Skáldskaparmál - 01.01.1992, Qupperneq 56

54
Robert Cook
spread the new faith and staying in Norway, Kjartan says he prefers to stay
and is praised by the king for this decision - but it soon becomes clear that
his real reason for wanting to stay is his dalliance with the king’s sister
Ingibjörg. As for his manners, which never were in accord with the word
“lítillátur” used in his portrait, the new religion seems to have no effect.
Kjartan’s behavior to Hrefna shows him to be as boorish and crude as ever.
Kjartan first meets Hrefna on his return from Norway, when she and his
sister have opened his chest and taken out the “motur” given to him by
Princess Ingibjörg as a gift for Guðrún. When Kjartan - who has now
learned of Guðrún’s marriage to Bolli - sees Hrefna in the head-dress he
says: “Vel þykir mér þér sama moturinn Hrefna; ætla ég og að það sé best
fallið að eg eigi allt saman, motur og mey” (44:1603). The verb “eiga” of
course meant both “to possess” and “to be married to”, but Kjartan’s
remark is offensive because he places Hrefna on the level of the head-dress,
a possession, thus emphasizing the meaning “to possess”. Hrefna’s response
is both demure and flattering: “Það munu menn ætla að þú munir eigi
kvongast vilja bráðendis en geta þá konu er þú biður.” But he goes on to
woo her in his careless, rude way:
Kjartan segir að eigi mundi mikið undir hverja hann ætti en lést engrar skyldu
lengi vonbiðill vera; - „sé ek, at þessi búnaðr berr þér vel, ok er sannligt, at þú
verðir mín kona.“ 7
If this is a serious proposal, he seems to forget it, for later his sister
Þuríður has to suggest to him that he marry Hrefna. He agrees and their
marriage is said to be good (“Tókust góðar ástir með þeim Kjartani og
Hrefnu,” 45:1606), but it is clear that Kjartan still has Guðrún very much on
his mind. The only other conversation that the saga records between Kjartan
and Hrefna occurs when he returns from playing his unseemly trick on the
people at Laugar. Hrefna wonders, with understandable uneasiness, whether
he spoke to Guðrún while there, and says that she hears that Guðrún was
wearing the head-dress and looked good in it. Kjartan flushes with anger and
responds:
„Ekki bar mér það fyrir augu er þú segir frá Hrefna; mundi Guðrún ekki þurfa
að falda sér motri til þess að sama betur en allar konur aðrar“ (47:1609)
To be sure, the head-dress - originally destined, like Kjartan himself, for
Guðrún - is a painful reminder to Kjartan of what he has lost; nonetheless
his cruel and angry words to his wife are somehow characteristic of the man.
The final events of Kjartan’s life continue the double view of him which
7 The phrase in direct speech, here cited from íslenzk fornrit V, p. 133, is not in all mss.
of the saga but is in the fragment of the oldest and best ms. contained in AM 162 fol.
On this ms. see the “Formáli” to the IF edition, p. LXXVII.