Gripla - 2023, Blaðsíða 18
16 GRIPLA
including in a work by Hallfreðr himself: after recounting Óláfr’s bravery
in battle, Erfidrápa Óláfs Tryggvasonar comments on itself that “frægrs til
slíks at segja / siðr” (it is a famous siðr to relate such [behaviour]) (st. 1).11
As Ernst Albin Kock proposes (1923–44, §2449), the most straightfor-
ward interpretation of siðr here is as “practice” or “custom” (referring to
poetry-making), an individual action based on the expectations created by a
longer tradition. The formulation is similar across Hallfreðr’s two poems:
roughly, “it is a siðr to X.”
Similar too is the implied signification of siðr in several verses from the
twelfth century. In Gamli kanóki’s Harmsól (a morally exhortative praise
poem for Christ), as people are led into sin, their “døkkvir siðr” (siðr dark-
ens) (st. 55); conversely, at the start of the century, Gísl Illugason describes
how “siðr batnaði” (siðr improved) (Erfikvæði about Magnús berfœttr, st. 7;
highlighted in Sundqvist 2005, 274), when Magnús berfœttr reconciled
with a group of rebellious subjects (the poet specifies that they act with
rœkðum “affection” towards Magnús); and a lausavísa by Bjarni Kálfsson
(2009) criticizes soldiers for not giving up their horses to him and his
group as “siðr inn vesti” (the worst siðr). Bjarni depicts it as an upsetting
of the social structure, servants riding while their superiors walk. In each
of these cases, the usage refers to human behaviour yet is heavily morally
inflected. That behaviour is being judged. Nevertheless, the usage makes
more sense as “behaviour” or “practice” than “morals” or “moral norms,”
even if it is gesturing in that direction.
In the twelfth century, Háttalykill refers to the intensification of effort
in battle as a siðr created by warriors (st. 12; perhaps with especially strong
associations with tradition, if these fighters are being glorified as the origi-
nators of the practice) and to generosity as the “siðr jǫfra” (siðr of kings)
(st. 80), Óláfr Haraldsson being lauded for fulfilling custom. Perhaps
freer from moral implications is the term lands siðr “siðr of the country”
(Máríuvísur II, st. 10; similarly, e.g. Bureus 1964; Holm-Olsen 1945), al-
though it crops up much later in the fourteenth or fifteenth century.
Sorting through these analogues, Hallfreðr’s lausavísa has neither the
judgemental undertones of some nor the implied contextualization of tra-
11 Manuscripts of Fagrskinna render siðr as suðr and þiðr, variants that no editors accept as
far as I can tell, although some do manage to read siðar (gen. sg.); Kate Heslop, the poem’s
most recent editor, only finds siðr (nom. sg.), as do I: for discussion and references, see
Erfidrápa Óláfs Tryggvasonar, st. 1n.