Episode 41g – Viga-Glum’s Saga (Judgments)

In the Battle of Hrisatig, Thorarin Thorason is hit so hard that his lungs fall out of his chest. He survives. That single image—a man walking around with his lungs outside his body, saved by women healers who rush the battlefield—is the most memorable thing about Viga-Glum’s Saga, and it captures why this mid-sized saga is both frustrating and fascinating. The saga’s critics are split, and so are its two hosts, who finally sit down to judge it after a long hiatus.

The Bloodshed That Defines the Saga

The saga is not blood-soaked—only 21 untimely deaths over its length—but a few moments stand out. Young Eolf Ingildsson, Glum’s father, cuts the snout off a young bear and later maims a berserker named Auskott by slicing off his foot and lower leg with a single overhead blow. Glum himself beats Bjorn Ironskull to death with a firebrand after the berserker kicks him in the hall. But the clear winner is Thorarin’s evisceration at Hrisatig. The blow is described in a single line, yet its aftermath—Glum’s own wife Halldóra covering Thorarin’s body and sitting on him until the battle ends—gives the moment a strange, layered resonance. It is simultaneously brutal and peacemaking, and it is the episode’s most cited image.

A Low Body Count, But a High Cost