Skáldskaparmál - 01.01.1994, Page 126

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Marianne Kalinke
especially significant, since he plays both a motival and structural role. He is not
only the most serious rival suitor — a standard impediment in a protagonist’s
bridal quest — for the hand of Ketilríður, but also the structural device linking
the prefatory and main narratives. Hákon’s appearance in Iceland is generated by
his own bridal quest. In order to obtain the woman he wants, Ketill of Raumaríki’s
daughter, he must kill Þorgrímur to avenge the latter’s abduction of Ketill’s bride
in the prefatory narrative. While Hákon’s collusion in Iceland with Ketilríður’s
mother and brothers initially is to further his quest for a bride in Norway, this
objective is eventually transmuted into a quest for Ketilríður. In bringing Hákon
to Iceland, the author not only connects the prefatory and main narratives, but
he also introduces an ally for the brothers in their escalating machinations against
Víglundur. These conclude with the deaths of Hákon and Ketilríður’s brothers
on the one hand and the outlawing of Víglundur and Trausti on the other.
The interplay of forestory and narrative proper does not conclude with the
death of Hákon, however, for when news of Hákon’s slaying reaches the ears of
Ketill, his two sons, Sigurður and Gunnlaugur, are in turn sent to Iceland to
avenge the death and to kill Þorgrímur. Ketill’s scheme to lay the shameful episode
recounted in the forestory to rest through Þorgrímur’s death, suffers an ironic
reversal in that the outcome of his sons’ mission to Iceland is his unanticipated
and unintended reconciliation with Þorgrímur. The union of Þorgrímur and Ólöf
is declared valid; Ketill is compensated for the loss of his bride; and peace between
the erstwhile rival suitors and their families is assured through the marriage of
their children. In the midst of Víglundur’s bridal quest for Ketilrfður, his father’s
own bridal quest — depicted in the forestory, but left open-ended — comes to
a proper conclusion. Ironically, Ingibjörg Ketilsdóttir, whom King Haraldur was
willing to obtain for Þorgrímur to replace Ólöf, is instrumental in establishing
peace between the two erstwhile rivals by marrying Þorgrímur and Ólöf’s son
Trausti.
Víglundar saga has repeatedly been characterized as a “love story,” for example,
by Paul Schach above. In 1875 Eiríkr Magnússon and William Morris published
a translation of the saga — together with Gunnlaugs saga and Friðþjójs saga —
into English with the title Three Northern Love Stories.13 Finnur Jónsson called
Víglundar saga “en ren og skær elskovsroman,”14 while Jan de Vries remarked that
the saga “von einer treuen Liebe handelt, die freilich schliefilich mit einer Heirat
belohnt wird.15 More recently Jónas Kristjánsson summarized the plot of the saga
as follows:
Three Northem Love Stories and Other Tales, tr. by Eiríkr Magnússon and William Morris
(London, 1875).
14 Den oldnorske og oldislandske Litteraturs Historie, 2nd ed., vol. III (Copenhagen: G. E. C. Gad,
1924), p. 80.
1 ^ Altnordische Literaturgeschichte. Band II: Die Literatur von etwa 1150 bis 1300. Die Spdtzeit nach
1300 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter & Co., 1967), p. 532.