'NO LONGER MALE AND FEMALE': REDEEMING WOMEN IN THE ICELANDIC CONVERSION NARRATIVES

Abstract

Women - it is generally agreed - are prominent among the opponents of Christianity in the literary record of medieval Iceland and Norway. Espousing conservative values, they oppose the preaching of male missionaries with a religious zeal that is, in its own way, just as evangelistic. A scene from Njals saga will serve to illustrate the point. At the centre of the saga's well-known conversion account lies an encounter between the Christian missionary Þangbrandr and the pagan poetess Steinunn, in which they debate the religious issues raised by Þangbrandr's recent shipwreck:Steinunn kom i mot honum, moðir Skald-Refs; hon boðaði Þangbrandi heiðni ok talði lengi fyrir honum. Þangbrandr bagði, meðan hon talaði, en talaði lengi eptir ok sneri þvi Qllu, er hon hafði maelt, i villu. 'Hefir þu heyrt þat', sagði hon, 'er Þorr bauð Kristi a holm, ok treystisk hann eigi at berjask við Þor?' 'Heyrt hefi ek þat', segir Þangbrandr, 'at Þorr vaeri ekki nema mold ok aska, þegar guð vildi eigi, at hann lifði'. 'Veiztu', segir hon, 'hverr brotit hefir skip þitt?' 'Hvat segir þu til?' segir hann. 'Þat mun ek segja þer, segir hon.1(Steinunn, mother of Skald-Refr, came to meet him; she preached heathenism to Þangbrandr and tried for a long time to persuade him. Þangbrandr was silent while she spoke, but spoke at length afterwards and showed up the error of everything she had said. 'Have you heard', she said, 'that Þorr challenged Christ to a duel and he did not dare to fight with Þorr?' 'I have heard', says Þangbrandr, 'that Þorr would be nothing but dust and ashes if God did not wish him to live'. 'Do you know', she says, 'who has wrecked your ship?' 'What do you say about it?' he says. 'I will tell you', she says.)Steinunn goes on to recite two skaldic verses attributing the shipwreck to Þorr. The literary accomplishment of these has long been recognized: metrically close to perfect, they make use of a range of sophisticated kennings for ships and elegantly invert the topos of the successful sea voyage in mockery of Þangbrandr and his God.2 Steinunn is not just a reluctant convert, she is the pagan equivalent of a missionary: she travels to meet Þangbrandr with the express purpose of converting him to paganism, the expressions used of her recall the vocabulary of Christian preaching ('boða heiðni', 'telja fyrir), and she argues forcefully and well for the superior power of her gods. Although initially Þangbrandr has the better of the exchange, his success is shortlived, and Steinunn's verses, contrasting Þorr's power to destroy with Christ's contemptible failure to protect, silence him as no other opponent does.3 Central to Steinunn's argument is her strong support for what she sees as the 'pagan' ideal of aggressive masculinity: her point about Christ not daring to fight is surely a parody of the Passion. Her stance is echoed later in the saga when another woman, Hildigunnr, incites her reluctant uncle Flosi to avenge the killing of her husband: she refers scathingly to all the 'powers' of 'his' Christ.4 The implication is clear: conversion can be represented as a struggle between the sexes, in which women consistently oppose and are excluded from the Christian ideals embraced so willingly by men.The attitudes embodied in this powerful contrast between Christian man and pagan woman raise questions about the historical role of women in conversion and their representation in medieval narrative. Iceland was converted to Christianity relatively late in comparison with mainstream Europe (in 999/1000) and the first accounts of this event are later still: the earliest, Ari Thorgilsson's Islendingabok, was written in c.1122-33, and subsequent retellings date to after c.1200. Despite the significant gap between event and written record, some scholars still see women's opposition to Christianity in the Norse sources as having a historical basis. Jenny Jochens, for example, asserts straightforwardly that women were 'generally conservative in religious matters' and 'adhered to the older faith for longer than men'. …