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Crossing the Borders of Fantastic Space:The Relationship between the Fantastic and the Non-Fantastic in Valdimars Saga1
The frequent inclusion of fantastic episodes is an acknowledged characteristic of the genre of Old Norse saga known as the riddarasaga. Yet scholars have not yet applied theoretical models of the fantastic to it. When such models are applied to a single example of a riddarasaga, Valdimars saga, it is possible to discern a continuity of narrative based upon a character's emotional development. A potential conclusion, then, is that fantastic episodes in the riddarasögur represent the internal emotional world of saga characters.
It is the argument of this essay that episodes of the fantastic in the riddarasögur offer valuable insight into the cultural concerns of the society which produced and consumed them, and that these concerns can be understood by employing a number of analytical methods that have derived from scholarly consideration of modern fantastic fiction.
The riddarasögur, literally the sagas of knights, constitute a genre of Icelandic saga whose subject matter focuses predominantly on the concerns of non-Scandinavian nobility in non-Scandinavian settings.2 Also known as chivalric sagas or Norse romances, they have been traditionally divided into two sub-genres: the translated sagas, which are Old Norse translations of [End Page 57] chivalric narrative from continental Europe, predominantly France;3 and the indigenous sagas, which are thought to be original prose narratives written in the style of continental romances, although incorporating 'traditionally Nordic motifs into their composition'.4 Scholars generally agree that the translated riddarasögur originated in the thirteenth century, when King Hákon Hákonarson of Norway commissioned the translation of Thomas d'Angleterre's Tristan.5 Indigenous riddarasögur, on the other hand, have a less certain date of origin, first appearing perhaps in the late thirteenth or early fourteenth centuries.6
Compared with the Old Icelandic genre of saga known as the Íslendingasögur, or the sagas of Icelanders, scholarship concerning the riddarasögur has been sparse.7 The reason for this is not paucity of material. Marianne Kalinke estimates 'fifty or so Old Norse-Icelandic romances and compilations of romances',8 preserved in approximately eight hundred vellum and paper manuscripts.9 Matthew Driscoll offers a similar figure for the number of extant sagas, comprising twenty translated sagas and thirty- [End Page 58] one indigenous.10 The lack of scholarly attention focused on riddarasögur is, rather, due to early devaluation of their literary merits. Many scholars of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries viewed the riddarasögur as literarily inferior to the more venerated classical sagas, in particular the Íslendingasögur. W.P Ker, for example, described the riddarasögur as 'amongst the dreariest things ever made by human fancy'.11 Early criticism of riddarasögur concentrated on two main areas: the first was the derivative nature of their narrative material, as saga themes and motifs were considered imported from continental literature by means of the translated riddarasögur; the second, that they lacked verisimilitude.
The fantastic nature of the riddarasögur was noted early on.12 Saga authors themselves, in brief authorial interludes, considered the nature of the material they were representing to be fictional.13 Not only are riddarasögur considered to be untrue, with narratives generally not based upon any event perceived as historically verifiable, but they frequently contain elements of fantasy and the fantastic, such as dragons, flying carpets, and shape-changers. As Inna Matyushina has pointed out, 'the use of fantasy, including the description of magic objects, superhuman characters and supernatural human actions, is among the most important characteristics in riddarasögur'.14
These fantastic elements diverted scholarly attention from the riddarasögur as, historically, saga scholars have been interested in the relationship between sagas and historical reality. Yet literary scholars today are not as dismissive of fantastic narrative's value either as literary or as cultural artefact. Exposition of 'realism's' tenuous relationship with 'reality' has led to a collapse of what Andrzej Zgorzelski refers to as the 'realism fallacy'15. As Ursula Le Guin [End Page 59] has pointed out, fantasy isnt factual, but its true.16 It is thus no longer appropriate to neglect or disregard riddarasögur on the basis of their failure to represent 'reality'. Nevertheless, they remain problematic. How are the 'non-real' elements to be interpreted? It is the aim of this paper to explore this problem by examining theoretical models of the 'fantastic', and examining them in terms of spatial categories in order to analyse one particular saga: Valdimars saga.
