Gripla - 2019, Qupperneq 96
GRIPLA96
these last four texts could employ the terms jötunn and risi interchangeably
suggests that, to a limited extent, some crossover between the two beings
must be allowed for – that, as risar are depicted more negatively, they
might suitably be described by the term jötunn.50 However, in view of the
numerous sources adduced above, these sagas are somewhat anomalous in
their presentation of risar.51 Indeed, in the majority of instances, risar are
sharply distinguished from jötnar in terms of their civility and their ability
to not only deal amicably with humans, but to interbreed with them.
Risi-jötunn conflict
An impression of the differences between jötnar and risar, grounded
as they are in etymological, mythological and functional distinctions, is
therefore furnished by the saga corpus as a whole. Numerous sagas which
treat jötnar or risar individually seem to present these figures as separate
in a consistent fashion. It remains to turn to sagas where jötnar and risar
appear together, where Icelandic authors could consider the distinction
between different kinds of “giants” directly. The most notable example
of this practice is in Bárðar saga. It has already been pointed out that the
author of this text distinguished between Dumbr’s descent from risakyn on
one hand and from tröllaætt on the other. There also seems to have been a
distinction between risar and jötnar, though this is not described with the
same taxonomical precision as the prior one. Bárðar saga expresses the two
most important distinctions between jötnar and risar that have been dis-
cussed thus far. It has been pointed out that the author characterises risar
as vænir “beautiful,” but he treats the appearance of jötnar less favourably:
Þorkell, the grandson of the jötunn Svaði, is “svartr á hár ok hörund” [black
of hair and skin].52 Further, this author casts risar as socially articulate be-
50 See Ármann Jakobsson, “Identifying the ogre,” 186; “trollish acts,” 44.
51 Further, the use of risi for misanthropic beings in these specific texts is far rarer than the
use of jötunn. In Egils saga ok Ásmundar, for example, jötunn appears 50 times as a term to
describe hostile beings, whereas risi is used only once, of the being who severs Egill’s arm.
This is a significant discrepancy. Jötunn is also used of the positive figure Hildir in Örvar-
Odds saga, but once he identifies himself as a risi of Risaland and is shown to be a harmless,
the saga refers to him only as a risi thereafter.
52 Bárðar saga, 106. Swarthiness is often treated as a physical flaw in Icelandic saga mate-
rial. In Laxdœla saga, for instance, Lambi Þorbjarnarson is said to be svartr á hár ok…heldr
ósýniligr “black of hair and…rather ugly.” In Eiríks saga rauða, Þórhallr veiðimaðr is described