The second of the bridal quests is one of the first appearances in Norse-Icelandic literature of the meykongr or “maiden-king.” A maiden-king is a woman who rules a land and wields power in her own right, and who is not interested in marriage, primarily because it would mean giving up power. Would-be suitors are humiliated and sent packing, if not injured or killed. The hero must use all his wits and skills in order to win the hand of the maiden-king, and he may fail more than once before he succeeds. He may have to humiliate the maiden-king, sometimes raping her or otherwise treating her cruelly, before she will finally submit to marrying him. There are meykongr figures in a number of the riddarasögur and romances, and it’s been suggested that the meykongr was imported into Icelandic literature from Continental romance. But older Norse sources are also not short of women who fight like men and reject marriage and womanly roles, usually because there is no male in the family: the goddess Skaði in the myths, Brynhild in the Völsung legend, Hervör in Hervarar saga, and valkyries and shieldmaidens in a variety of texts.[54] Thornbjorg in Hrólfs saga Gautrekssonar is very probably a composite figure, drawing on imported romances and folk tales, but also based on native traditions of shieldmaidens and woman warriors.[55]
In many sagas, the meykongr probably serves to express social anxiety about gender roles, a real concern in medieval Iceland. At a time when the Icelandic aristocracy was trying to consolidate power, marriage was a crucial way for families to form alliances and strengthen their political position. Men depended on women’s willingness to be married off; any woman who tried to “buck the system” could have destroyed her family’s position. By showing the independent, haughty meykongr outwitted, humiliated, and forced to agree to marriage, these sagas affirm a patriarchal social order, encouraging women to follow traditional roles.[56] That said, Hrólfs saga Gautrekssonar is one of a few meykongr sagas that subverts this purpose. Unlike most of the meykongar, Thorbjorg actively adopts a male social role, training with weapons, fighting quite capably, and forcing her followers to treat her as a man, even though they must know that she is biologically female. Whereas some of the meykongar suffer torture and rape from their suitors, Hrolf is careful to respect Thorbjorg, stopping Ketil when he has mocked her with an obscene joke. Although Thorbjorg turns to womanly pursuits such as embroidery after her defeat, she has no qualms about taking up arms once again when her husband faces danger in Ireland. This makes Thorbjorg a unique character in the sagas. By shifting readily between male and female roles, and “performing” both with skill, she demonstrates the artificial nature of the gender roles that the sagas supposedly uphold.[57]
Through all the tests that he faces, King Hrolf is consistently portrayed as an ideal ruler. Unlike his brother Ketil, he refuses to act impulsively, but he moves quickly and decisively once he has decided that the time is right, and he is careful to learn from his own and others’ mistakes. At the same time, he always takes good care of his close companions, and uses his generosity and calm temper to turn enemies into friends.[58] Even the stories of Hrolf’s adventures in England, which at first seem to slow the plot down, reinforce our sense of Hrolf’s bravery, loyalty, and wisdom; in this, they resemble the various þættir inserted into the “kings’ sagas”, which use individual encounters and incidents to demonstrate the kings’ personal qualities.[59] Torfi Tulinius points out similarities between the description of King Hrolf and descriptions of several prominent 13th-century Icelandic chieftains in Sturlunga saga, which were written at about the same time as Hrólfs saga. Even before Iceland’s submission to the Norwegian crown in 1262, Icelandic chieftains had begun to internalize the values and attitudes of medieval kingship. The saga’s portrayal of King Hrolf is thus a comment on a very real concern at the time it was composed: what would be an ideal king?[60]
A fragment of Hrólfs saga Gautrekssonar (AM 567 XIV b 4to) has been dated to the year 1300, the oldest known manuscript of a fornaldarsaga. Sixty-six manuscripts in all are known to have survived, the youngest dated 1898.[61] The text translated here appeared in Guðni Jónsson and Bjarni Vilhjálmsson’s Fornaldarsögur Norðurlanda[62], which in turn was derived from Rafn and ultimately based on the 17th-century paper manuscript AM 590b-c 4to, also the source for the longer Gautreks saga. Lee Hollander has pointed out that many personal names and several incidents seem to be shared between this saga and the “saga of Icelanders” Vatnsdæla saga, and suggests that Hrólfs saga might have been written at the monastery of Þingeyrar, close to Vatnsdal, not long after Vatnsdælasaga was written in the same location.[63]
The Saga of Bosi and Herraud
Compared to the first two sagas, Bósa saga ok Herrauðs signals a shift in the development of “adventure tales.” The hero Bosi is not of royal descent, and his vigor and sexual appetite contrast humorously with the royal, handsome, popular, but rather drab Herraud. Many sagas of all genres begin with the genealogy of the protagonists, but the grand and improbable genealogies that open the saga have been interpreted as a joke which the saga’s audience would have understood right away.[64] The most obvious joke appears when Bosi briefly breaks the fourth wall, when he tells his foster-mother that he doesn’t want it written in his saga that he’d accomplished anything by trickery that should be considered a sign of manhood.
