Skáldskaparmál - 01.01.1994, Page 121

Víglundar saga: An Icelandic
Bridal-Quest Romance1
MARIANNE KALINKE
Einar Ól. Sveinsson concluded his now classic monograph Dating the Icelandic
Sagas by noting a gradual transformation of Icelandic values toward the end of
the Middle Ages, which brought with it a change in literature:
.. . as the times change, so the traditions change; the old moral values decline and the
tales become popular legends. Thus, people cease to concern themselves with history,
and sagas in the end become pure fiction, like Víglundar saga and Finnboga saga?
In other words, increasing moral decadence led to a decline in literature: the
íslendinga sögur degenerated progressively under the influence of foreign genres,
and became fiction. Included in this new type of literary production in Iceland
is Víglundar saga, “the only love story,” according to Paul Schach, “among the
íslendinga sögur that has a happy ending.”3
Like many another saga, Víglundar saga is set in the days of King Haraldur inn
hárfagri and the forestory relates the events that precipitated the forcible emigra-
tion of the principal characters from Norway to Iceland, where they “komu við
Snæfellsnes og tóku land í Hraunhöfn.”4 With their arrival in Iceland, they join
the other immigrants whose lives shaped the period of the Settlement. Given the
geographical and temporal setting, the reader expects an Islendinga saga. Yet if one
comes to Víglundar saga after having read such classic texts as Njáls saga, Laxdœla
saga, Egils saga, or Hrafhkels saga, that is, works which have formed our contem-
porary notions of deportment, speech, and attitudes in the Icelandic sagas, one
1 I would like to express both my gratitude and indebtedness to Davíð Erlingsson for several long
conversations about the saga and its “family drama.”
2 Einar Ól. Sveinsson, Dating tbe Icelandic Sagas. An Essay in Method(Bristol: Viking Society for
Northern Research, 1958), p. 126. Similarly, in a popular multi-volume edition of íslendinga
sögur 'm the series Islenzkar fornsögur, II (Skuggsjá, 1969), the editors, Grímur M. Helgason
and Vésteinn Ólason, date the composition of Víglundar saga to the end of the l4th or the
beginning of the 15th centuries, and characterize it as a “skáldsaga.” They note that the verses
undoubtedly are the work of the author of the saga, and condude with the remark: “Sagan hefur
ekki á sér mikinn veruleikablæ, enda eru rómantískar fornaldarsögur og riddarasögur helztu
fyrirmyndir hennar” (p. xii).
3 Paul Schach, “Víglundar saga,” in Dictionary of the Middle Ages, ed. Joseph R. Strayer, vol. 12
(New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1989), p. 416.
^ Víglundarsaga, in íslendinga sögurogþattir, vol. II, eds. Bragi Halldórsson, JónTorfason, Sverrir
Tómasson, and örnólfur Thorsson (Reykjavík: Svart á hvítu, 1986), p. 1962. Subsequent
references to Vtglundar saga are to this edition.
SKÁLDSKAPARMÁL 3 (1994)