Kinship in Old Norse Myth and Legend by Katherine Marie Olley;

Author:Katherine Marie Olley; [Olley;, Katherine Marie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781843846376
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Published: 2022-07-19T00:00:00+00:00

Mothers and Daughters: The Perverse Mother

Compared to mother-son relationships, depictions of mother-daughter interactions are uncommon in mythic-heroic texts. Like many of the mothers themselves, mother-daughter relations are often invisible, sometimes implied but infrequently depicted. Not only in mythic-heroic texts but in Old Norse literature more widely, ‘information about mothers and daughters – not to speak about a loving relationship – is extremely rare’.96 There is evidence enough, however, to demonstrate that closeness between mother and daughter was not encouraged. Guðrún’s excessive grief at the death of Svanhildr leads her to destroy what little is left of her family. Only bitterness results from Ólöf’s continual confrontation with her own disgrace in the form of her daughter Yrsa in Hrólfs saga kraka. These cautionary exemplars contrast with the highly successful career of Áslaug, who fared much better as a mother herself for being sent away by her own mother, Brynhildr, shortly after she was born. Áslaug’s most positive parental figure as a child is her male foster-father, Heimir, since neither her birth-mother nor her foster-mother are depicted as particularly nurturing individuals.

Only two mother-daughter relationships provide enough material for close analysis, Ólöf and Yrsa in Hrólfs saga kraka and Grímhildr and Guðrún, in both Völsunga saga and the Poetic Edda. Both are suggestive of a deep-rooted ambivalence at the heart of mother-daughter relationships, which both recalls that expressed between mothers and sons yet at the same time is distinct from it. It is the coincidence of gender which makes mother-daughter relations so singular, for, as with fathers and sons, mothers and daughters hold up a mirror to one another. Mothers, who were once daughters, raise daughters who will one day be mothers in their turn and so, like the father-son relationship, mother-daughter relations provide a space for self-reflection, wherein mother and daughter respond to the hints of their past or future which they identify in the experience of the other.

Grímhildr and Guðrún: Becoming the Mother

Grímhildr is introduced in Völsunga saga as in fjölkunnga (the one skilled in magic) and described as a grimmhuguð kona (grim-minded woman).97 She is quickly established as an influential queen, far busier on her dynasty’s behalf than her husband, King Gjúki. In the saga, it is Grímhildr who arranges the match between Guðrún and Sigurðr, not Gjúki. Indeed she goes so far as to persuade her husband to offer Sigurðr their daughter as a bride rather than wait for him to make the customary approach in case the opportunity should be lost.98 Ever eager to expand her influence, which is always anchored in her maternity, she tells Sigurðr she will be like a mother to him: ‘Þinn faðir skal vera Gjúki konungr, en ek móðir’ (Your father shall be King Gjúki, and I your mother).99 Similarly, Guðrún tells Brynhildr not to blame Grímhildr for their unhappy situation, ‘því at hún er til þín sem til dóttur sinnar’ (because she treats you like her own daughter), a comment that is darkly ironic in its truthfulness, for Grímhildr’s cruel treatment of Brynhildr is no more than she metes out to her own daughter by blood.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.