Gripla - 01.01.1990, Blaðsíða 200

196
GRIPLA
across the first body of water, while the apples from the first tree wors-
en the affliction. The ævintýrí, on the other hand, has the water cause
cancer and the apples the leprosy. Likewise Jónatas’ love affair with
the skóla þjónusta, dwelt upon in some detail in the saga, finds only
the barest outline in the œvintýrí, but a similar, fleshed-out version in
the rímur.
Jónatas saga provides an excellent example of how a post-medieval
author went about the task of putting together a prose story. Since the
source employed is a poetic one, there is much that can be inferred
about stylistics, but information about general composition can also be
gleaned from a comparison. For the latter purpose it is not so much
those features which the versions have in common which are of in-
terest, but rather the deviations of the saga from the rímur which are
revealing.
Omissions are of course to be found in the prose rendering, but not
to such a degree as might be expected. The mansöngvar (27 stanzas in
all) leave no trace, but these are so atypical of Icelandic genres that
their disappearance is hardly surprising. There are even instances
where the mansöngvar have been omitted from a rímur manuscript.34
From the first ríma the saga omits the descriptions of each of the three
inherited treasures (six stanzas in all), but their particular powers are
later made clear during the course of the poem. Likewise in the saga
there is no coyness on the part of the hero before finally revealing the
secret of his first gift (163,9), while in the rímur it takes a full thirteen
stanzas for the girlfriend to wheedle the information from him (1,41-
53). It is quite rare, however, that such large segments of information
are omitted entirely in the prose retelling, and even condensed pas-
sages are infrequent. An example of this latter phenomenon, howev-
er, is found in the second ríma, where Jónatas’ trip home to his moth-
er after losing his ring comprises only seven lines in the saga (164,12-
18), while this section is told in five stanzas in the poetic redaction
(11,20-24).
Besides omitted material there is also action added as well, which
indicates that the saga author felt a certain freedom to take liberties of
a creative nature with his source. In both rímur and saga, after Jóna-
34 E.g. JS 340, 4to. Finnur Sigmundsson, Rímur afFlóres og Leó in Rit Rímnafélags-
ins, vol. 6 (Reykjavík, 1956), p. xviii.