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arrive at, and that is our aim to show by dwelling on this example, is that
we really do not know how exactly medieval audiences understood this
passage and its equivalents.
The literary products of twelfth- and thirteenth-century Iceland bear
indisputable witness to a profound and genuine interest in the past, not
least the pre-Christian past. Mythology and mythologically related mate-
rial figures large; one only needs to mention the Eddas. Thus it is note-
worthy, if not surprising, to find Sturlunga as good as exempt of direct
references to mythological material (barring skaldic diction, of course, in
which there is plenty).
The scant references that are found, all but one in Íslendinga saga,
can be said to be of three types. The first type, a single reference only, is
a reference to Norse mythology that cannot, nevertheless, have had any
mythological meaning whatsoever for a thirteenth-century Icelander. It is
when April 28th 1237 is referred to in Íslendinga saga as “Týsdaginn eftir
páskaviku”.13 This is no more than a conventional dating method, and gives
us little to chew on. If it shows anything at all in our context, then it is how
normal it was for Christian Icelanders to use the old day names without
regarding it a heathen practice.14
The second type, again a single reference, embraces the practice of
giving the búðir at alþingi names derived from Norse mythology: Snorri
Sturluson’s búð Valhöll. During Snorri’s dispute with Magnús allsherjar-
goði in the 1210’s he named his búð Grýla, doubtlessly to indicate that he
was a force to be reckoned with.15 Later, during the summers of 1228, 1231,
13 Ibid., 404.
14 As we learn from Jóns saga helga, Bishop Jón Ögmundarson is said to have fought against
the use of pagan day names during his bishopric at Hólar in the first quarter of the
twelfth century, but this seemingly took some time to change. “Im Gegensatz zu anderen
Bishofssagas ist die J[óns] s[saga] h[elga] in erster Linie kein histor[ischer] Bericht, sond-
ern reine Hagiographie”, in the words of Hermann Pálsson and Rudolf Simek, and Jón’s
reported stance on this matter is probably best understood within that context. Biskupa
sögur I, ed. Guðbrandur Vigfússon (Copenhagen: Hið íslenzka bókmenntafélag, 1858),
165, 237; Hermann Pálsson and Rudolf Simek, Lexikon der altnordischen Literatur, Kröners
Taschenausgabe 490 (Stuttgart: Alfred Kröner Verlag, 1987), 201.
15 Sturlunga saga I, 269. The ogress Grýla is well-known in later Icelandic folklore as the
frightening mother of the jólasveinar. That ogress, or its forerunner, is mentioned twice
in Sturlunga, clearly being referred to as some kind of a monster, “ok hefir á sér/hala
fimmtán.” In other places in Sturlunga, and in other sagas as well, we find the word grýla,
sometimes in plural, as meaning threats or intimidation. Grýla is also found as a heiti for a
PAGAN MYTHOLOGY IN CHRISTIAN SOCIETY