Gripla

						ÞJÓSTÓLFS  SAGA  HAMRAMMA                              103

it looks as if he had been misled on at least one other occasion into

buying a saga forgery, namely Hafgeirs saga Flateyings, written between

1774 and the fall of 1776.18

It is almost a certainty that Adeldahl and the forger of Hafgeirs saga,

Þorlákur Magnússon Isfiord,19 were more than acquaintances. Besides

being members of the Icelandic community in Copenhagen for over

five years together, they both enrolled at the university there on the

same day (December 24, 1771), both had the same preceptor (Wad-

skiær), both often used manuscripts from the Arnamagnæan collection

for their copies and both did most of their work for the same man,

P. F. Suhm. Although their works appear to be independent, there is

a reasonable probability that the idea of a forgery and the choice of a

victim were not.

Of the two forgers, Adeldahl seems to have had a poetic bent. In

his transcription of Grettis rímur he even made a gratuitous marginal

note drawing attention to a strophe in only two lines.20 Several occa-

sional verses of his are preserved in a large volume with over two

hundred contributors, now housed in the National Library in Reykja-

vik.21 Adeldahl's literary pursuits, whatever their motivation, were

evidently unsuccessful, most certainly from a financial point of view,

and he is said to have died in Copenhagen, poverty stricken.22

The available evidence indicates that Þjóstólfs saga hamramma was

composed by an Icelandic student in Copenhagen, Þorleifur Arason

Adeldahl, between 1772 (more likely ca. 1774) and the middle of 1778

(but probably 1777). It was evidently a forgery, with the primary model

being Grettis saga Asmundarsonar, apparently in rímur form, and the

victim of the deception was the well-known Danish historian and librar-

ian, Bernhard M0llmann.

University of Georgia

17  Dansk Biografisk Leksikon, Povl Engelstoft and Svend Dahl, edd., 27 vols

(K0benhavn, 1933-44), XVI, 468-469.

18   "Hafgeirs saga Flateyings: An Eighteenth-Century Forgery," Journal of

English and Germanic Philology (April, 1977), pp. 155-164.

19  Islenzkar œviskrár, V, 160. Islenzkir Hafnarstúdentar, p. 119.

20   "N.B. her er en Strophe i 2. linier," Nks. 1134, foi, p. 145.

21   Lbs. 852, 4to and a copy, Lbs. 269, 4to. Cf. Skrá um handritasöfn Lands-

bókasafnsins, Páll Eggert Ólason, 3 vols. (Reykjavík, 1918-37).

22  Islenzkar æviskrár, V, 172. Islenzkir Hafnarstúdentar, p. 119.