The Story of Grettir the Strong Part 40

P. 208. Knave-game. Perhaps the truer rendering would have been 'nut-game,' if indeed 'hnet tafl' here stands not for 'hnef-tafl,'

as we at first supposed. It is undoubtedly true that among the early games of Iceland the 'hettafl,' 'hnottafl,' was a distinct kind of game, as was also the 'hneftafl,' 'hnefatafl,' knave-game. If we follow the text as it stands, the game that Thorbiorn played is supposed to have borne some resemblance to what is now called in Iceland 'refskak,' fox-play, anglice 'fox and geese,' the aim of which is, by twelve pieces, called lambs, to bring the fox into such a position as to leave him no place to move, whichso way he turns.

P. 240. Pied-belly we call the Ram, although the saga seems to mean that he was called Autumn-belly, which is a name of little, if of any, sense at all. We suppose that haus-mogottr, p. 169, and haust-magi, p. 184, is one and the same thing, the t having spuriously crept into the text from a scribe's inadvertence.

P. 243 (cpr. 207, 225, 272). 'In such wise Grettir lost his life, &c.'

The hardest thing to account for, or to bring to an intelligible issue in Grettir's saga, is the incongruity between the statements as to his age at his death and the number of years of his outlawry, as compared with the truthful account of the events told in the saga itself. From the time when Grettir slew his first man, all the events of the saga may be traced clearly year for year up to his death, and their truthfulness is borne out whensoever they chance to run parallel to events mentioned in other trustworthy sagas, and they fall in with the right time nearly without an exception. But the statement on the page referred to above, that he was fourteen years old when he slew Skeggi, that he was twenty when he dealt with Glam; twenty-five when he fell into outlawry, and forty-four when he was slain, is utterly confuted by the chronology of the saga itself.

These numbers given above are obviously made to fall in with the story in page 225 about the talk of the time of his outlawry at the Thing.

The question is stated to have been this: whether he had been a fraction of the twentieth year an outlaw, his friends hoping that in such case a part might count pro toto. But the truth of the matter was that he had neither been an outlaw for a fraction of the twentieth year, nor even for anything like nineteen years. He was outlawed at the Thing held in 1016, his year of outlawry dated from Thing to Thing; this talk befell in 1031, consequently he had been full fifteen years and no fraction of a year in outlawry. The story, therefore, of the twenty years, or nineteen years and a fraction, of outlawry falls utterly to the ground when brought to the test of the actual facts as recorded in the saga.

But, despite of this, it is not to be supposed that this episode at the Thing in 1031 is brought in at random and without any cause. There are two obvious reasons for a.s.signing twenty years to the length of Grettir's outlawry, and for bringing into the tale a discussion on that subject just where it is done. The one we may call the reason of traditional belief, the other the reason of dramatic effect. Grettir was indisputably for all reasons the greatest of Icelandic outlaws, and the fond imagination of his biographers at all times urged them to give the longest endurance to the time of his outlawry above all outlaws, without inquiring closely as to whether it agreed with the saga itself or not. The other, or the dramatic motive, lies in bringing in the discussion on this long outlawry just at this particular Thing of 1031; for it was obviously the teller's object to suggest to the reader the hope of the great outlaw's legal restoration to the cherished society of man just before the falling of the crus.h.i.+ng blow, in order to give an enhanced tragic interest to his end, and he undoubtedly succeeds in doing this. To these reasons, besides others less obvious, we imagine this main inconsistency in Grettir's saga is to be ascribed.

Nevertheless, it is worth observing that blunders of scribes may have in a measure been at work here. If we are not mistaken most of the existing MSS. of our saga state that when he fell (p. 243) 'he was one winter short of--var hanum vetri fatt a'--whatever number of years they give as his age. And we venture the suggestion that originally the pa.s.sage ran thus: var hanum vetri fatt a half iv{tugum},[21] i.e., he lacked one winter of thirty-five years, when he was slain. If a subsequent scribe committed the easy blunder of dropping I before V, the reading of our original (Edition, 53) would be the natural result, and an offspring of that same blunder would also as easily be the other reading, common to one cla.s.s of the Grettir MSS.: var hanum vetri fatt i v{tugum} or i hinum v. tug, by dropping the syllable 'half.'

[Footnote 21: A man of twenty, thirty, forty, &c., is in the Icelandic expressed by the adjective tvitugr, pritugr, fertugr; a man twenty-five, thirty-five, &c., is half-pritugr, half-fertugr, &c.; the units beyond the tens are expressed by the particle um, a man of twenty-one, thirty-seven, or forty-nine, is said to have einn (i.e., vetr. winter) um = beyond, tvitugt, sjo um ritugt, niu um fertugt, &c.]

If the whole pa.s.sage on page 243, beginning with the words quoted in the commencement of this note, be not indeed a later interpolation, we believe that all that follows the words, 'till the time when he dealt with Glam, the Thrall,' must, indeed, be taken as an interpolation of later commentators.

Our suggestion recommends itself in this at least, that it brings about full harmony between the statements, here treated of, and the saga itself, for when Grettir left the land in 1011 he was fourteen years of age, and twenty years later, or 1031, he fell. How far his age thus given agrees or not with the decrepitude of his father, who died in 1015, having been apparently already a bedridden man for some time, is a matter of itself, and need not affect the accuracy of our suggestion, which, however, we only put forth as a conjecture, not having within reach the MSS. of Grettir's saga. A critical examination of these might, perhaps, allow of a more positive discourse on this vexed point, which to all commentators on Grettir has. .h.i.therto remained an insoluble riddle.

P. 251, 1. 12. The original makes Asdis daughter of Skeggi the Short-handed. This is here corrected agreeably to Landnama, and other records of her family.