Other aspects of the “Helgi lays” also appear in Hrómundar saga. Most notably, the episode in which Hagal conceals Hromund from the wicked Blind is borrowed from an episode in Helgakviða Hundingsbana II, in which Helgi is the one who is hidden from Blind. Since the connection between Hromund’s story and Helgi Haddingjaskati’s legend is made at the end of Göngu-Hrólfs saga, the connection must have been made before Göngu-Hrólfs saga was written in its present form, and after 1119 if Þorgils saga is accurate, or after the mid-13th century if it isn’t.
Hrómundar saga Gripssonar lacks the wit and humor of the other sagas in this book. The process of transcription from the rímur—probably a defective manuscript of the rímur, at that—has added some rather perplexing errors and created a rather unevenly paced text. Nonetheless, the saga deserves better than to be dismissed as “a wretched paraphrase.”[120] It is important for Icelandic literary history, as its assembly can be traced in several stages from the 12th century through the 17th. The fact that the story was retold in prose, in rímur, and in various ballads and other poems[121] attests to its interest for Icelandic audiences, as does the fact that 37 manuscripts have survived from the 17th to the early 20th centuries.[122] Though perhaps not the finest literature, the saga still tells a rip-snorting tale of a stalwart Viking hero battling plenty of bad guys, both human and non-human. Its undeniable brio must have entertained many generations of Icelanders on long winter nights.
The text that I used is based on the 17th-century paper manuscript AM 587b, and was published by Guðni Jónsson and Bjarni Vilhjálmsson in Fornaldarsögur Norðurlanda. Their text is fundamentally the same as Rafn’s edition; no critical edition of the Norse text has been published to date. Other English translations of this saga appear in Nora Kershaw’s Stories and Ballads of the Far Past (1921) and Bachmann and Erlingsson’s Six Old Icelandic Sagas (1993), with another partial translation in Stitt’s Beowulf and the Bear’s Son (1992). A fourth translation by Gavin Chappell is available online at http://tinyurl.com/gripsson.
Notes on Translation
There has been a long and famous debate over to what extent the Icelandic sagas can be considered literary creations as opposed to transcripts of an oral tradition—the “bookprose versus freeprose” controversy. The question does not have a simple answer. However the sagas originated, the forms that we have today have been transmitted through writing, by people who were steeped in literary culture. That said, medieval copying was rarely intended to reproduce a text exactly, except in the case of Biblical and other sacred texts. Copyists could and did rework the stories that they copied, even adding or abridging material, giving the written texts something of the flavor of oral transmission.
Furthermore, the sagas were almost always received orally: most people received them by listening to them being recited. The collection known as Sturlunga saga cites several instances of sagnaskemmtun, “saga entertainment,” in the 12th and 13th centuries, while Íslendings þáttr sögufróða depicts an Icelander who wins a place in King Harald’s household by telling sagas. Churchmen fulminated against the reading of sagas and poems as early as the 16th century, joined in the 18th century by Enlightenment-inspired critics outraged at the common folk’s low tastes—seemingly with little effect.[123] From at least the 18th century to the turn of the 20th century, the kvöldvaka or “evening wake” was common on Icelandic farmsteads during the winter months, featuring readings of sagas, rímur, and poems. The reader usually had a book at hand, but might improvise details every time, and the audience was quite free to chime in with questions and comments on the characters and the plot.[124]
The sagas in this book were copied and recopied so that they could be read aloud, and passages that seem awkward on the page could have come alive when told by a good storyteller.[125] This has guided my own attempts at translation. I have read these translations aloud several times, and have tried to create something that will work as an oral text. These sagas in particular, as befitting their hybrid origins, sometimes switch from straightforward “saga style” to a more ornate style derived from chivalric romance. I’ve tried to mirror this in my translation, switching between fairly plain English and a “loftier” style as needed. I’ve mostly maintained the paratactic syntax of saga prose, with parallel independent clauses instead of dependent clauses, but have sometimes modified the native syntax when the alternative seemed just too clunky in English.
I’ve usually translated names of fairly well-known places to their modern English equivalents, but transliterated more obscure names; thus Sjóland is Zealand and Suðreyjar are the Hebrides, but the lesser-known island Þruma is rendered Thruma instead of its modern name Tromøy. Even here I’ve made some exceptions that seemed like a good idea at the time. Personal names have usually been transliterated, but with a few exceptions: since Ella is a feminine name to most English speakers, I have turned King Ella into King Ælle, the Old English spelling of the name. For a similar reason, King Játgeirr seemed baffling, and I chose to render him by his Old English name Edgar.
My thanks go out to Sara Axtell, Thomas DeMayo, and Beth Patterson, who proofread the translations and made many helpful comments that much improved them. Any errors that remain are entirely mine. I thank Zoe Borovsky, Sean Crist, Matthew Driscoll, Silvia Hufnagel, P. S. Langeslag, Stefan Langeslag, Andy Lemons, Carsten Lyngdrup Madsen, and Jon Julius Sandal, who have created freely available electronic resources that were absolutely crucial for my work. The contributions of Dietrich Mateschitz have also proved indispensable to completing this book. The redoubtable and long-suffering Tim Purkiss was always able to hunt down sources I needed, no matter how obscure, and Chris Baty has provided inspiration and incentive for my work for years; I am deeply indebted to both. Last but not least, I thank Amanda Waggoner for her love and support, as always.
Svo gengur það til í heiminum,
að sumir hjálpa erroribus á gáng
og aðrir leitast síðan við að útryðja aftur þeim sömu erroribus.
Hafa svo hverir tveggja nokkuð að iðja.
[1] transl. Stallybrass, Teutonic Mythology, vol. 1, p. 10.
[2] Murray, Manual of Mythology, p. 356.
[3] MacGregor, “Scandinavian Mythology from the Picturesque Side”, p. 136-137.
[4] “The Early Literature of the North—Iceland”; ed. LeMire, The Unpublished Lectures of William Morris, p. 181.
[5] Driscoll, “The Long and Winding Road,” pp. 50-53, Unwashed Children of Eve, pp. 13-25, 38-46; Sigurður Gylfi Magnússon, Wasteland with Words, pp. 85-87, 147-160.
[6] Kalinké, Bridal-Quest Romance, pp. 1-5, gives an overview.
[7] See Quinn, “Interrogating Genre”, for a recent discussion of the controversy.
[8] Mitchell, Heroic Sagas and Ballads, p. 27.
[9] Schier, Sagaliteratur, pp. 72-91.
[10] Harris, “The Prosimetrum of Icelandic Saga”, pp. 131-135; Tulinius, The Matter of the North, pp. 55-63.
[11] Righter-Gould, “The Fornaldar Sögur Norðurlanda,” pp. 423-435; Tulinius, “Sagas of Icelandic Prehistory”, pp. 447-449.
[12] Elizabeth Ashliman Rowe, quoted in Quinn, Interrogating Genre, pp. 284-286.
[13] Quoted in Driscoll, “Late Prose Fiction”, p. 197; see also Kalinké, Bridal-Quest Romance, pp. 18-19.
[14] Driscoll, “Late Prose Fiction,”p. 198.
[15] Tulinius, The Matter of the North, pp. 290-295.
[16] Driscoll, “Fornaldarsögur Norðurlanda,” pp. 258-261; “A New Edition of the Fornaldarsögur Norðurlanda,” pp. 9-11. As Driscoll points out, uncatalogued manuscripts continue to be discovered; his 2003 article lists only 68 manuscripts of Göngu-Hrólfs saga, and his 2009 article lists 69. I have updated his figures using the online database “Stories Fo
r All Time”.
[17] Vésteinn Ólason, “The Marvellous North,” p. 117.
[18] O’Connor, “History or Fiction?”, pp. 130-133.
[19] For example, the ending of the shorter recension of Friðþjófs saga (transl. Waggoner, Sagas of Fridthjof the Bold, p. 128), or the end of Mírmanns saga (transl. O’Connor, Icelandic Histories and Romances, p. 296).
[20] Thompson, Motif-Index of Folk Literature, F159.1, “Otherworld reached by hunting animal” (vol. 3, p. 27); N774, “Adventures from pursuing enchanted animal” (vol. 5, pp. 130-131). There are over two dozen episodes in Arthurian romances in which a hero is led to otherworldly adventure while hunting a mysterious white stag, or sometimes another beast (Webster, Guinevere, pp. 89-104). Other parallels appear in the Welsh Mabinogion (e.g. Pwyll’s hunt leading him to Annwn; Goronwy’s hunt leading him to Blodeuedd; Pryderi and Manawyddan’s pursuit of the boar). As Webster writes, ““The office of the white stag in these romances is to toll the hero to the other world, to get him into the power of a supernatural being. He who succeeded with the stag crossed into fairyland, won a fairy queen for his bride, or released her from a spell, and so on, with innumerable variations of the theme.” (Guinevere, p. 90) The ultimate origin of the motif may be Celtic, but Ogle argues for Classical origins, comparing it with the myth of Hercules hunting the Ceryneian hind (“The Stag-Messenger Episode”), and Littleton points out close parallels in Scythian legend (From Scythia to Camelot, pp. 101-103).
[21] Five Breton lais feature variations on the motif of a hunted beast leading the hero to an otherworldly encounter, and three of these are known to have been translated into Norse: Graelent (Grelents saga, whose hunting episode is probably the closest to the native sagas, although the hunting scene has not survived in the fragmentary Norse manuscript), Guigemar (Guiamars ljóð), Desiré (Desire ljóð), Tyolet, and Guingemor (not known in Norse translation). Grimm’s tale “The Six Swans” also opens with such a hunt. The French romance of Parténopeus de Blois begins with a similar hunt, and this was translated into Norse as Partálopa saga. Ogle (“The Stag-Messenger Episode”, pp. 410-412) points out that the Roman pagan Placidus was said to have hunted an uncatchable stag that revealed itself to be Christ, resulting in Placidus converting to Christianity and taking the name of Eustace. Placidus’s life was well known in Norse literature from the prose Plácitus saga and the long poem Plácitusdrápa.
[22] Aside from Göngu-Hrólfs saga in this book (ch. 15), hunts leading to otherworldly encounters appear in the fornaldarsögur Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks [U-redaction; Tolkien, The Saga of King Heiðrek, p. 68] and Egils saga einhenda ok Ásmundar kappabana (ch. 6), and in the indigenous romance Gibbons saga (ch. 1; ed. Page, pp. 3-4). In Göngu-Hrólfs saga and Gibbons saga, the hero is led to a beautiful and supernaturally powerful lady. Although he is not actually hunting an animal, the hero of Helga þáttr Þórissonar (ch. 1) also meets a beautiful lady after getting lost in the woods.
[23] Gauti’s dealings with the family resemble Aarne-Thompson tale type AT 1544, “The Man Who Got a Night’s Lodging”, although Gauti does not cheat his hosts outright, as is usual in folktales of this type. (Aarne, The Types of the Folktale, p. 446). Marianne Kalinke has argued that Gauti’s hunt is simply an example of the folk motif, without any parodistic intent (“Endogamy and the Crux of the “Dalafífla Táttr”, pp. 109-111); but I think that Rowe, “Folktale and Parable,” p. 157 n7 makes a stronger counterargument in favor of parody.
[24] e.g. Turville-Petre, Myth and Religion of the North, p. 254.
[25] Milroy, “The Story of Ætternisstapi”, pp. 206-212.
[26] Rowe, “Folktale and Parable,” pp. 159-160.
[27] Mitchell, Heroic Sagas and Ballads, pp. 55-58. Ref’s constant “trading up” resembles what Aarne calls “cumulative tales” (AT 2000-2047, The Types of the Folktale, pp. 522-535), although none of his specific tale types match exactly.
[28] History of the Danes VIII:296-298; transl. Davidson and Fisher, pp. 270-273.
[29] Chesnutt, “The Content and Meaning of Gjafa-Refs saga”, pp. 101-102; Wikander, “Från Indisk Djurfabel till Isländsk Saga,” pp. 101-107.
[30] Chesnutt, “The Content and Meaning of Gjafa-Refs saga”, pp. 102-104. See also Lincoln, “Gautrek’s Saga and the Gift Fox,” pp. 179-182.
[31] For example, Arrow-Odd’s death song at the end of Örvar-Odds saga; Hjalmar’s death-song in the same saga and in Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks (ch. 3); and the Krákumál, associated with Ragnars saga loðbrókar although not formally a part of it. See also Grettis saga, not part of the fornaldarsögur corpus as such, but with many fantastic elements and other points of similarity.
[32] e.g. Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks (U-redaction); ed. transl. Tolkien, The Saga of Heidrek the Wise, pp. 66-67.
[33] Saxo, History of the Danes VI:183; transl. Davidson and Fisher, p. 170.
[34] Brodeur, The Art of Beowulf, pp. 174-175.
[35] Hávamál 138-139; Orchard, The Elder Edda, p. 35.
[36] Snorri Sturluson (Anthony Faulkes, ed.) Edda, vol. 1, p. 21; vol. 2a, pp. 5, 7, 67, 68, 71; vol. 2b, p. 471.
[37] quoted in Cronan, “The Thematic Unity of the Younger Gautreks saga”, p. 81, n2.
[38] For a discussion of how Víkars þáttr was probably reshaped from an earlier form of the Starkaðr legend, see Bampi, “Between Tradition and Innovation,” pp. 88-96.
[39] See also Jón Viðar Sigurðsson, “Changing Layers of Jurisdiction,” pp. 175-178. Jón Viðar Sigurðsson also points out that in the old Icelandic economy, marked by reciprocal gift-exchanges and redistribution of wealth through traditional avenues such as gifting and feasting, chieftains could not accumulate large amounts of wealth. Once Iceland had come under royal control and the old social networks had faded, chieftains could accumulate much more property in the market-dominated economy that replaced the old mixed economy. (pp. 182-184.) Gautreks saga may be seen as a comment, and not a favorable one, on the new market economy in Iceland.
[40] Durrenberger, “Reciprocity in Gautrek’s Saga”, pp. 25-32. Chesnutt, “The Content and Meaning of Gjafa-Refs saga”, p. 103, critiques Durrenberger’s analysis, but the general conclusion that the saga is “all about” generosity and exchange seem widely accepted.
[41] Rowe, “Folktale and Parable,” pp. 162-164.
[42] Rowe, “Folktale and Parable,” pp. 155-157.
[43] Cronan, “The Thematic Unity of the Younger Gautreks saga”, pp. 85-89.
[44] Driscoll and Hufnagel, “Stories for All Time”, http://nfi.ku.dk/fornaldarsogur/
[45] Fornaldarsögur Norðurlanda vol. 2, pp. 309-355.
[46] Ranisch, Die Gautrekssaga, p. cx.
[47] For a general overview see Bampi, “What’s in a Variant?”, pp. 57-67.
[48] Ranisch, Die Gautrekssaga, pp. cx-cxi.
[49] Anderson, “‘Helgakviða Hjǫrvarðssonar’ and European Bridal-Quest Narrative,” pp. 70-74.
[50] Kalinké, Bridal-Quest Romance, pp. 59-60.
[51] Germania ch. 8; transl. Hutton, p. 143.
[52] e.g. Maxims I, 81-92, in which a lord’s wife must rune healdan, “keep secrets”, and ræd witan. . . þæm ætsomne, “formulate advice. . . for both of them.” (Krapp and Dobbie, The Exeter Book, p. 160). See also Wealhtheow’s speeches to Beowulf in Beowulf.
[53] Jóhanna Katrín Friðriksdóttir, Women in Old Norse Literature, pp. 25-45.
[54] Clover, “Maiden Warriors and Other Sons,” pp. 35-43.
[55] Jóhanna Katrín Friðriksdóttir, “From Heroic Legend to ‘Medieval Screwball Comedy’
?”, pp. 229-238.
[56] Jóhanna Katrín Friðriksdóttir, Women in Old Norse Literature, pp. 131-133.
[57] Jóhanna Katrín Friðriksdóttir, “From Heroic Legend to ‘Medieval Screwball Comedy’?”, pp. 240-243; see also Women in Old Norse Literature, pp. 112-116. In her willingness to resume her discarded shield-maiden role to help her husband, Thornbjorg resembles Lathgertha, the first wife of Ragnar Lodbrok, in Saxo’s Danish History (IX.303-304, transl. Ellis Davidson and Fisher, pp. 282-283). See also Clover, “Maiden Warriors and Other Sons,” pp. 40-41. Jóhanna Friðriksdóttir speculates that the character of Thornbjorg could be a reflection of Margaret Valdemarsdatter, the de facto ruler of Scandinavia from 1375 to 1412 (Women in Old Norse Literature, p. 116). The saga itself is known to be older than Margaret, but perhaps she had an influence on later redactions.
[58] At least he is portrayed as wise and courteous in the later recension of the saga. Marianne Kalinke points out that in the older recension, he’s quite rude and aggressive in his wooing of Thornbjorg / Thorberg. (“Textual Instability,” pp. 204-209)
Six Sagas of Adventure Page 5