Three Versions of Jómsvíkinga saga

Abstract

Jómsvíkinga saga is amongst the oldest Icelandic saga texts. It was most likely written early in the thirteenth century, perhaps as early as around 1200. The saga has been preserved in four different versions from the Middle Ages in four vellum manuscripts: AM 291 4to, Holm perg 7 4to, Flateyjarbók and AM 510 4to. In Flateyjarbók it has been adapted to the saga of Ólafur Tryggvason in two parts. Various scholars have made attempts to trace the relationships between the preserved redactions by comparing them thoroughly, putting forward hypotheses on how the texts may have developed and forming a stemma codicum. In this article, it is argued that such methods cannot describe the redactions sufficiently and the redactions need to be valued separately. A comparison of the content of the three independent versions shows that the development of Jómsvíkinga saga can be a testament to scribal ideas as well as to the expectations of the audience. Perg 7 suggests that the redactor, and possibly the audience in his environment, expected a saga that was apposite and objective; the king is respected and stories that may humiliate the ruler are not included. The slightly older AM 291 4to, however, places less value on such respect; entertainment is at more of a premium than deference to the king. In AM 510 4to, which is dated to the sixteenth century, the text has been augmented with details, direct speech and conversations that do not alter the course of events significantly but create more vivid images of people and events and make explicit what older versions had hinted at more obliquely.