I. The Definition of 'Fantastic'
First, it is necessary to explore the label 'fantastic'. On the surface it might appear to be an easy term to define. Dragons, giants, elves and dwarves are frequently considered fantastical by modern readers, simply because they are not 'real'. Yet classifying episodes as fantastic based upon modern conceptions of what is real and what is not is inadequate when analysing many medieval narratives. For numerous people living in modern, Western society, biblical accounts of Christ's resurrection are not real. Yet for many living in the Middle Ages, the resurrection was unquestionable. Nor is it necessary to turn to Christian theology to observe examples of the tense relationship between reality, fantasy and belief. Eric Rabkin demonstrates the reliance on perspective in discerning what can be identified as 'fantastic' by examining passages from Michael Moorcock's The Warlord of the Air: A Scientific Romance.17 In this novel, the protagonist travels from the beginning of the twentieth century to 1973, where his commentary upon the society he witnesses renders circumstances of modern life, which the book's readers would have considered 'normal', 'fantastic.' Such narrative realignment of the concept of 'fantastic' is indeed characteristic of popular narrative. The recently released children's movie Enchanted18 provides a clear example of this. It reverses the normal direction of the fantasy protagonist's journey from the 'real world' into a 'fantastic world' by relocating the heroine from an animated fairy tale into real world, live-action New York. Her comments on the magic of indoor plumbing, although clichéd, demonstrate that even the most mundane aspects of modern reality can, through a certain perspective, be perceived as fantastic. [End Page 60]
This ability of narrative to represent the real in terms of the fantastic defies crude models that depict the two in opposition. Thus, a label which seems simple is surprisingly complex. Scholars have responded to the challenge of clarifying this complexity by offering more intricate models of 'fantastic' that include concepts of impossibility and knowledge. The 'fantastic', for example, is seen as the representation of the impossible as possible; or as the discovery of the impossible within previously uncharted space.19 Even these models, however, are problematic, for they frequently do not emphasise the importance of perspective in identifying what is 'fantastic'. Nor do they recognise a difference between audience belief and character belief. Other definitions confront this problem by considering focalisation. For example, Tzvetan Todorov's definition of the fantastic as a 'hesitation experienced by a person who knows only the laws of nature, confronting an apparently supernatural event',20 centralises perspective in its definition, and makes it possible for something that the reader considers 'real' to be portrayed as 'fantastic'.21 Kathryn Hume also addresses this issue by noting that reality itself is a cultural construction. Her definition of fantasy, deliberately broad, is 'any departure from consensus reality'.22
Most theoretical models of the 'fantastic' are derived from modern literature. As such, they rely upon a consensus as to what constitutes the extremes of being; there is a category of certain existence, a category of certain nonexistence, and a middle-ground category of uncertain existence. In the Middle Ages, however, the certainty of non-existence was not so apparent. Voyagers returned home from expeditions with accounts of fabulous places, such as cities and civilisations in the Middle East and northern Africa. The line between known and unknown, real and unreal became blurred as experiences [End Page 61] of new and different cultures were integrated into the experienced reality of a relatively small group of people. There is a difference between medieval and modern worldviews in relation to the certainty of what is unreal. This makes problematic examinations of the fantastic in the literature of earlier times. The subjectivity incorporated into the term 'fantastic' suggests that there is no motif, no creature, that qualifies as being fantastic for all people, at all times. Thus, the many seemingly fantastic riddarasögur motifs -- such as dragons, giants and dwarves -- which suggest a fantastic nature to their saga-genre, may be fantastic only to modern readers.
Further complicating the problem of identifying the fantastic in the sagas is the assumption that the literary fantastic is a modern construction.23 The inaccuracy of this point of view is essential to riddarasögur analysis for, if the literary fantastic did emerge in the nineteenth century, then any application of the term 'fantastic' to saga episodes is anachronistic, and any examination of the function of the fantastic within the sagas is inappropriate.24 Are the seemingly 'fantastic' episodes in the sagas, then, truly 'fantastic'? The conclusions drawn by scholars examining a wide range of Icelandic saga genres suggest they are. For example, Chiara Benati, using Todorov's model, [End Page 62] identifies elements of the fantastic in Saga Ósvalds konúngs hins helga;25 and both Stephen A. Mitchell and Else Mundal acknowledge the existence of the fantastic in Old Norse literature when they, in separate papers, contrast episodes of the supernatural with episodes of the fantastic.26 It is Margaret Clunies Ross, however, who directly confronts the question of the fantastic's literary origins from a medievalist's perspective and concludes that:
the fantastic as a modern literary genre has been with us for quite a short time and is a post-romantic phenomenon. By contrast, the fantastic as a literary mode has had a much longer life, and is well represented in medieval literature and art.27
This assurance of the fantastic's presence in medieval literature suggests the appropriateness of examining medieval literature for episodes of the fantastic. But it does not solve the problem of identifying them in the riddarasögur. When considering the question of whether the fantastic as a mode is utilised by the riddarasögur, however, it is possible to be guided by the sagas themselves. A characteristic of the riddarasögur is the occasional employment of authorial comment encapsulated within a prologue which creates a persona who 'actively engages in expression of opinion'.28 It is not always possible to connect a prologue uniquely with a saga. Nevertheless, the conscious commentary on the relationship between narrative, author and audience is illuminating. The writer of Sigurðar saga þögla's prologue, for example, defends the narrative elements of the saga by ridiculing as foolish men who 'trúa engu útan þeir sjá eða heyra' ('believe nothing beyond what they can see and hear')29. The statement suggests a sizeable scepticism amongst the audience about significant parts of the saga that would warrant such a defence, and indicates the author's own awareness that parts of his saga are unbelievable. When this authorial comment is viewed through the filter of modern fantastic definitions, a relationship between riddarasögur narrative [End Page 63] and the fantastic becomes apparent. The English translation of the Old Norse 'trúa' is 'to believe'. According to the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, belief is 'assent of the mind to a statement, or to the truth of a fact beyond observation, on the testimony of another, or to a fact or truth on the evidence of consciousness.'30 Belief, then, implies a willingness to entertain the notion that something is true. This is a position similar to the hesitation experienced by the protagonist in Todorov's definition of the 'fantastic'. The saga-author's statement can therefore be interpreted as an indication that aspects of the sagas can be considered within the realm of the literary fantastic.
