Grettir and the goslings

My class read the first chapters of Grettir's saga over the weekend, and we discussed it in class on Monday.  The first thing most of them wanted to talk about was the thing they had read last: the chapter about Grettir's childhood. That is the section of the saga where his father keeps giving him tasks that he considers beneath himself, and he finds very meanspirited ways to express his displeasure. He is told to look after the geese and goslings, and after a few days of this his rage at the insult is so great, he strangles all the goslings and breaks the wings of each goose. My students were pretty darn amazed at this description of Grettir's childhood. But I told them we would have plenty of chances to talk about Grettir´s personality over the next few weeks, and wanted instead to spend some time talking about Grettir's ancestors and how they are described in the beginning section of the saga.

Before class tomorrow, I guess I need to decide what to say about this kind of "vengeance for a slight" mentality that shows up regularly in the sagas and seems to have been accepted by the audience as a normal enough explanation for behavior. In fact it occurs to me that all the books we are reading this semester have characters who react to insults to their personhood in destructive ways.

I think I might actually spend some time talking about the horse that Grettir flays alive, because he dislikes that his father trusts the opinion of the horse about the weather more than Grettir's own weather-sense. Unlike Grettir's father and mother, the horse really fights back, rearing up on her hind legs, slamming Grettir up against the wall, biting him, etc. I get the sense that the horse was not just reacting to the pain, but also that the horse was proud enough to want to stand up for herself, literally.