Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1960, Blaðsíða 81

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In IB 651, 8vo (our text A) the pula is headed: ‘Vi5 måltib,’ and
in Sigfus Sigfusson’s Pjodsogur it is headed: ‘Sviba-Jrala.’ To judge
from these titles we might imagine Grettisfærsla to have been some
kind of banqueting-poem used when saudarsldtur (legs, head, and
entrails of sheep) was served, and that the Grettir named in the
poem was a ‘victim’ (blæti), of the same kin as the Vplsi of Vglsa-
pdttr (Flateyjarbok, II, pp. 331-6). The title of the poem is explained
if we imagine that this ‘victim’ was passed around and that those
present at the feast said a few words ahout it while they were
holding it—just as the worshippers of Vplsi were said to do. The
meaning of ‘JdvI færi ek jcér Gretti’ (52w, 1. 27) is thus explained, as
are also: ‘at hann er J}ér skyldr’ (1. 28); ‘haf £>u fjat, en ek Jjagna’
(11. 32-3); ‘tak ]au viQ’ (1. 33); ‘{jat sé Jaér ok veri’ (1. 37); ‘stikna
Jdu innan ...’ (53r, 1. 11) and ‘sendu hann ...’ (1. 12).
A number of scholars have held that the verses which go with
Vglsapdttr are relics of an ancient rite, and attention has been
drawn to banqueting-customs or games which have in modern
times been common in northern Europe and which must go back
to similar rites. Andreas Heusler, in Zeitschrift des Vereins fur
Volkskunde, XIII, 1903, pp. 24-39 (‘Die Geschichte vom Yolsi’),
has taken into account various customs of this kind in order to
explain the worship of V9lsi, and some of what he says can help us
to understand what sort of a poem Grettisfærsla was. He refers to
the Chronicle of Lanercost (ed. in 1839 by J. Stevenson for the
members of the Bannatyne and Maitland Clubs) which tells how in
1282 (in Scotland) an image of the human penis was made and
exhibited to a crowd of singing women (J. M. Kemble: The Saxons
in England, I, London, 1849, pp. 359-60). From more recent
times there is a story that, at harvest-time, an animal was killed,
its genital member cut off and served at table to the one who cut
the last ear of corn or threshed the last handful of grain (Panzer:
Beitrag zur deutschen Mythologie, II, p. 218, No. 401; Bavaria, III,
2, 969). In some places the flesh of the animal was eaten at a com-
mon meal, and the genitalia hung up in the porch. Magnus Olsen
has given a good account of the matter in Norges Indskrifter med de
ældre Runer, II, p. 652ff.; he refers to Heusler’s article, and cites in
addition a Faroese (and Scottish) wedding-custom. This custom is