Having examined the main theoretical issues concerning the literary fantastic, it is now possible to outline a method by which the fantastic in the riddarasögur can be approached. It is appropriate to consider the riddarasögur as a genre comprising episodes of the fantastic. Yet a danger lies in categorising an episode as fantastic based on modern constructions rather than medieval ones. The first step in determining the function of the literary fantastic in the sagas, then, is to determine whether or not an episode is indeed fantastic. This can be done by reading the scene in terms of scholarly definitions of the literary fantastic. For the purposes of this paper, the primary definition of 'fantastic' adopted is Kathryn Hume's inclusive definition of 'fantasy' as 'any departure from consensus reality'.31 The decision to use Hume's does not mean that I disregard other definitions of the fantastic; nor do I wish to underestimate the value of continued engagement in debate concerning other definitions. The value of Hume's definition is that it is broad enough to consider a large number of episodes as 'fantastic' and yet, following scrutiny, they can be disregarded if they do not conform.
II. Fantastic Space
Categorising episodes as fantastic in the light of their conformity to literary theory is only the first step in understanding the function of the fantastic in the sagas. Throughout the rest of this essay, I will consider the fantastic in terms of a second, major theoretical paradigm important to literary and cultural studies: that of space. There is a strong link between the fantastic and the representation of space. The fantastic is frequently constructed [End Page 64] through a distinction between physical consensus reality and a fantasy world. Examples of this are most obvious in fairy tales, where the fantastic is often differentiated from the non-fantastic by means of the construction of an 'other' world. The rules of the 'other' world are internally consistent, but are beyond the consensus reality of its audience.32 This distinction of an ordinary world from a fantastic 'other world' is present in Old Norse literature, too. John McKinnell views it as foundational to the Old Norse mythological world,33 and Aðalheiður Guðmundsdóttir considers the setting of the fornaldarsögur in terms of a 'dichotomous worldview'.34 Ármann Jakobsson, in his exploration of giants' abodes, also notes a strong connection between the fantastic and space. Of the troll-wife creature found in the sagas, he says:
She is a creature of the night and of death, an Other, and likely to possess otherworldly powers. And she can be found in a certain forest late at night.35
The 'other' world as spatial category is useful when analysing the function of the fantastic in the riddarasögur, for a sense of the dichotomous worldview can be detected in them. So, for example, in Valdimars saga, Valdimar travels to Risaland (the land of the giants). Such a model, however, is also limited. Frequently in the riddarasögur, the non-fantastic and the fantastic combine. Consider the spatial division of Nitida saga.36 In this saga, Nitida desires the supernatural properties that can be found within the stones of Visio. Nitida's abode is in the non-fantastic, geographical location, France. Visio, on the other hand, is a fantastical place, an island situated at the edge of the unknown world. Nitida travels to this fantastical borderland island, collects the stones, and transports them – and their fantastical properties – to the non-fantastic [End Page 65] world (chapter 1). This is an example of the fantastic other world being able to influence the non-fantastic world, and suggests the boundary between the two is at least occasionally fluid.
The relationship between the fantastic and space can be conceived of in another way; not in terms of fantastic space being distinct from non-fantastic space but, rather, of fantastic space being constructed over non-fantastic space. Incorporating into this model of fantastic space the theoretical spatial model of Henri Lefebvre that can be found in his book The Production of Space37, it is then possible to view fantastic space as being encoded by means of three different spatial domains: physical space, which constitutes the physical allocation of an area by using physical boundaries; mental space, which constitutes the mental allocation of space through perspective and imagination; and social space, which constitutes the allocation of space for agreed social practice, and is frequently bound by rules. Fantastic space can be constructed through the distortion of any one of the spatial categories, so that the space does not conform to consensus reality. So, physical space can be manipulated or distorted, as seen through the example of Nitida in Nitida saga above, who is able to make herself invisible or cross geographical boundaries using the stones; and also through the example of the dragon shape-shifters of Valdimars saga, who are able to change the physical boundaries of their own bodies. Fantastic space can also be constructed through distortion of mental space, by perspective and imagination. The landscape of Visio in Nitida saga defines its otherness. It contains a beautiful island within an island, which is a place abundantly endowed with magical stones and apples. Finally, and importantly, fantastic space can be created through the distortion of social space. Beowulf's Grendel, for example, behaves in a manner that is outside social consensus reality when he commits acts of cannibalism.38
Defining fantastic space in terms of an interrelationship with non-fantastic space has the benefit of allowing an exploration of the ways in which the fantastic interrogates the non-fantastic, or even 'reality'. When it intertwines with non-fantastic space, fantastic space manipulates, moulds, and redefines aspects of the non-fantastic, often highlighting certain themes or topics, and frequently recreating from non-fantastic space a safe area, clearly removed from any guise of reality by its fantastic nature, in which taboo issues or emotions can be expressed. For the remainder of this paper, I intend to show [End Page 66] by example how this is achieved in the riddarasögur, by analysing one particular saga: Valdimars saga.
III. Fantastic Space and Valdimars Saga
Valdimars saga, a late, indigenous riddarasaga, opens with the eponymous hero marking his coming of age by inviting all the young men and knights of hero marking his coming of age by inviting all the young men and knights of Saxland to a tournament. Amongst the women observing the display of skill is Valdimar's talented and beautiful sister, Marmóría. Into this scene of joviality and celebration intrudes a 'flugdreki' -- a 'flying dragon' -- who swoops down upon the tournament, abducts Marmóría, and transforms the festive atmosphere into one of mourning and of grief.39 Marmóría's abrupt disappearance affects Valdimar so deeply that he embarks upon a quest to find her.
At first glance, the saga's opening appears to be a collection of well-utilised saga motifs and clichés. Valdimar is the strong and skilful son and heir to a king; his sister Marmóría is beautiful as well as being skilled in the feminine arts. The abduction by the flugdreki is a disruption of the status quo, and will compel Valdimar to leave his predictable life in Saxland in order to retrieve her. Furthermore, his quest will convey him into Risaland ('the land of the giants'), where he will encounter numerous exciting adventures and eventually find a wife. The view that Valdimars saga is an unexciting string of adventures that lacks general narrative artistry is prevalent in the sparse scholarship that engages with it. Jürg Glauser, for example, writes that 'Valdimars saga combines widespread narrative and thematic structures, for example, from fairy tales and romances, the well-known motifs of kidnapping of a princess, journey of the hero, meeting with helpers, fights with enemies, victory, marriage and succession to throne'.40 Rather than reading the saga as a string of narrative episodes, however, it can be read as an exploration of fantastic space. Through an examination of the interrelationship between non-fantastic and fantastic space, it is possible to discern the meaning of the fantastic events of the saga, and to reveal gradual, emotional developments within the saga characters, so that the saga seems less like a confused array of narrative motifs, and more like a unified narrative. [End Page 67]
The opening of Valdimars saga is consciously described in terms of spatial reallocation. Valdimar's life-stage, on the cusp of adulthood, marks him as a candidate for social change, as he is about to exit the world of children and enter the world of adulthood. To mark his rite-of-passage, Valdimar invites to a tournament the young men of his father's kingdom, which results in movement through space. The gathering of young men in a single place results in the temporary modification of Saxland's group dynamics. Households and families are, for a short time, dissolved; the old are separated from the young. Whereas the old remain scattered throughout the kingdom, however, the young congregate within the country's capital. A new group has been formed, comprising only male youth. Bonds are reinforced through further proximity and interaction at the tournament. Although the group of young men forms the only new category in the saga's opening, they also modify an existing one. The young women, amassed about their leader Marmóría, who is Valdimar's sister, form a secondary group. The result is a saga setting that divides its characters according to age and gender, and focuses primarily on youth. Importantly, this spatial reallocation is considered temporary. The young men of the kingdom have been invited to a tournament to mark an occasion, and the presumption is that they will return to their homes relatively unmarked and unchanged, to resume their place within the more permanent spatial arenas of their households.
The artificial area of tournament space is non-fantastic space. Although kings, queens and knights were outside the everyday reality of most medieval Icelanders, the tournament is not fantastic because it does conform to rules of a consensus reality. Moreover, the titles of the characters and the setting of Saxland may have been beyond ordinary medieval Icelandic daily experience, but the rules of behaviour were not. Gathering young men together for a tournament was comparable to gathering young men together for a game, a popular custom in Iceland, if the depictions of such games in the Íslendingasögur are to be believed and can be extrapolated to fifteenth-century Iceland. The flugdreki, and the space created by it, is, on the other hand, fantastic. This, however, requires qualification; for although dragons are considered outside modern consensus reality, there is no reason to presume that they were outside medieval Icelandic consensus reality. Indeed, Else Mundal argues that dragons were occasionally not 'fantastic' but rather 'supernatural', because Icelanders believed in their existence.41 But despite the possibility of occasional belief by [End Page 68] medieval Icelanders in dragons, the flugdreki of Valdimars saga is fantastic. There are two reasons to believe this. The first is that the flugdreki of Valdimars saga appears within a cluster of fantastic occurrences, including sudden changes in the weather and absolute darkness. These phenomena are portrayed as unusual in the extreme. Taken separately, they may be explained in terms of the rules of consensus reality, but the coincidence of so many strange occurrences happening at the same time is, in itself, a departure from consensus reality. The accumulation of unusual events creates a fantastical backdrop for the appearance of the flugdreki, and heralds to the audience that it, too, is fantastic. The second is the spectators' response, not to the flugdreki's appearance, but to the coinciding fantastic episode of complete darkness: that response is the emotion of fear (hrædsla). Fear suggests that something unusual or inexplicable, and perhaps dangerous, is occurring.
