Studia Islandica - 01.07.1966, Síða 58

56
business at public assemblies and meetings of the royal
household. The rank was a high one.* 1 According to Snorri
Sturluson Bjgrn was “a famous man, known to many by
sight and voice, and to everyone who had seen King Öláfr,
because Bjprn stood up at every assembly and announced at
every assembly the king’s business”.2 Bjprn is frequently
mentioned in the sagas of St Óláfr and was certainly a
historical person, although his father’s name is not recorded.
He is sometimes called Bjpm Digri (“the fat”) and he is
represented as one of the king’s most faithful followers, al-
though at one point his loyalty wavered.3 He fell at Stiklar-
staðir.
All the boasts in Raiiðúlfs þáttr, varied though they are,
are in great contrast to the extravagant boasts of Charle-
magne and his men, and epitomise the different outlooks of
the Icelandic sagas and the French romances. The author
of the þáttr has omitted all trace of the satire and exuberant
farce of his model and has made the whole story more
serious and down to earth. He has omitted the embarass-
ment of the boasters when they are called upon to carry out
their boasts: those that are tested (those of Rauðúlfr and
his sons) are successfully vindicated. He has also omitted
the spy who reports the boasts to the host in Le Voyage de
Charlemagne: indeed in Rauðúlfs þáttr the host takes part
in the boasting. But the ironical “asides” of King Hugue’s
spy, in which he drily comments on each of the boasts, may
be reflected in the comments of King Óláfr on the boasts in
the þáttr. But there is no vestige of the irony of the spy’s
remarks in the solemnly commendatory and encouraging
speeches of King Óláfr, which are in fact much more hke
the comments of King Sveinn on the oaths of the Jomsvik-
the reign of Magnús Hákonarson (1263—1280), but much of it was
probably based on older practice.
1 “Nest lendum monnum oc kanceler i hirð konongs ero stallarar at
ollum sœmdum” (HirSskrá, loc. cit.).
2 ÓH 129.
3 ÓH 509 ff.