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saga. We have also seen that anatomical lore and digressions are found in
conjunction in Theodoricus’s history of the Norwegian kings and noted
some stylistic affinities with sverris saga – both early texts. In a period
close to the composition of these texts, it would make sense to draw on
similar rhetorical resources in the composition of local narrative for which
no clear conventions as yet existed. Breaking with these conventions once
they were established would be more surprising, but perhaps not incon-
ceivable: an unexpected scenario cannot be rejected out of hand. Additional
parameters would therefore be desirable, and here Fóstbrœðra saga’s treat-
ment of poetry becomes a valuable asset, since the diachronic development
of conventions for the treatment of poetry in other prosimetrical genres
(kings’ sagas and hagiography) can be charted in some detail and compared
to those of the sagas of Icelanders.
Poetry
I begin with the author’s choice regarding the use of authenticating versus
situational quotations.79 In the sagas, authenticating quotations are typi-
cally introduced with the words svá segir n. n (as N. N. says) or the like,
whereas situational quotations are typically introduced with words like þá
kvað n. n vísu (then N. N recited a stanza). Fóstbrœðra saga falls into two
parts in this regard: before Þórmóðr travels to Greenland, the author uses
authenticating quotations, with only two exceptions.80 After this point,
only situational quotations are used.
The bulk of the quotations in the first part belong to Þormóðr’s Þor-
79 See Alois Wolf, ‘Zur Rolle der vísur in der altnordischen Prosa’, Festschrift Leonhard C.
Frans zum 70. Geburtstag, ed. Osmund Menghin and Hermann M. Ölberg (Innsbruck:
Innsbrucker Gesellschaft zur Pflege der Geisteswissenschaften, 1965), 459–84; Bjarni
Einarsson, ‘On the Rôle of Verse in Saga-Literature’, Mediaeval scandinavia 7 (1974):
118–25; Diana Whaley, ‘Skalds and Situational Verses in Heimskringla’, snorri sturluson.
Kolloquium anläßlich der 750. Wiederkehr seines Todestages, ed. by Alois Wolf (Tübingen:
Gunter Narr Verlag, 1993), 252.
80 These are found in Fóstbrœðra saga, ed. Björn K. Þórólfsson, 58, 75. With regard to the
authenticity of the stanzas, both Þorgeirsdrápa and the stanzas connected to king óláfr
in the end of the saga contain hiatus and other early forms. The stanzas from Greenland,
however, do not, and some doubt may accrue to these. See Vestfirðinga sǫgur, ed. Björn K.
Þórólfsson and Guðni Jónsson, lix. There is one exception: the stanza where Þormóðr
reports his revenge has aðalhending in ǫ: a (‘gjǫrt’: ‘svartan’). See Jónas Kristjánsson, Um
‘Fóstbræðrasögu’, 118; Fóstbrœðra saga, ed. Björn K. Þórólfsson, 166.
Fó STBRœÐ RA SAGA: A MISSING LINK?