Due to its fantastic nature, the flugdreki's entrance momentarily changes the tournament space from non-fantastic space into fantastic space. For the brief duration of this newly created fantastic space's existence, the consensus reality of the tournament is distorted. Fantastic travel, in particular travel upwards, is made possible. This diminishes the strength of the tournament-space's two-dimensional, physical borders, and subsequently blurs all boundaries. Most importantly, the socially constructed borders of the tournament's space that were intended to be temporary -- those that separated youth from maturity, tournament players from their households, and brother from sister -- are affected.
The intrusion of fantastic space into non-fantastic space has the effect of fixing these temporary borders. The reason for this is that all members of tournament space have witnessed Marmóría's fantastic abduction; all members outside tournament space have not. As the fantastic abduction is outside the consensus reality of the saga-world, tournament members have experienced a phenomenon that non-tournament members will experience. Thus the fantastic space of the flugdreki has succeeded in creating permanent, mental borders between tournament members and non-tournament members. The result is a permanent division of the two groups. Thus, when the physical and social boundaries of the tournament are dissolved, mental boundaries will ensure that tournament members remain firmly united with one another within a fantastic mental space, even when living at a physical distance from one another. They will remain separated from their normal day-to-day companions, even when living in close proximity to them. The appearance of the flugdreki has therefore succeeded in permanently separating a group of youth from their [End Page 69] household elders, and thus the flugdreki and the space it creates can be said to represent, in a fantastic and yet physical guise, the permanent separations that result from maturation.
The most important separation that occurs as a result of the flugdreki's appearance is that between Valdimar and his sister, Marmóría. Marmóría's abduction provides the central goal of Valdimars saga: Marmóría's retrieval. It also reveals that, at the heart of the narrative, Valdimars saga is a story about the pain of sibling separation. Amongst the general mourners, Valdimar is singled out as being especially grieved by Marmóría's disappearance (chapter 1). It appears, indeed, that Valdimar suffers more as a result of Marmóría's disappearance than do his parents. Valdimar's grief is so deep that he assigns himself the task of locating her. He says, "Þess streingi eg heit at eg skal á burt ríða ok eigi aptur koma fyrr en eg finn mina systr Marmoriu lifs eðr dauða.' ('This oath I swear, that I shall ride away and I shall not return until I find my sister Marmóría alive or dead'). Soon after this pronouncement, Valdimar embarks upon a journey to rescue his sister. This journey leads him to his second encounter with fantastic space: the giants' cave. The path that Valdimar must travel in order to reach the cave is evidence that the giants' cave can be considered fantastic. Valdimar does not find the cave through traditional methods of exploration. Although he does walk through a forest, it is only once he has challenged the limitations of his body that he is granted entry. Valdimar does not eat, drink or sleep for four days. Once his body has been sufficiently deprived, he is granted a dream of a lady. The dream-lady is able to transcend the boundary between dream and Valdimar's physical world, through the presentation of gifts. It is this crossing of a seemingly uncrossable border, and not the dream itself, that is outside consensus reality, and therefore indicates that Valdimar is about to enter fantastic space. Once Valdimar has encountered the dream-lady, he is led to the giants' cave.
Valdimar's second encounter with fantastic space is markedly different from his first. Whereas the flugdreki's appearance in the opening chapter of the saga forces non-fantastic space to become fantastic space, suggesting a dynamic nature to fantastic space which in turn affects the non-fantastic space, Valdimar's second experience of fantastic space is the result of his active attempts to find it. The physical boundaries of the giants' cave are constant. Whereas the fantastic space created by the flugdreki represents change, the fantastic space of the giants cave represents stability. [End Page 70]
The result is a soothing space that opposes the cataclysmic nature of the flugdreki's space. The giants' cave is a secure fantastic space which offers Valdimar a reprieve from the life forces that have directed his journey thus far. The lulling sanctuary lures him into staying for two years. The purpose of his long stay can be recognised by understanding the nature of the space in which he finds himself. Whereas the fantastic space created by the flugdreki emphasised the frequently painful separation experienced by siblings upon maturation, the giants' cave offers a reprieve by not only slowing time, but allowing it to reverse. In the cave, Valdimar's stature is small in comparison with the giants, effectively allowing him to 'shrink' back to a childlike state. That this perceived shrinking equates to a symbolic return to childhood is reinforced by the male giant's treatment of Valdimar. He sets Valdimar on his lap and then refers to him as a child.42 Valdimar is therefore permitted to do the impossible: to return to childhood after he has already matured. But this return to childhood is only superficial, and based on the giants' perception of him. This can be seen by Valdimar's ability to impregnate the giant's daughter. Valdimar's identity in the giants' cave is therefore ambiguous. He is both boy and man. Thus the mental space of the cave represents suspension of maturity.
The purpose of this suspension of maturity is not just a reprieve from the fast-paced pressures of adulthood brought about by Marmóría's abduction. It also offers Valdimar the time and space to explore his complex emotional responses to his sister's disappearance. In returning to a false childhood, Valdimar finds himself ensconced in a family setting. The male giant adopts the role of father, and the female giant the role of sister. Valdimar's sexual relationship with the female giant, Alba, therefore hints at a taboo sexual desire for his sister. Yet the scene cannot be merely interpreted as a representation of the incest taboo. Alba does not directly equate with Marmóría. Rather, she acts as a bridge: both looking to Valdimar's past with his sister, but also to his future with his wife. That this is the case can be discerned from Alba's first encounter with Valdimar. She tells him that she knows him, and that she knows his quest. Part of his quest, she says, is to 'vita nafn mitt' ('to learn my name'). This exchange of dialogue conflates Valdimar's perception of his goal, which is to find Marmóría, with the saga's perspective of his goal, which is to obtain a wife. In this brief dialogue Alba adopts both personae: [End Page 71] sister and wife. Valdimars sexual relationship with Alba therefore allows him to express and examine feelings for a sister, whilst at the same time gives him the opportunity to prepare for a future sexual relationship with his wife. His period in the giants' cave can be read as a slower, more considered, and ultimately less traumatic, retelling of the separation experienced in the fantastic space created by the flugdreki.
After a period of two years with the giants, Valdimar is ready to search for his sister again. Before he leaves the cave, he is made larger by the male giant, becoming giant-sized himself. The enlargement represents Valdimar's return to maturity. From the stable environment of the cave, Valdimar continues his journey, where he has his third experience with fantastic space: the earth house. The fantastic nature of this house is heralded by the spell which is placed upon it. It is made to be invisible, but invisible only to Lúpa, who is the human manifestation of the flugdreki. This form of individualised invisibility is probably outside the consensus reality of the saga audience, and can be considered fantastic.
The earth house creates a fantastic space which is different from the fantastic space created by the flugdreki in an opposing way: whereas the flugdreki's space is a divisive space, the invisible house is a unifying one. Valdimar and Marmóría are brought together again. Importantly, when Valdimar and Marmóría are reunited, Marmóría does not initially recognise Valdimar. The enlargement of Valdimar has rendered him unfamiliar to her. Fantastic space in this way expresses, through exaggeration, the discovery of the unfamiliar within the familiar, which must have been frequently experienced by siblings who were separated through marriage, and then allowed to reunite briefly through visits. In the invisible house, Valdimar is also introduced to Florida, his prospective wife. In time, Blábus, Marmóría's prospective husband, also joins them. Within the fantastic space created by the house, the four young adults are united, and are allowed to share the same household. In this way, men are able to develop an acquaintance with prospective wives, without having to experience the pain of separation from a sibling. Likewise, women are able to develop an acquaintance with prospective husbands. The household offers the young couples a secure space in which they can develop bonds between themselves, without fear that they will be wrested apart by Lúpa -- the flugdreki who has come to represent the painful aspects of separations which result from maturity. The invisible household therefore represents a safe space, where once again the [End Page 72] emotions that accompany maturity can be expressed and explored at a slow and gentle pace.
The invisible household is only a temporarily created space. The separation experienced by Valdimar and Marmóría at the beginning of the saga is a necessary one. They cannot avoid growing up, and they cannot avoid the separations caused by marriages. Valdimar's final border-crossing, a return to the world, therefore represents the final stage required for maturity: entry into adulthood. When Valdimar returns to his world at the end of the saga, though, he is able to do so with a greater emotional maturity than he possessed at the beginning of the saga. He is able to accept his separation from Marmóría. He is able to celebrate his marriage to Florida. His journeys through fantastic space have therefore offered a means of confronting the pain of sibling separation so that he can come to terms with it. Valdimar's fantastic voyage has allowed him to seek and obtain emotional maturity, so that he can greet marriage and adulthood with happiness rather than with grief.
IV. Conclusion
Evaluation of a single riddarasaga, Valdimars saga, according to theoretical models of the fantastic, not only confirms claims made previously by scholars of Old Norse literature that the riddarasögur deal with the fantastic mode, but offers a means by which such episodes can be analysed and better understood. Tracing Valdimar's experiences with the fantastic reveals a unified narrative structure to the saga that has not been apparent with more conventional readings. This indicates that the fantastic episodes are not merely narrative extras included to entertain the audience, but fundamental to the saga narrative as a whole. Further analysis of the fantastic within the wider context of the saga, using the methodological constructions of space to understand the interactions between the fantastic and the non-fantastic, reveals a use of the fantastic to analyse the internal, emotional world of saga characters. Travel to fantastic spaces represents experiences with different emotions related to separation from siblings, and marriage to wives. In Valdimars saga, then, the fantastic is shown to be related to a perceived reality through the expression and exploration of emotions.
