Studia Islandica - 01.06.1956, Síða 20

18
saga not less than 22 show 60 or more syllables (aver-
age: 80 per period).
This means: the number of long sentences in Heið-
arv.s. is relatively twice as great as that in Dropl.s.s.;
the number of syllables per period is also greater, while
the total number of syllables exceeds that of the other
saga by 130%.
Fóstbr.s., 2698 lines in print, contains 70 periods of
50 or more syllables; this amounts to 26 in 1000 lines.
Gísla s., 1871 lines in print, contains 43 such periods:
23 in 1000 lines, average length 60 syll.; Hrafrikels s.,
925 lines in print, contains 20 such periods (4 other ones
amount to 49 syllables): nearly 22 in 1000 lines.
Reykdœla saga ch. 17-30, amounts to 1270 lines in
print, contains 61 such periods: 48 in 1000 lines (average
length 671/2 syll.).
The long sentences form 27% of the total length of
the Skútu saga. This saga tends to avoid direct speech;
instead its author prefers indirect speech. Not less than
fifteen of the long periods are introduced with the for-
mula: svá er sagt.
In Víga-Glúms saga ch. 1-12 and 17-28 we find 50
periods of 50 or more syllables, the total number of
which is 2918, which comes to an average of 58 per
period.
The chapters 13-16, which form one seventh of the
volume of the saga, show a predilection in the opposite
direction: a striking number of very brief sentences in
ch. 16, eleven of which are not linked with the foregoing
by a conjunction. As may be observed in other sagas as
well this asyndeton is extremely apt to denote quickly
moving action. Nowhere else in V.-GI.S. a succession of
such rapid movements is described with an equally con-
vincing force.