Unwanted Hero, Praised Outcast : The Outlaw Motif in Arons saga Hjörleifssonar and Sturlunga saga
The result's identifiers
Result code in IS VaVaI
<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F00216208%3A11210%2F21%3A10416987" target="_blank" >RIV/00216208:11210/21:10416987 - isvavai.cz</a>
Result on the web
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DOI - Digital Object Identifier
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Alternative languages
Result language
angličtina
Original language name
Unwanted Hero, Praised Outcast : The Outlaw Motif in Arons saga Hjörleifssonar and Sturlunga saga
Original language description
Outlaw stories are rare in the contemporary sagas not because they became unpopular as literary structures, but because the legal function of outlawry had been weakened by social developments in twelfth- and thirteenth-century Iceland. As the political climate in Iceland changed and created a destabilising power-struggle, in which a victory for one side could turn into a defeat for them within weeks, there was little space for heroic outlaws, as the emboldened chieftains were able to disregard outlawry and to protect their followers of lower social standing from pursuit if they so wished. Although the outlaw pattern is not frequent in the contemporary sagas, there are two stories, that of Aron Hjörleifsson and that of Þórðr Sighvatsson, in which this narrative structure is fully developed and forms the texts' meaning. Significantly, however, the pattern does not end with the protagonist's death like in the typical outlaw sagas; instead, it is combined with the travel pattern that ends with the protagonist's reintegration into society with the help of the Norwegian king. The structural parallel between the narratives of Aron Hjörleifsson and Þórðr Sighvatsson highlights that the two men were similar in spite of the initial hostility between their families, and it underlines the fact that such enemies were able to find common ground and reach agreement eventually despite their conflicts. These ideas counterbalance the depictions of widespread social violence of the Sturlung Age, thereby creating a less one-sided image of the period than has been offered by traditional interpretations of the contemporary sagas. Whilst these texts suggest that a certain degree of instability was inevitable during the transformation of Iceland's social order leading to its integration into the Norwegian kingdom, they focus on the renewal of balance through reconciliation, showing that the Sturlung Age was not perceived as a period of social downfall and disintegration, but rather as a period of transformation that brought new methods of resolving conflicts. These methods were rooted in centralized power, which had become necessary to the thirteenth-century Icelandic society.
Czech name
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Czech description
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Classification
Type
C - Chapter in a specialist book
CEP classification
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OECD FORD branch
60500 - Other Humanities and the Arts
Result continuities
Project
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Continuities
S - Specificky vyzkum na vysokych skolach<br>I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace
Others
Publication year
2021
Confidentiality
S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů
Data specific for result type
Book/collection name
Unwanted : Neglected Approaches, Characters, and Texts in Old Norse-Icelandic Saga Studies
ISBN
978-3-8316-4942-6
Number of pages of the result
36
Pages from-to
107-142
Number of pages of the book
318
Publisher name
Utz Verlag
Place of publication
München
UT code for WoS chapter
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