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plained as a reference to Gægishóll, a landmark in the Höfðahólar hills,
where Grýla supposedly made her home.11
judging by the sheer length of the Þulur og þjóðkvæði version of
Grýlukvæði, which at 99 stanzas far exceeds the length of the two texts in
js 481 8vo,12 ólafur davíðsson also wanted to incorporate as much materi-
al as possible into the main text, with the critical apparatus reserved mainly
for variant readings and notes on structural variation. stanzas 35 and 48–52
are noted as additions from other manuscripts, but he has silently inserted
a full stanza (76) without stating its source, although this could simply be
an oversight. the length of Grýlukvæði varies widely between manuscripts,
as does its structure, and ólafur davíðsson’s solution to the problem of
presenting it as a single poem seems to have been to weave together the
longest possible coherent narrative from the various manuscript strands
available to him. In this respect, js 481 8vo is an ideal choice of base manu-
script, as it permits considerable editorial freedom in constructing such a
narrative. At the same time, Grýlukvæði never existed in the form found
in Þulur og þjóðkvæði, which is entirely ólafur davíðsson’s creation — an
artistic reproduction of the poem that does not strive to follow any one
single version too closely.
3. Grýlukvæði in seventeenth-Century Manuscripts
What is unclear in ólafur davíðsson’s edition of Grýlukvæði is that there
is a considerable gap in the preservation of the poem: two seventeenth-
century manuscripts contain a structurally different and much shorter text
than found in the proliferation of much younger manuscripts that form
11 “‘og gægist um hól’ segir alþýða oft og tíðum í staðinn fyrir ‘úr Gægishól’. en Gægishóll
og kletturinn Gægir er utarlega í Höfðahólum í skagafirði, og þar átti Grýla eitt sinn heima
og átti í brösum við slétthlíðinga.” Bjarni Þorsteinsson, Íslenzk þjóðlög (Copenhagen: s.
L. Møller, 1906–9), 669. two locations in sléttuhlíð bear the name Gægir: a hillock in
the home field at Arnarstaðir and a large stone in the Höfðahólar hills, the height of a
man, believed to be a source of danger. Arnarstaðir, Heimildarmenn: Stefán Gestsson, bóndi
á Arnarstöðum og Jóhanna, móðir hans, Kristján Eiríksson skráði, unpublished report, 30
december 1975, Örnefnastofnun, 5; Örnefnaskrá í innanverðri Sléttuhlíð í Skagafirði, eftir
Pétur Jóhannsson Glæsibæ, unpublished report, 17 March 1994, Örnefnastofnun, 1. Many
thanks to Hrefna sigríður Bjartmarsdóttir for this information.
12 the main text in js 481 8vo has 82 stanzas, while the Grundarbók text has only 61.
GRýLA In sLÉttuHLíÐ