Gripla - 01.01.2003, Page 253

ANDMÆLARÆÐUR
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written saga, Gísli is able to reconstruct his “immanent saga” from informa-
tion in a large number of different saga texts. The fact that such a recon-
struction is possible appears to suggest that Þorkell Geitisson was a well-
known character in the oral tradition, even though no saga seems to have been
written about him specifically. In the case of Brodd-Helgi, on the other hand,
there are, as Gísli points out, close verbal parallels showing that the
presentation of him in Þorsteins saga hvíta was borrowed directly from Vápn-
firðinga saga, so in this case it is actually possible to prove rittengsl, but
Brodd-Helgi was also mentioned in passing in other sagas, where it seems
most reasonable to suppose that the information was, at least to some extent,
based on oral tradition.
I find Gísli’s conclusions about these men reasonable, and I also find his
conclusions plausible when he compares what different sagas have to say
about the same event, for example the Battle in Böðvarsdal, or the escape of
Gunnar Þiðrandabani from his enemies. Here again, Gísli tends to explain
most of the similarities between the accounts in different texts as a result of
several saga-writers using the same oral tradition. Nevertheless, he does in a
few cases — six in all, listed on p. 245 — admit that one written text may
have influenced or probably did influence another text through a literary
borrowing, rittengsl. He thus agrees with Jón Jóhannesson that there are some
similarities between Landnámabók and Brandkrossa þáttr, or Landnámabók
and Droplaugarsona saga, which should be explained as resulting from rit-
tengsl. On the whole, however, he rejects the large majority of Jón Jó-
hannesson’s theories about rittengsl as unfounded. One of his most interesting
conclusions is that the fairly late Fljótsdæla saga, unlike the earlier Eastfjord
sagas, does not presuppose as much knowledge in the audience about people
and events but makes things more explicit and explains things in more detail.
This would indicate that the oral tradition, which was still alive in the 13th
century, when the older sagas were written, had died out or diminished when
Fljótsdæla was being written.
One could probably quibble with Gísli about various minor points in his
detailed comparative investigation of the Eastfjord material, but on the whole
his conclusions are convincing, and my only important objection is that he
could have gone one step further and asked himself: When is it most likely
that a saga-writer will use written sources as basisfor his narrative and when
is it most likely that he will not? After having read Gísli’s chapters on the
Eastfjord sagas I am myself prepared to give a tentative and hypothetical but