Festschrift Für Rolf Heller , Ed. Heinrich Beck and Else Ebel

110 Rezensionen search for Christian sources or allusions, but einrich Beck and Else Ebel, rather it identifi es patterns of representation editors. Studien zur Isländer- in which traditional material appears within saga: Festschrift für Rolf the context of Christian history and dogma. H Heller. Ergänzungs bände Clunies Ross then describes the further zum Reallexikon der Germanischen extensions and refi nements of this approach that have been developed by scholars such Alter tums kunde 24. Berlin: Walter de as Lars Lönnroth, Preben Meulengracht Gruyter, 2000. 335 pages. Sørensen, Ursula Dronke, Peter Dronke, and herself. As a survey paper, this essay cannot Justice is not easily done to this substantial be long enough to review the multiplicity of collection of nineteen article-length contri- evidence that supports this approach, so it butions. A comparatively detailed analytical is unlikely to change the minds of those who review may provide most assistance to pro- may not agree with it, but it is extremely spective readers, since the book itself is useful to have these insights—which have remarkably sparing on this front, offering no transformed, and continue to transform, our summaries or abstracts or introduction with understanding of Old Norse literature—pre- a synthesizing account of the chapters or sented clearly and concisely. even brief notes about the contributors. As is to be expected with a Gedenk- In what follows I shall group the chap- schrift, the scholarly quality of the essays ters thematically, and, in recognition of the varies. Among those dealing with Old Norse contributors’ own acknowledgement of the literature, however, the overall quality is honorand’s abiding interest in the inter- remarkably high, whether the interest of the pretation of sagas, I shall fi rst discuss the essay lies in the plausibility and importance chapters that centre upon saga ethics. In his of its thesis or in the thought-provoking “. und gut ist keines von beiden: Gedanken nature of its speculations. Unfortunately, zur Ak zeptanz der Brenna in der Njáls saga” the quality of the editing leaves much to be (198–207), Harald Müller examines social desired (a problem also with Mythos und attitudes towards the practice of “burning Geschichte). Typographical errors occur in in.” Müller points out that aside from the the table of contents and in the running famous example of this motif in Njáls saga page headings as well as in the essays them- chapter 129, several secondary examples selves and are far too numerous to be listed less noticed by commentators also occur here. Also regrettable is the fact that the in the saga, not to mention the numerous essays in English do not seem to have been cases recorded in other works. Quite a few edited by a fl uent speaker of that language, of them have the status of genuine histori- for it would have been a courtesy to the cal events. And yet the contemporary law nonnative speakers writing in English if the texts proscribed burning if, for instance, language of their contributions could have implemented against people occupying a been as polished as their thinking. Regard- house that was in regular inhabitation, and less, we must be grateful to Edizioni Parnaso it must have aroused, then as now, an intrin- for sponsoring both this and the volume of sic repugnance. Müller locates the act on the Weber’s collected essays, and especially to demarcation point between law and chaos, the Gedenkschrift editors for assembling so never fully conscionable and yet unoffi - many fi ne contributions to Old Norse schol- cially available as a last resort. To enact it arship. might have entailed a potentially danger- ous acknowledgement, especially pertinent Elizabeth Ashman Rowe to the thirteenth-century families that in Müller’s opinion were instrumental in the production of Njáls saga, that hostilities had crossed that demarcation and reached the level of outright warfare. Also on the theme of warfare, Edith Marold’s “Vom Umgang mit Feinden: Zur Alvíssmál 11 (2004): 110–15 Rezensionen 111 Darstellung der Kämpfe in der Sverris saga” pre tation von Gewalt in der Fóstbrœðra (182–97) analyses the attitudes of Sverrir saga” (25–50), evidently a “taster” from a and his opponents, as voiced in Sverris saga, much larger research program by this author, concerning what, if any, ethical constraints refuses to accept absolute doctrines. Taking are operative once hostilities have reached the case of Fóstbrœðra saga, which we can that point in a community. She notes the fairly say continues to attract attention as king’s ostensible discountenancing of much because of its problematic ethical- úspekð (a kind of “ignorant” or barbaric ity as because of its tangled redactional stupidity), torture and intimidation, and history and uncertain dating, Ebel stresses violation of sanctuary. Conversely, as she the place of this work in a developing ethi- shows, the king