Gripla - 01.01.2003, Síða 98

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GRIPLA
son of Hálfdan, whose beautiful dragon-ship is coveted by Sörli; this tradition
is preserved in various forms in Sörlastikki, Sörla saga sterka, and Háifdanar
saga Brönufóstra. The other Högni (whose patronymic is never given) is the
one involved in the Hjaðningavíg, which we know from Ragnarsdrápa,
Háttalykili, the Gesta Danorum, Skáldskaparmái, and the Middle High
German Kudrun. Whether the conflation was deliberate or simply the result of
assuming that the two Högni’s were the same, the result was fortuitous. Not
only does the ship itself link the first two parts of the þáttr, providing Sörli’s
motivation for slaying Hálfdan and Heðinn’s means of slaying Högni’s queen
and abducting his daughter, but the whole episode of its recovery from Sörli
foreshadows the events leading up to the Hjaðningavíg. Sörli, having killed
Högni’s father, offers compensation, which Högni refuses in the same way
that he will later refuse Heðinn’s offer of compensation for having killed his
wife. After each refusal, Högni joins battle with the one who had injured him,
and in each case the injurer is himself injured but is later made whole. The
dragon-ship episode and the prelude to the Hjaðningavíg differ in that the
former is motivated by what we might call “natural greed”, resulting in
reconciliation and the brotherhood that Högni and Sörli maintain for life,
whereas the latter is motivated by the pagan gods’ unnatural magic, resulting
in perpetually renewed strife between Högni and Heðinn. The contrast
between the two episodes shows how society’s mechanisms for adjusting for
loss (compensation and sworn-brotherhood) function well under natural
circumstances (where Högni gains a brother to replace his father) but break
down when the gods intervene (as both sides may be said to lose in the
Hjaðningavíg).
Comparison between the versions of the story of the Hjaðningavíg found
in Saxo, Snorri, and Sörla þáttr shows that the þáttr-author has based his on
that of Skáldskaparmál and has also borrowed from Snorri’s Ynglinga saga to
provide the description of the gods at the beginning of his tale. However, these
borrowings include significant changes. The þáttr-author makes Oðinn into a
king who is deceived by his mistress and who follows Loki’s advice in
everything; that mistress, Freyja, is portrayed practically as a giantess who
ruthlessly pursues her evil ends and who thus assumes Hildr’s original role as
a valkyrie-like agent of Odinic malice; and Hildr herself is tumed into a help-
less onlooker. The account in Sörla þáttr thus retains Snorri’s euhemerization
of the gods while avoiding his characterization of them as benevolent pro-
tectors of mankind (as in the Edda) or as dignified dynastic founders (as in