Gripla - 2019, Page 92

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snout; and Arinnefja, the queen of Jötunheimar who appears in Egils saga
ok Ásmundar, lacks teeth, fingers and even skin after emerging from the
underworld.41 The jötnar of the sagas join many other gigantic monsters
of European tradition, such as Grendel of the Old English Beowulf and the
gigas of Mont Saint-Michel from Geoffrey’s Historia regum Brittaniae, in
inspiring terror by their very appearance. The physical monstrosity of the
jötnar is their most immediate and defining feature, and this is apt for be-
ings whose primary function in the sagas is to bring an increased sense of
dread to the remote forests and mountains where they dwell.
thus far, Ármann Jakobsson’s comment on the physical terror of “gi-
ants” holds true. If we turn from jötnar to consider the other so-called
“giants” included in his statement, the risar, then the picture is dramati-
cally different. Risar seem to be renowned not for their physical mon-
strosity, but for their incredible beauty. In Bárðar saga, the first character
introduced is a gigantic figure named Dumbr, who is descended from
risakyn “risi-kind” on his father’s side and from tröllaætt “tröll-lineage”
on his mother’s. The author of the saga comments that risar “er…vænna
fólk ok stærra en aðrir menn” [are a more beautiful and larger people
than others].42 Dumbr is accordingly described as vænn “handsome” and
sterkr “strong” – qualities that the author directly attributes to his paternal
ancestry.43 These aspects of Dumbr’s risi heritage materialise in all of his
descendants. His son Bárðr is so immaculate that “menn þóttust öngvan fe-
gra karlmann sét hafa” [people thought they had not seen a more beautiful
man], and Bárðr’s own children are of superlative beauty.44 His daughter
41 Even though Arinnefja is the child of jötnar and is described as the ruler of Jötunheimar, she
cannot be characterised as a jötunn herself, as jötnar are exclusively male in the Old Norse-
Icelandic corpus. Female beings who marry and produce children with jötnar are usually re-
ferred to by the terms gýgr, flagð or tröllkona. See Jóhanna Katrín Friðriksdóttir, Monstrous
Women in Old Norse Literature: Bodies, Words, and Power (New York: Palgrave Macmillan,
2013), 59–77. Nevertheless, Arinnefja’s associations with jötnar are pronounced, and it is
reasonable to refer to her in this discussion with the above caveat in mind.
42 Bárðar saga Snæfellsáss, in Harðar saga, ed. by Bjarni Vilhjálmsson and Þórhallur Vil mundar-
son, íslenzk Fornrit XIII (Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka fornritafélag, 1991), 100.
43 Eldevik expresses her surprise that the gentle disposition of Dumbr should stem from his
“giant” father, when, according to her, these figures played such a negative role in mytho-
logical contexts, “Less Than Kind,” n. 23. This point of view is of course encouraged by
the conflation of risar and jötnar which is widespread in scholarship. In fact, as suggested
above, risar barely appear in mythological sources at all.
44 Bárðar saga, 102.