Homo necans borealis: Fatherhood and Sacrifice in Sonatorrek

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Chapter 7

HOMO NECANS BOREALISHOMO NECANS BOREALISH :FATHERHOOD AND SACRIFICE IN SONATORREK

JOSEPH HARRISHarvard University

Th e G. L. Brook Symposium for which this contribution was originally writ-ten was entitled “Language and Myth,” suggesting to me an abstract, general, or theoretical level of discourse. Th e language component of my contribution is, however, limited to parole and even then to a brand of literary-critical philology parole and even then to a brand of literary-critical philology parolethat might have excited only skepticism from Prof. Brook. Similarly I will not deal with myth on a level comparable to competence or langue; instead it is spe-cifi c myths in performance that are my main concern, and the sphere of interest is limited to Old Norse. Th is approach diff ers from the main recent studies of Old Norse myth, for example those of Margaret Clunies Ross and John Lindow, who tend to emphasize that the meaning of any part of the mythology is only to be determined in a much larger context.1 While I have enormous respect for such “systemic” readings of the Norse mythological langue, I hope there is still room for an approach at the level of one individual’s experience of myth and ritual.

Th e individual I have in mind is Egill Skalla-Grímsson, for nothing in Old Norse literature connects us with a real person’s pre-Christian religious experi-ence like his famous elegy for his sons, Sonatorrek. Not royal personages, whom court poets insure we will never know, but men of fl esh and blood are involved; and the saga preserves a full background, including the poem’s ritual context and a thirteenth-century author’s interpretation of the social and personal psychology

1 Margaret Clunies Ross, Prolonged Echoes: Old Norse Myths in Medieval Northern Society, 2 vols., Viking Collection 7 & 10 (Odense: Odense University Press, 1994–1998); John Lindow, Murder and Vengeance Among the Gods: Baldr in Scandinavian Mythology, FFCommunications 262 (Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 1997).

Glosecki, Stephen, O. Myth in Early Northwest Europe. Tempe: ACMRS, 2007.

154 JOSEPH HARRIS

attendant on the poem’s creation.2 Of course, any Old Norse scholar will volun-teer at this point that the saga author’s interpretation cannot be taken as histori-cal fact. I agree, but most elements of the saga author’s construction receive sup-port elsewhere, sometimes in ways he could not have imagined. More important is that we have the poem itself and, backing it up, a large corpus of verse by Egill, almost all of which in my opinion gives no grounds for skepticism.3

I have been working on this heavily studied poem off and on for several years.4 In order to say anything new about its psychology and use of myth it will be necessary to build on previous work, especially my own; unfortunately there is no Great Authority to tell us whether we are building on sand. Th e innova-tion in the present essay will be the attempt to engage certain religious themes of Sonatorrek which I fi nd marginally less puzzling, but no less moving, when put into the context of some brilliant recent writings on unrelated religions. Th e ac-ceptable deployment of such comparative secondary material, though hardly sur-prising in the study of myth, is an additional, more general theme of the article.

I

We begin with two passages which seem to stand in thematic or ideological con-tradiction to each other. Th e fi rst is in st. 17:

2 Th e saga is cited from Sigurður Nordal, ed., Egils saga Skalla-Grímssonar, Íslenzk Egils saga Skalla-Grímssonar, Íslenzk Egils saga Skalla-Grímssonarfornrit 2 (Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka fornritafélag, 1933), but Egil’s Sonatorrek is quoted from the edition of Jón Helgason, ed., Skjaldevers, Nordisk fi lologi, A 12 (Copenhagen: Munksgaard,1962), 29-38, with modifi cations based on E. O. G. Turville-Petre, Scal-dic Poetry (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976), 15–41; the translations are Turville-Petre’s, dic Poetry (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976), 15–41; the translations are Turville-Petre’s, dic Poetrywith some modifi cations from me. Sonatorrek is cited by stanza number, stanza and line, or, with “a” and “b,” by stanza half or helming. Eddic poetry is cited from Hans Kuhn, ed., helming. Eddic poetry is cited from Hans Kuhn, ed., helmingEdda: Die Lieder des Codex Regius nebst verwandten Denkmälern, Vol. 1: Text, 4th rev. ed. (Heidelberg: Winter, 1962).

3 For the most recent comprehensive study of Egils saga see Baldur Hafstað, Egils saga see Baldur Hafstað, Egils saga Die Egils saga und ihr Verhältnis zu anderen Werken des nordischen Mittelalters (Reykjavík: Egils saga und ihr Verhältnis zu anderen Werken des nordischen Mittelalters (Reykjavík: Egils saga und ihr Verhältnis zu anderen Werken des nordischen MittelaltersRannsóknarstofnun Kennaraháskóla Íslands, 1995).Egils saga und ihr Verhältnis zu anderen Werken des nordischen MittelaltersRannsóknarstofnun Kennaraháskóla Íslands, 1995).Egils saga und ihr Verhältnis zu anderen Werken des nordischen Mittelalters

4 See especially Joseph Harris, “A Nativist Approach to Beowulf: Th e Case of Ger-Beowulf: Th e Case of Ger-Beowulfmanic Elegy,” in Companion to Old English Poetry, ed. Henk Aertsen and Rolf H. Brem-mer, Jr. (Amsterdam: VU University Press, 1994), 45–62; idem, “Sacrifi ce and Guilt in Sonatorrek,” in Studien zum Altgermanischen: Festschrift für Heinrich Beck, ed. Heiko Ueck-er, Ergänzungsbände zum Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde 11 (Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 1994), 173–96; idem, “ ‘Goðsögn sem hjálp til að lifa af ’ í Sonatorreki,” in Heiðin minni: Greinar um fornar bókmenntir, ed. Haraldur Bessason and Heiðin minni: Greinar um fornar bókmenntir, ed. Haraldur Bessason and Heiðin minni: Greinar um fornar bókmenntirBaldur Hafstað (Reykjavík: Heimskringla, 1999), 47–70.

Homo necans borealis: Fatherhood and Sacrifi ce in Sonatorrek 155

Þat er ok mæltat engi getisonar iðgioldnema siálfr alienn þann niðer oðrum séborinn maðrí bróður stað.

Th is is also said that no one may get rec-ompense for his son unless he himself begetsin turn that descendant who will be a man born for the other, in place of his brother

Th is stanza concerns (besides loss, compensation, and wisdom, themes I have previously discussed in detail)5 the ideas of genesis, replication within the fam-ily, and fatherhood, though not exactly as we understand fatherhood, even in a vestigially patriarchal society. Here life would arise through a new birth which is in fact a rebirth, and the continuation of the family is here exclusively imagined as the father-son continuum. Th e stanza’s temporal dimension is the future, and the new person it imagines would presumably, though not explicitly, inherit as an heir.

Th e second and contrasting passage extends over stanzas 23 and 24:

23 Blótka ek þvíbróður Vílis,goðiaðar,at ek giarn sék,þó hefr Míms vinrmér um fengnarbolva bœtr,ef hit betra telk.

I do not sacrifi ce to the brother of Vílir, the guardian of gods, because I am eager to do so;yet the friend of Mímr has given me recompense for my harms if I reckon the better.

