Gripla - 2020, Qupperneq 271

GRIPLA270
Narrating blindness
Þorsteinn hvíti is first introduced in the saga as a late-coming settler
in the east of Iceland. He nevertheless manages to purchase land in the
Vápnafjǫrðr region, establishes a farm, soon marries, and fathers five
children, the most promising of whom is a son named Þorgils. Þorsteinn
eventually accumulates great wealth, power, and property in the form of
the farmstead at Hof and even a goðorð [chieftainship]. Some years later
his wife Ingibjǫrg takes ill and dies, which is said to be a great loss for
Þorsteinn, but he carries on at Hof as before. Þorsteinn is next mentioned
when, after some unspecified measure of time, it is said that he “tók aug-
naverk svá mikinn, at þar fyrir missti hann sjónina” [experienced eye-pain
so severe, that he lost his vision]. Following this, he “þykkisk vanfœrr til
umsýslu” [felt incapable of managing things] and, at his father’s request, his
son Þorgils agrees to help manage things and to assist Þorsteinn as much as
he can to maintain the farmstead at Hof. This arrangement seems to work,
and both Þorsteinn and Þorgils, along with the latter’s wife Ásvǫr and
the couples’ two children Helgi and Guðrún, carry on living at Hof.11 The
narrative then expands the cast of the saga, including the introduction of
Þorsteinn fagri, who becomes the focus of the central part of the narrative.
Yet, Þorgils, the elder Þorsteinn, the arrangement between father and son,
and the latter’s loss of vision all come to play a crucial role in Þorsteinn
fagri’s story and the later stages of the narrative.
Þorsteinn hvíti’s hagr [condition] is, of course, not unique in medieval
saga writing. References to vision loss, or at least its threat, similarly fol-
lowing the onset of augnaverkr [eye-pain] appear in several sagas, includ-
ing, for example, Bjarnar saga Hítdælakappa, Ljósvetninga saga, Fóstbrœðra
saga, and Bárðar saga snæfellsáss, and perhaps also implicitly in vatnsdœla
saga.12 Kirsi Kanerva has shown that, in medieval saga writing, augnaverkr
11 Þorsteins saga hvíta, in Austfirðinga sǫgur, ed. by Jón Jóhannesson, íslenzk fornrit XI
(Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka fornritafélag, 1950), 3–6.
12 Bjarnar saga Hítdælakappa, in Borgfirðinga sǫgur, ed. by Sigurður Nordal and Guðni Jónsson,
íslenzk fornrit III (Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka fornritafélag, 1938), 191–92; Björn Sigfússon
(ed.), Ljósvetninga saga, íslenzk fornrit X (Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka fornritafélag, 1940), 103;
Fóstbrœðra saga, in Vestfirðinga sǫgur, ed. by Björn K. Þórólfsson and Guðni Jónsson, íslenzk
fornrit VI (Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka fornritafélag, 1943), 174–77; Bárðar saga snæfellsáss, in
Harðar saga, ed. by Þórhallur Vilmundarson and Bjarni Vilhjálmsson, íslenzk fornrit XIII