Gripla - 01.01.1975, Page 62

GRIPLA
58
where he lodges at the farm of Spangarheiðr, the home of Áki and
his wife Gríma. These two kill Heimir for his riches, and finding the
child Áslaug proceed to rear her in conditions of great poverty as
their own daughter, giving her the name of Kráka. There is, of course,
little direct connection between these events and those of the next
three chapters, in which Ragnarr kills the serpent in Gautland, mar-
ries Þóra and has two sons by her, and resumes the life of a warrior
after Þóra’s death. In chapter V, however, where Ragnarr meets
Kráka and where we should expect to find some explicit reference to
the events of Chapter I, the narrative style suggests that the whole
set-up at Spangarheiðr, including Kráka, is being introduced to the
reader for the first time. This may be illustrated by such sentences as
the following: ‘Hann kemr skipum sinum . . . i haufn eina litla, enn
þar var béR skamt þadan, er het a Spangarheide . . . þa hitta
þeir einn mann at male, ok er þat kerling . . ‘. . . ok a ek mer
dottur þa, er . . . heitir Kraka . . .’57 The 147 text of Ragnars saga
seems to share at least the first two of these three sentences with the
1824 b text.58 It is hardly too much to say that this chapter, and the
subsequent parts of Ragnars saga dealing with Ragnarr and Áslaug up
to the point at which she convinces Ragnarr of her true identity, may
be quite comfortably read in the 1824 b text without reference to the
events of Chapter I. Hardly too much, because there is a brief re-
ference to Heimir at one point in this part of the saga,59 and also
because, if Chapter I is left out of account, the reader’s natural ques-
57 See Olsen, 122.
58 See Olsen, 177.
69 See Olsen, 128, 11. 6-7. Áslaug is here speaking to Áki and Gríma, saying
‘I know you killed Heimir, my foster-father, and to no-one (engum manni) do I
have more reason to feel ungrateful than to you.’ The fact that Olsen, 179, foot-
note to 4r, line 9, discerned the words -ungu/)i monnum (corresponding to ‘engum
manni’?) in this part of the 147 text, which he found otherwise illegible at this
point, does not necessarily suggest that the first half of the sentence—the part
dealing with Heimir—was present in the 147 text. The 147 text in the (to Olsen)
partly legible lines (Olsen, 179, 4r, 1-4) immediately preceding this illegible patch
seems to differ quite markedly from the corresponding section of 1824 b (Olsen
127, 22-128, 1), partly in being less wordy; and Kráka has, of course, reasons
other than the murder of Heimir for feeling ungrateful to Áki and Gríma—not
least the fact that she, the daughter of Sigurðr and Brynhildr, is made to do the
work of a kitchen-maid, as the 147 text (Olsen, 178, 2v, 4-6) makes clear.