The Feuds & the Law
The Banded Men
The self-made man and his shabby father
The saga sets up a comic contrast from the first. Oddr is a self-made man — he leaves a poor home, builds a fishing and trading fortune by his own grit, and grows rich and respected entirely on his own account. His father Ófeigr is the opposite picture: an old farmer, poor in goods, fond of his own cleverness, easy to underestimate.[1]
Oddr, in his prosperity, rather looks down on the shabby old man. It is exactly the setup a satire wants: the successful son who thinks he needs no one, and the down-at-heel father whose only wealth is his wits. The whole saga will turn on the reversal — that when real power comes against Oddr, his money and standing are useless, and the only thing that can save him is precisely the old man's cunning he had discounted.
The source text · 1
A man named Ufeig dwelt westaway in Midfirth, at a stead called Reeks: he was the son of Skidi, and his mother was called Gunnlaug, whose mother was Jarngerd, daughter of Ufeig Jarngerdson, of the Skards in the north country. Ufeig was wedded to a woman called Thorgerdi daughter of Vali; she came of great kin, and was a stirring woman. Ufeig was a wise man, and full of good counsel; he was great-hearted in all wise, but unhandy at money-getting; great and wide lands he had, but was scant of chattels; he spared not to give his meat to any, yet mostly was it got by borrowing what was needed for the household; he was thingman of Styrmir of Asgeir's-water, who was then held for the greatest chief west away there.'— bandamanna saga
Oddr's self-made rise and his father Ófeigr (Morris & Magnússon 1891).
The steward and the killing
Trouble came through a hireling. Oddr took on a smooth-talking steward named Óspakr to manage his affairs — and Óspakr proved grasping and violent, fell out with Oddr, and was eventually mixed up in a killing (of a man named Váli).[1]
Oddr set a case afoot against Óspakr — and in doing so handed his enemies their opening. For the killing and the lawsuit gave the powerful men of the district, who envied Oddr's wealth and resented a self-made upstart, exactly the pretext they wanted. What should have been a straightforward suit became the seed of a conspiracy: the great men saw, in the legal tangle around Óspakr, a way to turn the law itself into a tool for stripping Oddr of everything.
The source text · 1
The tale tells that in harvest-tide men fare up into the fells, and all changed was Odd's ingathering from what had been; for at this autumn folding he missed forty of his wethers, and they the best of his flock.;. They were searched for wide over fell and heath, and were not found: men deemed this wondrous, for Odd was accounted luckier With his sheep than others so hard men drave the search that other countries as well as the home country were searched, and nothing done; and at last the matter dropped, but there was diverse talk as to how it came about.— bandamanna saga
Óspakr's violence and the slaying of Váli (Morris & Magnússon 1891).
The banding of the chieftains
Then eight of the most powerful chieftains in Iceland did a remarkable thing: they banded together — the saga's title — explicitly to bring Oddr down and divide his wealth among themselves. They would use the machinery of the law, a rigged blood-suit pressed by overwhelming force of rank, to fleece the upstart and split the proceeds.[1]
It is the saga's sharp satirical point, and a daring one: it shows the great and respected men of the land — the goðar, the pillars of the legal order — as a cartel of greedy schemers, abusing the very law they administer for naked profit. Against eight such men, openly leagued, Oddr's case looked hopeless; no one would dare answer it, and the confederates swaggered about the Thing as though the spoils were already shared. Oddr, despairing, simply rigged his ship for sea and prepared to leave the country rather than be devoured.
The source text · 1
Now is it told that Styrmir and Thorarin had speech together, and Styrmir said : "Great mocking and shame have we gotten from this case."— bandamanna saga
The eight chieftains band together against Oddr (Morris & Magnússon 1891).
