Old Norse-Icelandic Literature: A Critical Guide 9781501741654

Table of contents :
Contents
Preface
Abbreviations
Mythology And Mythography
Eddic Poetry
Skaldic Poetry
Kings’ Sagas (Konungasögur)
Icelandic Family Sagas (Íslendingasögur)
Norse Romance (Riddarasögur)
Contributors
Index Of Texts And Authors
Index Of Critics
Index Of Topics

Citation preview

ISLANDICA A SERIES RELATING TO ICELAND AND THE

FISKE ICELANDIC COLLECTION CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES EDITED BY JOSEPH HARRIS

VOLUME XLV Old Norse-Icelandic

A

Critical

Literature:

Guide

EDITED BY Carol

J.

Clover and John Lindow

Digitized by the Internet Archive in

2017 with funding from

Kahle/Austin Foundation

-

"A,

https://archive.org/details/oldnorseicelandiOOclov

Old Norse-Icelandic Literature

A

Critical

Guide

EDITED BY

Carol

J.

Clover

and John Lindow

ISLANDICA XLV

Cornell University Press Ithaca and London, 1985

Cornell University Press gratefully acknowledges financial contributions from Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley, that aided in bringing this book to publication.

Copyright

©

1985 by Cornell University

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof,

must not be reproduced

in

any form without permission

information, address Cornell University Press,

in

writing from the publisher. For

124 Roberts Place, Ithaca,

New York

14850.

First

published 1985 by Cornell University Press.

Book Number 0-8014-1755-4 of Congress Catalog Card Number 85-47697

International Standard

Fibrary

Printed in the United States of

America

Librarians: Library of Congress cataloging information appears

on the

The paper

in this

permanence and

book

last

is

page of the book.

acid free and meets the guidelines for

durability of the

Committee on Production Guidelines

for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources.

Contents

Preface

7

Abbreviations

12

Mythology and Mythography John Lindow

21

Eddie Poetry

68

Joseph Harris Skaldic Poetry

157

Roberta Frank Kings’ Sagas (Konungasogur)

197

Theodore M. Andersson Icelandic Family Sagas (Islendingasdgur)

Carol

J.

239

Clover

Norse Romance (Riddarasogur)

316

Marianne Kalinke Contributors

365

Index of Texts and Authors

367

Index of Critics

373

Index of Topics

384

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^?« Poeticum (published posthumously in 1860), the most complete dictionary of Old Norse poetry, serves as a partial commentary to his

own

normalized edition. Rudolf Meissner’s invaluable index of

skaldic kennings (1921)

is, in

based on the 1913-16 edition of the Lexicon

turn,

Poeticum; his explanations of kennings,

founded on dictionary entries that tions.

The one way of breaking

like Finnur’ s, follow Snorri

reflect Finnur’ s interpretations

this

hermeneutic circle

is

to

and are

and emenda-

go back

1860

to the

Lexicon Poeticum. Current academic practice ing

some

facts

specimen,

its

about context.

when

studying an ancient poetry involves establish-

We want to know the genre of which the poem is a

approximate date of composition, and

its

manuscript setting; author

and authorial style must be identified and the structure and unity of the work admired;

its

sources have to be analyzed,

transmitted text restored and improved.

its

cultural milieu

examined; and the

We try to determine the precise meaning

of words and to say something about the literary merits of the piece. Skaldic verse does not lend itself easily to analysis of this kind.

The

vast

majority of publications in the field have been devoted to solving cruces and to clarifying textual obscurities (see Hollander 1958), a scholarly corpus dismissed

by Kuhn as “mostly worthless’’ (1983:21). What is usually regarded as the prime feature of skaldic eludes us.

The word kenning promises

works by rendering obscure, rather substitution for a

dable nominal

noun

like

‘a

art,

the kenning,

making known,’ but

still

the thing itself

our definitions of the term: a two-part

in ordinary discourse

(Meissner 1921:12); a multiexpan-

compound (Lindow 1975:317);

a transform of a relative clause

(Amory 1982:74). Early scholarship saw the kenning primarily as verbal ment (Falk 1889:268; Misch 1928:215) and assumed that it was, at least

at the

and contextually relevant

1855-

beginning,

pictorially

(Gisli

Brynjulfsson

orna-

57:147; Konra5 Gislason 1872; Heinzel 1875; Finnur Jonsson 1890:121; Meis-

Roberta Frank

164 sner 1904; Krijn 1927; Craigie 1937:13).

The modem focus on

typical, general,

and conventional aspects of the kenning (^Heusler 137; ^Hallberg 109; von See/

Weber 1971:1481; Gardner 1972:466) has encouraged any old kennings for those

in the original

repeated a circumlocution

word

translators to substitute

(Genzmer 1943:7). Yet

for word, his

own

the skald rarely

(Kuhn

or anyone else’s

1983:221). This century has added to the functions -of the kenning verbal play

(Wolff 1923:219; Einar 01. Sveinsson 1947; Gabrieli 1962:17; Stefan Einarsson

1963-64; Gutenbrunner 1963b), magic (Lie 1952; Schwartz 1955-56), and the allusive techniques of panegyric (Mittner 1955:13; Lie 1963:379; von See 1964:9). Different types of kennings have been distinguished by

(Rosenberg 1878; Hoffmann 1883; Meyer 1889:156; Falk 1923;

GuSmundur Finnbogason 1934-35; Einar

many Mohr

critics

1933;

01. Sveinsson 1947; Mittner 1951;

Hallberg 1962, 1978b; Fidjestpl 1974, 1979b; Spamer 1977; Steblin-Kamenskij

1979:69-72); the most recent systematization comes up with some thirty-three separate varieties (Marold 1983). Although

we

think

we can

discover what

may have meant by the term (Heusler 1922:127; Brodeur 1983:25), we do not agree on what we mean.

Snorri

There have been exceedingly few changes

in the constitution

1952; Marold

of poetic units

many changes

since the publication of Finnur Jonsson’s edition, although

are

needed. There have been even fewer corrections of Finnur’ s authorial ascriptions, although several

and

at least

one

poems

are assigned

to

to three. ^ Finnur’ s dating of the verse is

although to do so requires a leap of

We

by the sagas

two still

different authors

largely accepted,

faith.

hesitate (or should hesitate) to speak of unity in connection with

poems

number and ordering of stanzas is uncertain (Vestlund 1929). It has been suggested that numeric symbolism underlies the structure of certain late Christian drdpur (Hill 1970; Tate 1978), while some of the longer secular poems composed between the tenth and the twelfth centuries seem to be built as sewhose

original

quences of paired stanzas (Holtsmark 1927a; Jon Helgason/Holtsmark 1941;

Olsen 1944; Fidjestpl 1982:71-80). Similar echoic structures have been detected

and sensitively used

in recent studies to reunite the scattered

fragments of longer

poems (von See 1960; Olafur Halldorsson 1969; Poole 1975, 1981, 1982). Any concerted attempts to improve the transmitted texts on the basis of metrical or aesthetic principles rituals

have tended

to dissolve into name-calling

and other agonistic

(Kuhn 1934a, 1934b, 1936, 1937; Kock 1923-44, 1938).

dependence of the standard ning index

text edition, standard dictionary,

— combined with

If the

mutual

and standard ken-

the circularity of using the Finnur Jonsson chro-

nology as the basis for our conclusions on linguistic dating

— has

not been con-

ducive to progress, neither have the feuds of the leading scholars in the

field.

Gunnlaugr and Kormakr are rivals for one stanza, Eyvindr skaldaspillir and Porgeirr hpggvinand Sighvatr has to contend with Ottarr svarti and Bersi Skaldtorfuson for a third; although Finnur Jonsson assigns Glymdrdpa to Porbjgm homklofi, the claims of Pj6661fr of Hvin seem at least as strong. See Jon Helgason 1953:143; Poole 1975:37. Bjami Kolbeinsson may or may not have composed the anonymous Mdlshdttakvsedi. See Holtsmark 1937. 4.

kinni for another,

Skaldic Poetry

/ ^

165

modem

Snorri Sturluson provided

skaldic scholarship with most of

nology and principles of analysis and interpretation.

It is

its

termi-

because of him and his

Icelandic disciples that the study of skaldic verse kept an impressive lead over that

of other European vernacular poetries

down

seventeenth century, Porlakur Skulason sent a

still

to at least 1850. In the early

useful introductory treatise

on

Worm, who gave it wide circulation;^ Sveinbjom Egilsson’s Lexicon Poeticum was completed many years before the appearance of its Old skaldic verse to Ole

and the publication of Gu5brandur Vigfusson’s two- volume

English rival

Corpus Poeticum Boreale (1883) was greeted with not a little envy in Britain: “Let us hope that his example will soon be followed in our own country, and that

some new Grimm or Kemble may gather

in a store-house like this the scattered

fragments of our oldest English literature.’’^ In the

last

hundred years, the tables

have been turned: the study of Old English poetry has made remarkable progress, but skaldic research has almost stood

A

survey of

active

modem

skaldic scholarship might start with Finnur Jonsson,

from the 1890s on,

represented a

new

son, leaned heavily

of Snorra Edda.

still.

if

such a point of departure did not suggest that he

approach. He, like his distinguished teacher, Konra6 Gisla-

upon

When

Snorri; almost all his notions can be traced to the author his

methodology

differs in

any way

— when he — he appears as

ranges the words of a stanza in prose order before translating justify his practice

by inventing a (phantom) precedent

in Snorri

ar-

to

(1904-5:44-

45).

was to isolate recognizable kennings the kenning types listed and explained by Snorri. This procedure usually resulted in a skewed, highly artificial word order. In 1923, the Swedish Finnur’ s

first

step in unraveling a skaldic verse

—

Germanist E. A. Kock launched a twenty-year onslaught against Finnur Jonsson I

^ and the Icelandic school. In a long series of vituperative textual notes

some 3,428 V

—

there are

separate items up to 1941 collected in Notationes Norroenae

— Kock

was not so unnatural as Finnur Jonsson made it seem; he also campaigned for as few manuscript emendations as possible and recommended pointedly that difficult words in the verse not be explicated solely on the basis of West Norse usage. It was a great flyting (“a stylized exchange insisted that skaldic syntax

—

—

between hostile speakers of and curses

—

traditional provocations

—

insults, boasts, threats,

Counhad changed. The

typically organized in the basic pattern Claim, Denial, and

when it was all over little much a grand Hegelian synthesis

terclaim” [Clover 1979:125]), but result

5.

of the quarrel was not so

“Literarum Runicarum

in

Poesi

usum

uberius declarans” in Ole

as a draw:

Worm, Runir seu Danica Danorum Poesi Dissertatio

Cui accessit de prised (Copenhagen: Martzan, 1636), pp. 176-84. Other issues are Amsterdam: Janson, 1636; Copenhagen: Holst, 1636. Another issue or edition in Ole Worm, Antiquitates Danicae (Copenhagen: Martzan [& Holst], 1650-51). 6. Christian W. M. Grein, Sprachschatz der angelsdchsischen Dichter (Kassel, etc.: G. H. Literatura Antiquissima, vulgd Gothica dicta

.

.

.

Wigand, 1861-64). 7.

Charles

I.

Elton in The Academy, 600 (November 3, 1883), 291-92.

Roberta Frank

166

sometimes Finnur Jonsson, following Snorri’s lead, seems to have the better despite his fixation on the “natural” interpretation; sometimes Kock, who

—

observed from the number of emendations required just where Finnur was in trouble and rushed in with first aid. Konstantin Reichardt attempted to raise the

and to reach solid ground by establishing

level of discourse

the rules of skaldic syntax (1928);

Kuhn’s

first

statistically

some of

publication on skaldic verse

attacked Reichardt for methodological looseness (1929); the latter had ignored

meter to his

number of

Kuhn himself over

peril.

subtle, provocative,

mostly metrical and syntactical

(1923-44: 2902 A). The

lists

the last fifty-five years has presented a

and important revelations about skaldic verse,

— what Kock intemperately

drawn up by Kuhn

inventory of every verse in Finnur Jonsson ’s

called lilleputtregler

1920s

in the

—

his line-by-line

volume (1912),

first

according to Sievers’s metrical types and other criteria

— continue

(Kuhn 1983). Yet Kuhn has never laws or the ways in which they relate

classified to yield a

harvest of precious facts

really explored the

implications of his

to lexical tensions

within the verse.

A

passionate search for system, for regularity, for stability, can induce an

allergy to change.

The old order (ca.

is

a history of decay.

seen as threatened from the very beginning: Porbjgm homklofi

is

900) brings the drottkvaett form to completion only by distancing

further

most

For Kuhn, the history of skaldic verse

from

“Germanic roots” (1983:281-83, 343); Sighvatr

its

prolific of the early skalds,

two

did not treat the

even

(ca. 1025), the

cannot get anything right (1983:301-5). Skalds

parts of the old alliterative long line alike

into a syllable-counting couplet, with the result that lines of a skaldic stanza

it

do not work

when

Kuhn’s

they turned

rules for the

it

odd

for the even, a result he finds disturbing

rather than suggestive (1983:24, 105, 160).

The

history of the English sonnet,

ode, or limerick shows that the technical problems facing a poet are very different in stichic and strophic composition; in the skaldic stanza,

were continually adapting

to

each other

metrical innovations highlighted

until the

form

by Kuhn went hand

in

itself

form and sense had meaning. The

hand with semantic ones.

A by-product of the Finnur Jonsson/Kock fight was an ultimately inconclusive / spat over the existence of tmesis and half-kennings. Tmesis

compound and

\

the separation of

its

the skald Fj6561fr, for example,

sandwiched a reference

iunnr." Finnur Jonsson needed many such divisions 'and rejected /

(

I

to

to I5unn’s abductors

— among

make

Genzmer, a supporter of Kock, went even all

the splitting of a

parts with a grammatically unnatural result;

between the two syllables of her name: “Then was Id (1933); Felix

is

the giants

sense of the poetry

further than his

mentor

tmesis (1928); Reichardt steadfastly maintained that some,

though not much, tmesis occurs

in skaldic

composition (1962, 1969); examples

of the device in Old Irish and medieval Latin have recently been assembled by Frederic

Amory

kenning, a kind of skaldic shorthand in represented by

more negative view of the halfwhich a two-part circumlocution is

(1979). Reichardt took a far

its

baseword alone

(e.g.,

‘storm’ for ‘storm of the warrior’

=

Skaldic Poetry

167

he claimed that there were only two certain examples between the ninth

battle);

and twelfth centuries (1930). His assertion was received as gospel by Wolfgang

Krause (1930:8, 14) and Kock (1923-44: §§1904- 13) only to be effectively challenged by Kuhn (1934b:416), who still bars half-kennings from court poetry (1983:223).

The ^

history of skaldic scholarship

from Snorri down

to the great skaldicists of

deny the interplay of the three systems at work in the verse: the metrical, lexical, and syntactical; each scholar isolated one level, trying to make its workings seem logical and consistent and its way of ordering the only sound one. The indeterminacy that results when two or more of the levels pull in opposite directions is illustrated by a halfthe last fifty years can be seen as a series of attempts to

stanza in Einarr skalaglamm’s Vellekla, the

first line

of which

may

may

or

not

exhibit tripartition, a division into three syntactically independent segments

C Skjaldedigtning

BI: 118):

Mart var6

el

a6r Ala

austr Ignd at

mun banda

randar lauks af

rfki

roekilundr of toeki.

^

According to Snorri {Haralds saga grdfeldar, ch. 6 [IF 26:210]), Einarr’s quatrain {Vellekla 9) is one of several in that poem relating the battles of Earl

Hakon

against the sons of Gunnhildr, battles that culminated in the earl’s con-

tinued hold on Trondheim.

many as

it

The general sense of

the verse

a battle before the warrior seized lands.” If

comes, segment by segment,

“Mart var5 toeki”

el

a5r

(“Many

.

.

austr Ignd at

.

a storm

italicizing the

we

is

clear:

take each line of the verse

kenning for warrior,

mun banda randar lauks af rfki

became before ...

“There was

in the east, lands, in

we

get:

roekilundr of

accordance with

the will of the gods, the shield's leek’s with strength heeding-grove took”).

Roekilundr ‘heeding-grove’ laukr ‘shield’s leek’

a normal baseword in warrior kennings; randar

{= sword)

sword’s heeding-grove

common baseword

is

=

is

a recognizable definer in such kennings; the

Hakon. ^ El ‘storm, snowstorm’ is a kennings and Snorri cites several examples of the

warrior, here

in battle

type; ‘storm’ continues the

imagery of the two preceding stanzas of Vellekla

which Ggndlar vedr ‘gale of the valkyrie’ of the valkyrie’

storm

.

.

.

=

battle.

The stanza

=

battle,

and odda

as explicated reads:

vifs drifa

in

‘snowfall

“There was many

a

before the warrior took with strength lands in the east in accordance X

with the will of the gods.” The only word singular of the sea-king

name

still

needing a

home

is

Ala, genitive

Ali.

Finnur Jonsson and his predecessors

in the Icelandic

—

school interpreted Ala el

randfdrs reykilundr ‘heeding-grove of the Snorri finds an almost identical warrior kenning sword’ in a stanza by HallfreSr, Einarr’s near contemporary: Skdldskaparmdl in ^Snorra Edda, p. 8.

147

.

—

Roberta Frank

168

parallels in the early poetry.

divides the Ala)\ the

battle)

The only problem with such

with numerous

a reading

is

of the half-stanza into three segments {Mart vard

first line

two

=

kenning (storm of the sea-king

as a typical skaldic

parts of the warrior

and the definer Ala

that

e7,

it

ddr,

kenning are separated by the conjunction ddr,

positioned awkwardly within the following subordinate

is

Kock could be counted on to come to the rescue of oppressed syntax (1923-44:§396, §1827). He argued, and Ivar Lindquist followed him (1929:49),

clause.

that el alone

contiguous

could stand for the storm of battle and that Ala belonged with the

compound

austrlgnd; the sea-king’s eastlands

= Norway

the kenning system ‘land of the sea-king’ should designate a as the Baltic).

The word order

is

now completely

(although

body of water, such

natural and prosaic, but in order

y

to

achieve this goal a habitual collocation {Ala

circumlocution put in

its

place.

first line

atypical

Kock’s interpretation has both the advantage and

the disadvantage of not being the

Reichardt took the

was dismantled and an

el)

way

Snorri understood the stanza.

of Vellekla 9 as a confirmed case of tripartition

(1928:154), thereby avoiding the reduction of el to half-kenning status (his particular bete noire). that posits a phrasal

A

year later Kuhn, out of loyalty to his Zdsurgesetz (a law

boundary between the two

a skaldic verse and

alliterative lifts in the

between the rhyming syllables

odd

line

of

denied the

in all lines),

existence of a three-way division here and in every other odd line of the corpus

(1929:200-202) except line

in Sievers’s

Type A1 (1983:169). The caesura

of Einarr’s quatrain comes between el and ddr; since the

proclitic to a

word

in another clause,

Ala and

must separate. Kuhn,

el

to

el a

half-kenning for battle; he attaches Ala not to

randar lauks: the sea-king’s shield’s leek

overdefined kenning

is

possible but

=

cannot be

Kock, austrlgnd, however, but

y

makes

latter

in the first

like

sword. This kind of pleonastic or

uncommon

in early skaldic verse; the result-

word order is no more natural than Finnur Jonsson’s, but from the perspective of Kuhn’s Zdsurgesetz, whose existence Hollander denies (1953) and von ing

See upholds (1967:43-44, 1980a:30-31), Einarr’s stanza invited alternative,

which interpretation

if

well at

all is

last.

not conflicting, readings;

we have no

word order seem to vie with one another for supremacy. Perhaps Finnur Jonsson was nght to support a conventional kenning {Ala el), even if it meant playing fast and loose with normal syntax; perhaps Kock’s natural word order {Ala austrlgnd) should be allowed to triumph over traditional diction; perhaps Kuhn’s horror of

certainty as to

tripartition is as

are

we

is

preferable. Kennings, syntax, and

poorly grounded as Reichardt’ s distaste for half-kennings.

And

obliged to choose only one reading? Elsewhere in skaldic verse terms

appealing Just once participate in multiple propositions; perhaps Ala should be construed simultaneously with triple

We IS

all

three nouns

{el,

austrlgnd, and rgnd) in a

apo koinou construction. are not really sure

often

assumed

what we mean when we

call a

that in circumlocutions such as “Ali’s

kenning conventional.

storm” or

‘‘Ali’s

It

land” y

or ‘‘tree of Ali’s

sword”

the skald

may

substitute

any sea-king name for Ali

Skaldic Poetry

169

without the slightest change in sense. This

is

right or

wrong, depending on what

one takes as the sense. In stanza 10 of Vellekla, Hakon

is

called “the guardian of

waves,” a kenning for sea-king in which the name of Ali’s steed (Hrafn) stands for “horse.” The kennings of the two adjacent half-stanzas inA teranimate each other, urging the figures of Ali and Hakon, the legendary hero and the contemporary ruler, to do the same. The skald views the present through the transparency of what has gone before and finds it meaningful to the extent that it repeats some exemplary pattern from the past; replace Ali in stanza 9 with any other sea-king name and the harmony is lost. Such congruity seems to have been highly prized, at least some of the time by some of the skalds. Even thirteenth- and fourteenth-century poets worked hard to interlace two distinct pictures by means of kennings: in one stanza, the movement of a snake sloughing off its skin and slithering into a pond becomes a sword leaving its scabbard and immersing itself in a man’s blood; in another, the tumultuous cutting down to earth of trees in a forest is the counterpointed image for a haircut or tonsure given to a monk (Gu5mundur Finnbogason 1934-35; Wood 1958). If we do not concentrate on the nouns of Einarr’s quatrain but look, instead, at the adverbial phrases, we encounter more indecidables. Should we construe at mun banda and of nki not with toeki but, as Finnur Jonsson once suggested (1924:321-22), with the main clause {vard)l Should we not construe them with both clauses simultaneously? Blended syntax, the poet’s escape from the linear, temporally ordered bonds of prose, is characteristic of skaldic style. There is a quatrain by Egill, Einarr’s older contemporary, consisting of two bare sentences (he went, he fell) and a name, an adverb, an adverbial clause, and a relative

the horses of the

clause that can be grammatically construed with either (Frank 1978:52-54). In

some

words seem urged into place, drawn together into a logical structure like iron filings above a hidden magnet; there is only one solution, as in a Rubik’s cube. In other stanzas, the underlying structure seems more flexible, more manipulable; several equally valid interpretations appear possible and enskaldic stanzas,

couraged, as in a Rubik’s snake.

The

precise placement of a

word or phrase within

a skaldic stanza might have a

own, might encapsulate the poet’s meaning. The insertion of of nki in line 3 of Einarr’s quatrain between the two halves of the warrior may announce through conkenning ‘shield’s leek’ and ‘heeding-grove’ tiguity how closely Hakon’s strength was tied to the sword; the careful balancing of Ignd and banda in line 2 seems to confirm that Hakon ruled Norway by divine significance of

its

—

right.

—

Multiple and shifting associations like these are a hallmark of skaldic

aesthetics. Despite efforts

over the

last fifty

and lexical laws, no single rule seems certainty

is

that the dislocation of

to

years to legislate a set of syntactical

work

language

for all the poetry.

Our one

in skaldic verse brings out the

man. Where man locates meaning, however, varies considerably from age

meaning-maker

in

to age.

Snorri and the thirteenth century found significance in the concrete details con-

Roberta Frank

170

who

firmed by the stanzas: facts that

make

—

fought

a story authoritative

whom, when and where and how all the and memorable. Skaldicists have known for

a long time that saga authors did not always fully understand the verses from

which they derived of just

their information;

how and why

Most

we have

recently

become more conscious

they erred.

frequently, a kenning or kenning element

(Holtsmark 1939). Because the author of Agrip

noun skeidarbrandr ‘prow of the

ship’ in an

is

misread as a proper name

(ca.

compound the name and

1190) read the

anonymous stanza

as

epithet of a sea-king called Ship-Brandr, the second chapter of his history in-

The euhemeristic determination of Snorri and his predecessors to uncover meaning in “old kennings’’ may have led to a similar proliferation of phantom figures and to stories lending them legitimacy (Frank 1981a). Concentration on the literal level of the poetry occasionally leads a saga author to ignore its more important symbolic meaning. A couplet in Gisla saga describes the encounter between two cludes a brief reference to the battles and death of this (ghost) ruler. ^

weapons female

in

role:

sexual terms, with one of the pair depicted as enjoying the passive

“Gunnlogi cried

out, a joy

it

was

to Saxa’’; the

saga author, missing

or wishing to miss the barb, decided that the female appellation must be that of the island

on which the duel took place: a

local habitation received a

name

at the

expense of a significant double entendre (Meulengracht Sprensen 1980:72-75).

Sometimes

in his

eagerness to

wrong: Snorri misreads ddr

in

tell

a

good

story the saga author gets his syntax

one stanza of Glymdrdpa as the adverb “earlier”

rather than the conjunction “before,” with the result that, in his account of the

attack of Haraldr harfagri (Harald Fairhair), the Isle of tants without a single spear

Man

is

emptied of inhabi-

being thrown (von See 1977a:68).

Saga authors also have a tendency

to

miss the skald’s

stylistic

shorthand; they

take his metaphors and kennings literally, interpreting poetic allusions in an

overly explicit way.

The tenth-century poet Kormakr

necklaced lady staring

at

him,

at his

depicts in one stanza his

“Hagbar5r’s neck.” The saga author,

treating the latter phrase as a local reference, explains in excruciating detail

the

woman

how

hid in the farmhouse behind a partition adorned with a carving of

Hagbar6r and peered

at the

poet from beneath

its

sculptured beard (Kormdks

A

saga, chap. 3 [IF, 8:208]; von See 1977a:63); but the poet obliquely and ominously

—

his

own

was just associating

lifelong fatal love with that of the legendary

hero hanged on the gallows: “Hagbar5r’s neck” was his Achilles’ heel.

One

of the more remarkable practices attributed to the vikings in England

be a by-product

at

some

may

stage of just such a literal reading. Historians of the

period continue to demonstrate a touching faith in the reality of something called the blood-eagle sacrifice, a viking

a

number of later Norse sources.

method of execution attested to in Saxo and in The blood-eagling procedure varies from text

kgrip afNoregs konunga sggum, ed. Finnur Jonsson, ASB, 18 (Halle: M. Niemeyer, 1929),

9. p. 2.

10.

ed.

^Saxo,

p.

263

(9:5);

Ragnars saga, chap.

Magnus Olsen, SUGNL, 36 (Copenhagen:

17, in

Vglsunga saga ok Ragnars saga loSbrokar, Ragnars sonum,

S. L. Mpller, 1906-8); Pdttr af

Skaldic Poetry

171

becoming more lurid, pagan, and time-consuming with each passing century. The only contemporary evidence for the rite is a half-stanza composed } between 1025 and 1038 by the skald Sighvatr and cited in one manuscript of Ragnars saga and in the Hauksbok redaction known as the Pdttr af Ragnars sonum. In both, the accompanying prose explains, Ragnarr’s sons “had a bloodeagle carved on Ella’s back, and afterward they cut all the ribs from the spine with a sword so that the lungs were there pulled out. Thus says the skald Sighvatr in Knutsdrdpa" to text,

^

‘

Ok

Ellu bak,

at let hinn’s sat,

Ivarr, ara,

lorvik, skorit. A

(And

who

Ivarr

dwelt

at

York

had Ella’s back scored with (or by) an eagle.)

Medieval

men

of

letters, like their

eager to recover the colorful Ella’s

rites

modem

counterparts, were sometimes over-

and leafy folk beliefs of

their

pagan ancestors.

back may have been incised with the picture of an eagle, but

likely to

have been lacerated by a

real one.

verse, looking at Sighvatr’ s stanza in isolation

trouble seeing

it

An

it is

more

experienced reader of skaldic

from

its

saga context, would have

as anything but a conventional utterance, an allusion to the eagle

as carrion beast, the pale bird with red claws perched

on and slashing the backs

of the slain. Skaldic poems of the ninth, tenth, and early eleventh centuries refer

chap. 3, in Hauksbok, ed. Eirikur Jonsson and Finnur Jonsson (Copenhagen: Thiele, 1892-96), pp. 458-67; both Ragnarr texts may be consulted in F ornaldarsdgur Nordurlanda, ed. Gu6ni Jonsson ([Reykjavik]: Islendingasagnautgafan, 1954), i:219-303j Orkneyinga saga, chap. 8, in IF, 34:1220; Haralds saga hdrfagra, chaps. 30-31, in IF, 26:131-34. Norna-Gests pdttr, chap. 6, and Orms pdttr Storolfssonar, chap. 9, are (along with one of the five redactions of Orkneyinga saga) in Flateyjarbdk, ed. Vilhjalmur Bjamar, Finnbogi GuSmundsson, and SigurSur Nordal, 4 vols. (Akranes: Flateyjarutgafan, 1944-45). Reginsmdl 26 may be consulted in ^Neckel/Kuhn, p. 179, and in Norna-Gests pdttr (in Fornaldarsogur Nordurlanda, i:305-35). This eddic stanza, which contradicts the immediately preceding prose, is believed by most Nordicists to be a late addition: see Kuhn, “Das Eddastiick von Sigurds Jugend,” Miscellanea Academica Berolinensia: Gesammelte Abhandlungen zur Feier des 250jdhrigen Bestehens der deutschen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1950), ii, no. 1, 39-40 (rpt. in ^Kuhn, ii:96); ^de Vries 1941-42

(1964-67), 1:297-98. For a survey of recent opinions on Sigurd’s “Vaterrachelied,” see Andersson 1980:89-105. 11.

By

the beginning of the nineteenth century, the various saga motifs

— eagle

sketch, rib

and salting— were combined in inventive sequences. Among numerous accounts is Sharon Turner, The History of the Anglo-Saxons (London, 1799-1805; 7th ed., 1852), i: 439. The rite continues to grow: see J. M. Wallace-Hadrill, The Vikings in Francia, Stenton Lecture (Reading: Univ. of Reading, 1974); rpt. in his Early Medieval History (Oxford: Blackwell, 1975), p. division, lung surgery,

224.

For the prose accompanying the stanza in saga and pdttr, see Rory W. McTurk, “The Extant Icelandic Manifestations of Ragnars Saga LoSbrokar,’’ Gripla, 1:74-75. 12.

Roberta Frank

172

more than once

to

men

with bloody foot tread Ottarr will

under the eagle’s talons: Pj6661fr has an eagle

falling at

Vendel; Torf-Einarr muses over whose “lot

be to stand under the eagle’s claws”; Porleifr

eagle’s claw”;

Amorr

has

Magnus vow

under the raven’s claw; and Saxo’s prose swearing

to

“stretch

flat

that

at the

fells a

it

warrior “under the

he will possess Denmark or

fall

end of the century envisages Grep

The

with eagles’ talons this line of newcomers.

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (under year 867) reports that Ella fell in battle against the vikings at York; Sighvatr says the same and more through his metaphoric shorthand, which scornfully demotes the king slain by Ivarr to the rank of prey,

(Frank 1984).

to a mutilated carcass

Skaldic verse

as the thirteenth century well

is,

source, transmitting a

y

Germanic

literature;

more authentic pagan

modem

knew, an invaluable primary

tradition than anything in the rest of

skaldic scholarship recognizes

its

historical value

Campbell 1971; Foote 1978; Peters 1978; Hallberg 1978a; von See 1979; Hellberg 1980; Frank 1981b), while insisting that it is, above all, poetry (Turville-Petre 1969a, 1969b, 1974). Sighvatr’s (Turville-Petre 1968; Jon Steffensen 1969;

indirection

is

not unlike Shakespeare’s:

Let us score their backs.

And

snatch ’em up, as

’Tis sport to

maul

we

take hares, behind,

a runner.

Nevertheless, the content of his stanza was paraphrased by

at least

teenth-century au^^hors as step-by-step instmctions for lung surgery.

Scandinavian story (von See 1961). Similar misreadings,

our

almost

all

duly supported by

and thirteenth-century prose narratives, by current skaldic editions,

ary histories, and reference tools, and by in

An

thir-

development has been traced for the berserk or heathen champion of

identical

twelfth-

two

texts.

modem

historical scholarship,

liter-

abound

Such discrepancies between verse and prose can be informative

in

two ways: they suggest in many instances that the verse is older than the surrounding prose; and they force us at the same time to consider how a single stanza like Sighvatr’s could have survived intact for a century or more before being written down. /

Much

of the scholarship of the

last fifty

years has been expended on attacking

I

or supporting Finnur Jonsson’s faith, expressed above

\

in the

history,

realism and authenticity of the verse; he insisted (although his articles

more balanced view) that tenth-century skalds were as early present a

I

all in his literary

the

poems

attributed

by the sagas

to ninth- or

as they purported to be. His fundamentalist

approach has engendered a strong reaction. Today almost none of the verse 13.

The following references

are to

poem and

stanza

number

in

Finnur Jonsson’s ^Skjalde-

digtning: PjoSolfr of Hvin, 1:19; Torf-Einarr, lausavi'sa 4; Forleifr jarlsskald, lausavisa 2;

F>6r6arson, 3:5. Grep’s boast occurs in

Book

5 of ^Saxo, p.

History of the Danes, tr. Peter Fisher (Totowa, N.J.: 14. Antony and Cleopatra, iv.vii.l2.

1

14; English

Rowman &

in the

tr.

Amorr

Saxo Grammaticus:

Littlefield, 1979), i:128.

— Skaldic Poetry

family sagas

173

is

(

credence, for

considered secure; poetry in the kings’ sagas

still

commands

has not yet seemed likely that these verses are fabrications,

it

falsely attributed to the early skalds.

Several scholars have argued that at least sagas

may be

the

work of

some of

the verses in the family

the saga authors themselves (Bjorn

M. Olsen

1911;

Bjami Einarsson 1961, 1982; Magerpy 1973). Supporters of this view point to late forms in some of the stanzas and to the fact that verse in the family sagas, unlike that in the kings’ sagas, seems part of the story, entertainment rather than evidence (Wolf 1965); they contend that the contradictions between poetry and prose are usually only apparent and any that are not are to be explained as authorial design

(Bjami Einarsson 1974). This approach

some of the verses

some of the

in

is

certain to be valid for

sagas. But attempts to distinguish genuine

from

spurious stanzas on the basis of the roles they play in the sagas are fraught with uncertainties (the

same poem can be

the next); and although

whole,

all

too often

—

it

may be

cited as evidence in

one

text

and as wit

in

desirable to view verse and prose as an organic

as with the stanzas of

Kormakr and Sighvatr cited above

meaning and artistry of the poetry have been obscured by their prose context. Another approach has been to consider the verse in the sagas as the creation of someone who lived after the time of the skald to whom it is attributed but before the time the saga was written (de Vries 1959). For when there are marked discrepancies between prose and verse, and when there appears to be evidence that the prose is based on the verse, the probability is that the same man did not compose both. This was the case with the anonymous quatrain cited by Agrip (ca. 1190) that described how Haraldr harfagri drove one Ship-Brandr out of Norway. That the stanza is older than the late twelfth century, however, does not the

[

mean

that

it

has to be as old as

its late

ninth-century subject.

The

collocation

rhyme with land) is identical to that in a stanza composed around 1056 by Amorr jarlaskald; more important, the metrical type exhibited in skeidar brandr (and

line 3

its

of the quatrain seems not to occur before 1015 and appears most frequently

in the poetry

of mid-eleventh-century skalds (Kuhn 1969b).

Still,

the author of

Agrip must not be charged with the labor either of invention or misattribution. He

may have been

fully

aware

that

he was quoting from a mid-eleventh- or early

twelfth-century drdpa that related the deeds of the early kings of Norway; the

very anonymity of the citation might have signaled noncontemporaneity to his audience.

It is

we who

are at fault

—

in

our editions and

in

our literary histories

for placing the stanza so firmly in the oldest stratum of the corpus.

/

numerous individual cases that some of the poetry attributed by the authors of the family sagas to well-known tenthand eleventh-century skalds was actually composed in the twelfth century, when verse may have been needed to embellish and authenticate tales told about Icelanders of an earlier time (Bjorn K. Porolfsson 1943:v-xii; Turville-Petre Recent scholarship has demonstrated

in

Gordon 1961; Foote 1963; Olafur Halldorsson 1969; Poole 1975, 1981). The terminus ad quern for these datings is established by the saga authors’ 1944;

Roberta Frank

174

apparent misunderstandings of the stanzas, the terminus a quo by kennings and

grammatical forms that have reliable parallels only

who

flourished after 1100.

The use of

historical

in the

compositions of skalds

evidence to date the poetry

is

seldom convincing. The factual accuracy of supposedly early court poetry can be determined only by testing

its

information against that of independent sources,

and such sources are rarely available (A. Bugge 1910; Campbell 1971; Sigrun Davi5sd6ttir 1979; Poole 1980). History poetry, but skaldic verse can

tell

us

may

little

help us to understand Norse court

about history that

we

did not already

know.

No

single theory

seems able

to account for all the poetry in

Instead of one Egill, one Hallfre5r, or one

ality in verse

we

will

have

to

cope with

skald, a twelfth-century forger,

means by which we still

Kormakr exposing

any one saga.

his

unique person-

at least three individuals:

a tenth-century

and a thirteenth-century saga author. Yet the

are to distinguish confidently

between these different layers

elude us.

Philological and metrical criteria are of limited value in dating skaldic verse;

one can point article),

to features in the poetry that are clearly late (such as the suffixed

but there are few early features (such as Einarr’s

full

banda, a correspondence that scholars believe disappeared

rhyme of Ignd and at the

end of the

twelfth century) that could not have been imitated sporadically in later times.

The

presence of loanwords or foreign place names in a form that suggests they were

we

are

dealing with probability in such instances rather than with proof (Fell 1981).

An

borrowed

in

an earlier century

is

often taken as a sign of authenticity; yet

Byzantium or find doom deeper than any sea-dingle for reasons that have little to do with his century. Datable forms are useless unless they can be guaranteed on metrical grounds; English poet

may

sail to

the suffixed definite article

Among

is

usually only the result of scribal modernization.

amassed by Dietrich Hofmann (1973) against Jon Helgason’s move (1969) to put EgilFs Hgfudlausn in the twelfth century, perhaps the most compelling was the skald’s use of the independent form figl ‘many.’ On the basis of Craigie’s law (1900) and Kuhn’s demonstration of its workings in the arguments

the ninth through twelfth centuries (1937:55-56), that /ip/ occurs

The

Hofmann was

able to

show

only in poetry composed before the beginning of the eleventh

Hgfudlausn because demanded by the rhyme; all other tenth-century occurrences were changed by later scribes to the more familiar figld and must now be emended metri causa. century.

correct

form survived unaltered

in

Even when meter guarantees a late form, inauthenticity is not proven beyond a doubt. Snorri was optimistic that stanzas could not be altered if they were from the outset metrically correct, yet there are a number of skaldic poems in which the sense can be changed by incorporating variant readings that do not affect the meter. Verses could always be slightly modified, improved, and brought up to date both in oral and written transmission. A single stanza attributed to two

Skaldic Poetry different poets

175

and cited

in

two

different sagas could

end up with completely

and rhyme schemes (Jon Helgason 1953:107-8; Dronke 1981: 65-72; Fidjestpl 1982:61-70). Fundamentalists like Finnur Jonsson support the different verses

genuineness of doubtful stanzas by declaring

presence of

that, despite the

late

forms, they could be as old as the saga claims they are (1912). Radical skeptics

Bjami Einarsson argue that nothing but wishful thinking keeps us from making many stanzas coeval with the saga authors; early forms, few and far

like

between, are to be disregarded, for thirteenth-century practitioners were more than capable of employing an occasional archaism, as the grammatical literature bears witness (1961). Einar Ol. Sveinsson objected on the grounds that a thir-

was

employ

was not linguist enough to manufacture archaic forms consistently (1966). Bjami Einarsson responded that invention was not the issue; a skald could imitate the old-fashioned words teenth-century poet

and forms that he found

free to

in the verse

poetic license but

of his predecessors (1971). Early daters and

agree on only one thing: the burden of proof rests on the other fellow.

late da'ters

We know

very

little

about the transmission of skaldic verse. The sagas and

recent excavations in Bergen reveal that skaldic verse could be recorded in letters /

V

on

period

sticks (Liestpl et al. 1962).

still

The only

drottkvdett stanza

from the pagan

surviving in a contemporary inscription was carved in

1000 on the Karlevi Stone

in

may

Oland. Such practices

an important role in the transmission of the verse that has in this century several half-stanzas

were rewritten

mnic

mnes around

may not have played come down to us. Early or

in tenth-century

mnes; each

mnic letters (Olsen 1916). Doubts have recently been cast on the methodology employed and on the magic interpretation of the results (Morgenroth 1961). The first extensive skaldic compositions to be recorded in the Latin alphabet are thought to have been the long Christian poems of required exactly seventy-two

the twelfth century.

Yet skalds were exposed

to Latin letters long before the

would in some ways second code, making it more perma-

twelfth century; the very art of fixing their poetry in writing

have been equivalent to masking

it

under a

nent and unbreakable. Writing itself

may have

played a larger part than

is

now

recognized in the process of skaldic transmission (Bjami Gu5nason 1976),

al-

though no one has yet posited the existence of early secular poetic codices, skaldic precursors to the eddic anthologies.

Skaldic verse, orally literary

composed and

phenomenon than

transmitted,

the written sagas,

where a

is

in

many ways

later version

unique, and stable. fluid; the different

the stanzas

seem

bound forms:

poem on

relatively fixed, codified,

The prose surrounding them, however,

is

extraordinarily

saga accounts of the incident thought to be authenticated by

in their shifting perspectives to serve as touchstones for the

regulation of oral speculation, not as permanent fixatives.

sonum, witness

more

can easily wipe

out an earlier one. Sighvatr’s quatrain on Ella’s death and Torf-Einarr’s the death of his father’s slayer are

a

to the blood-eagle rite visited

on

Ella,

The Pdttr afRagnars

gave a highly sensational

Roberta Frank

176

were tom from the spine and

report of the event unrelated to the cited stanza: ribs

lungs pulled out so that the corpse resembled a spread-eagle.^^

The compiler of

Ragnars saga in NKS 1824b 4to and Saxo (ca. 1200) had merely envisaged someone’s scratching a picture of an eagle upon Ella’s back; the saga has a woodcarver sketch the design; Saxo’s version adds salt to the wound. In depicting Torf-Einarr’s revenge, Orkney inga saga (ca. 1190-1220) gives a surgical description of the blood-eagle rite

was intended

as an offering to

ceremony, adding the information

Odin

for victory.

that the

Three of the five manuscripts

of the saga allow Torf-Einarr to perform the vivisection himself; two tone the incident, letting the jarl delegate the task.^^

When

Snorri related the incident

Haralds saga hdrfagra (chap. 30), he eliminated the reference noticed what the compilers of Orkneyinga saga and Fagrskinna had

to

in

of Einarr’s

poem

down

Odin and

not: stanza 3

reported that his father’s slayer had not died by torture but

before a shower of spears;

it

was only afterward

fell

“the grey eagle flew to the

that

X

wounds” (IF, 26:132; von See 1960). Snorri had a problem. The blood-eagle torture was too established an element in Einarr’s revenge to be eliminated; the author of Snorra Edda was not one to rewrite a skaldic stanza to support current views, nor would he wish to leave an obvious contradiction in his text for

someone

stanza, and he did just that, even though

it

and depriving a supposedly reliable ninth-century source of

tradition integrity. stability

was to discard the offending meant canonizing a late popular

else to catch. His only remaining option

No

matter

how

its

literary

often and eloquently Snorri claims to have prized the

and tmstworthiness of skaldic verse, he seems here to have honored the

flux of oral story more.

The uneasy

relationship

subject of speculation.

between verse and prose

Gu6brandur Vigfusson,

in the

sagas has long been a

distressed that stanzas turned out

not to contain information that the surrounding prose had supposedly

them, imagined an extensive revision of the corpus

drawn from

in the twelfth century;

he

blamed Einarr Skulason

for this “leprosy of

vapid phrases, which

us nothing new, are substituted for the rougher original

lines

which once

tell

remaniement”

in

which “smooth

bristled with hard facts” (1883:i:lxxxv). Discrepancies

between

verse and prose indicate at the very least that the two must have passed into or

through tradition separately.

One model of transmission imagines the sagas

coming

the conglomeration of verse and prose in

into existence shortly after the verse

was composed; each

Ragnars sonum in Fornaldarsdgur Nordurlanda, i:298. 16. Ragnars saga lodbrokar in Fornaldarsdgur Nordurlanda, i;278, tr. Margaret Schlauch, The Saga of the Volsungs, the Saga of Ragnar Lodbrok, Together with the Lay of Kraka (London: Allen & Unwin, 1930), p. 250. ^Saxo, p. 263 (9:5); English tr. i:292. 17. The Orkneyinga Saga, tr. Alexander Burt Taylor (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1958), p. 354, n. 2. Orkneyinga saga, IF 34:13, n. 3. 18. Snorri’s omission of stanza 3 was noted by Felix Genzmer, “Sage und Wirklichkeit in der Geschichte von den ersten Orkadenjarlen,” Historische Zeitschrift, 168 (1943), 516. Torf-Einarr’s five stanzas contain three references to the eagle as carrion bird, a concentration that may have helped 15.

Pdttr af

to attract the

blood-eagle motif into his story.

Skaldic Poetry

177

skaldic stanza quickly

may

became

the kernel of an oral prose anecdote that

may

or

not have correctly interpreted the verse and that subsequently underwent

Hofmann

independent development (Beyschlag 1950, 1953;

1972, 1978-79;

Jonas Kristjansson 1975). Another perspective postpones the joining of verse and prose until the written period, at which time saga authors are thought to have

dismantled extended poems, inserted individual stanzas into their texts, and devised a narrative context for them as need and talent dictated (Poole 1975; von

See 1977a). Neither hypothesis necessitates belief

in the ultimate authenticity

of

the verse; both propose a lengthy period of oral transmission for the earliest strata

of the corpus; and both, in one

way

sion over centuries of the poet’s

approaches seem

The

at

or another, account for the accurate transmis-

name and

the

title

of his poem. The two

base complementary.

model stresses that the single stanza would not have been comprehensible without an accompanying oral commentary; such a commentary is imagined to* form the invisible bedrock of the saga account. The second approach first

insists that the individual stanza

could have survived into the written period as

poem; and, indeed, much fine work has been devoted in reassembling these longer poems out of the individual lausavisur

part of an extended

recent years to

of the family sagas (Holtsmark 1927b, 1928; Krijn 1931, 1935; Olsen 1944;

Gutenbrunner 1955; von See 1960; Gordon 1961; Olafur Halldorsson 1969; Poole 1975, 1981). Members of the “whole poem” school point to the apparently free treatment of skaldic stanzas in the sagas.

More

than one verse

is

provided with different contexts in separate redactions of the same saga, and the

commentary in any real sense but an imaginative reconstruction of how such a verse came to be uttered. ^ The difference between the two models is one of degree. To what extent does the surrounding prose embody a core of oral commentary coeval with the verse? To what extent have developing oral traditions, new narrative needs, and scribal practices so overwhelmed this core that no trace of it remains? The diligence of Icelanders in remembering the past, so praised by Saxo and Theodoricus, must early and often have dug into skaldic verse as the source of authoritative tradition. Historical and mythological speculation based on the poetry would have continued into and throughout the written period. There would have been a accompanying prose

is

often not a

gradual shift in emphasis, however, once saga authors found themselves revising

and trimming written as opposed to oral far

more

stories. It

would quickly have become

desirable and challenging to place individual stanzas in a well-moti-

vated, carefully contoured, citable context than to

mine overworked verse

what everyone already knew. The saga author’s close attention and placement of his stanzas has been explored

the first nine books of

prosimetrum

is

framing

in several valuable studies

(Hruby 1932; Wolf 1965; Clover 1974; Magerpy 1977). A prototype for the characteristic mixture of verse and prose in

to the

for

Saxo has not yet been

located.

in the sagas

and

The Old Norse

usually seen as a native development, reflecting the different

Roberta Frank

178 functions of verse and prose in the storyteller’s art

(Kuhn 1952; Hofmann 1971,

1978-79). But twelfth-century historians like Ordericus Vitalis of

William of Malmesbury

cite Latin epitaphs

narratives, rather as the author of

A

ments.^^

St.

Evroul and

and other topical verse

Agrip incorporated

in their

his seven vernacular frag-

mixture of verse and prose not unlike that in the sagas of poets

(skdldasogur) can be found in the early thirteenth-century Provencal biographies

of the troubadours (vidas) and in the commentaries (razos) to their poems, but no direct indebtedness

can be proven (Reuschel 1961; von See 1978-79, 1980a:89-

92).

Because skaldic verse, cadenced and syllabic, in

I

Germanic, models for

its

is

different

from anything else

metrical structure have been repeatedly sought,

if

not

convincingly established, in medieval Irish, Welsh, and Latin poetry. The direct influence of Irish syllabic verse on the development of skaldic meter, although [

proposed

I

many

times in the

last

hundred years (Edzardi 1878; Gu5brandur

Vigfusson 1883:i:446; S. Bugge 1894; A. Bugge 1905; Krause 1930; TurvillePetre 1954, 1971; Einar 6l. Sveinsson 1976;

Mackenzie 1981; Kuhn 1983:62,

274-276, 331), is probably unprovable (Finnur Jonsson 1904-5:7, 1921; Noreen 1926:143; Askeberg 1944:108; de Vries 1957; Foote 1976:182).

1

Thematic models for skaldic verse have been found

all

over the Continent and

beyond. Bjami Einarsson contended that Provencal influence was visible in the love stanzas of the sagas of poets (1961

,

1971); Siegfried Gutenbrunner located a

medieval Latin love poetry from tenth-century

likely source of inspiration in the

England (1955); Theodore M. Andersson demonstrated that erotic poetry was an indigenous Icelandic form and that what foreign influence there was emanated

from the

badours (1969). '

A much earlier,

drottkvaett shield in

known

classical Latin poets

in twelfth-century Iceland, not the trou-

preclassical inheritance has been posited for the

poem, a genre supposed

Homer and Hesiod and

(Rosenfeld 1936). Earlier

to

be related to the shield descriptions

to the use of votive shields in ancient cult practices still

is

the Indo-European context proposed for the

skaldic poetry of praise and blame, analogues of

which have been located

poetry of the ancient Hindus, as well as in early Irish and satires

Welsh panegyrics and

(Williams 1972).

Skaldic verse, even in gling of

two

its first

currents, native

extant manifestations, already reflects the min-

Norse

tradition

on the one hand and insular and

Continental learning and preoccupations on the other. 19.

in the

On

It is

becoming clearer

verse in William of Malmesbury, see Lapidge 1981;61-71; in Orderic Vitalis, see esp.

Bk. 5, chap. 9, of The Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Vitalis, ed. and tr. Marjorie Chibnall (Oxford: Clarendon, 1972), iii:49-97. On the occasional verses in monastic narratives, see Cyril E.

&

Wright, The Cultivation of Saga in An^lo-Saxon England (Edinburgh: Oliver Boyd, 1939), pp. 33-38. The seven citations of verse in Agrip occur on pp. 2, 12, 32-33, 35, 43, 47, and 53; on their function, see Bjami Einarsson 1974:119-20. 20. Bragi’s Ragnarsdrdpa, probably

composed

in the latter half

of the ninth century, portrays not

only Thor’s encounter with the world serpent (depicted on stone carvings from Altuna in Uppland to

Gosforth in Cumberland) but also the death of Ermanaric, the fourth-century Gothic king whose fame, according to the late ninth-century archbishop Fulk of Rheims, was touted in contemporary

Skaldic Poetry

179

that this poetry,

and

unusual as

it is,

cannot be studied apart from the larger literary

developments of Europe between the ninth and fourteenth centuries

artistic

(Dronke 1971). The shield poem, usually taken to be the oldest skaldic genre (H0st 1960:447-51), has

work of

description of a I

much art,

in

common

with the ekphrasis or formal poetic

a recognized literary

mode

practiced at the early

ninth-century Carolingian courts by such poets as Theodulf of Orleans and Er-

moldus Nigellus (Erank 1978:104; Clunies Ross 1981b:282). The skald’s anatural syntax has been seen as analogous to and inspired by graphic art interlace design

— whether

this

took the form of two or more entwined dragons on a viking

rune stone or a decorated insular manuscript page (Lie 1952:3; Stefan Einarsson

/ 1963-64; Marold 1976); a poet’s version of events

may

derive directly from

V contemporary pictorial art (Schier 1976) or be reflected Buisson 1976; Margeson 1983).

Eor most of the viking period, insular influence

is

in

it

(Weber 1973;

predominant. The same

forces that gave rise to an esoteric and eulogistic court poetry in Latin and

English

at

Athelstan’s Winchester (Lapidge 1981)

may have

played a role not

only in inspiring Egill’s Adalsteinsdrdpa and Hgfudlausn but also in fostering the court poetry of the favored skalds /

and

1

in a

clustered around Athelstan’s trading

Haraldr harfagri. English borrowings and Anglicisms have

political partner,

been detected

f

who

number of major

attributed to the literary activity of a

skaldic

poems of

the Viking

mixed English-Scandinavian

Age and

culture area

(Kuhn 1969b, 1977b; Hofmann 1955); it has been suggested that the name of the chief skaldic meter, drdttkvcett, was composed under English inspiration (Kuhn 1956:24) and that the first skald whose verse survives had British relatives (Kuhn 1983:275-76). The British Isles appear to have exerted a continuing influence on the evolution of Viking licenses,

Age

skaldic art, giving rise to

meters,

new

poetic

and new genres. During the twenty-year reign of Kniitr (Cnut the Great)

London was probably the center in the North of skaldic poetry (Kuhn 1983:267).

Erom

new

for the production

and distribution

the second half of the eleventh century until the middle of the twelfth,

Danish, Saxon, and Frankish influences are noticeable. The poetry of Markus

Skeggjason the

Danish

(ca.

1

100) reveals that skald’s familiarity with and concentration on

political

and ecclesiastical scene (Foote

1975:66-67).

Fredrik

Paasche long ago stressed the links between the Christian poetry of the early skalds and contemporary spiritual and intellectual developments on the Continent

(1914).

/

French culture

[twelfth century.

starts to

become an important

factor in the second half of the

A relationship has been seen between Rpgnvaldr’s Hdttalykill,

a

twelfth-century clavis metrica from Orkney, and contemporary French artes

poeticae and rhythmicae (Jon Helgason/Holtsmark 1941); Norse meters some-

“Teutonic books”: Flodoard, Historia Remensis Ecclesiae, 4:5, ed. J. Heller and G. Waltz, Scriptores Rerum Germanicarum, 13 (Hanover: Hahn, 1881), pp. 564, 574.

MGH,

Roberta Frank

180 times have

Romance

parallels (Vesteinn

Olason 1969). RQgnvaldr’s stay

in

Narbonne has attracted the attention of comparatists, for his stanzas to Ermengarde mix viking carnage with troubadour love-longing (Finnur Jonsson 1912:53-57; de Vries 1960; Andersson 1969). In the thirteenth century, Olafr ForSarson pointed out classical rhetorical tropes fourteenth-century continuator

composed

original stanzas to illustrate sections of

/^Alexander of Villedieu’s Doctrinale (1199).^^ 1

from the

Ito

later period, Lilja (ca. 1350),

in inherited skaldic verse; his

The most famous

by the monk Eysteinn,

is

skaldic

poem

deeply indebted

Geoffrey of Vinsauf’s Poetria Nova of ca. 1210 (Foote 1982). The European

context of the later secular poetry has hardly been touched, even though the links

movepredecessors. There was

between the twelfth- and thirteenth-century skalds and the ments of

their

day were

at least as vital as

those of their

intellectual

homelands about skald-clerics like Einarr Skulason, whimsical tongue-in-cheek bishops like Bjami Kolbeinsson, men like Haukr Valdisarson whose passion for the past drove him to compose a kind of native de little

insular except their

viris illustribus

and de casibus virorum illustrium combined, and

who dabbled

skalds

in

all

the other

crusade poems, erotic lyrics, parodies, and personal

satires.

we are still ignorant of some of the literary processes and relations of skaldic verse, we are even more ignorant of its social context. Old Norse scholarship If

knows seven

the

names of some 250

women, and

skalds; they include kings, bishops, outlaws,

a sprinkling of ghosts and berserks.

These poets are featured

prominently in our editions and literary histories, while anonymous verses huddle together at the

end of each chapter or century. Yet we know almost nothing

about most of the poets except their names. Their

documented; few lives,

facts are

known about

mode

of existence

is

scantily

the institutions that dominated their

providing them with an income and an audience.

mention of skaldic schools, give no evidence that

Our sources make no

literary specialists trained

new

We

do not believe that the skald’s profession was hereditary, but there may have been some form of social control over recruitment recruits in the required skills.

(

that is

now hidden from

composing was

us.

We

are not told whether the skald’s

rigidly prescribed, or

kinds of literary productions. For

all

manner of

whether he had a monopoly over certain

we know, he was

entitled to

wear

distinctive

garb or colors in court. Interest in the skald’s

world and role

in society is reflected in several recent

made

meaning of the word skald (Gutenbrunner 1963a; von See 1964; Steblin-Kamenskij 1969) and of the terms used by the Norse poet to describe his art and his relationship to it (Kreutzer 1974; Clover 1978; Koch 1979; Clunies Ross 1981b). Other studies have considered how sagas portrayed their tenth-century skalds and what this

publications. Useful attempts have been

to establish the

Mdlhljoda og mdlskrudsrit: Grammatisk-retorisk afhandling, ed. Finnur Jonsson (Del Kgl. Danske Videnskab. Selskab. Hist.-filol. meddelelser, vol. xiii, no. 2, [1927]); Den tredje og fjaerde grammatiske afhandling, ed. Bjorn Magnusson Olsen, SUGNL, 12 (1884). 21. Olafr PorSarson,

Skaldic Poetry

181

on the nature and purpose of poetry (Naumann 1950; Reuschel 1961; Bjami Einarsson 1961; Wright 1973; Dronke 1978; Clunies Ross 1978). reveals about thirteenth-century Icelandic views

!

