Skáldskaparmál - 01.01.1994, Page 127

Víglundar saga
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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.