The saga’s view of kingship and chivalry is rather less respectful than in the preceding sagas; instead of the generous King Gautrek or the paragon King Hrolf, we get the rather irascible and small-minded King Hring. It’s quite plausible that this is a wry comment on Iceland’s political situation: Iceland had submitted to Norwegian rule in 1262, but by the mid-1300s, Iceland had became a nearly powerless backwater. The royal governorship of Iceland was freely auctioned off to the highest bidders, who were free to earn their investment back by imposing heavy taxes. It’s not surprising that fornaldarsögur and riddarasögur from this time portray kings and heroes failing to live up to ideals of wise and honorable behavior.[65] King Hring’s beloved bastard son Sjod (“Purse”), who collects the royal taxes and extorts extra money for his own profit, sounds rather like a royal official in medieval Iceland.
What’s attracted the most attention are the three scenes in which Bosi seduces young women. While the fornaldarsögur and riddarasögur show concern that well-born ladies maintain their virginity until contracting a “proper” marriage, reflecting the concerns of the Icelandic aristocracy, Bosi’s three paramours are of lower social standing and thus are free not only to have sex, but to enjoy it immensely.[66] Their sexual encounters are described in unusually explicit detail: the Icelandic sagas as a rule are reticent about sexual intercourse; if they mentioned it at all, they use euphemisms like “he lay down next to her” or “he turned towards her,” or perhaps if the saga author was feeling especially daring, “he enjoyed himself with her” or “he laid his arm over her.”[67] Anything more explicit than that is usually presented in verse, in which references to intercourse are camouflaged in complex figures of speech.[68] What saves Bósa saga’s sex scenes from being pornographic are the funny metaphors that Bósi and his partners use to describe what is going on—unlike the complex puns and metaphors of skaldic poetry, which obscure what is going on to all but a few, Bósa saga’s transparently obvious metaphors let everyone in on the joke. They seem to be derived from foreign literature: Bósi’s second encounter borrows the erotic metaphor of watering a “foal” at a “well” from a French fabliau called “La damoisele qui ne pooit oïr parler de foutre” (“The girl who could not bear to hear talk of fucking”).[69] The other two sex scenes in Bósa saga use similar erotic metaphors that probably also derive from the fabliaux, although specific sources for these episodes have not been identified.[70]
Aside from the sex scenes, Bósa saga shows several other influences. The first part of the saga may have been influenced by traditional Russian byliny of Vasilij Buslajevich. Vasilij’s patronymic is close to the name of Bosi’s foster-mother Busla, and his wrangli
ngs with the citizens of Novgorod bear a resemblance to Bosi’s conflict with King Hring and his men.[71] On the other hand, the saga, or at least its first episode, may also have drawn on the French chanson de geste of Huon de Bordeaux, or the German tale Herzog Ernst. In both of these, the hero is slandered to his king by a jealous counselor; after a series of hostilities, he is exiled along with a trusty companion and loyal retainers. The hero then sets out on a dangerous quest to exotic lands from which he eventually returns with great treasures won, eventually finding reconciliation with the king.[72] The French Romance of Fergus, which may have been a source for Huon de Bordeaux, is perhaps even closer: here the hero Fergus is a peasant at King Arthur’s court who is sent on a quest to a Black Chapel, where he must defeat the guardian and take a magical horn and veil. On the way, Fergus stays with a woman who falls in love with him. After completing his first quest, Fergus goes out again to take a magic shield from a castle where it is guarded by a hag and a dragon; he slays the hag by cutting her hands off, causing her to lose her strength, and then kills the dragon. Later, he must kill the hag’s husband and son, before finally winning his wife and her lands.[73]
