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Published paperHall, Alaric (2005) Changing style and changing meaning: Icelandichistoriography and the medieval redactions of Heireks saga.ScandinavianStudies, 77 (1). pp. 1-30.

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The broad trajectoriesof sagas status as historical evidencewill be well known to readers of Scandinavian Studies. They(re)appeared on Scandinavian scholars horizons around the

seventeenth century, when their narratives were accepted as reason-ably accurate accounts of past events. Subsequently, in the course of thenineteenth and twentieth centuries, they were increasingly recognized asliterary creations that could rarely be taken as reliable narrative histories;this shift was particularly deleterious for the study of thefrnaldarsgur,which not only fell from grace sooner, but were not generally thoughtvery good literature either (see Mitchell, 3243). However, the histori-cal value of the sagas has recently been re-stated in terms of the lightthat they can shed on the culture in which they were composed. AsMargaret Clunies Ross wrote,

In recent scholarship on the Icelandic sagas, the emphasis has shiftedfrom an older attitude that sought to classify sagas as either historyor ction, but not both, to an approach that allows the two creativeimpulses, historical and ctional, to coexist in any text in a variablerelationship. (444)

This article is a case-study in this approach: it seeks to anchor our assump-tions more rmly in the surviving evidence by analyzing the changingstyles, techniques, and intentions of the medieval redactions ofHeirekssaga.This approach helps to suggest thirteenth- and fourteenth-centuryIcelandic historians attitudes to their past, with implications for howthey used their history to construct their present. Heireks saga survives in three distinct versions, attested principally inthe manuscripts Copenhagen, Royal Library, Gl.kgl.sml. 2845 4to (r),

a vellum dating from the early fteenth century; Uppsala, University

Changing Style and

Changing MeaningIcelandic Historiography and the Medieval

Redactions of Heireks saga

Alaric HallUniversity of Glasgow


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2 Scandinavian Studies

Library,r:715 (u), a paper manuscript from the mid-seventeenth century;and Copenhagen, Royal Libraryam544 4to, known as Hauksbk (h)

because it was owned, and apparently compiled and in large part writ-ten, by Haukr Erlendsson, who died in 1334. Palaeographic evidencesuggests that the relevant part of the manuscript was written betweenabout 1302 and 1310 (Stefn Karlsson). The existence of these diVerentversions provides an exceptional opportunity to study how redactorsaltered and developed the original written text ofHeireks saga.Here Iconcentrate on the diVerences between the most conservative version, r,and its rst rewriting,u, though necessarily I frequently refer to h.h hasits own potential as a subject of study because here a known individual

conated both r- andu-type texts and situated his version ofHeirekssagain a manuscript whose contents and organization illuminate histechniques as a redactor and his conception of the place ofHeireks sagain Scandinavian history and literature. But these possibilities are tooextensive to be done justice here and demand rst the close comparisonof randu. Of the various aspects of the development ofHeireks saga,I concentrate here on establishing evidence for the interplays betweenoral and literate styles; I focus thematically on the sagas handling ofpaganism. Naturally, this approach has also demanded some detailed

analyses of the characteristics and textual relationships of the diVerentrecensions. All the redactions ofHeireks sagaconform to the same rough sum-mary in falling into seven sections, four of which contain poetry. After anintroduction (1) which tells of the forging of a sword, Tyrngr, for oneSigrlami (r) or Svafrlami (hu), we have an account (2) of ahlmgangaonSmsey between, on the one side, rvar-Oddr and Hjlmarr and, on theother, the twelve sons of Arngrmr, descendants of Sigrlami, whose leader,Angantr, wields Tyrngr. (This section includes the Smsey poetry.)

The brothers are killed, and Angantr is implicitly buried with Tyrngr.The next section (3) deals with Hervr, Angantrs daughter, who raisesAngantr from the dead to reclaim Tyrngr. (This section includes, and inlarge part comprises,Hervarakvia.) The saga goes on (4) to describe thecareer of Hervrs son Heirekr, to whom Hervr gives Tyrngr. Heirekris killed following a poetic riddle-contest (5) with inn in fullmentof a curse that inn makes. (The riddle-contest comprises the poeticsection called thegtur.) Finally, in a section lost from h and partiallyfromr(6), we are told how Heirekrs sons Angantr and Hlr go to

war over their inheritance, with Angantr wielding Tyrngr. (Integratedinto this narrative isHlskvia.)ualone preserves an epilogue (7) in


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Icelandic Historiography 3

the form of an annotated list of kings descended from Angantr; thismay or may not have been in h andr. (For more detailed summaries

diVerentiating the three versions, see in English Malone 76973 or inDanish Jn Helgason,Heireks saga lxlxxxiv.) I refer in this paper to the edition ofHeireks saga by Jn Helgasonwhich gives diplomatic texts ofranduand a normalized version ofh.However, I have for ther-text adopted the normalized spellings ofChristopher Tolkiens edition. References give the redactions siglum,followed either by page and line numbers (e.g. h 51:15), verse numbers(e.g.rv. 16), or chapter numbers (e.g.uch. 3). Translations are myown and are intended solely as a guide to understanding the original

text.

Textual Relationships

Both of the versions ofHeireks sagaconsidered here originated wellbefore the manuscripts in which they survive. Jn Helgason arrived ata schematic stemma for the texts relationships (Heireks sagalxxxiv),which I give here; considerations that I present below concerning a

textual corruption inrandudemand the slight amendment to thealternative given beside it:

As both stemmata show, it is accepted that our texts ofHeireks sagadescend from a common base-manuscript, now lost, each includingalterations to the base-text (Jn Helgason,Heireks saga ilxxxvi; seealso Tolkien xxixxxxi). I refer to this base-text, for convenience, as*Heireks saga. hrushare some apparently scribal errors, that suggesteither that *Heireks sagaitself derived in part from written materials

or that the common ancestor of hruis at least one remove from thebase-textor both.

Jn Helgasons schematic stemma

My modifed stemma

a

h

b c d

r u

a

b c

r d

u h


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The date of *Heireks saga is unknown, and, as I discuss below,elements of its content must long pre-date the textual tradition. Tor

Tulinius has recently argued that Heireks sagainuenced Egils sagaSkalla-Grmssonar,in which case it would probably date to around theearly thirteenth century (25164; see also Hollander), but his argumentis largely circumstantial. The more convincing similarities would onlydemonstrate the inuence of a version ofHlskvia onEgils saga, andthat version could have been an oral one predating the written *Heirekssaga. However, two points hint at contact between *Heireks sagaandYnglinga saga.r, h,andYnglinga sagashare the otherwise unattestedworddsarsalr (r44:3; h 44:22; disardalru122:9;Ynglinga sagai:

58). Moreover,Ynglinga saga says that inn, having left his home insia, fr ... fyrst vestr Gararki ok sur Saxland (i:14) [rstwent west into Gararki and then south into Saxland], a claim whichis also made in the prologue to Snorra Edda(56). I know of this claimin no other text, but these are the two kingdoms where the OdinicHeirekr undertakes his adventures as part of the Good Counsels ofthe Father story. But these points oVer rather insubstantial evidenceof textual contact and could be due, for example, to oral links betweenthe sagas composers.

