Gripla - 2023, Blaðsíða 154
152 GRIPLA
site direction. He is a high-ranking ecclesiastic who partakes in corrupt
practices of every kind and betrays the Church. In return, Þorvaldr is
divinely punished with death and dire prospects in the afterlife. In the
Faroe Islands, St Magnús of Orkney and St Mary allow Þorvaldr to mend
his ways. When the provost chooses to continue on his iniquitous path, he
suffers the ultimate consequence.
At the close of Árna saga biskups, the deaths of Hrafn Oddsson and
Þorvaldr Helgason juxtapose the fates of these two characters. One draws
towards the Church near the end, whereas the other heads in a differ-
ent direction. Such an arrangement aligns with a thematic pattern I have
identified elsewhere in the Old Norse saga corpus.43 Broadly speaking,
this involves the activities of characters, (usually) near the end of their
lives, which leads to their posthumous fates developing in contrasting
ways. Njáls saga, for instance, is especially rich in this formulation. Thus
in the saga’s latter part, the fate of Flosi, the leader of the group that burnt
Bergþórshváll, contrasts with that of many of his followers, who perish
at the Battle of Clontarf. Flosi’s famous dream foreshadows this develop-
ment.44 In the same battle, a similar, yet still more explicit, juxtaposition
involves the brothers Óspakr and Bróðir.45
Near Laxdæla saga’s close there is the example of Þorkell Eyjólfsson
and Gestr Oddleifsson. The former drowns in Breiðarfjörður as he at-
tempts to transport timber for a large church at Helgafell. Þorkell’s fate in
the afterlife appears grim, for shortly thereafter Guðrún Ósvífrsdóttir sees
his ghost appear before the gates of Helgafell’s church, unable to enter.46
His fate is juxtaposed with that of Gestr, whose corpse is seemingly mi-
raculously transported over Breiðafjörður to the church at Helgafell, when,
for a short period, a clear passage-way forms in the otherwise frozen sea.47
It was, of course, Gestr who had foreseen Þorkell’s drowning in Guðrún’s
fourth dream.48
43 Ibid.
44 Einar Ól. Sveinsson (ed.). Brennu-Njáls saga. Íslensk fornrit 12 (Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka
fornritafélag, 1954), 346.
45 Ibid., 445–451.
46 Einar Ól. Sveinsson (ed.). Laxdæla saga, Halldórs þættir Snorrasonar, Stúfs þáttr. Íslensk
fornrit 5 (Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka fornritafélag, 1934), 222–223.
47 Ibid., 196–197.
48 Ibid., 90–91.