The Unwashed Children of Eve: The Production, Dissemination and Reception of Popular Literature in Post-Reformation Iceland 1874312303, 9781874312307

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The Unwashed Children o f Eve The Production, Dissemination and Reception o f Popular Literature in Post-Reformation Iceland

Matthew James Driscoll

Hisarlik Press 1997

Published by Hisarlik Press, 4 Catisfield Road, Enfield Lock, Middlesex EN3 6BD, UK. Georgina Clark-Mazo and Dr Jeffrey Alan Mazo, publishers.

Copyright © 1997 Hisarlik Press.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, me­ chanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers and copyright holder.

British Library Catalpguing-in-Publication data available.

ISBN 1 874312 30 3

5 4 3 2 1

Jacket illu stration: D etail from A u g u st Schiøtt, 'K v ö ld v a k an í sv eit', Þjóðm injasafn islands, Vid. 60.

Printed in Great Britain by Redwood Books, Trowbridge, Wiltshire

Contents Preface

vii

On the Origin o f Elves

xii

I

Popular romance in post-Reformation Iceland: works and responses

1

n

Social textuality: the fygisaga in context

35

m

A parson’s pleasure: The life and literary activity o f Jón Oddsson Hjaltalín

75

IV The structure and style of the sagas attributed to Jón Hjaltalin V

The old and the new: Antiquarianism and Enlightenment in the sagas of Jón Hjaltalin

Notes Appendices 1

The manuscripts of printed editions o f the sagas attributed to Jón Hjaltalin and material derived from them

2

Rimur a f Reim an og Fal enum sterka

3

Plot summaries

133 207 241

289 295 301

Bibliography

343

Index

371

‘What’s the use of stories that aren’t even true?’ Salman Rushdie, Haroun and the Sea o f Stories, 1990.

Preface It is customary to regard the Icelandic saga as an essentially medieval phenom­ enon, one which had its ‘golden age’ in the mid-thirteenth century, when Snorri Sturluson’s Heimskringla and the better-known tslendingasogur (‘sagas o f Ice­ landers’, ‘family sagas’) are thought to have been produced The loss o f politi­ cal independence to Norway in 1262-64 - the ‘fall o f the Commonwealth’ as it is rather romantically called - is thought to have ushered in a period o f deca­ dence during which were produced such secondary or post-classical works as the fom aldarsögur (‘sagas of ancient times’, ‘mythical-heroic sagas’) and the indigenous riddarasögur (‘chivalric sagas’), native imitations of the transla­ tions, chiefly Norwegian, of French chivalric romances and related material. These indigenous romances have been mentioned in the literary histories chiefly in connexion with the deleterious effect they are commonly supposed to have had on the native saga tradition. By the mid-fifteenth century, received opinion has it, the writing o f prose fiction had to all intents and purposes been aban­ doned in Iceland, until revived by the national-romantic novelists o f the nine­ teenth century, in particular JónThoroddsen, author o f ‘the first Icelandic novel ’, P iltur og stúlka (‘Lad and lass’), published in 1850. Although he cannot be said to have been its author, the major champion of this view was Siguröur Nordal. In the introductory essay to his anthology Islenzk lestrarbók 1400-1900 (Reykjavik, 1924), entitled ‘Samhengið i islenzkum bókmentum’ (‘Continuity in Icelandic literature’), even as he berated foreign scholars o f Old Icelandic literature for being ‘alls ófróðir um menningarlif vort á síðustu fimm öldum’ (‘totally ignorant about our cultural life over the last five centuries’) and thinking ‘að íslenzkar bókmentir hafi orðið sjálfdauðar um 1400’ (‘that Icelandic literature died about 1400’), Nordal was prepared to state categorically that ‘Urn 1400 kulnar sagnaritunin alveg út’ (‘about 1400 sagawriting died out completely’). The sagas, by which he meant principally the tslendingasogur, continued to exert an influence, but only in so far as they continued to be copied ‘með óþreytandi elju’ (‘with inexhaustible diligence’) in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. In the seventeenth and eighteenth cen­ turies, the period to which Nordal gave the name ‘lærdómsöld’ (‘the age of learning’), interest in saga-literature was chiefly of an antiquarian nature, the inspiration for which came from abroad. The ‘samhengi i islenzkum bókmentum’ to which he was so keen to draw attention pertained, apparently, only to poetry. My own research into the indigenous romances, particularly in conjunction with the preparation of my edition of Sigurðar saga þögla (Reykjavik, 1992), led me increasingly to question this view. The very large number o f romances preserved in paper manuscripts from after the Reformation, many of them clearly not much older than the manuscripts in which they are found, seemed to indi-

v iii

The unwashed children o fEve

cate that saga-production in Iceland had been every bit as great in the eight­ eenth and nineteenth centuries as it had been in the thirteenth, even if the sagas produced appealed somewhat less to twentieth-century literary taste. I decided therefore to undertake an investigation of saga-production in the period 1600-1900, hoping to cover the subject in a general way. It quickly became clear, however, that with some ISO sagas, many preserved in twenty or thirty manuscripts, such an examination would require a lifetime of research. As I intended to present my findings in the form o f a doctoral thesis - one I hoped to defend sometime before reaching the legal retirement age - 1 saw that my investigation would have to be limited in some way. The suggestion that I look at the ten sagas attributed to sr. Jón Oddsson Hjaltalln was made by Jón Samsonarson o f Stofnun Áma Magnússonar. A lapsed Catholic, I was, I con­ fess, initially somewhat less than enthusiastic at the prospect o f dedicating sev­ eral years o f my life to an investigation of the work offLutheran clergyman known chiefly for his hymns. In the event, however, I found in Jón Hjaltalin a man for whom I had great admiration, and whom I am certain I should have liked. Nor can I now imagine a better way into that period in Icelandic cultural history than through him. Jón Samsonarson did more than just point me in the direction of this mate­ rial, however. He had himself conducted a course in Icelandic prose literature c. 1450-1830 in the spring semester of 1979 in which the sagas attributed to J6n Hjaltalin were investigated, and he very kindly made available to me a number of his own notes and observations on the sagas, and also the work of four o f his students, Kristin Þoisteinsdóttir (on Rigabals saga máFimmbrœðra saga), Sigtún Davíðsdóttir (on Hinriks saga), Kristinn Kristjánsson (on Reimars saga and Bem ótus saga), and Helga Jónsdóttir (on Ketlerus saga and Sarpidons saga), the latter two in the form of B.A. dissertations, presented in 1979 and 1980, respectively. To him, and to them, I am grateful. A post-doctoral fellowship from Vísindaráð islands allowed me to spend two very pleasant and productive years at Stofnun Árna Magnússonar in Reykjavik. I owe an enormous debt o f gratitude to everyone on the staff o f Ámastofhun, but in particular to Einar Gunnar Pétursson, commonly known as så sent allt veit (‘he who knows everything’) for his ability to provide complete biblio­ graphical information on virtually any subject off the top of his head, and to the preternaturally keen-eyed Ólafur Halldórsson, who was time and again able to boldly read what no man had read before. Anyone who knows Ólafur will know what I mean when I say that, when I grow up, I want to be like him. In the course o f my research I have found myself yet again indebted to Ögmundur Helgason, Sjðfn Kristjánsdóttir, Eiríkur Þormóðsson, and Kári B jarnason o f H andritadeild L andsbókasafns, and to Jón Torfason o f Þjóðskjalasafn islands, who deserves at least a knighthood, and probably can­ onisation.

Preface

ix

I should like also to register my gratitude at having at regular intervals had the pleasure o f Jiiig Glauser’s company along what has otherwise been a fairly lonely road; he has proved ever-willing to point out to me features in the land­ scape that 1 should certainly otherwise have missed, and I only hope that I have done the same for him. I must also thank Sue Usher, Librarian of the English Faculty Library, Ox­ ford, for helping me in innumerable ways during my time in Oxford and since, checking the odd reference, and, not least, allowing me, every once in a while, the use o f her photocopier A number o f colleagues have read all or part of the work at various stages and made valuable suggestions as to its betterment, including Viöar Hreinsson (who suggested the title), Robert Kellogg, Jonna Kjær, Chris Sanders, Ólína Þorvarðardóttir, Aðalheiður Guðmundsdóttir, Vésteinn Ólason, and Örnólfur Thorsson, who read not only the whole of the thesis but also all my texts o f the sagas themselves (the only person not tied to me through marriage to have done so). The various comments of my supervisor for the thesis, Heather O ’Donoghue, and o f my examiners, Carolyne Lamngton, then of St John’s College, Oxford, and Andrew Wawn o f the University of Leeds, were also of help. Finally I must also thank my wife, Ragnhciður Mósesdóttir, whose help and support at all stages of this project have been invaluable. Some o f the material dealt with in this book has been treated in print already in the articles ‘Traditionality and antiquarianism in the post-Reformation lygisaga\ Northern Antiquity: Studies in the reception o f Edda and saga in post-m edieval Europe, ed. Andrew Wawn (London: Hisarlik Press, 1994), pp. 83-99; ‘Lost exemplars’, Sagnaþing helgad Jónasi K ristjånssyni, ed. Gísli Sigurðsson, Sigurgeir Steingrimsson og Guðrún Kvaran (Reykjavik: Bókmenntafélagið, 1994), pp. 137-42; and ‘The oral, the written, and the in-between: Textual in­ stability in the post-Reformation lygisaga\ Medieval Insular Literature between the Oral and the Written9ii, ed. Hildegard L. C.Tristram, ScriptOralia (Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag, 1997, pp. 193-220. The present work, like all academic endeavour, is provisional in nature, in that much o f it can, and I hope will, be supplemented or superseded by further research. I am keenly aware o f the many stones 1 have had to leave unturned. Nor have I tried to disguise this fact; where I have said, for example, that I have not found a source for something, this in no way implies that a source cannot be found. All that is needed is time and an inclination to look. I hope too that 1 have not given the impression that, like a tomcat, I have marked out this terri­ tory as my own, and that if anybody is going to do any stone-turning it will be me. This is a big field, and there are many stones. If this book acts to whet the appetite o f other scholars, no one will be happier than I.

X

The unwashed children o f Eve A NOTE ON TRANSCRIPTION, TRANSLATION, AND OTHER CONVENTIONS

All transcriptions from unpublished sources are diplomatic to the extent that the orthography o f the manuscript is retained, although different forms o f the same letter are not distinguished (e.g. high and low s). Obvious misspellings are corrected and marked with an asterisk, the original form being given in a note. Letters or words assumed to have been inadvertently omitted by the scribe are supplied in diagonal brackets. Letters or words now illegible but assumed to have been in the manuscript are placed in square brackets. It should be noted that square brackets are also used, predominantly in citations from printed sources, to indicate words supplied as necessary to the sense; in cases where confusion is possible I have marked such explanatory material with sc. (= scili­ cet). Abbreviations are expanded in accordance with the normal spelling o f the manuscript in question. Where abbreviation is by means of a supralinear sym­ bol or by contraction, i.e. where the initial and final letters of the word are written and the intervening letters are indicated by a horizontal stroke, the ex­ pansion is printed in italics. In cases of abbreviation by suspension, where a word is represented by its initial letter or letters followed by a point, the expan­ sion is placed in round brackets. The punctuation o f the various sources is re­ tained. Marks o f punctuation are occasionally supplied in diagonal brackets in cases where a scribe who otherwise uses such marks consistently appears inad­ vertently to have omitted a mark. In cases where punctuation is used inconsist­ ently (or not at all), none is added. Finally, it should be noted that an ampersand (&) is used regardless o f the form o f the og-abbreviation employed in the manu­ script. Translations are provided for citations in languages other than English (apart from a few in German, French, and Latin). In all but one or two cases these are my own. They are designed to assist the reader in understanding the original text and make no pretensions to literary merit (although readers finding art in a particular turn of phrase may safely assume it to be intentional). Titles of works are translated where their meaning is necessary to the argument; I assume, however, that readers will be able to work out for themselves that Alexanders saga, for example, means ‘The saga of Alexander’. In translations from Icelan­ dic sources, including Old Icelandic, proper names ate given in standard mod­ ern Icelandic orthography, and in the nominative case. In keeping with Icelandic practice, I refer to Icelanders by their first names. The second name being (in most cases) a patronymic rather than a surname, such usage in no way implies familiarity, and is therefore not the equivalent of, for example, Helene Cixous referring to the subject of her book L exil de James Joyce (Paris, 1968) as ‘Jim ’. Icelanders, even those few with surnames, are therefore also listed in the Bibliography and Index under their first names.

Preface

xi

Icelandic practice is also followed in occasionally identifying people by the farms they came from, with the appropriate preposition, aÖ (‘at’), i (‘in’), å (‘on’), or fr a (‘from’), followed by the name of the farm in the dative; Magnús Jónsson, for example, who lived at the farm Tjaldanes in Dalasýsla, is called Magnús i Tjaldanesi. hi the discussion o f formulae in Chapter IV I have adopted the Icelandic abbreviations for cases of the noun, e-n, e-m9and e-j (for einhvem , einhverjum, and einhvers, representing respectively the accusative, dative, and genitive of persons), and e-ð, e-u9 and e-s (for eitthvað9einhverju, and einhvers, the accu­ sative, dative, and genitive o f things). I have also retained the Icelandic abbre­ viation sr for sera (older sira \ the title held by clergymen. M J D riscoll Copenhagen Spring, 1997

On the origin o f elves Eigi langt frá bústaö Adams og Evu eflir fal li ð rann vatn nokkurt og var Eva þar eitt sinn að þvo böraum sínum sem þá vom mörg orðin. En er hún átti aðeins eftir að þvo tveimur eða þremur kallaði guð til hennar, en hún varð hrædd og heldur þeim börnunum sem þvegin vom bjá sér, en skilur hin óþvegnu eítir. Þá sagði guð til hennar: ‘Áttu ekki fleiri börn en þetta?’ En hún neitaði því fyrir hræðslu sakir. Þá sagði guð: ‘Það sem á að vera hulið fyrir guði skal og vera huliö fyrir mönnum.’ Síðan hvnrfii hin óþvegnu böm Evu svo hún sá þau aldrei meir. Ekki urðu þau mörg allt til syndaflóðsins; meðan á þvi stóð vom þau í helli einum og lét guö sjálfur fyrir dymar. Síðan hefur kynslóð þessi mjog ijölgað. (Not far from where Adam and Eve lived after the Fall there flowed a river, and one day Eve was there washing her children, who were by then quite numerous. When she had only two or three left to wash God called to her, and she was frightened and kept the children she had washed with her but left the unwashed ones behind Then God said to her: ‘Have you no more children than these?’ And out o f fear she said that she hadn’t Then God said: ‘That which is to be hidden from God shall also be hidden from men.’ After that the unwashed Chil­ enen vanished from Eve’s sight and she never saw them again. There were not so many of them right down to the time of the Flood — while the Flood lasted they were in a cave, and God himself shut the door — but since then their kindred has increased greatly.) íslenzkarþjóðsögur og œvintýri: Safiiað hefur Jón A m ason, ed. Árni B öðvarsson and Bjarni V ilhjálm sson (Reykjavik, 1954-61), i, p. 95.

1 Popular romance in post-Reformation Iceland: works and responses If the number o f works o f a given literary genre, and the number o f preserved texts o f individual works within that genre, are any indication o f its popular­ ity, then the most popular literary genre in Iceland from the late thirteenth century to the beginning of the twentieth was, without question, romance. In his H istory o f Icelandic Literature Stefán Einarsson reckoned the total number o f Icelandic romances to be somewhere around 265,1a figure he clearly meant to impress, and one dismissed by some scholars as misleadingly large. But if all the works to which the term ‘romance’ can be applied are included, the total rises to easily four times that. Only a minute proportion of this literature ever found its way into print, for while printing had been introduced into Iceland in the sixteenth century, al­ most no secular material was published until the founding o f the press at Hrappsey in I773.2 Up until that time, printing in Iceland - and therefore, for the most part, printing in Icelandic - was entirely in the hands o f the Church, which did not consider secular literature, including the older saga literature, to be suitable for publication. But even once the churches monopoly had been broken, few secular literary works were printed, those who published books in Iceland being animated by the ideas o f the Enlightenment, and their chief concern the dissemination o f practical knowledge for the betterment o f their countrymen’s lot. Most were therefore openly hostile to popular literature, in particular the romances, which they viewed as inimical to progress. Although some attempts were made round mid-century, it was not until after 1886, when prospective publishers no longer needed royal authorisation and anyone with the inclination and necessary capital to set up a press could obtain a licence to do so, that books catering to popular taste were published in any numbers. While on the continent, in Britain, and in much o f the rest o f Scandinavia, translations, adaptations, and imitations o f medieval chivalric romances had formed the basis for a booming book trade from the sixteenth century on­ wards,3 in Iceland such material circulated almost entirely in manuscript.4 What is anomalous about the popular literature of post-Reformation Iceland is therefore not so much its literary form as its forms o f production, dissemi­ nation, and reception, which remained, like much else in Icelandic society, essentially medieval until the beginning o f the twentieth century.

2

The unwashed children o f Eve TYPES OF ROMANCE

Discussions of romance in Old Norse-Icelandic literature normally begin with the riddarasögur (literally ‘sagas o f knights’), by which are meant the twenty or so translations o f European, predominantly French, courtly literature which were produced in Norway in the course o f the thirteenth century.3 O f the three traditional ‘matters’ of romance, the matiére de Bretagne is the best repre­ sented.6 The earliest of the translations is generally thought to have been Tristrams saga ogfsöndar (‘The saga ofTristram and ísönd’), which was based on - and is in fact the only complete extant representation of - Thomas d’Angleterre’s Tristan? There were also translations of Le mantel mautaillié, called in Old Norse M öttuls saga (‘The saga of the mantle’),8 and of three of the major works of Chretien de Troyes: Erec et Enide, known as Erex saga* Yvain, known as tvens saga,i0 m d Perceval, the bulk of which (verses 1-6513) is called Parcevals saga, while the remainder, dealing with Gawain’s exploits, is known under the separate title Valvers (or Valvens) þáttur (‘The tale o f Gawain’).11 The matiére de France is represented principally by Karlamagnús saga, a thirteenth-century compilation of several chansons de geste, including Le pélerinage de Charlemagne and Chanson de Roland?2 Other sagas derive from romans d faventure, such as Flores saga og Blankiflúr, a translation o f the Floire et Blancheflorf* Severs saga, a translation of the Anglo-Norman ro­ mance Boeve de Haumtone,14 and Partalopa saga, which appears to derive from a version o f Partenopéus de Blois different from those now extant.15 Probably also to be included in a discussion of romance in Old Norse is Þiðreks saga a f Bern ,16 a translation, made apparently in Bergen, o f a number of tales centring on the figure o f Theodoricus the Great (Dietrich), Visigothic emperor o f Rome; whether the Norwegian translator worked directly from tales told him by Low German-speaking Hansa merchants, or had before him a single compilation, presumably also in Low German, has been the subject of much debate among Germanists.17 All these, as was said, are generally - if increasingly less certainly - thought to have been translated in Norway, but all found their way early on to Iceland, and most are preserved exclusively in Icelandic manuscripts.18 In Iceland they also retained their popularity: Flores saga og Blankiflúr and Karlamagnús saga, for example, are preserved in nearly thirty manuscripts each, Severs saga and Þiðreks saga in at least twenty each, the youngest in all four cases dating from the decades on either side of 1900.19 One, Erex saga, also ap­ peared in a popular printed edition, issued as vol. ii ofValdimar Ásmundarson’s Æ vintýra sögur (‘Tales of adventure’), published in Reykjavik in 1886. It is worth noting that the text was taken, with only a few slight changes in spelling and punctuation, from a scholarly edition by Gustaf Cederschiöld, published in Copenhagen in 1880 as vol. iii in the Samfund til udgivelse a f gammel

Popular romance in pos ^Reformation Iceland

3

nordisk litteratur (STUAGNL) series. The relative stability o f the language meant that in Iceland, unlike most of the rest of Europe, medieval works were still accessible to modem readers in their original form. The role played by popular literature in maintaining this stability should not be underestimated. The Icelanders themselves produced a number of translations during the me­ dieval period, some o f which may be said to fall on the borderline between his­ tory and romance. The more important o f these are Trójumanna saga (‘The saga of the men o f Troy’), a compilation based on Dares Phrygiusfe D e excidio Tmjae, the ‘Latin Homer’, Virgil, and Ovid;20Alexanders saga, a translation - according to one manuscript the work o f Brandur Jónsson, Bishop o f Hólar 1263-64 - o f the Alexandreis o f Gautier de Chåtillon;21 and Breta sögur (‘The sagas of the B ritons’), a translation of Geoffrey o f M onmouth’s H istoria regum Britanniae. This last-mentioned may even pre-date Tristrams saga; Merlinusspá, a translation into verse by the monk Gunnlaugur Leifsson (d. 1218) of the Prophetiae M erlini, Book VII of the Historia,, certainly does,22as óoe&Rómverja saga, a translation principally of the Bellum Iugurthinum and C atilinae coniuratio by Sallust and Lucan’s Pharsalia, written in Iceland not much later than c. 1200.23 These too remained popular; Alexanders saga and Breta sögur are both found in about twenty manuscripts each, and Tråjumanna saga in about thirty, the vast majority o f them post-medieval; there were also two popular printed editions, Trójumanna saga hin forna (‘The ancient saga o f the men o f Troy’) (Reykjavik, 1913) and Breta sögur (Reykjavik, 1914), both based on the scholarly editions o f Jón Sigurðsson published in Annaler fo r nordisk Oldkyndighed og H istorie in 1848. In 1945 the novelist Halldor Lax­ ness published an edition o f Alexanders saga in modern Icelandic orthogra­ phy, expressly intended for ‘popular’ consumption.

There are, in addition to these translations, original Icelandic romances, i.e. works similar in theme and structure to the translated romances, but not based directly on any continental models,24 the earliest of which date probably from the end of the thirteenth century. These younger Icelandic compositions are also generally, if somewhat confusingly, known as riddarasögur — often with the qualifying adjectives ‘indigenous’25 or ‘original’26 - but other names have sometimes been used to try to distinguish them from the translated romances. In Germany, and to a lesser extent in the English-speaking world, the term Märchensagas (literally ‘folktale sagas’) has gained some currency, princi­ pally through Kurt Schier’s advocacy of it in his Sagaliteralur?7 and Jiirg G lau se r’s use o f it in the title o f his exem plary study Islä n d isch e Märchensagas “ One of the more persistent names for these sagas has been lygisögur, literally ‘lie-sagas’, which according to Þorgils saga og Haflida29 had been used by King Sverrir Sigurðarson to describe Hróm undar saga Gripssonar * and was adopted by a number of scholars, particularly in the

4

The unwashed children o f Eve

late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Henry Goddard Leach used it in his Angelin Britain and Scandinavia9 for example, pointing out that ‘the la­ bels riddarasögur and lygisogur are interchangeable in the sense that all are tales o f chivalry and all are vanity or lies’.31 This use of the term has met with some opposition, however, primarily from Icelandic scholars, on the grounds that it is pejorative,32 even though many of these same scholars have, as we shall see, tended to dismiss the sagas to which the term has been applied as tasteless, derivative, and devoid of literary merit. Altogether some thirty-one original riddarasögur have survived from the medieval period.33 Their great, and lasting, popularity cannot be denied: over half are preserved in forty manuscripts or more, and two, M ågus saga and Jarlmanns saga og Hermanns, are found in over seventy manuscripts, making them arguably the most popular sagas of their - or any - type. Although there is a handful o f medieval vellums, the vast majority are post-Reformation pa­ per manuscripts, the greater proportion of them written after 1800.34 Twentyfive o f the forty-five manuscripts o f Ektors saga, for example, date from the nineteenth century, and twenty-six o f the fifty manuscripts o f Vilmundar saga viðutan. Eighteen of the sagas are found in manuscripts dating from the be­ ginning o f the twentieth century, including no fewer than six o f the sixty-six preserved manuscripts o f Nitida saga?5 In addition, twelve o f these sagas ap­ peared in popular editions in the second half of the nineteenth century and first decades o f the twentieth. Many o f these printed editions are actually older than the youngest manuscripts. Konráðs saga keisarasonar, for example, pre­ served in a vellum manuscript from c. 1350 and thought to be among the oldest o f the Icelandic riddarasögur, was published in a popular edition by Gunnlaugur Þórðarsson in 1859.36 At least four o f the extant manuscripts of the saga post-date this edition, and derive in all likelihood from it.37

The term ‘romance’ can also be applied to most o f the sagas conventionally classed as fom aldarsögur (literally ‘sagas of olden times’, but also known in English as ‘mythical-heroic’ or ‘legendary’ sagas). Unlike the term riddarasaga, which is medieval,38fornaldarsaga is a modern coinage, first used by Carl Christian Rafn as the title o f his three-volume edition, Fornaldar Sögur NordAanda (Copenhagen, 1829-30). There is no real consensus as to what constitutes a fornaldarsaga ,39 however, and the sagas included by Rafn are by no means all o f a piece, ranging from the mythical-historical Völsunga saga to action-packed tales of Viking adventurers such as Göngu-Hrólfs saga, while Eirtks saga víðförla has more in common with continental vision-literature than heroic legend. What unites them is that the scene of the action, for the most part at least, is Scandinavia.40 In his book Sagaliteratur Kurt Schier distinguishes three main categories offom aldarsögur.4! The first, Heldensagas, contains works such as Völsunga

Popular romance in post-Reformation Iceland

5

saga and Hervarar saga, which are demonstrably based on older heroic tradi­ tion, and sagas such as Hrolfs saga kraka, which have a foundation in older tradition, but are at a greater remove from it. These are largely written in a tragic mode closely akin to Germanic heroic poetry. Most of thefom aldarsogur, however, are w ritten in the com ic m ode. S ch ier’s second category, Wikingersagas, contains, for example, sagas such as Ragnars saga loðbrókar and Örvar Odds saga. These relate the histories o f early Scandinavian vikingkings and are based ultimately on older material, but in their treatment o f this material they have far more in common with continental romance than with heroic poetry. The third category, including works such as H rólfs saga Gautrekssonar, Göngu-Hrólfs saga, and Egils saga ogÁsmundar, Schier calls Abenteuersagas. These, he says, *'werden häufig auch Märchensagas genannt’. Märchensagas, as I mentioned above, is also Schier’s term for the indigenous riddam sogur ,42 and indeed apart from geographical setting there is little difference between the two. Sigurðarsaga fo ts, for example, is normally classed as a riddarasaga, but only because it takes place outside Scandinavia proper; it has long been plain to scholars that in terms o f its structure and style it could just as easily be included among thefom aldarsogur* Both 'types’ share the same underlying structure, a structure obviously also exhibited by many romans courtois; both, in other words, are examples o f romance.44 There are approximately thirty sagas normally classed as fom aldarsogur. In their present form most of these date probably from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, although some could be as old as the mid-thirteenth cen­ tury. Most are based, as was said, on significantly older traditions, and narra­ tives o f essentially the same type - relatively straightforward heroic biogra­ phies - must already have been in existence for some time when the extant fom aldarsogur were written down.45 The evidence in support of this includes not only the account in Þorgils saga og Hafliða, mentioned above, of a saga recitation at a wedding at Reykjahólar in the year 1119, but also indirect evi­ dence such as Saxo, whose use of material of this sort he himself acknowl­ edges.46 The subsequent history of the transmission of the fom aldarsogur is similar to that o f the riddarasögur\ there is in both cases a handful of medieval vellums but the majority o f the manuscripts are from after the Reformation. Hålfs saga og Hálfsrekka, to take but one example, is preserved in a single fifteenthcentury vellum, Gks 2845 4to, and in over forty paper manuscripts, the youngest of which date from the late nineteenth-century. The saga was printed by Erik Julius Biömer in Nordiska Kämpa Dater (Stockholm, 1737)47 and by Rafh in vol. ii o f Fornaldar Sðgur Nordrlanda, and both these printed editions were used as sources for later manuscript copies.48 The cod^cological evidence also suggests that the fom aldarsogur and in­ digenous riddarasogur should be regarded at the very least as closely related genres, few of the larger manuscript compilations preserving solely sagas of

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one type or the other. Rather, the two are normally found side by side, as in the fifteenth-century vellum AM 343a 4to, which contains ten fom aldarsögur and five indigenous riddarasögurS9 Where examples o f other saga genres are in­ cluded, most frequently Kings* sagas or Islendingasogur (‘sagas o f Iceland­ ers9, also called ‘family sagas’), these were often ‘post-classical’ sagas such as Grettis saga and Þórðar saga hreðu. This holds true of later manuscripts as well, including the extensive nineteenth-century saga compilations discussed in the next chapter. It is difficult to avoid drawing the conclusion that, while not recognising our modern generic distinctions, Icelanders from the medi­ eval period onwards did nevertheless distinguish in a general way between narratives with a greater or lesser degree of verisimilitude, between what we might call ‘history’ and ‘fiction’. Their word for the latter, attested throughout the period, was lygisaga.50

But Icelanders did not merely carry on copying lygisögur until well into the modern period, they carried on writing them too. There is a very large body of original romances - perhaps 150 individual titles - surviving from the postmedieval period. While some of these are preserved in only two or three manu­ scripts, several are found in fifty or more, and like the medieval fom aldarand riddarasögur, some two dozen were also issued in popular printed edi­ tions in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. A few o f these sagas, although preserved only in younger paper manuscripts, may be o f medieval provenance. Nikulås saga leikara, for example, is found in a large number of manuscripts - certainly over sixty - and was twice printed, first in Winnipeg, Canada, in 1889 and again in Reykjavik in 1912. The oldest of the preserved manuscripts, AM 568 4to, dates from the first half of the seventeenth century, but there is evidence that Stock, perg. fol. nr 7, a late fifteenth-century vel­ lum, may originally have contained a text of the saga.51 The majority of these lygisögur are clearly of post-medieval origin, however, a good many of them probably not dating from much before 1800.

From the seventeenth century onwards we find alongside these native romances translations of continental chapbooks. In Germany the Volksbücher had gone through dozens o f editions, circulating in thousands of copies throughout north­ ern Europe; they found ready audiences in Scandinavia, particularly in Den­ mark, and were quickly translated into Danish. It was therefore inevitable that they should find their way to Iceland.52 In the beginning at least, it seems clear that many chapbooks were trans­ lated more to edify than to entertain; Magnus Jónsson prúðVs Pontus rimur the earliest evidence for the presence of a Volksbuch in Iceland53- were clearly composed with this in mind, and a number o f the Icelandic chapbook transla­

Popular romance in post-Reformation Iceland

7

tions are overtly religious in character, belonging to that grey zone between hagiography and romance. The ‘Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs’ and the ‘Story o f Joseph and Assenath’, for example, were translated from Danish three times during the course of the seventeenth century, and are preserved together in fourteen manuscripts, with a further six manuscripts containing only the Saga a f Joseph og Assenath* For the most part, however, what Icelanders were looking for were romances, about two dozen o f which were translated into Icelandic during this period, generally either from German, or, increasingly as time went on, Danish.55 In a few cases other sources were used. Falentins og Urstns saga, for exam­ ple, while deriving ultimately from the popular French romance Valentin et Ourson, was, according to several manuscripts of the saga, translated from a Dutch original.56 Virgilius saga, preserved in four manuscripts, is also a trans­ lation o f a Dutch volksboek*7 M arkólfs saga og Salomons, called in some manuscripts Salomons saga og Mark&lfs or Samtal Salomons og M arkólfs, was twice translated into Icelandic from the Latin version o f the story and only later from a Danish chapbook.58 Another work translated from Latin, although perhaps hardly to be called a chapbook, is Argents saga, an adaptation of Argents, John Barclay’s humanis­ tic roman å clef, first published in Paris in 1621. One o f the four manuscripts in which the saga is preserved, Edinburgh, Advocates’ Library MS 21.2.13, contains the inform ation that it was ‘Utlogd úr Latfnu á Islendsku a f eruverdugum og miog vellærdum designat^o Rectore til Hóla Dómkyrkiu Schola Jone Einarssyne Anno 1694’ (‘Translated from Latin into Icelandic by the honourable and most learned Jón Einarsson, Rector of the Cathedral School at Hólar, Anno 1694’).59 There were a number of other works translated into Icelandic in the course of the eighteenth century, which, like Argents, appropriated elements of popu­ lar fiction, but to a more ‘serious’ purpose. One such was Ludvig Holberg’s Nicolai Klim ii Iter subterraneum, first published in Leipzig in 1741. There were no fewer than three separate Icelandic translations, the earliest of which, by Jón Ólafsson from Grunnavik (1705-79), was made only four years later from one of the two German translations.60 Sr. Guðlaugur Sveinsson from Vatnsfjörður produced a translation of John Bunyan’s Pilgrim 's Progress, based on the Danish translation and preserved in two autograph manuscripts from the late eighteenth century.61 Most o f the best known and most popular o f the German Volksbücher found their way to Iceland, but the Icelanders appear to have been somewhat inde­ pendent in their taste - assuming, that is, that the preserved manuscripts give a fair indication of what was translated and read. It certainly strikes one as odd that Till Eulenspiegel, for example, a story which enjoyed immense popu­ larity throughout northern Europe and Scandinavia, is found in Icelandic in only a single nineteenth-century manuscript.62 The reception o f the Countess

8

The unwashed children o f Eve

Elisabeth von Nassau-Saarbrücken’s prose versions of French romances seems equally idiosyncratic: they were extremely popular in Germany, but oddly not, it would appear, in Denmark.® In Iceland the translation of Hug Schapler was one o f the more popular of the chapbook translations, preserved in a total o f sixteen manuscripts, while H erpins saga og Leo, a translation of the Volksbuch-veision of her H erzog H erpin, is preserved in only a single eighteenth-century manuscript.64 All this material, as has been said, circulated entirely in manuscript. Two Icelandic chapbook translations did, however, appear in print. In 1756 a single volume entitled Pess Svenska Gustav Landkrvns Og Pess Engelska Bertholds Faabreitileger Robinsons, Edur Lijfs Og Æ fe Søgur (‘The life stories o f the unfortunate Robinsons, the Swedish Gustav Landkron and the English Berthold’), was issued from Hólar. The two works it contained were translated from Danishfolkeboger, and are but two examples of the many ‘Robinsonades’ - imitations o f Daniel Defoe’s highly popular Robinson Crusoe - produced in northern Europe in the course o f the eighteenth century.® Like Pontus rim ur and a number of other works, the stories o f Gustav Landkron and Berthold were translated into Icelandic in order to provide good, edifying reading mat­ ter for God-fearing men, but both also made rattling good reads.66

Also translated were a number o f pseudo-historical works, in many cases ma­ terial which had already found its way into medieval Icelandic literature, and was now re-imported, this time from chapbooks. There were apparently four separate translations, preserved in twelve manuscripts altogether, o f the Dan­ ish translation o f Guido de Columnis’s Historia Troiana, published in Copen­ hagen in 1623.67There is also a younger Icelandic Kariamagnús saga, a trans­ lation o f the Danish Karl M agnus9Krønike, which was itself based on the Old Norse Karlamagnus saga. A number of manuscripts contain hybrid texts, fol­ lowing in part the medieval saga, in part the folkebog translation.68 Several sagas from the post-Reformation period derive from the Gesta Danorum of Saxo Grammaticus, principally through the medium of Anders Sørensen Vedel’s abridged Danish translation, published in Copenhagen in 1575, and later through Sejer Schousbølle’s fuller translation, published in 1752.69Among the more popular of these was Sagan a f Starkaði gamla, which is thought to have been written by sr. Snorri Björnsson (1710-1803).70 Al­ though based on Saxo, principally Book VI of the Gesta Danorum, the saga is augmented by native material in which Starkaður figures, notably Gautreks saga, Snorri^ Heimskringla, and the Sögubrot a f fomkonungum (‘Fragment o f the saga o f ancient kings’).71 The verses in the saga are attributed to Gunnar Pálsson (1714—91); these probably pre-date the saga, and may be based on a Latin edition o f the Gesta Danorum. Over thirty manuscripts of this saga survive, including several younger manuscripts which contain an expanded

Popular romance in post-Reformation Iceland

9

version, incorporating material principally from Gautreks saga. This expanded version appeared in a popular edition, Sagan afStarkaði Stórvirkssyni, printed in Winnipeg in 1911. The Rimur a f Ambales, which relate the story of Amlethus recorded by Saxo in Books HI and IV o f the Gesta Danorum and best known through Shakespeare’s Hamlet, are thought to have been composed in the second half of the seventeenth century by one Pall Bjarnason, about whom very little is known.72The poet says at one point that his tale is taken from a German book. This is most likely to have been a Low German version of the monk Gheism ert Latin retelling o f Saxofe version of the story, published in 1485,73 although Pall appears also to have been familiar with another version o f the story, pos­ sibly Vedel’s translation.74There are also two separate versions o f a prose Saga a/Ambales, deriving independently from the rimur, while a third version, called Amlóða saga Hardvendilssonar, is based directly on Saxo.75 Together, these prose versions are preserved in over forty manuscripts, in addition to which there were two popular printed editions, Sagan a f Ambåles kongi, published by Einar Þórðarson in 1886, and Sagan a f Am bales, published by Skúli Thoroddsen in 1915.

There were also translations o f shorter prose works from the late medieval and early modem period, including exempla9 fables, and Schwanke9 all o f which generally went under the heading œvintýri, literally 'adventures1, but perhaps better rendered simply 'tales’. Apart from the briefest o f references in manu­ script catalogues, this material remains largely unknown to scholars.76 Most of the better known collections of tales found their way to Iceland, such as the fables of Æsop, of which there are translations or paraphrases preserved in some twenty manuscripts, the earliest of which date from the mid-eighteenth century.77 The collection o f tales known as the Pancatantra, Kalila wa-Dimna, or 'Fables of Bidpai’, was translated into Icelandic in the mid-seventeenth century from the German Das Buch der Beispiele der alten Weisen. The dialogue between King Cedras and Bilero, found in the tenth chapter of the German Volksbuch, is found separately in three nineteenth-cen­ tury manuscripts, and the same material was treated in a set o f rimur9 com­ posed in the mid-seventeenth century directly from the German.78 There were three translations of all or part o f the Thousand and one nights (A lf Layla wa-Layla) produced in Iceland in the late eighteenth century, all apparently based on the Danish translation (Copenhagen, 1746) o f Galland’s Les M ille et une nuits (Paris, 1704-17). Two selections from the Nights were published, Sagan um Þá tiu Rådgjafa og Son Á2Úd Bachls Konungs ('The saga o f the ten wise masters and the son o f King Azad Ðacht’), translated by Þorsteinn Jónsson and printed at Viðey in 1835, and Sogar ur 1001 nött ('Stories from the 1001 nights’) by Benedikt Gröndal, printed in Reykjavik in 1852; a com­

10

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plete translation by Steingrimur Thorsteinsson appeared in 1857-64.79 A simi­ lar collection o f tales, translated from Persian by Pétis de la Croix and pub­ lished as Les M ille et un jo u rs (Paris, 1710-12), reached Iceland in the second half of the eighteenth century and was translated in whole or in part five times over the next century, apparently first from Ambrose Philips’s English transla­ tion o f 1714, and subsequently from the Danish translation o f 1746.®° Other collections o f tales appear to have been put together in Iceland.81 Much o f this material subsequently passed into the oral tradition, where its influence on the folktale was significant.82 Rimur It is impossible to discuss the popular literature of post-Reformation Iceland without including the rimur, several examples o f which have already been mentioned. So inextricably linked are they to the prose romances that the two are best viewed as parts of a single whole. Rimur, literally ‘rhymes’, were far and away the most important secular poetic genre o f post-classical Iceland.83They are characterised by their highly complex metrical form, which derives many of its features from native, chiefly skaldic, tradition, but has in several important respects been influenced by continental and insular poetry (not least in the use o f rhyme),84 and also by their poetic diction, in particular their extensive use o f kennings and heiti (poetic synonyms), derived also from skaldic poetry. Despite the intricacies o f the form, rimur could be o f considerable length, most consisting o f several cantos or fits, each of which is known as a rima. Pontus rimur, for example, which were mentioned previously, consist of thirty fits, each with an average length o f eighty verses. The longest rimur extant are Olgeirs rimur danska, composed in 1680 by Guðmundur Bergþórsson (1657-1705), consisting of sixty fits.85 The subject matter o f the rimur was almost invariably borrowed from pre­ existing narratives, and although the r/mur-poets were fairly catholic in their tastes, romance was consistently the most popular. This appears to have been true from the very beginning, for while the earliest preserved example o f the genre, the single-fit Ólafs rima Haraldssonar*6 relates the story o f the fall o f the Norwegian king, nearly two-thirds of the seventy-eight rim ur from the period before 1600 derive from either riddarasogur - predominantly the in­ digenous romances, but in a few cases translated material as well - or fom aldarsögur. Only a handful are based on either the tslendingasögur or the konungasögur ('sagas of kings’), and then often those, like Grettis saga, that were closest to the romances.87 Nearly a thousand sets of rimur were com­ posed after 1600 - about half o f those in the nineteenth century88 - and while the range o f subjects widened somewhat, romance of one kind or another

Popular romance in post-Reform ation Iceland

11

continued to form the basis for the vast majority. Looking at it from the other side, although the r/mur-poets appear not to have been too taken with the translated romances - there are no surviving rimur based on any o f the romances of Chrétien, for example, nor any, strictly speaking, based on Tristrams saga*9 - all the fom aldarsögur, with the excep­ tion o f Gautreks saga, and, rather surprisingly, Ragnars saga loðbrókar, and all the indigenous (medieval) riddarasögur apart from K irjalax saga were used at one time or another as the basis for rimur. Most, in fact, were used more than once. Thus there are eight separate sets of rimur based on Nitida saga, the earliest dating from the seventeenth century and the youngest com­ posed in 1866, and evidence for a further two sets that have not survived.90 Konrads saga keisarasonar was also the basis for eight different sets o f rimur, the earliest o f them dating from about 1500, and a further three sets are known to have existed,91 while Þorsteins þáttu r bœjarm agns, one o f the shorter fom aldarsögur, was used as the basis for nine separate sets of rimur, and rimur on the same subject that have not survived have been ascribed to no fewer than ten other poets.92 In general, rimur are not found in as many manuscripts as are the sagas on which they were based, the average being perhaps five or six. There are cases o f rimur preserved in twenty or thirty manuscripts, however, and a few in even more. Brávallarímur, for example, composed in 1760 by Ami Böövarsson on the basis of the Sögubrot a f fomkonungum, are preserved in over forty manu­ scripts, the youngest dating from 1941." And although they represent only a small fraction o f the total produced, a significant number o f rimur were printed. Nine sets were issued from the press at Hrappsey between 1775 and 1784,94 and fourteen from Viðey between 1829 and 1843, six o f them by the poet Sigurður Breiðfjörð.95 A number of rimur were printed in Copenhagen in the early nineteenth century, including four sets by Sigurður Breiðfjörð. Skúli Thoroddsen issued ten sets o f rimur, half o f them by Siguiður Breiðfjörð, from his Prentsmiðja Þjóðviljans at Ðessastaðir between 1903 and 1908,96 and a further two after he had moved to Reykjavik. Most o f the other Reykjavik presses (Landsprentsmiðjan, ísafoldarprentsmiðja, Prentsmiðjan Gutenberg, Prentsmiðja Davíðs Östlunds) also issued rimur™ and altogether nearly a hun­ dred sets were published in the second half of the nineteenth century and first decades o f the twentieth. A good many o f these were in fact reissues of rimur originally printed at Hrappsey or in Copenhagen; both Snorri Björnsson^ Jóhönnuraunir (‘The trials of Jóhanna’) and the Rimur a f Úlfari sterka (‘Rimur o f Úlfar the strong’) by Þorlákur Guðbrandsson and Ámi Böövarsson, for example, were printed first at Hrappsey - the first secular rimur to be printed in Iceland98 - then at Viðey, and again in Reykjavik. Half the fourteen pub­ lished sets of rimur by Sigurður Ðreiðfjörð were reprinted at least once. In part this was due to the popularity of poets like Sigurður Breiðfjörð, Snorri Björnsson, and Ámi Böövarsson - whose popularity was obviously not un­

12

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connected with their having reached a wider audience through print - but although many o f the printers, such as Skúli Thoroddsen, were committed socialists, whose choice o f material for publication was politically motivated, they were also obliged to make a profit, and it was simply cheaper to reissue Amur that had already been published than to print new material. It is worth noting too that even when published, Amur continued to circulate in manu­ script; Snorri Bjömsson’s Jóhonnuraunir, printed, as was said, three times, are also found in over forty manuscripts."

In a number o f cases the only evidence we have for the existence of certain sagas are the Amur that were based on them. Bjarka Am ur,100 for example, are based on a prose source, now lost, either a separate saga or, more likely, a version o f the Böðvar-Bjarki episode in Hrólfs saga kraka, which borrowed material from Skjöldunga saga, the original Norse version o f which is also lost.101 Occasionally these lost sagas derive, directly or indirectly, from continen­ tal sources o f which there is otherwise no trace. Reinalds Amur™2 for exam­ ple, ascribed to the poet Sigurður blindur (c. 1470-1545), are based on a lost saga - the poet says himself that he is following a book. There is a clear affinity with Flores saga og Blankiftúr, and it has been suggested that the saga may derive from an otherwise unattested French original.103 Clearly o f foreign origin are Klerkarimur or KJerkaspil,104 composed probably in the first half of the fifteenth century, based on a lost fabliau-Uke tale of two clerics in Paris. Although the basic plot is well known, no immediate source has been found.105 Another example of this are the Virgiles (or Virgilius) Amur, also known as Glettudiktar,106 which are based on a lost tale in which Virgil is cast in his medieval role of wizard.107 The traffic between sagas and Amur could also go the other way, and it is not unusual to find preserved in manuscripts from the post-Reformation pe­ riod prose retellings of rim ur.m In some cases these are prose versions o f Amur based on sagas which have not themselves survived Hrómundar saga GApssonar is a case in point. The saga now bearing this name - printed by Rafn in Fom aldar Sögur Nordrlanda - is a late seventeenth-century prose version o f the Amur known as GAplur,m the medieval saga of the same name on which the Amur were based being lost.110 Another example is provided by Andra Amur jarls> also known as öndrur, which date from the fifteenth or sixteenth century and are also based on a lost saga, one which seems to have borrowed extensively from Hrómundar saga GApssonar}11 Andra Amur were among the more popular of the medieval Amur, and are preserved in four vellums and about twenty paper manuscripts. There are two younger prose versions, one preserved in several nineteenth-century manuscripts,112 and the other attributed to the poet Benedikt Gröndal,113 as well as a younger set o f Amur, composed around 1820 by Hannes Bj amason and Gísli Konráðsson,

Popular romance in post-Reformation Iceland

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preserved in at least nine manuscripts and twice printed.114 The relationship between these is not entirely clear: Jón Þorkelsson and Björn Karel Þórólfsson see the younger rimur as based on the older ones and the prose version(s) in turn deriving from them, but according to Halldór Hermannsson the younger rimur were based on the younger saga.115 The phenomenon is in no way confined to versions o f lost sagas, however, and an examination o f the transmission of any o f the prose romances is as likely as not to reveal that alongside texts of the original saga there are texts deriving from rimur. Vllmundar saga viðutan, to take one example, is found in fifty manuscripts, three of which preserve a version o f the saga which from the middle o f the first chapter onwards derives from the Rimur a f Vilmundi viðutan o f Hallur Magnússon (d. 1601) - one of five separate sets of rimur based on the saga. As with the younger Andra saga, the story does not end here, however. In the early nineteenth century this younger version made its way to the Faeroe Islands, where it was translated into Danish and subse­ quently formed the basis for the Faeroese ballad Vilmunds kvœ ði.116 What, one wonders, prompted people to rewrite rim ur in prose? Presum­ ably it is because they had no access to the prose text, but, having heard the rimur, wished to read the saga too. Perhaps it is analogous to the modern phenomenon o f the ‘novel isat ion’ of a popular film or television series. For us, a ‘novel isation’ of, say, Emma Thompsons Sense and Sensibility would hardly be viewed as ‘the same’ as Jane Austen’s novel. This was not the case, I be­ lieve, with eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Icelanders, who had not our sense o f ‘the text’. They were only interested in ‘the story’. THE RESPONSE TO ROMANCE Although we may assume that the Icelandic romances began, like their conti­ nental counterparts, as the literature of the aristocracy - enjoyed, presumably, by a broad spectrum o f society, but nevertheless reflecting primarily the inter­ ests o f the upper classes117 - they became in the period after the Reformation popular literature, enjoyed primarily, but by no means exclusively, by less sophisticated readers.119 The clearest indication that this shift in audience and orientation had taken place is the increased antipathy towards this type o f literature exhibited by the authorities, both secular and religious.119 The response o f the church The Lutheran church in Iceland had very clear ideas about what sort o f read­ ing matter it considered suitable. In the preface to his Ein nij Psalma Bok (‘A new Hymnal’), printed at Hólar in 1589, Bishop Guðbrandur Þorláksson says that his reason for producing the work is so that:

14

The unwashed children o f Eve [...] af mætte leggiast þeir onytsamligu Kuedlingar / Trölla og Foroman/ia Rijmur / Mannsaunguar / Afmois Vijsur / Bruna Kuæde / Haadz og Hugmodz Vijsur / og annar vondur og liotur Kvedskapur / Klaam / Nijd / og Keskne / sem hier hia Alþydu Folke framarmeir er elskad og idkad / Gude og hanns Einglum til Stygdar / Dioflenum og hanns Aarum til Gledskapar og Þionustu / enn i nockru Kristnu Lande ödru / Og meir epter Plagsid Heidinna Manna enn Kristin/ia / aa Vökunottum og ödrum Manna Motum / et ct. Sömuleidis i Veislum og Gestabodum / heyrist valla annad til skemtanar haft og Gledskapar / enn þesse Hiegomlige Kuædahaattur / Sem Gud naade.120 ([...] men might be able to put away unprofitable songs of Ogres and of the Heathen of old, Rimur, naughty love-songs, amorous verses, sonnets of lust, verses of mockery and malice, and other foul and evil poesy, ribaldry, wantonness, and lampoonery and satire, such as are loved and used by the commonalty of this land to the displeasure of God and his angels, and to the delight and service of the devil and his messengers, more than in any other country, and more after the fashion of pagan men than Christian folk, for on Wake-nights or Vigils and other gatherings of men, and likewise at feasts and banquets, hardly anything else is heard by way of entertainment and merry-making than such vain poesy, - God a* mercy!)121

The good bishop is here primarily concerned with rimur and other types o f secular poetry - his N y Wiisna Bok M ed mørgum andlegum Viisum ogKucedum Psalmum, L o f søngum og Rijmum, teknum wr heilagre Ritningu (‘New book of verses containing many sacred verses, and poems, hymns, songs of praise, and rimur taken from holy scripture’), published in 1612, was a direct attempt to stamp out secular poetry by introducing rimur on religious themes122 - but the wickedness o f secular prose had not escaped his attention. In his Catechismvs, alongside ‘Klaam og Nijd og ohæfeligr Orda Munnsøfnudur’ (‘vulgarity, defamation, and unsuitable talk’), he lists ‘Søgur og Æfentijr’ as examples o f ‘Saurlijfe med Ordunum’ (‘fornication by word’).123 The bishop^ attempts were of little avail, however, and the popularity o f these genres - sogar, rimur, and œvintýri - continued to disconcert the au­ thorities. In the Forordning Vm Huus- Vitianer aa Islande (‘Decree on housevisitations’) from 27 May 1746, for example, we read: Presturen?! skal þad Alvarlegasta aamiwia Heimiles-Folked ad vakta sig fyrer Onytsamlegum Søgum og Olijklegum Æferuitijrum og Uppdictum, sem i Landenu hafa vered bruukanlegar, og aungvanveigen/i lijda, ad þær sieu lesnar edur kvednar i þeirra Huusum, so ad Børnenn og þeir Uppvaxande villest ecke þar af.124 (The priest shall enjoin members of the household to protect themselves from unprofitable stories and unlikely fables and fictions, which have been found in this country, and in no way permit them to be read or recited in their houses, so that children and young people will not be corrupted by them.)

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According to the TUskipan Vmm Huus-Agann A Islande (‘Decree on do­ mestic discipline in Iceland’), issued on 3 June o f the same year, the master of each house was required, ‘under StrafF (‘under penalty’), to see to it that members of his household: [...] vakta sig fyrer Osæmelegu Tale og Gamne, Eydum og Bloote, Hiegoomlegum Historium, eda so kølludum Søgum, og Amors-Vijsum, eda Rijmum, sem Christnum soomereckeumm Hønd ad hafa, og Heilagur Ande aangrast vid.125 ([...] protect themselves from unbecoming talk and jesting, oaths and curses, vain histories, or so-called sogur, and amorous verses, or rimur, which are unbecoming of Christians to have to do with, and displease the Holy Spirit.)

Although the church did not generally consider secular material suitable for publication, there were two volumes of sagas published at Hólar in 1756 - the same year which saw the publication o f the two ‘Robinsonades’ mentioned above. These were Nockrer Marg-Frooder Søgu-pætter Islendinga (‘Some fa­ mous tales of Icelanders’) and Agiœtar Fommanna Søgur (‘Excellent stories o f ancient m en ’), which betw een them contained texts o f fo u rteen tslendingasogur and pcettirP6 They were printed in relatively large numbers, one thousand copies o f each volume, but sold poorly, due not only to the general hardship in the country at the time but probably also because o f a feeling on the part of many ordinary people that the printed word was the word of God, while entertainment was to be sought in manuscripts.127 Many clergymen also considered it entirely inappropriate that such works should come from the episcopal see. Sr. Björn Halldórsson i Sauðlauksdal (1724-94), for example, complained in a letter to Finnur Jonsson, bishop at Skálholt, and Magnús Gíslason amtmadur (Prefect), that from Hólar were issued: [...] gaxnlar sögur, en á meðal þeina nokkrar hnekslislegar, Ijótar lygaog trollasögur, hvar með fáftóður almúgi lokkast til að miðla af sinum brauðbita fyrir það, sem kongl. Majestet hefur fordæmt til ei li frar gleymsku með því að banna að lesa það.“8 ([...] old sagas, among them several outrageous, hideous fabrications and fiendish tales, tempting the ignorant public to part with its meagre bread for that which His Majesty has condemned to eternal oblivion by ban­ ning the reading o f it.)

Sr. Þorsteinn Pétursson á Staðarbakka (1710-85) is similarly affronted by the decidedly secular nature o f the literary activities o f certain members of the clergy, such as Snorri Ðjörnsson, the popularity o f whose Jóhönnuraunir was mentioned above. In his continuation to Páll Vfdalfn’s Recensuspoetarum et scriptorum Islandorum Þorsteinn writes:

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The unwashed children o f Eve Sn Snorre Ðiómsson ä Husafelle he fur nu i Elle sinne giórt Rýmur af Johonnu, Ecke veit eg hann hafa annad kvedid, og lofa eg þad aldij ä prestumm, þegar þeir leggia sig nidur vid Rýmna og kvædabuldur gagnlaust, eda liggia Jfer, ad skrifa sógur, Enn sleppa hinu sem naudsynlegra er, edur allt of mióg afRækia þad, sem þö er so margt, og mikid, ad þad verdur aldrei fullgiórt hier i heime.129 (Sr. Snorri Bjömsson from Húsafell has now in his old age composed Rimur a f Jóhönnu. I do not know him to have written anything else, and I can never commend it in clergymen, when they condescend to rimur and useless poetic rubbish, or devote themselves to writing sagas, but disregard other things that are more important, or to far too great an extent neglect that which is so much and so great that it can never be accomplished here in this world.)

The attitude o f the Enlightenment The last quarter o f the eighteenth century was arguably the most difficult pe­ riod in Iceland’s history. The country was in an appalling economic state, in part at least the result of a Danish trade monopoly, which had been in exist­ ence for nearly two hundred years when it was relaxed in 1776 and finally abolished in 1787.130 A massive volcanic eruption in southern Iceland in 1783 brought in its wake a period o f hardship and deprivation known as the móðuharðindi, literally ‘mist-hardship’, a reference to the thick cloud o f smoke, ash, and sulphurous vapour that covered most of the country.131 At the same time winters were exceptionally bitter, unusually heavy drift ice choked the fjords in the north, and harvests failed throughout Iceland Famine and death were widespread It is estimated that by 1785 half the cattle and three-quarters of the sheep had been lost. As much as one-fifth of the population died, leav­ ing no more than 40,000 people in Iceland, probably fewer than at any time since the settlement. It was during this period that the ideas o f the Enlightenment reached Ice­ land, principally from Denmark through the activites of two literary societies.132 The first of these, Hið islenzka Lœrdómslistafilag (literally ‘The Icelandic Soci­ ety for the Learned Arts’), was founded in Copenhagen in 1779 by Jón Eiriksson (1728-87) and dominated by him to such an extent that it effectively ceased to exist after his death. The publications of this society were designed to provide common people with good, enlightening reading material, but they had little success in reaching their intended audience. According to its last list, published in 1796, the society’s members numbered 129, of whom fewer than half were Icelandic, and most o f them officials of one sort or another. The physician Sveinn Pálsson (1762-1840) complained in an article - on glue - that ‘fåir af miigamønnum lesa félags rit’ (‘few of the common people read the society’s publications’).133 Stefán Þórarinsson (1754-1823) amtmaóur similarly complained about the reading matter preferred by the common people:

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Litum nú eptir bænda-stéttinni: hvat er þat, sem þeir lesa heizt? nema veniulegar húslestrar-bœkur? og er þat embœttis-skylda Prestanna, eptir Húss-vitiunar Forordningunni frá 27. May. 1746., at reka eptir lestri þessara bóka. Þaradauki lesa bœndr nockrar fornsøgur og æfíntýri, og loksins bœdi seint og snemma Rímurnar, sem eru til lítillar upplýsJngar. Og hví lesa þeir slikt? af því þeir hafa fengit nockurskonar smeck og þeckíng á þessháttar hlutum, og eru ordnir þvi kunnugír i upp-fóstrinu, heizt á œsku-árunum.134 (Let us look at the farmers: what is it that they choose to read, apart from ordinary "house-reading books’? And it is the responsibility o f the clergy, in accordance with the "House-visitation’ Decree of 27 May 1746, to encourage the reading of these books. Apart from these, farmers read a fewfomsögur and œvintýri, and finally, day in and day out, rimur, which provide little edification. And why do they read this sort o f thing? Be­ cause they have developed a kind of taste for and understanding of these things, having become familiar with them during their upbringing, from an early age.)

Hið islenzka Landsuppfrœðingarfilag (literally ‘The Icelandic Society for the Education of the Nation9) was founded in Iceland in 1794 by Hannes Finnsson (1739-96), bishop at Skálholt, and Magnús Stephensen (1762-1833), chief mag­ istrate {etazráð). The effect of this other literary society on the intellectual cli­ mate in Iceland was somewhat greater than that of its predecessor in part be­ cause, unlike Lœrdómslistafilagið, it was actually based in the country, but it too had to contend with a less than sympathetic response from the public. Ebenezer Henderson, a Scot who had spent the win­ ter o f 1814-15 in Iceland for the British and Foreign Bible Society,135 noted certain ‘prejudices conceived by the Icelanders’ against the society’s publications, which he felt were not without foundation, ‘for many o f the writings in question had but too glar­ ing a tendency to introduce the illumina­ tion o f the German school, and the attacks made on certain classes of the inhabitants were too pointed and violent not to excite indignation.’136 To Hannes and Magnus the old ro­ mances, folktales, and, above all, rimur were anathema, and they were determined to improve the literary taste o f their coun­ trymen. Hannes* Qvøld-Vøkumar 1794 Magnús Stephensen (1762-1833). were designed to be the antithesis o f what Þjóðminjasafh Islands, MMS 20857.

