Gripla - 2020, Qupperneq 97

GRIPLA96
sually ‘European’ rhetorical style, partly similar to that of Fóstbrœðra saga:
some speeches have a classical, rhetorical structure,87 synonymous word
pairs and unnecessary adjectives – both often alliterating – are used,88 and
the author makes frequent use of similes and opposites.89 As in the case of
Fóstbrœðra saga, the most flowery version of the text is clearly oldest, and
the saga was gradually redacted to conform to ‘classical’ style during the
fourteenth century.90 sverris saga appears mainly to have been composed
by abbot Karl Jónsson of Þingeyrar in the years 1185–1188 and somewhat
later. Fóstbrœðra saga is probably later than sverris saga, drawing on con-
ventions established for the kings’ sagas, but still so early that conventions
for how to compose sagas of Icelanders had not been set: around or after
1200 and before c. 1220 seems plausible, since Egils saga must probably
have been composed before Heimskringla, and Egils saga is fully developed
generically.91
Original Context
Many factors support the hypothesis that Fóstbrœðra saga is the earliest
preserved saga of Icelanders: no saga is more directly dependent on a
king’s saga; the rhetorical register is consistent with an early king’s saga
like sverris saga, but not with later ones; experiments with the use of po-
etry in prose are found in early sagas like sverris saga (moral quotation) and
Morkinskinna (descriptive quotation), but not in later ones; the authenti-
cating mode of quotation is much closer to kings’ sagas than what may be
found in any other saga of Icelanders.
Since Fóstbrœðra saga treats the West Fjords, a northwestern point of
origin seems likely, and the saga’s presence in F and M supports this. The
scribes of F drew on books from Þingeyrar when compiling the manu-
script, and while the precise point of origin of M is uncertain, it appears
to have been written in northern Iceland c. 1330–1370.92 This rough loca-
87 sverris saga, ed. Þorleifur Hauksson, lxix–lxx.
88 sverris saga, ed. Þorleifur Hauksson, lxxii–lxxiii.
89 sverris saga, ed. Þorleifur Hauksson, lxvii, lxxiii–lxxiv.
90 sverris saga, ed. Þorleifur Hauksson, xlvii–lii, lxxiv.
91 See Males, the Poetic Genesis, 235–36 and references there.
92 On F, see, for instance, Vestfirðinga sǫgur, ed. by Björn K. Þórólfsson and Guðni Jónsson,
lxxv; on M, see sagas of Icelandic Bishops. Early Icelandic Manuscripts in Facsimile VII, ed.
Stefán Karlsson (Copenhagen: Rosenkilde and Bagger, 1967), 28–29.