Studia Islandica - 01.06.1961, Qupperneq 182

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Stephansson depicts Kolbeinn as a poor farmer-poet who makes
a humble living in cottage farming. He is a typical representative
of the Icelandic unschooled poets who for centuries kept the nation
alive with their literary efforts, even if they were often frag-
mentary, preserving Icelandic language and history and thereby
sustaining national awareness and faith in life. Stephansson has
Kölski himself explain why he wanted a versification contest
with Kolbeinn: The surest way to decivilize nations is to make
them forget their mother tongues. The poets, above all others, are
the foremost protectors of this treasure of each nation. Therefore,
Kölski has to put them out of the way.
Stephansson has Kölski visit Kolbeinn one night and challenge
him to a versification contest, consisting in capping verses. The
loser is to perish. Capping verses is an old Icelandic sport. Kölski
and Kolbeinn arrange their contest in such a way that one recites
the first half of a verse, and then the other completes or caps it.
Kolbeinn is to cap Kölski’s verses for the first half of the contest
and vice versa for the second half. He who cannot cap the other’s
verses will lose the match.
In Stephansson’s poem the contest takes place on a lonely rock
in the sea, whereas in the legend the contestants are perched on
the edge of a cliff. They meet at night when Kolbeinn is on his
way to the fishing-banks, the rock being midway between land
and the fishing-banks. Stephansson makes this change to bring
out how inseparable the art of poetry is from Kolbein’s life and
work. Kölski’s and Kolbein’s verses cire in incantation form. Kölski
begins, calling all kinds of sloth and ineptitude upon the Icelandic
nation, but Kolbeinn tums every execration to a blessing while
the second half of the verse are to be composed by him. When they
change over and Kölski caps the verses Kolbeinn discovers the
underlying deceit in their agreement because Kölski tums every
good wish for the Icelandic nation into an execration. He soon
realizes that if Kölski is to have the last word his execrations will
take effect and condemn the Icelandic nation to perdition. Kol-
bein’s way out is to invent a new metre, Kolbeinslag (“Kolbein’s
Metre”), with which Kölski cannot cope, because lack of adapta-
bility is a characteristic feature of the destructive forces in the
world. Stagnation and decay in all fields are their aim and end.
Here Stephansson also deviates from the legend, in which Kölski
loses the contest through his inability to supply a rhyme.
In the legend Kolbeinn and Kölski compete for Kolbein’s soul. In
Stephansson’s poem it is the national soul of Iceland they stmggle
about. Thus the subject as a whole is expanded and transformed
by Stephansson. The main characters of the poem are very well
delineated, especially Kolbeinn, who in many ways resembles
Stephansson himself, although Stephansson is not likely to have
conceived him as a replica or portrait of himself. But he is a per-
sonification of the best qualities of the Icelandic nation, represent-