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Flyting
http://www.ragnarokr.com/Scholarship/nidsenna.htmlNíđ en Senna
Formal insulting in Old Norse literature
Written and Old Norse translated
by Selvĺrv Stigĺrđ, © 1999
You may copy and redistribute this document freely, provided the author is notified prior to distribution. You may use the translations without fee or contract, provided the translator is notified prior to publication.
In the prose and poetry of medieval Iceland and Norway, as in the ethnic literature of other cultures, many aspects of that society are explored with a presumption of basic understanding of the concepts existing in the audience. Possibly the most intriguing and confusing theme present is that of formalised, even ritual, forms of invective. Numerous times in the Eddas and sagas, a figure already known for their uncertain morals will engage an enemy in a formal contest of insults, recite a poem of dishonour, or perform a ritual curse against them.
A common function of these insults in Icelandic literature was to allow a protagonist of questionable honour, such as Egill Skalla-Grímsson, Sinfjötli, or Loki, to declare an enemy to be of lesser status. By declaring a níđ, "shaming", or engaging a senna, "flyting", the protagonist could use imagery which dishonoured their foe, and simultaneously prevented them from responding in kind without acknowledging the basis of the insult.
Possibly the best example of this inversion is in Egils saga Skalla-Grímssonar. After Berg-Önundr refused to allow Egill to claim Ásgerđ's share of her father's inheritance, he challenges Önundr to hölmganga, against a threat of cowardice [chp. 56]:
Ţá mćlti Egill: "Hvárt mun Berg-Önundr heyra orđ mín"
"Heyri ek," sagđi hann.
"Ţá vil ek bjóđa ţér hólmgöngu ok ţat, at vit berimsk hér á ţinginu; hafi sá fé ţetta, lönd ok lausa aura, er sigr fćr, en ţú ver hvers manns níđingr, ef ţú ţorir eigi."
Then Egill asked: "Can Berg-Önundr hear my words?"
"I hear," said he.
"Then I will challenge you to ritual dueling, which shall be fought here at the Thing; winner takes all, land and gold, but if you back out, you will be a nithling man, as everyone will know."
While this may ring of schoolyard taunts in the ears of later societies, within the cultural context of medieval Norway, stating that a man would not fight for his honour and property called into his question his capability to manage that property and whether he had any honour to defend. Egill says Önundr will be a níđingr, literally "niggard", which at that time is inaccurate as he has not proven himself to be without honour. However this claim would become true if Önundr refused, which was a standard way of forcing an enemy into a duel. Following this, King Eiríkr blóđřx chases off Egill by boat, but fails to catch him.
That same summer, Harald hárfagri dies, and in order to secure his place on the throne, Eiríkr kills his two brothers. He then declares Egill an outlaw in Norway, and Berg-Önundr gathers a company of men to go after Egill, but is killed in the attempt. In an escape from Norway, Egill kills Rögnvaldr Eiríksson and then raises a níđstöng against his parents [chp. 57]: Hann tók í hönd sér heslistöng ok gekk á bergsnös nökkura, ţá er vissi til lands inn; ţá tók hann hrosshöfuđ ok setti upp á stöngina. Síđan veitti hann formála ok mćlti svá: Hér set ek upp níđstöng, ok sný ek ţessu níđi á hönd Eiríki konungi ok Gunnhildi dróttningu, — hann sneri hrosshöfđinu inn á land, —“sný ek ţessu níđi á landvćttir ţćr, er land ţetta byggva, svá at allar fari ţćr villar vega, engi hendi né hitti sitt inni, fyrr en ţćr reka Eirík konung ok Gunnhildi ór landi.”Síđan skýtr hann stönginni niđr í bjargrifu ok lét ţar standa; hann sneri ok höfđinu inn á land, en hann reist rúnar á stönginni, ok segja ţćr formála ţenna allan.
He took in hand a hazel-stick and went upon a particular cliff-face, that faced the mainland; he took in hand a horse-head and set up a pole. He spoke this formally and shamingly: "Here I set up a níđ-pole, and declare this níđ against King Eiríkr and Queen Gunnhild," — he turned the horse-head to face the mainland — "I declare this níđ at the land-spirits there, and the land itself, so that all will fare astray, not to hold nor find their places, not until the wreak King Eiríkr and Gunnhild from the land." He set up the pole of níđ in the cliff-face and left it standing; he faced the horse's eyes on the land, and he rist runes upon the pole, and said all the formal words of the curse.
Soon afterwards, Eiríkr and Gunnhild are forced to flee Norway for Northumbria by his brother Hákon, where he is granted a rulership by King Ađalsteinn of England. Egill shipwrecks on a nearby shore and comes before Eiríkr, where he is forced to compose praise for the king in reparation for the previous slander. When he recites a full drápa in Eirík's praise, he is given his freedom, and no vengeance or settlement is demanded for the killing of Rögnvaldr. This gives the appearance that the insult was actually the greater crime, and once Egill had reversed this act, replacing a curse with a blessing, the 'lesser' act of killing Eirík's son could be forgiven.
Although this act is a recantation, when Egill raised the níđstöng he was making an intentional reversal of Eirík's sentence of outlawry against him. His message has the subtext that while Eiríkr had the legal power to exile him from Norway, the king was actually guilty of worse deeds and more deserving of being cast out of the country. The curse is fulfilled the following year, leading to the events surrounding Egil's song of praise. Not only does Egill use a formal insult to reverse the imagery of the dishonour of outlawry onto Eiríkr, it is shown to be true when the king is driven from the country by Hákon.
When Egill put up his níđstöng, he was committing a crime of tréníđ, "tree-shame", which was considered worse than tunguníđ, "tongue-shame", similarly to the modern concepts of slander and libel. Except where under modern law, to write a defamation simply carries a greater fine than to speak one, according to Grágás, to carve a shame against someone could be punished by full outlawry, as opposed to a lesser three-year outlawry for a spoken shame. [Meulengracht Sřrensen, pp. 17, 28.]
The lesser form of tunguníđ is used when Sinfjötli encounters Granmarr [or his son Guđmundur in Helgakviđa Hundingsbana I], and engages the Hunding in a senna, a kind of insult-match, with similar aspersions upon his opponent's honour. In this case, the hero is the illegitimate product of incest who has spent much of his life as a vargr, under both definitions of "outlaw" and "wolf". By any understanding of honour in Old Norse society, Sinfjötli's status is questionable at best, but it is he who immediately declares his enemy to be the lesser man, in Völsunga saga 9, and Helgakviđa Hundingsbana I 32 - 44.
The primary difference between Sinfjötli's insults and Egil's, however, is not in the form they take, but in the substance. Nearly every insult the Völsung hurls is ýki, an "exaggeration" which could not possibly be true in the 'real' world, that Granmarr has variously been a witch, a valkyrja, the mother of nine wolves, and a mare [in Helgakviđa Hundingsbana I, this last insult is in the other direction]. This is mitigated by the equally dire insults from the Hunding, that Sinfjötli lived as a wolf, killed his brothers, and sucked the blood of corpses. The difference is that Sinfjötli did all of these things.
However even within that context, the insults appear to be have a similar flavour, and Granmarr ends the senna in the same fashion that Sinfjötli began it, by threatening how his enemy will end the day. Again, a basic difference between the two warriors is shown, as Sinfjötli begins the exchange with an image of shaming, a leader of men doing the work of a ţrćll, feeding the farm-animals, and is given the ending with an image of death, feeding the ravens with his corpse. This is the final touch in how the Völsung clearly wins this contest over the Hunding, as an honourable death is considered a better fate than a dishonourable life. Sinfjötli not only forces his opponent to sink down to his level in self-defence, but shows greater poetic skill while doing so.
Lokasenna takes this form of verbal combat to an extreme, in which Loki engages the rest of the Ćsir in a similar contest of insults, with a similar inversion to Sinfjötli's. Loki is called frumkveđa flćrđanna, often translated as "father of lies" but the closest he comes to lying in either the Poetic Edda or the Prose Edda is in Lokasenna, where he makes claims which can neither be proven nor disproven, and are not attested in any other source. He is of uncertain heritage, going by the matronymic Laufeyjarson, but he is also brother, or blood-brother, to Óđinn. This is parallel to Sinfjötli having shameful origins, but is brother to Sigurđ and Helgi.
