Gripla - 20.12.2005, Síða 151

KRISTNI SAGA AND MEDIEVAL CONVERSION HISTORY 149
Tryggvasonar and Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar en mesta move back and forwards
in time, shaping events into semi-independent units or flættir and dividing them
as necessary, Kristni saga maintains throughout an ordered and continuous
narrative. fiangbrandr’s youth, narrated long before fiorvaldr and Stefnir’s
missions in Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar en mesta, comes between them in Kristni
saga, and his appointment to the church at Mostr is mentioned upon Óláfr
Tryggvason’s arrival in Norway, along with his subsequent misbehaviour (ÍF
XV:13-15; compare ÓlTm I:149-150, 168, II:64-66). Hjalti’s outlawry, de-
scribed elsewhere in retrospect upon his return to Iceland or arrival in Norway,
is carefully placed between fiangbrandr’s departure from Iceland and Kjart-
an’s conversion in Norway, which in turn takes place shortly before fiang-
brandr’s arrival there (ÍF XV:25-28; compare Saga Óláfs Tryggvasonar:128,
ÓlTm II:161-163). And, in a slightly more complex reorganisation, fiorvaldr’s
travels alone and with Stefnir, part of their respective flættir in Óláfs saga
Tryggvasonar en mesta, are delayed until after Iceland’s conversion: together
with the final account of their pilgrimages and deaths, this neatly draws the
curtain on the section of the saga dealing with missions (ÍF XV:37-38;
compare ÓlTm I:298-301, II:305 and see Björn M. Ólsen 1893: 328-330).
Alongside this large-scale observation of chronology in Kristni saga, there
are a number of small chronological adjustments relating to the order of
events within individual missions. Although there is no real consensus of
opinion as to which is the more original, the narrative in Kristni saga is
generally agreed to be more seamless and natural than that of Óláfs saga
Tryggvasonar en mesta, and it seems likely this is at least partly due to the
historical bent of the compiler.6 Stefnir, for example, is in Óláfs saga
Tryggvasonar en mesta outlawed the same summer he arrives in Iceland, but
remains over the winter and does not leave until the following summer –
perhaps we are meant to understand his safety during that year of outlawry as
6 It is difficult to determine priority in such matters. Björn M. Ólsen (1893:330) argued that,
when Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar en mesta and Kristni saga disagreed, Kristni saga was ‘im-
proving’ on the lost original. Sveinbjörn Rafnsson (2001:102, 125) tends to judge Kristni
saga as more original, but for exactly the same reasons that Björn M. Ólsen does not: that the
narrative in Kristni saga is „e›lilegri“ (‘more natural’). Ólafur Halldórsson (ÍF XV:cc) notes
that the account of fiangbrandr’s mission is „sennilegri“ (‘more probable’) in Kristni saga,
but without drawing any conclusions as to originality — the compiler may simply have had
access to additional sources. For the purposes of the following analysis, what matters is the
distinctive approach shown by each text, rather than which is the more original.