Gripla - 01.01.2001, Blaðsíða 89

SAGAN HANDAN SÖGUNNAR
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SUMMARY
In this article I try to describe the art and intent of the unique narrative devices em-
ployed by some of the anonymous authors of the Icelandic sagas to arouse the interest
of their audience and activate their imagination, sometimes by telling as tme a story
that the audience, unassisted by the author, later on is supposed to discover as a fraud,
sometimes by leaving their audience with an unsolved mystery to ponder. Some
authors tell only of the deeds and fates of the characters, without any explanations and
virtually no indication of their thoughts or motivation, in this way abandoning their
audience to the wondrous art of storytelling and leaving it up to them to fmd their way.
By this narrative technique they encourage the audience to fill in the gaps, whether
singly or in collaboration with others, to solve the puzzles which the saga narrator lays
before them, to enter into the world of the saga and to ponder who is behind the work
and what is its intention, so that the saga, even when the reading is over, continues to
ferment in the minds of those who listened. I suspect that the use of this narrative
technique in written books is a legacy from oral tradition, that it is a means by which