Gripla - 20.12.2008, Page 92

GRIPLA90
of his opponent that when he was kept in a dungeon in Greece he lay “on
the tail of a snake unable to do a thing” (Flat I, 507, CSI V, 219).
Thus there are reasons to think that Þorsteins þáttr forvitna alluded to
a famous deed ascribed to king Haraldr and might have been intended to
authenticate the corresponding episode of his saga. Of course, we will
never know for certain but the very plot of the þáttr suggests that it could
fulfil the proposed function. Whereas the story of Haraldr’s fight with the
serpent was not regarded sufficiently trustworthy and required an ‘exter-
nal’ corroboration, the no less fantastic report of Þorsteinn’s adventure
contained its own ‘internal’ authentication. In fact, nothing could serve as
a better proof of an extraordinary event than the possibility of its exact re-
plication. Having, step by step, accomplished everything that Haraldr had
done to get the marvellous golden knife handles, the hero of the þáttr not
only successfully fulfilled a difficult task and regained the king’s friend-
ship. He also succeeded in turning a folktale into a ‘truthful’ story and
verified for the reader the reality of wonderful objects and of the famous
deeds of his predecessor, the king himself.
REFERENCES
Ármann Jakobsson. 1998. “King and Subject in Morkinskinna.” Skandinavistik
28(2): 101–17.
Ármann Jakobsson. 2002. Staður í nýjum heimi: Konungasagan Morkinskinna.
Reykjavík: Háskólaútgáfan.
Boberg, Inger M. 1966. Motif-Index of Early Icelandic Literature. Copenhagen:
Munksgaard.
CSI: The Complete Sagas of Icelanders. 5 vols. Ed. Viðar Hreinsson. Reykjavík:
Leifur Eiríksson, 1997.
Finnur Jónsson. 1923. Den Oldnorske og Oldislandske Literaturs Historie. 2. ed. Bd.
2. Copenhagen: Gads Forlag.
Flat: Flateyjarbók. En samling af norske konge-sagaer med indskudte mindre fortæll-
inger om begivenheder i og udenfor Norge samt annaler. 3 vols. Ed. Guðbrandur
Vigfússon and C. R. Unger. Oslo: Malling, 1860–1868.
Fsk: Fagrskinna. Nóregs konunga tal. Ed. Finnur Jónsson. Copenhagen: Møller,
1902–1903.
Gurevich, Elena. 2004. Drevneskandinavskaya novella: poetika “pr’adey ob isl-
andcakh” [Old Norse Novella: A Study of Genre in the Tales of Icelanders].
Moscow: Nauka.