24 Gáfumk íþróttúlfs of bágivígi vanrvammi fi rðaok þat geðer ek gørða mérvísa fi ándrat vélondum.

Th e enemy of the wolf, accustomed to battle, gave me that skill devoid of faults, and such a spirit that I made cer-tain enemies out of tricksters.

Th ese stanzas, though their complexity cannot be fully plumbed in this discus-sion, clearly deal with sacrifi ce. When the poem as a whole is unpacked in detail,6 it becomes apparent that Egill is imagining blood sacrifi ce resulting in human death

5 Harris, “Nativist Approach.”6 See Harris, “Sacrifi ce and Guilt” and the further discussion in section 6 below.

156 JOSEPH HARRIS

and specifi cally a father’s sacrifi ce of his sons. Th e ideas of the passage would, then, seem to refl ect the end of a family; its temporal dimension is the past; and instead of legitimate inheritance it imagines a shameful exchange. Th is passage leads organically into the poem’s closing vision of death in st. 25.

Sonatorrek ’s antimony between fatherhood or birth and sacrifi ce or death is not strictly logical; instead it is poetic and mytho-logical. And it is an opposition I mytho-logical. And it is an opposition I mytho-logicalonly came to recognize under the infl uence of readings in the great world of myth and ritual outside the North.

II

Before further addressing this opposition, let me contextualize it with a brief reading of the whole poem as I understand it. I will ignore fi ne distinctions and qualifi cations which do not bear on the selected themes. According to the saga, then, Egill was about fi fty when his beloved son Boooðvarr drowned; shortly before another son, Gunnarr, probably younger, had died of fever, Now, about 961, af-ter laying Boooðvarr’s body in the family mound next to Skalla-Grímr, Egill went straight to his bed-closet determined to die. But according to the saga’s famous anecdote his daughter tricked him into breaking his fast and composing a “funer-al poem in honor of Boooðvarr,” the “erfi kvæði eptir Boooðvar” to which Egill gave the name that means “Th e Irreparable Loss of Sons” (pp. 242–57).

Egill’s opening topic (in st. 1–3), the diffi culty of beginnings, assimilates his verse-making to the origin of all poetry in a divine theft; then (in 4) two images from traditional elegy — the family an isolated tree and the unhappy bearer of a kinsman’s body — lead into a straightforward tally of deaths in the clan — mother, father — (st. 5a) and circle back (in 5b) to poetry as a craft like carpentry. Th e wood imagery continues (in 6): the palisade of Egill’s family has been broken by waves: a son-sized gap stands open. Now (in 7) the simple force of waves modu-lates toward the surgical as the sea appears in person: the sea-goddess “Rán has amputated me of loving friends”; “the sea has slashed the bonds of my family, a strong strand of me myself.” In the next stanza (8), high-point of Egill’s irreli-gious defi ance, such imagery literally cuts both ways: if, “with his sword” (sverði), he could attack the sea gods, Egill would take a direct revenge. His resistance re-cedes (in 9 and 10), not out of the impracticality of violence against the ship-kill-ing god, but due to Egill’s own advanced age and lack of support for a feud. Th e eff ect is circular: the family losses make themselves impossible to avenge.

A new section seems to begin with two stanzas on Boooðvarr, plucked (in 11) by Odin before ripe, yet (in 12) tested enough to count as his father’s closest sup-porter. “Support” (12, 5) however, brings to Egill’s mind (in 13) his own brother; since Þórólfr fell so long ago, Egill has literally been unable to watch his back: (in 14a) no other shoulder-to-shoulder comrade has matched him: (in 14b) as


friends thin out, Egill must put his back to the wall (if that is the meaning). Such isolation (in 15–16) is interpreted as decadence of the times, focusing on blood money for a brother’s death. Th is lack of equivalence between loss and compen-sation may be the association linking to st. 17 which, as we have seen, ironically cites an ancient proverb coined at a time when rebirth was a real possibility. A reprise (in 18a) of the theme of isolation, even in a time of peace, is linked, ap-parently causally, to the earlier fi lial death (18b), or so I believe; and the diffi cult earlier fi lial death (18b), or so I believe; and the diffi cult earlierst. 19 seems to be Egill’s reaffi rmation of hostility from the gods ever since — st. 20 — Gunnar, the fair-spoken, died of a fever. St. 21 sums up the fates of his sons: Odin has taken them, each characterized in a reprise of earlier themes, to the world of gods.

Th e remaining section of four stanzas gives Egill’s account of his struggle with his god and his famous consolation. In fl at-footed paraphrase: Odin, lord of the spear, severed his friendship with me when I, against his own teachings, came to trust him (st. 22). I do not sacrifi ce to him willingly, yet he has given me a double compensation for my harms (st. 23): fi rst, as god of poetry he gave me poetic talent without fl aw, and second, as god of cynicism and caution, he gave me the ability to turn secret foes into open enemies (st. 24). Th ese two counter-gifts for the loss of his two sons do not lead in the fi nal stanza to peace or resigna-tion but to a ready battle-stance as he has a vision of the death goddess, sister of Odin’s enemy the Wolf, standing on a promontory: in good heart and unafraid, he says (in 25), I shall await Hel. We might translate that into modern poetic idiom as, he will not go gentle; though, gentle or defi ant, going into that good night is the poem’s last word. Th e consolations of the gifts of Odin are real, and is the poem’s last word. Th e consolations of the gifts of Odin are real, and isso is courage; and we would perhaps not be wrong to extend the two gifts to the generation of the steadfast mind and this poem itself. But death has the poem’s last word even though the saga tells memorably how its composition saved Egill, and many writers, including me, have elaborated on the soteriological force of ex-pression. Both things are true: the salvifi c word and Egill’s rejection of new life (in st. 17) and affi rmation of death (in the fi nal stanzas).

III

Such is the poem in outline, but we have barely begun to look at its religious dimension. Egill presents himself famously as a troubled Odin-worshipper; his wording frequently echoes Odin’s own speech in Hávamál; even his suspicion Hávamál; even his suspicion Hávamálof Odin is true to Odin.7 Th e other supernaturals who are mentioned, Rán and

7 See especially Klaus von See, “Sonatorrek und Hávamál,” Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum und deutsche Literatur 99 (1970): 26–33; also Harris, “Sacrifi ce and Guilt.”Altertum und deutsche Literatur 99 (1970): 26–33; also Harris, “Sacrifi ce and Guilt.”Altertum und deutsche Literatur

158 JOSEPH HARRIS

Ægir, seem to appear on the stage of the poem ultimately as mere tools since it is Odin who is accused of stealing the sons. We might say the sea-gods function as cat’s paw and Odin as the brains of the outfi t; this is the distinction Old Norse mythology elsewhere draws between handbani and handbani and handbani ráðbani. Th e images of poetry as divine theft are universally recognized as belonging to Odin worship, but I have recently argued for the fi rst time and at length that there is running through the poem also a sustained allusion to Baldr, his death, and Ragnarǫk, the escha-tological scenario of which is so closely connected in the late sources with the death of Baldr.8 Stanzas 15–16, for example — Egill’s ‘satire on the times,’ a pa-gan ‘Signs of Doomsday’ — seem to allude to language like that of Voluspá 45. Voluspá 45. VoluspáBut such allusive patterns gain in plausibility for the modern scholar and in eff ect for the ancient audience (I suggest) as the number of allusions increases and as one recognizes the familiar trajectory from myth. I have compared the experi-ence to that of watching Eliot’s Th e Cocktail Party for the fi rst time: the hinting Th e Cocktail Party for the fi rst time: the hinting Th e Cocktail Party“myths and images” (as Eliot called the elements of his “mythic method”) ac-cumulate and grow concentrated, until the viewer, in my case at least, suddenly realizes that he is watching ordinary mortals relive a divine pattern.