/

The

first

virtual

skalds were Norwegians, but soon Icelanders

monopoly

as the court poets of

Norway

—

a

seem to have enjoyed a symptom, it has been sug-

gested, of the political instability and upheavals of the period (SigurSur Nordal

1942:239).

The

role of the

Norse poet

in his society is still

though perhaps not a very practical one given the

state

an open question,

What

of our knowledge.

Did skaldic verse contribute to group? Was the verse propaganda for the ruling

part of his culture did the skald’s poetry reflect?

the self-awareness of a particular

formal announcement of public discontent, or a codification of patterns

class, a

/ of heroism and deceit?

Was

the skald genealogist, prime minister, historian,

warrior, storyteller, journalist, satirist, prophet, diplomat, lover, or fool?

scholar

makes him a rower and

his poetry a

work-song

in the tradition

One

of sea

chants Or whalers’ ditties (Perkins 1969, 1976); another, working on a higher level of abstraction, depicts literature,

him

as a kind of halfway

house between folklore and

an author of form but not of content, a painter whose objective was

external embellishment and ornamentation (Steblin-Kamenskij

1978:40-64).

There has always been a temptation to impose the nature of viking society

upon skaldic verse,

to see a relationship

ravaged the West and direct connection

with

its

this

tough poetry.

between the grim-beaked prows

Some have

that

envisaged a more or less

between Viking Age economics, the growth of a chieftain

class

and a market for skaldic verse (Moberg 1943); still others trace its Viking Age religion with its (assumed) rituals (Holtsmark 1949;

courts,

inspiration to

Kabell 1980b). Whereas previous studies sought the origin of the kenning in j

,

taboo language (Olrik 1897; Portengen 1915; Ohlmarks 1944; Mittner 1951) or

magic (Schwartz 1955-56), John Lindow believes that the riddlelike quality of the skaldic kenning points to an audience of initiates, an in-group awareness

Norwegian court (1975). The dual role of the Norse court poet praise and blame has been acknowledged in a number of recent works; not surprisingly, the latter function has received the most attention (Noreen 1922; Almqvist 1965, 1974; Markey 1972; A Strom 1974; Meulengracht Sprensen 1980). In the early eighteenth century. Ami Magnusson was astonished to discover that Flateyjarbok, but not Snorri, quoted verses composed by a tenth-century skald to mock his patron; on the grounds that A sensible men did not go out of their way to anger a prince. Ami rejected the Skaldicists today are /deviant stanzas: “These are the greatest falsehoods. firmly convinced that the early court poets of northwestern Europe could and did likely to

be found

at the

—

satirize their lords; 1

I

a king.

we

—

recognize that a skald might not only toast but also topple

The Norse poet was regarded

as a dangerous being, a manipulator of the

deep stmcture of language. His poetry was an instmment for molding public Arne Magnusson, Brevveksling med Torfaeus, ed. Kristian Kaalund (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1916), p. 66. Cited in Andersson, The Problem of Icelandic Saga Origins, p. 9. 22.

Roberta Frank

182

opinion and for presenting a ruler’s political and ideological platform. This I !

\

Marold 1972; Kreutzer 1972; von See 1977b; Strom 1981, 1983), each of which shows how function has been discussed in several recent articles (Wolf 1969;

skaldic verse could have played a part in the maintenance of social control.

Current scholarship sees verse; poets

little

were involved

unconscious or natural in the production of skaldic

in the political realities of their time,

and princes were

probably as eager to gain power over poetry as to be entertained by

We do not know how the poet presented his verse at court.

it.

Old Norse seems

to

between composing (yrkja) and reciting {kveda, flytja, fcera fram)\ most extant verse was probably composed orally and privately by professionals ( and memorized for delivery. The composition and recall of skaldic verse must distinguish

.

complex metrical form; pairs of alliterating and rhyming syllables tend to hang together in the memory, ready to spring to life (^de Vries 1964:i:104; Foote 1976:183). There is no evidence for the presence of harp or lyre or any other musical accompaniment, although Kuhn suggests that a musical accent may have fallen on the rhyming syllables of each line (1969b: 415, 1983:244-47). Thirteenth-century texts distinguish between formal court poetry iflokkr, drdpa) and a genre of spontaneous personal verse {lausavisur)\ Kuhn makes the same distinction, for the praise poems of the Norwegian court seem to him more regular than the occasional stanzas of Iceland (1983: 218-20), which often have simpler clause arrangements (Edwards 1983). Yet we have no certainty that this dichotomy is a genuine early feature of West Norse poetic tradition and not merely a reflection of the interests and narrative methods of the saga authors (Poole 1975:287-94), of differences in date and transmission. Current scholarship has turned to contemporary non-European oral traditions have been greatly assisted by

I

(

its

for a better grasp of the processes of

Davf5sd6ttir 1979).

The findings

memorization and transmission (Sigrun

are rich and provocative.

The complex

praise

names of southern African panegyric poetry resound in a diction as specialized as that of the skalds verse composed in private, memorized by a poet for subse23. quent performance and forever owned by him is as prized and discussed in 24. Somalia today as it seems to have been in medieval Iceland;^^ there is a close 25. analogue to skaldic ofljost among the Ruanda. Our growing knowledge of formula play in contemporary oral cultures, and of oral phenomena such as the disambiguations of two-tone African talking drums,

may

eventually help us to

rephrase the “origin of the kenning” question as posed by traditional scholarship.

A

start

made with

has recently been

mulaic principles of economy and

the incorporation of the oral for-

utility into

an exploration of

kenning functioned (Spamer 1977). The kenning

Jeff Opland,

may soon

take

how

its

rightful place

An^lo-Saxon Oral Poetry: A Study of the Traditions (New Haven,

Univ. Press, 1980). Ruth Finnegan, Oral Poetry:

Its

the early

etc.:

Yale

Nature, Significance and Social Context (Cambridge:

Cambridge Univ. Press, 1977). A. Kagame, La poesie dynastique au

Rwanda

(Brussels: Institut Royal Colonial Beige, 1951).

— Skaldic Poetry

183

minimal unit of semantic distinction alongside the phonemes of the First Grammatical Treatise, minimal oppositional pairs most likely inspired by as the skald’s

the alternating

rhymes of the poets (Frank 1978:37).

/ A recurrent issue in skaldic research its

is

that of the intelligibility of the verse to

original recipients, a question that probably deserves the dull answers

Thormod Torfaeus found

received. In the seventeenth century,

it

has

the stanzas “fre-

quently so obscure that without an interpreter they could hardly be compre-

hended.’’^^ Finnur Jonsson observed that not

all

verses need have been under-

some could be learned by heart and struggled with until comprehension dawned (1924:320). Genzmer insisted, gamely if not credibly, that skaldic poetry was scarcely more difficult than eddic (1930). There is a stood at

,

first

hearing;

consensus today that a verse form that retained

some

five centuries

case with so ^

much

The question of

must have said something oral poetry

—

it

intelligibility is

ence of Rezeptionsdsthetik; our

was what

its

popularity in the North for

even

to its public,

if

—

as

is

the

the audience already knew.

gradually being reformulated under the influ-

focus has shifted from authorial con-

critical

1943-44; Nordland 1956; Turville-Petre 1976: audience reception, from a concern with historical verisimilitude to a

sciousness (Sigur5ur Nordal Ixxvi) to

.

two centuries of skaldic composition, the skald seems to have imposed greater constraints on himself in meters, rhymes, number of syllables (Kuhn 1969c; von See 1968) and, conwersely, greater demands on his audience. The skald’s “art in a closed field’’ (Clover 1978:81) may have struck his listeners as dangerously open, for it was now their responsibility to decode the verse, making choices between alternate meanings; they had to create order and build unities and relationships between its inducing of parts. The psychological effect of skaldic verse on its recipients view of poetry as process. In the course of the

[ '

1

first

—

—

—

tension and anxiety by a systematic unsettling of the senses, intellect, the ^

prehension

surge of relief and power that accompanied the

— was portrayed

aesthetics (Lie 1957:33).

must have kept

in

one of the

first

its

teasing of the

moment

of com-

studies devoted entirely to skaldic

The skewed syntax and segmented clauses of the

their audiences alert

and vulnerable, open

to a

skalds

dimension of

experience that could not be circumscribed in prose.

/ New work means hones

us,

however,

convey information,’’

to in

still tells

on

facts, not feelings

scheme whereby

Egill

is

“with the skalds, poetry was largely a

that their love poetry

—

to the excesses of “psychological realism,’’

able “to express his whole soul in a

colouring’’ (Olrik 1907:161). Yet the nineteenth century

when

it

like all their verse

(Steblin-Kamenskij 1978:74, 70-89). Such state-

ments are understandable reactions a

that

poem

knew what

lamented the vagueness and fuzziness of the verse, mourned

it

with lyric

was doing

how minute

seemed to play (Gu5brandur Vigfusson 1883:i:lxxxv). have conveyed fundamental values, meanings, and feel-

a role facts and figures

For the skald seems to 26.

Thormod Torfaeus,

Series

Dynastarum

Problem of Icelandic Saga Origins,

p. 7.

et

Regum Daniae,

p. 56, cited in

Andersson, The

Roberta Frank

184

on a few themes and formulas: heroic death, enduring love, the voyage of discovery, the good statesman and the grasping, the generous act and the cowardly, the loyal retainer and the treachings through his ingenious variations

And

erous.

if his

central task

was

to catch

and keep those fleeting moments of

which man seemed illumined by a divine or hearers to summon intellectual and affective

joy, of heightened consciousness, in

demonic

force,

it

was up

to his

responses comparable in intensity to his own;

was

it

the obligation of the con-

noisseurs in his audience to puzzle out what combination of dark thoughts gave rise to his

sunset or sea-skerry, what triumphant hopes brought forth the blood-

stained eagle and corpse.

Skaldic verse, despite the efforts of generations of scholars, tively mysterious in

still

seems seduc-

antecedents, social context, and narrative processes. If

its

admissions of ignorance can lead to progress, the present survey of the state of skaldic studies will have served

work

scholars induces work, and

what

this field still

its

purpose.

— along with

A

puzzle that interests enough

sufficient bodies to

perform

it

—

is

wants. Kinds of sources, kinds of verse, kinds of kennings,

meters, and syntactic patterns, kinds of repetitions and binding techniques must

be distinguished as cleanly and sharply as possible; tools,

new

perhaps even a computer concordance to the corpus: these

consumer needs

in the

The leading

skaldicists of the past half

at their tasks,

often in relative isolation

years to come.^^

century labored long and passionately

new reference are some of our

editions,

from one another and, perhaps as a consequence, issuing a minimum of synthesizing or encouraging

communiques; they

felt

cluded that “stillness had enveloped drottkvaett as al” (Kuhn

1983:18).

The

situation has

themselves alone and conit

had skaldic verse

in gener-

prompted a fellow Nordicist (Foote

1978:59) to recall Marvell’s lines:

Had we

enough and time. This coyness, lady, were no crime.

Entomologists

know

“to incite to work.” they

stroll

of a pattern of behavior they call stigmergy, which means

When

four or five termites are put together in a chamber,

around without purpose; but when more termites are added, real work

They pick up each

begins.

but world

other’s fecal pellets, stock

soon the foundations of the termitarium are laid tell, in

27.

it

in

even columns, and

elegantly and, as far as

we can

Such collective intelligence should be fostered means keeping at each other all our lives.

harmonious accord.

skaldic studies, even if

—

them

in

A computer tape bank of West Norse texts has been established at the Amamagnaean Institute:

Amamagnaean Institute and Dictionary, 1979-81 (Copenhagen, 1981), pp. concordance by George Tate of twelfth-century skaldic verse is in progress. 28. Lewis Thomas, “Debating the Unknowable,” Atlantic Monthly (July 1981), pp. 49-52.

see Bulletin 13 of the

12-13.

A

.

Skaldic Poetry

185

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Kings’ Sagas

(Konungasogur) Theodore M. Andersson

The kings’ sagas

differ in several

family sagas. In the

first

place,

fundamental respects from the better-known

most of them belong

to an earlier era.

Whereas

phenomenon, the productive period of

the family sagas are a thirteenth-century

kings’ saga writing falls in the century ca. 1130 (Saemundr Sigfusson’s and Ari

Porgilsson’s lost books) to ca.

1230 (Snorri Sturluson’s Heimskringla). The

family sagas are a national literature with a definite,

C

The

Icelandic affairs.

if

not exclusive, focus on

kings’ sagas chronicle non-Icelandic events.

They embrace

Norwegian, Danish, Orkneyan, Faroese, and, more peripherally, Swedish ry;

they betray their Icelandic authorship only by viewpoint and digression.

Whereas '

histo-

anonymous, the names of many Saemundr Sigfusson, Ari Forgilsson,

the family sagas are without exception

kings’ saga authors have

come down

to us:

Oddsson, Theodoricus monachus, Karl Jonsson, Oddr Snorrason, Gunnlaugr Leifsson, Styrmir Karason, Snorri Sturluson, and Sturla F6r5arson. As a Eirikr

result, the kings’

are

unknown,

sagas can be dated more accurately. Even

as in the case of Agrip, Morkinskinna,

when

their authors

and Fagrskinna,

their close

textual affiliations with other kings’ sagas allow a relative dating within a decade

or so.

These textual

affiliations are a special feature

family sagas, which almost never

\

'

tell

the

same

of the kings’ sagas. Unlike the

story twice, the kings’ sagas

tell

Norwegian kings, many times. More accurate dating and the gradual evolution of one and the same narrative should theoretically permit the writing of a more finely tuned literary history than the

is

same

story, especially the biographies of the

possible for the family sagas, but, as

we

shall see, this opportunity has

been

/ blocked by the complexity of the textual relationships. Most of the critical effort \ devoted to the kings’ sagas has gone into establishing the sources of a given text.

As

a consequence, the nonexpert will be surprised at the relative absence of

general literary

comment and perhaps dismayed

197

at the

minute and seemingly

Theodore M. Andersson

198

The charm of kings’ saga study

barren analysis of source problems.

is

decidedly

remote. Because of

their extraordinary literary qualities, the family sagas

tionally attracted a large readership abroad

German and

and enthusiastic

have

tradi-

critical studies

by

and more recently by American, French, and Soviet

British scholars

The

kings’ sagas have tended to be confined within the bound-

aries of Scandinavia,

and only Heimskringla has acquired an international au-

scholars as well.

dience. Scholarly analysis has remained almost exclusively in the hands of the

Scandinavians a

much

—

lesser extent. Since the great majority of

the Scandinavian languages, the outsider

books and

German, and the only

\

to

articles is written in

likely to experience linguistic as well

is

as technical difficulties in gaining access to the field.

kings’ sagas in

Danes and Swedes

Icelanders and Norwegians in particular,

partial

There

is

no overview of the

survey in English

is

Gabriel Tur-

of Icelandic Literature (1953). The following essay therefore confronts the problem of surveying an

ville-Petre’s Origins

sically difficult field that is, in addition, unfamiliar to those

dinavian medievalists.

To overcome

this

problem,

I

have

who

intrin-

are not Scan-

tried to identify the

main works as they are introduced and to review the main periods of kings’ saga writing in the process of summarizing the scholarly debates they have provoked. There are four main periods to be discussed: the earliest lost kings’ lives by Saemundr and Ari from the early twelfth century, the so-called Norwegian synoptics (ca.

:

1

175-90?), the formative period of the Icelandic kings’ saga proper

(ca.

1150-1200), and the major compendia {Morkinskinna, Fagrskinna, Heims:

kringla)

from 1220

to 1230.

The

kings’ sagas from the latter part of the thirteenth

century and the late compilations have been omitted (except in the bibliography) I

because they have not yet become the focus of protracted debate. In dealing with the scholarly literature,

and

to concentrate

I

have

tried to

avoid excessive detail

on the general implications of recent work

relative roles of Icelandic

—

for example, the

and Norwegian writers, the balance of foreign and

native elements, the importance of oral and literary accretions, and indexes of

Icelandic bias.

Only

in the

skrivning (1965) have Ellehpj’s

is

the

I

case of Svend Ellehpj’s

at a

represents the state of the art at this

it

presents.

The

believe

it is

uninitiated reader

on the

norr0ne historie-

general reassessment of the

kings’ saga writing (Saemundr, Ari, and the

I

aeldste

entered into the technicalities of the controversy.

most recent attempt

evaluated in any detail,

Den

first

Norwegian synoptics), and

moment

in history.

Since

it

phase of his

book

has not been

important to take a position on the argument

may

find the relevant pages, as well as the

works of Saemundr and Ari, excessively academic, but these matters have dominated kings’ saga study and cannot be passed over in

entire speculation

lost

silence.

The beginnings of the legendary and family sagas

are lost in literary prehistory

and can only be the subject of conjecture, but the birth of the kings’ sagas approximately datable literary event.

Two

texts,

is

an

which are no longer extant but

Kings’ Sagas

199

are considered to be the direct ancestors of the kings’ sagas as

were written

in the early twelfth

century on the eve of our

ment, Ari Porgilsson’s Islendingabdk

(ca.

first

we have them, surviving docu-

1122-32). The authors of these proto-

were Ari himself (1067/68-1148) and his slightly older contemporary Sasmundr Sigfusson (1056-1133). Although their accounts of the Norwegian kings are lost, subsequent writers make frequent and tantalizing referkings’ sagas

ences to them. Saemundr’s seniority suggests that he

may have

he presumably wrote in Latin because Snorri Sturluson

tells

written

first. If

so,

us in his prologue to

Heimskringla and the Separate Saga of St. O/a/ that Ari was the first to write in Norse. ^ Only one of the references to Saemundr’s book gives us any idea of its scope. ^ This

is

a reference in the fortieth stanza of the

composed around 1190 and preserved

Nu

hefk

poem Ndregs konunga

tal

in Flateyjarbdk.^

talt

tm landreka l)as

hverr vas

fra Haraldi;

intak sva aevi l^eira

sem Saemundr sag5i enn fr66i.

(Now

I

have enumerated

Ten rulers, Each descended From Harald; I

have rehearsed

Their lives

As Saemundr The Wise said.)

We

Saemundr included the ten Norwegian rulers during the period 858-1047, after Haraldr harfagri (Harald Fairhair) and down to Magnus g65i (Magnus the Good), but it is not impossible that he also dipped back into the more legendary kings of an earlier era.^ 1.

learn

from

IF, 26:5.

this stanza that

On Saemundr

in general see-Halldor

Hermannsson 1932:esp. 33-36. On

the evidence

Saemundr wrote in Latin see Olafia Einarsdottir 1964:169. Ellehdj (1965:15) inclines to the view that Saemundr wrote first but leaves open the possibility that he wrote after Ari. On the complicated relationship between the two versions of Snorri’s prologue to Heimskringla and the Separate Saga see Wessen 1928-29:52-62. 2. On the references to Saemundr see Gjessing 1896 and Ellehpj 1965:16-17. On possible rem-

that

work On Noregs konunga

nants of Saemundr’s

in

Flateyjarbdk see also Olafur Halldorsson 1977.

Mogk

1888 and Olafia Einarsdottir 1964:165-83. The poem may be found in Flateyjarbdk, ed. GuQbrandur Vigfusson and C. R. Unger, ii:524, and Flateyjarbdk, ed. Vilhjalmur Bjarnar et al., iii:131. The text is cited from ^Skjaldedigtning, iB:582. 4. See the literature cited by Ellehpj (1965:109-10). 3.

tal see

Theodore M. Andersson

200 Ari Porgilsson’s account of the Norwegian kings

about

also lost, but the hints

contained in his Islendingabok have fueled a hundred-year controversy.

it

The prologue

Islendingabok (IF, P:3)

to

us that

tells

it

is

a second version of an

work, without the “attartala” (genealogy) and “konunga aevi” (kings’

earlier 1

is

lives):

byskupum drum,

Islendingabok g0r6a ek fyrst

En me6

f)eim ok Saemundi presti.

f)vf at

Porlaki ok Katli, ok syndak baeSi

f>eim lfka6i sva at hafa e6a bar vi6r auka,

ba skrifaSa ek bessa of et sama

far, fyr

mer var6 si6an kunnara ok

es gerr sagt a bessi en a beiri.

and Saemundr the

priest.

And

since they liked

[fslendingabdk] in the same

more

told

it

as

manner without

and added what became better known to

lives,

aevi,

ok jokk bvi es

wrote Islendingabok for our bishops Porlakr and Ketill and showed

(I first

this

nii

utan attartglu ok konunga

it

it

them

to

was, or supplemented,

wrote

I

the genealogical matter and kings’

me

in the

fully (or exactly) in this [book] than in the

meantime, and now

it is

former one.)

what students of the kings’ sagas would most have. Whether the missing “kings’ lives’’ were a separate book or

Ari’s second version thus omitted like to

interspersed notes in the tion.^

A

'^narrative )

nature.^

version of Islendingabok

first

second question

is

whether the “kings’

is

an unresolved ques-

lives’’

were

in

any sense

or whether they were brief indications of a largely chronological

The

latter

assumption

is

supported by the observation that half of the

extant references to Ari’s “kings’ lives’’ concern chronological matters (Hagnell /»

1938:113-30).

One of

these references in Snorri’s Oldfs saga helga in Heims^

kringla,

however,

is

more general

(IF, 27:326):

Olafr konungr haf6i ba verit konungr

Sveinn jarl varu ba6ir li6it

grein

um jol

i

landi,

fram, er hann

konungdoms hans

spgull, minnigr

let

i

Noregi fimmtan vetr

me5 bcim

vetri, er bcir

ok bessum, er nu um hrf6 hefir verit fra sagt, ok ba var skip sm ok gekk a land upp, sem nu var sagt. Fessa

—

ritaSi fyrst Ari prestr

ok sva gamall ma6r,

at

Forgilsson inn fr66i, er bae6i var sann-

hann mun6i ba menn ok haf6i spgur af

haft,

muna bcssi tfSendi, sva sem hann smum bokum ok nefnda ba menn til, er hann haf6i froeSi af numit.

er beir varu sva gamlir, at fyrir aldrs sakir mattu hefir sjalfr sagt

i

Norway for fifteen years, including the year he and Jarl Sveinn were both in Norway and the one of which I have now been speaking, and the Yule season was well advanced when he left his ships and went (King Olaf had

ashore, as

I

at that

have

time been king

told.

in

This part (“grein”) of his kingship was

first

written

by the

See Hagnell 1938:87-109, Elleh0j 1965:30-35, and the literature they cite. 6. Hagnell 1938:135-41, Halldor Hermannsson 1948:28, and Elleh0j 1965:43-53. The main proponents of the view that Ari wrote extensive kings’ lives were Gjessing (1873-76; 1885) and Schreiner (1926a; 1927a: 1-20, 60-85; 1927b). See also ^Turville-Petre 1953:98. Schreiner’s views were criticized by Bjami ASalbjamarson (1936:44-47, 177-80). 5.

s

Kings’ Sagas

201

priest Ari Porgilsson the

and was old enough

who was

that

memory from them) who

both truthful and had such a good

he remembered those

that

were old enough

in turn

Wise,

men

(and got reports

because of their age they could remember these events,

as he [Ari] has related himself in his books,

naming

the people

from

whom

he got

the information.)

This passage, like several others, has been interpreted in terms (the length of

sugge^s a and

fall at

events) within the if

(‘part,

section’)

Whether it refers to the narrow matter of Olaf’s departure from Norway or to the larger matter of his exile, the Battle of Stiklarsta5ir

memory

not clear. Nonetheless, Snorri

is

refers not just to chronological niceties but to

events

chronological

fuller jrmrrative.

landing before his return,

word grem

Olaf’s reign), ^ but the

St.

strictly

“ti5endi” (events or reports of

of Ari’s sourcemen.

Why

refer to the

memory

of

Ari told of no events?

Despite the ambiguities of Snorri’s reference, a clear consensus holds that Ari’s treatment of the

Norwegian kings was very

notices in the older lost redaction of Islendingabok. ^

of the kings’ sagas

is

rare

amounting

to scattered

Such agreement

in the study

brief,

and should probably be welcomed with

alacrity, but the

from resolved. The evidence remains a matter of interpretation or must be inferred from a second generation of kings’ sagas. This second generation comprises three Norwegian works of the late twelfth

question

is

far

we may

century, to which

refer (with Turville-Petre

1953:169-75) as the “Nor-

wegian synoptics”:^ Theodoricus monachus, Historia de Antiquitate Re gum

Norwagiensium haps as

(ca.

late as 1220);

history specifically

ing to postulate

Agrip

afNdregs konunga sggum

(ca.

1

190). Theodoricus ’s

acknowledges the learning of the Icelanders, and

some dependence on Saemundr

also states that he has that

1180); Historia Norwegiae (perhaps before 1178, but per-

no written authority, and

tempt-

it is

or Ari or both. But Theodoricus

it is

therefore

commonly assumed

he composed his history largely on the basis of oral material provided by the

Icelanders.

The Historia Norwegiae belongs more

clearly to a written tradition. A

It

shares so

many

verbal correspondences with Agrip that one must stand in

literary debt to the other or,

more

both derive from a

likely,

common

written

source. In addition, the similarities between Theodoricus and Agrip are so great that the author of

Agrip

is

generally assumed to have

made

direct use of

Theo-

The unknown quantity in this configuration is the lost common source of Historia Norwegiae and Agrip. This source has been identified as Saemundr’ doricus.

Beyschlag 1950:282-83; Ellehpj 1965:44, 52. 8. Sigurbur Nordal 1914:24; Bjami Adalbjaraarson 1936:50, 68; Hagnell 1938:135-36; Beyschlag 1950:284; and Ellehpj 1965:43-47. 7.

9.

The

best survey of the discussion surrounding these texts, including the disputed dating of

be found in Ellehpj 1 965 On the dating of Historia Norwegiae see also Bjami A6albjamarson 1936:20-29 and Hanssen 1949b:3-36.

Historia Norwegiae,

may

.

Theodore M. Andersson

202 lost

book, as Ari’s "^konunga

Norwegian

or as a lost

aevi,

history of

which we

have no other record.^®

The

son (1936) and Elleh0j (1965) analyze the textual

wegian synoptics in

by Bjami ASalbjamarrelationships among the Nor-

large-scale discussions of the earliest kings’ sagas

Figure

1

(X

=

in similar

a lost

ways. Bjami A5albjamarson relates them as shown

Norwegian

history in Latin).-

X

Theodoricus

A

Historia Norwegiae

Agrip Figure

1.

The

Norwegian synoptics according

interrelationship of the

to

Bjami A5al-

bjamarson

Ellehpj argues that the lost Ari’s

*konunga

aevi, as

common

source of Agrip and Historia Norwegiae was

indicated in Figure 2. Ari

Theodoricus

Historia Norwegiae

Agrip Figure

2.

The

interrelationship of the

Norwegian synoptics according

The difference between Bjami A5albjamarson and is

a

ASalbjamarson thought), we are led

Svend Elleh0j

Ellehpj does not appear great,

but the implications of the difference are far-reaching. If the

Agrip and Historia Norwegiae

to

Norwegian book

(as

to believe that there

common

source of

Bemtsen and Bjami was an independent

Norwegian school of history writing and that the synoptics are a specifically Norwegian manifestation. To be sure, Theodoricus acknowledges the Icelanders, but he also refers to a "^Catalogus Re gum Norwagiensium, and there is no reason to suppose that this was not a Norwegian book. Thus a hypothetical Norwegian "^Catalogus and a lost Norwegian history may underlie all three of the Norwegian ^

*

we can imagine that at some early date, perhaps in the middle of century, Norway began to cultivate her own history in competition

synoptics, and the twelfth

with the Icelandic school established by Saemundr and Ari

An

at the

beginning of the

is provided by Ulset (1983:16-42). He conveniently between on the one hand Theodoricus and Agrip and on the other Historia Norwegiae and Agrip in parallel columns (pp. 152-82). Ulset’s own view, based on a distinction between latinisms inherent in learned style and latinisms attributable to a written model, is that Agrip shows signs of translation both from Theodoricus and Historia Norwegiae. See also Bemtsen 1923:53-93, Bjami ASalbjamarson 1936:7-19, and Ellehpj 1965:199, n. 6. 1 1 The fullest attempt to isolate the contents of the *Catalogus was made by Ellehpj (1965: 18296). The early controversy on Norway’s participation in the writing of kings’ sagas is summarized by Bemtsen (1923:11-22). Jakobsen has reasserted in persuasive detail the Norwegian origin of Fagrskinna (1970). See also Hanssen 1949b.

10.

extensive survey of the debate

tabulates the verbal correspondences

.

Kings’ Sagas century.

The

203 thesis of Toralf

Bemtsen’s book Fra sagn

such a separate Norwegian tradition existed. Icelandic. If Theodoricus if

was

saga (1923) was that contrast, Ellehpj’s emphasis is

By

til

chiefly dependent on his Icelandic informants and

Historia Norwegiae and Agrip derive chiefly from Ari’s *konunga

aevi, the

Norwegian synoptics are not an independent phenomenon but an adaptation of Icelandic models. Since the later kings’ sagas are almost exclusively Icelandic,

we might

then conclude that the genre

is

peculiarly Icelandic, no less so than the

family sagas. In emphasizing the role of Ari’s

*konunga

Bjami A5albjamarson. For

his predecessor

we

factor in the general development. If

which he

set

Heimskringla

down in

source only for

the latter, Ari

was not a decisive

review the summary of his findings,

volume of

we may observe

1941 (IF, 26:ix-xix),

to

Ellehpj differed radically from

in the introduction to the first

Oddr Snorrason and

were considered

sevi,

that Ari figures as a

Snorri Sturluson, and even these influences

be minimal (1936:43-47, 50; see Figure

Ellehpj’s conclusions in the

his edition of

same way

(see Figure 4),

we

3).

Visualizing

see that Ari figures at

the very center of the tradition. Ari thus continues to be a central issue in the

debate, and our

first

task

must be

to test the evidence Ellehpj uses to reassert his

importance. Studies of the kings’ sagas evolve slowly, and despite the twenty years that

have elapsed since the publication of Ellehpj’s book,

There can be no doubt that

tion.

is

it

it

has received

little

atten-

an unusually rigorous and valuable

contribution to the field. Ellehpj familiarized himself with every aspect of the

debate and reported

it

with great

clarity. In contrast to

Bjami A5albjamarson’s

book, which was criticized for a lack of reader’s aids,^^ EllehpJ includes an analytic table of contents, concluding

summary

(in English), bibliography,

and

book therefore makes a complicated subject as accessible as possible serve as a research summary on the early kings’ sagas for the foreseeable

index. His

and

will

future.

Whether Ellehpj’s new conclusions tion.

He

will gain acceptance

isolates the central issue as the relationship

is

a separate ques-

between Historia Norwegiae

and Agrip and explains the connections between these

texts as a

common

inheri-

tance from Ari’s "^konunga aevi (pp. 12-13). In practice, then, most of the book is

concerned with the possible traces

left

by

the "^konunga aevi in

Norwegian and

Icelandic literature, but these traces are extremely difficult to identify. Ellehpj

himself notes that there are few decisive arguments 12.

BONIS

lists

(p. 12). In the first place,

it is

four reviews: Knut Helle in (N)HT, 46 (1967), 73-78; Lars Lonnroth in SS, 39

Marco Scovazzi in Paideia, 21 (1966), 415-18; Inge Skovgaard-Petersen in MS, 1 229-31. Only Helle meets Elleh0j on his own terms. Jakob Benediktsson questions whether

(1967), 378-80; (1968),

have contained everything Elleh

3 '^3

^ s

Theodore M. Andersson

206 virtually impossible to decide

whether Agnp’s correspondences

wegiae are to be explained from a

common

to Historia

Nor-

source or from direct use of the

Historia by Agrip. In the second place, Ellehpj posits no fewer than three lost sources (in addition to the extant

book by Theodoricus)

for

Agrip (see Figure

Adam

Under these circumstances

it is

of

5).

Bremen

from which of the three lost Agrip derives. Ari is always a

difficult to ascertain

sources any particular item of information in

possible source, but Saemundr and the "^Catalogus can never be absolutely

excluded. Elleh0j’s argument turns

Ari’s

^konunga

aevi.

on the hypothesis

that Historia

Other parts of the discussion are

Norwegiae drew on

less crucial.

For example,

Ellehpj refurbishes an older view that the Yngling dynasty in Historia

derives from Ari, but as

Knut Helle pointed out

in his

Norwegiae

review (note 12 above),

other solutions are possible. In addition, Ellehpj argues (p. 171) that the

Norman dukes and English kings

list

of

Norwegiae derives from Ari, but this view seems highly speculative because we do not know what Ari may have included on the Anglo-Norman dynasty. The only evidence is Snorri’s statement in the prologue to Heimskringla that Ari included in his book {scil. the lost version) “the lives of kings in 26:6).

A

further

argument

in Historia

Norway and Denmark and

in Ellehpj’s case is that a special affinity exists be-

tween Historia Norwegiae and Konungatal the affinity

on,

among

is

also in England’’ (IF,

i

Noregi

(in

Flateyjarbok) and that

attributable to Ari, but this contention appears

weak and depends

other things, two copying errors (pp. 246-53).^"^

Yngling kings, Norman dukes, and English kings are peripheral figures, but

Norwegian core of Historia the heart of the matter. The theory is not new

the idea that Ari’s "^konunga aevi provided the

Norwegiae and Agrip 14.

It is

lies at

easier to believe that

Konungatal

(

Noregi depends on Snorri than on Ari. Konungatal

KonungaKonungatal the reign of Haraldr hMagri,

agrees everywhere with Snorri’s chronology except in the case of Haraldr grafeldr, where tal

also disagrees with Historia

Norwegiae

(the alleged

key

to Ari).^In addition,

from Ari by attributing seventy-three years whereas Islendingabok (IF, 1F6) gives the figure as seventy. specifically deviates

to

Kings’ Sagas 1965:199), but

(Elleh0j

presentation

among

207 it

has never been argued in such detail. In Ellehdj’s

becomes the linchpin of

it

the system of textual interrelationships

the early kings’ sagas. Ellehpj’s success depends

Ari’s central position.

As

far as

I

on

his ability to

can see, he advances three arguments

prove

in support

of his view. 1

.

Historia Norwegiae assigns thirty-three years to the reign of

accordance with Ari and against the authority of

Adam

of Bremen,

and who was demonstrably known

the figure as thirty-five years

Historia Norwegiae (Ellehpj 1965:160).

The

Hakon

difficulty

is

who

jarl in

records

to the author of

that

Ssemundr also

assigned thirty-three years to Hakon’s reign, as Ellehpj notes in other contexts:

menn

Eessir

sam|5yckia

J^etta

me5

f)essum

fro5i er huartueggia sogn er trulig at

hetti

Hakon

Saemundr hinn fro6i oc Ari hinn

hafi styrt rikinu xxxiij uetr si{)an er fell

Haralldr grafelldr.

(These

men

testimony

is

agree on

this,

reliable, that

Saemundr the Wise and Ari the Wise, both of whose

Hakon

ruled the realm for thirty-three years after the death

of Haraldr grafeldr [Harald Graycloak].)

Since Saemundr and Ari are in perfect agreement,

whether the source of Historia Norwegiae

is

it

is

impossible to

know

Ari or Saemundr, or both, or another

source derivative from one, or the other, or both. 2.

In describing the death of Halfdan svarti (Halfdan the Black), Historia

Norwegiae

(p.

tion of the

same event

103) shows a special verbal correspondence with Snorri’s descrip-

[Q]ui [Halfdanus] iter

ubi

ageret,

cum

pastores

in

dum

Heimskringla

(IF, 26:92):

Rond nominatur, quandam scissuram,

noctu per cujusdam stagni glaciem, quod

curribus et equitatu

mag no

a cena rediens in

gregem suum adaquare solebant, improvide advectus sub

glacie

deperiit.

(As Halfdan was proceeding

at

night across the ice of a certain lake called

Rpnd,

wagons and a large mounted company, he was carried certain hole, where herdsmen were accustomed to water their

returning from a feast with

without warning into a

animals, and perished under the ice.)

Halfdan

svarti

ok

fra veizlu a

HaSalandi, ok bar sva

til

lei5 bans, at

hann ok

um

Rpnd. Pat var um var. Pa varu s61bra6 mikil. En er heir oku um Rykinsvik, J)a hpfSu |3ar verit um vetrinn nautabrunnar, en er mykrin haf5i fallit a isinn, haf5i grafit um s61bra6inu, en er konungr ok bar um, ba brast ni5r issinn, ok tyndisk bar Halfdan konungr ok lid mikit me6 honum. vatnit

i

15.

quotation 4to].

49-50, 68, 71, 73. See also Olafia Einarsdottir 1964:171, 179, 195. The Snorrason’s from Oddr Oldfs saga Tryggvasoner, ed. Finnur Jonsson, p. 90 [AM 310

Ellehqj 1965:17, is

Theodore M. Andersson

208

(Halfdan svarti drove from a feast in HaSaland and his route lay in such a

way

he drove across Lake Rgnd. That was in the spring. There was a great thaw.

when

that

And

they drove by Rykinsvik, there had been watering holes there during the

when the animal dung had fallen on the ice, it had melted it away in the thaw and when the king drove there, the ice broke and King Halfdan perished and a large company with him.) winter and

The

detail that

two

these

Halfdan was traveling with a “large company”

texts, not in other descriptions

na). Since Snorri

is

is

back

to Ari’s "^konunga aevi. This

up against the ubiquitous problem

in

of the same incident (Agrip, Fagrskin-

explicit about his general debt to Ari, Ellehpj

the phrase in question goes

found only

assumes

that

argument brings us

saga research of evaluating indi-

in kings’

vidual correspondences in wording. Is the special similarity between Historia

Norwegiae and Snorri so great that it compels us to believe that one text is derived from the other or a common written source? Or is it coincidence that two writers

imagined that Halfdan perished with a considerable company?

haps not so strange that they both

Nor can

hit

drew independently on

familiar tradition about Halfdan ’s death. But

best evidence that Historia

per-

on the mention of a retinue independently.

the possibility be excluded that each

common

sufficient to persuade us of a

It is

if

the verbal correspondence

written source, this passage

Norwegiae echoes

a generally

may be

is

the

Ari. X

by Olafr Tryggvason to Norway, Oddr Snorrason’s Oldfs saga Tryggvasonar and the Historia Norwegiae list a Bishop Jon (or Johannes) against the evidence of Theodoricus and Agrip, in which the name appears as Sigwardus (or Sigur5r). Ellehpj prints the In a passage dealing with the clergy brought

3.

passages in parallel columns

HN .

.

.

.

.

sumpsit secum

Johannem episco-

viros religiosos,

pum

Sigwardum

.

.

.

episcopum

Oddr

Agrip

Theodoricus

habens secum

.

(p. 256):

.

.

.

ok haf6i meb

Sigurb byskop

.

.

ser .

Oc var ba ifor me6 honum Ion by scop.

videlicet .

.

.

name Jon or Johannes is a common borrowing from Ari, who in turn got it from Adam of Bremen (“lohannes quidam episcopus”),*^ but there are reasons for construing the evidence differently. Historia Norwegiae and Oddr Snorrason could have used Adam of Bremen independently. If this seems unHe

argues that the

common

more likely, that common source could, again, have been Saemundr, not Ari. Oddr Snorrason cites Saemundr by name in connection with Olafr Tryggvason ’s first assembly and conversion activity on DragseiS, and this is the logical context in which to find mention of the clergy likely

16.

and a

Ellehpj 1965:257-58.

Icelandic source

The

relevant passage from

Adam

is

cited

on

p. 151.

Kings’ Sagas

209

him

Olafr brought with

to

conduct the mission. Ellehdj

cites the

passage

(p. 17;

ed. Finnur Jonsson, p. 114):

bessa bings getr Saemundr prestr hinn fro6i er agetr var a6ru

ari rikis

DragseiSi. oc

Olafs T. let eigi

s.

Sua

si6.

hefir

Saemundr

(This assembly

is

bo6a monnum

stulbi

rita6

He

reign he assembled a great in

retta tru fyrr

oc maelti sua.

atti

A

bing a Sta5i a

en b^ir tocu skim, Olafr

oc mandrap. hann gaf oc go6 log folkinu oc go5an

um

Olaf konung

mentioned by the

tinguished in wisdom.

and did not desist

samna5i hann saman mikit folk oc

af at

konungr hepti miok ran oc

at speki.

isinni

bok.

Saemundr the Wise, who was

priest

dis-

said thus: “In the second year of Olafr Tryggvason’s

crowd of people and held a meeting

at

Sta6r on DragseiS

preaching the true faith to the people until they accepted

He

baptism. King Olafr did

much

good laws

and good standards of conduct.” Thus Saemundr wrote of

to the people

King Olafr

in his

to curb

robbery and theft and murder.

also gave

book.)

Furthermore, Snorri’s Heimskringla (IF, 26:326) mentions a Bishop Sigur5r

must be identical with the clergyman

sumes Ari

that Snorri

named

this

is

in question.

the key to Ari’s version,

it

who

Since Fllehpj elsewhere as-

would be

logical to suppose that

bishop SigurSr and not Jon.^^

Fllehpj’s three arguments in favor of Ari’s *konunga xvi as a source for the

Historia Norwegiae lead to an impasse. equally well.

more

The second

in the direction

points

more

of Saemundr.

The

first

argument

in the direction

One cannot

fits

Saemundr and Ari

of Ari. The third points

dispute the possibility that

view of the relationships is correct (see Figure 5), but there is nothing the evidence that would exclude other possibilities, for example, switching the

Fllehpj’s in

Saemundr

positions of Ari and

in the

wegiae and Agrip both made use,

The only

stemma or assuming

in differing proportions,

that Historia

Nor-

of Ari and Saemundr.

stable elements in the textual puzzle are the belief that Theodoricus

is

independent of Saemundr and Ari and a substantial majority opinion that Agrip

made

direct use of Theodoricus. This area of

agreement

is

not large but should

perhaps be sufficient to justify the labor expended on the task and to maintain our

mechanisms. Both propositions are supported equally by Bjami A6albjamarson and Svend Fllehpj. Unfortunately, even this limited con-

faith in the scholarly

sensus has collapsed in the In

last

few years.

1977 Bjami Gu5nason published an ’

lenskir sagnaritarar.

’

In

it

article entitled

“Theodoricus og

is-

he convincingly dismantled current thinking and

returned to an older view, maintained by A. Gjessing and Finnur Jonsson,

that

Bishop SigurSr and the possibility that a man by that name was transferred from the story of St. Olaf to the story of Olafr Tryggvason (whose bishop was originally named Johannes) see Lonnroth 1963:59 and his references. See also SigurSur Nordal 1914:61-62, Birkeli 1960, and Damsgaard Olsen 1965:52-54. 18. Gjessing 1876:50-56, ^Finnur Jonsson 1920-24, ii:587-94, and ^Finnur Jonsson 1928: 263-66. 17.

On

Theodore M. Andersson

210

Theodoricus was perfectly familiar with Saemundr and Ari despite his statements that it

is

he

is

recording

“non

visa sed audita” (what

“maxime

that

Norway

ubi nulla opitulatur scriptorum auctoritas” (especially where no

written authority lends

nearly contemporary.

As

Gu5nason argues

He

Bjami Gu5nason, Thec^ Ari constituted “auctoritas” because he was too

assistance).

doricus did not consider that

“auctoritas.”

have heard, not seen) and

of Haraldr harfagri’s subjection of

difficult to establish the date

(858)

I

did,

to

however, consider skaldic poetry

for Theodoricus’s that

According

in the light of

emphasis on “non visa sed audita,” Bjami

“hearing” and “reading” were identical

in

Norse par-

lance and gives examples of the interchangeability of “to read” and “to hear”

Oddr Snorrason and Snorri Sturluson. He also points out that the contemporary historians Sven Aggesen and Saxo Grammaticus made much of in the writing

of

their oral sources

although

it

is

written sources as well. Finally,

becoming increasingly clear that they used he makes a persuasive case for believing that

Theodoricus got information on the mysterious disappearance of Olafr Tryggvason from Saemundr and information on the conversion of Iceland from Ari.^®

Bjami GuSnason is right, Theodoricus’s independent status is compromised and he must be integrated into the written tradition along with Historia Norwegiae and Agrip. At this point even the minimal agreement between Bjami A6albjamarson and Ellehpj is undermined, and we must consider a different If

among

Norwegian synoptics. Bjami GuSnason believed that Theodoricus used both Saemundr and Ari, and this assumption may contain the germ of a new theory. We may extend the assumption to embrace Historia Norwegiae and Agrip and conjecture that all three picture of the textual relationships

synoptics used both Ari and Saemundr,

the

who presumably

differed

on certain

points to the extent that one revised and supplemented the other. This hypothesis

would explain the equally striking agreements and disagreements in the synoptics that drew on Saemundr and Ari, sometimes preferring the account of one and sometimes the account of the other. The development could be outlined as in Figure 6.

Saemundr and/or Ari

Figure

6.

Another view of the interrelationships among the Norwegian synopties

de Antiquitate Regum Norwagiensium, p. 6. On the commonplace non visa sed audita see Hanssen 1949a;75-76 and Holm-Olsen 1952:45-46. 20. Without knowing Bjami Gudnason’s article, I argued the same thesis in an article published two years later (1979). I took Theodoricus’s disclaimer about written authority to mean not that he had no written sources himself but that his written sources about such matters as the chronology of 19. Historia

Haraldr harfagri’s reign were doubtful because they depend ultimately on oral tradition. That

is,

even

Kings’ Sagas

211

Such a hypothesis leaves standing very little of the painstaking edifice erected by Bjami A5albjamarson and Svend Ellehpj, and the question arises whether any cogent analysis of the textual relationships

possible. This question

is

posed thirty-five years ago by Siegfried Beyschlag

was

in fact

in his full-scale study entitled

Konungasogur (1950). Beyschlag ’s solution was radical. He denied that the Norwegian synoptics stand in literary debt to one another or to earlier written sources and argued that they are independent recordings of very similar oral accounts.

It

is

impossible to debate this idea objectively.

correspondence

is

required to

make

storytellers? EllehpJ (1965:14)

How much

us believe that copyists are at

verbal

work and not

found no way to counter Beyschlag other than

to

main line of kings’ saga research represented by Gustav Storm, Sigur5ur Nordal, Gustav Indrebp, and Bjarni ASalbjamarson and to review the verbal correspondences once more (1965:197-276). In my opinion, most scholars who read the chapter in which he surveys this material (“Agrip og deTatinske krpniker”) will agree that the correspondences must be scribal and not oral. It is fair to say that we have abandoned the faith in oral tradition that once allowed Andreas Heusler to argue that the two redactions of Bandamanna declare his adherence to the

saga are oral variants because exact verbal correspondences never extend beyond

two successive

lines of the text.^^

We

are

now more

two words must be

likely to believe that

passages of nearly identical content sharing several significant scribally linked. If

Beyschlag’s theory

is

rejected and the analyses

and Ellehpj founder on their

own

by Bjami A5albjamarson

disagreement as well as the altered presupposi-

by Bjami GuSnason, we are obliged to conclude that the last fifty years of kings’ saga research have left us empty-handed. This situation is not without irony in view of the optimistic note on which Bjami A5albjamarson began the foreword to his book: “I have tried to arrive at conclusions that are as secure as possible in most of the hitherto unresolved questions.” He clearly hoped to settle the remaining details. tions suggested

Theodoricus knew Ari’s *konunga sevi, Ari himself was dependent on oral sources, as he states in islendingabok and as Snorri describes in his prologue to Heimskringla and the Separate Saga of St. Olaf. It seems unlikely that chronological speculations on the reign of Haraldr harfagri could still have been a matter of interpreting oral tradition at the end of the twelfth century. Gustav Indrebp if

“Such chronological information

something that oral tradition did not retain either in ancient or modem times.” In support of my view that Theodoricus ’s reference to oral tradition concerns the ultimate sources and not his immediate sources, I adduced a passage from the “articles” of Styrmir Karason’s *6ldfs saga helga in Flateyjarbok (ed. Gu6brandur Vigfusson and Unger, iii:248; ed. Vilhjalmur Bjamar et al., iv:13), in which, although asserted in another connection (1917:49):

Styrmir worked from a his to

full

written source,

account rests on “sggusQgn,” that

is,

is

margin of error must be allowed because on “oral tradition” or “hearsay.” This comment is taken it is

stated that a

stem from the scribe Magnus Porhallsson by Sigur6ur Nordal (1914:71) and Bjami Gu6nason

(1979:148), but Bjami Einarsson (1975:224) attributes dates

from the early thirteenth or

it

late fourteenth century,

directly to Styrmir. it

Whether

comment

the

betokens the same uncertainty

I

detect in

Theodoricus about information that, in the final analysis, depends on oral transmission. 21. Andreas Heusler, ed., Zwei Islandergeschichten (Berlin: Weidmann, 1913), pp. xxxvi and xliii.

Theodore M. Andersson

212

At

this point

we must

turn to the third stage in the development of the kings’

1150-1200, during which the first independent sagas were composed. Most notable in this group were the sagas of St. Olaf and Olafr Tryggvason. The chief irony in Bjami A5albjamarson’s foreword was his decisagas, roughly the period

I

sion to omit any consideration of the sagas of St. Olaf “because the relationship

by Sigur5ur Nordal in his book Om Olaf den precisely Sigur6ur NordaTs view of the St. Olaf material

among them has been helliges saga.’' that has

It is

clarified

unraveled most spectacularly in recent years.

He argued

a sequence of

Saga of St. O/a/ (preserved only in fragments) written toward the end of the twelfth century^^ and followed by a lost "^Middle Saga from around 1210. The ^Middle Saga was in turn the basis for Styrmir FlateyKarason’s redaction, which is preserved only in fragments (“articles” jarbok, ed. Vilhjalmur Bjamar et al., iv:l) in later manuscripts (Sigur6ur Nordal 1914:69-96), and the so-called Legendary Saga of St. Olaf, preserved in a manuscript from the middle of the thirteenth century. Snorri subsequently drew versions beginning with the Oldest

on Styrmir Karason’s version. SigurSur Nordal (1914:154) outlined the development as shown in Figure 7. Oldest Saga

Fostbrcedra saga

Legendary Saga

Styrmir’ s *Oldfs saga

Heimskringla Figure

7.

SigurSur Nordal’ s view of the development of Oldfs saga helga

The Oldest Saga survives only

in six

fragments from

MS

52

National Archive. In addition, there are two fragments in

which Gustav Storm considered survives fragmentarily in

NRA

reedited the fragments in

AM

to

Norwegian 325 IVa 4to,

in the

AM

be copied from the same manuscript that

52 (1893:1-10). In 1970 Jonna Louis- Jensen 325 IVa 4to and in the course of a painstaking

paleographical study redated them and argued that they cannot derive from

NRA

was affirmed and further clarified by Jonas Kristjansson. It turns out that Storm’s last two fragments are not part of the Oldest Saga but of a separate collection of the miracles of St. Olaf. Almost all the criteria for an early dating of the Oldest Saga between 1155 and 1180 rested on the seventh frag52. This conclusion

22.

Storm

(pp.

22-23 of his

edition of the Oldest Saga) argued for a date between 1155 and

but SigurSur Nordal (1914:53-54)

was

page 200 he confines himself to a date

critical

in the

1

180,

of Storm’s dating and was more cautious himself. “second half” of the twelfth century.

On

Kings’ Sagas

ment. Once

213

it is

removed, there

no good reason

is

Saga

for dating the Oldest

around 1200, as Jonas Kristjansson does (1972:156-63, 223). In the course of this reappraisal we have lost two bits of the Oldest Saga.

earlier than

appears that

we have

lost the * Middle

Saga

as well. This

It

a redaction to which

is

Sigur5ur Nordal assigned separate status because he believed that

it

was charac-

by material taken over from Fostbroedra saga (SigurSur Nordal 1914:142-50). But Jonas Kristjansson reverses the direction of the borrowing

terized

and argues that Fostbroedra saga borrowed from Styrmir Karason’s *dldfs saga helga, which, as he says, is “the only ‘middle saga’ of St. Olaf of which we have certain knowledge’’ (1972:223).^^ What emerges from literary history.

around 1200.

It

debate

altered

is

The most important revision is the later dating of the Oldest Saga thus joins the company of Oddr Snorrason’s Oldfs saga Tryggva-

Gunnlaugr

sonar,

this

Leifsson’s

saga

"^Oldfs

Tryggvasonar,

Sverris

saga,

Jomsvikinga saga, Fsereyinga saga, and Morkinskinna (perhaps Orkneyinga

saga and "^Skjgldunga saga as well),

all

of which seem to have been composed in

190 and 1220. The Oldest Saga of St. thus no longer an isolated precursor anticipating later developments. As

a great burst of literary activity between

Olaf is long as

was held

it

to include the

1

two fragments

judged to be a hagiographic proto-saga written acquired

its

more

subtle

secular

down

writing emerging from a hagiographic prototype is

now no

at a

characteristics.^^

fragments, the Oldest Saga will seem more

There

in

Am

325 IVa 4to,

time before saga Stripped

to earth,

it

was

art

had

and our idea of saga

may need

to

be rethought.

reason to believe that the history of the kings’ sagas entails the

gradual freeing of native talent from the confining traditions of the Church.

of the

first

two

of these

Most

narrative efforts in the vernacular {Orkneyinga saga, Faereyinga saga,

Jomsvikinga saga, Morkinskinna) are as secular as Snorri’s work. Perhaps the

two sagas of Olafr Tryggvason by Oddr Snorrason and Gunnlaugr Leifsson, with their concessions to

hagiography, represented an eccentric school of saga writing

and should not be taken as the point of departure for the

later tradition.

That

1976:291-92. The existence of the ^Middle Saga was also disputed by Johan Schreiner (1926b) but was defended by Didrik Arup Seip (1929:3-15). Every change in detail has wider implications. Bjami ASalbjamarson (1936:5) considered that borrowings from Agrip into the * Middle Saga were the best proof for dating Agrip before 1200, and Jonas Kristjansson maintained the early dating of Agrip by arguing that the Oldest Saga borrowed from it (1972:191-98, 1976:290), but if, as Jonas Kristjansson proposes as an alternate possibility (1972:201), these latter borrowings were not from Agrip but from the common source of Agrip and 23. See also Jonas Kristjansson

becomes uncertain again. SigurSur Nordal (1914:52-53) assigns the author a low artistic rank along with Oddr Snor-

Historia Norwegiae, the dating of Agrip 24.

whom

he nonetheless credited with brilliant passages. Objections to this low evaluation of the Oldest Saga were raised by Oscar Albert Johnsen (1916c:214) and Schreiner (1926b:ll). TurvillePetre (^1953:190) emphasized the foreign hagiographic models. Cf. Jonas Kristjansson 1976:289-

rason,

90. 25. See Louis-Jensen 1970:60.

Legendary Saga

is

mistitled:

It

“The

was pointed out long ago by Oscar Albert Johnsen designation ‘legendary’

is

misleading; as

we have

appropriate only to a small part of the saga’’ (1916c:217). 26. On Oddr and Gunnlaugr in general see Bjami ASalbjamarson 1936:55-135.

that the

seen,

it

is

Theodore M. Andersson

214

would explain why Oddr and Gunnlaugr reverted tradition

to Latin after the vernacular

had already been established by Ari, Eirikr Oddsson

in the

now

lost

^Hryggjarstykki, Karl Jonsson in the “Gryla” portion of Sverris saga, and,

depending on the dating, perhaps the authors of the the earliest parts of

lost

^Skjgldunga saga and

Orkneyinga saga.

Olaf was not written as early as Gustav Storm thought, we must decide what replaces it as the earliest saga. Bjami GuSnason If the

Oldest Saga of

has recently proposed a

St.

new

candidate in a monograph programmatically entitled

Fyrsta sagan. Here he reviews succinctly

all

the problems relating to Eirikr

book "^Hryggjarstykki, which is referred to and adapted in both Morkinskinna and Heimskringla. The long-standing debate over the dating and coverage of *Hryggjarstykki is resolved in favor of the view that it is strictly a biography of the pretender to the Norwegian throne Sigur5r slembir (or slembidjakn) covering the years 1136-39 and written around 1150. The chief concern of Bjami Gu6nason’s book, however, is not the narrower question of date but the Oddsson’ s

lost

broader question of

Hryggjarstykki

s

location in literary history, whether

based on foreign hagiographic models or is

right

and *Hryggjarstykki

SigurSr slembir,

who was

is

is

it is

a sample of native storytelling. If he

pure biography culminating in the martyrdom of

tortured to death

by

his enemies, then his conclusion

Oddsson was indebted to the hagiographic tradition must also be correct. But it emerges from his discussion that the ecclesiastical and secular elements are fairly evenly balanced, and it appears that the Church did not exert an overwhelming influence on Icelandic historiography even at this early period. Perhaps we should assume that Ari’s model had to some extent inoculated the that Eirikr

tradition against outright hagiography.

An

book by Bjami Gu5nason (1963) puts the same questions to ^Skjgldunga saga, which he thinks may have been written as early as 1180 although most scholars prefer an approximate date around 1200. He attaches it in some measure to the historical revival of the twelfth century in Europe, but it is narratively more dependent on the Icelandic fornaldarsaga (legendary or mythicheroic saga), which found a more learned expression in the works of the Danish historians Sven Aggesen and Saxo Grammaticus. Again, native impulses seem to earlier

counterbalance,

is

not dominate, foreign trends.

may now be

considered older than the Oldest Saga of St. Orkneyinga saga. In a long introduction to his edition, Finnbogi Gu6-

Another saga Olaf

if

that

may have been

mundsson

(IE, 34) argues that the original redaction

the priest

Ingimundr Porgeirsson, who began the work as early

completed

it

by 1189.^^ He suggests

that

written by

as

1165 and

Ingimundr may have worked

in the

Oddsson (p. ci) and points out in addition (p. cvii) that he Norway with Abbot Karl Jonsson in 1185. During the following three

tradition of Eirikr

sailed for

years Karl Jonsson began the writing of Sverris saga under the surveillance of and KLNM, xii;699-702. Finnbogi Gudmundsson believes that the was executed by Snorri Sturluson or under his aegis. See also Taylor 1973.

