Gripla - 01.01.1975, Page 143

PAGANISM AND LITERATURE
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least only in passing, to venture upon historical evidence. It goes with-
out saying, for instance, that one cannot but be strongly impressed by
the Irish example in the IXth century, particularly where, in some-
what similar circumstances, there had also been an attempt at recre-
ating the distant past, and of committing the ancient traditions to
writing. For the fact is that pagan resurgences appear more and more
frequently in Icelandic literature as time elapses.
Thus, this little study will try to show that the so-called pagan sur-
vivals in the samtíðarsögur look like a patient and deliberate recon-
struction. Our object of study is a number of literary texts, and they
must be viewed in their entirety as literary artefacts if the significance
of an apparently pagan revival, contained within them, is to be appre-
ciated. For the sake of clarity I will first examine elements of possibly
pagan cults, and the apparently pagan features of certain social insti-
tutions. I will then move on to the gods and related myths, then beliefs
conceming life after death, and finally witchcraft and magic; all this
in an attempt to present an overall view.
I. CULT AND INSTITUTIONS
As a principle in this section, in order to be considered as genuine, a
survival should still be of some living significance, and often they are.
In most cases, however, they have been accepted without stmggle or
adapted (one could say: ‘recuperated’) and even here, numerous in-
stances of reconstructions or importations are visible.
a) We shall first enumerate features which seem inalienable and
genuine, but which may, nonetheless, be the result of deliberate recon-
stmction.
The importance of the family (œtt), according to the ancient Ger-
manic and Nordic conception, understood as a sacred community in
the bosom of which the peace (jriðr or grið) was warranted and the
links of which are felt to be binding (see the word skyldr which means
both: obliged to and akin to) remains and will remain living for a
long time, and the illustrations one could give of the fact, in the sam-
tíðarsögur, are very numerous (e.g. íslendinga Saga, ch. 16; Þorgils
Saga Skarða, ch. 12. The whole argument of Þorgils Saga ok Hafliða