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The unwashed children o f Eve

he describes in his preface - called ‘Til Lesenda og Heyrenda Ðókarinnar’ (‘To the book’s readers and hearers’) - as ‘ósidsamleg æfintíri, riddara- og trølla-søgur, um hniitukøst og kmfil-yrdi jøtna, med ødrum sómalitlum eda aldeilis ótrúlegum athøfnum þeirra’ (’immoral adventures, tales o f knights and giants, about the bone-throwing and gibing o f ogres, along with their other outrageous or outright unbelievable behaviour’).137 Hannes felt it impor­ tant that young people had suitable reading material, saying: Eg hefi opt qvalist af ad vita, ad á mørgum bæum eru lesnar Trøllasøgur og Æfintýri full af ósidum og hiátrú; vorkénni samt skørpum únglíngum, sem enga betri andarfædu hafa gétad fengid [...].138 (I am often tormented by the knowledge that in many households tröllasögur and œvintýri are read, full of immorality and superstition; yet 1 pity bright young people, who have not been able to get any better spiritual nourishment [...].)

Although the society continued nominally until 1827, formal meetings were held only the first few years, and after 1801 the Landsuppjrœðingarfelag func­ tioned only in so far as Magnus Stephensen continued to publish books, usu­ ally his own, in its name.139 From 1785 to 1815 the society’s press, which was the old press from Hrappsey, was at Leiráigarðar in Borgarfjörður. The society bought the old Hólar press in 1799, moving it also to Leirárgarðar, and after a brief hiatus the combined press was moved to Viðey in 1819. It remained there, becoming public property in 1827 following the dissolution o f the soci­ ety. For thirty years, therefore, printing in Iceland was effectively controlled by one man, a man whose main aim was that o f disseminating practical knowl­ edge among Icelanders, but who was also equally fervent in his battle against popular literature.140 It is hardly surprising then that little in the way of what might be termed ‘Icelandic literature’ was published by the society. Part of Snorri Sturluson’s Heimskringla appeared,141 although Magnús clearly had little regard for its author, describing him as, among other things, ‘einhvørr hinn vidsjálasti madr, undirførull, laus í vináttu, ótryggr, fé- og metorda-gjam; auk þessa var hann madr rádríkr, hefndaigjarn, laussinna og heldr ertinn f skapi’ (‘a most danger­ ous man, underhanded, disloyal, untrustworthy, greedy and ambitious; in ad­ dition he was an imperious man, vindictive, a libertine, and rather disdain­ ful’).142 The project was quickly abandoned, due, Magnús claimed, to lack o f interest on the part of the public, whose taste in literature steadfastly refused to be bettered, as he complained eighteen years later in the preface to his Utvaldar Små-Søgur: Hans [sc. almennings] lestur til dægrastyttingar i Islands långa vetrar svartnætti eru heizt fomar, magrar frekiu timanwa Søgur, af vigutn, mordum, mordbrennum, nidingsverkum og svikrådum, gøldrum, hjátrú og draugum á vorn egin féstur-jørdu - því útlendar, alls ómerkar og enn

Popular romance in post-Reformation Iceland

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skadvænni Lyga-søgur, nefhi eg ecki - samt var litt meikilegt, fagurt eda til framfara og sidbóta af hinum ad nema. Agætari Fomsøgur frå Utløndum, svo sem Snorra af Norvegs Konúngum, vom midur vid almennings ged ellegar útgengilegar, þá tilraun var hier gjørd med þeirra útgáfu 1804.145 (The common people’s preferred reading-matter for entertainment in the long dark night o f the Icelandic winter ate old, meagre tales o f the times of arrogance, about slayings, murders, burnings, cowardly deeds and treachery, sorcery, superstition, and spirits on our own motherland because the foreign, totally trivial and even more harmful lygqsögur I will not mention —although there is little of interest, or beauty, or for betterment or moral-improvement to be had from them. Better old sagas from abroad, such as Snorri’s sagas of Norwegian kings, were less to the liking of the common people or saleable, when an attempt was made here to publish them in 1804.)

One set o f rim ur was published under the auspices o f the society, Sveinn Sölvason’s Rimur a f Gissuri Jarli Þorvaldssyni, but a preface was included explaining that this was not one o f the books offered by the society to the public 'til uppbyggíngar og vísinda smeckbætirs’ ('for edification and the im­ provement o f taste’).144

In Hiålprædi i Neyd ('Helpful advice in time of need’), a work Magnús trans­ lated and adapted from German,145 there is a scene of Magnus fc own invention in which one o f the characters, having heard a reading from an improving work called Nýjusiu bænda praktika ('The latest methods for farmers’), says: Þad skal vera munur, fyrir skynsama mean [...] ad hlusta á annad eins og þetta, sem landi og lýdum må verda gott hiålprædi ad / neyd, ellegar sannur fródleikur og upp lysing, enn adþylja fram heimskulegar lygasøgur, um risa, um trail, um álfa, um huldufftlk, um dverga og kappa, sem aldrei vom til, en høggva þó i søgunum, 12,20, og stundum 30 høfud af i høggi [...] ellegar um upploginn reimleika, drauga, forynjur, aptuigaungur og galdraverk, sem lærdir menn [...] kalla heim skrå agn, og heimskra fódur

I V 46 (It would certainly be better for rational men [...] to listen to things like this, that can provide the country and its people with help in time of need, or true knowledge and edification, instead of reciting ridiculous fygasögur about giants, trolls, elves, imps, dwarfs, and heroes who never existed but who in the stories cut off twelve, twenty, and sometimes thirty heads in a single blow [...] or of bogus hauntings, ghosts, forebodings, apparitions, and magic, which learned men call bait for the ignorant, and food for the ignorant [...].)

A similar attitude to popular literary taste is evident in the writings of others who were not directly associated with the Landsuppfrœðingarjelag, but were

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The unwashed children o f Eve

nevertheless motivated by the philosophy of the Enlightenment. One such was Jón Espólín (1769-1836), who is known primarily as a historian. Jón explains that in writing his various historical works, principally his islands Árbœkur i sogu-formi (‘Annals o f Iceland, in narrative form’), published between 1821 and 1855, he hoped to: [...] koma fólki niður í réttri þekkingu mannkynsögunnar og örva lyst til hennar, en höfnun hinna mörgu lygasagna og legenda, margra hverra meiia en smekklausra og sumra skaðlegra, sem svo mikil meigð var af oröin og sem sumum er enn - því miður - á loft haldið.147 ([...] instil in people a correct understanding of history and promote an interest in it, and the rejection of the many lygasögur and legends, many of which are more than tasteless and some pernicious, which existed in such great numbers and some of which are - unfortunately - still vaunted.)

Jón’s contempt for ‘lygasögur’ was not absolute, however. In a letter to Bogi Benediktsson dated 30 July 1836, only two days before his death, he wrote: Ekki lasta eg svo mjög lygasögumar eða rimur af þeim, þegar vel er með farið, þó annað væri þarfara, og ætíð fari illa, þá hið óþarfa fær svo alment aíhald, að það situr fyrir ljósi [...].** (I don’t find so very much wrong with lygasögur or the rimur based on them, so long as they are well made, even though other things are more necessary, and it is always detrimental when the unnecessary becomes so generally popular that it eclipses the other [...].)

He is, moreover, credited with the writing of two such sagas, Sagan a f H uld drottningu hinni riku and Sagan afH álfdani gamla og sonum hans™ and was also the author of a number o f rimur, chiefly based on classical themes, how­ ever, rather than romances.i50

Baldvin Einarsson (1801-33), author, editor; and publisher of Ármann á Alþingi (1829-32),151 was also singularly dedicated to improving the lot o f his country­ men through the dissemination of practical knowledge, because, as he wrote in a letter to Páll Pálsson, ‘þó bændurnir lesi fommannasögur og lygasögur til eilíföar, þá læra þeir ekki af þeim að útvega sér eitthvað til að klæðast og mettast* (‘even if farmers readfommannasögur and lygasögur until eternity, they will learn noth­ ing from them to help them clothe or feed themselves’).152Along with the letter he sent three copies of the specimen to Ármann á Alþingi, published in 1828, in the hope that Páll might be able to secure him some subscribers. In the specimen, one of the characters, a tall, handsome, right-thinking farmer named Sighvatur, says of works on animal husbandry and agriculture: Slikar søgur [...] ættu at minsta kosti, ecki sidr enn gamlar riddara søgr og rimur, at finnast i hvøiju húsi, já, eg hefdi enda sagt, ecki sidr en sjálf barnalærdómsbókin [...].■153

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(Stories like these [...] ought, no less than old riddarasögur and rimur, to be found in every house; yes, I should have said no less than the chil­ dren's primer itself [...].)

But if inspired by the ideas of the Enlightenment, Baldvin was also a na­ tionalist, and he had no objection to fanners reading fslendingasögur. He did share Magnús Stephensen’s distaste for rimur, however. In the first volume of Ármann á Alþingi the evening^ entertainment at the farm of another charac­ ter, the farmer Goðsvinnur, is described as follows: Svona las Godsvinnur eitthvad eda kvad, á hvøiju kvøldi allan veturinn, eda Snorri sonur hans. Hann las Kvøldvøkuraar og Atla, og Vinagledina og Sumargjøfina, ogýmisligt i Félagsritunum, stundum Islendinga søgur, en stundum kvad hann falleg kvædi, en sjaldan rimur [...].154 (Thus Godsvinnur, or his son Snorri, read or recited something every night all winter. He read from the Kvöldvökur [by Hannes Finnsson] and Atli [by Björn Halldörsson], Vinagleðln and Sumargjöfin [both by Magnús Step hensen], or something from the publications o f the Landsuppjrœðingqfélag, sometimes fslendingasögur, and sometimes he recited beautiful poetry, but rarely rimur [...].)

In their opposition to popular literary genres and the world-view they pre­ sented to their audience, the Icelandic exponents of the Enlightenment were, as in so much else, following the example o f their Danish counterparts. On the other hand, even when Romanticism had elsewhere prompted a revalua­ tion o f 'folk1 literature, the Icelandic intelligensia retained their scorn.155 Tómas Scemundsson, Jonas Hallgrimsson, and Fjölnir Romanticism in Iceland is closely associated with the journal Fjölnir and its editors, Tómas Sæmundsson (1807-41), Jónas Hallgrimsson (1807-45), Konráð Gíslason (1808-91), and Ðrynjólfur Pétursson (1810—51).Tómas Sæmundsson held views similar to those o f Magnús Stephensen, and he was highly critical o f the press at Viðey, then in public ownership and the only printing press in the country, which issued nothing but rimur and reprints o f hundred-year-old devotional literature. In an article entitled ‘Um bókmentirnar fslendsku’ (‘On Icelandic literature9) in the fifth volume o f Fjölnir (1839) he lists some o f the titles, primarily rimur, published at Viðey, commenting: Harm rísa á hofði manns, og hvur, sem nokkurt hjarta er i, fillist giemju, þegar hann sjer af bókatölu þessarri, aö landið væri miklu betur farið, ef eína prentverkinu, sem það á, væri sökkt niður á fertugu djúpi, og það ætti ekkjert, enn að þvl sje sona varið, þjóðinni til skammar og til að mirða mentun hennar.134

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The unwashed children o f Eve (The hair rises on one’s head, and anyone with a heart in him is tilled with grief when he sees from these book titles that the country would be much better off if its only press were to be sunk in the deep and it had nothing, rather than that it should be as it is, to the disgrace of the nation and the death of its culture.)

He deplores also the amount o f money involved in producing these ‘ónitju- og þarfleísu-bækur’ (‘useless and unnecessary books’).157 For the same amount, he says in a footnote: [...] hefdu feingist 2000 tunnur af brennivini, [...] og er það nú að visu sopið á skjemmri tíma; enn þó ótrúlegt sje, er valt að seígja, hvurt meíru kjemur illu til leíðar; því aldreí er það litils að meta, sem af ónítum eður vondum bókum hlotnast, er þær efla heimsku og hleipidóma, enn hindra framfarir til hins betra, enda þó ekki villi þær álit manna á því, sem gott er og heíðarlegt, eins og stundum fer.158 ([...] 2000 barrels of aquavit could have been bought [...] which would admittedly have been drunk more quickly; but unbelievable though it may be, it is difficult to say which would have done the greater damage, for one should not underestimate the damage done by useless or bad books, which promote ignorance and prejudice, and hinder progress, even though they may not confuse people’s views as to what is good and just, as is sometimes the case.)

Tómas firmly rejects the idea of ‘giving the people what they want’. In­ stead, he argues, it is the job of the intellectual to be the arbiter o f taste in his nation: Það er allt af vidkvæðið, ad almeimingur biðji um þetta; enn hvursvegna biður hann? er það ekki af þvi, að hann, fremur enn flest önnur alþíða, þarf andlegra meðala við; og hvað á harm að biðja um, annað enn það, sem hann þekkir og til er? og ef hann veldi heldur af veni endanum, enn hinum betri, þá ætti ekki við þvi, að få honum vondar bækur i hendur, og láta hann eíða tima og efnum til þess ad verda heimskari, þegar hann ætladi ad leita vitsku, heldur kjenna honum, i þessu eins og ödru, ad gjöra mun á góðu og illu, first hann er ekki fær um þad af eigin ramleik; það verdur ad fara eptir alþíðuþörfura i ad rita og prenta, enn ekki á hún ad seigja til, hvad prenta eigi; i því eiga mentamennimir ad hafa vit firir henni; þad må ekki fá henni þær bækur i hendur, sem stirkja hleípidóma hennar og eru fram forum hennar til hindrunar, þó hún fikast i þær og þó ábatavonin sje fljótari.159 (It is always claimed that this is what the public demand; but why do they demand it? Is it not because they, more so than most other people, are in need of intellectual medicine; and what shall the public demand other than that with which they are familiar and is available to them? And even if they choose rather from the lower end than the higher, they should not be handed poor books and allowed to waste their time and money in the pur-

Popular romance in post-Reformation Iceland

Sigurður Breiðfjörð (1798-1846), the most prolific and best-loved rimurpoet of the nineteenth century. Þjóðminjasafh Islands, MMS 372c.

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Jónas Hallgrimsson (1807-45), poet and founder o f the journal Fjolnir\ his criticism of rimur, then the most popular poetic genre in Iceland, presaged a change in literary taste in Iceland. Þjóöminjasafn islands, MMS 4534.

suit of ignorance, when what they sought was knowledge, rather they should be shown, in this matter as in others, how to distinguish between good and bad, since they cannot do so for themselves; the needs of the public should decide what is written and published, and not the people themselves; it is the intellectuals who must decide for them; they should not be given books that nourish their prejudices and hamper their progress, even though these are what they want and the prospects of profit more immediate.)

Another o f the Fjölnismenn, the poet and naturalist Jónas Hallgrimsson, wrote a review o f Sigurður Breiðfjörð’s Rimur a f Tistrani og Indiónu in the third volume o f Fjölnir (1837) which marks something of a turning point in the history of Icelandic literary criticism and, in retrospect at least, has been seen as spelling the beginning of the end for the rimur. In his review Jónas is highly critical not only o f the work under review - by Iceland1!?best-loved rimur-poet - but also, for the first time, of the rimur genre itself.160 He begins: Eins og rimur (á íslandi) eru kveðnar, og hafa verið kveðnar allt að þessu, þá eru þær flestallar þjóðinni til mínkunar - það er ekkji til neíns að leína þvi - og þar á ofan koma þær töluverðu illu til leíðar; eíða og spilla tüfinningunni á þvi sem fagurt er og skáldlegt og sómir sjer vel í góðum kveðskap, og taka sjer til þjónustu ‘gáfur* og krapta maigra manna, er heföu gjetað gjert eitthvað þarfara- ozkt eitthvað skárra, eðaþ&að minnsta

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The unwashed children o f Eve kosti pijónað memlausann duggra-sokk, meðan þeír vom að ‘gullinkamba’ og ‘fimbulfamba’ til sverandi spotts og athláturs um alla veröldma.161 (As rimur (in Iceland) are recited, and have been recited though the ages, they are, most of them, to the nation's discredit - there is no point in denying it - in addition to which they do quite a lot of harm; they destroy and corrupt the feeling for what is beautiful and poetic and befitting good poetry, and take into their service the intelligence and energy of many who could have done something more useful - composed some­ thing better, or at least knitted a harmless sock, instead of ‘bumptydumptying* and ‘rumpty-tumptying* to the eternal sport and amusement of the entire world.)

Jónas refers to the source for the rim ur as ‘eínhvur ligasaga’ ('som e lygasaga’),162 which he has not bothered to read, he says: [...] því hún er auðsjáanlega so eínskjisverð og heimskulega ljót og illa samin, að hennar vegna stendur á litlu, hvuroig með hana er farið. Það er auðvitað, að einu gjildir, hvurt hún væri sönn eður ekkji, ef hún værí falleg á annað borð - ef það værí nokkuð þíðing í henni og nokkur skáldskapur (því þegar á að snúa sogu í ljóð, verður að vera skáldskapur í henni sjálfri, eígi hann að birtast i ljóðunum) - ef hún lísti eínhvuiju eptirtektarverðu úr mannlegu lifi eins og það er eða gjæti veríð, og sindi lesandanum sálir þeirra manna, sem hún talar um, og ljeti það vera þesskonar sálir, sem til nokkurs værí að þekkja. Enn hjer er ekkji þvi að heílsa. Af Tistranssögu er ekkjert að læra. Hún er ekkji til neíns, nema til að kvelja lesandann, og låta hann iinna til, hvursu það er viðbjóðslegt, að hlíða á bull og vitleísu.163 ([...] because it is clearly so abject and ridiculously ugly and badly writ­ ten that it matters little how it was handled [by the poet]. Obviously it would make no difference whether the story was true or not were it other­ wise beautiful - were there in it any meaning or any poetry (for if a story is to be put into verse there must be poetry in it if that poetry is to appear in the verses) - if it described anything worthy of attention in human life as it is or as it could be, and revealed to the reader the souls of the people with which it dealt, and made them the type of souls that are worth know­ ing. But such is not the case here. Nothing can be learnt from the story of Tistran. It is pointless, only distressing the reader, and making him see how revolting it is to listen to tosh and twaddle.)

Jónas’s criticism of the rimur - and the stories upon which they were based - rested on grounds not moral, as did that of his predecessors, but aesthetic: rimur, even the best of them, were bad poetry.164 Jónas is commonly credited with having 'dealt the whole genre such a staggering blow that it never really recovered from it’,165 and while it is true that the rimur did eventually lose the place in the hearts o f common folk in Iceland they had once had, Jónas was an

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example, rather than a cause, of a change in taste, one largely confined at this time to the sophisticated literary élite. Rlmur continued to be composed, re­ cited, published, and enjoyed throughout the nineteenth century and even into the twentieth. But in the end *modem’ literary taste prevailed, and Jónas him­ self, Íistaskáldið góða’ (‘the great poet’), replaced Sigurður Breiöfjörð as the best-loved poet in Iceland. O f scholars and shoemakers In 1852 Einar Þórðarson (1818-88), who had recently taken over the running o f Landsprentsmiðjan in Reykjavik,166 and Hannes Erlendsson (1798-1869), a shoemaker, brought out an unpretentious volume entitiedFjårar Riddarasögur ('Four romances’),167 the first of many such popular saga editions published in the second half o f the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries. It consisted o f 120 pages in octavo and contained texts of four sagas, all exam­ ples o f the lygisaga. O f these, two, Sagan a f Sålusi og Nikanor and Sagan a f Valdimar kóngi, date from before the Reformation and are preserved in vel­ lum manuscripts. Æ fintýri a f Ajax keisarasyni (‘The exploits o f Ajax’) is a short text, possibly medieval, but preserved only in late paper manuscripts. Sagan o f Þorgrími kóngi og köppum hans is almost certainly young, and is preserved only in nineteenth-century manuscripts. These are all fairly typical, but by no means the best, examples o f the lygisaga genre - H.L.D. Wardfe description of Sålus saga og Nikanors as ‘a tasteless hotch-potch o f classical andmediæval fictions’168 is not altogether without justification. All were quite popular, however. Sålus saga og Nikanors is preserved in at least twentyseven manuscripts, Valdimars saga in twenty-six, Ajax saga in eight, and Þorgríms saga in at least nineteen, in addition to which another popular edi­ tion appeared, Sagan afÞorgrim i kóngi og köppum hans, printed at Prentsmiðja Suðurlands in Eyrarbakki in 1911. In a preface to Fjårar riddarasögur the editors state their reasons for the undertaking: Þar eð þessar eptirfylgjandi sogur era óvída til að finna á landi voru, og bráðum imdir lok lidnar, ásamt ýmsum fleiri fomsögum, er ætid hafa verid vel medteknar af löndum voram, þá fínnst oss ei med öllu óþarft ad láta sýnishom a f sögum þessum koma út á prent; og höfiim vid þá von, ad vorir heidrudu landsmeim virdi þetta fyrirtæki okkar ekki sidur, en þeir hafa virt sögurnar sjálfar.169 (In view of the fact that the sagas which follow arc not readily available in our country, and will soon have sung their last, along with other old sagas that have always been well received by our countymen, we find it not en­ tirely unnecessary to allow a selection of these sagas to appear in print; and it is our hope that our honoured compatriots will respect this undertaking of ours no less than they have respected the sagas themselves.)

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They also say something about their method, which was, they said, to print their texts 4eptir því fullkomnasta, elzta og bezta handriti, er við gátum feingið’ ('from the most complete, oldest and best manuscript we could get9), and go on to say: Verðí svo, að sýnishorn þetta fåi góðan róm af alþýðu, og svo maigir kaupendur bjóðist að þessum soguritum, að við fáum kostnað okkar borgaðan, þá höfum við framvegis í hyggju, að láta fleiri gamlar sogur koma út á prent, sem ekki hafa áður prentaðar verið; svo þœr ekki að ollu leyti líði undir lok. (Should it happen that this selection is well received by the public, and enough buyers are found for these sagas, so that our expenses are met, we intend in the future to publish more sagas that have not hitherto ap­ peared in print, so that they do not disappear altogether.)

It is difficult now to see this as anything other than a laudable undertaking. The literati at the time, however, were not amused. Benedikt Gröndal (1826-1907), poet, critic, essayist, and polemicist, pub­ lished in the newspaper Þjóðólfiir an anonymous review oiFjårar Riddarasögur that was anything but sympathetic to that book’s aims or editors. He begins well enough, stating that it is natural that every nation should want to hold aloft its cultural artifacts from former times. He says, however, that care must be taken that this is done in a proper manner, and that those who attempt to present these artifacts to the public must be trained practitioners o f the skills required, as were, for example, the scholars associated with ‘Fornfræðafjelagið’ in Copenhagen, who had recently produced a number of editions in accord­ ance with the rules and conventions of textual-critical practice. Such was clearly not the case with the work under review, however, as it was produced by a printer and a cobbler. He continues: Jeg veit raunar, að herra E. Þórðarson er prentari, og herra H. Erlendsson er skómakari, en jeg þekki ekki þessa menn sem fomfræðinga, og það veit jeg, að hingað til hefur enginn, nema fomfræðingar, lagt hendur að þvi, að gefa út fomsogur [...]. Jeg get því ekki tekið það fyrir annað, en ósvívið dramb, sem stendur i formálanum, að sögumar sjeu prentaðar eptir þvi ‘fullkomnasta, elzta og bezta handriti\ sem þeir gátu fengið,170 því þessi orö voga engir að leggja sjer i munn, nema þeir sjeu málfræðingar eða fomfræðingar, eða að öðrum kosti ósannindamenn. Það er lika sjerhverjum manni ljóst, sem nokkuð þekkir hversu á stendur, að þetta fyrirtæki er einungis stofnað i gróða skyni, - og sögumar kvaö vera gefhar út ‘til að skemmta alþýðu’. Það er ågætt fyrirtæki, en það er hjer stofnað með því, að hafa þjóð vora að háði. Er það ekki að hafa þjóðina aö báði, þegar tveir taka ráð sin saman, til þess að hafa fje út fyrir bók, sem er gefin út öll bjöguð, heimildarlaus og vitlaus? Þegar þvi er logið upp í opin eyrun á alþýðu, aö menn hafi ‘virt sögumar sjálfar’, sem sumar voru aldrei til, og eru svo ósvífnir að vona, að þetta fyrirtæki

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muni verða virt? Því hvaða fyrirtæki er þetta? Þaö er svona: azmar les margar fornsögur, og spinnur siðan upp sjálfur eitthvert bannsett bull, sem er öldungis út úr og á móti anda timans og þjóðariimar, en hinn prentar bullið, og bullariim stendur upp i axlir.171 (I know for a fact that Mr E. Þórðarson is a printer and Mr H. Erlendsson a shoemaker, but I do not know these men to be antiquarians, and I know that, until now, no one, apart from antiquarians, has undertaken to edit old sagas [...]. I cannot therefore see that their assertion, printed in the preface, that the sagas are printed ‘from the most complete, oldest and best manuscript* they could get, is anything other than the most offensive arrogance, for no one would dare to say these words unless he were a grammarian or an antiquarian, or a liar. It is also clear to anyone who knows anything about it that this undertaking was designed purely for profit, - and the sagas are said to have been published ‘for the entertain­ ment of the common man*. That is a worthy undertaking, but it is here designed to ridicule our nation. Does it not ridicule the nation when two men team up in order to make money from a book which is published all distorted, without sources, and incorrect? When common people are openly lied to and told that ‘these sagas have been respected*, stories some of which never existed, and [these men] are so arrogant as to hope that their undertaking will be respected? For what sort of undertaking is this? It is thus: one of them reads many old sagas, and then himself invents some damnable rubbish, which is completely out of touch with the spirit of the time and of the nation, and the other one prints this rubbish, and the rubbish is shoulder-high.)

These are harsh accusations. Gröndal is presumably not serious in his al­ legation that the editors actually wrote the sagas themselves - as was men­ tioned above, two o f the sagas are preserved in fifteenth-century vellums, and the other two, while considerably younger, are both preserved in manu­ scripts pre-dating the publication o f Fjórar Riddarasögur - but the texts were obviously not prepared in accordance with the strictest rules o f textual-criti­ cal practice, and although it is not clear what manuscripts were used, they are unlikely to have been very old.172 Gröndal’s vehemence is surprising, however, in view o f the fact that he himself had a great interest in and love o f the fom aldar- and riddarasögur. th ey w ere la te r to form the tem plate for his satirical Sagan a f Heljarslóðarorrustu (‘The story of the battle of Hell’s Field’) (Copenhagen, 1861),173 certainly to be regarded as among his best works, and he also pro­ duced a set o f rimur based on Göngu-Hrólfs saga,174 as well as the prose version o f Andra rimur, mentioned above. But Gröndal was a scholar. He had studied in Copenhagen, and for a time at Leuven, eventually taking the degree o f M.A. in Old Norse philology in 1863 the first Icelander to do so - and his reaction to Fjorår Riddarasögur was based not so much on his rejection of the editors’ textual-critical methods as on his

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indignation at the idea that a printer and a shoemaker should presume to produce a volume purporting, as he saw it, to be a scholarly edition. The editors’ choice of sagas was obviously part of the problem, too. Gröndal explains, in some de­ tail, why he calls them 'bjagaðar, heimildarlausar, og vitlausar’ ("distorted, sourceless, senseless’). At one point he says:

Benedikt Gröndal (18261907). Þjóðm injasafn Islands, MMS 181.

Jeg veit, að mönnum muni þykja leiðinlegt, að heyra upptalningu á smekkleysum, dönskuslettum, rammvitlausri landalýsingu og öðru þess konar, en ef nokkum langar til að sjá þetta, þá lesi hann ‘fjórar Riddarasögur’, og enginn skyldi trúa, að þetta sje gefið út 18521

(1 know that people would be bored by lists of vulgarities, Danicisms, totally warped geographical descriptions, and the like; but should any­ one desire to see this sort of thing, let him read Fjörar Riddarasögurf and no one would believe that such a thing could be published in 1852!)

They were, in other words, typical nineteenth-century lygisögur, of the kind then circulating in manuscripts in great numbers, and not the medieval fom aldar- and riddarasögur, now legitimised by philology. The editors understandably felt themselves obliged to respond to this at­ tack, and their response, published in a subsequent number o f Þjóðólfiir, says much about the division between high and low culture in mid-nineteenthcentury Iceland: Útasetníngar þessar skulum við ekki rekjaorð fyrir orð, því þær verðskulda það ekki, fyrst að mergurinn í þeim er þetta: að ekki geti nein sú ritgjörð eða saga verið annað en bull eða vitleysa, sem prentari og skómakari gefa út. Ekki skulum við svo fegra sögur þessar, að ekki kunni mega finna margt þeim betra og uppbyggilegra, en þó meinum við, að þær séu og geti verið eins meinlaus dægrastyttíng fyrir alþýðu, eins og sumt það, sem snillingamir úngu eru að banga saman og bjóða fram; vera kann, að t. a. m. ‘Kvöldvakan í Sveit’, og "Bónorðsforin’175hafi hafl eitthvað fram yfir Riddarasögumar, en það er ófundið enn ágætið i þeim og snildin, og enginn mun finna meiri skemtan a f þessum bæklíngum en a f Riddarasögunum. ' Örvaroddsdrápa’ kann aö vera fbgur skáldmæli, - og eptir vonum af þeim manni er hana orti *—, en það eru þá einúngis visindamennimir og skáldin, en ekki fafróður almúgi, sem finnur það. Þetta meinum við að séu nú einhverjir helztu frumritaðir bæklíngar, sem komið hafa út á seinni árum, til að skemta alþýðu [...], Við hefðum ekki gefið út Riddarasögumar heföu lærðu snillingamir úngu bæöi sigldir og ósigldir, sem að eru gagn og sómi þessa fáfróða og fátæka lands, boðið

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fram eitthvað sem var betra til að skemta almúganum; en við holdum að vid séum saklausir af ad hafa smánað landa okkar, eda ‘haft þjóð vora ad háði’ med útgáfu þessara saga, sem svo vida eru til skri fadar, og hafa verid lesnar til dægrastyttingar, á medan ekki kemur út annad frodlegra eda snjallara frá þessara tima snillingum, en ritlingarnir sem vid nefndum.176 (We shall not repeat these criticisms word for word, because they are not worthy of it, since the point of them is that no essay or story published by a printer and a cobbler can be anything other than rubbish and nonsense. We shall not attempt to gild these stories, to say that nothing could be found better than them or more edifying, but we do believe that they are and can be a harmless diversion for common people, as much as some of what the bright young things [snillingamir ungu] are churning out; it may well be that, for example, ‘Kvoidvakan i Sveit’ and ‘Bónorðsforin’ were a cut above the ‘Riddarasögur’, but their value and genius has yet to be discovered, and no one could derive more pleasure from these book­ lets than from the ‘Riddarasögur’. 4örvaroddsdrápa’ may well be a fine piece of poetry - not surprisingly in view o f its author [sc. Gröndal] but it is only academics and poets, and not the unenlightened public, who can appreciate it. We reckon these to be the main original works pub­ lished in recent years for common people We should never have published the ‘Riddarasögur’ if the learned bright young things, both here and in Copenhagen, the pride o f this poor benighted country, had produced anything better for the entertainment of common folk; we think we are innocent of the charge of having belittled our countrymen, or ‘ridiculed the nation’ by publishing these sagas, which are now so widely found in manuscripts and have been read for pleasure, while nothing more enlightening or cleverer appears from the bright young things than the booklets we mentioned.)

We have here a d ea r distinction made between the new 'serious9literature, as exemplified by Gröndals own örvaroddsdrápa - a work taking its theme from a native fom aldarsaga but written in the ollava rima o f Byron’s 'Don Juan’ - which the editors claim only poets and intellectuals could appreciate, and the older popular literature, read and appreciated by the common people. What Hannes Erlendsson and Einar Þórðarson were guilty o f was trying to make the latter available in a medium reserved, in the eyes o f some, for the former. The modem critical response It is not my intention to hold men like Magnús Stephensen, Jónas Hallgrimsson, and Benedikt Gröndal up for ridicule; theirs was a different age, with different priorities, and certainly no men loved their country, or their culture, more than they. It is important to recognise, however, that twentieth-century literary criti­

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cism is to a great extent still informed by these nineteenth-century attitudes. Thus Jón Helgason, for example, although elsewhere not unsympathetic to 'post-classical’ Icelandic literature, dismisses the indigenous romances in a single paragraph in his Norrøn litteraturhistorie as 'ubetydelige som kunst’ (‘insignificant as art’) and bearing witness to ‘fordærvet smag’ (‘corrupt taste’);177 Sigurður Nordal is equally brief in his ‘Sagalitteraturen’, referring to the prose romances as ‘yderst uoriginalfog fattige produkter’ (‘extremely unoriginal and sorry products’).17* The situation has changed somewhat in recent years, but it is still common to deprecate - or ignore - the rimur and riddarasögur in discussions of Icelandic literature.179 The tendency among critics to dismiss the romances is obviously part o f a more general view o f Icelandic literature. In forming what is in many ways still the standard theory on the development of saga-writing in Iceland, Ice­ landic scholars, Sigurður Nordal foremost amongst them, began by assuming that Icelandic literature had reached its high point in the mid-thirteenth cen­ tury with Snorri Sturluson and in Njåls saga. Everything else had to be seen as either leading up to or falling off from this apogee.180This view was plainly not founded solely on aesthetic principles, however, and the great emphasis placed on the tslendingasogur by Nordal and other Icelandic scholars must be seen in the light o f the movement for independence from Denmark in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. For them the ‘golden age’ o f saga­ writing had been the mid-thirteenth century, before ‘the fall o f the Common­ wealth’, when the previously free and independent Icelanders were forced to swear allegiance to a foreign crown. With this loss of independence - because of it - came a period o f decadence characterised by, among other things, ram­ pant foreign literary influence, which lead ultimately to the death o f sagawriting. Literary and political history were one.181 Obviously it is not only Icelanders who have been dazzled by the splendour of the tslendingasogur. W. P. Ker, for example, claimed in his book Epic and Romance that the tslendingasogur were the high point not only of Icelandic literature, but o f medieval literature in general. His opinion o f the riddarasögur was equally categorical: they were, he said, ‘among the dreariest things ever made by human fancy’.182The greatness of the tslendingasogur lay, for Ker, in the style o f the narrative, which, he said, ‘is accepted at once by modern readers without deduction or apology on the score o f antique fashion, because it is in essentials the form with which modem readers are acquainted in mod­ ern story telling’.183 The tslendingasogur, in other words, are better than other kinds o f medieval literature - are ‘in advance’ of them - because they are more like the modem novel.184 And yet, generations o f Icelanders clearly preferred the less ‘advanced’ romances. Margaret Schlauch, one of the first scholars to look seriously at the indigenous romances, found this ‘amazing revolution in literary taste’baffling, in view o f how ‘lam entably in ferio r’ the rom ances were to the older tslendingasogur,185 She writes:

(é

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It is as if a modern realistic novel dealing with contemporary American civilization were suddenly to introduce dragons, incubi, trolls, and vam­ pires as seriously credible personages. Hie impression is just as incon­ gruous if one turns from the austere simplicity of the Laxdcela saga to a phantasmagoria such as the Gibbons saga ok Gregu. It is difficult to be­ lieve that the same nation should have produced and apparently delighted in both within a comparatively short period.186

Schlauch, like Ker, equates the 'realism* o f the tslendingasogur with that of the modern novel.187This is an example o f what Derek Brewer has termed 'the mimetic fallacy*, a fallacy based, he says, ‘on the belief that actions, people and things can and should be closely imitated in words’. 188 Interestingly, what was for Schlauch unthinkable in the early 1930s - supernatural or mythical beings presented as seriously credible characters in literary works - seems in the 1990s, with fantasy and ‘magic realism’ now commonplace in fiction, scarcely worthy o f comment.189 While there is no room here for a detailed history of the European interest in things northern,190 it may be said in general that many European intellectu­ als, weary o f the over-refined society o f their times, sought in Old Norse lit­ erature a kind o f ‘wildness*, a world uncontaminated by European civilisa­ tion. It should come as no surprise, then, that the last thing such people wanted to find in Iceland was a large body o f romances, works just like the ones on which they had turned their backs. Interest in the north began with Paul Henri Mallet, a Swiss, whose Introduction å VHistoire de Dannemarc, published in 1755, and especially his Monumens de la mythologie et de lapoésie des Celtes, et particuliérem ent des andens Scandinaves, published the following year, reached a wide audience, in Britain chiefly through Bishop Percy’s transla­ tion, Northern Antiquities (London, 1770). Percy himself had already pro­ duced, seven years earlier, Five Pieces o f Runic Poetry Translated from the Islandic Language, stimulated by the enormous success o f M acpherson’s Ossianic poems, the influence o f which was great throughout Europe.191 This early interest was largely confined to ‘runic poetry’, i.e. Eddie and, to a lesser extent, skaldic verse. The discovery of the tslendingasogur is relatively re­ cent, not really beginning until well into the nineteenth century, by which time the romanticism that had first prompted men to turn to the north had begun to give way to realism. Especially appealing was the celebrated laconic style o f the tslendingasogur. Contrasting with this pure, clear, pristine, natural, Nordic style is the style of the riddarasogur: affected, cloying, artificial, French.192 The reaction o f the American scholar Lee M. Hollander, reviewing Foster Blaisdell’s edition of Erex saga, is typical: One fresh from the reading of the Icelandic Family sagas will be de­ pressed when perusing193 one of the Riddara sögur. It is like passing from the fresh and vital atmosphere of the outdoors to the sultry and stale air of the boudoir [...].194

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If the critics have given short shrift to the medieval romances, they have ig­ nored totally the great mass o f material o f this type produced in Iceland after the Reformation, the standard literary histories giving the impression that virtually no original prose fiction was produced in Iceland after about 1500. This view, as was said above, is obviously a by-product of the movement for political independence from Denmark, but is in part also attributable to the general worship o f things medieval that characterised o f the work of many scholars o f the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, one consequence o f which was a refusal to accept the possibility that paper manuscripts could have textual-critical value.195 This has now given way to a more unbiased ap­ proach to textual criticism - but only in so far as it is now recognised that post-medieval manuscripts can preserve readings more original than those found in medieval manuscripts; ‘secondary’ manuscripts or those containing demonstrably corrupt texts are still dismissed as ‘worthless*, and in general the idea that the history o f a workfc transmission might be worthy o f investiga­ tion does not appear to have occurred to many.196 A firm distinction is still maintained between medieval sagas, i.e. those that have been preserved on vellum, and post-medieval sagas preserved only in paper manuscripts. Agnete Loth included in herfive-volume collection Late M edieval Icelandic Romances only sagas preserved on vellum, and this, I suppose, is not indefensible: ro­ mances written after the Reformation are not ‘late medieval*. But for many it would appear that ‘romance* means ‘medieval*. Marianne Kalinke, for exam­ ple, dismisses Stefån Ei nars son’s ‘grand total of 265 romances* as ‘mislead­ ing’ on the grounds that it ‘includes spurious as well as postmedieval works*.197 As a result, inclusion in the corpus has in general been restricted to those sagas preserved, or known to have been preserved, on vellum. Only such sagas are included in the Bibliography o f Old Norse-Icelandic Romances,19* or dealt with by Jiirg Glauser in his Isländische Märchensagas,199 despite the fact that the genre continued to be productive for another four centuries after the change from vellum to paper.

Over half a century ago Einar Ólafur Sveinsson advocated a study o f the younger romances: Oft verður rannsakandinn að yfiigefa ljósheim hinna sönnu bókmennta og fara á gandreið um undirheima skáldleysunnar. Mér er nær að halda, að enginn þekki íslenzkt Ímyndunarafl til hlitar, sem ekki hefur glimt eitthvað við riddarasögur og aðrar ýkjusögur.200 (Often the investigator has to leave the light-world of true literature and take an enchanted ride through the nether world o f 4unliterature\ I can­ not help thinking that no-one completely knows the Icelandic imagina­ tion who hasn’t had some dealings with the riddarasögur and other ýkjusögur [‘exaggerated tales*].)

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The romances have been denigrated by generations of critics and intellectu­ als, essentially for not being ‘literature’. They have much to tell us about the structure and mechanisms of popular cultural activity in post-medieval Iceland, however, and rather than dismissing them as tasteless and derivative, we should try to understand the basis for their great popularity, their significance for their audiences, their function in society. It is time we followed Einar Ólafur’s advice and took that enchanted ride ‘um undirheima skáldleysunnar’

n Social textuality: The lygisaga in context Unlike the post-Reformation rimur, the majority of which are by named poets, the lygisögur are almost without exception anonymous* There are, in a few cases, reliable attributions, however. In two unpublished nineteenth-century reg­ isters or lists o f Icelandic writers, one, usually referred to as ‘Rithöfundatal’1 (‘Register o f authors9), by Hallgrímur Jónsson (1780-1836),2 the other, known as ‘FræðimannataT3 (‘Register o f learned men’), by Einar Bjamason (17821856),4 ten original sagas are attributed to the clergyman Jón Oddsson Hjaltalin (1749-1835), now all but forgotten, but well known throughout the nineteenth century as a poet and hymnist. It is generally acknowledged that Einar’s infor­ mation derives largely from Hallgrimui;3 while Hallgrimur, writing in 1822, claims to list the works he attributes to Jón Hjaltalin ‘eptir hans egin mér sendri skírslu’ (‘according to his own report, sent to me’).6 If Hallgrfmur’s informant was indeed Jón himself, there seems little reason to question the attribution. The sagas, in the order given by Hallgrimur,7 are: 1. 2. 3. 4.

Sagan a f Reimari keisara (‘The saga o f Emperor Reimar*) Sagan a f N atonipersiska (‘The saga o f Naton the Persian’) Sagan a f Marroni sterka (‘The saga o f Marron the strong’) Sagan a f Bem otus Bomeyjarkappa (‘The saga o f Ðemótus, champion o f Bomey’) 5. Sagan a f Rigabal konungi (‘The saga o f King Rígabal’) 6. Sagan a f Sarpidon konungi (‘The saga o f King Sarpidon’) 7. Sagan a f Ketlerus keisaraefni (‘The saga o f Ketlerus, Emperor-to-be’) 8. Fimmbrœðra saga (‘A saga o f five brothers’) 9. Sagan a f H inriki heilráða (‘The saga o f Hinrik, the wise o f counsel’) 10. Sagan a f Mána fróða (‘The saga o f Máni the wise’).*

All these sagas, with the exception o f Måna saga, survive. They are preserved in anywhere from two to twenty manuscripts, only one o f which, a fragment of M arrons saga dating from about 1800, is in Jón’s hand.9 The rest are copies, or copies o f copies, a few made during Jónh lifetime, but the majority from after his death; the youngest manuscript is dated 1913. It is worth noting that in none o f them is Jon credited with the authorship of the sagas, while his hymns and other poems rarely appear without attribution. There is another saga, however, Hrings saga og Hringvarðar, that is attributed to Jón in one of the manuscripts o f that saga, but this attribution, for various reasons, is doubtful.10 Before undertaking any examination o f these sagas as literary artifacts, it will be necessary to consider their textual history, the manner in which they

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Lbs 893 8vo, f. 41r. A page from Jón Hjaltalin's fragmentary autograph manuscript of Marrons saga. Photo: Landsbókasafn.

Social textuality: the lygisaga in context

37

have been preserved for us. This is not done merely in order to establish the text, although that is an important concern: a study with its point of departure in a collection o f works attributed to one man must obviously try to determine what that man actually wrote. But that, at best, is only half the story. The social milieu in which these works were produced and consumed must also be taken into account. The extant manuscripts are the material evidence for the socioliterary processes in which the texts are embedded, and careful examination of the individual witnesses can reveal cthe human presence’ in each o f them,11 while at the same time, it is hoped, telling us something about the nature of the lygisaga text itself.

There are, altogether; fifty-nine manuscripts, preserving seventy-three individual texts, o f the sagas attributed to Jón Hjaltalin.12 In addition, all but two o f the sagas were used as the basis for rimur, and these must obviously also be consid­ ered in any discussion of the sagas’ transmission. Some o f these rim ur were composed during Jón% lifetime and are preserved in manuscripts as old as or older than the oldest extant manuscripts o f the sagas on which they were based. As was mentioned in the previous chapter, rimur were not infrequently turned back into prose, the new versions circulating alongside the original sagas. An examination o f the manuscripts o f Jón’s sagas reveals there to be such younger versions of Bem ótus saga, Reimars saga9 and Marrons saga9 all deriving from rimur. The younger Bernotus saga came very close to replacing the original, being found in four manuscripts - all written by one man —while the original version on which the rimur were based is preserved in only a single manuscript, and that in rather poor condition. It is interesting to note that the rimur that spawned these prose retellings are all older than the rimur that did not, and appear also to have been more popular, being preserved in a greater number o f manuscripts and, in two o f the three cases, issued in popular printed editions around mid-century. While perhaps only coincidental, this does seem to suggest that given enough time and wide enough dissemination, most rimur would eventually be turned back into prose. In addition to circulating in manuscript, two of Jón’s sagas appeared in popular editions shortly after the turn o f the century.13The first o f these was Ketlerusar saga keisaraefnis: Riddarasaga, which was printed at Félagsprentsmiðjan in Reykjavik in 1905. Three years later, in 1908, Skúli Thoroddsen issued Sagan a f H inriki heilráða from Prentsmiðja Þjóðviljans at Bessastaðir, printed ac­ cording to the title page ‘Eptir gömlu handriti’ (‘from an old manuscript9). This was the first such saga published by Skúli, and the only one printed at Ðessastaðir. Popular editions o f this kind were, as was mentioned above, numerous in the decades on either side of the turn of the century. They were normally based on a single manuscript, usually - although, as with Hinriks saga, claims were some­ times made to the contrary - one not much older than the edition itself, and the

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editors were concerned only to produce an entertaining and readable text and not one faithful to any ‘originär. Thus, although printed, these editions were still very much a part o f the older tradition o f chirographic transmission, and were clearly - and often self-avowedly - intended to serve the same purpose: to be read aloud in the kvöldvaka, or ‘evening wake9.14 THE KVÖLDVAKA In its broadest sense the term kvöldvaka refers to the period o f the day, in win­ ter, during which the lamp was lit, i.e. from about an hour after sunset until the time when the members o f the household retired for the night. It is also com­ monly used to refer to a number of cultural practices associated with that pe­ riod, in particular the sagnaskemmtun (literally ‘saga-diversion'), the reading aloud o f sagas and recitation o f rimur and other poetry, a practice dating appar­ ently from the earliest times and surviving, in some places at least, into the present century. A good deal has been written on this practice, predominantly with reference to the middle ages, for the light it may be able to throw on the origins o f Icelandic saga-writing. The account o f the w edding-feast at Reykjahólar in 1119, mentioned briefly above, has in particular been the focus of scholarly attention.15 An understanding o f the institution o f the kvöldvaka is no less crucial to a study o f the popular literature o f post-medieval Iceland, however, as it provided the context for which, and in many cases also in which, the lygisögur and rimur were produced.

The first detailed contemporary descriptions of the kvöldvaka did not appear until the mid-eighteenth century,16 when two Icelandic students in Copenha­ gen, Eggert Ólafsson (1726-68) and Ðjami Pálsson (1719-79), were commis­ sioned by The Danish Academy o f Sciences (Videnskabernes Selskab) to travel round Iceland and report on the natural history, culture, and social conditions on the island This they did in the summers between 1750 and 1757. Their report, largely the work of Eggert, was published in Sorø in 1772 as Vice-Lavmand Eggert O lafsens og Land-Physici Biam e Povelsens Reise igiennem Island (‘ViceLawman Eggert Ólafsson’s and Physician General Bjarni Pálsson^s journey through Iceland9).17 Included in the description of each county (Danish syssel9 Icelandic sysla) is a section on ‘Tidsfordriv og Lystigheder9 (‘Pastimes and entertainments9); these sections, taken together, provide a great deal o f infor­ mation on popular cultural practices, in particular the practice o f sagnaskemmtun. The first and most lengthy description comes in the section on Kjósarsýsla (§

68):

Social texiuality: the lygisaga in context

August Schiøtt, ‘KvÖldvakan i sveit’, Þjóöminjasafn islands, Vid. 60. Den aUérformiftigste og nyttigste Tidsfordriv bliver vel uden Modsigelse, den i Island, fra de første Tider, vedtagne Maade, at læse offentlig de gamle Sagar, eller de i det Islandske Sprog forfattede Historier. Førend Islænderne begyndte for Alvor at skrive, (hvillæn Tid kan regnes at tage sin Begyndelse 200 Aar efter Landets første Beboelse), bleve saadanne Historier udi alle Samqvem mundtlig fortaalte af dem, der vare meest kyndige, veltalende og øvede i Kunsten, saasom der giæme vare nogle tilstede, især af Skaldene og de Fornemste, der med Flid lagde sig efter sligt. [...] Først i det 13de Hundrede-Aar begyndte Islænderne ret for Alvor at forfatte skriftligen saavel de indenlandske som andre nordiske Historier, og dog var endda den Skik brugelig, at fortælle Historier mundtligen [...]. Ja end i Dag fortælles de mundtligen i Island, især i Tuusmørket; men naar Lyset er tændt, beskikkes giæme en Dreng, som godt kan læse, eller en anden af Giæsteme, dertil; og hvis Huusbonden er en Elsker af Historier, laaner han hos Naboerne eller andre gode Venner, saa mange Sagar, som han kan være forsynet med for heele Vinteren; og herved bliver den Aibeidende munter og vaagen. For at giøre denne Tidsfordriv endnu behageligere, have Poeterne fra det 14de Hundrede-Aars Begyndelse, giort dem Umage for at oversætte Sagar paa Vers, hvilke almindeligen kaldes Riimur, og pleie at synges af een, med høi Røst, paa bemældte Tider.18

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The unwashed children o f Eve (The most sensible and profitable pastime remains without question the ancient practice of reading aloud the old sagas, that is stories written in the vernacular. Before the Icelanders began in earnest to write - which can be reckoned to have begun two hundred years after the settlement - such stories were told orally at all gatherings by those who were most knowl­ edgeable or best-spoken, or practised in this art, as there were often a few present, particularly skalds or chieftains, who diligently devoted them­ selves to these things. [...] It was not until the thirteenth century that Ice­ landers began in earnest to write stories about events in Iceland and else­ where in Scandinavia, but the practice of telling stories orally remained [...]. Even today stories are told orally in Iceland, particularly in the twi­ light; when the lamp has been lit, someone, often a bey who can read well or one of the guests, is chosen to read, and if the head of the household is a devotee of sagps, he will borrow from his neighbours or other good friends a sufficient number of sagas to last him the winter; and in this way the workers are kept contented and wakeful. To make this entertainment even more diverting poets have from the beginning of the fourteenth century occupied themselves with turning these sagas into verse, which generally are called rimur, which are customarily sung by one with a strong voice during these times.)

Here we have all the principal elements of the sagnaskemmtun. Eggert begins by stressing the central importance o f the kvöldvaka to Icelandic cultural life, its great age, and the fact that an oral tradition continued to exist alongside the younger written tradition. The factual information he provides - that the kvöldvaka did not begin until after the lamp had been lit, and that it was often a young boy or a guest who read - agrees fully with other, later, descriptions.19 Eggert also mentions how manuscripts were borrowed in order to ensure suffi­ cient reading material over the winter, and states also the point o f the exercise: to keep the people entertained- and awake - while they performed their evening tasks, which normally involved activities such as spinning, carding, and knit­ ting, relating to the working o f wool, a major export throughout the earlymodern period. Several o f the other references, while acknowledging the primacy o f the practice generally, provide only a minimum of information.20 In the description of Borgarfjörður, however, Eggert adds the information (§ 291) that such sagareadings are the principal source o f entertainment lei aleene om Vinter-Aftener, men og de Dage om Vinteren, naar Snee og Blæst holder alle Folk inde' (‘not only on winter evenings, but also during the day in winter, when snow and winds keep everyone indoors').21 The kvöldvaka, in other words, was exclu­ sively a winter activity, the winter according to the Icelandic calendar lasting from late October to late April.22 In his description o f Snæfellssýsla Eggert says (§ 519):

Social textuality: the lygisaga in context

41

Historiers Læsning og historiske Viiser, som kaldes Riimur, bruges meget om Vinteren i alle Fiskeleier; derfor ere de velkomne, som kunne læse godt den gamle Skrivt, og synge de paa Riim oversatte Historier Nogle have endog fortient sig Brod dermed. Her findes giærae Skalide, der giøre Haandværk af at oversætte paa Vers: Skade kun, at disse Folk tage i Flæng, og oversætte ligesaa giærne opdigtede og forargelige Historier, som de sande og ægte, hvilke ikkun faa viide at adskille.23 (Saga-reading and historical ballads; called rimur, are practised a great deal over the winter in the fishing stations, for which reason those people are welcome who are able to read the old script well or who can sing the metrical romances; a few even make their living in this way. Often poets meet here, who busy themselves turning [such sagas] into verse. It is only to be regretted that these people indiscriminately take fabricated and out­ rageous stories as readily as those that are true and proper, between which only a few of them are able to distinguish.)

This is important, too, because it shows that the sagnaskemmtun did not just take place on the farms, but was also common in the ‘Fiskeleier’, or fishing stations (Icelandic verstöðvar )ý2A where the men - principally farm-labourers came together every year in the early spring to fish.25 Rim ur9as has already been mentioned, were together with the sagas the most important literary genre in Iceland throughout the post-Reformation period, but, as we have also seen, the rimur-poet’s choice o f subject matter was fre­ quently criticised. Itinerant kvœðamenn, people who made their living going from farm to farm reciting rimur, were a common feature o f life in eighteenthand nineteenth-century Iceland, their numbers increasing after the hardships following the volcanic eruptions o f 1783-85. They were by all accounts a col­ ourful lot,26 and far from unwelcome on the farms. Þorkell Bjarnason says of them: Stöku menn, er vel þóttu kveða, fóru um tímum saman á vetuma með stóreflis-rímnabagga, og voru opt nálægt viku á bæ til þess aö kveða. Þóttu þeir beztu gestir, er enginn taldi eptir sjer að hýsa, en allir urðu fegnir að sjá.27 (Some men who were thought to chant well travelled round for long peri­ ods of time in the winter with huge collections of rimur, normally spend­ ing about a week at each farm reciting. They were considered excellent guests, whom no-one minded putting up, and everyone was happy to see.)

For Magnus Stephensen, however, such men were a particular bete noir9 and he condemned them at every opporunity. In Hjálprœði i neyó, mentioned in Chap­ ter I, a character complains that people should spend their time more profitably than listening to ‘sífeldt ólundar rímnagólid’ (‘the perpetual obnoxious bellow­

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ing o f rimur9) from a character named Hallvarður, ‘sem þid látid gánga á milli yckar til ad qveda helvitskt bullid og heimskuna’ (‘whom you allow to be among you, going from one house to the next, reciting this damnable rubbish and idiocy’);28 later in the work a clergyman urges his charges to read the Bœndapraktika ‘í stadinn rímna og marklauss þvættíngs, sem qvædamenn og þessháttar leti-magar hreppa-kellingast med bæ frá bæ ’ (‘instead of rimur and meaning­ less rubbish that kvœðamenn and such like layabouts go old-biddying with from farm to farm’).29 In his book Island i det Attende Aarhundrede ( ‘Iceland in the eighteenth century’), written in Danish and therefore chiefly for a Danish audience,30 Magnús provides a description of the kvoldvaka9 which, although highly criti­ cal o f the practice, is nevertheless revealing: I øvrigt forslaaer man Vinter-Afteneme, næsten i ethvert Huus, med bestandig Forelæsning af Søgur, fornemmelig de gamle, eller dog over 100 Aar; endog de smagløseste Fabler og urimeligste finde just ved denne Egenskab almindelig meest Behag, men ved de nyeste Skrivters Læsning [...] kjeder Mængden seg meget før, lukker dem snart i og griber flux efter en Olger Danske, og saadanne Fabler, som ere rige paa Underværker, Hexeog Spøgelse historier Disse især, samt overhoved alle gamle Historier, circulaire fra Huus til Huus, laanes til høi Forlæsning fra Bøigd til Bøigd, fra Syssel til Syssel, og skrives jevnlig af i store Samlinger, saavel som disse Ting udsatte paa Riim, de fleste høistelændige, hvoraf Samlingerne kaldes Rimur [...].31 (Generally winter evenings are spent, in almost every house, in the con­ stant recital of sögur, chiefly the old ones, those over a hundred years old; even the most tasteless and preposterous fables are - precisely because of these qualities - enjoyed the most; but the writings of the latest authors [...] the masses find boring in the utmost, close them quickly and immedi­ ately reach for Olger Danske and similar stories, which are full of marvels and tales of witches and ghosts. These in particular, along with all old stories, circulate from house to house, are lent to be read aloud from set­ tlement to settlement, from county to county, and are frequently made into large collections, as well as things in rhyme - for the most part utterly wretched - which are known, accordingly, as rimur [...].)

In his description o f the Westfjords (§ 607 [misprinted 907]), Eggert Ólafsson says that many o f the farmers there ‘have ellers saadan en Lyst til alleslags gamle og nye Historier, at de selv have færdige Copiister iblandt dem, som leve af at udskrive samme’ (‘have so great a love of sagas, both old and new, that they have among them ready copyists who have from this their livelihood’), adding however that ‘dog ere slige Udskrifter ei altid at lide paa’ (‘such copies are not always reliable’).32 The existence o f such semi-professional copyists as opposed to story-tellers and kvœðamenn - is attested to elsewhere, and they seem to have been part o f the tradition to the very last.33 Eggert Is reference to ‘gamle og nye Historier’ reminds us that sagas were continually being pro­ duced: this was in no way antiquarian interest, but rather a living tradition.

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43

The kvöldvaka was not infrequently commented on by foreign travellers to Ice­ land. Ebenezer Henderson included in his account o f his travels in Iceland in the winter o f 1814-15 the following description: A winter evening in an Icelandic family presents a scene in the highest degree interesting and pleasing. Between three and four o’clock the lamp is hung up in the badstofa, or principal apartment, which answers the dou­ ble purpose of a bed-chamber and sitting-room, and all the members o f the family take their station, with their work in their hands, on their re­ spective beds, all of which face each other. The master and mistress, to­ gether with the children, or other relations, occupy the beds at the inner end of the room; the rest are filled by the servants. The work is no sooner begun, than one of the family, selected on pur­ pose, advances to a seat near the lamp, and commences the evening lec­ ture, which generally consists of some old saga, or other such histories as are to be obtained on the island. Being but badly supplied with printed books, the Icelanders are under the necessity of copying such as they can get the loan of, which sufficiently accounts for the fact, that most of them write a hand equal in beauty to that of the ablest writing-masters in other parts of Europe. Some specimens of their Gothic writing is scarcely infe­ rior to copperplate. The reader is frequently interrupted, either by the head, or by some of the more intelligent members of the family, who make re­ marks on various parts of the story, and propose questions, with a view to exercise the ingenuity of the children and servants. In some houses the sagas are repeated by such as have got them by heart; and instances are not uncommon of itinerating historians, who gain a livelihood during the win­ ter, by staying at different farms till they have exhausted their stock of literary knowledge.34

William Jackson Hooker, who visited Iceland in the summer o f 1809, simi­ larly observed that ‘the amusements o f the Icelanders [...] are now almost en­ tirely confined to the reading or repeating one to another their ancient sagas: these are the delight o f the youth as well as o f the aged’. He adds, however, that: while the more authentic manucript histories of former times are the means of enabling them to retain and speak their language in its almost original purity, the mere traditionary ones are replete with absurd stories, that keep alive a love of the wonderful, and impress with superstitious notions the minds of almost all the lower class of people.33

The sagas read in the kvöldvaka, in other words, were more likely than not to have been ‘mere traditionary'fom aldar- and riddarasögur. In his bookíslenzkir þjóðhœ ttir (‘Icelandic folklore’), Jónas Jónasson fra Hrafnagili (1856-1918) says essentially the same thing, that what was read were chiefly ‘fomsögurnar, bæði íslendingasögur og Noregskonungasögur, Fornaldarsögur Norðurlanda qg 8VO riddarasögumar, sem þessi feikna sægur var til a f ’ (‘the old sagas, both sagas o f Icelanders and o f the Norwegian kings, fom aldarsögur, and then the riddarasögur, o f which there existed such a vast multitude*).36 Most o f these would have been in manuscript, particularly in the early part o f the period.

