Regardless of Sex: Men, Women, and Power in Early Northern Europe
Author(s): Carol J. Clover
Reviewed work(s):
Source: Representations, No. 44 (Autumn, 1993), pp. 1-28
Published by: University of California Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2928638 .
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Representations.
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CAROL
J. CLOVER
Regardless of Sex:
Men, Women,and Power
in Early NorthernEurope
IN CHAPTER
32 OF GIsla saga, two bountyhunterscome to the wife
of theoutlawed Gisliand offerher sixtyounces of silverto revealthewhereabouts
of her husband. At firstAubr resists,but then,eyeing the coins and muttering
that "cash is a widow'sbest comfort,"she asks to have the money counted out.
The men do so. Au6r pronounces the silveradequate and asks whethershe may
do withit what she wants.By all means, Eyj6lfrreplies. Then:
Auortekrnii feitok letr komai einnst6ransj66,stendrhon sioanupp ok rekrsj6oinn
svaatbegarst0kkr
b166urnhannallan,ok malti:"Hafniibetta
me6silfrinu
a nasarEyj6lfi,
fyrir
au6tryggi
binaok hvert6gagnme6.Engivanvarberbess,at ek myndaseijab6nda
ok kleki.Skaltubatmuna,
minni hendrillmennibinu.Haf niibettaok me6bax6iskQmm
at konahefirbaritbik.En biimuntekkiat heldrfdbat,er bii
vesallma6r,me6anb6 lifir,
vildir."
ha maltiEyj6lfr:"Hafi6hendra hundinumok drepi,b6 at blau6rs.'
In George Johnston'stranslation:
Aud takesthesilverand putsitina bigpurse;shestandsup and swingsthepursewiththe
silverin itat Eyjolf'snose,so thatthebloodspurtsoutall overhim;thenshespoke:"Take
thatforyoureasyfaith,and everyharmwithit! There was neveranylikelihoodthatI
Takeyourmoney,
and shameand disgrace
wouldgivemyhusbandovertoyou,scoundrel.
as longas youlive,youmiserable
withit!Youwillremember,
man,thata womanhasstruck
you;and yetyouwillnotgetwhatyouwantforall that!"
Then Eyjolfsaid:"Seizethebitchand killher,womanor not!"[literally,
"Seizethedog
(masculine)and kill(it),though(it)be blau&r"].2
Eyj6lfr'smen hasten to restrainhim,notingthattheirerrand is bad enough as it
is withoutthe commissionof a nWcingsverk
(rendered byJohnstonas "a coward's
work").
entries
The adjectiveblau&rposes a translationproblem.3Cleasby-Vigfusson's
under it and itsantonymhvatrread as follows:
Latinmollis,
and is opposedto hvatr,
BLAUDR, adj. Properlymeanssoft,
weak,answering
erhrorask
erblau6r[few
'brisk,vigorous';hencetheproverb,
farerhvatr
tekr,
efi barnaesku
in actionwhoare blau6ir
in childhood].Metaphorically
blau6rmeans'feminine,'
are hvatir
= haeingr
= salmo
butonlyused of animals,dogs,cats,fishes;hvatr-lax
hvatr'masculine,'
is a 'dam,'and metaphorically
'a coward,a craven.'Blau6r
mas;[thefeminine
noun]bley6a
is a termofabuse,a 'bitch,coward.'
REPRESENTATIONS 44 *
Fall1993? The MedievalAcademyofAmerica
'female,'ofbeasts.4
HVATR,adj. 'Bold,active,vigorous.'II. 'Male,'opposedtoblaubr,
Attestedin both poetryand prose, blauYroccurs most conspicuouslyin verbal
tauntstowardor about men, and in such cases it is typicallyrendered in English
as "coward"(earlier"craven"),as in Hallgerdr'sremarkin chapter38 ofNjals saga,
er blau6r" (translatedin the Penguin
mun a me6 ykkr,er hvArrtveggi
"Jafnkomit
edition,"The twoof you arejust alike; both of you are cowards"),directedto her
pacifisthusband and his equally pacifistfriendNjAll,a man who not onlyfavored
but was unable to growa beard.5When blauYris used in referenceto
Christianity
women or femaleanimals,however(as in the G'sla saga passage above), it is rendered "woman"or "female";clearly"coward"willnot do in theGZslasaga passage.
The need in English for two words (cowardand female)where Norse uses one
brave,but on the face of ithopelesslybedeviled,
(blaucr),and Cleasby-Vigfusson's
effortto distinguish"metaphoric"frompresumably"real" or "proper" usages,
and human fromanimal, hintat the aspect of early Scandinavian culture,and
perhaps Germanicculturein general,thatthisessayis about: a sex-gendersystem
rather differentfrom our own, and indeed rather differentfrom that of the
ChristianMiddle Ages.
Certainlythe Gislasaga passage seems a snarl of gender crossings.If her sex
qualifiesAu6r as blaucr,bloodyingthe nose of a person qualifiesher as hvatr;and
ifbeing a man qualifiesEyj6lfras hvatr,havinghis nose bloodied qualifieshim as
blaucr,and havinghis nose bloodied bya creaturehe himselfwishesto designate
as blaucrby virtueof her sex qualifieshim as blaucrin the extreme-which is, of
course, the pointof Aubr'sreminderthathe has been not onlystruckin the nose,
but struckin the nose by a woman.When Eyj6lfrcalls out his order to have her
seized despitethefactthatshe is blaucr,he acknowledgesthatwhateverproperties
are assumed to attach to her bodily femaleness have been overridden by her
aggressivebehavior.She wantsto be hvatr,she getstreatedaccordingly.And when
his men restrainhim,sayingthattheyhave accumulated enough shame without
theyin effectredefineher as blaucr.iIt could be argued
committinga n~ingsverk,
that the scene, particularlythe focus on wifelyloyalty,has Christianresonances
(like all the Icelandic sagas, thisone has roots in the pagan era but was written
down during the Christianone), and thatsome part of itsconfusionstemsfrom
what I shall suggest are differentgender paradigms.7But the real problem, I
termset (presumablyancient) and the inability
think,inheres in the hvatrlblaucr
of the modern languages, and modern scholarship,to apprehend the distinction.
When commentaries on Viking and medieval Scandinavian culture get
they
around (mostdo not) to the subjectof "women"or "sex roles"or "the family,"
tend to tell a standard storyof separate spheres.8Woman's,symbolizedby the
("withinthehousehold"), where
bunch of keysat her belt,is theworldinnanstokks
she is in charge of child care, cooking,serving,and taskshaving to do withmilk
2
REPRESENTATIONS
and wool. Man's is the world beyond: the world of fishing,agriculture,herding,
travel,trade,politics,and law.This inside/outsidedistinctionis formulatedin the
laws and seems to representan ideal state of affairs.It is no surprise,given its
binaryquality,and also given the way it seems to line up withsuch termsets as
thatmodern speculationson underlyingnotionsof gender in Norse
hvatrlblaucr,
culture should be similarlydichotomous.As labor is divided, in other words,so
mustbe sexual nature: thus we read, in the handbooks, of the "polarity"of the
sexes, of an "antithesisbetween masculineand feminine,"of male-female"comand so on.9
plementarity,"
But is it thatsimple,and, more to the point,is it thatmodern? Let me begin
an interrogationof thissexual binaryon the female side. From the outset of the
scholarlytradition,readers have been startledand not infrequentlyappalled by
the extraordinaryarrayof"exceptional"or "strong"or "outstanding"or "proud"
or "independent"women-women whose behaviorexceeds whatis presumed to
be custom and sometimesthe law as well. No summarycan do themjustice, not
leastbecause paraphrase (indeed, translationin general) forfeitsthe tone of marvelous aplomb, both social and textual,that is such a conspicuous and telling
aspect of theirstories.But for those unfamiliarwiththe field,the followinglist
should give a rough idea of the parameters.Heading it is the formidableUnnr
in djpi6Dga. The overwhelmingmajorityof Iceland's foundingfathers(the original land claimants)were fathersindeed, but a handful-thirteen, according to
Landndmabok'0-werewomen, and one of these was Unnr, who, fearingfor her
life and fortunesin Scotland afterthe death of her fatherand son, had a ship
built in secretand fled,takingall her kin and retinuewithher,to Orkney,then
the Faroes, and finallyIceland, where,in about the year 900, she took possession
of vast lands and establisheda dynasty." ("In every respect,"Preben MeulengrachtS0rensen observes,"she has taken over the conduct and social functions
of the male householder and leader.")'2
In Scandinavia as in the Germanic world in general, men preceded women
as heirs,but women did inherit,and a varietyof evidence confirmsthatwomen
could, and a not-insignificantpercentage did, become considerable landholders.'3 They could also become traders and business partners. One of the
main Scandinavian ventureson the North American continentwas significantly
bankrolled by a woman. She undertook the journey herself,and during the
American winter,she is said to have drivenher husband to murder several companions while she herselftook an axe to theirwives.'4 It may well be that even
that most macho of early Scandinavian business activities,organized piracy
("viking"in the proper sense of the term),was practicedbywomen. TheWarofthe
GtedhilwiththeGaill referstwiceto a "red girl"who headed up a vikingband in
Ireland and invaded Munsterin the tenthcentury,and as any reader of the literature well knows,thereare manyother such legends of "fierceand imperious
women"-legends so numerous and so consistentthat,as Peter Foote and David
RegardlessofSex
3
5 More munWilson sum it up, they"mustcertainlyhave some basis in reality."'
dane but no less telling,given the "overwhelmingmaleness"of the enterprise,is
the existenceof a handfulof women skalds.'6 More generally,the sources tellof
a number of women who prosecute theirlives in general, and theirsex lives in
particular,witha kindof aggressiveauthorityunexpected in a woman and unparalleled in any other European literature.'7
Nor was governmentthe exclusive turfof men. It was in principle a male
matter,but in practice,ifwe are to believethesagas, womencould insinuatethemselves at almost everylevel of the process. One source claims thatuntil the year
992, when theywere debarred, women in Iceland could bring suit.'8 Normally
women were not allowed to serve as witnesses-but exceptions could be made.
Likewiseserviceas arbitrators;itwas a male business,but we knowof at least one
woman who "was formallyempowered bythe disputantsto act as an arbitratorin
a case."'9 Normallyand ideally households were headed by men, but the laws
provide for the female exception,and although the female householder was in
principlesubject to the authorityof male guardians, the sagas give evidence, as
William Ian Miller puts it, that"women were more than mere titleholders with
managerial powers lodged solely with men."20Women were in theoryexempt
from feud violence, but there are cases of their being specificallyincluded
togetherwithable-bodied men as targetsof vengeance.2' In Iceland, notjust men
but also women were subject to the penaltiesof outlawryand execution. Only a
man could be a goci,but it was technicallypossible forwomen to ownthe office.22
A woman's controlover whateverpropertyshe mighttechnicallyown was less a
functionof her sex than her maritalstatus:an unmarriedand underage girlhad
none; a marriedwoman,little;a widow,however(as Foote and Wilson sum itup),
"could have charge of her own property,no matterher age, and administerthat
of her children; she also had more say in arrangementsthatmightbe made for
another marriage."23Certainlywomen's role, in blood feud, in "choosing the
avenger" involvedthemcentrallyin the familypoliticsof honor and inheritance,
theoreticallymale terrain.24Normallywomen were buried with"female" grave
goods (e.g., spinning implements),but there are enough examples of female
graveswith"male" objects(weapons, huntingequipment,carpentrytools) to suggest thateven in death some women remained marked as exceptional.25
The examples could be multiplied,but even thissummarylistshould suffice
to promptthe paradoxical question: Justhow useful is the category"woman" in
apprehending the statusof women in earlyScandinavia? To put it another way,
was femalenessany more decisive in settingparameterson individual behavior
than were wealth,prestige,maritalstatus,orjust plain personalityand ambition?
