Myth and magic: ambiguous inferences in Hrafnkel’s Saga and Erik’s Saga
Elements of myth and magic, abundant in Icelandic sagas, are especially evident whenever time the story gets a little weird or spooky, which is fairly often. At such points in the narrative many questions inevitably arise in the mind of the active reader. The central question is what these peculiar passages really mean, since in every case the `unnatural’ always turns out to have both natural and supernatural explanations.
Ambiguous instances of myth and magic occur quite frequently in both Hrafnkel’s Saga and Erik’s Saga. Each work is characteristic of the genre as a whole where there is typically a thematic tension between the daily, matter-of-fact world and the one of unfathomable mystery. Whenever we interpret something in either saga as being supernatural in import, we are also acknowledging its function as a folktale motif, a vessel for that vast profundity rooted in traditional lore. When the same incident is seen as having a natural or reasonable explanation, however, the implications of incredibility fade and traditional Nordic values give way to more literary ones.
In Hrafnkel’s Saga three examples of artistic ambiguity are the prophetic dream and the subsequent landslide mentioned in the first chapter (35), the midsummer loss and recovery of the sheep (40), and the appearance of Thorkel Thjostarsson `wearing a leaf-green tunic and carrying a sword’(48). Each event contains an archetypal image with great symbolic meaning in terms of myth and magic. On the other hand, each also contains details which can be explained as mere coincidence or, more convincingly, as strictly fictions of the imagination not needing any other explanation. Ultimately, it is up to the reader to choose between the mysterious and the mundane.
The strange, lengthy descriptions of the figure of Freyfaxi are heavy with mixed messages, emphasizing the thematic importance of this figure. Since sagas generally deal with many people, places and things, there is by necessity an intense compression of the narrative that involves rhetorical techniques developed through timeless oral traditions. The eight lines describing Freyfaxi’s death–quite a few when we remember that in sagas many men often perish in half a line–can be interpreted in several ways. Freyfaxi’s death is highly evocative of the mythical and magical, more like the intentional drowning of a witch than that of a horse–especially considering the use of a hood to cover the eyes of the victim. Of course, nothing happens here that cannot be understood in a natural sense, but the stallion is being treated with such great regard by the executioners and, ultimately, by the narrator/s, it is obvious that this is no ordinary horse. But what is less clear is what does or should this creature mean to us? Freyfaxi, in Hrafnkel’s dedication (38) and even in its name, is connected with the Norse mythos and the demi-god Frey. Its wild behaviour (41) seems unusual and perhaps even enchanted, especially when the stallion is said to have stood “anchored to the ground” (40). At this point an animal magnetism from ages past pulls us into the story, but otherwise we find no firm basis for presuming that the horse is in any way supernatural. The association with Frey and the odd behaviour can both be explained in terms of cultural anthropology, say, or veterinary medicine. Traditional tales typically involved sacred rites and totemic animals, so it can be argued that Freyfaxi appears here more as a literary convention than as a higher being. Or maybe the poor horse was simply scared stiff. However, Icelandic sagas generally have Christianity written into them, so perhaps Freyfaxi’s death symbolizes not a ritualistic enactment but rather the idealistic elimination of myth and magic, perhaps even a strange baptism of the whole Norse tradition!
At the time when sagas were being written down (they had been composed over generations) it was very important for the process of Christianization that the so-called pagan ideas be undermined if not eliminated entirely. But instead of simply destroying the sagas, which would only drive the pagans to other forms of traditional expression, the monks wisely worked within the genre and took advantage of its public appeal in order to convey what the Church deemed to be acceptable content. As a result, in sagas there are ancient elements of myth and magic that are still fully self-evident and yet are explainable in naturalistic, poetic and, most notably, biblical terms; the interposition of Christianity into Icelandic sagas contributes to the richness of the form which, as our translators note, is “a unique blend of entertainment and learning, fact and fantasy, history and story-telling, literary endeavour and family pride, pagan past and Christian recent” (37). This heterogeneity creates a great deal of thematic tension.
Erik’s Saga illustrates just how far the supernatural can be stretched to meet theological purposes, and how great the semantic tension can become without the text being torn apart: just as there are wilder and stranger events here than in Hrafnkel’s Saga, there are also more numerous and overt injections of Christianity as in compensation. From early folklore comes the ghostly voice in Chapter 5, the living dead in Chapter 6, the spirit-like woman in Chapter 7 and the macabre frenzy of Freydis in Chapter 8, while from the later scholastics comes the idea that the slaves can cause an landslide (76), that Gudrid renounced witchcraft because she is a Christian (82), and that prophesies do not always come true (83). Superstition is perfectly co-opted by rationality when King Olaf says to Lucky Leif “your good luck will see you through,” the Viking hero’s reply implies that he is not so much fortunate as prudent and wise.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
The Vinland Sagas. eds. Magnus Magnusson and Herman
Palsson. Penguin. 1965
Hrafnkel’s Saga ed.Hermann Palsson.
Penguin. 1971
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Filed under: Audio Books on July 29th, 2009
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