“Formóðir okkar allra” [The foremother of us all] (Ingibergsson 1965, 1965–1966). That is how Irish immigrant Janet Ingibergsson, who was the pastor’s wife at Hvammur,
referred to Auðr djúpauðga [the deeply wealthy], also known as Unnr djúpúðga [of a profound mind], during a 1965 commemoration of the Norwegian-born matriarch
on Krosshólaborg in
the Dales district of Breiðafjörður in western Iceland. “Þegar ég stend hér á Krosshólaborg
og lít yfir Hvammsfjörð og á fjallahringinn allt
í kring, þá verður mér hugsað til Auðar, sem hér stóð á undan mér—og var ef til vill
formóðir okkar allra” [When I stand on Krosshólaborg and look over Hvammsfjörður and
the mountains all around,
then I think about Auður, who stood here before me—and was perhaps the foremother
of us all] Ingibergsson said (1965, 388; 1965–1966, 23). Her speech explicitly evoked
the memory of a Viking Age woman celebrated for her
leadership, courage, and piety. Confronted with her own feelings of nostalgia for
her homeland, Ireland, Ingibergsson drew inspiration from this courageous woman who
preceded her from Ireland to the distant shores of Iceland and “valið þennan stað
sem hið fullkomna svið til bænahalds” [chose this place (=Krosshólaborg) as the perfect
site to say her prayers] (1965, 388; 1965–1966, 24). That same day, a memorial cross
was unveiled, bearing a quote from Landnámabók [Book of Settlements]: “Hon hafði bænahald sitt á Krosshólum. Þar let hon reisa krossa
því at hon var skirð
ok vel trúuð” [She held her prayers at Krosshólar. There she had crosses erected because
she was
baptized and a true believer] (Ingason).
In the summers of 2010 and 2013, people gathered there at the cross memorial to celebrate
Auðr djúpauðga as Christianized foremother of Iceland (Valsdóttir 26; Magnússon 13).
It was during one of those “Auðarganga” or “helgiganga” [procession for Auðr or saint’s
procession] held in honour of Auðr—a procession starting from Krosshólaborg, over
“Auðartóftir” [the ruins or homestead of Auðr] to the church of Hvammur, in June 2010,
that the local priest Óskar Ingi Ingason
claimed to have recovered a “bæn eftir Auði djúpúðgu” [prayer by Auðr of a Profound
Mind]. The prayer, which he recited during the procession (Ingason), was printed
in Jón Þorkelsson’s Þjóðsögur og munnmæli [Folk Tale Collection] (1899, 355; 1956, 312). The text in question “Ein bæn Auðar
diúpauðgu” [A prayer of Auðr The Profoundly Wealthy] was copied down by Jón Jónsson
langur (ca. 1779–1828) in 1828 in a manuscript, today housed in the Landsbókasafn Íslands
– Háskólabókasafn [the National and University Library of Iceland] (MS. JS 494 8vo,
10v). “Ein bæn Auðar diúpauðgu” is just one example of how eighteenth- and nineteenth-century
Icelandic writers memorialize
and remember a famous literary figure of the past in genres different from the medieval
saga literature. In fact, Auðr’s story resonated not only with Janet Ingibergsson
and her audience as it did with Jón Jónsson langur and his contemporaries in earlier
times, but also with modern authors. Among the participants in the 2010 procession
was Vilborg Davíðsdóttir, the author of a successful trilogy of fictionalized novels
that feature the Christian Auðr as their protagonist (Valsdóttir 26; see also Davíðsdóttir
2009, 2012, 2017a). Heimir Pálsson, reviewing the first installment Auður, notes: “Líklega er konan sem skipar öndvegi í skáldsögunni Auði formóðir okkar allra sem nú teljumst af íslenska stofninum” [Probably the woman who
sits in the high seat (i.e. took up the place of honour) in
the novel Auður is now considered to be the foremother of us all by the Icelandic population] (121).
Pálsson could have been echoing the words of Ingibergsson, who in 1965 made a similar
statement about Auðr. Moreover, Vilborg’s trilogy has inspired the travel agent Skotganga
to organize a trip to Scotland and the Orkney Islands in the footsteps of Auðr in
the spring of 2019, guided by the author herself (Skotganga). The trip was so successful that it was sold out within 36 hours. Furthermore, the
film and television rights for Vilborg’s trilogy have been sold to Bjarni Haukur Þórsson
and his production house Thorsson Produktion in 2018, with the intention of creating
an international television series based on the life of the landnámskona [female settler] Auðr (Sigurðsson). All three are a testament to Auðr’s lasting
popularity in Iceland to this very day.
During the last few decades an increasing number of Old Norse scholars have turned
to memory studies in their analyses of texts. Yet, these studies have not sufficiently considered other genres of literature besides
the Íslendingasögur [Sagas of Icelanders], such as the above-mentioned post-medieval
prayer, in the discussion of memory. More
recently, Verena Höfig (2014, 2017, 2018) and Sigríður Helga Þorsteinsdóttir (2013,
2015) adopted a similar approach to mine when they discussed how characters from the
Icelandic
past are remembered through time up to the present in media other than the canonical
texts of Old Norse-Icelandic literature. Like their work, this article is dedicated
to exploration of the malleable nature of cultural memory by means of representations
of historical characters. In this article, I place emphasis on textual representations
of the figure of the foremother and founding mother, Auðr djúpauðga, said to have
settled in Iceland between 870 and 930.
Methodologically, the article combines two different strands of theoretical inquiry
into the representations of figures from the past. Jan Assmann’s concept of cultural
memory lends a cultural-studies-based perspective to the way memory focuses on selected
points in the past and condenses versions of the past into symbolic figures (Assmann
2011, 37). Understanding the figure of the foremother as such, a “memory figure,”
enables us both to focus on the dichotomy between centre and periphery, and to conduct
a deeper analysis of the history of Iceland’s remembering of the figure of Auðr in
all her forms. In his seminal work, Moses the Egyptian, Assmann distinguished between two figures of Moses, the subject of his case study:
Moses the Hebrew, who belongs to the canonical or normative tradition (i.e. the centre),
and Moses the Egyptian, who is inherently part of a counter-memory (i.e. the periphery)
(1997, 11–12). By analyzing all versions of the Auðr narrative regardless of importance,
whether
or not they are canonical, comparisons between the “original” and each adaptation
can then be made.
As a second perspective of methodological inquiry, I employ an anthropological approach
to trace representations of the foremother figure from Icelandic literature to folklore.
