The Icelandic Canadian - 01.03.1981, Page 17

THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
15
Gunnar for the purpose of putting him to
death would have agreed to a truce while he
was having his women make another bow-
string. A thoughtful reader must therefore
declare Hallgerdur innocent of this basic
charge that history has made against her.
What we have here is a literary device to
heighten the drama, and crown Hallgerdur’s
unsavory reputation.
Hallgerdur’s end was as sad as her life
had been. She had been married to three
men and seen them all die violently. Toward
the close of her life we see her in the com-
pany of a wretch named Hrappur. In due
time someone ran a spear through him, at
which time a very casual conversation takes
place which throws a clear light on the
credibility of the narrative generally: As
Hrappur’s arm is hacked off, he says to the
adversary: “What you have done certainly
needed doing, that hand has brought harm
and death to many.” “This will put an end
to all that,” said his assailant as he ran
Hrappur through with a spear. With Hrap-
pur dead Hallgerdur disappears from the
story. She had completed her role in Njal’s
Saga as the untamable shrew.
But in spite of all, Hallgerdur has found
mercy in the legends of the nation. Once
upon a time a grave was being dug in the
cemetery at Laugarnes, near Reyjkavik.
The grave diggers came upon what appeared
to be the skeleton of a woman with an extra-
ordinary abundance of hair. This could be
none other than Hallgerdur, who in her old
age, according to the legend, had moved
there to live with her son and had died there.
Sigurdur Breidfjord, a noted poet (1798-
1846) must have believed that this was true,
because in a poem about Hallgerdur he says:
“ad Laugamesi liggur nar, lands ad
biskupssetri.” (She is buried at Laugarnes,
the seat of the bishops of the country.)
Thus we have legend upon legend, and an
endless speculation about the boundaries of
fact and fiction.
III.
BERGTHORA SKARPHEDINS-
DOTTIR — A WOMAN WHO WAS
NOT THE ‘BETTER HALF’
The average Njala reader will admire
Bergthora, but condemn Hallgerdur, yet in
the early chapter of the story they seem to
outdo each other in intrigue and in stimulat-
ing strife and bloodshed. The plain fact is
that apart from her words and actions on the
last day of her life there is very little that can
be said in praise of Bergthora. She was the
one who started the fatal feud with Hallger-
dur when she insulted her after she was
seated as a guest in her own house, by telling
her to get up and give the seat of honor to
another woman who had just arrived. Near-
ly always when Bergthora is mentioned she
is planning to have someone killed. The
fires of hatred and the spirit of vengeance
seems to have burned with greater intensity
in her soul than in any of her menfolk. Njall
tried repeatedly to restrain her fury, but she
will not be assuaged. She challenges her
sons again and again and chides them for
their reluctance in going forth on slaying
expeditions. The very thought of missing an
opportunity for revenge seems to have been
to her a great affliction.
But the most memorable event in her
story is when she has to choose between life
and death. The anguish and lamentations of
the women of the household become ever
louder as the fires leap along the ceiling and
the walls of the dwelling place. Flosi, the
chief of the incendiairies becomes magna-
nimous and says to Bergthora: “You come
out, for under no circumstances do I want
you to bum.” There it is that Bergthora
makes herself immortal in Icelandic history
and literature by declaring calmly: “I was
given to Njal in marriage when I was young,
and I have promised him that we would
share the same fate. ”
But actually, she did not have much of an
option. She had heard her husband respond