Gripla - 01.01.1975, Page 49

45
MANIFESTATIONS OF RAGNARS SAGÁ LOÐBRÓKAR
Völsunga saga, and is made to form a reasonably logical sequel to it,
through the person of Ragnarr’s second wife, Áslaug, the daughter of
Sigurðr Fáfnisbani and Brynhildr Buðladóttir. It is not clear from the
state in which the 147 text of Ragnars saga has been preserved
whether Völsunga saga preceded Ragnars saga in that manuscript as
well as in 1824 b, but it does seem likely that the Ragnars saga which
is reflected in 147 was preceded by a Völsunga saga, since reference
is made in the course of the 147 text of Ragnars saga to the meeting
of Sigurðr and Brynhildr and the birth of Áslaug, in a manner which
seems to assume an awareness on the reader’s part of the events in
question.9 Bjami sets out to answer the following questions: Did
Völsunga saga and Ragnars saga exist independently of each other,
before being joined together in the manner reflected in the two prin-
cipal extant texts of Ragnars saga? Which is the older, Völsunga saga
or Ragnars saga? In short, what is the precise nature of their relation-
ship? Since Völsunga saga has been preserved only in connection with
Ragnars saga, as is shown by the two principal extant manuscripts of
the latter, and as the Völsungsrímur also indicate,10 there is no textual
evidence to suggest that Völsunga saga ever existed independently of
Ragnars saga. This leads Bjarni to a discussion of the question of
whether Ragnars saga ever existed independently of Völsunga saga;
and this is the starting-point for the central part of his paper, in
which he seeks to establish the exact nature of the rittengsl, as he
calls them, or literary relations,11 between the various extant mani-
festations of the story of Ragnarr, his wife Áslaug (also called Kráka
or Randalín) and his sons. Leaving aside for the moment Lönnroth’s
objection that ‘the task would appear hopeless considering the fact
that Ragnarr was one of the most popular legendary heroes in Old
Norse tradition’,12 I shall now go on to examine in some detail, and
hopefully to develop in some respects, the way in which Bjarni sets
about his allegedly hopeless task.
His first move is to compare and contrast the Ragnars saga preser-
9 See Olsen, LXXXVI and 180.
10 See Guðnason (1969), 30, and the references given in his eighth and ninth
footnotes.
11 This term will be discussed later in this paper (see p. 66 below).
12 See M. Scan. (1971), 178.