Instead of a personal ‘modern instance,’ however, it would be better to as-sess Egill’s poem and the parallels in the Baldr-Ragnarǫk mythology against an established idea in the study of religions: the compulsion of homo religiosus to re-homo religiosus to re-homo religiosuslive sacred patterns at all the most important junctures of life. Th is is the “myth to live by” of Joseph Campbell, or better Mircea Eliade’s “living myth,” for it is Eliade who most famously identifi ed the paradigmatic and recursive role of myth in archaic cultures: “Objects and acts [he writes] acquire a value, and in so doing become real, because they participate, after one fashion or another, in a reality that transcends them,”9 or again: “human acts . . . rituals and signifi cant profane gestures . . .are repeated because they were consecrated in the beginning (. . . in illo tempore, ab origine) by gods, ancestors, or heroes” (4–5); or again in Eliade’s quotation from Aquinas: “haec hominis est perfectio, similitudo Dei” (32).

Th e trajectory of Sonatorrek, moving from silence to expression of grief after the loss of a favorite son, on to the surviving father’s sense of isolation in an in-creasingly threatening world, to the decay of ethics and especially of family soli-darity in that world, and fi nally to the preparation of the forces of death — this trajectory convincingly calques that of the mythic pattern, which moves from the shocked silence and then lamentation at Baldr’s death, to Odin’s fears and search for supporting heroes, to the last decadent days of mankind, and fi nally to Ragnaroook. In his poem, then, Egill appears consistently to play the roles of Odin

8 Harris, “Goðsögn,” partly summarized in these paragraphs.9 Mircea Eliade, Cosmos and History: Th e Myth of the Eternal Return, trans. Willard

R. Trask (New York: Harper & Row, 1959), 4.


in the myth, and I suggest that in real life his experience of family and religious crisis, of loss and grief, were shaped, just as Eliade might have predicted, by the sacred prototype.

And unless Egill is to be treated as totally unique within his cultural setting, we are safe in hypothesizing that the myth of the death of Baldr served more gen-erally as a cultural model for paternal grief. Th is is supported by de Vries’s 1955 interpretation of Baldr, still the best in the fi eld, where Baldr’s is the fi rst and paradigmatic death.10 It is supported also by the presence of an extensive system of allusions to Baldr and his death in four of the earliest preserved royal erfi kvæðior funeral poems; in making this argument I followed in the wake of Magnus Ol-sen,11 who had shown the moving projection of Hákonarmál (c. 961) against the Hákonarmál (c. 961) against the HákonarmálBaldr myth and identifi ed only a little less certainly similar allusions in the fu-neral poem for St. Ólafr by Sighvatr (c. 1040). I added Eiríksmál (c. 954) and the Eiríksmál (c. 954) and the Eiríksmálfuneral poem for King Ólafr Tryggvason by Hallfreðr vandræðaskald (c. 1001). neral poem for St. Ólafr by Sighvatr (c. 1040). I added funeral poem for King Ólafr Tryggvason by Hallfreðr vandræðaskald (c. 1001). neral poem for St. Ólafr by Sighvatr (c. 1040). I added

Th is evidence, from four well known and datable Norwegian royal erfi kvæði, suf-fers from an insuffi cient background study of all Norse funeral poems and their ritual context,12 but it is at least suffi cient to allow the claim that Sonatorrek was Sonatorrek was Sonatorreknot alone among funeral poems in casting a present loss against the mythic back-ground of the fi rst death and the somehow connected doomsday scenario.

IV

It comes as no surprise to fi nd death and grief in a funeral poem, but what about sacrifi ce? Voluspá refers to Baldr as the “bloody sacrifi ce” (Voluspá refers to Baldr as the “bloody sacrifi ce” (Voluspá blóðgom tívor) just at the blóðgom tívor) just at the blóðgom tívormoment when he is also explicitly “Odin’s child” (st. 31), and de Vries’s classic article makes an excellent case for understanding the fi rst death as simultaneously

10 Th is assessment of Jan de Vries, “Der Mythos von Balders Tod,” Arkiv för nord-isk fi lologi 70 (1955): 41–60, is, of course, not universally shared (as if any interpretation isk fi lologi 70 (1955): 41–60, is, of course, not universally shared (as if any interpretation isk fi lologicould be). Lindow, Murder and Vengeance, 30, calls it “doubtless the most lasting contri-bution to recent Baldr research” but goes on to a point-by-point negative critique (30–38). Clunies Ross, Prolonged Echoes, 1: 269–77, is generally sympathetic to some aspects of de Vries’s argument but rejects others (276–77).

11 Harris, “Goðsögn”; Magnus Olsen, “Om Balder-digtning og Balder-kultus,” Arkiv för nordisk fi lologi 40 (1924): 148–75; idem, “En iakttagelse vedkommende Balder-Arkiv för nordisk fi lologi 40 (1924): 148–75; idem, “En iakttagelse vedkommende Balder-Arkiv för nordisk fi lologidiktningen,” in Studier tillagnade Axel Kock (Lund: Gleerup, 1929), 169–77 [= Arkiv för nordisk fi lologi, suppl. to vol. 40, new ser.].

12 Th e most extensive and authoritative survey is Bjarne Fidjestøl, “Erfi drápa (Erb-lied),” in Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde, ed. Heinrich Beck et al. (Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 1989), 7:482–86. Now see also Joseph Harris, “Erfi kvæðiand New York: de Gruyter, 1989), 7:482–86. Now see also Joseph Harris, “Erfi kvæðiand New York: de Gruyter, 1989), 7:482–86. Now see also Joseph Harris, “ —myth, ritual, elegy,” forthcoming in Old Norse Religion in Longterm Perspectives: Origins,

160 JOSEPH HARRIS

the fi rst sacrifi ce. (According to Bruce Lincoln, in the Indo-Iranian world, too, the fi rst death was a sacrifi ce: “so also are all deaths understood as sacrifi ce.”)13

Certainly, the most familiar version of the story of Baldr’s slaying depicts a sac-rifi cial ritual in the guise of a game. But who sacrifi ces Baldr and to what end? I rely again on de Vries’s hypothesis according to which Hoðr, the blind god, is a hypostasis of Odin, the blind or one-eyed. So at some archaic depth behind the myth as we fi nd it in Viking Age sources, the father-god kills his own favorite and apparently oldest son in what is for de Vries an initiation into the Odin-dedi-cated warrior band. I will, for the time being, keep my distance from the initia-tion hypothesis, but it does give a logic of sorts to the death. I do, however, want to mention another feature of de Vries’s reading to which I do subscribe more whole-heartedly: the attempt to retrieve Baldr from Hel — Hermóðr’s ride and the weeping of all creation — belongs to the mythological pattern of the narrow failure to defeat death — a motif with a wide distribution around the world and something to hold in mind when we return to Sonatorrek.