The most conservative surviving version of *Heireks sagais agreed tober(Jn Helgason,Heireks sagalxxxv; Tolkien xxxxxxi). Unfortunately,rsuVers from lacunae within the text (atr33:10) and at the end (fromafter the ninth verse ofHlskvia;r88:24), and these are not rectiedby later copies of the manuscript. Even so, the probable similarity ofrto *Heireks sagaallows us to gauge how the more divergent redactionsaltered their received text and in what ways. Naturally, circumspectionis required in this asrhad certainly undergone some alteration in trans-mission, both accidental and deliberate, and may contain undetectable

ones. However, this problem is limited as far as possible by the detailedanalysis ofrpresented below; it is unlikely that any inaccuracy intro-duced by cautiously takingras our representative of *Heireks sagawillbe profound enough to invalidate my general conclusions. u oVers a substantially diVerent version of Heireks saga fromr,which must originate in a medieval recension *u (represented byd inthe stemmata above) because h used a *u-text (giving *u a terminusad quem around the rst decade of the fourteenth century). As I havementioned,uitself, Uppsalar:715, is from the mid-seventeenth cen-

tury. This text is supplemented by another, roughly contemporaneous


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manuscript,am203 fol, which follows anr-text where that is availablebut otherwise gives a *u-text that is independent of Uppsalar:715. The

manuscripts precise relationship cannot certainly be gauged, but JnHelgason judged thatuwas only once removed from *uandam203perhaps even a direct copy (Heireks sagaxxlx, lxxxivlxxxv). Minorwords and names aside, the overlapping parts ofuandam203 are usuallyidentical; where they diVer,am203 is usually the more similar to h andtherefore probably the more reliable witness to their medieval ancestor.The diVerences betweenuandam203 warn against acceptinguas aword-for-word witness of the medieval *u. However, Jn Helgasonargued convincingly thatuganske vist er et meget fejlfuldt haandskrift

med overspringelser og urigtige lsemaader, men det synes ikke at havendret med vilje undtagen paa enkelte underordnede punkter (Heirekssagalxxxv) [is certainly a very awed manuscript with omissions andincorrect readings, but it seems not to have been altered deliberatelyexcept in single minor points]. With due caution, then,umay be takento represent the recomposition, *u, of *Heireks saga (itself representedtoday byr). Where we have bothuandam203 (and sometimes h) inagreement, we may speak fairly condently of *u. *u included an extensive introduction that, at least in the form in

which we have it, may show inuence fromYnglinga sagaand the pro-logue toSnorra Edda, conventionally assumed to have been publishedby or around 1241, when Snorri died. Either of these works mighthave inspired *us euhemerization of the sir as Asiamenn (u91:20). The use of Snorra Eddaspecically is suggested by the *u-textsunusual combination (discussed below) of the two major paradigms formedieval European history provided by the Old Testament (predicatedon descent from Noah) and the Aeneid (whereby Europe was settledby escapees from the fall of Troy). However, Snorra Eddaand the *u-

texts show no verbal similarity, and my discussion below suggests thatthe *u-redactor was himself capable of this sort of syncretism. On theother hand, a possible verbal connection between Ynglinga sagaandthe introduction to the *u-texts occurs in the description oflfheimar:Albur [AlVur am 203] hiet kongur, er riede fyrer Albheimum [Alf-heimumam203]; Alfhilldur hiet dottir hans. Alfheimar hietu a milliGautelfar og Raumeluar [Runnelfar am203] (u 91:13)[There wasa king called lfr, who ruled over lfheimar; his daughter was calledlfhildr. The lands between the Gautelfr and the Raumelfr were called

lfheimar]. This section is similar to Ynglinga saga (ch. 48), which


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says that Gurr Hlfdanarson tti konu, er lfhildr ht, dttirAlfarins konungs r lfheimum.... lfheimar vru kallair millum

Raumelfar ok Gautelfar (i:79) [married that woman who was calledlfhildr, the daughter of King lfarinn from lfheimar ... The landsbetween the Raumelfr and the Gautelfr were named lfheimar]. Thetexts otherwise record diVerent material about these characters anda textual link here, as opposed to an oral one, is not assured; but theprospect is bolstered by the evident use ofHeimskringla in the king-listat the end of the *u-texts. The remaining version ofHeireks saga, h,can, as I have said, bedated fairly condently by palaeographic comparison with two dat-

able letters written by Haukr to between 1302 and 1310. h fails afterthe second of thegtur,but two manuscripts copied from Hauksbk,am281 4to andam597b 4to, give the h-text to the end of thegtur.Hauksbk was almost certainly compiled and largely written by HaukrErlendsson, who rewrote the sagas that he copied, generally shorteningthem (Helgason,Hauksbkx, xii, xviii). Haukr based hisHeireks sagaon two texts: one close to *Heireks sagaand one close to *u. Although,as I have mentioned, to analyze the evidence of h fully would requiremore space than is available here, I advert to some features of hwhen

they are illuminating for my analysis ofrandu.

*Heireks sagaand the R-Text

It seems likely that *Heireks sagaderived much of its material directlyfrom oral tradition, rather than authorial invention. This suppositionis most straightforward regarding the rst and last poetic sections ofruthe Smsey poetry andHlskvia,the latter of which is consid-

ered to be among the oldest eddaic poetry. Hlskvia has a range ofanalogues, verbal and narrative, from the medieval Germanic world andpossibly from further east (for surveys see Tolkien xxixxviii, and on theeastern connections Mundt and Ahyan), the oldest probably being theOld English poem Widsith.These analogues giveHlskvia convincingcredentials as a codied traditional poem. Similar arguments stand forthe Smsey poetry. What would appear to be memorial, as opposed totextual, variants of the poetry are recorded in chapter 14 of rvar-Oddssaga(979, 1036), while apparently independent but similar variants

of the frame-story also appear in books 5 and 6 of Saxo GrammaticussGesta Danorum (i:1379, 1615).


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This is not the case forHervararkvia.If Ahyan is correct that thispart ofHeireks saga exhibits the same tale-type as the nineteenth-cen-

tury ArmenianEpic of Sasoonthough his case does not, with regard toHervrs part of the story, seem very strongthen an episode of similarnarrative content toHervarakvia may have been integral toHeireks sagain its pretextual stages. Either way, it is hard to believe thatHervararkviaitself is old as eddaic poetry goes. Its stanzas are almost invariably eightlines long, and its dialogue usually alternates stanza by stanza, whiletextual criticism of hru implies a more tightly constructed base-textyet (see Tolkien 769). The style is consistent and the poem coherent,both within itself and within the saga. It connects the Smsey episode

with Heirekr and his sons. Moreover, it provides a crucial narrative linkbetween the Smsey material andHlskvia,which appear separately inthe sagas analogues in developing the role of the sword Tyrngr (whosename seems to have been invented on the basis of a misunderstood wordinHlskvia[see Tolkien xxiv]). It seems likely, then, thatHervararkviawas specically composed for a narrative very like theHeireks sagaweknow, possibly partly on the model of Helgakvia Hundingsbana ii(Tolkien xii) and put into writing soon enough afterward that it wasnot substantially corrupted by oral transmission.

ThatHervararkviawas composed earlier than *Heireks saga is, how-ever, suggested by a blind motif in one of the verses. When Hervr istold that her father was a slave,r(v. 13) has Hervr say regarding hermother:

ka ek vrrivegsem hrsa,tt hon Frmarsfengi [ms: fengit] hylli

(I should not boast of our glory, though she may have receivedFrmarrs favor)

Hon must be Hervrs mother, but we do not know who Frmarrwas. Nor, apparently, did the *u-redactor, asureads (v. 14)

tla eg vorrivegsemd hrosa,ott ad hefdi bratt mannzfeingid hylli

(I intend to boast of our glory, though I (she?) might soon have receiveda persons favor)


