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Margeson (1980, 184–85) dismisses the identification of Sigurðr and Gunnarr figures on1

bracteates, brooches, picture stones, and other objects from the fifth to ninth centuries.

QUID SIGVARDUS CUM CHRISTO?MORAL INTERPRETATIONS OF SIGURÐR FÁFNISBANI

IN OLD NORSE LITERATURE

Elizabeth Ashman Rowe

As is well known, the legend of the Germanic hero Sigurðr Fáfnisbani hadits origin in Migration Age Europe, but its earliest extant manifestationsin Old Norse literature are much later. Unfortunately, many of these

works were clearly copied into our manuscripts long after they were composed;the concept ‘composition’ should therefore be understood subject to the contextand conditions of the oral traditions of pre-Christian Scandinavia. We cannot becertain either of the age of these works or the degree to which they have beenchanged in the course of transmission. Using them to establish a chronologicalframework for understanding changes in the use of the figure of Sigurðr thus facesproblems from the outset. Although no arguments in support of a given date areincontrovertible, many are plausible enough to be used, with due caution, as thebasis for further analysis. With such caveats, scholarly consensus puts the earliestextant version of part of the Vo3 lsung legend to around 900, with the compositionof the eddic lay Atlakviða (Dronke 1969, 42–45; Finch 1993a, 23a). In the thirdquarter of the tenth century this was followed by the skaldic encomium Eiríksmál(Marold 1993, 161a). In that work, Sigurðr’s father Sigmundr is the hero whowelcomes Eiríkr to Valho3 ll and elicits Óðinn’s reminder that heroes are neededthere in preparation for the last battle at Ragnaro3k. The tenth century is also whenSigurðr’s story begins to appear in Scandinavian and Scandinavian-influenced art.Like Eiríksmál, these artefacts are associated with death and the afterlife. To list1

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Elizabeth Ashman Rowe168

Margeson (1980, 185–95) and Fuglesang (1993, 697b) provide discussions of iconographic2

and dating issues. For further examples of carvings of Sigurðr in England and Scandinavia, seeBlindheim (1973, 9) and Bailey (1980, 116–22).

Blindheim (1965, 53) finds the legend of Sigurðr as one of the ‘background themes’ of the3

decorations of a church doorway in Kragelund, Denmark, but in his later list of Sigurðr decora-tions (Blindheim 1973, 9) this item is replaced by a Sigurðr scene on the portal of a church inLåsby, Denmark.

A closely related example is the fragment of a frieze from the Winchester Old Minster de-4

picting the episode from the story of Sigurðr’s father in which he is about to free himself from thestocks by biting a wolf’s tongue (Tweddle, Biddle, and Kjølby-Biddle 1995, no. 88). Most likelycarved between 1017 and 1035, this sculpture has been interpreted as celebrating ‘the traditional

the most notable examples, we find Sigurðr carved not only on four paganmemorial stones in Sweden (in the late Viking-Age Ringerike style) but also onfour crosses from the Isle of Man and one from northern England (ranging in datefrom the second half of the tenth century to the early eleventh century). Sigurðr2

continued to be a suitable subject in certain Christian contexts, for series of scenesfrom his story decorate the portals of five Norwegian stave churches from thetwelfth and thirteenth centuries, and individual scenes are found on Norwegianchurch sites such as door-jambs, capitals, fonts, chairs, and benches from the sameperiod (Margeson 1980, 196–207; Hohler 1999, 102–03).3

Just how to interpret the appearance in Christian religious contexts of a figurefrom pagan legend is a matter of controversy. With respect to the Manx crosses,Wilson (1967, 40) considers the images of Sigurðr ‘not particularly pagan’,‘undoubtedly secular’, and having ‘obvious parallelisms with certain parts of theGospels and with the whole Christian philosophy of evil’. Bailey (1980, 125) seesthe operation of typology: Sigurðr’s slaying of the dragon foreshadows Christ’svictory over Satan, and his tasting the dragon’s heart, which gives him the abilityto understand the language of birds, foreshadows the Eucharist, in which flesh iseaten and blood is drunk. The bird in the image is an antetype of the dove sym-bolizing the Holy Spirit, and Sigurðr’s understanding of the language of birdsforeshadows a new spiritual understanding. Although agreeing that the Manxcrosses are Christian, Margeson (1983, 104–05 and 1993, 406a–b) emphasizesthe social function of the images from pre-Christian — and therefore at least asso-ciatively pagan — myth and legend in her suggestion that they were intended toenhance or celebrate the memory of the dead by implying a parallel between thegreatness of the gods and heroes depicted and the greatness of the deceased, whomay even have counted them among his or her ancestors. With respect to the4

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QUID SIGVARDUS CUM CHRISTO? 169

history of England and Denmark, a history symbolically united in the marriage of Cnut andAelfgifu-Emma, widow of Aethelred II, in 1017’ (1995, 321), as ‘the royal houses of Wessex andDenmark claimed descent from the same ancestor, Scyld, and thus shared a tradition in whichSigmund had played a part’ (1995, 318). This sculpture resembles the Manx crosses of the samedate in that not only could there have been a genealogical connection with the person(s) itcelebrates, but it, too, is a kind of burial monument, for it came from the part of the Old Minsterin which the kings (including Cnut) were laid to rest. I am indebted to John McKinnell forbringing this example to my attention.

For more recent scholarship on the Gosforth Cross, see Bailey (1980), Bailey and Cramp5

(1988), and Hines (1989).

Not all scholars agree on this point. For example, Hohler (1999, 23) rejects the idea that6

there is ‘any particular Christian content’ in the stave-church images of Sigurðr.

Northumbrian carvings, Berg (1958) argued that the Gosforth cross shows areconciliation between Christian and pagan beliefs, with Christian teachers usingcertain Norse religious legends, particularly Ragnaro3k, as a means of demonstrat-ing the fall of the pagan gods and the rebirth of the world through Christ’s deathon the cross and his defeat of the devil. Other scholars perceiving a fusion of5

Christian and pagan Scandinavian cultures interpret the imagery differently.Smyth (1979, 271) sees a fundamental contradiction in the use of the figure ofSigurðr in Christian contexts, as his connection with the cult of Óðinn makes hislegend ‘alien to Christian sentiment’, but Bailey (1985, 60–61) and Hadley (1996,117) invoke Wormald’s argument (1978) that ecclesiastical culture itself hadbecome somewhat secularized with aristocratic and heroic values, and they arguethat the so-called pagan elements in the iconography of the sculpture are moresuitably described as secular. It is of course unlikely that the image of Sigurðrserved the same function in all times and places. For example, its deploymentaround church doors was probably due to his having slain the dragon Fáfnir.Because the devil and demons could manifest themselves as dragons and serpents,and because these evil beings were believed to be drawn to church entrances inorder to prey on worshippers, the doors were often decorated with images ofdragon-killers such as St George and the Archangel Michael in order to ward offevil spirits (Karlsson 1993, 325b).6

Art historians have quite rightly used contemporary Old Norse poetry andprose in their analysis of these images (e.g. Margeson 1980 and 1988), but theyhave been satisfied with a relatively limited selection of the literary aspects of thisphenomenon, and these are what I wish to pursue here. For one thing, given thepopularity of Sigurðr in Christian decorative programs of the Viking Age and theMiddle Ages in the British Isles and Scandinavia, we would expect him to appear

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KATERN 7


The eighth excerpt from Styrmir Kárason’s saga of St Óláfr tells how the King asked one of7

his skálds to compose a verse about the subject of a textile (tjald) that is apparently displayed inthe room. The poet sees that it shows Sigurðr’s defeat of Fáfnir and comes up with a suitable verse(Guðbrandur Vigfússon and Unger 1860–68, III, 244).

Margeson (1980, 208) suggests that the use of motifs found in literature only in Vo3lsunga8

saga to decorate Norwegian churches adds weight to the idea that the saga was composed inNorway, but this view has not found wide acceptance (for example Finch 1993b, 711a).

just as frequently in the literature of those times and places, and for another, wewould expect his literary function(s) to parallel the artistic ones. As I will argue,the first assumption appears to be correct, but the second assumption is not.

Noting that the image of Sigurðr survives in relatively few non-religiouscontexts, Margeson (1980, 210) attributes this imbalance to the accidents ofpreservation and destruction, and she uses a saga reference to a tapestry depictingthe slaying of Fáfnir as evidence that Sigurðr was probably a popular subject forthe decoration of secular objects as well as Christian ones. Her conclusion is7

supported by the more balanced distribution seen in Old Norse literature. Inaddition to the skaldic and eddic poems dealing with the Vo3 lsung–Niflungmaterial, Sigurðr is found in a number of prose texts. These can be grouped intofour categories. The first is narrative, and interestingly there is only one text thattells Sigurðr’s story: Vo3lsunga saga, composed around 1260–70 (Finch 1965,xxxvi–xxxviii). The second category of texts is satirical, and again there is only8

one example: Sneglu-Halla þáttr, written down around 1200 (Danielsson 1993,599b), tells of an Icelandic poet at the court of King Haraldr harðráði who isrequested to compose a verse about a blacksmith and a tanner who are quarrellingloudly. The King stipulates that the two coarse men must be recast as the heroicopponents Sigurðr and Fáfnir, and yet their actual occupations must be clear. Theresult is what Northrup Frye would call a descent through the modes, with the‘true identity’ of the noble hero Sigurðr revealed to be a brawling blacksmith. Thethird category of texts is genealogical: Flóamanna saga, Fóstbræðra saga, Njáls saga,Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar en mesta, and the Flateyjarbók genealogies of KingHaraldr hárfagri and King Sverrir Sigurðarson include Sigurðr among the ances-tors of both Icelanders and Norwegian kings. These genealogies should not beconsidered as accurate records of actual lineages; instead, they were deployed inaccordance with the authors’ thematic programs, as will be discussed below. Thefourth category of texts is moral or ethical: Rauðs þáttr, Norna-Gests þáttr,Þorsteins þáttr skelks, and ch. 328 of the expanded Óláfs saga helga position Sigurðrin some relation to Christianity, and it is these texts that will be considered first.

