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features, foul language and other markers of low social class.90 In Ectors
saga, which contains at least one such monster in all bar one of the seven
subplots, they are sometimes invulnerable to weapons but all terrifying
in various ways, especially the Swedish giant gandilabrus, whose entire
body is hairy like a sheep, whereas some of Sigurðar saga þǫgla’s many
giants wear garments made of goat skin.91 In the fornaldarsögur, we find
characters that are just as loathsome: Hálfdanar saga Brönufóstra, for in-
stance, features the evil berserk Sóti, who is half-red, half-blue, bald, with
one single hair on his head, and like the ogre from Ectors saga, he does
not wear clothes, a clear marker of non-humanness.92 these creatures are
seemingly easy to dismiss as wholly other, sometimes attacking the hero
out of nowhere, and fulfilling the same functions as dragons or other dan-
gerous creatures, but in other instances, they lead a military invasion of a
particular kingdom, or abduct a princess. the hero proves his mettle by
killing this external threat, marries the princess and all ends well.
One of the primary characters in Hálfdanar saga Brönufóstra, the giant’s
daughter Brana, is the daughter of a Wallonian princess who seems never
to have been rescued by a hero, or at least not until after she had been made
pregnant by her abductor, the giant járnhauss. In Sigurðar saga þǫgla, too,
rape is abjected onto monstrous outsiders when Sigurðr, a prince, rapes
the maiden-king sedentiana three times, disguised as a horrible ogre, a
dwarf and a swineherd.93 the rape is not only justified both by reference
to sedentiana’s treatment of her previous suitors and age-old rape myths,
but the description of sigurðr’s third disguise is so hyperbolic and gleeful
that the question arises whether it was intended to be amusing for the
audience:
þꜳ sier hun ... einn jỏtunn storan. suartan og suipillann. nasꜳstoran
og nefbiugan. og suo krokott ath hlyckur sꜳ sem ꜳ nefinu uar tok
odrum megin langt ut ꜳ hans hruckottu kinn ath þij illa eyra er hann
bar ꜳ sijnum suijuirdliga uanga. enn nasirnar ut ꜳ adra kinn ofan
langt fra eyrunum. og uoru þær suo flæstar ath smair men mattu
90 see e.g. Ectors saga, 94–96, 99, 105, 111; Sigurðar saga, 177, 207–208.
91 Ectors saga, 165–166; Sigurðar saga, 149, 208.
92 Hálfdanar saga Brönufóstra, 3:325.
93 Sigurðar saga, 201–209. For more detailed discussion of this episode, see jóhanna katrín
Friðriksdóttir, Women in Old Norse Literature, 122.
IDEoLogY AnD IDEntItY In LAtE MEDIEVAL WESt ICELAnD