Rolf is the son of Hiarandi the Unlucky. Hiarandi, at the urging of his wife, does an unforgivable thing: he lights a signal fire on a dangerous point of his land, challenging the accepted custom that place lucrative salvage at a higher value than the saving of life. However, the life that is saved that night causes his own death and the unjust outlawing of his son Rolf. This tale exemplifies the effect of Christ's teachings upon the Icelandic people during their heroic age. The book is set in Iceland in the days when Christianity has come to the island though the old customs still linger.
Chapter 1 No.1
Copyright, 1904,
By Little, Brown, and Company.
All rights reserved
The University Press, Cambridge, U.S.A.
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TO MY BROTHER
HOLLIS FRENCH
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PREFACE
From thirty to sixty years ago appeared the greater number of the English translations of the Icelandic sagas. Since then the reading of these heroic tales has so completely gone out of style that their names are rarely mentioned in schools or even colleges. What boy feels his blood stir at the mention of Grettir? How many lovers of good reading know that the most human of all epics lie untouched on the shelves of the public libraries? The wisdom of Njal, the chivalry of Gunnar, the villainy of Mord, the manhood of Kari, the savagery of Viga-Glum, the craft of Snorri, and the fine qualities of Biarni, of Biorn, of Skarphedinn, of Illugi, of Kolskegg, of Hrut, of Blundketil-all these are forgotten in the curious turn of taste which has made the stories of a wonderful people almost a lost literature.
For the Icelanders were a wonderful people. To escape the tyranny of kings they settled a new land, and there built up the laws and customs in which we see the promise of modern civilization. Few early peoples had such a body of laws; few developed such manhood. No better pictures of a law-abiding, rural, and yet valiant race have ever been made than in the tales which the Icelanders had the skill to weave about their heroes, those men who, at home in their island, or so far abroad as Constantinople, made the name of Icelander respected.
We read of these men and this people in stories which, somewhat too "old" for boys and girls, reveal the laws, customs, habits of a thousand years ago. The Njal's Saga, the Grettir's Saga, the Ere-Dwellers' Saga, and the Gisli's Saga are perhaps the greatest of those which have been translated. They are reinforced by such shorter pieces as Hen Thorir's Saga, and the Stories of the Banded Men, the Heath-Slayings, Hraffnkell Frey's Priest, and Howard the Halt. The spirit of those days is particularly well given in that wonderful fragment of Thorstein Staffsmitten which (not being part of any complete saga) has been drawn upon for the closing incidents of the present story. Many other such incidents are preserved, a reference to one of which (in a footnote to-I think-the Ere-Dwellers' Saga) gave the suggestion for the main plot of this book. At the same time, in contemporary writings, we may read of the life of other divisions of the Scandinavian race; the story nearest to this book is the Orkneyingers' Saga.
The main interest of all these tales is the same: they tell of real men and women in real circumstances, and show them human in spite of the legends which have grown about them. The sagas reveal the characteristics of our branch of the Aryan race, especially the personal courage which is so superior to that of the Greek and Latin races, and which makes the Teutonic epics (whether the Niebelungen Lied, the Morte Darthur, or the Njala) much more inspiring than the Iliad, the Odyssey, or the Aeneid.
The prominence of law in almost every one of the Icelandic sagas has been preserved in the following story; and the conditions of life, whether at home or abroad, have been described as closely as was possible within the limits of the simple narrative form which the sagas customarily employed.
ALLEN FRENCH.
Concord, Massachusetts,
May, 1904.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter 1 No.1
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Chapter 2 OF THE LIGHTING OF THE BEACON
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Chapter 3 OF THE SOURSOPS, AND THE CURSE WHICH HUNG ON THEM
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Chapter 4 KIARTAN AT CRAGNESS
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Chapter 5 OF EINAR AND ONDOTT
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Chapter 6 THE SUMMONING OF HIARANDI
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Chapter 7 OF WHAT HIARANDI SHOULD DO
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Chapter 8 HOW HIARANDI RECEIVED THE LESSER OUTLAWRY
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Chapter 9 OF SCHEMINGS
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Chapter 10 OF THE OUTCOME OF ONDOTT'S PLOTTINGS
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Chapter 11 HOW ROLF NAMED WITNESSES FOR THE DEATH OF HIARANDI
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Chapter 12 OF ROLF'S SEARCH FOR ONE TO SURPASS HIM WITH THE BOW
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Chapter 13 OF THE TRIAL OF SKILL AT TONGUE
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Chapter 14 OF THAT ROBBER
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Chapter 15 HOW ROLF AND EINAR SUMMONED EACH OTHER
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Chapter 16 OF SUITS AT THE ALTHING
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Chapter 17 THE ACT OF DISTRESS
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Chapter 18 ROLF AND FRODI FARE ABROAD
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Chapter 19 HOW THOSE TWO CAME INTO THRALDOM
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Chapter 20 NOW MEN ARE SHIPWRECKED
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Chapter 21 HOW ROLF WON HIS FREEDOM
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Chapter 22 HOW ROLF WON THE VIKING'S BOW
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Chapter 23 NOW KIARTAN RETURNS
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Chapter 24 OF THE COMING OF EARL THORFINN
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Chapter 25 NOW ROLF AND GRANI QUARREL
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Chapter 26 HERE ROLF COMES TO CRAGNESS
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Chapter 27 OF GRANI'S PRIDE
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Chapter 28 ODD DOINGS AT CRAGNESS
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Chapter 29 OF THAT HARVEST FEAST
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Chapter 30 OF THE TRIAL OF GRANTS PRIDE
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Chapter 31 OF THE SAYING OF THOSE TWO WORDS
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Chapter 32 No.32
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Chapter 33 No.33
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