Gripla - 2020, Síða 72

71
MIKAEL MALES
FóSTBRœÐRA SAGA: A MISSING LINK?
identifying the first saga of Icelanders is an inherently interesting
prospect, since it would be tantamount to identifying the moment at which
a genre in the making broke off from the established kings’ saga tradi-
tion – a development on which there is broad scholarly consensus.1 Like
a number of other scholars, Sigurður Nordal believed that Heiðarvíga saga
was the earliest saga of Icelanders, and that Fóstbrœðra saga also belonged
in the beginning of that genre.2 Today most scholars are more cautious,
and the assessment in Íslensk bókmenntasaga may be taken as representa-
tive. There, Vésteinn ólason attributes a date after – probably well after
– c. 1230 to both sagas, based on the scholarship of Bjarni Guðnason and
Jónas Kristjánsson. Vésteinn concludes that while there may be earlier
sagas of Icelanders, Egils saga is certainly early.3
Vésteinn’s view of Egils saga is not controversial, but his conclusion
leaves us without a clear conduit from kings’ sagas to sagas of Icelanders,
and the two older suggestions are therefore worth revisiting.4 With regard
to Heiðarvíga saga, Sigurður advocates for its position as the first saga of
Icelanders only with reference to its quality of being viðvaningsleg (begin-
ner-like).5 This is not a convincing argument on its own, but Einar ól.
Sveinsson has listed linguistic and orthographic archaisms that are retained
1 See, for instance, Íslensk bókmenntasaga 2, ed. by Vésteinn ólason, 2nd ed. (Reykjavík: Mál
og menning, 2006), 43.
2 Borgfirðinga sǫgur, ed. by Sigurður Nordal and Guðni Jónsson, íslenzk fornrit 6 (Reyjavík:
Hið íslenzka fornritafélag, 1943), cxxxvii–cxxxxix; Vestfirðinga sǫgur, ed. by Björn K.
Þórólfsson and Guðni Jónsson, íslenzk fornrit 3 (Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka fornritafélag,
1938), lxxi–lxxii.
3 Íslensk bókmenntasaga 2, ed. Vésteinn ólason, 43.
4 Jónas Kristjánsson believed Egils saga itself to be that conduit, but his own research on
Fóstbrœðra saga – to be dealt with below – forms a premise for his argument (Jónas
Kristjánsson, ‘Var Snorri Sturluson upphafsmaður íslendingasagna?’, snorrastefna 25.–27.
júlí 1990, ed. úlfar Bragason (Reykjavík: Stofnun Sigurðar Nordals, 1992), 99–112).
5 Borgfirðinga sǫgur, ed. Sigurður Nordal and Guðni Jónsson, cxxxvii–cxxxix.
Gripla XXXI (2020): 71–102