[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]bear s shape at night. As a result the story has become more meaning-
ful and acceptable to the standards of later ages, though at the same
time it has moved further away from religious belief and become more
of a fantasy. It has caused it to become closely associated with were-
wolf legends, which had become detached from folk-belief in Iceland
about this time, and changed through the influence of written (or maybe
oral) western European stories into stories of enchantment.1 By the
same process, reinterpretation as stories of enchantment, many of the
marvels of foreign stories were made more acceptable to Icelandic
audiences. Birds and beasts often appear in wonder-tales, and talk or
do things which need human intelligence to perform. Icelanders ex-
plain these things to themselves by saying that they are people under
spells. When human beings and trolls (or other monsters) are described
as falling in love, these latter are also said to be people under spells.
This motif thus solved many difficulties, relating both to native stories
based on early religious belief and to foreign stories of marvels, and I
guess that spells are much commoner in Icelandic wonder-tales than
in those of other countries.
Spells require an account of what led to their being cast. Bjarka
fláttr provides for this in exactly the same way as so many Icelandic
story-tellers did later, by using the stepmother motif, one of the most
popular motifs of romance of the time, which was available every-
where when such a need arose.
The extensive use of this story-motif as a solution for various diffi-
culties, together with its great effectiveness, made it extraordinarily
1
Among other motifs deriving from European stories about spells are
probably the wolf-skin glove and the ring under the bear s shoulder in Bjarka
fláttr.
ICELANDIC WONDER-TALES 247
common in Iceland in earlier times, as early written stories clearly
demonstrate. It is evident that this went so far that people began to
feel that enough was enough, and someone set to work and made up a
story about a good stepmother and perhaps also one about a bad
natural mother. We find this variation in some of the later wonder-
tales that are related to the story of Svipdagr. The stepmother is the
cause of all the evil in Grógaldr and Hjálmflérs saga, but in Himin-
bjargar saga (c.1700) it is the mother who puts the spell on her son
while the stepmother makes things easier for him, though the story is
somewhat ambivalent, as it says at the end that she had caused all the
trouble in order to save her kinsmen. In nineteenth-century stories of
this type it alternates; stepmother and stepson are usually on good
terms, but sometimes she is the unwitting cause of the troubles that
afflict him; sometimes he resorts to her in the difficulties he gets into
because of his mother. Another wonder-tale that illustrates the same
development is the story of Hildur the Good Stepmother.1 In some
versions of Vilfrí: ar saga the mother persecutes her daughter, and the
same variation appears in versions of the foreign wonder-tale related
to it (Snow-White).
Many other things besides the stepmother and the enchantment motifs
have been widespread and popular in wonder-tales told in Iceland, but
none has had as great an influence. The stepmother motif is more ob-
vious at first sight and there is more about it in the stories, but actually
it is the changes that result from spells that are more fundamental.
VII
I have touched earlier on proper names in wonder-tales. Names of
countries have become rather rare, though they were more common
earlier on. Then names of far-off places were normally used, some-
times derived from written sources, like Blálandseyjar, Blue Land
Islands (cf. Lagerholm DL 141).
Personal names are very varied. Some are as stereotyped as those of
characters in Holberg s comedies, where the maid is called Pernille
and the master Jeronimus. These are associated with type or class.
The prince is often called Sigur: ur, the princess Ingibjörg, the old
1
Verz. no. 728; English translation in European Folk Tales, ed. Laurits Bødker,
Christina Hole, G. D Aronco, 1963, 56 63. Cf. pp. 239 above and 302 below.
248 THE FOLK-STORIES OF ICELAND
cottager s son fiorsteinn, his daughters Ása, Sign! and Helga; the
wicked counsellor is Rau: ur. Some names are attached to particular
stories, like Brag: astakkur, Vilfrí: ur, Tístram and Ísól. Trolls names
are on the whole more varied, but usually of the same type as those in
ancient sources, such as Blávör and Járnhaus. Human women under
spells or other mysterious beings are called Blákápa, Grænkápa or
Rau: kápa and so on.
Not that the story-tellers were content with this. They adorn their
stories with all kinds of curious or strange names, as do the authors of
the courtly romances and the rímur of later times. A prince is called
Græ: ari, Jónídes or Agnedíus, and it can be very difficult to work out
the origins of these names. Vísijómfrú is adapted from the foreign
names Miseria, Miserimø and Mestermø. But what of Ki: hús the
hillock-dweller and Ki: uvaldi the mountain-dweller? And what is
Prince Hlini or Hlinur? Hardly the tree-name hlynur, maple . Líneik
is a kenning for a woman, which occurs among other places in Loftur
Guttormsson s Háttalykill (c.1410 20). Mærflöll is undoubtedly a
corruption of Mardöll, one of Freyja s names. Mja: veig is known only
from the folk-story, and I would not be surprised to find that it was
corruption of some other (possibly Celtic) name (cf. pp. 174 75 above).
The names Ísól bjarta and Ísól svarta remind us of the true and false
Guinever in Arthurian Poems, as well as, of course, the two Iseults in
the romance of Tristan. Overall the personal names in wonder-tales
are not lacking in oddness and variety.
It is sometimes possible to trace names some way back in time.
Many of the names that are firmly attached to specific nineteenth-
century stories are found in Ólands saga in the 1780s. Vi: finna or
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]zanotowane.pldoc.pisz.plpdf.pisz.plkajaszek.htw.pl
