Gripla - 01.01.1979, Page 106

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GRIPLA
the leader in various sports (cf. perhaps Grettir’s encounter with Björn
Hítdælakappi) and then reluctantly kills him in battle. On the hero’s
subsequent trip to Denmark, he gives the gloves to King Harald and is
well rewarded, before returning to Earl Hákon (cf. Auðunar þáttr).
While at the latter’s court, Þjóstólfr is baited by Már and they part
after having words (cf. Björn and Grettir at Þorkell’s farm). Þjóstólfr
takes a wife (unlike Grettir) before engaging in a troll episode similar
to that at Sandhaugar. He then visits King Ólaf Tryggvason and is bap-
tized, an event which proceeds much more smoothly than does Grettir’s
baptism. Both sagas end with a tour of duty in the Varangian guard in
Miklagarð.
It is obvious both that Þjóstólfs saga has borrowed from Grettis saga
and that Adeldahl was familiar with the story. He copied in Nks. 1134,
fol. from AM 614a-b, 4to Jón Guðmundsson’s versified version of the
saga, not yet edited: “Litid Inntak Grettirs Saugo í rímur snuid.” Auð-
unar þáttr was also known to Adeldahl, for he copied it from AM 217c,
fol. as Nks. 1702, 4to. Even the aquatic battle with the bear can be
found in a manuscript (AM 162c, fol.) transcribed by Adeldahl as Nks.
1785, 4to. Although he did not copy Finnboga saga ramma, itself, it is
probable that he at least knew the title, which could well have suggested
the epithet in the title of his own work. The corresponding aquatic
battle in Vilmundar saga was also known to Adeldahl’s colleague, M.
Magnusen, who knew the story from two manuscripts, copying it once
from AM 586, 4to as Nks. 1250, fol.
Since Suhm has made no comments on the Þjóstólfs saga manuscript,
and since Kálund has not attributed it to Suhm’s library, it is probable
that a different collector purchased the bogus work. Assuming only one
copy of the forgery was ever produced, practically the only possible
candidate can be Professor Bernhard Mpllmann, head librarian of the
Royal Library in Copenhagen from 1748 to his death on July 25, 1778.
The auction catalog of Mpllmann’s personal library lists among the
850 manuscripts the “Saga af Þióskolfi Hamrama Svarfdælskum.”16
The fact that Mpllmann was half blind in his later years and that he
possessed a reputed soft spot in his heart for needy students certainly
made him an ideal person to be deceived by the hoax.17 Furthermore,
16 Recensio Librorum qvos relinquebat moriens Bernh. M<j>llemannus (Havniæ,
1783), Manuscripta, p. 55 (no. 441).