Gripla - 01.01.1984, Síða 257

SAXO IN ICELAND
253
arr, the father of Signý, with whom Haki’s brother Hagbarður is in love.
This requires a compression of the time scale of Heimskringla, and in
Jón Espólín’s rímur there are in fact two women called Bera, a mother
and a daughter, and the daughter marries Sigarr.
Hagbarður and Signý are betrothed, but at Bera’s instigation, Signý’s
kinsfolk attack and kill Hagbarður’s relatives. Hagbarður then kills her
brothers, as he does in Saxo but without this additional cause.
In Saxo Hagbarður comes to visit Signý dressed as a woman warrior,
but this was a little too much for the Icelandic writers who have him
coming dressed simply as an ordinary woman. An old woman named
Gunnvör who is a friend of Bera’s suspects him when she sees his hands
(a motif that could not be plausible if he were a female warrior). She
betrays him and after a fight he is taken by his enemies. Signý has pre-
viously made a pact with Hagbarður that neither would live longer than
the other. As he is about to be hanged, she and her companions set their
chamber alight and hang themselves so that they both die together.
This is very much a retelling of Saxo except that one incident has
been omitted. In Saxo Hagbarður asks when he is led to the gallows that
his cloak should be hanged before he is, and his enemies comply with
this. This is in order to see whether Signý will keep her word, and he
dies happy when he sees the flames from her chamber. In the Icelandic
versions no such test of Signý’s faithfulness is made. The subplot in-
cluded in the prose saga concerns a son of Sigarr’s named Álfgeir, who
is in love with Signý’s foster-sister. He rescues her from the flames.
Haki then comes to avenge Hagbarður, as in Saxo. Bera and Gunnvör
are slain, and Sigarr dies of old age and grief. A rival suitor for Signý
who has already been shamed in battle also dies, and Álfgeir remains to
rule his father’s kingdom. The saga ends with the episode from Ynglinga
saga in which Haki is wounded in battle. He is placed in a ship on a bed
composed of the bodies of his slain enemies. This is set alight and floats
out to sea.
In this case, then, the bones of the saga are a combination of the
subject-matter found in Saxo with that known from Ynglinga saga, and
additional characters and events have been added to tie the incidents
together and to give the complete saga a more romantic flavour.
The other sagas from Birget’s book keep far less closely to their medi-
eval source. None of these is known from elsewhere.