Gripla - 20.12.2007, Qupperneq 58

Gripla - 20.12.2007, Qupperneq 58
GRIPLA tive in a specific way: the latter has produced no poetry up to this point in the saga, but does so once the feud concerning Njáll’s family has reached its extreme. Unlike many of the other sagas, such as Grettis saga, Egils saga, and Gísla saga Súrssonar, that depict their principal characters as prolific and precocious versifiers right from their first appearances in their stories, Njáls saga contains little in the way of praise-poetry. Most of the famous stanzas in it are pro- phesies by minor characters, most verses have associations with death, and they seem to be introduced more schematically than in other sagas.19 One of the more significant examples, in praise of the great hero Gunnarr’s last stand, appears at the very moment that this hero dies, as if his reputation in verse replaces him (190). Gunnarr himself only recites poetry as a ghost, in his burial mound. Significantly, Skarpheðinn witnesses this recitation (193). Just like Gunnarr, he then produces only one poem in the course of his illustrious career, at the burning of himself and the rest of Njáll’s family (336),20 and this verse only appears once one of the burners has wondered whether or not Skarpheðinn is alive late in the burning. Since the poem is nearly unintel- ligible and apparently a depiction of a woman in mourning, it suits the situa- tion of a dying man, striving against impossible odds. A burner even specu- lates as to whether or not Skarpheðinn was dead or alive when he recited the poem (337). One sees, therefore, a progression in Njáls saga from a verse by a dead man to a (half) verse by a half-dead man. And the power of poetry, among other things, seems to be passed on like a legacy. At the burning, this legacy comes to Kári. Indeed, Skarpheðinn tells him, as a reply to Kári’s praise of his great leap, Eptir er enn yðvarr hluti (233), 56 19 The saga seems to take an unusually critical attitude to skaldic verse in general. Typically, the saga only refers, with a few exceptions, to the work of so-called famous poets without quot- ing it; for instance the scurrilous verses directed at Njáll and his family. Also, these poems are clearly portrayed in the saga as a negative development in dealings between the feuding parties. The stanzas directly lead to much bloodshed. Much verse elsewhere in the saga is associated with black magic, paganism, or both (264-266, 321, 335-336, 348, 454-460). I largely rely upon Einar Ól. Sveinsson’s edition of the saga in my conclusions concerning the poems, because I do not have space to discuss the different patterns of verse that exist in the over 50 manuscripts of Njáls saga that are extant. Readers should know, for instance, that sometimes the scurrilous verses directed at Njáll and his family do appear, though every modern edition of the saga leaves them out. See Einar Ól. Sveinsson’s notes to the verses, his appendix including and concerning the doubtful ones (465-480), and his discussion of the manuscripts (cxlix-clxiii). For an English translation of Njáls saga that includes many of the verses of disputed authenticity, see Dasent 1911:passim. 20 But cf. Njáls saga (467-469, 470, 472-473, 474-477, 478-480).
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