Gripla - 01.01.1975, Page 56

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GRIPLA
stanzas of Krákumál, part of which, as I pointed out earlier, immedi-
ately follows Ragnars saga in the 1824 b text, are made in the 147
text to form a part of the saga; they would seem to be placed there in
the mouth of Ragnarr—not altogether inappropriately, though their
subject-matter is for the most part extraneous to that of the saga—as
he dies in the serpent-pit.33 As regards the lausavísur of Ragnars
saga, the 147 text often yields readings which seem closer to the
verses in their original form than the readings of the 1824 b text,
which latter, as far as the verses are concerned, is at times exceeding-
ly corrupt.34 Furthermore, the differences between the two texts be-
come markedly greater towards the end of the saga, where the 147
text shows greater similarities, in Bjarni’s opinion, to the account of
Ragnarr and his sons in Skjöldunga saga—as this is reflected in
Ragnarssona þáttr on the one hand, and Amgrímur’s Latin version
of the story on the other—than to the 1824 b text of Ragnars saga.
It is certainly true that the verbal similarities at this stage of the
narrative between the 147 text and the þáttr, the most important of
which have been listed by Olsen in the preface to his edition,35 be-
come so striking at one point that the phrase ‘the glaring differences
between the written sagas’ hardly seems to have very much validity
even in the larger context of the three extant manifestations of Ragn-
ars saga in 147, 1824 b, and Ragnarssona þáttr. Nevertheless, the fact
that there are differences between these various extant manifestations,
even if the differences in question are not exactly glaring ones, should,
of course, at all times be remembered. Bjarni summarizes his view of
the textual history of Ragnars saga in the following stemma:
33 See Olsen, 187-89, and the footnotes indicating the strophe-numbers in
Krákumál. The contents of Krákumál have been summarized and discussed by G.
Storm in his Kritiske Bidrag til Vikingetidens Historie (1878), 196-200, and by P.
Herrmann in his Erláuterungen zu den ersten neun Biichern der dánischer Ge-
schichte des Saxo Grammaticus, zweiter Teil . . . (1922), 627, ff.
34 This may be illustrated by reference to Olsen’s explanatory notes on those
verses which 1824 b and 147, and less often Hauksbók, have in common. See
Olsen, 195 ff.
35 See Olsen, XCI-IH.