Gripla - 20.12.2005, Page 156

GRIPLA
In Kristni saga (ÍF XV:11), on the other hand, we are told neither that heat is
felt nor that any real flames are seen: „En er fleir kómu í kirkjugar›inn s‡ndisk
fleim sem eldr fyki út um alla gluggana á kirkjunni, ok fóru flví brot at fleim
s‡ndisk ƒll kirkjan eldsfull“ (‘And when they came into the churchyard, it
seemed to them as if fire were flying out of all the church windows, and they
went away because the whole church seemed to them to be on fire’). The
marked repetition of the verb s‡ndisk suggests that the flames belong only in
the minds of the aggressors: they have no external reality. Likewise, the
second attempt to burn the church down is thwarted in Óláfs saga Tryggva-
sonar en mesta (I:292) by the miraculous failure of the wood to catch fire even
when encouraged: „[fi]á lag›iz hann inn yfir flreskiπlldinn ok ætla›i at blasa
at er glo›in var nóg. en eigi uilldi festa ívi›ínum“ (‘Then he lay down across
the threshold and intended to blow on it where the red-hot embers were
sufficient, but it would not catch the wood’). In Kristni saga (ÍF XV:11), we
are told only that the fire took time to blaze up and needed encouragement:
„Eldr kvikna›i seint. fiá lag›isk hann ni›r ok blés at inn yfir flreskeldinn“
(‘The fire was slow to kindle; then he lay down and blew at it across the thre-
shold’). While Ólafs saga Tryggvasonar en mesta concludes didactically with
„hlif›i gu› sva husi sino“ (‘God thus protected his house’), Kristni saga
contents itself with the brief comment that: „Fór Arngeirr flá heim“ (‘Arngeirr
then went home’). The differences in wording may be small, but they create a
more sober atmosphere and reduce the sense of the marvellous. What in-
terested the compiler, it seems, was less the value of miracles as signa – vis-
ible signs of God’s presence and purposes – than their material contribution,
in the form of the first convert and the first church, to the growth of
Christianity in Iceland.
LAW AND POLITICS
Finally, there is the strongly legal and political tone of Kristni saga’s narrative,
reminiscent of the line taken by Maurer, Björn M. Ólsen, and later scholars.
Not only is there no religious rhetoric about the heathen persecution of
Christians, but the compiler of Kristni saga twice underlines the presence of
good men in the heathen party, once after fiangbrandr’s defeat of an anti-social
berserk, and again to explain why no battle broke out before the legal
conversion (ÍF XV:25, 31): „En fló váru fleir sumir er skirra vildu vandræ›um
fló at eigi væri kristnir“ (‘And yet there were some who wished to prevent
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