Gripla

						THE NEGLECTED GENRE OF RlMUR-DERIVED PROSE             189

teenth-century annals for the same year.12 Hrakningsríma Magnúsar

Jónssonar, based on a difficult whaling expedition survived by the po-

et, probably at the end of 1812, also winds up as a prose report in the

annals of the nineteenth century.13

It is quite probable, however, that the composition of prose narra-

tives from poetic texts is a very old phenomenon and one that was not

confined to rímur sources. There is evidence, for example, that Illuga

saga Gríðarfóstra is not an original mythical-heroic saga, but rather

derived from an older ballad.14 If foreign-language sources are taken

into consideration, then one of the oldest examples of a derivative ro-

mance would be Tristrams saga ok ísöndar, evidently translated in

Norway from Thomas' Tristan in 1226. Of course, the tradition of

prose reworking in a wider sense is also known in Iceland from around

the same time, cf. Völsunga saga and Snorri's Prose Edda. Viewed in

this light, the mnur-derived sagas are simply part of a much larger lit-

erary tradition.

The production of a derived-prose narrative need not always be a

simple one, however, as shown by the saga of Ásmundr Flagðagæfa,

written down around 1700 by Eyjólfur Jónsson, a priest in Svarfaðar-

dalur.15 Here it has so far proved impossible to determine whether the

extant rímur stem from the prose narrative or vice versa. Other com-

plexities involve the possibility for a single saga to be indebted to more

than one rímur-version and for more than one redaction of a single

"saga" to exist, as in Áns saga bogsveigis, in Hrings saga ok Tryggva

(mentioned above), and in Ormars saga (discussed below).16

It will not be a simple matter, however, to define members of the

genre of rímur-derived prose, since they will have to be differentiated

from those sagas stemming from older Icelandic prose narratives as

12

Finnur Sigmundsson, Rímnatal, I, 246-247, 245. Other tales of tribulations at sea

are known to exist in both rímur and prose versions, but their relationships have yet to

be deterrained; Finnur Sigmundsson, I, 241, 243, 250, 251.

Finnur Sigmundsson, Rímnatal, I, 244-245.

Davíö Erlingsson, „Illuga saga og Illuga dans", Gripla, I (Reykjavík, 1975), pp. 9-

42.

Judith Jesch, "Ásmundar saga Flagðagæfu", ARV: Scandinavian Yearbook of

Folklore 1982, XXXVIII (Stockholm, 1984), p. 103.

Ólafur Halldórsson, Áns rímur bogsveigis in íslenzkar miðaldarímur, vol. 2

(Reykjavík, 1973), pp. 57-68. Agnete Loth, p. x.