27. tion

IF, 34:c-cvi

later redac-

Kings’ Sagas

King

215

Sverrir, as

by Karl

pleted led to

is

we learn from the prologue known as “Gryla,” but the

one of the most inconclusive debates

The portion comexact parameters of “Gryla” have to Sverris saga.

in all of kings’ saga studies. Scholars

have often assigned only a brief section to Karl Jonsson, assuming that the remainder was written sometime after Sverrir’ s death in 1202. Exactly when continuation

from 1204

A

was executed

another disputed question, with estimates ranging

is

to 1230.28

saga that must have been written

traces

it

has

kringla,

is

left in

the lost

at a fairly early stage,

Hakon

gem

derived from

jarl, the

it

is

suggested by a

by Fagrskinna (chaps. 59-68) on the dealings of

Danish king Haraldr blatgnn (Harald Bluetooth), Gull-Haraldr,

and Haraldr grafeldr. Indrebp correctly rated terpart in

judging from the

Fagrskinna, Snorri’s Separate Saga of St. Olaf, and Heims*Hladajarla saga.^^ That *Hladajarla saga belongs to the

period of full flowering and not to the formative period narrative

this

Heimskringla

(IF,

this

passage higher than the coun-

26:232-39).

Extant but almost as difficult to assess as "^Hladajarla saga because in five differing redactions, all

of which deviate from the original,

saga.^^ Like *Skjgldunga saga,

it is

ary saga, and like "^Hladajarla saga

is

it

survives

Jomsvikinga

a cross between a kings’ saga and a legendit

lent parts of

and Heimskringla. With ^Hladajarla saga

it

its

also has in

narrative to Fagrskinna

common

a high point in

which the Jomsvikings were defeated by Hakon jarl. The two sagas might be considered as a complementary pair, one written from the perspective of the victorious Norwegians at HjQrungavagr and one from the point of view of the vanquished but irrepressible Jomsvikings. In what order these sagas were written is unclear, but the customary guess for the the Battle of

Hjgrungavagr

composition of both

is

(ca. 980), in

around 1200

(e.g., ^Schier, pp. 25, 31).

28. On the parameters of “Gryla” see Holm-Olsen 1952:30-102 and 1977, and Lams H. Blondal 1951 and 1982:80-123. The number of chapters in Sverris saga assigned to “Gryla” has been

variously set at seventeen, thirty-one, thirty-nine, forty-three, and one hundred (see

Holm-Olsen

1952:30-32). Holm-Olsen also reviewed earlier opinions on authorship and concluded that there

were two authors (1952:32-35, 50). Brekke (1958:87-122) believed

that the saga as a

whole was

Karl Jonsson ’s work, but failed to convince his “opponents” at his doctoral defense (Lie 1960 and Schreiner 1960; see Brekke’s reply 1960). See also Halvdan Koht 1959a and 1959b, and Knut Helle

1961:342-44. More recently Holm-Olsen (1977:67) and Lams H. Blondal (1982:124-57) have shown themselves open to the idea that Karl Jonsson was the sole author. Helle (1958:100) believed that Sverris saga was complete ca. 1210. Brekke (1958:1 1-82) again surveyed the dating problems and concluded that the saga was completed in 1204-7. Lams H. Blondal (1982:80-123) also rejects

was written at a considerably later date. 29. See Indrebp 1917:80-84, Bemtsen 1923:182-217, Schreiner 1927a:20-60, and BJami A6albjamarson 1936:185-87, 206-24. 30. Indrebp 1917:147-49, BJami Abalbjamarson 1936:223, and Jakobsen 1970:120-21. 31. See Krijn 1914, Indrebp 1917:53-80, Hempel 1922-23, BJami A5albJamarson 1936:201the idea that part of the saga

Jakob Benediktsson in KLNM, vii:607-8, Almqvist 1965:119-28, the introduction to Olafur Halldorsson’s edition (1969:7-55), and BJami Einarsson 1975: 105-55. For a brief English summary of the problems see Blake 1962:vii-xxv. 32. Fsereyinga saga also belongs to this period but is omitted here because, as Jonas Kristjansson 17,

says (1975:235),

it is

closer to the family sagas than to the kings’ sagas.

Theodore M. Andersson

216

After considering the earliest Icelandic school (Saemundr and Ari) and the

Norwegian synoptics (Theodoricus, Historia Norwegiae, mdAgrip) most probably from the period 1 175-90, we now have a third group of sagas before us. This group belongs to the broad period 1150-1200 and includes *Hryggjarstykki, ^Skjgldunga saga, Orkneyinga saga, some portion of Sverris saga, ^Hladajarla

Oddr Snorrason’s and Gunnlaugr Leifsson’s versions of dldfs saga Tryggvasonar, and the Oldest Saga of St. Olaf. The composition of these works marks the birth of the Icelandic saga proper, but they show that the

saga, Jdmsvikinga saga,

term saga covered from the outset a remarkable variety of narrative themes and styles.

Some

of the texts are about nearly contemporary events C^Hryggjarstykki,

Sverris saga, and to

some

much of Orkneyinga

We may

saga).

surmise that they operate

extent in Ari Porgilsson’s tradition of securing accounts from the best

possible authorities and eyewitnesses. Other sagas in this group deal with sub-

and rely on skaldic or other oral

jects antedating the accounts of eyewitnesses

Orkneyinga saga, *Hladajarla saga, Jdmsvikinga

tradition (the early parts of

saga, and the biographies of Olafr Tryggvason and St. Olaf).

Norwegian monarchs

(the

deal with

Olaf sagas, Sverris saga, and to some extent "^Hlada-

jarla saga), but others center on Danish affairs extent Jdmsvikinga saga).

The

orientation. *Hryggjarstykki

is

Skjgldunga saga and to a large

Norwegian in Norwegian throne who

earliest of these texts are not

about a pretender to the

had Danish support and happened is strictly

Some

to

spend a winter

in Iceland. * Skjgldunga

Danish, and Orkneyinga saga (like Faereyinga saga)

is

saga

a provincial

history.

Some

of the texts are primarily historical in tone

C Hryggjarstykki,

Orkney-

inga saga, and Sverris saga). Others are better described as tales of adventure

C^Skjgldunga saga and Jdmsvikinga saga).

coloring

Some show

a hagiographic

Hryggjarstykki and Oddr’s Oldfs saga Tryggvasonar), but most are

we are by the Heimskringla, we tend to

entirely secular. Influenced as

classical formulation of the kings’

sagas in Snorri’s

think of kings’ saga literature as

tantamount to a history of the Norwegian kings. This view

is

Norwegian synoptics, but the first period of kings’ saga writing strikingly open and experimental. There is nothing in Icelandic 1

adequate to the

was from

in Iceland

literature

150 to 1200 that leads inevitably to Snorri. Perhaps the writers of this period

felt

Norwegian kings had already been dealt with in sufficient detail by Saemundr and Ari, but the brevity of these early works was not destined to satisfy

that the

Icelandic reading appetites indefinitely.

After the disparate beginnings of the period

down

to about

1230 takes on a much clearer

1

150-1200, the following period

profile.

It is

the period of the first

compendia of the Norwegian kings, Morkinskinna, Fagrskinna, and Heimskringla. Morkinskinna covers the period from the death of St. Olaf (1030) great

to the reign of Haraldr gilli’s sons SigurSr, Ingi,

may 33.

originally have extended

down

and Eysteinn

to 1177.^^

(until

1

157), but

it

Fagrskinna covers the period

Bjami ACalbjamarson 1936:135 and Indreb0 1938-39:62-63.

On

the range of the author’s

geographical knowledge and his probable location in northern Iceland see Kvalen 1925.

Kings’ Sagas

217

from Halfdan

svarti, in the

middle of the ninth century, to Magnus Erlingsson

(1177), and Heimskringla covers the

ductory

section

Morkinskinna

is

of the

it is

the addition of an intro-

Yngling dynasty (Ynglinga saga).

quasi-historical

the first in the series and

the kings’ sagas

all

same period with is

customarily dated around 1220.^"^

Of

probably the least thoroughly studied. Second in line

is

Norwegian Fagrskinna, on which Gustav Indrebp produced an admirable monograph in 1917. Indrebp demonstrated in detail that the author of Fagrskinna

the

made use of

a series of earlier texts, Morkinskinna, Agrip, *Hladajarla saga,

Saemundr, "^Hryggjarstykki, the oldest

(lost)

version of Jomsvikinga saga, a

Oddr Snorrason’s Oldfs saga Tryggvasonar closest to the Stockholm manuscript, some version of Oldfs saga helga, whether Styrmir’s redaction or a

redaction of

version of the Oldest Saga, and perhaps a "^Knuts saga. Indrebp believed that

Fagrskinna was written around 1225 and

in the service

of King Hakon Hakonar-

son (pp. 273, 277). His main thesis was that Fagrskinna was composed in a strictly literary tradition

on the basis of written

texts

and was only marginally

indebted to oral tradition (p. 111). This thesis has not been challenged.

Heimskringla, which Snorri seems to have composed in the period from roughly 1225 to 1235,^^ belongs to the same tradition and used most of the same written sources, in addition to others.

The source question was

clarified

by

Gustav Storm as early as 1873. Since then the debate has centered chiefly on the question of whether Snorri used Fagrskinna. Indrebp concluded that he into possession

came

of Fagrskinna only after he had begun work on Heimskringla and

made use of it beginning with the saga of Haraldr grafeldr (1917:285-97). Bjami A5albjamarson, though somewhat irresolute, was also inclined to believe that Snorri used Fagrskinna (1936:197-98, 224-27, 235-36).

For the period 1030-1157 the

/

compendia Fagrskinna and Heimskringla depend chiefly on Morkinskinna. But where did the author of Morkinskinna find his narrative material? This question leads to one of the most interesting, as yet unresolved, problems in kings’ saga research. The analysis of the kings’ sagas grew out of the philological tradition (Holtsmark 1938:146) and has concerned itself

with the unraveling of textual relationships. Indrebp established the rule

that oral sources \

\

later

should be considered only as a

last resort

(1917:111):

“We can

one should derive only as much of Fagrskinna absolutely compelled to; that is to say, whatever one

establish as a critical rule that

from oral tradition as one

is

'cannot reasonably derive from written sagas or skaldic

poems.” Indrebp’s

prin-

was strongly endorsed by Bjami A5albjamarson (1936:188): “This line of argument strikes me as incontestable.” The mle is valid in the case of those

ciple

sagas that are based on written texts, but

confronted with the earliest sagas for which

it

when sources. As a

leaves the critic helpless

we have no

written

Bjami ASalbJamarson 1936:136-37. Jonas Kristjansson (1975:231) suggests that the date may need to be revised. The original version from ca. 1220 is no longer extant and must be assessed on the basis of a redaction from the end of the century. Albeck (1946:59-68) argued that Fagrskinna was the source of Morkinskinna, not vice versa, but his arguments were rejected by Jakobsen (1968). 35. See Bjami A6albjamarson’s preface in IF, 26:xxviii-xxix. 34. Morkinskinna, ed. Finnur Jonsson, p. ix, and

Theodore M. Andersson

218 result,

we have

detailed studies of the sources of Fagrskinna and Heimskringla

but no source studies for

Oddr Snorrason’s Oldfs saga Tryggvasonar or

Oldest Saga of

We

St.

Olaf.^^

have not learned

to deal with sagas that

the

do not

from Saemundr, Ari, or known texts. In the case of Morkinskinna this embarrassment has produced a curious solution: if no known sources are available, it is assumed -that the author had written sources that have since been lost. Thus Finnur Jonsson assumed ihdX Morkinskinna was based on separate lost sagas about Magnus g66i and Haraldr har5ra6i

'yderive

(Harald Hardrule), Olafr kyrri (Olaf the Quiet), leg),

Magnus

berfoettr

(Magnus Bare-

Magnus’s sons Eysteinn, Sigur5r, and Olafr, and Hakon her5ibrei6r and

Magnus

Erlingsson.^^

He concluded

with the decisive statement {Morkinskinna,

must be considered beyond any doubt that individual sagas about the Norwegian kings before Sverrir date from the period ca. 1 160 (or 1 150) to ca. 1180.’’ Bjami A5albjamarson, though critical of Finnur Jonsson’s lack of evidence for this assumption, somewhat reluctantly agreed that there were separate p. xxxviii): “It

Magnus

sagas about

g65i, Haraldr har5ra5i (possibly a single saga about both),

Magnus’s sons, and Hakon her5ibrei5r and Magnus Erlingsson (1936:171). Aside from the lack of evidence, this assumption has the disadvantage of removing from consideration the original nature of the kings’ sagas in question. They are too remote to invite literary assessment or to allow

Magnus

berfoettr,

any analysis of the ultimate oral sources.

Gustav Indrebp became more than a is

little

doubtful about these lost sagas: “It

demonstrate that before the Oldest Morkinskinna there was a

difficult to

separate saga about a single king between St. Olaf and SigurSr Jorsalafari (Jeru-

salem Farer), including the

book was

available.

latter

—

after Sigur5r Jorsalafari Eirikr

For some of the

Oddsson’s

earlier kings a separate saga

argued more easily. Thus a separate Haralds pdttr hdrfagra

in

can be

Flateyjarbok (ed.

GuSbrandur Vigfusson and Unger, i:561-76; ed. Vilhjalmur Bjamar et al., 11:53-70), which borrows from Fleimskringla but cannot be derived from this source alone, seems to indicate that a separate "^Haralds saga hdrfagra existed before Heimskringla and was used by Snorri (Jonas Kristjansson 1977; Berman 1982). Similarly, Indrebp (1917:35-36, 39-40) argued for the existence of a separate *Hdkonar saga goda as a source for Fagrskinna because this section of Fagrskinna deviates from Agrip and is fuller than other sections and because Egils saga refers to such a saga (IF, 2:239): “Hakon konungr for i J^eiri fer6 v{5a

um

Gautland

Gautland on

An

.

.

.

sva

this trip

sem

sagt er

...

as

is

i

sQgu bans’’ (King Hakon traveled widely

told in his saga).

in

Bjami A5albjamarson (1936:

Bemtsen, who tried to isolate the Norwegian traditions behind the kings’ sagas (1923). He remained in the philological tradition, however, by the expedient of dissolving the extant Icelandic sagas into lost Norwegian sagas. 37. See ^Finnur Jonsson 1920-24, ii:622-23, 628, n. 3, and Finnur Jonsson’s introduction to his edition oi Morkinskinna, pp. x-xxxviii. See also Fellows Jensen 1962;cl-clv. 38. Indrebd 1922:64. Cf. Koht 1914b:83 (rpt. 1921:176), Kvalen 1926:334, Schreiner 1927a:636.

7,

exception should probably be

and Gimmler 1976:45.

made

for Toralf

Kings’ Sagas

219

190-96) agreed with

view even though Indrebd had already withdrawn it.^^ The only reasonably certain separate saga (aside from the biographies of the two Olafs) seems therefore to be that of Haraldr harfagri. The possibility thus remains open that Morkinskinna was the first attempt to record the lives of the Norwegian this

kings after St. Olaf.

The most probing general statement about

the lost independent sagas

is

that of

Gustav Indrebp (1938-39: 58-79). Indrebp not only reminds us of the thin evidence adduced in favor of these sagas but makes a positive case for believing that

Morkinskinna

is

an original work (pp. 74-76).

If this is true,

Morkinskinna, minus the psettir and other interpolations of the redaction, a firsthand narrative tion.

It

drawn

directly

from skaldic and

we have

later

in

preserved

oral prose tradi-

thus differs from Fagrskinna and Heimskringla in the

manner of

its

composition, but the implications of this difference remain unexplored. Indrebp’s study of Fagrskinna was so thorough that very

little

has been added,

but Snorri Sturluson’s central position in Icelandic literature has assured an '

ongoing preoccupation with Heimskringla. Not

least important is the question

whether Snorri really wrote Heimskringla since no manuscript of that work mentions his authorship. According to Islendinga saga, chapter 79 C Sturlunga

I

saga, i:342), Sturla Sighvatsson copied books which Snorri had composed, but the identity of these

books

is

not known.

translators of Heimskringla, Laurents

Two

sixteenth-century

Norwegian

Hansspn and Peder Clausspn,

refer to the

author as Snorri Sturluson. Jakob Benediktsson (1955) argued that this information

came from

a

common

lieves that the case cannot

manuscript, but Jonna Louis-Jensen (1977:50) be-

be proved. Olafur Halldorsson (1979:123-27), how-

ever, points out that Snorri’s authorship of Heimskringla does not

depend

exclusively on the references in Laurents Hansspn and Peder Clausspn because references to Snorri in Olafs saga Tryggvasonar hin mesta clearly echo Heims-

was pursued by Lars Lonnroth from the standpoint of medieval authorship in general. Even if Snorri is responsible for kringla.

Another

line of inquiry

[Heimskringla, Lonnroth queries whether his role 1

authorship or entrepreneurial leadership."^® in closer literary

is

to

be understood as personal

The answer

to this question

must

lie

study of Heimskringla to ascertain whether the various parts are

homogeneous or heterogeneous with respect to style and authorial viewpoint. The sources of Heimskringla, already analyzed in some detail by Gustav Storm (1873a), were reviewed in still greater detail by Bjami A5albjamarson in his monumental edition of Heimskringla (IF, 26-28). Because the 367 pages of commentary are dispersed in three volumes, it is easy to lose sight of the fact ^

39. Indreb0 1922:50. Schreiner (1927a;95- 102) also argued against

it

and Beyschlag (1950:157-

60) opposed Bjami ASalbjamarson’s arguments. Jakobsen (1970:99, 113, 115) tacitly accepts a *Hdkonar saga, but most recently Fidjestpl (1982:11) has expressed himself guardedly about the existence of such a text. If Jonas Kristjansson (1977:470-72) later than

is

correct in believing that Egils saga

Heimskringla, the reference in Egils saga need not be to a

Heimskringla. 40. Lonnroth 1964:78-97, 1965:9, 13-14.

lost

*Hdkonar saga but

is

to

Theodore M. Andersson

220 that,

taken together, they constitute the most painstaking and complete study of

any kings’ saga. In addition to clarifying Snorri’s relationship to his sources, Bjami A5albjamarson made substantial improvements in the critical edition of

end has

the text (see Louis-Jensen 1977:35-36). Further material toward this

been provided by Jonna Louis-Jensen

in a study of the compilations

Hulda and

Hrokkinskinna (1977).

The

relatively

advanced

ary analysis than

we

state

of Heimskringla studies has allowed more

find for Morkinskinna and Fagrskinna.

As

liter-

early as 1920

Sigur5ur Nordal’s book Snorri Sturluson undertook to define Snorri’s narrative in a chapter entitled

art

“Sagnakonnun og

emplified such matters as Snorri’s

command

sogulist.” Sigur5ur Nordal ex-

of the story

line, correlation

of the

individual sagas, motivation of subsequent events, rationalization of his sources,

and broad perspective on the history he describes. Of special interest are the pages on the relationship between the Separate Saga of

St.

Olaf and Heims-

book (1914:166-98), apparently to the satisfaction of all later scholars, that the Separate Saga was written before Heimskringla and was slightly modified for inclusion in the later compendium. In Snorri Sturluson (1920:241-49) he argues that the Separate Saga and Heimskringla represent different stages in Snorri’s literary personality. The kringla. SigurSur

had established

Separate Saga

characterized by a relative paucity of skaldic stanzas and a

relative

is

abundance of

paettir

in his first

(semi-independent short narratives).

with a greater zest in storytelling for parts of

became

its

own

Heimskringla sometimes sacrifice “stricter, drier,

more

it

rests

was

written

sake, whereas the earlier and later art for learning.

scholarly’’ (1920:248). This

of Snorri’s literary development, but

It

on the view

is

With age Snorri

an attractive history

that Snorri

wrote Egils

^

saga early

in his career (IF, 2:lviii).

If

Jonas Kristjansson (1977:470-72)

correct that such an extraordinarily dramatic

was

in fact written as late as

and humorous work as Egils saga

1240, Snorri’s development from youthful anima-

tion to the sterner style of the senior historian is

The boldest attempt Heimskringlas

stil

more

difficult to argue.

to recapture Snorri’s artistry is Hallvard Lie’s Studier

(1936). Lie

is

is

alone

among

i

kings’ saga scholars in shaking off

source questions to probe Snorri’s underlying habits of mind.

He

studied Snorri’s

visualization of the individual scene, his references to the past for the purpose of

lending color and resonance to the present

moment,

his ability to

convey an

impression of objectivity, his simplification and dramatization of the dialogue in his sources, hisTise^of verbal

echoes to bind question and answer or statement

and rejoinder, his habit of jumping from indirect to direct discourse \

tence, his use of verba dicendi (close to

Morkinskinna and

in

midsen-

from Eagrskinna), and the capping of his scenes with lapidary formulations (“den monumentale replikk’’). In addition, he classified the speeches of Heimskringla with special attention to certain rhetorical features.^* Topics that have yet to be dealt distinct

41. Briefer notes on Snorri’s style and technique are found in Paasche (1916), Finnbogi

mundsson (1976), Andersson .(1976), Bjami Gu6nason (1979), and Ciklamini (1981).

GuS-

s

Kings’ Sagas

221

with are the general rules governing the composition of the individual sagas in

Heimskringla and Snorri’s overall perspective on the evolution of Norwegian history, perhaps considering rise

and decline, conflicting claims of foreign and

domestic policy, or the transition from warrior kings to kings whose claim to the throne If

more a matter of legitimacy than

is

we

ability.

glance back at the development over the

century of kings’ saga

first

we observe an early attempt to summarize the lives of the Norwegian first down to Magnus g65i (Saemundr) and then (presumably) down to

writing,

kings

Sigur5r Jorsalafari (Ari). Recent studies have suggested persistently that these early lives

were the textual basis of the Norwegian synoptics

end of the

whereas the Norwegian historians concentrated exclusively on

century. their

at the

own

kings, Icelandic writers in the period

1

150-1200 explored a

variety of

genres, provincial history, historical adventure tales, and individual biographies,

including those of Haraldr harfagri, SigurSr slembir, and the two Olafs. This biographical trend culminated in the compendia of 1220-30, Morkinskinna,

Fagrskinna, and Heimskringla. Since the lost books by Saemundr and Ari have taken on increasing importance in this development,

it is

tempting to posit a neat,

purely literary evolution from their works through the synoptics to the full biographies.

But such an evolution

illusory. ?No matter

is

what dimensions we choose

to

assign to Saemundr and Ari, they cannot explain the emergence of novel-like

biographies at the end of the century.

And no

matter

how

confidently

Beyschlag’s oral biographies as an explanation of the synoptics,

we

we

reject

cannot elude

1190-1220 show an enormous accretion of oral material that must have circulated earlier and was drawn Ion only very selectively by Saemundr and Ari. By a rough estimate, Oddr’s Olafs saga Tryggvasonar, ihc Legendary Saga of St. Olaf, 2end Morkinskinna' account rthe impression that the great sagas of the generation

of

Magnus g65i and Haraldr har5ra5i

are forty to fifty times the length of the

equivalent sections in Agrip. This discrepancy poses a problem that has yet to be addressed. Scholars have been so preoccupied with the intricacies of the transition

from Saemundr and Ari

to the synoptics that they

have not attacked the

equally crucial issue of the transition from the synoptics to the real sagas.

Most

of the effort devoted to the third generation has been expended on Snorri, but Snorri

is

material

some sense no problem. He acquired his stories from a mass of available to him in written form: the lost "^Haralds saga hdrfagra, in

Oddr’s Olafs saga Tryggvasonar, Styrmir Karason’s "^Oldfs saga helga, Jomsvikinga saga,

HlaSajarla saga, Orkneyinga saga, Fcereyinga saga, Mork-

inskinna, and Fagrskinna.

was already a

fitter

their extraordinary

The period of

literary

and trimmer of written

texts.

growth was over, and Snorri

But where did

his

models get

growth?

42. Attempts to arrive at a

more

theoretical understanding of Snorri have

been made by Beyschlag

(1950:368-76 and 1966), and Sandvik (1955). 43. Ellehpj 1965 and 1966, Bjami Gu5nason 1977, Olafur Halldorsson 1977, and Andersson 1979.

Theodore M. Andersson

222 There

a prevailing instinct in the study of the kings’ sagas to avoid the oral

is

and stick to the

issues

terra,

however

infirma, of written tradition. But the oral

problems cannot be eluded, only postponed.

certain that the independent

It is

1190-1220 harnessed a great deal of hitherto unexploited tradition. In her official “opposition” to Bjami A5albjamarson’s dissertation, Anne Holtsmark complained of his programmatic disregard of oral tradition and his tendency to explain what we have from lost written sources, which in turn remain sagas of

unexplained (Holtsmark 1938:146).

The most important new component

/

in the sagas

from 1190

expanded use of skaldic verse. Snorri figures prominently this

phenomenon

as

we have because he

of

St.

Olaf,

skalds.

first to

exploit skaldic sources.

tradition

the

and the Separate Saga, but

Oddr Snorrason,

the Oldest all

cited seven whole, half, or quarter stanzas,

Saga

drew on the

and there

is

a

know, only Beyschlag and Bjame have made any attempt to calculate, on a small scale, how much This might have been transmitted by the vehicle of skaldic verse.

possibility that Ari did so as well.^"^

Fidjestpl

is

such discussions of

Orkneyinga saga, Morkinskinna, and Fagrskinna

Even Agrip

1220

specifically dealt with the critical

principles involved in his prologue to Heimskringla

/he was not the

in

to

calculation

is

As

far as

I

a fairly straightforward matter.

It

involves isolating the skaldic

from them whatever information they contain or suggest, consulting whatever stanzas from the cited poems have been preserved in other contexts, making a fair surmise about what may have appeared in stanzas that are not recorded but must have existed, adding up the total skaldic stanzas in a particular text, extracting

information, and comparing

it

with what the saga prose actually says.

Beyschlag ’s sample from the lives of Haraldr harfagri, Hakon g65i, and Olafr

Tryggvason convinced him

that the skaldic sources

the saga narratives they buttress.

were not

sufficient to explain

There must have been additional information

available to the saga writers. This surplus tradition led Beyschlag to the concept

of “Begleitprosa,” prose narrative transmitted in conjunction with the skaldic stanzas and capable of independent development. Beyschlag held that skaldic stanzas could not have existed in hermetic isolation

gave

them and that survival of some

rise to

teed the

from the circumstances

the very existence of such stanzas

would have guaran-

narrative attaching to their original circumstances. In

other words, skaldic stanzas must have served as the nuclei of traditions.

that

The Icelander who, according

to

Morkinskinna

(ed.

somewhat

fuller

Finnur Jonsson,

pp. 199-200), gives an account of Haraldr har6ra5i’s adventures before the king

himself in the middle of the eleventh century presumably told the same story in

one stanza in his *konunga sevi, but his argument was rejected by Baetke (1970:14-18). See also Bjorn Sigfusson 1944:26-27. Fidjest0l (1982:20) is inclined to believe that Agrip is the first of the kings’ sagas to cite skaldic stanzas. 45. Beyschlag 1953:1 1 1-20 and Fidjest0l 1971. On the relationship of verse and prose transmissions in general see also Beyschlag 1981, Hofmann 1981b and 1978-79 (publ. 1982), and von See 1977 and 1978-79 (publ. 1982). 44. Elleh0j (1965:51

,

64) argued that Ari included

at least

—

A Kings’ Sagas

223

someone

would have supplemented or authenticated the story with the skaldic stanzas composed by Haraldr and his skalds. It is unlikely that this story would have perished completely during the 150 years between the death of Haraldr har6ra5i and the composition of the older redaction of Iceland, and he, or

else,

Morkinskinna, leaving only a residue of stanzas without context and obliging the saga writer to reconstruct the underlying events from skaldic hints and his imagination. There

would have been tellers,

but there

is

own

every reason to think that the details of Haraldr’ s story

by successive generations of enthusiastic think that there was no story at all.

utterly transformed is

no reason

to

Indeed, the existence of narrative tradition beyond the narrow skaldic confines is

guaranteed precisely by Morkinskinna, in the form of interlarded paettir about

Icelanders. There

is

some doubt about how many of

these paettir were in the

original redaction of Morkinskinna, especially since not all are to be

the cognate redaction of Flateyjarbok,"^^ but the point at

manuscript tradition

is

in

one respect immaterial;

at

found

which they entered the

whatever moment

in the

were written down, they must have derived from

thirteenth century they tradition.

The nature of

scholars,

who have been

that oral tradition

is

in

difficult to define, but

oral

American

conspicuously uninterested in conventional kings’ saga

made some attempt to pin down oral form. Joseph Harris defined characteristic structure of some Icelandic paettir, and this common structure

research, have the

might be attributed to the oral precursors of the written Clover defined the form of the basic episodic unit that

it

works

in the kings’ sagas exactly as

that matter, in

many

it

in

works

paettir (1972).

Carol

J.

saga narrative and showed

in the

family sagas and, for

of the translated sagas (1974). This episodic structure might

also be attributed to the oral stage.

The labor expended on

the kings’ sagas has been unevenly distributed.

Much

works of Saemundr and Ari and to the sources of the Norwegian synoptics, but some of the fuller texts have suffered relative neglect. There have been some very helpful recent studies of individual sagas Bjami Gu5nason’s books on "^Skjgldunga saga and *Hryggjarstykki, Ludvig Holm-Olsen’s, Egil Nygaard Brekke’s, and Lams Blondal’s studies of Sverris saga, and Finnbogi Gu6mundsson’s detailed introduction to Orkney inga saga but other sagas have gone begging. There is virtually nothing of general (1965) effort has

been devoted

to the lost

—

on Jomsvikinga saga or Faereyinga saga. Although Fagrskinna was thoroughly studied by Indrebp, his call for a similar study of Morkinskinna interest

r

(1938-39:62) has gone unheeded. Even Oddr Snorrason’s Oldfs saga Tryggvasonar and the Legendary Saga of St. Olaf which according to Jonas Kristjansson (1972:198, 223, 318) should

have not been explored

now be

regarded as a version of the Oldest Saga,

in literary terms.

sympathetic reading of these five

Bjami Adalbjamarson 1936:154-59, Indrebp 1938-39:64-72, Gimmler 1976:46-47, and Louis-Jensen 1977:64-65, 69, 79-82, 109-22. 47. On the relationship of the Oldest Saga to the Legendary Saga see Jonas Kristjansson’s concise discussion (1976). A few pages of literary analysis are provided by Anne Heinrichs (1976:134-41). 46. Morkinskinna, ed. Finnur Jonsson, pp. ix-x,

Theodore M. Andersson

224 relatively neglected sagas should enable us to

circulated around

first

Icelandic kings’ sagas

came

traditions

into being.

from exhausted is ideological. In this area, as comments have tended to cluster around the Norwegian synoptics (and

Another in others,

1200 and how the

gauge more exactly what

line of inquiry that is far

Sverris saga) to the exclusion of the early Icelandic sagas. Initial attempts to isolate the biases in these

works, especially by Halvdan Koht, culminated in a

from Fredrik Paasche.^^ Subsequently there were only occasional remarks on political partisanship^^ until Brekke (1958:esp. 49-52) argued a quasi-propagandistic view of Sverris saga. Hallvard Lie (1960:29-38) countered with a skepticism far more explicit than the doubts earlier expressed by skeptical reaction

Paasche.

More

recently Lars Lonnroth (1976) has tried to elucidate Snorri’s political

outlook by comparing a passage in the Legendary Saga with the equivalent

passage in Snorri’s Oldfs saga helga. The moral in the Legendary Saga

is,

according to Lonnroth, that “kings and their subjects are better served by inde-

pendent chieftains than by the proud aristocrats and obedient sycophants surrounding the throne”

18).

(p.

This picture

because the Swedish King Olafr, on

whom

is

complicated

Heimskringla

in

this story centers, is

advised by two

independent chieftains of differing character (IF, 27:111-57). Forgnyr l9gma5r offers direct hints that

and forceful advice, but Emundr IggmaSr offers only metaphorical

must be explicated

for the king

by

his

immediate advisers. Lonnroth

concludes that Snorri counterposes positive and negative images of the indepen-

’

dent chieftain because he '

is

intent

on balancing the claims of royal legitimacy

against the proper claims of the independent farmers. This interpretation to considerable

doubt because

it is

difficult to Justify a reading of

open

is

Emundr

iQg-

^

/ima6r as a “subversive rascal”

(p. 25).

Like Porgnyr, he

tells

only the truth,

albeit in parables,

and serves the purpose of putting an unreasonable King Olafr

back on the right

track.

chieftains

The upshot

have contributed equally.

is

a desirable compromise, to which both

Still,

Lonnroth ’s method points the way

to a

more subtle understanding of the underlying attitudes in the kings’ sagas. The Norwegian synoptics have been studied more fully than the first Icelandic sagas not only for their sources, but for their political meaning as well. Long ago Halvdan Koht (1919-20) traced the rise of Norwegian national feeling, but there is

no equivalent treatment of Icelandic particularism

When

SigurSur Nordal touched on Snorri’s Icelandicness in the same year as

Koht’s

I

\

in the earliest kings’ sagas.

article,

he mentioned only two episodes from Heimskringla (including

Einarr Fveraeingr’s famous speech against the surrender of Grimsey to

—

\01af

IF,

27:216) and concluded that Snorri was

King

“incredibly impartial”

Koht 1914b and Paasche 1922. See also Indrebd 1917:275-78 and Finnur Jonsson 1919. 49. Bemtsen 1923:42-46, Ame Odd Johnsen 1939:72-84, and Beyschlag 1950:290-335 and 1966. See also Ellehdj 1965:23, 151, 158-59, 198, 279. 50. On the same episode (“FriSgerSar saga”) see also Nerman 1916, Oscar Albert Johnsen 1916b, Jon Jonsson 1917-18, Beckman 1918, Friesen 1942, and Wessen 1964. 48.

Kings’ Sagas

225

(1920:237-38). But a strong element of Icelandic pride and self-interest

is

pre-

The extant literature begins with a work entitled, almost programmatically, Book of the Icelanders, and it may not be without significance that Ari was advised by the bishops Porlakr and Ketill to delete the kings’ lives and genealogies (with their Norwegian ancestries) from the first version, thus making the book more Icelandic, more about the new Iceland than the old Iceland with its Norwegian affiliations and family roots. The sent throughout the kings’ sagas.

I

which we have evidence, "^Hryggjarstykki, is not about a Norwegian king but about a pretender to the Norwegian throne who spent a winter in Iceland with Porgils Oddason in 1135-36 (Bjami Gu5nason 1978:126). He also had close ties to Denmark, which had designs on the Norwegian province of Vflc in this period, and he was buried in Aalborg after his kings’ saga of

first

death (Bjami

Gu5nason 1978:131-48). Bjami Gu6nason surmises

that his saga

was of Icelandic or Danish inspiration (1978:125). It may not be explicitly antiNorwegian, but it celebrates a man whom the Norwegians considered to be an intmder. Icelandic interests

We

may

also have underlain the first literary flowering at Oddi.

have some knowledge of Saemundr’s

was used

to preface a panegyric

literary activity

{Ndregs konunga

tal) in

only because his book

honor of Jon Loptsson,

X

“the gr^test chieftain in Iceland” (Einar Ol. Sveinsson 1937:3). The purpose of ^

.

\

Ndregs

konunga tal was Norwegian king Magnus serve the glorification

to trace Jon’s ancestry through his

mother Eora

to the

Thus the Norwegian succession is made to of Iceland’s leading aristocrat. The Oddaverjar also berfoettr.^^

Vclaimed descent from the Skjoldung dynasty, and Einar 6l. Sveinsson ascribes the composition of * Skjgldunga tion,

to their patronage (1937:40-41). In addi-

he connects Orkney inga saga with the Oddaverjar,

number of prominent Orkney rect, a substantial part

^ kings’ sagas

No

saga

who had relations

with a

Islanders (1937:16-39). If his inferences are cor-

of the early Icelandic literature generally classified as

grew out of the

special interests of a leading Icelandic family.

such explanation has been advanced for Jdmsvikinga saga, but like

more to Denmark than to Norway. Furthermore, it views the Norwegian victory at Hj^mngavagr from the enemy’s perspective. The notable exception in the non-Norwegian orienta"^Skjgldunga saga and perhaps ^Hryggjarstykki

tion of twelfth-century Icelandic literature

is

it

pertains

Sverris saga. There seems to be

general agreement that the Icelander Karl Jonsson took a strong position on the

legitimacy of Sverrir’s claim (Brekke 1958:50, n.

1),

surprising since, according to the prologue of Sverris saga, ^

is

perhaps not

“King

Sverrir him-

but this

and decided what he [Karl Jonsson] should write.” Sverrir may also have been originally attractive to the Icelanders because he grew up as a fellow provincial on the Faroes. In the most recent book on his saga, Lams H. self supervised

51. Halldor

1953:84.

Hermannsson 1932:10-11, Einar 01. Sveinsson 1937:16, and

^Turville-Petre

Theodore M. Andersson

226

Blondal emphasizes Icelandic initiative rather than Norwegian sponsorship and points to the objective treatment of Sverrir’s opponents (1982:170-72).

Norwegian kings’ saga proper, we may detect an Icelandic slant. As we have seen, the only lost independent saga of which there is secure evidence is a "^Haralds saga hdrfagra, which must surely have been inspired by this monarch’s role, for good or ill,- in the Icelandic colonization. One of the earliest family sagas, Egils saga Skallagnms sonar, may be understood as a more forthright Icelandic response to Harald’s record in office and the conduct of the Norwegian monarchy in general. Lars Lonnroth (1963:93 and 1965:17) has suggested that the celebration of Olafr Tryggvason by Oddr Snorrason and Gunnlaugr Leifsson sprang in part from an Icelandic national interest in promoting their own missionary king beside the Norwegian missionary king Olafr Haraldsson. Oddr digresses on the Icelandic conversion (ed. Finnur Jonsson, pp. 122-30), and Gunnlaugr expands this material greatly (Bjarni ASalbjamarson 1936:120-124). The second fragment of the Oldest Saga of St. Olaf is chiefly about the heroics of Porm65r Kolbrunarskald, and another of

Even when we

!

arrive at the first

y

A

^

Olafr’ s Icelandic skalds, Ottarr inn svarti, figures in the third fragment.

I

I

The tendency to interject Icelandic matter becomes a major factor in the first compendium, Morkinskinna, in which there is a series of paettir on the dealings of Icelanders with Norwegian kings, Haraldr har6ra5i in particular. Morkinskinna notes that Haraldr was especially popular with the Icelanders because he came to their assistance in time of famine (ed. Finnur Jonsson, p. 170).

/

lore

We

might surmise that

one point of departure for the

rich Icelandic

on Haraldr. Another source may be the Icelander Halldorr Snorrason, who

accompanied Haraldr during (

this is

his

deeds after his return to Iceland. of Haraldr, Gustav Indrebp has

Mediterranean adventures and recounted his

But despite these reasons for a positive view

shown

that there is a curious discrepancy in the

by Morkinskinna (1928). Indrebp pointed out that the body of the saga takes a favorable view of Haraldr, but that the Icelandic paettir cast him in a considerably more negative light. Indrebp speculated that the main narrative was built on the flattering image contained in the panegyric poems of the attitude displayed

skalds, whereas the paettir

grew out of

a popular Icelandic tradition that had

taken the nicknames of the co-regents Haraldr and

Magnus (“Hardrule” and

“the Good’’) to heart and evolved a hostile view of the former. Thus even a

/Norwegian monarch with the most extraordinary and heroic credentials emerges '

in a

doubtful light after passing through the

filter

of Icelandic public opinion.

The fullest study of the Icelandic perspective on Norway is Gudmund Sandvik’s Hovding og konge i Heimskringla (1955). Sandvik argues that Heimskringla’ version of Norwegian history is determined by the author’s status as an 52. 6).

Bemtsen

isolated the Icelandic features in Styrmir’s

and Snorri’s Oldfs saga helga (1923: 104-

See also Jonas Kristjansson 1976:285.

53. Morkinskinna, ed. Finnur Jonsson, p. 200. in particular

54.

On

Halldorr Snorrason’s mediation of tradition see

de Vries 1931.

See also Gimmler 1976:47-48. Jakobsen (1970:101) argues

hostile l)3sttir indicates the

Norwegian orientation of

this text.

that

Fagrskinna’s suppression of

Kings’ Sagas

227

He

Icelandic chieftain.

/

tended to see Norwegian history in terms of the

tionship between the king and

Norway’s leading

rela-

aristocrats. Their relationship

went through several phases. Haraldr harfagri’s unification of Norway took place at the expense of the local magnates, and the first period of Norwegian history

down

to the

days of

Olaf was characterized by persistent conflict between

St.

king and chieftains. After the death of his

son

Magnus from Russia

St. Olaf, the chieftains’

decision to recall

signaled the consolidation of the monarchy, albeit

with concessions to the chieftain class. The period from

Magnus g65i

to

Magnus

was transitional and included moments of both conflict and conciliation, but on the whole it produced a gradual tapering off of the antagonisms. The final period from the sons of Magnus berfoettr to 1177 was marked by an alliance between aristocracy and monarchy and culminated in the coronation of the chieftain’s son Magnus Erlingsson. It was this collaborative model, and the identification of chieftain and king in the person of Magnus, that enlisted the sympathies berfoettr

j

.

]

of the aristocratic historian Snorri Sturluson.

I

The

last

of the great kings’ sagas, Sturla P>6r5arson’s Hdkonar saga Hdkonar-

sonar, was long thought to be traditions

gued

that

composed exclusively on

the basis of

Norwegian

and documents (Koht 1927), but Lennart Sjostedt (1954-56) has arSturla drew extensively on materials already collected by his uncle

Whether this is true or not (cf. and King Hakon had reasons not to be on

Snorri and accounts of other Icelanders.

Bjprgo :1967a),

it is

known

that Sturla

good terms, and a

certain lack of enthusiasm in the saga has

strained

Every work from Ari’s between king and author. Sturla’ s Hdkonarsaga thus shows some Icelandic coloring.

been attributed

to the

relationship

Islendingabdk to

Despite the foreign matter they embrace, the kings’ sagas are presumably no less Icelandic in outlook than the native family sagas.

modem

historians to

They have been used by

document events abroad, but an

( Icelandic sensibilities that

internal history of the

perceived and recorded these events has yet to be

written.

Bibliography

EDITIONS OF kings’ SAGAS

AGRIP Agrip afNoregs konunga sggum. Ed. Finnur Jonsson. ASB, 18. Halle: M. Niemeyer, 1929.

BQGLUNGA SQGUR Fommanna 55.

sogur, 9. Copenhagen: S. L. Mpller, 1835. Pp. 1-56.

Knut Helle, Norge

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Theodore M. Andersson

228

FyTREYINGA SAGA Faereyinga saga. Ed. Olafur Halldorsson, Reykjavik: Jon Helgason, 1967.

FAGRSKINNA Fagrskinna:

Ndregs konungatal.

Ed. Finnur Jonsson.

SUGNL,

30.

Copenhagen:

S. L.

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FLATEYJARBOK Flateyjarbok:

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indskudte mindre fortaellinger

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HAKONAR SAGA HAKONARSONAR Hakonar Saga and a Fragment of Magnus Saga. Ed. Gu6brandur Vigfusson. Rerum Medii Aevi Scriptores, 88:2. London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1887. Hakonar saga Hdkonarsonar etter Sth. 8 fol., AM 325 VIII, 4^ og AM 304, 4^. Ed. Marina Mundt. Oslo: I kommisjon hos Forlagsentralen, 1977. Supplement: James E. Knirk. Rettelser til Hakonar saga Hdkonarsonar etter Sth. 8 fol., AM 325 VIII 4^ og AM 304 4^. Norrpne tekster, 2. Oslo: Norsk Historisk Kjeldeskrift-Institutt, 1982.

HAKONAR SAGA IVARSSONAR Hdkonar saga Ivarssonar. Ed. Jon Helgason and Jakob Benediktsson. SUGNL, Copenhagen:

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62.

Jprgensen, 1952.

HEIMSKRINGLA Heimskringla. IF, 26-28.

HISTORIA DE ANTIQUIT ATE

REGUM NORWAGIENSIUM

Theodrici Monachi Historia de Antiquitate

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MHN: Latinske kildeskrifter til Norges historic 1880. Pp. 3-68. Rpt. Oslo:

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middelalderen. Oslo: A.

W.

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HISTORIA NORWEGIAE Ibid. Pp.

69-124.

ISLENDINGABOK IF,

U.

JOMSVIKINGA SAGA Jomsvi'kinga saga efter arnamagnaeanska handskriften n:o 291 4:to aftryck. Ed. Carl af Petersens.

SUGNL,

7.

Copenhagen:

i

diplomatariskt

F. Berling, 1882.

Jomsvi'kinga saga. Ed. Olafur Halldorsson. Reykjavik: Jon Helgason, 1969. [Normalized ed. of

AM

Jomsvikinga saga

291 4to.] (efter

Cod.

AM

510, 4: to) samt Jomsvikinga drdpa. Ed. Carl af

Petersens. Lund: Gleerup, 1879.

Jomsvikinga saga, efter skinnboken no.

7,

4:to a Kungl. Biblioteket

i

Stockholm. Ed.

Gustaf Cederschiold. Lund: F. Berling, 1875.

KNYTLINGA SAGA Sggur Danakonunga. Ed. Carl af Petersens and Copenhagen: H. Ohlsson, 1919-25. Pp. 27-294. Danakonunga sggur. IF, 35. Pp. 93-321.

Emil

Olson.

SUGNL,

46.

y

LEGENDARY SAGA OF

ST.

OLAF

Olafs saga bins helga efter pergamenthaandskrift

i

Uppsala Universitets Bibliotek,

Delagardieske samling nr. 8^L Ed. Oscar Albert Johnsen. Oslo:

J.

Dybwad, 1922.

Olafs saga bins helga; Die “Legendarische Saga” iiber Olaf den Heiligen (Hs. De-

Kings’ Sagas

229

lagard. saml. nr.

8^^).

Ed. and

Anne

tr.

Heinrichs, Doris Janshen, Hike Radicke,

Hartmut Rohn. Heidelberg: C. Winter, 1982.

MAGNUSS SAGA LAGABCETIS See Hdkonar saga Hdkonarsonar above.

MORKINSKINNA Morkinskinna: Pergamentsbog fra f0rste halvdel of det trettende aarhundrede. Ed. C. R. Unger. Oslo: B. M. Bentzen, 1867. Morkinskinna.

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Finnur

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Copenhagen:

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THE OLDEST SAGA OF

ST.

OLAF

Otte brudstykker af den eeldste saga

Grpndahl

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om Olav den

hellige. Ed.

Gustav Storm. Oslo:

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THE SEPARATE SAGA OF

ST.

OLAF

Saga Olafs konungs bins helga: Den store saga menthdndskrift

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Kungliga Biblioteket

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Stockholm

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2 4to,

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Perga-

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hdndskrifter. Ed. Oscar Albert Johnsen and Jon Helgason. 2 vols. Oslo:

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OLAFS SAGA TRYGGVASONAR

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Saga Oldfs Tryggvasonar af Oddr Snorrason munk. Ed. Finnur Jonsson. Copenhagen: Gad, 1932.

OLAFS SAGA TRYGGVASONAR EN MESTA Oldfs saga Tryggvasonar en mesta. Ed. Olafur Halldorsson.

EA, A: 1-2. Copenhagen:

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ORKNEYINGA SAGA Orkneyinga saga. Ed. SigurSur Nordal.

SUGNL,

40. Copenhagen: S. L. Mpller,

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Orkneyinga saga.

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Heimskringla och den sarskilda

—

Icelandic Family Sagas

(Islendingasogur) Carol

While the than the

life

life

that life is

J.

Clover

represented in the Sagas

is

more

primitive, less civilised,

of the great Southern nations in the Middle Ages, the record of

by a

narrative then

still

greater interval in advance of

known

to the

more

fortunate or

all

the

common modes

more luxurious

of

parts of

Europe.

W.

P. Ker,

Epic and Romance

Not every reader would agree with W. P. Ker that the Icelandic family sagas are “in advance” or with Robert Scholes and Robert Kellogg that they are “miraculously precocious,” but few would deny that the sagas are different, even emphatically so, from the “common modes” of medieval literature.^ As fusions of history and legend in a vernacular prose form, the sagas constitute depending on one’s point of reference either Europe’s first novels or her only prose epics. This odd category is shared only by the roughly contemporary Irish

—

sagas, a coincidence often noted but never satisfactorily explained.

Given

this

awareness of the sagas’ deviant status

in

medieval

letters,

and

emergence without known antecedents, it is no surprise scholarship has from the outset been preoccupied with questions of back-

further given their abrupt that

ground and sources, tradition.

The

in particular the relation of the preserved texts to oral

history of saga scholarship

year-old debate on origins.

The

is in

effect the history of a hundred-

best-publicized phase of that debate

is

the one

dominated by the competing theories Andreas H^usler labeled freeprose and bookprose. Freeprose refers to the view that the sagas were orally composed and transmitted and that they existed in something like their present form before they

were written down. Bookprose holds thirteenth-century antiquarians

that the sagas are the literary creation of

who may have had some

recourse to oral tradi-

Epic and Romance: Essays on Medieval Literature (New York: Dover, 1957; originally published in 1897 and in a revised, second edition in 1908); Scholes and Kellogg 1966:43. 1.

W.

P. Ker,

239

240

Carol

form of complete sagas) but who

Clover

J.

more heavily on various literary sources and above all on their own imaginations. The freeprosesome scholars consider bookprose debate is no longer argued in those terms but the issue of origins is that it never was and that Heusler overstated the case still very much with us. It is a rare article or book that does not touch, directly or indirectly, on the question of how the sagas came to be. The discussion has been rekindled in the last two decades by the publication of Theodore M. Andersson’s critical evaluation of the issue {The Problem of Icelandic Saga Origins, 1964) and the general swell of interest in orally composed literatures throughout the tions (though not in the

relied

— —

*

world.

The year

that

Andersson’s history of saga scholarship leaves

a logical place for this survey to begin.

even though the period

is

task

short, the scholarly

lend themselves to a concise dic sagas remain the

The

summary. One

is

1964, seems

off,

not an easy one, however, for

developments

it

embraces do not

difficulty is sheer bulk.

most popular genre of Old Norse

The

literary studies,

Icelan-

and the

production of essays, books, editions, and translations has burgeoned in the

two decades. The present survey

is

for that reason

developments than are the other essays

in this

more

last

strictly limited to recent

who want

volume. Readers

a

deeper perspective can begin by consulting the works listed below. The second difficulty with recent saga scholarship is

its

consensus as to what constitutes a proper question and correct solution, the comparative

exists

it

and

no more. The

literary horizons

last

If there

ever was a

how one

arrives at a

heterodoxy.

twenty years have seen a widening of

and the emergence of a variety of methods

and approaches, not to speak of competing conclusions. In short, saga scholarship has finally

begun

resemble other medieval

to

literary scholarship.

sure, the issue of origins runs like a red thread through

secondary literature, but on the whole one at least as

compared

to the

struck

is

To be

most of the recent

by the diversity of

interests,

monothematic quality of criticism from the 1940s and

1950s. Still,

certain

themes emerge and certain zones can be staked out. In

this

chapter, recent contributions on the sagas are organized into three categories the basis of approach: source analysis (especially as represented

on

by the Icelandic

school), literary anthropology (social-historical studies), and literary formalism I

(which includes the new-traditionalist as well as survey

is

selective

and for

strictly literary writings).

that reason idiosyncratic,

wanting other recent opinions and further guidance literature

are directed to the following sources:

and so

in the

is this

Every

one. Readers

secondary and primary

Kurt Schier, Sagaliteratur

Les sagas islandaises (1978); Else Mundal, Sagadebatt (1977); Hans Bekker-Nielsen, Thorkil Damsgaard Olsen and Ole Widding, Norr0n fortaellekunst {^NFk)\ Preben Meulengracht Sprensen, Saga og samfund

(^Schier); Regis Boyer,

(1977b); Vesteinn Olason,

“Frasagnarlist

i

fomum sogum”

(1978); Gabriel

Saga” (1970); Theodore M. Andersson, The Icelandic Family Saga (1967; see also Andersson 1978a); Sigurd Kvaem-

Turville-Petre, “Altnordische Literatur:

Icelandic Family Sagas

241

drup’s introduction to Antologi af nordisk litteratur (1977); Gerd Wolfgang

“Die

Neues Handbuch der Literaturwissenschaft (1978); and Paul Schach, Icelandic Sagas (1984). Peter Hallberg’s book on the family sagas, still useful though somewhat dated, is now Weber’s

Literatur des

Nordens”

German

available in Danish (1965e) and

in

the

(1965f) as well as English (1962a) and

Swedish (1956). Recent and forthcoming encyclopedias and dictionwith coverage of saga topics (both general and specific articles) include

the original aries

Kulturhistorisk leksikon for nordisk middelalder

(KLNM); Kindlers

Literatur

Lexikon (KLL); Reallexikon der germanischen Altertumskunde (RGA); and Dictionary of the Middle

Ages (DMA). Last but not

least, there is the

annual Bibli-

ography of Old Norse-Icelandic Studies (BONIS), which presently covers the years 1963-79.

Source Analysis

To my knowledge was Hallvard Lie

the first person to use the term “Icelandic school” in print

in 1939.

“It has

become customary,” he wrote

in a critical

essay, “to speak of ‘the Icelandic school’ or simply ‘Nordal’s school’

wishes to

make

a point of the consensus of opinion that prevails within that circle

was likewise

of scholars and characterizes saga research in Iceland today.

It

Sigur5ur Nordal’s influence as a teacher that R. George

Thomas

tributed

when one

in

1950

to at-

“so much of the uniformity of outlook among present Icelandie scholars

and editors.”^

Remarkably

little

has changed in the intervening years. The term “Icelandie

school” continues to be used, and

it

continues to refer to that branch of saga

scholarship devoted to the use of the traditional tools of textual and source criticism in the service of determining manuscript

and

text relations.

The produc-

1933-54, of the Islenzk fomrit editions of the family sagas regarded as the great achievement of the Icelandic school.^ Nowhere are

tion, during the years is

justly

the priorities of Icelandic scholarship

more

clearly spelled out than in the intro-

ductions to these editions, which consider such matters as the individual saga’s literary sources (its rittengsl or literary connections),

use of skaldic stanzas,

manuscript transmission, dating, authorship, and provenance, but which do not consider, or consider only in passing, biases, or

its

narrative

art.

The

its

background,

oral

its

social

and

political

Icelandic editors, in short, are interested in the

sources of parts, not the shape or significance of the whole.

The

bias extends to

Icelandic scholarship in general. In the blunt words of Oskar Halldorsson,

2.

Hallvard Lie,

“Noen metodologiske

overveielser

og Minne (1939), p. 97. 3. R. George Thomas, “Studia Islandica, ”ML0, 4.

The

i

anl.

av

et

bind av ‘Islenzk fomrit,’ ”

“On Maal

11 (1950), 403.

Icelandic family sagas proper (the Islendingasdgur, also referred to as Sagas of Icelanders)

are contained in IF, vols.

2-12 and

14.

242

Carol

the artistic qualities of this branch of literature in general, for ture

and

style, virtually

example

J.

Clover

its

struc-

nothing has been written in the Icelandic language”

(1978a:318-19).

on written sources, and in their general the sagas are products of medieval “novelists” who had re-

In their nearly exclusive reliance

assumption that

course to a variety of manuscripts, the source analysts of the Icelandic school are the clear heirs of

bookprose tradition.^ But the source analysts of the Icelandic

school differ from their bookprose predecessors in two important ways. / ^

that

One

is

even the most programmatic of the source analysts are not as programmatic

as the

bookprose advocates were, nor as given to theory or synthesis. The source

analysts of the Icelandic school

seldom

if

ever consider the sagas as a phe-

nomenon; indeed, they seldom consider the “sagas” (in the plural) at all. They have preferred to proceed saga by saga, indeed part by part, hewing to what is demonstrable in the individual work. The second difference has to do with oral .tradition. To the extent that the bookprosists acknowledged its existence, they saw it as matter and not form. The source analysts of the Icelandic school, on the Mother hand, concede that oral tradition is in some degree responsible not only for points of content but also for some features of style and composition. When actually discussing oral tradition, however, the modem source analysts fall back on something like the following logic. The sagas do have an oral component, but it is largely unknown and probably unknowable in any precise sense. The lack of / \ an uncontaminated specimen of native tradition means that there is nothing to measure the given saga against. Folktales serve the purpose up to a point, but they shed no light on the origin and evolution of the long form. The sagas’ literary components, on the other hand, are identifiable by the usual methods of textual comparison. The task of the scholar, therefore, is to identify the literary I

elements

mainder

The

in the

sagas and, by logic of negative inference, to consign the re-

to native tradition.

results, in practice, are studies that are

long and specific in their exposure

of the sagas’ oral features but short and vague on their oral background. For

example,

in his

three-hundred-page book on Fostbroedra saga (1972), Jonas

Kristjansson appeals to oral tradition only in passing and mainly to explain inconsistencies or crude spots in the composition. In his chapter

the

on the family sagas

new three-volume survey of early Icelandic culture, Jonas

lists

oral tales as

in

one

of three sources used by saga authors (the other two being written materials and poetry), but again he does not issue of oral sources

go

into detail (1978:272-73). Jonas broaches the

most directly

in his analysis

of the skaldic

ingadrdpa, which refers to a number of persons and events (1975).

As long

as the

poem was

thought to be a

were explained as deriving from written versions.

from the twelfth century, as he argues, then 5.

Andersson (1964:82-119) gives a

critical

it

late If,

poem

known from

Islend-

the sagas

one, the saga references

however, the poem dates

contains “incontestable proof”

summary of

the Icelandic school position.

