Gripla - 20.12.2008, Page 104

GRIPLA102
Hallmundr í gný fjalla
Bergbúa þáttr tells how two men on their way to Mass are overtaken by a
snowstorm in the early evening and shelter in a cave. During the night they
hear something come out of the depths of the cave towards them:
Þá signdu þeir sik ok báðu guð til hjálpar sér, því at þeim þótti lætin
mikilfenglig innar í hellinum, ok varð þeim þá litit innar í myrkrit.
Þeir sá þá þat, er þeim þótti því líkast sem væri tungl tvau full eðr
törgur stórar, ok var á millum stund sú ekki svá lítil. Ekki ætluðu
þeir annat heldr en þat væri augu tvau ok mundi sá ekki mjóleitr, er
þau skriðljós bar. Því næst heyrðu þeir kveðandi harðla ógurliga með
mikilli raust. Var þar hafit upp kvæði ok kveðinn tólf vísna flokkr,
ok kvað sá ávallt tysvar niðrlagit. (ÍF 13, 442).
Then they crossed themselves and prayed to God for help, because
they thought that whatever was making the noise would be some-
thing to be reckoned with, and then they happened to glance into
the darkness. They saw something that looked to them like two full
moons or large round shields, and the space between them was none
too small. They had to draw the conclusion that those were two
eyes; whoever was carrying those “lamps” cannot have had a very
narrow face. Suddenly they heard a frightening recitation in a loud
voice. A poem began, a flokkr of twelve stanzas, and the speaker
always repeated the last line. (Complete Sagas of Icelanders, II, 444.)
As in the Hetta episode the physical setting involves an inside/outside
contrast: the nervous auditors sit á steina tvá hjá hellisdyrum, ‘on two stones
near the cave entrance’, while the speaker fór innan eptir hellinum ok utar at
þeim, ‘moved inside along the cave and outwards towards them’. The voice
is acousmatic despite the fact that the speaker approaches the two men,
as they cannot see his mouth, or indeed any other part of his body other
than his eyes. The invisible mouth is emphasised by the mention of the
ominously large ‘space’ (stund) between his glowing eyes from which the
loud and frightening voice issues. The voice recites a twelve stanza poem in
dróttkvætt, repeating the final line of each stanza, as described in the prose.
This happens three times in the course of the night, [e]n þá er kvæðinu var
lokit it þriðja sinn, þá leið frá þeim innar í hellinn allt saman, ‘[b]ut when the