Gripla - 2022, Page 107

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that evil spirits or adverse destinies had prevented it from the start). Óskǫp
(< skap ‘condition of mind’, inter alia) illustrates the Icelandic predilection
for negatives created by prefixing ó/ú to nouns and adjectives. Here ‘ma-
levolence’ captures the essentials. This cannot be a reference to the Norns,
since they may be assumed to be without emotions in assigning a destiny
to a newborn. The witch Þórveig is the likely prime referent, although
Kormákr rightly concludes that other parties will also have wished the
poet ill luck.
In Norwegian waters, the trio continue their altercations. Kormákr
hits Þorvaldr on the head with the tiller of his ship, the bar attached at
the top of the side rudder (recalling various rods and swords), while
Steingerðr further compromises the dignity of the ship by arrogating
the tiller (weapon, penis) and ramming Kormákr’s vessel. The gear in
question – the steering instrument – invites us to see, if not a touch of
proto-feminism, at least a woman’s disillusionment with men. Both ships
founder, as Kormákr’s amorous hopes are also definitively scuppered. Like
Kormákr, Steingerðr appears to gain in autonomy once beyond the seem-
ing constraints and threats of diminution of Icelandic life.
With the physical move of the principals to Norway and beyond, the
narrative is somewhat deflated, with such repeated elements as kidnapping
by pirates. The correspondence between the prose narrative and the verses
is also less good. Yet some kind of resolution among the principals is
achieved. With it, the motifs of measure and measurement persist only as
echoes. Before the poet’s martial encounter with his bane in Scotland, it is
stated that none in his troop compared with him in strength and courage:
“í þeim her var engi slíkr sem Kormákr um afl ok áræði.”73 In Kormák’s
final combat against a Scottish blótrísi (‘sacrifice giant?’; imagined in earlier
scholarship as a standing stone) his sword slips, as swords had performed
erratically earlier, and the giant breaks his ribs. While he kills the giant
with a sword blow, it falls on him and further crushes him – all recalls of
earlier nonnormative duels and longitude motifs. The hapax legomenon
blótrisi may be a Scottish standing stone, as has been suggested, before
which sacrifices could have been imagined. The term also suggests an aug-
mentation, after the recurrent diminution motif of the Icelandic chapters.
Kormákr is portrayed as a poet to the end, however, and judges himself
73 Kormáks saga, ch 27, 299.
RINGING CHANGES