Every tunguníđ which Loki places upon the other gods is shameful and slanderous, but most notable is the line at the end of both Lokasenna 23 and 24, «og hugđa eg ţađ args ađal.« Hollander translates the concept rather than the words, with "were these womanish ways, I ween," but this does not convey the weight this line carried in Old Icelandic. The word args is a form of ragr, about which Grágás says, Ţav ero orđ ţriú ef sva mioc versna máls endar manna, er scog gang varđa avll. Ef mađr kallar man ragan eđa strođinn. eđa sorđinn. Oc scal sva sřkia sem avnnor full réttis orđ. enda a mađr vígt igegn ţeim orđum ţrimr.
There are three words from maliced verse between men, which are punished with full outlawry. If a man calls a man ragr or strođinn or sorđinn. And they shall be punished as fully slanderous words, and a man is given the right to kill for these words.
Perhaps the most noticeable part of this exchange is that Óđinn is the first to use this line, which would be more accurately, if less poetically, translated to and "I think you have unnatural origins". Loki responds by describing equally ragr behaviour by Óđinn and throwing his line back at him, at which point Frigg interrupts to point out not only are these words too shameful to be spoken, but all the more because of their truth. No doubt in a more historic context, such lines could easily have resulted in the killing or outlawry of both Loki and Óđinn.
Honour played an important rôle in Old Norse society, as is easily visible by the detail to which dishonours were described. Not only did laws exist to prohibit people from placing aspersions on another's honour, but breaking these laws could easily become a capital crime. In this light, statements and acts which reversed traditional concepts of nobility and honour become especially illuminating to the culture's values.
Egill Skalla-Grímsson is the great anti-hero of Icelandic literature, and in many ways resembles his god, Óđinn, who breaks oaths and attacks the unarmed. Likewise, Egill withholds from his family, kills for trifles, and practices sorcery. But when he is outlawed by King Eiríkr blóđřx, who has killed his own brothers to secure his throne and is married to Gunnhild, an adulteress in every source, the irony is not lost upon him. He erects a níđstöng to curse the royal couple and calls upon the land spirits to exile them, rather than himself.
Sinfjötli Sigmundsson, by contrast, must be considered the least of the Völsungs, as his very life would be considered unnatural. However, without him the line would not have survived, and in many ways he is the truest to the family line. For just as he is inseparable from this most famous of sagas, the Ćsir could not be complete without Loki. The bale-smith of the gods also brings about the creation of Ţór's hammer, Óđin's spear, Frey's boar and ship, and the wall around Ágarđr, amoung other accomplishments. He and Sinfjötli only appear to be more shameful than their peers until challenged, at which time the flaws of others are found to equal or surpass them.
Níđ-curses were a method to bring a depth to the Old Norse concepts of honour and shame, by challenging the conventional understandings. Putting them into a formal structure gave this a recognised place in a society which, in a span of a few hundred years, had gone from heavily egalitarian to highly hierarchal. A living tradition by which the least respected could reveal anyone else to be no better than they were, could undermine the structure which had recently developed. As a result, strict laws were enacted against these insults, and the practice became confined to literature. This has left us with a colourful, if bizarre, selection of writings which preserved this practice along with other, more acceptible, forms of verse and prose.
Primary Sources
Egils saga Skalla-Grímssonar.
Grágás.
Helgakviđa Hundingsbana I.
Lokasenna.
Snorri Sturluson. Edda.
Völsunga saga.
Secondary Sources
Gade, Kari Ellen. "Homosexuality and Rape of Males in Old Norse Law and Literature." Scandinavian Studies 58: 124-41, 1986.
Meulengracht Sřrensen, Preben. The Unmanly Man: Concepts of Sexual Defamation in Early Northern Society. Trans. Joan Turville-Petre. Odense: Odense University Press, 1983.
Miller, Ian William. Bloodtaking and Peacemaking: Feud, Law, and Society in Saga Iceland. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990.
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