The Icelandic Canadian - 01.11.2007, Side 19

Vol. 61 #2
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
61
Thordur Ingunnarsson, whom in turn,
becomes her second husband.
This was the plan. Thordur divorces
his wife Audr in order to marry Gudrun
and she takes revenge by stabbing him in
the night. That was not planned. Thordur
does not die from this, but eventually
drowns after coming into conflict with the
Kotkel family, notorious for their sorcery.
Thordur is a silver ring in Gudrun’s
second dream. She loses this valuable thing
in a lake, not a stream. Deliberate? To toss
something in a stream is to watch it drift
away. To lose something in a lake is to drop
and cry. From conflicting blue hues of
mysterious horizons to rocky shores, a lake
casts mists of awe and beauty always, but
your lover is in it, and finding him is
impossible. This is torment and heavy loss
as is felt in a dream and more so if you go
looking. When the beauty of land is com-
promised, the psyche is damaged.
It should be noted here, that after Gest
parted from Gudrun, he came across two
golden boys that fell into Gudrun’s des-
tiny. Bolli and Kjartan are the best of
friends, swimming in innocence, but Gest
sees that Bolli will kill Kjartan eventually.
Perhaps, Gudrun’s famous final words (“I
was worst to the one I loved most”3) are
best to be here.
We like to think they refer to Kjartan
because romance pluck’s the heart’s harp.
However, it is a complex issue when dis-
cussing Gudrun’s visions. Kjartan and Bolli
(Gudrun’s third husband) seem to be meld-
ed into one dream, perhaps because they
are so close that they are regarded as one.
Gudrun’s gold ring is broken in two when
she stumbles and both Kjartan and Bolli
bleed. The saga later reveals that Kjartan
and Gudrun become very intimate and
many believe they will marry, as they made
a wonderful match. But Kjartan sails to
Norway with Bolli and some others and
after some time Bolli returns with news
that Kjartan is still in Norway and possibly
engaged with a woman of noble stature,
named Ingibjorg. I believe Kjartan is still in
love with Gudrun, but he has no means of
communicating this and to his misfortune,
Gudrun eventually marries Bolli. Kjartan
returns and after some quarrels, marries
Hrefna.
Thus, in this third dream, we can also
note that Gudrun, if the fates be true, is not
overly pleased with this gold ring, as she
says: “I had the feeling that I would enjoy
this ring longer than the other one; but it
didn’t seem to become me all that much
better, to the extent that gold is more pre-
cious than silver.”4
Perhaps, Gudrun’s gold ring is both
Bolli and Kjartan as companions and when
she falls, this reflects her confusion, and
thus her decisions that were made out of
necessity and not out of love that caused
them to become enemies. When a ring
breaks in pair, neither is for wear.
This is a profound moment in dream
for Gudrun in regards to the love triangle
as it unfolds, because it reveals much about
her character. She is so strong a person that
she would rather hurt herself than be taken
advantage of, as is apparent in her marriage
to Bolli, which is partially out of jealousy
for Kjartan not having come home to
marry her.
But, we also see a touch of impatience,
resulting in regret with Gudrun. If fate
would have allowed her to wait a short
while longer for absolute truth, she may
have still had a chance with Kjartan, as law
in Medieval Iceland prohibited widows to
be coerced into marriage. The regret is evi-
dent in her phrase: "... And yet I felt sure
that the ring would have stayed whole if I
had looked after it better ...”
The fourth dream is much the same as
the first two; another drowned love. This
time, the precious material good is a helmet
of gold and the husband that commodity
turns out to be is Thorkell Eyjolfsson, a
great chieftain who fatally sinks into the
cold waters of Hvammsfjord.
The question now becomes; did
Gudrun cleanse her soul at those hot-
springs of Sadingsdale? If anything, her fate
was illustrated and the reader has definite
foreshadowing. In my opinion, this is the
major turning point in Laxdasla Saga and
we ask ourselves; is there any hope for
Gudrun? Is there any escaping fate? When
we find that the answer is no, then we find
some insight into the anonymous author’s
intent. Not simply to entertain through