Gripla - 20.12.2004, Page 111

THE PAST AS GUEST 109
than a common noun, that is, without the definite article. Frequently it is even
abbreviated to G. Abbreviation of common nouns to a single capital letter is
quite rare in medieval Icelandic manuscripts, but much more usual for per-
sonal names (Stefán Karlsson, personal communication).
The associations of the name Gestr with Ó›inn do nothing to soothe the
attentive reader. Nornagestr is perhaps mildly Odinic in appearance by being
old and strongly built, though we are not told that he is one-eyed or any such
thing, but as noted above, his appearance on the royal threshold under the
name Gestr might have been enough to prompt an association with Odinic
appearances such as that in Hervarar saga, in which Ó›inn takes the name
Gestumblindi. Nornagest’s Danish roots might also have linked him to Ó›-
inn.12 These details of name and origin all come out early in the fláttr and serve
to heighten narrative tension surrounding the true nature of this mysterious
Gestr/gestr.
Shortly before the half-way mark, the Ó›inn-related tension is stepped up
a notch when Hnikarr appears in the embedded narrative, a cloaked figure
who addresses Sigur›r. He is revealed after the fact to have been Ó›inn: Ok
flá er l‡sti um morguninn var Hnikarr horfinn ok sást eigi sí›an. Hyggja menn
at flat hafi Ó›inn verit (Flb. I:352). In the corresponding episode in Völsunga
saga 17 (Grimstad 2000:135) and Reginsmál in Konungsbók eddukvæ›a
(Neckel and Kuhn 1983:173–5) it is left to the reader to draw the conclusion
that the mysterious, wisdom-spouting figure was in fact Ó›inn. In Nornagests
fláttr, the revelation is explicit, and it reminds the reader once more that Ó›inn
is apt to appear under dulnefni, only to vanish again. Another narrative possi-
bility is activated, that of this Gestr vanishing mysteriously only to turn out to
have been Ó›inn.
The sense of gestr as a rank in the hir› also appears early in the fláttr, long
before Hnikarr appears, when Nornagestr is seated with the konungs gestir.
Nornagest (Flb. I:350). That name appears otherwise only in the titles, and not in the main
text.
12 Hollander pointed this out in 1916, at which time it was already an old observation. He
mentions in passing Icelandic ‘folklore and learned cosmogonies [that] maintained that the
cult of Odin was introduced from the South and still had its main seat there’(108). Hollander
added to the list of Nornagest’s Odinic connections his Danish heritage and his father’s name
and nickname. His father’s nickname fiingbítr (assembly-spoiler?) might strengthen the
Odinic association further if we are willing to follow Hollander’s conjecture that fiór›r is a
version of firór and then make the leap to Ó›inn in Grímnismál 49, where he calls himself
firór flingum (Hollander 1916:106–8).