Women in Old Norse Literature: Bodies, Words, and Power by Jóhanna Katrín Friðriksdóttir (review)

Women in Old Norse Literature offers a timely re-evaluation of female characters in the Old Norse-Icelandic corpus. Jóhanna Katrín Friðriksdóttir's stated aim is to examine women characters in texts beyond the much-discussed Íslendingasögur, drawing attention to the complex and varied ways in which women exert power as they attempt to negotiate a hegemonic, patriarchal social order (p. 12). Aimed at both specialists in the field and at a more general medievalist audience, the book opens with a useful introduction to Old Norse-Icelandic literature, its major genres, and historical background. Jóhanna also discusses previous scholarship on women figures in Old Norse, as well as the various theorists—principally Weber, Austin, and Butler—employed in her analysis of them.

The first chapter, "Women Speaking," begins with a discussion of the whetter, perhaps the most examined female figure in the field of Old Norse. Jóhanna analyzes the hvǫt (incitement speech) in Austinian terms as an "event" that demands a response and action on the part of the recipient. Although a highly ambivalent motif—Jóhanna describes the hvǫt as a "double-edged sword" for the women who employ it—the incitement speech does allow women characters to gain power in the male sphere (p. 19). However, unlike previous commentators who have focused on the connection between female speech and violence, she draws attention to women who use verbal power to benefit themselves or their communities; she argues that the whetting woman is a more complex and ambiguous character than has previously been assumed. If the whetting woman is a stereotype of the Íslendingasögur, the wise woman is shown to be her counter-image in the fornal-darsögur, albeit one who has enjoyed less critical attention. This section details the many types of wisdom displayed by female characters, including resourcefulness, foresight, academic learning, embroidery, chess, astronomy, and medical skill. Taking as her focus Hrólfs saga Gautrekssonar and other fornaldarsaga texts, Jóhanna demonstrates that female wisdom often has a positive effect on the women, their husbands, and the wider community. Their words of wisdom are essentially conservative in that they help to maintain the status quo, but it is notable that such women work toward peace and social cohesion rather than vengeance and disruption.

The second chapter, "Women and Magic," discusses the different ways female characters employ magic in the Íslendingasögur. Jóhanna emphasizes the social context of magic rather than its possible links to pre-Christian ritual or belief; as she rightly observes, "[W]hat is most important is not whether the magic has some near-forgotten historical basis or is entirely invented by imaginative narrators, but rather, it is what the authors do with it and how it functions in the narrative that is illuminating" (p. 51). Magic, like words, is shown to advance a range of social and economic agendas. Focusing in particular on Fóstbrœðra saga, Jóhanna demonstrates how magic can offer power to widows and other women who have no male relatives to act on their behalf; magic offers to those who occupy marginal or vulnerable positions in the saga world a means of protecting and promoting their family's honor.

"Women and Magic" is a relatively short chapter that draws exclusively on the Íslendingasögur, but it is a useful counterpoint to the three chapters that follow, which focus on the variety of roles available to women in the fornaldarsögur and konungasögur. "Monstrous Women," the third chapter, offers an intriguing analysis of giantesses that brings to bear theories of monsters and monstrosity, as well as différence and the abject, on Old Norse texts. Giantesses occupy areas outside normal human society: these imagined spaces allow for the exploration of such difficult themes as gender...