Gripla - 01.01.2003, Page 54

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GRIPLA
people.’ So, to avoid surprise attack by such spirits, ‘each clan shaman fenced
in the clan lands with a special mythical fence (marylya) consisting of the
shaman’s spirit-watchmen’, and the hostile spirits had to get through the fence
of spirit-watchmen by force or subterfuge, just as the gálkn would try to
smash through the defences — hlífar — of King Óláfr’s men. The Norsemen
had — it would seem — created their own Norse name for the shaman’s
spirit-helper, gandr, might they have also created their own Norse name for
the shaman’s host of spirit-attackers — the gálknl
In Hymiskviða if heingálkn may be interpreted as ‘destroyers of the whet-
stone’, and as the whetstone — Hrungnir’s defence — was destroyed by
Þórr’s hammer, then the gálkn must be the hammer, metaphorically. The huge
physical dimension of Þórr’s act in killing the world serpent —
Hamri kníði
háfiall skarar
ofliótt ofan
úlfs hnitbróður
With his hammer he crushed
the most hideous high hill
of the hair-parting
of the wolf’s welded brother
from above (24/5-8)
— changes to a visionary dimension, like an old transformation scene —
heralded by the rumbling of the gálkn, echoes of Þórr’s thunder-hammer — in
which the heathen earth shrinks into nothing and the evil serpent submerges in
the sea. The heingálkn identify with Þórr’s determination, like spirit-helpers.
Is the introduction of the heingálkn at this moment a reminder, perhaps, that
the killing of Leviathan is not a physical, but a spiritual task? The poet is a
good theologian (cf. 23).
3. Hymiskviða 2615
After the cataclysm Hymir and Þórr row home. The giant is glum; he is, no
doubt, thunderstruck, and given matter for thought. Not commenting in any
way on Þórr’s amazing performance in killing the World Serpent, he tums to
domestic matters; how shall they divide the work between them, ‘Will you
take the whales or the boat ?’(27)
Óteitr [var] iptunn,
er þeir aptr rero,
The giant was not in revelling mood
when they rowed back