Gripla - 2023, Side 13
S I Ð R , RELIGION AND MORALITY 11
The Various Meanings of Siðr
Religious
Nordberg (2018, 130) points to Hallfreðr vandræðaskáld Óttarsson’s tenth
lausavísa (Skj., BI, 159) as the earliest appearance of siðr with religious
semantics;5 the complications of that text will be discussed below. The
earliest secure use is a work of hagiography from 1153, Einarr Skúlason’s
Geisli, which incorporates a kenning for the Christian god in its third stanza:
“siðar6 heilags … solar … / ljósi” (the light of the sun of holy siðr). The adjec-
tive heilagr “holy” implies that siðr has a religious dimension here (as does
its use in a divine kenning) but equally leaves open the possibility that the
term’s semantics are predominantly profane at this stage if a modifier like
heilagr has to be present to bring out those religious connotations. On that
basis, the sense of siðr at this stage may be more limited than “religion” and
instead denote a behaviour that can (but might not) be religious.
The actual earliest instance of siðr may however date from shortly after
the Conversion. Some manuscripts of Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar in mesta,
Njáls saga and Kristni saga contain an enigmatic lausavísa telling of the kill-
ing of the Icelandic skald Vetrliði Sumarliðason by a siðreynir “siðr-tester”
(Skj., BI, 166; cf. Einar Ól. Sveinsson 1954, 260–61; Ólafur Halldórsson
1958–2000, 157; Sigurgeir Steingrímsson, Ólafur Halldórsson and Foote
2003, 22).7 However, there are numerous difficulties with the stanza that
make it unreliable as the earliest attestation to siðr.
The first is the authenticity of the stanza (hereafter called GuðLaus),
5 Skaldic poems are cited from either Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages (the
poem’s name providing the reference) or Finnur Jónsson’s Den norsk-islandske skjaldedigt-
ning (hereafter Skj., and in which case volume and page numbers are given). Hallfreðr’s
lausavísur are taken from volume BI of the latter, where his name is spelled Hallfrøðr.
Translations are my own.
6 This may alternatively be read as síðar “later,” but this is rejected by Martin Chase, the
poem’s editor for Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages, on the basis that it is hy-
permetrical.
7 Reynir could mean either “rowan” or “tester” here: cf. Snorri Sturluson 1998, 40, 64 with
the suggestion of Snorri’s editor on p. 192 and the parallels in e.g. Skj., BI, 43, 53, 129, 139,
186, 259, 318. Because a slightly greater number of those examples favour “tester,” I have
preferred that in my translation, but “rowan” could fit as easily. Neither particularly clari-
fies the use of siðr other than to relate it to a man, although other compounds of reynir do
imply a sense of being proven and experienced: e.g. “sunds … / sannreynir” (true-reynir
of swimming) (Skj., BI, 130); “dreyrgra darra / dómreynir” (judgement-reynir of bloody