The example of Valdimars saga suggests riddarasögur cannot be fully understood in isolation from the fantastic events depicted in them. Furthermore, it implies that analysis benefits from employment of analytical methodologies [End Page 73] that incorporate a wide range of theories of the fantastic, and theories of the fantastic's relationship with the non-fantastic. If such methodologies are employed, it might be possible to discern the emotional world of the society which both produced, and consumed, this literary genre. [End Page 74]
Footnotes
1. This paper was written as part of the ARC funded project, 'Writing from the edge of the world: medieval Icelandic literature and the quest for social identity'.
2. Scholars do not agree upon a consistent definition of riddarasögur. Indeed, persuasive arguments have been made to consider it not one genre but many. For the purpose of this paper, however, I have provided a basic definition. For more on the subject of the riddarasögur as a genre, see Geraldine Barnes, 'Some Current Issues in Riddarasögur Research', Arkiv för Nordisk Filologi 104 (1989), 73-88, Marianne Kalinke, 'Norse Romance', in Old Norse-Icelandic Literature. A Critical Guide, ed. Carol J and John Lindon Clover (Toronto, Buffalo, and London: University of Toronto Press, 1985), p. 322, and Matthew Driscoll, 'Late Prose Fiction (Lygisögur)', in A Companion to Old Norse-Icelandic Literature and Culture, ed. Rory McTurk (Malden, Oxford and Carleton: Blackwell Publishing, 2007).
3. Geraldine Barnes, 'Riddarsögur - Translated', in Medieval Scandinavia. An Encyclopedia., ed. Phillip Pulsiano (New York and London: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1993), pp. 531-33.
4. Marianne Kalinke, 'Riddarsögur - Indigenous', in Medieval Scandinavia. An Encyclopedia., ed. Phillip Pulsiano (New York and London: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1993), p. 528. Recent scholars have made a case for considering the translated romances a genre distinct from indigenous romances. See, for example, Matthew Driscoll, The Unwashed Children of Eve (Enfield Lock: Hisarlik Press, 1997), p. 6.
5. Barnes, 'Riddarsögur - Translated', p. 531, Geraldine Barnes, 'Romance in Iceland', in Old Icelandic Literature and Society, ed. Margaret Clunies Ross (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), p. 267, Kalinke, 'Norse Romance', ,p. 334, and Driscoll, The Unwashed Children of Eve, p. 2.
6. Kalinke, 'Riddarsögur - Indigenous', p. 528, Barnes, 'Romance in Iceland', p. 266, and Driscoll, The Unwashed Children of Eve, p. 3.
7. Important monographs concerned with the riddarasögur or aspects of them include: Margaret Schlauch, Romance in Iceland (Princeton and New York: Princeton University Press, 1934), Jürg Glauser, Islandische Märchensagas: Studien Zur Prosaliteratur Im Spätmittelalterlichen Island (Basel and Frankfurt: Helbing and Lichtenhahn, 1983), Marianne Kalinke, Bridal-Quest Romance in Medieval Iceland (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990), and Driscoll, The Unwashed Children of Eve.
8. Kalinke, 'Norse Romance', pp. 350-58. In her entry on riddarasögur in the reference book Medieval Scandinavia: An Encycopedia, Kalinke suggests that thirty-five works can be categorised as indigenous riddarasögur. Kalinke, 'Riddarsögur - Indigenous', p. 528.
9. Kalinke, 'Norse Romance', p. 320.
10. Driscoll, The Unwashed Children of Eve, pp. 2-4.
11. W.P. Ker, Epic and Romance: Essays on Medieval Literature (New York: Dover Publications, 1957), p. 282.
12. Driscoll, The Unwashed Children of Eve, p. 6.
13. See, for example, Sigurðar saga þögla, chapter 1. References to this saga are from the following edition: Agnete Loth, ed., Late Medieval Icelandic Romances, vol. (Copenhagen: Ejnar Munksgaard, 1963).
14. Inna Matyushina, 'Magic Mirrors, Monsters, Maiden-Kings (the Fantastic in Riddarasögur)', in Preprint Papers of the 13th International Saga Conference. Durham and York, 6th-12th August, 2006, eds. John McKinnell, David Ashurst and Donata Kick (Durham: The Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Durham University, 2006), p. 660.
15. Andrzej Zgorzelski, 'On Differentiating Fantastic Fiction: Some Supragenological Distinctions in Literature', Poetics Today 5, no. 2 (1984): 299.
16. Ursula Le Guin, 'Why Are Americans Afraid of Dragons?', in The Language of the Night:Essays on Fantasy and Science Fiction, ed. Susan Wood (New York: Perigee, 1979), p. 44.
