Studia Islandica - 01.07.1966, Blaðsíða 49

47
Homer’s Iliad.* 1 The boasting episode in Le Voyage de Char-
lemagne presumably represents Frankish (i.e. Germanic)
tradition, although Celtic influence may also have contri-
buted.2 3 The verb gaber or gabber (“to gab or boast”) used
in the poem appears to be a loan-word from a Germanic
language, cognate with Old Norse gabba.
The custom appears frequently in the Icelandic sagas,
where it becomes a standard literary motive. There are three
kinds of entertainment which are similar in many ways.
One was called heitstrenging: this was the making of a
solemn vow to do some particular deed or to follow some
particular course of action. Often there is a ritual attached
to this practice, and originally it may have had (heathen)
religious significance. It is sometimes connected with the
bragafull or bragarfull (chieftain’s toast), which may ori-
ginally have been a libation. It could therefore he compared
with the Christian habit of swearing by the mass. The ritual
is described in some detail in Ynglinga saga.3 Another
example is in the story of Ragnarr Loðbrók, where the father
of Þóra vowed at the bragarfull that he would only give his
daughter’s hand to the man who slew the serpent that
guarded her bower.4 The braga(r)full is also mentioned in
the version of the vows of the Jomsvikings in Fagrskinna,
while in the Heimskringla version this originally heathen
practice has been Christianised, and the term braga(r)full is
replaced by the more Christian word minni.5
XLIX (1934), pp. 975—993; Kr. Nyrop, “En middelalderlig skik,” Nor-
disk Tidskrift for Vetenskap, Konst och Industri, N. F. II (1889), pp.
312—332.
1 See Levin L. Schiicking, Heldenstolz und Wiirde im Angelsá-
chsischen, Abh. der Phil.-Hist. Klasse der Sáchsischen Akad. der Wissen-
schaften XLII no. V (Leipzig 1933), p. 5.
2 Cf. Laura Hibbard Loomis and Tom Peete Cross, “Observations
on the Pélerinage Charlemagne,” Modern Philology 25 (1927—28), pp.
331—354.
3 ÍF XXVI 66.
4 Þáttr af Ragnars sonum, Fas I 345—346.
5 Fagrskinna, ed. Finnur Jónsson (Kebenhavn 1902—03), p. 85; IF