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tive is still be worthy of note.32 In any case, there is little apparently worth
telling until five years later when Þorsteinn fagri returns to Iceland and the
two Þorsteinns share a remarkable encounter.
Following his exile for the killing of Einarr, Þorsteinn fagri immedi-
ately sets out for Hof. On his arrival there he first meets the young Helgi,
who is eight years old at the time, playing outdoors. After a short exchange
with the boy, he and his travelling companions enter the farmhouse. It is
then said that “Þorsteinn hvíti kenndi farmanna daun ok spurði, hverir
komnir væri” [Þorsteinn hvíti recognized the reek of seafarers and asked,
who had come], leading his younger namesake and the brother of Þorgils’s
slayers to identify himself.33 Though slight, this “grainy detail” of the narra-
tive is rather striking. The elder Þorsteinn’s keen sense of smell may recall
certain motifs commonly found in folk tales where a prodigious sense of
smell is sometimes associated with nefarious humans or other – often
dimwitted – paranormal beings.34 Yet otherwise absent of paranormal
elements, the text more simply refers to those smells associated with the
sea and seafaring travelers with which its original audience – probably
no less than many of their modern counterparts – would have been well
acquainted. Although the seafarers’ “reek” is stated as a fact and does not
give the saga’s audience direct access to Þorsteinn’s inner thoughts and
feelings, this small detail is a subtle gesture towards his atypical sensory
experience of the event, which is contingent upon his vision loss. There is,
for example, no such reference to the senses when the younger Þorsteinn
had previously encountered Helgi playing outside, likely taking for granted
that they had become aware of one another through the faculty of vision.
32 In vápnfirðinga saga it is specifically stated that Þorsteinn “fœddi upp Helga, sonarson sinn”
[brought up Helgi, his grandson], with no mention of his mother or a sister; vápnfirðinga
saga, 24.
33 Þorsteins saga hvíta, 16.
34 Christine Goldberg, “Cannibalism, Motif G10,” Archetypes and Motifs in Folklore and
Literature: A Handbook, ed. by Jane Garry and Hasan El-Shamy (London: Routledge,
2016), 228; see also Yoav Tirosh, On the Receiving End, 244–45. Norwegian folk tales, such
as “Soria Moria slot” and “Småguttene som traff trollene på Hedalsskogen,” feature Trolls,
for example, who detect the presence of unwanted visitors by the smell of their Christian
blood; see Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe (eds.), norske Folke-eventyr, 2 vols.
(Christiania: Johan Dahl, 1843–44), I, 166–80 and Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen
Moe (eds.), norske Folke-eventyr: ny samling (Christiania: I kommission hos J. Dybwad,
1871), 151–54.
NARRATING BLINDNESS