Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1977, Blaðsíða 140

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major difference: According to the saga, Blund-Ketill was burned
in his home, but according to Islendingabok, it was his son Borkell;
therefore in Islendingabok the avenger, Hersteinn, is considered
to be the son of Borkell.
This is the only case where Islendingabok can be compared with
stories in the Icelandic Family sagas. While the Family sagas were
held in high esteem and Hænsa-Boris saga was considered very old,
scholars generally preferred to believe Hænsa-Boris saga rather than
Islendingabok. After Maurer published his work, however, opinion
veered round, and nowadays most revere Ari’s writings as more
reliable. For a long time people took it for granted that the diffe-
rence in the works came about because they had come from two
dif ferent oral traditions. In his introduction to Borgfirdinga sogur,
however, (IslenzJc fornrit III) Sigurbur Nordal tried to prove that
the author of Hænsa-Boris saga was in faet acquainted with Islend-
ingabok, but altered Ari’s narrative for various reasons and mostly
without the support of any oral tales. In his book which I mentioned
before, Theodore Andersson takes this matter up to a new con-
sideration (pages 104-108). He leaves it to the reader to decide
whether the author of Hænsa-Boris saga was acquainted with the
work of Ari or not. But he also tries hard to defend the claim that
the author of the saga followed the oral tradition; and in my opinion
the difference between these accounts is no more than may be ex-
pected, according to the results gained from experience and re-
search into changes in oral tradition passed on from one generation
to another. On the other hånd it cannot be denied that in many
places one can trace the hånd of the original author, as Sigurbur
Nordal has correctly pointed out.
Landnåmabok is preserved in two fairly intact medieval versions,
Sturlubok and Ilauksbålc; the names are derived from their com-
pilers, Sturla Borbarson (d. 1284) and Haukur Erlendsson (d. 1334).
Hauksbok goes back to Sturlubok and to another older version,
now completely lost, written by Styrmir Kårason (d. 1245). Some
remnants of a third medieval version, Melabok, point to its having
been in many ways doser to the original Landnåmabok text than
Sturlubok and Hauksbok. Additional knowledge of the fragmentary
Melabok can be gained from a mueh later version, Pordarbok, com-
posed in the 17th century by Borbur Jonsson.