Gripla - 2020, Qupperneq 93

GRIPLA92
found only in F and R, and the last one quoted here is found only in F.
This digression thus has the weakest claim to having belonged to the ar-
chetype, even among the five. It can therefore at best be used to date itself,
and certainly not the saga.
Other features mentioned by Jónas, such as personification, the focus
on courage and the comparisons between Þorgeirr and a lion, are cer-
tainly reminiscent of what one may find in courtly literature. It should
be noted, however, that courage is a staple of eddic poetry, and the door
from Valþjófsstaðir (c. 1200) reminds us that knights and their lions were
known before courtly literature was translated. With regard to personifica-
tion, it may be true that the expression ‘dœtr Heimskunnar, þær Dul ok
Rangvirðing’ (the daughters of Stupidity, Conceit and Bad Judgement) is
unlikely to date to the beginning of the thirteenth century, but it belongs in
one of the digressions that are likely to have been added.76 With regard to
the lexicon, this is, I believe, no trustworthy guide. The words discussed by
Jónas generally have early attestations.77 Somewhat surprisingly, he does
not discuss the courtly hugprúðr (courageous), but this is a good example
of the problems involved. It is found in later hagiographical and courtly
literature, but hugprúðr once turns up in skáldskaparmál, and its presence
in R and C shows it to be archetypal.78 This, like other typically courtly
words, would thus have been available for someone who aimed for a par-
ticular style already at an early date.
In general, I consider the features discussed by Jónas to be marked
stylistic choices otherwise largely absent from sagas of Icelanders, much
like the ‘digressions’ where many of these features are found. The saga’s
stylistic isolation should be taken seriously and the question needs to be
addressed when an experiment of this kind could have been conducted, and
under what circumstances. I suggest that a plausible setting for influence
from established genres – such as hagiography, homiletic literature and
kings’ sagas – was at a time when there were as yet no clear generic con-
ventions for sagas of Icelanders. This hypothesis is supported by the sce-
nario outlined by Andersson, in which Heimskringla draws on Fóstbrœðra
76 Jónas Kristjánsson, Um ‘Fóstbræðrasögu’, 269–72; Einar ól. Sveinsson, Ritunartími íslen-
dingasagna, 154–55.
77 Jónas Kristjánsson, Um ‘Fóstbræðrasögu’, 285–91.
78 Edda snorra sturlusonar, ed. by Finnur Jónsson (København: Komissionen for det arnamag-
næanske legat, 1931), 140 (abbreviated to ‘h.’ in C, but clearly designating ‘hugprúði’).