Skáldskaparmál - 01.01.1994, Page 82

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Fredrik J. Heinemann
to Halldórsson (and to an article by Dietrich Hofmann, 1976), argued that the
saga is a conscious literary work of art — as opposed to a traditional tale whose
elements the author of the saga was not free to alter and was thus forced to account
for as well as he could — that attempts to demonstrate the bleak social-political
reality inherent in the saga; none of the characters changes or improves in its
course.Today the saga has come of age, receiving the highest accolades accorded
to a literary work, a review of critical controversy concerning the saga (Fidjestol
1983) and a bibliography of these works (Larsson 1983), and these in languages
besides English. Moreover, Hans Schottmann (1989) has studied the reworking
of the saga in Swedish by Per Olof Sundman in his novel Beriittelsen om Sdm.
What Peter Foote (1988) calls the “the Hrafhkels saga industry” is truly an
international enterprise! In acknowledgement of the many informative studies
that this industry has produced in the last twenty years, I will here attempt to
perform the activity called for in the quotation above, to provide an interpretation
of the saga that explains the reformed Hrafnkell s killing of Eyvindr.
The Saga’s Theme
The saga studies various kinds of immoderation and its destabilizing social
consequences. Hrafnkell’s oath initiates a series of immoderate actions, and
Einarr’s death is its inevitable consequence. While Þorbjörn’s appeal to Hrafnkell
for compensation conforms with normal legal procedure, his refusal to accept the
unwonted and generous offer seems an act of folly conditioned by his pride. In
the sagas generally, as here specifically, such excess often precedes, even invites,
disaster. The recruiting scenes — starting with Þorbjörn’s wealthy brother Bjarni
rejecting the plea for support, and culminating in Þorgeir and Þorkell joining the
prosecution team — portray Hrafnkell’s adversaries as greedy, ambitious, and
overweening. Sámr and his supporters attempt to humiliate Hrafnkell rather than
to seek justice; his defeat indexes their own social prestige and political status.
Their torturing of Hrafnkell and his closest followers, coming as it does in an
Islendingasaga as opposed to a fomaldarsaga, matches Hrafnkell’s killing of Einarr
in brutal senselessness. Excessive conduct also precedes the dispatching of Ey-
vindr. Unlike Einarr, technically as well as ethically innocent of any punishable
transgression, Eyvindr challenges his former chieftain, the defeated and banished
hero, by theatrically riding past Hrafnkell’s farm. And the servant woman’s hvöt,
emblematic of Hrafnkell’s observation on immoderate language (vit munum opt
pess iðrask, er vit erum of málgir, 106),2 sets a hallmark for verbal indiscretion in
attacking Hrafnkell’s waning sexuality. The saga seems to say that when modera-
tion becomes immoderation, then the uncertain balance between justice and
2 All quotations from the sagas are from the íslenzk fornrit editions. Hrafhkels saga FreysgoSa is
from Austfirðinga Sögur, XI (Hið íslenzka fornritafélag 1950). Roman numerals refer to volume;
Arabic numerals directly after quotadons in the text to page.