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exaggerated.98 I will now not undertake to demonstrate how obviously
much in these sagas is wrong and untrue, only I will say a little about
Ragnars saga, although no more than just a brief comment. It is indis-
putable that this saga makes one ragnar king of the Danes out of two
individuals, and attributes to this one the children and exploits of both of
them.99 In norway this saga is still complete for the most part in the com-
mon oral tradition100 which knows how to show and tell of Spangarheiði,
where a young woman by the name of otlaug101 recently lived and said
she bore the name of an impoverished young woman who had grown up
there and afterwards married a Danish king, for the name had persisted
in her family. there one can still see aatlaug Hoien (Áslaugar hæð), so
called, where it is said she had been when she sat over her sheep during
the day, and a short way away from there is a bay which still today is called
Gullvíkin, where the common people say that that harp was found which
Heimir had along on the journey when he was killed by Áki.102 A stream
98 this is the first of five such occasions where Halldór uses words derived from að ýkja (to
exaggerate) to refer to narratives or aspects of narratives that are in his opinion fantastic,
that is untrue. For an annotated translation of Áns saga bogsveigis see “Áns saga bogsveigis:
the Saga of Án Bow-Bender,” trans. Shaun f. D. Hughes, in Medieval Outlaws: Twelve
Tales in Modern English, ed. Thomas H. ohlgren, rev. ed. (West Lafayette: Parlor Press,
2005), 290–337 and further Shaun f. D. Hughes, “the Literary antecedents of Áns saga
bogsveigis,” Mediæval Scandinavia 9 (1976): 196–235. See also: “the Saga of an Bow-
Bender,” The Hrafnista Sagas, trans. Ben Waggoner (new Haven, Ct: troth Publications,
2012), 159–85, 216–20.
99 for a contemporary exposition of this thesis see the work of rory Mcturk, especially
Studies in Ragnars saga loðbrókar and its Major Scandinavian Analogues, Medium Ævum
Monographs 15 (oxford: Society for the Study of Mediæval Languages and Literature,
1991), 1–50. on the other hand, Elizabeth ashman rowe, Vikings in the West: The Legend of
Ragnarr Loðbrók and His Sons, Studia Medievalia Septentrionalia 18 (Vienna: fassbaender,
2012) argues for only a single figure, the historical reginheri, the Dane who led the attack
on Paris in 845 and who may have been called “loðbrók” [‘ragnar loðbrók on the other
hand is a fictional character’], 269–76.
100 “[Í] almuga munni.” Lit. “in the common mouth.”
101 Þormóður Torfason in Series dynastarum et regum Daniæ (Copenhagen: Joh. Melchior
Lieben, 1702), 35 gives the alternative “Otloug- vel Aatloug-.” See Jón Helgason, “Åtlaug
på Spangereid: oversigt over optegnelser af et norsk localsagn,” in Nordiske studier:
Festskrift til Chr. Westergaard-Nielsen, ed. Johannes Brøndum-Nielsen et al. (Copenhagen:
rosenkilde og Bagger, 1975), 79–89 at 84. See also frans-arne Stylegar, “Åslaug-Kråka fra
Spangereid og ragnar lodbrok: Lindesnesområdet som kulturell ‘melting pot’ i vikingtid
og tidlig middelalder,” in Jacobsen, Den nordiske histories fader, 128–61.
102 on Heimir’s harp and his killing by Áki see Ragnars saga, chapter 1: Vǫlsunga saga ok
Ragnars saga loðbrókar, ed. Magnus Olsen, Samfund til udgivelse af gammel nordisk
HALLDóR JAKOBSSON ON TRUTH AND FICTION