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Arní Sigurðsson, describing life in Ðreiðdalur, Eastern Iceland, in the middle of the nineteenth century, writes: 'Alls konar sögur, sem hægt var aö fá, vom lesnar: íslendingasögur, Noregskonungasögur, Jómsvíkings [sic] saga og Knytlinga, Fornaldarsögur Norðurlanda, riddarasögur margar. Flestar voruþæ r skrifaðar’ (‘All kinds of sagas that it was possible to procure were read: tsle n d in g a so g u r, sagas o f the N orw egian kings, Jó m sv ikin g a sa g a , Knytlingasaga, fom aldarsogary and many riddarasögur. Most o f them were in manuscript*).37 When popular printed editions began to appear in the second half o f the century, these too were read in the kvöldvaka ,M and the more schol­ arly saga editions produced in Copenhagen, although too expensive for most ordinary people, also found their way into some households.39 Folktales, too, once they had been collected and printed - íslenzk œfintýri appeared in 1852, tslenzkarþjóósögur og œflntýri in 1862-64 - began to be read in the kvöldvaka, rather than told as they had been traditionally.40 Jón Espólín’s islands Árbœkur í sögu-formi, which covered the history o f Iceland from 1262-1832 in annal form, were also commonly read in the kvöldvaka, as were, toward the end o f the century, the novels of Jón Thoroddsen, Pillur og stúlka (‘Lad and lass’) (1850) and Maður og kona (‘Man and woman’) (1876), the latter itself containing a lengthy description of a kvöldvaka scene 41 Less popular, but mentioned occa­ sionally in descriptions o f the kvöldvaka, are works such as Jón Þorláksson’s translation of Milton^ Paradise Lost (Copenhagen, 1828) and even Klopstock’s Messias (Copenhagen, 1834-38),42 although Ólafur Davíðsson claimed not to have heard o f a single person who had had the endurance to read the latter ‘spjaldanna milli’ (‘cover to cover’).43 The publications of the Leerdomslista­ ß la g and Landsuppfrceöingarßlag, Baldvin Einarsson’s Årmann å Alþingi - all mentioned in Chapter 1 - and journals such as Skim ir (Copenhagen/Reykjavik, 1827-), Fjölnir (Copenhagen, 183 5—47), Þjóðólfiir (Reykj avik, 1848-1919/20), and Norðanfari (Akureyri, 1862-85) were also read. In his article ‘Fyrir 40 árum’, Þorkell Bj amason says that for ordinary people the sagas were the un­ disputed favourites, however, and that other things, if read at all, were read in silence.44 After the Bible became widely available, in particular with the publication in 1813 o f the ‘Grútarbiblía’,45 there were those who tried to introduce the scriptures into the kvöldvaka as a substitute for the traditional sagas. This was not entirely successful, however, and gave rise among other things to the say­ ing, still current: ‘Ekki er gaman að guðspjöllunum; enginn er í þeim bardaginn’ (‘The gospels aren’t any fun; there's no fighting in them’).46

Precisely what form these readings took is difficult to establish. The active role played by the listeners, noted by Henderson in the passage cited above, is men­ tioned also in a description of the kvöldvaka, based presumably on first-hand observation, found among Eiríkur Magnússon’s (1833-1913) unpublished Cam­ bridge lectures on Icelandic culture:

Social textuality: the lygis aga in context

45

The interest taken in these readings is very remarkable. The handmaidens, as well as everybody else make their laconic remarks as the story de­ velops on the character of this or that hero, and on the tragic as well as the comic interest of the whole situation. The intelligence, yea even acuteness of artic perception which manifests itself in the remarks o f the women is often very striking.47

A few scholars have even suggested that written texts served merely as ‘prompt­ books' for an otherwise largely improvised oral performance.4* Very little in­ deed can be said with any certainty about the nature o f saga-reading in the kvoldvaka, but there is no hard evidence for its having been characterised by extensive improvisation. Henderson noted also that ‘In some houses the sagas are repeated by such as have got them by heart', but there is no way o f knowing how common a practice this was, nor what form such recitations may have taken, although the fact that those who told the stories are said to have ‘got them by heart’ suggests that no written sources were involved.49

In his description o f Kjósarsýsla, Eggert Ólafsson observed (§ 69) that ‘man kan overhovedet sige, at de gamle Historiers Læsning haver meget aftaget i Island i de sidste Hundrede Aar' (‘It may be said in general that the reading of sagas has declined greatly in Iceland over the past hundred years').50 There is no reason to doubt this. The hundred years before Eggert and Djarni's travels round Iceland, i.e. the period c. 1650-1750, saw, among other things, the in­ tense collection of manuscripts by foreign scholars and antiquaries, and the practice can only have been hard hit by the depletion o f the country's manu­ scripts. In Eggertb view, however, the main reason for this decline was that ‘de Fornemste have ikke nær saa stor Lyst dertil, som tilforn' (‘the highest ranking people do not have nearly the same interest in it as they did in the past').31 The sagnaskemmtuny in other words, had ceased to be the preferred form of enter­ tainment o f government officials, the clergy, and the richer class of farmers, a development analagous to the withdrawal of the upper classes from popular culture elsewhere in Europe at this time.52 John Barrow, who toured Iceland in the summer of 1834, noted that although the ‘supposed decline’ in the state of literature ‘is the subject of general complaint [...] in point o f fact it has only changed its character; and become more widely diffused': [...] the clergy, in particular, instead o f making or transcribing Eddas and Sagas (that is, poetical and historical romances), have left such reading and recitals mostly to the peasantry, while their own attention has been turned to sober history, to the collection and registration o f events, and digesting them into the shape of annals and chronicals, not only of what has passed in Iceland, but also in various parts of Europe. The history and literature of the more refined nations o f Europe now form a part of their studies.53

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Among the ordinary people the practice o f reading sagas aloud continued until the beginning o f the present century, despite various pronouncements as to its imminent demise, pronouncements questioned, with characteristic enthusiasm, by Ólafur Davíðsson: Eggert getur þess að sogulestur haíi minnkað mikið á íslandi, seinustu hundrað árin. Eins segir einhver i Nonðanfara [xxi, p. 31], að eptír 1880 hafi sögur verið lesnar miklu sjaldnar en áður. Þær hafa hlotið að vera lesnar frámunalega mikið áður, ef þetta er rétt hennt, þvi þann dag í dag eru sögur lesnar ákaflega mikið, þar sem eg þekki til og hefi spumir af, enda er sögulestur tal inn aðalskemtan sóknabúa i flestum sóknalýsingum.54 (Eggert [Ólafsson] says that saga-reading had diminished over the previ­ ous hundred years, and somebody in Norðanfari says that after 1880 sagas were read much less often than before. They must have been read an in­ credible amount before, if this is true, because to this day sagas are read a great deal in the places I know or have heard of; indeed, saga-reading is said to be the parishioners’ principal form of entertainment in the most of the Sóknalýsingar [Parish descriptions].)

This was in many ways wishful thinking, and even as Ólafur wrote the end o f the sagnaskemmtun as an institution was not far away. Jónas frá Hrafnagili noted that the practice was disappearing in most places, the reasons for which, he said, were that ‘Vinnukappiö er nú svo miklu minna, og hver les nú með sjálfum sér í sinu horni, það sem út kemur og gengur i lestrarfélogum’ (‘People’s will­ ingness to work is now so much less, and each person now reads to himself in his own corner the things that are published and circulate in the reading socie­ ties’).55 There were other reasons too. The pietistic reforms o f the eighteenth century had seen to it that at least one person could read in every household,56 but, at the same time, the steady increase in literacy during this period - universal literacy being achieved by the early nineteenth century - contributed in its own way to the demise of the practice of communal reading. So too did the great changes in social structure after about 1880.57 In any event, by the end of the century, in most households at least, the sagnaskemmtun had given way to private reading, with each person reading ‘to himself in his own comer’. THE EVIDENCE OF THE MANUSCRIPTS Medieval Icelandic scribes are almost invariably anonymous; where their iden­ tities are known it is usually through a comparison with legal documents, where it is often possible to link hands with names and places.5* It is also through a comparison with documents o f this kind and other types o f external evidence that it is possible to date literary manuscripts. From about the middle o f the seventeenth century, however, it became customary for scribes to date their manuscripts, and sometimes to identify themselves in a colophon. At about the

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same time title-pages began to appear, in imitation o f printed books. These, in addition to providing information concerning the identity of the scribe and date and place o f writing, frequently also indicate something o f the circumstances under which the manuscripts came into being, or the purpose for which they were intended. There are many examples o f title-pages among the manuscripts o f the sagas attributed to J6n Hjaltalin. These could be quite simple, consisting o f a simple descriptive title followed by the date and place of writing and the identity o f the scribe, such as Lbs 878 4to, ‘Sögubók skr. 1886-87 af Jóni Sturlaugssyni í Starkaðarhúsum’ (‘Saga book written 1886-87 by Jón Sturlaugsson from Starkaðarhús’); Lbs 3022 4to, ‘Gamlar Riddarasögr Skrifaðar a f Þorsteini Guðbrandssyni á Kaldrananesi 1876’ (‘Old romances written by Þorsteinn Guðbrandsson from Kaldrananes 1876’); or Lbs 4650 4to, ‘Fornmannasögur Skrifaðar á árunum 1890-91 af Guðmundi Þorbjamarsyni’ (‘Sagas o f ancient men, written in the years 1890-91 by Guðmundur Þorbjarnarson’). Titles could be longer and more detailed, such as that given on the title-page o f Lbs 1943 4to, ‘Nokkrar Sögur a f Fornaldarmönnumm Uppskrifaðar Eptir ymsum/n handritum Árinn 1877 og 78 af Ólafi Þoigeirssyni á Skáleý á Skarðsströnd’ (‘A few sagas o f ancient men, copied from various manuscripts in the years 1877 and 78 by Ólafiir Þoigeirsson, from Skáley, Skarðsströnd’). The link with the kvöldvaka is made explicit in the title given to Lbs 2787 8vo, ‘Ein Skjemtfleg Søgu Bók Innihalldandi nockrar Søgur til dægra stittjngar á kvøldumm j heima húsumm og fródleiks þeim sem eptir taka vilja Sämann sett og Skrifud a f Finni GyslaSini 1872' (‘An entertaining book containing a few sagas to pass the time in the evening at home and for the edification o f those willing to listen, put together and written by Finnur Gislason in 1872’). A list o f contents is sometimes also incorporated into the title or found on the title page, a practice which is also to be attributed to the influence o f printed books. The title-pagp o f Lbs 3123 4to, written in the latter half o f the nine­ teenth century in an unknown hand, reads: ‘Formanna Sögur af i. RJGAÐAL kóngi ok ALKANUS fóstbróðr huns ii. SJGURÐJ kø/igi þögla ok Fóstbræðrum hanns’ (‘Sagas o f ancient men, o f i. King Ri gabal and his swom-brother Alkanus, and ii. King Sigurður the silent and his sworn-brothers’). Lbs 4008 8vo bears the title ‘Æfinntýra Sögur’ (‘Sagas o f adventure’) anda list o f foursagas, ‘Sagann af Maroni Sterka’ among them; following this several rim ur and various other bits o f poetry are named, referred to collectively as ‘hitt og þetta smávegis’ (‘this and that trifle’). On the following page is also written: ‘Sögur þessar þrjár þær fyrstu em skrifaðar eptir handriti Vemharöar Vernharðssonar á Stokkseyri ár 1840’ (‘These first three sagas were copied from a manuscript from 1840 [written or owned?] by Vernhaiöur Vemharösson from Stokkseyri’). Such pre­ cise reference to an exemplar is rare; in this case it is o f little help, however, as no such manuscript has survived and although the rather distinctive name Vemharður is found in the area around Stokkseyri, no Vernharður Vernharðsson is listed in the censuses.

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Lbs 2787 8vo. The title-page of a collection of six sagas copied in 1872 by one Finnur Gislason, probably the man of this name who lived at Efsta-Syrupartur, Garðasókn, Ðoigarfjarðarsýsla. Photo: Landsbókasafn.

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It was also common to give titles to the individual sagas, whether or not the manuscript also had a title page. The most common form o f title is Saga(n) a f plus the name o f the hero, for example Lbs 1217 4to, ‘Saga af Demote Borneyar [Kappa]'; Lbs 4488 4to, ‘Sagan af Hinrik enum Heilráða’; or Lbs 996 4to, ‘Sagan af Marroni Sterka*. A few o f the scribes continue to use the more tradi­ tional incipit, e.g. ÍB 430 4to, ‘Hér skrifast Sagann a f Hinrik enumm Heílráða’ (‘Here is written the saga o f Hinrik, the wise o f counsel’). Many o f the titles and incipits reveal a tendency to rhetorical embellishment, which is effected through the addition either o f extra adjectives, as in Lbs 2784 4to, ‘Hér Hefur Sögima a f þeim Nafnfræga Rígabal Konungi’ (‘Here begins the saga o f the famous King Rígabal’), and Lbs 4982 4to, ‘Sagann af þeim fræga Hertoga Maroni sterka’ (‘The saga o f the famous Duke Maron the Strong’), or o f the name o f another character, usually the heroes foster-brother, e.g. Lbs 4358 8vo, ‘Sagan af Hinrik Heilrá[ða] og Húna af VenidigT(‘The saga o f Hinrik, the wise o f counsel, and Húni o f Venice’). This is more common with some sagas than others; all the extant manuscripts o f Reimars saga include the name o f his sworn-brother Falur, for example, reflecting the unusually active role he plays in the saga. In several manuscripts o f Natons saga the hero’s bride is named in the title, e.g. Lbs 4718 4to, ‘Sagan af Natoni persiska ok Flóridá Drottningu’ (‘The saga of Naton the Persian and Queen Florida’). Along with these titles or incipits there was also sometimes included infor­ mation regarding date and place o f copying, the identity o f the copyist, or the exemplar. The text o f Reimars saga preserved in ÍB 232 8vo, for example, is headed: ‘Hér hefur upp Söguna af Reimar keisara og Fal sterka m uppskrifuð arið 1854’ (‘Here begins the saga o f emperor Reimar and Falur the strong, newly copied in the year 1854’), while in Lbs 4008 8vo, following the title ‘Sagan af Maroni Sterka’, is written: ‘eptir gömlum handritum nú ad nýju uppskrifud árid 1893 af: Guðm. Guðmundssyni á Svartanúpi i Skaptártungu’ (‘Copied anew from old manuscripts in the year 1893 by Gu6m[undur] Guðmundsson from Svartinúpur, Skaftártunga’). Colophons o f one kind o^another are found in most o f the manuscripts, although not necessarily following every saga. Some are quite simple, such as in Lbs 878 4to, where following Marrons saga is written ‘18 Novinber 1886 JSturlaugsson Sth’ ( ‘18 November 1886, J[on] Sturlaugsson, St[arkaðar]h[úsum]’). More commonly, however, we find a formula beginningenduð (‘com­ pleted’) or skrifuð (‘written’), e.g. the colophon to the text o f Natons saga preserved in Lbs 2784 4to, which reads ‘Enduð 10. Janúar 1879. a f Ejónssyni’ (‘Completed 10 January 1879 by E[inar] Jónsson’). T\venty-two of the texts of Jón Hjaltalin’s sagas end with such colophons, the dates ranging from 29 Octo­ ber to 27 May. The distribution by month is as follows: October November December

1 3 5

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January February March April May

5 4 1 1 2

Apart from the two in May, the number of texts per month corresponds ex­ actly to the duration o f the kvöldvaka, which was itself determined by the length of the day: the less daylight available, the longer the people were obliged to spend indoors.59Thus nearly half the texts were written in December and Janu­ ary, with two said to have been completed on New'Yearfc Eve. Even where there are no such colophons, it is plain from the dating on the title-pages of many o f the manuscripts - normally something like ‘1877-78* - that the copying took place over the winter months. Where the scribes can be identified, compari­ son with the censuses can reveal their ages at the time of copying. One, Friðrik Jónsson from Rifgirðingar,60 even states his age: following the last of four texts in his hand in a manuscript owned by Bragi Húnfjörð, Stykkishólmur, is written ‘Þessar sögur eru uppskrifadar af Fridriki Jónssyni á Rifgyrdíngum Veturinn 1883 af 62 ára gömlum/w kalli’ (‘These sagas were copied by Friðrik Jönsson from Rifgiröingar in the winter of 1883 by a sixtytwo year old man*). Several of the scribes were still in their teens. Jón Sturlaugsson completed his text Þorvaldur Skúlason Sivertsen of Marrons saga on 18 November 1886, five days (1859-1919), Hrappsey, Skarðs- after his eighteenth birthday; Þ orsteinn strönd. Þjóðminjasafh islands, Guðbrandsson and Ólafiir Jönsson were also only MMS 19854. eighteen when they produced, respectively, Lbs 3022 4to and Lbs 1660 4to, and Þ orvaldur Sivertsen only nineteen when he wrote Lbs 3164 4to. At the other end of the spectrum we have Andrés Hákonarson, who must have been about seventy when he copied Lbs 4982 4to, while Magnús Jönsson i Tjaldanesi, about whom more will be said below, was still producing manuscripts at eighty. Copying was clearly a lifelong activity. From the colophons it is also possible to get an idea of how long the copying process took. Magnus Arason’s text o f Natons saga, preserved in Lbs 4487 4to, was ‘Enduð á Kaldrana Nesi 17 Febrúar’ (‘Completed at Kaldrananes 17 Febru­ ary’), to which Magnus has added underneath ‘byquð 8 sama mánaðar’ (‘begun the 8th o f the same month’), indicating that it took him only ten days to copy the 34-page text, some 8,000 words. The second saga in the manuscript, Remundar saga Ríkaróssonar, although considerably longer, apparently took a similar amount

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o f time to copy; it was begun on the 17th - the same day as Natans saga was completed - and finished on the 27th. The third saga, Mirmanns saga, was com­ pleted 6 March, only eight days later, all the more remarkable in that it is said to have been completed at Gjögur, the site of a large fishing station, some 30 km north o f Kaldrananes. The next text, Marrons saga, was also copied at Gjögur, but not completed until a month later, 6 April 1879, Magnús presumably having other things to occupy his time.61 One common tqpos in the colophons is the scribe fe claim to have copied his text in haste. After the text o f Marrons saga in Lbs 996 4to the scribe has written ‘Skrifud í Hrappsey í flítir í Febniar 1870 afSkThS9(‘Written in Hrappsey in haste in February 1870 by SkThS [i.e. Skúli Þ. Sivertsen]9). In a colophon to another text o f Marrons saga, found in MS no. 3 in 4to in the collection o f Karl Jönsson from Purkey, Ólafur Þorgeirsson from Skáley says his text was ‘Párað í flítir ár 1875’ ( ‘Scribbled in haste in the year 18759). Following the text o f Hrings saga found in Lbs 1660 4to, the scribe has written, among other things: ‘Olafr Jónsson skrifadi þessa sögu þó illa sé gért og var þad vegna þess hann flýtti sér9(‘Ólafur Jönsson copied this saga; it is badly done, though, and that is because he hurried9). This shrift is then signed ‘O Jonsson’, but for some reason he, or someone else, has subsequently enclosed these lines in brackets and struck them out. The same kind o f ‘scribal modesty9presumably lies behind John J. Westman *s inclusion o f the following verse, one still known by every school-child in Ice­ land: Skriftinn min er stafa stor stilað jlla letur það er eins og kattar klór eg kann það ekki betur62 (My script is clumsy, the letters ill-formed; it is like cat-scratches; I can’t do any better.)

The presence o f a colophon is not always a guarantee that the indentity of the copyist can be established, and here a certain playfulness among Icelandic scribes is revealed. There is no colophon after the text o f Reimars saga found in Lbs 96 8vo, but following the first saga, Likafróns saga, the scribe has rather unhelpfully written: ‘Þessi saga er skrifud árid 1850 af þeim er ritadi hana9(‘This saga was copied in the year 1850 by him who transcribed it9). In a number o f manuscripts the copyists employ ciphers when writing their names or initials. Ólafur Þorgeirsson from Skáley, for example, writes his name ‘ 14.25.1 8 \ i.e. ‘O.Þ.S.9, in a colophon to the text of M atrons saga mentioned above as having been written in haste, and in Lbs 1943 4to there is a text of H inriks saga said to have been ‘Enduð annann laugardag í þorra 1877° af

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Lbs 4412 4to. The title-page to ‘Faaeinar Fornmanna Søgur’ (4A few sagas of ancient men’), written c. 1850 by Jón Halldórsson (1815-73) at Lækjarkot, Borgarhreppur, also containing material copied by his father Halldor Gudmundsson (1791-1870). Jón writes his name using a common replacement cipher. Following the title is written ‘Hvad sannferdugt er vita aliir 6 skijrdir ad eg meina Macómet^istar hvad a seima partinum siest rissad’ (‘What is true know all [who are] unbaptised, [by which] I mean Muhammadans, which can be seen scrawled in the second part’), the meaning of which is obscure. Photo: Landsbókasafn.

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14-25.18* (‘Completed the second Saturday in þorri 1877, by 14.25.18’). In ÍÐR 43 8vo Gisli Þonnóðsson from Lambastaðir writes his name after the text of Marrons saga in something resembling Greek characters (e.g. theta for þ \ and similar characters are used by Jón Halldórsson on the title page o f Lbs 4412 4to, a manuscript containing a text of Reimars saga. In none o f these cases is there any difficulty in determining the identity of the scribe, nor does obfuscation appear to have been the intention. Ólafur Þorgeirsson, while using the cipher ’14.25.18’ in the colophons o f Lbs 1943 4to, writes his name in full on the title page. Jóhannes Jónsson i Smyrlahóli, similarly, frequently writes his initials ‘L.L.R.’ in his colophons, but uses 4 in other colophons in the same manuscripts, and usually gives his full name on the title page. This is not the case with Lbs 4358 8vo, a manuscript containing ‘Sagan afHinrik Heilrá[ða] og Húna af Venidig’. Following the text o f the saga is written ‘1882 Skrifuð af Wlddtz Eblexu Ælpdxzzed’. The word ‘Kapítuli’ (‘Chapter’) is occasionally also written in similar ciphers: thrice ‘Hxqlgyil’, twice ‘Prmelþse’, and once each ‘Blnaxöæa’, ‘Frmaqxba’, and once with in­ vented characters. The cipher used in ‘Hxqlgyil’ is a simple displacement ci­ pher found in other manuscripts, but the others are less easy to crack, and the identity of ‘Wlddtz Eblexu Ælpdxzzed’ - which is presumably in the dative, as it follows the preposition a f - remains a mystery. There is a title page, but a large (approximately 10 x 10 cm) square has been cut away from the bottom right-hand comer, at the top o f which an a and the bottom of a n /a re still visible, suggesting that the name of the scribe may have appeared in this space (i.e. skrifað a f . ‘written by...’); possibly a coincidence, but certainly frustrating.64

On the basis o f the information provided by titles and colophons, over two thirds o f the preserved manuscripts of the sagas attributed to Jón Hjaltalin can be traced to western Iceland - twenty-nine from Dalasýsla, seven from BorgarfjqEur, three from Snæfellsnes, and one from Mýrasýsla - and a further five are from the coun­ ties to the north, two each from from Strandasýsla and Húnavatnssýsla, and one from ísafjarðarsýsla. In ten cases the scribes are unidentified - or unidentifiable and there is no indication of place of writing, but here too the manuscripts some­ times contain information on their provenance. The leaf on which the scribe o f Lbs 96 8vo identifies himself merely as ‘him who transcribed it’ appears origi­ nally to have been used as an envelope; written vertically in large script is ‘Velæruverdigum herra prcstinum O E Johnsen’ (‘ [To] the most venerable rev. O. E. Johnsen’). This is presumably Ólafur Einarsson Johnsen (1809-85), who lived at Breiðabólsstaður, Skógarströnd from 1837 to 1840, but would have been at Staður on Reylqanes, Barðarstrandasýsla when this manuscript was written.65 The oldest o f the preserved manuscripts of Hinriks sagay ÍB 430 4to, was written c 1850 by an unknown scribe, but the words ‘Skagaströnd Blöndös’, written on p.

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11, indicate a connexion with Húnavatnssýsla. Another manuscript o f Hinriks saga, Lbs 4488 4to, a collection of twelve sagas written in an unknown hand from the late nineteenth century, has the name Þórður Þórarinsson written in several places, and also the name o f his farm, Ytri-Bugur on Snæfellsnes * Similarly, the hand on the late nineteenth-century manuscript Lbs 3891 4to, which contains a text o f Ketlerus saga, cannot be identified, but there are several names written in the manuscript, among them that o f Torfi Bjarnason, who lived at Ólafsdalur, Saurbæjarsveit, Dalasýsla.67 In this way, half of these ten manuscripts can also be linked to Snæfellsnes, Dalasýsla, or the surrounding counties.68 This is in no way surprising, since the dissemination of these texts must have had its epicentre at Breiðabólsstaðun Direct links to Jón Hjaltalfn are rare, however; and almost never without ambivalence. Lbs 1217 4to, a manuscript written in 1817 at Stóra-Vatnshorn in Haukadalur, Dalasýsla, contains texts o f two sagas attributed to Jón, Bem ótus saga and Rigabals saga, the latter unfortunately defective. Apart from the autograph fragment o f Matrons saga this is the oldest manuscript of any o f the sagas attributed to Jón, and is doubly important as the only extant manuscript of the original version o f Bernótus saga, the others, as was mentioned above, being derived from the rimur. After the (incomplete) text of Faustus saga ogErm engjå9the scribe, who identifies himself only as ‘J.XS.’ or ‘J. Jónsson’,69 writes the following verse: Büinft saga Bemótý af bök hä Sera Jöni med Rigabals met eg þvý Mýrmants Natens og Faustý (Completed [is] the saga of Bemótus, trom a book from sr. Jón; I rank it alongside the sagas of Rigabal, Mirmann, Naton, and Faustus.)

The presence here o f the names of the heroes of three of Jón Hjaltalfn’s sagas - Naton is mentioned, in addition to Ðemótus and Rigabal, so the manuscript may originally also have contained a text of Nalons saga - suggests that, al­ though hardly an uncommon name at the time, the sr. Jón from whom ‘J.J.S.’ got his exemplar might well have been the author himself.70 What appears to be a firmer link to J6n is found following the text o f Hrings saga preserved in Lbs 1660 4to, mentioned briefly above. The scribe, the eighteen-year-old Ólafur Jónsson, writes: ‘Ofan71 skrifud saga er uppdiktud af síra Jóni Hjaltalfn gamla og eptir hans eigin handarriti uppskrifud, hvad ed var mjög ilt ad lesa því þad var bundin72 settleturshönd Vitnar OJónsson’ (*The above-written saga was composed by the old sr. Jón Hjaltalfn and copied from his own autograph manuscript, which was very difficult to read because it was written in an abbreviated gothic hand. Witnessed, Ó. Jonsson.’) While Ólafurfe attribution o f the authorship of the saga to Jón must, as I have said previously, be regarded as suspect, he may well have got his exemplar from him, and perhaps knowing Jón to have written sagas himself, Ólafur may simply have

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assumed a saga in fais hand to be one written by him. There can be no question about the attribution found in Lbs 3810 8vo, one o f the two manuscripts containing texts o f Fimmbrœðra saga (the other being a copy o f this one), as the scribe is Sigurður Jósepsson Hjaltalin, Jonis grand­ son. Following his text, Sigurður writes: Uppskriíuð eptir handríti afa mins sal. Sra Jóns Hjaltalins er eg hefi feingið hér i nordurlandi, og veit eg þessa sogn hvoigi til áður, blöðin v6ni sundur laus og viða hvar rutin svo eg vaid sumstaðar ad smiða ord inni, emt efnið hefurþó haldið séróbreitt; Enduð 8* Mal 1870, að Melrakkadalogsamdægurs géfín Dóttir minm: Helgu Gróu,73 og er hún þvi réttur eigandi þessarar Sögu. vitnar SJHjaltalín (Copied from a manuscript of my late grandfather, sr. Jón Hjaltalin, which I have found here in the north; I do not know of any other copy. The pages were loose and in many places mouldering so that I had in places to fill in words, but the content has remained unadulterated. Completed 8 May 1870 at Melrakkadahir and presented this same day to my daughter Helga Gróa, who is therefore the rightful owner of this saga. Witnessed, S. J. Hjaltalin.)

It is significant that Sigurður says only that the manuscript was in his grandfa­ ther^ hand, and not that he was the author o f the saga, something he is certainly likely to have known. The explanation that most readily suggests itself is that for the people who read, copied, and even wrote them, these sagas were not thought o f as being ‘by’ anyone. Magnus Jonsson i Tjaldanesi Among the last and certainly the most prolific o f the great scribes was Magnús Jónsson i Tjaldanesi (1835-1922), in whose hand are preserved no fewer than nineteen o f the seventy-three texts o f Jón’k sagas, including four o f the five extant texts o f Bem åtus saga and three o f the five of Sarpidons saga. These texts are part o f the huge collection he called ‘Fornmannasögur Norðurlanda’ (‘Sagas o f the ancient men o f the north’), the production o f which took the better part o f his adult life. There is a full set in Landsbókasafn (Lbs 14911510 4to), written between 1880 and 1905 and sold by Magnús himself to Landsbókasafh in 1909. This set comprises twenty volumes, each containing on average 800 pages, and preserves texts o f 171 sagas altogether, almost ex­ clusively fom aldar- and riddarasögur?4 Copies of at least eleven o f the vol­ umes also exist separately, four in Landsbókasafn, Lbs 1626 4to, 2943 4to, 4718 4to, and4940 4to, and seven in private ownership. Siguigeir Steingrimsson o f Stofnun Árna Magnússonar and Björn Halldórsson, Reykjavik, own one each, written by Magnús in 1880 and 1904 respectively, and in the library o f Ðöðvar

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Kvaran, Reylgavik, there are five, written between 1911 and 1914. Although all are called Tommannasögur Norðurlanda’ on the title-pages and contain princi­ pally the same sagas, these volumes do not in every case correspond to the volumes in Landsbókasafn. Thus texts o f Rigabals saga are found in two manu­ scripts in Landsbókasafn said to be ‘Fornmannasögur’ vol. xiii, and a third in the collection o f Böðvar Kvaran said to be vol. ii. In addition to these, four manuscripts in Magnus’s hand are found in the University Library in Oslo, UB 1156-9 8VO,75 preserving texts o f eighteen sagas. Although these are almost exclusively fornaldar- and riddarasogury none o f the volumes bears the title ‘Fornmannasögur Norðurlanda’, suggesting that these manuscripts are older than the earliest4Fommannasogur’ volumes, that is to say written before 1880. The palaeography and orthography of the manuscripts support this; Magnús’s distinctive, almost uncial, script is clearly not yet fully formed, and he is incon­ sistent in his use o f archaisms - spellings such as oJfc, at, and ory for ogy aðy and úry and older grammatical forms (not all o f them correct), such as hefi and hefir for h e f and hefiir - a characteristic feature o f Magnus’Ss later texts.76 Most o f the ‘Fommannasogur’ volumes, at least those written after 1888, include a preface. Here, as in certain other features o f the manuscripts running titles, for example - Magnús is certainly imitating the scholarly edi­ tions o f Old Icelandic texts that had begun to appear in Copenhagen in the latter half o f the nineteenth century; the prefaces are even paginated using Ro­ man numerals. In them Magnus typically discusses his exemplar and its rela­ tion to other copies seen by him or known by him to exist, on the basis o f which he speculates on the saga’s age, assuming, not unreasonably, that the more widely disseminated a saga is the older it is likely to be. The prefaces depict a world far removed from that of the philologist, however, providing instead a invaluable glimpse into the world of chirographic transmission. The following, the preface to Magnús’s text o f Sarpidons saga, is typical: Saga af Sarpidon sterka ok köppum hans. Ek hefi skrifað þessa sögu eptir handriti Gísla Hjaltasonar í Búðardal,77er hann léði mér til afskriptar, en hann skrifaði hana eptir einhverri sögubók - liklega undir Jökli - en ek man ecki hvort hann hefr gert mér grein fyrir því, hvar hann feck þessa sögu, en hann mun hafa skrifað hana fyrir æði mörgum árum. Lengi var þat at ek spurði ecki til Sarpidons sögu nema þessarar einu, þangað til ek feck hana ásamt fleyri sögum & æfintýrum frá Bjama í Viðfirði78 ok er ek bar sögumar saman, vóru þær at mestu leiti eins. Þat er þvi at Sarpidons saga er, ok mun hafa verit til viðsvegar um landið, en um gildi hennar ok aldr get ek fått sagt; ecki hefi ek heyrt getið um Sarpedons rimur.79 (I copied this saga from a manuscript by Gisli Hjaltason in Búðardalur that he lent me to copy; he had copied it from some manuscript, probably from Snæfellsnes, but I don’t recall whether he told me where he had got the

(Above) Magnús Jónsson (18351922) from Tjaldanes, Dalasýsla.

(Above) Sigurður Jósepsson Hjaltalín (182298), silversmith, grandson of sr. Jón Hjaltalín. Þjóðminjasafh islands.

(Above) Skúli Þ. Sivertsen (18351912) from Hrappsey, Skarðsströnd.

(Left) Lbs. 1503 4to. The title-page of Magnús Jónsson’s ‘Formnannasögur N orðurlanda', vol. X III, written in 1905. Landsbókasafh.

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The unwashed children o f Eve saga, but he copied it a great many years ago. For a long time I heard of no other copy apart from this one, until I got a copy along with other sagas and tales {œfintýri) from Bjarai í Viðfirði, and when 1 compared the two texts they were for the most part the same. Therefore ‘Sarpidons saga* is and must have been found throughout the country, but regarding its value and age I can say little. I am not familiar with any 'Sarpidons rímur’.)

The manuscripts Magnús refers to here do not appear to have survived, nor do Gísli Hjaltason í Búðardal or Bjami Sveinsson í Viðfirði play any part in the transmission o f any of the other sagas attributed to Jón, although Bjami íViðfirði at least was a well-known scribe, in whose hand are found a number o f manu­ scripts o f rimur and poetry.00 In general Magnús seems to have been in touch with most o f the more active scribes of his day, and the fact that he gets mate­ rial from as far afield as Viðfjörður in Eastern Iceland shows that this scribal network extended over the entire country. Many o f the names Magniis mentions in his prefaces do crop up elsewhere in the history of the transmission of Jón Hjaltalin’s sagas. Magnús claims, for example, in his preface to Ketlerus saga, to have got his exemplar from Skúli Þ. Sivertsen81 from Hrappsey: Ketlerusar saga ‘keisaraefhis’ er til min komin frá Skúla Sivertsen í Hrappsey, feck ek hana hjá honum til afskriftar; þar með var saga af Goðleyfí prúða.® Þat ætla ek vist at sögur þessar hafi hann fengit—eða Hilf kona hans - úr Húnavatnssýslu; ek veit ecki frá hveijum; skrifað var aptan við Ketlerusar sögu: ‘enduð á Helgavatni anno 1827 3 april, J J - ok er hin gamansamlegasta’ ecki veit ek meira um þetta. En um aðra þessa sögu Ketlerusar - ecki Goðleyfs - hefi ek ecki nockurstaðar sét eða heirt getið um aðra en þessa einu; mim hún þvi ecki vera til víða, sýzt á vestrlandi. Þar á móti er Goðleifs saga allviða til í afskriptum en sú saga fmst mér ecki taka hinni fram i neinu hvorki at efni né orðfæri.83 (Ketlerus saga *kei saraefhi’ came to me from Skúli Sivertsen from Hrappsey; I borrowed it from him to be able to copy it There was also included a saga of Goðleifur the proud. 1 am certain that he or his wife Hilf had got these sagas from Húnavatnssýsla; I don’t know from whom. At the end of Ketlerus saga was written: ‘completed at Helgavatn, 3 April, 1827, J.J. - and most entertaining’. I know nothing more about it. But concerning other copies of this saga - of Ketlerus, not Goðleiftir - I have neither seen nor heard mention of any other but this one; it is therefore not widely found, at least not here in the west. Copies of Goðleifs saga, on the other hand, are found quite widely, but that saga seems to me to have nothing on the other one, neither in subject matter nor style.)

Here again, the manuscript to which Magnus refers does not appear to have survived. I assume Magnús to mean that the manuscript he copied the saga from was one in Skúli^s possession, rather than in his hand, and that the writer was ‘J.J.’ from Helgavatn, whose identity is as unclear to me as it was to him: Hlíf Jónsdóttir, Skúli Sivertsen’s wife, was indeed from Helgavatn, but her fa-

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ther was Ólafsson. Although Skúli himself seems not to have copied Ketlerus saga - no copy, at least, has survived - there are copies of M atrons saga and Natons saga in his hand, as well as a text o f Goðleifs saga prúða.

The source for several of Magnus’s exemplars was Ólafur Þorgeirsson (182694)“ from Skáley, which, like Hrappsey, was one of the islands known collec­ tively as ‘Frameyjar’ along the northern side o f Hvammsfjörður, directly across the fjord from Ðreiðabólsstaður. In his preface to Hinriks saga Magnús says: Saga af Hinriki heilráða. Hana hefi ek skrifað eptir bók er átti Ólafr Þorgeirsson í Skáley, þessa sogubók hafði Ólafr sjálfr skrifað, at hann sagði uppór sögubók, er Ólafr gamli Sveinsson i Purkey hafði skrífað 1747, at því er Ólafr hefr sagt. Sögu þessa hefi ek hvergi sét annarstaðar.*5 (The ‘Saga af Hinrík heilráða’ 1 copied from a manuscript belonging to Ólafur Þorgeirsson from Skáley. Ólafur had copied this manuscript him­ self, he said, from a manuscript that old Ólafur Sveinsson from Purkey had written in 1747, according to what Ólafur [Þorgeirsson] had said. I have not seen this saga elsewhere.)

The year 1747 can hardly be correct, as Ólafur Sveinsson was not born until 1761 or 62“ - and Jón Hjaltalin, whom we are assuming was the author o f the saga, not until 1749 - but Magnúsfc exemplar could well have come from Ólafur Þorgeirsson. We have in fact something o f an embarras de richesses here, in that there are two manuscripts of Hinriks saga in Ólafiir’s hand, Lbs 1943 4to, ‘Nokkrar Sögur af Fomaldarmönnum Uppskrifaðar Eptir ymsum handritum Árinn 1877 og 78 af Ólafi Þorgeirssyni á Skáleý á Skarðsströnd’ (4A few sagas o f ancient men, copied from various manuscripts in the years 1877 and 78 by Ólafur Þorgeirsson, from Skáley, Skarðsströnd’), and MS no. 2 in 4to in the collection o f Bragi Húnfjörö, completed according to the colophon in Purkey, another o f the ‘Frameyjar’, in November 1884. The texts are similar enough so that either one could have served as Magnús’s exemplar, but the fact that he claims the same manuscript furnished him with a text of Hrings sagaF suggests it was probably the later one, since a text o f that saga is also preserved there.

Another source for many o f Magnuses exemplars was Guðbrandur Sturlaugsson (1820-97),“ who lived most o f his life at Hvitidalur, only about eight kilome­ tres from Tjaldanes. In his preface to Lbs 4940 4to,“ Magnus explains how, after many trials and false leads, he was able to get a copy o f Rigabals saga from, or rather through, Guðbrandur: Þessa sogu skrifaði ek úngr á Stað á Reykjanesi eptir söguskrsðu sem Kristján Einarsson á Grónesi útvegaði mér, en fóstrfaöir hans Ólafr Gudmundsson &Grónesi90mun hafa átt hana. Síðan glataði ek sögu þe/ni

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The unwashed children o f Eve sem ek skrifaði, ok gat hvergi fengit hana aptr hvar sem ek lýndi eptir, mér var sagt hón værí til i þersum ok hinum stad, en þegar ek lagði drog til at få hana þá var hón ecki til eða glötuð, sama var um Grónes skrœðuna þegar ek reyndi at fá hana aptr, þá var hón hvergi til, ok vist undir lok liðin fyrir löngu. Loks gat Guðbrandr á Hvitadal fengit hana átján hw/idmt áttatýgi ok nýu hjá Sigurði Amasyni i Kirkjuhvammi51 eða fyrir Sigurðar milligöngu norðan úr Fljótum at hann sagðí, og svo feck ek hana hjá Guðbrandi; hvort þe?sari ber saman við þá sem ek átti, man ek ecki vel, þó mun ecki mikit á milli bera, hvort þ m i saga er gömul eða ný get ek ecki sagt neitt um, en margir gamlir menn hafa heyrt hennar getið í sinu úngdœmi, ok bendir þat til at hón sé ecki mjök úng. (When 1 was young I copied this saga at Staður in Reykjanes from an old manuscript that Kristján Einarsson from Grónes got for me and was owned by his foster-father, ólafiir Gudmundsson from Grónes. Later I lost the copy 1 had made and was unable to get another anywhere, no matter where 1 looked; I was told there were copies in this place or that, but whenever I tried to get hold of them they were not there or had been lost, and it was the same with the Grónes manuscript; when I tried to get hold of it again it was nowhere to be found and obviously long gone. Finally Gudbrandur i Hvitadal was able to get a copy in 1889 from Sigurdur Árnason from Kirkjuhvammur, or rather through his agency, from up north in Fljót he said, and then I borrowed it from Gudbrandur. Whether this one is the same as the one I had I can’t remember clearly, but there can’t be a very great difference between them. Whether this saga is old or young I can’t say anything about, but many old men had heard of it in their childhood, which indicates that it isn’t very young.)

Texts of five sagas attributed to Jón Hjaltalin have been preserved in Guðbrandur’s hand, including one of Rigabals saga. They are found in three manuscripts formerly owned by Samson Jónsson, Bugðustaðir, Dalasýsla, now in the pos­ session o f his son, Jón Samsonarson, of Stofnun Árna M agnússonar in Reykjavik.52 The first manuscript, written 1871-72, is entitled ‘Fommanna-sögur’ and contains texts of eight sagas, Ketlerus saga among them - this is, in fact, the oldest extant text o f that saga. Rigabals saga is found in the second manuscript, which contains seven other texts, including Natons saga and Marrons saga. There is no title-page, but following a list of contents Guðbrandur says that he wrote the manuscript 'til gamans og dægrastyttingar’ ('for pleasure and diver­ sion’) in 1872, indicating that if Magnus’s date is correct - which it need not be - there is no reason to assume a direct connexion between this text and the text Guðbrandur procured for Magnús. The two texts are quite similar, however, and both appear to derive from Lbs 1217 4to, the text of which, as was mentioned above, is defective, only the first ten chapters (of twenty) being preserved.

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Lbs 1503 4to. Magnús Jónsson's preface to his text of Rigabals saga . Landsbókasafh. Photo: Landsbókasafh.

In addition to the full text of N a to n s s a g a on pp. 174—224, the beginning of the saga can also be found on the last three pages (pp. 478-80) o f the manu­ script.93 At the top of the first of these pages, on either side on the title, Guðbrandur has written ‘Natoni Persiska, hun er hér framar í bökinni hun er einsog aðrar riddara sögur nokkuð ótrúlig’ {"N atons s a g a is here further for­ ward in the book - it is, like other romances, somewhat unbelievable’). Follow­ ing the full text o f the saga he writes ‘Þessi saga er ei merkileg og ilia samin og mun litil tilhæfa vera i henni og hef eg skrifad hana ad gamni minu’ (‘This saga is unremarkable and badly written and there is little truth in it and I have copied it for my amusement9). It is interesting that a man who copied over fifty sagas o f this kind should still feel the need to excuse their being fiction. The third manuscript in Guðbrandurh hand was written in 1887. It is more a miscellany than a collection of sagas, containing twelve items altogether, in­ cluding two ‘Ættartolur’ (‘genealogies’), one o f Egill Skallagrimsson, the other, compiled by Guðbrandur himself, o f Halldór Snorrason, following the þ á ttu r about him. There are also texts of ö lk q jr a þ á ttu r , the ‘Vinland sagas’, i.e. E i r i k þ á í t r ra u ð a , Þ o tjin n s sa g a k a tise fn is , and G rœ n len d in g a þ á ttu r , and G unnars sa g a K eld u g n ú p sfifls , one o f the ‘post-classical ’ tsle n d in g a so g u r . There are also copies of Gísli Konráðsson’s H ellism a n n a sa g a , written about 1830, and Gunnar Pálsson’s ‘Gunnars slagur’, an eighteenth-century heroic poem in Eddie metre. There are only two romances, ‘Sagan af Huld drottningu hinni ríku’ and Jón Hjaltalin’s R e im a rs s a g a . Despite this relative paucity o f ly g isa g a material, the volume is entitled ‘Fornaldarsögr Norðurlanda. Að nýu uppskrifaðar áriö

(Right) Guðbrandur Sturlaug sson (1820-97) from Hvítidalur, Dalasýsla, in whose hand are preserved texts o f five o f the sagas attributed to Jón Hjaltalin. Þjóðminjasafn islands, MMS 20217. (Below) The title-page of a collection of eight sagas copied by Guðbrandur Sturlaugsson over the winter 1871-72, now in the possession of Jón Samsonarson, Stofiiun Áma Magnússonar, Reykjavik. Photo: Johanna Ólafsdóttir.

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MDCCCLXXXVn’ (‘Sagas of the ancient men o f the north, newly copied in the year 1887')- The tide alone would be enough to suggest some connexion with Magnús i Tjaldanesi, and in fact this title page is in Magnus’s hand, show­ ing that the manuscript must have been in his possession at some point. Magnús’s own text o f Reimars saga, found in Lbs 1495 4to, written the following year, preserves essentially the same text, one that differs markedly from that found in the four older manuscripts o f the saga. A comparison with the Rimur a f Reim an ogF al, composed in 1832 by Hákon Hákonarson i Brokey (a 1793-1863),94 reveals this to be a younger version o f the saga derived from them.95 Although the most obvious scenario is that Magnús simply copied Guðbrandur's text, it is worth noting that Magnús appears to have owned a copy o f the rimur, now Lbs 3567 8vo, written in the first half o f the nineteenth century,96 and it is therefore possible that it was he who produced this younger redaction, subsequently lending his text to Guðbrandur.

As was mentioned above;» rimur are also behind the texts oi lour of the five extant manuscripts o f Bem otus saga, written by Magnus over a period of per­ haps forty years, and preserving a version of the saga differing greatly from that of the other manuscript, Lbs 1217 4to, which was written at Stóra-Vatnshom in 1817. In the preface to the saga found in the youngest manuscript, written in 1913, Magnús writes: Ðók sú er ek skrifaði Bemótusar sogu eptir var fyrrum eign Þorleyfs Jónssonar i Hvammi i Hvammssveit,97en þá sögubók feck hjá séra Þorleyfi ásamt fleyri bókum fóstr sonr hans Markus Pantal eonsson er síðar var í Kirkjubóli í Túngusveit ok víðar,9* ok sá ek bókina hjá Markósi, síðar vildi ek fá bókina hjá Markúsi, en þá var hón ecki hjá honum heima, ok síðan frétti ek at haxm var búinn at tapa hezmi, hefi ek ecki spurt til hennar siðan. Heyrt hefi ek sagt at Ðemótusar saga hafi verit til i ýmsum stööum, en hvort svo hafi verit i raun ok veru er mjok óvíst. Þá er Magnús gamli á Laugum kvaö rímr af Bernótusi, mun hann hafa haft þessa sömu sögu bók* fyrir sér, þó get ek ecki fullyrt neitt um þat. Þat eitt er vist að sagan er ecki víða dl ok mun ecki gömul vera, eða rituð å seinni oldum.100 (The manuscript I copied the saga of Bemótus from had once belonged to Þorleifur Jónsson from Hvammur in Hvammssveit; his fosterson Markus Pantaleonsson, who later lived in Kirkjuból in Hmgusveit and elsewhere, got it from him along with other manuscripts, and it was at Markus’s that I saw it. Subsequently I wanted to get the manuscript again, but it wasn’t there, and later I learnt that he had lost it. Since then I have heard no report of it. I have heard it said that [copies of] ‘Bemótus saga* were in various places, but whether this was actually true is very uncertain. When old Magnus á Laugum composed his ‘Rimur af Ðemótusi’ he probably based them on this same manuscript, though 1 can’t say anything about it for

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The unwashed children o f Eve certain. The one thing that is certain is that the saga is not found widely and is probably not old, but written in later times.)

The Rimur o f Bernóíusi Bomeyjarkappa to which Magnús refers, were com­ posed in 1823 by Magnus Jónsson (1763-1840), who lived at Magnússkógar and later at Laugar, both in Hvammssveit, Dalasýsla, and was accordingly known variously as Magnús í Magnússkógum or Magnus á Laugum.101 They are pre­ served in at least twenty-two manuscripts, including six autographs, and have twice been printed, in 1854'102and 1907.103They appear to be based on a text not significantly different from that preserved in Lbs 1217 4to, while Magnus’s text can be shown quite clearly to derive from them. Magnús was therefore right in seeing a connexion between the rimur and his exemplar, the Þorleifur Jönsson manuscript, but he was wrong in thinking the former were based on the latter; in fact it can only have been the other way round. Johannes Jónsson á Smyrlahóli Another o f the most prolific scribes o f the nineteenth century was Johannes Jönsson (1798-1877), who lived most of his life at Smyrlahóll, Haukadalur, Dalasýsla. There survives an autograph manuscript, now JS 203 8vo, listing all the texts Jóhannes copied, entitled ‘Regystur, Jfir Rimna Flokka, Fom Søgur, Ýmisleg Kvædi, Sálma og Bæner, med fleiru, Hvad upphripad hefur Jóhannes JónsSon, Ðóndi á Smirlahóli í Haukadal. upphaflega biqad hér umm bil árid 18.18 til ársins 18.55-56’ (‘Register of the rimur, sagas, various poems, hymns, and prayers, along with other things, that have been copied by Jöhannes Jonsson, farmer at Smyrlahóll in Haukadalur, initially begun about the year 1818, to 1855-56’). Johannes begins with a caveat: ‘mér Er tølu verdt gleímt’ (T have forgotten a great deal’); even so, there is very little he appears not to have copied at one time or another. In addition to several hundred hymns and poems, Johannes lists forty-nine sets of rimur, many of which he says he copied more than once - Hákon Hákonarson’s Rimur a f Reimari og Fal^ for example, he claims to have copied ‘ifir 20“ sinnum’ (‘over twenty times’). Very little o f this material has survived. The oldest o f Jóhannes’s r/mur-manuscripts to have been preserved is Lbs 828-9 8to, written 1830-32, which contains five sets (one, Sigurður Breiðfjörð’s Rimur afSvoldar bardaga, appears in both volumes). Lbs 3372-3 8vo, written in 1837, contains four sets, one of which is also in 819, and Lbs 2446 8vo, written 1846-47, a further three. All of these are named in the ‘Regystur’. According to Páll Eggert Ólason, the manuscript Lbs 1889 8vo, which contains four sets of rimur, is written in one hand, said to be that o f 4J[on] Jönsson’.104 There are, I think, rather two hands, the second of which, the ‘J. Jönsson’in question, has written only the last item, Rimur afSlurlaugi statfsam a, and is unmistakably the hand o f Jöhannes á Smyrlahóli.105Altogether then, there are only twelve sets of rimur preserved in Johannes^ hand, or fewer than onequarter o f those known to have been copied by him at least once.

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JS 203 8vo. The title-page to Jóhannes Jónsson’s ‘Regystur’, a list of all the works copied by him between the years 1818 and 1856. Jóhannes (1798-1877) was among the most prolific scribes of the nineteenth century, copying nearly a hundred sagas, over four dozen sets of rimur, and hundreds of shorter poems, many of them more than once. Photo: Landsbókasaín.

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The unwashed children o f Eve

Jóhannes also lists eighty-six sagas, the vast majority fo m a ld a r- and riddarasögur. There are only three extant saga manuscripts in his hand known to me. The oldest of these is a manuscript owned by J6n Samsonarson, entitled ‘Sogu-Bók Forn-manna, Sem Fráskírir þeírra Ættum og Atgjøifi, Hreisti og Hugpridi, Lunderni og Limaskøpun, Vopnfimi og Viturleík Manndåd og Mørgu Fleiru, Ad niu Skrifud og Samansøfhud i eitt af Ðóndanum Jóhannesi Jónssyni á Smirla-hóli á Árunum 1851-52-53-54-55-56-7* (‘A storybook of men o f old, relating their ancestry and actions, strength and fortitude, tempera­ ment and physique, prowess and wisdom, their manly deeds and much else, now written and collected by Jóhannes Jónsson, farmer, from Smyrlahóll, dur­ ing the years 1851-57*). It contains twenty sagas, including seven not listed in the ‘Regystur’. One o f these, ‘Sagan a f Gaungu Hrólfi’, was completed 18 March 1853 and presumably omitted accidentally from the ‘Regystur*, but the others were apparently written after the ‘Regystur9 was compiled. The second manuscript, Lbs 1767 4to, similarly post-dates the ‘Regystur*, having been be­ gun in 1857. This has an equally colourful title: ‘Tuttugu og sex FORN SØGUR af Keisurum, Konúngum, Hertugum, Greifiim, barónum bændum, þjónum og þrælum, vænum og vondum. Samansafnaðar og ritaðar a f Jóhannesi Jónssyni* ( ‘Tw enty-six sagas of em perors, kings, dukes, earls, barons, farmers, servants, and slaves, good and evil; collected and copied by Johannes Jónsson*). O f these twenty-six sagas, five are mentioned in the ‘Regystur’, and must therefore have been copied twice (at least). The third manuscript, now in the BorgarfjörðurArchives (Héraðsskjalasqfh Borgarjjarðar) in Borgarnes, was written between 1862 and 1867106 and contains twenty-three sagas, twenty-one o f which are not listed in the ‘Regystur’ or found in either o f the other manuscripts, bringing Jóhannes’s total output to 136 individual titles, a good many of which must have been copied more than once. In addition to these three manuscripts I have found a single fragment in Jóhannes’s hand, now ÍÐ 382 8vo, pp. 6-21,107 containing ‘Eitt ÆfinntiT af Placjdus er sidar nefndist Eustacjus’ (‘An adventure o f Placitus, who was later called Eustacius’), a work also mentioned in the ‘Regystur*. O f the sagas attributed to Jón Hjaltalín, Bem ótus saga, Natons saga, Reimars saga, and Rigabals saga are all listed in the ‘Regystur*, but no copies appear to have survived in Jóhannes’s hand. There is a text o f Bem ótus saga preserved in Lbs 1217 4to, written, as was mentioned above, in 1817 at Stóra-Vatnshom in Haukadalur. The scribe, who refers to himself only as ‘J.J.S.* or ‘J Jonsson*, was identified by Páll Eggert Ólason108as Jónas, son o f Jón Egilsson (1724-1807).109 It would appear from the census, however, that Jónas, who did live much o f his life at Stóra-Vatnshom, was in fact at another farm, Sælingsdalstunga, at this time,110 while Jónas*s brother Arni111 is listed as head o f household at StóraVatnshom (January, 1818).112One member of his householdis Jóhannes Jönsson, said to be a twenty-year-old vinnumaður (labourer), and it is tempting to think that he might have been the ‘J.J.S.* who produced this manuscript.113 The fact

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that all but two o f the eighteen sagas contained in the Vatnshom manuscript are named in the 'Regystur’ would appear to support this, but then them are very few sagas o f this type not listed in the 'Regystur9, and it is surely significant that while the Vatnshorn manuscript is dated 1817, Johannes claims not to have begun copying until the following year; 1818, although he does admittedly say 'hér umm biP ('approximately9). In general, however, the evidence would seem to suggest that Johannes was not the writer o f this manuscript a comparison with the manuscripts in his hand mentioned above reveals the script to be too dissimilar - and the hand on 1217 arguably too mature to be that o f a nineteen year old - to warrant identification. There is a text o f one o f J6n9s sagas preserved in Johannes^ hand, however. This is Marrons saga, which is found in Lbs 1767 4to and not listed in the 'Regystur9, having been completed 'þann 13da December 18619. As was men­ tioned briefly above, this text in fact derives from the Rim ur a f M arrvni sterka o f Jón Jönsson. Jóhannes produced many such prose versions o f rimur, gener­ ally, although not in the case of Marrons saga, making this d ea r in a colophon - three o f the other sagas in 1767, for example, and five o f the twenty-three sagas in the manuscript in Héraðsskjalasafn Borgarfjarðar, are identified as being 'eptir Rimunumm’ ('from the r/mur9). Johannes’s text will be discussed further in Chapter IV below. One o f the sagas listed in the 'Regystur9, '(Sagan af) Araljóti Upplendinga kappa’, is not preserved in Jóhannes’s hand, but is now founcl to the best of my knowledge, in only three manuscripts, two by Magnús i Tjaldanesi, and one by Jón Hjaltalín. Jón would still have been active in 1818 when Jóhannes began copying, and the earliest of Magnús’s preserved manuscripts dates from the 1850s, when Jóhannes was still middle-aged. Breiðabólsstaður, Smyrlahóll, and Tjaldanes are all within fifty kilometres o f each other - they form in fact al­ most a perfect triangle - and it is easy to imagine how manuscripts might have found their way from one place to the other.

These men were all close to each other too in terms o f their sodal background. Magnús was the son o f Jón Ormsson, hreppstjóri,114 and he himself also held the office o f hreppstjóri for many years. Tjaldanes was a medium-sized farm, with a tax value o f 40 hundreds (hh).115According to the census o f 1880, Magnús, then forty-five, was the head o f a good-sized household, consisting o f his wife, Ólöf Guðlaugsdóttii; fifty, their three children, Kristin, twenty, Benedikt, eight­ een, and Ketilbjom, sixteen - they had another son, Eggert, bom in 1866 - and five others, Jóhann Þórðarson, a tw enty-four-year-old labourer, Helga Guðmundsdóttii; thirty, and Herdis Jónsdóttir, twenty-three, domestic servants, Njáll Jönsson, twenty-four, described as a lausamaður, i.e. a labourer of no fixed abode, and Ragnhildur Sumarliöadóttii; an eighty-six-year-old widow, listed as tokukona, i.e. a pauper.

