VIKING SOCIETY FOR NORTHERN RESEARCH TEXT …

1 VIKING SOCIETY FOR NORTHERN RESEARCHTEXT SERIESGENERAL EDITORSA nthony Faulkes and Richard PerkinsVOLUME XVIEINAR LAFUR SVEINSSONTHE folk - stories OF ICELANDE inar lafur SveinssonTHE folk - stories OFICELANDR evised by Einar G. P turssonTranslated by Benedikt BenedikzEdited by anthony FaulkesVIKING SOCIETY FOR NORTHERN RESEARCHUNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON2003 ISBN 0 903521 53 9 VIKING SOCIETY for NORTHERN RESEARCH 2003 The cover illustration is of Valkyries (from V lundarkvi a), 1975,oil painting by J hann Briem (Stofnun rna Magn ssonar slandi),reproduced by kind permission of Katr n BriemPrinted by Short Run Press Limited, ExeterCONTENTSPREFACE.

2 7 PART I: SURVEY .. 9I: Prologue .. 9II: What is a folk -story? .. 13 III: Categories of folk -story .. 16IV: stories , variants, motifs .. 23V: Characteristics of oral stories (Olrik s narrative laws ) .. 26VI: Notes on the origin of particular classes of folk -story .. 31 VII: Wonder-tales in ancient times .. 32 VIII: Theories of origin .. 38IX: folk -belief, folk -legend and fantasy: the history of wonder-tales .. 50X: Remnants of folk belief in folk -legends and wonder-tales .. 56XI: The origin of folk -legends, historical events, spontaneous changes;story-tellers and audiences .. 63 XII: Conclusion.

3 69 PART II: SOURCES .. 71I: folk - stories in pagan iceland .. 71II: The Commonwealth in the Christian period .. 74 III: The late Middle Ages .. 79IV: Sixteenth century .. 82V: Seventeenth century .. 91VI: Eighteenth century .. 117 VII: Eir kur Laxdal .. 122 VIII: Early nineteenth century .. 131IX: J n rnason and Magn s Gr msson .. 134X: Collections of Icelandic folk - stories .. 141 PART III: folk -BELIEF AND folk -LEGENDS .. 149I: Superstition comes to iceland ; beliefs and legends about land and law 149II: Non-human beings in iceland and elsewhere; land-spirits .. 159 III: Trolls and giants.

4 163IV: Elves .. 170V: Ghosts and revenants .. 183VI: Second sight and magic .. 188 VII: stories of magicians of various periods .. 195 VIII: Magicians and books of magic; Galdra-Loftur .. 204IX: Historical events in iceland and the historicity of folk - stories .. 213X: Outlaw stories .. 217 PART IV: ICELANDIC WONDER-TALES .. 226I: The word vint ri ..226II: Before 1200; myths of the gods and legends of heroes .. 227 III: The earliest step-mother story: Gr galdr and Fj lsvinnsm l; Celticinfluence; wonder-tales in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries .. 230IV: The age of wonder-tales in iceland ; criteria of age.

5 235V: Imported wonder-tales from where? Changes in iceland ; peripheryphenomena ; Icelandicisation: B kolla, Cupid and Psyche .. 239VI: Bjarka fl ttr; folk -beliefs combined with wonder-tale motifs; wide-spread use of stepmother-motif and casting of spells .. 243 VII: Personal names in Icelandic wonder-tales .. 247 VIII: folk -story style, wonder-tale style; narrative formulas; smallnarrative details .. 249IX: Geographical and social setting and description .. 259X: Saints legends, Novellen, comic stories .. 264 PART V: THE WORLD OF MEN AND THE HIDDEN WORLD .. 267I: Eir kur of Br nir s stories of elves; sightings and sounds of elves.

6 267II: Mysterious or supernatural phenomena the basis of many folk - stories .. 270 III: The cultivation of supernatural gifts and second sight .. 272IV: Various influences on the content of what is seen; accounts modifiedby local culture .. 275V: Some stories invented, others created to account for strange (butnatural) occurrences .. 276VI: folk - stories a mirror of social life .. 277 VII: Satire, vengeance, social class, wealth and poverty .. 279 VIII: folk - stories as wish-fulfilment; desires and fears; curses .. 284IX: Symbolism; objectives of wishes; influence of childhoodexperiences .. 291X: Strong colours and poweful antitheses in Icelandic folk - stories .

7 304XI: Written stories .. 307 XII: Some characteristics of Icelandic folk - stories .. 310 ABBREVIATED REFERENCES .. 314 ICELANDIC folk - stories IN ENGLISH TRANSLATION .. 319 PREFACEThis English translation of Einar lafur Sveinsson s book Um slenzkarflj s gur, originally published in Icelandic in 1940, has a long his-tory. First of all, Benedikt S. Benedikz began the translation in about1970, assisted by Jacqueline Simpson, especially with the verse quo-tations, and the author himself at that time made some revisions to theIcelandic text. Einar G. P tursson contributed to the author s revi-sions up to 1980, especially as regards the sources for folk - stories inIceland after the Reformation.

8 Einar lafur died in 1984, having beenill for some time, and was not able to attend to the revision as much ashe had hoped. Contributions to the translation of Part I and the firsttwo sections of Part II were made by Peter Foote and Rosemary Powerin the 1990s. The whole translation was then edited and revised byAnthony Faulkes and Einar G. P tursson, with contributions to thebibliography by Richard Perkins, and is now published as volume XVIof the VIKING SOCIETY Text text of the book naturally shows clear signs of having beenoriginally compiled at the beginning of the Second World War.

9 It wasnot practicable to rewrite it completely, and anyway it is doubtfulwhether that would have been desirable. My role in the final prepara-tion of this publication has mainly been to try to bring up to date andmake consistent the footnotes, and to check and supplement the refer-ences, bearing in mind that they were now intended for a non-Icelandicreadership. An attempt has also been made to a certain extent to providefuller refences than were in the original book, by, for instance, givingthe full names of authors and titles of articles, instead of just lettingthe name of the periodical suffice, though entire consistency has notbeen possible throughout the book.

10 Even so, it ought now to be fairlyeasy to locate the writings referred to, and such inconsistencies asremain should not cause too much attempt has been made to include references to works publishedafter the original book came out, and in the footnotes the chief of themore recent pieces of RESEARCH on particular topics, such as, for exam-ple, tilberar (magical beings that stole milk from ewes and cows) andexposure of infants, have been referred to. Though these referencesare undoubtedly incomplete, they may perhaps be of use to folk - stories OF ICELANDP articular care has been taken to extend the coverage of Icelandicmaterial in Part II, on sources, and Part III, on Icelandic folk -beliefand folk -legends.