Gripla - 01.01.1975, Side 79

75
MANIFESTATIONS OF RAGNARS SAGA LOÐBRÓKAR
vm morg lond með hernaði England
ok Valland ok Frackland ok vt vm
Lvmbarði.
landz er adur haufdu '”tt lians gtt-
menn hann iok miog sitt æ marga
vega . Suo er sagt at hann leti drepa
iatmund hinn helga ok lagdi vndir sig
Riki hans lodbrokar synir foru vida
med hernadi vm england vestur ok
suo vida anars stadar.
It will be seen from this juxtaposition of the two passages that the
order in which events are related is the same in both; that the details
of Ella’s torture by ívarr are the same, and that in both passages the
same verse from Knútsdrápa, and that verse only, is quoted; the word-
ing of the reference to the poem is also the same in both passages.
Nor is the similarity of wording between the passages confined to the
torture of Ella, which because of its exceptionally gruesome nature
might perhaps be expected to be remembered in detail in oral tradi-
tion; it extends to events which have little directly to do with the
manner of Ella’s death, such as ívarr’s accession to the throne of part
of England, the slaying of King Edmund at his instigation, and the
subsequent Viking activities of the sons of Loðbrók in various coun-
tries. It is also significant here that King Edmund is called ‘inn helgi’
in both passages. All these considerations point to literary relations
between the works in which these passages are contained rather than
to independent recording from oral tradition, and, taken together with
the various lists given earlier, illustrate the kind of factors that should
be borne in mind and thoroughly examined before casual statements
are made about extant manifestations of a given saga being ‘com-
pletely unrelated and based independently on oral tales’.