Gripla - 20.12.2012, Blaðsíða 182

GRIPLA180
who has the shape of a dragon, at the end of the world — a feat he accom-
plishes by thrusting a spear into the dragon’s mouth (unger 1877, 711).11
In addition to these aspects which are directly linked to Michael, ch. 4 of
Michaels saga contains the motif of weighing a person’s good deeds against
their bad ones, though here the motif is attached to an unnamed collective
of angels who perform the task in direct opposition to a collective of devils
(unger 1877, 681).
furthermore, ch. 3 of Michaels saga tells the story of a man who has a
vision in which he sees two groups of supernatural beings, one after the
other. first, he sees to the north a group of devils ready for battle; then,
to the east, large groups of bright shining angels in possession of divine
power. Although this narrative does not mention the archangel by name,
Bergur nonetheless saw it fit to include it in his collection of important
legends attached to Michael and, since it bears resemblances to Þiðranda
þáttr which will be discussed below, it merits a mention here.
the literary references to Michael thus tend to cluster particularly
around three aspects of the archangel’s characteristic portrayal —Michael
as guide and helper of souls, Michael as weighing souls to measure their
good and evil, and Michael as the one who defeats the Devil, the Anti-
Christ, the dragon. In addition, there are the two references to Michael’s
leading position among the angels; together, these four elements may be
taken as representative of how medieval Icelanders perceived st Michael.
With the potential, too, for word play on his name — the old norse ver-
sion of the name is Míkjáll, which is phonetically close to the adjective
mikill,12 meaning “great, prominent, outstanding” — the archangel cannot
but have seemed impressive to early medieval scandinavians.
11 Michaels saga ch. 28 describes him as: haleita höfðingia himneskkrar herferðar, “glorious lord
of heavenly armies” (unger 1877, 710; my translation); in ch. 23 he is: herra höfuðenglanna,
“lord of archangels” (unger 1877, 703; my translation). In the Hebrew Apocrypha (in the
so-called War scroll [1QM] of the Dead sea scrolls), Michael leads the forces of God
against the evil Belial in the War of the sons of Light against the sons of Darkness.
12 there is however, no etymological or semantic overlap: it is a purely phonetic similarity. I
am grateful to Marteinn sigurðsson for reminding me of this. for different meanings of
mikill, see fritzner 1886–1896 2, 693–694.