Skáldskaparmál - 01.01.1997, Síða 153

Riti Kroesen
151
story. It was absolutely necessary that Sigurðr was sacrificed on Brynhildr’s
demand to compensate for his and Gunnarr’s violation of her honour, but after
having received this sadsfaction she committed suicide on the pyre made to
receive his body. At that moment she was nothing more than a loving woman,
just as Sigrún was.
In the Vólsunga Saga and in the Helreið Brynhildar she is identified with the
valkyrie of the Sigrdrífumál.
III
1. There are many differences between the exalted ideals offered to us by heroic
literature and the ordinary everyday life of the realistic íslendinga Sögur. The
society of these söguris a typically patriarchal one. In sharp contrast to the valkyries
young unmarried girls cannot act against the wishes of their male relatives at all.
It is true that widows and divorced women are allowed a greater freedom in whom
they want for a second husband, but even they seldom or never rebel against their
male relatives.66 And if we are told that if a certain father consults his daughter’s
wishes before marrying her off, this could be an unrealistic trait of later times,
due to Christian idealisation.67 The women of the realistic sagas who can be
compared to the valkyries are in the first place the unmarried maidens. They
seldom rebel against their family, which the valkyries often do. And once they are
married and a conflict arises between their husbands and their own family, they
invariably choose the side of the latter. The Icelandic poets and narrators, however,
were aware of a heroic world with other standards and other values and they were
interested in heroic women, shield maidens and valkyries, but we might quesdon
that interest.
Clover tried to give an answer to that problem, but her answer can only partially
be correct. She thought the valkyries were inspired by Icelandic women who were
in an exceptional position, namely daughters in a family where there were no
sons, and who therefore had to take the position of a son.6íi Yes, maybe, but this
does not explain the fact that the valkyries can so completely become a part of
their husbands’ clans as to act against their own families.
Heinrichs has made a penetrating analysis of the character of Guðrún in the
Laxdœla Saga in her paper “Annat er várt eðlí\ where she compares Guðrún to
Queen Sigríðr the Haughty of the Sagas ofthe Kings, and to Brynhildr, the heroine
of the Nordic Nibelungen tragedy.69 She calls them “prepatriarchal women”, and
thinks that they were mainly inspired by giantesses known to us mostly through
the Fornaldarsögur, who sometimes chose to have human lovers against the wishes
of their families, whom they would abandon completely in that case.
Meulengracht Sorensen (1993), pp. 226-38.
67 Frank (1973); Jochens (1986).
68 Clover (1985).
69 Heinrichs (1986).