Gripla - 01.01.2000, Side 193

GIFFARÐSÞATTR
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three independent historical sources would seem to lend authority to the epi-
sode.26
Scholars have variously identified the Giffard who committed the sacril-
ige of mutilating the body of Harold Godwinson as Walter Giffard I (Douglas
1943:139) or with his son, Walter Giffard II (Toll 1927:177-78; Douglas in
English Historical Documents 11:227 n. 7). It is clear. however, that the per-
petrator of this deed could not have been Walter Giffard I, because he was not
known by his father’s surname; rather, he was the first to be known by the
nickname „Giffard”. As far as Walter II is concemed, there is no blemish on
his future career to suggest that he had been guilty of the shameful act at the
battle of Hastings and subsequently expelled from the Norman army. Walter
II witnessed charters from 1060 tol066 onwards and went on to have a distin-
guished career under William I and his son, William Rufus. But if we assume
that the dishonored soldier from the battle of Hastings was an unnamed son
of Walter I Giffard, and that he was a youth at the time of the Norman con-
quest, from the point of view of chronology it is certainly possible that he, as
an old man, could have been present in Norway in 1101.
In a footnote to the most recent edition of the Carmen, Morton and Muntz
suggest that there could have been a connection between the incompetent
Giffarðr at Magnús’s court and the dishonored „Gilfardus” from Hastings
(120 n. I).27 It is, of course, impossible to prove that this was the case, but it
is tempting to speculate that the protagonist of Morkinskinna’s Giffarðr epi-
sode indeed was that illfated unnamed son of Walter Giffard I who was ex-
pelled in disgrace from the army by William the Conqueror in 1066, suffered
a similar fate at the hands of Magnús berfœttr of Norway in 1101, and ended
up as the object of Eldjárn’s ridicule on his retum to England.28
26 For a discussion of the authority of the Bayeux tapestry, see Brooks and Walker 1978. The
death of Harold as depicted on the tapestry is discussed in detail on pp. 23-34. Brooks and
Walker (28) consider the possibility that William of Malmesbury could have seen the tapestry.
27 Morton and Muntz, too, find it unlikely that Walter Giffard II could have been guilty of the
sacrilige on the battlefield of Hastings (Carmen de Hastingae proelio: 120). Their discussion
of the Old Norse versions of the Giffarðr episode, however, is incorrect (ibid: 120 n. 1).
28 The wording of Eldjám’s second stanza (our st. 4) reveals that he had heard about Giffarðr’s
cowardly behavior second hand: Frák\ es heyrðak. Because Eldjám was on his way back
from Constantinople when he met Giffarðr, we must assume that he had been told the story
either in Greece or on his way back. There is nothing incongmous in this, because a Norwe-
gian contingent consisting of five ships under the command of Skopti Qgmundarson and his
sons, Qgmundr, Finnr, and Þórðr, set out for Greece via Flanders and Normandy shortly after
Magnús’s campaigns to Sweden (ÍF XXVII:231-32). According to Snorri Qgmundr Skopta-
son was one of Magnús’s commanders in the battle of Fuxema (ibid:227), and he and his
men would certainly have taken pleasure in entertaining Norsemen they met along the way
with stories about the happenings in Norway.