[In the following essay, Peters discusses the prevalence of hryggspenna, a type of combat wrestling, in the Grettis Saga.]

Two distinct forms of wrestling are employed in Grettis Saga, an older Nordic hryggspenna style against nonhuman adversaries, and a newer, exclusively Icelandic glíma against all human opponents.¹ The hryggspenna style is decidedly a combat style whereas glíma is practiced as sport. A form of trouser wretling similar to that practiced in southwestern areas of Britain, glíma has been practiced in Iceland since at least the twelfth century and is, today, the national sport of Iceland. Glíma appears to have been a summer sport in early Icelandic society, the favored winter sport having been knattleikr, a ball or hockey game played on a frozen surface. Yet athletes who were proficient at glíma were asked to participate in knattleikr,² since the latter sport allowed for a type of wrestling which is often not distinguished, in the saga accounts, from fighting, but which was probably much like blocking, tackling or boarding in contemporary rugby, North American football, or ice hockey. The objective in glíma is to unbalance the opponent, throw him to the ground, and ultimately pin him with his back to the ground. In Grettis Saga Audun does this to the young Grettir, and further humiliates the younger boy by kneeling on his stomach.³

Although a precise technique is missing in the bout between Audun and Grettir, there is a clear description of glíma technique in the episode at the end of the saga, where Grettir wrestles Thord during the Thing at Hegranes. Grettir is not moved when Thord charges, but reaches over Thord's back, grasps his trousers, and lifts Thord upwards and over so that the man falls heavily. Because of Grettir's great ability, it is suggested that he wrestle both brothers thereafter. Despite the fact that all three participants in the match are brought to their knees, none of them is able to effect a pin, and the match is declared a draw. It is clear in this episode that glíma is a style of sport wrestling with rules for determining winners and losers.

Hryggspenna, on the other hand, appears to have been used both for combat and for sport, as inferred from accounts in Nordic sagas as well as from the Old English poem Beowulf.⁴ Although important details are missing, hryggspenna applied a back grip similar to the hold that is popularly described as a “bear hug.” Opponents faced one another, placed hands on the other's waist, and then “snatched” quickly to fasten their hands on the backbone of the opponent at the base of the spine. At this point the opponent was “captured” by being hugged closely to the attacker and was lifted by arm strength alone off the ground.⁵ Reports are vague and varied at this point in the procedure. Apparently the captured opponent was driven backwards by the attacker. In the earliest accounts the captured opponent, whose legs become useless when he has been lifted off the ground, appears to have been slammed upright against a wall rather than toppled, the lifting and carrying being a better exhibition of strength than toppling would be. In later accounts the captured opponent was bent over a fanghella or wrestling board; and in the most contemporary Norwegian accounts he appears to have been pinned against the ground in the way Audun pins Grettir.⁶ In Grettis Saga Glámr kills the old cattle steward apparently by smashing his backbone against the cattle stalls. Since the reader is given a report of what has taken place rather than a precise description of the event, reconstruction of the method is difficult. If Glámr has accomplished the back breaking by holding the cow steward upright, he has used a slamming technique; but if he has bent the steward over the top of a stall, his technique is the fanghella. In other Grettis Saga reports of Glámr's murderous activities we learn that men and animals have had their bones crushed, and there is sometimes a reference to the rocky ground in the vicinity.⁷ This bone crushing is certainly indicative of hryggspenna technique; but the question remains whether it was a slamming, a fanghella, or a crushing technique, like that employed in Beowulf's fight with Dæghrefn.⁸

Sigurðsson's description of hryggspenna reveals that captives were pitted against hryggspenna champions, the ultimate goal of the contest being to snap the backbone across the fanghella. It is possible that this sort of contest was not restricted to captives. Cavill argues that the hryggspenna contest between Dæghrefn and Beowulf was not a battlefield combat, as a literal interpretation of the passage and previous critical consensus suggests, but rather a pre-battle contest to the death between champions.⁹ This fight in the Beowulf analogue is particularly significant since it clearly depicts a hryggspenna contest and since it is one of the four fights directly paralleling fights in Grettis Saga.¹⁰ Despite the fact that Cavill's interpretation removes the combatants from the battlefield, it still supports hryggspenna as a combat form in Grettis Saga as opposed to glíma, a sport form. Grettir clearly uses hryggspenna in his battles with Glámr and with the troll wife at Sandhaugr. He probably employs the hryggspenna style in his battle with Kárr the Old, but the description of the wrestling method in this battle is too sparse for an absolute judgement of style to be made.¹¹ All of these adversaries are in effect undead or magical figures devoid of the humanity and human characteristics they may have at one time possessed. They are bloated, unreal, and often larger than the living creatures they exploit. In a sense they represent a legend controlling the fate of those who must live with the past.

