Abstract
Brennu-Njáls saga is a canonical text traditionally regarded as the pinnacle of Icelandic saga literature, a saga that explores in depth the causes and results of bloodfeud. The main female characters, the unswervingly loyal Bergþόra, the femme fatale Hallgerðr, and the inciter Hildigunnr, are among the most striking in Old Norse—Icelandic literature and have come to define popular perceptions of women and their attributes in Icelandic sagas. Judging from these characters, and the critical discourse that centers on them, it seems that goading others to violence and revenge is what women in the sagas do. Indeed the quasi-proverbial phrase kold eru kvenna ráð “cold are the counsels of women” appears after one famous incitement scene, an expression often regarded as capturing a key feature of the ideology of medieval Icelandic society.1
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
Sarah M. Anderson, “Introduction: ‘og eru kold kvenna rad,’” in Cold Counsel: Women in Old Norse Literature and Mythology, ed. Sarah M. Anderson with Karen Swenson (New York: Routledge, 2002), pp. xii [xi-xvi].
Else Mundal, “The Position of Women in Old Norse Society and the Basis for Their Power,” NORA—Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research 1 (1994): 3–11.
Rolf Heller, Die literarische Darstellung der Frau (Halle: Max Niemeyer, 1958), pp. 98–122.
Jenny M. Jochens, Old Norse Images of Women (Philadelpia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996), p. 192.
William Ian Miller, “Choosing the Avenger: Some Aspects of the Bloodfeud in Medieval Iceland and England,” Law and History Review 1 (1983): 181 [159–204].
Max Weber, Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology (Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft: Grundriss der verstehenden Soziologie), ed. Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich, 2 vols. (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1978), p. 53
Carol J. Clover, “Hildigunnr’s Lament,” in Structure and Meaning in Old Norse Literature: New Approaches to Textual Analysis and Literary Criticism, ed. John Lindow, Lars Lönnroth, and Gerd Wolfgang Weber (Odense: Odense University Press, 1986), p. 176 [141–83]; for discussion of the public element of the hvgt, see Miller, Bloodtaking, pp. 213–14.
Richard Cleasby and Guðbrandur Vigfusson, An Icelandic-English Dictionary. 2nd ed. with a supplement by Sir William A. Craigie (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957), p. 417 (hereafter Cleasby-Vigfusson). Compare the servant-woman’s challenge to Hrafnkell in Hrafnkels saga Freysgoda: “Lætr griðkonan ganga af kappi” [the servant woman presses on forcefully], Hrafnkels saga Freysgoða. in Austfirðinga sögur. ÍF XI, ed. Jόn Jόhannesson (Reykjavίk: Hið islenzka fornrita-felag, 1950), p. 127 (hereafter Hrafnkels saga); see also discussion in chapter 4.
J. L. Austin, How to Do Things with Words (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962). Scholars generally seem to agree that whetting is a speech act; see for example, Jochens, Old Norse Images, p. 162; Anderson, “Introduction,” Cold Counsel, p. xii.
Jane Tolmie, “Goading, Ritual Discord and the Deflection of Blame,” Journal of Historical Pragmatics 4 (2003): 295 [287–301].
John R. Searle, Expression and Meaning: Studies in the Theory of Speech Acts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), p. 9.
Elaine Tennant, “Prescriptions and Performatives in Imagined Cultures: Gender Dynamics in Nibelungenlied Adventure,” in Mittelalter: Neue Wege durch einen alten Kontinen, ed. Jan-Dirk Müller and Horst Wenzel (Stuttgart: Hirzel, 1999), pp. 273–316.
See for example, Heller, Die literarische Darstellung; Jochens, Old Norse Images, pp. 162–203, and “The Medieval Icelandic Heroine”; Judith Jesch, Women in the Viking Age (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1991), pp. 189–91.
Helga Kress, “‘Ekki hofu vér kvennaskap’: Nokkrar laustengdar athuganir um karlmennsku og kvenhatur í Njálu,” in Sjötiu ritgerdir hel-gadar Jakobi Benediktssyni. 20. júlí 1977, ed. Einar G. Pétursson and Jónas Kristjánsson, 2 vols. (Reykjavίk: Stofnun Árna Magnússonar, 1977), 1: 293–33.
Gunnar Karlsson, “Kenningin um fornt kvenfrelsi,” Saga 24 (1986): 45–77.
Carolyn Anderson, “No Fixed Point: Gender and Blood Feuds in Njals Saga,” Philological Quarterly 81 (2002): 421–40.
Abjection is a concept theorized by Julia Kristeva in Powers of Horror. An Essay on Abjection, trans. Leon S. Roudiez (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982).
Zoe Borovsky, “Never in Public: Women and Performance in Old Norse Literature,”Journal of American Folklore 112 (1999): 27 [6–39].
Fóstbrðdra saga has a complex preservation history in medieval manuscripts; for discussion of this matter and the controversial question of dating of Fóstbrðra saga, see Jónas Kristjánsson, Um Fóstbrðra sögu (Reykjavίk: Stofnun Árna Magnússonar, 1972).
Helga Kress, “Bróklindi Falgeirs: Fóstbrðrasaga og hláturmenning miöalda,” Skírnir 161 (1987): 271–86.
Carolyne Larrington, King Arthur’s Enchantresses: Morgan and Her Sisters in Arthurian Tradition (London: I. B. Tauris, 2006), pp. 19–21.
Marianne E. Kalinke, Bridal-Quest Romance in Medieval Iceland, Íslandica 46 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990), p. 47.
This motif appears in folktales about daughters and wives of the hero’s antagonist who nevertheless help him, that is, the “Girl as Helper in the Hero’s Flight” folktale type (AT313c), as well as in classical narratives, for example, the myths of Medea and Ariadne; for tale-type references, see Aarne Antti, The Types of the Folktale: A Classification and Bibliography, trans. and enlarged by Stith Thompson, 2nd rev. (Helsinki: Academia Scientiarum Fennica, 1961), p. 104.
Carolyne Larrington, A Store of Common Sense: Gnomic Theme and Style in Old Icelandic and Old English Wisdom Poetry (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), p. 32.
Helga Kress, “Staölausir stafir: Um slúóur sem uppsprettu frásagnar i Islendingasögum,” Skírnir 165 (1991): 130–56.
Theodore M. Andersson, “The Displacement of the Heroic Ideal in the Family Sagas,” Speculum 45 (1970): 592 [575–93].
See further chapter 4, and Judith Jesch, “In Praise of Astriôr Óláfsdόttir,” Saga-Book XXIV (1994): 1–18.
Agnes S. Arnόrsdόttir, Konur og vίgamenn: Stada kynjanna a Îslandi a 12. og 13. old, Studia Historica 12 (Reykjavίk: Sagnfræôistofnun/Hâskolautgâfan, 1995): 186–97.
David Clark, “Manslaughter and Misogyny: Women and Revenge in Sturlunga saga.” Saga-Book 33 (2009): 25–43.
Copyright information
© 2013 Jóhanna Katrin Friðriksdóttir
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Friðriksdóttir, J.K. (2013). Women Speaking. In: Women in Old Norse Literature. The New Middle Ages. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137118066_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137118066_2
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-29862-4
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-11806-6
eBook Packages: Palgrave Literature CollectionLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)