Gripla - 2023, Blaðsíða 359

“SHOULD SHE TELL A STORY …” 357
([...] not to spoil her of her maidenhead, for she had not done it out
of any desire of the flesh – “I did it to keep you and my father from
trouble, for I know my father will not do you any harm as long as I
am by your side.”
Ólafur asks what sort of folk they are, and she says she will tell
him the truth if he honors her wish. “I will tell you
The tale of Ólafur Hrólfsson and Dvalinn, his son.)
Here, narration takes the place of intimate relations and possibly also saves
Ólafur’s life.
Sólrún begins by telling the story of Ásdís, who was forced to marry
the widowed farmer Grímur. One day, Grímur’s mother Herdís sees her
daughter-in-law crying and asks what is troubling her. Ásdís answers:
“Með því ég hefi reynt þig að tryggri konu vil ég segja þér fylgjandi sögu,
jafnvel þó hún sé mér ekki viðkomandi, og máttu þar af marka að margir
hafa sorg að bera þó ekki sé sem mín sorg.” (“Because I have proven myself
loyal to you, I will tell you the following story, although it does not con-
cern me, and you will see that many people have sorrow to bear, though
not like mine.” 186) The story is about a girl whose father sends her out
to his farm’s shieling. One day, while she’s alone, a boy approaches her
and asks her to give him some milk for his dying mother. The farmer’s
daughter follows the boy to a small cave where his mother is lying ill. After
she has been revived by the milk, the farmer’s daughter asks her “hvernin
hún væri komin í slíkar ánauðir” (“how she came to be in such a situa-
tion”, 186). The mother answers by telling the story of the farmer Steinn
and his daughter Steinunn, who is in her thirties and still living with her
parents, though many suitors have asked for her hand in marriage. Steinn
comes close to forcing Steinunn to marry but ends up reconsidering as his
daughter is a headstrong creature. Interrupting her own narrative, the sick
mother acknowledges that she is telling her own story.
of the nested narratives are framed by paratextual designations: “The vast majority of the in
total 243 chapters in the saga are introduced with chapter headings stating only the number
of the chapter […]. Ten chapters have however a second heading that notifies the following
as þáttur […]. These chapters are introduced with initials in Fraktur that are considerably
larger and more decorated than the other chapter initials, and most of the time the headings
are also written in a larger Fraktur script.” See Lena Rohrbach, “Subversive Inscriptions.”