Gripla - 2022, Page 77

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in Egill Skallagrímsson can have overtones of the myth of the cauldron
of poetry and its transmarine transmission. The kenning belongs here,
along with, on a larger scale, the above referenced practice of recasting and
elaborating the motifs of the introductory chapters of a saga. In Kormáks
saga, polysemy, one element of name riddling, is the product of the various
meaning of mál. After this quite serious pun, in the putative equation here
proposed, the second replacement in narrative proximity should be open to
service as a synonym of hóf. But in an artful turn, we find, not a word with
similar meaning, but its antonym as ascribed to Kormákr: áhlaupamaðr
‘impetuous, immoderate man’. Mál will be ubiquitous in the examination
of the saga, not in the teasing incorporation of a name but in the artful
exposition of saga theme; hóf , on the other hand, is seldom mentioned or
in evidence, this, too, with thematic intention.
The first events of the poet’s saga concerns Kormákr’s choice as to par-
ticipation in two household duties: either to help flense a stranded whale
or go into the mountains to round up sheep. This initial episode will be
discussed in some detail, since it establishes motifs and themes that will
inform the entire work. Kormákr’s options (sea-shore or mountains), like
lexical alternatives, recall the myth of Njǫrðr, Skaði, and their troubled
marriage.15 We should not look so much for point-by-point correspond-
ence as to the mythic framing of an individual human destiny. Electing
the ovine option, Kormákr overnights at the farm of a man called Tosti
and meets his foster-daughter Steingerðr Þorkelsdóttir after a series of
glimpses of her feet under the swinging door to the hall and of her face by
the door-frame (Kormákr’s introduction to the linearity motif met in the
land measure). The sheep search is broken off. Ten improvised stanzas of
love poetry then follow. The sparse situational information in the verses
and a near contemporary understanding of their kennings and allusions
seem to have determined the composition and hence understanding of the
accompanying prose. The stanzas are uniform in content and style: skal-
dic poetics, including kennings, devoted to praise a girl’s beauty, with the
poet a shadowy but consistent presence in the poems. As a reference point
against which to evaluate verses in a very different register, Kormákr’s first
15 John Lindow, “When Skáði Chose Njǫrðr,” Romance and Love in Late Medieval and Early
Modern Iceland: Essays in Honor of Marianne Kalinke, ed. by Kirsten Wolf and Johanna
Denzin. Islandica 54 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2020), 165–82.
RINGING CHANGES