The Specter of Old Age: Nasty Old Men
in the Sagas of Icelanders

Ármann Jakobsson, University of Iceland

There are numerous old men in the Sagas of Icelanders, and few are nasty. However, as Tolstoy implied in the first lines of Anna Karenina (1875–77), happiness is not quite as good a subject for a novel as unhappiness ("Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way"). Nice old men also need more effort to become memorable saga characters, as they are less likely to cause conflict, battle, and death—the typicalingredients of a saga narrative. The theme of this article is one image of old age in the Sagas of Icelanders. It is not the only possible image, but I contend that it is the most powerful and haunting one—in the literal sense as well, since one memorable nasty old man in the Sagas of Icelanders eventually becomes a ghost.