Skáldskaparmál - 01.01.1994, Qupperneq 81

Skömm er óhófs ævi:
Immoderation in Hrafnkels saga Freysgoða
FREDRIK J. HEINEMANN
In discussion William I. Miller argued forcefully that any interpretation of the saga
that fails to account for Hrafnkell’s slaying of Eyvindr is condemned from the outset.
He pointed out that Hrafnkell coolly removes Eyvindr because Eyvindr is the potential
avenger for Sámr, whereas Sámr lacks the mettle to avenge Eyvindr. Interestingly
enough, this point was also made by the novelist Per Olof Sundman . . .: “Eyvind var
en tyngre man án sin bror. Dárför maste Ravnkel döda Eyvind innan han kunde avstá
frán att döda Sám”. (“Eyvindr was a weightier man than his brother. Therefore
Hrafnkell had to kill Eyvindr before he could refrain from killing Sámr.”) Klaus von
See, also in discussion, reminded me that Hrafnkell kills Eyvindr after his alleged
reform, thus reaffirming his political motivation. The political slant cannot of course
be ignored. On the other hand, any interpretation of the saga that fails to account for
Hrafnkell’s personality change for the better as a result of his experience is also doomed
from the outset. We cannot ignore the slaying of Eyvindr, but we cannot ignore the
famous reform paragraph either. We must find an interpretation that satisfies both.
(Andersson 1988: 306)
Twenty years ago the interest in the English-speaking world in Hrafhkels saga
Freysgoða undoubtedly owed much to its inclusion in the primer from which
many of us ftrst learned Old Icelandic, E. V. Gordon’s Introduction to Old Norse.
At the time many scholars seemed to believe (I think correctly) that had any of a
number of other sagas of comparable length been thus anthologized, one of them
instead of Hrafhkelssaga might well have been the subject of the lively debate that
occurred at the end of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s.1 R. George
Thomas’s translation in 1958 of Sigurður Nordal’s famous monograph may or
may not have been a response to the saga’s inclusion in Gordon, but it did add
much to the saga’s growing reception in Great Britain, North America, and the
Commonwealth countries. Moreover, Hermann Pálsson’s reworking in English
in 1971 of theories he had earlier developed in two Icelandic monographs (1962;
1966) secured its prominence in the Anglo-American canon of Old Icelandic
literature. But these were early days in the controversies surrounding Hrafhkels
saga. Óskar Halldórsson’s thought-provoking little monograph (1976) centered
attention on Icelandic interpretations of the saga once again. Aided by S. F. D.
Hughes’ review article (1980), Halldórsson’s work stimulated a number of
important studies in languages besides English. Klaus von See (1979), responding
1 S. F. D. Hughes in discussion at the Reykjavík Saga Conference (1973) made remarks in this
vein.
SKÁLDSKAPARMÁL 3 (1994)