Icelandic Family Sagas ble proof”

—

that is,

literary existence

243

proof based on source-analytical arguments

—

for the pre-

both of skaldic stanzas on saga subjects and of versions of the

sagas themselves (1975:90).

what form these oral versions might have taken is a question Jonas does not address, however or rather, a question he addresses only in his final senJust

—

tence:

“The

extent to which points of detail in the drapa

seem

to

be almost

completely related to the early verses, does however suggest that such oral versions as existed behind the Islendingasogur were generally insubstantial and

under-developed” (1975:91). The oral background looms larger

in

Olafur Hall-

dorsson’s recent book on the medieval writings on Greenland (1978). In his

view, the extensive similarities between Einks saga rauda and Groenlendinga

saga are attributable not to

The sagas

literary

borrowing but to a

common

oral tradition.

are therefore best seen as oral variants (Olafur Halldorsson,

400). Faereyinga saga also contains elements

—

eleven, to be exact

—

1978:293that

can be

explained only by positing an active oral tradition (Olafur Halldorsson 1970). In both cases, however, oral matter

The one saga

that has for

is

viewed

some

as information only.

forty years stood as a test case for the

bookprose-Icelandic school position

is

Hrafnkels saga. Ever since Sigur5ur

Nordal published his 1940 monograph declaring Hrafnkatla to be “pure fiction” with no traditionalist basis whatever, the larger discussion of origins has centered

on

that saga

and

that analysis of the evidence.^ Dissenting voices

raised over the years, but until recently they

a “revolutionary proposal,” as into established doctrine,

dal’s opinion

Shaun

F.

had very

little

D. Hughes put

have been

What began as “has now hardened

effect.

it,

and those voices which have been raised against Nor-

consequence” (1980:301; also Fidjestpl decade has the counterevidence mounted to the point that

have been told of

little

Only in the last it could no longer be ignored. One of the first hints of a change in attitude came in the third edition of Oskar Halldorsson’ s school edition of Hrafnkels saga, into which was inserted a paragraph acknowledging the possibility of oral sources (1971:9). The year 1976 saw the more or less simultaneous publication of two independent attacks on the Nordalian doctrine regarding Hrafnkels saga. One was an article by Dietrich Hofmann, which argued for the traditional basis of the 1983).

SigurSur Nordal, Hrafnkatla, Studia Islandica, 7 (Reykjavik: Isafold, 1940). English translation: Hrafnkels saga Freysgoda, tr. R. George Thomas (Cardiff: Univ. of Wales, 1958). As recent scholars have stressed, Nordal’s views on Hrafnkels saga were anticipated by E. V. Gordon (“On 6.

Hrafnkels saga Freysgoda,” Medium vEvum, 8 [1939], 1-32) and Bjorn M. Olsen. See esp. Oskar Halldorsson 1976:14. “Strangely enough,” writes one reviewer, “Bjorn’s [Bjorn M. Olsen’s] work on Hrafnkels saga is not found in the collection of his essays [and unprinted lectures] published

posthumously in 1937-39” (Sverrir Tomasson, review of Oskar Halldorsson 1976, in SBVS, 20 [1978-79], 150; also Fidjestpl 1983:6). An important harbinger of the new-traditionalist reaction to Sigurbur Nordal’ s view is Marco Scovazzi, La saga di Hrafnkell e il problema delle saghe islandesi (Arona: Paideia, 1960). For recent surveys, see Hughes 1980 and Fidjestpl 1983. Work by SigurSur Nordal reissued in recent years includes Islandske streiflys (Bergen, etc.: Universitetsfodaget, 1965 [Norwegian translations of seven earlier essays]) and Urn islenzkar fornsogur (Reykjavik: Mai og

menning, 1968 [translation into Icelandic of ^Sigurdur Nordal]).

244

Carol

famous opening dream sequence of Hrafnkatla

I

—a

J.

Clover

sequence Sigur5ur Nordal

viewed as fabricated out of a passage in Landndmabok. Hofmann argues persuasively that the discrepancies between Hrafnkels saga and Landndmabok are not attributable to a fictionalizing author, as Sigur5ur are the result of the author’s attempt to

f

a competing oral version. If this

'

we have

then

is

would have

it,

but rather

harmonize the Landndmabok version with

so (and Hofmann’s, case

is

cogently argued),

an instance of a saga author’s having weighed oral against written

sources and given equal or greater credence to the former

a procedure with other attack on Icelandic

The was Oskar Halldorsson’s own book on Hrafnkels saga. After

important implications for saga studies in general. school doctrine

—

rehearsing the problems and the earlier discussion, he too proposes a “tradi-

was not a fictional character but a historical person whose extraordinary life story was preserved in oral tradition, one version of which found its way into the saga and a somewhat different version of which found its way into Landndmabok. (Oskar’s analysis of oral tradition draws on modem Norwegian folklore studies.) The perception, in the saga, of Hrafnkell’s dramatic fall from and second rise to power may reflect the political thinking of tional” solution: Hrafnkell

^

I

the thirteenth century, but the events are ultimately historical (Oskar Halldorsson

1976; also 1978b).

This challenge to Nordal has not passed unnoticed, and several critics have

added

their voices to

Hallberg 1977; is

one side or the other (Jon Hnefill A6alsteinsson 1977;

Hermann Palsson 1979g).

Klaus von See. Hrafnkels saga

is,

Especially strenuous in his objections

in his

view, far too politically charged, shot

through with anachronisms, and schematically organized to be anything but a literary construction

of the thirteenth century (von See 1979). Oskar Halldorsson

has also contributed a remarkably direct article in which he assesses in critical

terms the literary fixation, the methodology, and the nationalistic undercurrents of the Icelandic school (1978a; see also here this

Hermann Palsson

1969a).

What

not the critical opinion (see Andersson 1964:82-119), but that

is

time from the inside, not the outside.

voice, that of Kristin Geirsdottir,

who

in

From

the lay quarter

comes

it

is

new

comes

yet another

an essay entitled “Faein all3y5leg or5”

takes exception to point after point of the “anti-oral” position of the Icelandic

She wonders,

school.

in conclusion,

why

scholars have so

much

difficulty be-

two centuries of oral tradition in early Iceland when present-day mral Iceland, literate and modem though it may be, oral

lieving in the possibility of

even

in

family history can easily extend over four generations (1979:33-40; see also

Amor

Sigurjonsson 1976).

Oskar Halldorsson’s book, Hughes suggested that its implications “may be just as far reaching as they were in the wake of Nordal’ s Hrafnkatla there seems no reason to doubt that this is only the beginning of a renewed scholarly debate on Hrafnkels saga and the nature of the origin and In his review of

.

.

.

composition of the Family Saga” (1980:307-8; also Fidjestpl 1983).

It is

per-

Icelandic Family Sagas

245

haps too early to speak of a renewed scholarly debate, but there are a few small signs of change within the Icelandic scholarly

community. Oskar Halldorsson’s the appearance and scholarly acknowledgment of

writings are one such sign;

essay

Kristin Geirsdottir’s

is

another.

One can

also

not help noticing the

“denordalization” of saga studies in the years since his death. Jonas Kristjansson begins his article on the Islendingadrdpa with a remarkable preface

aimed

M. Olsen

Bjorn

at establishing

as the true spiritual father of the Icelandic

I

school (Sigur5ur Nordal

(

not even mentioned)

is

man who

Kristjansson takes pains to stress, a

— Bjorn

avoided the

Olsen being, Jonas extremes of

artificial

j

bookprose and freeprose by holding the sagas L

rather than just

we

await the fruits of this ideological adjustment with are

anonymous.^

It is

the case, since “authors” of other kinds of

1

be both traditional and

one or the other (1975:76-77). Jonas’s intention seems

The Icelandic sagas

r

to

some

not entirely clear

Norse

literary,

clear,

and

interest.

why

literature are

this

should be

known. Various

explanations for family saga anonymity are offered: the traditional nature of, the material and style or “the authors’

W

modesty or foreign influence or Catholicism

simply ‘custom,’ whatever that might

mean”

(Steblin-Kamenskij 1966:28).

any case, ever since N. F. S. Grundtvig proposed Snorri as the

In

Egils saga, the hunt for authors has been on.

It

man behind

has proceeded with particular

vigor in the last twenty years or so, presumably as part of the tendency of literary studies, in response to the

decade and a /

I

overweening position of the hard sciences

occupy

half, to

with empirical questions.^ The scholar

has done most to put saga authorship study on a scientific footing Hallberg,

who

in a .variety

is

who Peter

of publications has developed and applied an au-

thorship methodology based

I

itself

in the past

on the

statistical analysis

of correspondences in

^vocabulary, particularly the disposition of “pair words” (e.g.,

1965b and

1968a).

Remaining scholars

at the center

now suppose

of authorship speculation

that Snorri

is

Snorri Sturluson.

Most

wrote Egils saga (Hallberg 1962b; Vesteinn

Olason 1968; Bjami Einarsson 1975; West 1980; Jonas Kristjansson 1977a; Berman 1982). We shall probably never have full proof to that effect, but as Vesteinn Olason points out, the combination of accumulated positive evidence

and the absence of negative evidence strengthens the case (1968:66).

A comput-

er-aided analysis of that saga’s vocabulary likewise concludes that Snorri’s “statistical fingerprint is

very clear from the data” (West 1980:191).

Anne

Holts-

mark’s (tongue-in-cheek?) claim that Egils saga was the handiwork not of Snorri but of one of his associates has not attracted the

meantime been implicated

in the writing

1972a, 1972b: 183-96). Laxdcela saga

is

many

adherents (1971). Snorri has in

of Laxdcela saga as well (Madelung

otherwise thought to be the work either

The single exception is Droplaugarsona saga, the penultimate sentence of which reads; “His son was called Porvaldr, who told this saga” (chapter 15). 8. A more complete survey of the authorship discussion can be found in Mundal 1977:267-70. 7.

246

Carol

Clover

J.

of Olafr P6r5arson hvitaskald (Hallberg 1963, 1965c, 1968a: 57-60, 1978-79) ^

or of Sturla P6r6arson (Heller 1965,

1967;

Mundt 1965,

1969;

cf.

Mager0y

1971).

The

author has also been credited with Eyrbyggja saga (Hallberg

latter

1965b).^ Speculation continues as to the authorship of Njdls saga; Lars Lonnroth

underscores the likelihood that

was written by s.omeone

it

in or

near to the

Svinfelling family (1976:187). Richard Perkins argues convincingly that Flda-

manna saga was written for, and by someone near to, Haukr Erlendsson (1978). Helgi Gu5mundsson reluctantly rejects on grounds of insufficient evidence the Haukr wrote Kjalnesinga saga; it seems clear, however, that the author was someone very like Haukr in background and training (1967:77-83). Haukr has also been nominated as the author of Viga-Glums saga, partly on the basis of genealogy (Haukr being descended from Viga-Glumr) and partly on the possibility that

anachronism (Berger 1980).

basis of an implicating legal

One of that has

more appealing

the

gone along with

it.

sides of the authorship issue

As

is

the metadiscussion

early as 1939, Hallvard Lie posed

some

piercing

questions about both the methodology and the ultimate value of attaching

names

His criticism of the view of literary production that underlay the

to sagas.

many ways the Steblin-Kamenskij, who argue, on

Islenzk fomrit editors’ discussions of the subject anticipates in

more recent objections of Lonnroth and M.

I.

the basis of their surveys of the semantic fields of such

saman (compose), and sagnamadr (‘saga man’)

(write), setja J

Norse words as that the

medieval

Icelanders had different notions of “authors” and “authorship” and that efforts to attribute texts to particular

mann Palsson 1973b:2 19-20). Moreover, Heimskringla and Snorra Edda in fact

put

it)

authored by Snorri that

—

rests

its

Her-

cf.

the attribution of Egils saga (or any linguistic

and other

on the assumption

similarities with

that the latter texts

again, authored in the sense (as Ole

Strindberg authored

modem

people are fundamentally anachronistic

(Lonnroth 1964:9-20; Steblin-Kamenskij 1966, 1973a: esp. 50-68; other saga) to Snorri on the basis of

rita

Roda rummet (1965:84-85;

were

Widding once also Lonnroth

1964:78-97). Widding argued that the data used to prove that Snorri wrote both Egils saga and Heimskringla could just as well be used to prove he wrote neither

(1965:84).

The

that of Olafur

discussions of

strongest case to date for Snorri’s authorship of Heimskringla

Halldorsson (1979). Finally, mention

method

that

seem

authorship. Points of Hallberg’s

9.

Hallberg

is

of some of the

inevitably to attach to inquiries into dating and

methodology have been questioned by

Leoni (1970) and Oskar Handle (1965)

methodology have been

may be made

is

criticized

here following the lead of

in particular; points

F.

A.

of Marina Mundt’s

by Sture Allen (1971) among others; and Gunnar Benediktsson, Sagnameistarinn

Sturla (Reyk-

Bokautgafa Menningarsjods og PJoSvinafelagsins, 1961). Lie, “Noen metodologiske overveielser,” esp. pp. 114-34. The most vigorous advocate of the Icelandic school position in the last two decades has been Peter Hallberg, a Swede.

javik:

10.

Icelandic Family Sagas

247

Handle’s objections to Hallberg’s “pair word’’ analysis (1965, 1968) have been

^answered by G. Herdan (1968). Just as the sagas are anonymous, so

One of the main aims

are they undated.

of

the source analysts has been to establish a chronology of manuscripts and texts.

When the main events

of a given saga took place

the saga took

form

its

final

^the manuscripts, the style,

is

is

in

notoriously difficult to

anonymity of the authors, the

most cases clear; but when pin down. The lateness of homogeneity of the

relative

and the possibility that such “contemporary’’ references as

exist are inter-

ipolations (for example, allusions to events or persons of the author’s I

genealogies that extend to the “present’’) in time.

It

is

all

era or

but defeat efforts to locate the saga

the premise of the Icelandic school, spelled out in Einar 01.

Sveinsson’s 1958 monograph, that the most

nology of the sagas and that textual

own

and source

this

we can hope

can be arrived

at

for

is

a relative chro-

only through a combination of

criticism.

Arguments on the dating of individual sagas and saga manuscripts

are

summa-

rized in the Islenzk fomrit introductions, as well as in the individual entries in

KLNM

and the chronological table

Kurt Schier’s Sagaliteratur (^Schier, pp. 50-59). Since the publication of these works, however, there have been some significant developments.

saga. Gisla saga

is

One

in

of these has to do with the manuscripts of Gisla

one of the few saga

different redactions: a shorter

one (the

texts to

be transmitted in significantly

M version), conventionally held to be the

primary one and the one on which most of the secondary

longer one (the S version), long thought to be secondary. priority of the versions,

and a

literature is based;

In reversing the

Gu5ni Kolbeinsson and Jonas Kristjansson (1979) have

changed our understanding of

that saga

the divergence of the redactions

is

—

most

early chapters, in

which

radical (see also Berger 1979,

Rohn

or at least

its

1979, and Jakobsen 1982a, 1982b).

New dates

of composition have also been suggested for both Fostbroedra saga

and Reykdcela saga. Fostbroedra saga, with diction and

its

its

irregularities of construction

obvious indebtedness both to hagiographic

literature

eval medical and rhetorical learning, has long been regarded as an It is

indeed partly because of

its

awkwardness, especially

its

nections, that an earlier generation of scholars assigned the

and

to

awkward

and

medicase.

hagiographic con-

work

a date at the

very beginning of the saga- writing period (ca. 1200). This view has been chal-

lenged by Jonas Kristjansson in a book (1972) that ranks, along with Bjami Einarsson’s book on Egils saga (1975) and Rolf Heller’s book on Laxdoela saga I

(1976a), as one of the three main source-analytical monographs of the last two I

11.

Einar 01. Sveinsson, Dating the Icelandic Sagas:

An Essay

in

Method, Viking Society for

Northern Research, Text Series, 3 (London; Viking Society for Northern Research, 1958). Expanded Icelandic version: Ritunartimi Islendingasagna: Rok og rannsoknaradferd (Reykjavik; Hid Islenzka

Bokmenntafelag, 1965). 12.

The

M version

is

presented as the main text in IE. The S version

Membrana Regia Deperdita, EA, A:5 (1960), 3-80.

may

be found

in

Agnete Loth,

248

Carol

J.

Clover

decades. Through a combination of textual and source criticism (in particular an '

analysis of

relation to the kings’ saga tradition

its

translated romances), Jonas Kristjansson

—

position forward a century \

placing

it,

and

connection with the

its

moves Fosthroedra saga's in other

date of com-

words, toward the end of the

saga-writing period rather than at the beginning (1971, 1972, 1976;

Hallberg

cf.

1976a). Reykdcela saga, on the other hand, has been redated in the opposite direction

(Hofmann

1972).

It

has conventionally been assigned to the middle of

Hofmann produces

the thirteenth century, but Dietrich

1207 and 1220

dating between

Hofmann

makes

also

—

at the

very beginning of the saga period.

the case that Reykdcela saga

kings’ saga tradition and that

it is

But attempts

inevitably beset

is

to date the sagas

statistical

copies, there

by the same problems as the attempts

is

methods

oral.

to the ques-

on the basis of linguistic

Because the surviving manuscripts of the sagas are ^

wholly independent of the

based entirely on local sources, mostly

Recent years have also seen the application of tion of dating.

several arguments for a

criteria are

to establish authorship.

of

later copies, or copies

always the possibility, perhaps even the likelihood, that the

copyists changed the language. Hallberg acknowledges this problem but argues that the data are too that the copyists’

many and

too consistent to be so dismissed and moreover

tendency would be to modernize the language, not archaize

it

(1972:215). His analysis of the relative frequency of the synonyms hitta(sk) and

we normally

finna(sk) shows a preponderance of the former in texts earlier {Egils saga, Olafs

saga helga

a preponderance of the latter in texts

in

regard as

Heimskringla, and Heidarviga saga) and

we normally

regard as later {Grettis saga,

Njdls saga, Finnboga saga, and Viglundar saga) (Hallberg 1968a: esp. 100102, 1965b, 1972:214-15). Hallberg also uses the hitta/finna criterion to support his contention that

Eyrbyggja saga was written by Sturla P6r6arson (1979;

Heller 1978b).

Hallberg ’s

mode

of inquiry

is

not conceptually different from that of tradi-

tional source analysis but is rather

its

empirical extension, and

surprise that his results tend to confirm standard views. fore, are those cases in

which

his conclusions

contradict the standard view. Fostbroedra saga \

i

jansson judges to

it

what originally appeared

Of some

comes

no

interest, there-

do not accord with but is

as

directly

a case in point. Jonas Krist-

on source-analytical grounds, and Hallberg judges

to be late

be early on the basis of

it

its

to

linguistic features. Gisla

saga

is

it

another example;

be a neat confirmation of the hittalfinna distribution

two versions has now been upended by the new view of that saga’s manuscript tradition (Gu5ni Kolbeinsson and Jonas Kristjansson 1979). At present, scholars seem inclined to put greater faith in the more traditional methods of source analysis. But if, as seems inevitable as we enter the computer age, empirical studies of the sort pioneered by Hallberg become more refined and more frequent, we can perhaps look forward to the integration of statistical methods into traditional textual studies. in the

The redatings of Fostbroedra saga and Reykdcela saga

are of

some

interest in

Icelandic Family Sagas

249 and development. Fostbroedra saga

the larger discussion of saga origins

skald saga, and

it

is

a

has been speculated that the skald sagas as a group constitute

an evolutionary link between the somewhat earlier kings’ saga tradition and the

somewhat

later

ally shifted

family saga tradition. According to this thinking, interest gradu-

from the Norwegian kings

to the poets in their courts (a natural

development because the poets and the authors of the kings’ sagas, sector of the early audience,

were mostly Icelandic), so

as well as a

that in time the poets,

and eventually their Icelandic families and communities, themselves became the subjects of sagas.

Norwegian

The appeal of

this

model

is

obvious:

it

explains the shift from

to Icelandic subject matter as well as the shift in

form from royal

biography to community chronicle. The chronological premise here skald sagas as a group antedate the family sagas as a group

—

that the

— accorded

until

recently with the dates assigned to individual sagas. Kurt Schier listed as the oldest family sagas Heidarviga saga, Fostbroedra saga,

Kormdks saga, Hall-

fredar saga, Bjarnar saga Hitdoelakappa, and Egils saga (^Schier, pp. 50-51). Of these, only the first, Heidarviga saga, is not a skald saga. If we now accept the redating of Fostbroedra saga (marginally a skald saga) to the thirteenth century

and Reykdoela saga

end of the

(a saga of the district chronicle type) to the

beginning, the model collapses. Like Heidarviga saga, Reykdoela saga focuses not on an individual but on

community

conflict;

it is

moreover a saga with no

apparent connection to the kings’ sagas. Needless to say, the existence of

dawn

full-

\

fledged Icelandic sagas of the district chronicle type at the

/

saga period undercuts the view that family saga writing was an extension of

On the contrary,

kings’ saga writing via the skald sagas. that the Icelanders

tradition that

had a prior

equipped them

to

tradition,

and

that

it

of the family

would seem was precisely it

to suggest this prior

undertake the dramatic chronicling of the Nor-

wegian kings.

Whether or not they are pivotal

in the evolution of Icelandic prose, the skald

sagas constitute an intriguing subcategory of saga literature. Unlike works of the district

chronicle type (such as Eyrbyggja, Vdpnfirdinga, Njdla, Laxdoela), they

concentrate on individual destinies

—

destinies informed to an unprecedented

degree by ill-starred romance (Dronke 1978; Wright 1973; Andersson 1967, esp.

226-28; Marold 1973; Schottmann 1982; Bredsdorff 1971). The study of the skald sagas has been dominated for the past two decades by Bjami Einarsson, /

’

who

has published three books on the subject: one on the skald sagas as a group

Kormdks saga and Hallfredar saga (1976a), and one on Egils To a certain extent Bjami’s books rehearse and augment earlier

(1961), one on

saga (1975).

arguments regarding the sagas’ holds,

for example,

literary

that Egils

saga

connections with other Norse works.

— only

marginally a skald saga

He

— and

Heimskringla draw on the same sources and moreover that Heimskringla makes direct use of Egils

Berman

saga (1975: esp. 29-43;

cf.

Jonas Kristjansson 1977a and

Bjami also explores the parallels between Egils saga and Jomsvikinga saga, Pinga saga, and Orkney inga saga, and he concludes that the 1982).

250

Carol

author of Egils saga, presumably Snorri, drew on factual information but for political notions

and

all

J.

Clover

of these works not only for

artistic

design. His depiction of

Egils saga as a well-wrought novel drawing liberally on earlier written sources fully consistent with the general

But Bjami Einarsson

is

best

is

views of the Icelandic school.

known

for his efforts to find literary sources for

beyond the Scandinavian arena. In his book on Egils saga, for example, he revives the idea that chapter 64 of that saga derives ultimately from the skald sagas

Chretien’s Yvain (1975:184-86), and he further proposes that certain points of Egill’s character

and actions have Christian analogues (1975:176-80, 259-65;

Boyer 1973:18; Clunies Ross 1978). In the skald sagas proper, especially Kormdks saga, Bjami finds a strong influence from the Tristan legend in the form both of particulars and of a romantic sensibility. The idea the impact of the translations into

Norse

(the first

is

not new, of course;

one probably

in

1226) of

Thomas’s version of that tragic love story has long been recognized. Where Bjami Einarsson, like Paul Schach, differs from previous scholars is in his view that some of the Tristan motifs scattered about Norse literature derive from versions other than Thomas’s in other words, that they entered Norse literature not via the known translations but directly from foreign sources, perhaps transmitted by Icelanders abroad (1976a:29-34; Schach 1969; Tveitane 1969:88-92). From such reflexes of the Tristan material the love plots of the skald sagas were conceived, Bjami argues, and then augmented with stanzas fabricated in imitation of troubadour poetry (see also von See 1978-79, 1980; cf. Hofmann 1978-

—

79). (The role

The reader

is

and authenticity of the sagas’ skaldic verse remains a referred to Roberta Frank’s essay in this

volume

lively issue.

for a discussion

and bibliography.)

The

criticisms of

Bjami Einarsson’s work, some of which were aired

in

an

X

article

by Einar 01. Sveinsson (1966a, 1966b) and others

in a journal

(Bjami Einarsson 1971a; Andersson 1969), offer an insight into

odology of the Icelandic school, despite

its

meant,

form of manuscripts known in practice, the

to

have circulated

avoidance of those areas of the

“material links’’ are scanty or absent.

such an area.

Its

the meth-

ostensible neutrality, has conditioned

decisively the form and direction of scholarly research. in the

how

debate

The in

insistence

on sources

medieval Iceland has

literature for

The Franco-Norse

which such

literary interface is

exploration has gone as far as the demonstrable points of contact

(the extant translations of verse

romances and chansons de geste) and no

despite larger similarities that cry out for explanation.

The reader of

further,

skaldic and

troubadour poetry and biography cannot help being stmck by both the formal and

phenomenal

parallels (von

See 1978-79, 1980; Bjami Einarsson 1976b: 13-29),

and the same goes for the reader of saga and prose romance (Clover 1982).

comes down scholars

is at

dic school

is

to the value

of circumstantial evidence, which for

least strongly suggestive if not persuasive but

no evidence

at all.

The

many

It

readers and

which for the Icelan-

circumstantial evidence for a fuller and

more

varied influence from French medieval culture than strict source analysis admits

Icelandic Family Sagas

is

251

considerable, and one suspects that the definitive chapter of this side of Norse

literary history

remains to be written.

“Foreign influence” was indeed one of the main considerations ic

in the

dramat-

reaction, in the mid-1960s, against the methodological and ideological conser-

vatism of saga scholarship. The collaborative volume Norr0n fortsellekunst

CNFk)

distinguished itself from earlier literary histories in three important ways:

deemphasis of what are conventionally viewed as the “main” genres (family and kings’ sagas) and its corresponding emphasis of such neglected (1) in

its

genres as saints’ lives and learned history writing; (2) in

its

effort to obliterate the

between “native” and “foreign” or “learned” general assumption that the medieval Icelanders were

traditional sharp distinction literature;

and

(3) in its

considerably more conversant with, and indebted to, contemporary European culture, or sectors of

it,

than traditional scholarship has been inclined to allow.

The same ideas had been earlier promulgated in more elaborate and also more polemfcal form by Lars Lonnroth in four dissertation-derived articles published mid-1960s (1963, 1963-64, 1964, 1965a, 1965b; see also Tveitane 1969:77-84). The ensuing debate between Lonnroth (1967, 1968) and Peter

in

the

Hallberg (1965d, 1966a) was more than a collision of individual personalities;

was also tionist

on one hand, the

a collision between,

traditional philology

and

it

isola-

views of the generation of saga scholars under the sway of Sigur5ur

Nordal, and, on the other, the more eclectic methodology and European literaryhistorical perspective of a

Europeanism

is

new

generation of scholars, mostly non-Icelanders.^^

by no means a new development

in

Norse

studies.

The influence

of European literature, especially learned history writing and hagiography, on northern prose has long been acknowledged by saga scholars of

all stripes.

(distinguishes the Europeanists of the 1960s and 1970s (Lonnroth,

What

Hans Bekker-

Damsgaard Olsen, Bjami Einarsson, Ole Widding, Mattias Hermann Palsson) from their predecessors is the kind and degree of

Nielsen, Thorkil ^Tveitane,

influence they posit. If the earlier generation of scholars thought of “influence” as involving occasional bits of foreign matter or ideology inserted into an essentially

native form, the

new Europeanists

are

more

inclined to see

them

as ele-

whole that itself owes European debts: an intellectual debt ^to medieval theology and a formal debt to medieval historiography. In the meantime, the list of suspected foreign debts, large and small, continues /to grow. The irreverent tone of Bandamanna saga, Olkofra pdttr, and parts of Grettis saga has been attributed to the mode of the European fabliau and novella, and it has been suggested that at least one episode in Grettis saga, Grettir’s nude possibly, depending on how late a scene, owes its origin to an Italian source ments integrated

in a

.

—

date one assigns to that saga, Boccaccio’s story of Masetto (Glendinning 1970).

The

relationship

between Grettis saga and Beoww/f continues

(Jorgensen 1973, 1978, 1979;

J.

to attract attention

Turville-Petre 1977; R. Harris 1973;

Madelung

Lonnroth later modified his position on some of these points. See the introduction to his 1976 book on Njdls saga; see also Chesnutt 1973 for a general assessment of Lonnroth’s views. 13.

252

Carol

1969), and

two scholars have speculated, apparently independently,

account of Porkell hakr’s monster fights

in

Njdls saga (chapter

1 1

9)

is

J.

Clover

that the brief

also cognate

(Opland 1973; Clark 1973). Njdls saga has long been rich territory for seekers of foreign influences. Einar 01. Sveinsson suggested some years ago that a passage in Alexanders saga (the

with

Icelandic translation of the Alexandreis)

which Gunnarr leaps from

was

model

the

home

his horse, gazes at his

decision not to leave Iceland.

for the scene in Njdla in field,

Lonnroth has suggested

scene but the whole of “ Gunnarr’ s saga” (the

first

and makes

his fatal

that not only this short

half of Njdla)

is

informed by

themes of the Alexander story (1970a; also 1976:152-60). The characof Gunnarr and Njall, and the bipartite construction of their saga, have been

the moral ters

related to Isidore’s

dream

in

dictum dbouX fortitudo and sapientia (Chesnutt 1973). Flosi’s

Njdls saga (chapter 133) and Egill’s rune-carving in Egils saga (chapter

44) are just two of the numerous saga loans from Gregory’s Dialogues listed by

Regis Boyer (1973).*^ Gabriel Turville-Petre speculates that the Somniale

many

Danielis was the direct or indirect source for

saga visions and dreams,

especially those involving serpents, wolves, deer, and other non-Icelandic crea-

The scholar who has done more than any other to establish the importance of medieval Christian philosophy in the North is Hermann Palsson; his prolific contributions in this area will be taken up in some detail later. The medical and ethical digressions, as well as the stylistic flourishes, in tures (1966).

Fdstbrcedra saga have long been the subject of

adduced numerous parallels (including sources, which, because they

stylistic

later,

ones) in French and Latin in Iceland before the

support his theory of a late date for that

saga (1971, 1972:238-91). Fdstbrcedra saga its

Jonas Kristjansson has

would not have been available

middle of the thirteenth century or traces of cursus in

interest.

also the only saga that

is

shows

prose style (Jakob Benediktsson 1974:20). Formal matters

A

recent dissertation

ascribes certain of the Icelandic sagas’ narrative techniques to

European romance

have not otherwise received much comparative attention.

evolution of saga prose in the context of the

compositionally similar

art

My own

book considers contemporaneous evolution of

convention via the riddarasggur (Rossenbeck 1970).

prose on the Continent (Clover 1982).

Margaret Schlauch has pointed out some similarities between Gunnlaugs saga

and the story of Polynices and Eteocles, although she hesitates to posit influence even via Le Roman de Thebes (1972). The intriguing but inexplicable parallels

between the torture noted once again 1978b). Frederic things French and

in

Hrafnkels saga and two Homeric torture episodes has been

(McKeown 1972; cf. Hofmann 1976a, and Andersson 1977, Amory reminds us that Byzantine writers too were fond of borrowed accordingly and

that

what sometimes appear

to

be

See Einar 6l. Sveinsson’s introduction in IF, 12;xxxvi. 15. The Njdla author’s use of Gregory has been explored in particular by Einar 01. Sveinsson; see, for example, his note in IF, 12:346-48, and his Njdls saga: Kunstverket (Bergen: Universitetsforlag14.

et,

1959), p. 15.

.

Icelandic Family Sagas

253

Byzantinisms in Icelandic sources tion (1984).

The

Irish

many

to

well stem from a

common

French

tradi-

connection continues to be explored, particularly in the

folklore area. Despite the (far too

may

numerous and

mention here)

and extent of Celtic-Norse

have come to

that

form and content

striking parallels in

literary influence

light

over the years, the nature

remains essentially mysterious

(Chesnutt 1968). Readers wishing further guidance can consult Michael Ches-

and Davi6 Erlingsson’s bibliographic survey (1970, 1971, 1972). Two of the three main Icelandic-school monographs of the last two decades

nutt’s

have already been discussed; Jonas Kristjansson’s book on Fdstbroedra saga and

Bjami Einarsson’s book on Egils saga. The third is Rolf Heller’s book on Laxdosla saga (1976a). Heller, originally a student of Walter Baetke,^^ sounds his theme in the title: Die Laxdoela Saga: Die literarische Schdpfung eines Islanders des 13. Jahrhunderts Just how freely the Laxdoela author played with history can be seen from the discrepancies between the saga and Landndmabok (that these discrepancies might stem from competing oral variants is not a possibility Heller entertains).

Other written sources used by the author are family

and kings’ sagas and also the contemporary texts Sturlunga saga and the bishops’ sagas (see also Heller 1965, 1966b, 1969a, 1974, 1976b).

from the in a

latter

The appropriation

of events, personal descriptions, motifs, and even language results

saga unusually rich in anachronisms. The historical sources give no hint of a

love dimension, and Heller maintains that the triangle plot too author’s

own

construction, which, he points out,

Gu5run-Sigurd-Brynhild story of eddic (especially the later elegiac lays)

Laxdoela saga that Heller

is

tradition.

is

clearly

is

modeled on the

Also referred to eddic tradition

the saga’s emotional tone.

is

inclined to see

it

the Laxdoela

So

allusive

as a novelists’ novel. Its author

any case fully deserving of Heusler’s epithet “der Laxdoelakiinstler.

is

is in

”

Literary Anthropology

In 1971 the noted anthropologist Victor

W.

Turner paid his respects to the

Icelandic sagas. Despite the “jagged and treacherous terrain of Icelandic saga origins and datings,” Turner wrote, anthropologists have early Iceland, via the saga

medium, and

(Turner 1971). Turner’s enthusiasm

where

else in the

is

medieval world do

in turn

much

to learn

from

to offer Icelandic studies

readily understood

we

much

by saga readers. No-

find such elaborately and realistically

detailed accounts of people’s political and legal dealings with one another, and j

nowhere

else are historical events as fully fleshed out with social motivations

consequences. I

It is

obvious that the sagas are rooted

contemporary European 16.

is

not; as

best

known

literature

Baetke, an ardent bookprosist,

is

Ker put for his

it,

Uber

in reality in a

way

and that

their “close relation to the

die Entstehung der Isldndersagas,

Berichte iiber die Verhandlungen der Sachsischen Akad. der Wiss. zu Leipzig, phil.-hist. Kl., vol. cii, pt.

5 (1956), pp. 5-108.

Carol

254

whom they

were made

J.

Clover

them a substance and a solidity beyond anything else in the imaginative stories of the Middle Ages.”^^ But what reality? The impulse to read the sagas as historical documents is not

lives of those for

new, as any glance

at

.

.

.

[has] given

nineteenth-century scholarship will show. But this ap-

proach was dealt a hard blow by the bookprosists’ demonstration that the picture

and tenth centuries

the sagas paint of the ninth folklore,

and sheer

is full

of distortion, anachronism,

Nor, because of their antiquarian pretensions, do the

fiction.

sagas offer a clear insight into the thirteenth century, written.

but

The sagas may

we do

not

they were actually

closer than other medieval literature to people’s lives,

lie

know whether

the “reality” they reflect

settlement period, or the writing period, or these periods in a syncretic combination

some period

the reality of the

is

between, or

in

— or whether indeed

some imaginative version of their pagan Icelanders collectively subscribed. The documents all,

when

or

past to

it is

all

of

“reality” at

which the medieval

that appear at first glance to

be such a rich source of social history thus end up, on consideration of the scholarly problems, seeming hopelessly intractable.*^

The promotion of

from history to literature has discouraged and complicated inquiries into their social and historical background. Still, interest in these matters remains strong, and recent decades have seen the evolution of two the sagas

acceptable scholarly strategies.

One

involves measuring the sagas’ representation

of events and customs against that of a set of texts thought to

lie

closer to history:

Landndmabok. “historical canon” are

the laws, the bishops’ sagas, Sturlunga saga, Islendingabdk, Siud

Points on which the sagas are in agreement with this

assumed

to

be

But when there are discrepancies, priority

true.

is

usually given to

canon” and the sagas are assumed to be incorrect. For example, a recent study of women’s role in marriage and divorce in early Iceland concludes, by comparing the sagas with the “historical texts,” that the picture in the sagas is not true but is an idealized back projection, encouraged by the church (Jochens the “historical

1980 ).

The problem with

this strategy lies in its

superiority of the

“historical

works

mode and

in a different

reliability

automatic assumption of the historical

canon.” Islendingabdk and Landndmabdk are have been of limited use

as such

of the sagas’ social picture.

To some

extent the

in

determining the

same

is

true of the

bishops’ sagas, which give a highly selective and often suspiciously conventional picture of secular society.

such that

The laws

almost impossible to gauge what historical period

transmission

is

they reflect.

Nor do we know

degree normative

—

to

it

is

are notoriously problematic; the manuscript

to

what degree laws are descriptive and

what extent,

that

is,

to

they reflect an actual and to

extent a merely desirable state of affairs on the part of lawmakers.

what what

“The law

Ker, Epic and Romance, p. 184. 18. For a consideration of the possibilities and problems in using the sagas as ethnographic 17.

documents, see John Lindow 1973. The most recent scholar Iceland is Kirsten Hastrup (1979a, 1979b, 1981).

to attempt

an ethnography of medieval

Icelandic Family Sagas

codes,” as one

255

put

critic

actual state of affairs.

it,

Law

“are not on their

demonstrates

first

own

sufficient evidence of the

and foremost what the

wanted when the law was enacted. But we cannot be sure

when we

necessarily observed, and

we know

that

legislator

any act of law was

are dealing with remote times about

which

often difficult to discern the intention of a given piece of

little, it is

(Gunnar Karlsson 1977:360; also 1972:6). Nor does it seem prudent to regard the “contemporary sagas” known collectively as Sturlunga saga as the Rock of Gibraltar in medieval Icelandic histo-

legislation”

may

/riography. Sturlunga saga sagas, but

1

Vfactual

it

is

not be as patently contrived as the Icelandic

nevertheless suspiciously novelistic in tone, a far cry from the

mode of European

chronicles.

It is

also suspiciously stylized in

its

presen-

example violent conflict (Ulfar Bragason 1981; Andersson 1975a:440-41). The events of Sturlunga saga are no more verifiable than the events of the family sagas, and for the same reason: there exist no independent sources against which they can be measured. Faith in Sturlunga

tation of certain actions, for

saga’s historical authority rests largely on describes,

some of which

proximity

is

its

relative proximity to the events

transpired during the lifetime of

only relative; the most relevant portions of Sturlunga saga (the

dyra, and Hrafns saga Sveinbjarnarsonar) (ten to

may

lie at

Gudmundar saga

considerably less remove

one hundred years) from the events they describe than do the family sagas

(two hundred to four hundred years), but they are /

authors. But that

its

twelfth-century works Porgils saga ok Haflida, Sturlu saga, V

it

In any case, relative proximity to the events

cveracity.

It

is

still

not “contemporary.”

in itself

no guarantee of

could indeed be argued that the political and social pressures of the

Sturlung period were such that distortion was inevitable. Porgils saga skarda patently tendentious, for example, as

is

Hrafns saga Sveinbjarnarsonar, and the

question arises whether the presence of collection does not

compromise

is

some untrustworthy

the veracity of the whole.

material in the

One

also

wonders

whether the accounts of recent or contemporary events might not have been subject to stricter censorship on certain sensitive issues than were the accounts of

On

ancient times.

the subject of infanticide, for example,

some form and degree

well (so laws, I

Sturlunga saga the

pagan past

common

sense suggest),

Evidently authors were willing to admit to practices in

that they preferred to suppress in the Christian present. In the area

of shameful practices associated with paganism, the family sagas truer picture of reality

(precisely because of

X The I

mentioned

and thirteenth-century Iceland as

analogous evidence, and

folklore, is silent.

in twelfth-

is

and which must have

(albeit disapprovingly) several times in the family sagas

existed in

which

— not

in spite

may

offer a

of their greater distance from the events but

it.

second strategy for getting

at the

sagas as cultural documents

is

simply to

ignore the issue of their historicity and to concentrate instead on their signifi-

[cance to the audience that produced and consumed them (fourteenth centuries. This

is

the point of departure for

in the thirteenth

and

two books by Preben

256

Carol

Clover

J.

Meulengracht S0rensen: Saga og samfund (1977b) and Norr0nt nid (1980). The former attempts to present early Icelandic literature not

in philological

terms but

of social and economic structures in medieval Icelandic culture. In his

in the light

illuminating discussion of kinship structures, Meulengracht Sprensen brings to

bear on the Scandinavian sources what

may

be called “analogical data” from the

discipline of anthropology (1977b:30-36). Despite

and

readability

common

sense, however, and despite

ceed synchronically. Saga og samfund

still

Norr0nt

is

phenomena and concerns

sagas

if

its

it

disclaims.

The

constraints of

which views “homosexual”

nid,

itself

to

origins, could not

The premise here

have survived as an

integral

and masculinity on which

the notions of femininity

insults as

only in passing with their origins (Meulen-

gracht Sprensen 1980; also Strom 1972, 1974).

matter what

stated intention to pro-

and social history rather than integrating them. More

literary

successful in both respects social

its

Meulengracht Sprensen’s tendency

traditional categories are also revealed in

between

considerable virtues of

worries to a considerable extent,

directly or indirectly, the very philological issues

alternate

its

is

that nid,

element

it is

no

in the

based did not

also obtain for the audiences of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

The advantages of

this

synchronic approach are obvious. Freed from the

obsession with reconstructing actual historical events, the

critic

can concentrate

on the personal and social values that emerge from the study of themes, biases, patterns, structures, distaste for

approach

New

and oppositions. In

fact, despite their

declared or undeclared

Criticism or aesthetic formalism, advocates of the “social”

are, ironically,

sometimes so indebted

to this style of analysis that

The disadvantages

are equally obvious.

one

One

is

hard-pressed to see the difference.

is

always aware, for example, of the inherent circularity in such argumentation.

The

virtual

absence of independent sources for the social and political history of

means

viking and medieval Scandinavia

that speculations

on such matters must

be derived from the very texts one seeks to illuminate. Moreover, one tends to

grow impatient with pure description the observation that the presence of

any form and with the self-evidence of

in

X

insults) in a literature suggests a society

the use of analogical evidence

is

(feud, marital problems,

homosexual

preoccupied with X. Finally, as far as

concerned, one must bear in mind that the

equation between the preindustrial peoples of early Europe and present-day preindustrial peoples around the world

employed with caution. None of impossible

— only

that

it

is

this is to

by no means automatic and must be say that social analysis of the sagas

hard to do well and

is

is

necessarily tentative in

conclusions. In the long run, the importance of Meulengracht Sprensen ’s

may

lie less in his

the society that

modem

its

work

actual analyses than in his effort to reconnect the sagas with

produced and consumed them and

social scientific concepts

ments beg for such treatment

—

and findings

feminism has had

to bring,

to bear

whatever the

pitfalls,

on a society whose docu-

widen the horizons. In the scholarly no mean achievement.

in general, to

milieu in which he began his work, this

Modem

is

less

is

impact on saga studies than on other medieval

Icelandic Family Sagas

literatures,

257

perhaps because saga

women, prominent

long ago as scholarly subjects and their literary

Recent commentators along these

critics.

were discovered role remarked by generations of as they are,

selves in the position not of exploring the territory for the

reacting to the claims of their predecessors.

them-

lines, therefore, often find

Helga Kress argues

first

time but of

that

Andersson’s

j

commitment

male feuding as the structuring principle of saga narrative does particular violence to Laxdcela saga, which is clearly organized from beginning Vto end around the life of Gu6run Osvifrsdottir (1980:266-72; A. R. Taylor /

to

Conroy has made much

same point about Einks saga rauda: critics who have found the plot diffuse and heroless would do well to look to the other gender, for like Laxdoela saga, Einks saga rauda is framed as a female biography (1980). Helga Kress also notes the many instances in Laxdcela saga of women’s reaction against a narrowly defined female role, and she wonders 1974). Patricia

the

whether the original material of the story might not have had a different shape

and aim than

has in the surviving saga, in which women’s interests have been

it

^subordinated to those of

men and Gu5run remodeled

as a love heroine in the

eddic pattern (1980:272-79).

The female

characters in Njdls saga, above

all

Hallger5r, continue to fascinate

readers and to prompt different interpretations even

among

work (Helga legitimacy of the women’s

Helga Kress underscores the misogyny

nist orientation.

Kress 1977, 1979). Marina

Mundt emphasizes

the

scholars with a femiin that

harsh reactions to infringements on what they perceive to be their natural rights (1976).

Nanna

Olafsdottir suggests that A/d/a’s females are

the males (1977).

And

Ursula Dronke stresses the unusual degree and subtlety of

the Njdla author’s interest in male-female relations, stereotypical patterns in earlier sagas

concludes that of \

Au5r, serve the

its

more masculine than

which transcend the narrow,

(Dronke 1980).

An

analysis of Gisla saga

eighteen female characters those who, like Gisli’s wife

interests

of the patriarchal family fare better than those who, like

^ordis, act at cross-purposes with their male relatives (Grpnstpl 1979).

/ (

Kellogg has made the intriguing literary-historical suggestion that the peculiar

persistence of the vernacular in Iceland

of

women,

for

whom the

literature (1971).

indirectly testify to the participation

study of Latin was seldom feasible, in the production of

Mention may also be made here of three items

implications for the study of saga is

may

women though their focus

Else Mundal’s analysis of the fylgja (guardian

spirit),

falls

have

that

elsewhere.

One

a motif which, she

^

speculates,

may be

Birgit Strand’s

comprehensive study of

Gesta Danorum.

image of

a remnant of female ancestor worship (1974). Another

women

Of

women

and sexual

politics in

An

Saxo’s

particular interest to those concerned with the role and

in the

family sagas

is

Strand’s effort to link Saxo’s strident

views to learned authorities (1980). Medieval writings on odd 19.

is

women

—

for

inventory of themes can be found in Rolf Heller, Die literarische Darstellung der Frau in

den Islandersagas, Saga: Untersuchungen zur nordischen Literatur und Sprachgeschichte, 2 (Halle: M. Niemeyer, 1958). See also Frank 1973.

Carol

258 example, amazones, viragines

— are also the starting point of N.H.

Larson’s book on Saxo’s shield maidens (1983). Finally there

Andersen’s book on the shield maiden theme

in the

is

Clover

J.

Holmqvist-

Lise Praestgaard

North, with emphasis on the

courtly ballads (1982).

The common impression

that

Norse

women were on

the

whole more highly

valued and enjoyed greater social privileges than their Continental sisters rests heavily on the witness of the family sagas, and in recent years several scholars

through a variety of means, to gauge the accuracy of that representa-

have

tried,

tion.

For Meulengracht Sprensen, the shortest route

early Icelanders

of the

through their sexual invective (Meulengracht S0rensen 1980).

is

md

Directly or indirectly, most

woman. Masculinity

into a

to the sexual politics

charges or threatens buggery

—

turning a

on “phallic aggression,” which

rests

expressed as male rape but figuratively expressed

is

man

literally

of harm and

in other acts

humiliation. This sexual metaphor lurks just under the surface of the fighting and killing of saga feuding.

Jenny Jochens arrives

at a similar

A

of the church and sexuality in medieval Iceland.

conclusion in her study

look

canon,” she argues, does not support the sagas’ representation marital fidelity reflect not

and divorce

initiated

of, for

by women. She concludes

an actual state of affairs but one idealized

in

“historical

at the

example,

that the sagas

accordance with church

views (1980). Another exploration of the historical sources concludes that the

“strong”

woman

of the Icelandic sagas,

if

explained on the basis of her participation in

homespun production. Wadmal was

unimportant until the eleventh century (that

when

it

women

was

the staple of the

economy,

its

she indeed existed, could not be

is,

after the saga age),

and even

weaving was probably performed by

of the lower social classes, not those of the sagas’ social

elite

(Helgi

Forlaksson 1981).

Forbidden love

The

(1971).

is

the subject of

Thomas

Kaos og

Bredsdorff’s book

kcerlighed

sagas’ preoccupation with the pursuit of wealth and honor, and the

often bloody consequences,

is

well known. But alongside this “first pattern” of

saga conflict, Bredsdorff argues,

a “second pattern,” potentially as destruc-

is

[

\

unapproved sexual passion.

tive as the first:

acts of

coincide, as they

do preeminently

in

the

two patterns

Laxdaela saga and Njdls saga, the results

are catastrophic. Bredsdorff finds the second pattern

what he

When

most completely realized

calls the “classical” sagas (Laxdeela saga, Egils saga, Gi'sla saga,

in

and

Njdls saga) and either absent or rudimentary in the “postclassical” sagas (such as Grettis saga), in a society

and he links

undergoing a

shift

this distribution to tensions that

from

tribal to

“medieval”

must have inhered

social organization

and

values. Although Bredsdorff declares in his opening pages his intention to ignore

questions of origins and to approach the sagas as works of art susceptible of

simple description, he quickly subordinates his “synchronic” observations to a

scheme and further subordinates that scheme to a political one commentator put it, “he has asked literarily but answered

literary-developmental

context

—

or, as

historically” (Jprgensen 1975:104).

Icelandic Family Sagas

259

Bredsdorff’s book has been criticized on several points, one of which extraction of an erotic structure in Egils saga.

One reviewer

“forbidden love” comprises

his single category of

his

is

has suggested that

in fact three distinct motifs:

relationships with concubines, relationships contrary to the will of the family,

and betrayed love with the attendant emotions of jealousy and “love-hate.”

“When

only to the third, she argues, that Bredsdorffs formula can be applied: total inner

and outer chaos occurs

[in the sagas], the

cause

is

It is

not love alone, but

j '

love that has turned into jealousy and love hate” (Mundal 1973). Jprgen

Haugan

and Jan Sand Sprensen have further faulted Bredsdorffs “reductive and moralizing” text analyses, his overly schematic view of generic development, his equa-

1000 (the demise of paganism) and 1262 (the demise of the Commonwealth) and overemphasis on their watershed status, and his black-and-

tion of the years

white reading of NJdis saga (1975; see also Jprgensen 1975; Bredsdorff 1975, 1978; Jensen 1977; Hansen 1978b). In any case, Bredsdorffs thesis has interesting implications for our understanding of the “strong

women”

erotic conflicts are indeed a projection of the emotional

of the sagas. If

ambivalence of the

medieval Icelanders straddling political systems, then women’s central role these erotic conflicts

is

in

similarly not to be taken at face value but rather under-

stood to be part of the larger imaginative construction.^® ^

/

Inquiries into early Scandinavian structures of perception have been pursued

most vigorously

in recent years

Steblin-Kamenskij.^^ Neither

by the Soviet scholars A. Ya. Gurevich and M. is

a saga scholar primarily; both have tended to

more archaic sources,

focus on the

I.

particularly in their linguistic aspects,

and

to

address the sagas only in passing. But their use of philology in the service of “historical

psychology”

is

of considerable interest for saga studies

—

if

not

always for the findings, certainly for the approach. Gurevich, for example, argues that gift-giving

—

properly understood in

a conspicuous theme in

modem terms

Old Norse

of private property.

literature

It is

— cannot be

rather to be related

custom of potlatch, which serves a specific social function in the which it is found (1968, 1977). In a somewhat different vein,

to the primitive i

societies in

Gurevich finds that the mythological vision of the Scandinavians

by a “qualitative heterogeneity of both time and space” of an archiac

mode

of perception (1969).

with specific reference to the sagas, were article in

Many

—

is

characterized

again, a manifestation

of the same points about time,

made by Steblin-Kamenskij

in a short

1968, and the same views, expanded, form one chapter of his book The

Saga Mind (1973). 20.

A

21.

Unfortunately, this discussion of Gurevich and Steblin-Kamenskij

marriage/wooing norms may be found in Lars Lonnroth, '‘Ski'rnismdl och den fomislandska aktenskapsnormen” in ^Ole Widding, pp. 154-78. Taking his cue from Malinowski and Levi-Strauss, Lonnroth argues that the eddic poem Skirnismdl con/ stitutes a mythic projection and resolution of tensions that inevitably arose in the strongly clanoriented system of early Iceland when a young man wished to marry a woman designated as socially ^ unsuitable. different approach to early Icelandic

I

able in translation.

is

limited to what

is

avail-

260

Carol

J.

Clover

The Saga Mind surely qualifies as the most-discussed book of the decade field

in the

of saga studies. In a style less scholarly than personal, not to say tongue-in-

cheek, Steblin-Kamenskij proposed to correct the scholarly emphasis on philology at the expense of history by exploring the “spiritual world” of the sagas

and

—

“their conceptions of truth,

human

personality,

form and content, good

and death” (1973:9). Of these it is the first, truth, the centerpiece both of The Saga Mind and of the ensuing controversy. time and space,

evil,

that is

life

Because the “truth” debate has been amply dealt with elsewhere 1972, 1981b) and

main

is

familiar to

many

readers, this

summary

and syncretic.

Modem people

will touch only the

understand the

but have no comprehension of ecclesiastical tmth, which

medieval religious thinking (as exemplified

which

\

Weber

points. Steblin-Kamenskij distinguishes four kinds of truth: artistic, histor-

ical, ecclesiastical,

,

(e.g.,

is

the

two modes

characteristic of

in saints’ lives), or syncretic

tmth,

dominant mode of early Icelandic society and hence of the Icelandic

sagas. Syncretic truth

midway

is

first

is

not a combination of artistic and historical tmth, nor a

category, but another kind of tmth “fundamentally distinct from both of

them ...

a third entity” (pp. 24-25). “Syncretic tmth

is

what

is

thought of as

simply tmth, something given, not created ... the lack of distinction between historical

,

and

artistic

tmth”

(pp. 50-51).

As with tmth,

so with time (pp. 123-

|40): the early Icelanders did not discriminate, at least not to the

modem

extent,

/past and future from present, but experienced a continual transfer and hence a greater unity

1

—

a proposition Peter Hallberg

dubbed “syncretic time” (Hallberg

1974b: 109- 12).

The notion of syncretism may be elusive, but its implications were immediately clear, especially to those whose scholarly tenets were at stake (and one suspects from Steblin-Kamenskij ’s tone that this effect was fully intended). /According to Steblin-Kamenskij, efforts to discriminate fact from fiction in the I

sagas are anachronistic and pointless, as

of literary borrowings (1973:49-68; thorship: syncretic

is

the assumption underlying the tracing

1967).

Likewise considerations of au-

tmth “inevitably implies the absence of consciousness of

authorship” and the “lack of consciousness of authorship sciousness of the

human

personality” (1973:51, 1966).

fense of the Icelandic school were

is

The

Hermann Palsson and

the lack of con-

first to rise in

de-

Peter Hallberg (Her-

mann Palsson 1973a; Hallberg 1974a, 1974b, 1976b; see also Weber 1972, 1981b; Guldager 1974). They faulted Steblin-Kamenskij on his sweeping generalizations, his

incomplete and biased coverage of the lexical evidence, his incon-

sistencies, his misleading claims to originality, his failure to

stances

when authorship

his underlying

and

is

in-

clearly understood, his tendency to argue e silentio,

assumption of the “primitive” nature of the early Icelandic mind,

in general the unverifiable nature

tions are cogent at least in

acknowledge

of his argumentation.

Many

of their objec-

and do indeed compromise the notion of a syncretic saga mind,

Steblin-Kamenskij ’s particular adumbration.

Steblin-Kamenskij responded with a brief but brilliant defense not of his

Icelandic Family Sagas

conclusions

—

261

book

his

will

speak for

— but

itself

of his point of departure

(1975b). Every inquiry into the past, he argues (p. 187), assumes either that “the

psychology of medieval

man

is

identical with that of

hypothesis), or that “the psychology of medieval

of

modem man”

worth quoting

at

modem man”

man

(the nonidentity hypothesis). His

is

(the identity

not identical with that

remarks on

this point are

length because of the light they shed not only on his

and the Soviet contribution

in

own work

generaF^ but also on some of the other

strains

within the field of saga studies (1975b: 188-89; see also 1976):

The

fact is that in studies of literature of past ages the identity hypothesis

old and very firmly established tradition, and this studies, that

is

particularly so in

one of the most conservative branches of humanistic

studies.

can be traced back to an epoch when humanities did not yet

set

is

a very

Old Icelandic

It is

a tradition

themselves the

comprehend the past ages in their difference from the present, the epoch when the so-called historical point of view had not yet begun to

task of trying to

pre.-romantic

assert itself in humanistic studies. In fact the tradition in question is not only pre-

romantic,

is

it

ultimately medieval.

All methods of studying the Icelandic sagas, for instance, methods of determining the authors of the sagas, of finding out

what

is

deliberate fiction in a saga, of

discovering the ethical principles supposedly introduced into a saga by etc., are is

based essentially on the identity hypothesis. Thus,

called in question,

if

it

is

shown

to

if

author,

its

the identity hypothesis

be probably unsound, then

all

methods used

studying the sagas are unsound too, and so are the studies themselves.

It is

in

therefore

quite understandable that any criticism of the identity hypothesis cannot but provoke irritation in

every active saga scholar.

Steblin-Kamenskij goes on to mention, in connection with the nonidentity hypothesis, the position of

modem

anthropology and, significantly, the work of

Milman Parry and Albert Lord. Recent literacy in societies previously reliant

seem

The Saga Mind)

historical time in

on memory and

oral transmission

Steblin-Kamenskij ’s general proposition

to bear out

application in

investigations into the consequences of

(if

not

its

particular

that preliterary peoples perceive history

should be further remembered that the shift from

many

and

And

it

illiterate to literate is typically

a

fundamentally different ways than do literary peoples.

slow process with

would

intermediate stages.

Steblin-Kamenskij ’s use of pure categories stems from a philosophical tradi22.

