Skáldskaparmál - 01.01.1994, Page 127

Skáldskaparmál - 01.01.1994, Page 127
Víglundar saga 125 Víglundar saga tells the love-story ofVíglundr and Ketilríðr. They are long kept apart and Víglundr — or rather the saga-writer on his behalf — composes sorrowful stanzas on his beloved. But after suitable trials they are finally re-united at the end ofthe saga.16 In the following the position will be taken that the saga does not primarily deal with the love ofVíglundur and Ketilríður, nor with the love of Þorgrímur and Ólöf, the eponymous protagonist’s father and mother. In the case of both the father and the son, the love for the respective woman is immediate and absolute, and vice versa. The love of neither couple is ever in danger; their love for each other is a given and never wavers. The plot thus does not devolve from the vicissitudes and uncertainties of love, but rather from the obstacles encountered by the protagonist in his quest for a bride. For this reason it is misleading to characterize the saga as a love story. Both in the prefatory and main narratives the plot is generated and the conflict governed by the protagonist’s explicit or implicit efforts to marry the woman he loves. In the introductory account the impediments to marriage are the desired woman’s father and a rival suitor; the protagonist overcomes these obstacles by abducting the bride. In the main narrative the impediments to marriage are the desired woman’s mother and brothers as well as several rival suitors. The role played by the protagonist Þorgrímur in the forestory in seeing the plot to a successful conclusion is assumed in the narrative proper by Ketilríður’s father. Not Víglundur himself overcomes the obstacles standing in the way of his marriage to Ketilríður, but rather her father — and toward the end of the saga also Víglundur’s father — who thereby plays one of the standard roles in bridal-quest narrative, that of helper in the quest. The conflict generated by the bridal quest in the prefatory account is brought to bear upon that of the narrative proper because of the need to avenge the abduction of the bride. Furthermore, the resolution of one conflict in the main narrative — the rivalry between Víglundur and Hákon, which results in the latter’s slaying and which calls for vengeance — ultimately contributes to the resolution of the conflict initiated in the forestory. Whereas the forestory conforms to one of the conventions of bridal-quest romance in that the hero himself resolves the conflict by abducting the bride, the narrative proper is realized in a somewhat unconventional manner, unconventional, that is, for romance. As in the prefatory narrative, the conflict in the main narrative is generated by an inimical parent and rival suitors, but on this rivalry impinges another, more significant, albeit unstated rivalry, that of husband and wife in deciding the fate of their daughter. Whereas in the forestory the father objects to the wooer, in the narrative proper the bride’s mother is the chief obstacle, while her father becomes the suitor’s implied helper, implied since his intervention on behalf of the suitor is not fully revealed until the plot concludes. An additional impediment to the hero’s 16 Eddas and Sagas, p. 289.
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