V - . y r ? - .sfc, , ,1 ■ "S , DET KONGELIGE BIBLIOTEK -é;sl i;. ¥'::' DA1.-2.S 58 8° ¥ rjui - 1 1 58 0 8 14933 3 j THE GONGU-HROLFSSAGA A Study in O ld N orse P hilology BY JACOB WITTMER HARTMANN, Ph.D., Instructor in the German Language and Literature, The College of the City of New York. i $|ørk COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS I* a s i 5. ■ COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY GERMANIC STUDIES THE GONGU-HROLFSSAGA C0 LUMB1A UNIVERSITY PRESS SALES AGENTS NEW YORK: LEMCKE & BUECHNER 30-32 W est 27TH Street LONDON : HENRY FROWDE A men Corner, E.C. toronto : HENRY FROWDE 25 R ichmond Street, W. THE GONGU-HROLFSSAGA A Study in O ld N orse P hilology BY JACOB WITTMER HARTMANN, Ph.D. Instructor in the German Language and Literature, The College of the City of New York. $Cefaj fo r k COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS t ( ( 2 % . HI! i Copyright, 1912 By Columbia U niversity Press Printed from type July, 1912 A ll right s reserv ed ii m Hi i I I! ;# Viii s *'' hi* Press of % The New era Printing compant Lancaster. pa. i mi■ ; M ■; , i f e i 1 '-’l : g( t i r )%) NISf--y 5 1 > '% l S ^ sg^ L i B É a a ^ ?m L«> c .1 ir ' '> ; VI i-4, VI# 'i ■1 -i 4 f t1 F (. i i I* Approved for publication, on behalf of the Department of i.1 1 Germanic Language s and Literatures of Columbia University. f Calvin T homas. N ew York, June, 1912. <■ i f £ i I. ; i t) i '1,1 fl: \ 'riKtrs.. ',v ■ '■8 f c I :l! ■ ii i. :•! S :i!l > :l»l vn ■ ! i I t !■ ‘ , es ij't- PROFESSOR WILLIAM H. CARPENTER AND PROFESSOR ARTHUR F. J. REMY OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY l. i • ' i* ■ A: . ' U -' , :A/= •v imm!'• ; v o å PREFACE The completion of this work would have been impossible along the present lines if the author had not been able, through- out the course of his investigations, to draw without reserve on the advice and assistance of several gentlemen who were kind enough to place their special philological accomplishments at his disposal. The author is indebted to Professor William H. Carpenter, of Columbia University, for the suggestion of the subject and for many hints as to the division and distribution of the ma- terial, as well as for many literary references of great value. To Professor Eugen Mogk, of Leipzig, are due the author’s thanks for suggestions as to the source of some of the folklore material in GHS. Mr. Halldor Hermannsson, Cus- todian of the Fiske Icelandic Collection at the Cornell Univer­ sity Library, aided the author in properly utilizing the resources of that great collection, also by sending him lists of MSS. in- accessible in this city, and by introducing him by mail to Mr. Matthias pordarson, then of Copenhagen, now of Reykjavik, Iceland, who copied the Gpngu-Hrolfs Rimur at Copenhagen, and later collated them with another MS. at Reykjavik. Professor Arthur F. J. Remy, of Columbia University, care- fully went over the entire MS., thus giving the author numer- ous corrections and suggestions based on an intimate acquaint- ance with the phonology of Old Norse and with the whole field of medieval literature. But for Professor Remy’s gen­ erous gift of his time and his expert knowledge in these fields, the publication of these pages might have been much delayed. Mr. Charles F. Barnason, a native of Iceland, and now a stu­ dent at the College of the City of New York, rendered valuable assistance in preparing the Rima and translation for print. To these gentlemen it is the author’s privilege to acknowl- edge his great obligations; where anything has been derived from books, effort has been made to give proper credit. J. W. H. T h e College of t h e C ity of N ew Y ork, January, 1912. CONTENTS Explanation of Abbreviations............................................ xi C h a p t e r I. The Fornaldarspgur in General................................. i II. Manuscripts of the Gpngu-Hrolfssaga..................... n III. A Synopsis of the Gpngu-Hrolfssaga..................... 15 i IV. Sources and Materials of the Ggngu-Hrolfssaga___ 28 V. Ggngu-Hrolf as an Historical Character................. 43 I VI. Geographical Knowiedge displayed in the Gpngu- I Hrolfssaga ............................................................. rc VII. Gpngu-Hrolfsrimur .................................................. « g k Appendix I. The Vocabulary and Style of GHS........... 100 * Appendix II. Parallel Passages of GHS and Knytlinga- i saga ........................................................... f Appendix III. Alphabetical List of All Geographical jiH Names occurring in GHS..................... 106 Bibliography ........................................................................ IXI EXPLANATION OF ABBREVIATIONS Ant. Rus. Antiquités russes, see Bibliography. AS. Anglo-Saxon. Bibi. Bibliography. cpd. compound. CV. Cleasby and Vigfusson’s Icelandic Dictionary. Denm. Denmark. Engl. English. ESV. Eirikssaga viSfqrla. Fas. Fornaldarspgur norSrlanda. Fms. Fornmannasqgur. Fr. French. t Ger. German. I Gr. Greek. GHS. Gqngu-Hrolfs Saga. H.Hb. HelgakviSa Hundingsbana. Hjålm. ok Olvés. HjålmJ?érssaga ok Olvés. Hrom. S. Greip. Hromundarsaga Greipssonar. ISV = YngvSV. Knyti. Knytlingasaga. Krit. Bidr. Kritiske Bidrag, see Bibi., under Storm. Lat. Latin. Lilj. Liljegren, see Bibi. MHG. Middle High German. MLG. Middle Low German. Mod. Modern. OF. Old French. OHG. Old High German. Sturl SS. Sturlaugssaga starfsama. ON. Old Norse. YngvSV. Yngvarssaga vfåfqrla. A few other abbreviations are explained at the head of the list of geographical names in the appendix. CHAPTER I T he F ornaldarsqgur in General In a consideration of the literature written in the Old Norse Language it has long been customary to regard as of greater importance those sagas that deal with purely historical persons and events, or such sagas as appear to be of this character. Possibly because the historical material orally preserved in Iceland was so relentlessly present in the minds of the people, the historical saga has always been put into a position of first importance as compared with the more distinctly fictional kind that we are about to consider. There can be no reason, in a study limited to a consideration of one comparatively insig- nificant work, for recasting all values in estimating the rela­ tive importance of the various literary forms employed in Ice- landic literature. Yet it is an open question in Icelandic literature whether or not the main emphasis should be placed on the purely historical and didactic. In the medieval litera­ ture of the various European countries, pure fiction no doubt received the larger share of the popular as well as of the more aristocratic interest. Perhaps, as has been suggested, the inter- ruptions in the continuity of Continental history, and the re­ sulting lack of connection with the story of great movements (a lack of connection due also no doubt in part to the in- finitely greater vastness of the European community, in which the individual and the family must have appeared even then as of relatively slight importance), will to some extent explain the desire so apparent on the continent, to occupy oneself rather with the products of the imagination than with reality. The little band of Icelanders, on the other hånd, who at no time in their history have exceeded the number of eighty thousand souls, have never at any time lost the knowledge of their rela­ tions to the persons and events of their national life. Although the historical saga has always held the first place, it would be erroneous to assume that the existence of pure fiction in the literature of the Icelanders is of very recent date. In faet, it is extremely probable that stories without historical foundation were very common before any prose nar- ratives were put into writing at all, in other words, that they existed in oral tradition side by side with the historically cor- rect accounts of the doings of real families. Although the re- cording of the fictitious stories does not begin as early as that of the comparatively true ones (which Mogk very plausibly ex- plains by the faet that the greater esteem in which the latter were held required that the first efforts of native scribes writ­ ing in the vernacular be directed towards preserving them rather than the untrue),1 we have no convincing reason to believe that they are less old as a class than the historical sagas. But the very faet that they were as a rule written down later implies, of course, that the extant forms of the fictitious sagas must be somewhat more recent than those of the historical sagas. Olrik2 has shown that Saxo’s history is founded almost en- tirely on current legendary accounts. A truthful account of the life of an individual or of a family must be a really artistic production if it is to hold our atten­ tion for long. This requirement is of course fulfilled by the best historical sagas, but it should be remembered that where the faculty of invention is kept in check by the fear of pos- sible criticism of faet, there is a strong chance for the prosy writer to become hopelessly prosy. That mere annals as such are comparatively unenjoyable to the seeker for literary stim­ ulus, and that a saga must become duil through too great ad- herence to commonplace or perhaps sordid detail, goes without saying. It may almost, in faet, be set down as an axiom that as historical material becomes more and more exhausted, the repetition of it is bound to become duli unless it is narrated from a new point of view. What is really dramatic and im- posing in the lives of the ancestors of any race, will finally all have been written, and attention will then be turned to more recent events.