A brief survey of Steblin-Kamenskij ’s contribution can be found in the obituary by his student

Anatoly Liberman, “Mikhail Ivanovich Steblin-Kamenskij,” Scandinavica, 21 (1982), 89-91, as well as his epilogue and bibliography in Steblin-Kamenskij 1982:103-50. 23. See Jack Goody and Ian Watt, “The Consequences of Literacy,” in Literacy in Traditional Societies, ed. Jack [John Rankine] Goody (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1968), pp. 27-68; also Jan Vansina, Oral Tradition: A Study in Historical Methodology, tr. H. M. Wright (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul; Chicago: Aldine, 1965), esp. pp. 40-46, 76-113; Paul Kiparsky, “Oral Poetry:

Some

Linguistic and Typological Considerations,” in Oral Literature

the Formula, ed.

(Ann Arbor, Univ. of Michigan Press, 1976), iii, 73-106; and Walter Ong, Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word (New York: Methuen, 1982).

B. A. Stolz and R. S. Shannon J.

and

Carol

262 tion of argumentation; in reality, as

J.

Clover

he notes, most scholars operate on the basis

I

I

some combination.

of

Still,

not

all

combinations are the same, and the

dif-

ferences are all-important in understanding the present scholarly disposition of

saga studies. The source analysts, above as certain of the “literary critics,”

all

those of the Icelandic school, as well

assume a greater degree of “identity” than do

the “traditionalists” (especially those under the direct or indirect influence of

Parry and Lord), folklorists, and literary ethnographers, their

primary task exactly to apprehend what in

many

modem

of

whom make

parlance

it

called the

is

art.

The

former approach has dominated saga studies for several decades, which

may

“alterity” of the early Icelandic perceptions of history and sense of

explain the stunted condition of the latter relative to scholarly traditions (Greek

is

a

good example).

effort to penetrate the historical

Kamenskij’s book, whatever For

all

the controversy

it

It is

its

counterparts in other

in this light, as a

psychology of the early Icelanders,

its

failings, deserves to

pioneering

that Steblin-

be judged.

generated, however. The Saga

Mind

has had no

appreciable effect on the course of saga scholarship. For mainstream saga studies,

especially under the purview of the Icelandic school, the

ciopolitical issue of the last

Sigur5ur Nordal’s view: century, they must at

“The

the sagas are fictional constructions of the thirteenth

if

some

and even the events of the

level reflect the attitudes

in his early

it

Icelandic Family Sagas and the Period in

were written down.”^'^ At the most basic

—

the reassignment in

tenth century.

Two

masked form of contemporary events

and his family

at

Porvaldsson during his son’s wedding,

Gu6run

in

to the

One

is

Berg|36rshvall, an episode that has been

in the

by the enemies of Gizurr

year 1253.^^ The other

which Helgi Har5beinsson wipes

of an event that took place

in

is

the scene

his blood-stained spear

OsviTrsdottir’s apron after he has slain her husband. This

fictional reflex

which they

level, this imprint consists of material

interpreted as a reflex of the burning at Flugumyrr,

Laxdcela saga

in

paradigmatic examples serve to demonstrate the logic.

the burning of Njall

in

program essay

Which Their Authors

Lived,” the sagas must “bear the imprint of the age and place projection

so-

decade and a half has been the one implied by

thirteenth century. Or, as Einar 01. Sveinsson put entitled

paramount

is

on

held to be a

northern Iceland in the year 1244.

As Pdrdar saga kakala tells it, a certain AsbjQm Gu5mundarson killed a man and then, when that man’s wife drew near, wiped his weapons on her clothes. In both cases, the scene

is

the occasion for a mortal prophecy,

which

is

duly

fulfilled.

24.

Einar 01. Sveinsson,

“The

Icelandic Sagas and the Period in

Which Their Authors Lived,”

APS, 12 (1937-38), 78-79. 25.

Bar6i Gu6mundsson,

“Nu

taka oil husin a6 loga,” in his

book Hofundur Njdlu (Reykjavik:

Bokautgafa MenningarsJ66s, 1958), pp. 225-34. Cf. Einar 01. Sveinsson

in IE, 12:cxiii-cxx; also

Hallberg 1976c. 26. This scene has been discussed by Andreas Heusler in his review of Johannes van Ham’s Beschouwingen over de literaire beteknis der Laxdcela Saga, rpt. in Heusler’s Kleine Schriften, 2 vols., ed. Stefan Sonderegger (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1969), i, pp. 362-67. Originally published in

— Icelandic Family Sagas

More

263

recently, the life of Gisli Siirsson (of Gisla saga) has been associated

with that of the historical outlaw Aron Hjgrleifsson, whose

life

story

is

partially

recounted in Sturlunga saga. Sentenced in 1222, Aron spent three years hiding out in the same vicinity and

\

much

jhave done two centuries earlier. stories (both

outlaws

mend

the

The

same circumstances

as Gisli

is

alleged to

striking correspondences of detail in the

their hosts’ boats, for

example, and both

men

two

elude

by setting boats adrift in such a way as to give the impression that they drowned) leave little doubt that the two accounts are related (A6algeir Kristjansson 1965; Heller 1966a; Foote 1963:130-31; Porter 1971). In this case, however, it is not impossible, depending in part on what dates and priority one their pursuers

assigns to the accounts of Aron, that Gisla saga conditioned the

f

Aron biography,

^ not vice versa (Heller 1966a; Porter 1971).

The authors of Gisla saga and Laxdoela saga

are likewise suspected of having

contemporized episodes and persons known from the Sturlunga saga account of Hrafh Sveinbjamarson (Heller 1977a; Foote 1963:131-33). Parallels to the battle of Hrisateigr in Viga-Glums saga have been identified in the account of Sighvatr Sturluson’s death in Sturlunga saga (Einar Ol. Sveinsson 1969), and the saga

motif of unearthing and removing the bones of heroes (such as Egill and Grettir)

\

I

1

has been related specifically to the celebrated exhumation at Holar in the year 1

198 of the bones of two bishops and more generally to the conventional trans-

Uatio of medieval hagiography (Bjami Einarsson 1976b). Hrafnkels saga has

been

interpreted

as

a

masked version of

historical

events

described

in

(Hermann Palsson 1962; Thomas 1973; cf. Ringler 1972). The most extreme example of this line of reasoning remains Bar6i Gu6mundsson’s reading of Njdls saga as an elaborately Recent critics have been content specific roman a clef of Sturlung Age history.

Svinfellinga saga between the years 1242 and 1255

with smaller denominations of plot (Foote 1974a).

As with

content, so with spiritual and political values.

When

the sagas

thought to be collectively “authored” and transmitted chronicles of

life

were

during

was supposed that they lacked a moral superstructure or rather, that they were unconscious and unsystematic purveyors of the ethical system of the pre-Christian era and that Christian references were interpolations. One would expect that when the idea of the historical saga died (assuming for the moment that it once lived) and was replaced by the idea of the saga as medieval fiction by an individual author, the view of its ethics would change accordingly. the settlement period,

it

In fact, however, scholars and readers have been oddly slow in confronting the

obvious implication of the “fiction” hypothesis for the understanding of saga values.

Even

as he declared Hrafnkels

saga

to

be the “pure fiction” of a

Deutsche Literaturzeitung, 53 (1932), 2467-72. See also Einar 01. Sveinsson, “The Icelandic Sagas and the Period in Which Their Authors Lived,” p. 71; Rolf Heller, “Laxdoela saga und Sturlunga saga,” ANF, 76 (1961), 112-33; and NjorSur P. NjarSvik 1971:78. Bar6i GuSmundsson, Hofundur Njdla. Cf. Einar 6l. Sveinsson, IF, 12:cxiii-cxx; also Hallberg 1973c, 1973d, 1973e. For earlier examples of this approach, see Andersson 1964:74-75. 27.

264

Carol

thirteenth-century author, Sigur5ur Nordal, in the essay that has

Clover

J.

become

the

program piece of the Icelandic school, explained the plot motivation in terms of Germanic notions of honor and vengeance. The first programmatic objection to this archaic approach to saga ethics was by Hermann Palsson. Hermann’s reading of Hrafnkatla argues (against Sigur5ur Nordal in particular) that the motivations of that saga are better referred to Augustine than to Atlakvida and that its proverbs are as likely to have their raised

origins in the Bible as in folk tradition (1966, 1971b, 1977b,

examples

will suffice.

One

the “romantic’’ critics; for the medieval theological

the “sore toe’’ episode,

is

Hermann

Palsson,

it

.

.

.

perfect sense in terms of

views on sympathy and compassion (1971b:65-69).

sworn an oath

I’ve

which has long perplexed

makes

Likewise the exclusionary oath regarding Freyfaxi Freyfaxi.

1978a). Three

to kill

(

“ You may

ride

any horse but

anyone who rides him’’), which Her-

mann relates to the exclusionary oath concerning the tree of knowledge in Genesis (“You may eat from every tree in the garden, but not from the tree of the on the day that you eat from it, you will certainly die.’’ Hrafnkell’s warning words to Samr, “Don’t let pride be your down-

knowledge ... Finally, fall,’’

for

are related

by Hermann

to the biblical

“Pride goeth before a

fall’’

(1970,

1971b:46-47, 60). He takes particular exception to the conventional view that is

free choice

and

saga:

i

governed by heroic

Hrafnkatla

its

fate.

On

the contrary, he argues, not fate but

problems and consequences distinguish the plot of Hrafnkels

“The human

will

is

and the

the motivating force behind the action,

ultimate responsibility lies with the characters themselves, rather than with any

extra-human agency’’ (1971b:44). In his eyes, sponsibility

is

yet another

on individual

this insistence

example of Hrafnkatla

%

re-

dependence on the tenets of

medieval humanism.

,

much

same ground, Davf5 Erlingsson took exception to Hermann Palsson ’s impressionistic method even as he seconded some of the main conclusions (1970). The theme of excessive pride is not necessarily Christian, he points out, but the recommendation of humility, attained through humiliation, certainly cannot be pagan. He also agrees that the message of the “sore toe’’ episode may very well reflect Benedictine views on suffering and In an essay going over

the

compassion, though here as elsewhere evidence of direct influence

is

lacking.

But even though conceding that the “depiction of events and characters Hrafnkatla build, “the realist

critical

in significant

in

ways, on Christian thought,’’ he concludes that

He

reader must greatly admire the author’s independence.

and takes the consequences of the heathen setting of his

independence, together with other fine narrative qualities, has

made

creation of a classic saga’’ (Davi6 Erlingsson 1970:40-41; also

1966; Njor5ur NJarSvik 1973b). Peter Hallberg countered

plot.

.

.

.

is

a

This

possible the

Bjami Gu6nason

Hermann Palsson ’s

28. Other recent examples of this reasoning are Hallberg 1962a; Handle 1969;

Maarten C. van den Toom, Ethics and Morals in Icelandic Saga Literature (Assen; Van Gorkum, 1955); and Andersson 1967:32. Andersson later modified his views; see his 1970 article, esp. n. 10).

Icelandic Family Sagas

265

views on Hrafnkatla with an analysis of Njdla, arguing that the characters are

complex and individuated, not theological types, and

that the

whole

plot reflects

^

the realities of life, not an overarching moral point (Hallberg 1973c,

1973d,

1973e). Peter Foote points out that not a few of the “heroic” sentiments often associated with

Germanic paganism

“contemporary”

find full expression in

texts as well (1974a).

But the

real

breakthrough

in the

came with

study of saga ethics

the penetration

of the celebrated and deceptive neutrality of saga style. Saga authors observe a

formal objectivity, argued Lars Lonnroth, in that they virtually never interject their

own views and

they

still

make

indeed go to some lengths to give both sides of a story; but

their opinions evident in a variety of less

These include the use of loaded adjectives

in the introductory descriptions

the necrologies of characters (for example, vinsasll

I

“good” word,

a

is

“bad” word); the ascription of summary judgments condemned this deed”) or to community leaders who

^

obvious ways (1970b).

to

and

uvinsaell a

“the people” (“people

are understood to represent

the collective morality (for example, Njall in Njdls saga)\

and the elaborate

staging effects in especially significant scenes (most conspicuously in the death

scenes of good men). Such an analysis

may seem

other medieval literature, but this, Lonnroth says,

oversubtle to the reader of the result of the peculiar

is

homogeneity of early Scandinavian society, which produced “a certain consen-

what kind of actions should be considered good or evil (innocent or suspect, idyllic or ominous, etc.), so that it does not have to be spelled out each time” (1970b: 163). sus between the narrator and his audience in regard to

Quick

to seize

on the implications of Lonnroth’ s work, Theodore M. An-

dersson posed the logical next question:

“Does

the [saga] author

impose values

Are the real heroes of the sagas the men who guard their honor most sedulously, and if not, who are the /real heroes?” (1970:577). He sums up his analysis of ten sagas thus: “What gives a consistency to the ethical temper of these sagas is precisely a sense of ( on the action, and

if so, is

the chief value really honor?

proportion and moderation.

They

are written against excess: excessive self-

seeking {Egils saga), excessive passion {Gunnlaugs saga), excessive ambition

(Hdvardar saga, Eyrbyggja saga), or praise of moderation {Heidarviga saga, Eyrbyggja saga) and

{Valla-Ljdts saga), excessive arbitrariness

they are written in

forbearance (Hcensa-Pdris saga, Reykdcela saga, Njdls saga)”

Bjami Gu5nason before him (1966), Andersson concludes concept of moderation tian

and

that

is

associated with Christianity,

“what we probably have

it is

(p.

588). Like

that although the

not necessarily Chris-

in the sagas is not so

much

a replacement

of a pagan ideal with a Christian ideal as the replacement of a warrior ideal with a

1

social ideal” (p. 592).

^

The

old-style hero did not pass

attaches to figures

Hlf5arendi

—

who

—

like

unmoumed, however.

Gisli,

A

special poignancy

Skarphe6inn, Grettir, and Gunnarr of

try to live heroic lives in a postheroic age.

Nowhere

ronism of heroes and heroics more elaborately examined than

is

the anach-

in Grettis

saga.

266

Carol

When

Grettir can

—

Beowulf

thrives.

perform epic tasks for lordly persons, he

But

in the

long stretches of civilian

—

it

Clover

like his relative

life that lie

heroic occasions (the call for heroes not being what

J.

between such

once was) Grettir

is

theme of Grettis saga is the “incompatibility of a traditional form of heroism with the demands of an evolving society” (Hume 1974:482; also Oskar Halldorsson 1977). The moderation ethic was put into still another perspective by Lars Lonnroth, who speculated in an essay on the “noble heathen” that the ambivalence of the thirteenth-century Icelanders toward their forebears, who were on the one hand pagans but on the other the heroic founding fathers of their nation, was resolved in the doctrine of natural religion (1969). According to this doctrine (which is spelled out in the preface to Snorra Edda), even pagans who had no direct

The

positively dysfunctional.

knowledge of God or the

true faith

and mercy.

might qualify as natural or proto-Christians on

wisdom, reverence

the basis of their native restraint,

central

Some

of the sagas’ greatest heroes

Njall in Njdls saga, Gisli in Gi'sla saga,

saga

— are

for nature, and sense of justice,

— such

as

and Gestr Oddleifsson

Gunnarr and Laxdcela

in

construed as such “noble heathen” (Lonnroth 1969; also Schach

1975:105-8; Clunies Ross 1978). Like Hermann Palsson, Lonnroth thus ac-

knowledges a strong theological component

in

saga ethics; but unlike him, he

believes that Christian ideas have not been taken over wholesale but assimilated to traditional attitudes.

“On

the

whole,” he writes, “the relationship between

pagan and Christian ideas among Saga-writers has been much misunderstood: is

seldom a clear-cut conflict but often a

Christian authors eagerly explore

sort of

all possibilities

armed

alliance in

it

which the

of mutual interests and overlap-

same time watching out for anything that could be regarded as a real threat to the Church” (Lonnroth 1969:11; also Hallberg 1973c, 1973d, 1973e). Another such area of overlap, Lonnroth argued elsewhere, is the complex of terms and notions referring to “luck” {gasfa, gipta, hamingja). Whatever its prehistory, it was by the thirteenth century fully harmonized with the Latin complex of terms and notions referring to “grace” {gratia, donum, munus, and ping ideas,

at the

the like) (Lonnroth

1963-64; see also Hermann Palsson 1974b, 1975b; Hallberg

1973a, 1975c). Paul Schach’s survey of antipagan sentiments in the sagas (many of which also

exemplify the “noble heathen” theme, though he does not identify leads

way

him

to a

it

as such)

more moderate version of Lonnroth’s conclusion: “Without

generalizing about the Islendingasdgur as a genre,

we can

in

any

state that to the

extent that these quotations represent the views of the authors and are integral parts of the sagas in

which they occur, they do not seem

to lend support to the

romantic doctrine that these stories were written from a pro-pagan point of view” (1975:134; also 1982; Scovazzi 1967a). Schach also makes the point that the pagan-Christian tension

is

often realized in the sagas in a generation-gap conflict

between father and son (1977). Claiborne of

“pagan” sentiments

in

W. Thompson,

pointing to examples

“Christian” works and “Christian” sentiments

in

Icelandic Family Sagas

267

“pagan” works, argues

modem

that a categorical distinction

is strictly

in the

eyes of the

beholder (1977). The texts rather suggest that the abiding interest of the

Scandinavians, regardless of their religion, was not in “the moral contrast

good/bad or the aesthetic one beautiful/ugly,” but a “wise/foolish contrast as understood in a pragmatic sense” (1977:359). What emerges from these essays (with the exception of

Hermann

Palsson’s)

that of Steblin-Kamenskij’s of time

and

and the purely Christian models, these

is

a conception of ethics rather like

truth.

Rejecting both the purely pagan

critics

propose instead a peculiar third

category that at the same time embraces and transcends the other two

—

a secu-

larized

“syncretic ethics” that allowed the thirteenth-century Icelanders to

“come

to terms with both their ancestors

But on the whole the reader of medieval

and themselves” (1977:357).

of religious sentiments in the sagas than by their in

God

stmck

by the presence absence. Their minimal interest

literature is

less

or gods, afterlife, religious experience, and divine justice and order

qualify the sagas as the

may

most secular narratives of the Middle Ages. For Peter G.

Foote, this secular spirit

is

better explained as a reaction to extreme clerical

claims in thirteenth-century Iceland than as a reflection of a traditional sen-

“People could not avoid being brought face

sibility.

to face with the choice

posed by the claims of Bishop Porlakr and Bishop GuSmundr for

clerical su-

premacy and with the choice of belief or disbelief posed by the alleged miracle working of Gu6mundr in his lifetime,” he writes. “Certainly, a human worldly response was likely, a tendency to concentrate on secular values in .

everyday

.

.

life,

a reluctance or refusal to accept the reality of religious sanctions in

ordinary dealings” (1974b).

That the sagas’ preoccupation with violence stems from the strife-ridden in other words, that the Sturlung experiatmosphere of the thirteenth century

—

ence conditioned the perception of settlement-age history

— has become

a critical

commonplace. It is likewise agreed that the political attitudes of the sagas stem though just what these attitudes are and just from thirteenth-century tensions what tensions they reflect are less clear. As mentioned before, the shift in medieval Iceland from a tribal to a feudal social structure has been offered as the

—

political substructure

1971).

A

of the sagas’ particular brand of love conflict (Bredsdorff

related change, in the thirteenth century,

economic and

political

power of

was

the challenge of the

the traditional overclass of the chieftains

{godar, hgfdingjar) by an emerging “middle class” of wealthy farmers {storbosndr). Just

how much

wealth and power the storboendr actually

with respect to the chieftains during the Sturlung

Age

is

commanded

currently in dispute, but

would seem in either case that the conflict between these two groups was a fundamental one with far-reaching consequences (Gunnar Karlsson 1972, 1977, 1980; Helgi Porlaksson 1979, 1982; also Seggewiss 1978). In Vesteinn Olason’s it

view, the sagas not only reflect that conflict, they actually take sides. Laxdcela saga, Gunnlaugs saga, Vatnsdcela saga, Hrafnkels saga, and especially Eyr-

byggja saga represent, in varying degrees, the interests of the godar, whereas

268

Carol

Hoensa-Poris saga,

Bandamanna

interests of the storboendr.

Gisla saga, Porsteins

Also

J.

Clover

saga, and Ljdsvetninga saga represent the

tilting in the direction

of the wealthy farmer are

stangarhgggs, and possibly even Njdls saga (Ve-

fkittr

Olason 1973; Sverrir Tomas son 1977; Lonnroth 1970c, 1972, 1976:165214; von See 1979; Skyum-Nielsen 1973). Vesteinn reminds us that it was the godar who were most likely to sponsor the writing of the sagas, although the existence of “antichieftain” sagas indicates some literary activity also on the steinn

part of the rising

middle class (1973). In Bandamanna saga, the godar are

represented as positively corrupt (Sverrir

Well and good; but how does

many of

distinctly unfavorable light?

1977).

square with the frequent depiction of

this picture

whose

the very characters

Tomasson

interests the saga

supposedly represents in a

Laxdoela saga’s well-known descriptions of fine

manners are conventionally taken as expressions of the author’s admiration for the class of people who so comported themselves. Yet, as Njor6ur Njar5vfk points out, there is a serious discrepancy between the external finery of clothes and

these aristocrats and their deeds.

“one glimpses

“Beneath the

glittering surface,”

he writes,

a world full of cruelty, ambition, ruthlessness, fraudulence

.

.

.

A

not to speak of theft and other foul deeds” (1971:73). Vesteinn Olason dismisses

“Both these sagas [Laxdoela saga and Gunnlaugs saga] may inelude some moral criticism of the main heroes, Kjartan and Gunnlaugr, criticism the problem:

i

which could apply

to chieftains

this

does not

alter

view” (1973:7-8). But Njor5ur Njar5vik’s point about Laxdoela saga’s incorporation of two bits of contemporary history the scene mentioned earlier in which Helgi wipes his sword on Gu5run’s apron, and the scene in chapter 47 in which Kjartan locks the the fact that they are written

j

of the thirteenth century, but

from an upper

class point of

—

people of Laugar indoors for three days without access to latrines^^ fuller hearing. If the

references in these ^

\

'

— deserves

a

audience of Laxdoela saga recognized the contemporary

two scenes,

as

seems

likely, they

would surely

transfer their

antipathy accordingly. For Njor5ur, these and other negative passages reveal not a friendly view of the chieftain class but a decidedly critical one. Perhaps, he

proposes, the author’s real sympathies

lie

with the plain farmer in chapter 49

who, when he learns of the impending encounter between Kjartan and the men of Laugar, expresses the opinion that the bloody wars of mighty men could be good entertainment

if

viewed from a safe distance. So, Nj6r5ur concludes, must

at

some of the common people have felt about the brutal power struggles that took the lives of some of the leading citizens in the Sturlung Age (1973:79-80). (How a member of the common people came to write a saga is not a question least

NjorSur addresses, however.) In Oskar Halldorsson’s view (based on a survey of saga portraits), the sagas operate on the basis of individuals, not social classes; 29. In the “historical” incident, dreittu inni a

which took place

man named Markus Skeggjason, who

See Islendinga saga

in

^Sturlunga saga, p. 235.

later

in

1198, Ketill Eyjolfsson and his son Ljotr

took revenge by killing both Ketill and Ljotr.

Icelandic Family Sagas

269

persons regarded as heroes are portrayed positively, regardless of their social

_ standing (1975). The study of law

in the

sagas has a venerable history, and

it

continues to shed

on the authors’ historical pose. Many of what are purported to be “old laws” in the sagas (laws of the settlement period) are unverifiable as such, for light

lawbooks date from the medieval period, and trying

the surviving

older from

^

more recent

layers

a desperate undertaking.

is

When a saga cites

not found in, or contradicts, the medieval codices,

that

is

two

things: either that the saga

medieval period, or that

to discriminate

a law

we may assume one

of

law was indeed old but had fallen out of use by the

never existed and was fabricated by the author to

it

More clearly anachronistic are cases in which the sagas appeal of law known to have been adopted during the medieval period. A

explain a conflict. to points

striking instance of the latter

the hay-seizure in Hcensa-Pdris saga,

is

which

appears to reflect an article of law from Jonsbok, submitted by the Norwegian

king to the Icelanders in the year 1281. This case raises a number of issues,

among them

the possibility that the saga

is

of considerably later date than con-

ventionally supposed (Berger 1976; Jonas Kristjansson 1977b; esp.

Mundt 1973b;

also Berger 1981). But in either case

we

142-48;

are dealing, in this central

episode of Hcensa-Pdris saga, not with an “old” law but with a medieval one,

which moreover was based on a thoroughly medieval sentiment

(the idea that

community needs take precedence over private property in times of scarcity). An even more drastic anachronism, according to Alan Berger, is the one underlying the chain of inheritance in the early part of Viga-Glums saga, which appears to derive from a law adopted in Norway in 1313 (some hundred years after the .saga’s supposed date of writing) and in Iceland in 1508 (1980). Elsewhere /

Berger has speculated that saga authors invoked broken laws as a device for

I

explaining conflicts insufficiently motivated in the sources. This “legalizing” of '

the past required in turn the

adumbration of lawsuits and lawyers.

He

suggests,

“If episodes are to turn on points of law, then heroes and villains must be (

made

lawyers to accommodate such conflicts” (1978-79:78). For Berger, as for the Icelandic school in general, such anachronisms as these in the sagas are proof of

1

authorial fiction. Icelandic-school scholars that

j

have yet

to take account of the fact

such anachronisms are a standard feature of oral

contemporize

may even be

a

“law” of

Miller has published three articles

tendency to

—

a point to which we written, the legal historian William Ian oral transmission

was on law and society

will return later. (Since this essay

literature; its

in early Iceland

[1983a,

1983b, 1984]. Miller’s extensive use of comparative anthropological materials

marks a new and welcome turn

As

this

reflect

saga studies.)

in

survey suggests, readers attached to the idea that the sagas

premedieval

satisfy their interest.

on egalitarian

life

and ways

will find

little in

modem

somehow

saga scholarship to

A refreshing exception is a short article by Bjarai Einarsson

attitudes

among

free

men

in early Iceland (1974a).

He compares

I

270

Carol

two passages describing a shipwreck: one a Mary legend

men

chooses

I

in

would be considered the greatest Einks saga rauda, in which men

who

loss if they

was drafted

are chosen for the lifeboat

in specific reaction to the

by

lot, for, as

Bjami

we have

Family Sagas of the idea of equality among free men,” an idea which

view “originated cf.

latter,

in the

the

“extreme example of inequality”

of the former and as such constitutes “the most telling expression the

lets the

and one from

to perish”)

passage goes, “this ought not to be dependent on rank.” The argues,

“he

most prominent and who

are

were

Clover

which the captain

for the lifeboat according to rank (as the text says,

bishop enter the boat together with the people

J.

in all

in his

circumstances of the settlement of Iceland” (1974a:55;

Foote 1977a). The idea of Norse society as being especially egalitarian

otherwise associated with an older generation of

What,

finally,

manner of

of audience: for

their publication?

tions as there are scholars

written,

and what was the

There are perhaps as many answers

The conventional view of

sight.

critics.

whom were the sagas

who have

Icelanders were unusually literate,^

^

to these ques-

addressed them, and no consensus

the Icelandic school that

is

is

is

in

medieval

that the

parchment was cheap and easy

to

come

was therefore not confined broader social base. This “roman-

by, and that the production and consumption of sagas to the richest class

tic”

and/or the church but had a

view was attacked by Lars Lonnroth, who argued on the basis of counterevi-

was more widespread in Iceland than elsewhere in the Middle Ages, it was only slightly so; by the same token, that if manuscripts were cheaper, they were only slightly so (and they would in any case have been beyond the means of any but the richest individuals or the church); and that clerics were involved in saga production, perhaps cendence (and the lack of positive evidence) that

trally so. In short,

much

if literacy

he concludes, the production of literature

in Iceland

operated

same way as in the rest of western Europe during the Middle Ages: jwealthy persons commissioned sagas for their own consumption (and for the promotion of their own social interests), and the clergy managed the writing the

(Lonnroth

1964:65-76,

1976:165-214;

cf.

Hallberg

Karlsson 1970; Sverrir Tdmasson 1977:98-101).

One

1965d: 175-84;

Stefan

appreciates Lonnroth’s

hardheaded approach to the matter, just as one appreciates his impatience with 30. ^

The

fullest treatment

Islendinga (Reykjavik: in

Hermann’s usage,

Mai og Menning,

to the

Hermann Palsson’s Sagnaskemmtun “Sagnaskemmtun” (“saga-entertainment”) refers,

of performances and audiences 1962).

custom known from

is

later centuries

of reading sagas aloud from written

manuscripts to assembled family and guests as a form of entertainment. variety of postmedieval references to

sagnaskemmtun and argues

that the

He

points to a

same

number and

practice prevailed in

^the thirteenth century and even before; in his view, the “saga-entertainment” in Reykjaholar in the

year 1119 (see below) was performed from written manuscripts. His examples and discussion of

sagnaskemmtun

in later centuries are illuminating,

but his arguments for early manuscripts are not

generally accepted.

The

medieval Iceland was given a boost by Stefan Karlsson (1970). He adduces evidence from later periods of a high degree of literacy and extrapolates to the Middle Ages. Cf. Lonnroth (1976:166-70). 31.

traditional claim of unusual literacy in

Icelandic Family Sagas nationalism; but at the

271

same time, one must

shortcomings, the “romantic” view that

which begs

to

also appreciate that, whatever

its

attempts a historical explanation for

at least

be explained: the prodigious quantity and the anomalous form,

content, and style of Icelandic prose in general and the family sagas in particular. If

Iceland

was not a

special place,

how

did

it

come

to

produce a special

litera-

ture?

Compared with land was a special

/

and the high

other literature-producing societies in the Middle Ages, Iceplace.

It

lacked a royal court and hence both royal patronage

literary society that

elsewhere played a prominent role in medieval

The operative social unit was the farm, and it is persumably in the farm’s decidedly mixed company that the sagas had their origins and audience. The locus classicus in this cultural life. Iceland also lacked

connection

is

towns and hence an urban

clerisy.

the passage in Chapter 10 of Porgils saga ok Haflida CSturlunga

saga) describing a wedding in Reykjaholar in the year 1119. Here,

it is

said,

“sagas” (though not Islendingasdgur hut fornaldarsogur) were told to entertain those present, who included prominent landowners, clerics, merchants, and independent farmers, as well, presumably, as

women

of various social classes and

perhaps some servants (Foote 1974a). Whether the peculiarities of Icelandic social life are sufficient to account for the peculiarities of

how,

are probably unanswerable questions.

may

But one

its

literature,

and

if

so

hazard some guesses.

Walter Baetke believed that the extraordinarily broad social compass of the sagas

was the

direct result of the socially

mixed nature of

(Lonnroth makes a similar point about Njdls saga: aristocracy, but

its

community. strongly biased toward the

the Icelandic

it is

inclusion, in positive terms, of nonaristocratic persons

must

presuppose a socially mixed audience (1976:194-95). Foote thinks the audience

must have been both mixed and the “objectivity” of the sagas

large, is

and both he and A. B. Taylor suggest

that

a direct function of the nature of the audience

(Foote 1974a: 17- 18; A. B. Taylor 1973). That the mixed audience was also a

motivating factor in the retention of the vernacular seems self-evident, just as

it is

self-evident that the institution of the assembly afforded an unparalleled opportunity for the

exchange of information and dissemination of

national scale (Foote 1974a).

An

be gained from a study of

narrative form.

its

literature

on a

insight into the nature of the early audience can

Of the

family saga’s

many anoma-

most anomalous is its combination of properties characteristic of oral and written literature. Such combined forms are not usual, but neither is it usual, in an oligoliterate society, for the clerisy and the uneducated classes to be as closely meshed as they were in medieval Icelandic society. The family saga has the look of a literature aimed at both a reading public and an oral lous features, one of the

The question of just what these oral and literary be taken up in more detail, as a formal issue, in the

public (Clover 1982:188-204). features consist of will

following section. 32. Baetke,

Ober

die Entstehung der Isldndersagas, esp. pp. 99-108.

272

Carol

J.

Clover

Formalism

The study of

the family sagas’ oral or traditional dimension has for the last

forty-odd years been pursued outside of Iceland

I

dinavia.

Given the exclusively

surprise.

More

surprising

is

— by and

large outside of Scan-

of the Icelandic school, this

literary bias

no

the fact that the study of the sagas as literature has

been a largely non-Icelandic enterprise. Nordalian doctrine holds

also

is

that the

i

!

i

sagas are in effect historical novels, created by thirteenth-century authors

know

little

historical

more about

the Viking

Age

who

than what could be gleaned from the few

remnants available to them, which sources they elaborated into

full-

length narratives intended for dramatic entertainment. But the interest of Icelandic scholars has

been

in the authors’ use of sources, not the literary products they

created, and in parts, not wholes or the relation of wholes to

one another or the

Icelandic corpu^to medieval literature in general. Ironically, the logical implication of the Icelandic school position

—

that the sagas are novels

and hence suscep-

of literary analysis and that as literature they are to be viewed in the

tible

European

literary context

— has been pursued not by

Icelanders but by others,

mainly Americans and Germans.

The to

bias

and intention of

literary analysis

and traditional analysis would seem

much in common. the received text has its own integrity and in itself. Both tend even when focusing on

be diametrically opposed. As methods, however, they have

Both proceed on the assumption

that

can be studied profitably as an entity

particulars to relate, directly or indirectly, the particular to to the entire saga,

Norse

aim

literary

context: a passage

an individual saga to the genre, the genre both fo other Old

genres and to comparable European genres (epic, chronicle). Both

to penetrate the aesthetic of the

or a traditional product; and is

its

by way of illuminating

when

work

in question,

be

it

construed as a literary

sources are sought and comparisons drawn,

that aesthetic,

and not, as

in

it

source analysis, for the

purpose of tracing the route of certain information. Both, in other words, are

do for Icelandic prose what Snorri Sturluson did for Norse verse some eight hundred years ago: apprehend its poetics. But the most striking similarity between literary and traditional analysis, as they have developed in saga studies trying to

in the last if

two decades,

their concentration

is

on formal matters. Both subscribe,

only implicitly, to a linguistic view of narrative: like speech, the literary work

grammar and

has a

component artistic

and

parts

a syntax, and the task of the critic

and explain

to an extent

its

far as

literary

and

to

view of

apprehend the

the saga’s peculiar ft is

traditional analysis that

as formalist in spite of their different

One sometimes

So parsed,

intellectual properties are laid bare,

uous structural orientation of

them

their interaction.

is

the conspic-

marks both of

origins.

hears reference to a structuralist or formalist “school.” Inso-

formalism per se

is

origins and development,

merely a method, an approach, not a coherent theory of it

cannot be said to constitute a school. But the branch

of formalism here referred to as

new

traditionalism or formalist-traditionalism

— Icelandic Family Sagas

may

indeed qualify as a school in the making, for

that the sagas are at their narrative 1

273

bottom

traditional art or folk art

form not only exposes the

mode of transmission.

genesis and

proceeds on f he assumption

it

and that a close analysis of

rules of that art but sheds light

on the

This line of reasoning has been related (e.g.,

work of Vladimir Propp, who devised a morfolktale, and Milman Parry and Albert Lord, who (argued, by analogy with modem Yugoslavian practice, that Homeric epic was lorally composed out of traditional language- and idea-units. Proppian analysis by Vesteinn Olason 1978) phology for the European

and Oral Theory

to the

(as Parry’s

and Lord’s views are sometimes called) have indeed

played a central role in recent thinking about the genesis and transmission of epic./One should not forget, however, that a formalism of sorts also attached to Criticism, to the narrative analysis of such theorists as

Andre

Jolles

and

Franz Stanzel, to Northrop Frye’s style of literary thought, and to developments in the disciplines Sjtrauss,

of linguistics and anthropology (A.

Claude Bremond, Alan Dundes, and others).

J.

Greimas, Claude Levi-

It is this

combination of

American scholars in particular to embrace full-blown literary stmcturalism when it emerged on the scene. It is not clear what use, if any, the schemes of Propp and Oral Theory have been or can be in the study of the family saga. They cannot be applied in any direct sense for the simple and significant reason that they do not work. The trends that predisposed

—

—

sagas resist Proppian analysis because they are too long and too complex, and they resist Parry an analysis because,

among

other things, they are in prose

poetry being the sine qua non of Oral Theory. traditionalist

theories

say, therefore, that the

branch of saga studies derives from the “big” literary-stmctural

to overstate the case.

is

To

The main

Propp and Oral Theory on

effect of

saga studies has been to remind us, once again, just

Only

how odd

Icelandic prose

consists

most general level (the notion that traditional narrative of repeated forms) can one speak of the influence of oral literary theory

on saga

studies; “inspiration”

literature is.

at the

is

perhaps the better word. For better or worse,

saga scholars have not had recourse to a ready-made theory of origins and transmissions but have had to find their

own way.

It is

no

surprise, then, that

seems both theoretically underdeveloped (long on description and short on conclusions) and procedurally inconsistent (different critics employ different analytical schemes and terminologies). One is left with stmcturalist study of the sagas

the consolation that formal analysis has at least the advantage of being a positive

approach to the sagas’ traditional component the Icelandic school), and

component

A

moreover

new

most

fully

whatever insight can be gained into that

modem

was Scholes and Kellogg’s The Nature sweeping survey of Western narrative form from

traditionalism

of Narrative (1966). In their to

film, the Icelandic sagas are given

due consideration as the

developed amalgam of fiction and history (“a new synthesis of myth

and mimesis”) to be found in preliterary Europe

5

negative view of

will be a contribution to the study of traditional prose in general.

harbinger of the

Homer

that

(in contrast to the

/V/y'

(p. 45).

That the sagas are

Carol

274

formity of their narrative style from saga to saga. final

shape by individual authors

The

we have may have

texts

(p. 43),

but insofar as

the formal and rhetorical stigmata of oral composition,” their art 50).

Clover

and Kellogg assume from the extraordinary uni-

essentially preliterary Scholes

been given their

J.

it

“bears

traditional (p.

is

For Scholes and Kellogg, the formulaic quality of saga diction overrides the

1

(consideration that prose

not the normal vehicle for. orally

is

and the objections of some

critics that

(p. 51).

On

and syntactic rhythm of the prose sen-

“a

the contrary, they argue,

‘saga style’ of the family sagas

mar’ of Icelandic oral narrative

would in effect yield a description of the ‘gramprose. The existence of such a ‘grammar’ was the

will necessarily

“Because

history

the

in

be highly stylized”

clude, an oral prehistory for the Icelandic sagas

excellence:

famous

detailed analysis of the

primary basis for the achievement of an oral prose

composed prose

literature

prose “cannot develop orally because of

the difficulty of controlling the logical

tence”

composed

is

medieval Iceland. Orally

(p. 51).

Indeed, they con-

the only explanation for their

development of a powerful art-prose and a secular

has been considered impossible without writing and individual au-

thorship, the very quality of Icelandic narrative has until

now been

the best

argument against the oral composition of the family sagas. With the Homeric

from quality

epics as a model, however, the argument

destroyed.

.

.

.

The sagas would not be

as

good

vidually created compositions in anything like the

is

weakened,

if

not

were indisense” (pp. 43-44).

as they are if they

modem

Scholes ’s and Kellogg’s remarks are brief and general, and readers unfamiliar with the course of saga studies in the

last forty

years

may wonder what

the fuss

is

about (see Vesteinn Olason 1978). But their discussion marks a radical departure

from recent scholarly tradition

in

two important ways. One

is

its

unabashed

presumption on the basis of form alone that the sagas are the products of oral \composition. To the extent that the freeprose case has been made at all in recent decades,

it

has been

made

in source-analytical

terms (that

is,

through the analysis

of variants and the references to oral sources), not formal or oral-compositional ones. Second, Scholes’s and Kellogg’s “holistic” approach runs directly against the strongly empirical in the

mance

and atomistic grain of saga scholarship as

twentieth century. Not since Walter Paton in

Ker wrote

it

has developed

his

Epic and Ro-

1897 have the sagas as narrative forms been put into such a broad,

comparative perspective.

Theodore M. Andersson’s book on Icelandic saga origins appeared two years earlier than Scholes’s and Kellogg’s The Nature of Narrative. In it, Andersson stated plainly his objections to the Icelandic school position

an oral saga (1964:116-19, taken, however,

and his

own

belief in

123-82). What form that oral saga might have

Andersson did not

book on family saga macrostructure. The Icelandic Family Saga: An Analytic Reading (1967), which may be counted the first systematic piece of saga analysis in the formalist-traditionalist mode. Its point of departure that the family sagas “do, after all, constitute a homogeneous genre capable of homogeneous definition” spell out until three years later in his

—

Icelandic Family Sagas

— runs

(p. v)

275

directly counter, as the

wording suggests,

to the then-prevailing

tendency of Icelandic scholars in particular to regard the sagas as different works, each with

its

own

characteristic stamp.

For Andersson, as for Scholes and

Kellogg, the issue was not their differentness but their similarity: are in fact so repetitive

and the

“The

patterns

doing undue

similarities so great that, without

violence to the plots, one can abstract from them a standard structure, to which all

the [twenty-four] sagas under study, with the exception of Vatnsdcela saga,

conform

That structure has

to a greater or lesser extent” (p. 29).

stages: introduction, conflict, climax, revenge, reconciliation,

They

six parts or

and aftermath.

are paradigmatically represented in the short account of Porsteinn stangar-

hQgg. (The special character of family saga beginnings and endings has been

Hume

perceptively elaborated by Kathryn

both in his

As Andersson makes

clear

chapter and in the subsequent analyses of individual sagas,

first

not only their

[1973].)

common

it is

skeletal structure that associates the sagas with

one

another and distinguishes them as a genre but also the manner in which that skeleton

is

fleshed out.

“may

conflict, for

example,

is

“touched off by an

typically

sometimes inflamed by the malice of a troublemaker, and gradu-

insult or injury, ally intensified

The

by a sequence of invective and assault”

either be effected

by

and the revenge

(p. 29),

legal procedures or (in the majority of cases)

blood vengeance, or by a combination of both”

(p. 29).

Many

by

of these specifics

are also highly stylized, both in substance (for example, horsefights, sheepthefts,

ominous dreams) and

manner of presentation

in

shifting before the climax, use of

symmetries and epic

(for

triads),

constitute type-scenes or recurrent microstructures, though treat

them systematically

and refers to others

A

as such (he enumerates

some

example, scene-

and

in effect they

Andersson does not

in the chapter

on

rhetoric

in passing in the context of the individual text analyses).

similar operation, though

more

overtly Proppian, has been performed

on

some Islendinga paettir by Joseph Harris (1972; also Joseph 1972). Harris extracts an ideal scheme of six parts: introduction, journey in, alienation, reconciliation, journey out, conclusion. Again, this framework is filled out and further defined by the standard motifs that attach to

journey ^

is

to

Norway;

the locale

is

it

(the traveler

is

an Icelander; the

the king’s court; the visitor excites the king’s

anger by slaying a favored retainer; and so forth).

Of

the thirty-one paettir

analyzed, nine “conform without qualification” to that structural scheme; six

conform

in part (that is, the pattern

whole of

it);

informs a section of the pdttr but not the

and the remaining sixteen constitute

structural variants.

“All these

from the formal standpoint as Elsewhere Harris argues that these

stories,” Harris concludes, “are best understood

variants of a single plot structure” (p. 20). paettir share not

only an “outer” but also an “inner” form

—

that they are, in

other words, unified thematically as well as structurally (Harris 1976b). /

Harris’s interest lies first and foremost in the generic consciousness such

structural uniformity implies.

of genres

is

He

based on analogies

quotes Northrop Frye’s remark that “the study in

form” and proposes

that together with the

Carol

276

common

J.

Clover

features of subject matter and setting, rhetoric and style, characters,

''common narrative structure is a useful tool to apply as a generic template in the study of individual works” (1972:27). Harris is here reacting against Lonnroth’s earlier claims, based in large part on lexical in evidence, that the early Icelanders had no real native generic categories particular, that jpdttr as a literary category has no medieval authority and is thus a

characterization, and themes,

—

modem

constmction.

prompted a three-way discussion of genre in Scandinavian Studies (Harris 1975; Andersson 1975a; Lonnroth 1975a). Lonnroth apologized for the excessive nominalism of his earlier work but defended his conclusions on Harris’s article

which was

other grounds, one of

and Andersson perceived

that the

in the paettir

common

narrative stmcture that Harris

and family sagas respectively was neither

exclusive to the genre in question nor found in

all

the representatives. Harris

defended the effort to systematize on theoretical grounds and, referring to Dan

Ben-Amos’s

distinction

an exploration of both

and

their audiences

between analytic genre and ethnic genre, suggested

is

necessary for an appreciation of

understood their

literature.

how medieval

that

authors

“I confess,” he concludes,

‘‘to

harboring an unprovable belief that the analytic system intuition has bequeathed to us

does to some extent coincide with relevant aspects of the inaccessible ethnic

system, and to that extent

I

am

agreement with Lonnroth’s desire to have the

in

systems congment. For no one has yet shown that the standard

modem

genre

system violates the medieval system as evidenced by vocabulary, and the argu-

ment from silence can be applied

in

both directions” (1975:434-35). Andersson

simply quarrels with Lonnroth’s assertion that the traditional saga genres are not

He

distinct.

reiterates that his

aim ‘‘was not

common

the family sagas, in addition to a

930-1050 (which

As

never) in other groups of sagas.” is

which are found much

less often (not

for Lonnroth’s claim that the family saga

‘‘eminently applicable to several konungasogur and fornaldarsogur"'

(1975a:420)

own

setting in Iceland during the period

also a generic characteristic), share very often (not always)

is

certain principles of dramatic constmction

pattern

to oversimplify, but to suggest that

—

a claim he does not substantiate

— Andersson

says only that his

research suggests otherwise and that he will consider that eventuality only

and when

it is

demonstrated

in detail

(1975:438). Lonnroth’s point

is

well taken,

however. The case for the generic integrity of the Islendingasogur and the

would be stronger •

if

they could be

shown

to

Although the

last

paettir

be stmcturally distinct from the other

classes of sagas {riddarasogur, konungasogur, fornaldarsogur, sagas).

if

contemporary

couple of years have seen some suggestive efforts along

these lines, no full-scale analysis has yet emerged.

There have been two recent systematic attempts, both based on Njdls saga, to break saga narrative (1971), 33.

who

down

into

its

component

parts.

One

is

that of

Richard Allen

distinguished these elements, beginning with the smallest: the mini-

On fornaldarsogur,

see Righter-Gould 1980 and Hallberg 1982; on riddarasogur, see Rossen-

beck 1970; and on contemporary sagas see

IJlfar

Bragason 1981.

Icelandic Family Sagas

mal

fact

(“They rode

277 to the

Althing”) or the figurative or gnomic statement

(“Cold are the counsels of women”); the motif (a small when Gunnarr catches a spear in midflight and hurls

unit of a typical act, as it

back); the scene (a

sustained personal or social action such as a shipboard fight, a feast, or bartering for a bride); the

“chapter” (which refers not

to the physical chapter divisions in

the manuscripts but to the “patterned sequences of events

of a larger theme”

[p. 72]); the

journey abroad of young ture of the story as

it

is

men

episode and episode cluster (for example, the

in search of adventure); the plot (the entire struc-

preserved); and, finally, the archetypal level.

Lonnroth offers a somewhat different For him, the smallest unit

103).

commonplaces fact); transition

which are components

is

set

of categories and labels (1976:42-

the formula, of

which there are three

varieties:

for presenting recurrent but fairly trivial motifs (Allen’s

formulas (for example,

Nu

er fxir

til

minimal

mdls at taka); and direct

discourse consisting of proverbs, legal formulas, and figurative statements (Allen’s figurative or

gnomic statements). The second

sponds to Allen’s and

my

unit

is

scene, which corre-

descriptions (Allen 1971:65-66; Clover 1974) and

which has several stock forms

(to

be discussed below). Yet another unit

is

the

personal description, which Lonnroth elsewhere refers to as the character portrait (1965a). Scenes and descriptions, which are individually subject to expansion

and contraction, constitute the saga’s narrative segments or building blocks; they

combine fjcettir

to

form chapters, which

in turn

combine

form semi-independent

to

(Allen’s episodes and episode sequences). Lonnroth identifies

two

stan-

dard “action patterns” in the paettir: the feud pattern and the travel pattern.

There are seven distinct feud patterns

in Njdls

saga

(for

example, the feud over

Unnr’s dowry), each one conforming roughly to Andersson’s six-part scheme

form of the macrostructure). The travel pattern appears four times in Njdla (for example, Hnitr’s travels in chapters 26), and each one corresponds roughly to Harris’s morphology (see also Hieatt 1978). Lonnroth has also looked into the Njdla manuscripts to determine whether (thus the microstructure duplicates the

there

is

any scribal authority for such structural divisions (1975b). In addition

to

discussing stock structures, Lonnroth discusses stock characters (1976:61-68; cf.

Hermann Palsson 1973a) and stock rhetorical effects (82-99). The saga scene is defined by Allen in terms of its plot as “the

level of

sustained individual or social action, as a compact unit of significant action

which has a beginning, middle, and end” (Allen 1971:65). Scene can also be defined in terms of

its

structure, as a narrative unit about a paragraph in size

constructed around a conversation (Clover 1974; also Lonnroth 1976:65-66).

The conversation

is

preceded by a narrative preface spelling out the who, where,

when, and circumstances of the encounter, and narrative conclusion in

it

is

normally followed by a

which the speakers are dispatched and the outcome of the

encounter mentioned. Scenes are readily identifiable not only because of their tripartite structure

but also by virtue of their observance of the dramatic unities;

time, place, and action are indicated at the outset and remain constant through-

278

Carol

out, breaking only

when

that scene

Clover

J.

concluded and another begun. In addition,

is

scenes are often marked off by transitional narrator-formulas (for example,

Nu

er

fra pvi at segja).

Scenes can be as standard

“most

characteristic stock scenes in

hero

presented

is

woman

at a

As

in their content as in their structural format.

Njdla," Lonnroth

the

the following: (1) a

lists

foreign court and accepted as one of the king’s men; (2) a

goads her kinsman to take revenge on her enemy by suggesting that he

coward if he does not; (3) a man encounters his enemy and kills him; heroes exchange boasts and insults at a feast or at the Althing; (5) a a

encounters her kinsman (or lover) as he

is

returning with a bloodied

(4)

is

two

woman

weapon

after

having killed his enemy; (6) two heroes make a settlement at the Althing; (7) a man visits a kinsman or neighbor to solicit his support before a meeting at the Althing; and (8)

somebody

of these stock scenes has

tells its

another person about an ominous dream. “Each

rules

and recurrent formulas

using

in addition to

general conventions for scenic presentation,’’ Lonnroth writes (1976:47-48).

Allen offers a similar

list

of stock narrative events (1971: esp. 20-21; also

Berger 1977a). Equally stereotypical are the narrative segments describing combat. The duel

{hdlmganga, stylized

einvi'gi), for

example, occurs throughout saga

form (Sieg 1966). The “rhetorical

effects’’

literature in a highly

Andersson includes

in his

Heinemann

better

discussion of staging before a battle are according to Fredrik

J.

seen as stock microstructures belonging to the approach-to-battle type-scene of

Germanic

tradition (1974). “Type-scene,’’ as

it

used by Old English scholars,

is

refers to a standard cluster of motifs, not a formal structure per se.

What An-

dersson calls the “staging sequence’’ and Heinemann the “approach-to-battle type-scene’’ normally consists of several or

many

saga scenes.

tripartite

the fighting begins, tripartite scenic narration normally gives

report narrative

preamble itself

to

—

way

When

to simple

a reflection, perhaps, of the author’s greater interest in the

combat, the preparations and the motivation, than

in the

combat

(Heinemann 1974:104-5; Clover 1974:64).

Patterning in smaller narrative units has received considerably less attention

than patterning in whole saga plots, faettir, episodes, and scenes. studies,

however, suggest that even

strongly regulated by tradition.

what Anne Heinrichs

calls

at the lexical level

One example

Some

scattered

saga narrative can be

of lexical patterning

is

the use of

an “apposition formula’’ (for example, “Grata

ek Gisla, broSur minn,’’ “Sart ertu leikinn, Samr

fostri’’),

mun

which, because

it

typically anticipates a disaster, serves as an emotional clue to the audience /

(1972). Another example of lexical patterning

(roughly “that man, the big one’’);

I

,

its

may be

the phrase sd inn mikli

occurrences in Egils saga

discourse are followed by the slaying of the

man

functioning as a verbal signal to the audience of what is

direct

so designated (Bell 1979). In

both cases, the lexical pattern precedes the event to which

intriguing here

in

is

it

is

attached, thereby

about to come.

What

is

not only the idea that certain events called for certain fixed

Icelandic Family Sagas

279

knew

phrases but the implication that the audience

these fixed phrases in ad-

vance.

The

may

analogy employed by saga

linguistic

not be an idle one

linguistic basis.

as

if,

structuralists,

Lonnroth

K. C. Kossuth argues, saga structure

Her analysis shows

distinguished by tense,

is

word

“grammar of composition”

discerns a

itself

that the subdivisions of narrative are

by time expressions and the interplay of agent and aspect and narrative

in particular,

has a

marked

that the flow of

order, and anaphora. Kossuth thus

not only in repeated plot structures but in

Taking a different tack, Frederic Amory argues

the language itself (1980).

the syntax of saga narrative, especially the discourse in saga scenes,

that

conforms

to

an extraordinary extent to the syntactic rules for basic oral narrative as set forth

by the sociolinguist William Labov. As the

first

attempt since Knut Liestdl’s

at a

positive identification of the “oral” features of saga language, and the first

attempt ever to do so in something like scientific and universal terms, analysis

Amory ’s

of considerable interest for the traditionalist case (1980).^"^ Ulrike

is

Sprenger speculates that the sagas’ abundant preference for the more colloquial inn over the

more

literary sd (“the, that”) constitutes

an indirect proof of oral

origins (1977:239-71).

Let us pause to consider the aim and underlying assumptions of the studies of saga form dealt with so in the

No

far.

saga scholar nowadays would deny that the sagas

form we have them are the products of thirteenth-century Icelandic

writers.

But they do not agree on the role of these writers. Members of the Icelandic school would maximize their involvement, conceiving of them as authors in

something like the

minimize

modem sense,

their role, conceiving of

rehandlers of a literature

As

it is

whereas formalist-traditionalists are inclined

them

less as creators or innovators than as

bom and substantially developed during the oral period.

currently used, the term “traditional narrative”

narrative, despite literary mediation retaining

aesthetic of oral prose

—

rhetorical stigmata of oral

the authors

were

literate

or,

have

it,

simply,

of the properties and the

and availed themselves of written works, is

for that reason to be

—

“judged by

criteria applicable

I

1

would

(Steblin-Kamenskij’s distinction

between the “nonidentity hypothesis” and the “identity hypothesis”

on the

if

their art

not, as the Icelandic school

criteria applicable to written fiction.

clearly played out

oral

“narrative which bears the formal and

composed works” (Allen 1971:21) by

many

means ultimately

composition” (Scholes and Kellogg 1966:50). Even

“recreates a tradition” and to orally

to

is

thus

level of formal analysis.)

new version of freeprose doctrine. And so it is, although its largely deductive mode of argumentation and its theoretical presuppositions make it in some important ways a differ-

On

first

glance, the

ent undertaking.

new

traditionalism appears to be a

These presuppositions are worth an excursus, not

least

because

den islendske aettesaga (Oslo; H. Aschehoug, 1929). English translation: The Origin of the Icelandic Family Sagas (Oslo: H. Aschehoug, 1930; rpt. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1974). See also Widmark 1966. 34.

Knut

Liest0l,

Upphavet

til

Carol

280 they

seem

to

have eluded

from

the idea, derived structures .

and

at least

some

first,

in

and of

recurrent structures in the sagas are oral

by

itself.

The

Clover

mentioned above,

as

is

deep and surface

can reveal the generative rules. The second

an oral feature

in the earliest texts as

The

linguistic theory, that oral narrative has

that analysis

that recurrence is

critics.

J.

is

the idea

third is the idea that

virtue of the fact that they are

well as prefigured in eddic poetry. Let

me

discuss

found

them

in

turn.

Multiformity within Uniformity: The Linguistic Model

The idea of deep and surface structure in language is too well known to require summary here. Suffice it to say that it corresponds to, and has served to buttress, once original and unique (on the surface level)

the idea that oral narrative

is at

and general and traditional

(in its

modem

narrative predates

underlying structure). That this conception of

grammatical theory

is

illustrated in the following

exchange between Joseph Bedier and Ferdinand Lot, quoted by Andersson by

way of

explaining his

own

writes, “recognizing that our positions

suaded that there

is

we separated,” Lot He [Bedier] was per-

views. “After an hour or more

were irreducible.

a spontaneous birth of literary works:

‘All literature,’

repeated, ‘begins with a masterpiece, which has no past.’

bom

I

he

objected that the

framework and that it was this framework that was under discussion.” “The positions,” Andersson concludes, “are exactly the same for the saga and equally irreducible. My own persuasion is that Lot was correct and that there is a pre-established framework” (1967:309). By “pre-established framework” Andersson does not mean a fixed saga plot but a dynamic system of mles out of which were generated a variety of similar but not necessarily identical sagas. The evidence of the variants is that “the traditions were subject to extensive and probably rapid mutation. Even if the details were fluid, the tradition was narratively firm, that is to say, the gist of the story was constant” (1964:182). Harris avoids committing himself, though his remarks on “multiformity within uniformity” betray generative thinking masterpiece

is

in a pre-established

.

.

.

