Gripla - 20.12.2008, Qupperneq 130

GRIPLA128
Most modern readers probably think of Óðinn when reading this passage.
The two ravens remind us of Huginn and Muninn, mythological figures
and the two most famous of ravens. It is particularly noteworthy in this
contex that while Hrafn and his men are preparing the attack, Sturla
Þórðarson, our storyteller, shows us the Christian religious side of Oddur:
“Oddr svaf lítit um nóttina ok söng lengi ok las saltara sinn.”9 He is killed
this very night after a spectacular defense. The ravens surely serve as an
omen to the fight, but are they a reference to Óðinn? Ravens are associ-
ated with Óðinn in Norse mythology, and Óðinn is the god of death and
battle, among other things. At the very end of Íslendinga saga we also find
a tale of four dreams of a certain girl, Jóreiður in Miðjumdalur, all relat-
ing to events of this very year, 1255. The well-known literary character
Guðrún Gjúkadóttir visits Jóreiður in her dreams. Jóreiður has not yet
learned of the results of the battle on Þveráreyri from later that year, where
Eyjólfur ofsi and Hrafn fought against Þorgils skarði and Oddur’s brother,
Þorvarður, and she asks Guðrún about the fates of Eyjólfur and Hrafn.
Guðrún, not favoring the two, says they will surely go “í helju heim”. The
girl inquires why that is so. “Þá ætla þeir með illvilja sínum at koma heiðni
á allt landit”, Guðrún replies.10 It is interesting to see the dream women
linking Hrafn with heathen ethics so shortly after the raven story, and this
even encourages us to take it, the two ravens, as some kind of a reference
to Óðinn and paganism. However, the dream scene is the only thing in the
saga that encourages such an understanding; there is nothing else in the
saga that links Hrafn with paganism. Furthermore, it would be unique
to learn of such an association of a thirteenth-century person. The dream
scene may even be an interpolation,11 and that would leave us with nothing
to aid our understanding of the ravens as a reference to Óðinn.12 What we
9 Ibid., 513.
10 Ibid., 519–522. There is further mention of heiðni in the dream sequence, again void of
any mythological relations. Jóreiðr asks Guðrún, when she reveals her identity in the third
dream: “’Hví fara heiðnir menn hér’ kvað mærin [i.e., Jóreiður]. ‘Engu skal þig þat skipta,’
segir hon [i.e., Guðrún], ‘hvárt em ek kristin eða heiðin, en vinr er ek vinar míns.’” Guðrún
also comments: “Nú hefir þetta þrisvar borit fyrir þig, enda verðr þrisvar allt forðum. Þat
er ok eigi síðr, at góð er guðs þrenning.”
11 Ibid., 577.
12 However, based on the general negativity of the saga‘s references to Óðinn, cf. the examples
reviewed below, one is led to assume that an association with Óðinn through the ravens is
not intended as a favorable one.