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But cf. Widding (1968), who argues for a date closer to 1300.9

Moral and Ethical Texts

Unlike the escapist nature of much modern entertainment, medieval storytellingwas often an art with real-life references and applications (Astell 1999, 41). Theseapplications included behaviour in its ethical, moral, or religious sense, formedieval reading was above all an ethical activity. In the words of John Dagenais(1994, xvii):

Where we tend to see our texts as webs of language, medieval readers saw a world of hu-man action for good or ill co-extensive with their own. Texts were acts of demonstrativerhetoric that reached out and grabbed the reader, involved him or her in praise and blame,in judgments about effective and ineffective human behavior. They engaged the reader,not so much in the unravelling of meaning as in a series of ethical meditations and of per-sonal ethical choices. They required the reader to take a stand about what he or she read.

The entertaining tales that mention Sigurðr were very likely meant to engage theiraudiences just in this way, for they take care to present him within some ethicalperspective (e.g. as the embodiment of the noblest or most heroic qualities) ormoral framework (e.g. to show the degree to which pagan heroism can be praisedby Christians). These framing perspectives are mirrored by the narratives’ textualenvironments, for all four are themselves found within larger narratives, the sagasof the missionary kings Óláfr Tryggvason and St Óláfr of Norway.

Rauðs þáttr

Rauðs þáttr (also called Rauðúlfs þáttr) is found in a number of redactions of Óláfssaga helga (Turville-Petre 1947, 4, n. 3), but it originally was an independentcomposition from around 1200. Sigurðr appears in a dream that King Óláfr has9

while he is visiting a Norwegian wise man named Rauðr (or Rauðúlfr). The dreamwas of a figure whose different parts were made of different substances, and Rauðrexplains that the parts represent the sequence of the Kings of Norway, startingwith the golden head, which represents Óláfr’s own rule. The third reign afterÓláfr’s, which the þáttr audience knows is that of Haraldr harðráði, is representedby the iron girdle around the figure’s middle. The girdle is decorated with eventsfrom the sagas of Sigurðr Fáfnisbani and Haraldr hildito3nn and also with some ofthe deeds of Haraldr hárfagri. Rauðr explains that the King represented by thegirdle

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Rauð tells King Óláfr: ‘Su gíorð var fáð með brogðum uið goðum hagleik. at þui er þer10

syndíz sum ristín eptir fornum søgum. þer syndíz þar a saga Sigurðar Fafnís bana. ok Harallz hilldetannar’ (Johnsen and Jón Helgason 1941, II, 676) (That girdle was painted with craft, with goodskill, insofar as it appeared to you partly carved according to old sagas. On it there the saga ofSigurðr Fáfnisbani appeared to you, and [the saga] of Haraldr hildito3nn).

The author of Vo3lsunga saga does not explicitly say that Sigurðr is worthy of imitation, but11

he is emphatic about his being the best man in Scandinavia: ‘Þat er nu sagt, at Hiordis fêdirsveinbarn, ok er sveinninn fêrdr Hialpreki konungi. Konungrinn vard gladr vid, er hann sa þauinn haussu augu, er hann bar i haufde, ok sagde hann aungum mundu likan verda eda samiafnan,ok var hann vattne aussinn med Sigurdar nafne. Fra honum segia allir eitt, at um athferd ok voxtvar engi hans maki. Hann var þar fêddr med Hialpreki konungi af mikilli ast. Ok þa er nefndir eruallir enir agêztu menn ok konungar i fornnusaughum, þa skal Sigurdr fyrir ganga um afl okatgiorfe, kapp ok hreyste, er hann hefir haft um hvern mann fram annara i nordralfu heimsins’(Olsen 1906–08, 31) (It is now said that Hjo3rdís gave birth to a boy child, and the boy wasbrought to King Hjálprekr. The king was pleased when he saw the sharp eyes that he had in hishead, and he said that none would be like or equal him, and he was sprinkled with water and giventhe name Sigurðr. About him all say one thing: that in respect to conduct and size, no one was his

man fremea stórbravgð þav er monnum muno þickía stormannleg ok uítrleg. ok haglígmeð sinne framquemð. Enn er þer voro þar a synd storuirke enna agætozsto høfðingía.konunga ok annarra enna uitrøzsto manna. þat man hann allt syna með sealfum ser okeptir þeirra líkíng man hann fremíaz. ( Johnsen and Jón Helgason 1941, II, 676–77)

(will achieve great exploits, those that people will think princely and wise and skillfully[conducted] with his prowess. And when the great deeds of the most excellent chieftains,kings, and others of the wisest of men were in your sight, [it signified that] all that [i.e. allthose qualities] he will show in his own person, and he will advance himself by imitationof them [i.e. those men]).

Here we have Sigurðr presented for King Óláfr’s (and the audience’s) ethical con-sideration as one of three admirable kings and chieftains. The þáttr author mayhave gotten the idea for linking Sigurðr and Haraldr hárfagri from a skaldic poemin Haraldr’s honour composed by the eleventh-century Icelandic skáld IllugiBryndœlaskáld, in which the poet honours Haraldr by comparing his deeds tothose of Sigurðr (Skj, AI, 384; Fuglesang 1993, 697b). In Rauðs þáttr, however, therelationship is a different one: Haraldr will achieve great exploits because hemodels himself on Sigurðr, thus demonstrating his own process of ethicalengagement. Furthermore, the þáttr author’s description of the girdle as decoratedwith events from the sagas of Sigurðr Fáfnisbani and Haraldr hildito3nn implies apositive evaluation of a text that I dismissed as merely ‘narrative’. That is, the10

þáttr author is saying that Vo3lsunga saga, far from being empty entertainment,instead presents a hero whom men of power would do well to imitate. Norna-11

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match. With great love, he was brought up there with King Hjálprekr. And when all the excellentmen and kings in the old sagas are named, then Sigurðr will lead them all in strength and accom-plishments, zeal and valour, which he had over any other man in the northern half of the world).

‘Ek var ok med Hlo3dvi keisara a Saxlandí ok þar var ek primsígndr þviat ek matta eigi þar12

vera ella. þviat þar var kristni vel halldin ok þar þotti mer at o3 llv bezt’ (Ólafur Halldórsson 2000,35) (I was also with Emperor Clovis in Saxony, and I was primesigned there because I might notstay there otherwise, because Christianity was held well there, and there I thought it best overall).

Gests þáttr will also present Sigurðr as the very model of a prince, but rather thanputting him side by side with other figures of excellence, it will contrast him witha warrior whose example is to be avoided.

Norna-Gests þáttr

Norna-Gests þáttr, probably written early in the fourteenth century (Würth 1993,435b), occurs only as a dependent text that is interpolated into the ‘D’ redactionof Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar en mesta (AM 62 fol and Flateyjarbók (GKS 1005 fol)).Its hero, Gestr, has lived a lifespan three times that of a normal man, and at theend of his life he comes to the court of King Óláfr Tryggvason to be baptized anddie. Before that, he entertains the King and his men with accounts of the legend-ary kings and heroes — including Sigurðr — whom he has served. Chapters 4–10contain a variety of materials from the Vo3 lsung legend, as Gestr displays a goldbuckle from Sigurðr’s saddle that Sigurðr gave him and a lock of hair seven ellslong from the tail of Sigurðr’s horse. Gestr also describes some of Sigurðr’s ad-ventures and recites the eddic lay Helreið Brynhildar. A number of ethical judge-ments emerge from this þáttr. At the beginning of his recitation, Gestr says that‘var monnvm þat eigi o kvnnigt at Sigvrdr hefir verít gofgaztr allra herkonvnga okbezt at ser j heídnum sid’ (Ólafur Halldórsson 2000, 21) (it was not unknown tomen that Sigurðr had been the noblest of all war-kings and the best man ofheathen times). This judgement is echoed at the end, when Gestr ranks Sigurðr’sretinue as the one he enjoyed the most, until he came to the Christian court ofEmperor Clovis. The validity of Gestr’s evaluation is vouched for by the King12

himself: ‘þottí konvngi ok mark at so3 gvm hans. ok þottí sannaz vm lifdaga hanssva sem hann sagdí’ (Ólafur Halldórsson 2000, 38) (the King also thought his [i.e.Gestr’s] stories significant. And he thought [the accounts] of his life most true,just as he said).

Medieval historians did not seem to have thought that the Old Dispensationwas populated solely by virtuous pagans; rather, this period was often viewed with

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Starkaðr is known as the son of Stórvirkr in other texts, but the manuscripts of Norna-Gests13

þáttr have his patronymic as Þórvirksson (Ólafur Halldórsson 2000, 28–29).

According to chapter 7 of Gautreks saga, Starkaðr is judged by the gods while he is a retainer14

of King Vikar. Þórr ordains that Starkaðr will have no children and that his line will end with him.Óðinn in turn gives him three lifespans, but Þórr retorts he shall commit a villainous deed in eachlife. Óðinn gives him the best weapons and clothing, but Þórr says he shall have neither land norfiefs. Óðinn gives him wealth, but Þórr says that he shall never think he has enough. Óðinn giveshim victory and prowess in every battle, but Þórr says that he shall be gravely wounded each time.Óðinn gives him the gift of poetry, and Þórr says he shall not remember what he composes. Óðinnsays that he shall be most highly thought of by the noblest of people, and Þórr counters that heshall be loathed by ordinary people (Guðni Jónsson 1950, 29–30).

