Gripla - 20.12.2004, Síða 117

THE PAST AS GUEST 115
unfamiliar, but he identifies himself by name and his father’s name: Tóki son
of Tóki inn gamli. Tóki is not an Ó›insheiti or a traditional dulnefni.103 One of
the heroes at Brávellir is named Tóki, and perhaps that would have given the
name in this context a more ancient, heroic cast, which would not be
inappropriate given the subject of the fláttr. But Tóki as a personal name does
not have the associations that the name Gestr does. It seems fairly harmless.
This Tóki’s resemblance to the Gestir of the other tales has nothing to do with
his name.
The gestasveit is nowhere hinted at, and the time of year is not given,
which further distances those troublesome húskarlar from the tale at hand.
Tóki is of course a guest, the most mundane and comforting sense of the word
gestr. He accepts hospitality and provides diversion for his host, fitting into a
system that makes him and his stories welcome in their context, and unlike his
immediate forerunner, the óhreinn andi, Tóki fits smoothly into this role. On
the inter/intratextual plane, then, the tale rounds off and resolves the series on
an acceptable and safe note after the low mark of hospitality failure and high
danger level in Ó›inn kom til Óláfs. Even better, from the standpoint of res-
olution and safe relations between past and present, Tóki dies. As for gesterf›,
its implicit workings do not seem to depend on the presence of the word gestr.
We may judge by Grágás (Konungsbók), arfafláttr ch. 120, 121, and um aust-
manna arf ch. 249:
Ch.120. Ef sá ma›r andask er engi á frænda hér á landi. ... En ef hann
kømr í vistina, ok andask hann flar, flá á félagi hans flat fé at taka ... En
ef eigi er félagi flá á at taka búandinn (Grágás Ia:228–229).
If a man dies who has no kinsman here in the country. ... But if he comes
into his lodging and dies there, then his partner has the right to take the
property ... But if there is no partner, then the householder has the right
to take it (Dennis, Foote and Perkins 2000:10).
13 Lind cites one incidence of a nickname tóki, but that may not be the same name (Lind 1920–
21:384). The meaning of Tóki is unclear. Cipolla translates as ‘fool,’ ‘lo “stulto,” il
“gonzo”’ (Cipolla 1996:70), based on de Vries’s etymology from a verb meaning to play or
entertain (de Vries 1962:594). Nudansk ordbog explains it differently, as a short form of
names like fiórkell and fiórgrímr (Becker-Christiansen et al. 1986:976). Ásgeir Blöndal
Magnússon agrees with this latter derivation and dismisses de Vries’s theory (Ásgeir Blöndal
Magnússon 1989:1051). Whatever its meaning, the name Tóki seems to have been common
in Denmark and Danish in origin (Lind 1905–1915:37).