Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1979, Qupperneq 23

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charge of inaccuracy, he does not mean that he has no written sources,
only that there are no contemporary written sources for the period in
question, that is for the period around 858. He informs his Norwegian
audience that he depends on the Icelanders because they are the best
authorities. This is of course true — the Icelanders began to record
Norwegian history and chronology half a century before the
Norwegians. Even so, two hundred years elapsed between the death of
Harald Fairhair and the onset of Icelandic historiography and during
those centuries the Icelanders had no written authority to rely on; they
had only their antiqua carmina, which are, of course, not chronological
doeuments. This is the factor of uncertainty to which Theodoricus
alludes: he takes the best source he can find, but he cannot absolutely
vouch for the accuracy of that source because it is ultimately not based
on written authority.
In his recent book on Egils saga, Bjarni Einarsson quotes a similar
disclaimer from the fragments of Styrmir Kårason's Olufs saga helga in
Flateyjarbok (III. 248).5 Styrmir also refers to the problem of inaccurate
oral traditions: “Hafiå nu fat af samsettri sqgu Olåfs konungs allri
saman sem y6r lizk sannligt vera, fvi at i fornum sogum verdr morgu
saman blandat; er fat ok eigi olikligt far er menn hafa sqgusogn eina
til.” Styrmir does not of course mean that he has only oral tradition
(sogusogn) and no written sources. He means that there are uncertainties
when the authority is ultimately oral and I believe Theodoricus can be
interpreted in the same way. I should like therefore to proceed on the
assumption that Theodoricus did have Icelandic written material. His
reliance on this material explains the repeated insistence on Icelandic
sources and the preoccupation with chronological problems.
I now return to my earlier conclusion that Theodoricus, Oddr, and
Snorri base their accounts of Håkon jarl’s last days on a common source.
Is it possible to identify this source?
Among the various alternatives, we have ruled out the idea that the
source could be oral because of the close similarities in wording between
Theodoricus and Oddr. A second possibility, suggested by the central
position of Håkon jarl, is that the source is the lost Hladajarla saga, but
since Hladajarla saga is chiefly an instrument for understanding
5 Litterære forudsætninger for Egils stigu (Reykjavik: Stofnun Årna Magnussonar, 1975),
p. 224.