Gripla - 01.01.1975, Page 52

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GRIPLA
and Þiðriks saga,ls Bjarni concludes that the Ragnars saga which
underlay the þáttr was considerably different from either of the ver-
sions of Ragnars saga reflected in 1824 b and 147.
Bjami’s next step is to compare and contrast with each other the
texts of Ragnars saga preserved in these two manuscripts. It is at this
point that his treatment of his subject becomes rather disappointingly
unspecific, though the general outlines which he offers show the way
to a specific conclusion. As Bjarni points out, the text of Ragnars
saga in 147 has been exceedingly poorly preserved. Magnus Olsen,
who edited it together with the 1824 b text of Völsunga saga and
Ragnars saga in his edition of 1906-08, was able to read only scat-
tered portions of the text. The printed portions, since he was able to
read the text only fragmentarily, are seldom extensive and often do
not even mn to whole sentences. Much may nevertheless be leamt
from a close study of the 147 text of Ragnars saga, as Olsen and
Bjami both realized. The 147 text of Ragnars saga seems to begin, as
Olsen has shown, with what corresponds to chapter II in the 1824 b
text of Ragnars saga—that is, with Ragnarr’s slaying of the serpent
and the winning of Þóra, rather than with the chapter dealing with
Heimir and Áslaug.10 This latter seems to form the opening chapter
of Ragnars saga according to 1824 b,20 but was treated by early
editors of Völsunga saga as the final chapter of Völsunga saga.21
According to Olsen at least, the 147 text of Ragnars saga comes to
an end on the recto of the leaf numbered by Olsen for editorial pur-
18 See Guðnason (1969), 31. This is a somewhat simplified version of a view
advanced by Edzardi, XXVI-XXXIX and XLIII-IV (footnote). Edzardi pointed
out striking parallels in wording between Völsunga saga and Ragnars saga, and
also drew attention to parallels between these two sagas and Þiðriks saga. Edzardi
nevertheless admitted (XXX) that Völsunga saga and Ragnars saga differed
markedly from each other in style; and his examples of parallels between Þiðriks
saga and Ragnars saga were by no means as plentiful or as striking as those he
gave of parallels between Þiðriks saga and Völsunga saga. In my opinion, the state
of the 147 text of Ragnars saga does not permit us to speak in any way confidently
of traces of the influence of Þiðriks saga in that text.
19 See Olsen, LXXXVI.
20 See Olsen, LXXIX.
21 See, for instance, the editions of Rafn (Fornaldarsögur Norðrlanda, I, 1829)
and Bugge (Norrt/me Skrifter af sagnhistorisk Indhold, II, 1865).