Gripla - 2022, Page 92

GRIPLA90
will reveal, and the reader is left to wonder at the reasons for Bersi’s many
judicial duels. Was he litigious by nature and exploited his fighting ability
to win his cases? Did he provoke people with the intention of acquiring
more property, a tactic met in other sagas? Since he appears not to be the
descendant of a prominent family, perhaps his wealth originated in the
spoils and settlement from such combat. This element of the portrait also
serves the ends of prolepsis, as judicial dueling will figure importantly later
in the saga. The description of Kormákr concludes with the term áhlaupa-
maðr, in which the root is the verb of motion, hlaupa ‘to run’. Bersi’s por-
trait closes with hólmgǫngumaðr, formed on the equivalent verb ganga ‘to
go, walk’. With their actions (Bersi’s history as fighter) and temperaments
(Kormákr’s impetuosity) determined by basic nature or semi-free will, the
agents of these verbs converge at the designated dueling site, the hólmr,
also the object of telling description that makes explicit its purpose.
Thus far in the saga, the principal signification of the word mál has
been ‘measuring, measurement’. Now it assumes both frequency and im-
portance in the general sense of ‘matter’, here of a social and contractual
nature, e.g., Narfi: “Komum í Saurbœ til Bersa; hann er kvánlauss; bindum
hann í málit; hann er oss œrit traust” (Let’s go to Bersi in Saurbær, he is
without a wife. Let’s get him involved in the affair; he could be a great sup-
port to us).43 Narfi subtly appeals to Bersi’s fighter’s vanity to forestall any
reluctance before the proposed match: “Ef menn hræðask Kormák, þurfu
þeir þess eigi, því at vandliga er hann horfinn þessu máli” (Even if people
fear Kormákr, they don’t need too, because he is wholly disinclined to
proceed with the matter).44 Reassured or pressured, Bersi then raises the
“matter” with Steingerðr’s father Þorkell, and the betrothal is a fact, with
the wedding soon to follow.
While the notion of mál is repeatedly drawn to the saga public’s atten-
tion in the form of measurements, speech acts, and contracts and court
cases, hóf ‘moderation’ is invoked only in the negative form of Kormákr’s
behavior, and in his namesake and grandfather’s early observation that
Ǫgmundr’s Viking activity has had its optimal yield. This downgrading
tempered, a true friend but a discriminating friend” Njal’s saga, trans. Cook, ch. 19, 24).
Vinavandr “discriminating as to friends” is of particular interest in the present context of
the evaluation of men.
43 Kormáks saga, ch. 7, 225.
44 Kormáks saga, ch. 7, 225