Gripla - 20.12.2004, Síða 112

GRIPLA110
Implicitly, this categorizes him with them, or beyond them (er honum skipat
útar fra gestum). It is also with these gestir that he wagers. Fritzner is unsure
that the gestasveit is comprised of the gestir of the laws, but rather ‘her
maaske de fremmede som opholdt sig i Huset’ (Fritzner I 1886:589). To my
eye, the gestasveit on the gestabekk and in their dealing with the King himself
look rather more like hir›menn than visitors. The title of the section dealing
with wager also names them as such: Ve›jun Gests vi› hir›menn. Play on the
common noun continues throughout the piece. Nornagestr is sometimes re-
ferred to as gestr hinn ókunni/n‡komni, or flessi hinn komni gestr in the same
sentence with the other gestir, inviting comparison with the King’s men.
All this polysemy is activated in the first half of Nornagests fláttr, but the
tale develops in such a way that our concerns about Nornagestr are put to rest.
Nornagestr benefits from comparison to the konungs gestir. They are roundly
scolded by the King for being too quick to wager with an unknown char-
acter—we might compare the hotheadedness of the gestir as suggested in the
laws cited above. Nornagest’s gold proves to be better than Úlf’s ring Hnitu›r,
which redounds to Nornagest’s honor as a truthful speaker rather than an idle
boaster and as the direct conduit to the admirable parts of the heroic past he
turns out to be. As for his name, Nornagestr turns out to be just who he says he
is. His identity is resolved, and his death makes any concern that he would
turn out to be Ó›inn moot. Nornagestr dies as a gestr in the King’s care, so the
King ought to receive the gesterf›, both the material tokens and, if we are
willing to allow ourselves the metaphor, forn frœ›i. The positive associations
of gestr, the ones that make the confrontation with the past figured as a gestr
less fraught are stressed in Nornagests fláttr inasmuch as the narrative as a unit
is concerned. Gesterf› smooths some of the conceptual way to accepting the
goods Nornagestr brings with him. Nornagestr himself is an admirable gestr
despite and because of the proximity of the less savory associations of the
word. But those same associations, once raised, are then fresh in mind and
condition how the other narratives read.
5.2 Ögvaldsnes
At Ögvaldsnes, the visitor’s name is never mentioned explicitly; he is never
asked to introduce himself, and he never volunteers the information himself.
Gestr seems to appear as both name and common noun. That he is a guest
provides a frame for his performance. On the other hand, his involvement in