(1972:27). Allen expresses the multiformity-within-uniformity idea as follows:

“The

sagas, then, are

recalled and

made up of

composed by

typical scenes

and such scenes

in turn are

a fitting together of smaller motifs, small events, and

gestures which are also stylized, also familiar and traditional. These motifs

belong to given scenes, but they the scene a

new creation”

may

(1971:21).

make each occurrence of Lonnroth avails himself more directly of

vary enough to

“Although he [the Njdla narrator] used traditional phrases and motifs,” Lonnroth writes, “his way of combining episodes into a transformational

complete saga

is

logic.

unique.”

could generate his dented scenes

own

still

And “Each

rules

felt to

sagawriter, including the author of Njdla,

from the preceding ones and thus construct unprece-

be ‘within saga tradition’.” Lonnroth’s remark that

“even though the plot was

traditional, the

saga was

not;

it

was an individual

— Icelandic Family Sagas

literary

281

creation” echoes the classic formulation of Oral Theory:

on the generative

traditional

all is

unique on the level of performance (1976:41, 43, 48;

level, all

Clover 1974:82).

As

for the origins of these generative structures,

one can only speculate.

^

.

Andersson (1964:119) and Allen (1971:20-21) refer the primary matter of the sagas

brides

— could not

—

duels, feuds, legal debates, bartering for

from form.

exist apart

objected that certain aspects of

to LiestpTs contention that

life itself

It

might be, and indeed has been,

(feuds, for example) consist in effect of

repeated structures, and one can assume that the underlying structures of the sagas were originally conditioned

if

not by the events themselves then by the

they were experienced by participants and onlookers. issue

is

dim

finally not the

way

But for the formalists the

prehistory of narrative structures in reality (or the

patterned perception of reality) but the fact that they were firmly in place as fully

developed generative patterns

in the earliest sagas.

Recurrence as an Oral Feature

The second premise of and boils down

to the following logic: the sagas are full of recurrent

features (motifs, themes,

“rhetorical” devices, and plot structures, large and

repetition

small); recurrence of this sort

not of literary narrative; and recurrent features, that early Icelanders

I

do with formal

the formalist-traditionalists has to

that

what

is

it is

this extent is characteristic

of oral narrative,

therefore in the sagas’ standard patterns, their

we can apprehend

— and hence

roth’s entire chapter

and to

the native storytelling habits of the

“The Language of Tradition”

recurrent in Njdla

is

is

predicated on the notion

native and oral and what

is

not recurrent

I \

Lonn-

arrive at the shape of the preliterary sagas.

elements lacking analogues elsewhere in Njdla or in other sagas

—

is

original

same idea when he writes that “the structures of the family saga, the ways in which they assemble themselves event after event, seem to follow the examples and seem to

1(1976:42-103, esp. 42-44;

cf.

Berger 1977a). Allen aims

at the

recreate the pattern of extended oral composition” (1971:20).

saga scenes similarly

more precisely quence.

tries to

analysis of

“define the traditionally Norse storytelling

mode

as a narration of tripartite scenes arranged paratactically in se-

One supposes

tradition, a

My

that scene functioned as a kind of

mnemonic

unit in oral

predetermined frame in which a plot event could be encapsulated”

(1974:82). Andersson takes this line of reasoning to 35. Scholes and Kellogg speculate

on

this point as

its

logical

follows (1966:47-48).

“The

tion of Njdls Saga, like that of several of the individual histories in Sturlunga

motif directly from Icelandic narrative pattern

—

life,

end

point:

“What

narrative articula-

Saga,

is

provided by a

the perfect motif, in fact, to give unity and shape to a genealogical

the family feud.

The

intense cultivation of civil law in Iceland, at the expense of

imposed an almost artificial order on the lives of the Icelanders, presenting the saga-men with ready-made materials for narrative presentation, and producing inevitably a unique kind of narrative, tied closely to history and to the actualities of contemporary life.” See also Berger 1978-79. (or in lieu of) every other area of public life, itself necessarily

282 is

Carol

characteristic of the written saga

likely to

is

Clover

J.

have been characteristic of the oral

saga as well and the perennial question about the form of the oral tradition might

answered

tentatively be

in

terms of what

common

is

to the written

most obvious, and most basic, shared feature of the written sagas,

sagas.” The

in his

view,

is

This defines the written saga and in a

their conflict-centered macrostructure.

broad sense the same definition “might also serve

to' describe

the oral stories that

must have preceded and preconditioned the written sagas” (1967:309). Here the

new

traditionalism parts

ways with

freeprose.

As

Harris explains, the “current

versions of a prehistory including oral components or stages continue to gain supporters; but in general this simply projects the generic-historical questions

back

time.” Formalist-traditionalism, on the other hand, “has sought to

in

establish

432).

by a fresh approach a generative

The assumption

To be

difficulties. )

link with earlier oral

genres” (1975:

36

that recurrence

sure,

folktale study in general

is

it

betokens orality

is,

however, not without

an assumption fostered by Proppian analysis and

(which concentrates on shared elements) as well as by

Oral Theory (which also stresses formulaic features). But the saga folktale

“oral” is

and not a verse epic and, as in the

it.

one can readily see

romance (medieval

as well as

“genre” implies a degree of literary

f the '

The problem

is

a defining characteristic of oral literature,

literature, as

\ or

form we have

traditionalists

at

modem)

it

first

that although formulaic repetition

it is

by no means exclusive

and thematic typicality even

structural

not possible (as at least

assume) that the

themselves agree, not even

to oral

or the western or pornography. Again,

saga author(s)

in fully

assume that recurrence in the sagas is Could it not just as well be wholly

to

function of traditional storytelling?

literary? Is

not a

a glance at such genres as the detective novel

What reason do we have

works.

is

some members of

hit

the Icelandic school

on a successful formula and

that later

Such was presumably the case in the Icelandic riddarasogur; why not assume the same developmental model for the

practitioners

merely imitated and refined

it?

Islendingasdgur? This

is

a question traditionalists have not addressed, or have addressed only in

passing (e.g., Lbnnroth 1976:43).

modem

Many

readers, like myself, suspect that the

pattern does not apply and that structural and thematic uniformity in the

family saga

is

indeed a function of tradition and not invention; but the case

remains to be made.

One

consideration

society like that of medieval Iceland,

is

audience, of course. In an agrarian

where

social classes lived

cheek by jowl,

forum was necessarily mixed. Saga authors were presumably aware work would be both read (by a few) and heard (by many). But as long

the literary that their

as a substantial portion of their audience

some

presumably bound

at least to

comprehension

an oral performance.

at

remained

illiterate,

extent by an oral model, It

if

saga writers were

only for the sake of

may moreover be argued

that the

“The Heroic Legacy’’ (Andersson 1967:65-93). Ruth Finnegan designates as “oral’’ all literature intended for oral performance, regardless of the literacy or sophistication of the author. See her Oral Poetry (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 36. 37.

Harris here footnotes Andersson’s chapter

Icelandic Family Sagas

283

kind and narrative level of recurrence in the sagas

is

than written literature. Patterning in literary genres

—

more

characteristic of oral

the western, say

—

tends to

operate at the gross level of macrostructure (an imported marshal eventually

community of predatory

succeeds, after lengthy tribulations, in ridding the

out-

laws), event sequences (marshal and outlaw encounter each other in saloon),

scenes (brawl in saloon,

showdown on Main

of course, characters

Street), and,

(drunken doctor, laconic marshal, eastern dandy, helpful whore). But the flow of written narrative

and above

—

the relation and ratio of dialogue to narrative, for example,

the narrative pace

all

—

is

not so patterned; here the literary nature of

the exercise, the author’s personal “art,”

remarkably stylized

is

evident.

at just this level; their

pace

The

is

sagas, by contrast, are

remarkably uniform, the

rhythm almost monotonously episodic, and the scenic format remarkably fixed, not only within the saga but from saga to saga. What idiosyncrasies emerge are finally subtle

and minor

level bears a strong

This

literature.

would seem indeed

by

—

fact,

to

again,

in

comparison

resemblance

on the

and

tures,

will

its

may

found

in other oral

the facts of publication in medieval Iceland,

level of paragraph-by-paragraph narration

composed works. The

mode, must be

so.

—

to

be Judged

sagas’ macrostructure

not (Ldnnroth) be traditional; but

paratactic

at this

the new-traditionalist contention that the sagas are

criteria applicable to orally

(Andersson) or

Saga patterning

to the narrative patterning

combined with

recommend

to the uniformity.

its

(Composition

may

lesser narrative fea-

is

another matter and

be treated separately below.)

Patterning in the Early Sagas and Eddie Poetry

The

third formalist

premise

is

an extension of the second: namely, that the

recurrent features of the sagas represent the oral layer because they are found in

more or less full form in the earliest saga texts and in some cases in prototypical form in eddic verse. “The form of the family saga,” writes Andersson, “is too elaborate to have been invented in a

must have been an

century. There

vacuum

artistic

at the

beginning of the thirteenth

continuity between the preliterary and

and the written saga must have derived much of its form and technique from the oral stories that went before” (1967:309). Likewise saga scene: its existence as a fully conceived and integral feature of the earliest texts literary periods

indicates a fundamental point of contact with oral tale-telling (Clover 1974:26).

Lonnroth expands the point: “It also seems probable that the narrative conventions to

developed largely

vellum, for

we

find

in oral storytelling before the first sagas

them

in

saga manuscripts

at

were committed

such an early date that they

could hardly have had time to develop between the introduction of writing and the composition of ‘classical’ sagas such as Njdla.

Although some sagas, such as

1977), esp. pp. 16-24; also Clover 1982: 188-204. For a useful discussion of recurrence in prose, see Bennison Gray, “Repetition in Oral Literature,” JAF, 84 (1971), 289-303.

284

Carol

Clover

J.

Heidarviga saga or Reykdosla saga, have a more primitive and stereotyped appearance than Njdla, which basic technique

the

is

is

unusually sophisticated and

same and bespeaks

common

their

much

new

traditionalists

stock in the stylistic and structural consistency, and the generally

“finished” quality, of the ^

their

origin in the oral saga”

(1976:101). Like freeprosists before them, therefore, the place

‘literary,’

first

sagas. This, they argue, speaks loudly against the

“invention” hypothesis. Curiously, the

stylistic continuity

sagas and the kings’ sagas has not been

much

between the family

explored.

by no means an original exercise. Generations of scholars (including Ker, Gu6brandur Vigfusson, Magnus Olsen, Liestpl, Sprenger, and Wolfgang Fleischhauer) have sought to identify and explain eddic parallels. As Andersson points out in his chapter “The Heroic Legacy,” however, these investigations have focused almost without

The

1

connect the sagas with eddic poetry

effort to

is

exception on motif analogies and temper, not narrative qualities. After surveying

'

“There are some very fundamental structural and thematic correspondences which link the saga with ( the lay. .In view of the evidence it seems more fruitful to regard the literary form of the saga as an adaptation of heroic models than as history, as an older generation held, or as a novelistic innovation, as a newer generation believes. The saga authors did not need to create an entirely new literary type, but were able to elaborate on a traditional literary mold, the heroic mold” (1967:93; see also Madelung 1972b: 150-54).^^ from

the territory

.

this

point of view, he concludes:

.

'

j

.

.

.

i

Lonnroth

tiies to

He

distinguish layers.

agrees that

many

of the type-characters

of the sagas have eddic and indeed Germanic prototypes, and he assumes that certain of the smaller structural

segments (motifs, scenes, action patterns) also

derive from the native stock. Unlike Andersson, however, he doubts the tradi-

“Very long sagas,” he

tional basis of the full form.

exist in the oral tradition as

had

the saga writers ,

own models

.

.

.

complete narrative units.” At

to “turn to foreign

rated

into

long

“probably did not

this level,

he argues,

models, or, alternatively, create their

out of the old and comparatively simple feud patterns and

travel patterns” (1976:102). earlier, pasttir or

writes,

These feud and

travel patterns are, as

mentioned

fmttr-Wkt narratives; in suggesting that they have been elabo-

forms,

Lonnroth

is

in

effect

reviving

the

long-dormant

/\3t/r-theory of saga origins.

Readers familiar with the freeprose-bookprose debate will wonder what hap-

pened

to the classic question of the sagas’ historical

fair to

say that the reason for the

historicity is

new

simply that they regard

formalist-traditionalists,

traditionalists’ silence it

though not necessarily of the others). Like

the original stories sprang Andersson

from

later adjusted his

probably

is

true of the

their counter-

non-European), they assume that

historical reality but that,

views on

It is

on the question of

as beside the point (this

parts in other fields of oral literature (especially

38.

background.

once

set in oral

motion,

this point (1970).

39. For a brief history of the jpdttr theory of saga origins, see

Andersson 1964:61-64.

Icelandic Family Sagas

285

they were slowly but surely rationalized, localized, contemporized, and above

V

“traditionalized” (repattemed according to the narrative ety).

The degree of

involved, but

it

distortion

depends

to a

“laws” of

all

that soci-

may depend to some extent on the period of time much greater extent on the habits of the particular

on the consequences of literacy in traditional societies. Jack Goody and Ian Watt offer the following instructive example of “oral” mutation. It concerns the Gonja people of northern Ghana. When the British first visited Ghana, they found a state divided into seven chiefdoms. Asked to explain this division, the Gonja recounted how the founder of the state, Ndewura Jakpa, “came down from the Niger Bend in search of gold, conquered the indigenous inhabitants of the area and enthroned himself as chief of the state and his sons as rulers of its territorial divisions. At his death the divisional chiefs succeeded to the paramountcy in turn.” Shortly thereafter, two of the seven chiefdoms disappeared, as a consequence of incorporation and boundary changes. “Sixty years later, when the myths of state were again recorded, Jakpa was credited with only five sons and no mention was made of the founders of the two divisions which had since disappeared from the political map.”^*^ “Fiction” is the wrong word here, for it implies intent. It also implies purely untrue narrative, which it is not, or is not taken to be. Just how this model relates culture. In their essay

to

Steblin-Kamenskij’s idea of “syncretic truth”

is

not clear.

It is

clear,

ever, that the formalist-traditionalists espouse neither the “historical”

how-

view

at-

view of the Icelandic school view, conceptually derived from the workings

tributed to their freeprose forebears nor the fictional

but

some

as yet unclarified third

of oral transmission in other cultures.

One might

add, in this connection, that the

freeprose belief in the “historical saga” has been greatly exaggerated by book-

them members of the Icelandic school, evidently for straw-man purposes (e.g., von See 1979:47). If the new traditionalists were to elect a spiritual father, it would probably be Knut Liestpl. For Liestpl, as to an extent for Axel Olrik, the sagas’ oral component was not an unknown and unknowable quantity (as it has been for the Icelandic school) but one that could be isolated and identified through comparison with the Norwegian folktale; shared features, of which there were many, prosists

in

and

after

LiestpTs view, must derive from the

common

oral stock.

(The nationalistic

dimension of LiestpTs view, not to speak of that of the Icelandic school, needs

no comment [see also Oskar Halldorsson 1978a].) The new traditionalists also conceive of oral tradition as consisting of form as well as matter and further believe that

it is

susceptible of positive identification, again through a process of

comparison. The difference

lies in their

frame of “oral” reference. For Liestpl

(and Olrik), the frame of reference was specific and local: the Norwegian (or [

40.

Goody and Watt, “The Consequences of Literacy,”

p. 33.

See also Fidjestpl 1983; esp. 3-8.

Axel Olrik, “Epische Gesetze der Volksdichtung,” ZDA, 51 (1909), 1-12. An English translation may be found in Alan Dundes, ed.. The Study of Folklore (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.; Prentice-Hall, 1965), pp. 129-41 See also Widmark 1966. On the selective reception of Liestpl’s ideas, see Mundal 1977:198-204. 41.

Knut

Liestpl, Origin of the Icelandic

Family

Sagas',

.

286

Carol

Scandinavian) folktale. For the \

traditionalists, the

general to the point of being universal, including (as codified

(

new

all

indirectly, a general it is

no

at the

is t

analogue with the Icelandic family saga either in the

real

native tradition (the folktales

comparative use) or, as

only

aken to compass seems overly broad, one should bear in mind

formal level that universal patterns have been hypothesized; conten t

that thS^'exis^ts

is

demonstrably oral narrative

theory of speech production. (Hence the focus on form, since

If that

Clover

frame of reference

by various observer- theorists) and, directly or

be culture-bound.)

J.

now

are considered too short

and too

turns out, in oral literature at large (in

it

prose form appears to be a great rarity,

if

indeed

it

late to

be of

which the long

exists at all.)

Saga scholars

two choices, neither of them good: give up, or try, as the new traditionalists have elected to do, to develop out of such “laws” of narrative production as do appear to be universal an ersatz poetic of oral prose. Let us set formalism aside for the moment and turn our attention to other studies in the traditionalist vein. The scholar who has most persistently argued the case for oral origins in the last ten years is Dietrich Hofmann. Hofmann’s terms are by and large those of freeprose, which is to say that he relies heavily on therefore face

r !

the evidence provided by, for example, variant versions, the developmental .

relation

between verse and prose, and descriptions of or references

performance or oral transmission,

style,

“oral” formulas, and the

like.

to oral

On

these

and other source-analytical grounds Hofmann has judged Reykdoela saga to be an early, perhaps the earliest, family saga, a stylistically primitive

on the brink of the oral era (1972). the opening

dream

in

I

have already mentioned Hofmann’s essay on

Hrafnkels saga, which has been the bookprose trump card

ever since Sigur6ur Nordal claimed

gous passage

in

example standing

it

to

have been elaborated out of an analo-

Landnamabok."^^ Sifting yet again through the correspondences

two versions, Hofmann arrives at the conclusion that the saga author made use of two independent sources: Landndmabok and a competand discrepancies

in the

ing oral version. If this

giving as

one

— and

is

much credence

so, as to

I

have said,

it is

a clear instance of a saga author

an oral version of a historical event as to a written

not just any written one, but one from

Hofmann’s analysis rests on constitutes an oral and what a literary 1976a).

Landndmabdk (Hofmann

certain assumptions about precisely variant, an old issue that has

what

come up

for

reconsideration in recent years (Andersson 1964: 129-82; Schach 1972b; Mager-

0y 1970; Hofmann 1977b; Borggreve 1970).

The told

sagas’ ubiquitous references to oral tradition (“it

whether,” and so on) have loomed large

ning. Freeprosists, and

take

them more or

more

recently

less at face value,

as manneristic fillers.

is

said that,” “it

is

not

in

saga criticism from the begin-

Hofmann

(1972), have been inclined to

whereas bookprosists have dismissed them

Andersson concludes, from

his survey of 231 such refer-

j I

ences (of which more than one hundred appear in Reykdcela saga alone), that 42.

Hermann Palsson (1979g)

the biblical

takes the “literary” view of this

book of Joshua and a

reflex in Flateyjarbdk.

dream

a step further, relating

it

to

Icelandic Family Sagas

287

they are mixed: most spurious, but (for

some (about

example, “Gellir Porkelsson lived

a quarter) apparently genuine

at Helgafell until

remarkable things are told about him; he plays a part in said of

little is

him here” from Laxdcela saga,

old age, and

many

ch. 78).

many

other sagas, though

Andersson counts as

probably spurious those source references with a clear narrative or rhetorical function.

These functions are many, some of them highly contrived; they include

marking off narrative ibility,

transitions, highlighting certain details, establishing cred-

ironizing a situation, and defining the narrative limits (Andersson 1966;

Manhire 1975-76; Beck 1973a, 1973b; Bell 1976; Clover 1974). In this the source references are very much like the other major class of verbal formulas in the sagas: the authorial remarks (“now it is to be told of,” “now it is time to turn to,”

“now

he

is

out of the saga,”

“now

to introduce

X,” “now

it is

time to take

where they parted on friendly terms, as was written before”). Despite their formulaic quality and their typically impersonal construction, such phrases do constitute definite authorial intrusions, as Paul Schach has up

[the story at the point]

stressed (1970a). Certain of these intrusions so resemble, in their function and

was employed by medieval Latin writers (for example, “Sed ad nostra redeamus” [Theodoricus] “Vt enim ea, que narrare gestio, luculentiori stil ualeam indagare, superior! reincipiendium est exordio” [Profectio Danorum]), that they may be regarded as vernacular derivatives thereof (Clover 1982: 155-57 and passim). Fritz Paul compares Icelandic phrasing, the figure of the aphodos as

it

,

saga practice with kings’ saga practice and concludes that the formulas of the

former are more “fictional” than those of the

latter

The study of eddic echoes in the sagas has with some vigor. But here too there has been

change of direction. In the

this line

(1982).

a venerable history and continues a

past,

of reasoning has been limited by and large to the Poetic Edda’s heroic

component, and most recent studies have followed 1968; Heller 1976a; Bandle 1969;

suit

(Andersson 1967:65-93,

Wolf 1965b; Heinrichs 1970b; Beck 1968;

Uecker 1980). But some critics have explored the possibility of mythic prototypes as well. Joseph Harris, for example, has noted the presence in two sagas j{Eyrbyggja saga and Heidarviga saga) of Masterbuilder stories like the famous

\

one

in

Snorra Edda (the Sva5ilfari episode). His explanation

—

—

that Snorri ele-

Dronke thinks it I is not), of some consequence for Snorri studies (Harris 1976a; Dronke 1979a). Even if it is not true, the correspondence still suggests that the line between the fantastic mode of myth and the mimetic mode of the sagas is not as fixed as one often supposes. This is the premise of John Lindow’s article on Bandamanna saga, which in his view is directly indebted to the eddic poem Lokasenna not

^

vated a local Icelandic legend into myth

only for

its

true (and Ursula

two-part flyting but also for the figure of Ofeigr,

world what Loki \

is, if

is

to the

mythic one: a

trickster (1977).

who

is

Again the suggestion

mythic as well as heroic matter is subject to saga displacement. recalled here that Robert Glendinning attributed the satiric element

that

manna saga

to the saga is

(It

may be

in

Banda-

to the influence of fabliau tradition [1970].) In either case, the

288

Carol

senna-mannjafnadr

fly ting or

is

Clover

J.

a set-piece of Norse literature equally at

home

in

myth, heroic poetry, and saga, and the same can be said of the hvgt or incitement Odinic allusions in Egils saga (especially

scene.

own

connection with Egill’s

in

character and behavior) were noted long ago, and Gabriel Turville-Petre

extended the pattern to Viga-Glums saga.^^ Egill has also been linked with the

god Loki (Meulengracht Sprensen 1977a). Ursula Dronke perceives specific references to the poem Ri'gsjyula not only in Viga-Glums saga but also in Bjarnar saga Hitd(Elakappa and Eyrbyggja saga (1981). None of these cases and the question of whether, and

if

so

how and

is

with what intent, the saga authors

availed themselves of mythic matter remains open. Folklore, however, story. Just

Inger

how

freely the sagas absorbed folk

M. Boberg’s Motif-Index of Early

useful reference

work covering

all

the

themes and motifs

Old Norse

But not

all

another

suggested by

literary genres (1966).

Those analyses of structure basis have already been discussed at

bent on demonstrating the sagas’ traditional length.

is

is

Icelandic Literature, an incomplete but

Let us return, finally, to the sagas’ narrative

some

clear-cut,

art.

formal analysis of the sagas

is

dedicated to the tradi-

on the contrary, much of it rests exactly on the opposite premise, and some of it rests on no premise at all, but is simply descriptive. Jesse tionalist proposition;

Byock’s discussion, along Anderssonian latter

(1982).

lines,

Hermann Palsson has commented

of saga feuds briefly

He

is

an example of the

on some standard patterns

divides the standard heroic

life

into four phases: childhood, youthful adventures abroad, conflict in Iceland,

and

sagas with a biographical focus (1973a).

in

death struggle (often in the autumn).

He

also enumerates the sagas’ “ritualistic

elements” (by which he means weddings, divorces, duels, funerals, and the

like)

and stock characters (instigators, attackers, mitigators, spectators, sufferers). But he

is

inclined to see such patterns as universal or archetypal, not as elements

of a specifically Norse narrative tradition.

Njdls saga continues to get the lion’s share of literary appreciation. For Ursula

Dronke, as mentioned before, Njdla stands, male-female relations,

in a class

by

itself.

be the saga- writer’s deliberately chosen

age of

human

in the subtlety

Sexual themes

medium

and complexity of

its

“show themselves

to

for deepening the shallow im-

society in his native narrative tradition.

The wealth of sexual

themes represents his impatience with the monotony of the subject-matter that

was commonly thought appropriate

for the family sagas,

and with the

rigidity of

the conventional motivations of action”

(Dronke 1980:29). Alois Wolf makes

much

whole

the

character, 43. sitaire

the

same point about Njdla its

as a

blend of Christian and heroic, and

narrative: in its

its

conception of

orchestration of particulars

it

See Ari C. Bouman, Patterns in Old English and Old Icelandic Literature (Leiden: UniverPers, 1962), pp. 10-13; Joaqum Martinez Pizarro, “Studies on the Function and Context of

Senna

in

“The senna: From 65-1 A, and Carol J. Clover, (1979),

Early Germanic Narrative.” Diss. Harvard, 1976; Joseph Harris,

Germanic Studies, 5 Unferh Episode,” Speculum, 55 (1980), 444-68. 44. Viga-Glums saga, ed. Gabriel Turville-Petre (London: Oxford Univ. Press, ed. 1960), pp. xiii-xv. See also Clunies Ross 1978 and Grimstad 1976. Description to Literary Theory,” Michigan

“The Germanic Context of

the

1st ed.

1940, 2d

s

Icelandic Family Sagas

289

stands head and shoulders above

all

other sagas as a

work of

(1982). Oskar

art

Bandle agrees; Njdla has made fine use of the oral inheritance, but “eine spate Buchsaga” (1972:13). Bolton focuses on Njdla'

moments: the

finally

it is

two climactic

and BergJ^orshvall (1972). In a close comparison of the two narrative sequences, he bares not only their common structure, disasters at Hli5arendi

motifs, rhetoric, syntax, and vocabulary, but also the specifically

employed

in

“It

is

these elements are

both cases to neutralize or mediate oppositions that

obtained at the beginning of each sequence. Although traditional,

way

some of the techniques

are

Bolton writes, the patterning reveals a “single moral viewpoint.”

the assertion of the picture plane, of the artist’s individual and personal

command of the arrangement from the

largest units to the smallest, that argues

its

ultimate singleness of vision” (p. 204).

After Njdla, the saga that has been most studied from a formal viewpoint

Laxdcela saga.

Two

books have appeared on

dedicated to the proposition that of

all

work

that

the sagas

it

is

in the last

the

is

decade, both

most novel-like, a

work from beginning to end. One is the above-mentioned Die Laxdcela saga by Rolf Heller (1976a), a work concerned sophisticated and carefully crafted

mainly with source questions but including a general section on (pp. 121-49).^^

The other

is

Structural Patterns (1972b). er,

is

matters

Margaret Arent Madelung’s The Laxdcela Saga:

By

Its

Madelung means, howevcomposing the parts. She con-

“structural patterns”

not narrative parts but the devices used for

cludes that the saga

artistic

a “deliberately contrived piece of literary prose, put

together from bits and pieces, the patchwork being invisible so that a unified

whole emerges” level, in her

of

artistic

view

(p. 158). (p. 158).

prose”

(p.

There

is

no question of

Laxdcela saga

is

rather

oral tradition operating at this

“a

carefully constructed piece

145) and a “brilliant literary achievement” (p. 147).

The conventional view of Laxdcela saga

as a feud saga has

been challenged, as

mentioned before. To be sure, male conflict looms large, but

it

accretion on an underlying biographical pattern (Kress 1980;

Conroy 1980).

is

finally

an

—

Only one other saga, Eiriks saga rauda, is organized around the life centrally the marriages of a woman, and as Patricia Conroy points out, the resemblance

—

is

more than passing. She

extracts the following

story about the ancestor of the

prominent husbands; of the

woman;

(3) introduction

woman’s marriages;

common

structure: (1) pioneer

(2) family history

of the

of the

woman and her father;

(5) introduction of the first

first

of the

(4) foretelling

prominent husband and his

brother or foster brother; (6) marriage to the prominent husbands in turn; and (7)

epilogue about the

woman and

lates that this structure

the genealogy of her descendants.

was “pioneered” by

Conroy specu-

the Laxdcela saga author and imi-

by the author of Eiriks saga rauda; but one should perhaps not out the possibility that the female biography too had traditional roots.

tated (crudely) rule

45. Heller also treats narrative structure in his earlier article “Studien zu

Aufbau und

Stil

der

(1960), 113-67. On Laxdcela saga’s relation to other works, see Heller 1965, 1969a, 1974, 1976b, and ‘‘Laxdcela saga und Sturlunga saga,” ANF, 76 (1961), 112-33.

Laxdcela saga,”

ANF, 75

^

290

Carol

J.

Clover

The most systematic examination of Laxdoela saga’s structure is that of Heinrich Beck (1977). Beck discusses the saga’s time perspective, its narrative elements (for example, “the Icelander and the king,’’ occurring ten times; “acquisitions of land,’’ occurring four times),

and

its

narrative sequences (patterned

groups of the narrative elements). The sequences. Beck shows, are carefully arranged in ascending and descending patterns.

Although Beck takes An-

dersson’s structural scheme as a point of departure, he at no point espouses the

On

traditionalist explanation.

the contrary, he regards the saga as “art that has

been consciously inserted into the struggles of the thirteenth century’’

and

who

author as someone

its

(p.

401)

“set about organizing his narrative in a remark-

ably clear-headed and systematic way’’ (p. 398). Beck’s approach to narrative

time in the sagas stems from the style of literary theory popularized in the 1950s

by such

critics as E.

scholar to apply this

Lammert, A. A. Mendilow, and Kate Hamburger. The first theoretical framework to the sagas was Maarten C. van den

Toom.^^ The “presentation of

time’’ in saga narrative, in particular the relation

of “erzahlte Zeit’’ and “Erzahlzeit,’’ has been studied most recently by Hartmut

Rohn (1976;

also Loescher 1980). Espousing

conclusion, Rohn’s book

is

no theory and coming

to

no general

largely descriptive.

The other two sagas that have figured most prominently in the critical literature of the last two decades are Hrafnkels saga and Gisla saga. Hrafnkels saga has been discussed above in connection with source analysis and type-scene

no further (see also Kratz 1978; Slater 1968; Thomas 1973; Bolton 1971; Condren 1973; Dubs 1977; Halleux 1966a, 1966b; Hansen 1981). Gisla saga is an interesting case. Like the text itself, the literature on it

analysis and need detain us

stands apart.

The saga

is

notoriously rich in ambiguities, and critics continue to

new wrinkles in its psychosexual dynamic, new clues in its unsolved murder mystery, and new niceties in its puzzlelike construction (Schottmann 1975; Thompson 1973; Eirikur Bjornsson 1976; Ly5ur Bjomsson 1975; Grpnstpl 1979; Hansen 1978a; Heller 1966b; Hermann Palsson 1972, 1975a, 1979d; Kroesen find

1982a, 1982b; Andersson 1968; Bredsdorff 1964; Berger 1979; Foote 1963;

Clover 1977a). These essays are striking for their reverential tone. This with devotees, and

it

is

no surprise

that

The

is

a saga

one of the few feature films ever made

in

A

y

Iceland

is

a version of that story {Utlaginn, directed

by Agust Guomundsson).

unity and literary qualities of the perennially problematic Ljdsvetninga saga

have been commented on by Hallvard Magerpy (1969). The structure of Kor-

mdks saga has been discussed by Hans Schottmann (1982) and the Egils saga by Alois Wolf (1980) and Jan Sand Sprensen (1980).

We saga ,

—

arrive, finally, at the category of composition: the

scenes, episodes,

\(W. H. Vogt, A. U. Baath, and und Tempus

in

der Saga,”

the parts of the

— are organized into coherent, complex wholes.

Composition was the subject of some

46. Maarten C. van den

way

structure of

interest to

others), but

it

an earlier generation of scholars has for

some reason been given

Toom, “Zur Struktur der Saga,” ANF, 73 (1958), 140-68; and ANF, 76 (1961), 134-52. See also Loescher 1980.

‘‘Zeit

Icelandic Family Sagas

291

short shrift in recent decades, despite the general concern with

form and despite

An

the obvious relevance of composition to the issue of origins.

exception

is

what might be called “binding devices,’’ which have attracted a certain scholarly attention. Andersson, in his chapter on rhetorical devices, speaks of symme*

and foreshadowing (dreams, omens, portents, predictions, warnings, “psychic farewells,” curses, and the like) as articulating features (1967:31-64). tries

!

What Madelung

calls “structural patterns” are in effect binding devices: fore-

knowledge, anticipation trasts,

setja

in retrospect, repetition,

comparison, parallels and con-

contrapuntal variation, preparation and fulfillment, and so forth.

saman

is

apt, in her

view, for Laxdcela saga

highly sophisticated author (1972b: 158).

Anne

is

truly

The term

“put together” by a

Heinrichs identifies binding or

“intertextual” devices in three early sagas (Heidarviga saga, Reykdcela saga,

and the Legendary Saga of Saint Olaf). She arrives at a traditionalist conclusion: so standardized and well-executed are binding devices at this early stage that they

i

must be presumed

to

Heinrichs ’s work

unusual

is

have a prehistory in that

it

in oral tradition

(1976a:

143-44).

explores the stylistic continuity between

kings’ sagas and family sagas. Yet another study along these lines distinguishes

from prefiguration and derives the former from native tradition and from Latin exegetical practice (Prasstgaard Andersen 1976).

anticipation the latter

But

why

should such an array of binding devices be necessary?

What

is it

about saga narrative that needs holding together? The view that the sagas were originally

composed out of

j

laid to rest years

shorter, once-independent paettir

ago (Andersson 1964:61-64), but

there are signs that the Imttr theory of saga origins It

theoretically

ghost lives on. Indeed,

may be heading

for a revival.

has recently been proposed, for example, that the reason there are so few

faettir /

its

was

on Icelandic subjects

in the

independent paettir literature

is

not that they

never existed but that they did exist and were “swallowed up and used by the family sagas to such an extent that they are no longer recognizable as having

once been independent” (Joseph 1972:95). Lonnroth gives the pdttr theory an

added

twist. In his

view, although the sagas’ component parts (including

circulated in oral tradition, entire sagas did not.

When

paettir)

authors set about assem-

bling their material, therefore, they were obliged to devise large frames. This

they did either by imitating foreign models (such as biography) or by expanding native pdttr frames (the feud plot or the travel plot)

from short

to long forms.

A

I

^

saga thus consists of paettir fitted into an extended pdttr (Lonnroth 1976:42-103

passim, esp. 101-2).

Versions of the pdttr theory also lurk just beneath the surface of /

many modem

stmctural analyses. Eyrbyggja saga in particular seems to offer itself up in pieces

/

(Vesteinn Olason 1971; Mabire 1971), and Ljdsvetninga saga has long been

I

regarded as a compilation (Magerpy 1969). Andersson has dissociated himself

\

from the pdttr theory,

at least in its classical version,

but in his analyses of

individual sagas he repeatedly acknowledges the existence of semi-independent I

subplots that have been

more or

less successfully integrated into the

whole

292

Carol

J.

Clover

(Andersson 1967 passim). Integration can take the form of interweaving, often in gratuitously elaborate forms, and here we recall the etymological meaning of

(Lindow 1978a). Structural interlace of this sort is especially obvious in Eyrbyggja saga (Vesteinn Olason 1971; Mabire 1971; Andersson 1967:162; Rohn 1976:99-115; also Simpson 1973b), but similar patterns have also been noticed in Njdls saga, Grettis saga, Heidarviga saga, md Ljdsvetninga saga, among others (Magerpy 1970; Andersson 1967:127-31,

l^ttr as a “strand in a rope’’

150-51, 209, 303-7; Clover 1982:69-91). Such compositional peculiarities are the point of departure for my book, which argues that the digressive and interlaced composition of the family saga has the Continent (1982).

The

its

equivalent in medieval prose on

sagas’ closest formal counterparts in European

ature before the novel are the French prose romances, an

development of the

late twelfth

unambiguously There

and thirteenth centuries.

liter-

literary

is little if

any

evidence that prose romances actually circulated in Scandinavia (Bjami Einarsson 1961: esp. 75-76, 1971a; Andersson 1969), and ilarities

between them and the sagas are

to

this

that the sim-

be explained as parallel developments

out of Latin history- writing. In either case, /

may be

it

have argued, the

I

rise in

Europe of

kind of long, vernacular prose form appears to be a specifically literary

development (1982:182-204).

(

The

status of the long'^rose

unclear.

It is

/that prose

form beyond Europe,

certainly so that epic

seldom exceeds the

alleged to exist, however: H.

is

overwhelmingly a verse phenomenon and

and shape of the

size

M.

in living oral traditions, is

tale.

Oral prose epics are

Heinrichs and Peter Buchholz have pointed to

“sagas’’ in central Asia and Gaelic Britain, and one can add Japanese traditions \

and the more recently collected prose epics of Southeast Asia and Africa. Needless to say, such traditions are of considerable interest to saga scholars, not only because their existence confirms

at least the theoretical possibility

posing and transmitting long prose forms

of com-

at the oral level (a possibility often

denied by Western literary historians), but also because such epics could be to the Icelandic sagas

what the Yugoslavian songs have been

to

Homeric epic and

the chansons de geste: an analogous corpus permitting conclusions about the

nature of oral prose. /

A

closer look into these cases quickly dashes whatever hopes one

may have

had for a living oral saga tradition, however. Both “length’’ and “prose’’ turn [

\

out to be highly relative categories, and at least three of the major traditions

(Mwindo, Lianja, Koroglu) appear tors,

who

into long

to

owe

their “epic’’ status to

either solicited artificial performances or

forms

at the editing table.

The non-European

47. See also Chesnutt 1973 and Geraldine Barnes, Literature,”

MS,

composed

Western collecshorter episodes

material seems in fact

“The riddarasogur and Medieval European

8 (1975), 140-67.

48. Peter Buchholz, Vorzeitkunde: Mundliches Erzdhlen

und Uberliefern im

mittelalterlichen

dem Zeugnis von Fornaldarsaga und eddischer Dichtung, Skandinavistische M. Heinrichs 1976. 49. See Ruth Finnegan, Oral Poetry, esp. pp. 24-28; Isidore Okpewho, The Epic in Africa: Toward a Poetics of Oral Performance (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1979), esp. pp. 154-60;

Skandinavien nach

Studien, 13 (Neurniinster; Wachholtz, 1980), 29-30; H.

Icelandic Family Sagas

293

commonplace ^that long prose narratives are an essentially literary phenomenon whose rise is associated with the emergence of a reading class. At the same time, the non'not to contradict but to confirm the

European

literary-historical

European examples may suggest a possible course of evolution of a prose tradition through oral literary stages. The Bantu epic of Mwindo is a case in point. It was solicited from a performer who was baffled at the request that he perform consecutively, from beginning to end, episodes that he had before told only separately and in

no fixed order. In the end he was able

somewhat

his colleagues (though in a

forced performance, the

to

do

so, as

were three of

different form), but until the first such

Mwindo “epic” was

only immanent:

it

existed not as an

only as short episodes “whose relationship to some never-performed

(entity but

‘whole’ had to be constructed by

its

audience” (Kellogg 1979:124). As

some

in

other prose “epic” traditions, then, the parts are oral (in the sense that they are

performed as such); the whole, performed as such) but

at

the

artificial (in the

same time

sense that

it

was never

traditional (in the sense that

orally it

was

implied by the parts and therefore immanent). I

mention

saga origins.

this

case because of

Is it

possible that the preliterary saga existed not as a performed but

immanent

its

obvious relevance to the issue of Icelandic

which actually performed pasttir were understood to belong and that it came into literal being as a full form only in the writing down? The appeal of this idea is obvious. It explains our stubborn sense that, as Ker put as an

it,

“it

first

entity, to

the short story, the episodic chapter, that the art of Icelandic narrative

is in

defines itself”

pdttr that

is

—

that, in other

words,

it is

the “original unity” of Norse prose.

not the saga but the episode or It

also explains

why the

sagas

we are dealing with the “immanent” framework. At the same time, it explains why the composition of the sagas that have come down to us is so patently literary, especially if we should be structurally similar; here, one supposes,

suppose that saga authors, like other medieval authors, conceived of as one of their

main

makes sense of phenomenon of pendant

material.

of the

tasks the amplification

It

also

and

structural complication of their received

the variants that survive, just as paettir (for

it

makes sense

example, Bolla pdttr, attached to

Laxdcela saga). Finally, the idea of an immanent saga answers the objection that sagas could not have circulated in the form of paettir because audiences would

have found them incomplete and hence unsatisfying. In short, precise answer so far to the basic question of saga studies,

it

offers the

most

where “oral” ends

and “literary” begins (“hvar og hvemig maetast munnmaeli og saga,” as Oskar Halldorsson put

it):

at

accommodates the most tionalist

the level of composition (1978a: 324). In so doing, telling points

it

of both sides of the argument, the tradi-

and the inventionist. This version of a pdttr theory based on the idea of

Nora K. Chadwick and Victor Zhirmunsky, Oral Epics of Central Asia (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1969), p. 57 and passim; Daniel Biebuyck, The Mwindo Epic (Berkeley, etc.: Univ. of California Press, 1969), pp. 7-14; Ruth Finnegan, Oral Literature in Africa (Oxford: Clarendon, 1970), esp. pp. 370-71. 50. Ker, Epic and Romance, p. 189.

294

Carol

an immanent saga

is

a suggestion only, and further research into the sagas and

may prove

wider oral prose traditions least

Clover

J.

encourage us finally to

let

it

untenable. In the meantime,

go of the either/or terms

it

should

inform

that continue to

our thinking about origins and to consider the probability that the saga

at

itself is a

syncretic form.

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Norse Romance (Riddarasogur) Marianne Kalinke

Romance,

to

judge by manuscript transmission the most popular genre

in

Iceland through the centuries, has not been similarly well received by the critics.

Assessment of the Old Norse-Icelandic romances, variously called riddarasogur (sagas of knights, chivalric sagas), lygisdgur (lying sagas, fictional sagas), /(7rn-

sogur Sudrlanda (ancient sagas of southern lands), and Mdrchensagas (fairy

tale

most frequently been negative. Literary historians and critics alike have considered the largely derivative romances unoriginal and hapless products sagas), has

(^Sigur5ur Nordal, p. 268), of limited imagination (^Finnur Jonsson,

devoid of significant literary merit (^Mogk,

p. 880;

iii:98),

^Jon Helgason 1934:218),

mere childish fantasies (^de Vries, ii:539), characterized by sentimentality and bombast (tSigur6ur Nordal, p. 268), and replete with tasteless exaggerations (ed. Lagerholm 1927:xvi). The romances have been adjudged “lamentably in'

ferior to the older type of narrative’’

Ker,

“They

Critical

are

among

(Schlauch 1934a:5). In sum, to quote

W.

P.

made by human fancy.’’ been deemed superfluous. Together

the dreariest things ever

assessment of them individually has

with ihc fornaldarso gur (mythic-heroic or legendary sagas), the romances have j

been looked upon as representing, as the distinguished Icelandic bibliographer

“a period of decadence in saga writing, the age when foreign influences became marked, when copying and recasting the earlier sagas was much in vogue, when tales and stories, omitted by the earlier writers, were found worthy of record, often freely elaborated or extended, and when new Halldor Hermannsson put

stories

were also invented.’’^ To judge by the short

ries,^ the

W.

it,

shrift

accorded the

fifty

or so

riddarasogur might be classified as Kitsch and Trivialliteratur, a minor

Epic and Romance: Essays on Medieval Literature, 2d rev. ed. (London: Macmillan, 1908; rpt. New York: Dover, 1957), p. 282. First published 1896. 2. Halldor Hermannsson in his preface to Bibliography of the Mythical-Heroic Sagas, Islandica, 5 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Univ. Library, 1912). 3. My figure is based on the number of romances known with reasonable certainty to have been composed in the Middle Ages. Counted as one item are collective works such as the Strengleikar (21 1.

P. Ker,

316

Norse Romance

317

genre in the grand corpus of Old Norse-Icelandic literature.

A

revision

is

nev-

ertheless in order.

Chronologically and geographically the Old Norse-Icelandic romances into

two

distinct, albeit related, groups: the translated riddarasogur,

Norwegian

thirteenth-century

translations, predominantly of

and the indigenous or Icelandic riddarasogur,

that

is,

French narratives;

that is, fourteenth-century Icelan-

from and imitating the Norwegian

dic compositions deriving

fall

translations. In

content, structure, and style the riddarasogur are a diverse group. Nonetheless,

Norwegian and indigenous Icelandic romances share several characthey are derivative, one group translated, the other imitative; they are

translated teristics:

prose narratives; the aristocratic protagonists are non-Scandinavian; and the settings are outside Scandinavia.

Historicity

modem

and verisimilitude have tended

to

be the

criteria applied in

both

and medieval times to assess the riddarasogur. The standard against

which Old Norse-Icelandic romance has been measured has been the family saga with

its

objectivity, realism,

Introduction to

and lucid

Old Norse not a

V. Gordon’s

style. In E.

now

classic

from the riddarasogur is to be mentioned in the introduction. The

single excerpt

found, even though that category of saga

romances constitute a minor genre;

in

is

Gordon’s opinion, they are of interest only

because of their mostly deleterious impact on indigenous

“At first the it was held in

literature:

was a happy one and it remained fmitful as long as When the restraining check by the discipline of Icelandic subject matter. hand of history had once been lifted, degeneration was swift. ’’^ Gordon’s jaundiced view of the riddarasogur is significant because generations of students in the English-speaking world have formed their initial perception of Old NorseIcelandic literature from his textbook. His judgment is unfortunately perpetuated in the successor to the Introduction, Sigrid Valfells’ and James E. Cathey’s Old Icelandic, which likewise contains not a single excerpt from the riddarasogur.^ effect

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

and Karlamagnus saga and the later Magus saga jarls with their several paettir that are sometimes found independently in manuscripts. If the Strengleikar and paettir are counted individually, the number rises to some 90 narratives. In his literary history, Stefan Einarsson arrives at a grand total of 265 romances (^Stefan Einarsson 1957, p. 165). The figure is misleading because it includes spurious as well as postmedieval works. 4. E. V. Gordon, An Introduction to Old Norse, 2d rev. ed. A. R. Taylor (London: Oxford Univ. lais)

Press, 1957), pp. Iv-lvi.

James E. Cathey, Old Icelandic (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1981). Scandinavian textbooks of Old Norse-Icelandic, however, have consistently included excerpts from the riddarasogur: Oldnorsk laesebog med tilhorende glossarium, ed. P. A. Munch and C. R. Unger (Oslo: J. Dal, 1847) [Tristrams saga ok Isdndar]\ Fire og fyrretyve for en stor deel forhen utrykte pr0ver af oldnordisk sprog og literatur, ed. Konra5 Gislason (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1860) [Karlamagnus saga, Kirjalax saga, Kldri saga] (Icelandic version: Synisbok I'slenzkrar tungu ok I'slenzkra bokmennta fornold [Copenhagen: Gyldendal, I860]); Oldnorsk laesebog med tilhorende glossarium, ed. C. R. Unger (Oslo: J. Dal, 1863) [Kldri saga, Mi'rmanns saga]-, Gamalnorsk ordlista, ed. M. Haegstad and A. Torp (Oslo: O. Norli, 1903; 2d ed. 1920) lesestykke maallaera [Karlamagnus saga]', Gamalnorsk og gamalislandsk laerebok for gymnas og laerarskular, ed. Per N. Grptvedt and Lars Reinton (Oslo: Noregs Boklag, 1950) [Erex saga, Tristrams saga ok Isondar]-, Synisbok i'slenzkra bokmennta til midrar dtjdndu aldar, ed. SigurSur Nordal, Gu6run P. Helgadottir, 5.

Sigrid Valfells and

i

—

—

Marianne Kalinke

318

Recurrent apologiae in the indigenous romances suggest that their authors

were

criticized

even by their Icelandic contemporaries for lack of realism and

Presumably

historicity.

fictional, the author

answer

in

of Sigurdar saga pdgla

can be no argument (ed. Loth, allra

hugj^okka,

t>vi at

romances are entirely

to a reproach that the

“Nu

ii:96):

engi l3arf truna5 a

made

which there

a statement with

ver6r hvarki

f^at

slikt at leggja,

ne annat gort eptir

nema

vili”

(Now

impossible to please everybody, and no one needs to believe such things

does not wish ered

to).

Listeners

who found

it is

if

he

and consid-

fault with the subject matter

prevarication were informed in the prologue to Pidreks saga that they

it

were not

possession of the truth, that they were unwilling to believe of others

in

what they themselves had not seen and heard or what they themselves

either

could not or would not dare.^ The author of Flores saga konungs reveals that sagas dealing with the extraordinary feats of kings “are considered

some”

Lagerholm,

(ed.

p.

appealing to auctoritas (ed. Rafn, iii:309):

if

ver5r

hverr

J)at (36

at segja, er

people think such things incredible,

it

“Nu hann

[Dott

monnum

his tale

presumably

that

provoked

hefir set e5r heyrt”

(Now even

everyone’s responsibility to say

is still

incredulity

provided

is

Gautrekssonar, another so-cddXtd fornaldarsaga (ed. Rafn,

Man

sva

um

h^ssa sogu sem

margr er maSrinn, ok hvorttveggja

satt vera,

(The same applies ently.

ferr vi5a,

margar a6rar,

ok heyrir

f)at

to this story as to a

good many

segja

sem annar

saga

iii:189):

allir

einn veg, en

heyrir ekki,

others, that people

But there are many people, and they travel widely, and one

may

ok

ma bd

tell

it

differ-

man

hears what

be telling the truth even though neither knows the

truth.)

The author of Vdhjdlms saga sjods takes '

annar,

at eigi

Hrolfs

in

inci-

ef hvorgi hefir gjorla atkomizt.

another doesn’t and both

whole

um

by

J^iki slikir hlutir

whatever he has seen or heard). Explanation for conflicting versions of an dent

by

122), but the author of Gongu-Hrolfs saga, a so-

caWcd fornaldarsaga, braces himself against attack on the veracity of otruligir, |3a

lies

a different approach to the reliability of

the information disseminated in the romances.

men make up

He

maintains that accuracy does

would not be able to detect the errors an expert might discover (iv:3-4). The author of Hrolfs saga Gautrekssonar artfully dodges potential criticism by issuing a challenge (ed. Rafn, 111:190): “bykki mer bezt soma, at finna eigi til, b^ir eigi um baeta” (I Cthink you shouldn’t find fault with the story unless you can improve on it). In a similar vein Gongu-Hrolfs saga concludes with the admonition (ed. Rafn, not matter

if

ignorant

his audience; they

Jon Johannesson (Reykjavik; Sigfus Eymundsson, elskanda lj66”), Alexanders saga, 6.

1:6-7.

Magus

1953) [Breta sogur, Strengleikar (“Tveggja

saga, Konrads saga].

Pidriks saga af Bern, ed. Henrik Bertelsen,

SUGNL,

34 (Copenhagen:

S. L. M0ller, 1905),

Norse Romance

319

“Stendr

111:363):

bezt at lasta eigi e5r kalla lyg6 fr65ra

J^vi

me5 meirum

hann kunni

likindum

at segja

manna

e6r or5faeriligar fram

sagnir,

at

bera”

nema (It is

on this or call the stories of learned men lies, unless more plausibly and in a more elegant way). Elegance of

best not to cast aspersions

one can diction

tell

is

the stories

exactly what the author of the XdXQX

when he undertook explain

why

(ca.

1350) sought

he apparently had found wanting.

to recreate a tale

his version of Magus

Magus saga jarls

saga jarls might sound unfamiliar

to

To

some, he

appeals to authorial license based on stylistic considerations (ed. Gunnlaugur

E6r5arson, p. 176):

Nu bo til

at

ver finnim

ma

frasagnar,

frasagnir

saman

bessari sogu beri

ei, at

sett,

b^t

ok

til

skilr

saman vi6 a6rar sogur,

bera, at 6fr66ir

bvi mest a

menn

hafa

um frasagnir,

i

baer er

menn

hafa

fyrstu slikar e6r a6rar

at beir

sem

rita

e6r segja baer

beim bikkir skammt um talat, er orSfoerir eru, ba auka beir me6 morgum orSum, svo at beim sem skilja kunna bikkir me6 fogrum or6um fram bornar, sem a6r voru sag6ar me6 onytum or5um. sogur, er

(Now tell,

although

the reason

we may may be

not find that this story agrees with other stories that people that ignorant

men

ones and in such cases what makes one

somebody skilled in

who have

writes or tells stories that

words, then the

latter will

understanding think the

at first

put together such stories or other

tale different

from another

is this,

that if

seem too briefly told to such as are themselves augment them with many words, so that those same stories set forth with fair words which

formerly were told with useless words.)

As

stereotyped as the preceding examples of authorial commentary on the art

of romance appear to be, they nevertheless bespeak the authors’ awareness of the

and alien character of the

fictional

standing their

were propagating. Notwithapologiae, Icelanders apparently had no compunction about adoptliterature they

ing and adapting a “literature of escape,” as the riddarasogur have time and

again been termed pejoratively: Old Norse-Icelandic romance has prospered

now

more than seven hundred years. Unlike medieval romances that lay dormant for centuries in some countries before being resurrected by scholars in for

modem

times, ^ the riddarasogur, both translated and indigenous, continued to

be copied and read by the people of Iceland from the Middle Ages into the twentieth century. Halldor

manuscripts in Iceland the small

number of

is

Hermannsson observed

that

“the large production of

indeed remarkable and without parallel in history

the population

is

when

taken into consideration.”^

There has never been a scarcity of texts of the riddarasogur. Icelanders were Mention of a manuscript of Gottfried von StraBburg’s Tristan dating from the early eighteenth critic Gottfried Weber to signal its uniqueness: “doch stellt S eine erst 1722 (!) angefertigte Abschrift einer ehemals StraBburger Handschrift aus dem Jahre 1489 dar” {Gottfried von Strafiburg, 2d ed. [Stuttgart: Metzler, 1965], p. 11). 8. Halldor Hermannsson, Icelandic Manuscripts, Islandica, 19 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Univ. 7.

century elicited an exclamation point from the

Library, 1929), p. 70.

320

Marianne Kalinke

still

copying manuscripts long after the advent of printing and even after some of

the sagas that justifiably

were being copied by hand already had been printed.^ One can

speak about scribal mass production

some 190 books and pamphlets, primarily in Iceland

post-Reformation Iceland:

in

religious in character,

were published

during the seventeenth century;^® in the same century that number

is

matched, however, merely by the preserved manuscripts that contain riddarasogur. The Old Norse-Icelandic romances have been transmitted in more

uncommonly large number, especially if one few codices contain as many as ten individual sagas; some

than eight himdred manuscripts, an considers that not a

contain even more, such as Stockholm Perg. 4to

eleven romances; fol.

,

AM

.lo.

6 from around 1400 with

181 foL, ca. 1650, with fourteen romances; and

seventeenth century, with eleven romances. In

AM

179

more than fifteen hundred few of these are now frag-

all,

individual texts survive, although admittedly not a

mentary.

The

proliferation of extant manuscripts of the riddarasogur bears extraordi-

nary witness to the popularity of these narratives in Iceland.

ment of the

literary merits

of the riddarasogur

is still

are several reasons for the relative obscurity of

An

objective assess-

wanting, however. There

Old Norse-Icelandic romance:

the scarcity of facts surrounding the introduction of the riddarsogur in the North;

ignorance regarding the character of the original translations and the evolution of the genre; the chronological

gap between

their

composition and the oldest extant

manuscripts; the editorial idiosyncrasies of Norwegian and Icelandic scribes; and the scarcity of diplomatic or critical editions that

At the outset, then, lack of the corpus of

clarity

meet contemporary standards.

and lack of consensus as

Old Norse-Icelandic romance

to

what constitutes

as well as confusion concerning

nomenclature prove to be stumbling blocks.

From

a literary historian’s point of view, the riddarasogur are not the only

romances medieval Icelandic

Not a few works included in C. C. Rafn’s three-volume edition of Fornaldarsogur Nordrlanda qualify as romances, for example Hrolfs saga Gautrekssonar and Gongu-Hrolfs saga. Those “romantic sagas” called riddarasogur are, however, distinct from “romantic” fornaldarsogur by reason of their origin and setting. Features that distinguish the two groups of sagas must be sought in the European, primarily French, fiction that was translated into Norwegian in the thirteenth century. According to the prologue of Tristrams saga ok Isondar, King Hakon Hakonarliterature has to offer.

For instance, the oldest edition of Kldri saga dates from 1879, yet several manuscripts are Lbs 3021 4to (1877); Lbs 1491 4to (1880-1905); Lbs 4489 4to (1885). Similarly, Sigurdar saga J^gla was first edited in 1883. The following manuscripts date from the same period; Lbs 1509 4to (1880-1905), Lbs 4837 4to (1878-79), Lbs 1305 4to 9.

nearly contemporary or postdate the edition;

(1869-78). Konrads saga was first published in 1859, but later manuscripts exist; Lbs 1509 4to (1880-1905), Lbs 3121 4to (1860-71), Lbs 2498 8vo (ca. 1902), Lbs 3944 8vo (1900). Partalopa saga was edited in 1877 and is extant in the following later manuscripts; Lbs 1503 4to (1880-1905),

Lbs 2932 4to (1904-5), Lbs 3161 4to (ca. 1900), Lbs 3162 4to (ca. 1900). 10. See Halldor Hermannsson, Icelandic Books of the Seventeenth Century, Islandica, 14 Cornell Univ. Library, 1922).

(Ithaca;

Norse Romance

321

Norway (1217-63) commissioned

son of

translate

Thomas’s Tristan from

in a period

of lively literary activity

The term riddarasaga

three fourteenth-century

Hakon’s court

at

works

was

that subsequently

to

to

literature.

as a designation for the translated fiction

Magus saga

redaction of

1226 a certain Brother Robert

the French. Tristrams saga ok I sondar ushered

have a profound impact on Icelandic ''

in

attest its origin in the

is

venerable;

Middle Ages. In the

later

1350), which derives ultimately from Les

jarls (ca.

quatre fils Aimon, a chanson de geste belonging to the Carolingian cycle, the

commends

author

who choose

those

be entertained by such narratives as

to

Pidreks saga (a thirteenth-century compilation of tales about Dietrich von Bern), Flovents saga (an Icelandic analogue of the French heroic epic Floovant), and other riddarasogur (ed. Gunnlaugur P6r5arson, p. 177: “J)vf

menn,

sem

heyra

at J)eir vilja

J) 2er

frasagnir,

sem

J)eim Ipikki katligar

til

outset that

gamans, svo

The author of

er Pi5reks saga, Flovenz saga e5r a5rar riddarasogur”).

