Gripla - 2020, Qupperneq 282

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Þorsteinn was to the elder Þorsteinn “í sonar stað í allri umsýslu” [like a
son in managing everything], taking the place of the deceased Þorgils.44
The meeting between the two Þorsteinns is remarkable for several rea-
sons, not least the lingering effect of the opening and subtle textual gesture
toward the elder Þorsteinn’s inner life.45 Although he seems to deprecat-
ingly refer to himself as a “blind old man,” the saga’s audience has hardly
been conditioned to pity the elder Þorsteinn as they might readily pity
Egill, for example, during his later years, as mentioned above. However,
as Sif Ríkharðsdóttir has shown, in contrast to the prose that surrounds it,
the poetry in Egils saga, including a few verses Egill recites lamenting the
effects of aging, often appears to “manipulate the reader into an empathetic
position and provide an alternative insight into characters’ inner lives.”46
The same can be said of the subtle gesture the narrative makes toward the
elder Þorsteinn’s inner life through its intimation of his atypical sensory
experience; that is, his awareness of the presence of the seafaring visitors
through his sense of smell. Yet, he is never confronted with the kind of rid-
icule, scorn, or social stigma Egill faces. In this respect, the younger man’s
refusal to treat his arguably vulnerable counterpart in the same way that
Einarr had treated him during his own period of illness and convalescence
years earlier is also noteworthy. That Þorsteinn fagri makes no attempt to
take advantage of the “blind old man” demonstrates both his moral char-
acter and – contrasted with Einarr’s behaviour – the saga’s overall attitude
toward the proper conduct toward those with illnesses or impairments.
Regarding the elder Þorsteinn’s refusal to take the offered vengeance
for his son upon Þorsteinn fagri, Ámundi inn blindi [the blind] in Brennu-
njáls saga, though not an old man and said to have been blind since his
birth, may offer an interesting point of comparison. He miraculously
gains momentary sight and, unlike Þorsteinn, opts for violence when
44 Þorsteins saga hvíta, 17–18.
45 For a somewhat similar reading of a scene featuring the aforementioned Hlenni in
Ljósvetninga saga, see Yoav Tirosh, On the Receiving End, 145–46.
46 Sif Ríkharðsdóttir, Emotion in Old norse Literature: translations, voices, Contexts (Wood-
bridge: D. S. Brewer, 2017), 103; see also Lois Bragg, Oedipus Borealis: the Aberrant Body
in Old Icelandic Myth and saga (Madison: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2004),
189–90; and Yelena Sesselja Helgadóttir Yershova, “Egill Skalla-Grímsson: A Viking Poet
as a Child and an Old Man,” Youth and Age in the Medieval north, ed. by Shannon Lewis-
Simpson (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 295–304.
NARRATING BLINDNESS