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This unmetrical reading must be an eVort to excise the obscurity;modern scholars have fared little better (see Tolkien 91; h truncates

this passage and omits the verse). However, I suggest that the r-textis explicable, to a degree, by comparison with chapters 613 of the a-version of Sturlaugs saga starfssama(dated to c. 1300 by its editor, 56).Like a number of sagas (for some examples see Liestl 1335), this tellsa story of ahlmganga using a narrative template similar to Heirekssaga; it was adduced by Liestl alongsideHeireks sagaas an analoguefor the Icelandic Ormars rmur (12036, esp. 1335). Each saga is byturns the better parallel for the rmur, and Liestls observations sug-gest that these texts attest to a long-standing tradition, oral and written,

using the same template and similar character names. In Sturlaugs saga,Sturlaugr becomes a champion for one King Haraldr in ahlmgangafor Haraldrs bride but wins the bride himself beforehand and receivesa magic sword for use in thehlmganga from his brides foster-mother,Vfreyja. These motifs are paralleled inrby Hervrs father, Angantr,eVectively the champion of Hjrvarr, his brother, in the hlmgangain which Hjrvarr, like King Haraldr, ghts to win a bride on whomhe made the rst claim. Just before thehlmganga in which Sturlaugris supposed to be ghting on Haraldrs behalf, he marries Haraldrs

bride; meanwhile, just before ghting for his brother at thehlmganga,Angantr rather suddenly marries an otherwise unmentioned woman(so begetting Hervr). Sturlaugr ghts in hishlmgangawith a magicsword given to him by his brides foster-mother. For his part, Angantrwields the magic sword Tyrngr given to him by his father Arngrmrfor the purpose. Arngrmr himself gained Tyrngr when he marriedEyfura, who subsequently gave birth to Angantr: in each case, then, thehero receives the magic sword from a female parental gure by meansof a marriage. These similarities are striking and surely represent some

shared narrative template. From here, however,rand Sturlaugs saga diverge signicantly: theArngrmssynir all die at thehlmganga (Angantrs otherwise poorlymotivated marriage beforehand is, therefore, important, as it producesthe next generation for the saga); Sturlaugr, on the other hand, sur-vives his hlmganga but subsequently has to face one Franmarr, thehalf-brother of the man he has slain. He defeats Franmarr, but his newwifes foster-mother, Vfreyja, from whom Sturlaugr got his sword,heals Franmarr, and the two men become foster-brothers. If a pre-tex-

tual version ofHeireks saga used this narrative template, then it could


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explain why Hervr might tell of her mother (in the texts, Svva, butin lost versions this gure could plausibly have been linked with the

Vfrejya/Eyfura complex) winning the favor of one Frmarr. If so,thenHervararkvia must have existed in oral form before the writing of*Heireks saga as part of a slightly diVerent narrative from the one whichwe have. Adaptation of the story, most likely the removal of narrativesmentioning the Frmarr gure either before or at the inception of thetextual history ofHeireks saga,subsequently left Frmarrs appear-ance in a verse obscure, and in the *u-tradition, the inconsistency wasaccordingly removed.1If this conjecture is correct, thenHervararkvia,although probably a comparatively late composition, must predate

*Heireks saga. The remaining poetry inHeireks sagais Gestumblindisgtur.Theseare certainly unusualthey are nearly the only riddles recorded in OldIcelandic and as verse-riddles are almost unique. A few are internationaltypes (Alver; Tolkien xix, 90), but none of the gtur appears in laterriddle collections except where direct derivation from Heireks sagaseems probable (Tolkien xix n. 3). However, comparison of ruwith helucidates the matter somewhat. ruagree on the content of thegtur(though not on their order), but Hauksbk included seven riddles not

in ru. The additional riddles were not composed by Haukram281and am 597, which preserve this text, share mistakes demonstratingscribal transmission to h (e.g. Tolkien 80 n. 3, 81 n. 2, 82 n. 1). This factmight suggest that Haukr added riddles from another text. However,the only evidence for the existence of written poetic riddles independentofHeireks sagaare three verse lines in lfr hvtasklds grammaticaltreatise.These correlate with the opening lines ofrverse 51 (hv. 54,uv. 69), and some direct literary connection seems likely, but whichever

1Not only does u omit Frmarr from Hervrs verse, but at Rs later mention of Fr-marr ([Hervor Heireksdttir] fddisk upp Englandi me Frmari jarli; r 54:3),huread Ormarr (h 54:18, u 128:29), thus not mentioning Frmarr at all. It is hardto know which text is more conservative. Ormarr appears as Hervr Heireksdttirsfoster-father in theHlskvia-section, although only in prose passages after r fails (u148:6 et passim), and the relevant lines of Widsith mention one Wyrmhere ghting theHuns, so an Ormarr doubtless appeared in *Heireks saga. It is hard to see why ther-tradition should have expanded the role of Frmarr, particularly as r includes theinconsequential detail that Frmarr brought Hervr up in England (absent from hu),so an economical explanation would be that hureplaced a second obscure reference toFrmarr, surviving like the rst as a blind motif in *Heireks saga by the transference of

Ormarr from elsewhere in the story. But this is guesswork.


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direction the borrowing went, the case for the existence of other riddle-texts that Haukr might have used is weak.2Moreover, if Haukr added

his extra riddles from other texts, he either chose to add profoundlycorrupt riddles or copied his source badly, and neither of these prospectsis attractive compared with the possibility that hs riddles were originalto *Heireks sagaand were omitted, perhaps due to their corruption ina branch of the tradition common to ru. This question is claried by the presence in the h-typegtur-sectionof a fragmentary (presumably, therefore, copied) verse. After inn(also in a fragmentary verse) asks his last riddle, Heirekr in rureplies,at veiztu einn, rog vttr! (r83:67,u140:6) [ You alone know that,

cowardly creature]. However, h (83:1820) gives:undr ok argskapok alla bleyi,en engi vissi n au or,utan einn,ill vttr ok orm

(Scandal and perversity, and all cravenness, but none knew those wordsof yours but you alone, evil and wretched creature)

Jn Helgason printed this as prose, but a verse original correspondingto the lineation of my quotation is likely. h occasionally oVers a superiorreading to ruelsewhere in the poetry (e.g. hralega for elligar in hv. 2, seerv. 19,uv. 20), which increases the likelihood that the exemplarthat Haukr used besides a *u-text was in some ways closer to *Heirekssaga even thanrand that the extra riddles derive from it. rumust sharea later source that had removed some riddles, probably the more corruptones, hence the revision of Jn Helgasons schematic stemma proposedabove. All this being so, it seems likely that no literary source was used

for the riddles of *Heireks saga and that they were composed togetheras part of a story of Heirekrs death which was at least partly inspiredby eddaic poems like Vafrunisml and Grmnisml.A collection sorambling and encyclopedic without being obviously mnemonic wouldprobably be literary and originate with *Heireks saga itself.

2The principal manuscripts of the treatise, as determined by lsen (1884 xlviiilxiii)am748 4to andam757a 4tooVer the superior reading nr in line 3, forHeireks sagas nar,so the treatises reading may be the original; on the other hand the Codex Wormianus text

sharesHeireks sagas reading, and the principle of lectio diYciliorcould be invoked.


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It is more diYcult, of course, to judge how far the major prose ele-ments ofrmay derive from a pre-textual version ofHeireks sagasince

the transmission of prose, unlike poetry, allowed relatively free recom-position. However, a consideration of these sections serves to show thestylistic characteristics ofrand so, presumably, of *Heireks saga.Themain prose section ofr comprises Heirekrs biography, which itselfconsists of two stylistically and narratively distinct sections: his youth andtime in Saxland and Gararki, which, as Liestl noted, derives much ofits material from the folk tale, The Good Counsels of the Father (at910/911; cited by Tolkien xivxv); and an account of how Heirekr cameto power in his rst kingdom, Reigotaland. In the sections dealing with

the Good Counsels narrative,rs style is much more reminiscent oforal story-telling than that of hu, which are literate reworkings. In thecourse of this narrative,rmarks the opening of each episode by repetitivereference to a summer (e.g.Eitt sumar...), an orally eVective structuraldevice (r44:34, 44:11, 45:6, 47:6). By contrast, whileuoften mentionssummer at the start of an episode, it does not do so at the very openingof the episodes as the technique demands. Likewise,rshows a greaterpredilection for triads than hu. In all texts, Heirekr incites the men atHfundrs feast three times (r34:135:13;u115:29116:7; h 34:2735:

25) and exposes the indelity of the king of Saxlands daughter throughthree requests (r46:147:2;u123:13124:10; h 46:2033). A further triadappears only inrthus producing a rare instance wherers text is longerthanus: following an attempt by the king of Gararki to hang Heirekrfor the murder of his son, of which Heirekr proves innocent, the queenurges the king to compensate Heirekr. In a repetitive dialogue of oVerand refusal, the king and queen oVer f [wealth] then rki [power].Finally they oVer their daughter, whom Heirekr accepts (r52:153:7).In ther-text of these episodes, unlike theu-text, Heirekrs opponents

are unnamedlike the folktale ciphers they are. These features suggesta redactor or author writing a story more in the form in which he wouldtell it than did the *u-redactor or Haukr. The other section of Heirekrs biography, his rise to power inReigotaland, is less obviously folkloric in narrative type and technique.It is outside the Good Counsels frame and lacks the oral structuralfeatures mentioned above, while many characters are namedthoughthere is little to mark it particularly as a literate product. However, itis crucial to the events ofHlskvia.Moreover, an episode from this

section in which Heirekr is required to sacrice his son to inn may


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have a parallel in theEpic of Sasoon,which seems to oVer close parallelstoHlskvia (see Ahyan), so its relationship to the poem may be based

on a traditional tale-type. Together, these points hint that this sectionreects a legendary stratum of material as opposed to a (perhaps later)folktale stratum. rs text can condently be characterized, therefore, as deriving throughearlier copies of *Heireks saga from what was at least in part an oralsaga of poetry and prose. Parts, at least, of what is now the prose nar-rative of Heirekrs biography may also have had oral equivalents. Theprospect that *Heireks sagawas based fairly directly on an oral saga neednot surprise us since most references in Old Icelandic literature to oral

storytelling seem to refer tofornaldarsaga-type material (see Mitchell98102). The meanings of the earliest redaction ofHeireks saga to itsoriginal audience, represented for us byr, is harder to ascertain thanthose of the later redactions, since we can see where those deviate fromthis base. But they may be sought partly in the context of Icelandersrst eVorts to codify and comprehend in writing their inherited oralstories.

*U and U

r opens in a style familiar in saga and folktale by stating the name andrank of a protagonist. Indeed, Righter-Gould found that, as edited inGuni JnssonsFornaldarsgur Norurlanda,only the interrelatedKetilssaga hngs, Grms saga loinkinna,and rvar-Odds saga do not open bynaming a ctitious king and his Scandinavian land (4256). *uunderwenta complete change, parading its re-orientation right from the opening ofthe saga:uandam203 begin with a title and the opening words Suo

nst ritad i fornum bokum (u 89:0) [Thus is found written in ancientbooks]. *us situation of itself was therefore unambiguously literateand distant fromfornaldarsagaconventions.ugoes on, moreover, tosituate its narrative thus (u 89:36; cf. h 1:68):

adur Tyrkiar og Asiamenn komu a Nordurlond bygdu norduralfurnar risarog sumt halfrisar; giordist a mikid sambland iodanna; risar feingu sierkuenna vr Mannheimum, enn sumir giVtu angad dtur sinar

(Before the Turks and men of Asia came to the north-lands, giants (andsome [of them] half-giants), dwelt in the northern regions; then a great

mixing of the peoples happened; giants got themselves women fromMannheimar, and some married their daughters to the people there.)


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This is surely inspired by Genesis 6:4 (Biblia Sacrai:101):

gigantes autem erant super terram in diebus illis postquam enim ingressisunt lii Dei ad lias hominem illaeque genuerunt isti sunt potentes asaeculo viri famosi

(but in those days, giants were on the earth, because thereafter the sonsof God entered in to the daughters of men, and those women gave birthto those who are the mighty and famous men of that age.)

As Hume has shown,slendingasgurwere concerned in their openingswith distinction of kin and placement of the conict within the spanof Icelandic history (600). For the *u-redactor, however, the context

offornaldarsgurwas wider and older: subtly, but distinctly, *u openednear the very beginning of human existence. This interpretation is sup-ported byuitself, which mentions Adamz akur [Adams land] againsth andam203 Odaens akur (u 89:10; h 1:13) [the land of the undy-ing]a scribe in the tradition ofumust have recognized the Biblicalinspiration and altered dins akrto t it. *us use of the Bible did not merely situateHeireks saga chronologi-cally: it was also a protestation of the sagas veracity.Heireks sagaincludesnothing that a medieval Icelander need have considered implausible (see

Lindow 2645). Even so, the *u-redactor seems to have been awareof the concerns evident in the introductions to ireks saga af Bernand Gngu-Hrlfs saga,which are revealingly defensive of their storiesveracity (see Hallberg 611).ireks saga af Bernsuggests that its heroeswere men less aVected than their fellows by a post-diluvian weaken-ing of humankind (56). But *us approach was far neater: it makesthe giants of its introduction as well as the heroes of the saga propergures attested by the Bible itself. This was not a common techniquein medieval Europe (though see Orchard 5885 regardingBeowulf), and

as far as I have discovered, it is unique in Old Icelandic (see Kirby i:8,which observes no quotations from Genesis 6:14). The *u-redactorseems to have taken a remarkably original approach here that sets thetone for the whole text. Later in the introductionudescribes the arrival of the euhemerizedinn from Asia, but this reference is much less prominent than theBiblical allusion. As, for example, in the rst chapters of Srla ttr(Fornaldarsgur norurlanda ii:97100) andBsa saga(ii:465), the motifseems a conventional statement of antiquity and impressive lineage pre-

suming the euhemerization of the pagan gods rather than presenting, asin chapters 18 ofYnglinga saga(i:922) or the rst book of the Gesta


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Danorum(i:256), a euhemerizing argument. But whereas Bsa sagaand Srla ttrmention descent from inn at their very beginnings,

us mention of inn part-way through its narrative helps to give asense of passing time and the progress of a world beyond the focus ofthe saga. This strategy again is an unusual approachit was usual tobase histories either on the Old Testament or on the fall of Troy, whichwere usually kept in separate worlds of historiography (see Reynolds;Southern 18895)though it is paralleled by the prologue to Snorra Eddaand various Icelandic genealogies. It may be that the *u-redaction bor-rowed the derivation of the sir from Troy from Snorri Sturluson. These considerations, it seems to me, provide an important context

for interpreting the king-list with whichuandam203 conclude. Asa potential source of Swedish history, this list has been the subject ofmuch scrutiny but rarely, in recent times, in the context of the rest ofthe saga (for surveys see Janson, Beckman). Early parts of the king-listshow verbal similarities to Heimskringla and to theHistoria Norvegiand seem likely to have derived material from the lostSkjldunga saga,while from Ragnarr Lobrk onward its content is almost identical toa set of early fourteenth-century royal genealogies inam415 4to knownasLangfegatalthat trace the dynasties of the Scandinavian countries

from Ragnarr and must have a common source (Janson 1828). Accord-ingly, the consensus of historians is that the substance of the list wascomposed separately from the rest of the saga and integrated with itlater, perhaps with suitable literary embellishment. This integration isneatly paralleled by the combination of Vlsunga sagawithRagnars sagalobrkar (the latter itself being mentioned in the king-list,u157, 134)found in the only surviving manuscript of Vlsunga saga,whereby thedynasty of the saga is continued from the legendary into the historicalpast by its connection with Ragnarr (von See). Moreover, if Jansons

recent argument that the king-list used a Swedish genealogy importedto Iceland around 1270 is correct, then the list as we have it must post-date 1270 (18791). Not only this date, but stylistic considerations makeit very likely that we owe the king-list specically to the *u-redactor. Ihave mentioned above thatrbegins like otherfornaldarsgurwithoutsituating its events in a substantial genealogical context, whereas *uadded a self-consciously literary and genealogical introduction to givethe saga a historical context, arguably on the model of classicalslend-ingasgur and konungasgur.As I discuss below, this stylistic distinction

is characteristic of the two redactions. It seems unlikely, then, thatr, or


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*Heireks saga,concluded with a list of kings whose presence would oncemore have been quite uncharacteristic both offornaldarsgur generally

andrspecically. The king-lists analogues only clearly begin three generations in,with Hlfdan snjalli, the father of varr inn vfami. *u connectedAngantrs line to varrs, with an unspecied coupling: the son ofAngantr Heireksson, Heidrekur vlfshamur atti dottur, er Hilldurhiet; hun var modir Haldanar snialla, faudur Iuars hins vidfadma (u156:14) [Heirekr lfshamr ... had a daughter, who was called Hildr;she was the mother of Hlfdan snjalli, the father of varr inn vfami].This link lies suYciently far from well-trodden genealogical ground to

avoid dispute and is suYciently ancient to ensure that the characters ofthe saga are related to a large number of illustrious descendants. Thisconclusion implies that *u not only sought to putHeireks sagainto ahistorical context, but to promote it using that historical context. AsJanson argued, it also meets one of the two principal concerns that havevexed scholars of the king-listwhy the list stops so suddenly withPhillips and Ingi Hallsteinsson. The writer of the king-lists inam415was able to continue his list of Swedish kings down to Birgir Magns,who was ruling in the early fourteenth century, so it seems unlikely that

the king-list in *u stopped simply because the redactor had run out ofinformation; however, Phillips, Ingis nephew, was thought to be thelast of Heirekrs line and so was an obvious point at which to stop thechronicle (Janson 188). The other major query regarding the list is why the struggle betweenIngi Steinkelsson and Blt-Sveinn, which comprises about two-fthsof the king-list, is recounted at such great length. Given the knownsources of the king-list, it seems clear that the *u-redactor could haveexpanded other parts instead had he so wished. Janson once more sup-

plied the most plausible explanation: the expanded passage describes theChristian Ingis slutgiltiga seger ver den s omskrivna hedendomen iSvj (189) [decisive victory over heathendom in Svj,which is thuscircumscribed]. Situating this observation within the overall structureof *u adds a new perspective to Jansons observation: with its addedintroductory material and the king-list (whether or not the *u-redactoradded it), *u situatedHeireks sagain a complete historical continuumfrom the times of Genesis, through the arrival of the sir in Scandinavia,to the conversion of Sweden, the last of the Germanic Scandinavian

countries to convert. The fact that it included a couple of generations


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beyond the conversion to the end of the dynasty in question would,again, be characteristic of slendingasgur,with their habit of includ-

ing epilogues tying up loose ends (in this case, Heirekrs dynasty).*us use of the king-list, then, served to conclude a history of Swedenencompassing its whole history from the past referred to in Genesisto the single most important event in its history, the conversion. Thisis a radical departure from the conventions of fornaldarsaga-writing,though it is consistent with the writing of slendingasgur,with theirconventional framework of Icelands settlement to its conversion. Returning to *us introduction, we also nd concern there forstructural coherence. The rst characters thatuandam203 describe

are Gumundr king of Glsisvellir and his son Hfundr (u 89, 690:2). Hfundr later marries Hervr and begets Heirekr (u 115, 111): thus*u opened by giving Heirekrs short patriarchal line. It then gave hislong matriarchal line, descending from a giant called Arngrmr. Thus,in view of my analysis of the king-list above, Heireks sagawas alsomade in *u into a comprehensive account of a dynasty. As the longaccount of Argrmrs line proceeds toward Hervr, the focus of thesaga approaches Heirekr, its central character. In the introduction, *ualso emphasized and consolidated the role of Tyrngr, which despite

being the main unifying feature of Heireks sagas plot, receives littleemphasis inr. *u gave more detail regarding Tyrngrs forging butalso had Dvalinn, its creator, curse it. Dvalinn declares that a man willdie by it every time it is drawn and then adds to Sigrlami, med uisie vnninn iij nidingsverk hin mestu; ad verdi og inn bani (u 92,2393:1) [may the three most evil deeds be done with it; may it alsoturn out to be your slayer]. Admittedly,unever denes the ningsverk[evil deeds], which would have claried matters further. Milroy hassuggested, however, that this omission may be a deliberate reection of

the fact that the ningsverk are not dened in their likely source-stories,those of Starkar Strvirksson (which we know from Gautreks sagaandSaxo Grammaticus; Milroy 125)a reading corresponding well with*us self-conscious development of Heirekrs Odinic traitsand itsalteration remains eVective and thorough. Tyrngrs property of killinga man whenever it is drawn is utilized in the Gararki episode in hru,but as part of Heirekrs fratricide only in hu. Likewise, when Heirekrtries to kill inn with Tyrngr, hrsimply has Heirekr fail, bututiesup the loose end, adding, suerdid kom a eirn hirdmanna, og eck

sa egar bana (u 140:89) [the sword fell on one of the royal guards,and he got from that his death].


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This tendency to clarify events pervadesu. Elsewhere,uachievesthis by increasing the number of characters and giving more of them

names while re-ordering and adding events thus producing a narrativevery diVerent in character fromr, which recalls instead the burgeoningdetail of theslendingasgur.The events of Heirekrs banishment byHfundr, for example, may be shown schematically:

r u

Heirekr incites repeatedly atHfunds feast, and his brother

Angantr tries to make peace.

Heirekr incites repeatedly atHfunds feast, and his brother

Angantr tries to make peace.

Heirekr is sent from the feast. Heirekr is sent from the feast.

Heirekr throws a stone atvoices in the dark accidentallykilling Angantr.

Hervr and Angantr plead that heshould be made a kings man.

Hfundr outlaws Heirekr. Hfundr outlaws Heirekr instead.

Hervr has Hfundr giveHeirekr advice.

Hervr has Hfundr give Heirekradvice

Hervr gives Tyrngr to Heirekr.Heirekr kills Angantr in revengeagainst his father. Heirekr lives ina forest until he desires to win gottfrasagnar (u 117:25) [good repute].

Good Counsels, rst episode. Good Counsels, rst episode.

us account is much more detailed, with more characterization; it moti-vates Heirekrs fratricide by developing the charaters personalities and

relationships. Inr, Heirekr throws a stone toward voices out of malicebut does not appear to intend the resulting fratricide, for which he isoutlawed (r36:110). But inu, Heirekr is outlawed for his incitementat the feast; Angantrs subsequent intervention on behalf of his brotheremphasizes the contrast in character between the two; and Heirekrssubsequent killing of Angantr is a deliberate act of revenge: before hedraws Tyrngr, Heirekr declares, alldrei giet eg giort slikann munfodurz mins og modur sem au giordu min (u 117:79, see also h 35:2931) [never will I be able to make such a diVerentiation [in my treat-

ment] of my father and mother as they made [in their treatment] ofme] to show that in killing the son of both parents here, he is taking