Grettir apparently intends to use hryggspenna in his fight with the bear, which parallels the dragon fight in Beowulf.¹² Grettir is prevented from employing classical hryggspenna technique because he must defend himself from the bear's teeth; thus he reaches under the bear's arms, as a hryggspenna wrestler would, but grasps the bear's ears from behind rather than completing the hryggspenna move by clasping the bear's back.¹³ It is obvious that Grettir initiates his bear battle with a hryggspenna advance.

In his battle with Glámr, Grettir successfully applies the back grip only to have it broken by Glámr, who smashes downwards on Grettir's arms. As soon as he has broken Grettir's back grip, Glámr applies the hryggspenna hold himself and drags the resisting Grettir to the door, moving backwards in a fashion uncharacteristic of hryggspenna technique but in keeping with his preference for killing outdoors.¹⁴ When they reach the door, Grettir abandons his defensive stance and drives forward against Glámr, in typical hryggspenna style, pushing the monster through the door before him. It is significant that at this point Glámr capitulates since it is unclear that Grettir has the monster in his power. What is absolutely clear is that Grettir has proved himself the better hryggspenna wrestler.

In the initial stage of his battle with the troll at Sandhaugr, Grettir is again prevented from applying the hryggspenna back grip. The troll clasps him fast, pinning his hands to her sides—or to his, the precise hand position being unclear. This counter move by the troll is similar to the arm-smashing counter used by Glámr on Grettir. Grettir and the woman remain in this position for hours; and Grettir is unable to carry out the back-breaking ritual that we find in the various analogues to Grettis Saga, for instance the Dæghrefn fight in Beowulf or the killing of the cat troll in Orms þáttr Storolfssonar. Despite the fact that Grettir's advance has been frustrated, it is indisputable that he has initiated a hryggspenna attack.

On a literal level, the distinctive employment of combat and sport wrestling styles, against nonhuman and human adversaries respectively, owes to the history of the saga. The hryggspenna episodes are borrowed from an older Nordic and older English literary tradition in which these motifs are precisely represented. The glíma episodes, on the other hand, are precisely Icelandic. On a symbolic level, the difference of wrestling forms represents the dichotomous society in which Grettir lives and which he represents. He is the individual in Icelandic society, torn between the old Nordic past and the new Icelandic future. He is the wrestler who must fight in the old tradition yet manipulate the new, or at least be able to fight differently in contemporary society.

The combat style he uses against legendary enemies enables him to meet the influence from the literary past and to counter this influence. While he does not suffer defeat in any of his battles with legendary nonhuman figures, he carries psychological scars from these battles forward in his life as a new Icelander. Although Grettir defeats Glámr, he is transfixed by the gleam in Glámr's eye, a vision that disturbs him for the rest of his life. What precisely this vision is is difficult to determine, but it appears to be a legacy and burden from the Nordic past. It is significant, perhaps, that Grettir carries off none of the treasure in the underwater lair of the troll and giant at Sandhaugr; rather, he retrieves the bones of slain men. This is a mature Grettir, not the younger one who plundered the treasure, the legacy of the past, hoarded in the dwelling of the defeated Kárr the Old. After his battles at Sandhaugr, Grettir's intent is to bury the bones of the men slain and probably fed upon by creatures of the Nordic past.

Although Grettir is undefeated in his fights with nonhuman adversaries, he loses, wins, and draws in his wrestling bouts against humans. The young and untried Grettir loses his first match to the older and stronger Audun. Yet this match is an unstructured one, a fight between boys which is ungoverned by rules and in which, therefore, Audun is allowed to treat Grettir shamefully. When Grettir wrestles at Hegranes the situation is drastically changed in that a rule of law and society has been imposed. The judgement imposed on him in the past is suspended for the moment, and his conflict with other Icelanders is resolved in a rule-governed contest. Prior to this contest at Hegranes, his applications for a test of strength in which he might prove himself have been denied by the authority that derives from the old order. At Hegranes, on the other hand, Icelandic people decide that he is to be given the opportunity to prove his worth. It is rather ironic that in the interval between his wrestling match with Audun and his matches at Hegranes he has been outlawed and has, by defeating the legendary monsters, proven himself as a champion of the Icelandic people.¹⁵ In his first match at Hegranes he defeats an adversary who might have been an instrument of vengeance under the old order; and he fights to a draw against the two brothers who might be said to represent the collective Icelandic society. Significantly, the glíma style symbolizes a method of arbitration, a system ruled by law and empowered by those assembled at the Hegranes Thing, to resolve Grettir's ongoing conflict. This structured procedure, generated by the people, points to the establishment of a new Icelandic society in which men seek arbitration rather than vengeance.

