Gripla - 2022, Page 375

373
by Rev. Guðmundur is worthy of particular mention),35 and it is true that
religious conviction is a crucial motivation for and feature of much of his
œuvre. There exist claims, however, that in addition to the two previously
mentioned pious poetic anthologies, there was a third with a more secular
focus.36 If this is true, and knowing in any case what we do about his ex-
tant production, it would be misleading to pigeonhole Guðmundur as only
producing religious literature.
Contents, structure and manuscript witnesses
Moving now to a discussion of the rímur themselves, a disclaimer must be
introduced concerning my previous mention of the core Grobbians rímur as
the “original four fitts,” namely that these four are only “original” in rela-
tion to the continuations. This is because in the earliest manuscripts the
core Grobbians rímur take two forms, consisting of either three or four fitts,
and it is not immediately obvious whether the three- or four-fitt version
was composed first. I will discuss the relationship of these versions in more
detail below, but for now the summary of contents will focus on the four-fitt
version of the poem, since that is the one which predominates in the extant
witnesses and the only one to be mentioned in previous scholarship.
The four fitts can be divided up into two groups of two: fitts I and II
talking about Grobbian and his advice to his sons, and fitts III and IV talk-
ing about Gribba, Grobbian’s wife, and her advice to her daughters. Based
on this division, one could feasibly divide the work up and call the first two
fitts Grobbians rímur and the second two fitts Gribbu rímur. To give a bit
more detail, after a brief mansöng, fitt I introduces Grobbian, the epitome
of bad manners, and his wife, Gribba, whose behaviour is said to be like
that of Hallgerður langbrók (v. 13).37 Next their sixteen sons are intro-
duced, each with a name which hints at a particular form of bad behaviour:
(1) Augnarangur, (2) Bakvaskur,38 (3) Blásinnkviður, (4) Blóti, (5) Fraktari,
35 Páll Eggert Ólason, Saga Íslendinga, 335.
36 See Sigurður Nordal, Samhengi og samtíð, I:396.
37 I include verse numbers based on the text in AM 615 f 4to, although there is no explicit
numeration there.
38 “Bakvaskur” can be read as “slanderer” or “mud-slinger,” related to Middle Low German
“bakwaschen” and Danish “bagvaske”. The advice he is given instructs him, fittingly, to
slander all men (II:51–52).
GROTESQUE ADVICE