Gestr refers explicitly to Sigurðr’s beauty and manly spirit: ‘mikít agêtí [. . .] for fra Sigvrdi15

Sigmvndar syni vm vênleik hans ok þroska’ (Ólafur Halldórsson 2000, 21) (much renown circu-lated about Sigurðr Sigmundarson regarding his beauty and vigour). The idea that men of oldwere physically larger than their descendants may be derived from the Bible (e.g. Gen. 6. 4: ‘Nowgiants were upon the earth in those days’). Chapter 37 of Hrólfs saga Gautrekssonar explains that‘[u]ndrist menn eigi, þó at menn hafi verit fyrr ágætari at vexti ok afli en nú. Hefir þat satt verit,at þeir hafa skammt átt at telja til risanna sinnar ættar. Nú jafnast mannfólkit, er blandast ættirnar’(Guðni Jónsson 1950, 176) (People should not wonder that men were previously more excellentin growth and strength than now. It was true that they had few generations to reckon in theirgenealogies until they got back to giants. Now people are becoming more equal [i.e. in size], whenthe lineages are being mixed).

ambiguity and depicted in such a way as to show the happy necessity of the con-version. To this end, Sigurðr’s virtues are emphasized by being contrasted with theshortcomings of another well-known hero of legend, Starkaðr Stórvirksson, whois shown (if the pun may be forgiven) to have no redeeming features. Like Gestr,13

Starkaðr received both good and bad supernatural gifts. Also like Gestr, Starkaðr14

was fated to live for three lifespans, but his curse was that he was to commit an evildeed in each lifetime. Something of a tragic hero in Gautreks saga, another versionof his legend, here he functions simply as Sigurðr’s opposite. Both warriors aremarvellously large and strong, but where Sigurðr is beautiful, Starkaðr is describedas monstrous: ‘hann var likari ío3 tnvm en mo3nnvm’ (Ólafur Halldórsson 2000, 28)(he was more like giants than men). Where Sigurðr is courageous, Starkaðr flees15

from Sigurðr on the battlefield after he learns his identity. Last but not least,where Sigurðr is a faithful retainer and loyal brother-in-law — he meets Starkaðrwhile aiding his brothers-in-law against foreign attackers — Starkaðr is a regicide:‘Litlv sidar heyrdv ver nidings verk Starkadar. er hann drap Armod konvng j lavgv’(Ólafur Halldórsson 2000, 28) (A little later we heard about a dastardly deed ofStarkaðr’s, when he killed King Ármóðr in his bath). Sigurðr is also contrasted

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Kaplan (2004, 100) offers another interpretation of Starkaðr’s tooth: ‘The tooth, even16

though it is a part of Starkað’s body, is emblematic of Sigurð’s strength and heroism.’

with Starkaðr by means of Gestr’s souvenirs. Sigurðr’s tokens — the gold saddlebuckle and the lock of horse hair — are symbols of chivalry as well as of Sigurðr’sextraordinary size and extraordinary generosity (in giving Gestr the very finebuckle). But the token of Starkaðr is one of his molars, which Sigurðr knocks outwith a single blow of his sword when Starkaðr flees from him. This symbol of grossphysicality is said to weigh seven ounces, but it has been converted to a goodChristian purpose, for ‘sa hafdr nv j klockv streng j Lvndí j Danmork [. . .] þíckirmo3nnvm forvítní at sía hann þar’ (Ólafur Halldórsson 2000, 29) (it is now usedon a bell-rope at Lund in Denmark [. . .] and people think it a curiosity to see itthere). Norna-Gests þáttr thus presents Sigurðr in ethical terms as a paragon of16

noble virtues and in religious terms as a heathen who can yet be admired by aChristian king and his men. This admiration does have its limits, as we learn whenGestr finishes his comparison of the various heathen heroes he served by sayingthat the Christian court of Emperor Clovis was the best of all.

In contrast to my argument here, Margeson (1980, 210–11) does not see a‘rigid “moral” framework’ constructed around the figure of Sigurðr; in her view,Norna-Gests þáttr deploys him for

enjoyment as opposed to moral fervour. After hearing of the deeds of Sigurðr, the King’sfollowers enjoy the story of Brynhildr’s journey to Hel and her abode. When they ask formore, the King stops Gestr’s tale and asks him to tell of Ragnarr Loðbrók instead. It istheir enjoyment which apparently provokes the King’s rebuke but if the episode wasintended to present the stern image of the missionary king, his reaction is extremely casualand does not carry any moral weight. In fact a moment before, caught up in the storyhimself, the King asked how Sigurðr died.

With respect to the existence of a moral framework, I believe Margeson to be mis-taken. The double comparison of Sigurðr and Starkaðr and Sigurðr and EmperorClovis — contrasting a virtuous pagan warrior and an evil pagan warrior and avirtuous pagan prince and a virtuous Christian prince — must be a structuredeliberately created by the þáttr author, for neither Starkaðr nor Clovis appear inthe Vo3 lsung legend. Indeed, as Bergur Þorgeirsson (2000) has shown, the authorof Norna-Gests þáttr has improved Sigurðr’s character from what is found inReginsmál by shifting some of Sigurðr’s bloodthirstier inclinations to Reginn.With respect to the enjoyment of the story, Margeson rightly identifies its pres-ence, but I believe that she ignores its implications, for the dangers posed to Chris-tians by enjoying pagan legends and admiring heathen heroes are dwelt on over

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and over again in Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar en mesta and the expanded Óláfs sagahelga (Rowe 2004 and 2005a, 192–96). King Óláfr’s inquiry about Sigurðr’s deathis not a digression; it is a relevant and morally edifying part of the story, for thetreachery of Sigurðr’s brothers-in-law is another example of the evils of heathen-ism, the kinship equivalent of Starkaðr’s foul regicide. Moreover, Óláfr’s reactionis not ‘extremely casual’. With the firm statement ‘it is not necessary to say moreabout such things’ (‘eigi er navdsyn at segia fleíra fra slikvm hlvtvm’: Ólafur Hall-dórsson 2000, 34), the King puts a stop to his men’s unhealthy interest in ogressesand headstrong valkyries. He then turns the discourse back to moral issues byasking about the sons of Loðbrók, which results in an exemplum about the literaland metaphorical limits of pagan heroism (Rowe forthcoming). The point ofincluding Helreið Brynhildar and the retainers’ reaction to it is to illustrate thedifference between the moral and immoral uses of pagan legend. Just as Rauðsþáttr modelled one ethical activity by describing how Haraldr harðráði benefitedfrom imitating the great kings of the past, Norna-Gests þáttr models another,namely the conscious choice that an individual has to make to seek the beneficialstory and reject the harmful one.

What the þáttr author may not have been conscious of was his own surrenderto the salacious pleasures of a poem about a confrontation between two supernaturalfemales, for he did not have to include so much of Helreið Brynhildar to make hispoint, but yet he did. Norna-Gests þáttr’s moral authority is further underminedby the fact that it is a fiction. The figure of the holy missionary king Óláfr Trygg-vason appears as the guarantor of the þáttr’s moral correctness, but of course hiswords of praise and condemnation are not authentic at all but have been suppliedby the considerably less holy author. Indeed, Gestr’s life story is also patently aninvention constructed as a mechanism for eliciting the King’s judgement of thepagan heroes, so Óláfr’s verdict that Gestr’s account is ‘most true’ is actuallydoubly false, for Gestr’s account and Óláfr’s opinion of it are both pure fiction.

Norna-Gests þáttr’s ethical and religious program includes the presentation ofthe reprehensible aspects of the heathen age as well as its admirable ones. The dan-gers of listening to pagan legend are indicated by King Óláfr’s halting Gestr’srecitation of the Vo3 lsung legend, but the primary symbol of the evils of paganismis the monstrous, cowardly, treacherous Starkaðr. His juxtaposition with Sigurðr,which sets forth the best and worst of the heathen age, is continued in other texts.Souvenirs of the two are remarked upon in the notice for the year 1405 in the so-called Justiciar’s Annal (Lo3gmannsannáll), which mentions that the IcelanderÁrni Óláfsson visited a place called ‘Affrica’, where he saw not only the shirt of theVirgin Mary, the swaddling-clothes of Jesus, and the cloak and belt of John the

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It is not clear which ‘Affrica’ is meant. Just before this, Árni is said to be where a peniten-17

ciarius is established for all Norse people, and a post-medieval copy of this notice states that he wasin Norway (Eiríkur Þormóðsson and Guðrún Ása Grímsdóttir 2003, 186). In any case, Lo3g-mannsannáll is notable among the medieval Icelandic annals for its historicization of legendaryheroes. In addition to the references to Sigurðr and Starkaðr in the notice for 1405, which wascomposed by a later continuer of the annal, the oldest portion of the annal (compiled by theIcelandic cleric Einar Hafliðason around 1367) contains notices about the legendary war-kingRagnarr loðbrók (Rowe forthcoming).

Mitchell (1991, 136) asserts that the information about Starkaðr’s tooth was added in18

another hand, but according to the editor of the annals, this information is added in the samehand as the notice (Storm 1888, 288).

See Rowe (2003) for an argument that Norna-Gests þáttr should be excluded from the19

corpus of fornaldarsögur.

Baptist, but also Starkaðr’s tooth and the hilt of Sigurðr’s sword (Storm 1888,288). Sigurðr’s token here combines the qualities of his tokens in Norna-Gests17

þáttr; like the gold saddle buckle, the sword hilt is a symbol of chivalry, and likethe seven ells of horse hair, it demonstrates Sigurðr’s superhuman size, for Árniis told that the sword it belonged to was ten feet long. Mitchell (1991, 136) arguesthat it is ‘highly unlikely that the scribes [sic] who added these touches to theannals believed in the existence of such items, but their placement on a par withthe relics of John the Baptist and the Virgin Mary certainly underscores the im-portant place the fornaldarso3gur must have held in Icelandic consciousness’. But18

as we will see from the genealogical texts, Icelanders did believe in the historicalexistence of Sigurðr (and of Starkaðr), and therefore it seems highly likely that theannalist also believed in the existence of such items. Mitchell’s conclusion aboutthe importance of the fornaldarsögur is, however, correct, if we understand it tomean the importance of the heroes presented by these texts. Like Norna-Gests19

þáttr, the annal entry offers a double comparison, between Sigurðr and Starkaðron the one hand and between the pagan heroes and the central figures of Chris-tianity on the other. But where both þáttr and annal entry imply a differencebetween Sigurðr and Starkaðr by means of their tokens, the annal entry parts com-pany with the þáttr in implying no difference between Sigurðr and the saints.

