The Icelandic connection - 01.06.2010, Side 26

24
ICELANDIC CONNECTION
Vol. 63 # I
nivfn, trying to cut off her head with an
ax, and accusing her in the choir doorway
in Skalholt of having slept with Amas -
her father’s rival she solemnly sets to
work treating the poor man’s wounds.
In this instance, having cited her
invocation of the words of Havamal, the
reader can see Halldor reaching even fur-
ther back, to medieval Norse literature, in
his study of narrative forms, and in the
character of Snsefrfbur. Again, the per-
ceptive reader can see in Snaefrfbur many
characteristics common to the
Skjaldmeyjar (shield-maidens) of
medieval Norse literature, more specifi-
cally how in some ways she parallels the
character Brynhildur, Obin’s shield-
maiden, of the Saga of the Volsungs and
the heroic poems of the Elder Edda.
These shield-maidens are “not goddesses,
but they belong in the world of gods and
heroes ... they are potential partners,
standing on an equal footing with the
male heroes,” and are “permitted to
develop within the male warlike sphere
and the biological female one.” These
women are often beautiful, and despite
their ability to take on traditionally male
qualities - the ability to perform heroic
feats, the ability to engage oneself in the
fate of one’s family and brothers-in-arms,
etc., they are no less capable of fulfilling
the traditional woman’s role. From the
examples cited above: Snaefrfbur’s sense
of familial pride, her quest to clear her
father’s name and restore her family’s
honour, and add to this her desire to join
the men in riding to the assembly, one can
see clearly her longing to take on the male
role. At the same time, as noted above,
Snaefrfbur, throughout the novel, in her
duties as a wife, adheres strongly to the
traditional female role. But, these heroic
women do not merely fuse the two gender
roles together; more so, they excel above
all others and take on a sort of human
heroic stature. On the first full introduc-
tion to Snaefrfbur, a churchwoman notes
that, “they’re teaching her [Snaefrfbur]
Latin, history, astrology, and other arts far
beyond the reach of any other woman
who’s lived in Iceland,” and throughout
the novel she is “described as being
‘absent’, as being virtually independent of
material things, and raised above them.”
In this way Snaefrfbur assumes her own
heroic stature, and her role as a modern
shield-maiden is consolidated when, in
the opening paragraph of the middle sec-
tion of the novel, Halldor reintroduces
her;
“Seated there in her bower is a blue-
eyed woman, her complexion golden-cast,
embroidering upon a cloth the ancient
wonder of how Sigurbur the Volsung
destroyed the worm Fafnir and earned its
treasure away.”
Doubtless Halldor had remembered
the matchless Brynhildur’s homecoming
in the Saga of the Volsungs,
“She stayed in a bower with her maid-
ens. More skilled in handicraft than other
women, she embroidered her tapestry
with gold and on it stitched the stories of
the noble deeds that Sigurd has wrought:
the slaying of the serpent, the seizing of
the gold, and the death of Regin.”
and, holding these passages together,
one immediately draws the genetic link
between the two characters.
Halldor, in the 1940s, had published a
long essay on the Old Icelandic Sagas,
and he opened this essay with a disclaimer
stating that, though he held no academic
authority with regard to the sagas, “an
Icelandic writer cannot live without con-
stantly thinking of the old books.” It
seems that early in his career, while he
was aware of this fact, he saw this maxim