If femalenesscould be overriddenby other factors,as it seems to be in the cases
I have just mentioned,what does thatsay about the sex-gendersystemof early
Scandinavia, and what are the implicationsfor maleness? I have no doubt that
the "outstanding"women I enumerated earlier were indeed exceptional; thatis
4
REPRESENTATIONS
presumablywhytheirstorieswere rememberedand recorded. But thereis something about the quality and nature of such exceptions, not to say the sheer
number of them and the tone of theirtelling,thatsuggestsa less definitiverule
than modern commentatorshave been inclinedto allow.Certainlybetweenwomen's de jure statusand de facto status (as it is representedin literaryand even
historicaltexts) there appears to have been a verylarge playing field,and the
ambitious and
woman (especiallythe divorced or widowed woman) sufficiently
endowed withmoney and power seems not to have been especially
sufficiently
hindered by notionsof male and femalenature.26
The slippage is not onlybetweenlaw and life. It is also between law and law
in the importanceof sexual
(regional variationspointingto a degree of relativity
difference),and it is also, on some points,withinone and the same law. I turn
here to the portionof Gragasknownas Baugatal. A schedule of compensationfor
slayings,Baugatal (literally"ring count") divides the kindred into four tiers
depending on theirrelationshipto the slain person. The firsttieris composed of
near kinsmenof the slain person (father,son, brother,etc.),who are required to
pay (if theyare defendants)or collect (if theyare plaintiffs)the main "ring" or
major share of thewergild.Then comes thenexttier,made up of less immediately
related kinsmenwitha lesser share of the wergild,and so on. The extensivelist,
whichexplores all possible permutationsof payersand receivers,consistsexclusivelyof men, withone exception.
Si er ok konaein er bax6iskalbaugibcetaok baug takaef hon er einberni.En si kona
en
tilhQfu6baugs
En hon er d6ttirinsdau6a,enda se eigiskapbiggjandi
heitirbaugrygr.
at vigsb6tum
til
semsonr,efhont6keigifullsaxtti
bcetendr
lifi,bkskalhontakabrimerking
alengrtaka.Nu er hond6ttirveganda,en engier
besser hon er gipt;enda skulufrxendr
en vi6takendr
tilhgfu6baugs,
se til,bkskalhonbcetabrimerkingi
tilbcetendi
skapbcetendi
i knefraxndum.
semsonrtilbesser honk0mri vershvilu;en bkkastarhongjQldum
[Thereis also one womanwhois bothto payand to takea wergildring,giventhatshe is
an onlychild,and thatwomanis called"ringlady."She whotakesis thedaughterof the
existsbutatonementpayers
dead manifno properreceiverof themainringotherwise
ringlikea son,assumingthatshehas notaccepted
are alive,and she takesthethree-mark
butthereafter
incompensation
forthekilling,
and thisuntilsheismarried,
fullsettlement
kinsmentakeit.She whopaysis thedaughterofthekillerifno properpayerofthemain
ringlikea son,
do, and thensheis topaythethree-mark
existsbutreceivers
ringotherwise
tossestheoutlayintoherkinsmen's
and thisuntilshe entersa husband'sbed and thereby
lap.]27
In otherwords,when the slain man has no male relativesin the firsttier(no son,
brother,or father)but does have a daughter (unmarried), that daughter shall
functionas a son. So compellingis the principleof patrilineagethat,in the event
of genealogical crisis,even a woman can be conscriptedas a kind of pinch hitter.
Bettera son who is your daughterthan no son at all.
That the "surrogateson" provisionis of some antiquityin Scandinavia is sugRegardlessofSex
5
gested by the presence of similarstatuteson the mainland.28It is worthnoting
thatitsimplicationsgo beyond the matterof wergild,forinsofaras a wergildlist
ranksan individual'skinsmenaccordingto theirdegree of relatednessto the slain
person,itis also assumed to reflectthe schedule of inheritanceas well. It is moreover assumed to reflectthe schedule of actual feud-the order in whichthe survivorsare obliged to take retaliatoryaction. Thus the law itselfcontemplatesa
situationin which,in thegenealogicalbreach,a womanbecomes a functionalson,
not only in the transactionof wergild,but also in the matterof inheritanceand
also, at least in principle,in the actual prosecutionof feud. (That she mustrevert
to female statusupon marriagefurtherunderscoresthe expectationthatgender
willyield,as it were, to the greatergood of survivalof the line.) Justwhere and
when and how completelythe surrogateson clause obtained we have no idea,
although the ubiquity of "maiden warrior" legends-legends of unmarried,
brotherlessdaughterswho on the death of theirfathersbecome functionalsons,
even dressingand actingthe part-suggests thatthe idea was verymuch alive in
the public mind.29In eithercase, whatconcernsus here is not so much historical
practiceas legal contemplation-the plain factthateven withinone and the same
law,the principleof sex is not so finalor absolute thatit could not be overridden
by greaterinterests.Baugatal and similarsurrogateson provisionsnot onlyallow
but institutionalizethe female exception. Again, tojudge fromthe presence of
"male" objects in the occasional female grave, not even death necessarilyundid
such exceptionality.
I have hesitated over such termsas "femaleness"and "masculinity"in the
above paragraphs,fortheyseem to me inadequate to whattheymean to describe.
The modern distinctionbetweensex (biological:thereproductiveapparatus) and
gender (acquired traits:masculinityand femininity)seems oddly inapposite to
the Norse material-in much the same way thatCleasby-Vigfusson'sdistinction
between literaland metaphoricseems oddly inapposite to the semanticfieldsof
the words blau&rand hvatr.What can be the meaning of biological femalenessin
a culturethatpermitswomen to serveas juridical men?" If biological femaleness
does not determineone's juridical status,what does it determine-and indeed
what does it matter?Is this a culture in which "sex" per se is irrelevantand
"gender" is everything?Or is it a culturethatsimplydoes not make a clear distinctionbut holds what we imagine to be two as one and the same thing?Somecomplex. Cleasbythingof the sortwould seem to be thelesson of the blaucr/hvatr
Vigfussonproposes (in effect)thatthe word blau&rrefersto "sex" when applied
to a sex-appropriatebeing (thus to call Aubr blau&ris merelyto call her female)
but to "gender" when applied to a sex-inappropriatebeing (thus to call a man
blau&ris to call himcowardly);but the factthatone word does forboth (both "sex"
termsboth "proper" and "metaphoric")
and "gender,"or in Cleasby-Vigfusson's
in
Old
thereis no "both"in the modern sense,
to
that
Norse
would seem suggest
but a singlenotion.That thissinglenotioncorresponds,at least in the case of the
6
REPRESENTATIONS
female,more closelyto our sense of gender than to our sense of sex (though I
shall suggestlaterthatthe Scandinavian sense of "gender" wreakshavoc withthe
concept of gender as we understand it) is clear from the examples of "exceptional" or "outstanding"women I enumerated above. "Woman" is a normative
category,but nota bindingone. If a womanis normallyblaucr,she is not inevitably
so, and when she is hvatr,she is thoughtunusual, but not unnatural.
Unusual forthe better.Althoughthe woman who forwhateverreason plays
life like a man is occasionally deplored by the medieval author,30she is more
commonly admired-sometimes grudgingly,but often just flatly.Certainly
Laxdcelasaga is unequivocal about Unnr in djupuiga: "Hon hafbibrottme6 ser
sitt,bat er i lifivar,ok bykkjaskmenn varla decmi til finna,at einn
allt fraxndli6
kvenma6rhafi komizki brott6r bvilikum6fri6ime6 jafnmiklu f6 ok f9runeyti;
ma a bvimarka,at hon var mikitafbrag6annarra kvenna" (She took withher all
her survivingkinsfolk;and it is generallythoughtthatit would be hard to find
another example of a woman escaping fromsuch hazards withso much wealth
and such a large retinue;fromthisitcan be seen whata paragon amongstwomen
she was.)3' So too Au6r in the same saga, who assumes male dress and arms and
goes offto exact the revengeher brothersrefusedto take on her behalf; although
the saga does not sayso in so manywords,itis clear thather actionsare approved
Lest we doubt the
of, legal injunctionsagainst transvestismnotwithstanding.32
gender implicationsof such women'sexceptionalbehavior,it is spelled out forus
in the application to them of that most privilegedof epithets,drengr(drengiligr,
etc.). Defined by Cleasby-Vigfussonas a "bold, valiant,worthyman,"
drengskapr,
drengris conventionallyheld up as the verysoul of masculineexcellence in Norse
culture.33Yet Njall's wife Bergb6ra is introduced as "kvensk9rungrmikill ok
drengr g66r ok n9kkutskaph9r6"(a women of great bearing and a good drengr,
Even Hildigunnr,whose goading of Flosi fuelsa
but somewhatharsh-natured.)34
feud that mightotherwisehave calmed down, is so designated: "Hon var allra
kvenna grimmustok skaph9r6ustok drengrmikill,bar sem vel skyldivera" (She
was the sternestand mosthard-mindedof women but a great drengrwhen need
be.)35This is a world in which "masculinity"always has a plus value, even (or
perhaps especially)when it is enacted bya woman.36
If the category"woman" is a movable one, what of the category"man"? Is
maleness,too, subjectto mutationand "exception,"or is it alone clear and fixed?
Much has been said-though far more couldbe said-about Norse notions of
masculinity.On the assumptionthatreaders are generallyfamiliarwiththe ideal,
let me proceed directlyto thatlong and broad streakin the literature-a streak
that runs through poetry(both mythologicaland heroic) and prose, Latin and
vernacular,legend and historyand even law-in whichmanlinessis mostgarishly
contested:the traditionof insulting.
RegardlessofSex
7
Although insultsare most concentratedin those literaryset pieces we call
flytings(senna and mannjafnacr), theycan crop up in just about any venue.37In
termsmore or less formaland more or less humorous, the insulterimpugns his
antagonist's appearance (poor or beggardly); reminds him of heroic failure
(losing a battle,especiallyagainst an unworthyopponent); accuses him of cowardice, of trivialor irresponsiblebehavior (pointlessescapades, domestic indulgences, sexual dalliance), or of failingsof honor (unwillingnessor inabilityto
extractdue vengeance,hostilerelationswithkinsmen);declares him a breakerof
alimentarytaboos (drinking urine, eating corpses); and/or charges him with
sexual irregularity(incest, castration, bestiality,"receptive homosexuality").
(Once again, although most insults are traded between men, there are also
women in the role of both insulterand insultee-though a woman in eitherrole
usuallyfaces offagainsta man, not anotherwoman,and although she may score
lots of directhits,in the end she alwaysloses. The mostfrequentcharges against
and sleeping withthe enemy.)38
women are incest,promiscuity,
Of these,the mostspectacularis the formof sexual defamationknownas nW.
