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wrestling match should occur at all in Icelandic sources is significant. A
king in Risaland and therefore, presumably, a king of risar, is pitted against
his polar opposite, the monstrous deputy of a jötunn king. The extent of
the difference between them is clearly signalled in visual, physical terms:
the one fits Ármann’s description of “giants” as “deformed and ugly,” but
the other is white or even shining, depending on how hvítr is translated.62
If the author of Bárðar saga was careful to distinguish between his different
“giants,” then the same conclusion about the author of Þorsteins þáttr seems
inescapable. This is a distinction that is, quite literally, black and white.
In Samsons saga, the author also characterises risar and jötnar in op-
position to one another. Goðmundr reappears in this saga narrative, and
though he is not explicitly identified as a risi, his status as such is likely.63
In Samsons saga, Goðmundr is first characterised by his capacity as an
opponent of jötnar, and his role in this text is similar to that which he
performs in Þorsteins þáttr. In fact, his first action in the saga is to engage
the jötnar in battle: “þat er sagt einnhuern tima at Goðmundr kongr af
Glæsis vollum for nordr fyri Jotunheima ok heriade a jotna ok giorde
þar mikit heruirke hia þeim” [It is said that one time, King Goðmundr of
Glæsisvellir went north to Jötunheimar and harried the jötnar and there
was a great battle between them].64 That this opposition was dynastic is
suggested by the fact that the king of jötnar, Skrýmir, then wages war on
Goðmundr’s risi-like son Sigurðr. In both Samsons saga and Þorsteins þáttr,
then, attractive, gigantic and socially refined figures likely identifiable as
risar pit themselves against monstrous jötnar. The characteristics of these
two groups are consistent with those that have been identified throughout
the sagas and in translated works. The significance of the final three sagas
62 Agði’s hellish blackness may be inspired by Christian vitae, where bright saints are often
said to wrestle with dark demons. Such an episode is related in the Old English poem and
saint’s life Juliana. The equivocation between tröllsligr “monstrous” and blár sem hel “black
as Hel” which the author makes also reflects a wider connection between swarthiness and
ugliness in Icelandic literature. See note 52 above.
63 Goðmundr can be identified as a risi in Samsons saga with reasonable confidence on account
of his status as such in other fornaldarsögur; his proximity to a region called Risaland and
his giantlike son Sigurðr who is fríðr “beautiful” and furðuliga mikill “wondrously large”–
qualities which apply to risar thought the fornaldarsögur. Sigurðr’s extreme height must
stem from his father Goðmundr, since his mother apparently belongs to a fantastical group
of beings known as smámeyjar “small-maidens.”
64 John Wilson, Samsons saga fagra (Copenhagen: Samfund til udgivelse af gammel nordisk
Litteratur, 1953), 32.