Skáldskaparmál - 01.01.1992, Síða 53

Women and Men in Laxdæla saga
51
some reasons are apparent for Ólafur’s success abroad - his family
connections in Ireland, his gifts to the Norwegian royalty - it still seems that
his rewards exceed his deserts, and it is striking that the evidence of physical
manliness is so thin.
His prowess is not greater back in Iceland, where the only acts he
performs - the laying of Hrappur’s ghost (ch. 24) and his part in action
against Kotkel and his family of sorcerers (chs. 37-38) - are short of heroic.
Otherwise, Ólafur’s career is marked by two things: the achieving and
displaying of great wealth and splendor, and acting in a weak, vacillating way
at a number of key moments. Since Ursula Dronke (1979) has already
described Ólafur’s “blundering benevolence” in a number of scenes where
his behavior is well-intentioned but ineffective, it will suffice here to examine
one episode.
When he comes to Norway for the second time, to get timber, Ólafur
accepts hospitality for the winter from a prosperous man named Geir-
mundur gnýr, who is described as an “ódældarmaður” (29:1574). The reader
may well wonder at the wisdom of accepting an invitation from such a man,
in spite of his wealth. The following year Ólafur acts inconsistently when
Geirmundur brings his goods onto Ólafur’s ship:
„Eigi mundir þú fara á mínu skipi ef eg hefði fyrr vitað því að vera ætla eg þá
munu nokkura á íslandi að betur gegndi að þig sæju aldrei. En nú er þú ert hér
kominn við svo mikið fé þá nenni eg eigi að reka þig aftur sem búrakka."
(29:1575)
This is the worst sort of vacillation: first Ólafur insults the man whose
hospitality he has enjoyed for the whole winter by saying he doesn’t want to
offer him passage on his ship, and then he says he will take him anyway. It
would have been better not to say anything at all. To make things worse,
when they get to Iceland Ólafur invites Geirmundur to stay with him, and
this leads of course to Geirmundur’s asking to marry Þuríður. Ólafur’s first
answer is a flat “no”, but when Geirmundur bribes Þorgerður and she talks
to Ólafur on Geirmundur’s behalf, he contradicts his own good instincts:
“Eigi skal þetta gera í móti þér heldur en annað þótt eg væri fúsari að gifta
Þuríði öðrum manni”(29:1576).
The next bit of inconsistency in this episode occurs three years later,
when Geirmundur abandons Þuríður and their baby daughter without
leaving them any of his extensive wealth. Ólafur not only fails to take
strong action, he goes as far as to give him “kaupskipið með öllum reiða”
(30:1576). What is at stake here of course is the domestic relation between
Ólafur and Þorgerður: she persuaded him to permit the marriage, and now
he, in a typical feud between married partners, wants her to see clearly that
he was right and she was wrong. When Þorgerður and Þuríður complain