Gripla - 20.12.2009, Page 174

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íslenzk (III, 1918, 73), the translator acknowledges his source, John Chry-
sostom (Patrologia Graeca LVI, 637), in detail, although he probably knew
it through a Latin digest, writing Svá segir Jón gullmuðr í glósa yfir Matheo
“Thus says John golden-mouth in [his] commentary on Matthew”. Some
saga writers acknowledge their vernacular written sources, like the author
of Laxdœla saga, who refers to two other Icelandic sagas as well as to the
work of Ari Þorgilsson (ÍF 5 1934, 7, 199, 202, 226). Direct acknowledge­
ment of oral sources for purposes of authentication occurs widely in
Icelandic saga texts, usually in works of a historical nature, and chiefly
involves the citation of skaldic poetry to authenticate what the prose writer
is claiming. Here oral witnesses are treated by saga writers in the same way
as written source texts are used in medieval historiography generally
(Whaley 1993; 2007, 82–85; o’Donoghue 2005, 10–77). oral informants
who had the status of eyewitnesses are also frequently mentioned in his­
torical works, in line with the practice of medieval historiography gener­
ally; in his Íslendingabók Ari Þorgilsson acknowledges three individuals,
Teitr Ísleifsson, Þorkell Gellisson and Þóríðr Snorradóttir, whose com­
bined memories put him in touch with the settlement age. Occasionally a
poet cites his oral sources, as einarr Skúlason does in Geisli 45/3 (Chase
2007a, 44), when he acknowledges that the Norwegian traveller and mer­
cenary soldier Eindriði ungi was the source of the miracle story of what
happened to S. Óláfr’s sword Hneitir after it had been bought by the
Byzantine emperor. At the time Einarr was composing, this miracle story
had probably not yet achieved written form. Interestingly, Snorri Sturluson
cites einarr’s drápa as the source of his account of the same miracle in
Heimskringla (ÍF 28, 369–371).
Far more frequent than the direct citation of external sources, however,
is the use of sources without acknowledgement. This can take one of two
forms, the second the more common. In the first case, a vernacular writer
indicates that he has used a written source, but does not specify what it is.
Such a practice implies the desire to achieve literate gravitas more than the
desire for authentication. A good example is in stanza 9 of the late four­
teenth­century poem Allra postula minnisvísur, where the poet composes
lines in honour of S. Bartholomew that are strikingly reminiscent of the
opening lines of a hymn sung at the feast of this saint and follows this with
the interjection það er ritningar vitni “that is the testimony of a written text”