Verylikelypart of the Germaniclegacy,rn was prohibitedbylaw. The following
passages give a sense of the term.39The firstis fromthe Norweigian Gulabing
Code and followsthe rubric"If a person makes ni against someone":
Engima6rscalgeratunguni6urnannan.ne treni6.... Engiscalgeraykiurnannan.xe6a
fiolmale.batheiterykiefma6rmalirurnannanbater eigima vera. ne ver6aoc eigihever
verit.kve6rhannvaxrakononiundunotthveria.oc heverbarnboret.oc kallargylvin.
ba
er hannutlagr.efhanver6rat bvisannr.40
(wooden
[Nobodyis to maketungun6 (verbaln6) aboutanotherperson,nor a trWnO
aboutanotheror a libel.It is called 1kiif
No one is to makean 1ki(exaggeration)
..)....
someone says somethingabout another man whichcannot be, nor come to be, nor have
been: declares he is a woman everyninthnightor has born a child or calls him gyfin(a
werewolfor unnaturalmonster?).He is outlawedifhe is found guiltyof that.Let him deny
it witha six-manoath. Outlawryis the outcome if the oath fails.]4'
The second also comes fromthe GulabingCode, in the passage under the rubric
fullrettisor6(verbal offensesforwhichfullcompensationmustbe paid):
Or6 ero bau er fullrettisor6 heita. bat er eittef ma6r kve6rat karlmanneQ6rum.at hann
have barn boret. bat er annat. ef ma6r kve6rhann vxerasannsor6enn.bat er hit bri6ia.ef
hann iamnar hanom vi6 meri. xe6akallarhann grey.xe6aportkono.xe6aiamnar hanom vi6
berende eitthvert.42
(words for which fullcompensation
[There are certainexpressionsknownas fullrettisorM
mustbe paid). One is if a man saysto anotherthathe has givenbirthto a child. A second
(demonstrablyfucked).The thirdis if he
is if a man saysof anotherthathe is sannsordinn
compares him to a mare, or calls him a bitchor harlot,or compares him withthe female
of any kind of animal.]
8
REPRESENTATIONS
The correspondingprovisionin the Icelandic Gragasestablisheslesser outlawry
(threeyears'exile) for?kiand trenc,but fulloutlawry(exile forlife)forthe utteror sorcinn.Indeed, for these three words
ance of any of the words ragr;strocinn,
one has the rightto kill.43
The legal profileof nWis richlyattestedin the literature.Two examples sufficeto give the general picture:Skarphedinn'stauntingsuggestion,in Njals saga,
thatFlosi would do well to accept a giftof pants,"efbi ertbrfi6rSvinfellsdss,sem
sagt er, hverja ina niunda n6ttok geri hann bikat konu" (if you are the bride of
the Svinafelltroll,as people say,everyninthnightand he uses you as a woman)44
and Sinfjgtli'sclaim to Guomundr in the eddic HelgakvidaHundingsbanaI, "Nio
beirra"(Nine wolves you and I
aittovi6/d nesi Sigo/iilfa alna,/ec var einn faWir
begot on the island of Saga; I alone was theirfather).45As the latterexample in
particularindicates(and thereare manymore),whatis at stakehere is not homosexualityper se, forthe role of the penetratoris regarded as not only masculine
but boastworthyregardlessof the sex of the object.46The charge of ni devolves
solely on the penetrated man-the sorcinnor ragrman. This architectureis a
familiarone in the earlyworldand in certainquartersof the modern one as well,
but itsurelyfindsone of itsmostbrazen expressionsin the Norse traditionof nO.
To whatextentsodomy,consensual or otherwise,was practicedin earlyScandinavia is unknown. What is clear from a surveyof ni examples is that the
charges to thateffectare "symbolic"(as Folke Str6mwould have it) or "moral" (as
MeulengrachtSorensen prefers)insofaras they refer not to an act of sex but
rather to such "female" characteristicsas "a lack of manly courage," "lack of
prowess,"or "'unmanliness'in both itsphysicaland itsmentalsense,"or "certain
mentalqualities,notto mentiondutiesthatwereconsideredspecificallyfemale."47
as it
MeulengrachtSorensen distinguishesthree meanings of the word argr/ragr
refersto men: "perversityin sexual matters"(being penetratedanally), "versed
in witchcraft,"
and "'cowardly,unmanly,effeminate'withregard to morals and
character."The second and thirdmeaningsderive fromthe first,in his view,by
the logic that"a man who subjectshimselfto another in sexual affairswilldo the
same in other respects; and fusion between the notions of sexual unmanliness
and unmanlinessin a moral sense standsat the heartof nO."S48
Symbolicor no, the ni tauntsfigurethe insulteeas a female and in so doing
suggestthatthecategory"man" is,ifanything,even more susceptibleto mutation
than the category"woman."For ifa woman'sascentintothe masculinetook some
doing, the man'sdescentintothe femininewasjust one real or imagined act away.
Nor is the "femaleness"of that act in doubt. Anal penetrationconstructedthe
man who experienced it as whore,bride, mare, bitch,and the like-in whatever
guise a female creature,and as such subject to pregnancy,childbirth,and lactation. In the world of nc (male) anus and vagina are for all imaginarypurposes
one and the same thing.Men are sodomizable in much the way women are rap-
RegardlessofSex
9
able, and with the same consequences. The charge may be "symbolic,"but its
language could hardlybe more corporeal,and although,as I shall suggestbelow,
the separate statusof the femalebody is far fromsecure, there is no doubt that
the body of the ragrman looks verymuch like thatof a woman.
But is ni reallythe fundamentaltruthofearlyScandinaviansexual attitudes?
It is not surprisingthatmodern scholarshiphas reifieditas such, givenitsspecial
statusin the laws and also given the way,thanksto its occlusion in the scholarly
tradition,it has been handed to modern criticsas a kind of blank slate.49But it is
importantto rememberthatni insultsare by no means the only sort of Norse
insult; thattheyare typicallyfound interspersed,as if on roughlyequal footing,
with insultsnot immediatelysexual; and that in this larger context,ni insults
seem part and parcel of a shame systemin which the claim of femaleness is an
especiallystriking,but by no means the only,element.
Men call each otherpoor or beggardly-and in quite stingingterms-as often
as theycall each other women. They call each other slaves and captives. They
accuse one another of havingfledfromdanger or havingfailed to take action to
protectthemselvesand theirkin. A great number of insultsoccur in alternation
withboasts and turnon some standard oppositions: action vs. talk,hard life vs.
etc. In a particularlygrandiose flytingfrom
softlife,adventurervs. stay-at-home,
Orvar-Oddssaga, the legendary Orvar-Oddr brags of having explored warfare
when all the insulteeexplored was the king'shall; of havingfoughtthe Permians
while the insulteewas safelyensconced at home between linen sheets; of having
razed enemystrongholdswhilethe insulteewas "chatteringwithgirls";of having
slain eighteen men while the insulteewas staggeringhis way to a bondwoman's
bed; of having broughtdown an earl while the insultee was "at home wavering
between the calf and the slave girl."Similaris the claim in the eddic Helgi Hunprince"Helgi was offfeedingtheeagles,
dingsbanaI thatwhilethe"flight-scorning
Sinfj9tliwas "at the mill kissingslave girls."Insofar as home-staying(especially
when it amounts to combat avoidance) is coded as effeminate(even though the
accused maybe an active"phallicaggressor"50withinthe realmof the household),
these insults,too, are haunted by gender,and theyindeed on occasion tip over
saga: "Siguror,varteigi,/er a
into ni, as in the followingstanza fromOrvar-Odds
Salundi felldak/bra6r bo6har6a,/Brand ok Agnar,/Ysmund, Ingjald, /Alfrvar
/skau6 hernumin"
inn fimmti;/en b" heima bItt/i holl konungs,/skrbkmAlasamr,
(Sigur6r,you weren'ton Zealand when I felled the battle-hardbrothersBrandr
and Agnarr,Asmundrand Ingjaldr,and Alfrwas the fifth-whileyou were lying
The participial
at home in the king'shall, fullof tall stories,a skauchernumin).5'
and suggeststhesortof victimizationto which
hernumin
here means "battle-taken"
a prisonerof war was subject.The femininenoun skaucmeans "sheath"and is a
word fora foldor crackin thegenitalarea-used in practiceto referto thefemale
If skauc hergenitaland to the fold of skin into whicha horse's penis retracts.52
numindefies precise translation,its general sense is clear. The insultee is trebly
10
REPRESENTATIONS
accused: of being a draftdodger,of being a prisonerof war and hence subjectto
whateverabuse thatconditionmay entail,and of having eitherno penis or one
so softand hidden-so blauYr-thatit is useless as such.
Whatever else theymay be, these are insultspreoccupied with power-or,
more to the point,withpowerlessnessunder threatof physicalforce.That sexual
differenceis deeply imbricatedin thisconcern is clear. The question is which,if
either,is primary.Is power a metaphorforsex (so thatthecharge of povertyboils
down to a charge of femaleness),as MeulengrachtS0rensen argues, or is sex a
metaphor for power (so thatthe charge of nO boils down to a charge of powerlessness)?Modern scholarshiphas tended to assume the former.I inclinetoward
the latter,or towarda particularversionof the latter.The insultcomplex seems
to me to be driven,notbytheoppositionmale/femaleper se, butbytheopposition
whichworksmore as a gender continuumthana sexual binary.That
hvatrlblaucr,
is, although the ideal man is hvatrand the typicalwoman is blaucr,neither is
of the other.
necessarilyso; and each can, and does, slip into the territory
If the human body was once taken as the one sure factof history,the place
where culture stopped and biological veritiesbegan, it is no longer. Not in the
academy,in any case, in whichtherehas arisen a virtualindustryof investigating
contingent.
thewaysconceptionsof bodies, above all sexed bodies, are historically
Of particularinterestfor studentsof early Scandinavia are the implicationsof
what Thomas Laqueur calls the "one-sex" or "one-flesh"model of sexual difference that he argues obtained in WesternEurope fromthe Greeks through the
early modern period.53 Unlike the "two-sex" or "two-flesh"model, which
emerged in the late eighteenthcenturyand whichconstruesmale and female as
differentfromone another,the "one-sex" model under"opposite" or essentially
stands the sexes as inside-vs.-outsideversions of a single genital/reproductive
apparatus, differingin degree of warmthor coolness and hence in degree of
value (hot being superior to cool) but essentiallythe same in formand function
and hence ultimatelyfungibleversionsof one another.The pointhere is not that
thereis no notion of sexual differencebut thatthe differencewas conceived less
as a set of absolute opposites thanas a systemof isomorphicanalogues, the superior male set workingas a visiblemap to the invisibleand inferiorfemale setfortheone sex in questionwas essentiallymale,womenbeing viewedas "inverted,
and less perfect,men."54
So the officialstory,the one told by medical treatises.Popular mythologies
were (and to a remarkable degree stillare) rather more fluid in their understanding of which parts match which. A millenniallypopular "set" equates the
(male) anus withthe vagina-not a correspondence authorized by the medical
treatises,but one thatproceeds easily fromthe one-sex body as a general proposition.(The word vaginaitself,meaning "sword sheath,"was also used in Latin
RegardlessofSex
11
sources to refer to the anus.55 Certainly,Norse words or periphrases for the
vagina are typicallyusable for the anus, and it is indeed withdeprecatingreference to the male thatsuch termsare conspicuouslyattested.)56What is of particular interestfor presentpurposes is not so much the systemof homologues per
se, but the fluidityimplied by thatsystem.This is a universe in which maleness
and femalenesswere alwaysnegotiable,alwaysup forgrabs,alwayssusceptibleto
"conditions."If "conditions"could go so faras to activatemenstruationin men or
a travelingdown of the sexual memberin women (eventualitiesattestedby medical authorities throughout the early period), then "conditions" could easily
enable gender encroachmentsof a more moderate sort.57
A systematicaccount of the Norse constructionof the body, including the
sexed body,remainsto be written.I presume thatthe Scandinavians in the early
period had some one-sex account of bodily difference-the conflationof anus
and vagina and the charges of male pregnancypoint clearlyin that directionbut no treatisespells out the terms.I also presume thatin the same way thatthe
authorswere cognizantof othermedical learning (the theory
thirteenth-century
of humors,for example), theywere cognizantof the learned hot/coolmodel of
sexual difference-but they did not insinuate that model into the "historical"
texts.One can thinkof several reasons for this: because they preferredto let
traditionoverrule science,because for narrativepurposes strengthstood as the
objective correlative of heat, because it is the nature of sagas to naturalize
learning. But it may also, and above all, be because the medieval authors knew
that in the verysocial storiestheyhad to tell,actual genitalswere prettymuch
beside the point. The firstlesson of the foregoingexamples is thatbodilysex was
not thatdecisive. The "conditions"thatmatteredin the north-the "conditions"
thatpushed a person intoanotherstatus-worked not so much at the level of the
body,but at the level of social relations.
