Reykjavík Grapevine - 14.10.2018, Blaðsíða 46

46The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 14— 2018
Marshallhúsið, Grandagarður 20, 101 Reykjavík.
Bus route 14 (Listabraut)
To reserve brunch, lunch and dinner call +354 519 7766,
or info@marshallrestaurant.is, marshallrestaurant.is
Marshall Restaurant + Bar hosts SOE KITCHEN 101,
a temporary culinary project by chef Victoría Elíasdóttir,
artist Ólafur Elíasson, and the SOE Kitchen team.
Book
Miss Vanjie
Of The North
A prominent monument to an
insignificant characters
Words: Elijah Petzold Photo: Lóa Hlín Hjálmtýsdóttir
You would be forgiven for assuming,
upon visiting Borgarnes, that the
elegant modern monument atop
a hill in the town’s old centre
commemorates some crucial figure
or moment from local history.
Carved in stone, the sculpture
takes the shape of a ram’s horn,
with stylised strips of cloth drawn
up against its curve and extending
on either side like wings—as if the
entire sculpture were about to take
flight across the broad mouth of
Borgarfjörður and nest among the
imposing mountains across the bay.
Sculpted in 1997 by Bjarni
Þór Bjarnason, the monument
depicts a medieval tool known as
a “brák,” used to soften animal
hides and often cited as the source
of a nickname borne by Þorgerðr
Brák, the foster-nurse of Egill
Skallagrímsson, one of the most
memorable heroes of the Icelandic
sagas. Þorgerðr, ‘Egils Saga’ tells us,
is an Irish slave, versed in magic,
who looks after the precocious
hero in his youth. However, no
sooner does the saga introduce
her, than it recounts the tragic
circumstances of her death here in
Brákarsund, the narrow strait that
bears her name. In this saga of epic
proportions, spanning oceans and
generations, Þorgerðr’s role seems
conspicuously trivial to merit this
memorial; and yet, perhaps it is this
semblance of insignificance that
the sculpture invites us to question.
Sandvík proto-hockey
T he relev a nt epi s o de go e s
something like this: young Egill
and his close friend Þórðr Granason
challenge Skallagrímr, Egill’s
sexagenarian father, to a match of a
proto-hockey ball-game at Sandvík,
a small bay within Borgarnes’ city
limits. The two kiddos prove worthy
competitors against the old man,
besting him over the course of
the afternoon; but as night sets
in, Skallagrímr, endowed with the
superhuman strength of a berserkr
warrior, improves his game. The
berserkr-fit completely overcomes
him and, without warning, he
smashes Þórðr against the ice,
killing him on the spot. Skallagrímr
then seizes Egill, about to deliver
his own son the same fate, when
Þórgerðr—watching from the side-
lines—confronts him, attempting
to snap him out of the frenzy. Her
intervention, however, simply
redirects his rage: he pursues her,
running almost the entire length
of the modern-day town towards
the tip of the peninsula. Cornered,
Þorgerðr plunges into the ocean,
attempting to swim to the small
island that now houses Borgarnes’
harbour. Skallagrímr, still tripping
on fury, hurls a massive boulder that
lands between her shoulders, and,
as the saga says, neither the boulder
nor Þorgerðr ever came back up.
Sashay away
Although vivid and riveting,
this anecdote, in the broader
context of the saga, serves more
as an illustration of the souring
relationship between Egill and
Skallagrímr than as a poignant
vignette of a background character.
Or does it? The Icelandic
sagas are chock-full of minor
characters, often introduced with
a surfeit of genealogical context
only to be written out of the
narrative a page later. There are
even generic formulae by which
saga-authors signal a character’s
eventual irrelevance: ‘And now
so-and-so is out of the saga’—a
medieval Icelandic prefiguring of
RuPaul’s ‘Sashay away,’ if you will.
But if we’ve learned anything
from Vanessa Vanjie Mateo, we know
that screen-time need not correlate
with iconicity or importance
(straight people, please just google
it). Þorgerðr, after all, saves Egill’s
life. As Jesus died for humanity’s
salvation, or Miss Vanjie succumbed
to a premature elimination so that
we could all delight in Mother
Ru’s uncharacteristic smothered
laughter, Þorgerðr sacrifices herself
to allow teenage Egill to proceed
to the next episode in his saga.
Þorgerðr for Season 11
Facile pop-culture comparisons
aside, the monument to Þorgerðr
forces us to question assumptions
about the perceived importance
or insignificance of l iterar y
characters. Þorgerðr’s indubitably
heroic actions impact the course
of ‘Egils saga,’ but does that make
her a hero of the story or a simple
plot device? Dealing with semi-
historical material such as the
sagas, however, the question is
perhaps not just an exercise in
literary postulation. If there is even
a kernel of historical precedent for
Þorgerðr and her death, it seems
uncontroversial—imperative,
even—to memorialise her valour
and sacrifice: the question of
literary significance itself becomes
inconsequential. The question of
whether Þorgerðr will resurface
from the depths of Brákarsund to
make an appearance alongside Miss
Vanjie in Season 11 of RuPaul’s Drag
Race, however, must be left to the
Reddit theorists.
gpv.is/lit
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Bragi working
“If we’ve
learned
anything
from
Vanessa
Vanjie Mateo,
we know
that screen-
time need
not correlate
with
iconicity or
importance.”