SAGA-BOOK - Viking Society Web Publications

10 Saga-Book of the Viking Society
the playing of the harp - as he does to the taking
of Hialli's heart - as if the story were well known,
without elaboration or explanation. Gunnarr does
not play to still the snakes or to summon help, nor
are we told that he uses his toes because his hands are
fettered.P Such elaborations, found in other versions of
the story, are avoided by the poet of Atlakuioa, partly
because they destroy the line of his narrative, partly
because they lead the mind to probe the probabilities of
the situation in such a way that the scene loses its magic.t'
The harp-playing is a motif as fantastic as the excision
of hearts, and both fantasies are subordinated to the
realities and the dramatic pace of the story. There is
a likeness of art, also, in the treatment of the excision of
hearts and Gul'5nin's slaughter of her children. In each
case the horror is followed by words of loving pride or
tenderness. There is a comparison made explicitly
between what was and what is. The heart firm in death
recalls the fearless living brother; after the boys' flesh has
been served at the banquet, Gul'5nin remembers their
flushed faces - olrei]« tva - at other feasts in their
father's hall; the murder that soaks the bedding evokes
the image of husband and wife embracing with affection.
How different is the vision in Atlamal (stanza 56) of long
matrimonial wrangling between Gul'5nin and Atli ­
"I have no joy in our marriage, disastrous woman ­
seldom have we had peace since you came into our midst."
Are all these moments of tender backward-glancing in
AtlakviiJa the result of patchwork by different poets, or do
they spring from one poetic imagination? They have no
parallels in other versions of the story. This quality in
AtlakviiJa, this sense of pain and cost, is observed by the
poet of H amoismdl, who makes Hamoir chide his mother
that her revenges hurt herself even more than those she
punishes (stanza 8):
13 See the Drdp Nifiunga; Oddrunargrdtr 29; Atlamdl 66; V'olsunga saga
ch·37·
.. Even the simple phrase in Atlamdl 66: Horpo toe Gunnarr ... spoils the
fantasy by its practicality.