Kirsten Hastrup’s study of the cultural figure Grettir Ásmundarson over a longue durée proves especially useful for a study of the foremother figure. In contrast to literary
studies, whose focus tend to be on the literary image of saga characters in the Icelandic
medieval canon, Hastrup’s approach contextualizes the hero within the “literary” and
“oral” tradition (289–304). Under the latter, she reads the term to denote all media
other than the sagas themselves,
“as expressed in a variety of genres such as rímur (‘rhymes’) and þjóðsögur (‘folk-tales’)” (294–95). The Auðr narrative seems to have been easily adaptable
to a range of different text
genres during the so-called “era of memory”—being the time of the transmission of the saga texts from the late fourteenth to
early twentieth century, thus explaining its wide-ranging appeal up until today. In
particular, Auðr—as a figure of memory—owes part of her fame to the profusion of afterlives
she enjoyed in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century popular culture and folk
literature, or what Hastrup refers to as “oral tradition” (294–95). The so-called
“popular image” of Auðr can be found in genres as diverse as prayers, rímur [metrical
romances; lit. “rhymes”], entertaining as well as didactic poetry—such as kappakvæði
[lit. “a poem about heroes”], vikivakakvæði [carols or dance poems] as well as in
other types of folk poetry, celebrating exemplary and honourable women—and
þjóðsögur [folk tales].
The idea of this article is to trace the tradition of the foremother figure through
a rich and varied body of works, in roughly chronological order. To enable a narrower
focus, I place emphasis on two distinct periods, chosen particularly because the depictions
of Auðr best illustrate the diversity of the character’s myriad incarnations. The
first period is between the twelfth and the thirteenth centuries, when the earliest
representations of the literary character Auðr are found in various early medieval
canonical texts. The second period is from the late eighteenth up to the early nineteenth
century, when there is a shift from a literary to a popular image of the foremother
belonging to popular and folk literature.
Auðr is remembered as “hinni fyrstu og einu landnámskonu” [the first and only female
settler] (Ólafsson 12) in a newspaper account of the 1965 commemoration in Hvammur,
in spite of the fact
that the text of
Landnámabók mentions nine other
landnámskonur. Ólafsson closely mirrors the text of
Íslendingabók [Book of Icelanders]. In this, the oldest text that mentions her, written between
1120 and 1133 by Ari
Þorgilsson (1068–1148), Auðr is presented as the only female out of the four most
prominent settlers of Iceland (
Íslendingabók, Ch. 2, 6). Ari designates her as the founding mother of the Breiðafjörður area in
western Iceland
as well as the foremother, not only of himself, but also of the Roman Catholic bishop
of Skálholt, Þorlákur Runólfsson (1086–1133). According to this text:
Auðr landnámskona, es byggði vestr í Breiðafirði í Hvammi, vas móðir Þorsteins ens
rauða, fǫður Óleifs feilans, fǫður Þórðar gellis, fǫður Þórhildar rjúpu, móður Þórðar
hesthǫfða, fǫður Karlsefnis, fǫður Snorra, fǫður Hallfríðar, móður Þorláks, es nú
es byskup í Skálaholti, næstr Gizuri. (Íslendingabók, Ættartala, 26)
[Auðr the female settler, who settled in the west of Breiðafjörður at Hvammur, was
the mother of Þorsteinn the Red, father of Óláfr Little-Wolf, father of Þórðr the
Yeller, father of Þórhildr Ptarmigan, mother of Þórðr Horsehead, father of Karlsefni,
father of Snorri, father of Hallfríðr, mother of Þorlákr, who is now bishop in Skálholt
after Gizurr.]
Ari Þorgilsson created a precedent and a prototype for all the later representations
of this foremother figure, “Auðr landnámskona.” The landnámskona portrayed in
Íslendingabók differs slightly from the foremother figure emerging in other early medieval literature.
Many of these texts simply mention Auðr as “mother of …” or “foremother of …”, but
do not elaborate further on this character. Rather than slavishly follow Þorgilsson’s literary prototype, two sources, namely
Laxdæla saga and
Landnámabók, move beyond the archetypal portrait of the foremother Auðr and go on to create two
separate figures from the original one.
The first of these nuanced and more detailed depictions of Auðr can be found in the
mid-thirteenth-century text Laxdæla saga. The saga opens with the immigration of the hersir [chief, lord] Ketill Flatnose from Norway to the southern isles of Scotland. His
daughter, Auðr—named
Unnr djúpúðga here—accompanies him on his journey, and shortly afterwards marries Óláfr the White,
the first Viking king of Dublin. After the treacherous deaths of her husband and son,
she cleverly devises a plan to escape to Iceland with a large retinue of family and
followers, emerging, finally, as a formidable political player in her own right. And
it is here, when she takes charge of the situation, that the saga’s author overlays
the image of the foremother with mythological overtones; Laxdæla saga with the Edda, and, the foremother of the Breiðafjörður area with the Allfather of the heathen
pantheon Óðinn. Auðr’s story serves well as an example of what Haraldur Bessason coined
mythological overlays—that is, “parallels between the Eddas and the Sagas in the use
of literary technique and imagery” (275). A similar parallel between Laxdæla’s Auðr and Snorri Sturluson’s description of Óðinn in Ynglinga saga was noted and briefly discussed over a decade ago by Baldur Hafstað. However, there
are stronger similarities between Snorra Edda’s Óðinn and Laxdæla’s Auðr, than between the latter and Óðinn in Ynglinga saga (Vanherpen 2018, 750–55). Like Óðinn in the Prologue to Snorra Edda (Chs. 3–4, 8–11), Auðr is described as possessing both foresight and wisdom (Laxdæla saga, Ch. 7, 11). Auðr is known under more than one name (Auðr—Unnr), as is Óðinn in Snorra Edda (Óðinn—Wodden) (Snorra Edda, Ch. 2, 8–9). Furthermore, Auðr’s journey to and settlement in Iceland (Laxdæla saga, Chs. 4–6) mirrors the migration of Óðinn from Asia to the North (Snorra Edda, Chs. 3–4, 8–11). Auðr is compared with a mythological figure from the Old Norse-Icelandic
world and is depicted as a matriarch “in heathen style,” who secures the future of
all her progeny and subsequently founds a whole dynasty
(Vanherpen 2018, 750–55).
The
Laxdæla author calls her achievements “mikit afbragð annarra kvenna” [much superior to (that
of) other women] (
Laxdæla saga, Ch. 4, 7).
Laxdæla relates that at the end of her life Auðr arranged a lavish wedding feast for her
grandson. The following morning she was found dead in bed sitting “upp við hœgendin” [up
against the pillows] (
Laxdæla saga, Ch. 7, 13). The saga continues:
Ok inn síðasta dag boðsins var Unnr flutt til haugs þess, er henni var búinn; hon
var lǫgð í skip í hauginum, ok mikit fé var í haug lagt með henni; var eptir þat aptr
kastaðr haugrinn. (Laxdæla saga, Ch. 7, 13)
[And on the final day of the feast Unnr (i.e. Auðr) was carried to the grave mound
that was made for her. She was laid in a ship in the mound, and much treasure was
laid with her in the mound, and after that the mound was closed up.]
