Gripla - 2023, Blaðsíða 16
14 GRIPLA
in the instances from Óláfs drápa Tryggvasonar, but siðr’s primary sense is
clearly religious.
These texts probably echo wider developments in the semantics of
siðr, at least in West Norse. Einarr Skúlason, the poet of Geisli, spent
time in Norway and composed for Swedish and Danish royalty (SkP2,
537), while siðr also refers to religion in Jómsvíkingadrápa (st. 7) by the
(possibly Norwegian-born) Orcadian Bjarni Kolbeinsson, in the prose of
(the again-possibly Norwegian) Olafs saga hins helga (Heinrichs et al. 1982,
e.g. 84, 182; cf. Ólafur Halldórsson 1979, 134) and in Norway’s early laws
(Eiðsivaþingslǫg 383; cf. Nordberg 2018, 131), all of which may date from
the thirteenth century or earlier. Early references from eastern Scandinavia
are harder to come by. Nordberg points to the Old Gnutish law codes of
the island of Gotland (2018, 133; Gutalagen, 14; cf. Guta saga, 8, 10, 12),
which connect religion with siðr in the early thirteenth century, if the pre-
vailing dating of that law code is correct (Peel 2009, xxxvi–xl). “Religion”
is also among the senses of East Norse sidher in Konungastyrelsen, which
was probably assembled in the fourteenth century (Bureus 1964; cf. Ronge
1986), much later than GuðLaus or Geisli (others cited in Nordberg 2018,
133 are later still). Given how widespread siðr’s religious semantics are,
however, the suggestion has to be that they were already present across
Scandinavia before differences between East and West Norse accelerated
in the thirteenth century (cf. Perridon 2002, 1018).
Religious?
Nordberg (2018, 130) turns to lausavísa 10 by Hallfreðr vandræðaskáld
Óttarsson as the earliest use of siðr to refer to religion; if the ascription
is correct, the text comes from the tenth century, an earlier terminus ante
quem for that sense than GuðLaus.
The first helmingr of the text is especially relevant (Skj., BI, 159):
Sá ’s með Sygna ræsi
siðr, at blót eru kviðjuð;
verðum flest at forðask
fornhaldin skǫp norna[.]10
10 Although too tangential to examine in depth, skǫp, here translated as “fates,” is an intriguing
word-choice. Related to the verb skapa “shape,” Karen Bek-Pedersen (2011, 17, 34–35,
170–71) establishes that, while it implies personal fates arranged by an external figure, it