Þorsteins þáttr skelks

Sigurðr and Starkaðr are also contrasted in another embedded þáttr, Þorsteinsþáttr skelks, which is dated to around 1300 (Finnur Jónsson 1920–23, II, 752–53).

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It is found only in the Flateyjarbók redaction of Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar, where itis inserted just before Þiðranda þáttr ok Þorhalls, an earlier interpolation intoÓláfs saga Tryggvasonar en mesta. Jón Þórðarson, the editor-scribe of theFlateyjarbók Óláfs saga, may have chosen this location for Þorsteins þáttr skelksbecause the two þættir share a similar motif, as will be discussed below.

Þorsteins þáttr skelks recounts how one night King Óláfr orders his men not togo to the outhouse alone. When the need arises, the Icelander Þorsteinn is unableto awaken a companion, and he is at the privy by himself when a demon pops upthrough the seat farthest away. Þorsteinn asks it about hell and is told that thehero Sigurðr Fáfnisbani endures his torments most bravely, while Starkaðr en-dures his the worst. Þorsteinn asks what that sounds like, and the demon emitshideous cries. This awakens the King, who has the church bells rung, thus drivingthe demon away. The next day Óláfr asks which of his men disobeyed his orders,and Þorsteinn confesses. The King asks if he was afraid. Þorsteinn replies that hedoes not know what it is to be afraid, but that the demon’s third cry did cause ashudder (skelkr) in his breast. The King gives him this as a nickname, and Þor-steinn becomes his retainer and eventually dies with him at the battle of Svo3 lðr.

Although the larger point of Þorsteins þáttr skelks is to show how Óláfr pro-tects those who trust in him from the devil, it also deploys the figures of Sigurðrand Starkaðr to represent the spiritually positive and negative aspects of theheathen age. In contrast to Norna-Gests þáttr, which uses the battlefield to elicitthe behaviours by which these two warriors are judged, Þorsteins þáttr skelks useshell. The fact that Sigurðr endures his sufferings well shows him to be the ‘good’pagan hero, and conversely Starkaðr’s shrieks and bellows show him to be lackingin moral fibre (Harris 1976, 14; Lindow 1986).

The placement of Þorsteins þáttr skelks before Þiðranda þáttr ok Þorhalls mayhave been suggested by the tales’ shared motif. In the former King Óláfr warns hismen not to go to the privy alone; in the latter Þórhallr warns the guests at Hallr’sfeast not to go outdoors. The protagonists’ fates show the value of the true faith,for the Christian Þorsteinn ignores the warning but escapes danger with Óláfr’shelp. The pagan Þiðrandi also ignores the warning but is slain by the dark-clotheddísir, who are the malevolent spirit manifestations of members of Hallr’s family,angry because they know they will be rejected for a new religion. Light-clotheddísir ride to the rescue, but they arrive too late. Jón’s insertion of Þorsteins þáttradds to the poignancy of Þiðranda þáttr by hinting that Þiðrandi’s death couldhave been avoided if only he had known to call on Óláfr for aid. Conversely,Þiðranda þáttr emphasizes the point of Þorsteins þáttr by showing Þorsteinn’speril; were it not for the King, he might have been killed. As Harris (1976, 14)

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See Rowe (2005a, 62–92) for a detailed analysis of these three þættir within the context of20

Flateyjarbók.

notes, ‘In form [Þorsteins þáttr skelks] is a farcical version of the kind of tragicencounter with evil presented by Þiðranda þáttr ok Þorhalls. Nevertheless, itsChristian message and values are serious.’

As with Norna-Gests þáttr, Margeson does not see a rigid moral frameworkconstructed around the pagan figure of Sigurðr in Þorsteins þáttr. In her view, thedemon’s reply that Sigurðr best endures the torments of hell ‘seems to evoke theimage of the triumphant hero rather than the punished sinner. The dialogueproceeds with a sense of the comic and the moralistic tone is rather diluted by theobvious delight in the story itself and its sinister humour’ (Margeson 1980, 210).The comic tone of the narrative is widely recognized, but I think that this percep-tion is a skewed one that comes from reading the þáttr out of context, as anindependent work. When it is read as part of the larger saga, its mood becomesconsiderably darker. I have already mentioned the interpretation that arises frompairing it with Þiðranda þáttr, but it is also productive to compare it to Þorsteinsþáttr uxafóts, another þáttr found only in the Flateyjarbók Óláfs saga Trygg-vasonar. This story also recounts the experiences of good and bad pagans in the20

afterlife, but because the episode about the dead pagans takes place in Icelandbefore the conversion, the Christian cosmos of heaven and hell is not invoked.Instead, we learn that in their afterlife, the evil pagans oppress their good brothersand demand tribute from them, until the ‘pre-Christian’ protagonist (who willlater be baptized at King Óláfr’s court) intervenes. Þorsteins þáttr skelks, however,takes place in Christian Norway, and so this episode unfolds in the Christianuniverse, where good and bad pagans alike suffer in hell. This underscores thereality that, like all pagans, Sigurðr and Starkaðr are hapless victims of theirunbelief, accident of history though it may be. Despite his virtues, Sigurðr muststill be damned for his ignorance of his Maker, and Starkaðr is victimized twiceover, for not only was he unwittingly ignorant of his Maker, but his evil deedswere not of his own choosing. The harsh logic of medieval Christianity held outno possibility of posthumous redemption for pagans, so that the momentarycomedy of Þorsteinn’s meeting with the demon in the privy — if it exists at all, forit is easy to imagine the encounter as a terrifying one — soon gives way to pity atthe thought of the handsome, noble Sigurðr suffering stoically for all eternity.Þorsteins þáttr skelks, Þiðranda þáttr, and Þorsteins þáttr uxafóts share with Norna-Gests þáttr the presentation of the heathen age as a time of tribulation and

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For a full discussion of this passage, see Rowe (2005a, 192–99).21

oppression even for the virtuous, in contrast to the rewards that Christians willreceive in this world and the next.

Jón Þórðarson makes this point explicitly in his explanation of why heincluded the didactic text Eiríks saga víðfo3rla as a kind of introduction to hisredaction of Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar:

En þui setti sa þetta euintyr fyst j þessa bok er hana skrifade at hann uill at huerr madr viteþat at ekki er traust trutt nema af gude þuiat þo at heidnir menn fai frægd mykla af sinumafreks verkum þa er þat mikill munr þa er þeir enda þetta hit stundliga lijf at þeir hafa þatekit sitt uerdkaup af ordlofui manna firir sinn frama en æigu þa von hegningar firir sinbroth ok tru leyse er þeir kunnu æigi skapara sinn. en hinir sem gude hafa vnnat ok þar allttraust haft ok barizst firir frelse heilagrar kristne en hafa þo af hinum vitrazstum monnumfæingit meira lof en þat at auk at mest er at þa er þeir hafa fram geingit vm almenniligardyr daudans sem ekki holld ma fordazst hafa þeir tekit sitt verdkaup þat er at skilia eilijftriki med allzualldanda gude vtan enda sem þesse æirekr sem nu var fra sagt. (GuðbrandurVigfússon and Unger 1860–68, I, 35–36)

(The one who wrote this book set this exemplum in it first because he wishes each manto know that there is no true faith except in God, because although heathen men may getmuch fame from their deeds of valour, there is a great difference when they end the lifeof this world, since they have then taken their reward from men’s praise for theiraccomplishments, but they have then the expectation of punishment for their violationsand faithlessness when they knew not their Creator. But those who have loved God andhad all faith and fought for the freedom of Holy Christianity have nevertheless receivedgreater praise from the wisest men. And this, too — which is greatest — that when theyhave gone forward through the common door of death, which the flesh may not escape,they have taken their reward, that is to say, the eternal kingdom with Almighty Godwithout end, like this Eiríkr, as was just described.)

Jón is as explicit about what he wants the reader to learn from Eiríks saga as he isabout its generic identity: there is no true faith except in God, and therefore thosewho fought for Christianity have accomplished better things and have receiveda better reward than pagans.21

Chapter 328 of Óláfs saga helga

Margeson finds only one instance of a moral judgement of Sigurðr, in an anecdotefound in three manuscripts of the expanded version of Snorri Sturluson’s separatesaga of St Óláfr (Óláfs saga helga sérstaka), which is dated to around 1300( Johnsen and Jón Helgason 1941, II, 839–40 and 1128–29). Unlike the other

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texts in which I see Sigurðr presented in positive ethical or moral terms, here heis clearly the object of disapproval, which Margeson (1980, 211) finds ‘entirely inkeeping with the nature of the saga of a missionary king’. To summarize the story:

The poet Sighvatr was staying with King Magnús and was always heavy-hearted becauseof St Óláfr’s death. When the time came when God wanted to call Sighvatr from thisworld, Sighvatr began to compose a drápa about St Óláfr, and he took the refrain fromthe saga of Sigurðr Fáfnisbani. Sighvatr came by ship to the island of Selja. When hearrived, it happened that the farmer who lived on the mainland across from the islandbecame very ill, so that he expected to die, and his wife sat by him with a sorrowful heart.And when the farmer’s strength began to wane, St Óláfr appeared to the farmer’s wife ina dream and said: ‘Now we shall trade tasks. I will sit by the farmer, and you go meetSighvatr, my poet, and tell him that I don’t want him to take the refrain of the drápa heis composing about me from the saga of Sigurðr; rather, I want him to take the refrainfrom Genesis.’ After this vision the housewife went to meet Sighvatr and told him whatthe King had told her, and after that she went home. And while she had been away, StÓláfr revealed himself to the farmer and healed him. Sighvatr then changed the drápa andtook the refrain from Genesis. After that Sighvatr fell quite ill. During this illness St Óláfrappeared to him, told him to go with him, and named the day he would come to him.When the day came that the King had named, Sighvatr recited two verses and died. Hisbody was brought north to Niðarós and was buried at Christ Church.

