sprungið

On Sprengidagur the Stöð 2 news shows a little item on að sprengja -- not on bursting from overeating (appropriate for Fat Tuesday) but on the heart exploding from grief (appropriate for February, season of the Valentine? Perhaps).

It seems that a new article in The Psychologist makes the case that heartbreak and its effects are deserving of real respect and attention from psychologist and psychiatrists. Stöð 2 points out that Icelanders are familiar with the seriousness of heartbreak from their own medieval sagas, particularly Laxdæla saga, in which Hrefna, widowed after the slaying of Kjartan, lives only a short time before dying of a broken heart - þat er sögn manna at hún hafi sprungit af stríði - literally bursting of sorrow.

Here is the text. Or watch the clip.

It's a strange little news item. They clearly had some trouble finding footage that suited. People strolling up and down Laugarvegur works with nearly anything in a pinch, I suppose, and the weather can of course be counted upon for dramatic, dismal effects. Obviously a close shot of someone experiencing actual heartbreak was out of the question. Just as well, really.

The clips accompanying the description of Laxdæla are unfortunately from the recent film of parts of Njáls saga. They depict not Kjartan Óláfsson being slain tragically by Bolli but Gunnar Hámundarson doing in someone who richly deserved it, and the woman snorting to herself is not the gentle (if colorless) Hrefna but Hallgerðr, she of the thief's eyes and the bowstring denied. All embarrassing in a spot that presses the notion that we all know our sagas.

Weirder than that is the strange cheeriness of the þulur reading the headline ástarsorg getur verið lífshættuleg -- "heartbreak can be deadly!" She seems gleeful, all Hallgerðr and no Hrefna.

What unknown saga lies behind that chipper delivery? I picture Amor, that other great bowman, in Gunnar's stead, making a stand at the window when his bowstring breaks. Did this woman refuse him a lock of her hair to braid a new one in his hour of need? Was the battle lost for that, whatever forces arrayed against Amor holding the day? Her hair seems short for a bowstring, but one never knows.