Studia Islandica - 01.07.1966, Blaðsíða 69

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portray him as a saint and martyr, than like Snorri’s, where
other sides of his character are more strongly stressed.
It is therefore probable that RauSúlfs þáttr was intended
to be a chapter in, or perhaps an appendix to, Styrmir’s saga
of St Óláfr, and may even have been written by Styrmir,
or at least the surviving version may have been made by
him. Styrmir’s saga was one of Snorri’s chief sources for his
Óláfs saga, and it would then have been in this saga that he
found the story of Rauðúlfr. Later redactors of Snorri’s saga
interpolated into it a great deal of the material from Styrm-
ir’s saga that he had omitted, and it was probably from the
same place that the complete version of Rauðúlfs þáttr was
taken to replace Snorri’s shortened version in some redac-
tions. Several versions of Styrmir’s saga seem to have existed
in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries,1 and it
could have been in the copying of these that the variants in
the different texts of RauSúlfs þáttr grew up. The fact that
RauSúlfs þáttr is found in some manuscripts of Óláfs saga
that otherwise have no interpolations from Styrmir’s saga
does not necessarily speak against this conclusion: there is
no reason why an interpolator should not select one þáttr
from a saga, and RauSúlfs þáttr may also have circulated
independently of Styrmir’s saga.2
The history of several of the other works used by Snorri
as sources for his historical writings is very similar. He se-
lected material from many sagas such as Orkneyinga saga,
Fœreyinga saga, and Jómsvíkinga saga for his Óláfs saga
helga and Heimskringla. Later redactors of Snorri’s works
interpolated into them the parts of his sources that he had
omitted, making composite or conflated texts, which inci-
dentally spoiled the artistic unity and construction both of
Snorri’s works and his sources, but by this means saving
many a work which might otherwise have been completely
1 See ÖH 1128—29.
2 Sigurður Nordal, Om Olav den helliges saga, pp. 86—87, thought
it unlikely that RauSúlfs þáttr was ever part of Styrmir’s saga.