Gripla - 2023, Blaðsíða 20
18 GRIPLA
to Þórarinn’s patron are functional, covering areas such as his talent as
a leader (st. 5), skill in battle (stt. 2, 7), and generosity (st. 8). In the Old
Norwegian Konungs skuggsjá (Holm-Olsen 1945, 42) siðnæmr signals a
courtier’s ability to quickly learn the behaviour demanded by their role
(ironized in Strengleikar, 216, in which the related siðnæmiligr describes a
courtly romance). As such, the likelihood is that Þórarinn’s siðnæmr refers
to Knútr’s experience in courtly matters without necessitating a prominent
religious dimension – and demonstrates how meeting a station’s social
expectations is considered laudable.
Little, therefore, distinguishes warrior ethics as siðr to a greater degree
than performances of propriety in other roles. This is likely true across
gender and class boundaries as well – the throwaway characterization by
Bjarni Kálfsson of his tormentors as servants relies on class protocol; in
Helgakviða Hundingsbana I, a king is castigated as siðlauss “without siðr”
(st. 43) for dressing up as a woman and milking goats, the domain of
women or enslaved people according to Sundqvist (2005, 274; cf. Skj., BII,
295). A chieftain must not act as an enslaved person should; an enslaved
person may be treated very differently from other members of society.
Such orthodoxies exist in all societies; here, they are to some extent en-
capsulated in siðr.
Several texts from the twelfth century have been cited in which siðr
implies judgement against social expectations. The oldest surviving work
in which those undertones blossom fully is Gamli kanóki’s Harmsól (later
twelfth century). Christ has “fríðir... / siðir” (beautiful siðir) according to
stanza 60; and siðabót “siðr-remedy” can be achieved with the aid of the
Holy Spirit (st. 3), just as the biblical King David did for his synðir “sins”
(st. 48). This is the oldest text I can find in which “moral” is the most natu-
ral translation for siðr. However, the closeness of siðabót to Gísl Illugason’s
“siðr batnaði” (behaviour improved) (mentioned above) reflects how fluid
the boundaries can be between the term’s senses.
Ósiðr, the inverse of siðr, appears regularly in prose and delineates
objectionable behaviour in Old Icelandic and Old Swedish law codes from
the late thirteenth century (ONP, s.v. “ósiðr;” Schlyter 1830, 23; Schulman
2010, 152), yet it only surfaces four times in extant poetry according to the
database of the Skaldic Project. The earliest of these, Markús Skeggjason’s
Eiríksdrápa (composed 1103–7) is clearly moral in its use of ósiðr, using