Skáldskaparmál - 01.01.1994, Page 143

Víglundar saga
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ment to Ketilríður, whom he loved so much “að hann mátti ekki í móti henni
láta” (p. 1963), as we are told the first time the subject is broached in the saga.
Until he agrees to give Ketilríður in marriage to Þórður, his deportment toward
his daughter is entirely in keeping with the earlier statement. The attentive reader,
who has been alerted to expect the unusual by the report of secret negotiations
between the two fathers, should suspect that things are not what they seem.
Moreover, a clue concerning the denouement occurs earlier in the saga. After the
death of both the rival suitor Hákon and Hólmkell’s two sons and after the sons
of Ketill of Raumaríki have spent a winter with Þorgrímur, the narrator interjects
a short excursus at the beginning of ch. 18 to report on events in Norway. Inter
alia, the wife of Helgi, one of Þorgrímur’s brothers, has died, and he leaves
Norway for Iceland and settles in the East Fjords at Gautavík (p. 1975). When
Þórður appears to woo Ketilríður, he is simply identified as coming from the East
Fjords (p. 1979), but when Víglundur and Trausti subsequently make land on
their return from Norway, the narrator informs us that they arrive in Gautavík
and that the farmer at Gautavík receives them (p. 1981). By now the attentive
reader might suspect what direction events will take.
The one loose end, one might object, is Hólmkell’s relationship to his wife and
her sudden departure from the saga. She makes her final appearance when
Víglundur’s uncle Helgi, under the assumed name Þórður, proposes marriage to
Ketilríður. While the young woman protests that the man is too old and that she
does not want to get married, her mother “íysti mjög að kaupið skyldi fram ganga”
(p. 1979). With this she vanishes from the saga, presumably because she has now
lost both her power to harm her daughter and her function in the narrative. The
mother’s support of this last wooing is ironic in the sense that this is the only
instance in the saga where she is in agreement with her husband. In effect, his
policy of peaceful coexistence and working behind the scenes has borne fruit
because he is finally able to achieve what he wishes — which, in the final analysis,
is what his daughter wishes — without interference from his wife.
Is Víglundar saga a bridal-quest romance? The answer must be positive, for the
bridal-quest pattern prevails in both the anticipatory account and the main
narrative. It is an unusual bridal-quest romance, however, for in the main narrative
the impediments to the protagonist achieving his end, namely the bride, are so
thoroughly grounded in the world of the íslendinga sögur. Exceptional too in the
realm of bridal-quest romance is the role of wooer’s helper that is played by the
father of the bride. Furthermore, the author created obstacles not merely for the
sake of obstructing the hero in his quest, but also in the interest of bringing to
life the dynamics of family relationships.
The preceding argument took as its starting point the assumption that the
pattern of Víglundar saga is that of romance. In this respect I agree with Torfi
Tulinius (p. 154). He concluded that despite the setting in Norway and Iceland,
the saga breaks one of the generic laws of the íslendinga sögur by not being firmly
grounded in Icelandic reality (p. 154). In support, he adduces the law of