Moscow State University
Historical Faculty
Department of Medieval Studies
The Giants in the Viking Sagas:
Dynamics of Perception
This paper examines the tradition of
perception of the giants in the Fornaldarsögur
– one of the main types of saga literature. The corpus of these sagas dates
from 13-15th cent. The paper is based on one subtype of the Fornaldarsögur – the Viking sagas
[1].
In pagan mythology the giants (jötnar) have four main parameters:
appearance, age, character and intellect. The jötnar appear as mighty, ancient, wise and malevolent beings.
The prevailing notion in modern historiography is that they, first, were the
embodiment of nature’s forces, and second, played a role as adversaries to the
gods[2].
In a number of cases the giants in the
Fornaldarsögur are viewed in the
same vein as their mythological counterparts. The image of an archaic giant is
most thoroughly explored in Gautreks saga,
which incorporates a story of the two Starkads, both of which are explicitly
named jötunn [3].They meet all the four requirements
imposed for a giant from mythology. Another example is presented by secondary
characters of Hálfdanar saga
Eysteinssonar – Svadi and the jötnar
living on the shores of Dumbshaf (probably the Arctic Ocean) [4]. Sometimes
(not often) the giants preserve only part of the attributes of the mythological
jötnar, mostly wisdom [5].
Viking sagas are above all literary
writings where all the characters are assigned certain roles in the stories.
Giants with archaic features preserved are seldom described and usually have
episodic roles. There are no stable motifs based on the figures of mythological
giants.
The main perception of the giants in
the Viking sagas is quite different from the archaic way. In a number of cases
the texts describe the world of giants in general. This world has three main
features:
1) Geographic location. The lands
of the giants are usually located in climatic conditions extreme for humans,
most often in the North [6] – and the northern Scandinavian regions in medieval
times were hardly a comfortable place to live.
2) Social organization. It was
based on principles different from those of mankind (de facto – from the ones shared by the authors of the Viking sagas).
First of all, this included attitude to power, which was transmitted not by
birthright, but by a ‘sword law’. The ruler of Rísaland in Örvar-Odds saga must be the
strongest and most ferocious giant – the one to kill the most dangerous beast
and to keeps the most savage dog [7]. In Egils
saga einhenda ok Ásmundar berserkjabana the successor to the throne
of the same country is won by the one who kidnaps the most nobly born and
talented princess [8].
3) Value system. The giants’ society follows a set of
principles that would be viewed as unacceptable in the coordinates of human
morals – e.g. violence towards women, [9] as well as preference of brutal force
over intellect, which is proven by primitiveness of the material culture of
the giants [10].
The Viking sagas are, however, still
more inclined to describe not the whole of Jótunheimr, but only separate giants. In such cases these characters
preserve only the features required by the story – most
often it is hostility [11]. In several cases the word ‘giant’ is being used for
a comparison that shows extraordinary physical qualities of a human, usually it’s the enemy of the
protagonist [12].
The initial perception of the giants
in the Viking sagas retains all their main attributes – might, wisdom, long
age, malevolence. But the Viking sagas are already quite distanced from the
pagan tradition, and the jótnar of mythology
fit these texts badly. That leads to a new rendering of these creatures – an
attempt to fit heathen creatures into a non-heathen cosmology. The saga authors
are trying to create a model for the world where such beings could live – the
beings that in moral coordinates of the authors themselves are viewed as
essentially evil in nature. Gradually the
giants lose their inner integrity and begin to depend on the requirements of
the plot. However, there is no full extrusion of one conception by another –
elements of both can coexist in the same saga (e.g. Örvar-Odds saga).
[1] Here we take the broader definition
of the Viking sagas suggested by Glazyrina (Глазырина Г.В. Исландские викингские саги о Северной Руси. М., 1996),
which incorporates the texts classified by Schier as Abenteuersagas (Schier, K. Sagaliteratur. Stuttgart, 1970).
[2] Halvorsen,
E.F. Jotner. \\ Kulturhistorisk
leksikon for nordisk middelalder. København, 1962. B.VII.
[3] Gautreks saga, (further Gautr.)
3:12, 3:28. Sagas quoted after edition: Fornaldarsögur Norðurlanda. / Utg. av Guðni
Jónsson, Bjarni Vilhjálmsson. Reykjavík, 1944. Bd. 1–3.
Number before colon shows volume, after it – page.
[4] Hálfdanar saga
Eysteinssonar, further Hfd.Ey. 3:316, 3:317.
[5] Örvar-Odds saga, further Ö.O. 1:300, 1:301. Egils saga einhenda ok Ásmundar berserkjabana, further Eg.Ásm. 3:179–180, 3:181, 3:185.
[6] Ö.O. 1:299–300, 1:337–338; Eg. Ásm. 3:160–161.
Hfd.Ey. 3:316–317.
[7] Ö.O. 1:339.
[8] Eg. Ásm. 3:179.
[9] Eg. Ásm. 3:160–161, also cf.
footnote 10 below.
[10] Ö.O. 1:339, 1:341–342.
[11] Illuga saga Grídarfóstra 3:359, Ö.O. 1:299–300, 1:302 ff.
[12] Hrómundar saga Grippsonar 2:285. Ö.O. 1:320, Hfd.Ey. 3:308.
© 2005 Alexey Eremenko