Gripla - 2020, Blaðsíða 17

GRIPLA16
that the connections between the different parts of the saga are textual
rather than oral.33
The debate has been largely dormant until now.34 Nevertheless, our
modern understanding of the saga is heavily dependent upon the editions
produced while this debate was in full swing, as will now be explored.
On Ljósvetninga saga’s Editorial History
It is important to note how the scholarly editions of Ljósvetninga saga have
influenced the way that this saga has been received; at the end of the day,
the ways that these texts have been presented inform much of our think-
ing about them.35 The first edition of the saga from 1830 was edited by
Þorgeir Guðmundsson and Þorsteinn Helgason and stuck almost exclu-
sively to the post-medieval C-redaction manuscript AM 485 4to, to the
point of sometimes preferring its readings even when equally-viable ones
were available in the medieval 162.36 Furthermore, Þorgeir and Þorsteinn’s
then be good reason to make additions, or a new version.” Einar ól. Sveinsson, Dating
the Icelandic sagas, An Essay in Method, Viking Society for Northern Research Text Series
3 (London: Viking Society for Northern Research, 1958), 33. Liestøl, on the other hand,
points out that “A manuscript of a saga may have been used for reading aloud or as a sort of
prompt-book when reciting, and its contents may have become oral tradition again through
the medium of the hearers.” Origin of the Icelandic Family sagas, 43.
33 Law and Literature in Medieval Iceland: Ljósvetninga saga and valla-Ljóts saga, trans.
Theodore Murdock Andersson and William Ian Miller (Stanford, CA: Stanford University
Press, 1989), 70. Cecilia Borggreve offered an interesting reversal of the “older is better”
premise, proposing that the C-redaction is indeed the older of the two versions, with the
younger A-redaction introducing more structure and order into its retelling of the plot.
Cecilia Borggreve, “Der Handlungsaufbau in den zwei Versionen der Ljósvetninga saga,”
Arkiv for nordisk filologi 85 (1970): 238–246.
34 The most recent contribution to the debate is Yoav Tirosh “On the Receiving End”, though
there he emphasizes the narratological consistency and intrinsic value of both versions
rather than attempting to trace the compositional origins of the text.
35 See, for example, Ármann Jakobsson, “Sögurnar hans Guðna: Um “lýðveldisútgáfu” ís-
lendinga sagnanna, hugmyndafræði hennar og áhrif,” skírnir 192 (2018): 116. On the Icelandic
Alþingi’s reaction to Halldór Laxness’s mere intention of creating an edition of Brennu-
njáls saga, see Jón Karl Helgason, Hetjan og höfundurinn. Brot úr íslenskri menningarsögu
(Reykjavík: Heimskringla — háskólaforlag Máls og menningar, 1998), 135–168 as well as Jón
Karl Helgason, the Rewriting of njáls saga. translation, Ideology and Icelandic sagas, Topics
in Translation 16 (Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, 1999), 119–136.
36 Ljósvetnínga saga: Eptir gömlum hdr. útg. at tilhlutun hins konúngliga norræna fornfræða félags,
ed. Þorgeir Guðmundsson and Þorsteinn Helgason, Sérprent úr íslendinga sögum, 2