Saga Brief 29 – Interview with Ármann Jakobsson on Minor Characters in Icelandic Sagas

In the opening pages of his new book Minor Characters in Icelandic Sagas, Ármann Jakobsson recounts a confession: as a child, he wrote mock-Shakespearean plays with his brother, performed with figurines, and later donated those childhood manuscripts to Iceland’s National Library. This is not mere autobiography. He includes it, he says, as full disclosure—a way of asking himself why he spent twenty years trying and failing to write a book about marginal figures before finally succeeding. “If you understand why you want to write about a topic,” he tells his students, “maybe you will do it better.” The answer he arrived at is woven through the book’s argument: minor characters are not background noise. They are the author’s most creative contribution, and they may tell us more about the sagas—and about society—than the heroes ever do.

The Author’s Signature

Ármann’s central claim is deceptively simple. Many saga protagonists are historical figures, bound by tradition and audience expectation. But minor characters are almost entirely invented. “They are what the author contributes,” he says. Because they have no obvious narrative role, their presence is more revealing of the author’s intentions, and often more sophisticated than first appears.