Gripla - 2023, Page 360

358 GRIPLA
[…] þegar hún var átján vetra var það nokkurt kvöld að ég var ein úti
stödd – því að ég er sú sama sem ég nú frá segi – , kom maður nokkur
til mín ókenndur og bað mig veita sér brautargengi, sér lægi þar
mikið við, og gjörði ég sem hann bað og kom í jarðgryfju nokkra
eður hól sem var holur innan. Lá þar kona á gólfi og skyldi ég sitja
yfir henni; stóð ekki lengi þar á því strax eftir að ég kom fæddi hún
fagurt sveinbarn sem þó strax deyði eftir fæðinguna.
Var ég þar nokkurn tíma í allgóðu eftirlæti.
Maður nokkur var þar sem var unglegur að aldri, hér um bil
tvítugur. Hann var sonur hjónanna og hét hann Hrólfur. Hann var
fríður maður að ásýnd og leit hýru auga til mín strax þegar og ég
engu síður til hans; og kviknaði með okkur ástarþokki og óx hann
þó síðar meir. (emphasis added, 187)
([…] one evening when she was 18 winters old, I was alone outside
– for it is I whose story I now tell – , a strange man came to me and
asked for my assistance with something of utmost importance to
him, and I did as he asked and came to an underground hollow. A
woman lay there on the ground, and I was meant to care for her; I
was not there long before she delivered a beautiful baby boy, but he
died immediately after the birth.
I was there for quite some time taking care of her.
The man was youthful, perhaps twenty. He was the couple’s son
and was called Hrólfur. He was an attractive man to behold and was
immediately fond of me, and I no less of him; there was a spark of
love between us that was to grow even greater.)
At this point, we can have encountered four narrative layers in Ólafssaga
but also observed that there is a short circuit between at least two of them.
When Ásdís concludes the story of Steinunn, we discover yet another
short circuit: Ásdís admits to Herdís that she is in fact the farmer’s daugh-
ter who visited Steinunn at her sick bed.