Like Norna-Gests þáttr, this episode models the ethical activity of seeking thebeneficial story and avoiding the harmful one, but unlike Óláfr Tryggvason, whodeemed some parts of the Vo3 lsung legend acceptable to Christians, St Óláfr rejectsSigurðr in favour of Scripture. The four moral interpretations of Sigurðr discussedhere span the spectrum of possibilities: Rauðs þáttr ignores the problem of hisheathenism and presents him as worthy of emulation by Christian kings such asHaraldr harðráði; Norna-Gests þáttr confronts the problem of his heathenism andpresents him as admirable to Christians, although not as admirable as a Christianruler like Emperor Clovis; Þorsteins þáttr skelks also confronts the problem of hisheathenism and presents him as the best man of the pagan age, although he ofcourse must burn in hell for his ignorance of his Maker; and ch. 328 of Óláfs sagahelga confronts the problem of his heathenism and condemns his appeal forChristians (as when Sighvatr thinks him an appropriate figure with which topraise St Óláfr) as sinful. Looking back on Þorsteins þáttr, we see the reason forthis — how can good possibly come from admiring the damned?

The Genealogical Texts

The idea that pagan gods and heroes were carved onto Christian monuments tothe dead because the deceased person considered him- or herself descended from

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For reviews of the arguments, see Schach (1993) and Arnold (2003, 159).22

The second redaction is represented by the text in Hauksbók, but this is now defective and23

lacks the first ten chapters.

For the genealogies mentioning Ragnarr loðbrók, see Rowe (forthcoming).24

them goes back to Collingwood (Calverley 1899, 195–96), who associated themspecifically with the family of the Northumbrian Earl Tostig. Although this par-ticular connection proved untenable, as these carvings are found in places whereTostig’s kinsmen never lived, Margeson (1983, 104–05 and 1993, 406a–b) revivesthe idea in a more general way for the Manx crosses. This is a plausible suggestion,for such beliefs are well attested in Old Norse literature (Faulkes 1978–79). As wewill see, the genealogical uses of Sigurðr endow him with a range of moral inter-pretations similar to those in the þættir, but in this context he is often paired withRagnarr loðbrók instead of Starkaðr. This is entirely to be expected, as Ragnarr’slegend has it that he married Sigurðr’s only child Áslaugr and had a number ofsons with her. Genealogies mentioning Sigurðr therefore always had the optionof including Ragnarr as well.

Fóstbrœðra saga

The age of Fóstbrœðra saga, a saga extant in two redactions that differ significantlyin style, has been much disputed. I follow those scholars who hold it to be frombefore 1200 (Rowe forthcoming), but arguments have been made for a late thir-teenth-century composition. In any case, ch. 2 of the Mo3ðruvallabók redaction22

gives this genealogy for Þorsteinn inn rauði:23

Móðir Álfs var Þórhildr Þorsteinsdóttir ins rauða, Óleifs sonar ins hvíta, Ingjalds sonar,Fróða sonar; móðir Ingjalds var Þóra, dóttir Sigurðar orms-í-auga; móðir Sigurðar varÁslaug, dóttir Sigurðar Fáfnisbana. (Björn K. Þórólfsson and Guðni Jónsson 1943, 124)

(Álfr’s mother was Þórhildr, daughter of Þorstein inn rauði, son of Óleifr inn hvíti, sonof Ingjaldr, son of Fróði. Ingjaldr’s mother was Þóra, the daughter of Sigurðr ormr-í-auga.Sigurðr’s mother was Áslaug, the daughter of Sigurðr Fáfnisbani.)

In contrast to the many Old Norse genealogies that emphasize Sigurðr ormr-í-auga’s paternity (he is the son of the famous Viking war-king Ragnarr lóðbrok),this one looks to Sigurðr’s mother, who was certainly famous in her own right asthe daughter of Sigurðr Fáfnisbani. This may be due to the Christian theme of the24

saga, for Fóstbræðra saga deals with an Icelander who is one of the court poets of St

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Óláfr and who is so devoted to the King that he will not be parted from him even indeath, and not long after the battle in which they are both killed, signs of the King’ssanctity are manifested. As Sigurðr Fáfnisbani was frequently considered to be thenoblest man of the pagan age, spiritual concerns may have led the author of Fóst-bræðra saga to privilege Þorsteinn’s descent from Sigurðr over his descent fromRagnarr. However, it was quite possible for a saga author to take the opposite tackwith respect to Sigurðr, as we saw in the episode from Óláfs saga helga, and so itwill be in the case of Njáls saga, which mentions both Sigurðr and Ragnarr.

Njáls saga

The famous Njáls saga, written in the late thirteenth century, is the firstÍslendingasaga to imply a view of Sigurðr as tainted by paganism. Ch. 14 gives thisinformation about the strong-willed Hallgerðr:

En um sumarit fœddi hon [i.e. Hallgerðr] meybarn. Glúmr spurði Hallgerði, hvat heitaskyldi. ‘Hana skal kalla eptir fo3ðurmóður minni ok skal heita Þorgerðr, því at hon varkomin frá Sigurði Fáfnisbana í fo3ðurætt sína at langfeðgato3 lu.’ (Einar Ól. Sveinsson1954, 46)

(And during the summer she [i.e. Hallgerðr] gave birth to a girl-child. Glúmr asked Hall-gerðr what she should be named. ‘She shall be called after my father’s mother and shall benamed Þorgerðr, because in the reckoning of ancestry she was descended from SigurðrFáfnisbani on her father’s side.’)

Given what we know of Hallgerðr’s character — she is beautiful but has ‘þjófs-augu’ (Einar Ól. Sveinsson 1954, 7) (thief’s eyes), and she is so proud that she willallow a later husband to be killed because he had slapped her — it seems entirelyin keeping that she should look back to her heroic ancestry, distant as it is, andrevive the connection in the name of her first child. Hallgerðr is not one of theadmirable figures in this saga, so her active preference here for an association withpagan heroism is most likely to be understood in negative terms.

Njáls saga also makes reference to certain Icelanders’ descent from Ragnarrloðbrók, but in contrast to Fóstbræðra saga, descent from Ragnarr is considered amark of nobility. In chapter 138, Bjarni Brodd-Helgason and Flosi Þórðarson aretrying to persuade Eyjólfr Bolverksson to support them:

Eyjólfr mælti: ‘Hér er nú gott mannval á þinginu, ok mun yðr lítit fyrir at finna þá menn,er yðr er miklu meiri styrkr at en hér, sem ek em.’ Bjarni mælti: ‘Þat er ekki svá, því at þúhefir marga þá hluti til, at engi er þér meiri maðr hér á þinginu. Þat er fyrst, at þú ert ættaðrsvá vel sem allir eru, þeir er komnir eru frá Ragnari loðbrók. Hafa forellrar þínir ávallt ístórmælum staðit bæði á þingum ok svá heima í heraði, ok ho3fðu þeir jafnan meira hlut;

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þykkir oss því líkligt til, at þú munir vera sigrsæll í málum sem frændr þínir.’ Eyjólfr svarar:‘Vel talar þú, en lítit ætla ek, at ek muna í eiga.’ (Einar Ól. Sveinsson 1954, 367)

(Eyjólfr said, ‘There is a good choice of men here at the Thing, and it should be a smallmatter for you to find those men who are a much greater support to you than I am.’Bjarni said: ‘That is not so, because you have many qualities that show that no man hereat the Thing is greater than you. This is first, that you are nobly born, as all are who aredescended from Ragnarr loðbrók. Your forebears have always had a part in importantmatters, both at the Thing and at home in their district, and they have always beensuccessful. It seems to us therefore that it is likely that you will be blessed with victory likeyour kinsmen.’ Eyjólfr answers, ‘You speak well, but I little expect that I would.’)

This passage, in which Bjarni flatters Eyjólfr by saying that everyone who isdescended from Ragnarr loðbrók is nobly born, gives the author’s contemporaryperspective on Ragnarr and the claims to be descended from him. It shows thatthe author believed that at least some Icelanders were quite proud of their descentfrom Ragnarr loðbrók, for if that were not the case, Bjarni’s remark would havebeen mockery rather than flattery. We cannot tell whether the author thoughtthis true of saga-age Icelanders, or whether he was projecting his contemporaries’pride back onto saga-age figures. Certainly by the time Njáls saga was composed,many prominent Icelanders traced their ancestry back to Ragnarr (Roweforthcoming), whereas few seemed to want to claim a connection to Sigurðr, forhe is completely absent from Landnámabók and the many genealogies that includehis son-in-law Ragnarr.

