Gripla - 20.12.2013, Page 212

GRIPLA212
course of its performance, and individual lines and stanzas belonging to
one poem may be incorporated into another. though set in different loca-
tions within Iceland, the basic narrative is virtually identical: an insatiably
hungry, animal-like antagonist arrives at a farm and begs for alms in the
form of excess children (preferably naughty ones) but is inevitably refused
— either placated with a gift of food or forcibly driven away. the unwel-
come guest may visit more than one farm over the course of the poem, and
the head of the household may cooperate to the extent of recommending
a specific destination where he believes the children to be particularly
naughty. While these three poems clearly draw on much older folk tradi-
tions surrounding Grýla and her kin, tradition and processes of blending
over time cannot be the sole explanation for these shared features. In
particular, both jón samsonarson and Þórunn sigurðardóttir have empha-
sised that the author of Leppalúðakvæði must be familiar with Grýlukvæði,
as there is a very specific reference in the poem to Grýla’s misadventures
in sléttuhlíð.4
If Grýlukvæði is presumed to be the oldest of the extant seventeenth-
century grýlukvæði, it may have served as a literary model for later composi-
tions. However, although Grýlukvæði is generally hypothesised to predate
other extant grýlukvæði, and is certainly attributed to an older poet, the
issue of its age and authorship has never been fully addressed, nor has its
dissemination in the seventeenth century been examined. Manuscripts
preserving the poem confirm that Grýlukvæði was known in the West
fjords by 1665, but they do not provide a date of composition or author.
the first known source to name Guðmundur erlendsson as the author
of Grýlukvæði, Páll Vídalín’s Recensus poetarum et scriptorum Islandorum
cf. jón samsonarson, “ókindarkvæði,” Gripla 10 (1998): 29. In drawing on the grýlukvæði
tradition, eggert ólafsson’s satirical “Hér er komin hún Grýla” adopts the dragmælt metre
and grotesque imagery of older grýlukvæði, but its preservation is far less entangled with
that of other grýlukvæði ― perhaps, as Jón Samsonarson notes, because it was primarily
intended for an adult audience.
4 jón samsonarson, “Leppalúði Hallgríms Péturssonar,” 48; Þórunn sigurðardóttir, “Hall-
grímur með ‘síra Guðmund erlendsson í felli í bak og fyrir’: tveir skáldbræður á 17. öld,”
in Í ljóssins barna selskap: Fyrirlestrar frá ráðstefnu um séra Hallgrím Pétursson og samtíð hans
sem haldin var í Hallgrímskirkju 28. október 2006, ed. Margrét eggertsdóttir et al. (Reykjavík:
Listvinafélag Hallgrímskirkju, 2007), 49–61; Þórunn sigurðardóttir, “[A]f naturen en
begavet digter: Pastor Guðmundur erlendsson (ca. 1595–1670),” Hymnologi 39 (2010):
125–34.