Sunday 19 June 2016

What Comes Next

I have reread Poul Anderson's Hrolf Kraki's Saga (New York, 1973) as far as pp. 74-75: Hrolf is born, Hugleik dies and Beowulf has another adventure. Now, in pp. 76-261, Hrolf must grow up, rule, acquire the name "Kraki," fight and die until:

"Here ends the saga of Hrolf Krali and his warriors." (p. 261)

We will be with Hrolf for quite a while yet. Although he is the title character of the saga/novel, Hrolf does not have a chapter named after him. The chapters are:

I. OF THE TELLING.
II. THE TALE OF FRODHI -

- which we have read -

III. THE TALE OF THE BROTHERS -

- which we are reading -

IV-VIII. THE TALE(S) OF SVIPDAG, BJARKI, YRSA, SKULD and VOGG.

We know Yrsa, Hrolf's mother. We see from the genealogy on p. xv that Skuld is Hrolf's half-aunt or something. No gods have appeared in the narrative yet but give them time. I am involved in family activities here...

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Oops! I meant the note I uploaded in the "Seagulls" piece to be placed here! I mean my comments about how the Scandinavian sagas and Poul Anderson's contributions to that genre were multi-generational family records.

Sean