Gripla - 2022, Blaðsíða 109

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Kormákr’s prospects in various senses of the term. Yet his verse, mál in
this sense, suffers none of the diminution (inadequate mál) apparent in
his social activities and their various “affairs” (yet another mál). Kormákr’s
verses are typically snapshots of his situation of the moment, although
with the principals somewhat epicized or heroicized. In the saga as we have
it, they do not contribute to the narrative advance. In the skaldic tradition,
there is an underlying tension between couplets and/or helming, e.g., the
poet’s risk-filled trials aboard a ship, while Steingerðr and Tinteinn relax
in bed. This compositional principle is reflected in the relationship in that
a fundamental difference keeps Kormákr and Steingerðr at a distance, if
not always at odds. In the verse, exposition of a situation or relationship is
more frequent than actual events so that the verse always has a reflective
nature. The riddling nature of the verse also maintains a tension between
poet/poem and listener, until the poem has been memorized and the syn-
tax and kenning-based imagery of the stanza then “solved.”74
Among the important symbols and topics set out the introductory
chapters of Kormáks saga, the shrinking measuring rod is tone-setting.
Its first subsequent realization is in the pivotal kitchen scene with Narfi,
which seeks to measure the “doneness” of kettle snakes and the “made-
ness,” in the sense of adult male competency, of Kormákr. To reformulate
one early question of this study: just how did the saga public interpret the
kettle-snake and verse-capping episode? Not to see in Kormákr’s response
more than a superficial, uptight, and dismissive nod to his antagonist is
to leave Narfi the victor and the poet at an even greater psychological
disadvantage than is more openly apparent in the mismanaged affairs,
human and supernatural that follow. The poet knew himself fully com-
petent to versify in Narfi’s base register, with its objectives of defamation
and dishonor, as later stanzas evidence. As the saga advances, the motif
of unmanliness in an absolute sense is dropped in favor of that of inef-
fectual masculinity – of measures not met – and thwarted sexual, social,
and judicial contests persist, steered by a multifaceted causality. The poet’s
impulsiveness cuts short effective relationships with both human society
and the supernatural. Recourse to magic invulnerability and healing is,
74 On an English king’s wish that the poet stay at court until this process was complete and
some “profit” could be had of the verses, see Sneglu-Halla þáttr, ch. 8, 290.
RINGING CHANGES