Studia Islandica - 01.07.1963, Page 100

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contact which could explain this fact. Bearing in mind the circum-
stances presented above, the conclusion seems almost inevitable that
these two sagas have the same author, and that this author is Ölafr
Þórðarson hvítaskáld.
By the way, if this result is accepted, Finnur Jónsson’s conjecture
that Ölafr may have written Fagrskinna obviously has to be refuted.
With its frequency quotient of 1.1 this manuscript shows very little
affinity to Laxdœla and Knýtlinga, less than most of the others in
the control material.
In Þorgils saga skarSa the author reports a few weighty words by
Ölafr Þórðarson, on that occasion the Lawman of Iceland, in a meet-
ing at Höfðahólar 1252. Now one has, of course, to be very sceptical
as to such alleged authentic replies in the sagas. But in this particular
case, the author seems to have been in an unusually good position for
reporting correctly. On very plausible grounds, the author of Þorgils
saga skarSa is held to be a certain Þórðr Hítnesingr, married to the
saga hero’s sister. Þorgils, in his tum, was a nephew of Ölafr Þórðar-
son, since he was a son of the latter’s halfbrother Böðvarr. Now Þórðr,
who was a faithful supporter of his young brother-in-law, himself
played an active part at the Höfðahólar meeting, which was very im-
portant for Þorgils’ career. He must have listened with eager interest
to Ölafr Þórðarson’s authoritative words. With this background it be-
comes a highly interesting fact that the few lines reporting Ólafr’s
reply contain no less than three different words characteristic of Lax-
dœla: sœmiligr ‘honourable, stately’, tiginn ‘high-bom’, vili ‘will’.
That is a unique frequency in this saga, which does not otherwise use
the “LardíEZn-words” very often; the frequency quotient for the first
20000 words turned out to be 1.2. A mere chance, perhaps. But if so
a very odd chance indeed. It seems a more reasonable explanation
that Ólafr Þórðarson was in fact the author of Laxdœla, and that
Þórðr Hítnesingr had remembered not only what the Lawman said
but also how he said it at the Höfðahólar meeting.
4. The frequency of the saying verb svara. (Pp. 46—51). Ice-
landic sagas sometimes use the verb svara before oratio recta in a
somewhat wider sense than is the case in modern Swedish, for exam-
ple, not necessarily in reply to a question, but in the sense ‘say’ or
‘utter’ in general. The chapter discusses the varying frequency of
svara as a saying verb, a task which brings with it a special problem,
as the abbreviation s. — common in the manuscripts — may in some
cases denote either segja or svara.
On p. 47 there are comparative lists of the frequency of svara in
Laxdæla and Knýtlinga, on the one hand, and in the original seven