Editiones Arnamagnæanæ. Series A - 01.10.2003, Page 41
Date and background
23*
the same line. In this passage Óspakr is playing on words in the phrases “þú
hefir haus þunnan . . . ek hefir 0xi þunga”. þunnan and þunga are near puns
and the grim joke becomes still more effective if he is allowed to use the
identical hefir forms. This suggests that the author - or at least the scribe of
the archetype of all extant manuscripts of the saga - knew of the ek hefir
combination, even if he did not regularly use it (it is the only example of its
kind in E and M, while W has several instances, see p. 63*). The ek hefir
form is usually regarded as a Norwegianism and is not attested from thir-
teenth-century manuscripts; the earliest hitherto registered examples (in
Haukr Erlendsson’s texts in Hauksbók)59 are from the first decades of the
fourteenth century.
The question of whether there is a structural plan behind Eyrbyggja saga
is particularly well dealt with by Jean-Pierre Mabire, who summarizes the
views of critics down to the time of his La Composition de la Eyrbyggja
Saga60 - Guðbrandur Vigfússon, Finnur Jónsson, Eiríkur Magnússon,
Sigfús Blöndal, all of whom assume that chapters have either been inter-
polated or suppressed. Without advancing such radical views, others have
criticised the structure of the saga - Gering, Turville-Petre (who however
suggests that this very fault does in fact make the story seem more like real
life).61 Critics who defended Eyrbyggja saga from the accusation include
Konrad Maurer, Einar Ól. Sveinsson, and Lee M. Hollander, whose ana-
lysis, though it is in some danger of seeming too laboured to be convincing,
does succeed in making the point that the constant shifting from one theme
to another arouses a suspense in the listener that amounts to a narrative
virtue.62
More recently, Carol J. Clover, while reasonably criticising the expec-
tations of earlier scholars that sagas ought to show respect for the classical
theories of unity, nevertheless brings in on Eyrbyggja saga the verdict that
“whatever the explanation, the result is confusion.”63 Clover does,
however, quote the unity that other scholars have discovered (even if their
explanations differ among themselves), such as Bertha S. Phillpotts’s unity
of location and atmosphere64 and W. P. Ker’s unity of life.65 Certainly there
is an interest in chronology (sharpened by the *A reviser). C/Garmonsway,
59 See Kjartan G. Ottósson 1992, pp. 172-4.
60 Mabire 1971.
61 “It is a series of scenes and stories, which follow the disordered course of life itself’, Turville-
Petre 1953, p. 242.
62 Hollander 1959.
63 Clover 1982.
64 Phillpotts 1931.
65 Ker 1908.