Thus, what begins as a wedding ends as a funeral, and she is interred with a ship
in a funeral mound—a pagan custom (Vanherpen 2013, 71–73). Here, the story of Auðr
concludes. At her death, she is a woman who has successfully
fulfilled her role of foremother. The anonymous author of
Laxdæla saga utilizes an already-existing character as a springboard from which to create a more
detailed and more complex rendering of the foremother figure. He created the foremother
in heathen style, called Unnr. In the remainder of this article, I will refer to
Laxdæla’s representation of Auðr as “the heathen Unnr.”
A few decades later, Sturla Þórðarson (1214–1284), too, presents us with a more elaborate
portrayal of Auðr in his redaction of Landnámabók (Sturlubók)—the first preserved version of this text. Sturla also draws on the original depiction by Ari Þorgilsson, but tells her story
differently from the one found in Laxdæla saga. Like its correspondent passage in the saga, Landnáma’s account on Auðr is centred around her migration to Iceland and her subsequent settlement
there. The Landnáma narrative likewise concludes with a wedding turned funeral, when the veizla [feast] becomes Auðr’s erfi—a term referring to the funeral feast and the inheritance ceremony (Sundqvist 476;
Vanherpen 2013, 65; 2017, 577).
This being so, what then distinguished this particular rendering of the foremother
figure from the “heathen Unnr”—the matriarch of
Laxdæla? The answer is twofold. Firstly,
Landnámabók is devoid of mythological allusions; our heroine is no longer compared to a pagan
god as she was in the saga (see above, as well as Vanherpen 2018, 750–52). Secondly,
its narrative differs in other important ways from the
Laxdæla one. Auðr is represented as “vel trúuð” [a true believer], i.e. a Christian, holding
prayers and erecting crosses at Krosshólar (
Landnámabók, Ch. S97/H84, 139; Vanherpen 2017, 573–74). The internment of the deceased Auðr takes
place in consecrated ground on the shore
where the waves wash over the sand, indicating a Christian-style burial (Vanherpen
2017, 575–92; 2018, 751–52).
Þá nótt eptir andaðisk hon ok var graffin í flœðarmáli, sem hon hafði fyrir sagt,
því at hon vildi eigi liggja í óvígðri moldu, er hon var skírð. Eptir þat spilltisk
trúa frænda hennar. (Landnámabók, Ch. S110, 146–47)
[The night after (the feast) she passed away and was buried at the flood-mark, as
she
had instructed earlier. Because she was baptized, she did not want to lie in unconsecrated
earth. After that the faith of her family was corrupted.]
While neither altering the main plot, nor changing the core of the foremother figure,
these transformations do influence the audience’s interpretation of the story as a
whole, and in turn, the role of the foremother figure in it. The presentation of Auðr
here seems to suggest that she was the “founding mother” of Christianity in her new
home of Hvammur. By introducing and emphasizing a specifically
Christian tradition,
Landnámabók transformed the heathen Unnr into the Christianized foremother Auðr. Consequently,
two competing memories exist side by side from the mid-thirteenth century onward:
the heathen Unnr, as manifested in
Laxdæla saga, and the Christian Auðr, as manifested in Sturla’s redaction of
Landnámabók.
What these three texts have in common, beside the foremother figure Auðr, is that
they were written for the same purpose. From the outset Ari Þorgilsson’s Íslendingabók, Sturla Þórðarson’s Landnámabók, and, to some extent, Laxdæla saga served certain Icelandic families as narratives to legitimate their origins. We might
be tempted to call this the genealogical function of the foremother figure.
From the fourteenth century and in subsequent eras, the older “heathen” foremother
figure became overshadowed by her Christian counterpart. This is consistent with the
memory of Auðr that later medieval texts, such as Eiríks saga rauða and Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar en mesta, evoked in contemporary audiences. The fact that these texts and later saga literature
would favour a portrayal of the foremother Auðr as a Christian, underlines that Landnámabók became the dominant vehicle for shaping the memory of the foremother figure. As a
result, the heathen foremother is turned into a “counter-memory,” a term coined by
Jan Assmann in his seminal work Moses the Egyptian to describe “a memory that puts elements to the fore that are, or tend to be, forgotten
in the
official memory” (1997, 12). In Icelandic imagery, the heathen Unnr persisted as a
counter-memory that has never
been completely forgotten, preserved through time in numerous copies of Laxdæla saga. Over time, it came to function as “counterhistory,” when counter-memory becomes
“codified in the form of a traditional story or even in a work of written historiography”
(Assmann 1997, 12). The Christian image dominated later saga literature and later
versions of Landnámabók, which would result in the trend that would continue for centuries.
The eighteenth century was a period in which poets explored the didactic potential
of the story of the strong, independent woman who led her family to settle in Iceland
and saved them from destruction. For authors seeking models of virtuous womanhood,
models worthy of emulation, Auðr embodies two prime qualities: first, that she was
steadfast in her Catholic faith and, secondly, that she showed great courage and initiative
in leadership. The people of eighteenth-century Iceland envisioned Auðr as the epitome
of Christian womanhood in an age when heroines were needed. They required an infallible
heroine in a time when natural calamities and human disasters occurred, a time recorded
as one of the most devastating periods in Icelandic history (Eggertsdóttir 226–28).
There can be no doubt that in addition to their didactic function these poems—implicitly
in some, expressly in others—were also designed to entertain.
Tyrfingur Finnsson (b. 1713) was one of the first poets to devote a verse on Auðr
(Sverdlov and Vanherpen 70–71). The first stanza to “Vísur uppá Laxdæla sǫgu” [Quatrains
on Laxdæla saga], seven short
vísur written in 1747 (Lbs 513 4to, f. 102v), exemplifies the growing emphasis on Auðr’s
faith in Icelandic Enlightenment literature:
Auðr var ærleg-tróða,
ýtti mund Rínar-sunda,
heiðrs-verð hárra burða,
her-jǫfurs drottning gǫfug,
órræða-snor í snerru,
snúðug tróð vegu-úðar,
treysti klár-huguð Christo,
á Krosshólum bað gram sólar.
(Lbs 513 4to, f. 102v, st. 1; Sverdlov and Vanherpen 84)
[Auðr was an exceptional woman; she did not spare the “money of Rhinewater” (=gold)
(for her retainers); a very honourable woman of high birth; a noble queen
of a military king ; a woman who knew how to solve difficult problems; the agile “water’s fire’s =gold
faggot” (=woman); clear-minded, she believed in Christ; she prayed to “the Prince
of the Sun” (=Christ) at Krosshólar.]
“Vísur uppá Laxdæla sǫgu” is based, as the title suggests, on
Laxdæla saga. In each of the seven verses, a different hero or heroine from the saga is praised.