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Guðbrandur Sturlaugsson lived at Kaldrananes from 1847-61, and thereafter at Hvitidalur. Both farms were medium-sized - Kaldrananes had a tax value of 20 hh.f Hvitidalur of 40 - but Guðbrandur was reasonably well off by nineteenth-century Icelandic standards, having as an only child received a good inheritance from his father, Sturlaugur Einarsson, who was known in his time as ‘hinn auðgi’ (‘the wealthy’).116 Like Magnús, Guðbrandur also served as hreppstjóri . The household was large, consisting, according to the census of 1880, of the immediate family - Guðbrandur, then fiftynine, his wife, three of their children, and a fosterÞorsteinn Guðbrandsson son - and nine farm labourers and domestic serv­ (1858-1912), Kaldrananes, Strandasýsla. Þjóðminja- ants. Guðbrandur’s wife, Sigríður Guðmundsdóttir, was from Kaldrananes, and their son Þorsteinn (1858safh islands, MM 20220. 1923), who copied a text of M a rro n s sa g a in 1877, lived there from 1882. While Magnús i Tjaldanesi and Guðbrandur i Hvitadal were undeniably both at the ‘top end’ o f the scribal social scale, most of the identifiable scribes ap­ pear to come from not vastly different socio-economic circumstances. These were not rich men in any way; their farms were medium-sized, most between 20 and 30 h h .y a few between 30 and 40. Only three - Guðbrandur i Hvitadal, Ólafur Þorgeirsson í Skáley, and Skúli Sivertsen í Hrappsey - owned their own farms; the rest were tenants. Several are listed in the censuses as vin n u m en n , i.e. common labourers. Johannes Jónsson, as was mentioned above, began as a labourer at Stóra-Vatnshom and various other farms, but eventually became b ó n d i at Smyrlahóll, a medium-sized farm, slightly smaller than Hvitidalur and Tjaldanes, with a tax value of 24 hh. According to the census of 1860, Johannes, then sixty-three, was, like Magnús, the head of a household o f ten. This is also a common feature: where it has been possible to determine household size the scribes are in most cases members, often heads, o f households significantly larger than the national average, which for most of the nineteenth century was around seven.117 Magnús Arason, as was mentioned above, copied two of Jón’s sagas in the spring of 1879. According to the census of 1880 Magnus is a thirty-five-yearold húsm aðu r (lodger)118 living with his wife as part of a very large household - seventeen altogether - at Kaldrananes, Strandasýsla.119 As was also mentioned above, colophons in the manuscript indicate that while some of the texts were copied at Kaldrananes, others were written at Gjögur, the site of the largest shark-fishing station in nineteenth-century Iceland, where perhaps a hundred men lived for the duration of the fishing season.120 Although the bulk of the manuscript is in Magnús’s hand, short sections of a few pages each are found in three other hands on that part of the manuscript copied at Gjögur,121 presumably written by people there with Magnús for the fishing season. It was mentioned

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above that saga-readings and recitations o f rimur were a common feature o f life at the verstöðvar, this manuscript shows clearly, as do several others known to have been written at Gjögur,122 that sagas and rimur were also copied there. The majority of the scribes, then, were what might be called ‘ordinary people’. The manuscripts themselves occasionally attest to the real poverty in which some o f them lived. The oldest of the preserved manuscripts o f Natons saga is ÞÍ XLVm, in the National Archives of Iceland (Þjóðskjalasafit islands). It is in the National Archives, rather than being in the National Library, because it is, or was, a ledger: covering most o f the pages are the accounts, written primarily in Danish, o f a merchant in Straumfjörður, Mýrarsýsla, for the years 1812— I4.m The texts o f the sagas have been written in whatever space remained, with the title o f the saga - or rather the name of the hero - written over each section o f text, and the sections surrounded by a coloured border, drawn with ted or blue crayon. Many leaves have been removed, presumably because they were full, including nearly 100 pages from the middle of the manuscript. The last leaves, from p. 175 on, had been left blank, but were like the rest o f the book divided into columns for credit and debit. There are, in addition to Natons sagay texts of two other prose works, ‘Sagan af Floris Kongi og sonum hanns9 (‘The saga o f King Flores and his sons9), an original riddarasaga composed probably in the fourteenth century and found in nearly fifty manuscripts,124 and ‘Ein historia af þeírri þolinmódu Helinu125 Kóngsdóttur í Konstíntínópel9 (‘A story of the patient Helena, Princess o f Constantinople9), a translation o f the Danish chapbook En Underlig oc dog meget Sidøn Historie Om den Tolmodige Helena afConstantinopel (‘The strange and yet very beautiful story o f the patient Helena o f Constantinople9).126 The scribe is one Ðrynjúlfur Oddsson, who has written his name in several places throughout die manuscript, including several times in different scripts on the first page, where there is also found written ‘Ðrinjulfur OddsSon i þessa bók med rietttrú þfc]9127 (‘Brynjúlfur Oddsson rightly owns this book9). Fol­ lowing the last item is written ‘þessa Sögu á kona Mýn Gudrún Sjgmund[s]dóttir á Rúffeyum Endad ad Skrifa hana Arid 1865 af Brjnjúlfi OddsSyni9(‘This saga belongs to my wife Guðrún Sigmundsdóttir, Rúfeyjar; the writing o f it com­ pleted in the year 1865 by Brynjúlfur Oddsson9). Ðrynjúlíur, who was bom in 1826 and died in 1892, was twice married. Guðrún Sigmundsdóttir was his first wife; she was his maternal aunt and eight years his senior, so they required dispensation from the king in order to marry.128 Rúfeyjar - in the nineteenth century known also as Rúffeyjar or R úgeyjar- are a group o f four small islands in BreiðaQörður called Ðæjarey, Miðey, Suðurey, and Kálfur. They were a hjcdeiga, or croft, o f the farm Skarð, Skarðsstrandarhreppur, Dalasýsla. In the census o f 1855 Brynjúlfur is described as a thirty-one-year-old húsmaður, mar­ ried, with a two-year-old son, living in the household o f his father, then sixtythree. This was a large household, consisting of fourteen people altogether, including six labourers and domestic servants. Brynjúlfur is mentioned several

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Þl XLVIII, One of the more unusual manuscripts of the period, this was originally the ledger of a merchant in Sträum fjörður, Western Iceland. In the blank spaces remaining on each page, Ðrynjúlfur Oddsson (1826-92), a crofter from Rúfeyjar, a group of four small islands in Ðreiðafjörður, has copied the texts of three sagas, the first being Jón Hjaltalln’s Natons saga, of which this is the oldest extant manuscript, copied in 1865. Photo: Þjóðskjalasafh islands. times in the book K a ld u r å köflu m , the memoirs o f Eyjólfur Stefansson frá Dröngum, who was bom in 1868 and grew up in nearby Rauðseyjar (the birth­ place also o f Guðbrandur i Hvitadal). He describes Brynjúlfur as ‘fremur fátækur, enda Rúffeyjar ekki búsældarlegar’ (‘rather poor, but then Rúfeyjar are not well suited to cultivation’).129 It is perhaps not surprising that in such circumstances paper was a luxury, and every scrap made use of.

It is interesting to compare the findings presented here with those o f Sture Hast in his study o f the paper manuscripts o f H a rð a r s a g a J 30 Twenty-nine o f the extant manuscripts o f the saga, most dating from the seventeenth and eight­ eenth centuries, were by identifiable scribes. O f these, no fewer than eighteen were practising clergymen or had received ecclesiastical training, and a further eight had had some kind o f education, either at the cathedral schools, or, in

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some cases, university. Only three had had no formal education whatsoever. Thirteen o f these scribes, Hast says, could be described as ‘mer eller mindre professionella skrivare’ (‘more or less professional copyists’).131 The reason for this can only be that Haróar saga is an tslendingasaga, and was as such of interest to the humanist-inspired antiquarians o f the seventeenth century.132 Hast maintains, for example, that the origin o f a large group o f the manuscripts is to be found in the activities of Brynjólíur Sveinsson (1605-75), Bishop o f Skálholt. Most o f the manuscripts written in the seventeenth century were quickly col­ lected and sent abroad, and nearly a third o f the extant manuscripts o f Harðar saga are in fact copies made not in Iceland, but in Denmark (nine), Sweden (two), or Norway (two). Among those who copied Jón Hjaltalfn’s sagas, by contrast, there were no clergymen, apart from Jón himself, nor any others who had had any formal education. The existence of semi-professional copyists was noted above, and obviously the twenty or so copies of individual rimur Jóhannes Jónsson claimed to have made cannot all have been for personal use, but the manuscripts of Jón Hjaltalin’s sagas all appear to represent examples o f what Harold Love has termed ‘user publication*, i.e. texts copied for private use.133 With perhaps the exception o f Magnus i Tjaldanesi, whose interests were at least in part antiquar­ ian - he is, significantly, the only scribe to use archaic spelling - the people who copied texts o f Jón’s sagas appear to have done so ’til gamans og dægrastyttingar’, for their own amusement and the amusement o f the other members o f their household. The North American connexion Emigration to North America was appreciable, by Icelandic standards, in the last quarter o f the nineteenth century - probably twelve thousand people by the turn o f the century; by 1916, when the emigration had effectively stopped, al­ most a quarter o f the population had emigrated.134 Among the things the emi­ grants brought with them were books, printed and hand-written, and among the extant manuscripts o f Jón Hjaltalin’s sagas are several that have a connexion with the new world. One, at least, was certainly written there. This is Lbs 2114 4to, a large manuscript containing texts o f fifteen sagas and nine shorter tales. Included among them are Ketlerus saga, Natons saga, and .H inriks saga. The title o f the manuscript is given on p. 98 as ‘Sögusafn Skrifad afSigfiisi Sveinssyni þá á Mauntaun [sic] 1892 til 3 nú ( Minnisóta RO. Lolita’ (‘A collection of sagas written by Sigffis Sveinsson, then in Mountain, 1892-3, now in Minne­ sota, P.O. Lolita’). Mountain, North Dakota was one o f several Icelandic settle­ ments in North America, the largest being Nýja island (‘New Iceland*) on the western shore o f Lake Winnipeg in Manitoba. The writer seems most likely to have been Sigftts Sveinsson (1833-1917), son o f Sveinn Sveinsson from

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Sleitustaðir, Kolbeinsdalur, Skagafjörður.135Sigfús emigrated to North America, settling first in North Dakota, but moving eventually to Framnesbyggð, Nýja island.136 This manuscript is the first in a nine-volume collection o f sagas (now Lbs 2114-2122 4to) from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries owned by Sigmundur Matthiasson Long (1841-1924). Sigmundur was bom in 1841 in the eastern part o f Iceland, the grandson of an Englishman, who after an event­ ful early life had settled in Iceland as a merchant. Sigmundur was from a young age what is called in Icelandic bókhneigður, ‘given to books’. He had no formal education, but soon began collecting books and manuscripts, buying those he could and copying those he was lent; Lbs 2208 8vo, which contains a text of M atrons saga, was written by him in about I860,137 when he would have been only nineteen. In 1889 he emigrated to North America, where, like Sigfús Sveinsson, he lived first in North Dakota and later moved to Winnipeg. There he remained for thirty-four years, assembling a large collection o f manuscripts13* and printed books, which he bequeathed to the Landsbókasafn in Reykjavik.139 Another large collection was that o f Nikulás Ottenson, originally from Hvallátur, Rauðasandshreppur, Barðarstrandarsýsla, which was purchased by the Johns Hopkins University Library in Baltimore at the instigation o f Profes­ sor Stefán Einarsson.140 Over half the twenty-eight manuscripts contain rtmur or romances o f one sort or another. One of them, Icelandic Collection MS no. 26,141 now consists o f twenty leaves o f a blue-paged copybook on which is found a text of Jón Hjaltalin’s Sarpidons saga. The very end o f the saga is lacking, but has been supplied on a white sheet inserted as the twenty-first leaf. This last leaf is written in a younger hand, apparently that o f John J. Westman, presumably an Icelandic-Canadian, who writes his name (and the verse ‘Skriftin min er stafa stór’, cited above) at the end. The principal hand is older and more practised, probably from not later than the mid-nineteenth century, and the manuscript is likely to be of Icelandic, rather than North American, provenance. This appears to be the case with most of the manuscripts collected by Nikulás among the Icelandic settlers in Canada, i.e. they were written in Iceland but made their way to North America with the Icelandic emigrants. This is clearly true of Lbs 38914to, a manuscript containing a text ofKetlerus saga. According to Skrå this and another manuscript, Lbs 3890 4to, were pur­ chased in 1961 from sr. Albert Kristjánsson, o f Blaine, Washington.142 As was mentioned above, the name Torfi Bjamason is found written in Lbs 3891, link­ ing it to Saurbæjarsveit, Dalasýsla; on the last page of Lbs 3890 Guðbrandur Sturlaugsson i Hvitadal, also in Saurbæjarsveit, has written his name. Although it is impossible to establish any direct connexion, it is worth noting that four o f Guðbrandur’s nine children emigrated.143 One o f those who remained behind was Þorsteinn Guðbrandsson, who, as was mentioned above, lived most of his life at Kaldrananes.144 In his hand is Lbs 3022 4to, entitled ‘Gamlar riddarasogr’(‘01d romances’), written in 1876-

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77 and containing texts o f seven sagas, Marrons saga among them. But this manuscript too seems to have found its way to the new world: according to a note on the fly-leaf it was owned by ‘Albert Johannes son á Flugumiri Heklu Póstoffls Mikki Eý’ (‘Albert Johannesson from Flugumýri, Hekla Post Office, Mikley [Manitoba]’). This is presumably Albert Johannesson from Bjamarnes, only some five kilometres from Kaldrananes, who emigrated to Canada in 1884, then aged thirty-five. THE DUAL ROLE OF THE KVÖLDVAKA Most o f the descriptions o f the kvöldvaka cited above concentrate on the read­ ing o f saga manuscripts, but the evidence o f the manuscripts discussed here make it clear that the writing o f them must have taken place under the same circumstances. Until the beginning o f the present century there was in most Icelandic farmhouses only one principal room, known as the baðstofa, the size of which rarely exceeded about four metres by ten; here all the members of the household slept, worked, and ate.145 Normally the only light came from a single lamp, the fuel for the most part being lýsi, fish (or shark) oil.146 Jónas frá Hrafnagili says that in order to see to write in the dim light ‘Þeir, sem mikið fengust við að skrifa upp sögur og rímur, höfðu [...] stundum glerkúlu fulla af vatni og hengdu hana upp hjá lampanum og létu geislavöndinn úr henni falla á blöðin* (‘those who frequently copied sagas and rimur sometimes had a glass globe full o f water which they hung up by the lamp and let the ray of light from it fall onto the page’).147 The furniture in the baðstofa was sparse, there nor­ mally being little apart from the beds along both walls, and perhaps a small table at the end. Jón Kr. Lárusson describes in his autobiography how his grand­ father, Friðrik Jónsson from Rifgiröingar, in whose hand there are texts o f Ketlerus saga and Sarpidons saga, wrote *á púlti, sem hann hafði á hnjánum’ (‘at a small writing desk he placed on his knees’), adding that he never saw him sit at a table to write.148 Most of those who copied - and wrote - lygisögur must have done so under these circumstances: sitting at a table or on their beds in the dim light o f the baðstofa, surrounded by ten or fifteen other people carding, spinning, knitting, talking, singing, listening to rimur or to other sagas being read. These were hardly ideal conditions for literary production. They just might, however, ac­ count, in some way at least, for the very high degree o f intertextuality observ­ able within the genre as a whole.

III A parson’s pleasure: The life and literary activity o f Jón Oddsson Hjaltalin The age in which Jón Hjaltalin lived was not, on the face o f it, especially con­ ducive to literary production in Iceland. Unlike the expatriate literary élite in Copenhagen, those who remained in Iceland had only lim ited access to books and intellectual stimulation, and few could expect ever to see their work in print. John Barrow, who travelled round Iceland in the sum m er o f 1834, was, like many other foreign visitors, struck by the singular devotion o f many Ice­ landers to literary pursuit in view o f the virtual impossibility o f publication: What inducement [...] can these solitary and secluded beings be supposed to have for wasting, if it may be so termed, their days and nights, as num­ bers of them do, in laborious studies, the fruits of which they can hardly indulge a hope will ever benefit themselves or mankind, so little likely are they ever to meet the public eye? Their zeal in this respect can only pro­ ceed from the pure and abstract love of liteniture and science, urging them on to the exercise of their intellectual faculties. The sun of genius will force its beams through the dark clouds of adversity, and the chilling mists of poverty, even though no other portion of the atmosphere, save their own, is likely to be enlightened and warmed by its beneficent raysJ Jón Hjaltalin was, in this respect, typical. During his long life he produced, in addition to the sagas dealt with here, dozens o f translations o f fiction, his­ torical, and theological works, and composed a very large num ber o f hymns, prayers, and other poems o f various kinds, but nothing was printed during his lifetim e apart from fifty-two hymns, most o f them translations from the Danish hymnal o f 1798,2 in Magnus Stephensen’s Evangelisk-bistileg Messu-saungsogSálm a-Bók o f 1801.3 The best known o f his religious poems, Níuiíu o g þ rír Hugvekju Sålmar ( ‘Ninety-three meditation hymns’), which were based on the first volume o f the Icelandic translation o f Betrachtungen o f Christoph Chris­ tian Sturm (1740-86),4 were printed in Copenhagen in 1835, the year o f his death, followed a year later by what was probably the most popular o f his secu­ lar works, Fimiiu og sex Tidavisur (‘Fifly-six verses on the tim es’), a kind o f verse-annal covering the major events o f the years 1779 to 1834. A number o f his poem s have appeared in print since then,5 the most extensive selection pub­ lished to date being Sålmar og ljóð> edited by Siguijón Guðjónsson (Reykjavik, 1934). The bulk o f his work remains unpublished, however. At the same time, Jón Hjaltalin was part o f a literary tradition dating back to the m iddle ages but still, as we have seen, very much alive, a tradition that did

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not expect, or necessarily seek, publication in the modern sense. Indeed, Jón was, by the standards o f this tradition, a ‘best-selling author9: in Landsbókasafn alone there are over 200 manuscripts containing poems, mostly prayers and hymns, attributed to him,6 and manuscripts of his poems are to be found in libraries throughout the world.7 Johannes Jónsson á Smyrlahóli claimed in his ‘Regystur’, mentioned in the previous chapter, to have copied ‘Hjaltalíns bænir med Sálmunum [...] sjálfsagt 60u sinnum’ (‘Hjaltalín’s “[Evening] prayers” to­ gether with the “[Meditation] hymns” probably sixty times9).* And yet there is not to my knowledge a single manuscript of either the ‘Vikukvöldbænir’ or the ‘Hugvekjusálmar’ extant in Jóhannes’s hand, suggesting that even this very large number o f preserved manuscripts represents probably only a small fraction o f those produced. Jón’s poetry was popular too in the sense that it was not confined to the written page, but also entered oral tradition. The satirical poem ‘Kolgerðin’ (‘Charcoal making9), according to Sigurjón Guðjónsson, ‘barst [...] út eins og “hvalfregn um storð” og menn lærðu það og kváðu sér til dægrastyttingar’ (‘it spread “like wild fire” and people learnt it and recited it for their entertain­ ment’).9 In the poem ‘Veðrahjálmur’ (literally ‘weather-helmet’, a kenning for the sky), written in 1784 at the height of the móðuharðindi (‘mist hardship’, mentioned above) when Jón was at Hvammur í Norðurárdal, the poet addresses first the forces of nature - the glaciers, the north-wind, ice, and fire - and then God himself, ‘sem þessu öllu stýrir’ (‘who controls all these things’), asking that he grant them a mild winter, an early spring, a warm and fruitful summer. It was widely believed that if a man learnt the poem off by heart - it is quite long, fifty-two six-line verses - the elements could not harm him.10 The poem ‘Brúðhjonaminni’ (‘Toast to the bridal couple’), also known as ‘Brúðkaupssálmur’ (‘Wedding hymn’), was printed in Sålmar og Ijóð as col­ lected from oral tradition nearly one hundred years after Jón’s death. The in­ formant, Guðrun Gísladóttir, a midwife from Akranes, had learnt it from her mother, Jórunn M agnúsdóttir, who had been born and raised at Þyrill, Hvalf] arðarströnd.11 Vigfus Gudmundsson printed in Lesbók Morgunblaðsins for 31 December 194212 a text o f the poem based in part on the version printed in Sálmar og ljóð9but in part also on a version learnt by him as a child from his aunt, Guördn Jónsdóttir. In it the order of the verses is somewhat different in the second part of the poem, and there are also two additional verses in Vigfüs’s version, but otherwise there are only the slightest differences in wording, none significant. Although Vigfús said he knew of no old manuscripts o f the poem, there are in fact several from the nineteenth century in Landsbókasafn.13 Vigfus mentions another woman who knew the poem, Guðrún Hannesdóttir frá Ðjólu - it is hardly coincidental that all three informants were named Guðrún, the name of the bride in the poem. Vigfus does not discuss her version in any detail, but says that it lacked two stanzas. Only one of these, however, was also lacking in the version printed by Sigurjón Guðjónsson. If these versions were indeed taken solely from oral tradition, they testify not only to the poem’s popularity

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but also to the Icelanders9 ability to preserve poems o f some length (sixteen eight-line stanzas) orally over several generations. Nor was Jon's poetic output limited to hymns, prayers, and occasional po­ ems: he also composed works in more demotic genres, including twelve sets of rimur,14 all of winch are preserved in the autograph manuscript Lbs 248 8vo, written in 1826, and most in other manuscripts as well. They are based on a very wide variety o f sources, native and foreign: it would be difficult, in fact, to imagine a more representative collection o f rimur from this period with regard to source material. As such they provide a good indication not only o f the range of his poetic output, but also o f the range o f his interests, about which more will be said below. Among the more popular o f Jónb rimur appear to have been the ‘Rimur af Sigurði fót og Ásmundi Húnakóngi’, which were based on the indigenous riddarasaga15 and are preserved in at least six manuscripts.16 One o f them, Lbs 70S 4to, written by Þorsteinn Þorsteinsson á Heiði between 182S and 1834, contains the following ‘Wysur til siera Jons Hjalltalyns9 (‘Verses for sr. J6n Hjaltalín’), attributed to one Amur fimm med oska vyn oss hier veitir gladur presturinn Herra Hjalltalyn hä gäfadur madur Sýn útgiefur gjólldinn Jars gjædd med vysdøm hieinan/r fair munu fuglar härs fiiúga veg svo bemann Sied hef eg maigan* Sigtyrs hrafn sveima um sniófels re[ita] þo mun einginn þeirra Jafn þessum meiga heita Asä drickju elfann fryd Jtist listum groin#! sem fagrir retina fjals um hiyd fossar beint i sjóinn Ef eý stiggist vyrda17 val vil eg dom þan/i smyda næstum efstur ods i sal egi hann becknut pryda Lofsælld gledi län og hed lifgvi herra hertiedann hiru giedi hann svo kved hef þo alldrei siedann.18 (Five cauldrons of Óðinn’s wine are granted to us gladly by the Reverend Hjaltalin, a most gifted man; he produces his tributes to Óðinn, endowed with pure wisdom. There can be few of Ódinn’s birds who fly so straight a

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The unwashed children o f Eve course. I’ve seen many of Óðinn’s ravens soar over the snowy mountain tracts, but none can be be called the equal of this one. The fair river of poetry rolls on, artfully adorned, as beautiful waterfalls on the hillside, run un­ swerving to the sea. If no one is offended by my choice, I’d like to give the verdict that in the hall of poetry he should adorn a bench nearest the top. May fame, good fortune, gladness, and wealth enhance the life of this man. So with a warm heart I bid him farewell, even though I’ve never met him.)

In truth, though, Jón’s rimur are undistinguished, which is perhaps why they did not circulate widely: five o f the twelve sets are preserved solely in auto­ graph manuscripts, and none were ever published. There can, however, be no question that in the nineteenth century he was regarded as a major poet, but his reputation rested chiefly on his hymns, as is made clear in the comments o f an unidentified scribe, writing in February 1871, in Lbs 3841 8vo, one o f five manuscripts19preserving Jónís ‘Rímur af Volter greifa og Gríshildi þolinmóðu’:20 Rýmur þessar var ekki gott að skrifa, mjög viða rang-skrifaðar so ekki stóð í hljóðstaf; varð því víða að hreita orði svo ekki yrði skothent auk þess að kveðskapurin er ekki góður eptir so gott sálma skáld sem sera Jón var21 (These rimur were not good to copy, quite frequently incorrectly written so that they did not alliterate; it was often necessary to change the words to avoid bad rhymes, in addition to which the poetry is not good for such a good hymnist as sr. Jón was.)

NOTES TOWARD A BIOGRAPHY OF JÓN HJALTALÍN In 1869 Sighvatur Grimsson Borgfirðingur (1840-1930),22 in a preface to a copy o f Jón’s Gyðinga saga (‘History o f the Jews’),23 wrote: Það væri vel verðugt ef einhvor vildi kosta til ad láta semja æfi ágrip þessa ágæta fræðimans, séra Jóns, og vsri þá með þakklæti minst hinna fogru rita, sem hann hefir eptir sig látið, og væri til heiðurs lika þeim er giörð^ |u því margt må saman tina æfi hans viðvikjandi, úr ymsum Ritum, ef það er ekki einsog með æfisögur sumra merkis manna, að það sje gjort of seint.24 (It would be well deserved if someone were to defray the cost of writing a biography of this goodly scholar, sr. Jón; in doing so the many splendid works he has left behind would be remembered with gratitude, and it would also be to the honour of hm* who undertook it, for much can be collected pertaining to his life from a variety of works, unless, as with the biogra­ phies of some other eminent figures, it is done too late.)

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It was to be some time before anyone took Sighvatur’s hint - the nineteenthcentury equivalent o f a grant application - and the nearest we come to a biogra­ phy is the section on Jón in vol. viii o f Sighvatur’s ‘Presta-Æfir’ (‘Lives of clergymen’), compiled between 1900 and 1929 and preserved in Lbs 23582373 4U).25 There are several other short treatments of Jón’s life. O f these the most im­ portant, not least because it derives in all probability from Jón himself, is the biographical information included by Hallgrímur djákni in his ‘RithöfundataT, although this, as will be seen presently, is not without its ambiguities. Jón prob­ ably also had a hand in the preparation o f the ‘Stutt ågrip a f acfisøgu Sira Jóns Hjaltalíns’ (‘Short biographical sketch o f sr. Jón Hjaltalín’) included with his Tíðavísur, which, as was mentioned above, were published in Copenhagen the year after his death, and the Tiðavisur themselves also provide a good deal of basic information about their author. Another contemporary source is Jón Espólín, who knew Jón well,26 and mentioned him occasionally in his Árbœkur. An invaluable source of information is the ‘Æfir Lærðra Manna’ (‘Lives of learned m en’) by Hannes Þorsteinsson (1860-1935), ch ief archivist o f Þjóðskjalasafn, which, although compiled after 1911, is based principally on contemporary records.27The ‘Æfiágrip’ (‘Biographical sketch’) of Jón included as an introduction to the Sålmar og ljóðy although largely based on these older sources, contains some information not found elsewhere, at least some o f which derives from people who knew Jón. Much, but by no means all, of this material has found its way into the standard genealogical reference books such as Páll Eggert Ólason^ íslenzkar œviskrár. A full-scale biography remains to be writ­ ten, however, and one can only hope that it is not too late.

Jón was the second son o f O ddur Jónsson H jaltalin (1722-97),28 later lögréttumaður* at Rauðará, near Reykjavik, and his wife Oddný Erlendsdóttir, but the sources are not in agreement as to the date and place of his birth. Ac­ cording to the biography included with the Tíóavísur he was bom ‘þann 16da sunnudag eptir Trinitatis árid 1750’ ('the sixteenth Sunday after Trinity in the year 1750’).30 In most of the older sources, however, the year o f Jónls birth is given as 1752.31 This is the date found in Hallgrímur d já k n i ‘Rithöfundatal’ and, following him, Einar’s ‘FræðimannataP - and therefore derives, presum­ ably, from Jón himself. In the ‘M inisterial-bók’, or parish register, for Mosfellssveit, however, under the year 1749 it says: ‘Dag 14 7br skyrt bam hjön(ana) ad Kalfak[oti] Odds og Oddnýar Erl(ends)d(óttur), ad Nafhe Jón’ (‘14 September, baptised the child o f Oddur and Oddný Erlendsdóttir from Kálfakot, named Jön’).32 It may well be that Jón himself simply did not know for certain the year o f his birth, but it is also possible that he pretended to be younger than he was in order to get into the cathedral school at Skálholt - he would have been several years older than the average student - and subsequently

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kept up the pretence.33 In his Tiðavísa for the year 1834, however, Jón refers to himself as ‘hálfníræðann’ (i.e. eighty-five), suggesting not only that 1749 is in fact the correct date, but also that it was known to him all along.34 The ‘Ministerialbók’ also clearly states that Jón was bom at Kálfakot in Mosfellssveit, but he appears to have told Hallgrimur djakni that he had been bom at Korpúlfsstaðir,35 a much larger farm nearby where the family later lived. Jón, again, may simply not have known for certain where he was born, but the reason may also be the obvious one: that he wanted it to be thought that he had been bom at the more prestigious place. At the age o f ten Jón went to live with his uncle Niels Hjaltalin (c. 172986),36 lögrettumaðury at Hlíðarhús, near Reykjavik, remaining there for eight years, after which he spent two years37 with Guðmundur Vigfússon, warden (ökonómus) o f the Reykjavik gaol.38 The following winter he spent with his elder brother Hans, a merchant’s assistant at Eyri in Skutulsfjöröur (the begin­ nings o f the modem town of ísafjörður), who, as Jon’s scholarly bent began to emerge, arranged for him to be tutored by sr. Jón Ásgeirsson at Mýrar in Dýrafjörður, with whom he stayed for a year. Jón began at the school at Skálholt in 1772, working during the summers for his brother Hans. He completed his studies in 1776, but stayed on for a year for further study with Bishop Finnur Jónsson (1704-89). His first living - which he apparently accepted rather reluctantly39 - was at Háls in Hamarsfjörður, Múlasýsla, to which he was presented on 7 April 1777.40 He was ordained the following month and spent three years at Háls, but was never happy there, due largely to the general penury in which he was forced to live - a recurrent theme throughout the early part o f his life.41 He wrote a letter of complaint to the bishop in April 1778, suggesting that the revenues from the islands Þvottáreyjar be given to Háls instead of Hof í Álftafiiði, a more affluent parsonage to the south, and threatening to resign his living, even if he were presented to no other, unless the bishop could find some way of improving his income. The bishop replied shortly thereafter in a firm but paternal letter42 in which he said that the circumstances o f the living should not have come as any surprise to Jón, since he had made this clear to him ‘optar enn eynu sinne i fyna Vetur’ (‘more than once last winter’), and that nothing could be done now to change the situation. As far as abandoning his living was concerned the bishop considered this ill advised, ‘þvi þad er ad giørast deserteur, og er þad ei gott’ (Tor that is to become a deserter, and that is not good’). Rather, he urged Jón ‘ad byda nu eitt ar med þolen/imæde, og vona efter loglegre promotion til annars betra, hvoria eg helld ad med tidumm og hentugleikumm få muned, ef ydur rett ad bered’ (‘to wait patiently another year, and hope for lawful promotion to another better [living], which I believe you will get in time and with luck, if you proceed properly’), and promised finally to try ‘ad draga einhvorstadar orlyted frá, so þer faed nockra huggun, enn hvad miked þad verdur, get eg enn ei fyrer vist sagt’ (‘to find a little bit somewhere, so that you may have some consola-

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tion, but how much this will be I cannot yet say for certain9). In May 1780 Lauritz Andreas Thodal, Governor (stiftamtmaður), offered Jón Garpsdalur in Barðastrandarsýsla/3 but he declined, presumably feeling it would be no im­ provement. In June o f the same year the bishop recommended44 that Jón should ‘promoveres til andet bedre kald, end det hand hidindtil har havt9 (‘be pro­ moted to a better living than the one he has hitherto had9), and on 12 July it was agreed that he should ‘exchange9 livings with sr. Þórður Jónsson at Kálfafell á Síðu, Skaftafellssýsla.45That same year Jón married his first wife, Guðrún, daugh­ ter o f sr. Jón Bergsson from Bj ar nanes, Skaftafellssýsla. Jón had reason to be content at Kálfafell. The parish was small and easily administered; the land was fertile and there were seals and plenty o f driftwood.46 According to an affidavit47 written by sr. Jón Steingrimsson (1728-91), provost of Skaftafellssýsla, dated 26 June 1782, Jón had found the parsonage in rather poor repair as a result of his predecessor^ neglect, but had in the two years he had been there made a great many improvements to the buildings, and had among other things built a wall around the homefield48 and planted a large veg­ etable garden (‘Kalgard hier umm 8"* fadma i hvort horn9), which had helped to sustain him over the meagre years. He had even exhorted his neighbours to follow him in this practice, ‘þo enn sie komed til lytels ägoda hia þeim9 (‘al­ though this has as yet been to little profit for them1).49 His good fortune was not to last, however; on 8 June 1783 the volcanic eruption at Lakagfgar, known as ‘Skaftáreldar9, began, and Jón, like many oth­ ers in the vicinity, lost all his livestock and was forced to flee. He was unable to return to Kálfafell - although not completely destroyed, the parsonage remained unoccupied for five years - and was presented to Hvammur í Norðurárdal, Mýrasýsla.50 He took up residence there in August 1783, and remained for three years, but again lost a large part o f his livestock through famine. On 24 May 1786 Jón was presented to Saurbær á H valfjarðarströnd, Ðorgarfj arðarsýsla,51 a place associated with another clergyman and poet, sr. Hallgrímur Pétursson (1614-74), author o f the Passiusålmar (‘Hymns on the Passion9). Saurbær was a much more prestigious living, as well as being finan­ cially more rewarding: Jón had an endowment of 34 rd 5 s per annum, and a fair amount o f glebe, although Saurbær too had felt the ravages o f the móóuharðindi. On 25 September 1798 Jón’s wife Guðrún died in childbirth - it was their fourteenth child - and on 4 July the following year he married Gróa, the daugh­ ter o f sr. Oddur Þorvarðsson from Reynivellir í Kjós. TVventy-four years his junior, she bore him a further eight children, the first four o f whom died in infancy. Jón lived at Saurbær for twenty-five years, moving in 1811 to Breiðabólsstaður á Skógarströnd, Snæfellsnes, which had become vacant through the death o f sr. Gísli Ólafsson (1731-1810).52 Sr. Gisli had been popular, but it is a measure o f J6n% own popularity that one o f his new parishioners, Gísli Sigurðsson á Ósi (1772-1826)" composed the following verse:

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The unwashed children o f Eve Sira Gisli sálaðist så er bættur skaðiim; heirann gaf oss hingað piest Hjaltalin í staðinn.54 (Sr. Gisli passed away; the damage is mended; the Lord has given us the rev. Hjaltalin instead.)

Although Jón would have needed no specific reason for leaving Saurbær other than the furtherance of his career - there is some indication that he may have had another incentive as well. One o f Jon’s neighbours at Saurbær was M agnús Stephensen, ch ief m agistrate and p rim u s m otor o f the Landsuppfrœðingarfilag, who lived at Innrihólmur, some twenty kilometres to the west. According to Espólín,55 Jón applied for Ðreiðabólsstaður ‘því at óvild nokkur fell til vid Magnús Stephensen etazrád’ (‘because there arose a certain animosity between him and Magnús Stephensen, chief magistrate’). Magnús was never an especially popular man, while Jón, so far as I have been able to determine, was universally loved and respected. Espólín knew both parties well, however, and is as likely as anyone to have known o f any enmity between them. There is, moreover, a possible explanation for this alleged ‘óvild’. When Magnús was collecting material for his Sálmabók o f 1801, he had approached Jón, who, as was mentioned above, contributed fifty-two hymns, and another o f Jón’s trans­ lations had appeared in the first volume of Magnúsh M argvislegt Gaman og A lvara ,56 ÍB 117 4to, written about 1810, is an autograph copy o f Jo n ’s ‘Hugvekjusálmar’,57 with a lengthy dedication to ‘Há-Edla-Welbomum Herra Magnúsi Stephensen’ ('the most noble Mr Magnús Stephensen’), whom he praises as the man ‘hvørs Dugnadi og atburdum Island á at þacka, at sú á fallandi fót komna prent-ydja ecki med øllu undir lok leid, og landid misti ecki Allt TilEfni til Upplisingar og Lærdóms útbreidslu’ (‘to whose diligence and en­ deavours Iceland owes its thanks, that the decaying printing industry did not disappear altogether and the nation lose all opportunity for enlightenment and the dissemination o f knowledge’). He describes Magnús as one who ‘med stórum gódvylja og fegursta og fullkomnasta skaldskapar farmi, hefir upplýfgad Anda svo margra gáfumanna, til at meddeíla medbrædrum sinum, Ágjæta Ávexti a f lánudu Pundi, sem annars hefdi máske grafist á Jord og gagnad sídur’ (‘with the greatest benevolence and the most exquisite and most perfect fund o f poetry, has inspired the spirit o f so many gifted men to share with their brothers the excellent fhiits of their investments, which might otherwise have lain buried in the earth, and been o f less benefit’). He praises Magnús’s ability to find and correct ‘lýti þáú, er óvart kynnu sér ynsmeigt hafa i annara qvedskap’ (‘those blemishes that may have crept inadvertently into the poetry o f others’), indicat­ ing that Magnús had helped him to improve his own poetry, and ‘bmkad hollustu vidleitni til at ingefa mér betri smeck og Náqvæmari þeckíng á gódum skáldskapar Regi um’ (‘made the most beneficial attempts to instill in me better

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taste and more exact understanding o f the rules o f good poetry’). To this man, he says, he feels it is right that he dedicate his work - described as ‘Lýtinn åvøxt minrzar skáldyrkjV (‘small fruit o f my poetic endeavour’) - hoping fi­ nally that ‘ydar henadóms hátt þeínkjandi hjarta Óvyrdir ej minn Vidburd, né firirlýtur þetta litla, en þó vinlæga merki mi nnar aúdmjúku þacklátsemi’ (‘your honour’s lofty heart will not disdain my effort, nor despise this small yet amica­ ble token o f my humble gratitude1). It seems not unlikely that Jon had hoped with this rather obsequious dedication to persuade Magnús to publish the ‘Hugvekjusálmar’. That J6n had hoped to publish more of his work but had been frustrated in this is discernible in the comments of Ebenezer Henderson, who visited Jón briefly in 1815, and reported that ‘He possesses a good turn for sacred poetry, and has written a considerable number o f theological works, which are still lying by him in manuscript, there not being any opportunity of publishing them.’58 Perhaps we need look no further for the reasons behind the ‘óvild nokkur’ reported by Espólín that led to Jón’s leaving Saurbær. Ih 1819 Jón applied for, and was offered, Helgafell, also on Snæfellsnes, but in the end did not accept,59 remaining instead at Breiðabólsstaður. It is difficult to imagine why Jón would have done this - it makes no sense as a ‘career move’, since Helgafell was a richer and more prestigious living than any he had had - but there are a number o f possible explanations. Hannes Þorsteinsson says that Jón’s son Oddur - then Physician General (landlceknir) and an ex­ tremely influential man - had applied on Jón’s behalf, possibly even without his knowledge.60 Sr. Ágúst Sigurðsson61 suggests that J6n*s refusal may have had something to do with the previous incumbent, sr. Sæmundur Hólm (1749-1821), a colourful and controversial figure who had served there for thirty years,0 and with whom, it seems, Jón’s relations had not always been good. Jón may also have been offended because although he was offered H elgafell by the sUftamtmaður, the bishop, Geir Vídalín, had in fact put sr. Ásgiímur Vigfússon (1758-1829) first on his list of applicants.63 Jón might well have seen in this a slight: not only had he served longer, but J6n could have regarded Ásgrímur as less worthy than himself. Asgrimur had been a younger contemporary o f his at Skálholt, where his academic career had been undistinguished, to say the least. When he was eventually presented to a living Ásgrímur had proved unpopular with his parishioners and had been involved in a number of litigations, one of which resulted in his losing his living in 1793.64 Whatever his reasons, Jón was to remain at Breiöabólsstaður for the rest of his life. He did, however, apply for one more living. In 1832 Jón, now in his eighties, applied for Reykholt. While it is perhaps unwise to try to interpret the behav­ iour o f men in another time and place, it is difficult not to think that Jón, even as he had at Saurbær enjoyed the connexion with sr. Hallgrímur Petursson,65 had wanted to end his career in the place where Snorri Sturluson had lived and worked. He was not, in any case, presented to it - probably because of his age although this time the bishop, Steingrímur Jónsson, had placed him first on the

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list o f applicants. Although eventually more comfortable financially than at his earlier livings, Jón was never well of£ even by Icelandic standards.66 This was due, in part at least, to the very laige household he had to support.*7Poverty is presumably the reason why Jón, himself a man of learning, was able to educate only two o f his sons, Oddur, bom at Kálfafell in 1782, and Jón, born at Saurbær in 1807 - the firstborn sons o f his two marriages - both o f whom studied medicine and went on to become Physicians General.68 Education was expensive, and Jón simply could not afford to pay for any of his other sons. In 1816 he applied for a grant for his son Jósep to study at the Latin school at Ðessastaðir, but was refused.69 It is therefore odd, but nonetheless understandable, that none Of Jón's sons was educated to the priesthood; odder still is the fact that none o f Jón’s daughters married a clergyman - at that time so common as to be virtually the rule suggesting perhaps that aspiring young clerics, while doubtless impressed enough with Jon’s learning and erudition, were nevertheless aware that he could pro­ vide little in the way o f dowry with his daughters.70 In 1834, following the death of his second wife, Gróa, Jón retired. It was agreed that he should receive a quarter o f the income from the church at Breiðabólsstaður, and SO rd annually for three years from the Danish crown, but the following year, on Christmas Day,71 he died. Towards the end of his life Jón had become worn with age, able to walk only with a staff, and hard of hearing.72 In the last of his Tíðavísury written after the death of his wife Gróa, to whom he had been married for thirty-five years, he draws the following picture of himself: Eckill hjarir heilsu rir, Hálfhírædann gledin flyr, Blis þvi lifsins blaktir á, Ðlá-skarinu kalli hjá.73 (Widower in poor health hangs on to life, eighty-five years old; happiness flees him; the old man’s life-torch flickers.)

Jón is mentioned often enough in contemporary records, principally in the re­ ports and testimonies of the bishops and other ecclesiastical authorities per­ taining to his preferment, for us to get a fairly clear idea o f the sort o f person he was. What is said o f him is always laudatory; unlike his grandfather and name­ sake, a well-known libertine,74 Jón does not seem to have been involved in any scandals.75 Sr. Jón Steingrimsson, provost o f Skaftafellssýslu, wrote a long and lauda­ tory testimony dated 26 June 1782, in which he described Jón, still a relatively young man, then at Kálfafell, as ‘skarpan* og greindann gafuman/i’ (‘an inci­ sive, intelligent, and gifted man’), who was, he said:

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Eim hiartnæmur og uppbiggelegur Predikare og baraa uppfiædare, og med þessumm Embættis virkumm er hann med Trú og digd stundar utann kyridu sem Jnnann, leggur hann sig efter framar morgum hier, ad utleggia og sniia Guds oide og godumm Sydalærdomum a vort mäl, bæde i sunduriausa Rædu og Liodmæle, hvar til hann hefur Einar þær bestu og lidugustu gafer.76 (A sincere and inspiring preacher and teacher of the young, and through the activities of his office - which he discharges with faith and integrity both in and out of the church - he strives more than many here to interpret and elucidate the word of God and good morality in our language, both in prose and verse, to which he has some o f the best and most ready gifts.)

The bishops similarly have nothing but praise for Jón in their reports to the king on their regular visitations. Bishop Hannes Finnsson, for example, who visited Jón at Saurbær in 1791, characterised him as ‘en mand a f anseeligjog glimrende gaver, hvilke han og har efter sin knappe lejlighed ret dyrket9 (‘a man o f considerable and splendid talents, which he has also cultivated well despite his limited means’), and went on to describe how Jón delivered a ser­ mon and taught the catechism, ‘og alting forefandtes til min fuldkommen fornøjelse’ (‘and everything was to my consummate delight’). Hannes’s com­ mendation is not entirely unequivocal, however, in that he then added: Og endskiønt jeg da jeg forrige Gang visiterte hos ham havde aarsag i min allerunderdanigste Relation til 'Derfes Majestet, at tillægge manden Berømmelse, fandt jeg dog nu, at han siden den tid har tiltaget i grundighed, men siden aflagt den da altforsyn^lige Bestræbelse at ville viise sig.77 (And although when I last visited him I had occasion in my most humble report to Your Majesty to praise this man, I find now that he has since that time grown more conscientious, and ceased the then all too obvious at­ tempts to show off.)

I know o f no other reference to this alleged tendency to ostentation, but feel it may be attributable to an overzealousness on Jónfc part when younger in the execution o f his duties. As such, it would not be out of character Jón appears to have taken his work, both as parson and poet, very seriously indeed. Forty years later, now at Ðreiðabólsstaður, Jón was visaed by Bishop Steingrimur Jönsson on the afternoon o f 8 August 1831. Steingrfmur is un­ equivocal in his praise o f Jón, describing him as having ‘tjent i det præstelige Embede 54 Aar, og stedse udmærket sig for sine Talenter, som Præst og Prædikant, samt Blidhed og Munterhed i Omgang, forenet med Ædruelighed, Anstændighed og Værdighed, hvormed han uafbrudt og endnu be&lder den fortjente qualificerede Agtelse og Kjæriighed* (‘served in the priestly post for 54 years, and always distinguished himself for his talents, as a priest and preacher, together with gentleness and cheerfulness in his dealings, coupled with sobriety, decency, and dignity, with which he continues to command deserved respect and affection’).71 The bishop described how Jón - then nearly 82 years

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old - spoke from the pulpit ‘med Fynd og rørende Veltalenhed’ (‘with wit and inspiring eloquence’). The following year Jón applied for Reykholt, as was mentioned above. He was highly praised by the bishop, who in his report to the stiflamtmaður wrote of him: faan forener udmærket godt Naturgaver med en munter, blid og behagelig Carakteer, der endnu ej har forladt ham i hans høje Alderdom. Han besidder fortrinlig gode Indsigter i Theologien, er en heldig Digter, der har forfattet mange aandelige Psalmer, og flere afholdte Poesier en flydende Taler, og god Catechet. Han, stedse ædruelig og maadeholden og exemplarisk hædelig, har saaledes paapasset sit Embede at han ikke nu eneste Gang, det jeg ved, er bleven erindret om nogen Forseelse i sit Embedsforhold, men er allejjstedfcr hvor han har været, almindelig asret og elsket.79 (He combines remarkably well his natural talents with a cheejfrd, gentle, and agreeable character, which has not forsaken him in his old age. He possesses exceptional insight into theology, and is a successful poet, who has written many devout hymns and other popular poems, an eloquent speaker, and a good teacher. Ever sober, moderate, and outstandingly hon­ est, he has so carefully attended to his office that he is, so far as I know, not remembered for a single fault in the discharge of his duties, but rather he is generally loved and esteemed everywhere he has been.)

Corroboration o f the opinions of these worthy Icelandic churchmen comes from a somewhat unexpected quarter: in 1810 Jón, then still at Saurbær, was visited by Sir George Mackenzie, whose party included the young Henry Hol­ land, later to become physician to Queen Victoria. Holland^ journal, unpub­ lished until recently,80 contains a description o f the visit well worth citing here: At Saufbar which is situated on a gently rising ground on the northern side of the Fiord, we found a very neat church, with a comfortable house ad­ joining it - belonging to the minister Mr Hialtalin - By this goodly man we were received with infinite kindness & hospitality - He is a man appar­ ently about 60, with a pleasing countenance, good manners, & much gen­ eral information - He has been the minister at Saurbar for 24 years, - with 30 dollars per ann., his house free of rent, & as much land as suffices to keep a pretty good stock of cattle & sheep - The interior of his habitation is tolerably comfortable, though by no means equal in convenience or clean­ liness to the lowest class of English farm houses - The sitting room con­ tains a stove, (an article of furniture not common in the country habita­ tions in Iceland) and is furnished with a small library, containing probably about 100 books. The minister’s wife appears to be an active managing woman - It is his second matrimonial engagement. He has had 23 chil­ dren, of whom 13 are now alive [...] *l

Holland goes on to describe the church in which they were to sleep and the supper to which they were treated, after which, he says, they ‘had some pleasant

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In 1810 Sir Geoige Steuart Mackenzie visited Iceland, publishing an account of his travels the following year as Travels in the Island o f Iceland. Mackenzie and his party visited Jón Hjaltalin at Saurbær, where they stayed overnight, sleeping in the church. Mackenzie described their (worthy host' as having ‘very much the appearance of a gentleman, both in dress and maimer’, possessing a ‘considerable collection of books', and speaking Latin ‘exceedingly well’. This engraving of the church, from Mackenzie’s Travels, is based on a sketch made at the time.

conversation with him relatively [src] to the books in his library - the concerns & management o f his parish & c \ffi ‘Mr Hialtalin’, he writes, ‘shewed us from his Library some curious manuscript books of Sagas - executed with infinite labour, & neatness.* Mackenzie published an account of his travels in Iceland the year after his return, drawing largely on Hollands journal, but adding some information of his own. ‘Mr. Hialtalin*, he says, ‘had just alighted from his horse as we arrived, and received us in the kindest manner. He had very much the appearance o f a gentleman, both in dress and manner [...].* Mackenzie also notes the ‘consider­ able collection o f books; among which we met with a sort o fcatalogue raisonnée o f all the Icelandic authors, which we wished very much to obtain, but found the author unwilling to part with it*. Mackenzie mentions too that they ‘had much conversation with our worthy host, who spoke Latin exceedingly well*.*3 Next morning they ‘took leave of his hospitable family. Our host himself, putting on a cocked hat, and taking his staff in his hand, accompanied us about a mile, in order to show us the road.’84 This rounds out nicely our picture of J6n Hjaltalin, a man intelligent, affable, courteous, knowledgeable. It is interesting to contrast Holland^ description of Jón with his impression o f Magnús Stephensen, to whose farm they went after taking leave o f J6n and whom Holland, like so many others, found rather too

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full o f himself. He is, he wrote, ‘a tall, tolerably good-looking man, not very brilliant in his understanding or acquirements, but nevertheless having a very exalted opinion o f his own merits. His titles, his literary works, his house & his lands furnish an abundant theme o f conversation to him, and are introduced on every convenient occasion.’*5 JÓN HJALTALÍN’S ‘CONSIDERABLE COLLECTION OF BOOKS’ If one wished to gain an insight into the intellectual background o f someone like Jón Hjaltalin there would be few better places to begin than in a perusal o f his library. Fortunately, a fairly good idea of its contents can be gleaned from the inventory o f Jón’s estate (ra Skaalda er ý Islande hafa ordt Rýmur og kvæde sýdann Sydaskiptenn’ ('Names o f those poets who have written rimur or poems in Iceland after the Reformation’), again based entirely on fíálfdanfe section 'Poetas qvi post tempora Reformationis varia carmina aigumenti inprimis Historici & profani concinnarunt’ (pp. 76-90). This Jón follows with a section headed ‘Aúk þessara ádurtaldra hafa allt til þessara týma lifad og lifa efter skrifiid Psålma, Rymna og Kvasda Skáld’ ('in addition to these there have lived down to the present time, and live [still], the following hymnists, authors o f rimur, and poets’), in which he lists some twenty-five po­ ets not mentioned by Hálfdan, including himself, 'Jón pr. Hialtalin á Saurbæ’. Under his own name he lists as his works 'Sálma Flokk yfir Dægrastittingar, Snotrar Tída Visur, Góu Gisting, Erfiliód, Gratulatoria etc.’ To these Jón has added, obviously some time later, 'og 52 Psálma i nyu Psálmabok og Sálma yfir Sturms hugvekj[ur]’ (‘and 52 hymns in the new Hymnbook and hymns based on Sturm’s M editations'). There follows a list of 'Fom Savgur Jslendinga epter Stafrofe’ ('O ld Icelandic sagas in alphabetical order’), based on Hálfdan’s list, but taking the tslendingasogur first, followed by ‘Utlendskar fom savgur’ (‘for­ eign sagas’), and finally sagas of the various Scandinavian kings. Jón ends his list by saying: 'Hier ad aúk eru postula, pýslarvotta og Helgra manna Savgur hier umm 61 ad tølu, sem eg nafngreindar sied hefe, og eg epterlæt avdrum ad uppteikna’ ( ‘In addition to these there are approximately sixty-one sagas o f apostles, martyrs, and saints, the names o f which I have seen, but I leave to others to list’). There are, in fact, precisely sixty-one 'Historiæ Sanctorum’ listed in Sciagraphia (pp. 108-111). The implication is that Jón was not himself familiar with in the postula- and heilagramannasögur9 presumably simply be­ cause they had been rejected after the Reformation as papist and were therefore not recopied, while the surviving medieval manuscripts found their way into foreign collections. Also found in this manuscript are texts o f Hávamál, Völuspå (with Latin translation), Bergbúa þ á ttur9 Sigurdrifiimál (entitled 'Brinhylþar Liód edur heilræde Brinhyldar vid Sigurd F.B.’), Sólarljóð (lacking the first eighteen stro­ phes), Hákonarmál, a lausavisa by Eyvindur ('Výsur Eyvindar Skaldaspillis um/n nýdsku Haralds k. Grafeldar’),133 *Vysa Eigeis Skallagrims Sonar’,134 and Gunnars saga Keldugnúpsfifls. Lbs 1754 8vo, also written by Jón about 1800,135 contains texts o f a large number o f sagas and þœ ttir, viz. Hrafhs þáttur tírútfirðings9 Hreiðars þátlur heimska9Sneglu-Halla þátlur, Stúfs þáttur skálds, GisIs þáttur Illugasonar, Ásu-

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Þórðar þáttur, Odds þáttur Ófeigssonar, Fiskimanns þáttur, Halldórs þáttur Snorrasonar, Hålfdanar saga Barkarsonar, Hernings þáttur Áslákssonar, and A m ljóts þáttur Upplendingakappa. Lbs 893 8vo, already mentioned above, also contains texts o f Þorsteinsþáttur stangarhöggs, /tørstem jþáttur hvita, Þorsteins þáttur suðurfara, Þorsteins þáttur forvitna, and Þorsteins þáttur sögufróða, as well as a précis o f the three sagas o f the men of Hrafnista, Kelils saga hœngs, Grims saga loðinkinna, and Örvar-Odds saga. Three o f these þœ ttir provided Jón with material for rtmur. From Hreiðars þ á ttu r ^ derive the ‘Rímur af Hreiðari heimska’, six in number, which were composed in 1817 and are preserved in two autograph manuscripts, Lbs 248 8vo and Lbs 638 8vo. ‘Rímur af Þorsteini stangarhögg’, three in number, based on the þ á ttu r,137 are found in 248 and one other manuscript, JS 314 8vo. ‘Fiskimannsríma’, a single-fit rirna o f forty-nine stanzas preserved in the two autograph manuscripts just mentioned, is based on th s Fiskimanns þátlur, found in Flateyjarbók and M orkinskinna.m Jón also composed a set o f three ‘Rimur af Auðuni fslending’, based on Áuðunarþátiur vestfirska^9which are preserved in at least four manuscripts.140

Jón was, quite obviously, intimately familiar with the literature of his ancestors, both in verse and prose. This familiarity is discernible, for example, in his report to Den kongelige Commission fo r Oldsagers Opbevaring, which, in 1817, had a questionnaire concerning archaeological remains and stories relating to them sent to every member of the clergy in Iceland. Jón, who was one o f the first to reply,141 refers throughout to the sagas, and in a way that suggests more than just a passing acquaintance with them. He begins: Bær einn hefr Backe heitad hér ý sókn, sem råda má af sögu Laxdæla, þvý þó i sumum Exempl: standi, ad Þorkéll Eiolfsson hafi siglt allt ad Bjameýumm, þá er þad rángt, þvý Biameýar eru lángt vestr &Ðreidafyrdi, mikid af Þorkells leid, heldr á þad ad vera; allt ad Backeýumm, þvý nordr frá Ðacka nefhist enn ý dag, Þorkels Bode þar hann druknade, og Stafeý er þar rétt vestr af, þar horastahna rak á Land, þar af er audséd madrinn hefr siglt hvassan Landnyrding út eptir Hvamsfyrdi og ad ókunnigleiki og gnumsæe hefr ollad hans aldurtýla142 (There was a farm in this parish called Bakki, as can be seen from Laxdæla saga, because although it says in some exemplars that ÞorkeU Eyjólfsson sailed all the way to Bjaraeyjar this is wrong, because Bjameyjar are far to the west in Breiðafjörður, a considerable distance out of Þorkell’s way; rather it should be all the way to Bakkeyjar, because to the north of Bakki the place where he drowned is called Þoikelsboði [i.e. ‘Þorkell’s breaker*] to this day, and Stafey is just to the west; where the prow washed ashore, it is obvious from this that he sailed a stiff north-easterly wind along Hvammsfjöiður, and that his unfamiliarity and the shallow waters brought about his death.)

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It is clear from this that Jón has seen more than one manuscript of Laxdœla saga - and also that he recognises textual corruption when he sees it.143 Jón also mentions Eyrbyggja saga, about which he says: Hér vid má eg þess géta, ad af öllumm Íslendínga sögumm er eg séd heil, er einginn skrifud med meira Accuratesse, og sýnilegra minnismerkiasam stemmu, en Eyrbiggia saga.144 (I could add here that of all the tslendingasögur I have seen, none is writ­ ten with greater accuracy and more obvious geographical faithfulness than Eyrbyggja saga,)

Other tslendingasogur either named outright or referred to indirectly by Jón in his report to the Commission are Eiriks saga rauða, Uluga saga Tagldarbana, Grettis saga, K jalnesinga saga, Bárðar saga Snœ fellsássy H arðar saga og Hólmverja, Gisla saga Súrssonar, and Heiðarvíga saga. Jon’s interest in the sagas took occasionally what we might now recognise as a decidedly textual-critical bent. In addition to noting and pronouncing judge­ ment on the variant readings found in different manuscripts o f Laxdœla saga in his report to the Commission, Jón also occasionally commented in his manu­ scripts on discrepancies between or within texts. At the end o f Lbs 638 8vo, for example, in a short piece headed 'Ur Saxone Grammatico’, Jón observes that: Gun/?hildr Kónga módir sei gir Saxo verid hafí dóttir Gorms kóngs i Danmørk og systir Haraldar Ðlátannar. Ecki ber þvý saman/i vid søgr vorar Islendinga, sem seigia Gunnhildi dóttr Øssurar Tota. Gormr fæddist 830. enn Deidi 935. Eirikr Blodøx giptist 918- hefdi þá Gormr getid Gun[n]hildi yngri en 40r - hefdi hún verid úr barneign 918, þá 48 ára.145 (Saxo says that Gunnhildur honungam óðir was the daughter of King Gormur of Denmark and the sister of Haraldur blátönn. This disagrees with our Icelandic sagas, which say that Gunnhildur was the daughter of Össur toti. Gormur was bom in 830 and died in 935. Eirikur blóðox married in 918 if Gormur had conceived Gunnhildur before he was forty - she would have been over child-bearing age in 918, forty-eight years old.)

Saxo was right, but the Icelandic view - which Jón seems not surprisingly to favour - that Gunnhildur was the daughter o f Össur is found in Á grip, H eim shinglay Fagurskinnay Egils saga, and Njåls saga. Jón is probably refer­ ring here to Heimskringlay however, since only Snorri calls him toti.146 Similarly, Jón notes in Lbs 1249 8vo that: Landnáma segir pag. 54 ad Hoskuldr Dala Kollsson haíi átt Hallfridi Dóttr Þorbiamar á Vatni i Haukadal og vid hen/ri Bárd, Þorleik og mørg børn, en* Pag. 67147 seigir hun Hoskuldr haíi átt Hallfridi dóttr Biarnar, er nam Biamarf(iord). Þeirm són Þorl. fadir Bolla. Ecki ber því saman. (It says on p. 54 of Landnåma that Hoskuldur Dala-Kollsson was married to Hallfríður, daughter of Þórbjöm from Vatn in Haukadalur and had by

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her BárÖur, Þórleikur, and many [other] children, but on p. 67 it says that Höskuldur was married to Hallfriður, daughter of Bjorn, who settled Bjamarfjörður, [and that] their son [was] Þórleikur, father o f Bolli« th is is a discrepancy.)

These observations relate perhaps more to matters o f fact than to philology, but in the same manuscript, following his text o f Håkonarmål, Jón makes a number o f comments on orthography: Þad er athugande i Nordskum qvedskap, ad oft brúkast c. q. stadin/i k: edr g: til dæmis sindac les sinda eg« spacr. spakur. likaso c firer t einkumm i Enda ordsins sosem borþusc. bordust. qvoþusc. kvadust. so brúkast og stór statur i midiu orde tirer tvøfaldanw sosem þeSa firer þessa, haN han/i. stundumm brukast s firer r sosem vas firer var. lýka eru fieire ord meikiande grum les svørumm Cømingr, kóngur. caipte keipte. nacqvart nockurt. item þ firer d og k firer sk. hvøriu vitrer menn hafa ej viliad umm breita. Kavgul les skøgul. karþa kioldo komar true eg lesast eige med sk. (It is noteworthy that in Norwegian [= Norse?] poetry c and q are often used for k or g, for example sindac for sinda eg, spacr for spakur, c is also used for t, particularly at the end of the word, such as bordusc [for] bordust, qvoþusc [for] kvadust. Also a capital letter is used in the middle of a word for a double letter, such as þeSa for þessa, haN [for] hann. Sometimes s is used for r, as in vas for var. There are also other notable words, grum for svörum, conungr [for] kongur, caipte [for] keipti, nacqvart [for] nokkurt; similarly [the use of] þ for d and k for sk, which wise men have not wanted to change, [for example] kavgul for skogul; I believe karda Igoldu komar should be read with sk)

Jón here confounds a number of different things. The use o f c f o t k , þ for ð, and so on is merely orthographic, while sk for st in the medio-passive and s for r in words such as vas obviously represent actual phonological change. The use of ai for ey (as in keypti) probably originated as a misreading o f the av ligature, used in some older manuscripts for ey.148 k for sk similarly stems from a misin­ terpretation o f the sk ligature. Jon’s suspicion that these should be read sk is obviously correct, and the example he gives - from the ninth verse o f Håkonarmål149- should indeed read ‘með skarða skjgldu ok skoraar [or: skotnar] brynjur’. It is conceivable that in Conungr Jón has taken the old Tironian nota for con, used in some medieval Icelandic manuscripts,150for a capital c, and there­ fore assumes the form is kungr instead of kongr. The use o f these (pseudo-) archaic forms was all too common in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century manu­ scripts, but in the absence of reliable printed editions - and with Norse philol­ ogy still in its infancy - men like Jón had access to little else. It is to his credit that he found these forms worthy of comment, and was in some cases secure enough in his feeling for the language to question their legitimacy.

