Editiones Arnamagnæanæ. Series B - 01.06.1962, Page 152
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legend. Whether it was written or oral cannot be deter-
mined. Nor is it certain whether Heming’s shooting of
Haraldr at Stamford Bridge was part of the legend as the
author found it, or whether he added this detail himself.
In addition to the legend, the author of HÞ probably
made use of Band and Odds þáttr for the material about
Oddr Ófeigsson and it seems likely that he also knew
some tradition, perhaps a local one from Melr, about
St. Stephen’s relic and the Aðalbrigt incident. Details of
his description of the search for Hemingr may owe some-
thing to Þorsteins saga Víkingssonar and the influence
of Ól.s.h. is almost certainly to be seen in the description
of Heming’s clothing (ll1-2). A few small points suggest
a knowledge of Qrvar-Odds saga (Silkisif, gold-adorned
arrow, swimming contest).
The main source for the second part of HÞ is expressly
acknowledged in Hr (3514) sem seiger j sogu Haralldz
kongs Sigurdar sonar. No one surviving version of Haralds
saga can have provided all the material for the second
part of HÞ. This agrees now with Msk, now with Fsk
and now with Hkr but more often it disagrees with
them all. In addition, it contains material that is only
found elsewhere in Knytl or Ragnars saga or Oddr
Munk’s saga of Olaf Tryggvason, as well as much
that is not found in any other source. It is, of course,
possible that the author used more than one version
of Haralds saga, together with Knytl, Ragnars saga
and Oddr Munkr, and invented the rest of the material.
The second part of HÞ, however, gives the impression
of containing old and genuine tradition and if this is so,
it can only have come to the author through some lost
work.
If such a work ever existed it must have been a version
of Haralds saga which agreed in broad outlines with the
surviving ones but which differed on some points and
had a good deal of additional material. The chief objec-