Skáldskaparmál - 01.01.1997, Qupperneq 65

Stœri ek brag
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from being a theatrical ploy, Hallfreðr’s tears as he falls at the feet of the king
should be taken at face value, as an honest expression of his emotion. When the
king inquires concerning the cause of his poet’s inexplicable tears, the latter
responds: “Nærr fellr mer reiðin yður herra” (1:393,13), a variation of his earlier
confession “ervmk leið sonar reiði” (1:390,12). The source of his unhappiness,
Hallfreðr reveals, is the king’s anger which touches him so deeply.
Whereas Óttarr’s killing was more or less unpremeditated, the result of a quick
temper, Hallfreðr subsequently goes further, for he now chooses to disobey the
king in order to assert his own notion of justice. I am referring to his mission to
blind Þorleifr inn spaki who has refused to accept Christianity. Hallfreðr is sent
on this errand with the king’s blessing, so to speak — Óláfr says: “skal ek leggia til
ferðar þessar með þer mína gipt ok hamingiu” (1:395,18—19) — but Hallfreðr
chooses to disobey the king’s order of returning with Þorleifr’s eyes; although he
brings back two eyes, only one of them is Þorleifr’s, the other having been
extracted from Kálfr, the instigator of the fight that resulted in the king’s coolness
toward his troublesome poet. Hallfreðr’s justification for his subversion of the
mission is a superior sense of justice. He explains his decision to take only one
eye from Þorleifr but to make up for this by taking the other from Kálfr by saying:
“Goðr drengr er meiddr en ver latum maN skræfu þessa lífa” (1:399,4—5).
Important for our understanding of Hallfreðr’s disobedience to King Óláfr is his
statement to Þorleifr that he will not accept gifts in exchange for not carrying out
the king’s orders: “helldr mvn ek þat með ollu aa mik taka at gefa þer kauplaust
aNat augat” (1:398,15-16). This is the first time that Hallfreðr shows an awareness
of the need to take full responsibility for his actions. When the king subsequently
learns what has happened, and that his order had been only half carried out, he
tells Hallfreðr to return and retrieve Þorleifr’s other eye, but the poet stubbornly
insists on his own position: “Þat uil ek eigi s(egir) Hallf(reðr) at ræna Þorleif þvi
auganu sem ek gaf honum aðr” (1:400,2-3). At issue is the fact that Hallfreðr has
“given” Þorleifr one of his eyes, and that therefore he cannot now retract his gift
— possibly this is a hint at Óláfr’s own promise to Hallfreðr never to reject him.25
Hallfreðr’s justification of his behavior is accepted by his sovereign, and the
narrator remarks: “Var Hallfireðr) þa með konungi igoðri sæmð” (1:400,9).
My interpretation of Hallfreðar saga as the biography of a poet whose main
concern is his relationship to paternal authority may also explain his ambivalent
relationship to Kolfinna. When her father makes a decision in favor of marriage,
Hallfreðr chooses not to accept this. At issue is his self-will.26 Hallfreðr wants to
25 The speech in Óláfi saga Tryggvasonar en mesta is an important “addition” contributing to our
interpretation of Hallfreðr’s person and his relationship to the king. The Möiruvallabók
redaction does not contain this apologia. Cf. Hallfreðar saga, ed. Bjarni Einarsson, 63:180-82.
2Í’ The character of Gunnlaugr ormstunga has been similarly explained as obtaining from his
relationship to his father. Robert Cook remarked that it may have been “shaped to some extent
by this early confrontation with an inflexible will superior to his own” (“The Character of
Gunnlaug Serpent Tongue,” Scandinavian Stndies, 43 (1971), 9; see also Lars-Henrik Jensen
who noted that Gunniaugr’s conflict with the ruling order is represented by the father