Gripla - 2019, Blaðsíða 84

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are also compared with monoculi, or cyclopes, in the religious biography
Maríu saga. However, in the majority of the texts in which they appear,
jötnar are closely linked to Scandinavia, or at least to northern Europe.
Jötnar appear in this capacity in Landnámabók; Grettis saga; Jökuls þáttr
Búasonar; Þorsteins þáttr bœjarmagns; Hversu Nóregr byggðisk; Gautreks
saga; Gríms saga loðinkinna; Hálfdanar saga brönufóstra; Hálfdanar saga
Eysteinssonar; Ketils saga hœngs; Sörla saga sterka; Völsunga saga; Hrólfs
saga Gautrekssonar; Örvar-Odds saga; Hálfdanar saga svarta and Egils saga
einhenda ok Ásmundar berserkjabana. The predominance of jötnar in sagas
which treat Scandinavia and other northern regions is not surprising.
Again, jötunn was a word loaded with deeply rooted mythological associa-
tions, and the jötnar of the sagas were conceivably inseparable from their
mythological forebears.19 This explains the rarity of their appearance in
texts which are non-Scandinavian in origin and focus. It also accounts for
the fact that, when jötnar appear in these texts, their function does not
depart markedly from that which they performed in the mythology of
pre-Christian Scandinavia, insofar as this can be reconstructed from extant
sources. The antagonistic nature of jötnar will be discussed in greater detail
below in the context of Old Icelandic saga material.
The evolution of the term risi
If it is accepted that the term jötunn was already saturated with complex
mythological associations by the time that saga authors employed it, then
the term risi presents a different situation. By the time that risar came to
be prominent figures in the sagas, the term had acquired quite a different
set of associations. The first significant distinction between the words risi
and jötunn is etymological. According to Pokorny, the word risi can be
traced to Proto-Germanic *wrisan, which is ultimately from the Proto-
Indo-European root *uer-. This word originally bore the sense of height,
and this can be detected in the reflexes of this root in other Indo-European
languages.20 Risi is also ultimately cognate with the Proto-Germanic *rīsan,
19 Jötnar even come to be closely associated with the Æsir in the fornaldarsögur, as both were
viewed by some saga authors as demonic remnants of pre-Christian religion. See Schulz,
Riesen, 225–30.
20 Consider, for example, Sanskrit varṣmán “height” and Latvian virsus “higher.”