Gripla - 01.01.1975, Síða 129

ANTIPAGAN SENTIMENT IN THE SAGAS
125
all sorts of harm ‘unless you return to faith in me’ (nema þú hverfir
aptr til míns átrúnaðar). But although Þórr proves to be a formidable
adversary, Þorgils remains firm in the faith. One of his dreams is
modeled in part on Satan’s temptation of Christ:
Síðan þótti honum Þórr leiða sik á hamra nökkura, þar sem sjóvarstraumr
brast í björgum. ‘í slíkum bylgjum skaltu vera ok aldri ór komask, utan þú
hverfir til mín.’
‘Nei,’ sagði Þorgils, ‘far á burt, inn leiði fjándi. Sá mun mér hjálpa, sem
alla leysti með sínum dreyra.’
Thereupon it seemed to him that Þórr led him onto a certain precipice,
where the ocean tide roared upon the crags. ‘You will be cast into such
billows and never escape unless you turn to me.’
‘No,’ replied Þorgils, ‘go away, you loathsome devil. He will help me
who has redeemed all mankind with his blood.’
Even from this brief survey it is clear that saga writers employed
an even greater variety of techniques in their denunciation of witch-
craft and pagan worship than they did in heralding the advent of
Christianity. Ridicule was a favorite means of attacking pagan wor-
ship, and it assumed various forms, ranging from the most discreet
form of irony to heavy-handed sarcasm. But antipaganism could also
be quite humorless, especially when the baleful rather than the foolish
aspect of belief in pagan gods was attacked.
Although the transition from paganism to Christianity seems to
have proceded rather smoothly in Iceland, Islendingabók, Kristni saga,
and other historical sources report various instances of conflict be-
tween pagans and Christians. Ari tells us that Þangbrandr, King Óláfr
Tryggvason’s personal emissary to the Icelanders, slew tvá menn eða
þrjá before he retumed to Norway, convinced that Christianity would
never be adopted in Iceland. This brief and bare report was devel-
oped by later saga writers into detailed and dramatic accounts, the
most vivid and artistic of which is found in Njáls saga (chs. 100-
105). In a previous missionary expedition it was not the foreign
missionary, Bishop Friðrekr, but the Icelandic convert, Þorvaldr Koð-
ránsson, whose religious zeal led him to commit homicide against his
own countrymen. Still a third Icelander, Stefnir Þorgilsson, was so
frustrated at the resistance against the new faith, especially on the
part of his own kinsmen, that he went on a furious rampage, destroy-