Gripla - 20.12.2005, Page 146

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‘genuine’ and ‘authentically’ are set against the uncertainties of ‘might rest’,
‘might meet’, ‘appears to be’, just as Ari’s ‘unassailable authority’ is qualified
by ‘as far as it goes’, by now an oft repeated expression of frustration. Ari is
reliable, but does not tell us enough; the other sources tell us more than
enough, but unfortunately we do not know how far to trust them.
KRISTNI SAGA: A MEDIEVAL HISTORY?
The tendency to lump together all sources other than Ari, rather than charac-
terising them individually, has perhaps prevented scholars from moving on
from this impasse. Like the later histories mentioned here, medieval accounts
of the conversion were written for different purposes and with differing de-
grees of historical acumen; it would be strange indeed if Ari were the only
medieval Icelander writing about the conversion capable of distinguishing
historical fact from legendary accretion – if this is not, in fact, a modern
distinction. An inability to distinguish between fact and fiction is, however,
very much the accusation levelled by historians of religion at the monks Oddr
Snorrason and Gunnlaugr Leifsson, who is believed to be the source of at least
some of the material that Kristni saga and Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar en mesta
have in common.2 Jón Jóhannesson (1956:152) describes Gunnlaugr as
„trúgjarn“ (‘credulous’), writing solely to increase the glory of Christians, and
2 Björn M. Ólsen (1893:263-349) was the first to identify the conversion accounts in Kristni
saga and Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar en mesta as deriving from Gunnlaugr, and Finnur Jónsson
(1923:398-402) and Bjarni A›albjarnarson (1937:85-135) built on his research when
reconstructing Gunnlaugr’s work. It is now clear that many of their criteria for attribution to
Gunnlaugr were not valid (see, for example Ólafur Halldórsson 1967:552-53; Jakob Bene-
diktsson 1974:209), and Gunnlaugr’s authorship of the conversion narratives can no longer
be assumed. Recent research has failed to clarify the matter, with conflicting opinions being
expressed within the new Biskupa sögur (ÍF XV:cxxix, clxiii-iv): while Sigurgeir Steingríms-
son argues that Kristni saga is an independent composition and the source of the conversion
account in Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar en mesta, Ólafur Halldórsson upholds Björn M. Ólsen’s
views on the existence of a common source (probably Gunnlaugr), with the reservation that
‘southern’ narratives about fii›randi, fiangbrandr, Hjalti and Gizurr may not have passed
through Gunnlaugr’s hands. Sveinbjörn Rafnsson (2001:161-64) has also held on to the idea
of a common source, but he believes this to be an Icelandic Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar existing
in several versions, only some of which goes back to Gunnlaugr. In my view, a common
source/sources makes most sense of the material shared by Kristni saga, Óláfs saga
Tryggvasonar en mesta (and Njáls saga), but Gunnlaugr’s contribution is difficult to de-
termine, even in the case of fiorvalds fláttr, which clearly does derive from his work: