“We are not discussing whether we can afford to pay or not, or if we are stronger or weaker if we come more closely under the Church’s rule. This is about much more; about Iceland, about why our ancestors came here, about our Law and our freedom. We are asked by Gunnar to hand ourselves over to the Church and to its appointed overlords. But remember this: if you give power to a man, you can take it away again if he abuses it. If you give power to the Church - or to a king - you cannot.”
Gabriel Stein and John Nugée’s “Sailing Free: The Saga of Kári the Icelander” is a moving depiction of the fight for liberty in a historical setting, giving the cause an element of universal applicability. Medieval Iceland experienced more than 300 years without formal governments- a libertarian story certainly worth studying!
From making mistakes when carving chess pieces, to plummeting into icy water in an attempt to kill a walrus as a young boy, Kári is immediately depicted as having a naive and gullible nature. This makes him rather likeable as his character develops throughout the book, and the retrospective narrative voice gives the story a bildungsroman feel. Following his journey, we are immersed into the world of shipowners and merchants, against the backdrop of the free society that was medieval Iceland.
As his business leads him to travel, Kári learns to trade among Vikings, and finds himself at the forefront of the fight for freedom against a despotic King. Kári’s fight for liberty and choice in the face of those who wish to subvert Iceland’s tradition of liberty positions him as the freedom fighting protagonist we root for.
In the words of Kári, “In Iceland, we have our Law and our freedoms. Sometimes we quarrel - but when we do, we let the Thing decide. Here, no one tells us to go and fight and die in a cause that is not our own, simply because as king he can force us to do so".
The tension between the Free State and the Church in the struggle for the survival of Iceland’s liberty-centred legal customs mean that we follow Kári’s journey through his defence of “freedom and independence”. This struggle for liberty is perpetually important: Kári’s journey is a microcosm for the liberty movement which is pertinent to this day, and to everyday to come.
The plot is fast paced, and the language is clean and relatively simple (akin to a Hemingway novel, with little prose and poetic language). Stein and Nugée are brilliant in utilising this writing style in order to make the book easy to read, conveying their ideas effectively. In my view, this makes the book suitable for almost all ages, meaning that it can be a particularly effective way of communicating these ideas to the younger generation.
Sailing Free underlines the point that the fight for liberty is a universal cause that is relevant throughout history, and that it was just as salient in medieval Iceland as it is now in the 21st century. I would recommend every liberty lover to read it!