's. And she protects it in that moment.

• 23:13Speaker 03

  We're told that these are stories about real people who really lived in Iceland during the Viking Age. Who wrote this story down?

• 23:19Speaker 04

  We don't know the author, but you know, most probably a cleric in the 13th century.

• 23:25Speaker 03

  What do you think the author thinks of Halget?

• 23:29Speaker 04

  I think the author wants to hate her. But she comes out in her own defence in the saga too. And I think at the end of the day, he couldn't. She's too interesting.

• 23:42Speaker 03

  You think, you think the author wants us to disapprove of her?

• 23:45Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 23:45Speaker 03

  But we end up liking her anyway because I like her.

• 23:47Speaker 04

  I like her too. I like her a lot. And I like her because despite all the best efforts of this author, she comes through on her own terms.

• 24:03Speaker 03

  So what happens to Halget after all that?

• 24:07Speaker 04

  It seems that she retreats into a fairly miserable existence. She's condemned by Gunnar's mother for the choice she makes and she lives under that condemnation for the rest of her life. And eventually ends up at Lögarnes as a small farm in modern day Reykjavik.

• 24:25Speaker 04

  And that's where she dies.

• 24:36Speaker 03

  People here in Iceland are obsessed with saga stories like the tale of Gunnar. Because so many of them can trace their line of ancestry all the way back to those Vikings that are named in the stories. Now, earlier I mentioned that Kari was once told by his father that he might have a direct line of descent from the greatest of the Icelandic saga authors.

• 24:58Speaker 04

  Snorri Sturluson was a saga author who had died in 1241.

• 25:03Speaker 03

  But so far, he's been unable to find out whether it's true. The silences around Kari's family history have created an official roadblock for him when it comes to the genealogical record. And so while we're back here in Reykjavik, we're going to find out whether it's true, whether Kari really is connected to the great man of Iceland.

• 25:26Speaker 04

  I want to know about a connection that I might have to a person who wrote works that I treasure and that Icelanders treasure still today. You know, Snorri is not an obscure medieval figure for Icelanders. He's one of the father figures of art and culture in a country that really, really values those things. And I value them. And so I am curious about this connection, even if I don't really know what it means to have a connection to someone in the past like this.

• 26:10Speaker 03

  Is it a real connection if it goes back 10, 12 generations? Is that, is that a real connection though?

• 26:15Speaker 04

  I don't know if it is. I mean, because between me and Snorri, there are no doubt murderers and farmers and decent folk who did nothing much with their lives.

• 26:30Speaker 03

  Someone who worked in the Department of Land Tax.

• 26:31Speaker 04

  Yes, exactly. And, and that naturally forms me as much as any other ancestor.

• 26:40Speaker 03

  Okay. Well, let me turn the question around the other way. If when we go there, we find out that you are not his descendant, will you be disappointed?

• 26:53Speaker 04

  Even though logically speaking, I don't think I would lose anything. I would still have an attachment to him. What would be missing is that intimate connection that seems to be implied. And there is something very seductive about that. And maybe it's because of, of me being so far away.

• 27:21Speaker 04

  It becomes even more alluring.

• 27:33Speaker 02

  So is Kari related to the greatest of the Icelandic saga writers, Snorri Sturluson? You'll have to keep listening to find out. Next time, Kari tells us the great love story of Gudrun and the two men who were so captivated by her grace and dignity, they were prepared to sacrifice everything, even their friendship, for her love. And after making Saga Land, Richard and Kari couldn't keep away from this territory. So they created another podcast series called Viking Lives, a history of the Vikings told through a chain of biographies of Norse women and men. You'll find it on your favourite podcast app. Off the back of this audio series, Richard and Kari co-wrote an award-winning book also called Saga Land, The Island of Stories at the Edge of the World.

• 28:18Speaker 02

  Richard is also the author of The Ghost Empire, The Book of Roads and Kingdoms, and The Golden Maze. Kari's books include The Sorrow Stone, The Promise of Iceland, Running with Pirates, and The Ashburner. This has been Rewind, a Radio National production.

• 28:34Speaker 06

  You've been listening to an ABC podcast. You can discover more ABC podcasts, live radio and exclusives on the ABC Listener.