Gripla - 01.01.1979, Page 170

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GRIPLA
the hole remaining between the whole X’s bordering the lacuna. Of the
fragmentary episodes he preserved only a key phrase in each.
In the text with the lacuna, the slaying of the suitor ends a chapter.
A new chapter begins, ‘Nú er at segja jrá Þorkatli, at hann unir eigi
heima.’ He leaves home and travels east. He hears that men have been
disappearing from the road he intends to travel. He refuses to be put
off by the danger—and the lacuna begins. When the text resumes, Gísli
and Þorkell are returning from a profitable voyage of some sort, and
this fragmentary chapter ends with the same phrase that concludes
chapter II in the other version, ‘ok þykkja þeir enn mikit hafa vaxit í
þessi ferð’
The first whole episode the abbreviator found after the lacuna was
an attack on Gísli’s family by two previously unmentioned men who
force another (previously introduced) to accompany them. The abbre-
viator could discover from later events that the two men are brothers,
their father’s name was probably Skeggi, and there was hostility
between Skeggi and Gísli (or Gísli’s family). The minimal bridge, then,
needed only to motivate Skeggi’s hostility, explain the role of the man
forced to accompany them, and show the consequences of the slaying
of the suitor.
The expedient of making Skeggi a kinsman of the slain suitor (hann
var mjök skyldr Bárði) should have served the abbreviator for two-
thirds of his bridge, but he witlessly preserves Þorkell’s displeasure at
the slaying, links it with Þorkell’s departure from home (eigi vildi hann
heima þar vera), and presents Þorkell travelling immediately to Skeggi
to urge him to kill Gísli. Thus Þorkell’s villainy is not a function of his
character but rather of the abbreviator’s need to bridge a gap. The
abbreviator then rushes toward his final task, explaining the role of the
man forced to accompany Skeggi’s sons in the attack on Gísli’s family.
This he accomplishes with Þorkell’s unprecedentedly outrageous sug-
gestion that Skeggi also should marry his sister. Thus the revenge
motive is dropped when it has served its bridging function, and the new
motive of courting the sister is introduced. The new motive provides
for a conflict with the sister’s new suitor, the man who later will accom-
pany Skeggi’s sons. The abbreviator at this point has managed to intro-
duce the accomplice, but he has dropped the revenge motive which was
to have involved Skeggi and Gísli in hostility. Therefore he has the