Gripla - 20.12.2013, Blaðsíða 211

211
kAteLIn PARsons
GRýLA In sLÉttuHLíÐ
1. Introduction
the chilD-thirsty grýla makes her unwelcome appearance in
countless þulur, songs and lullabies. the oldest to associate Grýla specifi-
cally with Christmas is a grýlukvæði attributed to the Reverend Guðmundur
erlendsson of fell in sléttuhlíð (ca.1595–1670), which opens with the
words “Hér er komin Grýla” and describes the vagabond Grýla’s futile
attempts to wheedle and coerce the people of sléttuhlíð into giving her
their wayward sons and daughters.1 As such, the poem (referred to simply
as Grýlukvæði in the context of this article) is closely related to two others
from the seventeenth century: a grýlukvæði attributed to stefán ólafsson
(1619–1688) and its cousin, Leppalúðakvæði, which jón samsonarson con-
vincingly identified as the work of Hallgrímur Pétursson (1614–1674),
composed in about 1648–49.2
All three poems share a metre and are closely intertwined in written
and oral transmission (as attested in extant manuscript copies and oral
recordings).3 What begins as one song may shift into another over the
1 Árni Björnsson, “Hjátrú á jólum,” Skírnir 135 (1961): 115. for a comprehensive discussion
of Grýla in Iceland, the faeroe Islands and beyond, see terry Gunnell, “Grýla, Grýlur,
‘Grøleks’ and skeklers: Medieval disguise traditions in the north Atlantic?” Arv 57
(2001): 33–55; yelena sesselja Helgadóttir, “shetland Rhymes from the Collection of dr.
jakob jakobsen,” in Jakob Jakobsen in Shetland and the Faroes, ed. turið sigurðardóttir
et al. (Lerwick: shetland Amenity trust and the university of the faroe Islands, 2010),
191–230; yelena sesselja Helgadóttir, “Retrospective Methods in dating Post-Medieval
Rigmarole-Verses from the north Atlantic,” in New Focus on Retrospective Methods, ed.
eldar Heide (in press).
2 jón samsonarson, “Leppalúði Hallgríms Péturssonar,” in Þorlákstíðir sungnar Ásdísi Egils-
dóttur fimmtugri, 26. október 1996, ed. Guðvarður Már Gunnlaugsson et al. (Reykjavík:
Menningar- og minningarsjóður Mette Magnussen, 1996), 43–49.
3 the metre, dragmælt (or dragmælt grýlukvæðalag), is not unique to these seventeenth-century
poems, but it is strongly associated with grýlukvæði and other songs for and about children,
Gripla XXIV (2013): 211–233.