Auðr is praised for her generosity (l. 2), her noble birth, and powerful family
(ll. 2–3), as well as her quick reasoning and her clear-mindedness (ll. 5–7). Tyrfingur
praised her as “ærleg-tróða” [an exceptional woman] (l. 1), similar to the author’s
comment in
Laxdæla saga that she is “much superior to other women” (
Laxdæla saga, Ch. 4, 7). Unlike in the saga on Auðr’s religious beliefs, where she is portrayed
as a foremother
in heathen-style, the poet calls her a believer in Christ, who prayed at Krosshólar
(ll. 7–8).
Tyrfingur Finnsson has remained true to the tradition of the dróttkvætt kappakvæði that enumerates and celebrates heroes of ancient times. His description of Auðr celebrates
her as a champion, a foremother of the Christian faith. Yet, the most remarkable thing
about Tyrfingur’s account is that in his depiction
of Auðr, even though he is clearly referring to Laxdæla saga as a source and even though in the saga she is described as a heathen foremother,
Tyrfingur depicts her as a Christian. He supplants one memory figure with another,
creating a new composite memory of Auðr as a Christian foremother as though it belonged
to the original Laxdæla narrative.
The same trend is also visible in the work of Eiríkur Bjarnason (1704–1791). Bjarnason
paraphrased Laxdæla saga, though by means of a different genre than Tyrfingur Finnsson’s kappakvæði mentioned
above. Bjarnason undertook the ambitious task of writing a rímur paraphrase of the
entire saga, entitled “Laxdælarímur” (1769). The rímur are only preserved in two manuscripts,
JS 46 4to, the author’s
autograph, and in Lbs 1783 4to, a scribal copy written between 1826 and 1827. Rímur
were a new genre of secular poetry that originated in the late medieval period. The
earliest dateable ríma is from the late fourteenth century (Einarsson 85; Hughes 2005, 206–12; Ólason 2006,
38). The genre remained popular well into the nineteenth century. The rímur are versifications
of preexisting stories, such as, for example, Laxdæla saga. Of the 248 eighteenth-century rímur, only a handful are based on an Íslendingasaga (Sigmundsson 2:193–98).
Bjarnason’s metrical rendering of
Laxdæla saga consists of fifty cantos, or fits, that correspond to the seventy-eight chapters
of the saga, plus the additional ten chapters following the saga text referred to
as
Bolla þáttr. This rímur-poet follows the saga narrative closely, as revealed by a comparison
of his version with the corresponding lines in
Laxdæla saga. Compare, for example, the sentence from the saga, “Unnr in djúpúðga var enn dóttir
Ketils, er átti Óláfr hvíti Ingjaldson, Fróðasonar
ins frœkna, er Svertlingar drápu” [Unnr (i.e. Auðr) of a Profound Mind was a daughter
of Ketill, who was married to Óláfr
the White, son of Ingjaldr, son of Fróði the Brave, who was killed by the Svertlings]
(Ch. 1, 3), which is the saga beginning and character introduction to the foremother
figure.
In Bjarnason’s paraphrase (canto I, st. 27–28), Auðr is introduced in wording almost
identical with that of the saga:
Dúks var önnur Djúpauðga,
dokk, með vizku gnóttir
Eyjan gulls hin ágæta,
Auður Ketilsdóttir.
Fannst ei slík á Fjölnis kvon,
Friggjan jötna vessa,
Ólafur hvíti Ingjaldsson,
átti konu þessa.
(Canto I, st. 27–28)
[There was another “grassy hollow of the cloth” (=woman), Deeply-Wealthy; with wisdom
aplenty; the glorious “island of gold” (=woman); Auður, the daughter of Ketill.
No (other) such “the goddess of the speech of giants (=gold)” (=woman) can be found
on “Óðinn’s wife (=Jörð)” (=earth); Olaf the White, son of Ingjald; was married to
this woman.]
However, Bjarnason presents an interpretation of the original text. In stanza 27,
lines one and two, there appears to be a reference to the duality of her epithets—djúpúðga
[of a profound mind] and djúpauðga [profoundly wealthy]. The adjective “djúpauðga”
has been the epithet appended to Auðr’s name throughout manuscript witnesses from
the latter half of the fourteenth century onwards; the phrase “með vizku gnóttir” [with
wisdom aplenty] alludes to her other title djúpúðga, attested solely in the oldest
surviving texts. The reference in the first two lines of stanza 27 to both of her epithets suggests
that the poet was aware of the existence of the various memory figures, the heathen
Unnr and the Christian Auðr.
Bjarnason also occasionally offers commentary on the original text. In the second
canto (st. 41–42), for instance, following his description of Auðr’s ship burial,
he added the following
nota bene:
NB Annað segja fræði fróð,
framar þessu trúanleg,
þar sem mættust fjara og flóð,
frúin býði að jarða sig.
Einninn fá svo yrki tjáð,
er oss birta sannleikinn,
helga skírn hún hafði þáð,
hér því girntist legstaðinn.
(Canto II, st. 43–44)
[Nota bene: Wise tales tell another story, more reliable than this (i.e. Laxdæla saga); (that) where the shore and the flood meet, the lady asked to be buried.
Also the work (i.e. Landnámabók) tells, that shows us the truth; that she had received holy baptism, therefore wished
for a grave there.]
It is clear that the author knew of the existence of two separate traditions concerning
Auðr’s burial. Bjarnason presents the burial
í flæðarmáli [at the flood-mark] (
Landnámabók, Ch. S110, 146–47), or, as he puts it, “þar sem mættust fjara og flóð” [that where
the shore and the flood meet] (st. 43, l. 3), as superior to the memory of Auðr’s
ship burial in
Laxdæla saga. Like in the poem of his predecessor Tyrfingur Finnsson, in Bjarnason’s rímur rendition
a newer and more reliable memory—the Christian Auðr—supplants the older one of the
two—the heathen Unnr. His rewriting of the foremother figure bears witness to a growing
shift in how Auðr is remembered. He subverts the authenticity of the original depiction
in his reworking of
Laxdæla saga, asserting that
Landnámabók offers the authoritative version of the past, or, as he phrased it, “er oss birta
sannleikinn” [that shows us the truth] (st. 44, l. 2).
Only one year later, in 1770, the prolific rímur poet Árni Böðvarsson (1713–1776)
composed a poem titled “Íslands kvennalof” [In Praise of Icelandic Women] (Rask 87,
f. 2r–9v; Böðvarsson). Written in hrynhent metre, the poem pays tribute to the Icelandic housewife and provides a great source
of information on the daily life and upbringing of eighteenth-century women (Þórólfsson
168). The theme of housewifery was fostered by and reflected in contemporary literature,
seventeenth- and eighteenth-century books pertaining to women and the household. The
housewife’s duties were discussed in domestic conduct books, treatises about proper
female conduct, and on household government in the form of poems, and in other related
works (Eggertsdóttir 231–33; Sigurðardóttir 2003; 2017, 291–95, 318–20). For example,
in his “Arnbjörg æruprýdd dáindis kvinna á Vestfjörðum íslands” [Arnbjörg, a very
honourable woman from the Westfjords of Iceland] of 1780, Björn Halldórsson (1724–1794)
wrote down, together with his wife Rannveig
Ólafsdóttir, detailed instructions on how to become a good housewife and how the housewife
should embody Christian virtues in her daily life (Þorgeirsdóttir 2012, 5; 2013,
73).
