Gripla - 20.12.2010, Page 199

199SÍÐU-HALLS SAGA OK SONA HANS
oral tradition.4 However, unlike the so-called ‘þáttr theory’ of saga origins
(that is the school of thought citing preserved þættir as evidence of the
assembly of sagas in medieval times from short tales),5 each story element
within oral tradition is not seen as a random building block, but a strand
woven into the existing tradition. I believe that, by taking the story of
Síðu-Hallr as an example, we can get an idea of how an immanent saga
grew and might have finally been turned into an actual saga by an author,
who only needed to make small adjustments and additions to the assem-
bled material.
Of Hrollaugr and his descendants
No saga writer would begin his story as I have done, starting with the cli-
mactic event – the events at the Alþingi – in an effort to grab attention. A
saga writer would probably not even begin with the hero himself, but with
his ancestor and so I will turn back several generations to the time of King
Haraldr hárfagri. Orkneyinga saga tells of Hrollaugr, the bastard son of Earl
Rǫgnvaldr. Rǫgnvaldr gives (with King Haraldr’s approval) the earldom of
Orkney and Shetland to his brother Sigurðr, who dies from a wound
caused by his beheaded enemy’s tooth. When Sigurðr’s son Guttormr dies
childless it seems control of the islands may be lost to the family, especially
after an attempt to restore order by Rǫgnvaldr’s son Hallaðr ends in igno-
miny. Rǫgnvaldr asks his sons which of them is willing to go west and
restore order in Orkney. Þórir, his legitimate son, volunteers, but
Rǫgnvaldr tells him to stay at home. His third son Einarr, he encourages to
go, though in a rather disparaging way, implying that he would like him
out of sight and Orkney seems as good a place as any. Indeed Rǫgnvaldr’s
disdain for his illegitimate offspring is a theme throughout this section of
the saga. It is, however, the conversation with his middle son Hrollaugr
which interests us here:
4 See Gísli Sigurðsson 2004, throughout, but particularly 182–184 where he proposes an
immanent saga of Þorkell Geitisson of Krossavík. Also see Andersson 2002 and 2006,
3–20 and Gísli Sigurðsson 2007.
5 For short accounts of the ‘þáttr theory’ of saga origins see Andersson 1964, 61–64 and
Clover 1986, 30–34.