Gripla - 01.01.2003, Qupperneq 73

INTERPRETATION OR OVER-INTERPRETATION
71
Bjami reads the Bjarnar saga author’s taste for nai've exaggeration of his
hero’s merits as evidence of literary influence according to an inflationary
principle. He instances the similarities between Bjgm’s heroic last stand and
that of Kjartan in Laxdœla saga. Each hero is wamed by an ominous dream,
carries a useless sword, and fights near a large stone; but Bjarnar saga exag-
gerates the situation, since Kjartan is ambushed by nine men, Bjpm by
twenty-four. Bjgm also improves on his supposed model by defending himself
only with shears (Bjami Guðnason 1994,74). This argument is inconclusive;
an equal or stronger explanation, if literary influence is to be detected, could
be that the more adept narrator of Laxdœla saga refined the excessive zeal of
the earlier Bjarnar saga. Or indeed the author may have had quite different
reasons, not involving a literary relationship, for the element of exaggeration.11
Bjami argues more specifically that Kjartan’s loss of the valuable sword
bestowed on him by King Óláfr Tryggvason, and use of an inferior weapon in
his last fight, was the inspiration for the account, in the parallel scene in
Bjarnar saga, of the hero’s weaponless state, having exchanged his weapons
for those of his insignifícant cousin Þorfmnr Þvarason. The fact that Kjartan
has been deprived of his own weapon by his enemies, whereas Bjqm gives his
up voluntarily, is claimed by Bjami as sounder motivation, and therefore
evidence that the primary version is that of Laxdœla saga (Bjami Guðnason
1994, 76-77). The incident is indeed rather awkwardly introduced in Bjarnar
saga by a multiplicity of explanations for Bjgm’s inability to use his own
prestigious sword Mæringr — which is parallel to Kjartan’s weapon in being,
according to the account of Óláfs saga helga, the gift of a missionary king.12
The saga says that BjQm has exchanged swords with his cousin (Borgfirðinga
SQgur, 192): ‘Áþví hausti fór Þorfinnr Þvarason út á Nes til fqður síns ... ok
hafði hann sverð Bjamar, Mæring, en Bjqrn hafði vápn hans’ [That autumn
Þorfinnr Þvarason went out to Nes to visit his father ... and he had Bjqrn’s
sword Mæring, and Bjgm had his weapons], and a few lines later that Bjqrn’s
father has borrowed his weapons: ‘Amgeirr karl fór heiman ok ætlaði í
11 In a paper delivered at the Twelfth Intemational Saga Conference (Bonn, 2003) I argued that
the saga’s heightened treatment of this scene may derive from an attempt to emphasize the
hero’s association with St Óláfr by introducing echoes of the king’s martyrdom in battle at
Stiklarstaðir.
12 ‘Olafr konungr gaf Bimi suerð gott er hann kallaði Mæringh’ (Saga Óláfs konungs hins helga
1930-41, II 766). According to Bjarnar saga, Bjpm won the sword in a duel with the kappi
Kaldimarr in Garðaríki (Borgfirðinga SQgur, 122).