Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.12.1957, Page 306

Summary in English
(References to the text relate to the 1956 edition)
INTRODUCTORY
The point of departure for this study is the controversy concerning the
origin of “the Icelanders’ sagas” (“the family sagas”). The faet that a
number of sagas have been handed down in more than one form has been
used as evidence for the argument that these sagas existed in a pre-literary
stage. These different forms have been explained as being transcriptions of
oral variants. In the author’s opinion, however, such a conclusion should
not be accepted until each case has been carefully examined to see whether
variant forms of this kind may not be due to some development on the
literary plane.
The Bandamanna Saga exists in two forms. Accordingly the author has
primarily set himself a double aim for his investigation: 1) to ascertain
whether both forms can be traced to a common literary original. And
2) to find out which of the two traditional forms in each part of the saga
is the more original. With this end in view he has made a minute logical
and aesthetic analysis of the entire saga in both its forms (in the first and
second main sections of his paper). As the result of his analysis shows that
what we have before us was originally a literary work, the author tries, in
the third main section, to trace the most important historical, literary and
folkloristic sources and patterns upon which the saga has been based.
THE MANUSCRIPTS
The principal representatives of the two forms of the saga are the
parchments AM 132 fol. (“MoSruvallabok”; in this paper called M),
dating from about 1340, and GI. kgl. saml. 2845, 4to (abbreviation K),
dating from about 1400 or the first part of the 15th century. From the
texts of the Bandamanna Saga in these two manuscripts derive, no doubt,
all other known texts of the saga, with the possible exception of a fragment
on a page of parchment (JS) of the fifteenth century, where the text is
of the same type as that in M.
EARLIER VIEWS OF THE TWO FORMS OF THE SAGA
Since the days of GuSbrandur Vigfusson most scholars have held that
the shorter form of the saga—type K—was the more original, despite the