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It is worth noting that this episode from Eyrbyggja saga is in many ways
unusual within the corpus of the Íslendingasögur precisely because of its
lengthy description of the events at Helgafell and its detailed depictions
of the brothers’ injuries and impairments. Yet whilst the passage is not
paradigmatic of the Íslendingasögur, it nonetheless offers a good starting
point for further discussions of dis/ability. Its unusual features potentially
facilitate an approach to the topic of dis/ability in the sagas, because the
contrast to conventional saga comments on injuries and impairments is
made clearer by comparison. The episode can therefore serve as a useful
bridge to the main focus of the article, namely the narrative silence regard-
ing dis/ability and trauma.
4. ‘Silence of the Limbs’
It is striking how seemingly uninterested Eyrbyggja saga is in telling the
audience about Þorleifr kimbi’s fate, particularly as regards the last sen-
tence in the episode about his wooden leg, but this brevity and detached
style is encountered fairly regularly when sagas talk about injuries and
impairments. Still, the apparent indifference of the Íslendingasögur in this
respect should not be considered to the detriment of these narratives.
Being taciturn does not necessarily imply that the sagas are devoid of
engagement with dis/ability; rather, this apparent lack suggests that the
sagas follow a literary agenda with different priorities. The silence about
medical issues of all sorts is broadly comparable to the lack of verbalised
expressions of emotions, as Sif Ríkharðsdóttir details in her Emotion in
Old norse Literature.34 Sif’s close readings demonstrate that the sagas tend
to transpose verbal expressions of emotions by transferring them into
dramatic action. In view of the narrative silence regarding impairments, it
may well be that the sagas choose to convey their concern for dis/ability in
ways other than descriptions.
Regarding dis/ability, the previous discussion of the episode in Eyr-
byggja saga suggests that four main aspects constitute the conspicuous
narrative silence. First, the injured often refrain from pointing out their
wounds, while the narrative itself pays little to no attention to the medi-
34 Sif Ríkharðsdóttir, Emotion in Old norse Literature: translations, voices, Contexts, Studies
in Old Norse Literature 1 (Woodbridge: D.S. Brewer, 2017), 57.
THE SILENCED TRAUMA IN THE Í sLEnDInGAsÖGUR