Gripla - 2023, Blaðsíða 17

S I Ð R , RELIGION AND MORALITY 15
That is siðr with the king of the Sygnir [Óláfr Tryggvason], that sacrifices
are banned; we must shun most of the time-honoured fates of the nornir.
Two issues present themselves here.
• Was this composed by Hallfreðr or any tenth-century
Icelander?
• Does the term siðr refer to religion in this instance?
Supposedly concerning the poet’s struggle to renounce the Old Norse
gods (Skj., BI, 158–59; cf. Hallfreðar saga, 153–59), the debate over the
authenticity of Hallfreðr’s lausavísur on his conversion has a long his-
tory. The opinion of their chief sceptic Bjarni Einarsson that they are
just “too good to be true” (1981, 218; similarly, Bjarni Einarsson 1961;
Dronke 1978, 26) is quoted frequently by later investigators (e.g. Abram
2015, 118; Whaley 2003, 237). Diana Whaley conducted the most rigor-
ous investigation of the poetry’s credibility, examining it against poetic,
circumstantial, and mythological criteria and ultimately concluding that, if
they are twelfth-century fabrications, “the Conversion verses represent a
remarkably – implausibly? – good attempt to get inside the troubled head
of a reluctant convert” (2003, 254); not that the stanzas are “too good to be
true,” but that they are too good not to be. Nothing irrefutably connects
them to Hallfreðr – the contents and the style could have been imitated
by a later antiquarian – yet neither does anything count strongly against
tenth-century composition (for further arguments in favour of authentic-
ity, see Gade 2001, 71–74; Males 2017, n.42). The case is as strong as or
stronger than that of many other purportedly early lausavísur, and on that
basis I proceed assuming that the lausavísa containing siðr was composed
by Hallfreðr.
Siðr here could refer to the action of banning sacrifices or to the
Christian religion that has prompted that ban. The former interpretation
is simpler and as supported by broader usage as religious semantics are,
can also have negative connotations of fickleness. The term may imply that Hallfreðr is lea-
ving behind the nornir, the supernatural group who supposedly control fate, for a new, less
negative fate, set out by another divine figure. Bek-Pedersen does observe (2011, 171) that
skǫp is the most common term for describing fate in connection with the nornir, so perhaps
those undertones are inadvertent, but the use of forðask, which can mean “escape” as well
as “shun,” argues for intentionality.