Viktors- saga

gjdra spakir

l3at

ok Bldvus, an indigenous Icelandic romance, informs us

at the

Hakon Magnusson (1299-1319), Flakon Hakonarson’s grandson, had

many riddarasogur Kristjansson, p. 3:

translated

“Hann

let

from Greek and French

into

Norwegian

venda morgum riddara sogum

i

norraenu or girzsku

ok franzeisku mali”). The comment suggests the author’s awareness saga was written in the tradition of the translated chivalric

(ed. Jonas

that Viktors

tales. Finally, the

author of the Skikkju rimur, a fourteenth-century metrical version of Mottuls saga, which in turn

is

Norwegian

a thirteenth-century

mautaillie, intimates that the origin of the riddarasogur as a genre in the

Le mantel

translation of is

to

be sought

recounting of great adventures that befell knights (ed. Cederschiold and

Wulff, p. 71): “Riddarasogur risa af

rekkar

Ipvi:

kvomu

(The ridd-

{^rautir i”

arasogur came into being because knights underwent hard struggles).

The designation riddarasogur

an accurate descriptive term for the works

is

being considered here, since they are peopled by knights and ladies, by kings and queens, by princes and princesses

From

—

the aggregate of feudal aristocracy, in short.

a Continental literary perspective, however, the term riddarasogur, that

chivalric sagas,

romans

is

misleading, for

it

suggests translations and adaptations of the

courtois, the courtly romances. Scholars have

denote Norwegian

— and

a

is,

few Icelandic

—

come

translations of

to use the

European

term to

fiction

and

pseudo-historiography, as well as Icelandic compositions inspired by such translations ./Subsumed

rivm^s

under the heading riddarasogur are translations not only of

courtois but also of chansons de geste, Breton

lais,

a few Latin histo-

riographical works, and, occasionally, the aforementioned compilation of GerI

man

heroic

poems about

Dietrich

von Bern, Pidreks saga. That

[

/

traditional

medieval French categories of

matiere de France, and matiere de

common denominator / {

In addition to

literature

—

is,

the three

the matiere de Bretagne,

Rome — are represented

in the

North under the

riddarasogur.

Thomas’s

Bretagne were translated:

works belonging to the matiere de Chretien de Troyes’s romances Free et Enide (Erex Tristan, six other

>

Marianne Kalinke

322 A

Le chevalier au

saga), j

lion or Yvain (Ivens saga),

and the fragmentary Le conte

du graal or Perceval (Parcevals saga, a translation of vv. 1-6518; Valvens Imttr, V. 6519 to the end of Chretien’s text); the anonymous French lai or

— depending

upon one’s generic convictions Le mantel mautaillie {Mdttuls saga or Skikkju saga); and two lais belonging to a translation collectively known as Strengleikar (lit. ‘stringed instruments’) in Old Norse, namely Chievrefueil (Geitarlauf) and Lanval {Januals Ijdd). It is noteworthy that four of the twenty-one Breton lais in the Strengleikar collection have no known French originals {Garun; Strandar strengleikr, '"Lai of the Beach”; Ricar hinn gamli, ‘‘Richard the Old”; Tveggia elskanda strengleikr "Lai of Two Lovers”). The matiere de France is represented in the North by Norwegian translations— in some cases only Icelandic redactions, presumably diverging greatly of several chansons de geste: Boeve from the original translations, are extant fabliau

—

de Haumtone {Bevers saga); the chansons d’Otinel, de Roland, d’Aspremont,

and Le pelerinage de Charlemagne {Karlamagnus saga); Elie de

St. Gille (Elis

saga ok Rosamundu); Floovant {Elovents saga); Les quatrefils Aimon or Renaud de Montauban {Magus saga jarls).

Because of the preponderantly riographical Latin

works and

mance, scholars tend

their

fictional character of several pseudo-histo-

impact on the development of Icelandic ro-

to include translations of

them among

the riddarasogur:

Alexanders saga, an Icelandic translation of Gautier de Chatillon’s metrical Alexandreis; Breta sogur, a translation of Geoffrey of

regum Britanniae; and Trojumanna saga, a

De

gius’s

few riddarasogur derive from a miscellany of French and Latin

/ romance and hagiography:

\

translation primarily of Dares Phry-

excidio Trojae.

Finally, a

1

Monmouth’s Historia

E lores

saga ok Blankiflur {Eloire

et Blancheflor);

Partalopa saga {Partonopeus de Blois); Amicus saga ok Amilius (a translation of

Speculum Historiale of the legendary friendship of Amis and Amiles, known also from French, English, and German romances); Kldri a Latin account in the

saga (nominally an Icelandic translation of a Latin metrical romance).

As

a survey of their sources indicates, the translated riddarasogur represent

anything but a single genre, diverse as are the matter and form of the works from

which they derive. Nonetheless, the rhymed couplets of the roman courtois and Breton

lai,

the assonantal laisses of the chanson de geste, the Latin hexameter of

the Alexandreis, in

Norse

and the Latin prose of the other historiographical works emerge,

translation, as highly rhythmical, rhetorically embellished,

infrequently alliterative prose.

The

stylistic unity

of the riddarasogur that

forms plots generated by the aristocracy of former days

lemagne, Arthur, or even Alexander

—

settings lends the various translations of

in

and not

— be

it

in-

the age of Char-

European or Near and Far Eastern

works belonging

to diverse genres their

peculiar character and homogeneity.

The

translated riddarasogur caught the fancy of Icelanders

and inspired imita-

Norse Romance

323

and adaptations, mostly during the fourteenth century. In the wake of Tristrams saga ok Isdndar, Icelanders produced a series of bridal -quest rotions

mances, among them Tristrams saga ok Isoddar (an Icelandic parodistic treat\ment of the Tristan legend), Hermanns saga ok Jarlmanns, Konrads saga keis-

,

arasonar,

j [

Remundar saga keisarasonar Sdlus saga ok Nikanors, Samsons saga ,

fagra, Sigurdar saga fots, and Pjalar-Jons saga.

^ ^

romances are the maiden-king romances, analogues saga,

saga

Related to the bridal-quest to

Partalopa saga and Kldri

among ihtm Ala flekks saga, Dmus saga drambldta,

Nitida saga, Sigurdar

and Viktors saga ok Bldvus (see Wahlgren 1938). Terminology for the Icelandic adaptations and imitations of the translated riddarasogur vacillates. As Sigur6ur Nordal pointed out, both translated and lydgla,

indigenous romantic sagas are appropriately called riddarasogur or fornsogur

Sudrlanda

^

it is

He

decried another term for

had some currency, namely lygisdgur, not only misleading but also because he felt it was in poor taste as a literary

the indigenous

because

Nordal, p. 180).

in Icelandic (^Sigur5ur

romances

that has

was used in the Middle Ages. Its Porgils saga ok Haflida, in which King

term. Nonetheless, the designation lygisdgur earliest attestation is to

be found in

deemed such lygisdgur as Hromundar saga Gripssonar (a fornaldarsaga) most amusing: “ok kalla5i hann slikar lygisggur skemtiligastar.”^^ The implication of the remark would appear to be that Sverrir particularly enjoyed works of fiction. In other instances the use of the word lygi to characterize a saga would seem to have a negative connotation. The praise of Sverrir

is

reported to have

such riddarasdgur as Pidreks saga and Fldvents saga by the author of

who

consider these

Gunnlaugur P6r6arson,

p. 177): “{)6tt

saga jarls follows hard upon a reference to foolish persons

words prevarication,

that

fiction (ed.

is,

Mdgus

’

The author of Flores saga konungs ok sona hans also speaks deprecatingly of those who would dismiss as fictitious all tales of unknown wonders and feats beyond the imagination of puny men (ed. 6fr65ir kalli lygi

Lagerholm,

p.

j^aer

sogur.

’

122). In Pidreks saga the author defends his right to relate the

unheard-of by denouncing those

who doubt

the veracity of

what they themselves

have neither seen nor heard and about which they themselves cannot provide

“enn J)at er heimskligtt ath kalla J^at lyge er hann hefer ei sied edur heyrt enn hann veit ecke annat vmm J^ann lut.” In a similar vein, the Icelandic redactor of Gvimars saga, a Norwegian translation of further truth (ed. Bertelsen, i:6-7):

Guigemar, one of the Breton

lais,

chides at length those

who

consider his tale

nothing but untruths and empty chatter {Gvimars saga, p. 138: “lijge ok lokleisu”). Gdngu-Hrolfs saga concludes with the recommenda-

and others similar to

1 1

.

it

For a discussion of the impact of Tristrams saga ok Isdndar on Icelandic

literature see

Schach

1962, 1964, 1968. 12.

Brown (London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1952), p. 18. In a 76): “The fact that Sverri called Hrom. a lygisaga, when

Porgils saga ok Haflida, ed. Ursula

Brown comments (p. Hromund was known to be an historical comment.” note

tc this

passage.

character,

appears to have evoked the remarkable

X

324 tion that the tales of learned

Rafn,

III:

363):

“Stendr

men

Marianne Kalinke

not be slandered or considered fiction (ed.

bezt at lasta eigi e6r kalla lyg6 fr65ra

[)vi

manna

sagnir.”

The preceding examples lead us

to

conclude that references to lygisdgur are to

be understood in a context of skepticism about the chivalric

Rather than

tales.

awareness of a genre, medieval attestations of the word lygi

in reference to

awareness of the fictional rather

certain sagas or types of accounts suggest an

than historical character of a narrative.

Some modem

designation as a generic term, however.

As such, it unfortunately has not only a The primary constant appears to be that

pejorative but also a shifting character. the term

is

applied only to Icelandic compositions.

scholars have chosen the

Some

scholars designate the

indigenous riddarasogur as lygisdgur (^Finnur Jonsson,

^Mogk

iii:98;

1904:

880; Leach 1921:164; Schlauch 1934a: 16).*^ Others use the term to apply to the ^

“fictional

development”

0929:xxvi). I

Still

of

the

fornaldarsaga

(Einar

01.

Sveinsson

others prefer to consider both indigenous riddarasogur and

fornaldarsdgur under the

single

appellation

lygisdgur

(^de

Vries,

ii:539;

Lagerholm 1927:x). German scholars have come to refer to the indigenous riddarasdgur increasingly as Mdrchensagas, primarily because of Kurt Schier’s advocacy of the term (^Schier 1970:105-6). The designation

is

not original with

^

him, however. Otto L. Jiriczek spoke of the lygisdgur as the oldest attestations of o

Mdrchen among Icelanders (1894:3), and Ake Lagerholm equated lygisaga with Mdrchensaga (1927:x). Although the term Mdrchensaga does not have the depreciative connotation of lygisaga,

it is

just as

vague and therefore just as useless

The designation Mdrchensaga does not subsume all sagas that might be considered Mdrchen and, as Einar Ol. Sveinsson has pointed out, many of the sagas classified as Mdrchensagas have nothing whatsoever to do with Mdrchen (1929:xxviii). The use of non-Icelandic nomenclature for a as a generic distinction.

X

group of indigenous compositions deriving from the translated riddarasdgur and imitative of

them

is

misleading because the English and

“romance” and Mdrchensaga

German

designations

respectively denote to the uninitiated a larger

group of compositions than the body of works actually intended to be delimited.

Some

translated riddarasdgur, (e.g., Ivens saga) are as

the indigenous Icelandic compositions,

much Mdrchensagas

and somt fornaldarsdgur

as

(e.g., Hrolfs

saga Gautreks sonar) are as much romances as the translated and indigenous riddarasdgur.

As

early as the fourteenth century the

konungs ok sona bans undertook

anonymous author of Flores saga

to classify the sagas dealing with events that

See also Halldor Hermannsson, The Sagas of the Kings (Konunga sdgur) and the MythicalHeroic Sagas (Fornaldar sdgur): Two Bibliographical Supplements, Islandica, 26 (Ithaca: Cornell 13.

Univ. Press, 1937), p.

vi.

See also A. Le Roy Andrews, “The Lygisggur,” SS, 2 (1914-16), 258. In their Legendary Fiction in Medieval Iceland, Hermann Palsson and Paul Edwards prefer the term “legendary fiction” as a designation for fornaldarsdgur. They point out that “this does not, however, detract from the appropriateness of the term romance to these stories” (StI, 30 [1971], p. 14.

15.

17).

.

Norse Romance

325

He

occurred in the distant past.

arrived at three categories (ed. Lagerholm, pp.

121-22): (1) saints’ lives, which most people do not consider very entertaining (“eru J)eir \)6 fleiri menn, er litil skemtun [^ykkir at heilagra manna sQgum”); (2)

how

(“hoeverska hir5si5u”) or chieftains;

and

are

wont

to

about kings

(3) sagas

thereby achieve renown.

many

from which we may learn courtly behavior

about powerful kings,

sagas

conduct oneself

who

To judge by

the

—

—

that

deeds beyond the normal

the third category

md fornaldarsdgur because the

landic riddarasogur

immediately

that follows

to consider those sagas fiction that relate

mortal’s ability or realm of experience

powerful

mettle in feats of prowess and

test their

remark

in the service of

subsumes both

Ice-

protagonist’s confrontation

with the preternatural or superhuman plays a substantial role in both groups of

some of the translated riddarasogur would not be excluded. Presumably the Norwegian (translated) riddarasogur but by no means all are understood to belong in the second category. Still there is overlap, for some Icelandic riddarasogur SLndfornaldarsogur also depict kings and retainers whose sagas. Indeed, even

—

—

behavior might be considered exemplary. / /

The above

classification of sagas rests

on a

distinction deriving

character of the protagonist and the nature of his exploits.

from the

The anonymous author

of Flores saga konungs thus anticipates Northrop Frye’s classification of fiction

on the basis of the hero’s power of action, and

romance

whose

as

one “superior

in

degree to other

actions are marvellous but

who

is

his definition

men and

to his

himself identified as a

of the hero of

environment

human

.

.

.

being,

/to wit, the protagonist of both riddarasaga and fornaldarsaga. That formal

from the riddarasogur has yet to be character of the two groups of sagas was apparent,

features distinguish the fornaldarsogur

demonstrated. The

however,

to

common

Ami Magnusson

(1663-1730), the great manuscript collector,

subsumed Norwegian and Icelandic riddarasogur

who

“romantic” /6>m-

as well as

aldarsogur under the single heading “Fabulosae Islandorum Historiae.”^^

/ Modem I

scholars have been unable to arrive at a clear demarcation between

riddarasogur and fornaldarsogur. Jonas Kristjansson observed that the use of the

term lygisogur for both the “later Romantic Sagas and

.

.

.

Legendary Sagas

[fornaldarsogur] bears witness to the close relationship of the sagas” (Jonas Kristjansson 1975:282). Consensus as to what constitutes the canon of Old y

Norse-Icelandic riddarasogur

Halvorsen concurred 16.

is

wanting. Einar Ol. Sveinsson and Eyvind Fjeld

in their respective articles

on the fornaldarsogur {KLNM,

Northrop Frye, Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1957),

p. 33.

AM

Ami

567 used the heading Fabulosae Islandorum Historiae to describe the contents of 4to, under which signature vellum fragments from the fourteenth and fifteenth century can be found. The collection of fragments includes translated riddarasogur (such as Elis saga, Severs saga, and 17.

Tristrams saga ok tsondar), indigenous riddarasogur (such as Adonias saga,

Remundar saga

keis-

arasonar, and Viktors saga ok Bldvus), and “romantic” fornaldarsogur (such as Gongu-Hrolfs saga, Gautreks saga konungs, and Hrolfs saga Gautrekssonar) In another instance. Ami lists translated

and indigenous riddarasogur of which he has paper manuscripts under the heading Eabu-

lae (see leaf 168-70'’ of

AM

435 A-B

4to).

Marianne Kalinke

326 iv:500-501) and the riddarasogur

{KLNM,

xiv:180) that there are borderline

namely Ala flekks saga, Hrings saga ok Tryggva, SigrgarSs saga froekna, Sigurdar saga fdts, and Vilmundar saga vidutan. Editors of multi volume editions of the riddarasogur have designated these works as romances or riddarasogur, however. With the exception of Ala flekks cases that could

fit

into either category,

saga, the above-named sagas were edited by Agnete Loth under the collective title

Late Medieval Icelandic Romances. Before her, Bjami Vilhjalmsson had

published,

among

Ala flekks saga,

others,

Sigurdar saga fdts

in his

Vilmundar saga vidutan,

and

six-volume popular edition entitled Riddarasogur.

Of

o

by Ake Lagerholm

the three sagas edited

in

Drei Lygisogur

[scil.

Mdrchen-

sagas], Egils saga einhenda had appeared previously in Rafn’s Fornaldarsogur

Nordrlanda, whereas Ala flekks saga and Flores saga konungs ok sona bans had

what he terms “islandische marcheniiberlieferungen” (1894). Most recently Davi5 Erlingsson has demonstrated that Drauma-Jons saga, which Bjami Vilhjalmsson been excerpted by Jiriczek

had included

devoted

in his article

in his collection

of riddarasogur,

to the lygisogur, or

is in

fact a variant of the folktale

of the dream-interpreting boy (1979).

The time seems

ripe for scholars to address themselves to the terminological

and especially taxonomical problem and to seek greater Icelandic riddarasogur.

A

valid assessment of the riddarasogur as a genre

indeed they constitute a genre or distinct saga type eration of the fornaldarsogur.

long, formally at least, to the

reason

it

would be

romance

tradition of

draw

title

selected by Rafn

noted,

all

of which are

{Hjdlmfes saga ok Olvis),

in

set in

Scandinavia

postmedieval;

By

it

The term fornwas coined by

virtue of the

works

olden times and, with one exception

—

a genre with

homogeneous group, Rafn’s

sagas, such as Volsunga saga,

its

canon of works was

the last category are

from

edition contains heroic-mythical

viking sagas, such as Orvar-Odds saga and

Ragnars saga lodbrokar, and a group (^Schier, pp. 77-78).

be-

between them

created, despite the diverse character of the sagas in the collection. Far constituting a

if

medieval Europe, and for that

of his three-volume edition of sagas.

—

“most of them

and the ‘riddarasogur’ and ‘lygisogur.’ is

—

perforce involves a consid-

a sharp dividing line

aldarsogur, unlike the term riddarasogur,

Rafn for the

—

As Hermann Palsson

a mistake to try to

[the fornaldarsogur]

clarity regarding the

that Schier designated

Abenteuersagas

From an extra-Icelandic literary perspective the sagas in as much romances as are the riddarasogur. Outstanding

examples are Hrolfs saga Gautrekssonar and Gongu-Hrolfs saga. These sagas are distinguishable

solely

by virtue of Scandinavian

structural patterns

18.

from the group generally acknowledged

Hermann

setting

to

be riddarasogur

and characters. In an analysis of the

of the fornaldarsogur, Ruth Righter-Gould concluded, how-

Palsson,

“Towards

“Some

a Definition of Fornaldarsogur," in ^Saga Conference 4, p. 16.

Aspects of the Fornaldarsogur as a Corpus” {ANF, 97 [1982], 1-35), Peter Hallberg points out that the fornaldarsogur “show many signs of having been, more or less, influenced by chivalric literature, its themes and vocabulary” (p. 32). In a recent article,

I

Norse Romance

327

ever, that “the legendary sagas

.

.

.

have a distinctive narrative structure which

them

from other Old Icelandic types.” Had a control group of indigenous riddarasogur also been analyzed, the above conclusion would have had to be modified, since the structural elements isolated by Righter-Gould as distinctive features of the fornaldarso gur are presin addition to stylistic considerations sets

apart

ent in the riddarasogur as well: (1) introduction; (2) hero’s youth; (3) motivation

The pattern disof romance. The adventure

for departure; (4) adventure cycle; (5) concluding elements.

N cemed

for the fornaldarsogur

in fact the pattern

is

cycle above represents the quest which, according to Frye “gives literary form to the romance.

.

.

.

quest,” he writes,

The complete form of the romance is clearly the successful “and such a completed form has three main stages: the stage

of the perilous journey and the preliminary minor adventures; the crucial struggle, usually die;

some kind of

battle in

which

either the hero or his foe, or both

and the exaltation of the hero.”^^ With such views as these

must

mind,

in

Hermann Palsson and Paul Edwards pointed out in their study Legendary Fiction in Medieval Iceland that some of the fornaldarsogur like the riddarasogur

—

—

clearly belong to the realm of secular romance. Following Frye’s analysis of

I

types of heroes, they suggested that qualities of the hero

we might

classify the sagas according to the

and the way they are displayed.

would go

further and

propose that examination of the hero’s quest, as well as of his motivation for that quest,

is

necessary

classification

if

and thus

we

are to arrive at a

more convincing and

satisfactory

understanding of the character and diversity of

at a better

imaginative Icelandic literature.

/ Once we predicate our analyses of Old Norse-Icelandic tance of the theory that genre

— from

fiction

the perspective of content

—

upon accep-

is

determined

by the accidents of geographical setting or the protagonist’s place of birth than by the character of the hero and the nature of the heroic quest, the tradiless

I

tional,

to

md fornaldarsogur begins

supposedly generic division into riddarasogur

^

crumble. Certain recurring patterns are

common

to translated

and Icelandic

known

as “adventure

riddarasogur as well as to a group of \dXtx fornaldarsogur

sagas” ox Marchensagas or lygisogur. Kathryn

Hume pointed out that

“knights’

number of lying and legendary sagas exhibit the structure Typically, a single hero the romance or folklore pattern.

sagas and a substantial /

variously

known

as

.

undertakes a quest or a series of V assuming power.

A

cuses on narrative types for understanding

tests,

.

.

and ends by succeeding, marrying, and

study of the riddarasogur and fornaldarsogur that fo-

common to both groups would appear to be more

fruitful

one

literary

Old Icelandic

fiction than

one

that limits itself to

category {riddarasogur ox fornaldarsogur) to the exclusion of the other. 19.

Ruth Righter-Gould, “The Fornaldar sogur Nordurlanda:

A

From

Structural Analysis,” SS, 52

(1980), esp. 425, 438. 20. 21.

22.

Anatomy of Criticism, p. 187. Hermann Palsson and Edwards, Legendary Fiction, pp. 12-16. Kathryn Hume, “Beginnings and Endings in the Icelandic Family Sagas,” MLR, 68

594-95.

(1973),

Marianne Kalinke

328 the perspective of the heroic quest, a is

the bridal quest. This

comes

as

no

predominant type found

in

both categories

surprise, since the search for a bride

is

a

universally popular theme, one particularly favored in medieval literature.

Icelandic fiction

no exception.

is

In the rather large

the search for

group of Icelandic sagas

that

belong to the bridal-quest type,

and successful wooing of the bride constitute the essential frame

for the several secondary quests the hero

may

the primary motivating force of the plot

and the hero’s raison

undertake.

quest finds varied expression in Icelandic romance. for

woman

The

The hero

bridal quest d’etre.

is

The

both

bridal

obtains the longed-

only after successfully overcoming such obstacles as rival suitors,

Not infrequently the means to the hero’s end are dishonorable: he may resort to force, murder, and abduction in the face of rival suitors, or to impersonation, deceit, and trickery vis-a-vis the sought-for bride. Although the bridal-quest type is dominant among reluctant maidens,

and recalcitrant fathers or other

relatives.

^

/

the indigenous Icelandic riddarasogur,

\lated riddarasogur and the

\

3Xev

it

is

also represented

among

the trans-

fornaldarso gur (Andersson 1985). More than

twenty narratives have the bridal quest as their main theme and the plot’s primary motivating force.

Hrolfs saga Gautreks sonar, which has been designated a fornaldarsaga since

romance of wooer might be

Rafn’s^edition, might be considered the quintes^ntial bridal-quest Icelandic literature. In this one saga the various obstacles the

expected to overcome and the several types of prospective brides found in the aggregate of bridal-quest sagas are depicted in four different wooing expeditions

undertaken by two generations of the same family. Here so-called

“maiden

kings,’’

tagonists are Scandinavian, least

and overprotective and the

fathers.

we meet

rival suitors,

Even though

its

pro-

settings are, if not entirely Scandinavian, at

Northern, Hrolfs saga Gautreks sonar belongs to the same literary tradition

Gibbons saga, Sigurdar saga pogla, Nitida saga, Viktors saga ok Bldvus, and Jarlmanns saga ok Hermanns. To begin with, there is old King Gautrekr’s wooing of Ingibjorg to the displeasure of a younger rival. King Olafr. Direct conflict is not generated, as such so-called riddarasogur as

—

however,

until after the princess

has chosen between the two, to the disadvantage

of the younger suitor. The latter attempts to redress what appears to him to be an

unwise and unjust decision. He ambushes the bridal party on

its

return to

The bridegroom is given two choices: to hand over the girl and all her wealth or to fight. Anyone familiar with both translated and Icelandic riddarasogur will recognize the stock figure of the nobleman, highwayman, Gautrekr’s country.

giant, or berserk

i

who

seeks to take another man’s wife, daughter, or sister by

der Weltliteratur (Halle: M. Niemeyer, 1955); Theodor Frings and Max Braun, Brautwerbung, i. Berichte uber die Verhandlungen der Sachs. Akad. der Wiss. zu Leipzig, phil.-hist. Kl., 96 (1944-48), no. 2 (Leipzig; Hirzel, 1947); Kurt Ranke, “Braut, Brautigam,” in Enzyklopddie des Mdrchens: Handworterbuch zur historischen und 23.

See Friedmar Geissler, Brautwerbung

vergleichenden Erzdhlforschung (Berlin:

W.

in

de Gruyter, 1978), ii;700-726.

— Norse Romance

329

armed forces against those of an unmarried lady of a castle of arms what he cannot by persuasion. We recall Isond’s

force, or musters his to attain

by dint

abduction by the harp-playing Irishman in Tristrams saga, or Ivens saga with Fjallsharfir episode, or Klamadius’s attack

on Blankiflur’s

its

castle in Parcevals

saga, or the several aggressive encounters in Erex saga in which, as in the

opening section of Hrolfs saga Gautreks sonar, the bride herself agrees to the marriage, but the hero must nonetheless demonstrate time and again his right to

Or consider Ddmusta saga,

her as wife and engage in combat to keep her.

which the motif of an aggressive

rival suitor is

hero

The

is

the unsuccessful suitor.

King Jon of Smaland

whom

plot

is

in

given an unusual twist because the

generated by Damusti’s murder of

Gratiana, the daughter of the king of Greece and

Damusti’s secret love, has married. The saga

is

a bridal-quest romance, but an

unusual one. Against seemingly insuperable odds, Damusti, the peccable protagonist, does eventually get the girl, but only after divine intervention

and

assistance have been assured.

The

—

young wife which, incidentally, provides a noteworthy counterpoint to other, less happy May~December alliances, such as that in Guiamars Ijdd is followed by the story of his son’s bridal quest. Hrolfr’s quest is as difficult as Gautrekr’s was easy, primarily story of old

King Gautrekr’s winning of

a

—

because of differences in the characters of the prospective brides. Hrolfr

is

determined to marry t>ombjorg, daughter of the king of Sweden. The princess

in

question belongs, however, to a long tradition of refractory princesses in Icelan-

romance who initially refuse to marry. Among these romances, in which the desired woman impedes the protagonist’s path to success, Kldri saga, which is ascribed to Jon Halldorsson (bishop of Skalholt, 1322-39) and supposedly derives from an unknown Latin romance, is the prototype. It belongs to the category Erik Wahlgren called the “maiden king” romance (1938). At the heart of such tales is the taming of a haughty and cruel princess. One Icelandic romance after another depicts the basic conflict of Kldri saga: a suitor for the hand of a maiden who is “king” is repulsed because she considers herself superior to the male and is afraid she will lose that superiority should she marry. Through a variety of techniques, male and female attempt to outwit each other. Inevitably the male prevails because he is able to discover the woman’s weakness, be it moral or physical. The maiden kings themselves range from obstinate but otherwise courtly ladies surrounded by a splendid court to monarchs who mount horses to fight in battle. At first blush they appear more at home in heroic epic in the case of Lomthan in courtly romance. These nubile maidens are rulers dic

I V

—

bjorg her father has given her complete authority over one-third of

who

Sweden

heap scorn and physical as well as psychological abuse upon them. Pombjorg is finally vanquished by Hrolfr on the battlefield. Other maiden kings are won over by trickery and cunning. In Kldri not only refuse

all

suitors but also

saga, for example, the protagonist outwits cupidity.

An

Queen Serena by appealing

interesting variant of the maiden-king type occurs in

to her

Dmus

saga

Marianne Kalinke

330

drambldta, in which, as the saga commences, not only the heroine but also the hero appear impervious to the charms of the opposite sex, and each to outwit

and humiliate the other. Despite

is

their initial abrasiveness

blooded disdain for their suitors, erstwhile maiden kings eventually

and deprecations, a happy end

spite their insults

is

and coldrelent; de-

finally achieved in marital

The miniature romance of Hrolfr and pombjorg

union.

determined

in

Hrolfs

saga

Gautrekssonar belongs to the maiden-king type: the sexual and military opponents eventually agree to a truce, put aside their differences, and marry.

That the Hrolfr/ Pombjorg if

one contrasts

tale

can be identified as a romance becomes evident

with the Helgi/Olof tale in Hrolfs saga kraka (also found in

it

Rafn’s corpus of fornaldarsdgur) At pattern. Like Viktor in Viktors

first

the narrative follows the maiden-king

saga ok Bldvus and Sigur6r

in

Sigurdar saga

fogla, Helgi has to endure the humiliation of having his head shaved and tarred

by the

woman

he proposes to marry; and like the protagonists of other maiden-

woman’s

king romances, he appeals to the

The

her into his power.

cupidity and thus

similarity ends here.

manages

to bring

The maiden kings of romance

eventually submit to the male, marry, and live happily ever after. In Hrolfs saga kraka, however,

we move

in the

world of heroic

After his sexual

literature.

conquest of Olof, Helgi avenges himself for the shameful treatment he had to

endure earlier

at

her hands by rejecting her. Olof in turn avenges her loss of

honor by concealing the fact that

their sexual

union produced offspring. Heroic

revenge and counterrevenge eventually lead to the tragic incest of Helgi and his daughter Yrsa.

As Helga Reuschel has pointed

Hrolfs saga kraka

is

out, the Helgi/Olof portion of

a heroic transmutation of matter

drawn from

folklore and

romance. Hrolfs saga Gautrekssonar contains two further bridal-quest narratives: one involves Hrolfr’ s brother Ketill, the other Hrolfr’ s foster brother

Asmundr.

Ketill

wishes to marry the daughter of the king of Russia; Asmundr, the daughter of the [

\

king of Ireland. In both narratives the fathers of the prospective brides are major obstacles to the desired union. In the case of the Russian princess, the

maiden

is

not only as hostile as her father, but the

rival suitor. Ketill ’s

wooer must

and Asmundr’ s wooings are replete with

wooed

also cope with a

battles,

bloodshed,

and incarcerations. Fathers or other relatives inimical to prospective suitors or unwilling to marry off their daughters are as kings. Flores saga

Duke S intram

much

the stuff of Icelandic

konungs ok sona bans comes

to

romance

mind;

in

it

as are

maiden

the rejected suitor

war against the father of the desired bride. The most extended treatment of this theme is found in Sigurdar saga turnara in which the hero discovers a beautiful princess confined by her father in a tower. The plot devolves primarily from the hero’s illicit and initially secret liaison with the declares

princess and her father’s attempts to uncover and thus thwart the relationship. Untersuchungen Konkordia, 1933), pp. 92-93. 24. Helga Reuschel,

iiber Staff

und

Stil

der Fornaldarsaga (Buhl-Baden:

,

Norse Romance

.

(

331

The predominance of should not surprise us

\ only

if

bridal-quest narratives

we

the first bridal-quest

among

the Icelandic romances

consider the popularity of what was presumably not

romance but

also the very first

romance

in the

North,

Tristrams saga ok Isdndar, the impact of which on Icelandic literature has been

amply documented by Paul Schach (1968). Its influence pervades as much Remundar saga keisarasonar an acknowledged riddarasaga, as it does GonguHrdlfs saga, a so-called fornaldarsaga. tributed the motif of the lovers. Like Hrolfs

voyage

To

the former, Tristrams saga has con-

for healing; to the latter, the

sword between the

saga Gautrekssonar, Gongu-Hrolfs saga

is

a bridal-quest

romance from beginning to end,^^ even though the eponymous protagonist of the fictional saga is linked by reason of his name to Rollo, the Norse chieftain who laid siege to Chartres in the year 911 and died in 927. To be sure, Gongu-Hrolfs saga abounds in battles, but their focus is less on the vikings’ conquest of foreign peoples and territories than it is on the bridal quest. The saga culminates in a triple wedding, the description of which is in the best tradition of the riddarasogur:

Ok

at

brullaupinu settu ok veizlunni sva skipa6ri, matti heyra allskonar strengleika,

horpur ok gigjur, simphon ok salterium; h^r voru bumbur barSar ok pipur blasnar,

me5

allskyns listilegum leikum, er likaminn matti vi6 glebjast. Eftir hat voru

jungfrurnar innleiddar

me6 srnum

skrautlegum skara ok skemtilegum kvenna

fj61da.26

(And when

wedding took place and the banquet was prepared, there could be heard all kinds of stringed instruments, harps and fiddles, cymphans and psalteries; drums were beaten and pipes played, and there were all kinds of games of skill for the pleasure of the participants. After that the maidens were led in accompanied by the

their splendid

entourage and pleasing crowd of women.)

—

Sweden, Norway, and Jutland and contains certain elements unfamiliar to Continental romance, such as burial mounds and berserks, the saga belongs to the same literary tradition as Tristrams saga, the quintessential bridal-quest romance, and the several IcelanAlthough Gongu-Hrolfs saga transpires

—

in the

North

in

by it. An investigation of all “romantic” sagas, both Southern and Northern, is a desideratum; a regrouping as well as modified nomenclature might result. Gustaf dic riddarasogur inspired

Cederschiold had entitled his edition of riddarasogur, translated as well as indigenous, Fornsogur Sudrlanda in analogy to Rafn’s Fornaldarsogur Nordrlanda. Given the one constant, the aristocratic character of the protagonist, in a large group of Icelandic romances, scholars might want to adopt a refined clas-

works based on setting and characters: riddarasogur Sudrlanda or “Southern romances,” and riddarasogur Nor drlanda or “Northern rosification of these

j

1

25. See ibid., pp. 94-95. 26.

“Gongu-Hrolfs saga,”

in

Fornaldarsogur Nordr landa, ed. Valdimar Asmundarson (Reyk-

javik: S. Kristjansson, 1889), iii:236.

Marianne Kalinke

332

mances.” The former category would embrace the translated Norwegian and the derivative indigenous Icelandic compositions with non-Scandinavian settings; the latter, those Icelandic compositions with Scandinavian settings that are

now

j

designated as

\

'' xomdiniic'

'

fornaldarsogur.^'^

Facts surrounding the origin of the riddarasogur are scant.

Tristrams saga ok Isdndar attests that a certain Brother Robert

—

The colophon

— we know

in

noth-

him translated the work into Norwegian in the year 1226. The translation of Thomas’s Tristan, generally assumed to be the first of the riddarasogur, was undertaken at the behest of King Hakon Hakonarson (1217-63). An Abbot Robert is responsible for Elis saga; this work too was commissioned albeit by Hakon, and it is not implausible that this Abbot Robert is identical with the Brother Robert of older and more advanced in the monastic hierarchy ing about

—

—

Tristrams saga. Furthermore, Ivens saga, Mdttuls saga, and the Strengleikar

King Hakon and would therefore have been produced before 1263. According to the later redaction of Karlamagnus saga, “Landres l3attr” is of English origin. Bjami Erlingsson is said to have found the English tale in 1285 in Scotland and to have had it translated into Norwegian (ed. Unger, p. 50). Hakon’s grandson, Hakon Magnusson (12991319), is commended by the author of Viktors saga ok Bldvus for having had many romances translated from Greek and French (ed. Jonas Kristjansson, p. 3). We know of none. The names of two Icelandic bishops are associated with the riddarasogur. According to the testimony of AM 226 fol., Brandr Jonsson of Holar (died 1264) translated Gautier de Chatillon’s Alexandreis The introduction of Kldri saga ascribes its origin to Jon Halldorsson, bishop of Skalholt also

owe

their existence to the patronage of

(1322-39),

who supposedly knew

Cederschiold, p.

the narrative in a Latin metrical version (ed.

1).

The paucity of information concerning the origin of the Norwegian riddarasogur is compounded on the one hand by a corresponding paucity of Norwegian manuscripts and on the other by a proliferation of Icelandic redactions of the Norwegian translations. The unparalleled dimensions of Icelandic manuscript transmission have militated, however indirectly, against a proper evaluation of the translators’ work and a proper understanding of the character of the riddarasogur. This paradox is explained by the nearly total absence of Norwegian manuscripts that may be said to represent the work of the translators better than 1

do the

late Icelandic

manuscripts; the erratic approach of copyists to textual

transmission; and the unjustified prejudice of nineteenth-century editors against

postmedieval manuscripts. i

Few Norwegian

survive. Elis saga, the Strengleikar,

Arguments

texts of the translated

and Pamphilus

riddarasogur

(a translation of the Latin

and against revising nomenclature and a consideration of the problem of genre in general can be found in the following articles in SS, 47 (1975): Lars Lonnroth, “The Concept of Genre in Saga Literature,’’ 419-26; Joseph Harris, “Genre in the Saga Literature: A Squib,’’ 42736; Theodore M. Andersson, “Splitting the Saga,’’ 437-41. See also Lars Lonnroth, “Genrebegrcppen,’’ in “Tesen om de tva kulturema: Kritiska studier i den islandska sagaskrivningens sociala fdrutsattningar,’’ SI, 15 (1965), 9-32. 27.

for

.

Norse Romance

333

dialogue Pamphilus de amore) are preserved in the Norwegian codex

Gardie 4-7 that dates from circa 1250-70. Pidreks saga

is

extant in a

De

la

Norwegian

manuscript from the second half of the thirteenth century (Stockholm Perg.

fol.

no. 4). In the National Archives in Oslo (Riksarkivet) are found three fragments

of one leaf

(NRA

65), and these are the only surviving remnants of a fourteenth-

century manuscript of Flores saga ok Blankiflur. Until recently a vellum frag-

ment of Karlamagnus saga (NRA 61) had been counted among surviving Norwegian manuscripts of the riddarasogur According to Stefan Karlsson, however,

certain

provenance.

,

orthographic forms

suggest Icelandic rather than Norwegian

In general, our assessment of the thirteenth-century translations

on the testimony of manuscripts that are geographically and chronologically some remove from their original composition. The oldest extant Icelandic manuscripts of the translated riddarasogur are

rests at

/

(AM

655 4to) and Mottuls saga (AM 598 4to 1(3), both from around 1300. Breta sogur and Trojumanna saga are preserved together in two fourteenth-century manuscripts, 544 4to, better known as

fragments of Alexanders saga

[

AM

Hauksbok, and

AM

573

4to.

The

latter

manuscript also contains a one-leaf

fragment of Valvens fmttr, the continuation of Parcevals saga. The oldest preserved remnant of the latter saga

is

a fourteenth-century fragment of one leaf

(NKS 1794b 4to). Other manuscripts from the fourteenth century preserve texts of Magus saga jarls (AM 580 4to) and Bevers saga (AM 567 4to ii). The most important medieval codex of romances 6) containing

among

is

a manuscript (Stockholm Perg. 4to no.

others the oldest texts of Amicus saga ok Amilius, Flovents

saga, Ivens saga, and Kldri saga. Partalopa saga has

533 4to from the

come down

to us in

AM

Four precious leaves from the late fifteenth century, 567 4to xxii (three leaves) and the so-called Reeves Fragment are our oldest attestations of what presumably was the first of the late fifteenth century.

AM

Norwegian translations, Tristrams saga ok Isondar. The oldest complete text of this romance is to be found only in seventeenth-century paper manuscripts. The transmission of Erex saga is even more tenuous: its oldest complete text is preserved in 181b fol. from around 1650. Two pieces of one leaf from around 1500 (Lbs 1230 8vo iii) that had been used in bookbinding are too

AM

fragmentary for anything but conjecture concerning the nature of the original translation.

summary, our oldest full (albeit frequently defective) texts of almost all the Norwegian riddarasogur postdate their composition by at least 150 years. In not a few cases complete redactions can be found only in seventeenth-century Icelandic manuscripts. Consequently, we must assess the reliability of extant manu-

/ [

In

scripts, especially late Icelandic

paper manuscripts, that transmit the thirteenth-

century Norwegian translations. Scholarly opinion

—

much

not so

directly ex-

pressed as implied by the nature of the research conducted and the primary sources employed

— has

oscillated

and continues

28. Stefan Karlsson, “Islandsk bogeksport

til

Norge

i

to oscillate

middelalderen,”

between two ex-

MM (1979),

pp. 1-17.

Marianne Kalinke

334 tremes: faith and agnosticism.

The former

attitude predominates,

can point to a long line of literary historians, undertaken comparative studies and

arasogur and

who have

stylistic

critics,

analyses of the translated ridd-

1977a; Halvorsen 1975; Kalinke 1977;

Meissner 1902; Schlauch 1934a: 174-75), their linguistic

and

who have

and editors

issued pronouncements regarding the techniques of

thirteenth-century translators (Barnes

ed. Aebischer),

We

however.

ability {Januals Ijdd,

(Hallberg 1971, 1975; Schach 1965,

stylistic proclivities

1975). Rudolf Meissner’s analysis of the Strengleikar (1902) and comparison

with the French lais

is

exemplary yet unfortunately informed by the erroneous

assumption that the Norwegian codex

wording of the translation

(p.

De

la

Gardie 4-7 reliably transmits the

189). Meissner implicitly accepted the theory of

Rudolf Keyser and C. R. Unger, the

first

editors of the Strengleikar (1850), that

Norwegian redaction represents the first fair copy of the translator’s draft (p. xix). This optimism regarding the Norwegian manuscript is shared by Robert Cook and Mattias Tveitane in their new edition of the Strengleikar (1979). They the

repeat Keyser’s and Unger’s assumption and regularly refer to the “translator”

when noting discrepancies between

the

Norwegian

text

and the French source

(p.

xxxi).29

Given the venerable age of De

Norwegian manuscripts

la

Gardie 4-7 and scholarly confidence

— would

Norwegian redaction of work some minor scribal

in general, the position that the

the Strengleikar accurately represents the translator’s errors aside

in

be reasonable were

it

—

not that another primary text of

Guiamars Ijdd, the first of the Strengleikar and a translation of the French Guigemar, one of the lais of Marie de France, has come to light in an Icelandic manuscript (Lbs 840 4to) from 1737. This text retains not only original translations from the French lai not found in the Norwegian manuscript but also correct translations of passages for which readings in the Norwegian redaction are corrupt or otherwise problematic. Nonetheless, the Icelandic redaction has also

suffered textual attrition. ological and alliterating

Gvimars saga preserves fewer examples of the tautcollocations that are characteristic of the Norwegian

translations. Occasional misreadings

landic redaction. Separated

only that corruption dic

is

phenomenon but

as

by

much

five

and modifications have crept into the Ice-

hundred years, the two redactions

a medieval

Norwegian

attest

not

as a postmedieval Icelan-

also that even very late Icelandic paper manuscripts can

contain invaluable evidence for arriving at a better reconstruction of a thirteenth-

century Norwegian translation {Gvimars saga,

ed.

Kalinke; Kalinke

1980,

1981a; Jakobsen 1978; Skarup 1979a). Gvimars saga provides evidence of corruption in

De

la

Gardie 4-7, thus vindicating Eugen Kolbing,

by Rudolf Meissner for suggesting containing Elis saga, 29.

is

that this

marred by textual

See, for example, p. 102, n.

1; p.

1

who was

attacked

Norwegian codex, at least the portion corruption and attrition.^®

15, n. 13; p. 118, n. 16; p. 122, n. 19; pp.

220-21,

n. 2.

See Kolbing’s edition of Elis saga ok Rosamundu, pp. xiii-xxix (1881), and Meissner’s response (1902:138-96). 30.

Norse Romance

335

A

perusal of Icelandic manuscripts reveals that the attitudes of scribes to the texts they were supposed to be copying was anything but uniform. Some Icelan\

die scribes faithfully transmitted the text of an exemplar; others modified both

1

substance and structure.

^and interpolated. tion, others to

Some

Some

scribes

condensed and omitted, others expanded

Icelandic scribes tended to reduce rhetorical ornamenta-

embellish laconic prose; in either case

of nuance ensued.

stylistic

modification and

remarkable that a variety of contrary scribal approaches could and did coexist even in one and the same work. Although the shift

It is

proliferation of Icelandic manuscripts editing, scribal

independence

draws particular attention

to Icelandic

neither the prerogative of Icelanders nor the

is

mark of postmedieval Icelandic manuscripts alone, as the evidence from Guiamars Ijod/Gvimars saga confirms. Moreover, not a few riddarasogur, translated as well as indigenous,

have come down

three, redactions substantially at variance with

to us in two,

sometimes even

one another. The several versions

of one -saga can be distinguished by length or style or a combination of the two, as well as by discrepancies in plot. The French sources of the translated ridd-

arasogur fortunately serve as guides when tion

— —

we endeavor to

ascertain

which redac-

or which combination of passages, scenes, or episodes from several redac-

tions

reflects best the

wording of the original

translation.

Close comparison with their French sources of hitherto unknown, published, or ignored manuscript fragments of

some of

un-

the Arthurian ridd-

arasdgur (such as Parcevals saga, Mdttuls saga, Ivens saga, and Tristrams saga ok Isdndar) presents ever more conclusive evidence that the Norwegian transreproduced more of the content of their sources more accurately than

lators

standard editions have in the past led us to believe. In every instance

among primary manuscripts of one saga mentary corruption. Although oldest,

all

we

observe

a process that might be termed comple-

extant primary manuscripts, starting with the

have undergone substantial textual deterioration, the passages affected

the several manuscripts of one saga are not necessarily identical.

conflation of passages

from the several primary manuscripts

sent the text of the source

closer to the content

— and

may at

As

— of

a result,

that correctly repre-

effect a reconstruction that brings us

times even the style

in

one step

the original translation.

Ivens saga, for instance, exists in two substantially different versions, one represented by the vellums Stockholm Perg. 4to no. 6 (ca. 1400) and

AM 489

4to (ca. 1450), the other by the late seventeenth-century manuscript Stockholm

Pap.

fol.

no.

46 (1690). The former redaction,

densed but highly

alliterative

that of the vellums,

is

a con-

prose version that reproduces the French plot more

or less faithfully, although certain episodes have been significantly reduced and

some minor scenes script, is radically

deleted.

The

latter redaction,

abbreviated and stylistically laconic

text of the vellums; nonetheless,

Yvain that

is

represented by the paper manu-

it

when compared with

retains important matter

the

from Chretien’s

lacking in the redaction represented by the other vellums. Although

Stockholm 46 was transcribed

in the seventeenth century, the text of Ivens

saga

Marianne Kalinke

336 in this

manuscript was copied from the no longer extant Ormsbok, a codex dating

from around 1400, approximately the same period as the other vellums. Both vellums and paper manuscript represent corrupt and condensed redactions the

— of

—

Norwegian translation. Nonetheless, on the basis of the matter transmitted only in Stockholm 46 we can postulate an original Ivens saga that reflected the content of the French romance at once more accurately and in greater detail than has hitherto been supposed on the basis of the text in Kolbing’s two editions. latter

more so than the former

the

In Kolbing’s estimation the seventeenth-century paper manuscript tual value {Ivens

Only now

that Foster

Blaisdell’s critical edition of the three primary manuscripts of the saga has

published does the textual significance of the Stockholm 46 redaction apparent. For instance, a substantial portion of the

Pesme Aventure

Yvain (vv. 5240-5346) does not appear in Ivens saga editions.

One

—

to

in

W.

been

become

Chretien’s

judge from Kolbing’s

scholar indeed singled out the episode as a typical example of

attrition in the translated

the

tex-

saga 1872:ix, 1898:xiii), and therefore he did not make use of

redaction for either edition of Ivens saga.

this

had no

riddarasogur (Zink 1975:79). With the publication of

Stockholm 46 manuscript, the observation loses

its

validity.

To be

sure, the

episode in question appears in reduced form and with several modifications, but the text of the paper manuscript attests that a scribe

and not the translator

is

responsible for the loss of substantial portions of Chretien’s text. Icelandic scribal practice and faulty

modem editorial judgment are obstacles to

research that must not be dismissed too readily.

The scholar who would devote

himself to the riddarasogur but does not have ready access to the manuscripts

is

handicapped.^^ Jonas Kristjansson justifiably observed that not only are old editions out of print but those that are obtainable

have recently been reprinted

—

“fall short of the

Tristrams saga and Elis saga

demands

that are

now made,

and hence cannot be considered a trustworthy basis for scholarly research’’ (1975:279).

Among

the translated riddarasogur such important

works as

Tris-

trams saga ok Isondar, Severs saga, Breta sogur, Flores saga ok Blankiflur, Magus saga, and Parcevals saga, to name just a few, are not yet available in editions that

meet contemporary standards. The editions of Icelandic ridd-

Denmark; Amamagnaean Institute and Royal Library, Copenhagen. In England: British Library, London; Bodleian Library, Oxford. In France; Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris. In Germany: Deutsche Staatsbibliothek, Berlin. In Iceland; Landsbokasafn (National Library), Stofnun Ama Magnussonar, 31. Manuscripts of the riddarasogur can be found in the following repositories. In

and Pj66minjasafn, Reykjavik;

libraries in

Akureyri, SkagafjorSur, Skogar, BorgarfjorSur, and in

Norway: Library of Det Kongelige Norske Videnskabers Selskab, Trondheim; National Archives, Oslo. In Scotland: Advocates Library, Edinburgh. In Sweden: National Archives and Royal Library, Stockholm; Uppsala private hands throughout the country. In Ireland: Trinity College, Dublin. In

Lund Library. In the United States; Fiske Icelandic Collection, N.Y.; Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.;

University Library; University of

Cornell University,

Ithaca,

Nikulas Ottenson Collection, Johns Hopkins University Library, Baltimore, Md.; Library of Congress,

Washington, D.C.

Norse Romance arasogur are no

337 better.

As welcome

Riddarasogur (1949-54) print, scholars

is,

since

would do well

Bjami Vilhjalmsson’s six-volume edition makes available sagas that are now out of

as

it

to recall that, excepting the

modem

Icelandic

orthography, the texts are mostly those of nineteenth-century scholarly editions,

such as Kolbing’s and Cederschiold’s, or nineteenth-century popular Icelandic editions. Further, scholars

security

dic

by the

Romances

may have been

availability of (ed.

lulled into a false sense of textual

Agnete Loth’s

Loth 1962-65).

It

is

five- volume

Late Medieval Icelan-

too easy to ignore the editor’s

all

intention “to provide a long-needed provisional basis’’ (italics mine) for study of the Icelandic

romances

(i:vii).

The

each saga

text of

is

based upon the oldest

vellum extant, with selected variants from other manuscripts. For want of a

complete apparatus the editions

are,

however,

far

G. Foote rightly observed, “this sorry

as Peter

from state

definitive. Nonetheless,

of textual

affairs,

which

Norse scholars have sadly allowed to remain thus unrepaired, has not prevented translators translating

and commentators commenting.

The work of nineteenth-century script resources at the disposal

unknown

editors

is

textually deficient.

Many manu-

of scholars today were either inaccessible or

a century ago. Further, nineteenth-century editors were prejudiced

unaware of their signifiwould seem, the philological

against post-Reformation paper manuscripts and were

cance for textual criticism. Not unreasonably,

of the pioneering editors of the riddarasogur told them that what

instincts

oldest

is

it

is

best and that the greater the chronological gap between composition and

copy, the greater the likelihood of corruption. They did not reckon sufficiently with the unpredictability of Icelandic scribes.

As meticulous

a scholar as Kolbing

could have erred as he did in his edition of Ivens saga only

if

he believed

Icelandic redactions to be internally consistent. His dismissal of the Stockholm

46 redaction of Ivens saga as totally worthless is difficult to explain, unless one assumes that he read only the first few leaves of the manuPap.

fol.

no.

script.

In

most instances access

to manuscripts

is still

or stylistic studies of the riddarasdgur. Hitherto

a sine qua

unknown

non for comparative

or ignored manuscript

fragments offer compelling evidence in support of this claim. For example, the oldest fragment of Parcevals saga

(NKS 1794b

4to, fourteenth century) provides

evidence that the translator adhered more closely to the content of his source than Kolbing’s edition would suggest {Parcevals saga, ed. Simek 1982 [“Ein Frag-

ment”]). In a sequence of twenty-eight verses (2456-83) depicting the storming of a castle, Kolbing’s text, based on Stockholm Perg. 4to no. 6, suggests that the translator had reduced the content of this passage by four verses (2480-83).^^

The fragment contains those very verses but

lacks a translation of a different set

G. Foote, “Saman er broeSra eign bezt at sja,” BONIS (1975), p. 12. 33. References are to Chretien de Troyes: Le roman de Perceval ou Le conte du graal, ed. William Roach, 2d rev. ed. (Geneva: Droz, 1959). 32. Peter

Marianne Kalinke

338

of four verses (2464-67). Conflation of the two primary texts produces what

amounts

to verse-for- verse translation (Kalinke

The conflation proposed here

—

content with the

work

is

valid only

when

when we encounter

that is to say,

toward

as a preliminary step

analysis of the translated riddarasogur

serve as guide

19816:68-71). literary-critical

the French sources can

actual correspondence of

one or the other manuscript. Whenever the

translated in

riddarasogur exhibit textual augmentation vis-a-vis the sources, the origin of such independent intercalations

much

as

is

of the text of an individual manuscript.

A

a matter of conjecture as striking

which a French original provides no model

is

is

the merit

example of an addition for

the prologue to Mdttuls saga,

(AM 598 4to 1(3) and (AM 179 fol. and AM

represented by two primary texts, one from around 1300 the other preserved only in seventeenth-century copies

181b

fol.)

of a text

that is defective

copied.

in a

manuscript from ca. 1400 (Stockholm Perg. 4to no. 6)

today but was

The older

text, that

still

intact in the seventeenth century

of the vellum fragment,

when

was

it

approximately two-thirds

is

the length of the text in the later paper manuscripts. Unlike the prologue in

179, the prologue in the vellum fragment does not contain matter that

is

AM

primarily

tautological and might express a copyist’s penchant for rhetorical embellishment. In face of such manuscript evidence,

two questions

attributed to the translator or to a later redactor?

arise. Is the

prologue to be

Evidence from other sagas

would permit ascription to either. Further, of the two recensions of the prologue, which is the original, the longer or the shorter text? Again, one can take either position and argue one’s point of view by adducing supporting evidence from other riddarasogur, both translated and indigenous. If the longer prologue represents the translator’s

work, then the shorter

evidence of extensive reduction within the shorter prologue

is

original,

text of the first

vellum fragment provides

century of transmission. If the

however, then Mdttuls saga as we know

it

from the

paper manuscripts and from Cederschiold’s edition represents a rhetorically embellished version of the original translation.

category as the later

Magus saga jarls

earlier, criticized the older version for

mented the

tale

by means of

It

would then

(ca. 1350), the

fall

same

into the

author of which, as noted

being too briefly told; he therefore aug-

rhetorical ornamentation

and several interpolated

fysettir.

A

similar

original

is

problem

in

determining which of two

—

or three

—

redactions

is

posed by the indigenous Icelandic riddarasogur. Konrads saga

the

keis-

arasonar and Sigurdar saga pdgla, for instance, are preserved in two redactions each. In 1859 Gunnlaugur P6r5arson published an edition of Konrads saga based on the text of

AM

179

fol.

(seventeenth century), a copy of Stockholm

Perg. 4to no. 6 (ca. 1400). Twenty-five years later Gustaf Cederschiold edited a

divergent and older redaction, that of Stockholm Perg. 4to no. 7 (ca. 1350). critical edition

of the saga based on

and because Cederschiold’s text

is

all

A

manuscripts has not yet been published;

readily available, especially in

hjalmsson’s popular edition, but Gunnlaugur’s

is

not, the

little

Bjami

Vil-

attention the saga

Norse Romance

339

has so far received rests on a deficient

text.^"^

represented by a long and a short redaction.

Similarly, Sigurdar saga pdgla

The two

cognizance of the work disagree as to which

scholars

who have

is

taken

the original version (Einar 6l.

is

Sveinsson 1964:cxix-cxx; Bjorn K. Eorolfsson 1934:441-43); supporting evi-

dence for either position

wanting. Study of Dirius saga drambldta, extant in

is

three redactions, the oldest of

fragments,

is

facilitated

which

is

preserved in two fifteenth-century vellum

by Jonas Kristjansson’s

critical edition.

The saga

is

characterized by progressively increased condensation in the two later redactions.

The redaction

served in

AM

184

that Jonas Kristjansson calls the

fol.,

sixteenth centuries,

“middle version”

(pre-

seventeenth century), composed during the fifteenth or

a case in point for the contrary scribal editing tendencies

is

noticeable in the translated and Icelandic riddarasogur: although the redactor of the middle version abridged

— and

altered

—

the older text, he also interpolated

matter from other sources, such as Alexanders saga (Dinus saga drambldta, pp.

and Ixiv). Given the complexities and vagaries of Icelandic manuscript transmission and the inadequacy of most available editions, the literary historian and critic is well

xlviii

advised to practice caution. In no instance can alent of an

known,

Ausgabe

letzter

Hand. Unfortunately

forgotten, or ignored.