In sacrifi cing his own son de Vries’s father-god was also establishing the prototype of human sacrifi ce in Odin worship, though that is, I emphasize, not explicit in the extant medieval sources, but only a modern theory. In any case, we do fi nd Odin associated far and wide with human sacrifi ce, though I do not mean to imply by any means that all the evidence of human sacrifi ce in Germanic and Scandinavian archeology and written material relates to Odin. A thorough review of human, especially child and kin sacrifi ce, remains a desideratum,14 and

Changes and Interactions. An International Conference in Lund, Sweden, June 3-7, 2004, ed. Anders Andrén, Kristina Jennbert and Catharina Raudvere, Vägar till Midgård 8 (Lund: Nordic Academic Press, 2006), 267-71.

13 Bruce Lincoln, “Death and Resurrection in Indo-European Th ought,” Journal of Indo-European Studies 5 (1977): 247–64, here 257.Indo-European Studies 5 (1977): 247–64, here 257.Indo-European Studies

14 An important recent study, ordered by type of communal context, especially in early Germanic references to human sacrifi ce, is Heinrich Beck, “Germanische Menschen-opfer in der literarischen Überlieferung,” in Vorgeschichtliche Heiligtümer und Opferplätze in Mittel- und Nordeuropa. Bericht über ein Symposium in Reinhausen bei Göttingen in der Zeit vom 14. bis 16. Oktober 1968, ed. Herbert Jankuhn, Abhandlungen der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen, philologisch-historische Klasse, 3rd series, No. 74 (Göt-tingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1970), 240–58. Eugen Mogk, “Die Menschenopfer bei den Germanen,” Abhandlungen der königlichen sächsischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig, philologisch-historische Klasse 27, Nr. 17 (1909): 601–43, seems to have the most complete inventory of such references in the written record, but in more recent times the archeological corpus has become more important. For a start on the archeological sec-ondary materials see Beck’s notes; Hilda Ellis Davidson, “Human Sacrifi ce in the Late Pagan Period in North-Western Europe,” in Th e Age of Sutton Hoo: Th e Seventh Century in North-Western Europe, ed. M. O. H. Carver (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1992), 331–40;


I lean here on random memory and on de Vries’s sovereign Altgermanische Reli-gionsgeschichte, which has good sections on sacrifi ce in the written sources of all periods, for a few pertinent examples.15 Turville-Petre too has a useful chapter devoted to sacrifi ce (although he off ers no support for the comment that “[i]t is improbable that human sacrifi ce was practised widely in the Viking Age . . .”).16

No study that I know of assembles all the historical references to the German-ic sacrifi ce of children, but well-known are the passages in Guta saga and the Guta saga and the Guta sagaVita Vulframni.17 Th e fate of Rognvaldr réttilbeini, either burned in his house or thrown into a whirlpool on his father’s orders, may be an “historical” instance overlooked by de Vries and Turville-Petre.18

and Ove Hemmendorff , “Männis kooff er. Ett inslag i järnålderns gravritualer, belyst av ett fynd i Bollstanäs, Upp land,” Fornvännen 79 (1984): 4–12. For further relevant dimen-sions of human sacrifi ce in general see James L. Sauvé, “Th e Divine Victim: Aspects of Human Sacrifi ce in Viking Scandinavia and Vedic India,” in Myth and Law Among the Indo-Europeans: Studies in Indo-European Comparative Mythology, ed. Jaan Puhvel (Berke-ley: University of California Press, 1970), 173–91. Th e survey of sacrifi ce in early Icelandic writings by Jón Hnefi ll Aðalsteinsson, “Opferbeschreibungen in christlichen Schriften,” in Old Norse and Finnish Religions and Cultic Place-Names: Based on Papers Read at the Sym-posium on Encounters between Religions in Old Nordic Times and on Cultic Place-Names held at Åbo, Finland, on the 19th–21st of August 1987st of August 1987st , ed. Tore Ahlbäck (Åbo: Donner Institute of August 1987, ed. Tore Ahlbäck (Åbo: Donner Institute of August 1987for Research in Religous and Cultural History, 1990), 206–22, here 212, discusses an inter esting reference where a father either “sacrifi ced” his son or merely “dedicated” him to Th or. See also Dean A. Miller, “Defi ning and Expanding the Indo-European Vater-Sohnes-Kampf Th eme,” in Sohnes-Kampf Th eme,” in Sohnes-Kampf Indo-European Religion after Dumézil, ed. Edgar C. Polomé, Indo-European Religion after Dumézil, ed. Edgar C. Polomé, Indo-European Religion after DumézilJournal of Indo-European Studies Monograph Series 16 (Washington, DC: Institute for the Study of Man), 109–30, and Anna M. Ranero, “An Old Indo-European Motif Revis-ited: Th e Mortal Combat between Father and Son,” Proceedings of the Ninth Annual UCLA Indo-European Conference: Los Angeles, May 23, 24, 1997, ed. Karlene Jones-Bley et al., Indo-European Conference: Los Angeles, May 23, 24, 1997, ed. Karlene Jones-Bley et al., Indo-European Conference: Los Angeles, May 23, 24, 1997Journal of Indo-European Studies Monograph Series No. 28 (Washington, DC: Institute for the Study of Man, 1998), 123–39.

15 Jan de Vries, Altgermanische Religionsgeschichte, 2 vols., 3rd ed. (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1970), 1: 406–28 and index s.v. Opfer.Opfer.Opfer

16 E. O. G. Turville-Petre, Myth and Religion of the North: Th e Religion of Ancient Scandinavia (New York: Holt, Rinehart, Winston, 1964), 251–62, here 252. Scandinavia (New York: Holt, Rinehart, Winston, 1964), 251–62, here 252. Scandinavia

17 de Vries, Religionsgeschichte, 1: 409 and 412.18 Bjarni Aðalbjarnarson, ed., Heimskringla, 3 vols, Íslenzk fornrit 36–38 (Reykjavík:

Hið íslenska fornritafélag, 1941–1951), 1:138–39; Gustav Storm, ed., “Historia Norwe-giæ,” in Monumenta historica Norvegiæ: Latinske kildeskrifter til Norges historie i middelal-deren (Kristiania: Brøgger, 1880; repr. Oslo: Aas & Wahl, 1973), 109; Craig R. Davis, Beowulf and the Demise of Germanic Legend in England (New York and London: Garland, Beowulf and the Demise of Germanic Legend in England (New York and London: Garland, Beowulf and the Demise of Germanic Legend in England1996), 14.

