Gripla - 2022, Page 110

GRIPLA108
like the witch’s curse and defamatory accusations, lying just beyond the
social norm.
In addition to the motif of measure/measurement, speech acts (includ-
ing poetry and its metrics) and contractual and judicial matters (such as
marriages) – all changes run on the word mál – pervade the saga. Yet the
measure of a man in Iceland seems to have lacked any sense of an absolute
standard, as might be concretized in a measuring rod. The gods surely
do not qualify as a model for morality. With the decisive decisions of the
Norns generally unknown and one’s fate veiled, only comparisons among
men are feasible, and these valorize a behavior that promotes social sta-
bility in a highly contingent world. This objective is encapsulated in the
notion of moderation, the hóf prized by Icelanders but often beyond their
grasp in the sagas, since ambition cannot be thwarted nor insult left unan-
swered. Hóf, however, is not an absolute but a kind of communally recog-
nized mean. It designated action appropriate to specific circumstances, so
it too is a relative concept, accompanied by a degree of instability. Related
motifs are the frequent lower body injuries in duels, with their symbolic
relevance both to manliness (synchronic) and generational descent (dia-
chronic). In the former case, there is a pervasive innuendo in the matter
of sexual orientation and practice: Ásmundr’s relations with Ǫgmundr,
Narfi’s sneers over sausages, the pegs of the dueling ground whose Old
Norse term was also used of the penis, Kormákr’s injured and tumescent
thumb, his slackened libido in the matter of the marriage, Bersi’s buttocks,
the scurrilous equine stanza, Steingerðr ramming Kormákr’s ship, even
the sacrifice giant who fatally pins Kormákr – all admissible as instances
of questionable masculinity. The saga also offers insights into perceived
ambitions of female agency, although the character of Steingerðr and her
actions may owe more to art than to history.
The poetic device of personal name encryption was invoked at the
beginning of this essay, principally as a heuristic tool to track the mul-
tiple significations of Old Norse mál (‘measure, speech, poem, affair’).
It revealed the absence, save in trivial idiom or antonym, of a kindred
concept, hóf ‘moderation’. The Christian compiler of the saga clearly had a
perspective wider than that of its principals, from which the heroic pagan
past appeared as a scene of darkness in which heathens could only stum-
ble toward the light. Thus seen, Kormákr’s ultimate failure in all but the