The Many Conversions of Hallfreðr Vandræðaskáld

Abstract

This article attempts to demonstrate how the interpretation of the ‘Conversion Verses’ of Hallfreðr vandraeðaskald can often depend heavily on the prose narrative of the sagas in which they are embedded. It is argued that the poet’s progression from one religion to another is merely an illusion constructed within the prose framework; when divorced from the wider saga context, Hallfreðr’s stanzas are shown to comprise not a linear sequence but a cluster of separate utterances in which the poet’s conversion is depicted multiple times through a variety of rhetorical lenses.