Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1981, Side 196

The father goes on to explain that he was once a powerful chieftain, but
that war had deprived him of his possessions and patrimony. He praises
his daughter’s beauty, intelligence, and womanly skilis, and finally sug-
gests that the giri speak her own mind - ok nu segi hon sinn vilja (13:2).
We learn that it was not hard to get an answer from Evida.
The negotiations between Erec and his host in the French romance
differ considerably. In the first place, Erec is interested primarily in
avenging himself on Yder, the knight whose dwarf had whipped him. To
do so, he plans to enter Enide in the Arthurian version of a beauty
contest: each knight declares his lady to be the most beautiful of those
assembled, and seeks to prove that he is right by overcoming in combat
anyone who challenges his assertion. There is to be such a contest in
which Yder is the chief contender. Erec therefore requests that Enide’s
father outfit him with arms and give him his daughter as companion. If he
overcomes Yder, then Erec will marry Enide. In the romance the father
responds as enthusiastically as in the saga, but there is nonetheless a
marked difference in the two scenes. The French father unilaterally puts
his daughter at Erec’s disposal - Tot a vostre comandemant/Ma bele fille
vos presant (vv. 675-76) - takes her by the hånd, and literally gives her to
Erec: ‘Tenez,’ fet il, fe la vos doing’ (v. 678).
The difference in the father’s reaction to the hero’s proposal in the
saga can be attributed to the author’s conscious manipulation of the plot
so that the deportment depicted in Er ex saga more nearly resembles that
expressed in the indigenous Icelandic literature, which reflected actual
customs of the time. For example, according to usage prevailing in Nor-
way and Iceland, a girl’s legal guardian was ordinarily approached re-
garding an offer of marriage, and “if he favoured it, the girl’s consent
might be sought but it was not necessary.”3 In Erex saga the father is
merely demonstrating the same loving concern as that expressed by Egill,
for example, in Laxdæla saga, when Hoskuld asks for the hånd of Forgerd
on behalf of his son Olaf. Egill is pleased, yet hastens to add, en pd skal
nu petta vid Porgerdi ræda, pvl at pat er engum manni færi, at få Por-
gerdar an hennar vilja (ch. 23 ‘But still, I must discuss this with Forgerd
herself, for no man shall marry her against her will’).4 Forgerd is not as
3 Peter G. Foote and David M. Wilson, The Viking Achievement. The Society and
Culture of Early Medieval Scandinavia (London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1970), p. 113.
4 Vol. V, fslenzk fornrit edition, ed. Einar 6l. Sveinsson (Reykjavik: Hiå islenzka
fornritafélag, 1934).
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