Gripla - 20.12.2008, Qupperneq 111

109HEARING VOICES
described as uncorrupted, black as hell, fat as an ox and, not surprisingly,
trollish) and burns it on the beach. A cow of Þóroddr’s licks some rocks
which Þórólfr’s ashes have drifted onto, and some time later dies giving
birth to two calves, a female and a large and sinisterly dapple-grey male
calf. Whether the male calf is Þórólfr’s progeny or Þórólfr himself reborn
remains unclear (Vésteinn Ólason 2003, 166), especially as the densely
imbricated narrative also suggests an alternative method of impregna-
tion: [þ]at er sumra manna sǫgn, at þá er eyjamenn fóru útan eptir firði með
skreiðarfarma, at þá sæi þeir kúna upp í hlíðinni ok naut annat apalgrátt at lit,
en þess átti engi maðr ván, ‘it’s the story of some people, that when islanders
sailed out along the fjord with cargoes of stockfish, they saw the cow up
on the slope and another cattlebeast, dapple-grey in colour, and nobody
had expected this’. The involvement of a bull points to a more natural
means of impregnation than licking ashy rocks, and the fact that both bull
and calf are apalgrár also suggests sexual reproduction. But it is obviously
no normal bull, and seems most likely to be Þórólfr (whose corpse is, we
remember, blár sem hel ok digr sem naut) in another form. The saga juxta-
poses these inconsistent alternative explanations and gives no indication
of which is correct, increasing, as Klaus Böldl observes (2005, 123), the
audience’s unease.
The calf, along with his apparently normal sister, is brought into the
house, where Þóroddr’s old, blind foster-mother is sitting. She was second-
sighted in her youth but the odd remarks she makes suggest she is now in
her dotage. The calf bellows while being tied up (kvað hann við hátt), and
the old woman declares [þ]etta eru trolls læti, en eigi annars kvikendis, ‘those
are the sounds of a troll, and no other living being’,19 and pleads with
Þóroddr to slaughter it, but Þóroddr is infatuated with the allœligr (vænligr,
W) calf. Þóroddr pretends to kill the calf to placate his foster-mother, but
slaughters the heifer instead and hides the male calf in the barn over the
winter, where it grows extremely fast. When it is let out in the spring, it
runs wild in the home-field, ok beljaði hátt … svá at gǫrla heyrði í hús inn,
‘and bellowed loudly … so it could clearly be heard in the house’. Þóroddr’s
foster-mother hears this from inside and repeats her request that the ill-
starred troll be killed, but is again ignored. The calf, now grown into a
19 W reads: þetta eru trollslig læti ok kosti ok skeri sem skjótast troll þetta, ‘those are trollish sounds,
try to kill that troll as quickly as possible’.