Flóamanna saga

The Íslendingasögur’s negative view of Sigurðr is continued in the early four-teenth-century Flóamanna saga, which unlike Njáls saga views Ragnarr loðbróknegatively as well. One of the central events of the life of the protagonist of thisatypical Íslendingasaga is his conversion to Christianity and subsequent victimiza-tion by an angry Þórr, the pagan god whom he used to worship. Flóamanna sagasets the historical context with this account of the ancestry of Haraldr hárfagri:

Síðan fekk Hálfdan konungr Ragnhildar, dóttur Sigurðar konungs hjartar. Áslaug varmóðir Sigurðar hjartar, dóttir Sigurðar orms-í-auga, Ragnars sonar loðbrókar. MóðirSigurðar orms-í-auga var Áslaug, dóttir Sigurðar Fáfnisbana Sigmundarsonar, Vo3 lsungs-sonar, Rerssonar, Sigarssonar, Óðins sonar, er réð fyrir Ásgarði. (Þórhallur Vilmundarsonand Bjarni Vilhjálmsson 1991, 231)

(Then King Hálfdan [the Black] married Ragnhildr, daughter of King Sigurðr hjo3rtr. Themother of Sigurðr hjo3rtr was Áslaug, daughter of Sigurðr ormr-í-auga, the son of Ragnarrloðbrók. The mother of Sigurðr ormr-í-auga was Áslaug, daughter of Sigurðr Fáfnisbani,

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For the interpretation of Ragnars saga loðbrókar, see Rowe (forthcoming).25

the son of Sigmundr, son of Vo3 lsung, son of Rerir, son of Sigi, son of Óðinn, who ruledover Ásgarðr.)

This genealogy, which concludes with a sentence about Haraldr hárfagri, the sonof Hálfdan and Ragnhildr, combines Heimskringla’s account of her descent fromRagnarr loðbrók with Vo3lsunga saga’s account of the ancestry of Sigurðr Fáfnisbani,her maternal grandfather. Haraldr’s reign is a frequent starting point for sagasabout Icelanders, whose forefathers were supposedly motivated by Haraldr’s tyrannyto leave Norway, but here the emphasis on the Norwegian royal dynasty’s heritagefrom pagan gods and heroes lends an extra, didactic dimension to the story of anIcelander who returns to Norway to claim an inheritance. That is, Flóamannasaga underscores the usual political values in the binary opposition of Norway andIceland with religious parallels: Norway and its rulers are associated with paganism,whereas Icelanders welcome Christianity. Like Ragnars saga loðbrókar, Flóamannasaga uses the figure of Ragnarr himself to suggest the evils of heathenism, butunlike Fóstbrœðra saga, which seems to imply that of the two legendary heroesRagnarr and Sigurðr Fáfnisbani, Sigurðr is the proto-Christian, Flóamanna sagasuggests that Sigurðr Fáfnisbani as well as Ragnarr is to be shunned by Christians,evidently because of his descent from Óðinn, the foremost of the pagan gods.25

Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar en mesta

The beginning of Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar en mesta, written in the first quarter ofthe fourteenth century (Ólafur Halldórsson 1993, 449a), also includes SigurðrFáfnisbani among Haraldr hárfagri’s ancestors:

Moþir Haralldz harfagra var Ragnhilldr dottir Sigurdar hiartar. hans moþir var Aslaugdottir Sigurðar orms i auga. Ragnars sonar loð brokar. Modir Sigurdar orms i auga varAslaug dottir Sigurdar Fofnis bana. (Ólafur Halldórsson 1958, 1–2)

(The mother of Haraldr hárfagri was Ragnhildr, daughter of Sigurðr hjo3rtr. His motherwas Áslaug, daughter of Sigurðr ormr-í-auga, son of Ragnarr loðbrók. The mother ofSigurðr ormr-í-auga was Áslaug, daughter of Sigurðr Fáfnisbani.)

Like Flóamanna saga, Óláfs saga uses the genealogy from Heimskringla, whichtraces Ragnhildr’s descent from Ragnarr loðbrók and supplements it with theinformation that Sigurðr ormr-í-auga’s mother was the daughter of Sigurðr Fáf-nisbani. Unlike Flóamanna saga, however, Óláfs saga omits Sigurðr’s descent from

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Interestingly, Magnús also included the eddic poem Hyndluljóð, whose twenty-fourth26

stanza lists Sigurðr among the ancestors of Óttarr, among the texts he adds to the front ofFlateyjarbók. Found only in this manuscript, Hyndluljóð appears to be the product of the samekind of learned historical speculation that we see operating in Magnús’s prologue to Sverris sagaand his prefatory genealogies of Haraldr hárfagri (Rowe 2005a, 301–08).

Óðinn. Sigurðr is not mentioned again in the saga, so there is no direct evidenceon which we can base an ethical interpretation of his inclusion in Haraldr’sgenealogy. But as Haraldr is positioned as the great uniter of Norway and thefounder of the royal dynasty, we may suppose that his ancestor Sigurðr is likewiseto be considered morally positive.

The Flateyjarbók Genealogies of Haraldr hárfagri

Flateyjarbók includes the above genealogy of Haraldr hárfagri in its redaction ofÓláfs saga Tryggvasonar en mesta, but it also contains two other genealogies ofHaraldr that mention Sigurðr. These were compiled by the manuscript’s secondredactor, Magnús Þórhallsson, around 1390 (Rowe 2005a, 330–36). Magnúscopied several genealogies of Haraldr among the texts that he added to the frontof the manuscript, and the one that mentions Sigurðr is rubricated ‘Ættartala fraHaud’ (Guðbrandur Vigfússon and Unger 1860–68, I, 24) (Line of Descent FromHo3ðr). Here Sigurðr appears in the line of descent from King Lofði to Haraldrhárfagri’s mother, Ragnhildr. Magnús also expanded the prologue to his redactionof Sverris saga with a genealogy of Haraldr hárfagri that includes Sigurðr (Rowe2005a, 212–22). Here Sigurðr’s ancestry is traced back to Óðinn and then fromÓðinn to King Priam of Troy, from Priam to Saturn, from Saturn to Noah, andfrom Noah to Adam. Magnús did not write or copy anything more about Sigurðrin his part of Flateyjarbók, so most likely these two genealogies are to be under-stood in the same way as the genealogy in Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar en mesta, thatis to say, as morally positive and meant to convey the nobility and antiquity ofHaraldr hárfagri’s lineage.26

Conclusion

Collating the above examples yields the following chronology for the variousinterpretations of Sigurðr:• Circa 900: The narrative Atlakviða tells part of the Vo3 lsung legend.

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The latest Manx cross with motifs from the Vo3 lsung legend seems to be the one from27

Ramsey (now Maughold 122 [96]). Margeson (1983, 100) puts its date as ‘probably closer to theyear 1000’, as it has elements of the Mammen style in its decoration.

The earliest stave church with the image of Sigurðr is agreed to be Hylestad I (Setesdal).28

Blindheim (1965, captions for figures 197 and 198) dates it to between 1175 and 1200, Anker(1970, 409) puts it in the last decades of the twelfth century or the earliest part of the thirteenthcentury, and Hohler (1999, 102–03) argues for around 1200.

• Second half of the tenth century:• Four pagan memorial stones in Sweden may use the image of Sigurðr to

indicate a genealogical connection with him or to praise the deceased bycomparison to him.

• The earliest crosses from the Isle of Man and northern England with theimage of Sigurðr may use this image to indicate a genealogical connectionwith him, praise the deceased by comparison to (or association with) him,or figure him as an antetype of Christ.

• Third quarter of the tenth century: Eiríksmál praises Eiríkr by placing him inthe company of the Vo3 lsungs.

• Late tenth century: The conversion of Norway begins.• 999 or 1000: The conversion of Iceland.• Early eleventh century: The latest cross from the Isle of Man with the image

of Sigurðr may use this image to indicate a genealogical connection with him,praise the deceased by comparison to (or association with) him, or figure himas an antetype of Christ.27

• Eleventh century: Illugi Bryndœla’s poem about Haraldr hárfagri praisesHaraldr by comparing him to Sigurðr.

• Second quarter of the eleventh century: The conversion of Norway iscompleted.

• 1152 or 1153: Establishment of the archdiocese of Niðarós.• Fourth quarter of the twelfth century: This is one suggested date of composition

for Fóstbræðra saga, which positions Sigurðr as a distinguished ancestor of Ice-landers. Also at this time, the earliest Norwegian stave church with the imageof Sigurðr uses this image as the dragon-slaying protector of the entrance.28

• Circa 1200:• Rauðs þáttr presents Sigurðr as a paragon of warrior princes and a suitable

example on which Christian kings could model themselves.• Sneglu-Halla þáttr takes Sigurðr as an object of satire.

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Lårdal is thought to be the latest stave church with the image of Sigurðr; see Anker (1970,29

414–15).

Guðrún Nordal (2001, 337–38) identifies the period between 1150 and 1250 as the height30

of the Vo3 lsung legend’s popularity, but the composition of Vo3lsunga saga around 1260–70suggests that her hundred-year span should be increased by at least a quarter-century.

• Thirteenth century: The latest Norwegian stave church with the image ofSigurðr uses this image as the dragon-slaying protector of the entrance.29

• Circa 1260–70: Vo3lsunga saga describes Sigurðr as the best of men in Scandi-navia in ancient times.

• Late thirteenth century: Njáls saga presents Sigurðr as a pagan ancestor ofIcelanders and implies that the pagan heroism he represents is incompatiblewith Christian morality.

• Circa 1300:• Þorsteins þáttr skelks presents Sigurðr as a virtuous pagan necessarily con-

demned to hell.• The expanded Óláfs saga helga presents Sigurðr as a pagan hero unsuitable

as a means of praising Christian kings.• Early fourteenth century:

• Norna-Gests þáttr shows Sigurðr to be the best of pagan heroes but not asgood as a Christian king.

• Flóamanna saga presents Sigurðr as a pagan ancestor of the Kings of Norwayand implies that his descendants are tainted by their descent from Óðinn.

• First quarter of the fourteenth century: Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar en mestapresents Sigurðr as the noble ancestor of the Kings of Norway.

• Circa 1390: The Flateyjarbók genealogies of Haraldr hárfagri present Sigurðras the noble ancestor of the Kings of Norway.

• Early fifteenth century: The Lo3gmannsannáll entry for 1405 presents Sigurðras a noble pagan.