The second lesson has to do with the attenuated quality of the category
"female."The factthat "femaleness"is so frequentlyinvoked withreferenceto
men (far more often than to women, I suspect), the absence of a language for
and lack of concern withfeaturesexclusive to women, and the consignmentof
anythingthat mightqualifyas women'ssphere to a positionvirtuallyoutside of
in any
historywould seem to suggestthatwhatis at stakehere is not "femininity"
modern sense, but simply"effeminacy"
or, more to the point,"impotence"-the
defaultcategoryforthe person of eithersex who forwhateverreason felloutside
normativemasculinity.Scholars who tryto distinguishthe femininefrom the
effeminateby suggestingthatthe female role was ignominiousonly when it was
assigned to a man and thatwomen and femaleactivitiesas such were not held in
to a struccontemptare on shakyground, forthe sources point overwhelmingly
ture in whichwomen no less than men were held in contemptforwomanishness
and were admired-and mentioned-only to the extentthattheyshowed some
is repeatedly characterizedin modern
"pride" (as their aggressiveself-interest
12
REPRESENTATIONS
commentaries).58Again, it seems likelythatNorse societyoperated according to
a one-sex model-that therewas one sex and itwas male. More to the point,there
was finallyjust one "gender,"one standard by which persons werejudged adequate or inadequate, and it was somethinglike masculine.
What finallyexcites fear and loathingin the Norse mind is not femaleness
per se, but the conditionof powerlessness,the lack or loss of volition,withwhich
but neitherinevitablynor exclusively,associated. By the
femalenessis typically,
what
prompts
admirationis not maleness per se, but sovereigntyof
same token,
the sort enjoyed mostlyand typicallyand ideally,but not solely,by men. This is
in any case not a world in whichthe sexes are opposite or antitheticalor polar or
complementary(to returnagain to the modern apparatus). On the contrary,it is
a world in which gender, if we can even call it that,is neithercoextensivewith
biologicalsex, despite itsdependence on sexual imagery,nor a closed system,but
a systembased to an extraordinaryextenton winnableand losable attributes.It
goes withoutsayingthattheone-sexor single-standardsystem(in thesense I have
outlined it here) is one thatadvantaged men. But it is at the same timea system
in which being born female was not so damaging that it could not be offsetby
other factors.A woman may startwithdebits and a man withcredits,but any
number of other considerations-wealth, marital status,birthorder, historical
accident,popularity,a forcefulpersonality,sheer ambition,and so on-could tip
the balance in the otherdirection.(When Hallgerdrof Njals saga, who acted herselfso forcefullyinto history,saysto her fatherthat"pride is somethingyou and
your kinsmenhave plentyof,so it'sno surprisethatI should have some too," she
articulates perfectlythe economy of the one-sex model, in which, however
unequal, men and women are, or can be, playersin the same game.)59More to
the point, because the strongwoman was not inhibitedby a theoreticalceiling
above which she could not rise and the weak man not protectedby a theoretical
floorbelow whichhe could not fall,the potentialfor sexual overlap in the social
hierarchywas always present.The franticmachismo of Norse males, at least as
theyare portrayedin the literature,would seem on the face of it to suggest a
a
societyin whichbeing born male preciselydid notconferautomaticsuperiority,
societyin which distinctionhad to be acquired, and constantlyreacquired, by
wrestingit away fromothers.
Let me take this a step furtherand propose that to the extent that we can
speak of a social binary,a set of two categories, into which all persons were
divided, the faultline runs not between males and females per se, but between
able-bodied men (and the exceptionalwoman) on one hand and, on the other,a
kindof rainbowcoalitionof everyoneelse (mostwomen,children,slaves,and old,
disabled, or otherwisedisenfranchisedmen). Even the most casual reader of
Norse literatureknowshow firmlydrawn is thatline, forit suggestsitselfall over
RegardlessofSex
13
the lexical and documentarymap, includingin the laws themselves,whichdistin(singulart'magi),"dependents" (litguish clearlyand repeatedlybetweenuzmeg6
erally, those who cannot maintain themselves: "children, aged people, men
disabled by sickness,paupers, etc."), on one hand, and "breadwinners"(magil
megc)on the other.60What I am suggestingis thatthisis thebinary,the one that
cuts most deeply and the one thatmatters:between strongand weak, powerful
honored and
and unswordworthy,
and powerlessor disempowered,swordworthy
unhonored or dishonored, winners and losers.6' Insofar as these categories,
though not biological, have a sexual look to them, the one associated with the
male body and the otherwithsomethinglike the female one, and insofaras the
polarityor complementarityor antithesisthat modern scholarshiphas brought
to bear on maleness and femalenessapplies far more readily,and withless need
or magilu'magi,
theymightas well
forqualification,to the oppositionhvatrlblaucr
be called genders.The closestEnglishcomes to thedistinctionmaybe "spear side"
and "distaffside"-a distinctionwhich, although it is clearly (now) welded to
sexual difference,is nonethelessone derived fromroles (ratherthan bodies) and
hence at least gesturestowardgender (insofaras men are in principleable to spin
and women to do battle).
To observethatsome such binaryis a familiarfeatureof premodernsocieties
(and at the popular level in modern ones as well) should not detract from its
decisive importancein Old Norse.62Nor is (for example) the Greek distinction
between hoplitesand kinaidoias it has been outlined in recent scholarshipquite
apposite to the Scandinavian one betweenmagiand iimagi,forthe gender traffic
in Norse involvesnot only men,but women,and conspicuouslyso. WhatJohnJ.
of the male person,alwaysin peril
Winklercalls the "odd beliefin thereversibility
of slipping into the servileor the feminine,"is matched, in Norse, by the odd
also of the female person, under the rightconditions
belief in the reversibility
capable of ascension into the ranks of those who master,and thatfacthas grave
Not onlylosable bymen,but achievconsequences forthe male side of the story.63
able bywomen, masculinitywas in a kind of double jeopardy forthe Norse man.
He who for whateverreason became a social woman stood, to put it crudely,to
findhimselfnotjust side by side withwoman, but under her,and, again, it may
be just thatever-presentpossibilitythatgives Norse maleness itsdesperate edge.
The literatureis in any case richwithscenes, both historicaland legendary,that
turnon male humiliationor defeat at the hands of women-including, as a relativelygentle example, the encounterbetween Au6r and Eyjolfrwithwhichthis
essay began.64
Let me turn to a streamin the downward gender trafficthat I have not yet
mentioned,though it is especiallyprivilegedin the documents: men once firmly
in categoryA who have slid into categoryB by virtueof age. In a literaturenot
given to pathos and littleinterestedin the old, these moments-in whichformer
heroes are showndoddering about, or bedridden,or blind and impotent-stand
14
REPRESENTATIONS
out in strongrelief.65We tend to understandthe poignancyof such scenes rather
in termsof the past,as a kind of northernsounding of the ubi
straightforwardly
or
sic
transit
sunt
gloriathemesso richlydeveloped in Old Englishverse. Certainly
theyare that,but witha spin thatstrikesme as if not uniquely Norse, then characteristically
so. For in the Norse examples itis notjust the ruinationof the onceheroic body thatis at stake,but the second-classcompany such a body is forced
to keep.
Consider,forexample,just how manyof the scenes of Egill Skallagrimsson's
old age are played out in the company of women-who cajole, tease, laugh at,
advise, and humor him,both figuratively
and literallypushing him around. His
storycould have been told, as others are, withfewer(or indeed none) of these
scenes; certainlythe preceding 230-odd pages of thattextare as woman-freeas
the Icelandic sagas get. The effectof thisclusterof women at the end, I think,is
to suggestthatEgill has in a sense become one of them-no longer a man of the
public world,but a man innanstokks.
Viewed in thiscontext,his composition,on
the death of his son(s), of the lament Sonatorrek
(Loss of My Sons)-thought by
many the most magnificentpoem in the language-takes on a new dimension.
Tojudge fromtheextantliterature,emotionallamentationsof thiswoe-is-mesort
are verymuch the businessof women in earlyScandinavia, so much so thatthey
seem tantamountto a female industry.66
Thematically,metaphorically,and lexically,Egill's poem resembles nothingso much as Guorun's lament in the eddic
and although his composition is commonly
Hamdismaland Gucrutnarhvgt,67
assumed to be prior,the factthatit is the onlymale-composedlamentof the woeis-me type in early Scandinavia, and that it is produced so emphaticallyinnan
stokks(not only within the house but within the bedchamber, where he lies
mourning) and so specificallyin the company of women (his daughter induces
him to compose it, and the audience for its premier performanceconsists of
"Asger6r,borgerir,and the household") leads me to wonder whethersome part
of its original pathos did not have to do withthe gendered circumstancesof its
conproduction.68To pose it as a question: Is it possible thatsome of Sonatorrek's
temporaryforcederived fromitspoint of issue on the distaffside and itscoding
as a "woman's"form?
let me turnto two provBy wayof steadyingthissuggestionabout Sonatorrek,
erbs thatexplicitlylink the conditionof old men withfemaleness.One, whichin
in which
factturnson public speech, occurs in a scene in Havardarsaga Isfirdings
a woman named Bjargey urges a husband too old forbattleto take up the role
of whetter."bat er karlmannligtmMl,"she moralizes,"at hann, er til engra har6raxanna er fQrr,
at spara bdekkitungunaat tala bat,er honom maettiver6a gagn
at" (It is manlyforthose unfitforvigorousdeeds to be unsparingin theiruse of
the tongue to say those thingsthat may avail).69The sayingis doubly telling.It
acknowledgestheequivalence of old men and women,fortonguewielding(whetBut it also acknowledges the
ting,egging) is a conspicuouslyfemale activity.70
RegardlessofSex
15
commensurabilityof the tongue and the sword. The homologyof physicaland
verbal dueling is a familiartheme in the literature,cropping up in such phrases
as "war of words,""to battlewiththevoice,""to wound withwords,"or,to reverse
the formulation,"quarrel of swords" (= battle). Saxo's GestaDanorumsimilarly
describesEricus Disertus (Eirikrinn malspakior Eric the Eloquent) as an "arguathleta)who is as "valorousin tongue as in hand," and
mentathlete"(altercationum
Gotwar as a woman forwhom "words were weapons," someone who "could not
fight"but "found darts in her tongue instead."'7'The tongue may be a lesser
but it is a weapon nonetheless,and
weapon, the "sword"of the unswordworthy,
one whose effectscould be serious indeed (as the legal injunctions against
attest).And like the sworditis less than,the tongue is subjectto bold use
tungunkd
or cowardlyunuse, so thateven withinthe categoryof unswordworthypersons,
conspicuouslywomen and old men, the politicsof hvatrand blaudrplay themto use theirtongues
selves out. "It is manly,"
Bjargeysays,forthe unswordworthy
to make thingshappen. Betterto wield the sword than the tongue, in short,but
betterto wield the tongue than to wield nothing-in both cases whetherone is a
man or a woman.