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Einar Bj amason, in addition to the ten original romances he attributes to Jón, mentions ‘Heidarviga Saga sem at mestuleiti er inntak þeiriar rettu Sögu, mjög litlu aukinn’ {^Heidarviga saga, which is chiefly a synopsis ofthat actual saga, with a few additions’).151The extent of Jón’s familiarity with saga tradition, and his position vis-å-vis that tradition, is made nowhere more manifest than in this version o f Heiðarvíga saga, and it is therefore very much worthy o f closer inspection. The history o f the unique thirteenth-century manuscript - one o f the earliest extant texts of an fslendingasaga - preserving Heiðarviga saga is well known.152 Now MS Perg. 4to nr 18 in the Royal Library in Stockholm, the manuscript was procured in Iceland by Jón Eggertsson (c. 1643-89) for the Sw edish Antikvitetskollegium in 1682.153Through references in other sagas, principally Eyrbyggja, the great manuscript collector Árni Magnússon knew that a saga dealing with these events had existed, but had been unable to locate any manu­ script o f it. Hearing of the Stockholm manuscript, he asked for it to be sent to Copenhagen for copying. Some thirty-five years later the Swedes finally com­ plied with his request, but sent only the first twelve leaves (of twenty-four), perhaps misled by a change of hand at that point, or by Jón Eggertsson’s de­ scription o f the manuscript, from which it could be deduced that there were two separate sagas, one dealing with Viga-Styr, the other with Ðarði. This first part o f the saga was copied by Árni’s amanuensis, Jón Ólafsson from Grunnavik, but unfortunately, both these twelve leaves and Jón Ólafsson’s copy were de­ stroyed in the great fire of 1728. Jón was able, a year and some months later, to reconstruct the saga based on notes he had made, references to the same events in other sagas - again, chiefly Eyrbyggja - and his prodigious memory.154 Jón revised his reconstruction, which he called a ‘Breviarum’ - in Icelandic ‘Inntak’ - o f the lost saga o f Viga-Styr, the following year, and eventually made four copies, one o f which, now Lbs 442 4to, he sent to Iceland,155 where it was copied a good many times over the next century and a half.156 As far as anyone knew, the twelve leaves destroyed in the fire o f 1728 were all that had survived o f the saga from medieval times. It was not until 1772 that Hannes Finnsson, son o f Bishop Finnur Jónsson and later bishop himself, dis­ covered the remaining twelve leaves while examining Icelandic manuscripts in Stockholm.157 His transcription survives in a number o f contemporary copies, Lbs 132 4to (ii), MS 21.7.6 in the Advocates’ Library in Edinburgh, Nks 1764 and 1765 4to, and was, like Jón Ólafsson’s Tnntak’, much copied later.156 The rediscovered Stockholm fragment corroborated much o f what Jón Gninnvikingur had remembered and appeared, moreover, to take up the story exactly where Jón’s Tnntak’ had left it. To complete this already incredible story, a leaf missing from the Stockholm

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manuscript was discovered in Landsbókasafn in 1951.J” It is in rather poor condition, particularly on the recto side, having been used as a cover for some pocket-sized manuscript, but most o f the verso side is legible and goes a long way toward filling in the lacuna, about which 1 shall have more to say below. This, then, is the official history o f the transmission o f H eiðarvíga saga, seen from the point o f view o f philologists and editors, whose concern is solely to establish a tex t There is another, parallel, history o f the saga’s transmission, however, one seen from the point o f view o f the people fo r whom the tslendingasogur had remained a living tradition. It is a history in which Jón Hjaltalin, as we shall discover, plays a not insignificant role.

‘ÖU pappírshandrit Heiöarv[iga] sjpgu]9, says Sigurður Nordal in the introduc­ tion to the íslen zkfo m rit edition, ‘[...] stafa frá skinnbókarbrotinu í Stokkhólmi pg inntatd Jóns Ólafssonar’ (‘all paper manuscripts o f H eiðarvíga saga [...] derive from the vellum fragment in Stockholm and Jón Ólafsson’s “Inntak” ’) for which reason they are dismissed as 'einskis virði’ (‘worthless’).160This state­ ment is obviously true in the sense that there are no paper manuscripts preserv­ ing an independent text o f the medieval saga. It is misleading, however, in that approximately a quarter o f the extant paper manuscripts o f Heiðarvíga saga preserve texts which, while deriving ultimately from the Stockholm fragment and Jón Ólafssonfe ‘Inntak’, are not texts o f the saga as such. Rather, they pre­ serve a retelling o f the saga, augmented by material from a variety of sources, written by Jón Hjaltalin. There are in fact two separate but closely related texts in Jón’s hand dealing with material relating to Heiðarviga saga. The earlier o f the two, found in Lbs 1249 8vo, is entitled ‘Innehald Viga Styrs og Heidarviga Saugu’ (‘The content o f the saga of Viga-Styr and the Heath-slayings’). It is dated in a colophon to 1799, and nothing in the text suggests that it is a copy o f an earlier original, so there is no reason not to think it was produced at that time. The Tnnehald’ is a relatively short work, only some 2300 words, clearly based on Jón Ólafsson’s ‘Inntak’ and the Stockholm fragment.161 Jón would have been at Skálholt when Hannes returned from Stockholm with his transcription o f Perg. 4to nr 18, and he may well have read it there, but both texts were available widely enough in manuscript by the end of the century for him to have had access to them. Jón states in the colophon that the text has been ‘hripad til minnis’ (‘jotted down as a reminder’), and this is very much the impression one gets when reading it. It is plainly not intended as a finished work o f any kind. Jón has simply noted the basic elements o f the plot o f the saga, adding some informa­ tion o f his own, for example where characters or events are mentioned in other sagas. Although he follows the saga closely, he only very occasionally repro­ duces the words o f the saga itself, for example Gestur Þórhallason’s famous ‘Þar launaði ek þér lambit grá’ (‘There I have repaid you for the grey lamb’),

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AM 278 8vo. The beginning of Jón Hjaltalin’s version of Heiðarvíga saga, written 1800. Photo: Det amamagnæanske Institut, Copenhagen.

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uttered as he buries his axe in Styrk head. The following few lines, taken from the very beginning o f the ‘Innehald', correspond to some two and a half thousand words in Jón Ólafsson’s ‘Inntak’,162 and reveal clearly how Jón proceeded: Sagan/i byriast á Ada nockrum/w sem veginn var utaf Lángáse er vegandin/t og hann deilduumm. Þennasama mann vog Styr Svo talast umm Berseikina Hall og Leiknir eins og Eyrbygga hermir, og hvørsu Styr med þeim drap Þorbjom kialka og þá svo sialfa sldann.163 (The saga begins with someone called Atli who was killed because of a purlin which he and his slayer fought over. This same man was killed by Styr. Then the beiserks Halli and Leiknir are told of in the same way as in Eyrbygga, how they helped Styr to kill Þorbjöm kjálki and were them­ selves later killed by him.)

Sometime after this Jón produced another version of Heiðarviga saga, but one which has all the appearances of a finished work. This, presumably, is the work described by Einar á Mælifelli as ‘ad mestuleiti inntak þeirrar réttu søgu, litium sennilegum gátum aukinn’ (‘chiefly a synopsis o f the true saga, to which are added minor probable conjectures’).164 Jón calls this work too an ‘Ágrip’, or summary, o f the saga, but it is some three times the length o f his Tnnehald’, nearly 7000 words. Jón Hjaltalínk ‘Ágrip’ is preserved in seven manuscripts altogether, only one o f which, AM 278 8vo, is an autograph. A colophon claims the work was ‘Ritad ad Saurbæ vid Hvalfiørd, þann 17. Decembr. 1806\ This must refer to the date o f the work’s original composition, however, rather than the date o f this particular manuscript, since another manuscript, JS 537 4to (vi), written in 1818 by Sigurður Daðason from Hellisvellir, claims to be based on a manu­ script in Jónfe hand dated 17 December 1806, but does not contain a number o f errors and omissions found in AM 278. A third manuscript, Lbs 3998 8vo, preserves an ‘Ágrip a f Heydar-Wíga Sögu* which is also attributed to Jón, ‘Eftir hvörs egin bandar Riti’, the unidentified scribe asserts, ‘eg hefi þessi blöd upp skrifad’ (‘from whose autograph manuscript I have copied these leaves’). This text is similar enough to JS 537 to suggest that the two derive from the same exemplar. The remaining four manuscripts are closer in some respects to AM 278, but again without the errors and omissions found there, indicating that Jón must have made several copies. The oldest of these four is Lbs 2740 4to, writ­ ten in 1821 by Ólafur Sivertsen i Flatey, on which was based Lbs 87 8vo, writ­ ten in 1825 by Halldór Pálsson á Ásbjamarstöðum, on which in turn was based Lbs 2527 8vo, written in 1826 by the great rimur poet Hjálmar Jónsson (BóluHjálmar). Independent of these is Lbs 2471 4to, written in an unknown hand sometime between 1834 and 1836. In none of these four is there any reference made to Jón Hjaltalin, and all have been catalogued simply as manuscripts o f Heiðarvlga saga. Whether they were originally copied and read as such is im­

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possible to say. In 2740 and, following it, 87 and 2527 the saga is entitled sim­ ply 4Viga-Stirs og Heidar-Viga Søgur’, suggesting that they probably were.

Jon’s principal source for the ‘Ágrip’ is his own Tnnehald’,165 which he expands through the addition o f incidental detail and dialogue. While much o f this ma­ terial corresponds to material in the original, the wording is most often com­ pletely different, not least in the passages of dialogue. Most of the major events of the saga remain, but the order in which they are described is occasionally different, and there is a good deal of conflation and telescoping. There are two passages, however, which are taken verbatim from the text o f the Stockholm fragment. The first o f these is the scene between Barði and his fóstra, where she feels his body to try and determine whether he will be wounded in the battle to come and gives him a necklace to wear as protection,166 and the second the scene in which the Þorgautssynir are mowing Gullteigur and see Ðarði and his men approaching.167 Precisely these two passages were printed in a footnote to the preface o f the 1775 Copenhagen edition of Gunnlaugs saga ormstunguym which, given the almost complete lack of verbal correspondence in the rest of the text, would be enough to suggest that Jón took them from there - the pres­ ence in Jón’s text o f the editorial emendation ‘snerist’ (‘turned’) for the original ‘cemtir uið’ (‘mumble’) may be said to remove any doubt.169It seems not unrea­ sonable to conclude from this that Jon cannot have had a full text o f Heiðarvíga saga in front o f him when producing his ‘Ágrip’. Like Jón Ólafsson, then, he appears to have been working on the basis o f notes he had made and filling in the details chiefly from memory. It is remarkable, in view of this, how close Jón frequently manages to get to the original saga. A good example is the scene where Ketill Þorgautsson carries the dead body of his brother Gisli back to their father. In Jón’s ‘Innehald’ this is described in a single sentence: Ketill bródr hans greip hann á bak sier og hlióp til bæjar og kastadi fyrer fætr fødr hans.170 (His brother Ketill picked him up and carried him on his back and ran to the farm and threw him before his father’s feet.)

This is expanded in the ‘Ágrip’ to the following: Kétili greip upp Gisla Brodr sinn & hlióp til bæjar, og var þá Þorbiom á Veggiumm kominn ad Þorgautz stodumm, og sátu þe/r Þorgautur saman/i i smidiu, Þorg(autur) mæ(lti), er hann heirde hvinenn úte: hvad harkar þar, edur mim Bardi ad noidann kominn, i þvij kastade Kétili Gisla nidr vid smidiudyrnar, og mæ(lti): þad fann hann Gisli sonur þinn, ad Bardi var ad Nordann kominn.171 (Ketill picked up his brother Gisli and ran to the farm. Þorbjöm from Veggir was then there at Þorgautsstaðir, and he and Þorgautur sat together

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in the smithy. Þorgautur, hearing some noise outside, said: ‘What commo­ tion is that? I don’t suppose Ðarði has come from up north?’ At that mo­ ment Ketill threw Gisli’s body down in the doorway to the smithy and said: ‘Your son Gisli found out that Ðarði has come from up north.’)

To which may be compared the text o f Heiðarvíga saga itself: Ketill kippir honum Gisla inn af garðinum ok kastar honum á bak sér; ekki sjáþeir, at honum yrði mikill þungi at honum; hann hleyprheim til bœjaríns. Þeir Þorgautr váru í smiöju ok Þorbjgrn, ok bíðr, ef húskarl hans kœmi með smlfiarefiii. Hann mælti Þorgautn *Þó er hark mikit; er eigi Baröi kominn?’ Ketill kom inn i smiðjuna i því bili ok segir: ‘Þat fann Gisli, sonr þinn, at hann er kominn,* kastaði honum dauðum fyrir fætr honum.172 (Ketill dragged Gisli in over the wall and cast him onto his back - it didn’t appear to them that he was any bruden to him - and ran home to the farm. Þorgautur and Þoibjöm were in the smithy, waiting until the servant brought the materials. Þorgautur said: ‘There’s a great deal of commotion, isn’t there? I don’t suppose Barði has come?’ Just then Ketill came into the smithy and said: ‘Your son Gisli found out that he has come.’ And he threw his dead bodý before his father’s feet.)

Earlier in the ‘Ágrip’Jón had mentioned the phrase ‘Hvørt mun Bardi ad Nordarm kominn’ (‘Has BariK come from up north?’), which he says the brothers used ‘i háde [...] hvørt sinn er hundr gó edur harkad var nockud’ (‘in jest [...] every time a dog howled or there was any commotion’). This is a slightly imperfect recollection o f the original ‘Mun eigi Barði koma?’173 The phrase does not appear at all in the ‘Innehald’, however, and Jón must be relying completely on memory - prompted, probably, by Gisli’s admonition, found in the scene on Gullteigur taken from the preface to Gunnlaugs saga, that his brothers have behaved ‘sem Barði muni koma undan hverri hríslu í allt sumar’ (‘as if Ðaiði would come out from under every twig all summer’). The scene in which Barði plays on the nickname o f Þórður melrakki, only to find himself rebuked in turn for his delay in avenging his brother, is similarly not mentioned in the ‘Innehald’ at all, but does appear in the ‘Ágrip’: Þárdr hiet madr hann var kalladr Melrakki, heima madr Barda & fóstri burydar, so bar til eitt kvold, ad Þórdr kom heim frá heiverki, og dró epter sér orfed, Bardi var úte staddur & mæ(lti): lángt dregur nú Melrachim? skottid! Þórdr mælti: leingri muntu draga halan/i, ádur en/i þú heiner Halls bródur þins. Eij må vita seger Bardi hvørs þar umm auded verdr.174 (There was a man named Þórður. He was called melrakki [‘fox’], and was a member of Ðarði’s household and Þuríður’s fosterling. It happened one evening that Þórður was coming back from hay-making and dragged his scythe behind him. Barði was outside and said: ‘The fox drags his tail far behind him now.’ Þórður said: ‘You’ll drag your tail further behind you before you avenge your brother Hallur’ ‘Who knows’, said Ðaiði, ‘what may happen as far as that’s concerned?*

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Ðarðife final comment has no parallel in Heiðarvíga saga, which tells us instead that (Barði hefhdi honum engu orði’ (‘Barði gave him no reply’), but the rest o f the scene is a not too distant approximation o f the original: Ðarði var úti ok þeir broeðr, er þeir kómu heim verkmenninir; heilsuðu þeir þeim vel; hgfðu þeir með sér verkfœri sín, ok dregr Þórðr melrakki eptir sér ljáorf sitt. Barði mœlti: ‘Dregr Melrakki eptir sér halann sinn nú.’ ‘Svá er,* segir harm Þórðr, ‘at ek dreg eptir mér halann minn, ok her ek litt upp eða ekki, en þess varir mik, að þú dragir þinn hala mjgk lengi, áðr þú hefhir Halls, bróður þins.*175 (Ðarði and his brothers were outside when the workmen came, and they greeted them well. They had their tools with them, and Þórður the fox was dragging his scythe behind him. Ðarði said: ‘The fox drags his tail behind him now.* ‘It’s true*, Þórður said, ‘that I drag my tail behind me, and hardly lift it up at all, but I have a feeling that you*ll be dragging your tail a long time before you avenge your brother Hallur.*)

Very occasionally Jón gets his facts wrong. He says, for example, that Þóiður á Ðreiðavaði ‘átte stodhroß 4, hvijt ad lit, enn svørt ad eynimm’ (‘had four stallions, white in colour, but with black ears*), which disappear mysteriously. In the saga they are only two, but Jón’s ‘Innehald’ says only ‘stódhroB gód’ (‘good stallions*). Towards the end of his ‘Ágrip’ Jón has Ðarði divorce Guðrún in retaliation for his father-in-law’s refusal to help him after he has returned from exile, rather than before, as he awaited a counter-attack by the Gislungar. A lthough it says in the ‘In n eh ald ’ only that ‘Ðardi átte fir G udrunu Þorb(jamar)d(otter)176 og sagdi skilid vid hana’ (‘Barðifc first wife was Guðrún Bjamadóttir, but he divorced her’), Ðarði’s comment to his father-in-law in the ‘Ágrip’ is virtually the same as in the saga, reading in Jón’s text ‘meira ertu lýtelmenm,177 enn ad Nockur dugandez Madr vilie vid þig Mægdur vera’ (‘You are too mean a man for anyone with gallantry to want to be your son-in-law’),178 and in the original ‘þú ert miklu mein níðingr en duganda manni sami at eiga þig at mág’ (‘You are far too much of a miser for any man of gallantry to have you for a father-in-law’).179 This is immediately followed in the ‘Ágrip’ by the information that ‘Epter þad reid Bardi vestur i Dali og bad Audar dótter Snorra Goda, & var hwn hønum gipt’ (‘After that Barði rode west into Dalir and asked for the hand of Auður, daughter of Snorri goði, and she was married to him’), which leads into the annecdote in which their early morning pillow fight ends in divorce. In the saga180 it is Barði who divorces Auður after she, in retaliation for his striking her, hits him with a stone. The ‘Innehald’ says simply that Barði ‘sagde [...] skiled vid Audi’ (‘divorced Auður’), but in the ‘Ágrip’, Jón, pre­ sumably under the influence of Njála - he even uses the word ‘kinnhestr’ (‘a slap in the face’) - has it the other way, with only one blow, resulting in Auður naming witnesses and declaring herself divorced from Barði.

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There are several scenes in Heiðarviga saga which are not mentioned at all in Jönb ‘Ágrip’, including at least one which most modem readers would con­ sider to be among the more memorable scenes in the saga - the slaying o f the two Norwegian berserks in the bath-house. In fact, the entire episode involving the berserks is summarised almost as briefly as in the passage from the ‘Innehald’ cited above: Styrr átte bróder sem Vermundur hiet, og bió i Biarnaihøfh, hann flutte út hingad berserke tvo, Hall & Leikner, og gaf brådr synumm Styrr, filgdu þeir hønum ad drðpi Þoibiarnar Kiálka, & fiellu sydann 181 fyrer Styrr, sem seigir i sogu Eyrbiggia.182 (Styr had a brother named Vermundur who lived at Bjaraaihofh. He brought from Norway the two berserks Haiti and Leiknir, and gave them to his brother Styr. They accompanied him in the slaying of Þoibjðm kjálki, and were themselves later killed by Styr, as it says in Eyrbyggja saga.)

This last line could in fact explain why Jón decided to leave the episode out: since it was found in Eyrbyggja in essentially the same form it was enough simply to refer to it there. Similar motivation has not infrequently been attrib­ uted to Jón’s predecessors some six or seven centuries before.

Jón^ ‘Ágrip’ also contains a good deal of material not found in Heiðarvíga saga. This material - the ‘litlar sennilegar gåtur’ mentioned by Einar á Mælifelli - consists on the one hand of borrowings from other sagas, in most cases Eyrbyggja, and on the other o f stories relating to the characters and events of the saga taken from oral tradition. Brief passages deriving from Eyrbyggja can be found throughout the first half o f Jón’s 'Ágrip’. These are often taken up verbatim - reinforcing, para­ doxically perhaps, my belief that Jón cannot have had a text o f Heiðarviga saga in front o f him as he worked. Jón begins his ‘Agrip’ in good saga style with the X hét rnaður formula followed by a genealogy and physical description o f the principal character taken almost entirely from the twelfth chapter o f Eyrbyggja:183 Styrr hiet Madur, son Þorgríms Kiallakz sonar, Biarnør sonar ens Austræna i Biamarhøfn. Styrr war mikell madr & sterkur, stórbeinóttur i Andliti, Raudbleikr á Hár & skolbrúnn. Hann war ofstopa madr mikill & fullur ójafhadar, viga madr mikill, & vilde enginn bæta, & fyrer þvij var hann Výgastyrr kalladr.184 (There was a man named Styr, the son o f Þorgrímur, who was the son of Kjallakur, who was the son of Björn the Easterner from Bjarnarhofn. Styr was a large man, and strong, with coarse features, light red hair, and a dark complexion.185 He was an overbearing man, and unjust, and had killed many men but refused to pay compensation for any, and far this he was called Viga-Styr [‘Killer-Styr’].)

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Jón’s ‘Ágrip’ agrees with Eyrbyggja in several cases where it is at variance with Heiðarvíga saga (in Jón Ólafsson’s retelling). One example o f this is the scene in which Snorri goði attempts unsuccessfully to prosecute Styr’s slaying, and in retaliation attacks and kills Þorsteinn Gislason and his son. Jón follows Eyrbyggja in saying the Gislungar had 500, rather than 1200, supporters, and in calling Þorsteinn’s son Gunnar rather than Þorvarður. Snorri’s party in the raid on Þorsteinn is said in the ‘Ágrip’ to number twenty, the reading o f AM 448 4to (p. 154) alone among primary manuscripts o f Eyrbyggja - in all others they are said to have been fifteen.146 Twenty is the number found in the Copenhagen edition o f 1787,187 which was based on AM 448, suggesting that this was prob­ ably the text of Eyrbyggja Jón used.1“ On the other hand, Jón Ólafsson’s own notes to his Tnntak’1“ also give their number as twenty, and perhaps Jón had simply remembered it from there. Another addition to the ‘Ágrip’ is an eight-line dróttkvœtt stanza attributed to the dead Styr. Jón’is text is as follows: Horfinn er fagr farvi, Forvitin/i siádu litinn, Dreingr i Daudans keingi, Drós hefur hvarma liósa, Hilldar pløgg varu hoggvinn, Háda eg Valþing brádan, Kar190 er á kampi vorom, Kistu mær, ef þig listir.191 (Gone is the comely colour, curious, see the pigment; a champion in death’s contortion; the woman has bright eyelids. Hewn was the battle armour; soon I’ll engage in warfare; there’s mucus in my whiskers; kiss, maiden, if you fancy.)

This verse, or part of it at least, appears to have been known, and commonly attributed to Styr, from at least the beginning o f the eighteenth century. Jón Grunnvikingur mentions it in his Tnntak’, but says it is not the verse found in the original: Þad var stirdt qveden og æde draugaleg dröttqveden visa, alls ölik þessare sem menn hafa um hónd: Horfin erfagurfarfi etc. enn þö var sama meining fyrst i henne, og var þar nefhdur litr enn eigifarfi, nefhde þar i blæiu heim, edur þvilikt, og eige bydur hann henne þar i ad kyssa sig, helldur seger, ad hiin mune innan skams byggia med sier molldbiiaheim, edur þvilikt, þad var seinast i henne.192 (It was an awkward and extremely eerie skaldic verse, completely different from the one people often use, (Horfinn er fagur farvi’, etc., although the sense in the first part was the same, but with the word ‘litur’ rather than ‘farvi’; there was mentioned ‘í blsju heim’ or some such, and in it he doesn’t ask her to kiss him, but rather says that she will soon join him in

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‘moldbúaheim’ [the realm of mould-dwellers], or some such - that came at the end o f it.)

The verse as he knew it probably consisted o f only four lines, however, the first and last couplets o f the verse as cited above. These are found in the ninth vol­ ume o f his ‘Lexicon islando-latinum’, begun in 1736. The citation does not come under any headword - it is at the beginning o f the section on 71, with which no word in the verse begins - and is more to be regarded as marginalia, in so far as that term can be used with reference to so chaotic a work as the ‘Lexi­ con*. The heading is ‘Visa er søgd sie i Viga Styrs søgu* (‘A verse which is said to be in Viga-Styrs saga*): Horfenn er fagur farve forviten/i siadu liten käm er i kampe varum kystu mær, ef þig lyster.193

After this has been added, obviously some time later: ‘Audsied at hwn er nygiørd, og þar ad auki lýtils verd’ (‘Obvious that it is recent, and o f little value as well’). Sveinbjöm Rafnsson has argued that Jon’s source for this verse is likely to have been Jón Halldórsson’s ‘Supplementum’, where the same four lines are found,194 the only difference being that Jón Grunnvikingur has substituted, pre­ sumably in the interests o f assonance, ham (‘grime* or ‘scum*) for kar (‘slime*, ‘muck*). These four lines are also given, with Latin translation, in a footnote in the second volume of Bishop Finnur Jónsson*s Historia Ecclesiastica Islandiœ, where they are said to be the first occurrence of the word k a r - Finnur appears to believe the verse is genuine.195 Finnur’s source, argues Sveinbjöm, is also likely to have been the ‘Supplementum’. This may well be, but it is also obvi­ ous that the verse circulated widely orally. It appears, now eight lines as in Jón’s ‘Ágrip*, in Jón Ámason’s tslem kar þjóðsogur og œvintýri, where it forms the central part o f a ghost story, one of a rather different character and having noth­ ing to do with Viga-Styr, collected by Siguröur Gudmundsson målari (1833— 74).196 Guðbrandur Vigfüsson comments that he has heard the line ‘Kar er á kampi vorum’,197 adding that ‘Visan er stælð og ekki sermo popularis; þó hefir Jón í Gnumavík kunnað hana og hún verið algeng ár 1770’ (‘The verse is bo­ gus, and not in the popular style; Jón from Grunnavik knew it, however, and it was common in the year 1770*). He says also that, like Jón Grunnvikingur, he has heard it attributed to Styr.19i Kristian Kálund, in a note to his edition of Heiðarvíga saga, prints the verse from AM 278 8vo - referred to as ‘En fri bearbejdelse a f Heiðarvíga saga fra c. 1800* (‘a free adaptation o f Heiðarvíga saga from c. 1880’) - and adds that he himself has ‘faet den mundtlig meddelt pá Island’ (‘heard it recited orally in Iceland’). Jón Hjaltalin may well have been inspired to include the verse by Finnur’s Historia Ecclesiastica, but that would only have provided him with the first and last couplets; the rest, unless they are his own invention, can only have come from oral tradition.199

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Oral tradition was presumably also the source for the information Jón pro­ vides on the nickname o f the character Jón Gruimvikingur calls Narfi but is named Torfi in the Stockholm fragment. In the fragment he is called ‘LygiTorfi’ (‘Lying-Torfi’), but Hannes Finnsson misread this as ‘Lyng-Torfi’ (‘LingTorfi’), and this is the form that occurs in all the manuscripts I have seen based on his transcription, and in the edition of 1829.200 It is also found in Jón Sigurðsson’s edition,201 in the transcription of the Stockholm fragment on which that edition was based, now JS 224 4to, made in 1841 by Ólafur Pálsson, as well as in Valdimar Ásmundarson’s edition, printed in Reylgavik in 1899. ‘LyngTorfi’, not surprisingly, is the form found in both the Tnnehald’ and the ‘Ágrip’, but in the latter J6n adds the information that he was called this because ‘Hann var Ummhleípíngr og ónytiúngr, & lá opt úte á Heidumm’ (‘he was an unreli­ able and good-for-nothing fellow, and frequented the heaths’),202 an obvious bit of folk etymology.

The largest single addition to Jón^s ‘Ágrip’, and one which certainly derives from oral tradition, is an episode in which Barði and his men take refuge in the so-called ‘Borgarvirki’ - the term is not used by Jón - a fortification near Stóra Borg in Víðidalur, and are besieged by the Borgfirðingar. This episode comes at that point in the saga where there is, or was, a lacuna in the Stockholm frag­ ment. The discovery of the missing leaf in 1951 put an end once and for all to speculation that some such episode had once been part of the saga, showing it to be, in the words of Jón Helgason, ‘ekki annað en bábilja ein’ (‘pure and simple poppycock’). Båbilja it may be, but if so it is babilja with an impressive pedigree, one stretching back to well before J6n Hjaltalin’s day. Páll Vídalín (1667-1727) speaks in his Skýringar yftr Fornyrði Lögbókar about ‘traditiones’ to this effect, which, judging from the age o f the sources he cites, must have been well established by the mid-seventeenth century.203 There appear to have been two versions, one in which the Borgfiröingar simply give up the siege after a fortnight, and another in which, their food running out, Ðarði (or one o f his men) throws a sausage out to his opponents, who take this as an indication that they have no shortage of supplies and lift the siege. Jón Ólafsson mentions the story in the appendix to his Tnntak’, ‘Nockrar liklegar Til gatur um Mennena, Timann og Stadenn, sem Heidarvigenn snerta’ (‘Some probable conjectures concerning the men, time, and place of the Heath-slayings’), saying that ‘su Relationen ad Barde hafe büest um i Borgarvirke, og kastad þar üt mors idrenu. stendur ä aungvum fotum’ (‘the story that Barði took refuge in Borgarvirki, and there threw out a sausage, is without foundation*),204 but not a few scholars, among them Björn M. Ólsen, while doubting the veracity o f the sausage inci­ dent, have been inclined to believe that some similar episode had indeed origi­ nally formed part o f the saga.205 Kålund says that the Borgarvirki episode has been used to fill in the lacuna ‘i

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flere i nyere tid forfattede udtog af sagaen9 (‘in a number o f latterly produced summaries o f the saga9), mentioning AM 278 and Valdimar Ásmundarson’s edition o f 1899, where the episode is printed as an appendix.206 Guðni Jónsson and Sigurður Nordal make a similar claim,207 i.e. that ‘sumir skrifarar’ ('some copyists9) have added the episode, but, again, name only AM 278, the 1899 edition, and Benedikt Sveinsson9s popular edition from 1926.208 The text in these printed editions is that o f Jónfc ‘Ágrip’, taken, it is said, from a manu­ script written by Jón Þorsteinsson á Guðnabakka in 1822. This is only one o f a number, Valdimar says in his introduction, in which the episode has been added. This particular manuscript does not appear to have survived, but the text as printed is closest to that o f Lbs 2740 4to, written in 1821. There is, therefore, no written text o f the episode known to me which does not derive from Jon’s ‘Ágrip9, nor have I seen any manuscripts o f Heiðarvíga saga ‘proper9to which the episode has been added.209 That Jón was the first to write the episode down is suggested by the way in which he introduces it into the ‘Ágrip’: Nw skal greina epter þvij sem fróder menu hafa tiád, þó eige firmest þad á Bókumm Ritad, & hvad Merken/r sýna, ad eitthvad muni hælt i vera.210 (Now we shall relate what has been told by learned men, although it is not found written in books, but which the [archaeological] relics show must have some truth in it.)

Jón Hjaltalin’s version of Heiðarviga saga reveals a number o f things. It is clear; to begin with, that he had a great interest in and profound knowledge of saga literature. But it is also clear that his position vis-å-vis that literature was not that o f the antiquarian or philologist - this was, for him, a living literary tradition, one in which it was possible to take an active part. Proceeding as he did, combining a variety of written and oral sources pertaining to people and events o f the past, but without any respect for, because no sense of, ‘the text9, Jón was acting in a manner not wholly dissimilar to that attributed to the ‘origi­ nal9 saga writers o f the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. FOREIGN INFLUENCES Jón’s literary interests were in no way confined to things Icelandic, however - 1 have already mentioned his familiarity with Minerva and Den politiske Tilskuer —and there is much to suggest that he was extraordinarily widely read in eigihteenth-century European literature. On the last leaves o f Lbs 893 8vo, men­ tioned above, there is another list, headed ‘Historiur Lesnar’ (‘Stories read9), for ‘A0 17929, and - after only two items - ‘Anno 17939. The complete list is as follows:

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The unwashed children o f Eve A f Johes211 Thómas og Sophiu Þeim vonda - etc. Bada Tomos a f Miguel de Cerv: Saavedra af Isabella - Den utidilige nysgerrige] Den navnkyndige kokke pige De tvende Elskerinde. Marco Antonio. Den mistænkelige Estramadurer. Frøken Cornelia. Det bedragelige giftermaal med Samtale mellem Cepion & Berganza. Den lille Albertus, og Adalphæa. Lucian og Gedula. Solanders og Floramine. Fruentimmer hospitalet. Om blodets krapt Wessels Samtlige Skripter i 2 Tomis Kammerherre Sums Samlede Skripter 3 T bestaaende af Samtaler, Idyller, Hist­ orier, Moralske og Philosophiske afhandlinger Gellerts Moralske forelæsninger i 2 Tomus J: Olsen: om Nordens gamle digtekonst

Several o f these are immediately identifiable. Jón Ólafsson’s Om Nordens gamle Digtekonst we have seen before; Johan Herman Wesselfc Samtlige Skrivter were published in two volumes in 1787. Kammerherre og Kongelig Historiographus Peter Friderich Suhms samlede Skrifter began appearing in Copenhagen in 1788 and ran eventually to sixteen volumes. These are presumably the first three volumes; vol. i consisted principally of ‘Idyller og Samtaler*, but contained also several ‘Afhandlinger (moralske og philosophiske)’, more o f which were found in vol. ii, while the bulk o f the ‘Fortællinger* - Jón’s ‘Historier’ - are found in vols ii-iii. Christian Fürchtegott Gellert’s Moralske Forelæsninger, p å D ansk oversatte a f Peder Topp Wandall appeared in 1773, followed by a second edition in 1778. Most o f the remaining titles come from Charlotte Dorothea Biehlfe Danish translation of theNovelas ejemplares o f Miguel de Cervantes S aavedra, Lærerige F o rtæ lle r, published in two volumes - hence the reference to ‘Bada Tomos* in Copenhagen in 1780-81. These are: ‘Den utidige Nysgierrige’, vol. ii, pp. 5 70 (= ‘El curioso impertinente*, subsequently incorporated into Don Quixote, and not now norm ally included with the novelas212), ‘Den navnkundige Kokkepige’, vol. ii, pp. 71-146 (= ‘La tlustre fregona’), ‘De tvende Elskerinder’, vol. ii, pp. 147-98 (■ ‘Las dos doncellas*, Marco Antonio being the name o f the principal male character), ‘Den mistænkelige Estramadurer*, vol. ii, pp. 199-254 ( - ‘El celoso extremeno’), ‘Frøken Cornelia*, vol. ii, pp. 255-308 (= ‘La senora Cornelia’), *Det bedragelige Giftermaal’ and ‘Samtale imellem Cipion og Berganza, tvende hunde i Opstandelses Hospitalet til Valladolid’, vol. ii, pp. 309-90 (= ‘El casamiento enganoso’ and ‘El coloquio de los perros*),

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and ‘Blodets Kraft’, vol. i, pp. 331-64 ( - ‘La fuerza de la sangre’). The first title listed is ‘a f Isabella’, by which is presumably meant ‘Den engelske Spanierinde', vol. i, pp. 235-96 ( - ‘La espahola inglesa’), Isabella being the name o f the principal character.213 Apart from ‘Blodets Kraft’, the title o f which J6n misremembers, this is the only story from the first volume,214 whereas all the stories from the second volume are listed, reasonably accurately and in the order in which they appear, suggesting that he may only have had the second volume in front o f him when compiling the list, having perhaps lent the first volume to someone, or returned it to whomever he had borrowed it from. Also mentioned in the list o f ‘Historiur’ is ‘Lucian og Gedula’. A ‘Saga a f Lucian og Gedula’ is given by Einar á Mælifelli and Hallgrímiir djákni as one o f the sagas ‘sem Jon prestur Hjatltalin hefur utlagt’ ( ‘translated by sr. Jón Hjaltalín’), and texts o f the saga are found in Lbs 638 8vo, Jón’s autograph, and in three other manuscripts.2151 have not yet been able to find any source for this work, but it is fairly clear from the Icelandic that it has been translated from some Danish moralskfortæ lling, although whether this was an original Danish work or a translation from some other language is difficult to say. It is also fairly clearly not a work o f any great antiquity, probably not much older than the translation itself, perhaps from the mid-eighteenth century. The chief protagonists of the story are Lucian, a farmer’s son who through his prowess becomes a general in the Kaiserfe army and eventually a great landowner, and Gedula, the daughter of an aristocrat, who is loved by Lucian but prohibited, initially, from marrying him because o f his social station. The ‘moral* implicit in the story is spelt out at the end, where we are told: Kénnir saga þessi mønmim þrýár helstu athugasemdir, sem em þessar. 1. ad Dygd og Dugnadur sieu hvøriumm adli dýrmætari. 2. ad Grimdarfull og Ránglát medhøndlan gétur svo trylt mans gied og synni, ad hami af Ørvænting og gremju grýpi til þeirra medala, sem bædi bønumro ogødrumm em ý Ráúninm hrillileg. og 3** Hafi man/ii ordid þad á, ad taka stórlega feil, er þad sýálfs mans skildu og san/iri skinsemi samqvæmast, ad greida úr þvý á besta hátt, og giøra sem verdur gott úr vondu, þvý opt er besta Lækníng ý beiskustu Jurtum.216 (This story demonstrates three main points, which are these: 1. that virtue and doughtiness are more valuable than any nobility. 2. that cruel and unjust treatment can so transform a man’s mind and disposition, that in desperation and anger he resorts to measures that are in truth both to him and others horrible, and 3. if a man has made a serious error it is his own responsibility and most in keeping with duty and good sense to redress it in the best way possible, to make good come out of the bad, for often the best medicine is in the most bitter o f herbs.)

Another work mentioned in the list is ‘Solanders og Floramine’. This was presumably the ‘Sagan af Sólander’, a translation of which is also attributed to Jón,217 but which has not survived. I have not found the original o f this work,

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nor have I been able to identify ‘Þeím vonda - etc.’ (‘[of] the bad, etc/) - which could be almost anything - or ‘Fruentimmer hospitalet’ (‘The womens hos­ pice’). ‘Den lille Albertus og Adalphæa’, if it is a single work, is also unknown to me. If they are two separate works - which the presence o f a full stop after ‘Albertus’ would seem to suggest - then ‘Den lille Albertus’ (‘little Albertus’) is perhaps most likely to refer to Albertus Julius, hero o f much o f the first volume o f Johann Gottfried Schnabels Die Insel Felsenburg,21* a work with which we know Jón to have been familiar.219 An Icelandic translation o f this first volume was published in 1854 under the title Felsenborgarsogur220 An anonymous review published in Þjóðólfitr the same year mentions ‘sagan af Litla Albertus’221 in such a way as to suggest that this was an alternative name for Felsenborgarsogur, or at least that part of the first volume dealing with Albertus Julius. I am not aware of any other use of this title, however, but - if the identification is correct - its presence in Jon’s list suggests that it must have had some currency both in Icelandic and Danish.222 The identity of ‘Adalphæa’ remains a mystery, however. The very first title listed, ‘Af Johes Thómas og Sophiu’, I assume to refer to Fielding’s The History o f Tom Jones, a Foundling, published in London in 1749 and quickly translated into all the major European languages. Jón’s fa­ miliarity with this work is attested by the fact that ‘Thomas Jones’ is listed among the translations attributed to Jón by both Einar á Mælifelli and Haligrímur djákni, and also found in two manuscripts, one o f which, Lbs 638 8vo, is Jón’s autograph.223 The eponymous hero is referred to throughout Jón’s version as ‘Thomas’ rather than ‘Tom’, and Sophia is obviously the name o f the principal female character, so that although it is odd that the hero’s name should appear ‘backwards’ as it does in Jónfc Hst, I feel there need be little doubt about the identification. Jón’s version, called in the autograph ‘Sagann af Thomas Jones’, is referred to by both Einar å Mælifelli and Hallgrimur djåkni as ‘Ágrip a f Thomas Jones’ (‘Summary of Tom Jones’), and is in fact no more than a precis, comprising some sixty-nine manuscript pages, scarcely 10,000 words. The following pas­ sage, from the beginning o f the ninth chapter o f Jón’s summary, and corre­ sponding to most of the first half of Fielding’s Book XV, illustrates well the extent o f the abbreviation: Umm þessar mundir kémr til Lundun úngur greifa son eíra ad nafhi Fellamar. Hann fær sér herbergi hýá Bellaston og hefr þar ej Leínge vered, ádur hann fær ad sýa Sophiu og fynst hønumm þá miked til hennar. Hann bidur Bellaston ad vera sér hiálplega til þess hann giæte feíngid Sophiu og lofar hún þvý. ber hún sýdann þetta mál upp firir Sophiu, Enn hún tók þvý fiærre. qvadst hún aldrei ætla sér ad giptast. Bellaston sagde þetta aftur Fellamar, Enn hann vard þess ákafari, og gaf henni stórar giafer til þess hún skylde hiálpa hønumm til ad ná ásturom Sophiu, og være þad hreint Ómagulegt, skyldi hún adstóda hann til ad gieta nåd henni til fylgiulags, annad hvørt ad henni Viliugre edur náúdugre.224

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(At this time there came to London a young nobleman named Fellamar. He took lodgings with [Lady] Bellaston, and had not been there long before he saw Sophia, with whom he was greatly impressed. He asked [Lady] Bellaston to help him to win Sophia’s hand, and she promised to do this. She then brought up the matter with Sophia, who was affronted, and de­ clared her intention never to marry. [Lady] Bellaston then reported this to Fellamar, but he became even more resolved, and gave her [Lady Bellaston] great gifts so that she would help him to win Sophia’s love, or, if that proved completely impossible, she was to help him to make her his mis­ tress, whether with her consent or without.)

Jón’s source was presumably the Danish translation by Hans Jørgen Birch (1750-95), which was first serialised in Dei nyeste Magazin a f Fortællinger eller Samling a f moralske, rørende og moersomme Romaner og H istorier, ap­ pearing in twelve numbers between 1778 and 1781, and subsequently re-issued in four volumes, printed from the same plates, under the title Tom Jones Historie eller H ittebarnet a f Henrich Fielding (Copenhagen, 1781). Personal and place names in the Icelandic correspond to the Danish, with only the occasional varia­ tion in spelling. Most often these are simply taken from the English (Western, Blifil, etc.), although where they have some obvious meaning they have gener­ ally been translated, Allworthy, for example, being rendered ’Altværd’ in the Danish, ‘Altverð' in the Icelandic. Molly Seagrim is called ’Marie Søgrim’ in the Danish, which is retained as ’Maria Søgrim’ in the Icelandic. Factual discrepancies between the Danish and the Icelandic are few. One, which may be significant, is found in the very first sentence of Jón’s text, which begins: ‘Á NordymbraLande ý Einglandi býo herramadr nockr ad nafni Altverd [...]’ (‘In Northumberland in England there lived a certain gentleman named Altveið’). The beginning o f Book One, Chapter n , on the other hand, reads in Birch’s Danish (p. 7): T den vestlige Deel af dette kongerigp i den Provintz Sommerset’schire levede for nogen Tid siden (og lever maaskee endnu) en Herre ved Navn Altværd f...].’225 While I cannot vouch for Jónls knowledge of the political geography o f the British Isles I can confirm his reliability as a transla­ tor: he may on occasion have simplified his texts, but he did not normally alter them materially. He was, of course, capable o f error, and the removal of Mr Allworthy from Somerset to Northumberland may perhaps have been a slip. It is also possible that he felt that ‘Norðymbraland’ - a place familiar to readers o f the tslendinga- and konungasögur - simply sounded better in Icelandic.

Another translation attributed to Jón with which a modem reader might be familiar is the ‘Saga a f Zadig’, preserved only in Lbs 893 8vo, where the text is unfortunately incomplete, lacking the first five chapters. This is W ta ire ’s philo­ sophical tale Zadig, the first complete edition of which was published in 1748.226 Jón’s translation is based on the Dani sh translati on of Frederik Christian Eilschov, entitled Zadig eller Skæbnen, En Østerlandsk H istorie, published in Copenha-

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Lbs 893 8vo, f. 69r. From Jón Hjaltalin's translation of Voltaire's Zs), his men surrender (obligatory), Bemótus takes his ships, and Kastónus's wounds are seen to, the saga adding perhaps somewhat unnec­ essarily that he was to remain one-armed for the rest of his life.142

The second scene to be analysed is significantly longer, but still a relatively straightforward description of a one-day battle. It is o f especial interest as it is taken from Marrons saga as preserved in Jón Hjaltalin's fragmentary autograph manuscript, Lbs 893 8vo. Pindarus is the youngest of three brothers, sons of the king o f Bláland, who have vowed to win the hand of Svandis, daughter o f Sertorius, king of Serkland, and M arron’s intended, or die in the attempt. Having defeated the first two, Marion now awaits the arrival of Pindarus. Marr(on) tók nú ad búa allann sinn her, og er daginn eptir albúinn med alt sitt Lid. qvedr hann sýdann køng og Svand(ýs), og Dregr út a f borginni med allann herum, og fer þángad sem Bardaginn åtti ad standa. var Pindarus þá enn eý kominn og einginn af hans hendi. Marr(on) sendir nú þann firnefnda Canton Landvamar mann, og med hønumm 20 menn å fund Pind(ari), med þeim erindum ad sie hann eý ragr sem geit, skuli hann nú koma med her sinn og halda vid sig Bardaga; Enn sem Pind(arus) komu þessi ord, býst hann ý flýtir med alt sitt Lid, og fer á móts vid Marion), þángad sem o rustan åtti ad vera.

ISO

The unwashed children o f Eve Þegar herin« mættist geek Marron framm firir Lid sitt og mællti: Nú ertu komin« her Pindarus, og er þér nú mål ad hefha klækis høggs þess, er eg gaf þier hin« fyrra dagin«, og gacktu nu til Eýnvýgis vid mig ef þig bilar eý hugr. Pind(arus) svaradi; allir þeir Nýdingar sem þér filgia eru Óverdugir ad Ufa Leíngr, þvý þeir munu á eýnhvem hátt hafa þienad ad Drápi brædra min«a, og mununun vér høggva þá nidr first, og sýdan« skal eg høggva þig ý brád fyrir hrafha og hræqvikindi, takid þvý til vopna og veried ydr. Eptir þettad æptu hvøru tveggia her óp og sigu fylkíngar saman«, býriadist grímm og akøf orusta, Pind(anis) og Ðerserkir hans geistust þá framm med ofsa hlýódum/w; En« Marr(on) og hans men« stódu fast og vørdust kýœnlega; og stód svo leingi dags, ad lýtid ortist á umm man/ifallid. Pind(arus) þócktist þá sýá ad seint vildi ad vin«ast; kaUar han« á Berserid sýna, og skipar þeím ad vada ý filking Landsman«a og rýúfa hana ad endi láúngu, tóku þeir nú ad geisast framtn, og tekr þá man« fallid ad vaxa. þetta sér Marr(on) og rædst þvý á móti þeim, høggr han« hvøm ad ødrumm, og stundumm tvo og þrýá ý høggi. verda þeir vid þad en« ólmari, og taka sig nú saman« 50 þeir mestir vom, og slå hrýng umm han«. Man(on) ólmast nú og høggr á tvær hendr, svo þeir hrinia sem hrýs ý skógie, og eý hættir han« firr en han« hefr drepid 40 af þeim, En« hinir týu hvørfudu þá fiá sárír og módir. En« á medan« þessu fram/w fór hafdi Pind(arus) rofid alia fylkinguna og drepid Canton sem merkid bar og feil merkid á Jørd, og sem Man(on) sér þad verdr han« æfa reidr, hleipir ad Pindanis, og høggur sundr hestin« um«) bógana. Steiptist Pind(arus) þá áfram/n á Jørdina, en« Man(on) hýó af hønum/w badar fætr og lét han« svo liggia. NÚ sem vykingar såu fall sýns forman«s fór hugr þeirra ad veikiast, en« Landsherin« tók ad hressast og herda sig, vóru výkíngar nidr høggir sem Ðúfie; þar til hvør flýdi um«! þverann an«ad, hugdu vykingar ad flýa til skipa, og halda á haf út, en« sem þeir komu til stranda, var Sertorius kd«gr þar firir med marga menn, og geck ad þeim med hardri ad sókn; Marr(on) kom brádt á eptir med herinn, urdu þá vykingar ý qvýumm, liettu þeir kóngr og Marr(on) eý firr, en« hvørt mansbam var drepid, en« skipa flotinn og allar herbúdirnar fiellu ý þeírra høndr, feingu þeir svo mikin« áúd ad ecki vard tølu å komid. hér eptir toku men« ad rýúfa valin«, var Pindarus þá en« med Lifi. Marr(on) baud hønum«! þá Lýf og Lækning, ef han« vildi giørast sin« madr, en« Pind(arus) æpti á mót med grímd og ofsa. Marr(on) Lét þá reisa gålga og heinga han« þar å, og Láúk þar vid hans æfi. Sýdann vóm bundin« sår manna en« Jardadir þeir føllnu, og herfángi skipt; hláút Landid af þvý stórann Rýkdóm; vard M arion) af øllu þessu bædi vinsæll og nafiifrægr, svo allir sem nafn hans kunnu nefhdu han« Marion Sterka.143 (Marion then began to prepare his entire army, and the following day he was ready with all his troops; he took leave of the king and Svandis and departed from the citadel with all his men and went to where the battle was to take place. Pindarus had not yet arrived, nor anyone from his side. Marion sent the aforementioned Kanton, the coastguardsman, with twenty men to meet Pindarus with the message that unless he was cowardly as a she-goat he should now bring his army and meet Matron in battle. When

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Pindams heard these words he prepared all his men hastily and went to meet Marion in the place where the battle was to be held. When the armies met Marion went to the front of his troops and said: ‘Now you have come, Pindarus, intending to take revenge for the dastardly blow 1 dealt you the other day. Meet me in single combat, if your courage doesn’t fail you!* Pindarus answered: ‘None of the cowards who follow you are worthy o f living any longer, because they must in some way have contributed to the slaying o f my brothers; we shall hew them down first, and then I shall carve you up as fodder for ravens and vultures, so take your weapons and defend yourselves!* After that each side let out a war-cry and the two sides converged. There began a grim and fervent battle. Pindarus and his berserks rushed forward with a great clamour, but Marron and his men stood fast and defended themselves skilfully, and so it was for the better part of the day that casualties remained even. Pindarus felt that things were progress­ ing slowly. He called on his berserks, ordering them to make their way into the column of the inhabitants and split it from end to end. They began to rush forward and the casualties began to increase. Marion saw this and therefore attacked them, hewing one after another and sometimes two and three in a single blow. At this they became even more furious, and fifty o f the biggest o f them came together and encircled him. Marron became enraged, striking blows on both sides so that they fell like brushwood, and he did not let up until he had killed forty of them; the other ten withdrew, wounded and exhausted. While this was going on Pindarus had split the entire column and killed Kanton, who had carried the standard, and the standard foil onto the ground. When Marron saw this he became greatly enraged, charged at Pindarus and sliced his horse in two at the shoulder. Pindarus fell forward onto the ground and Marron cut off both his legs and left him lying there. As the pirates saw their leader’s fall their courage began to dwindle, but the inhabitants were heartened and became more determined. The pirates were slaughtered like cattle; they fled, falling over each other. The pirates intended to flee to their ships and set sail, but when they came to the coast King Sertorius was there with many men and at­ tacked them with great ferocity. Marion quickly pursued Ihem with the army, and the pirates were trapped. Marron and the king did not let up until each and every one of them had been killed. The fleet o f ships and the camp fell to them, and they gained so much wealth that it could scarcely be counted. After that they began inspecting the battlefield. Pindarus was still alive. Marron offered to spare him and treat his wounds if he would swear allegiance to him, but Pindarus shouted at him with ferocity and violence. Marion had a gallows erected and had him hanged, and thus ended his life. After that the wounds o f the men were seen to, the dead were buried, and booty was divided. The country received great riches and Marion became as a result of this both popular and renowned, so that all those who knew his name called him Marion the strong.)

Although there is obviously a great deal more detail included here than in the previous scene, the underlying structure is the same. A, ‘The preparation’, in­

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volves little in the way o f military strategy, but provides ample opportunity for braggadocio. B begins with a ‘her óp’ (‘war-cry’), slightly less common in Jon’s sagas than the sounding o f the horn, but is otherwise true to form, including the phrases ‘sigu fylkingar samann’ (‘the ranks converged’) and ‘býriadist grimm og aköf orusta’ (‘a grim and fervent battle ensued*), and a reference to ‘mannfall’ (‘casualties’). Three individual combats (Q follow, the first from the point of view o f Pindarus, the second and third from that o f Marron. Pindarus is de­ feated, but not, in the first instance killed. At the sight o f their leader’s defeat (D) the vikings’ flagging courage is described. They are then pursued and killed, Pindarus is offered quarter, but declines and is hanged, booty is divided up, and so on.

The third scene is taken from Reimars saga as preserved in ÍB 88 8vo, written, or at least begun, in 1824. Although longer than many battle-scenes, it is not the longest scene in that saga, and is entirely typical. This is the first major battle in the saga, and the first one in which the protagonists take part, the others having been related in ‘flashback’, as it were, by Falur’s father Hugi. The battle takes place over two days, but the heroes, Reimar and Falur, do not actually join in until the second day. Reimar and Falur, having set off in search o f adventure, make land at Bláland, but see that the principal harbour is full o f ships and, suspecting trouble, put into a secret bay. Falur goes ashore to reconnoitre and meets a peasant who tells him that Soldán, the king of Babylon, has arrived in the kingdom with an invin­ cible army and has challenged the aged king, whose name is Karmon, to meet him in battle in three days’ time. He urges Falur, who has told the man that he is a merchant, to come to the king’s aid, but Falur claims he is ‘éngin* [...] bardaga Madr’ (‘no warrior’), and returns to the ship to tell Reimar this news. Reimar, somewhat unheroically, decides to wait and see what happens. The saga proceeds: Nw kiemr dagur så sem Bandaginn skal haldast, blæz þá Soldán kø/igr øllu sýnu Lide út á vydamt vøll & skipter þvi i 3 filkíngar, Styrde hann siálfr høfud filkingunne; En/t annan sistrson hannz er het Menelaus firer hin/te þridiu var Berserkur eim er Nefhdest Hagbardr. Nú Rydr Kannon kcmgr med alO an /i sinn her, sette hann & 3 fílkíngar, stirde han/i siálfur eirne, Anwäre Ermenrekur son han/rz & þridiu Blandemon Jallzson. Lidzmunr var so mikell ad 3 vom um hvøm Landz Manna. Nu er i Lúdra blåsed og sigu saman filkíngar, tókst þar snarpasta Orusta & miked mannfall, Karmon kongr bardest hieistelega & feide Margann Mann, þetta sér Sold(án) k(óngr) og Reid ad hønum setti hann spióted á kóng Midiamt, so útgéck um baked & féll hann daudr af hestenum. Efter þetta ód Sold(án) k(óngur) gégnum Endelånga filkinguna, & feide hvørn um þveran/t annan Sier nú Ermenr(ekur) k(óng)s(on) ad fader hamtz Mune fallen/r og Hiking harniz øll Rofimt, verdr hann nu bæde hriggr & Reidr, Ridst þvt um fast & høggr

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til beggia handa bæde Menu & hesta þar til harm mæter Meoelaus legg ur harm gégnuoi harm sverdenu A kastar hanum daudumav af hestenumm þetta gétr ad Lyta Hagbardur Ðerserkr sæker þvz framm ad káags(yni) & leggr sinne Burstøng i skiøld hanoz med so miklu able ad bann braut långt aftr a f hestenum er þá Nær staddr Soldán k(óngur) med hundnid Riddurum slóu þeír hríng um bann enn harm hlióp upp funlega hió A lagde alt hvad firer vard & drap a f þeím 20 Riddara, giordest bann þá so módr ad sverdid féll úr hende bans vor harm þ& handtekenn A fiøtradur, Enn Blandimon A allr herinn flýde inn i Borgens A lsstu øllum blidumm vor þá dagr lidenn & snere því Soldán kdngr til herbwda med alia sýna Mena, A hofdu Med sér ERMENREK kdngs(on) fiøtradaim.144 (Now came the day when the battle was to take place. Soldan summoned all his men out onto the great field. He had three battalions. He himself led the main one; another was led by bis nephew, whose name was Menelaus, and the third by a berserk named Hagbaifrur. King Karmon now approaches with all his men. He also had three battalions. He led one himself, his son Ermenrekur another, and Blandimon the third. There was a great differ­ ence in strength, with three o f the enemy for every one of them. Now the horn was sounded and the two groups converged. There began a fierce battle with heavy losses. King Karmon fought bravely, killing many a man. Soldán saw this and charged at him and ran him through with a spear so that it came out through his back and he fell dead from his horse. After that Soldán charged through the ranks, killing one after another. Prince Ermenrekur saw that his father was fallen and his battalion dispersed. This both saddened and angered him, and he cleared his way, killing both men and horses on both sides, until he met Meoelaus. He ran him through with his sword and threw him down dead from his horse. The berserk Hagbarður saw this and charged forward toward the prince and thrust his lance into his shield with such great force that he was catapulted backwards off his horse. Soldán was nearby, and with a hundred men they encircled him, but he leapt up adroitly, striking at everything in his path and killing twenty of them. Then he became so exhausted that the sword fell from his hand. He was then captured and bound, but Blandimon and the rest of the army fled into the citadel and closed all foe gates. The day had ended and Soldán rode to his tents with all his men, taking with them Prince Ermenrekur in fetters.)

Thus ends the first dayfe fighting. Learning how things have progressed, Reimar and Falur decide to make their way to the citadel and offer Blandimon their help, which is gratefully accepted. The following morning the battle resumes: urn Morguninn biuggust þeir til Orustu, og þeistu út af Borgumi, settu filkingar & blésu i Lúdra Kémr þá Soldán móte þeim A biriast Orusta ad Nýu. verdr nú Miked Mamtfall a f hvørutveggium, undradest nú Soldán Lidz flølda, A frammgøngu Borgarmanna, því harm hugde þá faa efter ordna & allan dug úr þe/m horfena, haan Mæ(lti) þá til sinaa Manna, ej hordust þeir aller móte oO i giær sem nú eru hér, sie eg þá 2 mena i Lide þeirra sem Mier Öar vid A munu þe/r ei hier Jnn lender, giørum nú hazda

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The unwashed children o f Eve hiýd ad þeim & Rekumm þá af oß. sydan« þeiste hann á herfilkingar Borgarmanna & feide hvørn um þverann annan« stódst éngin« hannz stóru høgg & sterku frammgøngu, tók nú ad Ridlast Hiking Borgarman«[a] Þá mæ(lti) Reimar vid Fal, Rådstu fielagi mót So[l]dán kóngi, enn eg mun siå um Hiking vora. á Medan, Fair sv(arar) skilt er mier ad giøra vilia þinn, enn ej er hi[er] vid barn ad beriast. Nú Rýdr Fair beint ad So[ld(án)] kónge & mæ(lti): Verdu þig vondr Loddarel Kongr leit v[id] hønum & Mæ(lti) Jlla kantu konga ad Titla edr hvort [er] Nafh þitt? Fair ansade, Nú heiti eg Wýgfw[s e]nn brådt mon eg heita Bane þinn vid þetta ord hamad[ist] Soldån k(óngr) & lagde sinne Burstøng i skiøld Falz med so miklu able ad sodulgiardemor brustu sundr & Fair hrøck Långt aflr hestenum, hann Reiddist þá ákaflega spratt upp sem Elding hlióp ad kónge & greip annare hende firer framan« Bóga hestsenz enn hinne aftr firer & fleigde hønum fløtumm á Jord Sold(án) k(óngr) hlióp fimlega å fætr & hugde ad Reida sverdú/ en« Fair þreif i handlegginn & snarade hann af upp vid øxlina, þá mæ(lti) Sold(ån): hraustlega er nú á tekid ad þvi skal þér verda, s(agdi) F(alr) brá hann þá konge á Lopt & sló hofdenu vid stein so þo in which Naton and Salander both attack Hundolfur, complete with the repetition o f the phrases ‘tekst þar snörp orusta’ (‘there began a hard battle’ ■ ‘tókst þar snarpasta orusta’, the obligatory motif) and ‘fellur margt af hvoru tveggja liði’ (‘many fall on both sides’ * ‘gjörðist brátt hið mesta mannfall af hvoru tveggjum’). A series o f three engagements (C) follows. In the first Naton and Salander board Hundóllurfe ship (‘veita uppgaungu á skipið’), and inflict heavy casualties on his men. In the second, beginning ‘sér nú Hundólfur þetta’ (‘Hundólfur now see this’), Salander is knocked unconscious and falls overboard. In the third, Naton saves Salander, reboards Hundólfur’s ship, and the two fight, first with weapons and then with bare hands. Hundolfur is defeated, following which (D) all the berserks are killed The ship is cleared of corpses, booty taken, wounds bound, and so on.

