Gripla - 20.12.2004, Qupperneq 98

GRIPLA96
especially when presented as a performance, also rests in a frame that adds to
its appropriateness in that place and time, while at the same time, the shift in
narrative level marks this discourse off as distinct from the surrounding text.
Separation is achieved at the same time that the intellectual goods of the past
are made available in the present, shielded, as it were, by layers of custom and
practice. The temporal disorder inherent in the presence of the past does not
disappear, but the metaphor of the guest permits all these narrative and social
ordering devices.
3.2 Gestr and Ó›inn
But the ramifications of the metaphor of the guest do not end there. A gestr is
not always simply a guest, and some of the other associations of the word
threaten or toy with all the boundaries and distinctions discussed above. Gestr
is a stranger, is a near-Ó›insheiti, a more general dulnefni (used by Grettir
(Hume 1974:479) and others (Lind 1905–1915:330–331)), and a legitimate
personal name. It is not my aim to explore all of these fully here, but a few
words must be said about Ó›inn.
Ó›in’s strongest connection to the word gestr is through his role as a
wanderer and what von See calls ‘die Gast-Situationen Odins’ (von See 1981),
seen for example in both Hei›reks saga and Grímnismál. The opening stanzas
of Hávamál, the so-called Gestafláttr, also demonstrate special Odinic concern
with hospitality and the role of the gestr, as seen already above. If we take the
implied speaker of those lines to be Ó›inn himself, as the title of the poem
suggests, then the association is that much more robust. Ó›inn does appear
under the dulnefni Gestumblindi in Hei›reks saga 9, and that name is also
listed among his heiti in the fiulur (Skj. B I:673; A I:682 gæstvmblindi). Chris-
topher Tolkien is doubtless right that Gestumblindi derives from a compres-
sion of Gestr inn blindi, as the name is in fact written in the U-version of the
text (Tolkien 1960:32 n.1).4 Strictly speaking, Gestr by itself (that, is, un-
qualified by a modifier like inn blindi) does not turn up as an Ó›insheiti in
surviving texts outside of the corpus of episodes in Flateyjarbók under dis-
cussion here. However, the common noun would seem to provide the as-
sociative link between the name and Ó›inn. It also resonates conceptually
with better-attested Ó›insheiti such as Gagnrá›r (Vm.), Gangrá›r (cf. Konrá›
4 Axel Kock preferred to reconstruct Gestr unblindi (Kock 1891:180), which I find uncon-
vincing, but the distinction is not important for the present argument.