Gripla - 01.01.1990, Side 312

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GRIPLA
a tendency to discard ideas bearing the stamp of attitudes and con-
cepts of Norse paganism. At the end of this process, in comes the au-
thor and adjusts the material to suit his story. Considering the pro-
gress of any conceivable traditions through nearly three centuries, not
much of a harvest can be expected when we look for motifs of Norse
paganism in the sagas.
Everywhere belief and religious practice are important elements in
the creation of traditional stories. In the traditions of Christian com-
munities, this feature usually takes the form of various powers, good
or evil, which reward or punish the leading characters according to
their deserts. By contrast, it is a usual feature of polytheistic religions
for separate gods to take a hand in the course of affairs; they step out
to defend their protégés and to oppose enemies of these. Here it is suf-
ficient to refer to the poems of Homer, which produce too many ex-
amples of the Greek gods in this role for quotation here.19 In the tenth
century, when Norse paganism was dominant in Iceland, we may ex-
pect the Norse gods to resemble the Greek gods in this habit of med-
dling in the life of their protégés, protecting or avenging them. Such
intervention by the gods would most probably occur in stories of indi-
vidual heroes circulating in the tenth century. Such traditions would
inevitably fall on evil days after the Conversion, once the Norse gods
had been uprooted from everyday experience. Of course it is true that
the change of religion came about gradually and slowly, and even
when the Norse gods had quitted the field various undergrowths of
Norse belief remained in full vigour for a good while, becoming in
course of time an active part of the superstition of the eleventh,
twelfth and thirteenth centuries.20 It is essential to allow for this alter-
ation in traditional beliefs when we come to assess theological material
in the Sagas of Icelanders.
Now I will set out some motifs in the sagas which could be taken as
evidence of traditions formulated in the days of Norse paganism. I
have in my paper concentrated on motifs from two sagas, Víga-Glúms
saga and Gísla saga Súrssonar.
In some passages of Víga-Glúms saga there are express references to
19 Odysseifskviða, Rvík 1973, pp. 293, 343, 351 and passim.
20 Dag Strömbáck, Sejd, Lund 1935, 3 ff.; Jón Hnefill Aðalsteinsson, Under the
Cloak, Uppsala 1978, pp. 28-30 and references there given.