Gripla - 20.12.2017, Page 39

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JOANNE SHORTT BUTLER
THE MYSTERIOUS DEATH
OF ÞORSTEINN KUGGASON
Authorial Imagination and Saga Narrative
þorsteinn kuggason is one of many recurring characters in the
Ís lendingasögur and related sources. He is mentioned in Fóstbrœðra saga
and Eyrbyggja saga and the Hauksbók version of Landnámabók. He ap-
pears throughout Grettis saga and in an isolated scene in Laxdœla saga. In
Bjarnar saga Hítdœlakappa, Þorsteinn has a larger role when he switches
allegiance from Þórðr Kolbeinsson to Bjǫrn Hítdœlakappi and ultimately
wins compensation for Bjǫrn’s death. although there is narrative silence
regarding the end of Þorsteinn’s life, and none of these surviving narratives
is centred on him or his perspective, the earliest Icelandic annals note that
he was killed in the year 1027.
Hints found across the sources have been used to argue that, accord-
ing to the traditions that contributed to the saga narratives, Þorsteinn
Kuggason was most likely killed because of his rivalry with Snorri goði
Þorgrímsson. In this article, I will look at the evidence for this, exploring
Þorsteinn’s appearances in Laxdœla saga and in Grettis saga in more detail.
I intend to approach the sources from an agnostic position with regard to
their dating, in order to avoid circular reasoning about which source might
have influenced another. By showing how consistent the portrayal of
Þorsteinn and his personality is across the sagas, I will argue for the exist-
ence of immanent oral traditions concerning this character, before moving
onto more detailed narrative analysis.
Þorsteinn’s role in Laxdœla saga is irrelevant to the main plot; he only
interacts with his cousin, Þorkell Eyjólfsson, and with Halldórr Óláfsson,
whose land Þorsteinn covets. Similarly, in Grettis saga, he appears as one
of the farmers who shelters Grettir in his outlawry, but he does nothing
to affect the overarching plot of the saga. His death makes Snorri goði
briefly an ally of Grettir’s, but Snorri dies before he can overturn the hero’s
outlawry.
Gripla XXVIII (2017): 39–71