Another new blogger and a Njála podcast

Welcome to new blogger jenward! Jen is another Tucson children’s book writer; she’s written countless delightful picture books based around desert (and other) habitats.

Found this podcast of Njál’s Saga online. (They plan to move on to other sagas after that one.) I’m not in love with this translation, and some of the pronunciations of place names seem just a little awkward, but mostly, it’s great fun to be able to load saga chapters onto my mp3 players and listen while I walk, work out, and so on.

And I’ve already noticed something new, on my third (this time audio) go-through of the saga.

Remember Hrut, Hallgerd’s uncle, who says she has the eyes of a thief? Throughout the early chapters, there’s other evidence of animosity between Hrut and Hallgerd–but then, when Hallgerd wants to get rid of Thjostolf, who killed her first two husbands, she sends him to Hrut, knowing–I’m assuming–that Hrut will kill him. So in a sense, she winds up turning to the uncle she possibly hates–and who possibly hates her–to help her out here. Huh.

Of course, Hallgerd’s other uncle, who helped shelter Thjostolf after he killed Hallgerd’s first husband, is out of the saga (and possibly living inside a mountain) by this point.

It also seems more and more clear that Hallgerd didn’t want her second husband dead. She’s blamed for the death of three husbands, but it looks like only two to me.

Plus Thjostolf, possibly. Plus some other deaths later on that may or may not be a result of her goading. But only two husbands.