162 JOSEPH HARRIS

More or less real-life sacrifi ces to Odin seem to come in many styles, for ex-ample dedication of an enemy, who is then put to death any way possible, includ-ing piercing, and of course the ever-popular hanging. Plutarch tells of Germani who, after a defeat and in the absence of trees, hanged themselves from the horns of cattle or the axles of wagons, and de Vries interprets this act as “self-sacrifi ce” since simple suicide could have been much easier.19 Th is recalls, of course, Odin’s most famous connection to sacrifi ce, his mysterious sacrifi ce of himself to him-self; that passage (Hávamál 138) includes both piercing and hanging, the com-Hávamál 138) includes both piercing and hanging, the com-Hávamálbination refl ected in what was to have been the fi ctional sacrifi ce of King Víkarr, where ritual turned to reality just as it did for Baldr.20 A less well-worn compari-son: at least one other Odin-infl ected passage in early Germanic literature has the double-death motif, though apportioned to two closely related fi gures, for the Baldr fi gure Herebeald was pierced by a missile and son frère, son semblable, the son in the Old Man’s Lament, was hanged.21

More relevant to our myth-based poem than real-life sacrifi ces is a series of kin-sacrifi cing Odin-like heroic fi gures, such as the semi-historical Eiríkr the Victorious, who dedicated himself to Odin in return for ten more years of rule just before his victory over his nephew, and a certain Sivard snake-in-the-eye whom Odin cured in return for souls.22 A similar pattern is in force when the historical Earl Hákon sacrifi ces his seven-year old son for success in the battle against the Jómsvíkings except that another god was involved.23 A clever permu-tation of the pattern we are examining is found in an episode of Hervarar saga, in which an oracle proclaims that “the most noble son” in Reiðgotaland must be sacrifi ced to Odin to end a famine, setting up a confl ict between the old king and his treacherous son-in-law, the protagonist Heiðrekr, both of whom have young sons. Eventually Heiðrekr promises to turn his own son over to the people for the ritual but claims in compensation a large portion of the army. With the superior force he immediately turns on the old king and his remaining followers, dedicat-ing all the dead to Odin, who should be satisfi ed, Heiðrekr comments, with the substitution of many lives for one little boy.24

But it is three famous heroes of Odin or Odin-fi gures — King Aun, King Haraldr Wartooth, and the warrior Starkaðr the Old — who are most implicated

19 de Vries, Religionsgeschichte, 1: 408.20 de Vries, Religionsgeschichte, 1: 410.21 Harris, “Nativist Approach,” and idem, “ ‘Double scene’ and ‘mise en abyme’ in

Beowulfi an Narrative,” in Gudar på jorden: Festskrift til Lars Lönnroth, ed. Stina Hansson and Mats Malm (Stockholm: Symposion, 2000), 322-38.

22 Source references and further survey in Harris, “Sacrifi ce and Guilt,” 176–78.23 Ólafur Halldórsson, ed., Jómsvíkinga saga (Reykjavík: Jón Helgason, 1969), 184–85.Jómsvíkinga saga (Reykjavík: Jón Helgason, 1969), 184–85.Jómsvíkinga saga24 Jón Helgason, ed., Heiðreks saga (Copenhagen: Samfund til udgivelse af gammel Heiðreks saga (Copenhagen: Samfund til udgivelse af gammel Heiðreks saga

nordisk litteratur, 1924), 41–44, 120–22.


in problems papered over in the offi cial Baldr myth, the problem of the do-ut-des or gift-in-return that all sacrifi ce implies and the problem of paternal guilt.des or gift-in-return that all sacrifi ce implies and the problem of paternal guilt.des 25

Th ese three are sacrifi cers or would-be sacrifi cers of near-kin or blood-brothers, and all grow preternaturally old like their divine patron. Th ese fi gures seem to me to support de Vries’s interpretation of Odin’s implication in an underlying son-sacrifi ce, and Starkaðr, whose name is obviously “the stark Hoðr,” adds ono-mastic support to the argument for hypostasis. Within the offi cial mythology or what Craig Davis calls the “authorized version,” I believe blame was shifted fi rst to a son Hoðr separate from Odin, and then to Loki, but these three “heroic” stories or their relevant parts still refl ect the darker and more archaic underside of the proto-death and sacrifi ce.

V

To put this strange and violent mythic complex into some kind of context I would like briefl y to call on the larger unrelated religious worlds so brilliantly analyzed by Walter Burkert in Homo necans: Th e Anthropology of Ancient Greek Sacrifi cial Ritual and Myth (1983, originally 1972) and by my colleague Jon D. Levenson in Th e Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son: Th e Transformation of Child Sacrifi ce in Judaism and Christianity (1993). in Judaism and Christianity (1993). in Judaism and Christianity

Burkert, taking off from Konrad Lorenz’s famous study of aggression and from early ethology, is most useful in our context for so persistently situating re-ligion, especially ritual, within the context of originary human violence — his central theme: “Sacrifi cial killing is the basic experience of the ‘sacred.’ Homo religiosus acts and attains self-awareness as religiosus acts and attains self-awareness as religiosus homo necans.”26 In calling this paper “Northern man as killer” I was trying to pay homage to Burkert’s incredibly rich book. His earlier work, including Homo necans, has a strong evolutionary em-phasis, with hunting as the origin both of the Männerbund and of sacrifi ce.Männerbund and of sacrifi ce.Männerbund 27

On the general topic of the origins of culture in violence he would seem to be in agreement with René Girard, whose Violence and the Sacred (1977) was also Violence and the Sacred (1977) was also Violence and the Sacredpublished originally in 1972,28 but their joint book, called Violent Origins: Ritual Killing and Cultural Formation (1987), seems rather to heighten their consider-able contrasts, for Girard insists on his scapegoat model while Burkert was fully

25 Discussed at length in Harris, “Sacrifi ce and Guilt.”26 Walter Burkert, Homo necans: Th e Anthropology of Ancient Greek Sacrifi cial Ritual

and Myth, trans. Peter Bing (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983), 3.27 Walter Burkert, “Greek Tragedy and Sacrifi cial Ritual,” Greek, Roman, and Byz-

antine Studies 7 (1966): 87–121.28 René Girard, Violence and the Sacred, trans. Patrick Gregory (Baltimore and Lon-Violence and the Sacred, trans. Patrick Gregory (Baltimore and Lon-Violence and the Sacred

don: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977).

