SAGA-BOOK - Viking Society Web Publications

16 Saga-Book of the Viking Society
spirits. 24 Was Atli's horse ritualistically decked to take
part in the ceremony? Is Atli committing the sacrilege
of sacrificing, with all the trappings of religious ritual,
the brother-in-law to whom he is bound by the deepest
oaths? If so, his action is answered by the godlessness
of Gut5run, as she glories in the despoiling and burning of
his temples.
While the brevity of the fornyroislag metre fits dialogue
and action well in the episodes ot the heart-excision and
the murder of Gunnarr, the poet reaches his greatest
power in the fuller mdlahdtir stanzas. Here there are
passages of great intensity and sometimes of difficulty,
for they raise images in the mind so unusual that we lack
common ground with the poet for understanding them.
These lines have a magnetic power particularly because
they are cryptic, and it is in them that the poet's
individuality is most sharply perceived. I should like to
study three of these passages.
Gunnarr's fierce prophecy as he drinks for the last time
in his own hall (stanza II) throws before the mind a
picture of sombre snarling bears and excited dogs ­
a bear-hunt, or a bear-baiting, where the cornered bears
fight with concentrated ferocity. The energy of the
packed phrases - bita preftgnnom 'bite with wrangling
teeth', gamna greyst60i 'bring sport to the troop of curs' ­
suggests that Gunnarr has a savage relish in the prospect.
Is the image one of himself and Hogni - brceo« berharoir,
whose children are hanar 'bearcubs'25 - cornered by the
currish Huns, giving them fine sport, - just such an
24 A. W. Bragger, H. Falk, and H. Shetelig Osebergfwndet II, 65,
232-237; also Vtking VII, 117. Though the lines Atli inn riM reia
glaummonom are not metrically conventional, and one would expect some word
for 'horse' to be expressed, the striking 1V0rd glaummQnom probably survives
from the poem of stage 2, whose author clearly took pleasure in descriptive
terms for horses. Glaumr is said to be Atli's horse in Kdlfsvisa 3/3, but Boer
is no doubt right in his suggestion (Commentar ad loe.) that this derives from
a misunderstanding of Aku 29/2.
ss In 12/4 the phrase 6r gartJi huna causes difficulty. It is just conceivable
that hunar in the sense 'bear-cubs', 'young boys' is meant, not with the
affectionate implications of the word in V QlundarkviiJa 32/4, but with reference
to the heroic fierceness of their fathers. On the departure of Gunnarr and
Hogni, the Burgundian court is left in the hands of their children.