Gripla - 2023, Qupperneq 354

352 GRIPLA
Alcinous, majesty, shining among your island people,
what a fine thing it is to listen to such a bard
as we have here […]. But now
you’re set on probing the bitter pains I’ve borne,
so I’m to weep and grieve, it seems, still more.
Well then, what shall I go through first,
what shall I save for last?
What pains – the gods have given me my share.
Now let me begin by telling you my name …
so you may know it well [...]13
Odysseus poses here a fundamental question of all narration: “[W]hat shall
I go through first, what shall I save for last?” If we list the events in ques-
tion, using letters to represent chronological order and numbers to repre-
sent the order in which the events are presented, we can see that the two
are not aligned: A2: Odysseus’ conflict with Achilles; B4: Odysseus travels
from Troy to Ogygja; C3: Odysseus travels from Ogygja to Scheria; D1:
Odysseus tells Alcinous about his travels and listens to the bard. Todorov’s
conclusion is that The Odyssey is “a narrative of narratives; it consists of
the relation of the narratives the characters address to each other.”14 By re-
peatedly recounting past events, the text demands that the reader converts
plot into story, turns syuzhet into fabula, to borrow the terminology of the
Formalists.15
Like The Odyssey, Ólafssaga is a third-person narrative describing the
travails of a hero journeying from one place to another but also featuring
nested stories in which individual characters recall past events. At the
outset, we are told that Ólafur is a teenager and his father Þórhalli rather
advanced in age. The latter is planning to send Ólafur out to round up a
herd of sheep that have not returned to their farm, but he starts by telling
his son about his own past, emphasizing his dealings with German mer-
chants. After listening to his father’s story, Ólafur sets out on his search
and soon comes upon a large cave. Deep inside it he discovers a great
dwelling, where he is greeted by the beautiful elf woman Þórhildur. She
13 Ibid., 211−12.
14 Todorov, The Poetics of Prose, 61.
15 Todorov discusses these concepts further in a chapter titled “The Typology of Detective
Fiction,” ibid., 45.