Several important developments reveal themselves from this information. Theinterest in Sigurðr as an ancestor may date from as early as the second half of thetenth century and certainly continues through the Middle Ages. Negative views ofSigurðr are not found until late in the thirteenth century, but ethically positive viewsof Sigurðr are generated from the late Viking Age through the late Middle Ages.30

Typological interpretations of Sigurðr, if they existed, seem to be products ofrecently converted cultures (a description that Anker 1970, 418 argues alsoapplies to the Norwegian church through the twelfth century). Icelandic litera-ture, although well able to make unorthodox typologies, preserves no explicit

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For example, Oddr Snorrason (Finnur Jónsson 1932, 1) declared that Óláfr Tryggvason31

prefigured St Óláfr, just as John the Baptist prefigured Christ.

typological interpretations of Sigurðr, in contrast to the explicit ethical and moralinterpretations discussed above.31

However, several implied interpretations of Sigurðr as an antetype of Christ havebeen argued. For example, Bergur Þorgeirsson (1997, 77) has suggested that Gestr’srelationship to his master Sigurðr is meant to suggest the relationship between theapostles and Christ. I myself see an interpretatio christiana of the Sigurðr legendin Laxdaela saga, where Kjartan’s meek, Christ-like death is paralleled by Guð-rún’s devoutness in her old age, and the Christian elements in turn are balancedby the pagan heroic subtext, in which Kjartan plays the role of the innocentSigurðr Fáfnisbani and Guðrún is the vengeful Brynhildr (Rowe 2005b, 169).Finally, Harris (1996, 120) has suggested that the arrangement of the CodexRegius manuscript of eddic poetry into ‘a two-part book deeply imbued with asense of history as a succession of ages’ is due to conscious imitation of the Bible.If this is so, then the first part of the manuscript, with its poems about the pagangods, would correspond to the Old Testament, and the second part, with itspoems about human heroes, would correspond to the New Testament — andSigurðr, as the foremost of those heroes, betrayed by men he should have been ableto trust, would correspond to Christ. Narratives that have an additional level ofmeaning through their use of biblical patterns are common in medieval literature,but it is significant that Icelandic authors who seem to be offering Sigurðr as amoral example preferred to do so through the technique of juxtaposition and veryoften the use of a frame narrative that guides readers’ ethical assessment ofSigurðr. They do not leave it up to readers to identify a biblical narrative pattern,apply it to Sigurðr, and draw their own conclusions about him.

Comparison of the visual and literary uses of Sigurðr reveals a limited degreeof overlap: only the categories of ‘noble ancestor’ and ‘a way to bestow praise’ arefound in (or proposed for) both artefacts and texts. ‘Dragon-slaying protector ofChristianity’ and ‘Antetype of Christ’ are interpretations only of the artefacts;conversely, the various moral and ethical interpretations and ‘object of satire’ arefound only in the textual examples. One interesting difference between the visualand the literary deployment of the figure of Sigurðr is that the texts sometimespresent him in negative terms, which the artefacts never seem to do. Of course, theliterary material extends later into the Middle Ages than the artefacts do, and itmight be that the negative interpretation is a development of the later MiddleAges. It might also be that the absence of artefacts is itself indication of a negative

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interpretation. That is, if Sigurðr is damned for his paganism, then there is noreason to depict him. However, medieval art often portrayed hell and the damned,so negative interpretations of Sigurðr could still be expected to be found there.

Table 1. Distribution of Functions and InterpretationsFunction or Interpretation Proposed for Sigurðr Artefacts Texts

Dragon-slaying protector of Christianity 5

Antetype of Christ 5?a

Noble ancestor 9? 3b

A way to bestow praise (by comparison or association) 9? 2b

Paragon of princes and model for Christian kings 1

The best of pagan heroes but not as good as a Christian king 1

Virtuous pagan necessarily condemned to hell 1

Ancestor tainted by paganism 2

Comparison with Sigurðr not appropriate for Christian kings 1

Object of satire 1a. This assumes the same interpretation of Sigurðr for all crosses.b. This assumes the same interpretation of Sigurðr for all crosses and all memorial stones.

Table 1 does not include a category of ‘secular image’. This is because — giventhe nature of both pagan Germanic society and medieval Christian society, whichin their own ways both saw man as inseparable from a world of natural and super-natural (or spiritual) powers — it seems inconceivable to me that any culturalproduction of the Viking Age or the Middle Ages could be ‘secular’ in the modernsense of something to which religious considerations are thought wholly irrele-vant. Many medieval narratives, such as fabliaux and romances, seem to be secularentertainment, and objects such as tapestries and drinking-horns decorated withimages of Sigurðr certainly were intended for secular contexts, but I would hazardthat their largest context of reception does indeed involve religion, morality, orethical interpretation. With respect to Anglo-Saxon culture, ‘secularization’ or‘secularity’ might be a misleading term for what Wormald (1978) describes. If StWilfred with his retinue behaved more like Beowulf than like the humble BishopAidan, who preferred to walk rather than ride, it is because that kind of lordly dis-play, military leadership, and royal generosity was ‘a natural function of the placeof bishops in society’ (Wormald 1978, 55). That is, Bede certainly considered thepractices of secular lordship inappropriate for a bishop, but men from the Anglo-Saxon royal house who persisted in those practices after becoming bishops werenot rejecting Christianity in favour of ‘secularity’ but were simply manifesting and

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Sawyer (1989, 143) seems to imply a typological interpretation of the stave-church portal32

images of Sigurðr when he states that ‘some [pagan myths and stories] that were well adapted toillustrate Christian doctrine were used in decorating churches’, but he does not specify which doc-trine he has in mind or how the Vo3 lsung legend could illustrate it.

maintaining their authority in the customary ways, which happened to have beenhanded down from the pre-Christian period.

Moving from secularization to interpretatio christiana, it is worth asking if thecomparison of the artefacts and the texts provides any evidence in support of thesuggestion that, on Viking-Age crosses, Sigurðr might have been understood as anantetype of Christ. Margeson (1983, 105) finds such interpretations of Sigurðr32

‘far-fetched’, and Bailey, after having ventured deep into typological waters inreading Sigurðr’s consumption of the dragon’s heart as prefiguring the Eucharisticrite (Bailey 1980, 125), five years later exhibits some anxiety about the ‘all-consuming maw of medieval Christianity’ (Bailey 1985, 61). He therefore bor-rows Wormald’s ideas about the ‘secularization’ of Anglo-Saxon culture toidentify these images as ‘secular’ (1985, 61), a position that is endorsed by Hadley(1996, 127). I would argue that the literary examples provide two kinds of evi-dence relevant to this issue. The first pertains to the social functions of the imageof Sigurðr. Pagan Scandinavians did use the figures of Sigurðr and the Vo3 lsungsas a way to praise the dead, as Margeson (1980, 185–95) and Fuglesang (1993,697b) have noted, and a number of Christian Scandinavians counted Sigurðramong their ancestors, so probably pagan Scandinavians did as well. Given thepagan examples of the Vo3 lsung legend being associated with the afterlife (e.g. inEiríksmál and on the Swedish memorial stones), it seems most likely that theViking-Age crosses depicting Sigurðr continue this tradition and do not presenthim as a type of Christ. This brings me to the second kind of evidence providedby the literary examples, which is their frequent use of juxtaposition as a mech-anism for invoking ethical activity. Sigurðr is paired with Harald hildito3nn orRagnarr loðbrók or is contrasted with Ragnarr or Starkaðr or Emperor Clovis; ineach case, the reader or listener is very probably supposed to think about therelationship implied by the juxtaposition. Where Viking-Age crosses employ thistechnique — as when Óðinn seems to counterbalance a Christian figure on theKirk Andreas Cross, or when the carving of the Crucifixion on the GosforthCross is accompanied with depictions of the punishment of Loki, Viðarr slayingFenrir, and Heimdallr sounding his horn — it seems most likely that a religiousrelationship is intended (Bailey 1985, 61; Hines 1989, 450–55). The crosses fromMan and northern England, however, do not pair Sigurðr with any figure from

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outside the Vo3 lsung legend, one more reason for rejecting a figurative interpreta-tion of him in that particular context.

This line of reasoning underscores the value of an interdisciplinary approachto Viking-Age and medieval Scandinavia. It has often been the case that differentassumptions have been brought to the study of a narrative than have been broughtto the depiction of that narrative in art. Interpretations of visual arts from thisperiod tend to be reductionist, in that each image from a narrative is treated ashaving a single, basic, relatively simple meaning, perhaps because the appearanceof the image is itself stylized and relatively simple. In contrast, when the sameimage is rendered textually, interpretations of it accept the possibility or even theinevitability of complex meaning (for example polysemy, aporia, ambiguity, orirony). Yet the visual artwork is in some sense even more ambiguous than art inwords, being abstracted from a narrative that we cannot know directly and lackingthe secondary information that texts often provide, such as meaningful details,comments by characters in the story, and comments by the author. The assump-tion cannot be that art is inherently simple to understand; instead, I would guessthat a lack of information on the part of the modern scholar is being projectedback onto the object of study. Confronted with an object that does not explainitself, as texts appear to do, scholars turn to something like Occam’s razor and seekthe simplest explanations: life, death, human relationships. Rereading texts andimages together forces a productive reconsideration of our assumptions aboutmeaning, context, and function.