Accordingly, Árni Böðvarsson’s poem honours the Icelandic housewife by comparing her,
though briefly, to exemplary women from Icelandic literature. In the fourth stanza,
he speaks of the “tiginborner falda freyjur fyrst á landi margar gistu” [many women
of noble birth in the beginning on land settled], meaning the landnámskonur, thus:
Konur þeirra kunna að sýna
kvæðin forn og sögur bæði,
vóru sumar buðlung bornar,
besta slektis nærri flestar,
tiginbornar falda freyjur
fyrst á landi margar gistu.
Auður var af ættum stóru
ein með fremstu moturs reinum.
(Rask 87, f. 2v, st. 4)
[Ancient poems and stories are able to show their women. Some were royal-born, almost
all of the best families. Many “goddesses of the headdresses” (=women) of noble birth
settled on land in the beginning. Auður was of good ancestry; one of the leading “lands of the female coif” (=women).]
These women are singled out because of their noble lineage and their achievements
as settlers, but only one of them is mentioned by name (i.e. Auðr, in l. 7). In the
succeeding stanza, the poet then praises the virtues of these noteworthy women:
Álit höfðu, auðlegð, sælu
og kvendyggða nægstu tryggðir,
löstum fjærri, leyndar kostir
ljóst upp runnu í náttúrunni,
miklu framar mun sá blómi
mistum bauga fylgja kristnum
vegligustu á vorum dögum
að vísu jafnan það auglýsist.
(Rask 87, f. 2v, st. 5)
[They had prestige, wealth, happiness, and an abundance of female virtues ensured,
far from vices, hidden merits clearly rose in nature. Much rather will that flower
be associated with the most noble Christian “valkyries of rings” (=women) in our days;
indeed that is always made clear.]
In the final lines Böðvarsson explains why Auðr stands paramount above the other landnámskonur.
Even though these women knew “sælu” [happiness, bliss], they would not obtain eternal
salvation. Auðr, however, is promised eternal bliss
because of her faith in Christ. Böðvarsson’s comparison is rather unusual because
it not only extols Auðr’s steadfast faith in Christ, but it also is the first poem
of its kind dedicated entirely to the praise of contemporary Icelandic women. Contrary
to his contemporaries, Tyrfingur Finnsson and Eiríkur Bjarnason, the poet here seems
to indicate that his depiction of Auðr is based upon the
Landnáma narrative, the canonical version, noting that her conversion to Christianity “vísu
jafnan það auglýsist” [indeed that is always made clear] (l. 8). Notably, Auðr is
the only settler among the female ones in
Landnámabók who is baptized.
Interestingly, Böðvarsson names another woman—Áslaug Sigurðsdóttir—as the foremother
of the Icelanders, in these words:
Áslaug verður allmjög prísuð,
ein sú dýrsta af lindum víra,
Ragnars drottning grams hin gegna
gnótt bar lista Sigurðardóttir,
vor formóðir kostakjörin,
kyns Völsunga og fleiri hinar
sólir banda til sem telja
tign berandi á voru landi
(Rask 87, f. 3r, st. 6)
[Áslaug was much praised (as) one of the most precious “linden-trees of wires” (=women).
Queen of Ragnar the fine king, plenty of skills bore the daughter of Sigurðr.
Our foremother, an excellent choice (as a wife) (and foremother) of the kin of the
Völsungs, and more of the “goddesses of skeins of wool” (=women) who count themselves
(among the Völsung kin) bringing nobility to our country.]
The poet resolves the tension between Auðr’s initial dual role as both founding mother
of Christianity in the Hvammur area and foremother of the people of the Breiðafjörður
by dividing these roles between two characters: Auðr, a Christian landnámskona, and
Áslaug, a royal foremother. As mentioned above, “Íslands kvennalof” shows close similarities
to conduct books such as Björn Halldórsson’s “Arnbjörg.” In Böðvarsson’s poem, the
Christianized landnámskona is presented as a powerful role
model for the Icelandic Enlightenment housewife. Throughout the poem, he argues that
the same virtues equip the eighteenth-century women to act as proficient household
managers, running a farm and being pious wives and mothers, as well as play their
part in the socio-economic development of the society.
In another poem composed around the same time, “Sprundahrós” (composed between 1752
and 1800), Auðr is considered to be a “female worthy”—an ideal worthy of emulation by a contemporary
female audience (Eyþórsson and Kristjánsdóttir 64–68; Van Deusen 197). Most scholars
consider the poem to belong to a group of poems written in response
to “Kappakvæði” [Poem of Champions] by Guðmundur Bergþórsson (1657–1705) composed
in 1680 (Helgason VIII: 120; Eyþórsson and Kristjánsdóttir 68–69; Hughes 2005, 217;
2013, 41;
Van Deusen 208–10). In his conclusion, Bergþórsson notes that none of the hundred or so kappar [champions] is Icelandic and issues a challenge to any poet to create a poem in praise
of native
heroes (1944–45, 15). “Sprundahrós” seems to respond to this challenge.
Indeed, there are many similarities between the two poems as regards metre, style,
and genre (Van Deusen 208–10). Both are kappakvæði—a genre of poetry consisting of
lists of champions—written in
vikivaka metre (Eyþórsson and Kristjánsdóttir 68–69; Hughes 2005, 217; 2013, 40–41). Whereas
the traditional kappakvæði praise male heroes, “Sprundahrós” deals with famous women.
The twenty-two stanzas of “Sprundahrós,” each of them nineteen lines (i.e. containing
an introductory quatrain and five refrain-segments
identical to that of “Kappakvæði”), enumerate twenty-five illustrious women from the
Bible, regal history, and Old
Norse-Icelandic literature. The refrain is slightly different but parallel to that
used by Bergþórsson and other poems written in response to his (Van Deusen 208).
In Guðmundur Bergþórsson’s “Kappakvæði,” the
viðkvæði or refrain reads:
Eg sá þann riða | riddarana þrjá,
þeir vilja mínum | fundinum ná.
[I saw the three knights riding, they all want an audience with me.]
While in “Sprundahrós,” the refrain reads:
Eg sá þann sóma, silki og fötin blá.
Þær vilja mínum fundinum frá.
[I saw the honourable ones, the ones in silk and blue garments. The women wish to
avoid
a meeting with me.]