164 JOSEPH HARRIS

occupied defending hunting in his schema against the third contributor, Jona-than Z. Smith.29 No grand fusion is to be found in the book. Later, in Creation of the Sacred: Tracks of Biology in Early Religion (1996), Burkert dug even deeper into animal behavior and sociobiology for the origins of religion. Burkert’s immensely learned books, especially Homo necans, cause a reader with Norse religion on the mind to cover the margins in notes, but his focus is on “the act,” ritual sacrifi ce, more than on “the word,” myth, while we are concentrating here more on the words of Egill’s poem than on the erfi or funeral context. As is well known, myth erfi or funeral context. As is well known, myth erfi is much better attested throughout the Norse area than ritual. Still, Burkert’s re-affi rmation of something like the old Cambridge ritual theory has given me aid and comfort in trying to understand the whole myth-ritual situation of Egill.

Levenson’s book is a prize-winning exercise in Semitic philology and Near Eastern religion, unconcerned with anthropology, ethology, or prehistory. As a whole the book is a study of themes of father and son in Judaism and Christiani-ty, including the patterns of preference for the late-born and the evolution of sub-stitutions for son-sacrifi ce, but Levenson begins, most relevantly for us, simply by teasing out all traces of child-sacrifi ce and especially sacrifi ce of the fi rst-born son in early Israelite religion and in the religions of neighboring cultures such as the Canaanite, Ugaritic, and Phoenician, with its extension, Carthaginian. Sometimes there are striking parallels to our Norse examples, as when a child is sacrifi ced for success in battle or where the life of the living is directly bought by such sacrifi ces. But although Odin’s words are recorded in Hávamál and in-Hávamál and in-Hávamálclude instructions on sacrifi cing, he is not reported to have issued laws as direct as “You shall give Me the fi rst-born among your sons” (Exod. 22:28). Indeed, the savage Vikings look quite oblique and prudish by comparison to the mate-rial discussed by Levenson, but both of these great books, diff erent as they are, serve to normalize religious traits in the Norse sources we might otherwise have normalize religious traits in the Norse sources we might otherwise have normalizethought aberrant. Th ere are religious universals, near-universals, and regionally prevalent traits; our gruesome Norse motifs pertain at least to the latter category and may be near-universals.

With the assurance that Egill’s mind is not aberrant, but merely religious, let us return to Sonatorrek and to the two opposing themes, which I had abbreviated as fatherhood/birth versus sacrifi ce/death. Egill’s experience of his sons’ death gains what Eliade called its reality by modeling itself on Odin’s experience of the proto-death, the death of the beloved son Baldr, but I believe that the dark side of this myth complex also haunted Egill’s imagination, saturated as it was with

29 Violent Origins: Walter Burkert, René Girard, and Jonathan Z. Smith on Ritual Kill-ing and Cultural Formation, ed. Robert G. Hamerton-Kelley, intro. Burton Mack, comm. Renato Rosaldo (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1987).


Odin lore. I have argued30 that we can see traces of his identifi cation also with Starkaðr, Haraldr Wartooth, and Aun, and I understand these ‘identifi cations’ to be of the same nature as the type of imitatio dei Eliade made famous, except that imitatio dei Eliade made famous, except that imitatio deithese ‘identifi cations’ are with secondary refl ections of Odin rather than with his offi cial roles in the “authorized version.” Th e whole move, psychological and poetological, would be an expression through the semantics of myth of the guilt of the survivor. Th e simplest of these allusions, the one to Haraldr, hangs upon a specifi c kenning, making Egill like the legendary king at the moment Odin be-trays him; similarly specifi c is Egill’s assumption of the character of Starkaðr as the recipient of the “gifts of Odin” in return for his shameful sacrifi ce. Th ough all three of these polluted sacrifi cers get langlífi , an extended lifetime, for their killings, the identifi cation with Aun depends more generally on son-sacrifi ce and brings us back to our two opposing themes, and fi rst to stanzas 23–24.

VI

I summarize the argument on this point in “Sacrifi ce and Guilt.” Since Egill does not sacrifi ce to Odin because he is eager to, we can say he does sacrifi ce and does sacrifi ce and doeshas sacrifi ced, but unwillingly. Th ese unwilling sacrifi ces must be the bol “harms” bol “harms” bolfor which he has received bœtr “compensations” (in st. 23). In the next stanza bœtr “compensations” (in st. 23). In the next stanza bœtrthese compensations are named, and there are two of them. What, then, were the “harms,” the things sacrifi ced? I concluded that they were his two dead sons, and this seemed to be confi rmed by congruencies between the thing “given,” the sac-rifi ced, and the return gift or repayment — for example, the character of Gun-narr, literally im-maculate (im-maculate (im-maculate vamma varr, 20) and clean of speech, seems to be rep-vamma varr, 20) and clean of speech, seems to be rep-vamma varrresented in the Odinic counter-gift of a type of speech, poetry, which was equally im-maculate (im-maculate (im-maculate vammi fi rða, 24). A Norse proverb has it that “every gift looks for a return.” Th at in myth the return will be commensurate seems to be implicit in the commensurate seems to be implicit in the commensuratehomology between sacrifi ced body-part and compensation in the case of Odin’s eye, Heimdallr’s ear, and Týr’s hand.31

But hang on! One boy died by the fi re of fever and the other by the water of shipwreck. In what sense could their father have sacrifi ced them? Th e answer is: this is poetry and religion. Th e sea-gods took Boðvarr; but Odin took Boðvarr. Neither son died in battle, but Odin took both. Neither poetry nor religion operate with logic even if we want to put inverted commas around “sacrifi ce” in this case. we want to put inverted commas around “sacrifi ce” in this case. weIn “Sacrifi ce and Guilt” I suggested that by declaring normal deaths to be ex post

30 See Harris, “Sacrifi ce and Guilt” for a fuller treatment of this material.31 Cf. Clunies Ross, Prolonged Echoes, 1: 219–21.

166 JOSEPH HARRIS

facto sacrifi ces to Odin, Egill wished to accomplish the same thing as the dying human kings Odin and Njorðr in Ynglinga saga when they had themselves marked Ynglinga saga when they had themselves marked Ynglinga sagawith the spear so that they would go to the world of the gods.32 In both cases, ritual approaches what Burkert calls the “as-if ” nature of game,33 but notice also that the ritual maneuvers of the Swedish kings could also be understood in terms of Elia-desque divine precedents for human action or even, and perhaps more importantly, as the solution for a contradiction between reality and belief, as argued for ritual generally by Jonathan Z. Smith.34

Finally we return to st. 17, the fi rst of our two opposed passages. Th e an-cient saying quoted there does not prove that pagans in general really believed in rebirth or “Wiederverkörperung in der Sippe,” to quote from the title of a still worthwhile book on the subject;35 but it does show that Egill thought some held such beliefs and that in this crisis and at this point in the poem his mind did dwell on birth, the birth of a replacement son. Levenson discusses similar ideas in the Old Testament, fi rst in the case of Job, then, in a close parallel, that of Seth, the replacement for the slain Abel: “Within the limits of ancient Israelite culture before it had developed the idea of resurrection, Seth is Abel redivivus, the slain son restored to this parents . . . Th e death of the beloved son, even when it is not averted, can still be reversed.”36