Unfortunately for Grettir, the wrestler carries the shadow of the past. Although he has had his moment of victory and equanimity at Hegranes, Grettir—and perhaps the fledgling Icelandic democracy to which has contributed—is still subject to influence and vengeance from the past. When he returns to his sanctuary at Drangey, the magic from the past is used against him. He may have been victorious as hryggspenna champion in battles with legendary magical figures, and he may have been instrumental in building a collective democratic society in Iceland. As an individual, however, he cannot escape the past and falls victim to its magic, dying helpless in his island sanctuary.

Notes

1. In Bjørn Bjarnason, Nordboernes Legemlige Uddannelse i Oldtiden (Copenhagen: Hofboghandel, 1905) 105, as well as in other sources we are told that the glíma style is unrecorded outside Iceland. Johan Götlind, Idrott och Lek, Nordisk Kultur, (Oslo: Forlag, 1933) 24: 17, 39 has reported on glíma in Sweden. Pétur Sigurðsson, “Glíma”, Kulturhistorisk Leksikon for Nordisk Middelalder (Oslo: Gyldendal, 1960) 5:359 refers to a glíma match in the year 1119.

2. This is reported in a number of the sagas—for instance, in Egils Saga Skallagrímssonar, ed. Vald. Ásmundarson (Reykjavik: Kristjánsson, 1910) 97: “Egill var mjök at glímum.”

3. Grettis Saga Ásmundarsonar, Húnvetninga Sögur I., Íslendinga Sögur 6, ed. Guðni Jónsson (Reykjavík: Íslendingasagnaútgáfan, 1946) 39. … All citations are to this volume of this edition, unless otherwise indicated. …

4. Cf. Bjarnason 103-05 for the various Nordic sagas. For an explicit hryggspenna technique in Beowulf see the Dæghrefn fight, lines 2507-08, in Klaeber, Beowulf and the Fight at Finnsburg, 3rd ed. (Lexington, MA: Heath, 1950).

5. Among the grips inadequately described are the counter holds like those used against Grettir by Glámr and the troll woman, respectively, in Grettis Saga 118, 213. Bjarnason 103.

6. Bjarnason 105; P. Sigurðsson, “Fang,” Kulturhistorisk Leksikon for Nordisk Middelalder (Oslo: Gyldendal, 1959) 4: 163; Johannes Skar, Gammalt or Sætesdal (Oslo: Det Norsk Samlaget, 1961), 2: 222, 223, 262, 299; Reidar Svare, Frå Gamal Tid: Tru og Tradisjon, Vefsn Bygdebok (Mosjøen, 1973) 377. …

7. The fate of Grettir's horse is pertinent … (116). The shepherd Thorgaut suffers a similar fate (112). Thorgaut's body is found on Glámr's rock pile of a grave, and stones are strewn around the area where the human Glámr has been slain (112, 109).

8. Beowulf ll. 2507-08.

9. Sigurðsson 163; Paul Cavill, “A Note on Beowulf, lines 2490-2409,” Neophilologus 67 (1983): 599-604; R. W. Chambers, Beowulf: An Introduction to the Study of the Poem with a Discussion of the Stories of Offa and Finn, 3rd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1967) 12.

10. Grettir fights Kárr the Old, the bear, Glámr and at Sandhaugr. Although only three fights are associated with Beowulf, he actually fights four in his capacity as champion: against Grendel, Grendel's mother, the dragon, and Dæghrefn. Prior to becoming champion, he fights against sea monsters in the Breca episode.

11. It appears to be a hryggspenna match since it begins with a pushing contest (both wrestlers are brought to their knees) yet the contest ends with Kárr crashing backwards. … (54).

12. R. McConchie, “Grettir Ásmundarson's Fight with Kárr the Old: A Neglected Beowulf Analogue,” English Studies 63 (1982): 481-86, indicates how the Kárr fight parallels the fights between Beowulf and the Grendels, and suggests a similarity with the dragon fight as well. Yet in the Grettir bear fight there are also locational, companionship, material and thematic parallels with the Beowulf dragon fight. Cf. McConchie on monsters, 483; Chambers 484 appears to allow for the inclusion of animal (bear, wolf) enemies in the same category as undead enemies.

13. … Note that Beowulf must also protect himself from the dragon's breath.

14. … With the exception of the cattle steward, all Glámr's victims are found outside; the monster takes the trouble to drag Grettir's horse out of the stable before killing it. …

15. The unacclaimed champion nevertheless; many of those who had agreed to Gest being granted immunity at Hegranes are afterwards upset when they learn that they have actually granted immunity to Grettir.