SAGA-BOOK - Viking Society Web Publications

Saga-Book of the Viking Society
fosterson :Por6r kQttr "cat", he had the domestic cat in
mind. The house cat was known in Iceland then but not
the hreysikott« or other kinds of wildcat. The H eioarviga
saga contains a remark which Snorri go6i is supposed to
have made to one of his "kittens", when he had the boy
with him at a killing for vengeance. A young son of the
man they had killed came running out and Snorri said:
"Does the cat see the mouse? Young shall strike at
young (ungr skal at ungum vega)." But :Por6r kQttr (or
kausi) refuses.l" Snorri prophesies that his family will
suffer for it, but the saga gives no account of any such
consequence.
Heiaaruiga saga is badly preserved. Most of it comes to
us only in the version given from memory by Jon of
Grunnavik, but he had also copied some verses and
individual words and phrases from the vellum before it
was burnt. Snorri go6i's words Sir kQttrinn musina are
recorded by him. They certainly stood in the saga and
were part of the tradition about Snorri and "the cat" ­
"Catch him, puss!"
But twist it and turn it as much as we like, a cat never
becomes oneiss. It is the household pet, it lies in wait
and catches mice; the hreysikottr lies in its hole while
others fight, it slips away. It is not possible to understand
Sigrun's words as anything but scorn: Horibrodd is
as fearless as a cat! It is this ironical sense that Sijmons
suggests in his additional note to Gering's commentary.
But other explanations have also been offered. Finnur
Jonsson and Sophus Bugge point to the appearance of
k(!ttr as a heiti for giant and in the Lexicon Poeticum the
word is glossed: "j settenavn kattar sunr jzettesen",
with this phrase in HH I translated as "ikke bedre end en
(modbydelig) jsette' - which elsewhere Finnur Jonsson
15 Kr. Kaalund, Heioarciga saga (1904), 46; Sigurour Nordal, Borgfiriiinga
sogu« (Islenzk fornrit III, 1938),248-9. The text of the vellum, known from
.Ton Olafssori's direct quotation of it, had Snorri speak to his son I'ori'lr
kausi; but the reply, only known from .Ton Olafssou's re-telling of the saga
from memory, comes from "pordur fostre hans" (Kaalund's edition, lac. cit.),
i.e. Pori'lr kottr. Cf. pp. 154-5 below.