Gripla - 2020, Blaðsíða 269

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and similar difficulties for modern scholars, the uncertainty surrounding
the saga’s medieval “authenticity” and the indeterminable nature of the text
have likely contributed to a general lack of scholarly interest in Þorsteins
saga.4
The saga’s brevity and relatively simplistic or perhaps unbalanced plot
might also factor into this. Of its artistic merits, Jón Jóhannesson, for
example, was rather dismissive, writing that “Eigi þarf margt að ræða um
Þorsteins sögu sem listaverk. Samsetningunni er mjög ábótavant … samtöl
og tilsvör flest fremur dauf, persónurnar óbrotnar og sviplitlar” [There
is little to discuss of Þorsteins saga as a work of art. The composition is
very wanting … the dialogue is mostly rather dull, the characters simplistic
and feeble]. He concludes that it is “furðulegt, hve lítið höfundinum hefir
þar orðið úr tilvöldu söguefni” [amazing how little the author has made of
this very suitable story material].5 Yet, Þorsteins saga has typically avoided
the pejorative “postclassical” label applied to certain of the sagas, perhaps
on account of its “realism” and the absence of paranormal elements in
the text.6 Others, such as Gwyn Jones, have been more complimentary
of Þorsteins saga, suggesting that there is “much beauty in the story” and,
4 What little attention it has attracted is often centred on how aspects of the narrative
coincide with or differ from certain aspects of either vápnfirðinga saga or the parts of
Landnámabók with which it seems to share some intertextual relationship; see Sigríður
Baldursdóttir, “Hugmyndaheimur Vopnfirðinga sögu,” 70–79; Gísli Sigurðsson, the
Medieval Icelandic saga and Oral tradition, 139–42; Guðfinna Kristjánsdóttir, Frá Bjólan
til Bjólfs: Mannanöfn í sögum tengdum Austfirðingafjórðungi (MA diss., University of Iceland,
2009); Jakob Benediktsson (ed.), Íslendingabók, Landnámabók, íslenzk fornrit I (Reykjavík:
Hið íslenzka fornritafélag, 1968), 289, 290–91, 334, 336, 396–97. The saga has sometimes
also been referenced, often briefly, in discussions of bloodfeuds, conflict resolution, and
the law in early Icelandic society; see, for example, William Ian Miller, Bloodtaking and
Peacemaking: Feud, Law, and society in saga Iceland (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1990), 234, 369n22; Merrill Kaplan, “Once More on the Mistletoe,” news from Other
Worlds: studies in nordic Folklore, Mythology and Culture in Honor of john F. Lindow, ed.
by Merrill Kaplan and Timothy R. Tangherlini (Berkeley: North Pinehurst Press, 2012),
46, 58; see also Theodore M. Andersson, the Icelandic Family saga: An Analytical Reading
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1967), 23–24, 272–73.
5 Jón Jóhannesson, “Formáli,” xi; see also Grímur M. Helgason and Vésteinn ólason,
“Formáli,” viii. All translations are my own unless otherwise indicated.
6 On the ideological construction of the classical and postclassical categories, see Ármann
Jakobsson and Yoav Tirosh, “The ‘Decline of Realism’ and Inefficacious Old Norse
Literary Genres and Sub-Genres,” scandia 3 (2020): 102–38.