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the north country at Fljót, and they had many kinsmen – they were
called the Skidings – but little standing.)
In spite of his wealth and skills, Þorvaldr enjoys little respect, and is
then inconsequential, which will have made for less social prominence
for Steingerðr than that enjoyed in her marriage to the chieftain Bersi.
Kormákr feigns not to have heard of the betrothal and makes plans to go
abroad, which will prove a pivotal point in the saga.
There is no pointed comparison between Þorvaldr and either Kormákr
or Bersi, although it is clear to the saga public that despite his abilities as a
craftsman and his wealth, Þorvaldr is far from meeting Icelandic standards
as a fully competent male. His brother Þorvarðr acts in his interests. In all
this, the motifs of measurement (especially linear) are exploited in only
very subtle fashion.
The tin of the name tinteinn clearly means ‘tin, pewter’, and there are
numerous other references to the craft of tin-working. Teinn has been
less surely associated with Irish tein ‘fire’. Yet teinn also meant ‘spit, stake,
twig, stripe’ in Old Norse, which might well describe thin lengths of
precious metals, iron, pewter, and other alloys cut from plates or sheets,
prior to further refinement. In the medieval north, wire-making involved
a draw-plate or die (of horn or wood in the case of the softer alloys),
mounted on a wooden block.56 Through a graduated series of perforations,
a strip of heated metal was repeatedly drawn with tongs, often of bone, un-
til the desired diameter was reached. Wire had multiple uses, e.g., joining
the halves of sword hilts over the tang, in filigree work, and in the creation
of ornaments for male and female dress. In his verse Kormákr calls up the
image of Þorvaldr, the tindráttarmaðr or ‘tin-wire-drawer’, pulling wire
through his teeth. The perforated die seems to have been likened to a hu-
man mouth displaying a range of (ill-kept?) teeth. Kormákr, on the other
hand, can scarcely show his teeth in a smile, such is his distaste at seeing
his beloved married to a lesser man. Wire-drawing continues saga’s motifs
of linearity but also diminution. Þorvaldr’s cited mean-spiritedness may
56 John Granlund, “Tråddragning,” Kulturhistoriskt lexikon för nordisk medeltid, ed. by John
Granlund, 22 vols. (Malmö: Alhems Förlag, 1956–76), 19: cols. 5–7. Teinn is found else-
where as an element of personal names; An Icelandic-English Dictionary, ed. by Richard
Cleasby, Gudbrand Vigfusson, and William A. Craigie, 2nd edition (Oxford: Clarendon,
1956), s.v. teinn.
RINGING CHANGES