Studia Islandica - 01.06.1956, Page 27

25
Consideration of these facts naturally should have
lead to the assumption of a text which held a position
of its own; this is aptly called the Skútu-páttr. It will
have been incorporated, directly or indirectly from its
source, by both sagas.
•1. In addition to the stylistic features mentioned in sec-
tion 1 should be taken into account the rhythmic-syn-
tactic features, tabulated in Part I. We then arrive at
the following survey:
a. In V.Gl. it is not only ch. 16 which is conspicuous
by a strikingly low average of the length of its
periods and phrases. The same applies in a still
more outstanding way to ch. 13-15. These three
chapters show an almost abnormal brevity in this
respect as compared with the rest of the saga.
R. ch. 26 differs from the rest of that saga, in-
cluding ch. 23-25, in the same way, although periods
as well as phrases are somewhat longer than in ch.
16 of V.Gl.
b. Preference for parataxis over hypotaxis in the epic
narrative is 45 :25 in ch. 16 of V.Gl.; in ch. 13-15
it is 50 :22. In the rest of the saga the figures are
almost equal: 485 : 492.
The only exception is ch. 27 (50 :14), for which
cf. section 21.
In R. ch. 26 the figures are 48 : 45, in the rest of
the saga 400 : 354.
This feature therefore is not characteristic for
ch. 26.
c. Preference for the historic present tense, mentioned
in section 1 for ch. 16 of V. Gl., is almost the same
in ch. 13-15.