Finnur Jonsson described the use o f motifs in the lygisögur as ‘som et kaleidoskop; hver gang det rystes, kommer nye sammenstillinger og nye fig­ urer frem, men bestanddelene er de samme’ (‘like a kaleidoscope; every time it is shaken new configurations and patterns appear, but the composite parts are the same’).iS1 Finnur hardly meant this as praise, but the comparison is apt. A limited number o f elements is constantly shuffled and reshuffled to produce a result which, while not great art, can nevertheless be quite diverting, and while the products are in no way ‘originär, each is unique. As we have seen, there is nothing haphazard or arbitrary in the way in which traditional or borrowed motifs are used and combined in the lygisögur, as state­ ments like Finnur’s seem to suggest. Rather, they are slotted into an underlying pattern, a given function or type-scene in the deep structure being realised on the middle level through the deployment o f a limited number of possible mo­ tifs, but producing a surprisingly large number of variations.

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TRADITIONAL PHRASEOLOGY AND LYGISAGA STYLE The highly traditional nature of the battle-scenes cited here is manifest not only on the level o f their underlying structure, but also in their surface detail, which is characterised to a very great extent by the use o f stock phrases, several exam­ ples of which have already been noted Battle-scenes in all types o f traditional literature tend to be highly stylised in form and content, and might perhaps therefore be expected to exhibit a heavier formulaic texture than other parts of die narrative.152The battle is only one o f a number o f common motifs and typescenes found in the lygisögur, however; others include the beginnings and end­ ings o f the sagas, descriptions of characters, journeys, feasts and weddings, etc., all o f which have their attendant formulae. In view o f this heavy depend­ ence on traditional phraseology it is not unnatural to ask whether the discover­ ies o f Parry and Lord regarding the compositional techniques used by tradi­ tional oral poets might not have relevance to our material too.153 The sagas attributed to Jón Hjaltalin - and the lygisögur generally - are obviously not ‘oral’ in the sense that the south Slavic epics studied by Parry and Lord were -- i.e. recomposed each time they were performed before an audi­ ence. Rather, they were composed in writing by people familiar with literary texts for a public familiar with the reading process - all literate in a highly literate society. If the lygisögur consistently exhibit features analogous to those o f oral literature, this is to be attributed not only to a basic conservatism inher­ ent in traditional genres, but also to the fact that although the mode o f their production was literary, the mode of their reception, as we have seen, continued to be oral, in that they were written to be read aloud. The oral-formulaic theory has dealt almost exclusively with the process of composition and not with the process o f reception, even though the latter is obviously determined to as great an extent by the tradition as is the former. As Franz Bauml has pointed out, if the formula functions predominantly as an aid to memory, it does so as much for the audience as for the composer, allowing them to receive the text in terms o f the tradition. A high formulaic density in a literary work need not, therefore, indicate that it was orally composed; the formulaic technique could also be employed in written compositions intended principally or exclusively for oral delivery.154 One o f the first problems to be faced when assessing the formulaic content o f any text is in determining what may reasonably be described as a ‘formula’. For Parry, thinking specifically of the noun-epithet combinations in Homeric verse, a formula was ‘a group of words which is regularly employed under the same metrical conditions to express a given essential idea’.155This rather limit­ ing definition o f the formula was subsequently broadened to include both such fixed or verbatim formulae as well as those phrases that, while differing in wording, resemble other phrases ‘in rhythm, in parts o f speech, and in one

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important w o rd \i5° This is the basis for the distinction between form ulae and

form ulaic system s.151 W hen dealing with prose texts158the metrical criterion is largely nonapplicable - although in many cases the phrases in question may actually scan, and allit­ eration is undeniably a factor - but one m ight well ask whether such phrases need necessarity be formulae, particularly when it could be argued that a given phrase is simply the most obvious - or perhaps even the only - way to describe a certain action? I would aigue that the fact that fixed phrases such as búast til bardaga ( ‘prepare [oneself] for battle’) and siga saman Jylkingar (‘the ranks converge’) are not only found in virtually every battle scene but also combine with other phrases in entirely predictable ways suggests that they are to be regarded as formulae. Phrases in which a given slot can be filled by any o f a number o f essentially synonymous words, e.g. jylkja/skipta liði sinu ( ‘deploy/ arrange one’s troops’), or fylgja e-m drengilegaArasklega ( ‘follow som ebody bravely/valiently’), I would consider formulaic. I f we accept that more than one elem ent o f the phrase can be variable, then not only höggva á tvæ r hendur (literally ‘hew on two hands’) and berja å tvær hendur (‘strike on two hands’), but also höggva til beggja handa (‘hew to both hands’) - all o f which occur in the passages cited above - can be regarded as products o f a single form ulaic system, one comprising two elements, the first a verb conveying the notion o f striking (or killing by striking) and the second a prepositional phrase involving hands, in the sense o f ‘on both sides’. If all the manuscripts o f all the sagas are examined it emerges that about two-thirds o f the occurrences have forms o f the verb höggva, either on its own or with leggja - or, less commonly, s lå - (‘strike’), but other possible verbs are drepa (‘k i l l fella ( ‘fell’, ’slay’), and lemja (‘beat’, ‘thrash’). As far as the second element is concerned, å tvær hendur is com ­ moner than til beggja handa (with a very much smaller number o f examples o f til beggja hlida (‘to both sides’), arguably also an example o f the same for­ mula). Although the texts do not provide examples o f every possible combina­ tion, it does not seem unreasonable to conclude that there are no restrictions other than personal predilection - on the ways in which the various forms can combine. Most texts, i.e. most copyists, appear to favour one form or the other. Lbs 3810 8vo, for example, Sigurður Jósepsson Hjaltalin’s copy o f his grandfa­ ther’s Fimmbrœðra saga, has only å tvær hendur (three examples), while Jón, in his autograph o f Marrons saga , Lbs 893 8vo, allows one example o f til beggja handa (against two o f å tvær hendur). The text o f Reimars saga preserved in ÍB 88 8vo appears to belong to neither camp, with three examples o f å tvær hendur, five o f til beggja handa , and one o f til beggja hlida , but in Lbs 4412 4to, w hich was demonstrably copied from it, one o f the examples o f á tvær hendur has been changed to til beggja handa, while the text o f Reimars saga in the third Hvitidalur manuscript (JSam M S no. 3), about which I shall have more to say presently, has only til beggja handa (seven examples). There is a very large number o f such phrases used principally or exclusively

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in battle scenes. These can be grouped according to which o f die four battlemotifemes they belong to, the various motifs that make up the motifeme being lexically formulated though a variety o f stock phrases. Some motifs have only one formulaic mode o f expression, e.g. siga saman Jylkingar (‘the ranks con­ verge’), að hamast (literally ‘to alter onefc skin or shape’, i.e. ‘to be seized by battle fury’, ‘to go berserk*), or valurinn er roflnn (‘plunder is taken from the slain’), and either appear in a given text or not, while others can be realised through any one o f a large number of formulaic phrases. In most cases indi­ vidual formulae belong exclusively to one motifeme or another, although some formulae for general fighting, e.g. höggva til beggja handa, or feüa/drepa margan mann (‘kill many a man*) can occur both in By ‘First stages’, and C, ‘Individual combat’ (and in some cases, for example where there is a ‘mopping up opera­ tion’ after the main battle, also in Z), ‘Victory and aftermath’). In A, the first part of B, and D the choice o f formulae is fairly limited, the possible actions being relatively few and each action having a relatively small number o f at­ tendant formulae. In C, on the other hand, although the actions o f the charac­ ters are generally limited to one character seeing another, making his way to­ ward him, and dispatching him in one way or another, the number o f formulae available to describe these actions is quite extensive. There is also a greater number o f optional motifs available for use in this section, and, since individual combats come most frequently in groups of three, presumably also greater motivation to vary the descriptions. A glance at any o f the medieval indigenous riddarasögur — Vllhjålms saga Sjóðs or Sålus saga og Nikanorsf for example, both o f which are singularly rich in battle descriptions159 - quickly confirms one’s suspicions that the lan­ guage o f these battle scenes is indeed highly traditional, and serves to remind us that the genre remained relatively stable and productive for some six hun­ dred years. If we wish to trace the origins o f this tradition further back in time we shall be disappointed if we examine the translated riddarasögur. Although the indig­ enous romances are commonly supposed to have been written ‘in imitation o f’ continental romance this is true only to a very limited extent. The ancestors of the lygisögur in terms of style are to be sought much nearer home. The vast m ajority o f the phrases used in the lygisö g u r are to be found in the tslendingasogur, and not just - or even principally - in sagas like Finnboga saga ramma, Bárðar saga Snæfellsåss, or Gunnars saga K ddugnúpsfifls, wellknown victims o f the pernicious influence o f the r id d a r a s ö g u r but also in ‘pristine’ and ‘uncorrupt* sagas like Egils saga Skalla-Grimssonar, perhaps among the earliest - and most ‘Icelandic* - of the tslendingasogur. Most occur also in Snorri Sturluson’s history of the kings of Norway, Heimskringla, a work again not commonly felt to have been unduly influenced by the romances. Cer­ tain aspects o f the battles in the lygisögur- fighting with lances, for example obviously have no parallels in the tslendingasogur or Heimskringla, and the

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duration of the fighting, the numbers of the fallen or of those killed in a single blow are more in keeping with human experience and the laws o f nature. The language used, however, is derivable in almost every instance from native sources. But as with the underlying structure of the battle scenes, the ultimate origins of the individual formulae are in many cases to be sought in classical epic. Here again, the influence o f Alexanders saga, Trójumanna saga, and Rómverja saga is not to be underestimated. Most of the phrases mentioned above - siga saman fylkingar, berja/höggva á tvær hendur / t il beggja handa, drepa margan mann are to be found in these sagas, and some clearly correspond to phrases in the Latin. A good deal of what is commonly regarded as part of the 'native’ tradi­ tion might, in other words, be classical in origin.161 Icelandic copyists and fixed texts One important, if frequently overlooked, aspect o f saga-transmission, especially the transmission of sagas o f this type, is the role played by rimur. I refer in particular to the phenomenon of prose texts derived from rimur, several exam­ ples o f which have been mentioned in the course o f this study. A comparison of such 'secondary’ texts with the 'original’ sagas offers an insight into how the transformation from middle-level structure to surface structure was effected. What strikes one immediately is that while there is normally no factual discrep­ ancy between the two - the 'story’, point for point, is the same - there is rarely a single sentence in one that corresponds directly to a sentence in the other. This is due to the fact that in the rimur each action, each detail, o f the source is retained, while because o f the constraints o f the metre, verbal parallels are rare. When the rimur are turned back into prose, each action is expressed through an appropriate formulaic phrase, but not necessarily - and in practice quite infre­ quently - the one originally used. The passage from Reimars saga cited above is taken from ÍÐ 88 8vo, the oldest preserved manuscript o f the saga, written, at least in part, in 1824. As was mentioned above, there are two younger manuscripts preserving a redaction of the saga deriving from the Rimur a f Reimari og Fal enum sterka, composed in 1832 by Hákon Hákonarson i Brokey. The older o f the two is the third Hvitidalur manuscript (JSam MS no. 3), written by Guðbrandur Sturlaugsson in 1887, but there is no reason to believe that he was responsible for the redaction. The scene is as follows: nü er ad seigja frá þui er vid bar i boiginni ad huorutueggju bjuggust til bardaga þegar sá åkuedni dagur kom. Soldán hafdi þijár fylkingar, var hann sjålfur fyrir einm annari styrdi systur sonur hans er Menilaus hét. þridju styrdi hertogi så er Hagbard hét. Karmon kóngur hafdi einnin þijár fylkingar styrdi hann sjålfur einni, eim Ermenrekur sonur hanns annari, enn Blandixnon hinni þridju.

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ÍÐ 88 8vo, V 96v-97r. The beginning of Reimars saga, copied in the first half of the nineteenth century (c 1824), apparently by one Jón Vig fusson, presumably the man of that name, bom a 1783, who lived at the farm Drangar on Snsfellsnes. Landsbókasafh.

Þegar hvurutueggju höfdu fylkt lidi sinu þá var i lúdra blåsid og sigu saman fylkingar var fyrst hin grimmasta skothrid og flugu örfar og spjót suo þikt ad varia nant sólar. þegar ljetti mestu skothridinni brugdu menn suerdum og söktuþáfram úrbeggja Udi hinir mestu kappar. reid nú Karmon kóngur firam og hjó og lagdi til beggja ♦handa161 hlifdi hann sér ei. þui hann hafdi vend hmn mesti kappi. feldi hann m argan mann til jardar og hrukku allir undan þar hann reid firam. þettad Utur Sóldan og eyrir illa. hleipti hann ad Karmon kóngi og rak suerdid i gégnum hann fjell kóngur daudur af hestinum. hleipti nú Soldan aptr og firam um herin sem ódur edur vitlaus væn og drap hvum er fyrir vard. eggjadi hann lid sitt med ofsa hljódum geistust þá heidingjar firam og dråpu lands menn undvorpum. þettad Utur Ennenrekur kóngs son og sér ad suo búid må ei standa. hleipti þui fiam i her Soldåns og feldi lid hanns til beggja handa ruddi hann sér breida braut gégnum herin, þartil hann mætir Menilås frænda Soldåns og rak spjótid gégnum hann suo út kom milU herdanna, og kastadi honum daudum a f hestinum. Hagbardur litur faU Menilausar og hleipir fiam i herin sem hid ólmasta ljón finnur hann nú Soldán og greinir honum faU Menilausar sækja þeir nú bádir þángad sem Ennenrekur er fyrir med 100 mans, og slå bring um hann. vardist hann af mikiili hreisti og drap 20

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The unwashed children o f Eve menn vard hann þó um sidir suo módur ad suerdid fjell úr hendi honum. báru þeir þá ad honum skjöldu og vard hann loks hondum tekin og i bönd færdur. þegar Blandimon litur fall hanns flydi hann til borgar med þad lid er uppi stod, var þá komid ad kuöldi, læstu borgar menn öllum hlidum, enn Soldån reid til tjalda med sitt lid. [...] Um morgunin bjuggust hvurutueggju til baidaga kom Soldån med lid sitt frá tjöldum fylktu nú hvuru tueggju lidi sinu. tókst nú hin grimmasta orusta ruddust þeir Reimar og Falur fast um og feldu lid Soldáns hromim hjelt hueiki hjálmur né brynja fyrir þeirra stóru höggum. þá mælti Soldån vid lid sitt. lángtum fleyra lid hafa nú borgar menn enn i gjærdag. einnin må hér lita tuo menn sem långt bera af odrum monnum. eru þeir ægiligir ad lita og munnum vér betur meiga strida ef duga skal. keyrdi hann nú hest sinn sporum sem ólmur væn og drap alla þá er suerd hans nådi til. greniadi hann sem vargr og felmtradi flestum hans framgánga. þettad litur Reimar kongsson. hann mælti þá vid Fal, þad vilda eg ad þú ijedist á móti skjelmir þessum og banadir honum, þui eg treysti best karlmensku þinni Falur mælti, jeg mun reina ad géra eptir vilja þinum i þessu enn þar er ei vid bam ad eiga sem Soldån er. hleipti hann þá ad Soldån så Soldån til ferda hans og snerist á móti, og mælti, huad heitir þú hinn mildi madur? Falur suarar jeg heiti nu Vigfüs enn innan skams mun eg heita Soldåns bani Vid þessi ord hamadist Soldån og hleipti ad Fal og lagdi til hanns med mikilli burstaung kom lægid á skjöldin med suo miklu afli ad Falur hraut aptur af hestinum og *hrukku163gjardimar sundur enn södullin aptur af kom Falrþó standandi nidur, og hljóp ad Soldån og hratt honum um koll med hestinum suo hann fjell flatur til jardar. Soldån spratt skjótt á fætur aptur og reiddi suerdid med mikilli reidi. Falur hljóp ad honum og greip um handlegg hans og sneri harm af honum. Soldån mælti sterlega er á tekid. Falur mælti þér skal nú ad {mi verda gieip hann þá til Soldåns i annad sinn og sló honum nidur suo hausin fór i mola, greip sidan kylfu sina og stökk á bak, hleipti sidan á skeid hestinum og lamdi med kylfunni hvura er fyrir vard reid hann þannig aptur og fram um her Soldåns og drap suo margann mann ad ei vard tölu á komid. nú er ad greina frå Reimari kóngssyni, ad hann bardist allfrækilega og feldi margan mann reindi hann nú suerdid huessing og hlód hafa valkostu, og blóduga hafdi hann sina armleggi til axla. þettad litur Hagbardur og hleipti honum i móti og hjó til Reimars med mikilli reidi Reimar brå vid skildinum og klofnadi hann nidur ad mundrida og vard Reimar sár á hendinni Reimar hjó aptur til Hagbard og tók þridjún af skildinum og sundur vidbeinid. Hagbardur hjó aptur til hans kom höggid á utan verdan hjálmin og hrokk suerdid nidur á handleggin og var suödu sår. Reimar hjó aptur á móti og rak suerdid i gégnum hann. fjell Hagbardur daudur nidur af hestinum brast þá flótti i lidi Soldåns og flydi hvurr sem kunni til skipa raku hinir flottan komust nokkrir til skipa og hjeldu sem fljótast firá landi. seigir ei meiia frá þeim i þessari sögu endadi þannig orustan. Þeir Reimar og Falur hjeldu sidan til herbúdanna var þar litil móttaka, drápu þeir alia þá er þar vóru. konnudu sidan herbúdimar og fundu þar Ermenrek kóngsson böndum reirdan hardliga haldin, leistu þeir af

Structure and style honum böndin bann stód upp og hneigdi sig hæuersklega, og spuidi sidan hvurr sá ágjœti bena væn er sig hefdi frelsad Reimar ne fildi sig og fodur sinn, kóngsson mælti heyrt hefi eg ydar gétid og erud þér nafhfrægr madur. vil eg géfa riki þettad og sjålfan mig á ydar vald. Reimar þakkadi bonum ord sin og kuadst hans lid veislu gjarnan þyggja vilja, fóru þeir sidan heim til hallar og reis þar upp hin fegursta veisla. huildust menn sidan um nóttina. strax ad morgni var ra fin valurin og jaxdadir hinir daudu sidan var skipt herfangi. var þad suo mikid fé ad ei vard mörkum talid. vard þar margur rikur er adur var fttækur.164 (Now are to he related the events in the citadel as both sides prepared for battle on the appointed day. Soldán had three battalions. He himself led one of them; another was led by his nephew, whose name was Menilás, and the third by the duke named Hagbarður. King Karmen also had three battalions. He led one himself, his son Ennenrekur another, and Blandimon the third. When they had both arrayed their troops the horn was sounded and the two groups converged. First there was a terrible shower of mis­ siles, arrows and spears flying so thickly that they nearly blocked out the sun. When this began to abate the men brandished their swords and the foremost champions from both’factions advanced. King Kannon rode for­ ward, striking blows on both sides. He did not spare himself, because he had been a great hero. He brought many a man to the ground and all dis­ persed before him as he rode forward. Soldán saw this and was displeased. He charged at Kannon and ran him through with his sword. The king fell dead from his horse. Soldán charged back and forth through the ranks like a madman, killing everyone in his path and exhorting his men loudly. The heathens rushed forward, killing Kannon’s men in great numbers. Prince Ermenrekur saw this and realised that things could not continue in this way. He charged into Soldán’s ranks, killing men on both sides, until he met Menilás, Soldán’s kinsman. He ran him through with his spear so that it came out between his shoulder-blades, and he threw him down dead from his horse. Hagbarður saw the fall of Menilás and charged into the ranks like a fierce lion. He found Soldán, and told him of Menilás’s fall. Then with a hundred men they both moved towards Ermenrekur and encir­ cled him. He defended himself with great fortitude and killed twenty men, blit eventually he became so exhausted that the sword fell from his hand. They then turned on him with their shields, and he was finally captured and bound. When Blandimon saw that Ermenrekur had fallen he fled into the citadel with those of his forces still standing. Night had then fallen. They locked the citadel gates, and Soldán rode to his tents with his men. The following morning the two sides prepared for battle. Soldán came with his forces from the tents. The two sides deployed their troops, and the fiercest of battles ensued. Reimar and Falur cleared a path around them and cut down Soldán’s men in swathes. Neither helmet nor armour could withstand their great blows. Soldán said to his men: ‘Their numbers are far greater now than they were yesterday, and there are also two men here who greatly surpass the others. They are terrible to see, and we must fight better if we are to succeed.* He drove his horse as though and killed

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The unwashed children o f Eve everyone his sword could reach. He howled like a wolf, frightening most. Prince Reimar saw this and said to Falur: ‘I want you to attack this devil and kill him, because 1 have the greatest faith in your valour.’ Falur said: ‘I shall try to do as you wish in this matter, but dealing with Soldán is not child’s play.* He then charged toward Soldán. When Soldán saw him ap­ proaching he turned toward him and said:1What’s your name, big fellow?’ Falur answered: ‘Now my name is Vigfus, but very soon my name will be Soldánsbani [“Soldán’s slayer*’].’ Hearing this, Soldán went berserk and charged toward Falur, striking with a large lance on the shield with such force that Falur was flung backwards off the horse, the saddle girth snapped and the saddle flew off. But Falur came down standing upright, and ran toward Soldán, toppling him and his horse so that he fell flat onto the ground. Soldán quickly jumped to his feet again and brandished his sword in great anger. Falur ran towards him, grabbed hold of his arm, and twisted it off. Soldán said: ‘That’s a strong grip.’ Falur said: ‘You shall see how right you are.’ He took hold of Soldán again and dashed him to the ground so that his skull was smashed. He took his club and jumped onto his horse, galloped off striking with the club any who were in his way. He rode hack and forth through Soldán’s army killing so many men that their number could not be determined. Now it is to be told how Prince Reimar fought bravely, killing many men. He tested his new sword, Hvessingur, piling high heaps of corpses, and his arms were bloody to the shoulders. Hagbarður saw this and charged toward him and struck at him with great anger. Reimar defended himself with his shield, which was split down to the handle, and he was wounded on the hand. Reimar struck at Hagbarður and took off a third of the shield and cut his arm through to the bone. Hagbarður struck again. The blow struck Reimar on the outside of the helmet and the sword was deflected down onto his aim, causing a deep wound. Reimar struck again and ran him through with his sword. Hagbarður fell dead from his horse. Soldán’s troops began then to flee, and all who could ran to the ships. The others pursued them. A few managed to reach the ships and set sail as quickly as possible. They are not mentioned again in this saga. Thus the battle ended. Reimar and Falur then went to the camp, where they met little resistance. They killed all who were there. They then searched the camp and found Ermenrekur, bound tightly and held strongly. They re­ leased him from his bonds. He stood up and bowed courteously, and asked who the fine man was who had freed him. Reimar named himself and his father. The Prince said: ‘1 have heard of you; you are a famous man. I wish to place my kingdom and myself under your command.’ Reimar thanked him for his words and said that he gladly accepted his assistance. They then returned to the castle and a glorious feast was held. The men then rested over night. Straightaway the following morning the battlefield was cleared and the dead buried. Booty was divided up. There was so much that it was uncountable, and many became rich who had previously been poor.)

What is striking about this passage is that although there is scarcely a single sentence in it that corresponds directly to a sentence in ÍÐ 88, the story is the

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same in virtually every detail. Striking too is that tact that the two prose texts are almost exactly the same length, each about 1000 words, while in the Amur the battle extends from verse 86 o f the eighth fit, through the whole o f the ninth fit (less the sixteen-verse mansöngur) to verse 34 o f the tenth fit (again, less the mansöngur), altogther some 1500 words, or half again as long.1*5 Looking in detail at only the first two engagements - Soldån v. Karmon and Ermenrekur v. Menelaus - we see that the first action, the ‘X sees Y’ motif, is unadorned in ÍB 88, expressed through the simple formula Þetta sér/litur [X] (‘X sees this9). In the Amur - which appear to have been based on a text o f the saga not very different from that preserved in ÍB 88 - this is expanded slightly in that we are told not only that Soldán saw what was happening, but that he was angered by it: ‘Skaða þann gat Soldán séð, svíður lundin heiptar-stríð’ (‘Sóldan could see this harm; his furious mind was pained9). The Hvitidalur text accepts this expansion, which is expressed through the equally common formula þetta sér/litur PQ og ein r illa (‘X sees this and is angered by it9). The rim urfhen go on for two and a half verses to describe how Soldán hacks his way through the ranks o f the enemy towards Karmon, intending to put an end to his days. This is neither based on the version preserved in ÍB 88 nor found in the Hvitidalur text, both o f which use the simple formula hleypa/riåa aå e-m (‘ride toward somebody9). The next half-verse describes how Soldán runs Karmon through with a sword: ‘Reiður þursinn rögnis-glóð rak í brjóst og út um bak9 (‘The angry giant ran the sword through the breast and out the back9), followed by a detailed description of the wound. The text of the Hvitidalur manuscript, following the Amur, has Karmon killed with a sword, and also, in the second encounter, has Menelaus killed with a spear, whereas this is the other way round in ÍB 88 - virtually the only case of factual discrepancy between the two prose redactions in the whole scene. In the Amur the sword-kenning ‘Rögnis-glóð9 (‘Óðinn’s fire9) is necessary both for the alliteration and the rhyme; in the first line o f the thirty-second stanza, on the other hand, ‘Nísti spjóti hann a f hest9 (4He struck him with a spear from the horse9), the poet could have used either ‘spjóti’ or ‘sverði9since the alliteration is on h, there is no internal rhyme, and the two words are metrically equal. It is tempting to think that he was obliged to use the sword-kenning in the first instance and then deliberately digressed from his source in the second in order to have a measure of variation. The next half verse describes how Karmon falls dead to the ground, a motif which in both prose texts is rendered through the formula fa lla dauður afhestinum (‘fall dead from the horse9). There follow three and a half verses describing the general havoc then wreaked by Soldán, corresponding to only two formulae found in ÍB 88, vaða i gegnumJylking (‘wade through the ranks9) and fella/drepa hvem um þveran annan (literally ‘kill each across the other9, i.e. ‘kill one after another9). The Hvitidalur text follows the Am ur quite closely in terms o f its choice of optional motifs, for example by having Soldán ride back and forth through the ranks - ‘Rennur íylking út og inn9in the Amur - expressed through the formula hleypa/riåa aflur og fram (um heAnn), and having his men inflict heavy casual­

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ties, using the formula drepa/fella menn unnvörpumfhrönnum (‘kill men in droves’), both o f which are common in the lygisögur. The Hvitidalur text also adds a few formulae of its own that do not correspond to anything in the Amur, for example the phrase eggja lið sit með ofsahljóðum (‘egg one’s men on loudly’), which is common in battle scenes generally, particularly in first encounters. In the second encounter we find much the same sort of thing. The Amur provide rather less here in terms of supplementary detail, describing as straight­ forwardly as Amur can how Ermenrekur sees what is happening, becomes angry, makes his way through the enemy ranks toward Menelaus, and strikes him dead from his horse. Both the prose texts begin and end with the same formulae, and both use the höggva/fella til beggja handa (‘strike/kill to both sides’) andþ ar til hann mætir (‘until he meets’) formulae, but differ otherwise. In the Hvitidalur text we find the common formulae [sjá að] svo búið må ei standa (‘[see that] things cannot stay as they are’) and ryðja sér breiöa braut gegnum herinn/fylking(ar) (‘clear a wide path through the army/rank(s)’). The Hvitidalur text also includes here the detail o f the sword/spear coming out through the enemy’s shoulder blades, which both in ÍB 88 and the Amur is used in the first encounter. It is noteworthy that the differences between the two texts extend even to what is in many ways the high point of the scene, the verbal exchange between Soldán and Falur. The ‘punch-line’, in which the literal meaning o f the name Vigfus, ‘eagerfor battle’,is played o n -a p u n made in several íslendingasögur166 - is essentially the same; the dialogue preceding it is quite different, however, although both involve the hero being asked his identity. The Hvitidalur text uses the common formulahvað heitirþú, hinn mildi maður? (‘what’s your name, big fellow?’), while ÍB 88 has vondur loddan (‘evil buffoon’), a term o f abuse found in several o f Jón’Ss sagas and common in the romances generally, and the phrase kunna illa kónga aå titla (‘not to know how to address kings’), which I have not found an example of elsewhere, but sounds formulaic. The explana­ tion for this discrepancy, not surprisingly, is to be found in the Amur, where the pun on Vígfús is intact, preceded by a verse in which it is said merely that Falur confronts Soldán and is asked his name. Whoever turned the Amur back into prose simply chose a different, but equally formulaic, way o f describing the exchange. As was mentioned above, there is only one autograph manuscript of any of the sagas attributed to Jón Hjaltalin, a fragment o f M arrons saga, which is therefore the only example of an ‘original’, a text in the form we can assume the author to have intended it to take. Although the text of Reimars saga as preserved in ÍB 88 must obviously be closer to Jón Hjaltalin’s original than the Hvitidalur text, derived as it is from the Amur, it is interesting to note that this would not be demonstrable through stylistic analysis, i.e. on the basis of which text has the higher proportion o f phrases found also in Jón’s autograph. I have identified just over one hundred separate formulaic phrases1*7 in the two ver­

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sions o f this battle scene, about half o f them found in both texts. Forty-two, exactly half, o f the eighty-four individual phrases in the Hvitidalur text occur also in the Jón’s autograph, and thirty-five, just over half, o f the sixty-five phrases in the ÍÐ 88 text. This looks to me rather like random distribution, the implica­ tion being that Jón could well have written either text, since he and whoever was responsible for the younger redaction were essentially drawing water from the same well. Marrons saga, as was mentioned above, also exists in a younger version based on the Rimur a f Marroni sterka o f Jón Jonsson from Ðárðarbúð, Snæfellsnes, which were composed in 1828. This younger version is preserved in a single manuscript, Lbs 1767 4to, written by Johannes Jónsson from Smyrlahóll be­ tween 1857 and 1863. As was mentioned above, Jóhannes produced a number o f other prose versions of rimur, and it seems not unreasonable to conclude that he himself was resposible for this version as well. Jóhannesfc texts are often abbreviated, both in the sense that he makes abun­ dant use o f abbreviations - unusual in manuscripts this late - but also that his texts are often shortened and simplified stylistically. Such is the case with his text o f Marrons saga. I f we compare Jóhannes’s version o f the battle scene cited above, taken from Jón’s autograph, we find that Jónfc text is 511 words, the text o f the rimur, as preserved in Lbs 703 4to, pp. 126-8, is somewhat shorter, with 440 words, while Jóhannes’s text is a mere 315 words, reading in places almost like a précis o f the original.168As was the case with the various texts o f Reimars saga, however, the action is the same, although neither the rim ur nor, following them, Jóhannes Jónsson’s version includes as much in the way o f incidental detail (i.e. optional motifs). Jóhannes’s text is as follows: Nu er ad seigfa þar fra ad orustow biij or med miklum gni & vopna braki þar sumir legg/a ew sum/r høggva & sum ir skjóta, Enw til þess ad fólkií fjelli ei i strå nidur geek Marrow framm &. baud Pindarus Einvigi, Enw harm kvadst first ætla ad gjøreida mønnum haws þv/ þe/r eru ei o f gódir til ad deýa & sidan skal eg snida þig i suwdur firir Hunda & Hrafna, Rak haww þá upp mikit óp & hans þrælar svo und ir tók i øllum ijalla briinum bløskrar þá lawdsmønwum mjøg ew børdust þó vel, & bardirt Marrow dreingikga m ed Serkjum, stód þefta leiwgi dags ad Pindarus sddi framm med sínu þræla lidi, faUa þá Serkj/r hrenwum nidur, Enw Ðlálawds berserkir hømudurt mjøg slóu þeir þá fimmtigi bring uwi Marrow ew howw ólm&rt þá sent 6dur være, & drap af þe/m fjørutigi, en týu flidu fra honum, þá drap Pindarus Kantow mer kis mann Marrons, þaf leit Marron & hradar sjer þawgad, & drap herfinw undir Pintarus, svo Jøtunew datt til Jardar, þá hjó Marron a f honum bádor fet umar, Enw þegar vikingar sjá fall sms herra, flúdu þeir á burtu af vig vellim/m, & ofaw til skipa, Enw þar var Sertorjus kówgwr firir & vardi þeim skipew & sló þar svo ew i bardaga, stód þaf ifir þar ti/ Eingew stód uppi af þeim blálendsku, tók þá kówgur 11/ s/w allar herbúd/raar A skipew, kawwadi þá Marrow valinw, & faww Pindarus lifawdi baudrt Marrow ad græda haww, ew haww villdi þat ei þiggfa, A skipar þá

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The unwashed children o f Eve Marron ad heing/a hann9 & vard slæmur afgángur hans & utfør, Enn vargam ir åtu úr honu/w mør slindru/ia, ljet nu Marron grada alla sem sårir voru, & fjec&honn nu heidor & hrós af øllunt firir þesse þrekvirki, & afreksvirk & var hann þvt kalladar um allt Seikland Marron Steiki, vor nú skipt øllu herfångi sem fim? & settusf all ir ad i fridi & godum nådum169 (Now it is to be told that the battle began with great noise and the clash o f weapons, where some strike and some shoot. But so that the people did not fall like straw Marion went forward and offered to meet Pindarus in single combat, but he said that he wanted first completely to destroy Marion’s men, because ‘they are not too good to die; and then I shall slice you up for dogs and ravens!’ He and his men then let out a great cry that resounded from the mountain tops. The inhabitants were frightened by this, but fought well, and Marron fought bravely with the Saracens. Thus it stood well into the day that Pindarus rampaged with his army of slaves. The Saracens fell in droves, and the berserks were in a great frenzy. Fifty of them encircled Marion, but he fought like a madman, killing forty of them, ten fleeing from him. Pindarus then killed Kanton, Marion’s standard-bearer. Marron hurried towards him and killed Pindarus’s horse out from under him, so that the giant fell to the ground. Then Marron cut off both his legs. And when the pirates saw their leader’s fall they fled from the field of battle to their ships. But King Sertórius was there and denied them access to the ships and yet another battle began, lasting until not one of the Africans was left standing. The king then captured all the camps and ships. Marion inspected the battlefield and found Pindarus alive. Marron offered to heal him, but he would not accept this and Marion ordered then that he be hanged. His was a poor departure and burial, and the wolves feasted on his innards. Marion had everyone’s wounds seen to, and was honoured and praised by all for these bold and valiant deeds; for this reason he was throughout the land of the Saracens called Marron the strong. All the booty was then divided up as before, and they all settled down in peace and tranquility.)

Although both are highly formulaic, the two prose texts share only three phrases, standa lengi dags ('continue long into the day’), slå bring um e-n (‘form a circle around someone’), and höggva báða fœ tur(na) af/undan e-m (‘cut both feet from under someone’). In some cases variants o f common for­ mulaic systems have been employed, e.g. ‘þat leit Marron’ (‘Marron saw that’) instead o f ‘þetta sér Marr(on)’ (same meaning), or one formula has been substi­ tuted for another, e.g. ‘stód þai ifir þ ar til Einge/i stód uppi af þeím blálendsku’ (‘it carried on until not one o f the Africans was left standing’) instead o f ‘liettu þeir köTjgr og Marr(on) eý firr, enn hvørt mansbam var drepid’ (‘the king and Marron did not let up until each and every one of them had been killed’). The remainder o f the passage consists largely of phrases common enough in the lygisögur generally - a number of which we have seen already in connexion with Reimars saga - although not in every case found in Jón’s autograph manu­ script.

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Although Jóhannesfe text is significantly shorter than Jónfe, it contains sev­ eral bits o f information not found in the other texts. Jón’s ‘æptu hvoni tveggia her óp* (‘both [sides] shouted a war-cry’) and ‘Pind(arus) og Berserkir hans geistust þá framm med ofsa hlýódumm’ ( ‘Pindarus and his berserks rushed forward with a great clamour*), for example, are combined to become ‘Rak hann þá upp mikif óp & hans þrælor svo undir tók í øllum fjalla brúnum bløskrar þá landsmø/mam mjög en børdus1/ þó vel’ (‘he and his thralls let forth so great a shout that it resounded from the mountain sides; the inhabitants were shocked but fought well*), and while Jón states simply that when Pindarus was hanged ‘Láúk þar vid hans æ fi’ (‘thus ended his life*), Johannes adds ward slæmur afgángur hans & útfor, Enn vargam ir átu úr honum mør slindruna’ (‘and it was a poor death and limeral, and the wolves ate his innards’). In both cases these additions derive from the rimury where this information has been added to fill out the verse. The first of these phrases is not unknown in the prose romances in Sáulus saga ogNikanorsf for example, we have arguably the same formula in ‘æpt herop med so miklu megni at glymurj aullum fiollum j nánd’ (‘[he] shouted a war-cry with such force that it echoed from all the mountains in the vicin­ ity’)170- and the second is unknown to me but certainly has a formulaic feel to it and is unlikely to have been Johannes^ invention. There is one major discrepancy between the two prose texts, viz. that Johannes has Marron^ offer to meet Pindarus in single combat come after the two sides have fought for a time, while there is no indication o f this in Jón^ text, where the offer comes before the fighting begins. The reason for Marron^ offering to meet Pindarus in single combat, ‘ti/ þess ad fólkit §eili ei i strå nidar’ (‘so that the people did not fall like straw*), may be said to be implicit in Jón’s text (particularly in Pindarus’s answer), and is made explicit in the rímur's ‘þjódin/í fá svo hnýgi* (‘so that few people would be slain’), but there is no indication in the rimur that the battle had already begun. It is, of course, not uncommon in battle scenes for the offer of single combat to come after a period of fighting, particularly when losses are said to be heavy on both sides, so that Johannes is hardly breaking with convention here. It is also possible, however, that he has misunderstood verse 16, in which the rmtur-poet makes use o f another battlemotif, that o f the night passing and the dawn breaking. Battles invariably begin at dawn, but while this is frequently stated in the sagas it is not referred to specifically at this point in Jón’s text The first half o f the verse, ‘frid rofs gryma framm brunar / folk hel svima gýrti*, could be translated ‘The night before the battle passed cloaking the people in deepest sleep’, where svim i means unconsciousnes and hel is an intensifying prefix. Hel is most frequently used to mean ‘death’, however, and Jóhannes may have taken the verse to mean that with the dawn came death, i.e. in the form o f battle. The phrases he em­ ploys, ‘orustan bigar med miklum gni & vopnabraki’ (‘the battle begins with great noise and the clash o f weapons’), and ‘suimr legg/a en sum ir høggva & sumir skjóta1 (‘some strike and some hewe and some shoot’), although corre­ sponding to nothing in Jón’s original (or the rimur), are found in many sagas of

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this type, and also in the íslendingasögurf in Heimskringla, and in works such as Alexanders saga.

The fact that rimur, themselves based on prose sagas, could be taken and turned back into prose sagas - and prose sagas that in the main bear no mark o f having been so composed - demonstrates not only the existence of a mechanism for deriving texts, or *discourses’, from ’stories’, but also suggests that the people who were involved in the production of these texts are unlikely to have regarded them as ‘fixed’. The people who rewrote rimur in prose were ordinary copyists, who only rarely bothered to mention that their version o f a given saga derived from rimur, presumably because for them it made no difference - it was still ‘the same story’. We might well ask, therefore, whether something o f this atti­ tude toward the text is not discernible also in the ordinary process of textual transmission. It is well known that an examination o f the manuscript transmission o f any saga reveals that no two texts are ever exactly the same; there are always varia­ tions in spelling, word order, and lexis, and sometimes more significant changes as well, in the form o f substitutions, deletions, and additions. Traditional tex­ tual criticism has concentrated on determining which readings are the products o f textual corruption in order to find, or produce, a text closest to the origi­ nal.171 When dealing with the work of an ‘author’ - Aristophanes, St Jerome, Chaucer - the method clearly has some validity,172 but only because those re­ sponsible for transmitting the texts can be expected to have respected the texts as fixed. With other types of literature, traditional ballads, for example, it does not: which of Mrs Brownfc versions o f a given ballad is ‘closer to the origi­ nal’?173 In the case o f the post-medieval lygisögur it is obvious that there must at some point have been an original, an ‘Urtext’, and the ‘best’ text is the one demonstrably closest to it. Unfortunately, in all but a very few cases we have no notion o f who may have written these sagas - surely in itself significant - and even then, apart from the rare cases where autographs have survived, it is diffi­ cult at best to say which texts may be closest to their originals - difficult, and, in a sense, irrelevant. Once written, the lygisaga text had a life o f its own: for many of those who copied it, as for Mrs Brown, it seems ‘there was nothing sacred about the mere words’.174 If we compare the text of the battle scene from M arrons saga discussed above, taken, as was said, fiom the author’s autograph manuscript, with the text o f the saga as preserved, for example, in another m anuscript written by Guöbrandur Sturlaugsson in 1872 - a relatively ‘good’ manuscript from a tra­ ditional textual critical point o f view - we find that there are a great many differences. Many o f these are simply variations in word forms, word order, or tense, the sort o f thing found regularly in the course of manuscript transmis-

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sion. Several o f the differences occur where Jón’s text is slightly aberrant; Jón’s ‘sigu fylkíngar saman*’ ('the armies converged’), for example, appears in the Hvitidalur manuscript as ‘sigu saman fylkíngar’, the form otherwise found, and Jónfc ‘lýtid ortist á’ ('things progressed slowly’) is ‘litid orkadi á’, again, the commoner form. In some cases the differences are in the form o f reductions or omissions; 'pg rýúfa hana ad endi láúngu’ ('split it [sc. the column] from end to end’) is lacking, 'pg eý hættir hann firr en hann heir drepid 40 a f þeim’ ('he does not let up until he has killed forty o f them’) appears as ‘diepur 40 afþeim ’ ('[he] kills forty o f them’), 'Landsherinn tók ad hressast og herda sig’ ('the inhabitants were heartened and became more determined’) as 'lands herin tók ad herda sig’ ('the inhabitants became more determined’), and 'nidr høggnir sem Búfie’ ('slaughtered like cattle’) as 'nidur hoggnir’ ('slaughtered’). These are all accountable for by traditional textual criticism. Fully half the differences between the two texts involve a type o f substitu­ tion reminiscent o f that found in the rúmir-derived texts discussed above, how­ ever, where one formula or one element in a formulaic system has been substi­ tuted for another.175 The phrase ‘skal eg høggva þig ý brád fyrir hrafna og hræqvikindi’ ('I shall carve you up as fodder for ravens and carrion beasts’) appears as 'skal þig britja fyrir hunda og hrækvikindi’ ('you shall be hacked [into pieces] for dogs and carrion beasts’), ‘vørdust kýænlega’ ('defended them­ selves skilfully’) as 'vördust drefngilega’ ('defended themselves bravely’), 'seínt vildi ad vinnast’ ('[things] advanced [only] slowly’) as 'lítid á vannst’ (‘little progress was made’), ‘fór hugr þeina ad veikiast’ as ‘for hugur þeirra ad dofna’ (‘their courage began to weaken/fail’), ‘hvør flýdi umm þveran* annad’ (liter­ ally ‘each fled across the other’) as ‘hvur flýdi sem gat’ (‘each fled who could’), ‘flýa til skipa, og halda á haf út’ (‘flee to the ships and put out to sea’) as 'komast á skip og halda frá landi’ ('reach the ships and put out from land’), 'marga men*’ ('m any men’) as 'fjölda lids’ ('a [great] number of people’), 'ecki vard tølu á komid’ ('it could not be counted’) as 'ei vard mørkum talid’ (literally ‘it couldn’t be counted in marks’), and so on. Again, it would not be possible to demonstrate on the basis o f stylistic evidence that Jón Hjaltalin was not the author o f the Hvitidalur text, since he himself uses most o f the same phrases elsewhere in the Marrons saga autograph.

Looking at the various manuscript witnesses of any of the lygisögur, we see that while textual variation can be extensive, it is wholly within the confines of the tradition.176The ‘story’ remains the same, but the 'discourse’ can vary enor­ mously through the substitution, addition, and rearrangement o f the motifs and formulae. The individual manuscripts may thus be seen as analogous to the individual performances o f an oral text, many o f the copyists, like the south Slavic guslari observed by Parry and Lord, utilising a traditional repertoire of appropriate formulae to 'recompose' the story each time. In a way, this should

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come as no surprise. If, as Paul Zumthor has aigued, the medieval text was fundamentally unstable, never having a state conceived as final,177 it is perhaps only to be expected that the lygisögur, even as they remained essentially medieval in their forms o f production, dissemination, and reception, should retain also this fundamental fluidity.

1 mentioned in Chapter II that very little could be said with certainty about the nature o f saga-reading in the kvoldvakay but that there was no evidence o f its having involved extensive improvisation. It could, on the other hand, be argued that the attitude toward the text is likely to have been the same among those who read the sagas out loud as among those who copied the manuscripts - they must, indeed, in many cases have been the same people. I suggest, therefore, that a certain amount o f ‘recomposition’ o f the same type as we find within the process o f manuscript transmission must also have taken place in the context of the kvöldvaka. It could be further argued that a story-teller capable o f putting flesh on the bare bones o f the narrative - deriving ‘discourses’ from ‘stories’ in the manner described here could easily have retold a saga without recourse to a written text, in that once the basic plot had been committed to memory, the rest would fall naturally into place. This is presumably what the people referred to by Henderson who had ‘got the sagas by heart’ did in order to be able to repeat them. The lygisögur, therefore, although in themselves literary products, even as they were, or could be, re-written each time they were copied, were, or could be, recomposed each time they were read aloud or retold from memory. As with all oral performances before the dawn o f electronic recording devices, these readings and retellings are lost to us, ultimately unknowable. Through a detailed - and unbiased - study of the process o f manuscript transmission, we are, I believe, afforded a glimpse of them.

V

The old and the new: Antiquarianism and Enlightenment in the sagas o f Jón Hjaltalin

If in the previous chapter I have given the impression that the sagas attributed to Jón Hjaltalin are ‘all the same’ - i.e. indistinguishable one from the other or from any o f the other lygisögur - this is the inevitable result o f the method I have chosen to employ, one which seeks to analyse literary works in terms of their constituent parts, analogpus to the phonemic and morphemic analysis o f language. But these sagas are no more ‘all the same’ than are all words contain­ ing, say, a front vowel and a voiced plosive, or all sentences containing a verb in the present indicative. They are all, to be sure, recognisably o f the same type, part o f the same tradition - the same Tangue’, to use Saussure^ term - and to the uninitiated they may well appear ‘all the same9, even as do all murder mys­ teries, all country and western songs, all gothic cathedrals. Within the admittedly narrow confines o f the lygisaga-gemz, Jon’s sagas are in fact quite different one from the other. The plots, it is true, proceed along similar lines, the heroes are not vastly dissimilar, and it is not always easy to remember which dwarf appears in which saga,1but the emphasis tends to differ from one saga to the other. There are, to give but one example, sworn-brothers in most o f the sagas, but in Rigabals saga the very close friendship between Rigabal and Alkanus is a significant factor behind much o f the action. Reimars saga, as I mentioned in the previous chapter, it is Falur, the eponymous hero’k sworn-brother, who is in many ways the true hero o f the saga. There are also features which may be said to characterise Jón’te sagas. These include favourite motifs, such as the lion/dragon episodes discussed in the pre­ vious chapter, specific locations - principally the countries o f the eastern Medi­ terranean - and recurring personal names - Signý, for example, which occurs as the name o f minor characters, often offspring o f the heroes, in five o f the sagas. There are also a number o f broader themes, to which I shall turn my attention presently. It is because o f these characteristic features that one has no difficulty in accepting the attribution o f the sagas to one man; the palpably different character o f firings saga is, by the same token, as strong an argument for rejecting its attribution to Jón as is its absence from the list o f Jon’s works given by Hallgrímur djákni. Also discernible, I would argue, is a progression within the corpus from relatively straightforward and more archetypal narra­ tives such as Natons saga to the more generically adventurous Fimmbrœðm saga and Hinriks saga heilráða. That this progression agrees for the most part with the order o f Jón’fe works as given by Hallgrímur djáknP suggests that Hallgrimurfe information did indeed derive from Jón himself, who would have

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listed his works, as one well might, in the order o f their composition. More’s the pity, then, that Måna saga, the last o f Jón’s works to be listed and therefore perhaps the last to be written, has not survived. It can, o f course, only ever been conjecture, but the fact that Måna saga has not survived may perhaps have been because Jón, in his final saga, had attempted to expand the confines o f the genre more than it was able to sustain.

Jón Hj al tal in was, as I have shown in Chapter III, a remarkably well-read man with an extremely broad range o f interests. O f especial interest to him was the medieval literature of his own country, with which he had an enviable familiar­ ity. It is not unreasonable to ask therefore whether there are not places in Jon’s sagas where the influence of the older literature is discernible in a way that makes it more appropriate to speak of literary loans than manifestations o f the living tradition described in the previous chapter. There is, for example, a general indebtedness to Ynglinga saga and a number o f other texts in which pagan practices are described in the section in Fimmbrœöra saga dealing with King Eysteinn o f Sweden. Eysteinn is described as ‘blótmaður mikilP (‘a great maker of sacrifices’),3 but otherwise there are few verbal parallels, the various phrases used, ‘að fella blótspón’ (‘to cast di­ vining rods)’, ‘að blóta til sigurs’ (‘to sacrifice for victory’), etc., being found in a variety o f texts. There is, however, a direct reference to Ynglinga saga in the first chapter o f the saga, where Endor describes ‘Óðinsdyrkun’ (‘the worship of Óðinn’) in the following terms: þeím [sc, trúarbrögðum] filgdi slikur kraftur, Sigursæld, árgjæzka, og farsæld; því þó Óðinn eígnaði sér mikin/í mátt, held eg han/i hafi þó bæði vitað og játað anan æðri en#i sig, og eý gét eg sjeð hann hafi boðið að tigna sig eda dírka sem Guð; \>að var að visu satt, að þegar hann sendi menn sina til orastu, eður i aðrar hættu ferdir, lagdi hann hendur i höfiið þeím og gaf þeim Bjanak það er áraaði farar heilla, og höfdu þeír trú á því, ad þá mundi ferdin vel takast.4 (This religion was accompanied by such power, luck in battle, good sea­ sons, and happiness, because although Óðinn took great power for him­ self, I think he both recognised and acknowledged another one higher than himself, and I cannot see that he decreed that he should be honoured or worshipped like God. It is admittedly true that when he sent his men into battle or on other dangerous missions he laid his hands upon their heads and gave them blessing, which brought them good fortune, and they be­ lieved that their mission would then go well.)

The reference to ‘bjan(n)ak’ is taken from Snorri, who says: Þat var háttr hans [jc. Óðins], ef hann sendi menn sina til orrostu eða aðrar sendifarar, at hann lagði áðr hendr í hgfuð þeim ok gaf þeim bjannak. Trúðu þeir, at þá myndi vel farask.5

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(It was Óðinn’s custom that before he sent his men into battle or cm an­ other mission he would lay his hands on their heads and give them bless­ ing. They believed that things would then go well.)

Endor goes on to describe how Óðinn ‘gaf pg en/i firir heit umm sælu fulla vist á Gimli, og sagdi aö þar mundu diggar dróttir biggja, og umm aldir indis daga njóta, og að gott yrdi þá að vera á himni’ (‘promised them a joyful residence in Gimli, and said that there the faithful would dwell, enjoying delightful days forever, and that then it would be good to be in heaven’). This is a reference, somewhat corrupt, to Völuspå, v. 64: Sal sér hon standa, sólo fegra, gulli þacþan, á Gimlé; þar scolo dyggvar dróttir byggia oc um aldidaga ynðis nióta.6 (She sees a hall, fairer than the sun, roofed with gold, at Gimli; there shall the faithful dwell, and have joy for all eternity.)

Jon’s familiarity with Völuspå is confirmed by the fact that a text o f the poem along with Latin translation is found in Lbs 1249 8vo, as was mentioned above.7 Contained in the same manuscript is a text of Sólarljóðí to which Jón refers in Rigabals saga when he has íberus bid farewell to his son with the words ‘fynnumst aptur á fegins degi’,8 a reference toSólarljóð, v. 82: ‘Hér við skiljumst / og hittast munum / á feginsdegi fira’ (‘Now we part, and will meet [again], on the day o f men’s joy [i.e. resurrection day])’.9 InN atons saga>Florida, daughter o f Dagviður, King ofTartaria, describes to her serving-maids a dream she has had: Úti þóktist eg stödd og gékk eg skamt frá borginni. varð þá fyrir mér dalverpi nokkurt og sátu þar þijár konur. þær spunnu gam. eg þóktist ganga til þeirra og spyija hveijar þær væru. Þá svaraði ein þeirra: 4Við erum nomir þær sem spynninn forlaga þráð manna og heitum Skuld, Urða og Verandi.* Eg þóktist spyrja: ‘Hvaða forlög spynni þið mér?* ‘þau,* sagði hún, ‘að þú skalt aungann þanit til egta fá er fæddur er í konungs höll eður maktar manna herbergi, heldur einhvern þann er borínn er i bónda kofa’ Varð eg af þessu mjög brigg og í þvi vöktuð þér mig. Kémur mér fyrir lítið að vera körtwngsdóttir ef eg skal þýðast bændur eður búkarla um ævi mina.10 (I dreamt that 1 was outside, and walked a short way from the castle. I came to a small dale, in which there sat three women. They were spinning yam. I dreamt that I walked toward diem and asked them who they were. One of them said to me: *We are the Noras [weird sisters] who spin men’s thread of fate; we are called Skuld, Utða, and Verandi.* I asked: ‘What fate do you spin for me?* ‘That fate,* she said, ‘that you shall marry no-one born in a castle or a rich man's house, but rather one who was born in a

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The unwashed children o f Eve farmer's cottage.’ This saddened me greatly, at which point you woke me. It is of little benefit to me that I am a princess if I have to be wedded to a farmer or cow-herd all my life.)

She need not have worried, of course, since the man bom not in a castle but in a cottage is, as we know, none other than the hero Naton, whom she does indeed eventually marry. The three witches who have provided her with this informa­ tion are borrowed from Norse mythology. They are mentioned in Snorri’s E d d a " but the most probable source is, again, Völuspá, v. 20: Þaðan koma meyiar, margs vitandi, þriár, ór þeim sæ, er und þolli stendr, Urð héto eina, aðra Verðandi, - scáro á scíði Sculd ina þriðio; þær ÍQg lQgðo, þær lif kuro alda bomom, ørlpg seggia.12 (Thence come the maidens, much-knowing, three from that spring that stands under the tree; one is named Urðr, Verðandi the other - cutting on wood - Skuld the third. They decided fates, and ordained the ages of the sons of men.)

It would be a mistake, however, to im agingJón sitting with the open text of Völuspá in front o f him as he wrote. These borrowings have an almost acciden­ tal quality about them. There is, for example, another scene in Fimmbrœðra saga which appears to be a literary borrowing, but from more than one source. It occurs in the first episode o f the saga, where the relatively minor character Desilius, attempting to flee the wrath o f the high-priest Arkimagus, is given shelter by an old man and his wife. Nú liðu svo 4' dagar, að eý bar neitt til tiðínda, enn sem kom hin/r 5“ Dagur mælti bóndi: Nú er mér grumir á að hér muni koma leitar menn i dag, hefi eg þá eý önnur ráð enn leggja yfir þig skikkju Kéllíngar minnar, og skaltu sitja og spin/ia gam á rokk, enn hún skal fara út á skóg og felast þar, meðann leítar menn em hér.— Desilíus bað harnt ráða; Eptir þaö fer Kélling frá húsumm enn Kall að soðníngu i Eldhúsi, og ber raikið sorp á eldinn. Des(ilíus) settist við rokk, og spinnur i ákafa, liður nú eý laung stund, áður 10 menn riða að húsumm, þeir beija á dir, enn Ðóndi geíngur út, heílsa þeír honumm, og spiija: hvort eý hafl neírn flótta maður þar komið; bóndi kvað það fjærxi vera, þá mæltu þeir: það sagdi þó BÍskup vor, að þessa leið mundi hann haldið hafa, og viljumm vér rannsaka Bæ þinn; Bóndi hvað það heímilt, geíngu þeír þáinnog leítuðu, enn sáu eíngann mann nema konu bónda, sat hún og spann á rokk sinn, og var óhir við sendi menn, og kvað þeim óskilt að gjöra þar hark í húsumm sínumnt, og bað þá dragast burt sem skjótast, valdi hún þeim hörd ord, og var bist i svari [...].13

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(Now four days passed without incident, but on the fifth day the farmer said: ‘I suspect that a search party will come today. The only plan I can think of is that you put on my wife’s cloak and sit here spinning yarn on the distaff, and she can go out and hide herself in the forest while the search party is here. Desilius said that he would leave it to him to decide. After that the old woman went out of the house and the old man started cooking, and put a great deal of sweepings on the fire. Delilius sat at the distaff, spinning diligently. It is not long before ten men ride up to the house. They knock on the door and the farmer goes out. They greet him and ask if any fugitive has come that way. He says that this is far from the case. They said: ‘Our bishop told us that he went this way, and we would like to search your house.’The farmer told them they could. They went inside and searched but could see no-one other than the farmer’s wife, who sat spinning at her distaff, and was unfriendly to the messengers, saying that they had no right to make such a commotion in her house, and telling them to push off at once. She used strong words with them, and answered angrily.)

There are clear verbal parallels in this scene with at least three old Icelandic texts, the most obvious being Fóstbrœðra saga, where Grfma explains her plan for concealing Þormóður: Gamli skal festa upp ketil ok sjóða sel; þú skalt bera sorp á eldinn ok lát verða müdnn reyk i húsunum. Ek mun sitja i durum ok spinna gam ok taka við kompndum.14 (Gamli will hang up the kettle and boil seal-meat; you’ll put sweepings on the fire and make a great deal of smoke in the house. I’ll sit in the door­ way and spin yam, and deal with anyone who comes.)

The phrase ‘að beia sorp á eldinn/eldana’ (‘to put sweepings on the fire’) is used also in a similar scene in Kjalnesinga saga,'5 where a fugitive is also hidden in a smoke-filled room. The combination o f this phrase with the detail o f spinning yarn on a distaff suggests that Fóstbrœðra saga was the source, however, although there appears here also to be a connexion with Eyrbyggja saga, where there is a similar scene in which an old woman, Katla, hiding her son Oddur, ‘spann gam af rokki’.16 Another well-known scene o f this type is found in Gisla saga Súrssonar, where Gisli is protected by the farmer Refur á Haugi and his wife Álfdís, who, the saga tells us, ‘var inn mesh kvenskratti’ (‘was a complete shrew’). Gisli is hidden in the bed, with Álfdís lying on top o f him. Refer has told her to be ‘sem vcrsta viðskiptis ok sem œrasta, - “ok span nú ekki af, [...] ok at mæla þat allt illt, er þér kemr í hug, bœði í blóti ok skattyröum (‘on her worst behav­ iour, and most ferious, “and don’t hold back, [...] and to say all the evil things that come into your head, oaths and foul language’”). When Bdrkur’s men ar­ rive, Refer says he has not seen Gisli. They then ask him if he has any objection to their searching his house. He replies that he has not, and they go in.

