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Article Excerpt
MODERN SCHOLARSHIP on Gisla saga Surssonar has devoted a considerable amount of discussion to the women of Gisli's dreams. The precise function and nature of these women, however, have been somewhat obfuscated by their dual representation, namely in verse and in prose. Despite striking incongruities between these alternate accounts, modern scholars have tended to take the compiler's reading of the poetry at face value. When the dream stanzas are instead analyzed in isolation from the prose and with attention to their respective moods and religious functions, the juxtaposition of the two women suggests a dualistic afterlife strongly reminiscent of medieval Christian visionary literature. The images by which this afterlife and its proximity are heralded, however, are traditional northwestern European motifs. Thus a blend of Christian and vernacular elements appears to serve two motifs of warning: the warning of death follows a vernacular tradition while the didactic message of what follows is presented in a Christian duality.
PROSE AND VERSE
Although the various stanzas of a saga need not have followed the same route, Gisla saga (1) is a good example of the classical paradigm in which the compiler builds his prose narrative around preexisting verse. Since the poetry was thus typically not his own, its original intent may have often been unknown to him. Accordingly, the poetry in Gisla saga at times falls to correspond to the accompanying prose, signaling an imperfect merger. An instance of this incompatibility can be found in stanza 22:
Sagt hefk enn fra drum oddflaums vidum draumi, Eir, vardat mer, aura, ordfatt, es munk lata. Verr hafa vapna snerru vekjendr, peirs mik sekdu, brynju hatrs ens bitra beidendr, ef nu reidumk. (77) (Again have I told [warriors] of my dream, [woman], of when I will die; I did not run short of words. The [warriors] who outlawed me will have the worse of it if they make me angry now.) (2)
Despite the specific references in this verse, it is spoken in a virtual narrative vacuum. Both the beginning of the chapter and the prose following the stanza are characterized by the passing of time ("pegar er varar" (75) [as soon as it became spring]; "eru nu kyrr tidendi" (77) [things were now quiet]). The prose in between these temporal markers has Gisli move back to Geirpjofsfjordr, and it speaks of frequent dreams dominated by the evil dream woman. Gisli then recites two stanzas on the contents of his dreams, followed by stanza 22 quoted above. This verse, however, relates to dreams only inasmuch as the poet claims to have recounted his dream. Not only is there no reference to the content of the dream in question, but Gisli has never recounted any dreams of this group to oddflaums vidir, that is to warriors or men. The only comparable situation is when he tells his dream concerning Vesteinn's murder to Porkell, conceivably in the presence of others (chapter 14-). (3) That dream, however, survives only in the prose. The dreams involving female characters are told to Audr alone. Stanza 22 also refers to the poet's outlawry, news of which in the prose narration had reached Gisli three chapters earlier (chapter 21). There is, thus, no reason for him to bring it up again at this point in the narrative. It appears that a seam of the saga's structure is here visible, suggesting that the poetry and prose were not composed by a single author. More such inconsistencies can be found: O'Donoghue, for instance, has remarked on the discrepancies between prose and poetry following stanza 31, and similar considerations apply to at least one of the dream stanzas (see below, 12-4). It may thus safely be assumed that much of the poetry of Gisla saga predates the prose. (4)
When dealing with such a composite work, taking the saga as a unified whole is potentially misleading. This danger has found expression in O'Donoghue's acute observation that the dream poetry of Gisla saga never distinguishes explicitly between a good and an evil dream woman (162-3). The widespread assumption that it does derives chiefly from its proximity to the prose account, where such a distinction does exist. However, in order for the poetry to be understood, it has to be judged on its own merits. The present study will, therefore, consider the poetic account of the dream women separately in hopes of reconstructing the poetic narrative underlying the present amalgamation.
