Gripla - 20.12.2017, Blaðsíða 106

GRIPLA106
– contagion, and economic disruption, as well as the manner and extent
of interaction with society on which, consequently, society then bases its
perception of the monster.
In order to contextualise these features, I will briefly consider one an-
tagonistic revenant as a case study.12 Glámr provides the clearest example
of all the features listed above. He is hybrid, as one of the inherent features
of the undead is being both dead and alive,13 and they transgress the bound-
ary of death. Contagion, too, is an important feature of the (as Sayers put
it) “chain of malign supernatural activity” in which Glámr is caught up:14 a
violent and antisocial character in life, he is infected by the meinvættr [ma-
lign creature] he fights and turns into a revenant after death. He, in turn,
corrupts Grettir with his monstrosity when he puts the curse on him.
Economic disruption is another feature Glámr embodies. He kills
animals and empties farms: allt kvikfé þat, sem eptir var, deyddi Glámr […]
ok eyddi alla bœi upp frá Tungu [Glámr killed all the livestock that was left
[…] and emptied all farms up from tunga].15 He drives people mad: Varð
mǫnnum at því mikit mein, svá at margir fellu í óvit, ef sá hann, en sumir heldu
eigi vitinu [this was very harmful to people, so that many fainted when
they saw him, and some lost their wits].16 thus, he keeps those that re-
main in the area from going about their daily business: Varla þorðu menn
at fara upp í dalinn, þó at ætti ørendi [People hardly dared to go up into the
valley, even if they had errands there].17 This culminates in the statement
that Þótti mǫnnum til þess horfask, at eyðask myndi allr Vatnsdalr ef eigi yrðu
bætr á ráðnar [People thought that all of Vatnsdalr would be emptied if no
remedy was found].18 Glámr therefore makes farming and contact with the
rest of the country impossible. During his hauntings, all social interaction
12 Especially antagonistic revenants include Hrappr in Laxdœla saga, Þórólfr in Eyrbyggja saga,
and Glámr in Grettis saga.
13 this hybridity is different from the physical compositeness of the monstrous races.
See Patricia MacCormack, “Posthuman teratology,” The Ashgate Research Companion
to Monsters and the Monstrous, eds. asa Simon Mittman and Peter J. Dendle (farnham:
ashgate, 2012), 304–305; Stephen t. asma, On Monsters: An Unnatural History of Our
Worst Fears (oxford: oxford university Press, 2009), 269.
14 Sayers, “the alien and alienated as unquiet Dead,” 251.
15 Grettis saga, 115.
16 Ibid., 113.
17 Ibid., 113.
18 Ibid., 116.