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The unwashed children o f Eve Ok er Alfdis heyrði haik þeira, þá spyrr hon, hvat gauragangi þar v srí eða hverir glópamir starfaði á mgnnura um nætr. Refr bað hana hafa sik at hófi. En hon lætr þó eigi vant margra fiflyrða; veitir hon þeim mikla ágauð, svá at þeir máttu minni til reka.17 (And when Álfdis heard the commotion she asked what hooliganism this was, and who the idiots were who disturbed people at night. Refur told her to behave herself, but she didn’t let up with her foul language, cursing them in a way they wouldn’t soon forget.)

Desiliusfc behaviour in Fimmbrœðra saga is presumably to be traced to this scene in Gisla saga, as suggested by the use o f the word 'hark* (‘tumult, com­ motion*). It is hard to believe that Jón has consciously combined motifs and phrases from so many different sources; a much more reasonable explanation is that as intimately familiar with Old Icelandic literature as he obviously was, Jón sim­ ply used the motifs and phrases that most readily suggested themselves to him when composing a scene of this type. Jón*s sagas are, I have suggested, part o f a unbroken narrative tradition dat­ ing from the middle ages. Characteristic o f this tradition from the start was an openness toward outside influences, a willingness to incorporate ‘foreign’ ma­ terial. These scenes reveal that in the post-Reformation period one o f the areas to which the lygisaga-author could turn for material was the literature o f Ice­ land’s own ‘Golden Age*.

Not surprisingly, in view o f the wide-ranging nature o f his interests, Jón also turned to the concerns of his own age for material. The sagas attributed to Jón Hjaltalin, like the lygisögur generally, inhabit a universe that is a mixture o f the ancient world, both classical and biblical, the early Germanic world o f the fomaldarsogur> and the world of medieval chivalric romance. Contemporary events and concerns rarely intrude. Occasionally, however - when, for exam­ ple, Jón has Marion and Nefur pretend to be ‘náttúru skodarar, sem værn ad kanna heiminn’ (‘natural scientists, who were exploring the world*),18 or when Hinrik heilráði goes into the forest for provisions, returning in the evening with ‘fullan sekk afjarðeplum’ (‘a full sack o f potatoes’)19- the sagas hint at a world scarcely imaginable much before the eighteenth century. There are also, very occasionally, specific references to contemporary events. In Hinriks saga, for example, we are told that ‘keisara nafn tók þar [sc. i Russlands] fyrstur Pétur mikli (dó 1725)’ (‘the first person to take the title emperor [in Russia] was Peter the Great (died 1725)*).20 The dry, matter-of-fact tone suggests that Jón’s source for this information might have been Reccard’s Lære-Bog, mentioned above, or some similar work, but Jon is certain to have known Holberg^ chapter on Peter the Great in the Helte-Historier, where he is treated in a very positive light, as ‘En, hvilken Gud paa en umiddelbar Vis opvakte for at oplyse en stor

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Part af Verden* (‘one chosen directly by God to enlighten a large part of the world*).21 Peter the Great was also admired by Voltaire, and Jón could well have known his Histoire de l 'empire de Russie sous Pierre le Grand (1759-63), which appeared in Danish translation as Peter den Stores Liv og Levnet, som indbefatter det Russiske Riges H istorie udi hans Regierings-Tid (Copenhagen [Sorø], 176669).* Hinrik heilráði, as I shall have occasion to discuss further below, is the kind o f enlightened ruler that Holberg and Voltaire saw in Peter the Great, and the fact that the setting for much o f Hinriks saga - unusual among Jón’s sagas is Eastern Europe, principally Russia and the Baltic states, suggests that there is a very real possibility o f influence. Another example o f a specific reference to a contemporary event comes at the end o f Sarpidons saga, where there is a description o f Portugal which in­ cludes the information that the capital, Lisbon, ‘varð ilia útleikin af jaröskjálfta fyrsta nóvember seytján hundruð fimmtigi og fimm’ (‘was badly damaged by an earthquake 1 November 1755’).23 It is hardly surprising that Jón knew o f the Lisbon earthquake: it was one of the most important events o f the eighteenth century, not least for the soul-searching its obvious arbitrariness prompted among European intellectuals. It may be mere coincidence, but here again there is a possible connexion with Voltaire. The Lisbon earthquake is generally recog­ nised as marking a turning-point in his philosophy.24 It was the subject of his well-known ‘Poéme sur le désastre de Lisbonne’ (1756), and was referred to in Candide (1759), a Danish translation o f which appeared in 1797, entitled Candide, eller den bedste Verden. Although specific references o f this kind are rare in Jón’s sagas, there is much in them that is nevertheless firmly rooted in the attitudes and assump­ tions o f the Enlightenment.

As a clergyman, J6n had an especial interest in the church and matters pertain­ ing to it, an interest reflected not only in his translations o f Bastholm, Balle, and Voltaire, discussed in Chapter III, but also in his sagas, several o f which contain elements which may be traced to the eighteenth-century debate on ‘natu­ ral’ as opposed to ‘revealed’ religion. References to Christianity occur in five o f the sagas. In some, these refer­ ences are merely perfunctory. In Natons saga, for example, the only mention of Christianity comes at the end o f the saga, when we are informed that it was said that ‘þegar þau Kristnu trdar brögð tóku að út breiðast um austur álfuna, aö Naton konungur hafi tekið trú og allur harms undir líður’ (‘when Christianity began to spread in the east, Naton and all his subordinates were converted’).25 References to conversion are not unknown in the lygisögur generally, and this is perhaps better seen as a standard motif employed by Jón than as indicative of his particular concerns and interests. In several o f the sagas, however, references to religion in general and

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Christianity in particular go well beyond this. In Reimars saga there is quite a long ‘prehistorical’ tale-within-a-tale in which Hugi, father ofFalur, tells Reimar how he and Flora, Reimar’s aunt, had grown up together and become close friends: oft sátwn vid á tale saman/i & Ræddumm um Jmsa hluti, þad var eim dag ad vid géngwn i kdngsenz Listegardi & skémtumm ockur med þvz ad skoda þaug Jndezlegu blómstr á triánumm, ad eg sagde vid hana, mikell kraftur er i þeBumm tríám ad þaug géta fædt a f sér so fagra ávegsti, hwn s(agde): satt er þaad hig eg ad aller mikelz verder hluter hafe firemur sinn uppruna a himne enn Jordu þvz eg sie ad á himnum skin solenn & sender hingad á Jordena birtuna og hitann á hhnnumm synest mér túngled sem User Jordunne á Nætumar, á himnum leiftra stiømumar, af himnum kemur døgginn sem vøkvar Jordena & giører hana friófsama úr Loptinu koma Vindamer, & máské þar bwe Einhvør sem stióme tøffu øllu saman. Jeg vard þánka fullur af þeOu hennar tale & spuide hvad henne befde gefed ordsok til soddan meiningar? Hwn Ansade: þegor eg var 5 Aara gømul man eg hier kom eim Pylagrimr långt austan wr heimi, Fader minn liet kalla hann firer sig, & spurde hann umm ferder hannz? hann kvadst hafa fared ad kanna h(elga) stade, kdngr sp(urde) hvørt Nockrer stader væru til håleitare enn þar sem Mektugustu kdngar hafa satt adsetr? hann sv(arar) ad i Austr ålfunne være Land eitt sem Jorsalir hefta & þar være dýrkadr skapare himenz & Jardar þvz hann gæfe mønmim alt gott, & til hannz ættu ad fara efter daudan aller góder & frómer menn, enn þar fader minn sinte lýted slykumm tølumm, féck eg ei Meira hier af ad heira. heft so þetta Efhe sydan brotest i þánka mér, enn eg hefe ei þorad ad opennbera ]>ad neinum nema þér & vona eg þú Låter fått á þeOu bera. Jeg hliodnade v/rfþeBe hennar ord, & skammadest med siálfum mér, ad eg skilde éngenn deile þeckia á þeim sem mig hafde skapad, stréngde eg þá \>eß heit ad eg skilde ei firre aíláta, enn eg hefde mimed Nockra þecking um þann sem stiómade øllum hlutumnt.26 (We often sat together in conversation, discussing various things. One day as we were walking in the king’s pleasure garden, amusing ourselves by looking at the lovely blossoms on the trees, 1 said to her: ’Great power there is in these trees that they can bring forth such beautiful fruit.’ She said: ’This power is indeed great, and I think it is given by someone else, whom we do not know, but who is great and powerful.’ I said: *1 know of no-one more powerful than the king, your father, but it would not be pos­ sible for him to give these trees their power to bear fruit.* Flora said: ‘I think that all important things have their origin in the heavens rather than on earth, for in the heavens I see that the sun shines, sending here to the earth its light and heat; in the heavens I see the moon, which Ughts the

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earth by night; in the heavens shine the stars, and from the heavens falls the dew that waters the earth and makes it fruitful, and from the heavens come the winds; perhaps there is someone there who controls all these things.* I grew pensive at her words and asked her what had prompted her in such a belief. She answered: *1 remember that when I was five years old there came here a pilgrim from far away in the east. My father had him called before him and asked him about his travels. He said that he had travelled to visit holy places. The king asked him whether there were any places more magnificent than where the most powerful kings have their residences. He said that in the east there is a land called Jerusalem, and that there the creator of heaven and earth was worshipped, because he gave to mankind all that was good, and all good and honest men would go to him after their death, but because my father paid little attention to such talk, I got to hear no more of these things. I have often thought of this matter since, but have not dared reveal this to anyone other than you, and 1 hope that you mention it to no-one/1 fell silent at her words» and felt in myself shame that I should know nothing of him who had created heaven and earth. I vowed then that I would not let up until 1 knew something of him who controlled all things.)

Having asked for and received Flóra’s promise that she will marry no-one so long as she knows him to be alive, Hugi sets out for Asia with a few ships, eventually making land at Phrygia. There he and his men fight and defeat a group o f Saracen pirates. On their ships they find thirteen prisoners who had been captured and put in irons because they refused to worship the pirates’ gods. Hugi desires to learn more o f their faith, and an old man, Elias by name, offers to teach him if his compatriots are allowed to go free. Hugi returns home, a year having elapsed, and following another year’s instruction has learnt every­ thing from Elias. His father is not pleased that Hugi will not worship the same gods as he does, but does nothing. The king, however, refuses to grant Hugi the hand o f his daughter Flóra - despite the fact that Hugi has saved her from marrying Landrés, son of the king o f Thrtary, by defeating him in single combat - saying that Hugi has offended the country by not worshipping the same gods as the king and his subjects. Upon the death of his father, Hugi retires secretly to the forest where he is joined by Flóia. The two live there for twenty-seven years, Elias acting as their priest, marrying them, and christening and educat­ ing their children. Reimar yearns to know more of this faith, and arranges for Falur to become his companion and instructor. The subsequent plot is largely unaffected by reli­ gious concerns, however, with Reimar and Falur going about their business in typical heroic fashion, killing vikings and berserks and winning princesses, without bothering themselves unduly with the finer points o f brotherly love and Christian mercy. Reimar eventually becomes Emperor in Mildigarður, where, in a final flourish, we are told he did much in support o f the Christian faith.

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A similar situation obtains in Sarpidons saga. The eponymous hero, although ignorant o f Christianity, refuses to participate in pagan rites, in particular the worship o f wooden idols (‘skurðgoð’), explaining to his father: Eigi veit eg, hvað mér er betra að tilbiðja trédnimba þessa en staura þá, er standa í eldaskála móður minnar; þéna þeir þó til eldsneytis að matbúa fæðu vora, en þessir daufii drumbar, sem þú tignar, virma engan arð, og hygg eg þeir séu vizku villtir, sem veita þeim lotning og tilbeiðslu.27 (I don’t see that it is any better for me to worship these wooden blocks than the logs in my mother’s kitchen. They at least serve as firewood for the preparation of our food, but these mute blocks that you worship produce nothing, and I think that those who pay them homage and worship them are mad.)

Later Sarpidon incurs his father^ wrath by throwing the idols into a nearby lake. He escapes punishment by suggesting to his father that the idols them­ selves should decide his punishment. His father agrees, but the idols, naturally enough, remain dumb. Sarpidon^ next act o f iconoclasm is to chop the idols into pieces and deliver them to the kitchen-boys as fire-wood, telling them ‘að kynda óspart, er gnógt var eldiviðar’ (‘stoke the fire well, as there was plenty of fire-wood’). His father, so beside himself with anger that he loses conscious­ ness, has Sarpidon captured. He is able to make his escape, however, killing twenty-five of his father’s men in the process. He makes his way into the forest, where he falls asleep. In a dream he is told that he was right not to worship his father’s gods and is advised to travel south for three days, when he will come to a white house in which he will find a man who will help him to find the right path This is Elifas, a hermit from Jerusalem, who instructs Sarpidon in the ways o f Christianity over the following winter, giving him as a parting gift Ííndúkur einn, [...] så sami, sem Kristur brúkaði, þá hann þvoði fætur sinna lærisveina’ (‘a linen cloth, the same one as was used by Christ when he washed the feet o f his disciples’), which he is told he should wrap round himself to protect him in battle. Sarpidon’s subsequent career is, like that o f Reimar and Ealur, in no way atypical. Moving from one battle to another, he is, however, careful always to offer his opponents the choice between conversion or death. If they consent, they are allowed to join him, but if not, he has no apparent compunction about killing them. In both these cases Jón has introduced, although not fully exploited, a reli­ gious element into the traditional lygisaga form. He was not, o f course, the first to do this: in Mirmanns saga, for example, which was composed probably in the fourteenth century, the hero’s conversion to Christianity plays an important role in the development of the plot. As with most of the medieval romances, Mirmanns saga continued to be popular after the Reformation, and Jón could

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well have known it.28 There is also a conversion in Örvar-Odds saga?9 Oddur and his men, encountering a church for the first time, are told by the worship­ pers that they believe in ‘þann, er sól hefír skapat ok himin ok jg rð ’ (‘him who created the sun, and heaven and earth’), to which Oddur replies: ‘Så mun miirill vera, er þat hefir skapat’ (‘He must be great, who has created this’). In the younger version o f Reimars saga> i.e. that derived from the rimur, the passage corresponding to the one sited above appears to have been influenced by this scene in Örvar-Odds saga. In the text preserved in the third Hvftidalur manu­ script, Hugi comments ‘mikill herra hlitur þad ad vera sem allt þettad hefur til búid’ (‘it must be a great lord who has created all this’).30 The idea o f the righteous pagan is also to be found in many hagiographical works, although Jón, as was mentioned above, seems not to have had any real familiarity with the heilagramannasögur. The idea o f the virtuous heathen was also one that fascinated the Enlighten­ ment, anim ated by a vast literature o f ‘Voyages’, one o f the staples o f eighteenth-century publishing throughout Europe, the accounts o f travellers and explorers providing all the major thinkers o f the age with raw material for speculation on the nature of man, society, and, not least, religion. Jón would at least have been aware of the concept through \faltaire, who refers in his ‘Credo’ to Te Chinois juste et bienfaisant’, which, as we saw above, Jón translated as ‘eírn Rettvis og gódgiordasamr heídínge’ (‘a just and beneficent heathen’). Such ‘noble savages* were thought to demonstrate the existence o f ‘natural religion’, a simple, moral monotheism without the dogma and doctrines o f the established religions. The Deists advocated a return to this pure religion o f nature, but for many - John Locke, for example, or the school o f Christian Wolff in Germany - Christianity was the religion o f reason and nature, making it a necessary supplement to ‘natural religion*.31 Characters like Flóra and Hugi are ‘naturally religious’ in that they are instinctively aware o f the existence of God through the majesty o f nature, while Sarpidon is repelled by the supersti­ tious - and hence irrational - practices o f paganism, finding truth instead in Christianity.

This theme, as I have indicated, is suggested but hardly developed in Reimars saga or Sarpidons saga. Fimmbrœöra saga, on the other hand, is completely dominated by the question o f religion, making it in many ways the most inter­ esting o f JonTs sagas. The saga’s premise, which is marvellously simple, is as follows: Jarl Addonius o f Dalmana has five sons, Abel, Endor, Dathan, Simon, and Kristófer, whom he has instructed in the arts and sciences, sports, and languages, in all o f which they excel. The earl, who is himself a Christian,32 sees that the brothers are attracted to a variety of religious beliefs, and, one day during a great feast, asks each to explain what beliefs he holds. Abel, the eldest, says he follows the religion preached by Zoroaster, Endor claims to believe in

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Óðinn, Dathan in Muhammad, and Simon in Judaism. Kristofer, who we are told was thought to be the most intelligent and learned of the brothers, says he is a follower o f the teachings o f Jesus Christ, and is quick to point out the various shortcomings of each o f the religions named by the other brothers. The earl, working on the principle that ‘Reínslan sje kénslu móðir hlutaiwa’ (‘Ex­ perience is the teacher o f all things’), decides that each of the brothers should journey to the land where his religion is practised - Abel to Persia, Endor to Sweden, Dathan to Araby, Simon to Syria, and Kristófei; interestingly, to Ger­ many. Each is to spend seven years learning about the religion in question, after which time he is to return home and tell the others what he has discovered. Each of the brothers is given a ship with a crew of sixty men, and they set off on their journeys. The bulk o f the saga then follows each of the brothers in turn, ending with Kristofer, who, not surprisingly, is the most successful o f the brothers. Permeating the narrative are the theological concerns of the age, in particu­ lar the belief that principal religions of the world, although all based in natural religion, represented in their present states a degeneration from the simple reli­ gion of nature through an aggregation of superstitious beliefs and rituals. Largely responsible for this degeneration were the prophets, fanatic priests, and cultic leaders, who in establishing the various religions were concerned principally to further their own interests; or, as Kristofer says: Sóróaster, Óðinn og Mahómet, stiptuðu sín trúarbrögd eínasta a f ærugírugheitumm, og drottnunar list, til að öðlast stórt álit, void og vellistingar; En/i Kristur einasta af Elsku og eptir laungun, eptir man/ikinsins heill og velferd, og mátti þó þ arf irir liða man/i hatur og ofsóknir, kvalir og Krossins dauða; Hamr vann það alt til maiuran/ra farsæl dar, en/i hinir firir eigimi åbata upp hefd og virdingu (Zoroaster, Óðinn, and Muhammad founded their religions only out of vainglory and the desire to rule, to gain importance, power, and luxury, but Christ solely out of love and desire for the welfare of mankind, for which he suffered hatred and persecution, pain and crucifixion; he en­ dured all this for the good of man, but the others for their own gain, eleva­ tion, and status.)

Christianity itself, even when viewed as the religion of reason and nature, had also to purge itself of superstitious beliefs and rites. Foremost among these is ‘bílætadýrkan’ - the veneration of images. We have already seen how Sarpidon refused to worship wooden idols, and Kristófer’s principal objection to Zoroas­ trianism - understood as the worship o f fire - is that ‘að dírka og tilbiðja dauða hluti, er mesti dáraskapur, og stríðir þvert á móti boöi sjálfs Guðs, sem bannaði að tilbiðja og dírka nokkurn hlut á himni eða jördu utan/i sig eínann’ (‘to wor­ ship and venerate lifeless objects is the greatest idiocy, and directly contradicts God’s own commandment that forbade the worship of anything in heaven or on earth apart from him alone’). Later in the saga, when Kristófer has become a great favourite with Friðrik,

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Lbs 3810 8vo. The beginning of Fimmbrœórasaga, written in 1870 by Sigurður Jósepsson Hjaltalin (1822-98), grandson of sr. Jón Hjaltalin; in a dedication following the teat of the saga Sigurður says he has copied the saga from his grandfather^ exemplar for his daughter, Helga Gróa. She was his eldest child, and would have been about 12 at the time. Landsbókasafh.

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Duke o f Brandenburg - and, not least, his daughter Signý - the theme is intro­ duced again in a scene that is the high point o f that part o f the saga: Umm þessar mundir vóru miklar deilur og þrætur i þískalandi út af bilæta dirkaninm. Påvin* og hans áhángendur, vildu að menn tilbæðu og dirkuöu helgra manna bilæti, Maríu líkneski, og aðrar Róður, og Lúðvik Keísari, sonur Karla Magnúsar, hræsnaði fyrir þeím geíslegu og lét flest vera eptir þeírra vilja, enn þeir dióu allir Pávans taum; þó kom svo um*i sýðir, að Keísari saman kallaði eítt almennilegt Kirkju þing og skildu allir landsstjómendur, og Lærdir menn, koma til ráðaneítis.14 (Around this time there was great controversy in Germany with regard to the veneration of images. The pope and his followers wanted people to worship the images o f saints, statues of Mary, and other such holy objects, and the emperor Ludwig, son of Charlemagne, played the priests* hypo­ crite, and allowed most things to be in accordance with their wishes, and they all took the side of the pope. But in the end the emperor called a universal synod at which all the rulers and learned men were supposed to give their opinion.)

This ‘almen/rilegt Kirkju þíng’ is to be held in Vienna. The duke is not keen to attend, saying that nothing is to be heard there ‘utan* Páva villur og múnka slaður’ (‘apart from popish heresies and monkish rubbish’), but in the end Kristófer convinces him to go. Once they are there, the debate on ‘bílætadírkun’ goes on for twelve days with no result. Finally, Kristófer stands up and asks the emperor leave to speak, which is granted. Jallson hó f þá ræðu sína á þenwa hátt: það má öllum/w Kristnum/* mön/rumm kunnugt vera, að sjálfur Guð hefur í sínu lögmáli streíngilega ban/rað, að men* skuli smíða sér nokkurs konar mindir eða bilæti, til að tilbiðja eða dirka, en* þar að auki hefur hans eígin* sonur Jesús Kristur sagt, að men* eígi að tilbiðja guð i anda og san*leika35 en* ekki í bílætumm eða Tije goðumm; og ef sjálfir Postular Drottins, já eirninn heilagir Einglar Guðs, hafa metið það óhæfu, þá men* hafa viljað tigna þá eður til biðja, hvöisu verri villu mundu þeír eý það haldið hafa, ef men* hefdu smíðað eptir þeim líkneski til að dirka eður tilbiðja. Þessi bílæta dírkun er þvi sú argasta djöfulsins villa, sem ágjamir men* nota sér til ábata og gróða.56 (Kristofer began his speech in this way: ‘It must be known to all Christian men that God himself in his law has strictly forbidden the making of any kind of image or effigy to worship or venerate; in addition, his own son, Jesus Christ, has said that men must worship God in spirit and in truth, and not in images and idols; and if the Lord's apostles themselves - indeed even God's holy angels - have deemed it improper when men have wanted to worship them, how much greater an error would they have considered it, if men had fashioned images of them to worship. This veneration of images is thus the most treacherous of heresies, which rapacious men have used for their own benefit.’)

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The papal legate is offended by this» but Kristofer silences him in good lygisaga style by challenging him to single combat. The emperor» on the other hand, is greatly impressed, and immediately offers to make Kristofer Archbishop o f Köln. The experience o f the other brothers is predictable. In Persia, for example, Abel quickly discovers that ‘þeír trúðu með framm á margar hjegUjur, og hindurvitni sem han* hafdi áður eý vitað’ (‘in addition they believed much nonsense and superstition which he had not previously known9)» and Endor, upon his return from Sweden, reports that there was ‘margt það í siðferdi Svýa sem væri mesti hjegómi og heímska’ (‘much in the religious practices o f the Swedes that was complete nonsense and stupidity9). It comes as no surprise when in the end all the brothers agree ‘að sd Kristna trú mundi vist best, og heílla sömust vera’ (‘that the Christian faith is the best and the most beneficial9). The idea for a comparison o f the major religions such as this is likely to have been suggested to J6n by \bltairefe Zadig, in which there is a theological debate between a Confiician, a Hindu, an Egyptian, an Aristotelian Greek, and a druidic Celt (representing the French, whom Voltaire viewed as being essentially of Celtic origin). As was mentioned above, Jón omitted this debate entirely from his translation o f Zadig, which is otherwise reasonably faithful. The only rea­ son he can have had for doing so is that he disagreed with \b ltaire’s basic point, that since all religions recognise ‘un Étre supérieur9, the form taken by reli­ gious observance is unimportant. Fimmbrœðm saga, in stressing that while there may indeed be a kernel o f truth in all religions, only Christianity is the true way, can be said to represent Jón's contribution to the debate. Another possible influence is Gotthold Ephraim Lessing’s verse drama Nathan der Weise, written in 1779, the central theme o f which is the universality of natural religion and the consequent equality o f the revealed religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam), as illustrated in the famous ‘Ring-Parabel9(III, 7). Jón could have known the work through any o f several channels. Rahbek’s Danish translation o f the play appeared in 1799,37 but the parable o f the rings had appeared separately in Samleren five years earlier,38 and Magnus Stephensen included a prose translation of it in his Rœdur Hjälmars å Bjargi9 published in 1820.39 Magnús’s translation may have appeared too late for it to have been the inspiration for Jon’s saga, but Magnús could have introduced him to it earlier, while they were neighbours (and still on good terms). It is interesting in this context to note that Magnús’is treatment of Lessing's message is similar to Jón’s, in that Hjálmar goes on to explain to his son Helgi, who is to enter the clergy, that he hopes the story will teach him the need for ‘kristilegt umburdarlyndi vid adra, hvad trúarbragda meiníngar áhrærir’ (‘Christian tolerance towards others in matters of religious belief9),40i.e. qualifying ‘umburdarlyndi* with ‘kristilegt*, an emendation o f which Lessing himself is unlikely to have approved 41

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Jón’s sources o f information on the various religions are not, for the most part, difficult to trace. Heimskringla and Völuspá, as we saw above, provided the information on pagan Scandinavian practices. Although Zoroastrianism is al­ luded to on several occasions in Zadig, most of Jón*s information on the subject appears to derive from Holbergfe H elte-Historier. When Abel initially explains Zoroaster^ teachings to his brothers, for example, he is translating Holbeig42 directly: sínist mér Sóróasters meining yfrið likleg, að hann bail til sett tvo höfuð Eíngla, þan/i betri að stíra ljósinu, enn hin* verri að ráða fijrir mirkrinu, og að þessir sjeu i sýfeldu strýði, svo þá ljóssíns Eíngillin* hefur yfir höndina, þá sje meira af góðu ero? illu á ferd umm heíminn, en* þegar Mirkra Eíngillinn sigrar, þá gángi meíri ólukka og ilska á umm Jördina

Han forklarede denne Mening [...] saaledes: Der er et højeste Væsen, som har været fra Evighed, og under samme Væsen ere to Engle, en god, og en anden ond, og at de tvende Engle a f Mørkets og Lysets Sammanblandelse have dannet Alting i Verden. De samme Engle ere altid i Strid med hinanden; naar Lysets Engel har Overhaand, saa hersker det Gode over det Onde, og, naar Mørkets Engel har Sejer, har det Onde Overhaand.

(Zoroaster’s doctrine seems to me to be highly likely, that he [sc. God] cre­ ated two cardinal angels, the better one to control the light, and the worse to rule the darkness, and that these two are engaged in constant battle, so that when the Angel of Light has the upper hand there is more good than bad about in the world, but when the Angel of Darkness is victorious there is more misfortune and evil on the Earth.)

(He explained this doctrine [...] in this way: There is a supreme being, who has existed for all eternity, and sub­ ordinate to this being there are two angels, one good and the other evil, and these angels have created through the combination of light and darkness all things in the world. These angels are in constant battle with each other; when the Angel of Light has the up­ per hand good rules over evil, and when the Angel of Darkness is victo­ rious, evil has the upper hand.)

When Abel and his men arrive in Persia they are advised ‘að fara á fund Arkimagní sem væri eins og Erki biskup í öllumm trúar bragda efnumm, og sæti hann þaðann skamt frá í Borginm Balk’ (‘to go and see Arkimagus, who was a kind of bishop in all religious matters, and had his residence not far away, in the city Balk’), which Jón could also have got from Holbeig, who describes ‘Archi-Magus’ as ‘Hoved for Religionen, ligesom den ypperste Præst blandt Jøderne, og Paven nuomstunder blandt de Roman-Catholske’ (‘the head of the religion, like the High Priest of the Jews, or the Pope nowadays among the Roman Catholics’).43 Jón’s source for the translation of the name Zendavesta,

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‘Eldstundur’ (‘Fire-lighter’), must also be Holberg, who says it ‘betyder saa meget som Ildtønder9 (‘means no less than Fire-lighter9).44 The description o f Islam similarly owes much to Holberg.45 Although there is no question o f it being anything other than completely false and probably satanic, Islam, or rather its practitioners, are portrayed in a relatively positive light in Fimmbrœðm saga - more so, it must be said, than in Holberg, who, after some sixty pages of less than sympathetic treatment o f the life and teach­ ings o f ‘den falske Prophet9Muhammad, concedes that ‘der er ingen Religion i Verden saa daarlig, at der jo derudi findes ogsaa noget godt9 (‘there is no reli­ gion in the world so bad that there cannot be found some good in it’), and lists three good qualities found in Muslims: Den første er deres Almisser, som besynderlig bestaae udi Hospitalers Stiftelse; thi det er kun allene udi de mahomedanske Lande, hvor alle Slags Fremmede finde fri Hus og Opvartning allevegne paa deres Rejser [...] som ere stiftede [...] rejsende Folk til Husvalelse. Den anden Post er angaaende den Religions-Frihed, som gives alle andre Secter; thi Enhver, hvad Tro han end bekjender, boer tryggelig og sikker udi de mahomedanske Lande, naar han allene betaler en liden aarlig Skat [...]. De tredie Punct bestaaer udi deres Bønner, hvilke gjøres paa visse Tider om Dagen, og det med en ubeskrivelig Andagt [...] 46 (The first is their charity, which reveals itself in the founding o f hostels, for it is only in the Muslim world that strangers find free board and lodg­ ing wherever they travel, which has been established for their benefit. The second point concerns the freedom of religion which is given to all other sects, for anyone, whatever religion he professes, can live safely and se­ curely in the Muslim world so long as he pays a small yearly tax. The third point has to do with their prayers, which they hold at certain times of the day and with indescribable devotion.)

These same points are given by Dathan in his initial defense o f Islam: þeír Mahómetisku era i mörgu digdar men«, þeír fremja mildar ölmusu gjördir, stipta Hospítöl firir þá sjúku,47 hafa fry géstgjafara hús firir þá reísandi, og veíta þeím alia aðhjúkrun firir ekkert; allir menrt géta búið með friði hjá þeím, hvaða trúar brogd sem þeír hafa, ef þeír eínasta gjalda lítin« skatt; þ d r halda bænagjörd þrisvar á hvoijumm deigi, með stórri andagt og trúrækni.4® (The Muslims are in many respects noble men, they perform many acts of charity, establish hospitals for the sick, have free hostels for travellers and give them all attention for free. All men can live in peace with them, what­ ever religion they practise, so long as they pay a small tax. They hold prayers three times each day with great devotion and piety.)

Dathan adds to this list a number of other points, describing the Muslims as ‘haldin ordir, og Trúfastir, [...] hreínlatir qg þrifnir’ (‘true to their word, pious,

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clean, and tidy’); moreover, ‘þeír varast illyrdi, blót, klám og kjeskni, sem ofnóg má heíra meðal hinna kristnu and ‘brigda aldreý sitt loford’ (‘they avoid cursing and swearing, obscenities and scurrility, o f which too much is heard among Christians, and they never break their promises’). Dathan’s subsequent experience - unlike that of the other brothers - does not entirely contradict this view. While they are in Arabia, Dathan and his men are well treated, even when their behaviour is less than exemplary. One night, hav­ ing secretly procured some wine - the saga informs us that ‘tirkjumm leífist eý að drekka vin, og efngan* sterkann drück, utan* volgt mirar vatn’ (‘Arabs are not allowed to drink wine or any strong drink, other than tepid bog-water’) - a piece o f information presumably gleaned from the ‘Reisubók’ o f sr. Ólafur Egilsson49- Dathan’s men discuss the day’k lesson, unaware that their conversa­ tion is being overheard. Among them are three brothers, Rógel, Vitus, and Samson, who are described as ‘hraustir men*, og hardir i skapi’ (‘valiant men, and harsh of temperament’). In response to the complaints o f his brother, Rógel says: ‘mundu ekki fara af þér leíðindin, e f þú kjæmist á bak klámumm sem han/i Mahómet reíð á eími mínútu héðan* og til Jerúsalem’ (‘would you not cheer up if you could get on the back of the horse Muhammad rode in one minute from here to Jerusalem’), a reference to the isra \ or ‘night journey’, made by Muhammad from Mecca to Jerusalem, as related in the seventeenth süra o f the Qur'än, and described in Holberg’s Helte-Historier. He continues: skeíðflöturin* var að sönnu lángur, enda fékk klárinn sprettin* vel borgaðan*, first honumm var heítin haga gánga i Himnaríki, og higg eg fjandin* hafi aldreý spúið slikri villu meðal manna, sem mér heírist þessi Alkóran vera [...].■50 (The distance was admittedly great, but the horse was well rewarded for its run, since it was promised pasture in heaven - and I don’t think the devil has ever spewed such rubbish among men as I hear this Qur'än to be.)

This conversation is duly reported to the chief religious and civil authority in the city, whose response is rather different from what we might expect from some modem Muslim leaders: bað han* men* sina að vera bliða við Jallssonar men*, og reina til að ávin*a þá með góðu, því ef þeir forsómuðu eý að undir visa þeím i lærdóminumm, þá mundi hin* heflagt spámaður Mahómet, láta þan* krapt filgja sin*i kénningu, sem yfir vinm alia þverúð þessara bræðra, og gérdi þá að rétt trúuðumm Músel mönmim.51 (He asked his men to be kind to Dathan’s men, and to try to win them over with kindness, because if they did not neglect their instruction, the holy prophet Muhammad would see to it that accompanying his teaching would be the power that would overcome the brothers’ resistance, and make out of them faithful Muslims.)

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It is also interesting that Dathan, despite the continued protests o f his men, remains reasonably committed to Islam. His conviction only wanes when he is told that he and his men must be circumcised, at the mention o f which ‘var sem hrollur hlipi umm allaivz hans lfkama9(‘it was as though a cold shiver ran through his whole body’). Thinking quickly, Dathan asks that they be granted a week, ‘til að imdir búa oss til þeínar heílögu handtjeringar’ (‘to prepare ourselves for that holy handling9). This is granted, and they are able to make their escape, Dathan explaining that ‘þó mér litist eldd Tirkja tni svo vond 1 alla staði, er þaö hreínt frå eg leggj mig iindir þessi ummskurnar örkumsl9(‘although I don’t find the beliefs o f the Arabs so bad in every respect, I absolutely refuse to submit myself to this mutilation o f circumcision9).

The attitude toward Jews that emerges in Fimmbrœöra saga is very different. For the most part - \bltaire is here a notable exception - the deistic and liberal Christian views of the Enlightenment urged toleration, a point made perhaps most forcefully in Lessing’s Nathan der Weise. There was still a good deal of mistrust with regard to Jews in Europe, however, and even when deprived o f its theological basis, anti-semitic feeling continued, taking on a secular character, the essential ‘foreignness9o f Jews being given as justification for not granting them equal rights as citizens. The intolerance o f the Jews themselves was also frequently cited, as was their alleged shrewdness in financial matters.52 Much of this has found its way into Fimmbrœðra sagay which is far more critical o f Jews than o f any other group dealt with. They appear to have no redeeming qualities whatsoever, and are portrayed in the blackest terms. Simon is initially attracted to Judaism because it was ‘stiptuð og uppá lögd af sjálfiunm Guði ’ (‘established and designed by God himself9), and ‘er eins gömul og sjálft mannkinið9 (‘is as old as mankind9), suggesting that it is therefore pre­ sumably closer to natural religion. His brother does not deny this, but protests that it is ‘afskræmd með manna setníngumm, og snúnum/n meiníngumm, hjegóma Serimonium/n, og sjer vitsku setningum’ (‘distorted by human decrees, twisted tenets, vain ceremonies, and eccentric practices9), a criticism levelled at all the revealed religions during the Enlightenment, as was mentioned above. Kristóferh criticism goes well beyond this, however. He continues: bæði ráng færa þeir Ritnínguna, útleggja Spádomana falsklega, bera brigdur á Guðs firir helt, og efa bæöi Eíngla og manna frá sögn umm Krists komu í heíminn; þeir hata og lasta Jesú Lærdóm, og alla Kristna menn, enn halda mest upp á sinar meiningar og manna setningar, og era svo haid hnakkaðir móti þeím Kristmi trüar brogdum, að það er ómögulegt að þeír fallist á þau, enn eru þó sjálfir með sínumm kjorumm og ástandi, sú sterkasta bevisingþar umifr, að Guðs sonur sje kominn, og hafi liðið, dáið ogupprisið, mannkininu til frelsunar; þeir eru þar með þeír mestu Svikarar, og vestu Ræníngar, 1 allri Við höndlan og kaupskap, haturs fullir, falsldr og ótrúir þeim Kristnu, og ein sú lakasta þjóð sem fmst á jöidunni, því þeir bæði

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Sim oni experiences in Jerusalem bear this out. He and his men are well received by the patriarch, and told that they may indeed embrace Judaism, but only once they have mastered Hebrew, and studied the Pentateuch, the Proph­ ets, and the Talmud. This they agree to do, although they find it rather tough going. At the same time, however: Giðíngar sóktu og mikið eptir að plægja þá í öllum kaupumm og sölumm, svo þá þeír vóru búnir að dvelja þar hálft an/rað ár, var upp gemginn mesti partur þeirra fjármuna, því kénsla þeirra og forsorgun vard þeím mjög dir svo Jallson tók nú að yðrast eptir, að bann hafdi géfið sig á þeírra vald, því harm þóktist sjá, að nær þeír væru fje lausir ordnir, mundu Giðíngar selja þá í þrældóm, þvi þó þeír tækju þeírra trú, mundu þeir aldreý taka þá í þeírra kin kvisla tolu, og yrdu þeír því að vera sem útlendingar meðal þeírra alia æfi.54 (The Jews also tried to take advantage of them in all business dealings, so that when they had been there for a year and a half most of their money was gone because their instruction and provisions were very expensive, and Simon began to regret having placed himself at their mercy, because he saw that when their money was exhausted the Jews would sell them into slavery, because even if they took their faith the Jews would never accept them as part of their race, and they would have to remain as foreigners among them for the rest of their lives.)

Here the idea o f the Jew as irredeemably foreign is turned round: the foreigner living among them can never be assimilated either. Persecution o f the Jews is frequently alluded to. In the first chapter, for example, Simon says that ‘þeír eru útdreífdir umm oil lönd, og hafa hrakist meðal allra þjóða, c m halda samt óbrjátuðumm sínum/w trúar brögdumm; þeír hafa verið ofsóktir, mirdtir og rændir allri aleígu’ (‘they are dispersed through­

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out the world, and have been driven from one country to another, yet they keep their religion uncorrupted; they have been persecuted, murdered, and robbed of all their possessions’). In the end Simon sees that ‘að verda Giðíngur var hið sama sem aÖ verda bitbeín pg undir lægja allra þjóða’ (‘to become a Jew is to become despised and oppressed by all nations’), and, at the same time, echoing Kristofer^ words, ‘að giðingar vefdust í hinni vestu villu og þriótsku, og væru sjálfir Ijósasta bevísing umm sann leíka hinna Kristnu trúaibragda, sem þeír þó mest hötuöu og löstuðu sjálfir’ (‘that the Jews were bound up in heresy and obstinacy, and were themselves the clearest indication o f the truth o f the Chris­ tian religion, which they themselves detested and disparaged most’). It is not possible to say precisely what sources provided Jón with his infor­ mation on Jews and Judaism. Many of the basic facts - Jón refers to the Talmud, for example, consisting of the Misknah and the Gemara - are likely to have come from Holbeig’s Kirke-Historie, but Jón must also have had other sources which do not appear to have been especially ‘enlightened’. One possible source for this type of rabble-rousing anti-semitism is an anony­ mous article entitled ‘Om de nuværende Jøder’, published inSamleren for 1795. Jón translates or makes reference to articles from other numbers o f Samleren*5 and could therefore easily have known this one. The article is hardly compli­ mentary. ‘At bedrage, at aagie, at beklippe Penge og med alt dette at hytte sig for Lovenes Angreb,’ says the writer, ‘det er de almindelige Jøders Karakter’ (‘to deceive, to extort, to short change, and with all this to shield oneself from the law, that is the character of the ordinary Jew’). His conclusion is: Saalænge de beholde deres dumme Overtro, deres Stolthed, deres sælsomme Vedtægter, deres Uvidenhed i alle de Ting, hvorom de skulde være oplyste, deres deraf udspringende Ondskab og Had mod alle som ikke ere Jøder, saalænge kan de ikke andet end være forviiste, idetringeste undertrykte og foragtede, og saalænge de ikke erkjende noget andet Fædemeland end deres stenige Palæstina, og ingen anden Lov end hin af Moses og deres Rabbiner, saa kan de ikke som Borgere høre til nogen Stat.56 (As long as they retain their stupid superstition, their pride, their strange customs, their ignorance of all things of which they should be aware, and the hate and malice against all those who are not Jews that stem from this, they can only ever remain outcasts, or at least oppressed and despised, and as long as they recognise no fatherland other than their stony Palestine, and no other law than that of Moses and their rabbis, they cannot belong as citizens to any state.)

Although there are no direct translations from this text, as there were in the case of Holbeig’s Helte-Historier, the tone is much the same as in Fimmbrœóra saga, and indicates at least the type of thing to which Jón would have been exposed. It is hard to know to what extent these views are those o f Jón himself. He can have had little first-hand experience o f Jews - there being none, to speak of, in Iceland - and he also, it may be remembered, translated a number o f short texts

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purporting to illustrate ‘hvad Judar eru opt godgiørdasamir* (‘how Jews are often beneficent’).57

There is also a great deal o f action in Flmmbrœðra saga that has nothing what­ ever to do with religion. The scene in which Desilius is hidden from a Persian search party has already been mentioned. In Sweden Endor defeats the viking Snæúlfur in a sea-battle that could have come from any lygisagay and Simon, having made his escape from Jerusalem, meets and defeats the pirate Ismael, rescuing in the process María, daughter o f the Duke of Apúlía, whom he later marries. Kristofer, for his part, before putting the papal legate right and becom­ ing Archbishop o f Köln, gains worldly victory in a tournament, and at the end of the saga there is a great battle to rescue Abel from the evil Arkimagus, who has prevented him from returning to his father at the appointed time. It would be wrong to pretend that Fimmbrœðra saga is an unmitigated artis­ tic success. It begins well, to be sure, but does not generally live up to its potential. There are a number o f good scenes and much lively dialogue, but as a whole it does not hold together well enough, the changes in style that accom­ pany the shifts in scene and theme striking a modem reader at least as some­ what abrupt. Fimmbrœðra saga is hardly remarkable as polemic either. The end is a foregone conclusion, and the reasons the brothers have for rejecting the religions to which they were initially attracted have little or nothing to do with theology. What is remarkable about Fimmbrœðra saga is not Jon’s message, but that he should have used the medium of the lygisaga to convey it.

Another major concern o f the Enlightenment, social justice and the role o f authority, is also reflected in several of Jón’s sagas. Like many a modem parent, Jón is unlikely to have been indifferent to the violent nature o f much popular literature, and was clearly aware of the contradiction implicit in the notion o f great (Christian) heroes piling up vast numbers o f innocent corpses. In most o f his sagas there is little attention paid to this inconsistency, although the subject is occasionally broached. Ketlerus, for example, in the early part o f his career, tells his men: ‘Fjærri er það minu skapi að heija á saklaust fólk og þyki mér það illt og ódrengilegt, en vikingar og ránsmenn eru ekki til sparandi, og e f þið vitið þá nokkra þá segið mér til þeirra’ (Tt is contrary to my disposition to attack innocent people, and I consider it evil and dishonourable, but vikings and thieves are not to be spared, and if you know o f any tell me of them’).58 There appears to be no shortage of such evil-doers, and Ketlerus saga is among the bloodier of Jon’s sagas. The hero o f Rigabals saga, similary, asks permission o f his father tberus, King o f Armenia, to go abroad in search o f fame and fortune. His father, who is described in the saga as ‘góður konungur vitur og vinsæll, og svo réttvis að

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hann vildi hvorki gjöra né leifa nokkurn þann hlut sem ( hinu minnsta sindist skeika frá sannri réttvísi’ ('a good king, wise and popular and so just that he would neither do nor allow to be done anything which in the least appealed to deviate from true justice9), answers him as follows: Satt er það að bæöi er og hefur veríð yðkuð þessi hemaðar aðferð um heiminn maigur hefur feyngið mikið fé og frægðarnafh fyrir tóm manndráp rán og undir kúgun, en eg higg að það sé sá hlutur sem flestir konungar vanprýða með sina ríkisstjóm, aö leifa eður líða slikt ranglæti eður styrkja syni sina til svo illxa verka, þvi þessi vfkingalög sem sprita einasta á spjóts oddum eru fjarlæg allri réttvisi. Þú leggurnú í hernað og þeim fyrstu sldpum er þú mætir bíður þú til bardaga, og hvern rétt hefur þú þá til að heimta lif og fé saklausia manna undir *þitt39vald, látum svo vera að það séu vikingar, sem áður hafa drepið aðra og rænt en samt eru þeir i aungum sökum við þig og áttu þá aungann rétt á þeirra illgjörðum, og stelur þér sök á hendur þeim en gjörir sjálfann þig þeirra jafhingi i ilsku og óréttvísi, og hvað gétur veriö óréttvisam fyrir einn konung, en að senda sina undir sáta til að leiða aðra og Hka leiðast sjálfur á slátrunar bekkinn, hvað þiátt gjöra eigi hemaðar menn upprás á saklaus lönd, taka stór strand högg, ræna fátæka búendum öllum eignum, hertaka og drepa grúa manna, lauga stór heröð i blóði og tårum saklausra manna, og föður lausra bama og aumstaddra ekkna sem þar fyrir allann sinn aldur meiga 60 við bagjindi. sá er haldinn þjófur og íllvirki sem að stelur og stríkur eitt sinn eður tvisvar, en þessir sem langa s f i stela og ræna61 annara eignum og eru yönir og ötulir að drepa sem fiesta af sinum samlags bræðrum, eru meö hrósi hafðir til skýanna og kallaðir hugpmðar hetjur og mestu menn, þar þó sannsýn réttvisi neiðist til að álíta þá mörgum þjófum verrí og skaðvænni.62 (It is true that these warlike practices are and have been commonplace throughout the world. Many a man has gained great wealth and fame through plain murder, robbery, and oppression; but I think this is something which taints the rule of most kings, that they allow or permit such wrong-doing, or support their sons in such evil acts, for these viking laws - which are founded [?] only on the point o f a spear - are far removed from all equity. You go out harrying and the first ships you meet you challenge to battle, and what right have you to demand the lives and goods of innocent men, even supposing they are vikings who have already killed and robbed oth­ ers? You have no quarrel with them, and it is not for you to punish their wicked deeds; you falsely obtain the right to quarrel with them, becoming their equal in evil and injustice. What can be more unjust for a king than to send his subjects, to lead others, and also to be led himself to the slaugh­ ter? How often do not fighting men invade innocent countries, making great raids, robbing poor farmers of all their belongings, capturing and killing masses o f men, bathing large areas in the blood and tears of inno­ cent men, fatherless children, and wretched widows, who for die rest of their lives must as a result live in misery? He who steals and runs away is held to be a thief and a criminal, but those who throughout their long lives

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The unwashed children o f Eve steal and rob the possessions of others and are diligent and industrious in killing as many of their brothers as possible are praised to the skies and called brave heroes and great men, even though true justice must view them as worse and more harmful than many thieves.)

íberus urges him instead to travel to faraway lands and study the customs and laws of good kings in order to gain understanding and wisdom. He says that one should never attack others, but should o f course defend oneself bravely if one is attacked wrongfully. Rigabal promises to follow this advice, and his father gives him a large ship and two hundred men. The first day they are out they are approached by five ships commanded by the viking Hergrimur, who offers them the traditional choice o f surrendering all their possessions or fighting. Rigabal and Hergrimur then have the following rather interesting exchange: Konwzgsson svarar: (Eigi veit eg mig hafa neina sök við yður og eigi kann eg sjá hvaða rétt þér hafið til að heimta góss vort og grípi, eður vaða uppá oss saklausa með hemaði og ófriði.’ Hergrimur mælti: *'Veitstu það að vikingar fara eigi að lögum og muntu eigi hefta ásetníng vom með orðum einum.’ Konwwgsson m ælti:4Veit eg rangindi yðar og ránskap, að þið lifið allann aldur á mann drápura og þjófoaði, og eruð bæði böðlar og skömm þess mannlega samfélags og munuð þið íllir íls bíða, en það er likast að þú komir annarstar fram þinni vondsku en á oss og mun eg aungu virða þin orð og eigi gjöra mig svo smálátann að ganga til leiks við þig og þræla þína.’63 (The prince replies: 41 don’t believe that you have any quarrel with me, and I cannot see what right you have to demand our goods and property, or attack us in our innocence.’ Hergrimur said: ‘Don’t you know that vikings don’t abide by the law, and you won’t stop us in our intention through words alone.’ The prince said: 4I am aware of your wicked and thieving ways, that you live out your lives in murder and robbery, that you are executioners and the shame of human society, and that you, in your evil­ ness, will meet an evil end, and it is likely that you’ll have to find an outlet for your evilness other than with us; I shall not pay any attention to your words and not stoop so low as to engage in action with you and your slaves.’)

Not surprisingly, a battle ensues, in which Hergrimur is quickly killed and his men dispersed. As it turns out, Rigabal’s act is doubly justifiable: in the very next scene he meets Alkanus, son of King Samnitus of Sardinia, whose twoand-a-half-year residence on a desert island is the result o f a similar attack by Hergrimur. He and Rigabal become sworn-brothers and the remainder o f the saga is taken up with their various exploits, most o f which involve their at­ tempts to win back Sardinia, now ruled by the evil and avaricious earl Almann, who, following the death o f Samnitus, has seized power in Alkanus’fc absence. About a third o f the way through the saga, Rigabal returns to Armenia in the hope of mustering troops for an attack on Almann. íberus praises his son for his behaviour hitherto, but, ever on the look-out for injustice, asks: ‘hvaða Rétt

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hefur þú nú til að ráða meö hemaði uppá Almann konung, sem ekkert hefur frá þér tekið?’ (‘What right have you now to attack King Almann, who has taken nothing from you?’) Rigabal explains that Almann had tried to kill them, and that he thinks it is right that he help his friend to reclaim his patrimony. This is justification enough for his father. Later still, when íberus is on his deathbed, he gives his son the following last piece o f advice: Eg fynn að þessi sótt muni leiða mig á fund feðra minna, tak þvi son minn við stjóra Rikis þessa og lát réttvisina vera þinn ráðgjafa i öllum þínum fyrirtektum, vertu litilátur og blíður við þinn undirlíð, miskunargjam og örlátur þeim aumu og nauðþurftugu, hegndu ósiðum og lostum með röksemd en þó ætíð með vægð og hófsemi. varastu grimd og blóðgýrugheit ásælni og fédrått, yðkaðu réttvisa mildi og milda réttvisi.64 (I feel that this illness will conduct me to my ancestors. Therefore take, my son, the rule of this kingdom, and have justice as your counsellor in all your undertakings, be humble and kind to your subjects, merciful and gen­ erous to the infirm and needy, punish vice and wickedness with justifica­ tion, but yet always with lenience and moderation; avoid cruelty and bloodlust, avarice and covetousness; practise just benevolence and benevolent justice.)

Justice is mentioned throughout the saga - there are six times as many in­ stances o f ‘réttvisi’ and related words in Rigabals saga (as preserved in Lbs 2784 4to) as in all the other sagas put together - and it is therefore clearly intended as something of a theme. It is a theme that is not fully developed, however, with regard at least to the actions of the characters, who, admittedly not without justification, find themselves again and again in the position of having to kill people.

The theme o f justice is more fully developed in Hinriks saga heilráða, inspir­ ing not only the words of the characters, but also their deeds. This justice is not some abstract ‘natural law’, however, but is firmly rooted in Christian morality. Hinrik, son o f Count Pétur o f Riga, decides at the age of twenty to go off in search o f fame and fortune. Travelling the length and breadth o f Europe - from Moscow to Lisbon - Hinrik has many adventures, gaining for himself wide­ spread fame and, o f course, a princess and a kingdom. He is, in this sense, a typical lygisaga-hcm; he is unusual, however, possibly even unique, in that he steadfastly refuses to shed blood. Soon after leaving home Hinrik encounters a band o f robbers in the forest who demand his horse, weapons, clothing, and money. Hinrik convinces them to allow him to join them instead, having admittedly tó use force as part o f his argument. The leader of the group is Valtari, a citizen o f Moscow, who has been outlawed for killing the Grand-Duke’s deer. He and his band o f men have lived

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for eight years in the forest, surviving on what they arc able to take from travel­ lers, some of whom they admit they have been obliged to kill. Hinrik protests that they must be able to find other ways o f supporting themselves than through robbery and murder, but they argue that unless he is able to ‘gjöra steina a& brauðum’ (‘turn stones to bread’) - the first of a series of references to the Gospel according to Matthew - he must live as they do. Over the following winter Hinrik has long talks with them, showing them how wicked were the lives o f those who lived in the manner they did, how they were the enemies o f both God and man. He also sees that Valtari is not a bad man at heart, and Valtari often agrees with what he says, but argues that he can see no way o f changing his life. Hinrik shows them how. He builds a boat and is able to catch fish in a nearby lake, gathers eggs on the islands, and hunts game in the forest. He becomes the group’s leader, and even finds wives for Valtari and his men. A small town springs up where once there had been a robbers’ den: Hinrik afmarkaði hvajum bæ sina landeign, kenndi hann bændum að byggja sáðgarða og rækta matjurtir og allskonar åvexti, var þar yfrið frjósamt land, því vatnið gaf jörðinni ágætan vökva. í skóginum var fjöldi af alls konar dýrum, svo sem hjörtum, ládýram, steingeitum og hreindýrum, urðu ágæti þessa byggðarlags svo víðfræg, að menn kepptust árlega eptir að fá þar bústað, og því fjölguðu þar bæir óðum, svo á fárra ára fresti voru þar komin sextíu býli, nefndu menn þetta byggðarlag Vatnahérað, og er það nú eitt það fjölbyggðasta og ríkasta hérað á Líflandi.65 (Hinrik assigned each farm its own plot of land, and taught the farmers to build gardens and grow vegetables and all kinds of fruit The land was extremely fertile because the lake irrigated the ground well. In the forest there were all kinds of animals such as harts, deer, mountain goats, and reindeer. The excellence of this area became so renowned that every year men vied to get plots there, and the number of farms grew quickly so that in a few years there were sixty households. This area was called the Lake District and is now one of the most populous and richest areas in Livonia.)

The Grand-Duke hears of this success, and invites Hinrik to Moscow, offering him an earldom as thanks for his having ‘auðgað riki mitt mörgum nýtum þegnum’ (‘enriched my country by many useful subjects’). Hinrik thanks him, but refuses, saying he has not yet accomplished enough. Hinrik’s next adventure, which begins with the episode discussed in the pre­ vious chapter in which a child is rescued from a dragon, takes place in Pannonia, or Hungary.®6 Hinrik meets the king, Stefán II, who asks him if he has per­ formed any great deeds. He replies: ‘Fjarri fer það,’ sagði Hinrik, ‘því það eru heizt kölluð frægðarverk, að vera mikil stríðshetja og drepa sem flesta, en það er mér fjarlægt, því eg heft aldrei reitt vopn að manni, og aldrei séð drepinn mann/67

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(‘Fbr from it,' said Hinrik, ‘for what passes for famous deeds is being a great war hero and killing as many as possible, but this is alien to me, for I have never wielded a weapon against anyone, nor seen a man killed.’)

For this he is made sport of by the courtiers and called a coward. Later the king explains how a man he had outlawed named Randver has now become a fierce viking who plunders the countryside and must be killed. Hinrik asks for what reason he had been outlawed and is told that Randver had been disrespectful to one o f the kingfc sheriffs, had struck one o f his judges, and had spoken badly of the king and his court. Hinrik asks if the plundering and deaths Randver has caused have made up for the blow to the judge and the defamation, because, he says, they are the fault o f the king and the result of his decision to have Randver outlawed. Hinrik argues that it is God who decides the fate o f men, but that he always gives them a chance to better themselves. [...] ekki her ad skera einn lim af likamanum fyr en hann er orðiim svo spilltur, að ómogulegt er aö lækna.“ Hver hefir hærri magt heldur en guö? Hver á stærri sök á íllverkum manna heldur en hann? Þó afináir hann ekki strax hið vonda, þó það gen Hit af sér, heldur bíður hann eptir, aö það betri sig. Þvi sagði hann forðum: ‘Látið illgiesið standa, svo ekki skaöí það hveitið.’69 En þér vinnið það til að ná lífi eins manns, er þér kallið sekan, að þér látið drepa hundrað saklausa. Hvað er fråleitara en slikt?70 (It is not right to cut one limb from the body before it has become so corrupt that it is impossible to cure. Who has greater power than God? Who has more reason to avenge the evil deeds of men than him? Yet he does not wipe out evil immediately, even when it has evil effects, but waits for it to improve itself. Therefore he once said: ‘gather not up the weeds, lest you root up the wheat along with them'. But in order to take the life of one man whom you call guilty you allow one hundred innocent men to be slain. What is more absurd than that?)