voices his affi rmation of grið cal and theological debate. Here he sees the and the Christian burial of fallen enemies. language and values of Christianity as open While admittedly the saga writer’s skilful to contestation and even appropriation. selectiveness in recording historical events Theodore M. Andersson’s “Character serves his patron well, Marold makes a case and Caricature in the Family Sagas” (1–10) for Sverrir’s policies and practice having gives us reason to ponder the complex been based not simply on a calculated culti- interplay between sense of ethics and sense vation of a future reputation as a good king of humour. Like Ebel, he fi nds a reference but also on a genuine moral sense, possibly point in Fóstbrœðra saga, for which he reinforced by chivalric ideals. posits an early dating. Characteristic of this The late Hermann Pálsson’s “Glæpur work, and a key infl uence on later sagas, og refsing í Hrafnkels sögu” (119–34) charac- is a mode of excess and caricature that is teristically emphasizes that the sagas were ultimately traceable to cultural ambivalence written in order to comment and provoke towards Icelandic self-assertiveness, partic- refl ection on ethical questions, not merely ularly in the political context of Norwegian for entertainment. The question is, how encroachment. Andersson fi nds humour far did the rights of chieftains in Icelandic in the “emotional minimalism” of the Njáls society extend? In Hermann’s answer, the saga account of an assailant’s reaction to protagonist has erred by exacting punish- what Henry Fielding would have called “the ment in a manner which, while no doubt information of Gunnarr’s spear.” Likewise, appropriate to kings in Norway (it is when a monomaniac Egill Skalla-Grímsson expressly prescribed in Konungs skuggsjá), reacts to his son’s death with wild excessive- can only rate as singularly in appro priate ness, only to be cajoled out of it by the guile in an Icelandic magnate. He argues that of his daughter, humour may arise from the Einarr’s taking the horse cannot be con- inversion of the parent-child relationship. strued as a theft and a fortiori cannot justly We might add that when Egill threatens to be punished by death, despite Hrafnkell’s scatter his money on Þingvellir, humour may assertions. The torture and punishment be engendered by a glancing similarity to the exacted on the protagonist by Sámr are episode in Hrólfs saga kraka, where the hero therefore justifi ed, a verdict for which makes his enemies bend like pigs at Fýris- Hermann fi nds support in Rómverja saga. vellir. But the tone remains tricky to defi ne. Although Hermann carefully documents his Consider the episode where Egill dispatches case from the saga text, his explanation of his antagonist with a bite to the throat: its message comes across as legalistic rather we might suggest (with an eye to Auðunn’s than literary. It would seem better to reckon rough handling of Grettir) that this is a with some degree of ambivalence, on the not stereotypically unmanly tactic and that the unreasonable assumption that, for better literary effect is one of grotesqueness rather or for worse, overbearing and dominating than humour. attitudes in chieftains perhaps commanded A further set of chapters examines a sneaking admiration in the society that how the accounts of human relationships produced this saga. in certain sagas have been shaped by pre- By contrast, Uwe Ebel’s “Archaik oder existing literary models, and here again the Europa: Theologisches Argument und Inter- contributors make many references to the Alvíssmál 11 (2004): 110–15 112 Rezensionen work of the honorand. Dorothee Frölich’s Christian-moralistic life-view. The arrival “Eddische Heroische Elegie und Laxdœla of Tristram impulses and story-materials saga: Bemerkungen zu einigen motivischen in Iceland is pushed back into the twelfth und formalen Verbindungslinien” (51–71) century, echoing the late Bjarni Einarsson, starts from the familiar idea that Laxdœla though (as has been characteristic of recent saga derives not merely its central group advocacy for his theories) without his pre- of characters but also many of its detailed cise cataloguing of alleged parallels. motifs from eddic poetry. Jealousy, particu- Úlfar Bragason’s “Fóstbrœðra saga: larly women’s jealousy, plays a major role in The Flateyjarbók Version” (268–74) closely driving the plot, while the men, for once, inspects this redaction in the spirit of New are essentially secondary, mere objects of Philology, for its internal logic and for the female feeling. At the same time, however, opportunity it affords us to gain insights in contrast to the heroic elegies, the saga’s into the “production process” in the saga as mode of narration affords little room for a whole. Although the Flateyjarbók manu- the expression of these intense feelings. For script exhibits a superfi cially bewildering this reason, the account in chap.

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