Skáldskaparmál - 01.01.1992, Blaðsíða 49

Women and Men in Laxdæla saga
47
something hollow about the descriptions of the glorious travels and
trappings of these men. There seems to be a discrepancy between the
language used of them (as in the above citations) and the fictional reality of
the saga.4
Though I will concentrate on Höskuldur, Ólafur, Kjartan, and Þorkell,
my examination of the things said about the male heroes, the language used
of them, might well begin with Dala-Kollur:
Unnur hafði og með sér marga þá menn er mikils voru verðir og stórættaðir.
Maður er nefndur Kollur er einna var mest verður af föruneyti Unnar. Kom
mest til þess ætt hans. Hann var hersir að nafni. Sá maður var og í ferð með Unni
er Hörður hét. Hann var enn stórættaður maður og mikils verður. (4:1539)
The use of the word “verður” is interesting here; Kollur, who has the title
of a Norwegian chieftain (“hersir”) is called a “verður” man, and the main
reason is said to be his “ætt” (“Kom mest til þess ætt hans”). The equation
“verður” = “stórættaður” is established and becomes explicit in the
description of Hörður: “Hann var enn stórættaður maður og mikils
verður.”5
Kollur is later called “hinn mesti tilkvæmdarmaður” (5:1540), but there is
little evidence in the saga to justify this, since he does nothing apart from
marrying Þorgerður Þorsteinsdóttir, one of the grand-daughters of Unnur
djúpúðga, receiving Laxárdalur from Unnur as a dowry, fathering
Höskuldur, and dying. Of his supposedly prominent family we are given no
details, not even his father’s name. With Kollur there is something lacking on
both sides of the equation “verður” = “ættaður.” Already in the language
used of the great-grandfather of Kjartan the reader can detect something
hollow.
(In these remarks on Kollur, and in the following remarks on leading
males in the saga, I am consciously and wilfully neglecting traditional
referentiality, the information known about characters from other sources.
In Landnámabók Kollur is given a pedigree of sorts: he is called “Veðrar-
Grímsson, Ásasonar hersis”(1968:138). Somewhere behind the literary
figures in the sagas were real persons, or at least traditions claiming to relate
to real persons, and these “real” persons have naturally always been
4 Njörður P. Njarðvík (1971) pointed to a discrepancy between the romantic
atmosphere of the saga and the brutal events, and my discussion is a development of
his ideas.
5 The word verður is used also of Þorleikur Höskuldsson when he is last mentioned in
the saga: “Það er flestra manna sögn að Þorleikur ætti lítt við elli að fást og þótti þó
mikils verður meðan hann var uppi” (38:1591). The reader surely has good reason to
be suspicious of the use of this word when it is applied to a man remembered chiefly
for his grudges against his half-brother and his uncle, for killing his uncle’s lausingi
(ch. 25) and, even worse, his uncle’s favorite son (ch. 37).