Gripla - 2020, Qupperneq 76

75
R: ok því at veðr var gott ok heitt þá gengu verkfákar fullir frá fóðri
hans hǫrunds á inar yztu ræfr sinna herbergja ok létu þar blika við
sínar síður.17
And because the weather was good and hot, then the workhorses
went, full from the fodder of his body, onto the roof of their lodg-
ings, and there they let their sides glimmer.
Using such strongly metaphorical language about lice is somewhat extreme
even among the digressions, and stylistically, the passage should clearly be
grouped with these. The variants are mostly inconsequential, except that
the article inar (f. pl.) shows that trefr (f. pl.) in F has been changed to ræfr
(n.), presumably to achieve a consistent metaphor (the roof, rather than the
fringes, of their lodgings), unless the scribe omitted the t by mistake.
This passage is missing in Hb, and it is noteworthy that Jansson does
not comment on this difference. On the contrary, he argues that the two
texts are strikingly similar, and that this is because the first secretary, not
Haukr himself, is now holding the pen. Jansson also does not comment on
four other digressions, all among the most noteworthy in the saga, which
are absent from the text of the first secretary. These relate to the position
of various emotions inside the body (F and R);18 the daughters of Stupidity
(F and R);19 the number of bones, teeth and veins in the human body (only
F);20 and the origin of Rome (F and R).21 The result is that only one of
Jansson’s two claims is true: the text of the first secretary is of roughly
equal length to that found in other manuscripts, but it is not true that the
lack of digressions is a feature of Haukr’s text only.22 Rather, it is a feature
of the Hb text in general.
The implications of Jansson’s omission are considerable, since other
scholars have not clearly shown why the digressions of the long ver-
sion cannot be expansions of the text in the short version, rather than
17 Jónas Kristjánsson, Um ‘Fóstbræðrasögu’, 70; Fóstbrœðra saga, ed. Björn K. Þórólfsson,
168–69.
18 Fóstbrœðra saga, ed. Björn K. Þórólfsson, 149; ‘Hauksbók’, ed. Finnur Jónsson, 390.
19 Fóstbrœðra saga, ed. Björn K. Þórólfsson, 155; ‘Hauksbók’, ed. Finnur Jónsson, 392.
20 Fóstbrœðra saga, ed. Björn K. Þórólfsson, 162; ‘Hauksbók’, ed. Finnur Jónsson, 395.
21 Fóstbrœðra saga, ed. Björn K. Þórólfsson, 201; ‘Hauksbók’, ed. Finnur Jónsson, 409.
22 For the first claim, see Jansson, Handskrifterna till Erik den rödes saga, 234, 255–59; for the
second, see 245–48.
Fó STBRœÐ RA SAGA: A MISSING LINK?