Gripla - 2023, Blaðsíða 14

12 GRIPLA
given its shaky attribution and supposed early date. It is light on details,
supplying only the victim’s name, and, using verbs in the singular, may
be at odds with its prose contexts over the number of attackers and kill-
ings (cf. Jón Sigurðsson and Guðbrandur Vigfússon 1858–78, I, 14; Kock
1923–44, §2456; Skj., BI, 166n.; Einar Ól. Sveinsson 1954, 261n.). This
discrepancy, however, argues more for the authenticity of the poetry
than against it; at least it was probably not composed for one of the sagas
in which it is found. It is introduced in Kristni saga with the statement
“[þ]etta var kveðit um Guðleif” (this was composed about Guðleifr)
(Sigurgeir Steingrímsson, Ólafur Halldórsson and Foote 2003, 21). On
this basis, some have argued that GuðLaus is part of a longer eulogy by
a poet of Knútr Sveinsson (995–1035) to Guðleifr Arason, one of the
killers named in the prose, mentioned in the Þórðarbók redaction of
Landnámabók (348n.; Sveinbjörn Rafnsson 1977, 26–8). Jón Sigurðsson
and Guðbrandur Vigfússon (1858–78, I, 14) point out that, while a refer-
ence in the lausavísa to southern Iceland does fit with Guðleifr’s origins,
the texts otherwise offer little to verify the connection – Guðleifr’s name is
not given in the poetry – or the eleventh-century dating. The verse is used
as testimony by the sagas without affecting the course of their narratives,
which is sometimes viewed as an indication of authenticity (based on the
cautious discussion in Whaley 1993; cf. Clunies Ross 2005, which partially
undermines those arguments). In sum, the evidence is circumstantial but
argues for rather than against the early dating of GuðLaus, in particular the
intimation that it pre-dates its prose contexts.
A second problem is manuscript variation. Siðreynir is a widespread
reading and echoes a religious kenning for the breast as a “bœnar smiðja”
(smithy of prayers) in the first helmingr in some manuscripts (followed
by Skj.). The thirteenth-century Gráskinna offers sóknbeiðir “attack-de-
spears [i.e. warrior]) (Skj., BII, 217); “Mótreyni … mána /málma braks” (meeting-reynir of
the moon of the clash of iron [i.e. warrior]) (Skj., BI, 179); and similarly “sannreynd / …
við guð og mann” (proven true to god and man) (Máríuvísur II, st. 23). Another possibility
is that the target of the kenning is “testing” older customs in a way that is interrogative or
hostile: cf. sǫkreynir “dispute-reynir” (Skj., AII, 47), referring to an Icelander who is praised
elsewhere in the same poem for resolving conflicts, and geðreynir “temper-reynir” (Skj.,
BI, 139), concerning the untrustworthy and antagonistic god Loki. If Christians already
equated worshipping their god with moral worth, this testing could even have a moral
dimension for them, but this is less supported by the semantics of other uses of reynir. (It
is less likely still that reynir “tester” is being used to ironically comment on the morality of
a killer, given how positive the lausavísa otherwise is about its protagonist(s).)