The Icelandic Canadian - 01.03.1981, Page 15

THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
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concerning her burial. When she felt that her
end was near, she invited her friends and
relatives to a great feast which lasted for
three days. At this time she gave expensive
gifts to her guests, and free advice to anyone
interested. At one point she declared that
from then on the assemblage would engage
in her own funeral feast, because she would
soon die. This came to pass. She was buried
on the seacoast at high water mark, because,
says the record: “having been baptized, she
did not want to lie in unconsecrated
ground. ” A princess, a queen, the owner of
a whole municipality, she died a pauper
without a plot of ground for her burial, but
had her body confined to the sand and the
sea.
There has been much speculation con-
cerning the significance of this burial place.
Was this simply the manifestation of the
eccentricity of an old woman? How could
the ebb and flow of the sea compensate her
for the lack of consecrated ground? Perhaps
she calculated that since the sea touches the
shores of all lands, she would somehow be
brought into contact with the world com-
munity of Christians in this manner. Or was
it an act of purification after the manner of
Christ’s baptism in water? Or was she
“deepminded” enough to envision her
Christian faith which had been temporarily
submerged by the heathenism of her con-
temporaries, as being washed ashore with
the tide of Providence and spreading to
conquer and bless the land? We shall never
know what she had in mind, but this we
know, that Audur Ketilsdottir was the first
famous woman in Iceland’s history. She
was a princess, a pathfinder, a puritan, and
yet a pauper in the midst of all her posses-
sions.
II.
HALLGERDUR HOSKULDSDOTTIR
— THE UNTAMED SHREW
Hallgerdur is the most wicked woman in
Njal’s Saga, Iceland’s most famous story. A
thoughtful reader will marvel at the imagin-
ative powers of the writer of this story, his
creative skill, and his simple narrative style.
He shakes persons, such as you have never
met, so to speak, out of a hat, makes them
engage in conversations such as you have
never heard, and all this with masterful
simplicity so that you are apt to think you are
actually reading a true story.
There may, indeed, have been a Hallgerdur
in the centuries old tradition which the
writer wove into his story of Njall and he
created her in the image desired by endow-
ing her with all the worst traits in human
character, and making her the scapegoat of a
large catalogue of crimes. The reader9is
prepared for this extraordinary career in the
opening chapter of Njal’s saga, when we
are introduced to Hallgerdur as a tall beauti-
ful girl, with silken hair so long that it hung
down to her waist. Her father is exceedingly
proud of her as she is playing on the floor,
and he asks a visiting relative what he thinks
of her. This relative remarks coldly: “I can
not imagine how thief’s eyes have come into
our kin. ” It is difficult to imagine how any
man in right mind would make a remark like
that about a child. This little girl was not a
child of a miserable crofter whom one could
insult at will. Her father was one of the great
chieftains of the age, a close friend of kings
and potentates, and her mother was also
prominent in the society of that day. Com-
mon sense would rule out a remark of this
nature, but the author is creating a Hallger-
dur of his own making. He is going to make
her a thief and an untamable shrew and
endow her with all the hatred, maliciousness
and the murderous rage of the age. Giving
her “thief’s eyes” was a good beginning,
preparing the reader for what is to come.
Although impetuous and wilfull, Hall-
gerdur is married early, without consulta-
tion in the matter and against her will. She
resents this, as well as the arrogance and
overbearing attitude of her husband. The
marriage is miserable from the beginning,