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between the kings of northern Europe. Many scholars have considered the
saga to advance a staunch pro-monarchist ideology, but as kevin Wanner
has shown, the narrative is ambivalent towards interaction with kings,
portraying king Gauti in the Gauta þáttr episode as too large for his sur-
roundings and boldly, perhaps overly so, seizing hospitality not offered; in
Wanner’s view, the þáttr expresses genuine Icelandic concerns about royal
over-taxation.44 the saga’s tensions are primarily focussed on the opportu-
nities and dangers of ‘maritime commerce’: refr’s mobility and consequent
material and social gain is juxtaposed with the isolation and self-perceived
destitution of Gauta þáttr’s forest family, another historically-attested anxi-
ety for Icelanders; the threat that enterprising people like refr can pose to
kings is ultimately downplayed by attributing noble ancestry to him, nor
does this part of the saga seem to be unequivocally on the side of royalty.45
thus, seen in a late-fifteenth-/early-sixteenth-century context, the sagas
more specifically seem to adopt a stórbændur (landowners) subject position
and display an interest in commerce, a point to which I will return.
Like several other of the saga heroes, Grettir has a frustrated relation-
ship with his father in his youth, and Hálfdanar saga and Flóvents saga also
centre on foolish teenagers who make one blunder after another; John
McKinnell has argued that the former is a narrative that engages with
adolescent male fantasies about superior ability and sexual relationships,
allowing the young protagonist to make mistakes, but, ultimately, he learns
to function as a responsible adult.46 Perhaps some of the manuscript’s in-
tended audience were young men: Ectors saga’s scribe gives Icelandic names
for seven cart drivers and hesta strakar ‘horse boys’ among ector’s army,
presumably those of people known to him, and this could be a humorous
nod to boys and/or men in the audience.47 the perspectives and pursuits
of most of the sagas’ protagonists – viking or chivalric adventures, as-
44 Wanner, ‘Adjusting judgements,’ 392–393.
45 Wanner, ‘Adjusting judgements,’ 388.
46 John McKinnell, ‘the fantasy giantess. Brana in Hálfdanar saga Brönufóstra,’ in Ney et
al., eds., Fornaldarsagaerne. Myter og virkelighed, 201–222.
47 Ectors saga, in Late Medieval Icelandic Romances, vol. 1, ed. Agnete Loth, editiones
Arnamagnæanæ, series B, vol. 20 (Copenhagen: Munksgaard, 1962), 171; see also Marianne
e. kalinke, ‘Ectors saga: An Arthurian Pastiche in Classical guise,’ Arthuriana 22 (2012):
64–90. the names are Jón busi, Höskuldr tálmason, Jón Andrésson, Þorjörn fetill, Eiríkr
baðkall, Magnús skáldi and Sigurðr kóngr, and they do not appear in Ectors saga’s other
medieval manuscripts.