Íslendingasögur, Þættir & Nasty Old Men

I just finished reading an article by Ármann Jakobsson, "The Specter of Old Age: Nasty Old Men in the Sagas of Icelanders."Jakobsson argues that the depiction of old age, especially that of men, is predominately negative in the Middle Ages. The scholarship written on old age specific to Medieval Icelandic, or Scandinavian texts is highly limited, and Jakobsson's contribution is widely useful.

Eyrbyggja Saga

Ármann Jakobsson is an excellent scholar; I have followed his work since I became interested in Medieval Iceland and it has always proved insightful and eloquent. Yet, this is one of the funnier articles I have read - largely due to his concentration on Þórólfr Twist-Foot (Jakobsson uses the nickname "Lame-Foot"; but I remain using "Twist-Foot" because that is how I first read it so it is more or less ingrained in my mind). Þórólfr Twist-Foot is the "nasty old man" who figures in Eyrbyggja saga, a short but highly complex saga loosely translated as "The Saga of the People of Eyrr". Eyrbyggja saga belongs to the group of sagas known as Íslendingasögur, unlike the Fornaldarsögur previously discussed. Íslendingasögur are the "Sagas of the Icelanders" or "Family Sagas" which most people are familiar with, and Eyrbyggja saga is one of the greatest family sagas written. It also features the prolific chieftan Snorri Goði (Snorri Þorgrímsson by birth - his father was murdered by his uncle and prominent Icelandic hero Gisli in Gísla saga, of which Snorri Goði is constantly mocked for not avenging his fathers death against his uncle). Eyrbyggja saga was most likely written in the mid thirteenth century, but recounts events which took place at the time of Iceland's settlement. This is the main dating technique used when discussing sagas - there is the "Saga-Age" and the "Age of Saga Writing". The "Saga-Age" is the dating applied to the time of action within the story; while the "Age of Saga Written" is the dating referring to the time of writing in which the story was compiled.

Þórólfr Twist-Foot is not necessarily a main figure in Eyrbyggja saga, as he is only introduced in Chapter 8 through his successful landowning mother, and more or less disappears until Chapter 30 whereby he becomes angry, annoying, old and bitter. What a Medieval Icelandic audience would have known or learned about Þórólfr Twist-Foot is that he is an "ójafnaðarmaðr" - a trouble-maker, or literally an "uneven handed man". This type of personality trait was highly negative in Medieval Iceland. To be unevenly handed is unfair, unjust, and unheroic (See: Andersson, Theodore. "The Displacement of the Heroic Ideal in the Family Sagas," Speculum 45.4 (1970): 575-593.) The discussion which Jakobsson outlines is a continual decay and degeneration as Þórólfr Twist-Foot ages:

Hann tók nú at eldask fast ok gerðisk illr ok æfr við ellina ok mjǫk ójafnaðarfullr... [He began to age quickly, growing more ill-natured, violent, and unjust with the years...] (Jakobsson 298)

The decline in his years parallels the decline in his persona. Jakobsson points out that when Þórólfr Twist-Foot begins to haunt Fróðá (a farmstead), it is a reflection of himself in old age during life, instead of a reinvention of himself in death.

Jakobsson identifies another nasty old man, this time in the eponymous Þáttur (short-story) "Þorsteins Þáttur stangarhǫggs" or "Þorstein Staff-Struck". The idea which Jakobsson portrays here is that the Þórarinn, the nasty old father to Þorstein Staff-Struck, represents an 'ancient' decaying ideal - the heroic-warrior ideal most notable and admired in the Viking-Age. His son, Þorstein Staff-Struck is less quick to take up arms against people who do him wrong, he is much more level-headed than his father Þórarinn. This naturally makes Þórarinn incredibly angry and annoyed with his son, and resorts to using verbal abuse to instigate emotion from Þorstein. He states that he would rather his son Þorstein die, than for him to live without honor and the heroic ideal. The differences between father and son in Þorsteins Þáttur stangarhǫggs point to a growing tension with the warrior-code old Icelanders used to live by. In this way nasty old Þórarinn has been called a "fossilized relic of the viking past."

There are numerous instances in the sagas where old men, aging, anger and bitterness play subtle but fundamental roles. Yet these two men, Þórólfr Twist-Foot and Þórarinn are perhaps paragons of the "nasty old man" which Jakobsson seeks to illuminate. They certainly represent a feature of Icelandic society which too is dying, and perhaps their reactions and responses within a new societal framework are the reflective feelings of a tradition lost.

"I don't believe one grows older. I think that what happens early on in life is that at a certain age one stands still and stagnates." T.S. Eliot

Jakobsson, Ármann. "The Specter of Old Age: Nasty Old Men in the Sagas of Icelanders," Journal of English and Germanic Philology 104.3 (2005): 297-325.