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revenge only on his father. Furthermore, after Heirekrs exile, hr sendHeirekr directly to Reigotaland;urst has him become captain of

a viking band as in Hervrs biography, which helps to demarcate themovements of the saga and emphasizes the association in characterbetween Hervr and Heirekr. Likewise,ureorders the Arngrmssynirsrather ill-motivated journeys before theirhlmganga.Numerous similarexamples could be given. Another structural innovation in u is the revelation of importantinformation outside the chronological sequence of the story. The deviceis most eVective in the part of the saga describing Heirekrs adventuresin Gararki, where Heirekr pretends to have killed the kings son in

order to test some of Hfundrs advice.r, like oral folktales (see Olrik1378), describes events chronologically, but h andudelay revealing someof Heirekrs actions thus making our expectations and judgments ofevents uncertain. This strategy adds tension and enriches the portrayalof Heirekrs contrary character; once more, its literate style recalls theclassicalslendingasgur.For example, inEyrbyggja sagachapter 18, weare neither told what happens to orbjrns horses when they are lost,nor when Sp-Gils divines it, nor when orbjrn avenges their loss: weonly learn when orbjrn himself nds out that his vengeance was mis-

directed, in chapter 23 (58).uembroiders the Gararki episode besides:rhas Heirekr invited to a feast, butuhas him visit while i hernad[raiding]; before the feast, h anduhave Heirekr deploy his men readyfor trouble. Elsewhere, when Heirekrs mother, Hervr, is named, hername recalls that of avalkyrja given in the prose introduction to Vlun-darkvia,butuadds that var ad margra vilie, ad ei vri vppfdt ogkolludu ei hafa mundi konuskap, ef fodur frndum yrdi lik (u 102:13,see also h 14:2530) [it was the desire of many that she should not bebrought up, and they said she would not have womans temper, if she

turned out like her fathers kinsmen]. These examples could be multiplied.This sort of foreboding is again more in keeping withslendingasgurthanfornaldarsguroccurring, for example, in the rst chapter ofBrennu-Njlssaga(7) when Hrtr comments on the young Hallgerr. *us changes, then, have literary merit and moveHeireks sagas styletoward that of the classicalslendingasgur.This progression also appearsinus diction. Shifting narrative focus is characteristic of classical saga-style, but unfamiliar in folktale. Correspondingly,rshifts the narrativefocus only once, at the point where the rather distinct gtur-episode

begins (r 54:14,u 129:23).u, however, does so often. For example,


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forrs essu nst fara eir brr til Bjarmars jarls (r8:12) [Nextthe brothers travel to Jarl Bjarmarr],uhas, EVter ad foru eir leid

sina. // 5. Jall er nefndur Biartmar; hann ried fyrir Aldeio borg (u 95:2996:2) [After that they went their way. // 5. There was a jarl calledBiartmarr; he ruled over Aldeigjuborg]. Bjartmarrs introduction lacksthe genealogy typical inslendingasgur,butus thumbnail sketch of hissituation is consistent with classical conventions (u 118:1920; see alsou90:2,u91:1,u118:1920). Additionally,usometimes has charactersbegin a sentence in indirect speech but end in directagain, a classicalstylistic feature more appropriate to literary storytelling than to oral.rdoes this twice, butuuses the device ve times (r37:2V.,r51:24.

u 114:21V.,u 116:124,u116:27V.,u118:2830,u 128:114. The rstcitation fromuis inrs lacuna, but see h 33:30V.). My nal comparison ofranduis in terms of their verse-content.rseems to have lost verses from most poetic sections but seems generallyto oVer a text relatively faithful to *Heireks saga.rs losses were some-times accidental.Hervararkvia lacks two verses inr, but where presentin hu, they tie into the progression of question and response, whilethe version inris rather disjointed (hvv. 19, 20;uvv. 35, 36; Tolkien789), making loss from ther-tradition more likely than interpolation

into hu. But some verse was deliberately omitted from ther-tradition.Thusrdeletes the rst four lines of verse 18 but seems to have based cor-responding prose on them (r18:12; see also hv. 1,uv. 19; and Tolkien767, 83). This process would also be apparent in the omission of riddlesearlier in ther-tradition, suggesting a prolonged but slow attrition ofthe verse-content. The *u-redaction also omitted and altered verse. But,as Ebel observed (624), where *u omitted verse, it seems to have beensystematic and again to be moving toward conventional saga-style: inHlskvia,*u omitted all narrative poetry and replaced it with prose.

All the other verse in Heireks saga, and in most slendingasgur andfornaldarsgur, represents direct speech, and the removal of narrativeverse fromHlskviawas an obvious normalization of style paralleled,for example, by the writer of Vlsunga saga,who paraphrased the vastmajority of his verse-sources in prose, retaining verse almost exclusivelyfor representing direct speech. The redactors ofHeireks saga frequentlyreworded the prose speech in their exemplars, so presumably did notconsider it to represent the precise words a person may have spoken. Onthe other hand, the fact that hr sometimes give a dialogue in prose and

then again in verse suggests that characters were not considered actually


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to have conversed in poetry. Butrnonetheless suggests that the versesrepresent the content of speech with greater veracity than prose: etta

virmli eira sanna essar vsur, er Hjlmarr kva (r10:156) [Thisconversation of theirs is veried by these verses, which Hjlmarr spoke].This assumption was presumably based on the premise that the authorof *Heireks saga was aware that they were actually older.Retainingverse-speech, then, while omitting other verse, enabled *u to be moreconventional in terms of style while retaining a crucial statement ofveracity, both concerns consistent with its introduction.

HaukrsSaga Heireks konungs ins vitra

As I have already mentioned, space does not allow the considerationof h in the detail that it deserves. However, some notes on the internalstylistic features of h may usefully be oVered as these directly illuminatethe reception of both *Heireks sagaand *u. Haukr appears to have beenconcerned primarily with creating a text that conformed in style to thegenre of thefornaldarsgur,but to have had a constant eye for the valueof his redaction as a historical account, occasionally to the detriment of

its literary quality. He included, by rationalization but never conation,every turn of the plot and every character he met in either of his sources,whatever the consequences for the coherence of his narrative. Regardingthe features of diction in whichudiverges from the comparatively oralstyle ofr, Haukr followed hisr-type text and seems to have exaggeratedits tendencies. Thus, whileuhas characters begin a sentence in indirectspeech but end in direct ve times, andrtwice, Haukr has it only once (h49:30V.; note that all the examples inufall in the part of the saga whichh preserves).uoften shifts narrative focus, whereasrdoes so only once.

Haukr followed ther-text where it was available, and wherershifts thenarrative focus, he did his best to avoid doing so (h 54:17V., see alsor54:14). Style was not important enough to Haukr to make him abandon*us historically interesting introduction; but it did make him alter itsdiction (of which we can be reasonably condent whenuandam203agree). The shifts of narrative focus remain, and the saga retains its initialdeclaration of previous authorities, but now with the phrase er sagt [issaid] rather than nst ritad [is found written]. Og gieck ad eiga hana(u 90:45;u90:910) [and went to possess her (in marriage)] becomes

the less formal ok fekk san (h 1:223; h 2:3) [and then took (her inmarriage)]. Having established kings nomenclature, Haukr simply useskonungr, and he uses more direct speech. This approach is paralleled


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in Haukrs redaction ofFstbrra saga,from which he appears to havestripped the digressions in high literary and Latinate style, presumably

to make the saga conform more nearly to his conceptions of anslend-ingasaga, as he wishedHeireks sagato conform to his conceptions of afornaldarsaga (Jnas Kristjnsson, esp. 5980). On the other hand, Haukr followed *us non-chronological narra-tive sequencing and foreboding comments fairly consistently. Indeed, hadds some beautifully well-poised comments during thegtur-sectionto suggest Heirekrs growing suspicion that his guest is inn (e.g.h 59:224; 80:323). We may interpret this dichotomy by the analogyof a speaker attempting to speak in a dialect other than his own: he is

liable to adopt the phonology of the other dialect fairly successfully(with a measure of hyper-correction), but to maintain the syntax of hisown dialect, not recognizing the dialectal diVerences in this area. Haukrwanted all the historical detail of *ubut wanted hisHeireks saga to soundlike a traditionalfornaldarsaga. His alterations to *us diction, however,emphasize that *u breached the acceptable style offornaldarsgur in theeyes of contemporary audiences as well as modern. This approach doesnot necessarily mean that he saw the saga primarily as a work of ction,however. Haukr may have had historical verisimilitude in mind when

he made his text sound not like fornum bokum [ancient books] butmore like their raw material.