In “Sprundahrós”—by a subtle change in words—the refrain is adjusted to the context
of the poem, which
is a catalogue of noteworthy women.
“Sprundahrós” is also indebted to the medieval tradition of the Neuf Preuses (Eyþórsson
and Kristjánsdóttir 66–68). Les Neuf Preuses or the “nine female worthies” were first
described in the late fourteenth century by Jehan Le Fèvre in his “Livre de Lëesce”
(1373–1387), and then elaborated more fully by Eustache Deschamps in several of his
works, among them “Il est temps de faire la paix” (1387) and “Si les héros revenaient
sur la terre, ils seraient étonnés” (1396) (Cassagnes-Brouquet 169–79; Eyþórsson
and Kristjánsdóttir 67; McMillan 113–39; Schroeder
168–73; Sedlacek; Van Anrooij 89–97). The “Sprundahrós”-poet sought inspiration for
his catalogue of worthy women both within and beyond
the confines of the Neuf Preuses tradition. Even as he continued to honour the classic
“worthies,” he constructed a parallel pantheon of female exempla drawn from Scandinavian
history
and Old Norse-Icelandic literature—including Scandinavian female rulers, like Queen
Thyre, Queen Louise of Great Britain, Olga (Helga)—grandmother of Vladimir the Great,
Queen Margaret I of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, and Ástríðr Ólafsdóttir of Sweden—Queen
Consort of King Ólafr Haraldsson of Norway; and saga heroines, such as the Christian
Auðr, Langholts-Þóra—one of the settlers from Landnámabók, Halldóra—wife of Glúmr of Víga Glúms saga, Ketilríðr—the female protagonist of Víglundar saga, and Guðrún Ósvífrsdóttir—the main character of Laxdæla saga and the first anchoress and nun of Iceland (see also Eyþórsson and Kristjánsdóttir
69–74; Van Deusen 198–201).
The seventeenth stanza of “Sprundahrós” is devoted to Auðr and recounts the essentials
of her narrative.
Auður fór á Ísagrund
útvegaði þroska,
þeim eð fengu faldahrund
fylgt um engi þorska.
Upp hóf hún með elsku lund
enn það gjörir hljóma.
Ég sá þann sóma.
Endilanga æfistund
aldrei sinni kristni brá.
Sóma föt og silkin blá.
Skörulega skála sund
skenkti gestum sínum.
Þær vilja mínum.
Sig hún erfði í það mund
andláts sé að blundi.
Þær vilja mínum fundi.
Værni mörgum vella hrund
virtist undir landa skjá.
Þær vilja mínum fundinum frá.
(ÍB 815 8vo, f. 134r, st. 17; Eyþórsson and Kristjánsdóttir 72–73; Van Deusen 219)
[Auður travelled to Iceland and endowed those who followed the “goddess of headdresses”
(=woman) across the “meadow of the cods” (=sea) with energy. She began with a spirit
of love that still resounds. I saw that honour. Her whole life her Christianity never wavered. (Saw) honourable clothes and dark silk. Generously, she served “channel of the bowls” (=mead/ale) to her guests. The women wish with me. She arranged her funeral feast when the sleep of death was approaching. The women wish with me a meeting. The “goddess of gold” (=woman) appeared worthier than many under “the window of
the land” (=heaven). The women wish to avoid meeting with me.]
The first six lines allude to Auðr’s role as landnámskona, noting that she acted with
prudence and love. She is praised in particular for her unwavering faith in Christ
(ll. 8–9) and the hospitality and generosity that she showed to her guests (ll. 5
and 12). The poet’s reference to her role as a hostess, serving her guests, conforms
to the
traditional role of women in Old Norse-Icelandic literature and echoes her earlier
characterization in both
Laxdæla saga (Ch. 7) and
Landnámabók (Ch. S110). Auðr’s steadfastness in faith reminds the reader of her portrayal as
a Christianized
foremother in
Landnáma (Ch. S97 and S110). In the following lines (ll. 14–15), the poem parallels the
Laxdæla story:
Unnr mælti: “Svá hefi ek helzt ætlat, at boð þitt muni vera at áliðnu sumri þessu,
því at þá er auðveldast at afla allra tilfanga, því at þat nær minni ætlan, at vinir
várir muni þá mjǫk fjǫlmenna hingat, því at ek ætla þessa veizlu síðast at búa.” (Laxdæla saga, Ch. 7, 11)
[Unnr (i.e. Auðr) said: “I fully intend that your wedding feast should be held at
the
end of this summer, because that is the easiest time to obtain all the provisions,
as I expect that our friends will gather hither in great numbers, since I foresee
this feast to be the last I will prepare.”]
The saga text seems to suggest that Auðr foresees her own death while making arrangements
for her grandson’s wedding feast. As the text goes on to state, the wedding will turn
out to be her funeral feast. The poem’s portrait of Auðr blends the
Laxdæla image with the
Landnáma image creating a figure that bears traits of both. Just like in the previous poems,
“Vísur uppá Laxdæla sǫgu” and “Íslands kvennalof,” this poem also combines two competing
memories of the foremother figure—one in which
she is the heathen Unnr and a second in which she is the Christian Auðr—into a single
composite memory figure.
Interestingly, each of the other “worthies” taken from Old Norse-Icelandic literature
is linked to only one virtue: Langholts-Þóra—hospitality
(st. 18), Halldóra—generosity (st. 18), Ketilríðr—loving temperament (st. 19), and
Guðrún—redemption through faith (st. 19). However, the depiction of Auðr distinguishes
her from these women. She unites all
four virtues in her person, thus serving as a paragon to these other saga heroines,
each of whom conveys only one virtue. This makes the poet’s final statement on Auðr
ring even more true (ll. 16–17), while at the same time echoing Laxdæla saga’s statement “at hon var mikit afbragð annarra kvenna” [that she excelled above other
women] (Laxdæla saga, Ch. 4, 7). In this way, the “Sprundahrós”-poet renders Auðr a paragon of feminine
virtue. The poet seems to empower her as
the most worthy among the listed group of “saga worthies.”
The aforementioned poems illustrate a transition in the depiction of the foremother
figure from two competing memory figures to one single, composite memory figure based
on both the heathen Unnr and the Christian Auðr. It is essential to place these poems
in the context of the kvöldvaka [evening gathering]—a time designated for listening to rímur or to other poems and
sagas being read out
loud to the members of the household (Driscoll 38–44). Another popular form of entertainment
during the late sixteenth century and onwards
in Iceland was the vikivakakvæði, a genre to which the poem “Sprundahrós” belongs
(Ólason 1982, 43). These poems were sung at a gleði [dance gathering] and accompanied by dancing (Van Deusen 204; Hughes 2005, 215–16).
Thus, all four poems have a performative quality to them, in addition to their inherent
entertainment value. Furthermore, in at least two of the poems, “Íslands kvennalof”
and “Sprundahrós,” the focus is on the didactic side of the foremother figure. Auðr
is presented here
as a mirror of virtue, a woman whose example sets the standard of virtuous behaviour
and proper conduct for Icelandic women.