This line of reasoning also raises questions about the images of Sigurðr on theNorwegian stave-church portals, for there he clearly seems to be intended to beunderstood in some relationship to Christianity, but yet his story is presented byitself and is not paired with anything else. Here I would suggest that in some senseSigurðr is paired with the church itself. One might object that such thinkinginvalidates my argument that the appearance of Sigurðr on Viking-Age crossesdoes not imply some relationship to Christianity, for is it not just as possible topair Sigurðr with a cross as with a church? In fact, the Viking-Age crosses and theNorwegian stave churches are not comparable in this regard. As mentioned above,Anker (1970, 418) sees the twelfth-century Norwegian Church as independentfrom the Church of Rome in a number of respects. For example, it had woodenchurches built at a time when canonical rule required churches to be built instone, a development that Anker considers as no more and no less astonishingthan the clerical acceptance of pagan themes as a normal iconographical schemefor portal sculpture. In Anker’s view, the spiritual climate in which it was thoughtappropriate to express Christian concepts in terms of pagan mythology eventually

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Hohler (1999, 57) asserts that around 1200, when the Hylestad stave church was con-33

structed, ‘it really is impossible to see the Church bending to local “pagan” whims’. Comparativeevidence would seem to support Anker, for Bennett (1999, 45) shows that seven centuries afterPope Gregory I had advised his missionaries to the Anglo-Saxons to convert pagan temples intoChristian churches, English ‘peasants were still stubbornly fond of folk customs, and the clergywere still accommodating Christian beliefs to rural traditions’.

In addition to and much earlier than the 1405 annal entry, there is the description of the34

pilgrimage route from Iceland to Rome, written c. 1155 by Nikúlas Bergsson, abbot of theBenedictine monastery of Þverá. Among the sites of interest, Nikúlas includes the heath where

came to an end when the establishment of an archdiocese in Norway broughtabout the closer relations between Norway and Rome. The difference between33

the stave churches in Norway and the Viking-Age crosses in Britain is that thestave churches represent not the first wave of collision between pagan and Chris-tian, as the crosses do, but the second wave, for the stave churches with portalsdecorated with the Vo3 lsung legend replaced earlier churches from the eleventhcentury, which had rotted from having been built directly on the ground (Blind-heim 1965, 3). The decorative programme of the twelfth-century churches wasclearly more sophisticated than that of the tenth-century crosses, for it assumesprior knowledge about the role of dragon-slayers in Christian theology andhagiography. That is, without such knowledge, it would have been unintelligibleto put Sigurðr in a location where St Michael or St George would ordinarily befound. In this context, unlike all the others discussed so far, Sigurðr’s paganism isset aside (Byock 1990b, 620). He functions purely as a substitute, a ScandinavianSt George rather than a pagan antetype of St George. In contrast, the Viking-Agecrosses use juxtaposition to encourage thinking about the relationship betweenthe pagan and Christian scenes shown. The sophistication of the decorative pro-gramme of the stave churches may also have had a political component: Byock(1990a, 7–8) suggests that the Norwegian preference for Sigurðr over St Michaelmay have been due to the fact that St Michael was a guardian angel of the Danes,the Baltic Germans, and the Ottonian rulers of the Holy Roman Empire, whereasSigurðr was regarded as an ancestor of the Norwegian royal house and thus mighthave been a more suitable champion for Norwegian Christians.

Margeson (1980, 208–11) cautions against giving an exaggerated significanceto the appearance of heroic material on church doorways and furnishings, arguingthat it does not appear to have had any allegorical or symbolic significance becausethat would have been incompatible with the medieval belief in Sigurðr’s histori-city. This is not quite right; it is true that Sigurðr never seems to have been34

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Sigurðr killed Fáfnir (Kålund 1908, 13) and the location of the snake pit in which Gunnarr died(1908, 16).

Blindheim (1965, 31) hints at the importance or significance of these decorations when he35

points out that ‘the doorways [. . .] are undoubtedly the most important decorated parts of thestave churches, indeed in several cases they are the only parts with any decoration to speak of’.

In another example of this theme, Anker (1970, 410) sees the attack by evil on Christianity36

symbolized ‘in a general way’ by the imagery on the portal of the Hemsedal stave church, whichat the bottom of the left jamb has an image of two hands gripping the necks of two snakes, whichsink their fangs into vine stems.

understood allegorically, but that does not mean that his image had no extraliteralsignificance at all. It is quite clear from the textual examples that Sigurðr was35

presented as standing in some moral relationship to Christianity. The medievalbelief in his historicity strengthens this, if anything, for to the medieval way ofthinking, one of the uses of history was to provide guidance for the current age:the past furnished numerous examples of people whose behaviour should beavoided, as well as examples of people whose behaviour should be emulated. Mar-geson is correct in saying that there is no indication of a rigid moral frameworkconstructed around Sigurðr, for indeed he is viewed sometimes positively andsometimes negatively. She is also correct in saying that Sigurðr and Gunnarr neverappear as Christian heroes, ‘though it is possible that their deeds were related ina general way to the theme of good fighting evil in the shape of dragon andserpents’ (Margeson 1980, 211). This might well be their primary meaning for36

the church-portal carvings, as she suggests, but their meaning in the literature ismorally much more complex. Pace Margeson, Sigurðr does appear as a punishedsinner (Margeson 1980, 210), but he also illustrates the qualities of beauty,strength, courage, and loyalty to kin and king. Hohler (1971–72) points out thatheroic motifs of various kinds were not unusual on church portals in Europe atthis time, and she concludes that they (and the images of Sigurðr) have no obviousChristian message. More recently, she proposes that the decorative program of theHylestad portal might originally have been designed for a ‘profane’ building suchas a nobleman’s hall (Hohler 1999, 57–58). Sigurðr would in this case symbolizepower and prestige or dignity, and as this symbolism on churches would not havebeen considered offensive, the decorative programme was accordingly reused.Apart from the objection that no Norwegian halls from this period have beenfound with such carvings, I would reply that heroic motifs could well have had amoral significance, regardless of whether they were situated in a religious contextor a secular one. Moreover, we find juxtaposition — and hence an implied

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Blindheim (1973, 24) extends this argument to a carving from the church at Nes, which37

juxtaposes a Sigurðr scene with Christological symbols.

Blindheim (1965, 3) argues that ‘the fact that the same type of doorway was spread over38

very extensive territories within a span of a few decades can only be explained if we assume thatthese richly decorated parts of the stave churches were made with the help and advice of thechurch authorities’. See also Anker (1970, 417).

Starkaðr Stórvirksson and Ragnarr loðbrók, with whom Sigurðr was sometimes compared39

and contrasted, were also believed to have been real people; see Guðrún Nordal (2001, 86).

Bertelsen (2004) notes that the narrative of Sigurðr as depicted on stave-church portals is40

deliberately truncated to strengthen the resemblance with St Michael: the sequence of images endswith the killing of Fáfnir, rather than with Sigurðr’s own death.

‘Christian message’ — used in the decorative programmes of other parts oftwelfth-century Norwegian churches. For example, the west face of a marblecapital from a church in Lunde (Telemark) depicts Sigurðr’s slaying of Fáfnir(Margeson 1980, 201–04), and the east face depicts Samson’s fight with the lion.Noting the medieval interpretation of Samson as a parallel of Christ, Blindheim(1973, 24) sees this juxtaposition as giving a new dimension to our understandingof the Sigurðr scene, and he concludes that Sigurðr, too, may have been seen as aparallel of Christ (1973, 26).37

Yet although the issue of Sigurðr’s paganism is set aside by the clerics whoauthorized the decorations of Norwegian churches, it is not ignored, as the caseof Þiðreks saga shows. This narrative from around 1200 is most likely a Norwe-38

gian adaptation of a German text (Andersson 1986, 356–57). The translatorapparently stayed fairly close to his original (the term ‘adaptation’ is used becausethe copyists of the translation rearranged the order of the parts), but one of thechanges he did make was to omit the German account of Sigurðr’s conversion toChristianity. Evidently the literary tradition manifested in the Icelandic texts,which unanimously identify him as a pagan, was strong enough that it was notpossible to make the leap from thinking of him as the Scandinavian St George tothinking of him as a Christian. At least part of the reason for this must be that theVo3 lsung legend — as a narrative — was a fixed, permanent element of the Scandi-navian cultural universe. Sigurðr never became an allegoricized representation ofsome abstract quality such as princeliness; instead, the genealogies show that hewas believed to have been a real person, and his story is invoked over and overagain. The stave-church portals give six scenes from the legend, Norna-Gests39

þáttr retells parts of it, and Rauðs þáttr, chapter 328 of Óláfs saga helga, and evenVo3lsunga saga itself refer not to Sigurðr’s deeds but to Sigurðr’s saga. We do not40

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For the date of GKS 2845 4to, see Norna-Gests þáttr in Degnbol and others (1989, 436).41

For the moral interpretations of Orms þáttr Stórólfssonar and Eiríks saga víðfo3rla, see Rowe(2005a, 87 and 192–96). For the moral interpretation of Yngvars saga víðfo3rla, see HermannPálsson and Edwards (1989, 2–7).

know whether by this time the story was known primarily from texts or was stillbeing transmitted through oral tradition, but in either case it seems that theengagement of the Icelanders and the Norwegians with this charismatic hero ofthe past was as constant as it was dynamic.

The manuscripts themselves provide further evidence of the interest in reli-gious interpretations of Sigurðr, for Vo3lsunga saga survives in only one manu-script, whereas Norna-Gests þáttr survives in five medieval manuscripts and Rauðsþáttr in nine (Degnbol and others 1989, 411, 346, and 359–60 respectively).Moreover, a manuscript such as GKS 2845 4to, a compilation from around 1450,shows that Icelanders took the responsibility of choosing the right text seriously,for this collection contains Norna-Gests þáttr and Rauðs þáttr in addition to Ormsþáttr Stórólfssonar, Yngvars saga víðfo3rla, and Eiríks saga víðfo3rla — all texts thatdraw attention to the moral aspects of their heroes. Indeed, these texts allowed41

devout readers to have their cake and eat it too, for the adventures recountedtherein are no less entertaining for being exemplary.

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Bibliography

Primary Sources

Björn K. Þórólfsson and Guðni Jónsson, eds. 1943. Vestfirðinga so3gur [. . .], Íslenzk fornrit 6,Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka fornritafélag

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