Gripla - 01.01.1975, Síða 84

80
GRIPLA
of Baetke’s approach, but I can only see that belief in the oral tradi-
tion will benefit by having its acceptability thus tested.
I am myself one of those who ‘believe’ that the íslendingasögur are
based on oral sources, yet even the most devoted disciple may have
his moments of doubt. The difficulty comes when he needs to declare
his belief and produce actual evidence. It would be extremely valu-
able to be able to present incontestable proof of the existence of at
least some oral sources for the íslendingasögur. This would take one
weapon from the hands of the most vehement objectors, those who
even doubt whether the leading characters of the oldest sagas ever
existed at all, except in the minds of their creators. In my opinion it
is possible to produce this type of conclusive evidence, and anyone
who wishes to present this view must of course adduce detailed and
secure arguments by way of support, just as is to be expected when
literary sources come under scrutiny. I have a number of cases of this
type in mind, and I now intend to discuss one of them.
In AM 748 I, 4to, at the end of the manuscript on a single leaf,
there is a poem entitled Islendingadrápa Hauks Valdísarsonar. As is
well known, this is, amongst other things, the main manuscript of
Eddic verse after the Codex Regius. The íslendingadrápa is written in
a distinctive hand which has been dated at approximately 1300, or
possibly the beginning of the fourteenth century; it is difficult to be
more exact than this, and a leeway of some decades must be allowed
for on either side. A number of scribal errors suggest that this is not
the original, but it may be considered a fairly good copy, as far as it
extends. The last part, which must have been on the following leaf, is
now missing. Twenty-six stanzas and two lines of the twenty-seventh
remain.
Finnur Jónsson maintained that the drápa could hardly have been
more than thirty stanzas long in its original form, but it is not clear
what led him to this conclusion.8 There is no refrain in the poem in
its present form, although it is entitled a drápa.
The poem certainly derives its name from the fact that a number of
leading Icelanders from early times are mentioned in it, together with
0 Den oldnorske og oldislandske litteraturs liistorie II2, K0benh., 1923, p. 107.