Egill himselfstatesthe equation in a pithyhalf-stanzalamentingthe effects
of age: "My neck is weak,"he says; "I fearfallingon myhead; myhearingis gone;
The line in question translatessomethinglike:
borr."72
and blautrerumbergisfitar
the bore referring
"softis the bore [= drillbit]of the foot/legof taste/pleasure,"
to tongue if one takes bergis
f6tarto mean "head," but to penis if one takes the
kenningto mean "leg or limbof pleasure."73If one assumes, as I do, thatthe art
of the line lies preciselyin itsduplicityand thatbothmeanings (penis and tongue)
inhere in it (skaldicverse is nothingif not a poetryof the double entendre),and
if one hears the harmonic "sword" that inevitablysounds over these two tones
(for penises and tongues are repeatedlyfiguredas weapons),74and finallyifone
thatattachesto the word blautr,"soft"
adds in the sense of effeminacy/femaleness
(a word thatrhymesboth sonicallyand semanticallywithblaudr),one has in this
five-wordverse the fullchord: when not onlyone's sword and penis go limp but
also one's tongue, lifeis prettymuch over. This is not the firstwe have heard of
itselfopens witha complaintabout the diffiEgill's tongue, of course. Sonatorrek
at hrweraledr
loptvawi/ljpundara; "It is
cultyof its erection(Mjgkerumtregtltungu
and
veryhard forme to stirmytongue or the steel-yardof the song-weigher");75
although there is no question of an overt sexual or martialmeaning here, the
wider systemof tongue/sword/penis
correspondencesinvitesus tojust such associations,which serve in turn to confirmour sense that this poem stems froma
point very far down the gender scale-a point at which sword and penis have
given way to the tongue, and even the tongue may not be up to the task. (The
construction,and the value of
one-sex reasoningbehind the sword/penis/tongue
the categories relativeto one another,could hardly be clearer. Worthremembering,on the distaffside, is the figureused to characterizethe maiden warrior
16
REPRESENTATIONS
Hervor's shiftfrom the female to the male role: she trades the needle for the
sounds like a femalelament,in short,because in some
sword.)76Egill's Sonatorrek
deep culturalsense it is one.
is crystalThe second proverbis untranslatable,and in its untranslatability
lized the problem on which this essay turns. It occurs in Hrafnkelssaga and is
invokedbya servingwoman in an effortto rouse Hrafnkellfrombed as enemies
approach the farm:"Sva'ergiskhverrsem eldisk"-"Everyone becomes argrwho
[or: as he/she] gets older."77Like the entryunder blaudr,Cleasby-Vigfusson's
entryunder argr(the banned "a" word of the laws) triesto solve the problem by
distinguishinga literal meaning ("emasculate,""effeminate")from a figurative
one ("wretch,""craven,""coward"). If we elect the latter,we get somethingalong
thelinesof "Sooner or later,we all end up cowardly"(E. V. Gordon) or "The older
the man, the feebler" (Hermann Palsson), a choice that occludes the sense of
gendered degradation thatthe termargrcarrieswithit.78If we elect the former,
we get somethinglike "Sooner or later,we all end up effeminate."It is clear why
translatorswould prefer "cowardly"here, for "effeminate"jolts: What can it
mean ifeveryman eventuallybecomes it,and do women become it,too? I would
argue that (although neitherchoice is good) "effeminate"is preferablefor two
reasons: because itcapturesso succinctlythedefaultsocial partnershipof old men
and typicalwomen, and because it reveals in no uncertaintermsthat,for all its
associations with the female body,the word argr (ergi,ergjask,ragr,etc.) finally
knowsno sex. Again, the problem is thatModern English has no language for a
systemin whichthe operativesocial binarylookssexual (i.e., is figuredin termsof
male and femalebodies) but is in practicenotsexual, thatis to say,neitherexclusivelynor decisivelybased on biologicaldifference(or forthatmatteranyinborn
withthe presumableexceptionof natal defects).What the proverb
characteristic,
"Sva'eldisk hverrsem eldisk"boils down to is thatsooner or later,all of us end up
alike in our softness-regardless of our past and regardlessof our sex.
It is beyond the scope of thisalready too syntheticessay to probe the impact
on the northernperipheryof "medievalization"(the conversion to Christianity
and the adoption of European social forms),but bywayof ending let me hazard
some general propositions.The documentarysources,datingas theydo fromthe
Christianperiod, are notoriouslyslippery,but no reader of themcan escape the
impression that the new order entailed a radical remapping of gender in the
north. More particularly,one has the impressionthat femalenessbecame more
sharplydefinedand contained (the emergenceof women-onlyreligiousorders is
symptomaticof the new sensibility),and it seems indisputablythe case that as
Norse cultureassimilatednotionsof weeping monksand faintingknights,"masculinity"was rezoned, as it were, into territoriespreviouslyoccupied by "effeminacy" (and other category B traits). (This expansion of the masculine was
presumablypredicated on just the fixingof the female and her relocation at a
safe distance.)It maybe, as Laqueur argues on the basis of the medical tradition,
RegardlessofSex
17
that the one-sex model of sexual differencedid not fullyyield to a two-sexone
untilthe late eighteenthcenturywiththe inventionof a separate femalenesswith
but thatdoes not mean that the one-sex era
its own organs and characteristics,
was monolithicor staticor that the two-sexmodel did not have its conceptual
harbingers.In the northernworld,at least, the social organizationof Christian
Europe musthave been perceivedas entailinga profoundlydifferentsex-gender
system-one that despite its own storiesof real and imagined gender crossings
(particularlywithinreligious discourse) drew a line of unprecedented firmness
between male and female bodies and natures. The new dispensation would by
the same token appear to have blurred the line between able-bodied men and
aging men: the portraitof Njall in thatmostChristianof sagas seems a conscious
attemptto recuperate for Christianpatriarchya man under the old order dismissablebyvirtueof age, and indeed openly accused of effeminacyby his pagan
neighbors. (Egill, on the other hand, born just two decades earlier and hence
dead before the conversion,can be construed by his medieval biographer as
having missed out.) What I am suggestingis thatthere are one-sex systemsand
one-sex systems;thatearlynorthernEurope "lived"a one-sex social logic,a onegender model, to a degree unparalleled elsewherein the west;and thatthe medievalizationof the northentailed a shiftof revolutionaryproportions-a shiftin
the directionof two-sexthinking,and one thereforein kind not unlike the shift
Laqueur claims forEurope in general eighthundred yearslater.79
It should by now be clear that the problems of translationwithwhich this
essay has been preoccupied are not just unrelated lexical glitches,but cognate
symptomsof a largerproblemof conceptualtranslation.Whetherthe earlyScandinavian model is exactlyas I have outlinedit here-I am aware of havingbarely
scratchedthe surface-is not clear. What is clear is thattheirsystemand ours do
notline up and thatthe mismatchis especiallyobvious,and especiallyalien,where
women and the feminineare concerned. From the outset,scholars have speculated on what unusual notion of womanhood mightaccount for such startlingly
strongfemalefiguresin a culturethatseems otherwiseto hold femalenessin such
contempt.(It is a speculationthatextends all the wayback to Tacitus.) I mean in
thisessay to turnthe question inside out and ask whetherthe paradox-extraordinarywomen,contemptforfemaleness-may not have more to do withthe virtual absence of any notion of "womanhood" than it does with the existence of
some more spacious or flexiblenotionthanour own. The evidence points,I think,
to a one-sex, one-gender model with a vengeance-one that plays out in the
rawestand mostextremetermsa scheme of sexual differencethatat the level of
the body knowsonly the male and at the level of social behavior,only the effeminate, or emasculate, or impotent.The case could be made, particularlyon the
basis of the mythicnarratives,that Norse femaleness was a more complicated
businessthanLaqueur's model would have it,80but thegeneralnotion,thatsexual
differenceused to be less a wall than a permeable membrane,has a great deal of
18
REPRESENTATIONS
explanatoryforce in a world in which a physicalwoman could become a social
man, a physicalman could (and sooner or laterdid) become a social woman, and
the originarygod, O6inn himself,played both sides of the street.
Notes
This essay appeared in a slightlydifferentform in Speculum:A JournalofMedieval
Studies68 (1993). The author thanksthe Medieval Academy of America for permission to reprintit here.
in Vestfinringa
sQgur,ed. Bjorn K. b6r6lfssonand Gu6ni J6nsson,
1. Gislasaga Sfirssonar,
Islenzk fornrit[henceforthcitedas IF] 6 (Reykjavik,1958). Translationsof Old Norse
passages throughoutare myown unless otherwiseindicated.
2. The Saga ofGisli,trans.George Johnstonwithnotes by Peter Foote (Toronto, 1963),
51.
3. Friedrich Ranke has, "Ergreiftden Hund und schlagt ihn tot, wenns auch eine
vonGislidemGedchteten
[Munich, 1907], 85; [Dusseldorf,
Hundin ist!" (Die Geschichte
1978], 64); Hjalmar Alvinghas, "Lagg hand paiden djavulen och slo ihal henne, fast
hon ar kvinnfolk"(Isldndskasagor,vol. 2 [Stockholm,1936], 66); Vera Henriksen has,
"Ta fatti den bikkja og drep den, selv om det er en tispe!" (GisleSurssonssaga [Oslo,
1985], 85); George Webbe Dasent has, "Lay hands on and slayher,though she be but
a weak woman" (TheStoryofGislitheOutlaw[Edinburgh, 1866], 98); Preben MeulengrachtS0rensen has, "Grib hunden og drab den, selv om den er af hunk0n" (Norr0nt
sagaer[Odense, 1980], 94), which
nid:Forestillingen
omdenumandigemandi de islandske
translatorJoan Turville-Petrerenders, "Lay hands on the hound and kill it, even
in EarlyNorthern
Man: Concepts
ofSexualDefamation
though it is female" (The Unmanly
Society[Odense, Den., 1983], 76); and Cleasby-Vigfusson(Richard Cleasby and Gud[Oxford, 1957]) has, under the entry
Dictionary
brand Vigfusson,An Icelandic-English
blaubr,"take the dog and killit,thoughit be a bitch."
4. I have abbreviated and edited the entries. (The definitionof the noun bleydaas "a
craven"comes fromtheseparateentryunder thatword.)So tooJohan Fritzner,Ordbog
overdetgamlenorskesprog(Oslo, 1867; 4th ed., 1973). On blaubr(bleydi,etc.) see also
Margaret Clunies Ross, "Hildr's Ring: A Problem in the Ragnarsdrdpa,Strophes 812,"MediaevalScandinavia6 (1973): 75-92.
5. Brennu-Njdlssaga, ed. Einar 01. Sveinsson, IF 12 (Reykjavik,1954), chap. 38. Njal's
Saga, trans. Magnus Magnusson and Hermann Palsson (Harmondsworth, Eng.,
1960).