Bósa saga also uses a plot device found in other sagas, the “Voyage to the North.” The temple and idol of the god Jómali[74] are located in Bjarmaland; the likeliest location for Bjarmaland is on the shores of the White Sea. There is plausible documentation in several sources that Norwegians did sail around the northern tip of Norway and into the White Sea; the earliest, a late 9th-century account in Old English by a Norseman whose name is given as Ohthere, mentions hunting walruses for their ivory tusks and dealing with the Beormas, the same people as the Bjarmar in Norse sources.[75] There are other voyages to Bjarmaland described in the “king’s sagas” and historical annals.[76] That said, in the world of the legendary sagas—which began to be written at roughly the time that actual voyages to the White Sea were coming to an end—Bjarmaland is the home of powerful magicians, giants, and monsters.[77] A substantial account of a Bjarmaland voyage in Óláfs saga helga probably inspired the “Voyage to the North” found Bósa saga and three other fornaldarsögur: A hero of humble origins is ordered to collect a valuable item from a temple in the far north. A foster-parent provides advice and aid. After various adventures, the hero finds the temple, kills its priestess and/or other guardians, seizes the precious artifact, and destroys the temple.[78]
Finally, Bósa saga draws on several narrative types that are widespread in legendary sagas and that can also be seen in pagan myths. The saga’s first episode, for all that it may have been influenced by Russian byliny or French chansons de geste, fits a pattern called “The Unjust Patriarch” by John McKinnell. A king or other patriarchal figure commits an injustice that brings him into conflict with his sons, but a seeress takes the sons’ side against him and threatens him with a prophecy or curse. This pattern appears in episodes of Ynglinga saga and in Hrólfs saga kraka, and related stories frame the Eddic poems Völuspá and Baldrs draumar.[79] Bosi and Herraud’s great fight with the monsters and ogre-priestess in the temple draws on McKinnell’s “Thor pattern”, with some variations. Like the god Thor in a number of his encounters with giants, Bosi has a companion, wins the help and sexual favors of a female partner on his journey, crosses a body of water to reach the lair of the ogres, and battles a strong female giant along with a male figure (the male giant in the Thor myths has presumably been replaced with the bull and vulture in Bósa saga). Several details of Bosi and Herraud’s battle in the temple seem to draw on the related “Bear’s Son” pattern, and also appear in sources as far-flung as Grettis saga and Beowulf.[80] In this case, there has probably been no direct borrowing, but widespread diffusion of a number of motifs.
The saga was popular, judging from the 43 manuscripts of it that have survived, ranging from the 15th century to 1903.[81] The version translated here is that printed in Fornaldarsögur Norðurlanda,[82] which in turn follows Otto Jiriczek’s 1893 edition, whose text is primarily based on AM 586 4to but with corrections supplied from other parchment manuscripts.[83] In particular, the three sex scenes have been erased in AM 586, and Jiriczek restored them based on a different manuscript, AM 510 4to.[84] I have also checked the text against Sverrir Tómasson’s edition of 1996, substantially the same but with a few variant readings from other manuscripts, as well as useful notes and commentary.[85] Jiriczek also published a younger recension of this saga based on paper manuscripts, the oldest of which dates from 1663. Hermann Pálsson and Paul Edwards’s English translation first appeared in 1968; a slightly revised edition is currently still in print.[86] The only other English translation to date is George L. Hardiman’s on-line translation (http://tinyurl.com/bosasaga).
