Kormáks saga

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The Kormáks saga is an Icelandic saga and was probably written in the first half of the 13th century. It is considered one of the oldest sagas, belongs to the six skald biographies and is one of the few sagas in which a love story is the focus or an important part of the plot.

Lore

The saga is handed down in the Möðruvallabók (around 1340), a short section can be found in the more recent manuscript AM 162 F, fol. from the late 14th century.

action

The setting is mainly north-west Iceland, the main theme of the saga is the lifelong unhappy love of the skald Kormákr for Steingerdr. In the saga, a curse from the magical Thórveig is the reason why the two ultimately fail to come together. Because of this curse, Kormákr misses the already set wedding date, which is why Steingerdr no longer wants to have anything to do with him. She is subsequently married twice and ultimately decides in favor of her second husband and against Kormákr. There are also other subplots, such as Steingerd's first husband Bersi, which are only loosely linked to the main plot.

Characters

  • At the center of the plot is clearly Kormákr Ǫgmundarson , creative poet and brave warrior, a character full of contradictions that are not really resolved in the saga. He makes a career abroad, but the real drive behind his actions is, unusual for a saga hero, the love for a woman who ultimately remains unattainable for him (through his own fault or because of a curse). It is all the more important for him, the more it distances itself from him; If, however, there is a certain rapprochement on their part or if there is another possibility of a positive turnaround (e.g. lifting the curse), then it is he who keeps his distance or does not use such possibilities. Kormákr is also headstrong, he rejects reasonable advice, tries to enforce his own ideas and is by no means ready to come to terms with given facts.
  • Steingerdr is first and foremost the projection screen for Kormákr's passion. She is actively involved in the first encounter, giving the impression that she initially reciprocates Kormákr's feelings. She is the driving force behind the engagement with him. After Kormákr abandons the wedding, she no longer wants to have anything to do with him. She rejects her first husband Bersi, to whom she is married against her will, and later divorces him, although she appears quite unsympathetic. Her second husband does not cut a good figure in the plot and ultimately even wants to release it for Kormákr, but she sticks to him or this marriage.

Relation to other Icelandic sagas

The plot of the Hallfreðar saga shows some parallels to the Kormáks saga . Both skald figures are also models for the figure of the skald Gunnlaug in the Gunnlaugs saga ormstungu . Kormákr's uncle Steinarr appears in the Egils saga as an opponent of Egil's son Thorstein.

historicity

Kormákr Ogmundarson (died around 968) is considered a historical figure. He is credited with award songs to the Norwegian King Harald II. Gråfell and the Ladejarl Sigurd Håkonsson . In the saga, Lausavísur (German: loose stanzas ) are also passed down, which may be older than the saga text, but whose author is not clear. The assumption that the love stanzas were influenced by the courtly love poetry, which spread from France in the High Middle Ages, is opposed to the assumption that it originated in the 10th century.

Text output

  • Einar Ól. Sveinsson (Ed.): Vatnsdœla saga (= Íslenzk Fornrit , Vol. 8). Hið íslenzka fornritafélag, Reykjavík 1939.

Translations

  • Kormak the love poet , in: Felix Niedner: Vier Skaldengeschichten (= Thule Collection , Old Norse Poetry and Prose, Vol. 9), Jena 1914, new edition Darmstadt 1964, pp. 143–206.
  • Kormáks saga Ogmundarsonar , in: Klaus Böldl, Andreas Vollmer, Julia Zernack (eds.): The Isländersagas in 4 volumes with an accompanying volume . Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2011, ISBN 978-3-10-007629-8 . Vol. 3, pp. 55-126.
  • WG Collingwood, Jón Stefánsson: The Life and Death of Cormac the Scald (= Viking Club Translation Series, Vol. 1), Ulverston 1902.

Secondary literature

  • Jónas Kristjánsson: Eddas and Sagas. Medieval literature of Iceland . Transferred from Magnús Pétursson and Astrid van Nahl, H. Buske, Hamburg 1994, pp. 233-236.
  • Kormáks saga , in: Kindlers New Literature Lexicon . Study edition. Munich 1988. Vol. 18, pp. 917f.
  • Claudia Müller: Narrated knowledge. The Isländersagas in Möðruvallabók (AM 132 fol.) (= Texts and studies on German and Scandinavian studies, vol. 47; also Bonn, Univ.Diss., 1999), P. Lang, Frankfurt am Main 2001.
  • Russell Poole: Composition Transmission Performance: The First Ten lausavísur in Kormáks saga , in: Alvíssmál , No. 7 (1997), pp. 37-60 (including the English translation of 12 lausavísur ).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ In addition to the Kormáks saga , the Skald biographies or Skaldensagas also include the Hallfreðar saga , the Bjarnar saga Hítdœlakappa and the Gunnlaugs saga ormstungu , as well as the Egils saga and the Fóstbrœðra saga . For this designation cf. Heinrich Beck, Dieter Geuenich, Heiko Steuer (eds.): Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde , 2nd revised and greatly expanded edition, de Gruyter, New York / Berlin 2005, Volume 28, pp. 559-562.
  2. ↑ Other sagas in which this is the case are e.g. B. the Laxdæla saga and the Gunnlaugs saga ormstungu .
  3. ↑ Kindler's New Literature Lexicon . Study edition. Munich 1988. Vol. 18, p. 917.
  4. ^ According to Kindler's New Literature Lexicon . Study edition. Munich, 1988. Vol. 18, p. 917 and Thomas Esser, in: Klaus Böldl, Andreas Vollmer, Julia Zernack (eds.): The Isländersagas in 4 volumes with an accompanying volume . Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2011, ISBN 978-3-10-007629-8 . Vol. 3, p. 557.
  5. ↑ Claudia Müller: Narrated knowledge. The Isländersagas in the Möðruvallabók (AM 132 fol.) (= Texts and investigations on German and Scandinavian studies, vol. 47; also Bonn, Univ. Diss., 1999), P. Lang, Frankfurt am Main 2001, p. 137f .
  6. ↑ Kindler's New Literature Lexicon . Study edition. Munich 1988. Vol. 18, p. 917
  7. ↑ Kormáks saga in the store norske leksikon (Norwegian / Bokmål ), last accessed on May 3, 2019.
  8. ^ Russell Poole: Composition Transmission Performance: The First Ten lausavísur in Kormáks saga , in: Alvíssmál , No. 7 (1997), pp. 37-60, here p. 43.