But this comforting doctrine is rejected by Egill — his scorn is palpable. It is not immediately clear why — perhaps because the son redivivus would be a pis-aller, a poor substitute for the real thing, like the blood-money of the previ-pis-aller, a poor substitute for the real thing, like the blood-money of the previ-pis-allerous stanza, perhaps simply because it was unrealistic at his age. However, both these common-sense explanations are undercut by the existence of the analogous belief, also rejected, in the passage of Beowulf known as the Old Man’s Lament, Beowulf known as the Old Man’s Lament, Beowulfwhich as a whole is a remarkable analogue of Sonatorrek and its saga context.37

In other words, the idea of rebirth and its rejection in these two only distantly related Germanic sources must go deeper than the invention of one poet. I am tempted to relate this motif to that of the failure to prevent death, which, it will be remembered, occupies the same structural position in the “authorized version” where the slot is fi lled by Hermóðr’s mission and the one creature who would not

32 Bjarni Aðalbjarnarson, Heimskringla, 1: 22–23.33 Burkert, Homo necans, 34.34 Jonathan Z. Smith, “Th e Bare Facts of Ritual,” in idem, Imagining Religion: From

Babylon to Jonestown (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1982), 53–65, 143–45.

35 Karl August Eckhardt, Irdische Unsterblichkeit: Germanischer Glaube an die Wie-derverkörperung in der Sippe (Weimar: Böhlau, 1937).derverkörperung in der Sippe (Weimar: Böhlau, 1937).derverkörperung in der Sippe

36 Levenson, Death and Resurrection, 78.37 Harris, “Nativist Approach”; idem, “ ‘Double scene’.”


weep. But that explanation seems to apply only to structure, not substance. So why is this incursion from an archaic level of religion brought in at all, only then to be rejected?

VII

A tentative answer seems to be forming under the infl uence of the writings of another outsider, the feminist student of comparative religion Nancy Jay, whose book Th rough Your Generations Forever: Sacrifi ce, Religion, and Paternity (1992) Th rough Your Generations Forever: Sacrifi ce, Religion, and Paternity (1992) Th rough Your Generations Forever: Sacrifi ce, Religion, and Paternityshows cross-culturally and with impressive anthropological and historical cov-erage how “sacrifi cial ritual enacts patrilineal descent”; “Patrilineal kin know they are kin because they sacrifi ce together”; “In this way, sacrifi ce becomes . . . because they sacrifi ce together”; “In this way, sacrifi ce becomes . . . becausea ‘remedy for having been born of woman’ or . . . ‘birth done better’.”38 “In the polarity between blood sacrifi ce and childbirth, killing receives a positive value and giving birth a negative value,”39 as she illustrates from the bloody world of the Aztecs.

But let me attempt, avoiding colorful examples, just to outline her thesis, outline her thesis, outlineinterweaving her words from the more elegant article of 1985 with my own. Among the gender-related aspects of blood sacrifi ce are the nearly universal rules that women of child-bearing age do not sacrifi ce and that “an opposition is felt between sacrifi cial purity and the pollution of childbirth.”40between sacrifi cial purity and the pollution of childbirth.”40between sacrifi cial purity and the pollution of childbirth.” Also nearly univer-sal is “an affi nity between blood sacrifi cial religion and those social systems that make the relation between father and son the basis of social order and continu-ity. . . . Within these systems, blood sacrifi cial ritual can serve as evidence of patrilineal descent, and in so doing it works to constitute and maintain patri-lineal descent systems.”41lineal descent systems.”41lineal descent systems.” In mixed matrilineal and patrilineal systems “only the only the onlypatrilineages practice sacrifi ce.”42patrilineages practice sacrifi ce.”42patrilineages practice sacrifi ce.” “Like blood sacrifi cial religions, unilineal de-scent groups are concentrated among precapitalist societies with some degree of technological development in which rights in durable property are highly val-ued . . . [Th ese are also] societies in which productive property is controlled by descent groups, and in which therefore, the control of the means of production

38 Nancy Jay, Th rough Your Generations Forever: Sacrifi ce, Religion, and Paternity (Chi-Th rough Your Generations Forever: Sacrifi ce, Religion, and Paternity (Chi-Th rough Your Generations Forever: Sacrifi ce, Religion, and Paternitycago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), xiii.

39 Nancy Jay, “Sacrifi ce as Remedy for Having Been Born of Woman,” in Immaculate & Powerful: Th e Female in Sacred Image and Social Reality, ed. Clarissa W. Atkinsson et al. (Boston: Beacon Press, 1985), 283–309.

40 Jay, “Sacrifi ce as Remedy,” 283.41 Jay, “Sacrifi ce as Remedy,” 285.42 Jay, “Sacrifi ce as Remedy,” 286.

168 JOSEPH HARRIS

is inseparably linked with the control of the means of reproduction, that is the fertility of women.”43fertility of women.”43fertility of women.” Since paternity cannot be determined by natural means, “birth by itself cannot be the sole criterion for patrilineage membership.”44“birth by itself cannot be the sole criterion for patrilineage membership.”44“birth by itself cannot be the sole criterion for patrilineage membership.” As a side benefi t, perhaps, Jay notes that patrilineal systems often sponsor sacrifi cial ancestor cults so that its members may “look forward to transcending their own mortality as future ancestors . . .”45mortality as future ancestors . . .”45mortality as future ancestors . . .” In any case, “. . . patrilineal descent systems are always social achievements, transforming biological descent in the interest of social continuity.”46social continuity.”46social continuity.” Sacrifi cial ritual in general unites a group (technically: “com-munion”) and diff erentiates it from all others (technically: “expiation”), and “it is beautifully adapted for integrating patrilineal descent groups, a goal that can only be accomplished by diff erentiation from all other lines of decent. Sacrifi ce can both expiate descent from women (along with other dangers) and integrate the ‘pure and eternal’ patrilineage.”47the ‘pure and eternal’ patrilineage.”47the ‘pure and eternal’ patrilineage.” Since patrilineages must transcend “descent from women . . . [t]his is one way to understand why childbearing women must not sacrifi ce and also why the pollution of childbirth so commonly needs to be expiated sacrifi cially.”48expiated sacrifi cially.”48expiated sacrifi cially.”

Jay’s claims are rather severely related to social function, but I have left out masses of theory and all examples. She steps outside the social-functional frame briefl y to reason about why blood sacrifi ce rather than something else should predominate in this role. Th e answer strikes me as more intuitive, but right: “Th e only action that is as serious as giving birth, which can act as counterbalance to it, is killing. Th is is one way to interpret the common sacrifi cial metaphors of birth and rebirth. . . .”49birth and rebirth. . . .”49birth and rebirth. . . .” But she scrupulously avoids the gender-based specula-tion about myth that will have occurred to humanities-based students of Old Norse literature.