6. "bd er fQrvar helztiill,b6 at ver vinnimeigi bettanioingsverk,ok standi menn upp ok
lIti hann eigi bessu na" (Our errand has been bad enough withoutour committing
thisni~ingsverk;
up, men, don't let him tryit!).
writtensources,especiallythe Icelandic sagas,
7. The relationof the thirteenth-century
to pre-conversionsocial historyis a long-standingpoint of debate. I am here as elsewhere proceeding on the neotraditionalistassumption that although the written
sources may exaggerate or fabricateat some points,thereis a large grain of truthin
theircollectiveaccount. For a surveyof the relevantliteratureup to 1964, see Theodore M. Andersson,TheProblemofIcelandicSaga Origins(New Haven, 1964); and from
in
thatdate through 1983, CarolJ. Clover,"Icelandic FamilySagas (Islendingasogur),"
Regardless of Sex
19
Literature:
A CriticalGuide,ed. Clover and John Lindow (Ithaca,
Old Norse-Icelandic
N.Y., 1985), 239-315. On the problem in myth,see John Lindow's "Mythologyand
Mythography"in the same volume (21-67).
8. Two recentfull-lengthstudiesthatgo some wayin redressingthe scantattentionpaid
to women in the literatureof the VikingAge are BirgitSawyer'sKvinnorochfamilji det
Skandinavien(Skara, Swed., 1992); and JudithJesch'sWomenin the
forn-ochmedeltida
VikingAge (Woodbridge, Eng., 1991). Both contain useful bibliographies.See also
Roberta Frank, "Marriage in Twelfth-and Thirteenth-CenturyIceland," Viator4
(1973): 473-84; and Peter G. Foote and David Wilson, The VikingAchievement
(London, 1974), esp. 108-16. The fullestmodern explorations of the sex-gender
Man; his
system(as opposed to women'sstatus)are MeulengrachtS0rensen's Unmanly
and Clunies Ross's suggestive
forthcoming
Fortcelling
ogcere:Studieri islaendingesagaerne;
studiesof textualcrucesin the mythictradition("Hildr's Ring"; "An Interpretationof
the Mythof b6rr's Encounter with Geirr06rand His Daughters," in SpeculumNored. Ursula Dronke et al.
roenum:Norse Studiesin Memoryof GabrielTurville-Petre,
[Odense, Den., 1981], 370-91; and, less directly,"The Mythof Gefjon and Gylfiand
Arkivfor
nordiskfilologi
93 [1978]: 149Its Functionin SnorraEdda and Heimskringla,"
65). Because of the synopticnature of thisessay,I have restrictedcitationsto immediately relevant scholarlysources and those recent books and articles that contain
more completeand specificbibliographicinformation.I owe special thanksto Roberta
Frankand WilliamIan Millerforhelp in need.
is alwaysa part
9. WritesMeulengrachtS0rensen,forexample: "Because gender [konnet]
of theindividualand is bynaturetied to themostsignificant
areas of human existence,
immediand because physicalsex [seksuelle
k0n]takesthe formof a complementarity,
atelyinvitinginterpretationas both opposition and totality,sex is perhaps the most
dynamicof culturalcategories.... Not onlyin thebiologicaland physicalsense should
a man be a man and a woman a woman; he and she should also live out the ideals set
cere,212-13; mytranslation.
bycultureforeach sex [kon]";Forteellingenog
10. Landndmab6k,ed. Jakob Benediktsson, IF 1 (Reykjavik,1968). The calculation is
in theVikingAge,81-83.
JudithJesch's;Women
11. Laxdwela
saga, ed. Einar 01. Sveinsson,IF 5 (Reykjavfk,1934), chap. 4. The account is
in whichshe is called Auor (136-46 and passim).
borne out in Landndmab6k,
12. In full:"[Unnr] acted as a man because the men who should have acted on her behalf
were dead. This was in accordance withthe law,whichconferredauthorityon her in
this situation,but it became a literarymotivetoo; specificallyin Laxdwlasaga in her
role as the reveredand authoritativehead of the family,when in everyrespectshe has
taken over the conduct and social functionsof the male householder and leader";
MeulengrachtSorensen, Unmanly
Man, 22. On the "transsexualization"of women for
legal purposes, see the discussionof theBaugatal passage below.
13. So suggestplace names and, in easternScandinavia,runic inscriptions.See especially
and Inheritance:
TheRunicEvidence(Alingss,Swed., 1988); and
BirgitSawyer'sProperty
Barthi Guthmundsson'sOriginoftheIcelanders(Lincoln, Neb., 1967), 36-40 (translation of UppruniIslendinga
[Reykjavik,1959]).
14. Grwenlendinga
saga, in Eyrbyggja
saga, ed. Einar 61. Sveinssonand Matthiasb6r6arson,
IF 4 (Reykjavfk,1935), chap. 8.
110-11. For furtherbibliography,see Carol J.
15. Foote and Wilson, VikingAchievement,
Clover,"Maiden Warriorsand Other Sons,"JournalofEnglishand GermanicPhilology
85 (1986): 35-49.
16. Jesch, Womenin theVikingAge, 161; the followingpages detail the women's poetic
20
REPRESENTATIONS
production.On women'sparticipationin the productionof literaturemore generally,
see Else Mundal, "Kvinnerog dikting:Overgangen fralmunnelegtilskriftlegkulturUppsatser
villkorundermedeltiden:
ei ulykkefor kvinnene?,"in Firindringari kvinnors
Island,22.-25. juni 1981, ed. Silja
i Skdlholt,
symposium
framlagdavid ettkvinnohistoriskt
A6alsteinsd6ttirand Helgi borlhksson(Reykjavik,1983), 11-25; also Helga Kress,
"The Apocalypse of a Culture: Viluspdand the Mythof the Sources/Sorceressin Old
in theScandinavianMiddleAges,Proceedingsof the SevIcelandic Literature,"in Poetry
enth InternationalSaga Conference (Spoleto, It., 1988), 279-302; and "Stailausir
stafir:Um slhbursem uppsprettufrisagnar i Islendingas6gum,"Skirnir165 (1991):
130-56.
17. The locus classicusis the account of al-Ghazal'sembassyto whatwould appear to be a
Scandinaviancourtand his encountertherewitha sexuallyforwardqueen who claims,
of the textis quesin effect,thather people practiceopen marriage.The historicity
analysisconcludes, "In spite of the littioned, but as Jesch'sprudent point-by-point
erarytricks,thereis nothingthatis totallyincrediblein thisaccount and some of itfits
withwhatwe already knowof Scandinavian societyin the VikingAge.... If Arabists
rejectthe storyof al-Ghazal'sembassyas a fiction,thiscannotbe because of itsinherent
improbabilityas a reflectionof royal vikinglife in the ninthcentury";Womenin the
VikingAge,92-96. The sagas famouslypresenta numberof women who arrange their
sex lives to their own satisfaction,and the theme of female promiscuityand erotic
aggressionin the legendarysources confirmsthe sense thatthe woman withenough
social power was not particularlyhindered bythe usual sexual constraints.The admiration,grudgingor plain,extended to thesewomen conflictswiththe scholarlyclaim,
based on the handfulof ni insultsapplied to women,thatpromiscuityin women was
the shamefulequivalentof effeminacyin men. See notes 38 and 59 below.
18. Eyrbyggja
saga, chap. 38.
and Peacemaking:
Feud,Law, and Societyin Saga Iceland
19. William Ian Miller,Bloodtaking
(Chicago, 1990), 351. The case in question is recounted in bordarsaga kakala,in Sturlungasaga, ed. J6n J6hannesson,MagniusFinnbogason, and KristjanEldjarn, vol. 1
(Reykjavik,1946), chap. 8.
27.
and Peacemaking,
20. Miller,Bloodtaking
21. Ibid., 207-8.
detKongeligeBibliotheks
haandskrift,
22. Gragds:Islcendernes
tid,udgivetefter
lovbogifristatens
ed. VilhjalmurFinsen (Copenhagen, 1852; reprinted., Odense, Den., 1974), la: 142.
Grdgdsla: 1-217, trans. Andrew Dennis, Peter Foote, and Richard Perkins,Laws of
andPeacemaking,
24.
EarlyIceland:Grdgas(Winnipeg,1980). See also Miller,Bloodtaking
and Peacemaking,
110. See also Miller,Bloodtaking
23. Foote and Wilson,VikingAchievement,
esp. 27.
24. WilliamIan Miller,"Choosing the Avenger:Some Aspects of the Bloodfeud in MediReview1 (1983): 159-204; his Bloodtaking
eval Iceland and England,"Law and History
and
and Peacemaking,
211-14; and Carol J. Clover,"Hildigunnr'sLament,"in Structure
ed. John Lindow,Lars Lonnroth,and Gerd Wolfgang
Meaningin Old NorseLiterature,
Weber (Odense, Den., 1986), 141-83.
25. The livelydiscussionof grave goods and sex is nicelysummarizedin Jesch,Womenin
theVikingAge,21-22, 30; see also Carol J. Clover,"The Politicsof Scarcity:Notes on
the Sex Ratio in EarlyScandinavia,"ScandinavianStudies60 (1988): 147-88 (reprinted
in Old EnglishLiterature,
ed. Helen Damico and Alexandra
in NewReadingson Women
Hennessy Olsen [Bloomington,Ind., 1990]), esp. 165-66.
26. The discrepancybetween women's two "statuses"(in the laws and in the narrative
Regardless of Sex
221
Darstellungder
sources) is much discussed. See in particularRolf Heller,Die literarische
Frau in denIsliindersagas
(Halle, Ger., 1958); JennyJochens,"The Medieval Icelandic
Heroine: Fact or Fiction?,"Viator17 (1986): 35-50; the same author's "Consent in
Marriage: Old Norse Law, Life and Literature,"ScandinavianStudies58 (1986): 14276; and my"Politicsof Scarcity,"esp. 147-50 and 182.
27. GrdgdsIa:200-201. TranslationfromLaws ofEarlyIceland,181; myitalics.
28. See my "Maiden Warriorsand Other Sons" for the passages fromthe Gulakingand
the Frostabing
laws (46, n. 30) and for an inventoryof the relevantliterarypassages
and a bibliography.On the politicsof women'sbecoming"men" in early Christianity,
see especiallyElizabethCastelli,"'I WillMake MaryMale': Pietiesof Body and Gender
Transformationof ChristianWomen in Late Antiquity,"in BodyGuards:The Cultural
ed. Julia Epstein and KristinaStaub (New York, 1991),
Politicsof GenderAmbiguity,
29-50.
Albania (a blood feud societyremarkably
29. In nineteenth-and early-twentieth-century
similarto thatof saga Iceland), such surrogatesons did indeed assume the male role
(takingup pants,rifles,cigarsand movingin the male sphere). For a summarydiscussion of the theme,withrelevantbibliography,see my "Maiden Warriorsand Other
Sons."
30. Hallger6rof Njdlssaga is perhaps the only"exceptional"femalefigurewho is more or
misogynist
less roundlycondemned byher author,whose voice is the mostconsistently
in Icelandic literature.See Helga Kress, "Ekki hQfuver kvennaskap: Nokkrar laushelgadar
tengdar athuganirum karlmennskuog kvenhaturi Njalu," in Sjbtiuritgerdir
20. jzdi 1977, ed. Einar G. Peturssonand J6nas KristjAnsson(ReykJakobiBenediktssyni
javik, 1977), 293-313; and, for a more moderate view,Ursula Dronke, The Role of
Sexual Themesin "Njdls Saga," The Dorothea Coke Memorial Lecture in Northern
Studies (London, 1980). English-speakingreaders of that saga should be aware that
Hallger6rcomes offratherworse in translationthan she does in the original.
