Gripla - 20.12.2007, Blaðsíða 63

ANTIQUARIANISM, POETRY, AND WORD-OF-MOUTH FAME 61
grant victory to others in battle just as he gave it to himself, and for
whom poetic composition was as simple as normal speech was for
other people?’
The king sat up and took his book of hours, which was in the bed,
and, aiming to hit Gestr in the head, said: ‘The last man I would want
to be is you: the evil Óðinn.’
Upon hearing these words, the old man vanishes. Significantly, Gestr/Óðinn’s
declaration concerning poetry versus speech connects heroic (and pagan)
values directly with an ability to communicate heroic stories. The usual sub-
ject-matter of skaldic poetry confirms these connections. The verses that ap-
pear in most sagas are likely to contain self-praise and incitement to revenge,
together with mythical figures, such as trolls, valkyries, Þórr, and Óðinn, that
figure in pre-Christian Germanic religions (Egils saga:210; Grettis saga:203-
204; Njáls saga:264-266; Poole 1991:52-55; Clunies Ross 1998; Meulen-
gracht Sørensen 2001). In Hallfreðar saga vandræðaskálds, the titular char-
acter recites a whole series of poems about the pagan gods to Óláfr Tryggva-
son (1939:156-158), in a typically competitive encounter between a poet and
a king (Waugh 1997b:296-299, 300-302, 305-307; Whaley 2001; Poole 2002).
Heroic language is inherently competitive, but such king-poet encounters
suggest that royal status has grown and that the king now has an advantage in
competitions.
Presumably Óðinn’s language, as the language of a god, would be the
ideal one in which to communicate heroic tales. The king in the þáttr, then,
must fight against his guest with an equally powerful (or more powerful)
weapon of the same kind: a book of hours, which represents the Christian
God’s ideal language, ideas, and stories, together with the daily regimen of
duty and the typically Christian idea that time on earth is limited and teleo-
logical. Gestr in contrast, with his impossibly old age, represents the eternity
of hell (Flateyjarbók II:219; Schlauch 1931:973). This narrative thus depicts
(among other things) an allegorical battle between oral and written traditions
and means of communication. Literate tradition wins in this case. On the other
hand, the old god seems to retain his existence, immortality, knowledge, and
some power over kings, even if he is reinterpreted in this story as a kind of
demon.25 In Norna-Gests þáttr, there is another ‘take’ on the old tale-teller
25 The sagas indicate a similar lasting power for aspects of the pagan religion. See Grettis
saga:132-133, 203-204; Njáls saga:264-266. For discussion, see Clunies Ross 1998 and
Meulengracht Sørensen 2001.