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Gunnhildur and the male whores

Icelandic SagaGunnhildur and the male whores

Sagas and Societies: Section 2: History of Mentality and Cultural Contact (2002)

Abstract

Queen Gunnhildur is one of the most evil Norwegian female characters in the Middle Ages. She appears in many old stories where she is usually the female agent for ill in the sagas; she is wicked, promiscuous and very often skilled in magical arts. The purpose of this paper is to focus on how the medieval writers treat Gunnhildur, the sources about her, historical and fiction, and most of all her relationship with Icelandic farmers. The aim is to cast new light on her love affair with those men, which produces evidence for the proposition that they sold their affection to the Norwegian queen to make their way to fortune and fame in Norway.

In Old Icelandic the word troll meant a being skilled in magical arts. The oldest written source of the word is thought to be the compound adjective trollkund (i.e. troll-like) which is to be found in the ninth century poem Ynglingatal by Þjóðólfr of Hvin, where it is used for a witch who caused a nightmare to ride King Vanlandi and tread him to death. The word troll is used far and wide to refer to witch-like beings in the old stories. Landnáma tells of a woman named Geirhildr who is malicious and versed in the magical arts, and therefore she is called a troll. In the 14th century the old meaning of the word slowly began to make way for the supernatural beings, usually called giants, which occupy a place in the fairy tales and legends. Yet a number of examples of the older meaning are to be found in fairy tales, such as Hundurinn Svartur. The story tells of ‘troll-women’ who seem like ordinary people, they run homes and farms, but in addition to that are extremely skilful in sorcery. Traces of this old meaning are still to be found in the Icelandic compound words trölldómur and tröllskapur.

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