17. Michael Moorcock, The Warlord of the Air: A Scientific Romance (New York: New English Library, 1971).
18. Kevin Lima, 'Enchanted', (USA: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, 2007).
19. Donald E. Morse, 'Introduction: The Fantastic in World Literature and the Arts', in The Fantastic in World Literature and the Arts. Selected Essays from the Fifth International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts, ed. Donald E. Morse (New York, Westport and London: Greenwood Press, 1984), p. 1, David Sandner, ed., Fantastic Literature. A Critical Reader (Westport and London: Praeger Publishers, 2004), p. 9.
20. Tzvetan Todorov, The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre (London: 1973).
21. Rosemary Jackson also considers perspective in her model of the 'fantastic'. See Rosemary Jackson, Fantasy: The Literature of Subversion (London and New York: Methuen, 1981), p. 34.
22. Kathryn Hume, Fantasy and Mimesis. Responses to Reality in Western Literature (New York and London: Methuen, 1984), p. 21.
23. See, for example, Toby Siebers, The Romantic Fantastic (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984), p. 2, and Zgorzelski, 'On Differentiating Fantastic Fiction: Some Supragenological Distinctions in Literature', p. 303.
24. Numerous scholars of Old Norse literature have interpreted some saga episodes as fantastic. See for example, Chiara Benati, 'The Fantastic and the Supernatural in the Saga Ósvalds Konúngs Hins Helga: Patterns and Functions' in Preprint Papers of the 13th International Saga Conference. Durham and York, 6th-12th August, 2006, eds. John McKinnell, David Ashurst and Donata Kick (Durham: The Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Durham University, 2006), pp. 130-139; Ásdís Egilsdóttir, 'The Fantastic Reality: Hagiography, Miracles and Fantasy' in Preprint Papers of the 13th International Saga Conference. Durham and York, 6th-12th August, 2006, eds. John McKinnell, David Ashurst and Donata Kick (Durham: The Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Durham University, 2006), pp. 63-69; Stephen A. Mitchell, 'The Supernatural and Other Elements of the Fantastic in the Fornaldarsögur' in Preprint Papers of the 13th International Saga Conference. Durham and York, 6th-12th August, 2006, eds. John McKinnell, David Ashurst and Donata Kick (Durham: The Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Durham University, 2006), pp. 699-706; and Else Mundal, 'The Treatment of the Supernatural and the Fantastic in Different Saga Genres', in Preprint Papers of the 13th International Saga Conference. Durham and York, 6th-12th August, 2006, eds. John McKinnell, David Ashurst and Donata Kick (Durham: The Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Durham University, 2006), pp. 718-726.
25. Benati, 'The Fantastic and the Supernatural in the Saga Ósvalds Konúngs Hins Helga: Patterns and Functions'.
26. Mitchell, 'The Supernatural and Other Elements of the Fantastic in the Fornaldarsögur', and Mundal, 'The Treatment of the Supernatural and the Fantastic in Different Saga Genres.'
27. Margaret Clunies Ross, 'Realism and the Fantastic in the Old Icelandic Sagas', Scandinavian Studies 74, no. 4 (2002): p. 448.
28. Barnes, 'Romance in Iceland', p. 271.
29. Sigurðar saga þögla, chapter 1.
30. Little, William, H.W. Fowler, and Jessie Coulson, eds. The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary On Historical Principles. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973).
31. Kathryn Hume, Fantasy and Mimesis. Responses to Reality in Western Literature (New York and London: Methuen, 1984), p. 21.
32. Alfred Messerli, 'Spatial Representation in European Popular Fairy Tales', Marvels and Tales: Journal of Fairy-Tale Studies 19, no. 2 (2005): p. 274.
33. John McKinnell, Meeting the Other in Norse Myth and Legend (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2005).
34. Aðalheiður Guðmundsdóttir, 'On Supernatural Motifs in the Fornaldarsögur', in Preprint Papers of the 13th International Saga Conference. Durham and York, 6th-12th August, 2006, eds. John McKinnell, David Ashurst and Donata Kick (Durham: The Centre Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Durham University, 2006).
35. Ármann Jakobsson, 'Where Do Giants Live?', Arkiv för Nordisk Filologi 121 (2006), 101-112 (p. 102).
36. All references to Nitida saga are from: Agnete Loth, ed., Late Medieval Icelandic Romances, vol. V (Copenhagen: Ejnar Munksgaard, 1965).
37. Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 1974).
38. Friedrich Klaeber, ed., Beowulf and the Fight at Finnsburgh (Boston: Heath, 1936).
39. Valdimars saga, chapter 1. References to this saga are taken from the following edition: Agnete Loth, ed., Late Medieval Icelandic Romances, vol. 1 (Copenhagen: Ejnar Munksgaard, 1962).
40. Jürg Glauser, 'Valdimars Saga', in Medieval Scandinavia. An Encyclopedia, ed. Phillip Pulsiano (New York and London: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1993), p. 686.
41. Mundal, 'The Treatment of the Supernatural and the Fantastic in Different Saga Genres'.
42. Valdimars saga, chapter 1.