Gripla - 01.01.1975, Page 155

PAGANISM AND LITERATURE
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these practices seems to have disappeared. The Icelandic society of
the samtíðarsögur does not stand at an equal distance between pagan
and Christian ways of living. This society appears to be quite well
installed in the new state of things.
II. GODS AND MYTHS
We shall, I think, draw still more drastic conclusions from the investi-
gation of our second chapter, which concerns gods and myths of old
Northem Europe, as seen in the samtíðarsögur. F. Paasche declared1
that ‘under the action of Christianisation, it was comparatively easy to
dispose of the major gods: they (their statues) had been transported
into the temples and they disappeared with them’.
Verification of this is swifty achieved. There is a passage in Jóns
Saga Helga I, ch. 24, where Týr, Óðinn and Þórr are mentioned in
connection with the names of the days of the week. Then Sturlu Saga,
ch. 31 compares Hvamm-Sturla to Óðinn (because he is in danger of
becoming one-eyed, as is Óðinn); Sturla Sighvatsson is twice called
Dala-Freyr because of his luxurious house and style of living (íslend-
inga Saga, ch. 71 and 85).
These instances reveal a good knowledge of the Northem mytho-
logy: they are applied with great skill. But, studying the samtíðar-
sögur, one does not see how to confirm G. Turville-Petre’s opinion
when he says that ‘the gods were a living aspect of the life of the old
Icelanders’.2
The above examples came from the prose passages of the samtíðar-
sögur. It goes without saying that the situation is perforce different in
the vísur, since this kind of poetry was hard to write without the
employment of kenningar and heiti which, in their turn, almost auto-
matically used the names of gods or references to myths. There are in
the whole of Sturlunga Saga 53 kenningar dealing directly with
mythology. Of these 53, 13 concern Óðinn under his various titles, 5
relating to Freyr, 3 to Baldr and 1 to Njörðr. There is no mention of
Þórr. There too, we discover a most remarkable knowledge of the
Northern mythology. Such rare Óðinn’s names as Hnikarr, Rögnir or
1 M0tet mellom hedendom og kristendom i Norden, Oslo, 1958, p. 81.
2 Um Óðinsdýrkun á íslandi, in Studia lslandica 17, 1958, p. 9.