Gripla - 2020, Page 99

GRIPLA98
Fóstbrœðra saga’s indebtedness to kings’ sagas, its manuscript transmission
and connection to Grettis saga, and its learned and hagiographic tendencies
may suggest that it was first written at Þingeyrar – but this can be no more
than an educated guess. The saga’s point of origin in northwestern Iceland
may be regarded as certain, however.
Preceding Traditions and Models
We can follow the development of skaldic prosimetra in some detail, which
evolved from quoting very little poetry to quoting substantial amounts in
the decades around 1200.98 There are also indications that the lore about
the deeds of early Icelanders gradually accumulated a degree of canonic-
ity during the twelfth century, but not in a prosimetrical setting. With
regard to Landnámabók, the part of the text that was originally written by
Kolskeggr, sometime before c. 1130, often displays a particularly compact
style: X took land in Y, his son was Z.99 It is also likely that Ari fróði
composed some version or part of Landnámabók, around the same time
or slightly later. A reference to Teitr as a source to Ketilbjǫrn Ketilsson’s
taking of land in Haukdœla þáttr in all likelihood goes back to Ari, since it
refers to Teitr as informant, which is typical of Ari.100 It seems likely that
the text by Ari in this instance was a version of (a part of?) Landnámabók,
but it cannot be ruled out that we are dealing with the first, lost version
of Ari fróði’s Íslendingabók, which contained genealogies.101 Either way,
we know Ari’s style through Íslendingabók, and while we may here see the
signs of a degree of canonisation of some prominent Icelandic people and
events, the information is meagre and annalistic in comparison to later sa-
gas. Except for one couplet, it is composed in prose only, and this is likely
to have been the case with Kolskeggr’s Landnámabók as well.
When searching the twelfth century for lore that would evolve into
sagas of Icelanders, more promising sources are Haukr Valdísarson’s
Íslendingadrápa and the inscription from c. 1150 in Maeshowe, Orkney,
mentioning the axe of Gaukr Trandilsson: ‘Þessar rúnar reist sá maðr, er
98 See Males, the Poetic Genesis, 195–200.
99 Íslendingabók. Landnámabók, ed. Jakob Benediktsson, cvii.
100 Íslendingabók. Landnámabók, ed. Jakob Benediktsson, cxii.
101 Íslendingabók. Landnámabók, ed. Jakob Benediktsson, viii–x, cxv.