Gripla - 01.01.1995, Blaðsíða 133

,1236: ÓRÆKJA MEIDDR OK HEILL GQRR“
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any doubt that he, Sturla, felt responsible for the loss and testifies to
his own bad conscience concerning the episode.
It emerges from the discussion above that Sturla must have felt less
than heroic about his own behavior in Reykjaholt in 1236. In his later
writings, he explicitly refrains from any mention of emasculation and
blinding, and he takes great care to mention that Órækja’s sword,
which had been „taken“ by Sturla Sighvatsson on that occasion, was
eventually restored to its owner. Although we will never know exactly
what transpired during the conversation between the two namesakes
in the attic at Reykjaholt, it is possible that Sturla Þórðarson, however
reluctantly, was forced to partake in the plot to divest Órækja of his
power and, in the attempt to avoid the actual implementation of the
injuries (which certainly would not have been beyond Sturla Sighvats-
son), he may even have suggested the ruse of miraculous healing from
his knowledge of Andréas Hrafnsson’s histories about the bishop of
Caithness. If that was the case, it would explain Sturla’s need to go to
confession, as well as the great penance inflicted on him by the cleric
at Helgafell.
As for Órækja in Surtshellir, faced with the option of bodily injury
or loss of honor, he certainly would have opted for the latter and cor-
roborated Sturla Sighvatsson’s story of the maiming and subsequent
healing. The motif for the inclusion of the maiming is consquently that
Órækja needed to be freed from any implication of cowardness.48
Through this scheme, Sturla Sighvatsson effectively achieved his goal
in compliance with King Hákon’s orders; namely, to force his adver-
sary to go abroad,49 as well as to divest him of his power by „other
means,“ the „other means“ being modeled on his knowledge of similar
incidents from Orkneyinga saga. The scene in Surtshellir as described
by Sturla Þórðarson, then, is not an instance of literature recording
life, but rather, as Oscar Wilde put it, life imitating art.
48 This is corroborated by Órækja’s obsession with his own honor, which emerges
from the following quotations: „Vildi Órækja ekki annat en sjálfdæmi, - kallaðist vilja
hafa sæmð af því, en lézt vera ekki fésjúkr” (ísl, p. 378); „Hann [Órækja] lézt vera ekki
fésjúkr, en sagði þat, at Sighvatr myndi ekki vilja minnka hann“ (ibid., p. 388).
49 According to Grágás (Konungsbók, p. 148; Staðarhólsbók, p. 304), a man who false-
ly claims to have been wounded was subject to the penalty of lesser outlawry.