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with respect to the final meeting between the two Þorsteinns – discussed
in more detail below – he wonders “if this is not great literature, we may
well ask what is.”7 Valdimar Ásmundarson similarly considered the saga
to be “víst sögulega sönn og vel rituð” [certainly historically accurate and
well written].8
Regardless of the subjective opinions of scholars concerning the artistic
value of the saga, Þorsteins saga is worthy of greater scholarly interest than
it has hitherto provoked, not least when regarded from a disability stud-
ies perspective. It has commonly been remarked that Þorsteinn fagri [the
fair] Þorfinnsson rather than the eponymous Þorsteinn hvíti [the white]
Ǫlvisson, is the saga’s real protagonist and hero.9 Indeed, the story of the
younger Þorsteinn fagri’s journeys abroad, his partnership with Einarr
Þórisson, Einarr’s betrayal, Þorsteinn’s vengeance, and the latter’s exile and
return to Iceland take up much of the central part of the narrative. Notably,
the enmity between the two arises after Þorsteinn fagri experiences an
illness abroad, becomes incapacitated for some time, and Einarr takes
advantage of the situation. Though absent during many of these events,
the elder Þorsteinn hvíti nevertheless plays a significant role at both the
opening and, even more so, during closing stages of the narrative, one that
is particularly concerned with his vision loss and subsequent blindness.
Through these narrative elements, the saga provides a striking example of
what John Sexton refers to as “the rich cultural response to the premise of
disability” found in medieval saga writing.10 With respect to the eponymous
Þorsteinn hvíti in particular, the saga’s audience is provided with an op-
portunity to contemplate the experience of vision loss or blindness, which
surely some of its members would be familiar with firsthand. More than
this, however, through his character, the saga confronts the hegemony of
vision that commonly characterizes medieval saga writing.
7 Gwyn Jones, “Introduction,” Four Icelandic sagas, trans. by Gwyn Jones (New York:
Prince ton University Press, 1935), 8; see also Jakobsen, “Indledning,” i, xii–xiii.
8 Valdimar Ásmundarson, “Formáli,” Þorsteins saga hvíta, ed. by Valdimar Ásmundarson
(Reykjavík: Sigurður Kristjánsson, 1902), i.
9 See, for example, Jón Jóhannesson, “Formáli,” vi; Jakobsen, “Indledning,” xi–xii.
10 John Sexton, “Difference and Disability: On the Logic of Naming in the Icelandic Sagas,”
Disability in the Middle Ages: Reconsiderations and Reverberations, ed. by Joshua R. Eyler
(Farnham: Ashgate, 2010), 163; see also Ármann Jakobsson, Anna Katharina Heiniger,
Christopher Crocker and Hanna Björg Sigurjónsdóttir, “Disability before disability:
Mapping the uncharted in the medieval sagas,” scandinavian studies 92 (2020): 440–60.
NARRATING BLINDNESS