Gripla - 01.01.1975, Page 50

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GRIPLA
ved in 1824 b with Ragnarssona þáttr. This latter, after relating in a
form much briefer than the corresponding part of 1824 b the story of
Ragnarr’s slaying of a serpent in Gautland, goes on to refer to a saga
of Ragnarr in the following words:
. . . ok for þat sva sem seg/r i sogv Ragnars konvngs at hann feck siþan
Þorv borgarhiort ok siþan lagþiz hann i hernað ok frelsti allt sitt riki.13
Which Ragnars saga is the one so referred to? After a cursory read-
ing, it might be thought that the compiler of Ragnarssona þáttr, who
may well have been Haukur Erlendsson,14 had before him a version
of Ragnars saga similar or identical to the one reflected in 1824 b,
and simply made an abstract of it for the relevant parts of the þáttr.
According to Bjami, however, this cannot be the case, partly in view
of certain differences between the story of Ragnarr’s slaying of the
serpent as it is told in the þáttr, and the same story as it is told in
1824 b, and partly also in view of other differences between the þáttr
and 1824 b in later sections of the two works. Since the differences
between those parts of the two texts which deal with the serpent-
story15 are not listed by Bjarni, the most important of them may be
noted here. In 1824 b, Herruðr is simply a powerful jarl in Gautland;
in the þáttr he is said to be a jarl in the service of Ragnarr. In 1824
b his daughter, Þóra, receives the serpent as one of her father’s daily
presents to her; in the þáttr she receives it as a morgingjöf. In 1824
b the serpent is made to lie on gold, the amount of which increases
undemeath it as the serpent itself grows in size and ferocity; in the
þáttr, on the other hand, while the serpent grows large and fierce
much as in 1824 b, no mention is made of gold. An important differ-
ence, to which attention has recently been drawn by Marina Mundt’s
13 See Hauksbók, 458.
14 See Guðnason (1969), 30.
13 See Hauksbók, 458, 11. 6-31 and Olsen, 116, 1. 13-121, 1. 29. It may be
pointed out here that 1824 b differs from the þáttr in referring to the serpent at
one point as a lyngormr, a word which A. Edzardi, in the preface to his revised
edition of von der Hagen’s translation of Völsunga saga and Ragnars saga, Vols-
unga - und Ragnars - Saga . . ., 2. Auflage (1880), XXXVIII-IX, listed together
with other stylistic features as indicative of the influence of Þiðriks saga on these
two sagas.