Studia Islandica - 01.06.1981, Page 132

SYNOPSIS
A close reading of Hrafnkels saga Freysgofia and Grettis saga Ás-
mundarsonar will show beyond doubt that they must have been
written by educated authors who were trained to thinh sententiously.
Not only do these and other Icelandic sagas include translations of
Latin words of wisdom, borrowed and adapted from various books
which were widely read in the Middle Ages, but the saga authors had
evidently mastered the art of making proverbs and precepts an organic
part of the literary creation. It follows, therefore, that a critical study
of the sagas is not so much concemed with a hypothetical oral tradi-
tion as with the total literary experience of leamed Icelanders in
medieval times. For an understanding of Hrafnkels saga it appears to
be more relevant to find out what books the author had read rather
than to speculate what the historical Hrafnkell may have done back
in the tenth century or what kind of rumour may have been circu-
lating about him in the thirteenth, when the saga was written.
The two sagas under consideration indicate their author’s familiarity
with the Sententiae of Publilius Syrus, the Distichs of Cato, and the
Alexandreis of Galterus de Castelhone, all of which served as school-
books in medieval times. Some of the memorable sentences in these
sagas derive from the Vulgate, while others are of classical origin. The
use of the apothegm “Immodicis brevis est ætas” in Hrafnkels saga,
where it serves an important thematic function, is of course no proof
that the author had read Martial’s Epigrams; here, as in certain other
cases, one assumes that a florilegium or some other kind of medieval
compilation may have provided the immediate model.
Considerating the exemplary nature of Hrafnkels saga and Grettis
saga, it is tempting to assume that their authors were influenced and
inspired by the fables of Æsop and Avianus. One of the purposes of
the sagas was to wam people against the errors of arrogance and in-
justice, of stupidity and excess; another, to inculcate upon the reader
the value of knowing oneself and enjoying the friendship of trust-
worthy men. The sagas present characters exemplifying certain human
strengths and weaknesses, but far from pointing a moral, the authors
leave it to the reader to draw his own inferences.