Gripla - 20.12.2016, Qupperneq 94

GRIPLA94
hreðu eru til tvær sögur, önnur í heilu lagi, hin brot ein. Að efni og orðfæri
eru sögur þessar mjög frábrugðnar hvor annarr … Tengls milli sagnanna eru
harla veik … En tvær ólíkar sögur um sömu persónu get verið girnilegar
til fróðleiks um vinnubrögð höfunda þeirra” [‘there are two sagas about
Þórður hreða, one complete and one fragmentary. In content and style,
they are very different from one another ... and the relationship between
the sagas is quite weak ... but two different sagas about the same person
can give much insight as to authorial style’]. the structural and plot dis-
tinctions between the Complete and fragmentary (brot) versions will be
further discussed below, as will how generic conventions may be useful in
understanding why these two separate traditions developed.
It is the Complete version, though, that is far more widely attested and
was apparently more popular.6 So a short summary of the Complete ver-
sion is hereby offered. the saga begins in norway, where a man named
Þórður, with three promising sons, dies; shortly thereafter his wife gives
birth to a fourth son, who is named Þórður after his father. When the
oldest brother is cuckolded by Sigurður slefa Gunnhildarson, the brothers
redress the dishonor by attacking and killing him; the oldest brother dies
in the attack, but the others escape to Iceland. arriving in Miðfjörður, they
receive a cool reception from the chieftain of the area, Skeggi. Matters do
not improve even when Þórður saves Skeggi’s son Eiður from drowning;
instead Skeggi sees it as a slight when his son decides to move in with
Þórður and leaves his foster family. an opportunity for reconciliation
arises when Skeggi’s nephew Ásbjörn arrives from norway, catches sight
of Þórður’s sister Sigríður, and is smitten. Ásbjörn asks Skeggi to make
a marriage proposal to Sigríður on his behalf, and Þórður agrees to the
marriage on her behalf. But when Ásbjörn leaves on a trading expedition,
his brother, ormur, arrives in Iceland and also falls in love with Sigríður.
a feud becomes inevitable once ormur seduces Sigríður: Þórður catches
and kills Ormur.
the saga then recounts the efforts of various figures connected to
ormur to avenge his death, none of which involve formal legal proceed-
6 Hans Kuhn in “Þórðr hreða” notes that the rímur were likely based on the aM 471 4to
manuscript of the Complete saga, which is less wordy than the version used by the Íslenzk
fornrit editors (aM 551 d β 4to). aM 471 4to is also the manuscript upon which the Svart
á hvítu edition was based.