Bree Hatfield's Reviews > The Saga of the Jómsvíkings

** spoiler alert ** As Lee Hollander mentions in the introduction, this “historical” saga has an air of legend to it, making it feel much more like a legendary saga like The Saga of the Volsungs or Beowulf. While there aren’t many supernatural events, there are enough to give the story a whimsical feeling. In my opinion, this saga bridges the gap between historical Icelandic sagas and legendary sagas beautifully.

The familial tension is very intriguing in this saga. The bastard Svein isn’t recognized by his father, King Harold, and so Svein harries Denmark and starts a war between them. Palnatóki, Svein’s foster-father and no friend to Harold, slays Harold — and even though Svein and Palnatóki love each other, the crime of Palnatóki killing Svein’s blood father is unforgivable in their culture. One could easily read between the lines and figure that Palnatóki knew the consequences of his own actions, but wished the war to end and for Svein to be king, and thought that killing Harold was the least-bloody way to accomplish this. He might have wished, or even expected, that his foster-son would show him mercy. But at the end of the day, he could not have expected anything other than what had happened, since he knew the law of the cycles of revenge. But regardless, he still feels utterly angry about this personal, if not legal, betrayal.

The Jómsvíkings are, simply put, very cool. It’s rare that we see such a unified force of Vikings tied together by specific rules and codes in the sagas, and it’s reminiscent of Medieval English knights. And through the creation of the Jómsvíkings, we get a further understanding of Palnatóki as a character; he is wise, resourceful, and a hard, but practical leader of warrior men. We saw a glimpse of this when he killed Harold, his first narrative foil, but it really shines when he forms the Jómsvíkings.

I wish that the central tension between the Jómsvíkings and King Svein persisted. It seems like the story was setting up tensions between the two since Palnatóki and Svein had such an interesting rivalry, but then it didn’t go anywhere. The fight against Earl Hákon seemed random, and not really in line with the themes previously presented.

This is a small gripe, but I wish that Búi’s character was more fleshed out. He doesn’t really stand out when compared to the other vikings, but his epilogue is interesting. I really love the saga motif of greedy wealth-hoarders turning into dragons, but it kind of came out of the blue since his character wasn’t developed.

It would have been better, in my opinion, for Vagn to have had the unhappy ending. I hated him since the start and thought he was extremely arrogant and dishonorable, so I was disappointed when he got a happy ending.

I love how pro-Pagan this story is. The forces of Earl Hákon win because of his devotion to the Old Faith, and like Hollander says in the introduction, this saga is chalk-full of Havamalistic heroics, especially with the Jómsvíkings. While I didn’t love that Vagn got a happy ending, it makes sense — he is a Viking, through and through.

One last note: the illustrations by Malcolm Thurgood were amazing. They were pretty sparse, but they really breathed life into this saga and it made the reading experience so much better.

Overall, this saga was very entertaining and pretty accessible! It’s a good one to read toward the beginning of one’s saga journey, though I would not suggest it to be the first that someone reads.