Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1959, Blaðsíða 17

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and the Histories of Glåfr Tryggvason, written in Latin7. In Norway, the
oldest surviving original works are three chronicles, Theodoricus Mona-
chus’ Historia de antiquitate regum Norwagiensium, the Historia Norwe-
giaes, and the so-called Ågrip-, only the latter is in Old Norse. Half-way
between religious and secular literature stands the VarnarræSa (a modern
name), the Oratio contra clerum Norvegiae9, a pamphlet written by a
partisan of King Sverrir and meant to be read aloud to the people10.
The language of Ari is plain and somewhat dry, without embellish-
ments; his book is a survey of Icelandic history, intended for instruction
rather than for pleasure. We find the same lack of stylistic embellishment
in the “First Saga”, and this is what we should expect, for the book is a
continuation of the tradition of Saints’ Lives11; it was to a certain extent
by accident that the Olåfs saga became the progenitor of the secular saga.
Eirikr Oddsson’s work is lost, although parts of it have been incorporated
in later sagas, and it is therefore difficult to judge, but it is quite clear
that he belongs to the same school as Ari, and since there is no trace of
a particularly florid style in those parts of the Morkinskinna and the
Heimskringla which we know to be based on the Hryggjarstykki, we are
probably justified in assuming that his style resembled that of the “First
Saga”12. I have tried to avoid the term “saga style” here, and the reason
is that the typical “saga style” of the thirteenth century, the language of
Egils saga, Vtga-Glums saga, etc. is a later refinement. In faet, one of the
oldest, if not the oldest, of the family sagas, FostbræSra saga13 was com-
posed by an author who was well versed in the rhetorical devices cherished
by many of his contemporaries in Western Europe, alliterative phrases,
’ I purposely disregard the Laws, which do not, properly speaking, come under
the heading Literature. The same applies to the philologically extremely interesting
“First Grammatical Treatise”.
8 Some scholars would put the Historia Nonne giae in the 13th century, vide the
survey of recent literature on this question in S. Beyschlag: Konungasogur, Copen-
hagen 1950 (Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana VIII) p. 115.
9 The name used by Arni Magnusson.
10 Ed. by Anne Holtsmark: En tale mot biskopene, Oslo 1931.
31 Vide G. Turville-Petre: Origins of Icelandic Literature, Oxford 1953, pp. 175—
76, 190.
12 Cp. Turville-Petre, op. cit. pp. 167-68.
13 On the relationship between the MSS groups of this saga, vide Sven B. F. Jans-
son: Sagorna om Vinland, Stockholm 1945, pp. 172-262, and SigurSur Nordal in
Nordisk Kultur VIII: B, Litteraturhistorie, Norge og Island, Stockh., Oslo, Copenh.
1953, pp. 237-39, and idem, in fslenzk Fornrit VI, introduction, pp. lxx-lxxvii.
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