The Dream Woman of Njáls Saga

Hlíðarendi, Rangárþing, Iceland

Before the burning at Bergþórshvoll, Gunnar of Hlíðarendi was visited in a dream by a woman in armour — the last of three prophetic women sent to warn him. He ignored all three. One hundred and thirty men died.

Njáls Saga is considered the greatest of the Icelandic family sagas and one of the finest prose narratives in medieval European literature. Its supernatural dimension is unusually well-integrated: the prophetic women who appear to Gunnar at Hlíðarendi are presented as real presences within the saga's documentary framework, not as literary devices. Gunnar was a warrior of exceptional ability and equally exceptional stubbornness. He had been exiled from Iceland for killing multiple men, but at the moment of departure turned back from his ship to look at his farm at Hlíðarendi and said he would not leave — that the fields were too beautiful to abandon. This decision set in motion the events that led to the burning. Before the burning at Bergþórshvoll — where Njáll and his entire family died — and before the killing of Gunnar himself, dream women appeared. Each carried a warning specific to the events coming. Each was clear. Each was ignored. The dream women of Njáls Saga are understood by Icelandic scholars as a form of the dísir — female guardian spirits attached to families — combined with the prophetic tradition of the völva. They are not invented by the saga author; they appear in independent oral sources predating the written saga. Hlíðarendi farm — the site of Gunnar's house — is still inhabited. The farm name has not changed in over a thousand years.