Gripla - 20.12.2007, Qupperneq 50

GRIPLA48
Illugi kastaði skildi þá yfir hann, ok varði hann svá rƒskliga, at allir
menn ágættu vƒrn hans. (260)
‘Illugi threw a shield over [Grettir], and defended him so valiantly that
all present praised his defence.’
This feeling of puzzlement has little to do with the literal meaning of such
passages, which is usually clear; nor does the mere existence of them raise
problems. This and other family sagas tend to record the onset, progress, and
maintenance of reputations exceptionally thoroughly, even compared to other
works from similar heroic traditions (for example, the Old English tradition).
So, as readers become more familiar with the sagas’ content, they would come
to expect the spontaneous reactions of witnesses to fame-worthy deeds, where-
upon any initial feeling of puzzlement would likely fade. Renown is, after all,
essential to the competitive world-view that dominates the sagas and is a
stated goal of many of the major saga-characters: a way of defining their iden-
tities and their values to their communities (Njáls saga:324).4 A reputation is
also a fragile, time-sensitive construct — never to be taken for granted, be-
cause a character can wreck a lifetime’s worth of reputation-building with just
one failed effort (Grettis saga:193-194; Njáls saga:84, 407). The reiteration of
word-of-mouth praise may well take place, then, simply because a reputation
requires continual reinforcement.
I have no objection to this understanding of heroic fame. I also realize that
fame by word of mouth is a way of including evaluations of saga characters in
the narrative while avoiding authorial intrusion (Allen 1971:99-101, 107-112).
But my own puzzled reaction to the excerpts above has less to do with their
import and more to do with their placement. They appear at the end of Grettis
saga, when any logical or narrative need for the saga to establish or even main-
tain the reputations of its major characters has vanished long ago. Only totally
atypical actions by Grettir could change his well-established reputation at this
juncture. Hence, even if one deems the reiteration of reputations to be typical
Moreover, there is little evidence that Icelandic writers distinguished between saga-genres
and between compositions such as Grettis saga and Orkneyinga saga until the nineteenth cen-
tury. Also, I examine Old Icelandic works as compositions rather than historical chronicles.
For instance, I do not mean to imply that events in the sagas actually occurred: a point that is
impossible to prove. See Byock 2004 for an argument that the sagas are not strictly history or
literature but both (303).
4 For discussion of heroic fame, see Andersson 1970, Harris 1983:219-242, and Simek 2000.