Eyrbyggja Saga Week 12 Prompts
Welcome to Week 12 of Eyrbyggja Saga and the final chapters! This week (Dec. 14th 2020—End) we’re reading chapters 59—65, as laid out in Hermann Pálsson’s translation. This week’s section starts off as follows:
Snorri the Priest took over the case against Ospak and his men from Alf the Short….And so we end this story about the people of Thor’s Ness, Eyr, and Altafjord.
Snorri goði tók við málum Álfs hins litla öllum á hendur þeim Óspaki….Og lýkur þar sögu Þórsnesinga, Eyrbyggja og Álftfirðinga.
Below are some prompts to invoke discussion. You don’t have to answer them (unless you want to), and you’re welcome to ask questions of your own for the group to discuss! We ask that you participate at least once a week in one form or another, be it through a response paragraph, fanart, etc., but you’re free to choose whatever topic you’d like. Remember to DM a link to your responses to @edderkopper so we can find them!
1. Prosecuted by Snorri the Priest on behalf of Alf the Short, Ospak is sentenced to outlawry. According to Gragas or the Grey Goose Laws, there were stipulations embedded to protect those associated with the lawbreaker, such as the partner and heirs being accounted to in the form of bride-price etc. when wealth was to be divided as compensation (Gragas I). How does Ospak screw this all up legally speaking?
2. Why is the attention of the saga’s last chapters fixed so heavily on outlawry and the hoarding of wealth, and specifically the terror raised by Ospak around the community? Do we know of a creature also representative of these qualities? How does this reflect on Snorri the Priest and in general the social climate of the land?
3. How is the term Viking/Vikings used in this saga?
4. Bet you thought you’d seen the last of Thorolf Twist-Foot! Why might draugar be connected to farms? What is one of the worst fears the community has with regards to Thorolf’s haunting? Why throw his ashes into the sea?
5. Bet y’all also thought the seal would be the end of weird funky animals too—hah! Yeah, right! Does the haunting of the cow follow any spooky patterns of traditional draugr possession? Think about setting, the cows’ coloring, etc.
6. Do you think Thorolf is the bull and if so: Imagine you are Thorolf—could you ever be that pissed off to contrive a way to come back to life as a cloven bull? What is it that you think fuels his need to stay in the land of the living at all costs? (Bonus Recommendation: Check out Ármann Jakobsson’s book Glæsir)! OR what evidence do we have to suggest that the bull isn’t Thorolf?
7. We are not even given a name for Thorodd’s Foster-Mother throughout the entire haunting incident. How are elderly woman regarded in the saga, and why might this be? Is there a duality to their character culturally and literarily? What does the purpose of skadic verse serve for this “old woman?”
8. What can you glean about the reception of Icelanders within the frame of sagas as detailed in Chapter 64? What do you think about the mystery of Bjorn the Breidavik-Champion?
9. Finally: What was your favorite part of the saga? Did you like the story, or do you have any critiques? Any lasting questions you yourself want to share? Let’s keep the conversation going with your fellow readers!