To begin, however, the unity of the poetic material will have to be probed. In spite of all the differences between the poetic and prose accounts of Gisli's dreams, there is indeed good reason to maintain the canonical distinction between a good and an evil dream woman on the basis of the poetry, as will be demonstrated below. The stanzas involving dreams can be divided into three groups: the good dream woman, the evil dream woman, and the foretelling of the poet's defeat in battle. The dream poetry is contained in stanzas 16-22, 25-7, and 29-38, although some scholars include stanza 40 (e.g. Olsen 277).
There are grounds for supposing that most or all of the dream poetry is interconnected, although no certainty is to be had on this point. The poetry associated with the evil dream woman is surely a unit, since the stanzas 21, 30, and 31 are nearly identical in both style and content. Moreover, this series of stanzas assumes a counterpart of good dreams, as is suggested in stanza 21, which tells that "eigi verdr ... gott or hverjum draumi" [not from every dream comes good] as though good dreams had already been narrated. The good dreams implied here are most likely to have been transmitted along with the bad dreams, since these clearly derive some of their meaning from the contrast. Additionally, these good dreams are more likely than not to form a structural counterpart to the evil dream woman, as indeed the good dreams embedded in the saga do. It may therefore be tentatively supposed that at least some of the good dream poetry found in the saga was transmitted along with the bad dream poetry, forming its logical counterpart.
The connection of the dream women with the dreams describing the poet's defeat in battle is arguably more tenuous. The battle poetry's strongest claim to affinity with the dream women resides in the verbal repetition of the form [hugdak/vissak + infinitive]. This sequence is found four or five times in the bat-de poetry (stanzas 32, 35-7 and perhaps 38), twice in the poetry associated with the evil dream woman (stanzas 30-1), and possibly once in the poetry associated with the good dream woman (again stanza 38). (5) As Krijn has noted, this formula is hardly a surprising element in poetry recounting dreams or visions, so it should not be lent too much weight (77). On the other hand, Krijn adds that it is not so widely attested in the opening phrase of a drottkvott stanza that its sevenfold recurrence in the poetry of Gisla is to be passed over as meaningless. It will thus have to be borne in mind that, unless the compiler has selected or manipulated his material to fit this pattern, (6) all three dream-poetic scenes in Gisla saga, and thus most of the 20 or so dream stanzas, may have originally belonged together. The battle poetry, however, is of no direct relevance to the present discussion. From this point on, the term "dream poetry" will be used exclusively with reference to the poetry involving the dream women.
CHRISTIAN IMPLICATIONS
One way of distinguishing between the good and the evil dream woman is by examining the voice and attitude toward the addressee--whose identity is never specified (7)--in conjunction with the theological implications of the verses, which problem has elicited considerable discussion. (8) Most relevant to the present study is the recognition that the dream poetry contains strong Christian elements (e.g. Kroesen 227; Morris 52-3). In Christian tropological terms, good will towards a person is indicative of the well-being of his or her soul, while malice may be expressed by an inclination toward the soul's perdition. In the dream poetry of Gisla saga, these are the characteristics that tell the women apart.
The vast majority of these poems is governed by an encouraging and positive mood, even when the concrete message of a stanza is the poet's death. Thus in stanza 17, the protagonist is informed that he has only a certain number of years left to live (the number seven is , in by stanza 16); but the mood of this verse is determined by the concluding observation "nu's skammt til betra" [improvement is not far off now], which offers the poet the prospect of an afterlife more desirable than his present condition. Although the notion of a pleasant afterlife is by no means restricted to Christianity, the contrast here expressed between implied present misery and future improvement in the afterlife is typically not so sharply expressed in non-Christian Scandinavian traditions. Thus the dream woman appears to be promising the poet a place in heaven.
Further religious encouragement is provided in stanzas 18 and 19. These verses take the form of moral instruction:
Gerskat nomr, kvad Nauma, nidleiks ara steikar orr, nema allgott heyrir, Idja galdrs, at skaldum. Fatt kveda fleyja brautar furpverranda verra, randar logs ens reynda runnr, an illt at kunna. (72) ("Do...
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