'Islendingabok' and Myth
1997; University of Illinois Press; Volume: 69; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
2163-8195
Autores Tópico(s)Historical and Archaeological Studies
ResumoIn one of her more interesting but perhaps less successful articles, Kirsten Hastrup (Presenting the Past) once juxtaposed Ari Porgilsson's account of the Conversion in Islendingabok to a Mataco myth explaining the foundation of the poor relationship that obtains between the Mataco and the Christians. Her purpose was to attack the problem of the relationship between myth and history as modes of representation of the same goal, the linking of and present, and although she concedes differences, these are largely contextual, for myth is the history of oral culture, while history is the inyth of cultures that depend on writing. Myth, she concludes, the in the present, while history embeds the present in the past (Presenting the Past 266). Following Gerd Wolfgang Weber (Irreligiositat und Heldenzeitalter), she accepts that the Icelandic sagas passed from one mode to the other. For their time (12th-13th century), they were history, but later they assumed the proportion of myths, dealing with sacred origins of Icelandic society.... As for Islendingabok... it has not quite been redefined yet, but on the whole it could be an example of history turning into myth under impact of time and of changing historical conventions. (262) Obviously such a statement requires defining myth in the anthropological sense of a foundation narrative set in some more or less distant and explaining how the world -- this can be defined very locally -- got to be the way it is. Such a definition is just as valid as one requiring gods to act at or around the beginning of time, and in that sense Islendingabok was kind of myth from the very moment of writing, as I shall argue below. That this sense is applicable to the earliest Icelandic history is suggested in an article by Hermann Palsson on porir Grimsson's landtaking, which Hermann uses alongside Cadmus's founding of Thebes and Aeneas's of Rome to construct an archetype of foundation. His conclusion, namely that the incident in Landmark depends on foreign learning rather than native tradition, does not necessarily reflect on the semantics of the term myth. Beyond this kind of myth, however, it is interesting and significant, that Islendingabok actually shares concerns with the mythology as we know it from the Eddas. These turn on the understanding of froedi as knowledge of the origin, extent, and details of the space in which events play themselves out: Iceland on the one hand, the mythological cosmos on the other. In his Prologue, Ari referred to the contents of his little book as froedi, and Snorri later verified that usage in the Prologue to Heimskringla. Ari prestr inn frodi Porgilsson, Gellissonar ritadi fyrstr manna her a landi at norroeunu mali froedi, bedi forna ok nyja. [Ed. Bjarni Adalbjarnarson 5] (1) The priest Ari the Learned, the son of Porgils, the son of Gellir, was the first person here in this land to write learned matter [froedi], both ancient and recent. Thanks especially to Preben Meulengracht Sorensen and Hastrup, we have a fairly good sense of the meanings and connotations of the term froedi in relation to history and narrative. What has been omitted from their discussions is the use of the term in the mythology as well: of the seeress in Voluspa, for example, who recounts the entire curve of the mythology, the refrain goes fjold veit hon froedi. The adjective frodr is used of both Odinn and Vafprudnir as they pit their cosmological knowledge against each other, and in the heroic poems Fafnismal and Gripisspa, the terms are used in connection with prophecy, a realm similar to myth.(2) Odinn, Vafprudnir, Saemundr, Ari--each was frodr by virtue of his possession and control of knowledge. In the following brief survey of the contents of Ari's Libellus, I will develop several themes that refute to myth in one way or another: migration, law, and the ordering and structure of the cosmos. …
Referência(s)