The Saga of Sturlaug the Hard-Working
Sturlaugs saga rivals Hrólfs saga Gautrekssonar in its “kaleidoscopic” eclecticism: almost every event and device in it appears elsewhere. Some characters and episodes are paralleled in other legendary sagas, or in other types of sagas. Others are drawn from myths, perhaps only half-remembered by the time the saga was composed. Still others come from chivalric tales, folk tales, or learned medieval lore. Sturlaugs saga has such diverse contents that it rather freely switches genres, passing from heroic romance to bridal-quest tale to slapstick comedy and back.[87]
Sturlaugs saga’s quality becomes clearer when one realizes that much of the saga is parody, even more so than Bósa saga. The compiler of the saga took ample advantage of opportunities to spoof the conventions of heroic legend. Kings in the legendary sagas are supposed to be bold, daring, and always attentive to their honor and repute—but here we get the chicken-hearted King Harald Goldmouth. Female giants are often depicted as ugly, immodest, and none too bright, but Hornnefja takes the stereotype to one of the most ludicrous extremes in the fornaldarsögur. Sturlaugs saga also borrows motifs from better-known sagas, altering them in ways that strongly suggest a deliberate spoof: where Völsunga saga and Tristrams saga present two young and beautiful lovers who sleep together with a sword between them to preserve their chastity, Sturlaugs saga gives us a lascivious old crone who heads off her own lust for the young hero by putting a log between them in bed. The dialogue abounds in dry wit, often in counterpoint to the grotesque action. There’s even a breaking of the fourth wall, when Sturlaug reminds his stay-at-home father that if they don’t get out and about, their saga will be a short one.[88]
Sturlaugs saga is not a “bridal-quest” saga as such, but three episodes in it resemble bridal quests. In the first episode, which is reminiscent of King Gautrek’s courtship in Hrólfs saga Gautrekssonar, King Harald Goldmouth is getting on in years when his wife dies and his counselors advise him to remarry. Unlike the wise Gautrek, who allows Ingibjorg to choose her husband, Harald acts like a berserk suitor, threatening his would-be father-in-law with death and refusing to ask Asa’s consent. When a real berserk suitor turns up and demands Asa’s hand, Harald is humiliated, and his attempts to get out of dueling with the berserk only put Asa out of his reach forever.[89]
The second and third bridal-quest episodes are part of a section that seems to have been added to the saga later. The second is very brief and almost an afterthought: Sighvat comes to King Dag of Russia to ask for his daughter Ingibjorg’s hand on behalf of his sworn brother Aki. Dag refuses, Sturlaug invades, and the matter is resolved. The third bridal-quest-like episode is much more elaborate: Sturlaug’s man Framar has sworn to marry Ingigerd, the daughter of King Ingvar of Ladoga. Ingigerd has the right to choose her own husband, and although she is not said to hate the idea of marriage, she has rejected every suitor. Framar fares no better; his attempt to press his suit is courteously turned down, apparently because he is presumptuous to think that she would marry a man of lesser rank. His attempts at subterfuge, playing on the princess’s compassion, fail completely as well; it takes armed intervention by Sturlaug to finally win the princess’s hand. The entire episode is strongly reminiscent of Nít
íða saga, whose heroine is also beautiful, wise, and especially skilled at healing. Unlike Ingigerd, Nitida rules a realm in her own right, and is thus a “maiden king” figure. However, Ingigerd and Nitida both refuse all offers of marriage from men whom they judge to be of lesser stature—and, quite unusually for “maiden kings”, both of them refuse courteously, without attacking or humiliating their suitors, except in response to a suitor’s attack or trick.[90] More specifically, both Ingigerd and Nitida foil a suitor’s attempt to disguise himself by means of a sorceror’s magic,[91] and both allow a suitor to live in their household in disguise for some time, before revealing that they know perfectly well who he is.[92] The presence of all these motifs in Sturlaugs saga and Nítíða saga suggests direct influence, if not outright parody. Certainly the rather jarring ending of Sturlaugs saga subverts the plot of Nítíða saga by reverting to something much more typical of a maiden-king saga: while Nitida freely chooses a man who has won her respect, Ingigerd is forced into marriage when Sturlaug’s hosts conquer her land and kill her father. (How Ingigerd feels about all this is not a subject the saga author chose to examine too closely.)[93]
Six Sagas of Adventure Page 3