Zur Kurzanzeige. JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it. Zur Kurzanzeige dc. She appears in many old stories where she is usually the female agent for ill in the sagas; she is wicked, promiscuous and very often skilled in magical arts.
The purpose of this paper is to focus on how the medieval writers treat Gunnhildr, the sources about her, historical and fiction, and most of all her relationship with Icelandic farmers.
The descriptions of her are usually very exaggerated and fantastic and they remind one of the adventurous troll women, especially the evil stepmother. Gunnhildr charms the king and corrupts the kingdom and not before long she is the ruler of Norway.
Gunnhildr has no stepchildren but she seduces young men to have sexual relationships with her and she is old enough to be the mother of at least some of them. Another parallel to Gunnhildr is the Saami, which is literally and figuratively located in the Beyond, i. Gunnhildr and Egill have many things in common; they have a similar background and they are both foreigner and opponent in the Norwegian kingdom. But even though Gunnhildr is unpopular among the Norwegian people she is their queen and Egill is a courtier, in her service.
Despite their different position Egill constantly shows her male chauvinism. He never addresses her and barely mentions her in his poetry. But despite of this elevated origin Gunnhildr is still treated as a troll; she is described as a wicked trollwoman, arrogant and heathen. Behind the adventurous tales of Gunnhildr are a real, historical person, a wife and a mother, which was alive during the The Norwegian histories are the oldest sources of Gunnhildr but the Icelandic sources are much more extensive and they have certainly had the greatest influence on the myth about Gunnhildr.
