Skáldskaparmál - 01.01.1994, Síða 139

Víglundar saga
137
consequences of the above speech. Her father saddles up, pursues the two men,
rides in front of them and drops a bag of money and a gold ring together with a
rune stick, before he rides back. The conversation between father and daughter,
the narrator reports, is carved into the stick, and it concludes with the statement
“að þetta fé gefiir hún Víglundi” (p. 1977).
By now it has become clear that Ketilríður is not quite as powerless as she at
first appeared to be. Indeed, the author prepared the reader for the above turn of
plot at the very beginning of the Víglundur/Ketilríður tale, when he had the
narrator remark that “Hólmkell unni dóttur sinni mikið svo að hann mátti ekki
í móti henni láta” (p. 1963). Nonetheless, Hólmkell appears constitutionally
incapable of crossing his wife directly, which explains the necessity for subterfuge
in order to protect his daughter. On the occasion of the games, when Ketilríður
learns that Víglundur is to attend, she gets her father to take her along. Their
rendezvous is not lost on the Fossverjar, with the result that Þorbjörg insists that
Hólmkell tell his daughter to stay at home the next day. When he realizes
Ketilríður’s unhappiness, he offers to keep her company.
Hólmkell’s overt submission to Þorbjörg is somewhat of a mystery, but might
be interpreted as a wily maneuver to get his own way without destroying the
family peace. On a subsequent day of the games, which now have been moved
to Foss, it is precisely because father and daughter are at home sitting next to each
other that Víglundur can walk up to them, lift Ketilríður from her seat, and put
her on his lap when he sits down. While the father does not object, he nevertheless
makes room, and now Ketilríður sits between her father and her lover (p. 1971),
which seems an iconographically apt representation of her relationship to the two
men.
Whereas the conflict between Hólmkell and his wife is not explicit, he
nonetheless foils her in her designs concerning the suitor Hákon. Throughout
the winter Hákon keeps approaching Hólmkell about the matter, and repeatedly
Hólmkell counters that he will not give him his daughter. Þorbjörg and her sons
conspire to bring about the union, however, and for this reason Þorbjörg tells her
husband that she wants her daughter home. While Hólmkell objects by saying
that he thinks Ketilríður should remain where she is, that is, in fosterage with
Þorgrímur and Ólöf, his wife insists, lest “hún sé þar lengur og fái þvílíkt orð af
Víglundi sem á horfist. Vil eg fýrr gipta hana Hákoni” — and she reveals her
motivation — “því að það líst mér sómaráð” (p. 1969). Rather than have his wife
control the situation, Hólmkell himself fetches his daughter home. Once Ketil-
ríður is home, her mother orders her to wait on the Norwegian, and tearfully she
tells her father that she does not wish to do so. He rescues the situation by telling
her that she does not have to do so, unless she wants to, and he suggests: “og vertu
jafnan hjá mér bæði nætur og daga” (p. 1970).29 And the narrator remarks that
this went on for a time, “að Hákon náði aldrei að tala með hana” (p. 1970).
29 Hólmkell’s suggestion to his daughter is somewhat misleading in the context of bridal-quest
romance, which often depicts an overly protective father who rejects all suitors, because he wishes