Iceland review - 2015, Page 53

ICELAND REVIEW 51
In a world of conflict—“where women don’t even own them-
selves but are used as pawns in the power struggles of men
by being married off by their fathers, brothers or sons,” as
author and folklorist Vilborg Davíðsdóttir puts it—after los-
ing her husband, King Ólafur hvíti (the White) and only son
Þorsteinn rauði (the Red) in battle, Auður djúpúðga (Aud or
Unn the Deep-Minded) builds a ship in secrecy and escapes
from Caithness, northern Scotland, to Iceland. “It is generally
thought that it would be hard to find another example of a
woman escaping from such hazards with so much wealth and
such a large retinue. From this it can be seen what a paragon
amongst women she was,” as it says in Laxdæla Saga (in the
translation of Magnus Magnusson and Hermann Pálsson, orig-
inally published by Penguin Books in 1969).
Auður is the heroine of Vilborg’s latest historical novels.
Having studied all sources where Auður and her family are
mentioned, Vilborg tries to explain how a woman from the
Viking Era could go down in history as a leader like no other
and earn everlasting respect.
THE PHILANTHROPIST
Auður was the daughter of Viking chieftain Ketill flatnefur
(Flat-Nose), who left Norway for the Hebrides (an archipelago
off the west coast of mainland Scotland) in the 9th century AD
to escape the rule of Haraldur hárfagri (Fairhair), instead of
following the example of his children who chose to resettle
in Iceland, as Laxdæla reads. This is however contradicted in
Landnáma (Book of Settlement), as Vilborg points out. “It says
that Haraldur made Ketill chieftain of the Hebrides but he dis-
regarded paying the king taxes and earned his disfavor.
“There are indications that the children grew up in the
Hebrides, in a Celtic environment,” Vilborg goes on. “Auður’s
brother Helgi has the nickname bjólan [beólán], which can either
mean ‘agile and healthy’ or ‘small mouth’ in Gaelic. I decided on
‘small mouth’ and had Auður tease him with it when the siblings
get into a fight in their childhood.” Laxdæla reads that Auður
is the last of Ketill’s children to settle in Iceland. After being
shipwrecked, she arrives at her brother Helgi’s, who would only
accept half her entourage—an indication that they weren’t the
best of friends.
“Auður’s grandson Ólafur has the nickname feilan [fáelán], or
‘little wolf’ in Gaelic. Once, when I was giving a lecture about
the Norse and Celts in Iceland to schoolchildren in Dublin,
Ireland, this boy with curly red hair raised his hand, saying: ‘Miss,
my name is Fáelán.’” Vilborg smiles. “Besides, all of Ketill’s chil-
dren except Björn austræni [the Easterner], the eldest, who stayed
in Norway before moving to Iceland, were Christian at a time
when paganism was still the accepted religion among Norse peo-
ple. Why would they be Christian if they hadn’t grown up among
Christians?”
In Vilborg’s first book about Auður, simply entitled Auður (2009),
she saves the life of Gilli, a monk and former slave who presents
to her the sacred Book of Kells and the teachings of St. Patrick who
prohibited the enslavement of fellow Christians. “What sets Auður
apart from the other settlers is that upon arriving in Iceland, she
frees her slaves and gives them land,” Vilborg says, citing sources.
“Landnáma describes how Auður pays a handsome sum for an
enslaved Irish princess, the widow of a Pictish earl, and their son
because she feels sorry for them,” Vilborg adds.
There are other strong women in the Icelandic sagas, including
Hallgerður langbrók (Long-Legs), Gunnar’s wife from Njáls Saga,
and Guðrún Ósvífursdóttir, the main protagonist of Laxdæla, but
instead of striving for peaceful solutions to conflicts, they push the
men in their lives into blood feuds out of spite and damaged pride
and end up betraying them.
THE BUSINESSWOMAN
This is not to say Auður lacks pride or temper. At the end of
Auður, after giving birth to Ólafur’s son, he humiliates Auður by
accusing her of betrayal, of having let Gilli the monk father her
child, and divorces her. “I came up with a divorce as an explanation
as to why Irish sources have Ólafur married to two other women,
daughters of Irish and Scottish kings, and as to why Auður has
no other children,” says Vilborg. “In the book, Auður notices that
Þorsteinn has the same peculiar birthmark as Ólafur, in the shape
of a crescent moon—although it’s unlikely that a birthmark can
actually be inherited between a father and son—and could have
proven that Þorsteinn was his, but she is too proud to tell him.”
When Auður’s brother Helgi plans to take her back to their father,
Auður refuses but instead requests that they set sail for Caithness
in Scotland, where she owns land given to her as an eternal posses-
sion by Ólafur as a morning gift after their wedding. “Auður has no
interest in being remarried, and so she chooses to stay away from
her father,” Vilborg reasons of her fiction.
So how did Auður manage on her own? In Vígroði (‘Crimson
Skies’; 2012), the sequel to Auður, Auður has become a
HISTORY