Gripla - 01.01.2003, Qupperneq 82

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GRIPLA
farmers led by Kálfr Ámason, of whom it is said, ‘Þat er mark á um Kálf, ef
hann mælir vel, at þá er hann ráðinn til at gera illa’ (Heimskringla, II 378).
Bjami offers this suggestion not so much as evidence of late date, but as a
defining example of the author’s habit of cobbling together allusions to other
texts: ‘Ljósin í heimildarmyrkrinu eru Kálfsnafnið og auknefnið illviti. Kálfur
illviti er gott sýnidæmi um, hvemig höfundur fer yfirleitt með tilföng sín’
(Bjami Guðnason 1994, 74) [What illuminates the obscurity of the sources is
the name Kálfr and the nickname illviti. Kálfr illviti is a good example of how
the author deals with his borrowings overall]. From a literary point of view,
according to this theory, the allusion to the killer of St Óláfr could be intended
to intensify the saga’s representation of Bjprn as a devotee of the king and
saint.
Bjami implies that Kálfr’s name and characterization are derived from
Heimskringla itself, although as he himself acknowledges, the casting of Kálfr
Ámason in the role of Judas figure clearly pre-dates Snorri (Fidjestpl 1997
[1990], 186). Kálfr is described in the Norwegian translation of Óláfr’s
twelfth-century vita as ‘illr ok útrúr, ... Sá hinn illi maðr var í svikum við
hann’ (Gamal norsk homiliebok 1931, 111) [wicked and unfaithful ... That
wicked man was in the plot against him], and is said in Agrip to be eager for
battle at Stiklarstaðir ‘bæði fyrir kapps sakar ok illsku’ (Agrip, 30) [on
account of both his aggression and his wickedness]. Apart from the
coincidence of names and of the extremely common word illr, the analogy is
not close; it is not Kálfr but the conniving villain of Bjarnar saga, Þórðr
Kolbeinsson, to whom the commonplace ‘því flára mun Þórðr hyggja, sem
hann talar sléttara’ is applied (Borgftrðinga spgur, 138).
It is true that Kálfr illviti is ‘furðu rótlaus í sögunni’ (Bjami Guðnason
1994, 73) [strangely unsettled in the saga]. The text as it survives gives no
details of his family origins, although it must be presumed that the beginning
of the saga, before it was lost, would have given some information about this,
whether historically authentic or not. But there is some hinterland to the
character which argues against his being the author’s invention. In chapter 27
of the saga it is said that Þorsteinn Kuggason and his party ‘fóru á Dunkaðar-
staði til gistingar, til Qzurar, fpður Kálfs’ (Borgfirðinga SQgur, 181) [went to
Dunkaðarstaðir to stay with Kálfr’s father Qzurr].24The unlikelihood of two
24
Nordal considers the name of Qzurr to be among details likely to have come from a now-lost
*Þorsteins saga Kuggasonar (Borgfirðinga sggur, Ixxxii—iii). Judith Jesch (1982) argues
against the existence of this saga.