31. Laxdwla saga, chap. 4; translationfrom Magnus Magnusson and Herman Pdlsson,
here rendered as "parLaxdwela
Saga (Harmondsworth,Eng., 1969). The wordafbrag6,
agon," means a superior, exceptional, surpassing person. Although Landndmab6k's
more historicalaccount of Au6r/Unnrdoes not commenton her character,its length
and detail confirmthe esteem in which she was held. Laxdwlasaga's interestin (and
approval of) "strong"women has long been noted, and Helga Kress has argued that
it demonstrates"a feminineconsciousness" that may point to female authorship;
Tidskrift
(1980): 279. There is no doubt
"Meget samstavetma det tykkesdeg,"Historisk
but I would suggestthatthe
thatLaxdcla's representationof women is extraordinary,
claim of "feminine(or female)consciousness"forthattextis compromisedbythe fact
thatit is theirexceptional (thatis, ideally masculine) qualities thatqualifyits women
for history,as it were. What does it mean to speak of "feminineconsciousness"in a
is forall practicalpurposes synonymouswitheffeminacy?
world in whichfemininity
The same question maybe asked of Foote and Wilson'ssuggestionthat"outstanding
women, real or legendary,must have done somethingto liftthe statusof women in
111.
general"; VikingAchievement,
32. Laxdcla saga, chap. 35. See MeulengrachtS0rensen, Unmanly
Man, 22.
or "pillar."See
33. Cleasby-Vigfussonderivesthe word fromdrangr,"juttingrock,""cliff,"
105-8,
Foote and Wilson'sdiscussionof the termand concept in VikingAchievement,
425-26, withbibliography.
34. Njdlssaga, chap. 20, mytranslation.Magnusson and Palsson have, "She was an exceptionaland courageous woman,but a littleharsh-natured."
22
REPRESENTATIONS
35. Njdls saga, chap. 95, my translation.Magnusson and Pdlsson have, "She was harshnatured and ruthless;but when courage was called for,she never flinched."
36. The "masculineideal" thatunderwritessuch attitudesis oftennoted (see, forexample,
74-75).
Man, 20-22; and Sawyer,Kvinnorochfamilj,
MeulengrachtS0rensen, Unmanly
In her "Forholdetmellomborn ok foreldrei det norr0nekjeldematerialet"(Collegium
medievale1 [1988]: 2-28), Else Mundal proposes thatitis thebeliefin bilateralgenetic
inheritance(thatis, the beliefthatthe child,regardlessof sex, stands to get as much
of its characterfromthe motheras fromthe father)that accounts for the approval
the "strong"woman seems to enjoy: her "masculinity"can be seen as an investment
forunborn sons of the future(esp. 24). In my"Maiden Warriorsand Other Sons," I
speculated similarlythat "the idea of latentor recessivefeatures,physicalor characterological,was undeveloped [in earlyScandinavia]; inheritedqualities seem to manifestthemselvesin some degree in everygeneration.The qualitiesthatAngantyrnow
bestows [on his daughter Hervor] as the 'legacy of Arngrfm'ssons,' afi and eljun
[strengthand powerfulspirit],are emphatically'male' qualities.They may ultimately
be 'intended' for Hervdr'sfuturesons and theirsons on down the line . . . but in the
meantime they must assert themselvesin Hervor herself (as indeed they already
have)" (39). The verynotionthat,say,passivitycan be inheritedfromthe fatherand
martial propensities from the mother bespeaks a far more tenuous connection
betweensex and gender than modern ideologywould have it.
see Joseph Harris,"The Senna: From Descriptionto LiteraryTheory,"
37. On the flyting,
Studies5 (1979): 64-74; Carol J. Clover,"The GermanicContextof
MichiganGermanic
as Generic
the UnferfEpisode," Speculum55 (1980): 444-68; and Clover,"Hdrbdrdslj66
Farce," ScandinavianStudies51 (1979): 124-45; and Karen Swensen,Performing
Defi(Columbia, S.C., 1991), whichcontains
nitions:TwoGenresofInsultin OldNorseLiterature
an especiallyusefulbibliography.
38. Applied to a woman, the noun ergi(adjectiveQrg)"is virtuallysynonymouswithnymphomania, which was a characteristicas much despised in a woman as unmanliness
was in a man," according to Folke Strom,NkO,Ergi, and Old NorseMoral Attitudes
(London, 1973), 4; for MeulengrachtS0rensen, the female use means that she "is
generallyimmodest,pervertedor lecherous" (UnmanlyMan, 18-19). The fact that
chargestowardwomen to thiseffectare so fewand farbetweenwould seem to suggest
that the female use is a secondaryformationand a ratherunstable one at that. Nor,
althoughspace does not permitme to make a fullargumenthere,am I convincedthat
the grgfemale is as fundamentallydifferentfromthe argrmale as these scholarssuggest; again I suspecta modern contamination.See note 17 above.
39. For a detailed account of these and other legal references,see Bo Almqvist,Norrin
studieri versmagi,
Traditionshistoriska
2 vols. (Uppsala, 1965-74), esp. 38niddiktning:
68. See also Kari Ellen Gade, "Homosexualityand the Rape of Males in Old Norse
Law and Literature,"ScandinavianStudies58 (1986): 124-41. On nWgenerally,see (in
addition to Meulengracht S0rensen and Almqvist)Str6m,Ni5, Ergi, and Old Norse
Moral Attitudes;Erik Noreen, "Om niddiktning"in his "Studier i fornvastnordisk
vetenochhistoriska
sprakvetenskap
arsskrift:
diktningII," in Uppsala Universitets
Filosofi,
skaper44 (1922): 37-65; and Joaquin MartinezPizarro,"Studies on the Functionand
Contextof the Senna in Early Germanic Narrative"(Ph.D. diss., Harvard University,
1976).
40. Norgesgamleloveindtil1387, ed. R. Keyser,P.A. Munch, G. Storm,and E. Herzberg
(Christiania, 1846), 1:57. Translationsfrom the laws pertainingto nWare adapted
Man (14-32).
fromMeulengrachtS0rensen'sUnmanly
RegardlessofSex
23
41. TrenOis the plastic equivalent of tungunO(tongue nW). The classic example is the
carved effigyin Gislasaga of one man sodomized by another (chap. 2), but the term
ed. Sigur6ur
mayalso referto a pole of the sortdescribedin Egilssaga Skallagrimssonar,
Nordal, IF 2 (Reykjavik,1933), chap. 57. For a fullerdiscussion,see Meulengracht
S0rensen, UnmanlyMan, esp. 51-6 1; Str6m'sNO, Ergi, and Old NorseMoralAttitudes,
passim.
10-14; and Almqvist,Norrinniddiktning,
42. Norgesgamlelove,1:70.
2a:392.
43. Grdgds(Stadarh6lsb6k),
44. Njdlssaga, chap. 123. Notes MeulengrachtS0rensen, "Nobody has suspected Flosi of
being homosexual. The charge is symbolic"(UnmanlyMan, 20). Virtuallythe same
saga).
and Kr6ka-Refs
saga Skhu-Hallssonar
insultoccurs in two other sources (Jiorsteins
vol. 1, Text,
Denkmalern,
45. Stanza 38 in Edda: Die LiederdesCodexRegiusnebstverwandten
ed. Gustav Neckel, 5th rev.ed. by Hans Kuhn (Heidelberg, 1983).
46. On this patternin culturespresentand past, and on the distinctionbetween person
and act,thereis an abundant literature.See especiallyDavid M. Halperin, "One Hunand OtherEssays
dred Years of Homosexuality,"in One HundredYearsofHomosexuality
on GreekLove (New York, 1989), esp. bibliographyon p. 159, n. 21; and p. 162, n. 52;
and, foranotherperspective(and forthe mostup-to-datebibliographyon the discusand Society:TheEnforcement
ofMoralsin Classical
sion), David J. Cohen, Law, Sexuality,
Athens(Cambridge, Eng., 1991), esp. chap. 7, "Law, Social Control,and Homosexualityin Classical Athens."Mentionshould be made, on the Norse side, of the passage
in chap. 22 of Bjarnarsaga Hitdwlakappa(ed. Sigur6urNordal and Gu6niJ6nsson,in
saga, IF 3 [Reykjavik,1938]), which suggests that the position of the
Borgfirdinga
aggressormay have been rathermore compromisedthan traditionwould have it.
17.
47. Strom,N15,Ergi,and Old NorseMoralAttitudes,
Man, 19-20.
48. MeulengrachtS0rensen, Unmanly
49. The firstfull-fledgedtreatmentof the subject was an anonymous essay entitled
fur sexuelle
"Spuren von Kontrarsexualitatbei den alten Skandinaviern,"in Jahrbuch
der Homosexualitat
4 (Leipzig, 1902),
unterbesonderer
Berucksichtigung
Zwischenstufen
244-63.
50. MeulengrachtS0rensen, followingT. Vanggaard (Phallos[Copenhagen, 1969], trans.
in theMale World[London, 1972]), sees
and ItsHistory
bythe author as Phallos:A Symbol
in "phallic aggression"the organizingprincipleof the earlyScandinavian sex-gender
system(UnmanlyMan, esp. 27-28).
vol. 2, ed. Gu6niJ6nsson(Reykjavik,1959).
51. In FornaldarsogurNornurlanda,
52. Horse genitalia,both male and female, loom large in the obscene literatureof Old
Norse, and the patternis presumablyGermanic.See especiallyPizarro,"Functionand
Context of the Senna." The sense of skau6 is echoed in the noun hrukka("fold" or
("fallback,
"wrinkle,"referringalso to the female genital),related to the verb hrokkva
recoil,retreat,cringe");see Zoe Borovsky,"Male Fears,Female Threats: GiantWomen
in Old Norse-Icelandic Literature" (Paper delivered at the annual meeting of the
Societyfor the Advancementof Scandinavian Study,May 1991). See also Torild W.
and Scandinavian(Chicago, 1915; reprint
Arnoldson,PartsoftheBodyin OlderGermanic
ed., New York, 1971), 175; and MeulengrachtS0rensen, UnmanlyMan, esp. 58-59.
53. Thomas Laqueur, MakingSex: Bodyand GenderfromtheGreekstoFreud (Cambridge,
Eng., 1990).
54. Ibid., 26. More particularly,penis and vagina are construed as one and the same
organ; if the formerhappens to extrude and the latterto intrude (in an inside-out
and upward-extendingfashion), they are physiologicallyidentical, and the same
24
REPRESENTATIONS
55.
56.
57.
58.
59.
60.
61.
62.
words did forboth. Likewisetestes(the male ones outside and the femaleones inside,
again withthe same words doing forboth), and so too genitalfluids(menstrualand
seminal emissionsbeing cooler and hotterversionsof the same matter).
On the correspondence,see ibid., 159 and 270, n. 60. According to psychoanalysis,
the one-sex model is alive and well in the unconscious-in the form,forexample, of
penis envy on the part of femalesand, on the part of males, fantasiesof anal interand ChainSaws: Genderin theModern
course, pregnancy,and birth.In myMen,Women,
HorrorFilm(Princeton,N.J., 1992), I have argued thatthe one-sex model is also alive
and wellin popular culture;itis in anycase an obvious featureof horrormovies,which
commonlyturn explicitlyor implicitlyon the idea thatmales and females are essentiallythe same, genitallyand otherwise.
On the conflationof vagina and (male) anus, see Clunies Ross, "Hildr's Ring"; and for
a discussionof theequivalence in the moderncontext,see Leo Bersani,"Is the Rectum
a Grave?,"October43 (1989), 194-222. For lexical listings,see Arnoldson'sPartsofthe
Bodyin OlderGermanicand Scandinavian,and WilliamDenny Baskett'sPartsoftheBody
in theLater GermanicDialects(Chicago, 1920). Unavailable to me is the unpublished
manuscript"Verba Islandica obscaena," by Olafur Daviosson (Reykjavik,Landsb6kasafn Islands, MS 1204, 8vo).