In the following century, only one of the aforementioned multiple memory figures prevails.
The dominant memory—Auðr, the early Christian landnámskona—is then remembered through
Icelandic folklore and folk literature. It is Landnámabók that in effect became the canonical text, serving in turn as a source for other compositions
such as Gullbrá og Skeggi í Hvammi and, perhaps also for “Ein bæn Auðar diúpauðgu.” Though few of the remaining folklore
texts seem to be earlier than the nineteenth
century, many of the stories are much older and have had a long oral history before
being written down by a particular author (Óskarsson 297).
This is evidenced by the history of the folktale
Gullbrá og Skeggi í Hvammi. The tale was recorded by Reverend Jón Þorleifsson (1825–1860) in 1860 as two separate
stories, entitled “Gullbrá” (Lbs 531 4to, ff. 66r–69r) and “Skeggi í Hvammi” (Lbs
531 4to, ff. 69r–70v), which were then collected by the Icelandic writer and librarian
Jón Árnason (1819–1888)
and first published in his well-known collection
Íslenzkar þjóðsógur og ævintýri [Icelandic folk- and fairy tales] (1862–1864). The tale, however, is much older than
the written version. A rendering
of the tale had already been circulating orally in the seventeenth century. In a letter
dated 4 September 1690, the Icelandic manuscript collector Árni Magnússon (1663–1730)
referred to a story in which a woman named Gullbrá is said to have lived in Dalasýsla
at the same time as Auðr:
Slikar traditiones eru nogar á Islandi, um Gullbra, sem atti ad bua i Dalasislu, þa
Unnur kom þar, … sem aller menn trua a Islandi, enn verdur bevisad af ödrum, ad þær
eru osannar, enn vera kann þeir hafa eckert vist þar um haft, enn hiner seirne hafa
vilia skrifa nockud med, (so sem) sia ma af Flateyiarboc, sem full er med þvætting,
traditiones falsas og mælge. (Kålund 66)
[There are plenty of such traditions in Iceland, about Gullbrá, who was supposed to
live in Dalasýsla, when Unnr (i.e. Auðr) came there, which all men in Iceland believe,
yet it was proven that they are false, it is also possible that they had nothing reliable
about this, but latter-day or younger authors wanted to add something to it, like
among other things Flateyjarbók, which is filled with nonsense, false traditions, and prattle.]
According to his observations, the Icelanders believed the tale “um Gullbra, sem atti
ad bua i Dalasislu, þa Unnur kom þar” [about Gullbrá who was supposed to live in Dalasýsla,
when Unnr (i.e. Auðr) came there] to be true. To Árni Magnússon, who was familiar
with
Sturlubók, and with the other redactions or versions of
Landnámabók, anything in contrast with the established memory of the settlement is considered
“þvætting, traditiones falsas og mælge” [nonsense, false traditions, and prattle]
(Höfig 2018, I: 767). This letter serves not only to remind us that the memory of
Auðr was very much alive
and deeply embedded in Icelandic culture, but also calls our attention to the fact
that certain memories of Auðr (i.e. in folktales) were played down in favour of a
more “truthful” memory of the past (i.e. in
Landnámabók).
Although the memory of Auðr as preserved in Landnáma was considered superior to oral folk traditions, the folktale Gullbrá og Skeggi í Hvammi amplifies the text of Auðr’s myth as it appears in Landnámabók. The first part of the tale (Lbs 531 4to, ff. 66r–69r; Gullbrá og Skeggi í Hvammi 1862, I: 146–49), the only one of relevance here, is set at the turn of the eighth
to ninth centuries,
at a time when Auðr resided at Hvammur. She has set aside a certain portion of her
farmland as sacred, upon which no crops should grow and no livestock should graze.
When Auðr has grown very old, a young woman named Gullbrá wishes to purchase this
sacred piece of land, because, she says, “því mèr segir svo hugur um, að hèr muni
sá siður tiðkast, og það hús byggjast, sem
mèr er verst við” [I have a foreboding that a faith (i.e. Christianity) will be practised
here and a
house (i.e. a Christian church) built that I hate most] (Gullbrá og Skeggi í Hvammi 1862, I: 147; Malone 58). Gullbrá is able to trick Auðr’s overseer into selling her the land for a bag of gold.
Auðr then abandons that plot of land, stretching from the sea up to Krossgil [Cross
Gully], where she had three crosses raised. The beautiful Gullbrá then reveals her
true
nature as a wicked witch, and she builds her own heathen temple on her recently acquired
“sacred” land.
And so the battle begins between these two women. The two never meet in person and
the story informs us that a light from Hvammur and from Auðr’s crosses make Gullbrá
forget her pagan practices. After Auðr’s death, Gullbrá’s land is hemmed in by Auðr’s
grave on the shore on one side and the three crosses at Krosshólaborg on the other
perimeter.
Heitir þar nú Auðarsteinn er hún liggur og er það enn í dag almennt fjörumark á Hvammsfirði
[…]. Þá festi hún ekki yndi þar sem legstaður Auðar var fram af landi hennar í flæðarmáli,
en krossar hennar innar við gillið á hlíðarbrúninni. Var hún þar í nokkurs konar úlfakreppu.
(Gullbrá og Skeggi í Hvammi 1862, I: 147–48)
The spot where she [i.e. Auðr] lies is now called Auður’s stone, and to this day is
a familiar beach-mark in Hvammsfirth […]. She [i.e. Gullbrá] did not feel happy where
Auður’s grave was in front of her land by the sea and Auður’s crosses behind it at
the gully on the brow of the hillside. She [i.e. Gullbrá] was hemmed in there after
a fashion. (Malone 59)
In her struggle against Gullbrá, Auðr created these landmarks to protect the land,
each of which were situated at an extremity of her land claim. So that even in her
death, she could continue to protect the land and the members of her clan. The Christian
foremother becomes the personification of a protecting spirit attached to the land
of the Hvammverjar [the men of Hvammur]. Because of this, Gullbrá moves away from
Akur to a remote part of the Dales. Whenever
she has to traverse the Dale, she does so blindfolded. One day the blindfold falls
off and she is blinded by the light emanating from the three crosses. Soon afterwards
Gullbrá dies and becomes a ghost. In this rendition of her story, Auðr—a force of
light, an agent of goodness and virtue, is contrasted to Gullbrá—a force of darkness,
an agent of evil. The landnámskona is a protective spirit of the land and its people.
This protective element is also present in the prayer “Ein bæn Auðar diúpauðgu” recorded
some decades earlier by the poet Jón Jónsson langur (ca. 1779–1828) in 1828.
