Afterword

Summary

I have completed the final preparations of this manuscript in the fall of 2020, during the height of the Covid-19 global pandemic. Infection rates in the United States and globally are once again on the rise; new restrictions on travel and socializing are imminent; and while there is hope of a vaccine and a return to normal life, there is also fear that it will not come soon enough. For some, it has not come soon enough. We are all affected by the virus in different ways, but one constant is that we have all been confined in one way or another, often separated from friends and loved ones for their (or our) own good. Now, long-awaited reunions with family and friends that might have happened during the winter holidays look as if they might be deferred even longer. But there is also hope to be found in unlikely places.

I am forced to recognize that the subject of this book, discourse, feels a little different to me now than it did when I began this project. We extend salutations and valedictions now from phrases like best wishes to something like best wishes and good health; we ask questions like how are you doing? with a little more purpose; and the idle words shared by colleagues or casual acquaintances draw us a little closer together now than they did before. Somehow, the way we talk with one another now – though we must often speak through computer screens, cell phones, and chat boxes – makes the discourses of Old Norse speakers from centuries ago a little more meaningful as well. Njáll's bare face and Skarpéðinn’s grin are a little clearer to me. Guðúrn, I can almost see, has the beginnings of a tear in her eye when she speaks so coldly to Bolli. Kjartan, I’m sure, has the hint of a smile when he insults the king. Whether in medieval Iceland or in the confinement of this persistent pandemic, there is nothing more fundamental to the human experience than our need for discourse. A global pandemic may confine us; it may hurt us or scare us, but as long as we continue sharing our voices, we will persevere.