For male rejection of the mother and male attempts to hijack birth were fa-miliar to me from earlier anthropological readings,50 but Jay’s book opened my eyes to a concealed connection between sacrifi ce and patrilineage, suggesting too how easy it is to be gender-blind and how much there might be to learn about

43 Jay, “Sacrifi ce as Remedy,” 289.44 Jay, “Sacrifi ce as Remedy,” 290.45 Jay, “Sacrifi ce as Remedy,” 291.46 Jay, “Sacrifi ce as Remedy,” 293.47 Jay, “Sacrifi ce as Remedy,” 296.48 Jay, “Sacrifi ce as Remedy,” 297.49 Jay, “Sacrifi ce as Remedy,” 294.50 Cf. Joseph Harris, “Love and Death in the Männerbund: An Essay with Special Ref-Männerbund: An Essay with Special Ref-Männerbund

erence to the Bjarkamál and Bjarkamál and Bjarkamál Th e Battle of Maldon,” in Heroic Poetry in the Anglo-Saxon Period: Studies in Honor of Jess B. Bessinger, Jr., ed. Helen Damico and John Leyerle, Studies in Studies in Honor of Jess B. Bessinger, Jr., ed. Helen Damico and John Leyerle, Studies in Studies in Honor of Jess B. Bessinger, JrMedieval Culture 32 (Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 1993), 77–114.


Norse society with the blindfold removed. In many aspects, however, Jay’s mate-rial does agree reasonably well with the extant gender-infl ected studies of Norse myth and ritual by Clunies Ross, especially on preservation of the patriliny of the Æsir51 and on male pseudo-creation,52 and also with Uli Linke on the male Æsir’s attempts at the control of blood and their death-dealing form of creation.53

In this connection one remembers (from the obscure and fragmentary Hversu Nóregr byggðisk) the legendary Norwegian king Hálfdanr the Old, who staged a great sacrifi ce, asking that he might rule for 300 winters. Th is was not granted, but the god promised him that for 300 years no non-noble man and no woman would belong to his family.54 An explicit example of an ancient male goal: a fam-ily without women accomplished through sacrifi ce.

What, then, is Egill rejecting in st.17? Rebirth is called an old wives’ tale (kerlingavilla, literally “old women’s error”) in a prose note in the Codex Regius of the Elder Edda,55 and several other sources from the Christian period treat the idea with hostility. But such motivation may be safely excluded; instead of rejecting the ancient belief out of a superior modern position, what Egill is re-jecting may be procreation through woman. In any case, what he affi rms in st. affi rms in st. affi rms23 and the poem’s ending is sacrifi ce and death. Th e opposition between family regeneration through woman (which is negated) and sacrifi ce/death (which is af-fi rmed) seems perfectly captured in a sentence of Jay’s: “In the polarity between blood sacrifi ce and childbirth, killing receives a positive value and giving birth a negative value.”56 At the level of mythological-poetic thought, however, sacri-fi ce/death may not comprise a contrast to the desired solidarity of the male line, which is achieved precisely through blood sacrifi ce rather than birth by women. Our initial opposition begins to suggest a complementarity.

Th is conclusion, actually just a trial balloon for an hypothesis, leaves numer-ous questions in the air. Here are a few I have thought about: Th e ideas derived from Nancy Jay’s work appear to support de Vries’s belief that the sacrifi ce of Baldr correlated with initiation into the all-male warrior group, but how do they com-port with the offi cial mythology’s Váli, the avenger of Baldr? And why does Odin have to engender an avenger unless the idea was originally rebirth? How, if at all, engender an avenger unless the idea was originally rebirth? How, if at all, engender

51 Clunies Ross, Prolonged Echoes, 1: 56–66.52 Clunies Ross, Prolonged Echoes, 1: 144–86.53 Uli Linke, “Th e Th eft of Blood, the Birth of Men: Cultural Constructions of

Gender in Medieval Iceland,” in From Sagas to Society: Comparative Approaches to Early Iceland, ed. Gísli Pálsson (Enfi eld Lock: Hisarlik Press, 1992), 265–88.Iceland, ed. Gísli Pálsson (Enfi eld Lock: Hisarlik Press, 1992), 265–88.Iceland

54 Valdimar Ásmundarson, ed., Fornaldarsögur Norðrlanda (Reykjavík: Sigurður Fornaldarsögur Norðrlanda (Reykjavík: Sigurður Fornaldarsögur NorðrlandaKristjánsson, 1886), 2: 7; Harris, “Sacrifi ce and Guilt,” 178.

55 Kuhn, Edda, 161.56 Jay, “Sacrifi ce as Remedy,” 284.

170 JOSEPH HARRIS

can reality fi gure in — especially the reality of Egill’s surviving son Þorsteinn and the lausavísa about him in the saga and of what little we know of actual funeral lausavísa about him in the saga and of what little we know of actual funeral lausavísaand erfi ceremonies? What do the references to “my wife’s son” in erfi ceremonies? What do the references to “my wife’s son” in erfi Sonatorrek (18,Sonatorrek (18,Sonatorrek 7; 21,7–8) signify, and are they related to the theme of paternal/maternal likes and dislikes in Egils saga and elsewhere? How does the hypothesis jibe with what we Egils saga and elsewhere? How does the hypothesis jibe with what we Egils sagaknow historically of Norwegian and Icelandic kinship?57 Th e perspective I have suggested makes the poem more than ever a window on Egill’s soul since it at-tempts to understand a prelogical level of his consciousness, but is what we seem to glimpse there purely individual? Or may it not be more like ontogeny repeating phylogeny so that the rejection of woman in mythic thought looks like something which happened in time and again and again in the individual? And, a fi nal ques-tion, do all these questions depend on a questionable use of the kind of outside data we’ve seen in Burkert, Levenson, and especially in Jay?

Bibliography

Beck, Heinrich. “Germanische Menschenopfer in der literarischen Überlief-erung.” In Vorgeschichtliche Heiligtümer und Opferplätze in Mittel- und Nord-europa. Bericht über ein Symposium in Reinhausen bei Göttingen in der Zeit vom 14. bis 16. Oktober 1968, ed. Herbert Jankuhn, 240–58. Abhandlungen der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen, philologisch-historische Klasse, 3rd ser., 74. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1970.

Bjarni Aðalbjarnarson, ed. Heimskringla. 3 vols. Íslenzk fornrit 36–38. Reykja-vík: Hið íslenska fornritafélag, 1941–1951.

Burkert, Walter. “Greek Tragedy and Sacrifi cial Ritual.” Greek, Roman, and Byz-antine Studies 7 (1966): 87–121.

———. Homo necans: Th e Anthropology of Ancient Greek Sacrifi cial Ritual and Myth, trans. Peter Bing. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983. [German original, 1972.]

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57 From the rich study of kinship by Torben Anders Vestergaard, “Th e System of Kin-ship in Early Norwegian Law,” Mediaeval Scandinavia 12 (1988): 160–94, one might hypothesize that Egill’s intense concern with the relationships of the core ætt could be ætt could be ættconsidered more refl ective of the mentality to be expected of early Norwegian kinship than of the more diff use and slightly later kinship system of the Icelandic Grágás; but both sys-tems are anachronistic in our context, and such speculation is obviously very tenuous.


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Documents

Homo necans borealis: Fatherhood and Sacrifice in Sonatorrek