Kross geri ég yfir mér sem
Drottinn minn gerði yfir sér,
þá hann sté af Jarðríki
upp til himnaríkis,
bak †, brjóst †, friðar †, fagnaðar †, höfuð † drottins míns,
svo ég sé hvorki fyrirlitin
né í svefni svikin,
ekki bráðum dauða tekin,
ekki vakandi villtur (villt).
Sonar guðs helgi † leiði mig í himnaríki.
Amen.
(JS 494 8vo, f. 10v)
[The cross I do to me as my Lord did to himself, as He resurrected from earth up to
heaven. (The cross I do) behind, (and) in front, (for) peace, (and) joy, (over) the
head, my Lord. To be neither despised, nor betrayed in sleep, not captured by sudden
death, not awake astray. Holy Son of God, lead me to heaven. Amen.]
The prayer, said to be recited by Auðr herself, is one for protection. It bears similarities
to another group of devotional texts, such as the Icelandic
brynjubænir [a compound of
brynja “coat of mail” and
bæn “prayer”] and the Irish
loricae [lit. breastplate] (Mac Eoin 143–54). Auðr’s prayer bears some of the hallmarks,
formulae, and themes of these protection
prayers. The prayer opens with an invocation of Christ’s resurrection and ascension
(ll. 1–4). She makes the sign of the Cross, in front and behind, and on the (fore)head,
so
to invoke Christ’s help for peace and joy (l. 5). The next lines of the text (ll.
6–9) enumerate the circumstances or situations for which protection is needed. The
prayer
ends with a plea for Christ’s guidance to lead the way to eternal salvation (l. 10).
Several of these characteristics can also be found in brynjubænir and loricae, such
as the invocation of God, depictions of various scenarios in which God’s protection
could be solicited, and a petition for salvation (Mac Eoin 150–53).
Though the prayer is not a depiction of Auðr per se, this short text does influence
the audience’s interpretation of her character and her story. The authorship of the
prayer was attributed by Jón Jónsson langur to Ari Þorgilsson, in deference to him
and to lend the text authority. At least that is what seems to be suggested by the
subtitle “að vitni Ara prests fróða” [as witnessed by the priest Ari the Wise], although
no texts survive to support the poet’s claim. With this subtitle, Jón Jónsson
appears to suggest that his inspiration for the foremother figure, and her personal
prayer, came from Ari Þorgilsson, who laid the foundations for the figure in his Íslendingabók. However, Ari’s portrayal of Auðr is devoid of any suggestions as to what her religious
convictions may have been. We could argue that Jón Jónsson takes the character of
Auðr in Íslendingabók and, to a greater extent, in Landnámabók, and bases his character of Auðr on those prototypes. The prayer ascribed characteristics
to Auðr that cannot be found in the older descriptions of her. Jónsson completes the
description of the foremother figure in a way that remains true to the Christian Auðr
in Landnámabók, who “hafði bœnahald sitt á Krosshólum” [held her prayers at Krosshólar] (Landnámabók, Ch. S97/H84, 139).
By introducing the notion of divine protection, these Icelandic folkloric texts construct
the idea of a divine individual, who is the founder and protector of a certain community—here,
the great family of the Hvammverjar and the Dales district. By the nineteenth century,
the concept of Christian Auðr had firmly established itself as the dominant memory
figure. Her story as told in all the preserved versions of Landnámabók is by now canonical and normative. The counter-memory—the heathen Unnr—survived,
however, solely in manuscript copies of Laxdæla saga during this period.
In Old Norse-Icelandic studies, an interest in memory developed over the past decades,
as we saw in the beginning of this article. Up until now, very little work examines
how other genres besides the medieval Icelandic canon—genres that developed after
the medieval period—remember saga figures. This article offers a contribution to the
debate over post-medieval popular genres and the ways in which they represent figures
from the Icelandic past. As a case in point, I have chosen the foremother figure Auðr
djúpauðga Ketilsdóttir.
In the section on medieval texts, we saw that the present-day figure of “the foremother
of us all” has her roots in the twelfth-century depiction of Auðr landnámskona in
Íslendingabók. In this work, Auðr is portrayed as the foremother of its very author—Ari Þorgilsson—and
the people of Breiðafjörður. The literary archetype of the foremother figure thus
was born. Just a century later, two distinct characters are derived from this common
archetype: the heathen Unnr and the Christian Auðr, two figures differing in interpretation
of the same woman. Laxdæla’s foremother Unnr represents the noble heathen landnámskona, who is djúpúðga—intelligent—and,
a conscious and astute political player. Her ship burial is fit for a heathen king.
Landnáma’s foremother Auðr, on the other hand, is djúpauðga—profoundly wealthy, and one of
the early Christian settlers in pre-Christian Iceland. She was buried, as she wished,
í flæðarmáli [at the flood-mark]—a Christian ritual according to Landnámabók. Each author takes a radically different attitude toward the character. Consequently,
two competing memories co-exist from then on.
These two memory figures slowly start to merge into one composite foremother figure
in eighteenth-century poetry. The Laxdælakappakvæði of Tyrfingur Finnsson exalts Auðr as the exceptional woman from Laxdæla saga and yet, simultaneously, depicts her as a Christian champion. The same tendency is
found in other texts from this period, as in, for example, Eiríkur Bjarnason’s rímur
rendition of Laxdæla saga and the vikivakakvæði entitled “Sprundahrós.” In these three texts, the Laxdæla image of the foremother in heathen-style is supplanted with the Landnáma image of Auðr as a devout Christian settler. All four poetic texts, written between
1747 and 1800, acknowledged the existence of two competing memory figures but chose
to focus on Auðr’s Christian faith and hospitality. The majority of these poets offered
Auðr as an exemplary role-model, worthy of emulation, in accordance with the values
of their time.
In the following century, Jón Árnason and Jón Þorkelsson began to collect and record
folkloric texts, such as þjóðsögur and poetic texts. Both the folktale Gullbrá og Skeggi í Hvammi and the prayer “Ein bæn Auðar diúpauðga” build on the depiction of Auðr in Landnámabók, and transform the Christian heroine into a protective spirit guarding the people
and the land of the Dales district. The possibility that the heathen Unnr was diminished
to the advantage of the Christian Auðr gets support from the fact that these folkloric
texts only remember the Christian Auðr. In Icelandic imagery, the heathen Unnr persisted
as a counter-memory and is retained in copies of Laxdæla saga. Yet, the concept of the Christian Auðr had firmly established itself as the dominant,
canonical memory.
In conclusion, across various genres—in the Íslendingasögur, in the historiographical
works such as Íslendingabók and Landnámabók, as well as in praise poetry, rímur, folktales and prayers—Auðr is remembered in
a multitude of ways. Even so, she remains “the foremother of us all.”
I am indebted to Professor Shaun Hughes for checking my translations and advising
me on doubtful points. I would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their comments
and advice in the writing of this article. All errors and oversights are my own.