Skin Deep? Motifs of Recognition and the Continuity of the Self
Ek undruðumk þann mann er kom í minn sal, ok þóttumk ek kenna yður augu.
1 Vǫls., ch. 31 (p. 55).[I wondered at that man who came into my hall, and I thought I recognised your eyes.]
When Brynhildr learns of the appearance-swap between Sigurðr and Gunnarr, by which she was duped into marrying Gunnarr, she recalls her initial sense of recognition toward the man to whom she had betrothed herself. Mistaken and recognised identities form the ethical core of this plot point in the Sigurðr-cycle. It hinges not only on the qualities of the man Brynhildr thought she was marrying (as she had vowed to wed a man who knew no fear), but also on whether Sigurðr remains bound by the vow he made to her while disguised as Gunnarr.
2 See Quinn, ‘Precarious Ties’, p. 51. A self that perdures despite changes to outward appearance is central to the drama of this narrative, and suggests a duality between interiority and exteriority in the context of transformation. The idea that a person’s eyes reveal their true identity, despite transformation, implies the existence of an enduring self, one that can be obscured but not fundamentally changed.
The motif of recognition (where a transformed person’s identity is made visible to others despite their altered form) is not unique to
Vǫlsunga saga. Characters recognise a transformed person’s true identity through their eyes in
fornaldarsögur,
3 Hrólf., ch. 20 (p. 56); Ket., ch. 3 (p. 116). mythological texts
4 Skm., ch. 18 (p.24). The motif also appears in the context of disguise in eddic verse (HHII 2; Þrk. 27). and
Íslendingasögur.
5 Korm., ch. 18 (p. 265). Moreover, there are instances where a transformed person’s underlying qualities ‘break through’ visually or behaviourally, implying that there are certain innate attributes in a person that cannot ultimately be suppressed. In
Egils saga einhenda, when Egill and Ásmundr gaze into Arinnefja’s magical mirror, they appear enormous and look like trolls, yet ‘miklu váru þeir fríðar en aðrir menn’ (‘they were much more handsome than other people’).
6 Ch. 15 (p. 357). While their transformation suffices to allow them to infiltrate the troll wedding, it does not compromise their good looks, which are, the narrator reassures us, inalienable to their persons. In
Gríms saga loðinkinna, when Grímr kisses the hideous troll-woman Grímhilldr (the transformed princess Lopthœna), ‘eigi þótti honum hún svâ ill viðkomu, sem hún var hrímuglig at sjá’ (‘she did not seem to him as bad to touch as she was sooty to look at’)
7 Ch. 2 (p. 151). and he wonders at ‘hversu mjúkfíngruð hún var’ (‘how soft-fingered she was’).
8 Ibid. Grímr physically detects traces of Lopthœna’s true identity beneath her grotesque exterior.
9 Cp. also SigÞǫgl., ch. 36 (p. 209), where Sedentia detects Sigurðr’s human identity beneath his various outward changes.These episodes suggest that while identity can be outwardly altered, it retains a core continuity. While these motifs do serve narrative purposes of recognition and coherence, they nevertheless imply, or at least accommodate, a view of selfhood persisting beyond bodily change. Memories and cognitive faculties are also often preserved during transformation, reinforcing this idea. In
Hrólfs saga kraka, Bjǫrn retains his human ‘minning’ (‘memory’) while in bear-form,
10 Hrólf., ch. 19 (p. 55). and in
Grípisspá, Grípir assures Sigurðr that, despite taking on Gunnarr’s appearance and mannerisms during the appearance-swap, he will retain his own eloquence (
mælska) and great intellect (
meginhyggja).
11 Grp. 39, (pp. 292–3). If memory serves as the metaphysical ground of identity, then the persistence of mind and memory supports the notion of an enduring self, even amid physical transformation.
This throws up an important question about the embodied self in the context of shapeshifting: as Ármann Jakobsson observes, ‘it is difficult to explain how a man might change into a beast without first knowing what a man is and whether his humanity is defined by his mind or his body’.
12 Ármann Jakobsson, ‘Beast and Man: Realism and the Occult in “Egils saga”’, SS 81.3 (2011), 29–44 (p. 34). Throughout this book, we have seen how the body is phenomenologically and ontologically integral to the self in Old Norse literature. How, then, should we interpret transformation-episodes that suggest a separation between body and identity, where the exterior shifts but the self remains intact? As we shall see, this pattern of identity persisting despite bodily change likewise does not straightforwardly cohere with the ways intellectual frameworks conceptualised the relation of body, soul and mind in thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Iceland.