Gripla - 2019, Qupperneq 90

GRIPLA90
different beings inhabiting distant locales more generally. The absence of
risar from Old Norse mythology gave them a flexibility which jötnar ap-
parently lacked, being inexorably tied as they were to the heathen past.
Risar and jötnar in the sagas
For the Icelandic translators of biblical, learned and chivalric literature,
then, the terms risi and jötunn pertained to very different beings. The exist-
ence of a deeply rooted distinction between risar and jötnar problematises
the projection of the term “giant” onto both of these beings. In what fol-
lows, I will consider how the different associations of risar and jötnar just
discussed – the etymology of these terms; their relationship with mytho-
logical material; and their different roles in translated literature – resulted
in a disparity between these beings in saga material.
It will be useful to begin this exercise with an assertion made by
Ármann Jakobsson, which exemplifies the tendency in current scholarship
to homogenise the risar and jötnar of the sagas. In an article on these fig-
ures, Ármann suggests that “apart from being rather stupid and dangerous,
mostly because of their primitive ways, the legendary saga giants are akin
to many a mediaeval monster in being deformed and ugly.”36 The conten-
tion that Ármann seems to be making here is that fornaldarsaga “giants”
are both socially and physically monstrous.37 It will be contended that, in
fact, risar and jötnar are at variance in these two respects, and this results
in an often stark contrast between these beings in saga literature. Broadly
speaking, jötnar, as vestiges of pre-Christian mythology, are demonised
by saga authors and presented as physically and socially monstrous, as
Ármann suggests. Risar, by contrast, are presented as more attractive and
socially articulate figures on account of their absence from mythological
material and their link with non-Scandinavian locales. In demonstrating
that the distinctions between risar and jötnar established above extend into
36 Ármann Jakobsson, “Identifying the ogre,” 189.
37 This same thinking might also be revealed in his generalisation of saga “giants” as “a handful
of stupid and wild loners in caves and desolate places, much less cultured and wise than
ordinary humans and only terrible in their enormity and their wildness,” and as “large,
ugly, physically abnormal and bestial,” Ármann Jakobsson, “Identifying the ogre,” 185;
189. These views are also broadly shared by Katja Schulz, who outlines in some detail the
terrifying aspects of “Riesen,” Riesen, 139–155.