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The Valkyrian World of the Volsungs - a Study of Sexuality and Transgender

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The Valkyrian World of the Volsungs - a Study of Sexuality and Transgender The Valkyrian World of The Volsungs - A study of Sexuality and Transgender Sovran Zagragja Field of study: Comparative Literature Level: C Credit: 15 credits Thesis Defence: Autumn 2013 Supervisor: Björn Sundberg Department of Literature Contents Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 1 Background ................................................................................................................................ 2 Onomastic ................................................................................................................................... 3 Analysis ...................................................................................................................................... 4 From Myth to Legend ............................................................................................................. 4 Valkyrian Fertility .................................................................................................................. 5 Female Desire ......................................................................................................................... 7 Signy ................................................................................................................................... 7 Gudrun .............................................................................................................................. 10 “Signy” and “Gudrun” - A conclusion .............................................................................. 11 Female Sexuality .................................................................................................................. 14 “Female Sexuality” - A conclusion ................................................................................... 16 Transgender contra Anomaly ............................................................................................... 18 Brynhild the Valkyrie ....................................................................................................... 18 “Brynhild the Valkyrie” - A conclusion ........................................................................... 21 Gudrun the Shieldmaiden ................................................................................................. 22 “Gudrun the Shieldmaiden” - A conclusion ..................................................................... 24 Final Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 25 Bibliography ............................................................................................................................. 27 Appendix ................................................................................................................................. 28 The appendix offers an overview of the three main families of the Saga; it is advised to study the appendix first. Introduction Research about female gender, norms, roles and depiction has become established in the aca- demic world, especially among academics who want to read and analyse texts with new per- spectives. Therefore I believe that an analysis of the presented female characters and Valkyr- ies in The Saga of The Volsungs is of interest in order to examine how these female characters transgress norms of sexuality and gender roles. The purpose of this essay is to study how fe- male characters contribute and affect the proceeding of the Saga, and how they are able to influence the events. How are the sexualities and the transgender roles of female characters portrayed in the Saga? More importantly, do any of the female traits change during the pro- ceedings of the Saga, or do they remain the same? These are the questions this essay will an- swer and focus upon. Furthermore it is worth mentioning that the word “Saga”, with a capital letter, is used as an abbreviation for The Saga of The Volsungs. By analysing the female characters we may further understand important values and common perceptions about gender roles of the saga era. For example we are told by Agneta Ney that warrior-women were viewed with a double perspective by authorities such as Saxo Grammat- icus. The double perspective, Ney writes, lay in the fact that the warrior-women’s chastity was viewed as a thing positive; on the other hand, Saxo criticizes them for not following tradi- tional female values such as marriage.1 The analysis will be a study based on The Saga of The Volsungs, and a final conclusion will be presented in the end of the essay, with argumentative perspectives which are based on ex- tracts from the text, as well as primary research. The essay will focus upon, and examine, five women, Hljod the Valkyrie, Signy, Brynhild, Gudrun and Svanhild. Their different character- istics will be studied to be able and find a common denominator, and the two themes which will be especially highlighted are female sexuality and, to some extent, their reproductive powers. By examining this I hope to achieve a deeper understanding of how women were able to affect, influence and even change people and events. The structure of the essay is based on different themes which can be found throughout the Saga, such as the Valkyrian reproductive powers and the female sexuality. 1 Agneta Ney, Drottningar och sköldmör: Gränsöverskridande kvinnor i medeltida myt och verklighet ca 400- 1400 (Gidlunds förlag, second edition, 2006), p. 76-77. 1 Background The Saga of The Volsungs is believed to be based on a group of poems written in verse, which can be found in the poetic collection Codex Regius.2 The Saga was presumably written during the reign of the Norwegian King Haakon Haakonsson (r. 1217-1263). During his reign the monarchy was strengthened, an institution which would seek to obtain its legitimacy through genealogical ancestry. The Saga of The Volsungs would be a means to achieve legitimization for the monarchy through claims of ancestral descendant from Odin himself, and thereby the æsirs.3 The Saga seems to be a prequel to Ragnars saga Lodbrokar, aiming to recall the maternal ancestry of Ragnar’s sons, whose mother was Aslaug, the daughter of Sigurd and Brynhild.4 Harald Fairhair for example claimed his descendence from Sigurd through Ragnar Lodbrokar, but since it was viewed as favourable to also have Christian kings in the genealogy the Nor- wegian kings included Olaf the Holy in their genealogy.5 The Saga of The Volsungs displays a lineage begotten by Odin and furthermore six successive generations of that family line. The Codex Regius, though, does not mention the first four generations of the lineage; it is rather presumed that the author of the saga invented them with the help of other sources.6 The reader of Icelandic sagas should also be aware that all our lit- erary evidence, including The Saga of The Volsungs, from Iceland was written during the Christian period. The sagas were produced and transmitted by Christian writers and therefore there is hardly any evidence, which has not been filtered through a Christian lens, dealing with the pagan period.7 2 Margaret Clunies Ross, The Cambridge Introduction to The Old Norse-Icelandic saga (Cambridge university press, 2010), p. 77. 3 Agneta Ney, Drottningar och sköldmör, p. 106-107. 4 T. Tulinius, The Matter of the North (Odense University Press, 2002), p. 139. 5 Agneta Ney, Drottningar och sköldmör, p. 106. 6 T. Tulinius, The Matter of the North, p. 140. 7 James W. Earl, Thinkning about Beowulf (Stanford university press, 1994), p. 106. 2 Onomastics This chapter of the essay concerns only earlier research done by Agneta Ney, namely her on- omastic one. Earlier research done by other authors will be imbedded throughout the “Analy- sis”. With her onomastic study Ney tells us more than we may think at the first glance. In her arti- cle she discusses how people in The Middle Ages had a view that a child should live up to her already given name, which led to the fact that boys were often given names associated with heroism, battle and honour, while women were rather given names associated with beauty and love. That there was a continuity in the principle of name giving was an old Germanic pattern, that is, parts of the father’s or mother’s name was given to their child[ren]. This was done so that a genealogical line could be established, and further to transfer valuable traits and charac- teristics.8 The most prominent and obvious example of this would be our modern names, such as: Johansson, etcetera. In the saga, this continuing principle of name giving is only seen in the family of the Vol- sungs. It is the prefix ‘Sig-’ (‘Victory-‘) which appears frequently during the different genera- tions of the family lineage. It begins with the son of Odin, named Sig-i, reoccurred again in the fourth generation with Sig-mund and his twin sister Sig-ny, the last one being the hero of the saga, Sig-urd. Ney also points out that the suffix ‘-mund’ and ‘-urd’ both means ‘- protector’ or ‘-guardian’, and gives the name a patriarchal sense – indicating who is the head of the family. Typical male-names would be such as: Agn-arr, Gunn-arr and Sig-arr where the suffix ‘-arr’ means ‘-battle’. Another example would be: ‘Hogni’ – ‘Chop’, to chop some- thing down. Female-names on the other hand, as mentioned earlier, would rather be thus: ‘Fridr’ – ’Beauty’; but this is something which The saga of the Volsungs actually transgress- es. The most common suffix among
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