Studia Islandica - 01.06.1956, Page 47

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R. Nú gengr Skúta at sélsdurunum ok lcmst á vegginn
ok víkr síðan iijá sélinu aftr. Glúmr gékk þá út, ók
hafði ekki í hendinni, ok sér nú eigi manninn. Hann
snýr þá hjá sélinu ... Nú víkr Skúta milli hans ok
duranna.
M and R. both relate a logical sequence of events. Skúta
knocks at the wall and takes up a position near the
shed. Glúmr goes out without a weapon, looks round
but sees nobody. After that he retums to the shed.
Skúta takes his chance and comes between him and
the door.
V’s story is sorely mutilated. The crucial point: that
Glúmr sees nobody, is missing. Of course Glúmr did
not just open the door to have a look, he went some
distance to explore, which gave Skúta a chance to
intercept him. V took sér of M R. as a pronoun after
hefir ekki í hendi, and so was left without the most
important verb. He then must have puzzled about
the situation: Glúmr in any case should not have seen
Skúta and must have gone at least some distance.
So V inserted twice oðrum megin: each of the two men
goes to one side of the shed. After having found his
preliminary solution he went on and gave Skúta his
chance: to post himself in the doorway, because
there was really not time enough to intercept Glúmr.
All this is too good to be true; V has made a real
bungle of it all: he missed the crucial point, then
added two synonymous adverbial phrases and de-
leted the most important hans.
It’s just because of the consistency with which V went
to work, thereby reaching a solution which, for a quick
reader, is not too improbable and which in any case may
be swallowed by anyone interested in the quickly moving
story, that his carefully designed plan is revealed.
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