Skáldskaparmál - 01.01.1992, Side 42

Skáldskaparmál - 01.01.1992, Side 42
40 Robert Cook by what comes after her story in the saga. The next thing of note that happens is Þorgerður Þorsteinsdóttir’s decision, after the death of her husband Dala-Kollur, to go to Norway. This is again a bold step, reminiscent of (though of course not equal to) Unnur’s leaving Scotland. It leads to a brief but happy marriage to Herjólfur and the birth of her son Hrútur, and this in turn brings about the first serious conflict in the saga, the dispute between the half-brothers Höskuldur and Hrútur over the inheritance which Höskuldur refuses to share. What is interesting about this conflict is that it is typically masculine - a cattle raid by Hrútur leads to a pitched battle in which four men on Höskuldur’s side are killed and the rest wounded; and Höskuldur prepares for a retaliating attack - but that the resolution of the conflict is brought about by a woman: Jórunn, Höskuldur’s wife. Her forceful and well- reasoned speech to Höskuldur in ch. 19 (incidentally, much of the best rhetoric in the saga is given to women) is fully effective: it causes him to pay his brother his due rather than attack and probably slay him, and it thus averts an unthinkable crime. Following Þorgerður’s trip to Norway and the beginnings of the Höskuldur-Hrútur feud (chs. 7-8), the next woman of interest (and thus the next story of interest) is Vigdís Ingjaldsdóttir, whose story is told in such detail in chs. 11, 14-16, that one is impelled to ask why so much elaboration is given to an incident involving secondary characters whose main function, as far as the plot is concerned, is merely to indicate how the farm Goddastaðir passed into the hands of Ólafur pái. A brief summary (such as “Ólafur had been fostered by Þórður goddi and inherited his farm Goddastaðir after his death”) would have been sufficient. Why take the trouble of telling (inventing?) the detailed story of how Vigdís gave shelter to her relative, the fugitive killer Þórólfur, against the wishes of her husband, how she made a fool of her husband, how she gave Ingjaldur Sauðeyjargoði a bloody nose by hitting him with a purse full of the money with which he had bribed Þórður? To pose this question is to answer it. Although the characters are otherwise unknown, and although the episode is not necessary to the main plot, the author obviously wanted to tell this kind of a story: a story about how a strong, clever, sensible woman outsmarted and exposed two men, including a goði. Vigdís not only manages to get Þórólfur away and free; she also exposes her husband as a liar and a coward and sees to it that Ingjaldur gets no satisfaction for the slaying of his brother Hallur. All makes a strong impression, especially on Helga, now married to Hrafn: “... og þótti hann þá mikið afbragð annarra manna fyrir margs sakir, bæði afls og vænleiks og vaxtar” (Gunnlaugs saga, 11:1184). The word appears four times in Laxdœla, including the passage about Unnur under discussion. To cite one: “Er konungur vel til Þorleiks sem fyrr en þó mat hann Bolla miklu meira því að konungi þótti hann mikið afbragð annarra manna” (73:1646).
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