Gripla - 2022, Blaðsíða 87

85
stanza suggests that some kind of booby-trap was set for Kormákr at the
entry to the hall, involving a suspended scythe and sword (or shield, ac-
cording to the resulting verse). Later, an ambush is laid for the poet on his
way home. He kills one of Þórveig’s sons outright and wounds the other
fatally. Somewhat surprisingly, perhaps, this is not followed by any trium-
phant poetic statement. Rather, the narrative moves forward to Kormákr’s
confrontation with Þórveig, in which the witch is evicted from the district
and the poet refuses to pay any compensation for the killings. From no-
tions of measurement – the juxtaposition of the individual phenomenon
with the standard – the saga moves to reciprocal actions and relationships,
the sphere of gift-giving and patronage on the one hand, feud and revenge
on the other. Þórveig’s vengeance for the loss of her sons and eviction from
her place of residence takes verbal form:
Þórveig mælti: “Þat er líkast, at því komir þú á leið, at ek verða
hérað flótta, en synir mínir óbœttir, en því skal ek þér launa, at þú
skalt Steingerðar aldri njóta.”32
McTurk’s translation, “There’s nothing more likely than that you’ll ar-
range things so that I am compelled to flee from the district, with my sons
unatoned for but this is how I’ll pay you back for it: you will never enjoy
Steingerd’s love,” exemplifies the sentimental reading that Kormákr will
never enjoy Steingerdr’s love.33 The carnal reading is that he will never
enjoy her body; and the social and economic reading, that she will never
mother his sons, that is, supply him with some concrete profit. In the saga
world, the two latter doubtless weighed heaviest, despite Kormákr’s po-
etic profession of something like romantic love and esthetic appreciation
of female beauty. Perhaps a less specific rendering is most prudent: “You
will not be able to become intimate with the woman.” It is after this dire
prediction that the narrative offers the single most explicit expression of
Steingerðr’s feelings toward the poet, in verse of her own to the effect that
she would have Kormákr even if he were blind.34 The stanza is ominous.
To return to the idea of a complex causality, Kormákr’s failure to appear
for the marriage ceremony with Steingerðr is surely an element of his
32 Kormáks saga, ch. 5, 221–22.
33 Kormak's saga, trans. McTurk, ch 5, 187.
34 Kormáks saga, ch. 6, 223, st. 21.
RINGING CHANGES