Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 11, 1900.djvu/428

 4o8 Reviews.

facts not treated of in the text, things Sturla knew and our author did not. But I incline now to think that none of the verses in the Saga are really Grettir's composition. Most of them clearly are not; every canon of criticism forbids it. It is possible that a ditty or stray verse of Grettir may have been made in one or two instances the foundation of a regular court-metre verse by some Icelandic poet of the twelfth or thirteenth century.

To a second hand I should ascribe the Landnama-b6c amplifi- cation (from Sturla's copy be it noted), that now stands at the beginning of the whole, and a number of glosses that seem to belong to a generation later than the composer's, and relate to the Sturlungs and their times.

The legal antiquarianism which brings in the grith-oath is of a piece with the legal bits of Njala and other Sagas, and may be the composer's own taste.

The nucleus that remains is not very big, but it is bigger than that of Egla. Here is an historic person, a cousin of St. Olave, a friend of Snorre gode, of Gudmund the mighty, an acquaintance of Thormod the poet, and many other notable men. That he went abroad after some trouble and manslaying in youth, did not get on well there with his cousin, came home again, got into fresh trouble, was outlawed, went through years of bandit life, and was finally murdered by his enemies in a discreditable way after twenty years, these are the main facts of his troubled life. Tradi- tion told of his strength, his fear of the dark, his sharp tongue, his bad luck, his determination, his wanderings, his friendship with Beorn and Thorgils, the enormous price set on his life, the witchcraft used by Angle and the new law that it brought about, the revenge taken for him by Dromund. Places where he tried his strength, where he fought, where he swam, where he hid, where he escaped, were remembered and pointed out. The red-headed outlaiv was a fond popular memory. The suit over Thorgil Macsson's death and the whale-drift, the slaying of Thorbiorn Tardy, the misfortune that befell Thorir of Garth's sons, the death of Atle, and the slaying of Oxmain, the fight at Hitrive, the sparing of Snorris' son Thorodd, these are historic. Gretti's short sword and barbed spear were remembered, and the latter actually seen, by persons who seem to be connected with the Sturlungs.

The story of the bear, of the bearsarks, of the barrow-dweller (Karr the Old), though they are well enough told by the composer.