Studia Islandica - 01.07.1966, Blaðsíða 23

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in the kingdom of heaven, being gladdened just as much
by the joy and happiness of another as by his own.1
It may have been some such passage as this that was in the
mind of the author of RauSúlfs þáttr when he used similar
symbolism in his account of the reign of Magnús the Good:
Just as the heavenly hodies illmnine the earth and sky,
and all men rejoice in the brightness of the sun, and it
is beneficial to the world, giving light to the earth, and
warms the ground so that it hrings forth fruits: so will
that reign be popular and prosperous and good and pro-
fitable to everyone in the country.
It is also interesting to compare the way in which the
author of the þáttr uses the symbolism of the crucifix in the
dream with the similar symbolism in the twelfth century
homily De Sancta Cruce.2 In King Óláfr’s dream the cruci-
fix portends strife. The head, round which the glory of
heaven was depicted, symbohses the nohle saint Óláfr, but
the feet a time of civil war and unrest. Just as the legs hold
up the whole body, so the kings they symbolise will uphold
the customs of their predecessors. In the homily we are told
that the cross was a symbol of death for evil men before
Christ was tormented on it, but afterwards it became a sym-
bol of life for good men. The head of Christ symbolises his
divinity, but his feet his human nature, for the head pointed
to heaven hut the feet down to earth. Part of the cross stood
buried in the ground, part pointed towards heaven: so Christ
combined in himself the heavenly and the earthly. Christ’s
arms outstretched on the cross symbolise the embrace of his
compassion (cf. ÓH 675/9 ff.). The part of the cross above
his head symholises our hopes of heaven, and the part huried
in the ground, which was invisible and yet supported the
whole cross, symbolises faith in spiritual power and mys-
ticism, and just as the invisible part of the cross held up
1 Maríu saga, ed. C. R. Unger (Christiania 1871), p. 56.
2 Homiliu-bók, ed. Th. Wisén (Lund 1872), pp. 37 ff.