Skáldskaparmál - 01.01.1994, Page 136

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Marianne Kalinke
blance to Þorbjörg is the maiden king Ólöf in Hrólfi saga kraka, who names her
daughter Yrsa after her dog and refuses to recognize the girl as her own. Yrsa is
brought up by peasants, and when she unwittingly falls in love with her own
father, Ólöf ’s animosity extends to concealing his identity from her. She did this,
however, because “þetta mundi Helga konungi vera til harms ok svívirðingar, en
til einskis frama né yndis.”24 Ólöf’s behavior can be explained as vengeance for
the treatment she had received from Helgi. The “Helga þáttr” of Hrófi saga kraka
is in every respect a bridal-quest narrative, except that it is in the tragic mode.25
Helgi’s rape of the maiden king, but his subsequent refusal to marry her, demands
that she avenge the deed.
In the “Helga þáttr” the mistreatment of Yrsa is linked to, even generated by
the father’s mistreatment of her mother Ólöf, his rape and subsequent rejection
of her. By maltreating the daughter, the mother intends to injure the father. No
such explanation is at hand for the behavior of Þorbjörg in Víglundar saga.
Nonetheless, one is tempted to seek the key to Þorbjörg’s heartless dislike of her
daughter in Ketilríður’s relationship to her father and in his absolute love for her,
which is discernible in his covert actions on behalf of the lovers and therefore also
implicitly in opposition to his wife. Such an interpretation is conjecture, however;
the text itself is silent in this respect. Nonetheless, it bears consideration. As Derek
Brewer has pointed out, the focus of almost all romances is the family:
Often it may be said that there are only three main characters, protagonist, father,
mother. Situations are often repetitions with variation and ultimately progress, of the
conflict between the protagonist and his parents.26
Although the protagonist — from the perspective of the quest — in the main
narrative is Víglundur, and the surface conflict is played out between him and
Þorbjörg and her sons, a second conflict exists between Hólmkell and Þorbjörg
in relation to their daughter, and yet a third between Ketilríður and her parents,
specifically her mother. This last conflict is especially prevalent in fairy tales, but
is also the subject of the “family drama” that is enacted in romance.
The action, at its most general, is escape from the parents and re-alignment with a
beloved from outside the family group and of the child’s own age. More specifically,
the child is a girl, which determines the course of events. The objections to the parents
are that father loves too much, but is weak and gives no support, while mother loves
too little, and is domineering.27
2^ Hrólfi saga kraka, in Fomaldar sögur Norðurlanda, 1:20.
26 See Kalinke, Bridal-Quest Romance, pp. 95-101.
26 “Introduction: Escape from the Mimetic Fallacy,” Studies in Medieval English Romances: Some
New Approaches, ed. by Derek Brewer ([Cambridge]: D. S. Brewer, 1991), p. 8.
27 Derek Brewer, Symbolic Stories: TraditionalNarratives ofthe Family Drama in English Literature
(London and New York: Longman, 1988), p. 26.