The king replies: 'Þú munt huglítill maður, og rétt kjörinn til að vera munkur i klaustri’ (‘You are clearly a coward, and fit to be a monk in a cloister’) - or, he might have said, a parson - but Hinrik says that he is surprised the king finds his words cowardly, as he thought not many had the courage to tell a king the truth, however bitter. He persuades him to let him see to Randver. When they meet, Hinrik explains his position to Randver, who also accuses him of being a coward. Hinrik challenges him to single combat, defeating him utterly. Randver is then given the choice of either being beheaded by one o f Hinrik’ls men Hinrik himself says he has no interest in becoming an executioner- or o f giving himself entirely into Hinrik’s power. Not surprisingly, he chooses the later. Af­ ter Randver’s wounds are healed Hinrik brings about a reconciliation between him and the (ring. Randver becomes the king’s coastguard ('landvamarmaður’) and lives happily ever after, a model citizen. Although he quotes scripture, Hinrikls point is essentially a secular one. In

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response to the kingfc protest that ‘Menn hljóta að hegna fyrir illverk og óhlýðni, og låta login haldast í heiðri og virðingu’ (‘men must be punished for evil deeds and insubordination, so that the law is honoured and respected’), Hinrik ex­ plains: ‘Þau æðstu log eru almennings heillir, hvað því raskar eru fremur ólög en rétt log’ (‘the highest law is the common good; what disturbs that must be regarded as injustice rather than proper law’). This is the doctrine o f utilitarian­ ism, the belief that laws, policies, etc. are to be judged in terms o f their effect on society as a whole, the best policies being those which bring the greatest happiness to the greatest number o f people. The same idea is behind the next episode in the saga, in which Hinrik, now in Gautland, meets the berserk Járnhaus. Nú leið sumarið og veturinn fram að jólum, að eigi bar til tíðinda; en jóladag sjálfan, þá jarl var með hirð sinni seztur undir borð, komu þær fréttir, að Jámhaus berserkur sé kominn, og i því var hrundið upp huiðiimi og flanaði þar inn albrynjaður berserkur. Hann gekk að þeim, er yztur sat, og spurði, hvort hann þyrði að teljast jafnsnjall sér, en hinn kvað það fjarri fara. Þannig spyr hann mann af manni, en allir gáfu sömu svör, að eigi væru jafh snjallir honum. Loksins kemur hann fyrir Hinrik og spyr, hvort hann þættist jafhsnjall sér. Hinrik svarar: 'Eg hefi enga snilli til þín séð, þvi þessi þín aðferð er dára glópska, en engin snilli, og er eg þvi snjallari, að eg kann mig i hófi að hafa, en þú lætur sem gikkur, eða afglapi.’Jámhaus tók nú að grenja og bíta í skjöldinn. Þá mælti Hinrik: 'Ekki fæla mig þessi læti, þvi fyr hefi eg heyrt naut orga, hund góla og svin ryna, og kalla eg þig þessara lika að snillinni.’ Jámhaus stóðst nú ekki lengur þessar ertingar og vildi bregða sverði, en Hinrik stökk úr sæti og hljóp á berserkinn, þreif hann á lopt, og færði hann niður svo þungt fall, að bann lá i óviti. Hinrik heimtaði þá fjötra, og setti hann i jám. Síðan settist hann í sæti sitt, og settist við drykkju. Að stundu liðinni, raknaði berserkurinn við. Hinrik skipar þá tveimur af sinum mönnum, að taka harða hrísvendi, og fletta síðan Jámhaus klæðum, og afhýða hann með öllu. Þeir gjöra nú svo og hættu ekki fyrr, en öll húð er af hryggmim. Járnhaus bar sig litt og þoldi illa húðstrýkinguna. Hinrik mælti þá: 'Nú er mönnum kunnugt, hvað mikil er snilli þin, skaltu nú hér eftir gjöra annað hvort að leggja af þetta villidýrs æði, og gjörast trúr og hollur þjónustumaöur jarls, eða þú skalt liða kvalafullan dauða.’ Jámhaus mælti: 'Heldur vil eg þiggja lif og þjóna jarli, en vera hér með háðung drepinn.’ Sór hann þá eið að þessu, og tók jarl hann i sina þjónustu, var hann ávallt maður skaplyndur, og vinsæll, og hætti öllum ójöfnuöi. Öllum þótti Hinrik vel hafa tekist að gjöra gæfan mann úr grimmum berserki.71 (Now the summer and the winter passed without incident until Christmas; but on Christmas day itself, as the earl and his men sat at table, it was reported that the berserk Jåmhaus had come, and at that moment the door was broken down and in rushed a berserk in full armour. He approached the one who sat outermost and asked him whether he dared to consider himself as clever as he, but the other said this was far from the case. He

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then asked each man in turn the same thing and each gave the same an­ swer, that they were no match for him. Finally he came to Hiniik and asked him if he considered himself his match in cleverness. Hinrik an­ swered: ‘I haven't seen in you any cleverness, for this behaviour of yours is plain foolishness, and not cleverness, and I am therefore cleverer in that I know how to behave myself, but you carry on like some clown or fool/ Járnhaus began to howl and bite his shield. Then Hinrik said: T hese wailings don't frighten me, for I have heard bulls bellow, dogs howl, and swine grunt, and 1 would say that you were their match in cleverness.’ Jámhaus could bear this provocation no longer and made to draw his sword, but Hinrik leapt up from his seat and took hold of the berserk, lifting him up into the air and throwing him so hard to the ground that he was knocked unconscious. Hinrik called for fetters, and put him in irons. He then sat down in his seat and began to drink. Shortly thereafter the berserk recov­ ered. Hinrik ordered two of his men to take hard switches, then to strip Járnhaus of his clothes, and then to scouige him thoroughly. This they proceeded to do, and did not stop until all the skin was gone from his back. Jámhaus could hardly stand it, and bore the whipping badly. Hinrik then said: ‘Now all have seen how great your cleverness is; you must now either cease this savage behaviour and become a staunch and loyal servant of the earl, or suffer a painful death/ Járnhaus said: *1 would rather accept life and serve the earl, than be killed hero in disgrace/ He then swore an oath to this effect, and the earl took him into his service. He was [thereafter] always even-tempered and popular, and stopped all wrongful behaviour. Everyone thought Hinrik had done well to make a gentle man out of a grim berserk.)

This scene is closely modelled on a scene in Viga-Glúms saga9n another exam­ ple o f a literary loan from the íslendingasögur. The berserk Björn jám hauss (‘iron-head’) dies as a result of Glúmur’s treatment, whereas in Hinriks saga, Jámhaus is punished severely but in the end made into a better citizen. This is in keeping with the utilitarian view that the goal of criminal legislation should be to reduce the number o f crimes, rather than exacting retribution: although torture was universally condemned, punishment, even severe punishment, could be justified on the grounds of its positive social consequences.73 There are several other episodes o f this type in the saga, where Hinrik shows a variety of kings and vikings the error o f their ways, and manages time and again to prevent bloodshed and loss o f life. About three-quarters of the way through the saga Hinrik and his sworn-brother Húni have been blown off course while on their way from Portugal to Livonia. Making land - rather improbably - in Sardinia, they are told of an on-going conflict between the Sardinian king, Viktor, and Karl, King o f Sicily, who has asked for but been refused the hand o f Viktor’s daughter Ingibjorg, apparently for no particular reason. This is one o f the most common motifs in the ro­ mances, and the cause of innumerable battles. Jón’s handling of it in Hinriks saga is not what we have come to expect, however.

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Hinrik goes first to the camp of King Karl, and presents himself as one who was exploring the world. Karl asks him: ‘Hvað hefir þú séð fallegast í heiminum?’ (‘What is the most beautiful thing you have seen in the world?’), to which Hinrik replies: ‘Friðsama sambúð manna’ (‘The peaceful cohabitation o f men’). The king then asks: ‘Hvað hefir þú ljótast séð?’ (‘What is the ugliest thing you have seen?’) Hinrik’s answer, echoing íberus’s speech in Rigabals saga, is: Ófrið, hatur og maimdráp, sem bæði þér, og fleiri kongar, leyfið ykkur, og það stundum fyrir litlar sakir, þvi ekkert er fráleitara sönnum kristindómi, en að kristnir menn brytji hver annan með grimmasta villudýrsæði, hús og byggðir fyllast með tárum einmana ekkna og foðurlausra bama, en lönd og akrar fljóta i blóði föðurlandsins sona.74 (War, hatred, and killing, which both you and other kings permit your­ selves, and sometimes with little cause, for there is nothing further from true Christianity than that Christian men should carve each other up with the ferocity of beasts; houses and districts are filled with the tears of lonely widows and fatherless children, and fields and meadows are afloat with the blood of the sons of the fatherland.)

Karl, like King Pétur of Hungary, thinks Hinrik has missed his calling, ‘og er þér bezt, að gefa þig í klaustur’ (‘and it would be best for you if you entered a monastery’). But when Hinrik offers to help him, Karl agrees. The following day Hinrik presents himself at the court o f King Viktor, who also asks him what he has found most beautiful in the world. His answer is direct: Mun það eigi vera hér, þvi þar sem år og lækir eru svartir og gráir, þá er það hér fagurrauðir sem morgunroði, og þar sem annarsstaðar eru lönd og merkur þaktar komstöngum og fölnandi grasi, þá eru þær hér yfir stijálaðar með silki og skarlatsklæðum, búkum, sverðum og blóðrauðu grasi.75 (It is certainly not here, for where rivers and brooks are black and grey, here they are as brilliantly red as the morning sun, and where in other places the fields and pastures are covered in wheatsheaves and withering grass, here they are bedecked with silk and scarlet, bodies, swords, and blood-red grass.)

The king tells Hinrik not to make light of their misfortune. This misfortune, Hinrik points out, is the king’s own fault: þér kjöruð heldur að låta offra nokkrum þúsundum af yðar og hans samkristmim þegnum i dauðans meiðandi bál, en að gipta einn kvennmann honum, sem þó er meira en hennar jafningí; einmitt yðar þverlyndi hefir þá orsakað alia þessa blóðsúthellingu og ólukku og måske yðar eigin dauða og eyðilegging alls rikisins. Hver er nú ávinningurinn aptur, nema blóðhefhdar hróp hinna helslegnu dunar yfir yðar höfði?76 (You chose rather to sacrifice a few thousand of your own and his Chris­ tian subjects on the painful pyre of death, rather than give one woman to a man who is more than her equal; it is precisely your obstinacy that has

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caused all this bloodshed and misfortune and possibly your own death and the destructionof the whole kingdom. What have you now gained, except the cry of revenge from the murdered which sounds over your head?)

The king is angered by this, but composes himself to the extent that he is able to offer as a justification for war the fact that the winner often gains great spoils, ‘sem gjörir maigan þann rikan, er áður var örsnauður’ (‘which make many a man rich, who previously was poor’), using, as it were, the formulaic language o f the battle scenes themselves. To this Hinrik replies: Látum svo vera, að einn fåi hundrað osnur klyfjaðar með herfangi, mun það fullborga tvö þúsund bústaða auðn, sem annaðhvort leggjast í eyði, eöa byggjast a f aðstoðarlausum ekkjum hverra föðurlaus böm missa kennslu og tilsögn og manndóm og verða föðurlandinu meira til þyngsla en gagnsemda, vera kann að einn maður fái meira en aðrir tuttugu áður höfðu, en hvemig reiftir fitestum af sem auögast fljótt af herfangi? Hér af veröa óhófsmenn og letmgjar og svallarar, stutt aö segja, stríð og ófriður er allra landa ólukka og eyðileggjandi drepsótt, hvad ótilheyrilegt er, aÖ þeir sem guð hefir til sett ad varðveita lönd og riki, skuli sjálfir orsaka þeim slika eyðileggjandi óhæfii með sinu stolti og þversinni.77 (Even if one man gains a hundred donkeys laden with loot, will that repay the destruction of two thousand farms, which are either deserted or farmed by unsupported widows, whose fatherless children go without teaching and instruction and manhood, and cause the fatherland more harm than good? Perhaps one man will gain more than twenty had before, but what becomes of those who make a quick profit from booty? They become men of immoderation, lazy and debauched; in short, war and fighting are the misfortune of all countries and a debilitating plague, and what is unfitting is that those whom God has assigned to protect lands and kingdoms should themselves be the cause of such destructive deeds with their pride and obstinacy.)

Viktor is outraged by Hinrik’s candour, and says that many have been punished for less. He is placate^ however, when Hinrik tells him that it is only because o f him that Karl has not attacked again that day. In the end it is agreed that Karl should marry Viktor’s daughter - she herself has no objection - and Hinrik is thus able to bring about a full reconciliation between the two, avoiding what in other sagas would have been the massive ’mother o f all battles’. Jón, presumably recognising that a saga with no battles is no saga, does include a few. One comes when Hinrik and Húni encounter the Scottish viking Hreggviður shortly after leaving Sardinia. After the customary flyting - here with only a slightly moralistic tone on the part of Hinrik - a battle ensues in which Hreggviður is captured and many o f his men are killed. In order not to tarnish Hinrik’s reputation, however, the killing is done by Húni and the rest of their men, with Hinrikfe lion also responsible for his share. Húni is keen to kill those few who have survived, but Hinrik prevents this on the grounds that ‘engum [væri] gagn að þeim, er drepnir værn, en lið mætti veröa að þeim, er lífi héldu’

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(‘those who are killed can be o f no use to anyone, but those who lived might be of some benefit’). Hreggviður himself, given the choice between being hanged like a thief or swearing an oath o f allegiance to Húni, promising to be baptised and give up his life piracy, chooses the latter. Later still, Hinrik is obliged to meet the Hungarian earl Felix in tournament over the hand o f Áróra, whom Hinrik had rescued as a child and who is deter­ mined to marry only him. Hinrik is able to unseat Felix, who is so impressed with Hinrik’s prowess and courtesy that the two become sworn-brothers. Hinrik arranges for Felix to marry his sister Línóra instead, ensuring that everyone, in true romance fashion, lives happily ever after. Like Fimmbrœðra saga, Hinriks saga has a point to make, which is that the chief concern o f the monarch should be the general welfare, rather than per­ sonal glory. As a saga, it must be said that H inriks saga works better than Fimmbrœðra saga. It holds together better as a whole, and the actions o f the principal characters are in keeping with their expressed intentions. It is, in one sense, less daring than Fimmbrœðra saga, in that it follows the conventions of plot and style more closely than does Fimmbrœðra saga, which time and again steps well outside the boundaries o f the genre. In another sense, however, Hinriks saga is more daring in that it questions the martial ethos that is the very founda­ tion o f the genre. It is tempting to think that it was these two sagas that Einar [Sæmundsson] Einarsen (1792-1866) had in mind when in 1839 he wrote his description o f Setbeigssókn, Snæfellsnes, for Hið íslenzka bókmenntafélag, and noted that in addition to fom aldarsögur, ‘æfintýri trolla’ (‘tales of trolls’) and ‘ýmislega útlagöar riddarasögur’ (‘various translated tales of chivalry’) there were: [...] ým sar sögur diktaðar a f prestinum síra Jóni sal. H jaltalin á Ðreiðabólstað á Skógaströnd, fallegastar sökum augnamiðsins, sem áþreifanlegt hefir verið að innprenta með þeim ein eður Önnur trúarsannindi, hverra skort hann hefir þótzt finna mein en hann hefir viljað væri.78 ([...] various sagas written by the late sr. Jón Hjaltalin from Breiðabólsstaður on Skógarströnd, most beautiful on account of their objective, which palpa­ bly was to impart with them one or another religious truth, the lack of which he found to be greater than he would have liked.)

According to the standard literary histories the modem novel did not reach Iceland until the mid-nineteenth century with JónThoroddsen’s Piltur og stúlka9 ‘the first Icelandic novel’.79The novel had already been established as the domi­ nant literary genre in Europe for over a century, however.80 Jón Hjaltalin, as we have seen, was fully aware of this development at least half a century before J6n Thoroddsen put pen to paper. He had read and produced an abridged trans­ lation of Tom Jones, knew and probably translated at least part of Schnabels

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D ie Insel Felsenburg, arguably the first modem novel in German, and had ap­ parently also read Geliert^ Das Leben der schwedischen Gräfin von G***,81 one o f the first German attempts at the sentimental novel. Through Voltaire^ Zadig he was familiar with the conte philosophique, and through Cervantes’s Navelas ejemplares with the very beginnings of the genre. These are hardly minor or insignificant works. Even if Jón had known no others, these alone would certainly have been sufficient to show him the potential of prose fiction. There is a very small number of earlier Icelandic texts now recognised as ‘proto-novel s’.82 These are Sagan a f Pärmes loðinbim i (‘The saga o f P armes shaggy-bear’),83 a Robinson Craroe-style narrative possibly written by sr. Jón Bjamason (1721-85),84Eiríkur Laxdal’s Ólands saga (‘The saga of Nowhere’),85 consisting largely o f romance and folktale material, and the same author’s Saga Ólafs Þ ó rh a lla so n a rThese works, while retaining the outward form of the ty g is a g a seem in retrospect to strive to be more. The same, as I have tried to show, can be said of Jón Hj altal in’s sagas, above all Fimmbrœðra saga and Sagan a f H inriki heilráða. What may be inferred from this is that the novel in Iceland grew, just as the íslendingasögur had, from the native narrative tradition, and, like them, as a result o f stimulation from literary developments abroad. It did not need to be imported wholesale.“ This native saga tradition, therefore, extends over perhaps a thousand years, from the pre-literary period to the post-romantics. It flourished throughout this period, always open to outside influences, but retaining its essential character­ istics to the end. The beginning of that end came not with the translation of Tristrams saga in 1226, but with the national-romantics o f the nineteenth cen­ tury, their heads full o f Heine, Schiller, Goethe, and Walter Scott, who, in deny­ ing the validity o f the native saga tradition, did most to undermine it. What ultimately destroyed it, however, was neither the clergy calumny nor the slings and arrows o f outraged literary pundits, but rather the fundamental changes in the structure o f Icelandic society at the end of the nineteenth century and early part o f the twentieth that led to the end o f the kvöldvaka as a social institution. Deprived of their milieu, the Icelandic romances, in the space of a single gen­ eration, slipped quietly into obscurity.

The vast majority o f the Icelandic romances from the post-Reformation period - and here I refer to both the lygisögur and the rimur - still lie unpublished, unedited, unresearched, unread. What I have tried to show in the present study is that an examination of even a handful of works by a single figure from this period can have far-reaching implications for our understanding of the course of Icelandic literary and cultural history.

NOTES TO CHAPTER 1 'Stefan Einarsson, A History ofIcelandic Literature (Baltimore, 1957), p. 165. *On the history of printing in Iceland see Klemens Jónsson, Fjßgur hundrud åra sagaprentlistar átshmdi (Reykjavik, 1930); Steingrimur Jónsson, ‘Prentaðarbækur’, Mummermtir og bókmenning, íslensk þjóðmenning, vi (Reykjavik, 1989), pp. 91-115; or Bððvar Kvaran, Auðlegð íslendinga: Brot iir sogu islenzkrar bókaútgáfu og prentunarfrá öndveröufram á þessa ðld (Reykjavik, 1995). For a bibliography of the first 200 years of book production in Iceland see Halldór Hermannsson, Icelandic Boohs of the Sixteenth Century, Islandica, ix (Ithaca, N.Y., 1916) and Icelandic Books of die Seventeenth Century, Islandica, xiv (Ithaca, N.Y, 1922). On the press at Hmppsey see Jón Helgason, Hruppseyjarprentsmiðja 1773-1794, Safii Fræðafjelagsins um Island og Islendinga, vi (Copenha­ gen, 1928). 3In general see e.g. Peter Burke, Popular Culture in Earty Modem Europe (London, 1978), pp. 250-59. On the English chapbook romances see Margaret Spufford, SmallBooks and PleasantHisto­ ries: Popular Fiction and its Readership in Seventeenth-Century England (Cambridge, *1985), esp. the chapter 'Portraits of society; historical and chivalric novels', pp. 219-57. For early modern Ger­ many where romance similarly dominated secular literature, see Jan-Dirk MQllei; 'Volksbuch/ Prosaroman im 15716. Jahrhundert - Perspektiven der Forschung’, Internationales Archiv für Sozialgeschichte der deutschen Literatur, 1. Sonderheit (1985), pp. 1-128, or Xenja von Ertzdorft Romane undNovellen des 15. und 16. Jahrhunderts inDeutschland (Darmstadt, 1989). On the French chapbooks see Robert Mandiou, De la culture populmre aux 17* et IB siedes: La Bibliothéque bleue de Troyes (Paris, 21975), esp. pp. 146-63, where historical novels, three-quarters o f which were chivalric, are discussed; also Henri-Jean Martin, ‘The Bibliothéque Bleue: Literature for the masses in theAncienRegime', Publishing History, iii (1978), pp. 70-102. For Denmark see R. Paulli, ‘Bidrag til de danske Folkebogers Historie’, Danske Folkebogerfra 16. og 17. Aarhundrede, ed. J. P. Jacobsen, Jørgen Olrik, and R. Paulli (Copenhagen, 1915-36), xiii, pp. 169-291. *On Icelandic manuscripts generally, see Halldór Hermannsson, IcelandicManuscripts, Islandica, xix (Ithaca, N.Y., 1929); Jón Helgason, Handritaspjall (Reykjavik, 1958); and Ólafur Halldórsson, ‘Skrifaðar bækur’, Munnmenntir og bókmenning, pp. 57-89. Major manuscript collections are found in Reykjavik (Landsbókasafh, Stofnun Árna Magnússonar), Copenhagen (Det arnamagnæanske Institut, Det kongelige Bibliotek), and Stockholm (Kungliga Biblioteket), for which the published catalogues are, respective!); Skrå um handritasÖfh Landsbokasaßisins, ed. Páll Eggert Ólason et al. (Reykjavik, 1918- ), i—iii, aukabindi i-iv; Katalog over Den arnamagnæanske Håndskriftsamling, [ed. Kl KÅlund] (Copenhagen, 1888-1894), i-ii; Katalog over de oldnorsk-lslandske Håndskrifter i Det store kongelige Bibliotek og i Universitetsbiblioteket, [ed. Kr. KÅlund] (Copenhagen, 1900); and Katalog öfter Kongl Biblioteketsfomisländska ochfomnorska handskrifter, ed Vilhelm Gödel (Stockholm, 1897-1900). ’For a definition see e.g. Geraldine Barnes, ‘Riddarasögur, Translated’, Medieval Scandinavia: An Encyclopedia, ed. Phillip Pulsiano et al. (New York, 1993), pp. 531-3; for a full bibliography see R M. Mitchell and Marianne E. Kalinke, Bibliography of Old Norse-Icelandic Romances, Islandica, xliv (Ithaca, N.Y., 1985). *On Old Norse Arthurian material see P. M. Mitchell, ‘Scandinavian Literature’, Arthurian Litera­ ture in the Middle Ages, ed. R S. Loomis (Oxford, 1959), pp. 462-71, or Marianne E. Kalinke, King Arthur, North-by-Northwest: The matiire de Bretagne in OldNorse-IcelandicRomances, Bibliotheca Arnamagnsana, xxxvii (Copenhagen, 1981). 7Ed Gísli Brynjulfsson, Saga ofTristram ok tsönd samt Möttuls saga (Copenhagen, 1878); also Eugen Kolbing, Tristnams saga ok Isondar (Heilbronn, 1878). *Ed. Marianne Kalinke, Mpttuls saga, Editiones Arnamagnæanæ, B. xxx (Copenhagen, 1987). ’Ed. Foster W. BlaisdeU, Erex saga Artuskappa, Editiones Arnamagnæanæ, B. xix (Copenhagen, 1965). 10Ed. Foster W Blaisdell, lvens saga, Editiones Arnamagnæanæ, Ð. xviii (Copenhagen, 1979).

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MEd. Eugen Kolbing, Riddarasögur (Strassburg, 1872), ‘Parcevals saga9, pp. 1-53, and ‘Valvers þáttr’, pp. 55-71. I2E f. 93v. 171AM 278 8vo,f. I3r-v.

mBorgfirdinga spgur, p. 296. mBorgfirð\nga spgur, p. 283. l74AM 278 8vo, f. lOv. mBorgfirðinga spgur, p. 270. 174Jón is in error here; she was Ðjarnardóttir. 177All other manuscripts have the word vesalmenni here, suggesting this was the original reading. 171AM 278 8vo, f. 17v. xl9Borgfirðinga spgur, p. 311. mBorgfirðinga spgur, p. 327. lllThe word sjálfir is found in all the other manuscripts and must be assumed to have been inad­ vertently omitted by J6n here. 1,2AM 278 8vo> f. lv. mEyrbyggja saga, p. 21. 1,4AM 278 8vo, f. lr.

,

l,5The exact meaning o f the wont skolbrúnn is unclear; see Egils saga Skalla-Grimssonar eú. SiguröurNordal, p. 143, n. 3. mEyrbyggja saga, p. 154, n. 3. '”Eyrbyggia-Saga, p. 284. ,MIn Jón Halldórsson’s ‘Supplementum’, which also draws on Eyrbyggja at this point, they are said to be fifteen, further evidence that Jón Hjaltalin did not know it. lt9Heióarviga saga, ed. Kálund, p. 44. l90Jón’s manuscript, and most of the others, have kur (or kurr) here, but the meaning is uncertain. Kar ('mucus*, ‘slime’) is the standard reading in other sources (see below), and found in JS 537. 191AM 278 8vo,f.5r. mHeiðarviga saga, ecL KAlund, p. 27. 191AM 433 föl., vol. ix, f. 2r. IMSveinbjörn Rafhsson, ‘Heimildum Heiðarvígasögu’, pp. 91, 93. í95Historia Ecclesiastica íslandiœ (Copenhagen, 1772-78), ii, pp. 372-3. Mtslenzkarþjóðsögur og cevintýri, i, pp. 233-4, 676. >97Cf. An Ícelandic-English Dictionary, p. 331, where he refers to the verse as ‘a ditty in a ghost story’. mtslernkarþjóðsögur og œvintýri, i, p. 676.

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‘"Lbs 355 4to, written by Halldór Hjálmarsson (1745-1805) in about 1800 and owned by Bogi Benediktsson (1771-1849), contains next to Jón’s Ólafsson’s reference to the vene the marginal note ‘Vid. Hist. Heel. 1st. Tom ii peg 373*, and a late eighteenth- or early nineteenth-century manuscript of the ‘Inntak' in the English Faculty Library, Oxford (ZCJ50 [Lax]), cites all four lines (f. 113r). The only manuscript of Heidarviga saga known to me that gives all eight lines is ÍBR 4 4to (f. 14v), written c. 1815. 2,04Heiðarvígasögubrot’ and ‘Ágrip af Vígastyissögu og fyrra parts Heiðarvlgasögu’, Islendinga sogur (Copenhagen, 1829-30), i, pp. 261-350, atpp. 276, 292. ^Islen d in g a sðgur, ii, pp. 341, 363. “ AM 278 8vo, f. 8v. “ Páll Vfdalin, Skýringar yfir Fom yrdi Lögbókarþeirrar, er Jónsbók kaüast (Reykjavik, 1854), pp. 625-6; see also Islenzkarþjóðsögur og œ vintýri, ii» pp. 91-3. Borgarviiki is named in connexion with H eidarviga saga in several o f the reports to the Commission for Oldsagers Opbevaring, for example by Hallgrimur djåkni and Jón Espólin; secFrásÖgur um fom aldarieifeir, ii, pp. 462,471-2, 519. ^Heidarviga saga, ed. Kålund, p. 119. This passage is found in several of the manuscripts con­ taining the ‘Inntak’, e.g. Lbs 132 (i) and Lbs 355 4to, and Jón Hjaltalin could therefore have known it “ Björn M. Ólsen, ‘Boigarvirld’, Á rbókH ins islenzka fom leifafélags { 1880-81), pp. 99-113, at р. 113: ‘Það eruþví oil lDdndi til þess, að munnmslasögurnar um viíkið hafi satt að mæla, og er þad þá allmerkilegt, að þær skuli fylla eyöu í einni hinni merkastu [sic] af frásogum vorum.’ See also Kálund’s Bidrag til en h isto risktopcgrqfisk Beskrivelse c f Island (Copenhagen, 1877-82), ii, pp. 202, and the introduction to his edition of Heidarviga saga, pp. x-xiii. **Viga-Styrs saga ok H eidarviga, ed. Valdimar Äsmundarson (Reykjavik, 1899); ‘Viðauki’, pp. 100- 102. w Borgfirdlnga sggur, p. civ. M V igaStyrs saga ok H eidarviga, tslendinga sögur; xxvii (Reykjavik, 1926); ‘Viðauki’, pp. 11012.

“ Sr. Jón Þórðarson á Auðkulu (1826-1885), writing in 1862 (tslenzkarþjóósögur og œ vintýri, ii, p. 570), reports that: "Magnus Pálsson sem ml er sjötugur segir að þegar hann var um þritugt [i.e. с. 1822] á Syðriey hafi Jonas [Johannesson] hreppstjóri á Ðreiðavaði [c. 1802-1865] léð sér Heidarviga sögu og hafí þar verið sagt finá aðsókn Borgfirðinga að Borgarvirki og mörsiörinu er Baröi fleygði út úr viikinu. Þessi saga var skrifuð með gamalli bond. Siðan hefiir Magnus spurt Jánas um þessa bók, en nú man Jónas ékkert eftir hvaðan honum kom bökin eða hvaÖ af henni er oröið. Hn Guðmundur Jönsson (kallaðurViddalín)MLækjamóti [1787-1852] sagöi Magnúsi aðhann heföi átt sögunaalla og hefði hann fargað henni til kaupmanns sunnan af Alftanesi (i.e. 1830-1840).’There is obviously no way of establishing it, but in view of their dates I see no reason not to assume that these were texts of Jón’s "Ágrip’ — it is tempting to think that the "gömul hond’ on the manuscript seen by Magnus might even have been that of Jón Hjaltalin himself. 2,0AM 278 8vo, f. 16r. 21‘The e here appears to have been changed from some other letter — although not, apparently, *. 212ln Part 1 of Don Quixote there is a description of a public reading of chivalric tales by a har­ vester for his (illiterate) comrades during the mid-day rest period; this is followed by a reading of the tale E l curioso Impertinente, said to consist of "ocho pliegos escritos de maoo', which constitutes Chapters XXXÜI-XXXIY 213It is also possible, although less likely in view o f the context here, that "Af Isabella’ refers to Den dyrekjøbte Isabelle, first published in Copenhagen in 1721 and in at least another ten editions over the next century (Bibliotheca Danica, iv, col. 500); see Seelow, D ie isländischen Übersetzungen, pp. 193-4. 2MThe others are "Egypterinden’ (~ "La gitanilla*), "Den gavmilde Elsker’ ( - "El amante liberal’), "Rinconete og Cortadillo’ (= "Rinconete y Cortadillo’Xand 'Licentianten' ( - "El licenciadoVidriera’). 2l3JS 631 4to (nineteenth century), Lbs 3021 4to (1877, Grimólfur Ólafsson 1 Hrisum), and Lbs 3162 4to (c. 1900, sr. Ólafiir Ólafsson í Saurbaqaiþingum).

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2l‘Lbs 638 8vo, ff. 96v-97r. It is worth Doting that this passage is omitted in two o f the manu­ scripts, JS 631 4to and Lbs 30214to, which end in the more conventional mannen 4og endar so þessi saga’. 217E.g. Lbs 2618 4to, p. 350 (Einar Bjarnason), and tB 385 4to, p. 326 (Hallgrimur djákni). 218Schnabel’s novel was originally published under the title Wunderliche Fata einiger See-fahrer,

absonderlich Alberti Julii, eines gebohmen Sachsens / welcher in seinem ISten Jahre zu Schiffe gegangen, durch Schiff-Bruch selbste an eine grausame Klippe geworfen worden nach deren Übersteigung das schönste Land entdeckt [...] (Nordhausen, 1731-43), but was given the somewhat more convenient title Die Insel Felsenburg by its first modern editor, Ludwig Tieck (Breslau, 1828).

/

2,9Seepp. 124-5. 220The translation, the full title of which was Felsenborgarsögur, eóurœfisögurýmsra sjofarenda,

einkum Alberts Júttusar, sem var saxneskur aó œtt. Ritaðar á þjóóversku af sonarsyni bróóursonar hans, Eberhard JúHusi, en nú snúið afdanskri tungu á islenzka. 1. partur, was prepared by Guttormur Guttormsson, Ári Sæmundsson, and Daði fródi Níelsson, from the second Danish translation, Øen Klippeborg eller flere Søfarendes forunderlige Hændelser: En Historiefra Begyndelsen af det 18. Aarhundrede (Copenhagen, 1828-29). The book had earlier been translated as Adskillige Søefareres underlige Skiæbner, især Alberti Julii, enfød Sachsers (Copenhagen, 1761-65). ^Þjóðólfur, vü (1854-55), p. 13. ^The only other work I have found with a title similar to this is The Life and Adventures of the Young CountAlbertus [...], a moralistic Robinsonade by Penelope Aubin, first published in London in 1728 and included in the second volume of Mrs Aubin’s Collection of Entertaining Histories and Novels (London, 1739); 1 am not aware of the existence o f a Danish translation, however. ^The other is Lbs 3162 4to, written c. 1900 by sr. Ólafur Ólafsson í Sauibæjaiþingum, in whose hand there is also a text of 4Lucian og Gedula*. “«Lbs 638 8vo, f. I19r. 22SThis is a very close translation of the original; The History of Tom Jones, ed. R. P. C. Mutter (London, 1966), p. 53: 4In that part of the western division of this kingdom, which is commonly called Somersetshire, there lately lived (and perhaps lives still) a gentleman whose name was Allworthy “The work that was to become Zadig firat appeared in Amsterdam in June 1747 under the title Memnon, histoire orientale, but a revised version was published in Paris in September of the follow­ ing year, entitled Zadig ou laDestinée, histoire orientale. Voltaire subsequently used the title Memnon for another conte, published in 1749. On the differences between the various editions see Voltaire’s Romans et Contes, ed. Henri Ðénac (Paris, 1960), pp. 615-24. ^Eilschow's text is based on that o f the 1748 edition. The title page informs the reader that the story was 4I sidst afvigte Aar udgiven paa Fransk’, indicating that Eilschow may have used an edition from 1749. According to the Provisional handlist ofseparate eighteenth-century Voltaire editions in the original language (Oxford, 1981) there were two, either o f which Eilschow might have used, as the texts are the same as that of the 1748 edition. A translation by Jens Schelderup Sneedorf£ also based on the text o f the 1748 edition, was published at Sorø nine years later (1759), entitled Zadig en østlig Historie, and reprinted in vol. ix o f Sneedorff’s Samtlige Skrivter (Copenhagen, 1777), pp. 1117. “•Voltaire was here parodying the conventional novel, but this would presumably have been lost on Jón. 22’Lbs8938vo,ff.71v-72r.

mRomans et conies, p. 20: ‘Il combattit; il appela á son secours la philosophie, qui l’avait toujours secouru; il n’en tira que des lumieres, et n’en re^ut aocun soulagement.’ 23'See e.g. E.F. Halvorsen, The Norse Version of the Chanson de Roland, Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana, xix (Copenhagen, 1959), p. 27. Roger Chartier, ‘The Bibliothéque bleue and Popu­ lar Reading’, The Cultural Uses ofPrint inEarly Modem France, trans. Lydia G. Cochrane (Princeton, N.J., 1987), pp. 240-64, at pp. 249-50, describes how in the French chapbooks ‘extraneous’ material was also cut, in particular 4descriptions of the social characteristics or the psychological states of the

Notes to pages 115-124

273

characters that did little to further the action*. “ The best discussion o f this aspect of Voltaire’s philosophy is René Rameau, La R eligion de Ibltatre (Pads, *1969); see also Norman L. Torrey, Voltaire and the English D eists (New Haven, 1930). “ Lbs 893 8vo, f. 79v. “ Henderson, Iceland, p. 34, divides the clergy in Iceland into two classes: ’those o f the old, and such as are o f the new [sc. Rationalist] school', whose number, he adds, ‘is happily not very great*. “ These are: JS 34 4to (1803-4, Guðmundur Illugason), lB 251 4to (1806-7, Einar Bjamason), ÍÐR214to (1820, Einar Bjarnason), Guðmundur Helgason MS 8vo(l820), Lbs 1953 8vo (c 1830, Gisli Konr&ðsson), Lbs 1305 8vo (1832, Þorsteinn Gfslason á Stokkahlöðum), Lbs 3625 4to (early nineteenth century), Lbs 676 4to (c. 1840-50, Þorsteinn Þorsteinsson á Heiöi), Lbs 854b 8vo(I860, Einar Guðnason á Sleggjulæk), Lbs 1767 4to (1862, Jóhannes Jónsson i Smydahóli), UB [Oslo] 1159 8vo (late nineteenth century, Magnús Jénsson í Ijaldanesi), and Lbs 1505 4to (1900, Magnús Jónsson íljaldanesi). Lbs 376 8vo, written c. 1805-20 by Ólafiir and Þorvaldur Sivertsen, contains, pp. 147 62, short summaries o f the various chapters in the first volume o f HoIberg*s H elte-H istorier, including Skandeibeg, pp. 152-3, but is wholly independant. Finnbogi Gudmundsson discusses the ’Saga af Skandeibeg* in ’Ferð til Albaniu*, Og enn mælti hann: 20 rceåur og grem ar (Reykjavik, 1989), pp. 87-101, at 87-90. His treatment is rather superficial, however, as he appears to have looked at only one or two manuscripts; nor does he know of the attribution to Jón Hjaltalin. ^ R ím u r a f Skattderbeg Epirótakappa (Akuieyri, 1861); see also Rim natal, i, pp. 437-8; ii, pp. 62-3. “ References here are to H olbergs H elte-H istorier, ed. K. L. Rahbek, Ludvig Holbergs udvalgte Skrifter, ix-x (Copenhagen, 1806-7), i, pp. 337-68. “ Holberg’s source, as he says, is Barletius*s ’Historia de vita et gestis Scandeibegi, Epirotarum principis’, Chronicorum Turcicorum [...] tomus tertius (Frankfurt a.M., 1578), iü, pp. 1-230; cf. p. 230: 'Quo tempore Ture* & Baibari potiti vtbe Lyßi, corpus Scanderbegi summo desiderio repertum de tumulo extraxerunt, & quem tantopere viuum reformidabant, & ad eius tantum auditum nornen fugiebant, mortuum, & iam dissolutum (nescio an id diuina dispensatione factum sit) videre summopere cupierunt, ne dicam venerari, & adorare ostenderunt. Nam omnes quidem ita ad eius cineres ossaque certatim confluebant, vt fælix, & peibeatus is fore existimaretur, qui ea videre & tangere, feliciorque tarnen, qui minimam ex illis particulam vendicare sibi posset, quam allij argento, auro alij recondere atque exornare faciebant, St ad collum appendebant sibi, tanquam rem diuinam, sanctam, & fatalem, & summa veneratione ac religione obseruabant, existimantes illos omnes, qui eas secum reliquias fenent, consimili quoque fortuna St felicitate in vita vsuros esse, qua ipse Scanderbegus ä Dijs immortalibus impetrata, solus ex omni hominum memoria dum viueret, semper usus est.' “ Lbs 638 8vo, f. 58r. “ Ludvig Holberg, Almindelig Kirke-Historiefm Christendommensfø rste B egyndelse TilLutheri Reformation (Copenhagen, 1738); references here are to the edition o f F. L. Liebenberg, Ludvig Holbergs Kirke-H istorie (Copenhagen, 1867-68). “ This is a reference to the seventh verse o f the thirty-fifth Passhtsdlmurz ’Dramblatum setur drottinn skamt / med diorfiing þeirra og hiecke; / þeim lijdst so sem hann lofer framt, / leingra komast þeir ecki' {Passíusálmar Hallgrim s Pjeturssonar, p. 115). “ E.g. M arrons saga . “ See above; the events related in the ’Rímur af Jóhanni Ðlakk' correspond to pp. 93-265 o f vol. iii o f the earlier Danish translation (1761-65). According to Sighvatur Borgfirðingui; ‘Presta-Æfir’, viii, p. 648, Jón had greatly shortened the story, which would be in keeping with Jon’s practice in his other translations. ™*Rimur q f Jóhanni Blakk, ortar 1814 q f Glsla Sigurðssyni,fyrrum á Klungurbrekku (Ðessastaðir, 1908). ^ R im u r e f Jöharmi Blakk, pp. 3-4. “ Lbs 2618 4to, p. 350. Finnur Sigmundsson, who was obviously working from this manuscript

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ofEinar’s ‘Fræðimannatal’, included the ‘Saga af Cyrilló* among translations ascribed to Jon (Rimnatal, ii, p. 85); he did not mention this attribution in his discussion o f the ‘Rímur af Cyrilló' ( Rimnatal, i, pp. 99-100). Sighvatur Borgfiiðingur also lists ‘Don CyriUó de Valero’ among Jón’s translations, adding that it was 'líka mikið stytt’. 247Die Insel Felsenburg, pp. 378-467; Felsenborgarsogur, pp. 300-77. 24>Theie were several. Sr. Þórður Þorsteinsson á Kvennabrelcku produced in 1806-9 a translation of the complete Insel Felsenburgt preserved in his autograph, UB 1042 8vo; see Jónas Kristjánsson, 4Skrå um íslenzk handrit i Noregi pp. 125-6. A fragment o f this translation is also to be found in Lbs 2903 8vo, a nineteenth-century miscellany. Lbs 2670 8vo, written in 1837 by Þorsteinn Gíslason á Stokkahlöðum, also contains a text of at least part of the Felsenbuig-stories. 249The following manuscripts contain texts relating to the prophet: Lbs 788 8vo, written c. 1800, contains a text entitled 'Umm uppRuna Machomets* beginning: *abda hiet fader makomets huer vend skal hafa eirn herramadur i Arábýa & harms móder hiet Emina af Gidýnga kini þaug ólu hann i einu almennilcgu þorpi 1 Arabia Anno 606 þann 24 Aprilis’. The same text, called 4Lijted AAgrip urn uppruna Machomets’, is found in Lbs 2317 4to, written by sr. Björn HjAlmarsson i Trollatungu. Another text, entitled ‘Historia ummþann svijviidelegasta gudlastara og villumanit MachometTyrkia pröpheta’, is found in Lbs 1389 8vo. It begins: ‘Machometh falls profeti Tyrkia og saraceni var komen af lijtil motlegum og tilkomulausumm forelldrum hann var fæddur i þeine grijttu Arabia a því are Epter X‘ fed: 572 þann 21. dag Septemb. fader hannz hiet Abdomoneche*. A five-leaf frag­ ment o f the same text, described as ‘Æfentyid af hónumm Machometh’, is found in lB 36 8vo, written in 1803 by Gísli Konráðsson. Unrelated to either of these is ‘Historia af Macometh spaamait’, preserved in Lbs 841 8vo, in which Muhammad is said to have been born ‘anno Xá 567 þann 12 maisj umm Næturtyd’, and ‘Historia um fædíng og líferni þess Ogudlega Djöfulsins Verkstjóra Machomets sem og um hans lyst og Svik er hann framdi í móti Kristilegri kirkju’, preserved in fB 48 8vo, written c. 1840 by Björn Gudmundsson from As, Vatnsdalur, who says it was ‘uppskrifiid eftir 87 ára gömluhandriti mjög rotnu og slitnu, sem úrþyzkutúngu máli hefur verid útlagt af Hr Snæbyrni Hallssyni’. In this text Muhammad is said to have been born ‘eptir Christe fædíng 597'. 250This is discussed in Chapter V 75'There is also a short treatment o f Muhammad's life in Holberg’s AlmindeligKirke-Historie, pp. 400-403, with which Jón must have been familiar. ^W hile it must be said to be unlikely it is nevertheless conceivable in view of Jon’s familiarity with Zadig that this was Voltaire’s play Lefanatisme, au Mahomet le prophéte (first performed in 1741). A Danish translation was published in 1815 ( Bibliotheca Danica, iv, col. 413), which means that Jón could, in theory at least, have known it. Another possibility is that the work in question was not the ‘Saga af Mahomed’ but rather the ‘Saga af Mehemed', a translation o f Mehemet Abdalla, eller Merkvœrdig Beskrivelse om een berømmeligAsiatiske Kiøbmands Reyser (Flensburg, 1727), a text o f which is found in Lbs 3161 4to, written c. 1900 by sr. ólafur Ólafsson i Saurbæjarþingum, in whose hand — perhaps significantly — there are also preserved texts of ‘Lúcían og Gedúla’ and ‘Thómas Jones’. 2S3It is worth mentioning once again that the survival rate of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century manuscripts was very poor indeed. It must be assumed therefore that any manuscripts that have been preserved represent only a fraction of those once in existence. One can only hope that the sample is reasonably representative. ^See Bibliotheca Danica, iv, cols 435-38, 601-21. 253Somewhat paradoxically perhaps, the fact that I have as yet been unable to locate a source for any of them, despite having looked through dozens o f volumes o f similar material in Det kongelige Bibliotek in Copenhagen, reinforces my belief that they all derive from a single volume. “‘See Bibliotheca Danica, vol. i, cols 946, 991; vol. v, col. 89. 237There are in fact two texts on Olgeir; the first, ‘Urn Olgeir danska’, is part o f the series, but following them is another, shorter text called ‘Umm Sverd Olgeirs Danska*, taken from ‘hin« hálætdi madr Thomas Bartolin í Danmerkr fornfræda skrifumm Lib: 2. Cap: 13. pagina 579', i.e. Thomce BartholmiAntiqvitatum Danicarum de Causis Contemptœ a Danis adhuc Gentilibus Mortis (Copen­ hagen, 1689).

Notes to pages 125-133

275

" “The full title read*: Lehrbuch, darin ein kurzgefaster Unterricht aus verschiedenen philosophischen und mathematischen Wissenschaften, der Historie und Geographie gegeben wird. mLære*Bogeller kortfattet Uhderviisntng i adskilligephilosophiske og mathematiske Videnskaber (Copenhagen, 1782); Magnús Stephensen owned a copy of this book (see Lbs 1353 4to, p. 77), and Jón may have borrowed it from him. “•Voltaire, Questions sur VEncyclopédie, par des Amateurs ([Geneva], 1770-72), ix, pp. 5-10; Dictionnaire philosophique, ed. Ðéatrice Didier (Paris;, 1994), pp. 211-14. “ ‘See e.g. Arnold Rowbotham,4Voltaire sinophile’, Publications ofthe Modem LanguageAsso­ ciation, xlvii (1932), ppi 1050-65. **Discours qui a remporti le ptix a VAcademic de Dijon en l'année 1750 sur cette Question praposée par la mime Académie: Si le ritabtissement des Sciences & des Arts a contribué á épurer les moeurs. Par m citoyen de Genéve (Geneva, 1750). “ “Balle was, along with Christian Bastholm, the moat important figure in the Danish church of the eighteenth century and well known in Iceland through the publication o f Lœrdóms-Bók i Evangeliskum kristilegum Thiarbrøgdum, handa UngUngum (Leiráigarðar, 1796), a translation o f his Lærebog i den evangeliskchristelige Religion, til Brug i danske Skoler (Copenhagen, 1791), which was studied by every child in Iceland throughout most of the nineteenth century; see Hjalti Hugason, ‘GuÖftœði og tiúaiUf’, Upptýsbigin á Island^ pp. 119-148, at p. 131. “ •Forphyrios (c. 232- cl 303) was a neoplatonist philosoher and critic o f all popular religious belief; Christianity in particular. His work, much o f which was eventually banned and survives only in fragments, included an exposure o f the inconsistencies o f the Gospels and an attack on the Old Testament. ““On Balle’s Religionsblad see Bjørn Korneiup, ‘Oplysningstiden 1746-1799’,De« danske kirkes historie, ed. Hal Koch and Bjørn Kornerup (Copenhagen, 1951), v, pp. 231-505, esp. pp. 450-59. The debate between Balle and Horrebow is treated also in Frederik Rønning’s Rationalismens tidsalder, sidste halvdel a f IS. århundrede: En Hterærhistoriskfremstilling (Copenhagen, 1886-99), iii.2, pp. 238-88. “•Balle’s original text reads: ’Man har allerede skrskket mig af fra Kant, og selv afskrskker han mig, især ved Bekiendelsen, han aflægger om sin reene Fornuft, at den har ligesaameget at sige imod, som for Udødelighed. Voltaires Ustadighed skaffer ingen sikker Leide. Rousseau gaaer af Moden, og er forhadt hos Voltairianerne. Hume kiender ei anden Oprindelse til Begrebet om Gud, end overtroisk Frygt. Den lærde Dupuis opdager i hver R eligion ikkun digterisk M alerie over blotte Naturbegivenheder. Verden aelv er Gud for Spinoza. Mirabeau eller de Lille lader kun Dølken blive tilbage, som beste Trøster; efterat al anden Fortrøstning er blevet nedbrudt, og Diderot indjager navnløs Rædsel ved sin skrækkelige Sentens: Le genre humain ne sera parfaitement heureux, que quand on aura etnmglé [ric] le demier Roi avec les boyaux du demier pretre — O hvilke Ledsagere!’ Jón presumably omitted the French citation because he didn’t understand it. “ Tor Denmark (and hence Iceland), see Komerup, ‘Oplysningstiden 1746-1799’; more gener­ ally see Gerald R. Cragg, The Church and the Age o f Reason 1648-1789 , The Penguin [formerly Ifelican] History of the Church, iv (Harmondsworth, 1960), esp. Chapter XV ‘The High Noon of Rationalism, and Beyond’, pp. 234-55.

NOTES TO CHAPTER 4 ‘On the application o f this term to the indigenous medieval romances see Glauser, Isländische

Märchensagas, pp. 158-60. •Olrik’s ‘epic laws’were originally formulated in 1905-6, and first published in an article, ‘Episke love i folkedigtningen’, in Danske studier (1908), pp. 69-89. A revised version o f this article, based in fact on a paper delivered in Berlin the same year, subsequently appeared under the title ‘Epische Gesetze der Volksdichtung’ in Zeitschrift JUr deutsches Altertum, li (1909), pp. 1-12, an English

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translation of which was published in Alan Dundes’s The Study ofFolklore (Englewood Cliffs, N .I, 1965), pp. 129-41. The full text o f Olrik’s original study appeared posthumously in Nogle grundsætningerfor sagpforskning (Copenhagen, 1921), pp. 66-82. This has appeared recently in an English translation by Kirsten Wolf and Jody Jensen, Principles for Oral Narrative Research (Bloomington, Indiana, 1992), pp. 41-61, which I have consulted in preparing my translations here. 301rik, Nogle grundsætninger, p. 67; Principles, p. 4L 'Nogle grundsætninger, pp. 77-9; Principles, pp. 55-6.

'Nogle grundsætninger, p. 73; Principles, pp. 49-50. 6Nogle grundsætninger, p. 72; Principles, p. 48. 1Nogle grundsætninger, p. 71; Principles, pp. 46-7. sNogle grundsætninger, p. 68; Principles, p. 43. 9Nogle grundsætninger, pp. 69,75-7; Principles, pp. 44-5, 52-5. What one hopes is a complete list o f ‘epic threes’ in the Islendingasögur is provided by L. Alfred Bock in ‘Die epische Dreizahl in den (slendinga SQgur: Ein Beitrag zur Beschreibung der isländischen Saga’, Arkivß r nordiskfilologi, xxxvii (192IX pp. 263-313, and xxxviii (1922), pp. 51-83. *°See here also Kathryn Hume, ‘Beginnings and Endings in the Icelandic Family Sagas’, Modem Language Review, lxviii (1973), pp. 593-606. On the romance or folklore pattern she says (p. 595); ‘This form was immensely popular throughout the Middle Ages in Europe, and is notable for its tidy, organic form. Typically, a single hero undertakes a quest or series of tests, and ends by succeeding, marrying, and assuming power. At the outset, we are told his homeland parentage, and rank, but nothing more unless it is relevant to his adventures. At the end, the author may remark that he had heirs, and may even refer to his eventual death, but the terminal mood in such a work is festively celebratory, for the hero has successfully developed from untried youth to seasoned warrior and leader.’ "Lbs 2784 4to, pp. 319-20. ,2Lbs 3810 8vo, p. 1. 13Lbs 1217 4to, f. 38r. l4Lbs 1493 4to, p. 701. "Lbs 1217 4to, f. 40r. ,ÄLbs 1493 4to,p. 716. l7These are discussed on pp. 158-75. "See Svavar Sigmundsson, ‘Að ljuka sögu’, Lygisögur sagðar Sverri Tómassyni ßmmtugum (Reykjavik, 1991), pp. 89-95. "JSara MS no. 2, p.477. 20Fimmbrœðra saga is here an obvious exception, as there are five separate stories, each with its own hero. When the brothers combine forces in the last great battle to rescue Dathan, however, the undisputed hero of the scene is Kristofer. 2'This is discussed in greater detail on pp. 177-78. 22These are discussed in Carol Clover’s book The Medieval Saga (Ithaca, N.Y., 1982). 23See also pp. 175-6. 2*Dundes, The Study o f Folklore, pp. 129-30. 23See Archer Taylor, ‘The Biographical Pattern in Traditional Narrative’, Journal of the Folklore institute, i (1964), pp. 114-29, orAlan Dundes, Interpreting Folklore (Bloomington, 1980), pp. 22933. 2*Lord Raglan’s scheme was originally presented as a paper to the Folklore Society in June 1934 and published in Folklore, xlv (1934), pp. 212-31 (reprinted in Dundes’s The Study o f Folklore, pp. 142-57), and was subsequently used in a slightly revised form in the book The Hem: A Study in Tradition, Myth, and Drama (London, 1936). 27Jan de Vries, Heldenlied en Heldensage (Utrecht, 1959), p. 194.

Notes to pages 133-149

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"Jan de Vries, Betrachtungen zum Märchen, besonders in seinem Verhältnis zu Heldensage und Mythos, FF Communications, cl (Helsinki, 1954), esp. Chapter IV "Märchen — Heldensaga — Mythos’. 25D e Vries, Heldenlieden Heldensage; esp. Chapter XI, "Het patroon van een heldenleven’. There is an English translation by B. 1 Timmen Heroic Song and Heroic Legend (London, 1963). ”De Vries, Betrachtungen, pp. 165-7. 31The type is known as the kolbitur (literally "coal-biter’); see Sveinn Þócðaison, "Afkolbitum og glópöldum* [BA diss.] (Reykjavik, 1986); see ålso Egils saga Skallagtimssonar nebst der grösseren gedickten Egils, ed. Finnur Jónsson (Halle a.S.,21924), p. 76, note 1; Margaret Schlauch, Romance in Iceland, pp. 97-9; or my own discussion in Siguróarsaga þðgla: The shorter redaction (Reykjavik, 1992), pp. lxx-lxxiv. ” ‘Sarpidons saga steika*, p. 240. 33MS miked. ”ÍB 88 8vo, ff. 96v-97r. The description in the JSam MS, preserving a younger version based on therimur, is somewhat less expansive, but equally encomiastic: "hann var snemma mikill og vsnligur, þegar hann vox upp var hann bædi mikill og sterkur og allra manna fridastur hann hafdi bleik gult hår sem nådi nidur ad belti eigdur var hann allra manna best og limadur vel, nio eingin fanst fridari þar i landi.’ “Cf. Olrik’s "tretals-loven1, mentioned above; 36Betrachtungen, p. 143. 37Lbs 2784 4to, p. 320. uSagan afHinriki heilráða, p. 58. ” Lbs 2784 4to> p. 310. ” This theme is treated further in Chapter V 4,Cf. Otto Luitpold Jiriczek, "Zur mittelisländischen Volkskunde: Mitteilungen aus ungedruckten Arnamagnaanischen handschriften’, Zeitschriftßr deutsche Philologie, xxvi (1894), pp. 2-25, at p. 11: "Häufig erscheinen zwerge als helfer von helden, und nehmen am kample anteil, meist als bogenschützen [...].’ ”Lbs 893 8vo, f. 65t 43Ketlerusar saga keisaraefhis, p. 40. ” See Drei Lygisggur, p. 69. ”Bengt Holbek, Interpretation c f Fairy Tales: Danish Folklore in a European Perspective, FF Communications, ccxxxix (Helsinki, 1987), p. 330. ”Jan de Vries reviewed Propp’s Morfológija shortly after its publication in an article entitled "Over het russische sprookjesondeizoek der laatste jaien’ in the journal Mensch en Maatschappij, vi (1930), pp. 330-41, esp. pp. 336-9. De Vries described Propp’s methodology as "scherpzinnig dooidacht’, albeit "niet zoo vnichtbaar, als de schrijver zelfw el zal hopen’. On the whole, however, he felt the book was "een stap verder in de richting van een exacte methode van de sprookjesstudie’, and it is therefore curious that he seems to have made no direct use of it in his own work. 47Vladimir Propp, Morphology o f the Folktale, first ed. translated by Laurence Scott with an introduction by Svatava Pirkova-Jakobson (Bloomington, Indiana, 1958); second ed. revised and edited with a preface by Louis A. Wagner (Austin, Texas, 1968). All references here are to the second edition. ”On the response to Propp, negative and positive, see Anatoly Liberman, "Introduction’, Vladimir Proppe Theory and History of Folklore (Manchester; 1984), and Holbek's Interpretation o f Fairy Idles, pp. 331-89. Propp’s Morphology, in particular his concept o f the "function’, is considered to mark the birth o f narratology. On the application o f narratological method to Icelandic material see especially JGrg Glausec, ‘Narratologie und Sagaliteratur: Stand und Perspektiven der Forschung’, Aufbräche: Uppbrott och uppbrytningar i skandinavistisk metoddiskussion, ed. Julia Zemack et al. (Leverkusen, 1989), pp; 181-234. 43Morphology,, p. 21.

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S0Propp gives no definition for this function. ^'Following Holbek, I shall use the designation F f+ number for Propp’s functions. 52Morphology, p. 92. 53Morphology, pp. 79-83. ^Morphology, p. 85. This will be discussed in greater detail below. 53His intention was not even to present a grammar of folktales generally, but rather only o f the 'wondertale* (i.e. fairy tale); see Theory and History o f Folklore, p. 70. $tMorphology, p. 100. 51Interpretation o f Fairy Tales, p. 356. 31Interpretation o f Fairy Tales, p. 385. 3*For a survey o f research see John Miles Foley, Oral-Formulaic Theory and Research: An Intro­ duction and Annotated Bibliography (New York, 1985). 60See Albert B. Lord, 'Perspectives on Recent Work on the Oral Traditional Formula1, Oral Tradi­ tion, i (1986X pp. 467-503, esp. pp. 478-81. 61For the linguistic model see Kenneth Pike, Language in Relation to a Unified Theory of the Structure o f Human Behavior (The Hague, 1967). Pike, pp. 37-72, distinguishes between an ‘etic’ and an 'emic’ approach — the terms derive from 'phonetic1 and 'phonemic1 — the former being external and taxonomic, the latter internal, concerned with the position and function of individual units within a system; for the application of this approach to the study of traditional narratives see Alan Dundes, 'From Etic to Ernie Units in the Structural Study o f Folklore1, Journal of American Folklore, lxxv (1962), pp. 95-105; reprinted in Analytic Essays in Folklore (The Hague, 1975), pp. 61-72. See also Dundes's article 'Structural Typology in North American Indian Folktales1, South­ western Journal o fAnthropology, xix (1963), pp. 121-30; reprinted in Analytic Essays, pp. 73-9. “Most of those discussed here — motif, type-scene, etc. — w ill be familiar to the reader. Other terms have occasionally been suggested, 'narreme1, for example, coined by Eugene Dorfman, The Narreme in the Medieval Epic and Romance:An Introduction to Narrative Structure (Toronto, 1969), which, mercifully, has not caught on. “Albert B. Lord, The Singer o f Tales (Cambridge, Mass., 1960X p. 68. Lord's first (published) attempt at a definition o f the theme appeared in 'Composition by Theme in Homer and Southslavic Epos1, Transactions o f the American Philological Association, lxxxii (1951), pp. 71-80, at p. 73: 'The theme can be identified as a recurrent element of narration or description in traditional oral poetry. It is not restricted, as is the formula, by metrical considerations; hence, it should not be limited to exact word-for-word repetition.1 “Chapter IV of The Singer o f Tales is devoted to the theme, in particular as manifested in the south Slavic oral epic. Lord discusses the theme again at some length in 'Perspectives on Recent Work on Oral Literature1, Forumfor Modem Language Studies, x (1974), pp. 187-210, esp. 205-10. Scholarly work on the theme is surveyed in John Miles Foley, 'The Oral Theory in Context1, Oral Traditional Literature: A Festschriftfor Albert Bates Lord, ed. John Miles Foley (Columbus, Ohio, 1981), pp. 27-122, esp. 79-91, and the second part of Foley's recent book Traditional Oral Epic (Berkeley, Calif., 1990) deals with the thematic structure of the Odyssey, Beowulfand Old English poetry, and the Serbo-Croatian 'return song1, including a review o f previous scholarship in each case. “Walter Arend, Die typischen Scenen bei Homer (Berlin, 1933). This book was reviewed by Parry in Classical Philology, xxxi (1936), pp. 357-60; reprinted in The Making o f Homeric Verse (Oxford, 1971; repr. New York, 1980), pp. 404-7. For a systematic treatment of the Homeric typescene, including a review of previous scholarship, see MarkW. Edwards, 'Homer and Oral Tradition: The Type Scene1, Oral Tradition, vii (1992), pp. 284-330. “Donald K. Fry, 'Old English Formulaic Themes andType-Scenes1, Neophilologus, lii (1968), p. 53; Fry expanded his concept of 'theme1and ‘type-scene1in ‘Themes and Type-Scenes in Elene 1113’, Speculum, xliv (1969), pp. 35-45. “ See e.g. 'Perspectives on Recent Work on Oral Literature1, p. 207. “This was advocated several years earlier by David Crowne, 'The Hero on the Beach: An Exam-

Notes to pages 150-157

279

pie of Composition by Theme in Anglo-Saxon Poetry*, Neuphilologische Mitteilungen, lxi (I960), pp. 362-72. ^Singer ofTides, pp. 81,92. ”Singer ofTales, pp. 82,93. llSmger of Tales, pp. 88,92-3.

nSinger of Tales, pp. 94-8. ”Stylistic and Narrative Structures, p. 105. ”Stylistic and Narrative Structures, p. 106. 75The term was first used by Pike, Language, p. 75, and adopted by Dundee, ‘From Etic to Emic Units’, in preference to ‘motif’, on the grounds that the latter is atomistic rather than relating to the function of the unit in the whole (i.e. ‘etic’ rather than ‘emic’). 7