Gripla - 01.01.1975, Page 47

RORY W. McTURK
THE EXTANT ICELANDIC MANIFESTATIONS
OF RAGNARS SAGA LOÐBRÓKAR1
i
In a stimulating contribution to Einarsbók, the Festschrift for Einar
Ólafur Sveinsson published in 1969, Bjami Guðnason discussed the
interrelationship of the extant Icelandic manifestations of Ragnars
saga loðbrókar, and the relationship of Ragnars saga to Völsunga
saga? While his view of these two subjects may not be entirely
acceptable in every respect, as I shall hope to show in this paper, it
nevertheless provides a wholly satisfactory framework for discussion.
In this paper I shall review Bjami’s arguments, criticizing some of
them and developing others, and will tentatively present a view of
the textual background to Ragnars saga differing somewhat from his,
but also profiting from it in several ways. In this way I shall hope to
provide the basis for a short discussion, in the second and final part
of this paper, of Bjarni’s approach to the interrelationship of the
1 The first part of this paper (i.e. up to p. 64) is a somewhat revised version of
a paper delivered in Reykjavík at the Second International Saga Conference on
Monday, August 6, 1973, under the title ‘The principal Icelandic versions of the
story of Ragnarr loðbrók’. I am grateful to Mr. J. A. B. Townsend and Dr. R. M.
Perkins, both of University College, London, for making a number of valuable
suggestions while I was preparing this part of the paper; and to Professor Bjarni
Guðnason of the University of Iceland, Reykjavík, Mr. Alfred P. Smyth, now of
the University of Kent at Canterbury, and Dr. Marina Mundt of the University
of Bergen, all of whom, in contributing to the discussion following the delivery of
my paper at the Conference, also made valuable suggestions of which I have done
my best to take account in this revised and enlarged version. With regard to the
second part of this paper, which has been prepared since the Conference, I am
grateful for advice and criticism to Professors Bo Almqvist and Alan J. Bliss, and
to other members of the Interdisciplinary Seminar in Medieval Studies at Univer-
sity College, Dublin, with whom I was privileged to discuss a number of problems.
What errors remain are, of course, entirely my own.
2 Bjarni Guðnason, ‘Gerðir og ritþróun Ragnars sögu loðbrókar’ in Einarsbók.
Afmœliskveðja til Einars Ól. Sveinssonar, 12. desember 1969 (1969), 28-37.