Gripla - 20.12.2005, Side 148

GRIPLA146
instead on how the narrative is constructed. Perhaps the most fruitful ap-
proach, however, is to ask not whether the compiler is likely to have got his
facts straight, but what he is trying to do and how he goes about it. Typically,
this aspect of representation is neglected in the study of conversion narratives
(see the comments of Martínez Pizarro 1985).
The attribution to Sturla gives rise to the possibility that Kristni saga was
part of a coordinated historical project: in his Ger›ir Landnámabókar, Jón
Jóhannesson (1941:69-72) argued that Sturla composed the saga from a
variety of sources as an appendix to his version of Landnámabók and, fol-
lowing Finnur Jónsson (1923:571-2; see also Eiríkur and Finnur Jónsson
1892-96:lxx-lxxi), conjectured that it was written to provide a link between
Landnámabók and the contemporary sagas in a compilation covering the his-
tory of Iceland from the settlement to Sturla’s own times. This goes a long
way towards explaining some of its peculiarities in structure and content: the
saga opens unusually with an allusion to the last chapter of Landnámabók in
Sturlubók and Hauksbók, which details the settlers’ fall into heathenism, gives
the same date for the settlement as there, includes two lists of the most
important chieftains in each Quarter of the country, and finishes rather incon-
clusively with an account of the feud between fiorgils and Hafli›i, which is
the subject of fiorgils saga ok Hafli›a in Sturlunga saga (ÍF XV:3-6, 44-47; cf.
ÍF I:lxxiv-v). The list of chieftains from 980, in particular, has close con-
nections with the similar lists in Sturlubók and Hauksbók: over half the chief-
tains included are sons or descendents either of the main settlers listed there
for each Quarter or of the concluding list of greatest chieftains from 930. It
has recently been argued that one of Kristni saga’s main concerns is to extend
the missions to all parts of the country and to involve all four Quarters of
Iceland in its conversion, and this corresponds nicely with the historical im-
petus that has been discerned behind Landnámabók (Sveinbjörn Rafnsson
2001:139, ÍF XV:cxxxiii). According to Sveinbjörn Rafnsson (2001:15),
Kristni saga should be considered „órjúfandi hluti söguger›rar Landnámu“
(‘an indivisible part of the historical redaction of Landnáma’): it represents a
historical or historicizing endeavour rather than a ‘religious tract’.
Sturla’s composition of Kristni saga has recently been questioned on
various, and to some extent conflicting, grounds: Ólafur Halldórsson (1990:
461-64) has cast doubt on Jón Jóhannesson’s evidence that it followed
Sturlubók in Resensbók, while Sveinbjörn Rafnsson (1974:72-73) has
suggested that it was also present in the lost Styrmisbók and may therefore