Skáldskaparmál - 01.01.1992, Page 50

48
Robert Cook
fascinating to Icelanders. My approach, however, assumes that what a
particular saga does with a character is of more importance than the
character as he might have existed in tradition.)
1. Höskuldnr Dala-Kollsson
He is first described as “vænn maður og gervilegur”; he gives his name to the
farm he inherits from Kollur and is “vinsæll í búi sínu” (7:1542). A bit later
we read:
I þenna tíma réð Noregi Hákon Aðalsteinsfóstri. Höskuldur var hirðmaður
hans. Hann var jafnan sinn vetur hvort með Hákoni eða að búi sínu. Var hann
nafnfrægur maður bæði í Noregi og á Islandi. (9:1543)
This is all very splendid, but it comes to the reader as a total surprise.
What has Höskuldur done to deserve the high position of courtier in
Norway? He has performed no deeds whatsoever, neither in Iceland or
abroad, and we haven’t even been told that he has gone abroad. No more is
said of Höskuldur in Norway beyond this brief mention, and we are next
told of his marriage to Jórunn Bjarnardóttir, whose father was “stórættaður
maður og auðigur að fé”. “Sá þótti þá kostur bestur í öllum Vestfjörðum”
(9:1543).
What does this man of fine breeding and good qualities and connections
do? What are his chief actions in the saga?
First, on the death of his mother he refuses to share her estate with his
Norwegian half-brother Hrútur, and this creates trouble in the family that
continues until Höskuldur’s son Þorleikur has the young boy Kári, the son
of Hrútur’s old age, cruelly put to death by sorcery (ch. 37). What is
interesting about this conflict is the difference in manliness between Hrútur
and Höskuldur.
Hrútur er hirðmaður Haralds konungs Gunnhildarsonar og hafði af honum
mikla virðing. Hélt það mest til þess að hann gafst best í öllum mannraunum.
(19:1557)
Both brothers are courtiers of King Haraldur, but only of Hrútur is it
said that he earned this position by actual deeds of valor (“hann gafst best í
öllum mannraunum” - nothing comparable is ever said of Höskuldur). In
Iceland, when Hrútur has pursued his rightful claim for three years, he
understandably loses patience and stages a cattle-raid, driving away twenty
of Höskuldur’s cattle. When he and his eleven companions are pursued by
fifteen of Höskuldur’s men, we have the first bit of manly heroic action -
and one of the few - in the saga: