Helskobinding - i litterær og religionshistorisk belysning

The starting point of this article is the problem of the reliability of information in the Icelandic sagas about Norse religion. It seems that there is a possibility of getting indirect information from the texts themselves. What is attempted here is to find a relationship between the religious information about the custom of tying helskór on a dead person before burial (only known from Gísla Saga) and the literary form of skór in the Icelandic sagas in general. Here shoes seem to form part of the well-known scheme of foreshadowing, i.e. they indicate the coming of death and/or violence. This connection to death/violence could be explained by the use in the funeral ritual. Especially the examples in which a person ties his shoes seem to support this theory. If this is the case, it will also be a support to the authenticity of the funeral custom in Gísla Saga.