Gripla - 2020, Page 41

GRIPLA40
———. “Trolling Guðmundr: Paranormal Defamation in Ljósvetninga saga.” Para-
normal Encounters in Iceland 1150–1400. Edited by Ármann Jakobsson and
Miriam Mayburd. The Northern Medieval World: On the Margins of Europe.
Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 2020, 395–420.
Örnólfur Thorsson. “Orð af orði: hefð og nýmæli í Grettlu.” Doctoral thesis,
University of Iceland, 1994.
A B S T R A C T
Keywords: Ljósvetninga saga, íslendingasögur, stylometry, philology
Ljósvetninga saga is preserved in two primary versions, the A-redaction and
C-redaction. These two redactions feature parallel (though not identical) sections
as well as a section (chapters 13–18) which is entirely divergent. Scholars and
editors have long disagreed over the question of which version of the saga is more
internally consistent. Two stylistic studies by Adolfine Erichsen in 1919 and
Hallvard Magerøy in 1956 arrived at opposite conclusions: the former pre ferring
the stylistic coherence of the C-redaction and the latter preferring the A-redaction.
The conclusions of these scholars reflected opposing stances on the Freeprose-
Bookprose origin of the Íslendingasögur. Proponents of the Freeprose school
including Knut Liestøl leveraged Erichsen’s stylistic investigation to argue that
the divergent section in A-redaction should be considered a genuine oral variant,
whereas proponents of the Bookprose school (including the editor of the saga’s
Íslenzk fornrit edition, Björn Sigfússon) criticized the oral understanding and
instead framed the divergent C-redaction section as a historical novelization of
what was originally the A-redaction. The development of stylometry in recent
years has provided us with a statistically-robust set of methods to interrogate the
style of texts. In this article, the authors revisit the debate and present stylometric
evidence to support Erichsen’s conclusion and reject Magerøy’s: the divergent
section of the C-redaction has more in common with the parallel chapters and
the A-redaction is likely an independent version of the text retold, possibly with
recourse to oral tradition.
Á G R I P
Lykilorð: Ljósvetninga saga, íslendingasögur, stílmælingar, textafræði
Ljósvetninga saga er varðveitt í tveimur gerðum, A-gerð og C-gerð. Að mestu leyti
er textinn í köflum 1–4 og 19–21 í báðum gerðum hinn sami, en í köflum 13–18
eru textarnir mjög ólíkir. Fræðimenn og útgefendur hafa lengi verið ósammála
um þetta gerðarmál og þá sérstaklega um spurninguna hvort A-gerð eða C-gerð
sé samkvæmari sjálfri sér. Stílfræðingarnir Adolfine Erichsen (í 1919) og Hallvard
Magerøy (í 1956) komust að andstæðum niðurstöðum: Erichsen taldi að C-gerð