Gripla - 2020, Page 82

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Here, the long version picks up on the word hugr (courage) in the stanza,
a technique that is common in the sagas and that is sometimes used in
Fóstbrœðra saga itself (thus, for instance, the word ǫrvendr [left-handed]
in both versions).40 This suggests that the long version is primary, and
that ‘hug’ has been changed to ‘hǫgg’ in accordance with the more concrete
stylistics of Haukr.
These two instances – the description of Þorgeirr’s heart and the vari-
ants hug/hǫgg – are the clearest indications that the long version is primary.
In other instances, the changes could have gone either way, but a number
of factors – above all Haukr’s tendency to abbreviate – suggest abbrevia-
tion as the most likely explanation. This collected evidence is, I believe,
sufficient to conclude that most of the digressions are original to the saga,
but that the last five have probably been added under the stylistic impact of
previous digressions. This means that the earliest reconstructable version
of Fóstbrœðra saga displays stylistic features that are strongly at odds with
the style of other sagas of Icelanders.
Date of the Saga
The next question is when this stylistically anomalous saga was composed.
Jónas Kristjánsson argued that the saga should be dated to the late thir-
teenth century against the scholarly consensus of an early date, and his
view was subsequently embraced in Íslensk bókmenntasaga.41 Some of his
arguments have been countered convincingly by Theodore Andersson.
Jónas assumes that the author of Fóstbrœðra saga draws on the Oldest
saga of óláfr Haraldsson, the Legendary saga and ‘Styrmir’s book’. These
texts all treat the life of óláfr Haraldsson and were probably composed in
that order. They all predate Heimskringla. As Andersson notes, this would
be a peculiar set of sources in the late thirteenth century, since the manu-
script record suggests that Heimskringla and the separate saga were enor-
mously successful once they were composed in the 1220s–1230s, whereas
we only have six fragments of the Oldest saga, one Norwegian manuscript
of the Legendary saga and excerpts of ‘Styrmir’s book’ in Flateyjarbók.
Furthermore, it seems unlikely that an author would collate many king’s
sagas only in order to produce a saga of local interest.
40 Fóstbrœðra saga, ed. Björn K. Þórólfsson, 164.
41 See above n. 3.
Fó STBRœÐ RA SAGA: A MISSING LINK?