Studia Islandica - 01.07.1966, Side 55

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notations of the word íþrótt. Unlike Charlemagne and his
men, the guests at Rauðúlfr’s feast were not drunk. Their
boasts are more restrained and rational than those of the
Frenchmen, whose “gabs” are concerned with superhuman
feats of strength, ridiculous because of their impossibility.
Many of the accomplishments boasted of in Raúðúlfs þáttr
are traditional in Icelandic literature. The author has suited
the boasts to the characters and positions of the boasters.
Those of the six sons of Árni are in accordance with viking
ideals and practices. Finnr and Þorbergr’s are vows of loyalty
to their liege lord, recalling the famous vows of the Joms-
vikings Þorkell Hávi, Búi inn Digri, Sigurðr Kápa, Vagn
Ákason, and Bjprn inn Brezki, who all swore to follow Sig-
valdi on his expedition to Norway and not to let him down
as long as he was alive and wanted to go on with it.1 Both
Finnr and Þorbergr remained faithful to King Öláfr to the
last (they had earlier sworn oaths of loyalty to the king2)
and fought with him in his last battle at Stiklarstaðir where
they were both wounded.
Kálfr, whose unusual boast strikes a somewhat menacing
note in this otherwise innocent entertainment, alone of the
sons of Ámi turned against the king in the last years of his
reign and fought against him at Stiklarstaðir; according to
Heimskringla he gave the king one of the three wounds
from which he died. His chief reasons for tuming against
the king seem to have been, according to Snorri Sturluson,
his resentment for the death on the king’s orders of his
stepson Þórir Qlvisson and for the death of Áslákr Fitja-
skalli.3 His boast thus foreshadows his later conduct.
Kolbjpm’s three accomplishments were accurate shoot-
ing, skiing, and swimming. These three skills are often
1 Jómsvíkinga saga, ed. N. F. Blake (London 1962), pp. 28—29. This
kind of boast is also traditional in Old English literature, e.g. Beowulf,
lines 2633 ff., The Battle of Maldon passim.
2 ÓH 386.
3 Cf. ÓH 465, 490, 505—506.