Paganism in Heireks sgur

I have compared the styles and methods ofr,u, and to some extent hand shall now conclude with a thematic comparison of the texts. An issuethat particularly invites consideration is the place of paganism inHeireks

saga.The contrast between the pagan and Christian worlds seems to havebeen crucial to the sense of history that is so striking in Old Icelandicliterature; its handling inHeireks sagaought to tell us something of thesagas meaning in Icelandic society (see Mitchell 606, 11436). Paganism is portrayed in the saga most fully through Heirekr himselfand most prominently in a scene occurring just before the riddle-contest.In this passage,rdescribes Heirekrs practice of swearing on a boarwith bristles that look as though they are golden. The passage comesat the point in the saga where, the good counsels all tested, Heirekr

successfully marries, and sest n um kyrrt (r54:34; see alsou129:14, h 53:312) [now settles down]. The swearing is used in the storyto establish a context for the riddle-contest. It is paralleled only in the


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eddaicHelgakvia Hjrvarssonarin the prose following stanza 30 and wasperhaps inspired by it. It would be fascinating to know how and why the

episode was included *Heireks saga, but what is certainly interesting isthe development of the description inu. It adds that Heidrekur kongurblotadi Frey og tignai hann mest af ollum sinum godumm (u 129:45, see also h 54:24) [King Heirekr sacriced to Freyr and honoredhim the most of all his gods]. This development is simple enough givenFreyrs association with the boar Gullinbursti and with peace and pros-perity, but it is a much more conventional description of Scandinavianpagan practice emphasizing sacrice and polytheism. The boar is nowheilagur (u 129:10; see also h 54:26) [holy]; moreover,usituates these

sacrices in that month er Februarius heitir (u 129:8) [that is calledFebruarius]. One cannot rely on the testimony of individual words inu, but if original, the register of this word is important: an ostentatiousloan-word declaring Latinity and learning in counterpoint to Heirekrsown culture. Moreover,ufurther emphasizes Heirekrs coming of ageby replacingrs claim that Heirekr gerist hofingi mikill ok spekingr atviti (r54:4) [becomes a great chieftain and a wise man in knowledge]with the statement that he giordist nu frgur kongur af speki, so ogrikdomi (u129:12) [became now a king famous in wisdom, and also in

power] recalling the Patristic pairing ofsapientia et fortitudoso importantto medieval political philosophy. But even discounting these details,we can see inua more self-conscious attitude to paganism than inr.Admittedly, inns arrival for the riddle-contest in hr isheralded by anexplicit mention of a sacrice to inn by one of Heirekrs opponents(r55:58; h 55:279), and this event is omitted inu. But this omissionis consistent withus technique of leaving its audience, like the sagasprotagonists, guessing what is afootand there is no real question thathis guest Gestumblindi [Guest the Blind] is inn.us approach might

even be taken to invite a learned game of god-spotting. This trend of more frequent references to paganism continues inportrayals of Heirekr. Heirekr begins his career inr as an inn-hero (see Tulinius, 1113), the character-type best known from StarkarStrvirksson and Egill Skalla-Grmsson, but this theme was bolstered asthe saga was recomposed. Heirekr begins his career as an inciter at afeast, which aligns him with Starkatherus at Ingelduss feast in book 6 ofthe Gesta Danorum(16695) and with Loki inLokasenna.His subsequentoutlawry aligns him also with Grettir smundarson (while Grettir is not

an inn-hero, he shares much with them, see Grimstad nn. 6, 8, withrefs.): when Grettir and Heirekr are outlawed, their mothers each give


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them their grandfathers sword, which eventually kills each recipient(Grettis sagachs. 17, 82).3InrHeirekr becomes a king by sacricing to

inn and ends his reign by a contest with inn. As Much pointed out,this biography matches that of Geirrr, another prince under innspatronage, in the prose introduction toGrmnisml (cited by Tolkien xvii).Additionally, as I have mentioned above,Ynglinga saga says that innfr ... fyrst vestr Gararki ok sur Saxland (i:14) [rst went westinto Gararki and then south into Saxland]the two kingdoms whereHeirekr adventures in the Good Counsels story. *u developed thisportrayal. It gave Heirekr a line descending both from inn (u91:215)and Starkar (u 90:1091:14) and from heroes abducting giant-women,

a pattern conducive, Meulengracht Srensen has noted, to producingOdinic heroes. I have already mentioned the *u-redactions addition ofthe three ningsverk,probably from Starkars story, and discussed howHeirekrs malicious and vengeful character is developed betweenrandu. The latter development brought Heirekrs story closer again to that ofGeirrr: Heirekr, like Geirrr, now removes his brother deliberately.h generally adopted *us alterations and maintained this trajectory.4

These observations are consistent with Mitchells observation thatthe ancient pagan gods actually increase,rather than diminish, their

appearances in thefornaldarsogur (134), and as in the material consid-ered by Mitchell, developments of paganism inHeireks sagaseem not

3Additionally, Grettir is distinguished from his elder brother Atli by the two brothersas contrast motif, which, as has been have noted elsewhere, is characteristic of Odinic

younger brothers (Grettis sagach. 14; Hall 401; see also Boberg 1966, underatp251.5.4).The motif is applied in huto Heirekr and his brother Angantr, which add that Heirekrsfoster-father had the Odinically-named foster-father Gizurr (u 115:1021; h 34:1422),strengthening the comparison, but this passage is missing in r because of the lacuna in themanuscript, so it is not possible to be certain when it enteredHeireks saga.Gizurr appearsas an Odinic inciter after the failure of hrin verses of usHlskvia as well as prose (uvv.99103), so this appearance at least is probably original to *Heireks saga(and old).Regarding Heirekrs sacrice of the slain in Reigotaland, rumention Heirekr sacric-ing Haraldrs slain to inn only after the battle (r44:12; u 122:6), but h has Heirekrspeak before the battle, saying Sv lz mr: goldit muni vera ni fyrir einn svein, ef arkmr fyrir Haraldr konungr ok son hans ok herr hans allr (h 43:268) [It seems thus tome: inn will be repayed for one boy, if instead come Haraldr and his son and all hisarmy] and thus emphasizes his inn-worship. h also has Hfundr give the extra counsel,at setja aldri Tyrng at ftum sr (h 37:289) [that he should never lay Tyrngr at hisfeet, emended from at skyldi jamnan kerski], suggesting that Haukr intended Heirekrto receive inn badly and fall on his sword, as Geirrr does. (Admittedly, this threatdoes not manifest itself in hpresumably, Haukr thought better of it before he reachedthe relevant passage because it would unbalance other aspects of the saga and its plot.) AsI have mentioned, in h the riddle-contest with inn is particularly well-developed.