A

case in point

and Ivens saga

—

that

is

boast the manuscript equivthis fact is often either

provided by an analysis of the

appeared in 1977

in

Saga-Book of the Viking Society

and was predicated on the assumption that “in their present arasogur fied

MSS

un-

—Elis saga, Flores saga ok Blanki-

translation technique of three riddarasogur flur,

we

state the ridd-

accurately represent the material translated, abbreviated or ampli-

by Brother Robert and

his

nameless colleagues” (Barnes 1977a:438). Since

nineteenth-century editions rather than the manuscripts themselves were consulted for the study, conclusions about manuscripts are valid only insofar as

nineteenth-century editorial judgment

is

not flawed.

The passages

selected

from

Ivens saga for comparison with Yvain are based only on the text published by

Kolbing, for example, and thus the author could not take into account significant readings from Stockholm Pap.

fol.

no.

46

for the simple reason that Kolbing

chose to ignore the manuscript.

The same

trust in the reliability

scripts that are the basis

of extant manuscripts (those extant manu-

of nineteenth-century editions) that generated invalid

conclusions regarding the translation technique in Ivens saga also informed the

otherwise commendable

statistical

analyses of Peter Hallberg (1971). On the

basis of certain syntactic-stylistic features, Hallberg distinguished

Norwegian group of

translations

—

between a

a so-called Tristram-group, to which Ivens

saga, Mottuls saga, Parcevals saga with Valvens pdttr, Tristrams saga, and the Strengleikar belong

— and

a control group of translated and Icelandic ridd-

arasogur that includes Bevers saga, the Icelandic redaction of Elis saga ok Konrads saga keisarasonar is based solely on Cederof variants provided by Gunnlaugur PorSarson’s edition. acknowledgment edition with no

34. Otto Zitzelsberger’s translation of

schiold’s

Marianne Kalinke

340

Rosamundu, Erex saga, Flores saga ok Blankiflur, Flovents saga, Magus saga

Mirmanns saga, and Partalopa saga. Since Hallberg’s

jarls,

calculations are is

open

man

best

based on insufficient manuscript evidence, the validity of his conclusions to question.

In light of the preceding, Jonas Kristjansson’s

suited to undertake a critical edition of a

undertake scholarly research on

it

work

as well”

Kolbing deserves mention here as a scholar

is

is

in

remark

that

often the

man

best suited to

reasonable (1975:277). Eugen

whom

the editorial and literary-

temperaments were joined. Despite the shortcomings of Kolbing’ s edi-

critical

he and others like him must be credited with being the

tions,

“the

the translated riddarasogur. Their scholarly editions

removed

the riddarasogur

nental perspective, that

works^^

from a position of

is,

first

poularizers of

and comparative studies

relative obscurity

— from

a Conti-

since Icelanders had never ceased to enjoy these

— and granted them

a place in the great corpus of medieval

European

romance. The significance of Tristrams saga ok Isondar as the only complete extant

member

of the

Thomas branch of

the Tristan legend and the significance

of the Strengleikar as the third major collection of Breton lais in existence are

beyond dispute. Despite Jonas Kristjansson’s suggestion that editorial and literary-critical work

be undertaken by one and the same scholar, current and past research on the Old

Norse-Icelandic riddarasogur has tended to

and

editors

split:

have produced editions

have practiced criticism. Even though the work of such

literary critics

scholars as Kolbing and Cederschiold went

beyond the preparation of

texts

and

description of manuscripts, they endeavored primarily to determine the sources

of the Norwegian romances. The riddarasogur were edited and analyzed with an

eye to a

common

medieval

tradition.

The comparative

century scholars were undertaken to elucidate as as the character of the translations.

Isondar, a

work

much

studies of nineteenth-

the nature of the sources

The outstanding example

that is as important for

French

is

Tristrams saga ok

literature as for

Old Norse-

Icelandic literature. Without this saga Joseph Bedier’s reconstruction of as’s Tristan,

for all

its

Thom-

weaknesses, would have been unthinkable.^^ Until

Meissner’s study Die Strengleikar appeared in 1902, no major effort had been

expended

to

apply literary-critical methods to the riddarasogur as a body of

narratives in their

own

right.

35. For a reaction to Hallberg’s analyses, see Blaisdell 1974, and Hallberg’s response 1975. 36. in

In addition to

popular editions

many

in the

copies in manuscript, not a few riddarasogur were available to Icelanders nineteenth century, such as Blomstrvalla saga (1814), Erex saga (1886),

Konrads saga keisarasonar (1859), Magus saga

jarls (1858), Mirmanns saga (1884), Saulus saga ok Nikanors (1852), Sigrgards saga free kna (1884), Sigurdar saga I>dgla

Kldri saga (1884),

(1883), Valdimars saga (1852), Vilmundar saga vidutan (1878), Pjalar-Jons saga (1857).

May

modem orthography

in the Sunday issue of 390-93, 406) bespeaks the appeal 26, 1968,

publication of Sigurdar sagafots as recently as 1968 with a Reykjavik newspaper (Timinn, Sunnudagsblad,

The

of medieval romance even to present-day Icelanders. 37. Joseph Bedier,

1902-5).

Le roman de Tristan par Thomas: Poeme du XIP

siecle, 2 vols. (Paris: Didot,

Norse Romance

Two

341

from the early twentieth century deserve mention. The first to investigate the riddarasogur as a group and as medieval literature was Henry Goddard Leach’s Angevin Britain and Scandinavia indeed a “guide book in studies

—

strange territory” for most medievalists, especially in the English-speaking world

(1921 :vii). Although incomplete, the study was a

first effort to

acquaint the world

with Scandinavia’s contribution to medieval romance. Leach focused on the

some of the indigenous romances as well, such as Dmus saga drambldta, Samsons saga fagra, and Tristrams saga ok Isoddar. The standard work on romance in Iceland is still Margaret Schlauch’s monograph by that title, published in 1934. The work is ambitious in scope: translated riddarasogur but considered

(

manuscripts were consulted

if editions

were lacking; included

in the

survey are not

only the medieval riddarasogur and fornaldarsogur but also postmedieval folktales. In short, the

focal point of the study

word “romance” is

is

understood

in a

broad sense. Since the

an analysis of the motifs prevalent in Icelandic romance,

other aspects of this literature, such as style, structure, or characterization, are

perforce neglected. Understandably, the analysis of the riddarasogur

— only one

of the types of saga subsumed under Margaret Schlauch’s “romance” vidually and as a group

is

—

indi-

limited.

Leach’s and Schlauch’s studies were for several decades solitary milestones in the assessment of the riddarasogur as I

European and

Although Erik Wahlgren’s The Maiden King

upon the heels of Schlauch’s monograph, ited, presumably because the dissertation

its

in

as Scandinavian literature.

Iceland (1938) followed hard

impact appears to have been lim-

(a sixty-eight-page typescript)

was a

by the University of Chicago Libraries). Nonetheless, study provides useful summaries of a dozen narratives as well as a classifica-

private edition (distributed the

tion of motifs

common

to the

maiden-king type.

Until recently, literary historians have given short shrift to the riddarasogur,

especially the indigenous sagas.

We

find

as having a significant place in the evolution of

An

extreme case of scholarly neglect

translated

to discuss these

romances

Old Norse-Icelandic

literature.

no attempts

is

SigurSur Nordal’s dismissal of the

and Icelandic romances with one paragraph each (^Sigur5ur Nordal,

pp. 224, 268) in his Sagalitteraturen, even though the riddarasogur are enumer-

ated and defined in the introduction as one of the six traditional types of saga

(^Sigur5ur Nordal, p. 180). Equally cursory

is

Jon Helgason’s treatment of the

romances (Hon Helgason 1934:21 1-13) and even more of the indigenous Icelandic derivatives in a seemingly obligatory paragraph of generalities that bespeaks a disdain for the genre equal to SigurSur Nordal’ s. Although the translated

Norges og Islanas litteratur (^Paasche/ Holtsmark, pp. 467-72), the indigenous romances are totally ignored. Eugen Mogk, Finnur Jonsson, and Jan de Vries are more generous, albeit not entirely receptive (^Finnur Jonsson, ^de Vries, ^Mogk). Their histories provide short plot summaries and give sources of the translated romances and noteworthy motifs translated riddarasogur are discussed in

for the indigenous compositions. Occasionally remarks about the riddarasogur,

Marianne Kalinke

342

especially the Icelandic sagas, suggest that the writer had at best only a superficial

that

acquaintance with the works in question. Indeed, Eugen

Mogk

admitted

he had to rely on comments and plot summaries of other scholars for want of

As commendable as Thorkil Damsgaard Olsen’s chapter “Den hpviske litteratur’’ in Norr0n fortsellekunst is, especially access to editions and manuscripts.

in discussing the translated

ature,

it

fails to

romances

in the

context of medieval European

liter-

consider the impact of the Norwegian riddarasogur on the

development of Icelandic romance {^NFk). The Icelandic riddarasogur are passed over in silence. The most recent survey of the riddarasogur in a reference

work

is

that of

Kurt Schier (^Schier). Given the conciseness of the Metzler series

Germanisten, Schier gives a

fair presentation

of the ridd-

Realienbiicher

fiir

arasogur

term for the translated sagas) and the Mdrchensagas

(his

(that is,

indigenous riddarasogur) vis-a-vis the other saga types. The section devoted to

Norwegian and Icelandic romances (pp. 92-115), when compared to those devoted to the kings’ sagas (pp. 9-34) or family sagas (pp. 34-66), bespeaks a more realistic assessment of the place of romance in Icelandic literature than that the

of earlier literary historians.

Old Norse-Icelandic romance has become a subject of serious scholarly inquiry. The change occurred around the middle of the century and was generated in large

measure by

Institutes in

Denmark and

editorial activity in

Iceland.

Copenhagen and Reykjavik have been seeking

The Amamagnaean to provide a

sounder

textual basis for literary criticism with their diplomatic editions of translated

and

Icelandic romances alike. Foster Blaisdell’s editions of Erex saga (1965) and

Ivens saga (1979), Jonna Louis-Jensen’s editions of Trojumanna saga (1963, 1981), and Robert Cook’s and Mattias Tveitane’s edition of the Strengleikar

(1979) are exemplary, as are Jonas Kristjansson’s editions of Di'nus saga dramb-

and Viktors saga okBldvus (1964). Many of the romances discussed by Margaret Schlauch in Romance in Iceland (1934a) are now easily accessible Idta (1960)

in

Agnete Loth’s

Late Medieval Icelandic Romances (1962-

five- volume edition

65). Critical editions of a

number of

the riddarasogur are in progress, notably

^

Tristrams saga ok Isondar, Fibres saga ok Blankiflur, Bevers saga, and Mottuls saga. Further, facsimile editions of several codices containing translated and

indigenous riddarasogur have been issued in the series Early Icelandic scripts in Facsimile. in

Thus

Manu-

the scholar has immediate access to the unedited texts

primary manuscripts of several romances: the facsimile edition of Stockholm

Amicus saga ok AmiUus, Bevers saga, Ivens saga, Parcevals saga, Valvens fydttr, Mirmanns saga, Flovents saga, Elis saga ok Rosamundu, Konrdds saga keisarasonar, Pjalar-Jons saga, Mottuls saga, and Kldri saga; in the facsimile of AM 489 4to {Ivens saga, ed. Blaisdell, Perg. 4to no. 6 (ed. Slay 1972) contains A

1980) can be found Flores saga ok Blankiflur, Brings saga ok Tryggva, Ivens saga, Tristrams saga ok Isoddar, and Kirjalax saga; the facsimile edition of

586 and 589 4to

(ed.

AM

Loth 1977) makes available Flores saga konungs ok sona

Norse Romance

343

hans, Vilmundar saga vidutan, Brings saga ok Tryggva, Kirjalax saga,

Samsons

sagafagra, Valdimars saga, Kldri saga, Ectors saga, mdAlaflekks saga. Concurrently there has been a change of attitude toward Old Norse-Icelandic romance. Scandinavianists have come to realize that the riddarasogur are neither a medieval afterthought nor the dying gasp of a once great literature. After the introduction of Continental

romance

into

Norway and

its

all,

transmission by

Icelandic scribes coincides with the composition and transmission of the family

sagas and the kings’ sagas. Further, few family sagas are preserved in manuscripts older than surviving

manuscripts of the riddarasogur.

A

review of the

oldest extant Icelandic manuscripts indicates that the transmission of family

sagas and other “classic” Icelandic literature was contemporary with the composition of indigenous

mony

romances and

from giving

their transmission. Far

to a degeneration of Icelandic literature

testi-

and a period of general decadence,

romance bespeaks a desire for diversity and for experimentation with a new literary form. The diverging redactions of the individual riddarasogur, for example Magus saga jarls, stem from the same creative impulse, the same wrestling with matter and form, as the diverging redactions of the composition of indigenous

such family sagas as Gisla saga.

The riddarasogur have now European

literature.

the inclusion of P.

also been accepted as an integral part of medieval

Evidence for

M.

by Roger

their acceptance is provided, for instance,

Mitchell’s chapter on the Arthurian riddarasogur in

Sherman Loomis’s Arthurian Literature

Middle Ages (1959). In the same study of Karlamagnus saga with a

in the

year, E. F. Halvorsen’s textual and literary

—

survey of the translated literature which, albeit too general and often inaccurate, is

still

useful

— appeared

in

Denmark, while

in Switzerland

Aebischer published an impressive series of books and

and France Paul

articles, studies,

and

Karlamagnus saga (1954a, 1954b, 1956, 1960, 1972) that were widely acknowledged in the form of reviews by Romanists, Scandinavianists, and comparatists. At international congresses the riddarasogur have not been neglected. The Fifth International Saga Conference (Toulon, 1982), which was devoted to the riddarasogur, comes to mind as does the Liege Colloquium of 1972, the proceedings of which were published in 1975 {^Relations litteraires). Unfortunately the appended bibliography of Franco-Scandinavian literary relations is marred by many errors and may prove more a stumbling block than a furtherance to the uninitiated. Romance scholarship has acknowledged the sigtranslations of

nificance of Franco-Scandinavian literary relations for French literature by in-

cluding

Knud Togeby’s

volume of the Since 1960 more than

chapter (1972) on this subject in the

Grundriss der romanischen Literaturen des Mittelalters.

first

and theses here and abroad have been devoted to the riddarasogur. In addition to editing texts, scholars have concerned themselves in the fifteen dissertations

last

two decades with such matters as

translation technique (Halvorsen 1975;

Kalinke 1977, 1979a, 1979b, 1980, 1981a), structure (Clover 1974; Kalinke

Marianne Kalinke

344 1970), authorship (Schach 1975, Sverrir

Tomasson 1977),

style (Blaisdell 1965,

1972; Hallberg 1971, 1975; Halvorsen 1962b; Kalinke 1979a, 1979b; Rossen-

beck 1970), and the dell

reliability

of Norwegian and Icelandic manuscripts (Blais-

1967, 1974, 1979; Jakobsen 1978; Gvimars saga; Kalinke 1980, 1981;

Skarup 1979a). Older scholarship pertaining to Old Norse-Icelandic romance

An

evaluated.

outstanding example

is

being

is

re-

Alfrun Gunnlaugsdottir’s Tristan en

el

norte (1978) in which she demonstrates, on the basis of Tristrams saga ok

The Old Norse-

Isondar, the inadequacies of Bedier’s reconstruction of Thomas’s Tristan. fate of the

romance

Icelandic

1981b).

matiere de Bretagne

Of

is

the subject of

in

King Arthur North-by-Northwest (Kalinke

particular significance for a better understanding of the indigenous

romances

Icelandic

— including the Tristan matter—

is

Einar 01. Sveinsson’s groundbreaking essay “Viktors

saga ok Blavus: Sources and Characteristics,’’ which unfortunately

is

buried in

Jonas Kristjansson’s edition of the saga (1964). Einar’s essay, in which he analyzes the interrelationship of a attempt to larger

to terms with the

chronology and

literary

is

the first

interdependence of a

group of indigenous romances.

Jiirg It is

come

number of indigenous romances,

Glauser’s Isldndische Mdrchensagas (1983) merits special consideration.

the fullest study to date of the indigenous riddarasdgur within their histor-

ical, sociological,

and

literary context,

and

it

substantially furthers our

edge of a large but relatively unknown group of sagas.

An

knowl-

appendix to the

volume contains lengthy resumes of the twenty-seven sagas that constitute, according to Glauser, the corpus of Mdrchensagas. Because of the relative obscurity of the

indigenous romances, Glauser’s study

is

useful not only to the Scan-

The monograph has

dinavianist but also to the comparatist and folklorist.

its

weaknesses, however. Glauser assumes a priori that the sagas studied constitute a clearly defined corpus; included, however, in his “corpus’’ are

Magus

saga,

generally considered a translated riddarasaga, and three other sagas considered borderline cases

— between

riddarasaga and fornaldarsaga

— by

both E. F.

Halvorsen (1969:180) and Einar 6l. Sveinsson (1959:500-501). The question as to

what constitutes the genre Mdrchensaga (or indigenous riddarasaga )

indeed there

is

such a genre

— has

—

if

yet to be answered. Furthermore, Glauser’s

romances does not stand up to Like Astrid van Nahl {Originate Riddarasdgur als Teil altnordischer

definition of his corpus of sagas as bridal-quest scrutiny.

Sagaliteratur, 1981) before him, Glauser focuses

phrase, topoi, motifs

— without considering

on narrative cliches

their context

—

turns of

and the individuality of

a given saga.

Recent developments affecting research

in the area

of Old Norse-Icelandic

romance, such as the publication of some of the aforementioned

critical, diplo-

matic, and facsimile editions and also the use or discovery of hitherto ignored or

unknown fragments of interrelationship

the sagas, facilitate tentative suggestions concerning the

and evolution of the riddarasdgur. In the history of Old Norse-

,

Norse Romance Icelandic

345

romance redactors have played

and authors.

New

as important a role as

have translators

manuscript evidence suggests ever more forcefully that the

Norwegian riddarasogur transmitted the content and tone of their sources more accurately and more extensively than has been supposed but that the degree to which the individual translated riddarasogur were faithful to their sources varies considerably.

What

Strengleikar

such as Geitarlauf, contrasts with substantial loss of text in other

constitutes nearly a verse-for- verse translation in

some of the

Strengleikar, such as Januals Ijdd; the reduced text of tvens saga vis-a-vis the

French source contrasts strikingly with the amplified text vis

a

its

source.

work

The

alliterative

that adheres

more or

in

Mdttuls saga vis-a-

rhythmical language of Tristrams saga okisdndar,

less to the content of

for the laconic, unembellished prose of

substantial attrition, modification,

its

source, does not prepare us

Erex saga, which

exhibits, furthermore,

and interpolation.

The corpus of Old Norse-Icelandic romance

is

a diverse, stratified literature

engendered by translations of foreign fiction but transformed by generations of scribes

who

infused the texts with their

own

literary sense.

As

a group, the

riddarasogur reflect a transmutation of genre; they constitute a paradigm for the evolution of literary form from translation to revision, from revision to adaptation,

from adaptation

lation to original

to indigenous re-creation.

The metamorphosis from

trans-

composition consists of several stages of textual history that are

neither clearly defined nor strictly chronological and sequential but are, rather,

distinguishable by varying degrees of dependence on or independence from the original texts or the spirit of their sources.

composed during

the late

The

Middle Ages are the

Icelandic romances that were final

phase in an evolutionary

process devolving from the translation of foreign literature into Norwegian dur-

The degree of transformation of any one work in the course of transmission varies, depending upon the number of extant manuscripts and the relationship of a particular scribe to his exemplar. The greater the number of extant manuscripts of any one saga, the more readily scribal intervention can ing the thirteenth century.

be demonstrated. /

The following model can be proposed for the evolution of the riddarasogur as an indigenous genre in Iceland: (1) Norwegian translation; (2) Norwegian/Icelandic copy; (3) Norwegian/Icelandic revision; (4) Icelandic adaptation; (5) Icelandic re-creation. This

\in the

model

reflects the varying roles the transmitters of

North played as translators, copyists, editors, and authors. This

romance is

not to

suggest that the stage of indigenous Icelandic composition could be reached only

by traversing the preceding phases sequentially, but rather Norse-Icelandic romance manifests

in the

aggregate of

its

that the corpus of

manuscripts levels of

increasing independence from the literature of translation from which

On

the basis of such evidence as that provided

Old

it

sprang.

by the Icelandic redaction of

Guiamars Ijod, the “Reeves Fragment” of Tristrams saga ok Isondar, the Stockholm Pap. fol. 46 redaction of Ivens saga, and the vellum fragment NKS 1794b 4to of Parcevals saga, we are now

in a position to postulate relatively

Marianne Kalinke

346 faithful

then

Norwegian

at least

translations

if

not of

all

narratives transmitted to the North,

of a substantial number of them. The translators did not work

mindlessly, however; in not a few instances I

interpreters

rious

we can

and explicators of ambiguous passages

message Tristram incised on a

observe them

in their sources.

stick in Chievrefueil

passage (vv. 61-78) that has been interpreted to

mean

comes

work as The mysteat

mind, a

to

that Tristram carved the

substance of seventeen lines into the stick, or that the verses refer to the content

of a previous message, or that he etched only the letters of his

name

hazel wood, but that the

name

into the

alone sufficed to evoke the associations and remi-

niscences alluded to in the seventeen lines.

As

first

interpreter of Tristram’s

xylographic message, the Norwegian translator chose to read in the French lines the

words of a long message

to Isolt.

Norwegian riddarasogur underwent gradual hands of both Norwegian and Icelandic copyists. During a

In the course of transmission the

transformation at the theoretical

second stage of transmission, modifications did not yet affect sub-

stance; those aberrations that

were

willful rather than unintentional or occasioned

by scribal carelessness were nonetheless so minor as not work. The text of

shown

at least

to affect the

one of the Strengleikar, Guiamars

essence of a

Ijdd,

has been

be corrupt {Gvfmars saga; also Kalinke 1980), and this is evidence that as early as the thirteenth century Norwegian scribes had started to tamper with to

and

the sequence of events

to delete

words, phrases, and clauses

— whether

The same phenomenon is observable of transmission. The copying stage is a stage of scribal

intentionally or not cannot be determined.

throughout the centuries

misreadings, of changes in orthography, of substitutions in vocabulary, of inad-

word order. At this assumed the responsibility

vertent omissions and changes in inclination or discipline

one

else’s text

The

more or

—

still

—

for transmitting

— by

some-

less intact.

third stage, that of revision, in

our perspective

stage the scribe

which a supposed copyist

asserted editorial authority,

is

— viewed from

marked by pronounced modifi-

cation through interpolation, reduction, and augmentation of text affecting content, structure,

and

style.

The redactions belonging

to this

phase reflect contrary

and even contradictory approaches to textual revision. The redactor of the

Magus saga jarls boldly why he felt compelled to

steps forward as

AM

588a

in the

epilogue to explain

embellish a tale that some of his listeners might have

recalled as being shorter.

manuscript

“author”

later

A

note attached to the text of Ivens saga in the

4to, written

by Magnus Olafsson

at the

end of the seven-

from which the manuscript was copied the copyist had been interested primarily in preserving

teenth century, attests that the original

had been longer and

that

The majority o: extant texts of the riddarasogur do not contain conscious commentary, but whenever a redactor revised consistently, his the plot.

torial or 38.

compositional principles can be inferred. This

is

self-

edi-

the case in the afore-

See Maurice Cagnon, ''Chievrefueil and the Ogamic Tradition,” Romania, 91 (1970), 238-

48, for a review of criticism regarding this passage.

Norse Romance

347

mentioned abridged Stockholm Pap.

46 redaction of Ivens saga and in the middle version of Dmus saga drambldta. Similarly, the tenor and content of Tiddels saga, which is despite the title an Icelandic redaction of the Norwegian Bisclaretz Ijdd (Kalinke 1981a), leave no doubt that the deviations of the saga from the Ijdd aimed at clearer motivation. The greater the redactor’s independence, the more difficult it becomes to fol.

—

no.

—

determine whether a divergent text of a saga

is

properly speaking a redaction or a

The transmission of substantially dissimilar redactions of some of the riddarasdgur raises an issue to which scholars have not yet adequately addressed themselves: when is an Icelandic “redaction” that is, a different version of that saga.

—

text historically considered a redaction of a saga

classification of manuscripts

by cataloguers

by reason of

— no longer

title

and the

a “redaction” but rather

what point does the anonymous

a “version” of a tale? Phrased differently: at

Icelander responsible for a substantially altered text of a saga

become an author?

The questions

style of

germane because the

two redactions of a riddarasaga can differ as drastically as, for instance, Beroul’s and Thomas’s French versions of the Tristan legend or Eilhart’s and Gottfried’s

German

When

tenor, content,

and

versions.

a question concerning content or style of a particular saga elicits the

“That

retort

are

all

depends on the redaction,”

editorial revision has

sive as to affect substance; revision thus constitutes adaptation.

been so exten-

For example,

at

mention of Magus saga jar Is those familiar with Cederschiold’s scholarly edition

which the classical, somewhat of the indigenous sagas predominates. Those who know the saga

will think of a tightly constructed narrative in

laconic style

from Bjami Vilhjalmsson’s popular edition,

in turn a reprint of a nineteenth-

century Icelandic popular edition, will conjure up a rambling narrative intercalated with pasttir only tangentially connected with the style

main

plot and written in a

A

somewhat different two redactions, one

approximating that of the translated riddarasdgur.

situation obtains for Elis

thirteenth-century

saga ok Rdsamundu, extant

Norwegian and preserved

in

De

la

in

Gardie 4-7, the other

Icelandic from around 1400 and found, for example, in the Stockholm Perg. 4to

The Norwegian text breaks off in with a colomidstory presumably because the French source was defective phon identifying the translator as Abbot Robert. The Icelandic redaction omits no. 6 codex of

romances

(fol.

86''-106).

—

—

this

colophon

106'^).

(103’^:I3)

and brings the

The Icelandic “author”

is

tale to a

reasonable conclusion (103^:14-

not above plagiarizing, however; he repeats

almost verbatim certain passages from the Norwegian translation, such as the

Rosamunda’s garments (ed. Kolbing, pp. 86-87, 133). A comparison of the work of the Icelandic redactor with that of the Germans Ulrich von Tiirheim and Heinrich von Freiberg, both of whom completed Gottfried’s fragmentary Tristan, is not inappropriate. Whereas the Icelander was forced to seek inspiration in the work itself, the Germans were able to draw on another version description of

of the legend, Eilhart’s Tristan.

Marianne Kalinke

348

example of editorial intervention bordering on adaptation is the preserved text of Erex saga. On the basis of external evidence, a fairly accurate Norwegian translation of Chretien de Troyes’s Erec et Enide can be

The most

striking

postulated, one that tions.

was

stylistically similar to other thirteenth-century transla-

But then through a series of major changes brought about by condensation,

conflation, interpolation,

and rearrangement affecting content,

Erex saga became an

ture,

entity

style,

and

struc-

markedly divergent from the French source and

presumably from the Norwegian translation. Instead of copying, an Icelander thoroughly revised his exemplar. The alliterative, tautological language of the

was reduced to a laconic prose; similarly, two structurally tautological robber episodes were conflated into one. Pidreks saga provided not only inspiration but also further material for Erex saga. The conflated robber episode is modeled on a similar one in Pidreks saga, and the interpolated flying Norwegian

translation

dragon episode

is

a clear case of borrowing (Kalinke 198 lb: 194-98, 244-48).

Despite far-reaching modifications, however, the still

spirit

of Arthurian romance

pervades the saga.

The outstanding example of an

Icelandic adaptation per se

is

the fourteenth-

century Tristrams saga ok Isoddar, which suggests only vaguely the tragic love X

we know from

story

the

Norwegian Tristrams saga ok Isondar. Henry Goddard

Leach dismissed the saga as a “boorish account of Tristram’s noble passion’’ (1921:186). Paul Schach has argued convincingly, however, that the Icelandic /'saga

was intended

Norwegian version (1960). Indeed, a humorous commentary on Arthurian romance, a

as a deliberate reply to the

the saga can be interpreted as

parody that draws the ultimate and often ludicrous consequences of the behav-

romance (Kalinke 1981b:199-21 1). The means by which the author achieves his end are exaggeration and distortion of popular motifs such as the recreantise motif from Erec et Enide! Erex saga and the motif of the leicht getrostete Witwe from Yvainilvens saga. The motif of A unrequited love is given an ironic and unexpected twist: three times Isodd is offered to Tristram in marriage by her mother, by herself, and even by Tristram’s uncle and three times Tristram refuses her (despite the subsequent adultery) because he considers himself too humble a match and his uncle the more suitable mate for her. Notwithstanding Tristram’s love for one Isodd, he fathers a child with the other Isodd, who comes to him as booty in war. By means of this novel twist the author approaches the happy ending of Arthurian romance and at the same time bows to the structural exigencies of a proper saga: the narrative tenets

ioral

propounded

in courtly

—

—

ends with an epilogue that relates briefly the fortunes of Kalegras Tristramsson

and

his children.

legend

is

Throughout the saga, the author’s interpretation of the

tragic

iconoclastic.

Icelanders manifested most readily their independence from French tradition

when

they took to devising

new

plots.

Their main source of inspiration for the

Icelandic recreations continued to be the imported literature

from which they

extrapolated names, motifs, topoi, characters, and even entire episodes.

The

,

Norse Romance

349

contribution of Tristrams saga ok Isdndar to the formation of the indigenous

romances should not be underestimated, but other sagas also furnished matter and creative impulse. The grateful lion episode in Ivens saga and the dragon slaying in Pidreks saga in

combination

come

to

mind. They are elements that appear singly and

romances, but most charmingly

in several Icelandic

saga l)dgla.^^ Icelanders also drew on indigenous their compositions: vikings, berserks, trolls,

literature

in

Sigurdar

and traditions for

and shapeshifters appear not

infre-

quently in romances with a predominantly non-Scandinavian setting and cast of characters. Finnur Jonsson likened the corpus of Icelandic romance, with

its oft-

repeated motifs, situations, and characterizations, to a kaleidoscope with a lim-

number of

ited

constituent parts that are rearranged as the instrument

(^Finnur Jonsson,

iii:98).

The comparison, although not

nonetheless misleading. Originality

is

turned

is

entirely inappropriate,

is

admittedly rare in the indigenous ridd-

arasdgur, but the authors of romance evinced ingenuity in assimilating the foreign matter.

composed

More

than thirty romances

in Iceland in the

known with

certainty to have been

Middle Ages are preserved today. The burgeoning of

number

the riddarasogur in Iceland, their preservation in an astoundingly large

of manuscripts, and their publication in popular editions in both the nineteenth

and the twentieth centuries bespeak the genre’s continuing appeal.

Bibliography EDITIONS

AND TRANSLATIONS

Collections

Bjami Vilhjalmsson. See Vilhjalmsson. Blaisdell, Foster W., ed. 1980. The Sagas ofYwain and Tristan and Other Tales: 4to.

EIMF,

AM 489

12.

Magus saga jarls, Konrads

Cederschidld, Gustaf, ed. 1884. Fornsogur Sudrlanda: Baerings saga, Flovents saga, Bevers saga:

published in

LUA, 13-15,

Med

saga,

inledning. Lund: Berling. Originally

18-21.

Gu6ni Jonsson. See Jonsson. Jonsson, Gu6ni, ed. Fornaldar sogur Nordurlanda. 4 vols. Reykjavik: Islendingasagnautgafan, 1954; rpt. 1981. [Popular edition of 34 sagas.]

Kolbing, Eugen, ed. 1872. Riddarasogur: Parcevals saga, Valvers pdttr, Ivents saga,

Mirmans saga. Strasbourg: K.

J.

Triibner. ^

o

Lagerholm, Ake, ed. 1927. Drei Lygisggur: Egils saga einhenda ok Asmundar berserkjaA

bana, Ala flekks saga, Flores saga konungs ok sona hans.

ASB,

17.

Halle:

M.

Niemeyer. 39.

A grateful lion episode can also be found in Ectors saga,

Grega saga, Sagan af Kara Kdrasyni Konrads saga keisarasonar and Vil-

PorSarson [Reykjavik: Einar P6r6arson, 1886]), hjdlms saga sjods. For further discussion of the grateful lion motif see Harris 1970. with reference to German analogues (ed. Einar

—

^

indicates that the

work

is

listed in the

ae

ae; 0, oe, g,

o

=

oe;

ii

=

—

especially

Abbreviations, not in the bibliographies to chapters;

word or text. Alphabetization of non-English ue; d = d; b = after z.

* indicates a reconstructed or lost

=

in Icelandic narrative

characters; a

=

aa; a,

Marianne Kalinke

350

EA, B:20-24. and AM 589 a-f

Loth, Agnete, ed. 1962-65. Late Medieval Icelandic Romances. 5 vols. 1977. Fornaldarsagas 4to.

EIMF,

1

and Late Medieval Romances:

AM 586 4 to

1

Rafn, Carl Christian, ed. 1829-30. Fornaldarsogur

Nordrlanda.

3 vols. Copenhagen;

Popp.

Desmond, EIMF, 10.

Slay,

ed. 1972.

Romances: Perg. 4:o nr 6

in

The Royal Library, Stockholm.

Vilhjalmsson, Bjami, ed. 1949-54. Riddarasogur. 6 vols. Reykjavik: Islendingasagnautgafan, Haukadalsutgafan. [Popular edition of 24 sagas.] Individual

Works

ADONIAS SAGA

“Om

raevestreger; Et kapitel

Adonius saga.” Ed. Ole Widding. Opuscula,

i

1

(1960):

331-34. BA, 20.

6SPEd. Loth 1962-65. Vol.

3.

ALA FLEKKS SAGA Ed. Lagerholm 1927.

Ed. Bjami Vilhjalmsson 1949-54. Vol.

5.

Ed. Loth 1977.

ALEXANDERS SAGA Alexanders saga: Norsk bearbeidelse fra trettende aarhundrede af Philip Gautiers latinske digt Alexandreis. Ed. C. R. Unger. Oslo: Feilberg

&

Landmark, 1848.

Alexanders saga: Islandsk overssettelse ved Brandr Jonsson (Biskop

til

Molar 1263-

64) udgiven af Kommissionen for det Arnamagnaeanske Legat. Ed. Finnur Jonsson.

Copenhagen; Gyldendal, 1924. Alexanders saga: The Arna-Magnaean Manuscript 5 19a, 4to. Ed. Jon Helgason. MI,

7.

1966.

AMICUS SAGA OK AMILIUS “Bmchstiick einer Amicus ok Amilms saga.” Ed. Eugen Kolbing. Germania, 19 (1874); 184-89. Ed. Slay 1972.

ANS SAGA BOGSVEIGIS Ed. C. C. Rafn 1829-30. Vol.

2.

Ed. GuSni Jonsson 1954. Vol. 2.

ASMUNDAR SAGA KAPPABANA Zwei Fornaldarsogur (Hrolfssaga Gautrekssonar und Asmundarsaga kappabana) nach Cod. Holm. 7, 4'^. Ed. Ferdinand Detter. Halle: M. Niemeyer, 1891. Ed. Gu6ni Jonsson 1954. Vol.

1.

ByERINGS SAGA Ed. Cederschiold 1884.

BEVERS SAGA Ed. Cederschiold 1884. Ed. Bjami Vilhjalmsson 1949-54. Vol.

1.

BLOMSTR VALLA SAGA Blomstrvalla saga. Ed. Theodor Mobius. Leipzig: Breitkopf

&

Haertel, 1855.

Norse Romance

351

BOSA SAGA OK HERRAUDS Ed. C. C. Rafn 1829-30. Vol.

Die Bosa-saga

in

3.

zwei Fassungen nebst Proben aus den Bosa-nmur. Ed. Otto L.

K.

Jiriczek. Strasbourg:

J.

Trubner, 1893.

Ed. Gu5ni Jonsson 1954. Vol.

3.

BRETA SOGUR “Breta sogur.” In Hauksbok udgiven efter de arnamagnaeanske hdndskrifter no. 371 544 og 675, 4^ sant forskellige papirshdndskrifter. Ed. Eirfkur Jonsson [and ,

Finnur

Jonsson].

Copenhagen:

Det

Kongelige

Nordiske

Oldskrift-Selskab,

1892-96. “Breta sogur; Trojumanna saga.” In The Arna-Magnaean Manuscripts 371,4to, 544, 4to, and 675, 4to. Ed. Jon Helgason. MI,

5.

1960.

DAMUSTA SAGA See Pjalar-Jons saga.

DINUS SAGA DRAMBLAtA Dmus saga drambldta. Ed. Jonas

Kristjansson. Riddarasogur,

1.

Reykjavik: Haskoli

Islands, 1960.

drauma-jons saga Ed. Bjami Vilhjalmsson 1949-54. Vol.

“Drauma-Jons saga.” Ed. R.

I.

6.

Page. Nottingham Medieval Studies,

1

(1957),

22-

56.

ECTORS SAGA Ed. Loth 1962-65. Vol.

“Et indledningskapitel 65.

BA,

til

1.

Ectors saga.” Ed. Agnete Loth. Opuscula, 4 (1970),

363-

30.

Ed. Loth 1977.

EGILS

SAGA EINHENDA

Ed. C. C. Rafn 1829-30. Vol.

3.

Ed. Lagerholm 1927. Ed. Gu6ni Jonsson 1954. Vol.

ELIS

3.

SAGA OK ROSAMUNDU

ok Rosarhundu: Mit Einleitung, deutscher Ubersetzung und Anmerkungen zum ersten Mai herausgegeben. Ed. Eugen Kolbing. Heilbronn: Henninger, 1881; rpt. Wiesbaden: M. Sandig, 1971.

Elis saga

Ed. Bjami Vilhjalmsson 1949-54. Vol. 4.

and Other Texts: Uppsala University Library Delagardieska samlingen Nos. 4-7 folio and AM 666b quarto. Ed. Mattias Tveitane. CCNMiE,

Elis saga, Strengleikar

Quarto Serie,

4.

EREX SAGA “Nokkur handritabrot.” Ed. Jakob Benediktsson. Erex saga Artuskappa. Ed. Foster W. Blaisdell.

Skirnir,

EA

125 (1951), 182-98.

B:19. Copenhagen: Munksgaard,

1965.

Erex saga and Ivens saga: The Old Norse Versions of Chretien de Troyes’ s Erec and Yvain. Tr. Foster W. Blaisdell and Marianne E. Kalinke. Lincoln: Univ. of Nebraska Press,

1977.

Marianne Kalinke

352

FLORES SAGA OK BLANKIFLUR Flores saga ok Blankiflur. Ed. Eugen Kolbing.

ASB,

5. Halle:

M. Niemeyer,

1896.

Ed. Bjami Vilhjalmsson 1949-54. Vol. 4.

FLORES SAGA KONUNGS OK SONA HANS Ed. Lagerholm 1927. Ed. Bjami Vilhalmsson 1949-54. Vol. 5. Ed. Loth 1977.

FLOVENTS SAGA Ed. Cederschidld 1884. Ed. Slay 1972.

FRIDPJOFS SAGA INS FR.EKNA Ed. C. C. Rafn 1829-30. Vol. 2.

Sagan ock

[sic]

rimorna

om

Fridpiofr hinn freekni. Ed. Ludvig Larsson.

Copenhagen: E. Malmstrom, 1893. Fridpjofs saga ins froekna. Ed. Ludvig Larsson. ASB,

9.

Halle:

SUGNL,

22.

M. Niemeyer,

1901.

Die Fridpjofssaga kritisch

in ihrer

Uberlieferung untersucht and

Fassung

in ihrer dltesten

herausgegeben. Ed. Gustaf Wenz. Halle: E. Karras, 1913.

Ed. Gu6ni Jonsson 1954. Vol.

3.

GAUTREKS SAGA Ed. C. C. Rafn 1829-30. Vol.

Die Gautrekssaga

in

3.

zwei Fassungen. Ed. Wilhelm Ranisch. Palaestra, 11. Berlin:

Mayer & Muller, 1900. Ed. Gu6ni Jonsson 1954. Vol.

4.

GEITARLAUF “The Norwegian Prose Lay of the Honeysuckle (Geitarlauf).’’ Tr. S. A. J. Bradley. In The Tristan Legend: Texts from Northern and Eastern Europe in Modern English Translation. Ed. Joyce Hill. Leeds Medieval studies, 2. Leeds: The University of Leeds Graduate Centre for Medieval Studies, 1977. Pp. 39-40. Medieval Studies, 1977. Pp. 39-40.

GIBBONS SAGA Gibbons saga. Ed. R.

1.

Page.

EA,

B:2. Copenhagen: E. Munksgaard.

GONGU-HROLFS SAGA Ed. C. C. Rafn 1829-30. Vol. 3.

Ed. Gu6ni Jonsson 1954. Vol.

3.

GREGA SAGA “Fragment af en ellers ukendt ‘Grega 201-06. BA, 20.

saga’.’’ Ed.

Agnete Loth. Opuscula,

1

(1960),

GRIMS SAGA LODINKINNA Ed. C. C. Rafn 1829-30. Vol. 2. Ed. Gu6ni Jonsson 1954. Vol. 2.

GVIMARS SAGA “Gvimars

saga.’’ Ed.

Marianne E. Kalinke. Opuscula, 1 (1979), 106-39. BA, 34.

HALFDANAR SAGA BRONUFOSTRA Ed. C. C. Rafn 1829-30. Vol. 3. Ed. Gu6ni Jonsson 1954. Vol. 4.

Norse Romance

353

HALFDANAR SAGA EYSTEINSSONAR Ed. C. C. Rafn 1829-30. Vol.

3.

Hdlfdanar saga Eysteinssonar.

Franz Rolf Schroder.

Ed.

ASB,

15.

Halle:

M.

Niemeyer, 1917. Ed. Gu6ni Jonsson 1954. Vol. 4.

hAlfs saga ok hAlfsrekka Ed. C. C. Rafn 1829-30. Vol.

2.

Hdlfs saga ok Hdlfsrekka. Ed. A. Le

Roy Andrews. ASB,

14. Halle:

M. Niemeyer,

1909.

Ed. Gu6ni Jonsson 1954. Vol.

2.

Hdlfs saga ok Hdlfsrekka. Ed. Hubert Seelow. Rit, 20. Reykjavik: Stofnun

Ama

Magnussonar, 1981.

HERVARAR SAGA Ed. C. C. Rafn 1829-30. Vol. Ed. Gu6ni Jonsson 1954. Vol.

Saga Heidreks konungs

1.

2.

ins vitra;

Christopher Tolkien. London,

The Saga of King Heidrek the Wise. Ed. and

etc.:

tr.

T. Nelson, 1960.

hjAlmpes saga ok olvis Ed. C. C. Rafn 1829-30. Vol. 3. Ed. Gu6ni Jonsson 1954. Vol. 4.

HRINGS SAGA OK TRYGGVA Ed. Loth 1962-65. Vol. 5.

Ed. Loth 1977. Ed. Blaisdell 1980.

HROLFS SAGA GAUTREKSSONAR Ed. C. C. Rafn 1829-30. Vol.

3.

Zwei Fornaldarsogur (Hrolfssaga Gautrekssonar und Asmundarsaga kappabana) nach Cod. Holm. 7, 4^^. Ed. Ferdinand Detter. Halle: M. Niemeyer, 1891. Ed. Gu6ni Jonsson 1954. Vol. 4.

HROLFS SAGA KRAKA Ed. C. C. Rafn 1829-30. Vol.

1.

Hrolfs saga kraka og Bjarkarimur. Ed. Finnur Jonsson.

SUGNL,

32. Copenhagen: S.

L. M0ller, 1904.

Ed. Gu6ni Jonsson 1954. Vol. Hrolfs saga kraka.

Ed.

1.

Desmund

Slay.

EA,

B:l.

Copenhagen: E. Munksgaard,

1960.

HROMUNDAR SAGA GRIPSSONAR Ed. C. C. Rafn 1829-30. Vol. 2.

Ed. Gu6ni Jonsson 1954. Vol.

2.

ILLUGA SAGA GRIDARFOSTRA Ed. C. C. Rafn 1829-30. Vol.

Ed. Gu6ni Jonsson 1954. Vol.

3. 3.

IVENS SAGA Ed. Kolbing 1872. Ivens saga. Ed.

Eugen Kolbing. ASB,

7. Halle:

Ed. Bjami Vilhjalmsson 1949-54. Vol.

2.

M. Niemeyer,

1898.

354

Marianne Kalinke

Ivens saga. Ed. Foster

W.

EA, B:18. Copenhagen: Munksgaard.

Blaisdell.

Ed. Blaisdell 1980.

Die Saga von Iven: Aus dem Altisldndischen ubersetzt mit einem Nachwort. Tr. Rudolf Simek. Altnordische Bibliothek,

Hattingen; Kretschmer, 1982.

1.

See also Erex saga.

JANUALS LJOD “Texte norrois

et

traduction fran§aise du lanuals lioQ.’" In

Marie de France: Le

lai

de

Lanval: Texte critique et edition diplomatique des quatre manuscrits frangais par

Jean Rychner: Accompagne du avec une introduction

et

du lanuals Hod et de sa traduction frangaise des notes par Paul Aebischer. Ed. Paul Aebischer. Geneva: texte

Droz, 1958.

JARLMANNS SAGA OK HERMANNS Ed. Bjami Vilhjalmsson 1949-54. Vol. 6. Ed. Loth 1962-65. Vol. 3.

KARLAMAGNUS SAGA Karlamagnus saga ok kappa bans: jaevninger Oslo: H.

keiser Karl

Magnus og bans

norsk bearbeidelse fra det trettende aarbundrede. Ed. C. R. Unger.

i

J.

F ortaellinger om

Jensen, 1860.

Karlamagnus saga ok kappa bans.

3 vols.

Ed. Bjami Vilhjalmsson. [Reykjavik]:

Islendingasagnautgafan, Haukadalsutgafan, 1950;

rpt.

1954. [Popular edition.]

“SkinnblaS ur Karlamagnus sogu.” Ed. Jakob Benediktsson.

Ski'rnir,

126 (1952),

209-13.

Karlamagnus Saga: Tbe Saga of Charlemagne and His Heroes.

3 vols. Tr.

Constance

B. Hieatt. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1975-80.

Karlamagnus saga: Branches /, III, VII et IX. Ed. Agnete Loth. Copenhagen: La Societe pour T Etude de la Langue et de la Litterature Danoises, 1980.

KETILS SAGA

H^NGS

Ed. C. C. Rafn 1829-30. Vol. Ed. Gu6ni Jonsson 1954. Vol.

2. 2.

KIRJALAX SAGA Kirialax saga. Ed. Kr. Kalund.

SUGNL,

43. Copenhagen, 1917.

Ed. Loth 1977. Ed. Blaisdell 1980.

KLARI SAGA Cldri saga. Ed. Gustaf Cederschiold.

ASB,

12. Halle:

M. Niemeyer,

1907.

Ed. Bjami Vilhjalmsson 1949-54. Vol. 5. Ed. Slay 1972. Ed. Loth 1977.

KONRADS SAGA Konrads saga keisarasonar, er for

til

Ormalands. Ed. Gunnlaugur PorSarson. Copen-

hagen: Pall Sveinsson, 1859. Ed. Cederschiold 1884. Ed. Bjami Vilhjalmsson 1949-54. Vol. 3. Ed. Slay 1972.

“Konrads saga keisarasonar.” lology:

Tr. Otto Zitzelsberger.

Yearbook (1980), pp. 38-67.

Seminar for Germanic Phi-

Norse Romance

355

MAGUS SAGA JARLS Bragda-Mdgus saga med

tilheyrandi jpdttum. Ed. Gunnlaugur PorSarson. Copenha-

gen: Pall Sveinsson, 1858.

Ed. Cederschiold 1884. Ed. Bjami Vilhjalmsson 1949-54. Vol.

2.

MIRMANNS SAGA Ed. Kolbing 1872. Ed. Bjami Vilhjalmsson 1949-54. Vol.

“Nokkur

3.

handritabrot.” Ed. Jakob Benediktsson.

Ski'rnir,

125 (1951), 182-98.

Ed. Slay 1972.

MOTTULS SAGA Versions nordiques du fabliau frangais Le mantel mautaillie: Textes et notes. Ed.

Gustaf Cederschiold and F.-A. Wulff. Ed. Bjami Vilhjalmsson 1949-54. Vol.

LUA,

13.

Lund; C.

W. K. Gleemp,

1877.

1.

Die Saga vom Mantel and die Saga vom schonen Samson: Mottuls saga und Samsons saga fagra. Tr. Rudolf Simek. Fabulae Medievales,

2.

Vienna:

W.

Braumiiller,

1982.

NITIDA SAGA Ed. Loth 1962-65. Vol. 5.

NORNA-GESTS PAtTR Ed. C. C. Rafn 1829-30. Vol. Ed. Gu6ni Jonsson 1954. Vol.

1. 1.

ORVAR-ODDS SAGA Ed. C. C. Rafn 1829-30. Vol. Ed. Gu5ni Jonsson 1954. Vol.

2. 2.

PARCEVALS SAGA Ed. Kolbing 1872.

Ed. Bjami Vilhjalmsson 1949-54. Vol. 4. Ed. Slay 1972.

Die Saga von Parceval und die Geschichte von Valver: Parcevals saga ok Valvers pdttr. Tr.

Rudolf Simek. Wiener Arbeiten zur germanischen Altertumskunde und

Philologie, 19. Vienna: N.p., 1982.

“Ein Fragment der Parcevals Saga.” Ed. Rudolf Simek. Codices manuscripti: Zeitschrift fiir Handschriftenkunde, 8 (1982): 58-64.

PARTALOPA SAGA o

Partalopa saga for forsta gdngen utgifven. Ed. Oskar Klockhoff. Ed. Bjami Vilhjalmsson 1949-54. Vol.

UUA,

1877.

2.

Partalopa saga. Ed. Lise Praestgaard Andersen. EA, B:28. Copenhagen: C. A. Reitzel.

RAGNARS SAGA LODBROKAR Ed. C. C. Rafn 1829-30. Vol.

1.

Vglsunga saga okRagnars saga lodbrokar. Ed. Magnus Olsen. gen: S. L. Mpller, 1906-8. Ed. Gu6ni Jonsson 1954. Vol.

SUGNL,

36.

Copenha-

1.

REMUNDAR SAGA KEISARASONAR Remundar saga

keisarasonar. Ed. Sven Gren Broberg.

SUGNL,

38. Copenhagen:

Marianne Kalinke

356

SUGNL,

1909-12.

Ed. Bjami Vilhjalmsson 1949-54. Vol. 5.

SAMSONS SAGA FAGRA Samsons saga fagra. Ed. John Wilson. SUGNL, 65. Copenhagen: SUGNL, 1953. Ed. Bjami Vilhjalmsson 1949-54. Vol. 3. Ed. Loth 1977.

See also Mdttuls saga.

SAULUS SAGA OK NIKANORS Ed. Loth 1962-65. Vol.

2.

SIGRGARDS SAGA FRCEKNA Ed. Loth 1962-65. Vol. 5.

SIGRGARDS SAGA OK VALBRANDS Ed. Loth 1962-65. Vol. 5.

SIGURD AR SAGA FOTS “Sigurthar saga fots ok

Asmundar Hunakongs.” Ed.

J.

H. Jackson.

PMLA, 46

(1931),

988-1006. Ed. Bjami Vilhjalmsson 1949-54. Vol. 6. Ed. Loth 1962-65. Vol.

3.

SIGURDAR SAGA TURNARA Ed. Loth 1962-65. Vol. 5.

SIGURDAR SAGA POGLA Ed. Bjami Vilhjalmsson 1949-54. Vol.

3.

Ed. Loth 1962-65. Vol. 2.

SORLA SAGA STERKA Ed. C. C. Rafn 1829-30. Vol. Ed. Gu5ni Jonsson 1954. Vol.

3. 3.

STRENGLEIKAR Strengleikar eda Ijodabok:

folkesange

(lais),

aarhundrede

En samling af romantiske

oversat fra fransk paa

efter foranstaltning

fortcellinger efter bretoniske

norsk ved midten af det trettende

af Kong Haakon Haakonsson. Ed. R. Keyser and

&

Landmark, 1850. Strengleikar: An Old Norse Translation of Twenty-One Old French Lais: Edited from the Manuscript Uppsala De la Gardie 4-7 AM 666b, 4^. Ed. and tr. Robert Cook C. R. Unger. Oslo: Feilberg

—

and Mattias Tveitane. Norsk Historisk Kjeldeskrift-Institutt. Norrpne Tekster,

3.

Oslo: Kjeldeskriftfondet, 1979.

See also Elis saga ok Rosamundu.

STURLAUGS SAGA STARFSAMA Ed. C. C. Rafn 1829-30. Vol. Ed. Gu6ni Jonsson 1954. Vol.

3. 3.

The Two Versions of Sturlaugs saga starfsama: A Decipherment, Edition, and Translation of a Fourteenth Century Icelandic Mythical-Heroic Saga. Ed. and tr. Otto Joseph Zitzelsberger. Diisseldorf:

M.

Triltsch, 1969.

TRISTRAMS SAGA OK ISODDAR gmndtexten med oversaettelse.” Ed. and ulfsson. ANOH (1851), pp. 3-160. Ed. Bjami Vilhjalmsson 1949-54. Vol. 6.

“Saga

“The

af Tristram

og Isodd,

i

tr.

Gisli Brynj-

Icelandic Saga of Tristan and Isolt (Saga af Tristram ok Isodd).’’ Tr. Joyce Hill.

Norse Romance

357

The Tristan Legend: Texts from Northern and Eastern Europe in Modern English Translation. Ed. Joyce Hill. Leeds Medieval Studies, 2. Leeds: The University of Leeds Graduate Centre for Medieval Studies, 1977. Pp. 6-28. In

Ed. Blaisdell 1980.

TRISTRAMS SAGA OK ISONDAR Tristrams saga ok Isondar: Mit einer literarhistorischen Einleitung, deutscher Uebersetzung und Anmerkungen. Ed. and

Hildesheim,

rpt.

etc.:

tr.

Eugen Kolbing. Heilbronn: Henninger, 1878;

G. Olms, 1978.

Ed. Bjami Vilhjalmsson 1949-54. Vol.

“An

Unpublished Leaf of Tristrams saga:

1.

AM 567 Quarto,

xxii,

2.” Ed. Paul Schach.

Research Studies [Washington State Univ.[, 32 (1964), 50-62.

“The Reeves Fragment of Tristrams saga ok Isondar.” Ed. Paul Schach.

^Einar 01.

Sveinsson. Pp. 296-308.

TROJUMANNA SAGA Trojumanna saga. Ed. Jonna Louis-Jensen. EA, A:8. Copenhagen: E. Munksgaard.

Trojumanna saga: The Dares Phrygius Version. Ed. Jonna Louis-Jensen. EA, A:9. Copenhagen: C. A. Reitzel. See also Breta sogur.

VALDIMARS SAGA Ed. Loth 1962-65. Vol.

1.

Ed. Loth 1977.

VALVENS PATTR Ed. Kolbing 1872.

Ed. Eugen Kolbing. Germania, 25 (1880), 385-

“Ein Bruchstiick des Valvers 88

.

Ed. Bjami Vilhjalmsson 1949-54. Vol. 4.

See also Parcevals saga,

tr.

Simek 1982.

VIKTORS SAGA OK BLAVUS Ed. Loth 1962-65. Vol.

1.

Viktors saga ok Bldvus. Ed. Jonas Kristjansson. Riddarasogur, 2. Reykjavik:

Hand-

ritastofnun Islands, 1964.

vilhjAlms saga SJODS Ed. Loth 1962-65. Vol. 4.

VILMUNDAR SAGA VIDUTAN Ed. Bjami Vilhjalmsson 1949-54. Vol. 6. Ed. Loth 1962-65. Vol. 4. Ed. Loth 1977.

VOLSUNGA SAGA Ed. C. C. Rafn 1829-30. Vol.

1.

Vglsunga saga ok Ragnars saga lodbrokar. Ed. Magnus Olsen. hagen: S. L. M0ller, 1906-8. Ed. Gu6ni Jonsson 1954. Vol.

36.

Copen-

1.

Vglsunga saga; The Saga of the Volsungs. Ed. and 1965.

YNGVARS SAGA VIDFORLA Ed. Gu6ni Jonsson 1954. Vol.

SUGNL,

2.

tr.

R. G. Finch. London: Nelson,

Marianne Kalinke

358

PATTR AF RAGNARS SONUM Ed. C. C. Rafn 1829-30. Vol. Ed. Gu6ni Jonsson 1954. Vol.

1. 1.

FIDREKS SAGA AF BERN

&

Saga Didriks konungs af Bern. Ed. C. R. Unger. Oslo: Feilberg Pidriks saga af Bern. 2 vols. Ed. Henrik Bertelsen.

SUGNL,

34.

Landmark, 1853.

Copenhagen:

S. L.

M0ller, 1905-11.

Pidreks saga af Bern. 2 vols. Ed. Gu6ni Jonsson. [Reykjavik]: Islendingasagnautgafan, 1954. [Popular edition.]

FJALAR-JONS SAGA Pjalar-Jons saga; Damns ta

Vol.

saga.

i:

Teksten.

Louisa Fredrika Tan-

Ed.

Haverhorst. Diss. Leiden. Haarlem: H. D. Tjeenk Willink

&

Zoon. 1939.

Ed. Slay 1972.

FORSTEINS SAGA VIKINGSSONAR Ed. C. C. Rafn 1829-30. Vol. 2. Ed. Gu6ni Jonsson 1954. Vol.

3.

SECONDARY LITERATURE

Aebischer, Paul.

1954a. Rolandiana Borealia:

derives scandinaves compares a la

manuscrit frangais de

la

par

utilise

le

La saga af Runzivals bardaga

et ses

Chanson de Roland: Essai de restauration du

traducteur norrois. Univ. de Lausanne. Publications

Faculte des Lettres, 11. Lausanne: R. Rouge.

1954b. Textes norrois et litterature frangaise du moyen age.

1:

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