The guiles of old Ófeigr
Here the discounted old man steps forward. Ófeigr — whom everyone, including his son, had written off — took the case in hand, and the saga becomes a comedy of cunning. He shuffled about the Thing-booths feigning a broken, defeated old wretch, bent at the knees, stumbling, sighing that there was no help to be had.[1]
It was all performance. Going to the confederates one at a time, beginning with Egil, Ófeigr flattered each man's vanity, sounded out his greed, and quietly worked on the fatal weakness of any cartel: that its members trust each other not at all. To the two chieftains who actually held the power to rule the case, he offered gold — large bribes — to switch the award in Oddr's favour, while letting each believe he alone was being favoured.[2] The pompous, openly-greedy band was no match for one poor old man who understood exactly what each of them really wanted.
The source text · 2
On a day went master Ufeig from his booth : he was full of trouble, seeing no man to help him, and thinking his case heavy to push : scarce could he see any way for him alone to deal with such great men ; and in the case was no defence; he went all bent at the knees, and wandered stumbling among the booths. Thus fared he a long while, but came at the last to the booth of Egil Skulison ; and men were come thither to talk with Egil, so Ufeig hung about the booth doors, and waited till the men were gone away. Egil followed them out, and when he was going in again, Ufeig turned and met him, and greeted him, Egil looked on him, and asked him who he was: "Ufeig am I called," said he.— bandamanna saga
Ófeigr feigns a broken old man among the booths (Morris & Magnússon 1891).
So departed Ufeig from Egil, and went his ways: he went wandering among the booths, still somewhat dragging of gait, howbeit not so downcast of heart as tottering of foot, and nought so easily tripped in his case, as he is lame of foot. At last he cometh to the booth of Gellir Thordson and has him called out; he came forth, and greeted Ufeig first, for he was a lowly-mannered man, and asked what his errand was; Ufeig answers: "I was just wandering about here."— bandamanna saga
Ófeigr flatters and bribes the chieftains apart.
The award turned
When the case came to judgement at the Thing, the trap the confederates had set sprang shut on themselves. The two great men Ófeigr had bribed — entrusted with making the award — turned it entirely in Oddr's favour, to the open fury and bafflement of the rest of the band, who could only watch their sure thing collapse.[1]
And Ófeigr had a final humiliation prepared. He arranged matters so that the confederates, having lost their prey, fell to quarrelling among themselves over the wreck of their scheme — exposed before all the Thing as the greedy cartel they were. The men who had swaggered in expecting to divide a fortune went home with nothing but ridicule. It is the rare saga where the powerful are not feared but laughed at, and where the weapon that defeats them is not a sword or even a lawsuit fairly fought, but sheer, gleeful cunning.
The source text · 1
Now it is to be told that on the morrow men go to the Hill of Laws, and a great crowd is there; and Egil and Gellir gather their own friends together: Ufeig was of the company of Styrmir and Thorarin.— bandamanna saga
The award at the Thing turned against the band (Morris & Magnússon 1891).
The saga that laughs
Oddr, his fortune and standing saved by the father he had under-valued, was reconciled to Ófeigr; he made a good marriage and sailed his trading voyages in peace, and even the steward Óspakr's story was wound up.[1] The comedy ends, as comedies do, in restoration and a wedding rather than a cairn.
Bandamanna saga is the odd one out in the corpus, and deliberately so. Where the great sagas treat feud, law and honour with tragic gravity — Gunnarr's doom, the burning of Njáll, Gísli's long death — this one turns the same machinery into satire: a sharp, knowing send-up of grasping chieftains and the abuse of the law, in which the underdog wins not by nobility or strength but by out-thinking his betters. It is proof that the saga-writers could see the comedy in their own world's obsessions — and that the cool intelligence prized across the whole corpus could, in the right hands, be aimed to make the mighty ridiculous.
The source text · 1
Now that father and son meet, and Odd was now ready dight for sea. So Ufeig tells Odd that he has given the Banded Men self-doom.— bandamanna saga
Oddr reconciled, his voyage and wedding (Morris & Magnússon 1891).
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