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to reect direct knowledge of pre-Christian practice. Mitchell insteadread such developments as a means whereby Icelanders, politically and

economically dominated by Norway, were able to demonstrate andmaintain their cultural vitality and, moreover, lay claim to a greaterknowledge and understanding of the common Scandinavian heritagethan their oppressors (see 12636). Paganism inevitably played a largerole: medieval Scandinavians were well aware of their distinctively recentpagan heritage, and Icelanders grew increasingly condent in deployingit to claim Icelandic dominance over the Scandinavian past. However,in another respect, Heirekr is a very unusual fornaldarsaga-hero:anti-heroes are rare in the genre. Instead,fornaldarsaga-heroes are not

ostentatiously pagan and often distrust pagan practice (Mitchell 612;see also Sturlaugs saga395). Heroes begin their careers often enough inconict with their families, in sagas and elsewhere (see Boberg,l10099),but Heirekrs acts of malice set him apart. This unusual developmentdemands further explanation. Tulinius has recently argued that Heirekr symbolically redeems him-self for the murder of his brother at the end of the Gararki episodewhen he is almost hanged for allegedly killing the son of the king ofGararki (see 8992), just as he ought to have been hanged for actu-

ally killing his brother. Certainly, it is clear that here Heirekr nishestesting Hfundrs advice (despite, in h,not having tested quite all ofit) and settles down to rule peacefully and well. Heirekrs nal reply inthe riddle-contest even describes inn in terms like those used by suchnoble heathens as Hrlfr kraki (who characterizes inn in chapter 46ofHrlfs saga krakaas an illr andi (Fornaldarsgur norurlandaii:81)[evil spirit]). This development in Heirekrs behavior, as Tulinius argues,is antithetical to the nature of the inn-hero and therefore provides aconvincing reason for inns turning on Heirekr. This reasoning has

a particularly close and, I think, illuminating parallel among theslend-ingasgur inFlamanna saga(especially chapters 201: 27481), whererr responds to the conversion of his one-time worshipper orgilsrrabeinsfstri with vicious attacks. As a faithful Christian, orgils isultimately protected from rrs assaults. Likewise, Gestr, the son ofthe eponymous Brr ofBrar saga Snfellsss, converts at the end ofthe saga in chapter 21 (providing it, like the king-list to *u, with theessential anchor to the crux of medieval Scandinavian historiography)and is consequently attacked by his one-timebjargvttr[guardian-being],

his inherently pagan father. Although Gestr is killed, he is eVectivelymatryred: killed for his faith while still emphatically clad in his baptismal


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robes and so washed from sin. Thus, from a Christian viewpoint, theoutcome of Gestrs struggles with pagan gods at his conversion is even

more positive than for orgils. While supporting Tuliniuss point to a degree, these parallels sug-gest to me an alternative reading: Heirekr is not allegorically savedby becoming a noble heathen since unlike his Christian counterpartsinFlamanna saga andBrar saga, he is not ultimately protected fromthe revenge of his old patron inn. Despite mending his ways andinueven coming to echo Christian virtues, Heirekr is killed at nightthrough inns agency, in ruat the hands of slaves whom he hadhimself captured. This is not the stuVof martyrdom: it suggests that

even where a pagan rises above the darkness of ignorance, he cannotultimately escape it. Moreover, Heirekrs descendants by sexual liai-sons of which the Church disapproved plunge into war and fratricidethrough the incitement of the Odinic Gizurr. Closer comparison withGrmnisml is also revealing in this context. There, inn arrives inGeirrrs hall to test the quality of Geirrrs hospitality; nding itlacking and that of Geirrrs son Agnarr to be better, inn causesthe death of Geirrr and rewards Agnarr. He operates, then, as anarbiter of appropriate behavior by upholding social ideals, in what we

may imagine to be a manner rooted in pre-conversion culture. Oncemore, all recensions ofHeireks sagasuggest a diametrically oppositeunderstanding: now inns visit to Heirekrs hall is to punish goodkingship and to provoke strife. In short, this comparison adds thedemonization of inn to my reading ofHeireks sagas presentationof the heathen past. Although inns less pleasant characteristics areoften taken as the more characteristic of a dark and gritty Norse mythol-ogy, one wonders if they might not owe more than has traditionallybeen supposed to Christian writers and redactors.

Like many folktales, Heirekrs story can at one level be read asone of wish-fullment, representing the life an aristocratic audiencecould pursue were they not constrained by moral, social, and politicallimitations. He is for most of his career an autocrat of vast power, freefrom overlordship or taxation, apparently free from reciprocal obliga-tions of kingship, and free from the bonds of marriage. (For a modernScandinavian tale with similar signicances, see Tangherlini 2125.)However, the redactors of Heireks saga seem not to have wishedto promote this image carelessly. This may be because they, as was

traditional for medieval historians, had a moralizing agenda, but it iscommon enough for folktales, while presenting wish-fullment, also


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to mitigate the yearning prompted by such stories by highlighting thedrawbacks of wish-fullment in order to reveal the value of the status

quo.One example of this inHeireks saga is provided by the account ofthe acquisition of Tyrngr by Svafrlami in *u (u 92:193:16; see alsoh 2:204:25): by trapping twodvergar,he wins a magical sword, thusdestabilizing thestatus quo.This development is counterbalanced by thecurse that thedvergar put on the sword that leads both to Svafrlamisdeath and, indirectly, all the mishaps in his line. (For another analoguesee Tangherlini 23841.) Heirekr had a career to envy, but it broughtfratricide and anarchy to his descendants and to Heirekr himself anignominious death and, presumably, damnation. These must have been

among the meanings of Heirekr and his paganism apparent to theredactors and audiences of each of hru.Heireks saga may have servedto emphasize Icelanders dominance in remembering the Scandinavianpagan heritage, but it invites us to view the lives of the pagans whom itdepicts from a Christian perspective and, especially in *u, in a Christianhistorical framework. From this point of view, their lives may have beenglorious but not, ultimately, enviable.

Conclusions

In the redactions ofHeireks saga,then, we may glimpse, inr, afornal-darsaga entering its written form from a predecessor that was probablysubstantially oral. We may then view in u (and to some extent *u) aresponse to the text,which reacted to an increasingly literate contextof saga-style, transmission, and meaning. The ways in whichudiVersfromrbring it closer to the style associated with the canonizedslen-dingasgur.This point and Haukrs evident discomfort with aspects

of *us style emphasize the literate character of the slendingasgurand suggests the extent to which, within Old Icelandic genres andmodes, these were distanced from traditional narrative forms and argu-ably marked stylistically ashistoriae.*Heireks saga evidently had thecapacity to be understood as a historical record and conceivably waswritten down on that account. But at least by comparison with its rstrecomposition, *u, its stance was predominantly (oral-)literary. The*u-redactor juxtaposed the pagan setting of the saga to a Christian,historical frame of reference. He developed the portrayal of the sagas

obviously pagan elements into a more striking and lurid depictionof paganism which more strongly suggested contrasts with his own


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Christian culture. Although these processes may also have underlain*Heireks saga,they came to the fore in *u. The *u-redactor also situated

what was obviously traditional narrative material in an ostentiatiouslyliterary stylistic context by once more contrasting the culture portrayedwith the culture portraying. He reversed the oral process of reducingthe cast and leaving them without names and produced a text morereminiscent of theslendingasgur thanfornaldarsgur.Moreover, hesituatedHeireks sagain an explicitly literate historical context, bothBiblical and secular, demarcating the story both in terms of what hap-pened before its events and what happened after. The alterations ofthe *u-redactor not only promoted verisimilitude, but also increased

the sagas literary quality. Stylistic devices that add so much to thetension and suspense of the classical slendingasgur (such as artfullyrelating events out of sequence) were introduced or promoted, whileblind or semi-blind motifs and narrative verses were removed. Thesechanges suggest a desire for progressively subtler modes of narrationless conducive to oral improvisation and for narration that purportedto report a codied, xed historical truth. Finally, I have suggestedthat we can see how Haukr Erlendsson, like many in his time, wascaught between oral and literate paradigms and that we can even see

something of how he attempted to mediate between them.Ultimately,in his version of the saga, diction was directed back from the scholarstoward the storytellers. Of course, a medieval audience need not havedrawn a sharp line between literary and historical approaches, style,and genres; but the *u-texts and Haukrs responses to them emphasizethat there was a line to be drawn, and suggests where.


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