The Earth and the Sky

In the sagas and poems we have examined, salvation has been intimately associated with travelling. In the cases of Sigurðr slembidjákn, King Eiríkr góði and Hrafn Sveinbjarnarson we have seen how journeys to shrines of saints benefitted the sinner's soul. A mention may also be made of Auðr, Gísli's wife, in Gísla saga Súrssonar and of the fortuitiously united Þorsteinn and Spes in Grettis saga. Visiting a faraway place helped the sinner's prospects in the afterlife; the hardship and danger endured on such journeys, along with prayers offered by the holy men or women at the final destination, cleansed the soul of past misdemeanours. Pilgrimage, of course, also served as a metaphor for a person's progress towards redemption.

But Hrafn Sveinbjarnarson did not visit St Gilles in southern France merely because the hermit-saint had lived and died in that place. Rather Hrafn sought celestial aid at this shrine because the saint's corporal relics were there. These relics were not mere curiosities or mementoes but concrete manifestations of salvation. Although St Giles's soul resided in Heaven, it was believed he was fully present in each fibre of his corporal remains. A twelfth-century description of his shrine informs us about what Hrafn would have encountered on his visit: located behind the altar stood a large casket richly decorated with finery and biblical images which culminated in the Ascension. An inscription there may be rendered as ‘this wonderful vessel, adorned with gold and jewels, contains the relics of St Giles’. Such objects offered the sinner a tangible glimpse of Paradise; every fragment ‘encapsulated the essence of Christian cosmology’ and so served as an object in time and space that promised eternal bliss. In a celebrated phrase, the saints and their relics brought about ‘the joining of heaven and earth’. Relics were both foci of miracles and reminders of salvation; they were portals to redemption.

If relics represented concrete manifestations of Heaven on earth, then we might consider the opposite notion: namely the appearance of Hell and damnation in the here and now.