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carpenter:  What do you know about a craftsman s blows, you devils?
The theme of this story is a craftsman s pride. He is aware of his
skill and is confident of it, and this confidence gives him the strength
to stand up against the mighty men who rank high above him in worldly
dignity. He has his superiority no less than they have theirs, and so
each class has its own resources.
If one were to search thoroughly, I suspect that more stories of crafts-
men s skill would be found among Icelandic folk-stories. Yet I suspect
too that they would be fewer than one might expect, and the reason is
simple. There has never been very much division of labour in Iceland;
everyone worked on the land, and the men went out fishing or worked
on fishing-stations as circumstances permitted. Urban artisans come
too late into Icelandic history to become part of folk-lore, so that apart
from clerics, it is mainly carpenters that could have cause to regard
themselves as superior to others because of their skill.
But then there is the division of the people into clerics and laymen,
and this has had a far greater impact. There are a few stories that relate
to pre-Reformation times, often rather anti-clerical in tone, and espe-
cially hostile to monks and nuns, who are accused of immorality, often
in a very silly way, as in the stories of their having children at Helgafell
Abbey, where the story-tellers overlooked the fact that there never
was a nunnery anywhere near Helgafell. Some of the pre-Reformation
bishops are accused of excessive greed, like Gottskálk the Second of
280 THE FOLK-STORIES OF ICELAND
Hólar. Most of this comes from or is coloured by the hatred of the
Lutherans for the Roman Church, though the story of the abbess who
put the abbot s drawers on her head instead of her wimple (JÁ II 73) is
an anti-clerical satire from much earlier times (it occurs for instance
in the Decameron).
But many of the Catholic and most of the Lutheran bishops had a
good reputation, and are the spiritual fathers of the people in stories.1
The ordinary clergy stand closer to the common people, and have had
a greater effect on their imaginations. The peasants looked up to the
model farmer at the parsonage, the people of the parish respected their
pastor, the unlearned had a kind of fearful veneration for the man
learned in Latin and Theology. People came to think of them as hav-
ing greater power than others in matters pertaining to the spiritual
world, that they had spiritual, often magical, power. Most of the time
they were the most reliable pillars of strength in men s dealings with
dark powers, and it is rare for them to use their powers for doubtful
purposes. Thus the name of priest provides a greater security than that
of poet. Both had spiritual power and mighty skills, but poets were
less to be relied on.
There are many more ideas associated with priests than these. They
received their income from obligatory tithes which many must have
resented having to pay, and so they often got a reputation for avarice.
The Devil could not find an unavaricious priest to provide the last
rites for Kálfr Árnason; there was only one in the world, he was away
in Germany and protected by a blazing fire all round him, and the
Devil could not get hold of him (JÁ I 504 05). In a more popular tone
is the story of the parson at Múli who took the cow from the poor
widow at Ingunnarssta: ir for his tithe, and on the way a great rock fell
on him from the mountain (JÁ I 480). But though there are thus some
traces of satire, emanating clearly from the payers of tithes, the trust
placed in the parson because of his spiritual powers is a much more
important and common element in folk-stories relating to clergy.
1
Of the Catholic bishops  Gvendur gó: i (Gu: mundr the Good) was of course
best known among the people and he appears in some stories. In one story
Luther saves a woman who had sold her soul to the Devil; Luther gives her a
purse, which the Devil tries in vain to fill, and he gives it up with the words,  No
wonder I was not able to fill it: it is Luther s purse (ÍB l60 8vo, p. 35). Cf. Ólafur
Lárusson,  Gu: mundur gó: i í fljó: trú Íslendinga , Bygg: og saga, 1944, 244 79.
THE WORLD OF MEN AND THE HIDDEN WORLD 281
Some stories show signs of having originated in schools or among
clerics, such as the anecdote of Sæmundr the Wise s rhyming contests
in Latin with the Devil ( Nunc tibi deest gramen ; JÁ I 496) or the
conversation between the devil and the ignorant priest ( Abi, male
spirite ; JÁ II 23). The same applies to the story of Galdra-Loftur and
many other stories of sorcerers. Others show the boys of the Latin
schools through the eyes of the common folk, and they contain some-
times respect, sometimes antipathy.
Though secular officials appear a good deal in folk-stories, popular
ideas about them are much less consistent. Merchants, who were mostly
foreigners in Iceland, were the most clearly distinguished class, hated
for their rapacity, insolence and vulgarity. Stories about them show a
tendency to try to cut them down to size, and this is usually how the
Icelandic peasant, often a proud and easily offended type, compen-
sated himself for the humiliations he often had to endure from them.
So we find popular heroes emerging among their opponents, such as
the power-poets fiór: ur of Strjúgur and fiormó: ur of Gvendareyjar,
who turned the tables on them and brought the Jacks-in-office down a
peg or two. It may be that occasionally a peasant tried to frighten a
trader by threats of magic, but for the most part these stories must
have come about as verbal vengeance for insults which the unpro-
tected Icelander had to suffer without being able to get his revenge on
the spot. Thus the story of Jón the Strong1 is fictitious, born of a burn-
ing hatred for traders and the need for a vicarious revenge; it tells how
Jón repeatedly overcame a merchant s trickery and his attempts to [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]