Sveinsson, Folk stories

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went to Copenhagen in 1683, was arrested for debt in 1684 and spent
the next three years in prison, where during the winter of 1686 87 he
wrote the two manuscripts relevant to this book, subsequently selling
them to the Swedish College of Antiquities (Collegium Antiquitatum).
Only parts of these manuscripts contain material such as folk-stories
relating to this study. The rest is copies of ancient literature, transla-
tions of European chap-books and Novellen and (something which
the scribe will have felt to be even more important) tables of Jón
Eggertsson s own genealogy and the patents of knighthood or nobil-
ity of his forebears. He no doubt thought that these were good things
to show both to his patrons and to his enemies, as being able to prove
1
Krukkssp� is printed (but not with a critical text) in Jfiork. 213 27.
2
It may be added that �lafur Halldórsson, Gr�nland � mi: aldaritum, 1978,
maintains that Jón l�r: i was the main author of Gr�nlandsann�l, rather than
Bj�rn of Skar: s�, as formerly thought. This work has little relevance to folk-
stories, however. But it is likely that many attributions of works of this period
may sooner or later have to be revised.
114 THE FOLK-STORIES OF ICELAND
such descent could be of help to him in his various dealings with the
authorities. When Jón Eggertsson took the trouble to copy long extracts
from T�: fordr�f, it doubtless shows that he had discovered them to be
of interest to people who mattered. On the whole this copying is done
with apparently scrupulous acknowledgement of authorship, but there
is a long collection of stories, especially about parsons who practised
various kinds of magic, which are attributed to �lafur gamli, Old
�lafur . Jón fiorkelsson the younger thought that this was a pseudonym
for the Rev. fiorsteinn Bj�rnsson, the author of the already discussed
Noctes Setbergenses (see pp. 93 95), and it is easy to see what gave
him the idea. In the genealogical part of Jón Eggertsson s manuscript
we are told that he is following a book by the Rev. fiorsteinn of
�tsk�lar.1 This is not a valid argument for the authorship of the stories,
however, as the reference is only to the genealogical material, which
has nothing to do with folk-stories. It was pointed out in the original
Icelandic edition of this book that the viewpoint of the compiler of the
stories is northern Icelandic, while the Rev. fiorsteinn spent his life in
the south of Iceland. It may therefore be surmised that Jón Eggertsson
himself was the author, and this has been the opinion of Bjarni Einarsson
and Einar G. P�tursson (cf. p. 96 above). There are, however, the follow-
ing reasons to doubt this view.
Although the attributions of the scribe, Jón Eggertsson, to the Rev.
fiorsteinn and Old �lafur ( who was so named ) of the essays Um �tt
Magn�sar Jónssonar and Um r�nakonstina On the art of runes , as
well as of the collection of stories of magic, may be an invention,
there are at least two powerful arguments against his being the real
author of these pieces. Firstly, there is a reference to a myrkvi: arskógur
deep forest near Lauf�s in Eyjafj�r: ur.2 I find it quite inconceivable
that a man who knew deep forests in other countries could have used
that word of any Icelandic woodland whatever; on the other hand, a
man who had never seen forests on the European mainland could eas-
ily have taken the word myrkvi: arskógr from M�gus saga3 to make
1
Jón fiorkelsson published Um �tt Magn�sar Jónssonar in Huld IV 22 35,
Huld2 II 19 32. A full critical text has been published, with a detailed exami-
nation, of this and Um r�nakonstina (Skrif �lafs gamla) in BE Munnm�la-
s�gur, 3 22; see also lxxvi xci.
2
Um �tt Magn�sar Jónssonar, BE Munnm�las�gur, 6.
3
See M�gus saga 19. I am of the opinion that the difficulties the Bishop of
SOURCES 115
his story as impressive as possible, as he would not realise how inap-
propriate such a word is in such a context. Jón Eggertsson, on the
other hand, was well acquainted with the difference between Icelan-
dic and European forests. Secondly, there is the statement that the
king of Denmark had to give up various lands to the king of Sweden
(Skrif �lafs gamla 19). The former Administrator of the M�: ruvellir
lands (and servant of the Swedish government) would never have used
so loose a phrase; he must have known very well how great was the
loss to Denmark and gain to Sweden. From these and other lesser
points it seems likely that Jón Eggertsson was basing his account on
an older one written by a man who did not know the affairs of the
great world outside Iceland as well as he himself did. How far this
original would have been altered by Jón is difficult to say, except that
he has taken the section on the Rev. fiorkell Gu: bjartsson and the
Bishop of Hólar from its proper place and attached it to the end of his
own genealogy. He made an effort to make a single unit out of the
two, but the lack of real continuity between the parts is nonetheless
perfectly clear. The contents of the manuscript have also been further
muddled through sheets being misplaced when the book was bound.
Moreover resemblances can be detected between Old �lafur s writ-
ings and those of Jón l�r: i, however these may have come about.
Here are a few examples of such resemblance.
Old �lafur s writings is an entertaining work with an individual
character. Even though it was composed at the time of the witchcraft
persecutions (1625 90), and the consequent fear of accusations of
witchcraft, there is a curious late-medieval tone about the narration;
there are motifs that are easily found in stories from the late Middle
Ages when such stories were told for entertainment without any note
of fear or psychological stress. Thus the Rev. H�lfdan draws ale from
the corner-post of a house, horse-thieves get stuck to the backs of
stolen horses, a fox comes hurrying to obtain the parson s forgiveness
for attacking his sheep, a stolen sheep bleats inside the thief who has [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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