In a number of Icelandic texts, hanging around the fire is seen to be inappropriate for young men at a certain stage of their development. In some of these, normally slightly later texts, it is specifically hanging around kitchen fires that is deemed problematic. The aim of this chapter is to trace the development of this oft-alluded to (yet loosely applied) kolbítr-like behaviour as presented in sagas and rímur (long narrative poetry). In doing so, a further aim is to unravel the dense semiotic network, which leads to the mentioned negative associations: what is it about the fireside environment or the kitchen area that is so detrimental to men in their formative years? My analysis, which purposefully avoids applying a hard border between medieval and early-modern or later saga tradition, and thus makes use of a number of curious yet ignored texts, shows that the connotations were various. In particular, while the kitchen area can be seen as a gendered space in many of the later examples, the explanation of the opprobrium garnered by the hero-to-be is much more complex than simply gender-inappropriate behaviour, and a number of saga- and rímur-authors have taken advantage of the complexity in order to add spice to their narratives.

In clarifying some of the key terminology relevant to this study, an eye can be cast over a passage from Grettis saga, a narrative whose hero, as Carolyne Larrington has pointed out, ‘shows signs of laziness; he is ekki bráðdgǫrr (not promising) in youth, though the kolbítr-topos is not fully-realised’.