Gripla - 01.01.2003, Qupperneq 87

INTERPRETATION OR OVER-INTERPRETATION
85
rules out of count the suggested interpretation of the very common name
Þuríðr.
Bjami is on safer ground in pointing out that the characterization of a
genuinely historical person may be influenced by the significance of his name:
‘þótt einstaklingur sé sögulegur, svo sem ætla má um Víga-Styr, kann sjálft
nafnið að draga að honum eiginleika og hlutverkaskipan, sem gerir hann að
tákni’ (Bjami Guðnason 1993, 259) [Even if an individual is historical, as
Víga-Styrr may be considered to be, the name itself may have attracted to him
characteristics and a role which make him into a symbol]. The unambiguous
and uncommon name Styrr does seem likely to have contributed to the
relentless and motiveless violence of this character in the saga, whose only
aim seems to be to increase the tally of his killings: ‘Þá kvað Styrr vísu, í
hverri hann segisk nú hafa vegit þrjátigi ok þrjá menn, sem hann hefði eigi
fébótum bœtt’ (Borgfirðinga sQgur, 225) [Then Styrr recited a verse in
which he said that he had now killed thirty three men for whom he had paid
no compensation]. The episodic construction of the saga in the section con-
ceming Styrr suggests that this was a process of accretion over time, rather
than the invention of an individual author.32 But the attempt to impose a
similar significance on the name of the saga’s other protagonist, Barði, as
‘táknmynd bardagamannsins’ [a symbol of the man of battle], is fanciful. The
name is believed to derive not from herja (or the related bardagí) but from one
of the (probably related) nouns harða ‘axe’ (de Vries 1977, 26) or harð ‘beard’
(Asgeir Blöndal Magnússon 1989, 41). Its true derivation would not, of
course, prohibit a medieval author from making the same less authentic
association as occurred to Bjami Guðnason, but this is unlikely, since the
name would have been familiar from references to jarl Eiríkr Hákonarson’s
ship Barðinn or Jámbarðinn, where it probably refers to a battering ram
attached to the prow.33
32 Another example whose character may have been determined by his name is Snorri goði.
Snorri derives from snerra ‘battle, sharp onslaught’. Eyrbyggja saga asserts the name to have
been derived from his character: ‘var sá sveinn kallaðr Þorgrímr eftir feðr sínum ... hann var
heldr ósvífr í œskunni, ok var hann af því Snerrir kallaðr ok eptir þat Snorri’ (Eyrbyggja saga
20). A character partly formed by the legendary associations of her name is Guðrún
Ósvífrsdóttir in Laxdœla saga, whose story was probably developed in a way that
emphasized perceived parallels with that of her namesake Guðrún Giúkadóttir.
33 The word barð ‘prow’ may well be the same in origin as barð ‘beard’. The form barði was
used generically by poets as a heiti for ‘ship’; it occurs in a verse by Halldórr ókristni, cited
in Oddr Snorrason’s Saga Oláfs Tryggvasonar and later sources, where it refers speciftcally
to Eiríkr’s ship (Oddr Snorrason 1932, 222).