Gripla - 20.12.2004, Page 251

A NEW EDITION OF BISKUPA S¯GUR 249
to oppose the followers of Christianity. It and Arnórs fláttr kerlingarnefs may
be thought of as fables, although in the former case the character appears to be
an invention on the basis of a place name and in the latter he is known to have
existed. fiórhalls fláttr knapps portrays one Icelander’s conversion and the pro-
phetic dream which preceded it.
Events at the Alflingi that resulted in Iceland officially becoming a Chris-
tian country are recounted in Kristnitakan, which corresponds to two chapters
of Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar en mesta. Although arguing that this episode is
based on a source also used in Kristni saga, Ólafur Halldórsson suggests that
stylistic differences imply that this was added by Gunnlaugr’s translator from
another text (p. ccix).
The reader of the conversion narratives in ÍF XV is also provided with ex-
tracts from a number of other texts, providing a comprehensive view of medi-
eval sources for the conversion of Iceland. The relevant extract from Adam of
Bremen’s Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum is printed and trans-
lated on pp. lvii–lviii, and an appendix provides excerpts from Ari’s Íslend-
ingabók, Theodoricus’s Latin history of the kings of Norway, the Icelandic
translation of Oddr Snorrason’s Life of Óláfr Tryggvason, and the so-called
Kristni fláttr from Njáls saga (chapters 100–105). With these extracts we have
moved a considerable distance from the Biskupa sögur of the edition’s title,
and more might have been said about the significance of generic differences
between the texts.
The first volume of this new edition also includes Jóns saga helga, the life
of the first bishop of Hólar and the second Icelander to be recognised as a
saint by his compatriots. The editor of this text, Peter Foote is the first non-
Icelandic editor to contribute to the Íslenzk fornrit series, and this is a fitting
recognition of his distinguished contribution to Old Icelandic literary studies,
especially in the areas of ecclesiastical and hagiographic literature. His in-
troduction to Jóns saga helga is translated by Ólafur Halldórsson and his notes
by Jónas Kristjánsson and Gu›rún Nordal.
Jón ¯gmundarson was recognised as a saint by the Alflingi in the year
1200, seventy-nine years after his death. Jóns saga helga appears to have been
composed soon after this event, but survives only in three later redactions.
Here those versions are designated S, L and H, but they have previously been
known as A, B and C, and in volume III of this edition of the Biskupa sögur,
which appeared five years before volume I, the older nomenclature is still
used (see e.g. the reference to the A redaction of Jóns saga helga in ÍF XVII: