My Favorite Character

For this blog, I had to do a bit of digging...literally, through the 700+ pages of our Saga book, because I've honestly forgotten a lot of the characters from the beginning of the semester. Egil, Eirik, Leif, Freydis, and of course Ref, are still at the forefront of my mind, but I thought I remembered some interesting ones back in the day. So, for my final blog I thought I'd remind you all about Sarcastic Halli.

The Tale of Sarcastic Halli was memorable to me not only because the title of the Saga helps me remember the gist of the story, but because the character was one I could easily relate to. Especially in the beginning of my immersion into the Viking society, identifying with a character whose tale is told in a setting so different to modern day (in many ways, I realize now there are a good handful of similiarities) made me care more about what that character had to say.

This may seem a little crude, but one of the reasons I might have liked this character more than others is because of his language. I can't remember another saga or character that uses more commonly-known swear words in his/her tale! Between dropping the f-bomb on the second page, and telling the King he "doesn't give a damn" about his policy of clearning everyone's food when he himself is finnished cracked me up! I mean, in the college-realm we hear people cussing up a storm, but not so often in the academic setting. It was refreshing and humorous to me to come upon this so early and in such strong context in the sagas.

Then, to top it all off, his "riddle" to mock his poetic opponent, Thjodolf, sealed Halli as my favorite character. He claims that he should be more favorable in the eyes of the kind because Thjodolf is such a brute that he killed and ATE his father's killer. But, it turns out that his father was inadvertently killed by a pig that Thjodolf and his family later ate for dinner.

Halli's cleverness, sarcastic take on life, and even his primal and vulgar outbursts never ceased to amuse me. In fact, I think Halli might fall closley in comparison to a modern day frat guy, and that likliness had me chuckling at all of his antics, imagining them in the light of today's society.

The Saga of Ref the Sly

I really liked the character Ref in this saga. I was surprised at the beginning to see a main character described as being "unuseful [and] loll[ing] underfoot," and his mother certainly cemented the Nordic dissaproval of idleness when she tells him she wishes he were never born and she would have rather had a daughter.

My favorite part about Ref is that every murder he commits is done for a solid reason, and his tactics overall seem honerable for the standards of the day. The only questionable part that I saw was that he killed the five men during the evening (we have previously heard in Egil Saga that killing during the night was murder, but killing during the day was revenge).

I think the fact that he killed for good reasons and with logic in mind was a big part of the reason his killings were so often praised thereafter. His mother was only proud of him when he avenged her stolen hay supply, and in the end King Svein calls his devious and clever actions "valient and magananimous," even though he killed his own men. It was his cunning disguises and alias',tricky stategies with the boats, and clever craftsmenship in creation and protection of his buildings that added glory to his victories.

The sucession of names he undergoes throughout the story amused me, and I was surprised to see him referred to as Ref the Gay, meaning homosexual, because I was unaware that gay was ever a synonym for homosexual that early in history. The slander the saga refers to reminded me a lot of high school gossip, espeically because it assaulted his sexuality and masculinity.

Vinland Sagas

I'm not going to put much up here becacuse I have a lot to say in class tomorrow and a lot of work to do on my presentation still, but I will say that I enjoyed reading these for once. I don't konw if it was because the stories were at least a bit familiar (I feel like we at least heard about Leif Eiriksson every Columbus day in grade school), or because the characters were FINALLY approaching lands I recognized. My favorite part about these stories is that there is historical evidence to back up parts of them, so I can wonder less about whether or not any of it really happened. Also, the comparison of the two tomorrow should be intriuging, because there are some significant differences...and not just in who spotted what first. Hope you all liked the reading as much as I did!