Skáldskaparmál - 01.01.1997, Síða 56

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Marianne Kalinke
relationship to King Óláfr are to be understood in light of his problematic
relationship to his father and grandfather. Not until the biological father has been
replaced by the adopted father does HaJIfreðr actually begin to assert himself in
action. Back in Iceland his deeds were circumscribed by his father and grandfather,
and in Norway both his verse and his deeds are subject to the critical scrutiny of
the king. Nevertheless, only in relation to the king is Hallfreðr able to establish
a balance, albeit precarious, between his own desires and the will of the king. The
paternal authority of the biological father is replaced by that of the monarch and
ultimately by that of the pater omnium, that is, God.
In an essay entitled “Family Romances,” published nearly a century ago,
Sigmund Freud offered some observations on the development of children that
could have a bearing on our understanding of Hallfreðr’s life as it is woven into
the biography of King ÓláfrTryggvason. Freud pointed out that “[t]he liberation
of an individual, as he grows up, from the authority of his parents is one of the
most necessary though one of the most painful results brought about by the course
of his development.”6 As he matures, the child begins to weave so-called family
romances, “the commonest of these imaginative romances [being] the replace-
ment of both parents or of the father alone by grander people” (p. 240). Freud’s
thesis was that “the whole effort at replacing the real father by a superior one is
only an expression of the child’s longing for the happy, vanished days when his
father seemed to him the noblest and strongest of men” (pp. 240—41). Of this
earlier stage of childhood, the author of Hallfreðr’s biography does not give us a
glimpse. When we first encounter the protagonist, he is already well on the way
to seeking a replacement. His grandfather, the mother’s father, is no suitable
surrogate, since he and his son-in-law are not only perceived to be acting in
tandem but in effect collude to expatriate Hallfreðr both in the literal and
figurative senses of the word; they deprive him of both a father and a country.
The poet’s subsequent relationship to King Óláfr, and the repeated testing of that
relationship, may be interpreted as expressing Hallfreðr’s attempt to establish his
own person and to assert his independence toward the father figure.
The reading of Hallfreðar saga, that is, the life of the poet, that is proposed here
is based on the text transmitted in Óláfi saga Tryggvasonar en mesta. This is one
of two redactions of the saga; the other is transmitted in Möðruvallabók. While
the redaction in Óláfisaga Tryggvasonar 'is presumably more faithful to the original
saga,7 it nonetheless has undergone certain modifications. The most significant
difference between the life of the poet as it is told in Möðruvallabók and in Óláfi
saga Tryggvasonar en mesta is supratextual; it extends beyond verbal and structural
variants, additions, and omissions. In Óláfi saga Tryggvasonar the text that is the
life of Hallfreðr exists only because it is incorporated into the text purporting to
6 Sigmund Freud, “Family Romances,” The StandardEdition of the Complete Psychological Works
of Sigmund Freud, tr. under the editorship of James Strachey. Vol. IX (1906—1908), Jensen’s
Gradiva and Other Works (London: The Hogarth Press), p. 237.
7 See Bjarni Einarsson, To skjaldesagacr, p. 127.