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kings’ sagas (they contain the remains of seven stanzas and the first line
of a drápa).44 This is further confirmed by the somewhat later Legendary
saga (c. 1225, manuscript c. 1225–1250): the often exact correspondence
in wording shows that the Legendary saga is an abbreviated witness to the
same redaction as the fragments of the Oldest saga.45 This makes the Oldest
saga, together with Orkneyinga saga, the first witness to the rich prosi-
metrical form that would have such a great future in the thirteenth century.
This is a noteworthy innovation, and given the early date of Fóstbrœðra
saga indicated by Heimskringla’s use of it, it is one that the Oldest saga
shares with Fóstbrœðra saga. (Orkneyinga saga treats a completely different
topic and is likely younger that the Oldest saga, so it is of limited relevance
here.) It seems unlikely that two texts, treating the same people and events
and quoting the same poetry, would independently innovate in this regard.
I would therefore contend that the author of Fóstbrœðra saga was indeed
familiar with the Oldest saga. But how, then, should the stark differences
be explained?
The lack of overlap seems to rule out that the author of Fóstbrœðra
saga actively consulted the Oldest saga in the process of writing. He may
have read it at some earlier time, or heard it read. He must have read con-
siderable portions of it in order to decide to emulate its rich prosimetrical
style, which only becomes evident after some reading. Unlike Andersson,
however, I am not convinced that the matching order of the final stanzas
is due to a written exemplar, since the evidence for such collections is
tenuous.46
44 Otte bruddstykker av den ældste saga om Olav den Hellige, ed. by Gustav Storm (Christiania:
Det norske historiske kildeskriftsfond, 1893), pp. 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10. Dating according to OnP
Registre, p. 351. Note that fragments seven and eight of Storm’s edition have since been
shown to belong to another text (see Theodore Andersson, ‘Kings’ Sagas (Konungasögur)’,
Old norse-Icelandic Literature. A Critical Guide, ed. by Carol J. Clover and John Lindow,
2nd ed. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005), 212–13 and references there). The
form of other historiographical texts that have since been lost cannot be reconstructed with
a sufficient degree of certainty (see Andersson, ‘Kings’ Sagas’, 214–15 and references there).
45 Theodore Andersson, the Growth of the Medieval Icelandic sagas (1180–1280) (Ithaca:
Cornell University Press, 2006), 46–47.
46 Suspensions – that is, that only the first letters of the words of a poetic line or lines
are given – in the U manuscript of Snorri’s Edda suggest that Snorri used one or more
com pilations of continuous poems when compiling Gylfaginning and skáldskaparmál
(Lasse Mårtensson and Heimir Pálsson, ‘Anmärkningsvärda suspensioner i DG 11 4to
(Codex Upsaliensis av snorra Edda) – spåren av en skriven förlaga?’, scripta Islandica 57
Fó STBRœÐ RA SAGA: A MISSING LINK?