Laqueur, MakingSex, 122-34 and passim.
For example, nW"did not require thatwomen or female activitieswere held in contemptas such, of course, no more than was a woman's sexual role or her maternal
capacity.The female role was ignominiouswhen it was assigned to a man"; MeulenMan, 24.
grachtS0rensen, Unmanly
Cf. MeulengrachtS0rensen'sclaim (in the chapterentitled"Mxnds og kvindersXre"
ogaere)thatmen'sand women'shonor systemswere essenForttelling
in his forthcoming
tiallydifferent.His constructionproceeds to a considerableextentfromthe evidence
of nWinsults,which seem to bespeak a double standard (men are accused of being
women,women of being promiscuous).As I have suggestedabove, a reading of nWin
context(both the contextof otherinsultsand the contextof praise- and blameworthy
deeds in general) leads to a ratherdifferentconclusion-a conclusion buttressedby
of referencesto femalenW.See also notes 17 and
the paucityand apparent instability
38 above. The "one-sex" argumentin thisand the preceding sectionswas presented
nid,in theJournalof
in shortformin my reviewof MeulengrachtS0rensen'sNorr0nt
Philology(1982): 398-400.
Englishand Germanic
Cleasby-Vigfusson,s.v. "imagi." Related terms (also deriving from mega,"to have
"unmight,a swoon," limtetr,
strengthto do, avail") are Pmeginn,"impotent,"timegin,
"to lose strength,faintaway"-as opposed, on the
"worthless,invalid,"and Pmaetta,
positiveside, to termslike megin,megn,"strong,mighty."
The equation of women and old men is also evidentin the normsgoverningthe appropriatenessof the vengeance targetin feud. "The underlyingidea," writesMiller,"is
that people not socially privileged to bear arms were excused from having arms
and Peacemaking,
207).
broughtto bear on them"(Bloodtaking
See esp. John J. Winkler,"Laying down the Law: The Oversightof Men's Sexual
of Sex and
ofDesire: TheAnthropology
Behavior in Classical Athens,"in his Constraints
Genderin AncientGreece(New York, 1990). "The logic of a zero-sumcalculus underlies
many of the most characteristicpredicatesand formulaethatwere applied to issues
of sex and gender,"Winklerwrites."Thus, not to display bravery(andreia,literally
'manliness')laysa man open to symbolicdemotionfromthe ranksof the brave/manly
to the opposite class of women" (47).
RegardlessofSex
25
63. Ibid., 50.
64. For example, Egill, mocked and pushed around by women in his old age (Egilssaga,
chap. 85); borkell,tongue-lashedinto submissionbyhis wifeAsgerir (Gislasaga Surssonar, chap. 9); bor6r Ingunnarson, assaulted in bed by his angry,pants-wearing
formerwifewitha shortsword-a gestureloaded withsexual meaning and one that
had permanenteffect(Laxdala saga, chap. 35); and, of course, any numberof heroes'
and related traditions.
battleswithgiantessesand warriorwomenin thefornaldarsogur
Along differentbut not unrelated lines, Clunies Ross notes the special abilityof
women in the mythologicalsources to humiliate men. The passages she analyzes
"reveal the convictionthata dominantwoman was more to be feared than a man, for
she was able to strengthenherselfmagicallyin order to usurp male roles and reduce
the men in her power to physicaland mental debility,to make them ragr.... The
insultof showingthe 'ring' to HQgniis a verbal equivalent to Hildr's destructiveand
debilitatingpowers, for it accuses him of weakness and effeminacy.It is particularly
vicious that, having adopted a masculine role herself,she should accuse her own
fatherof havinglost his manhood" ("Hildr's Ring,"92).
65. For a new accountof emotionalexpressionin Norse literature,see WilliamIan Miller's
(Ithaca, N.Y., 1993). On
forthcomingHumiliationand OtherEssaysin SocialDiscomfort
and Peacemaking,
207-10.
the social place of aging men, see his Bloodtaking
66. For a discussion of female lamenting and its role in feud, see my "Hildigunnr's
Lament,"withnotes.
67. Common features include (in addition to the characteristicmix of lament and
revenge) the themeof the witheringfamilyline and, in thatconnection,the use of the
extremelyrare word bdttr(in the meaning "strand,"as of a rope); the elegiac conceit
of a tree as an image of human growthand ruin; the "chain-of-woes"construction;
the self-pityingwoe-is-metone; the ecstatic "now I die" conclusion; and the final
authorialremarkson the catharticeffectsof lamenting.See Ursula Dronke, ThePoetic
Edda, vol. 1, HeroicPoems(Oxford, 1969), 183-89; and my "Hildigunnr's Lament,"
in the contextof Egill's other poetryis often
153-62. The "difference"of Sonatorrek
noted. E. 0. G. Turville-Petre,forexample, writesthatthe poem "givesa clear insight
intothe mindof Egill in his advancingyears,showinghimas an affectionate,sensitive,
bullywhichhe sometimesappears to be in the Saga";
lonelyman, and not theruffianly
ScaldicPoetry
(Oxford, 1976), 24.
68. Worthrememberingin thisconnectionis the unnamed old man to whom the Beowulf
poet compares the old king Hre6el, fatherof a fratricide(lines 2441-65). Overcome
by grief,and unable to take revenge,old Hre6el can do no more than the "old man"
"sorrow song"], alone, for the
who "goes to his bed, sings his cares over [sorh-leo6,
other"and thendies. Again we seem to have a male whose lamentationis preciselythe
effectof disabled masculinity;the other two funeral-lamentersin Beowulfare both
women (lines 1117-18 and 3150-55). Text and translationfrom Howell D. Chickering,Jr.,Beowulf:A Dual-LanguageEdition(Garden City,N.Y., 1977). For an especially
usefuland bibliographicallydetailed discussionof elegyand death lament (especially
reflexive)in the Germanictradition,see Joseph Harris,"Elegyin Old Englishand Old
ed. R. T. Farrell(London, 1982),
Norse: A Problemin LiteraryHistory,"in TheVikings,
157-64; as well as his "Beowulf'sLast Words,"Speculum67 (1992): 1-32.
ed. Bjorn K. b6r6lfssonand Gu6niJ6nsson,IF 6 (Reykjavik,
69. Hdvarnarsaga Isfirnings,
1943), chap. 5.
and Peacemaking,
70. See Miller,"Choosing the Avenger"; and Bloodtaking
212-14. The
26
REPRESENTATIONS
synonymshvetjaand egg/amean "whet"in both senses (to sharpen or put an edge on
a blade, and to goad or egg on a person).
71. See my"GermanicContextof the UnferbEpisode," esp. 451-52, fora more complete
listand source references.
72. "Vals hefkv'fur helsis;/vAfallrem ek skalla;/blautrerum bergisf6tar/borr,en hlust
es borrin"(Egilssaga, chap. 85).
73. See Noreen, "Studieri vastnordiskdiktning"(above, note 39), 35-36; and Egilssaga,
294, note on stanza 58. Roberta Frank points out that the duplicitous reading has
medieval authority,in the "Third GrammaticalTreatise" of Olhfr hvitaskdld,who
borrworksboth as a penis kenningand a tongue kenobservesthatEgill's bergisf6tar
Stanza(Ithaca, N.Y., 1978), 162. The author
ning; Old NorseCourtPoetry:TheDr6ttkvcett
is, of course, FinnurJ6nsson,who thoughtit
of the "head" interpretationof bergif6tr
"en af Egils dristigekenningar";Lexiconpoeticum(Copenhagen, 1931; reprinted.,
1966). For other examples of such wordplay,see Kari Ellen Gade, "Penile Puns: Personal Names and PhallicSymbolsin Skaldic Poetry,"EssaysinMedievalStudies:Proceed6 (1989): 57-67.
ingsoftheIllinoisMedievalAssociation
74. "Vapn bater stendrmillif6tamanna heitirsuer6"(That weapon whichstandsbetween
a man's legs is called a sword),Snorrideclares (Snorra-Edda,ed. Rasmus Rask [Stockholm, 1818], p. 232, line 19). For literaryexamples and a discussion of the sword/
penis figure,see Meulengracht S0rensen, UnmanlyMan, 45-78; and Clunies Ross,
"Hildr's Ring." As for the tongue: "Tvnga er opt kavllv6sverb mals e(6a) mvNz"
(Tongue is oftencalled sword of speech or of mouth; Edda SnorraSturlusonar,191).
Consider, for example, g6masver6(sword of the gums) and ornvdpn(word-weapon);
Poetik(Bonn,
see Rudolf Meissner,Die KenningarderSkalden:Ein Beitragzurskaldischen
1921; reprinted., Hildesheim,Ger., 1984), 133-34.
ScaldicPoetry,
28-29.
75. Text and translationfromTurville-Petre,
76. Saga Heibreksins vitralTheSaga ofKing HeibrektheWise,trans. and ed. Christopher
Tolkien (London, 1960), 10.
spgur,ed. J6n J6hannesson, IF 11 (Reykjavik,1950),
77. Hrafnkelssaga, in Austfinringa
chap. 8. The word ergiskis the middle-voiceverbal form of the adjective argr (to
become argr).The word hverr,"everyone,"is a masculine pronoun usable for a male
entityor forthe universalperson.
toOld Norse(Oxford, 1927; 2nd ed. rev.byA. R. Taylor,
78. E. V. Gordon, An Introduction
1957), 342 (under ergjask);and Hermann Palsson, trans.,Hrafnkel'sSaga and Other
Stories(Harmondsworth,Eng., 1971), chap. 17.
79. That the older systemdid not die at once, but lived in odd wayswellinto the Christian
era, is suggestedby,forexample,theanomalous practiceof priestmarriagein Iceland,
a practicethatsuggeststhe tenacitynot onlyof the clan systembut also of certainpreWritesMiller,"Sexualityand marriagewere a partof
Christiannotionsof masculinity.
the world of manlyhonor and no one thoughtto mentionthatdivinityand dalliance
need be sundered untilthe episcopate of Thorlak Thorhallson (1178-93). Thorlak
zealously attemptedto enforceecclesiasticalstricturesdealing withsexual practices,
but even he did not tackle clerical celibacy,confininghimselfinstead to separating
priestsand spouses who had marriedwithinthe prohibiteddegrees ... or who kept
and Peacemaking,
37-38; see also his
concubinesin addition to theirwives";Bloodtaking
bibliographicreferences.Consider,too, such historicaldetails as the one recorded in
J6nssaga helgato the effectthatthe cathedralschool at H6lar in the year 1110 saw fit
not only to admit a girl,one Ingunn, but to permither to tutorher fellowpupils in
RegardlessofSex
27
Latin;J6nssaga helga,chap. 27, in Byskupasigur,ed. Gu6niJ6nsson,vol. 2 (Reykjavik,
1948; 2nd ed. Akureyri,1953), 43, 153.
80. Especially importantin this connectionis the work of Clunies Ross, especially "An
Interpretationof the Mythof b6rr's Encounter withGeirr06rand His Daughters."
See also Borovsky,"Male Fears, Female Threats." That the bodies in question are
female (e.g., menstruatinggiantesses)is clear. What is less clear is what femaleness
means in a world in which (at least in the learned tradition)the female body and its
fluidsmay have been understood as deformationsof male ones (e.g., in which menstrual fluid was construed as cooled-down semen); see Laqueur, Making Sex, esp.
35-43.
28
REPRESENTATIONS