Skáldskaparmál - 01.01.1992, Page 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).