Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 5, 1894.djvu/110

102 whose ludicrously uncritical statements he too modestly respects. Of Einar Thordarson, whose work was done before the possibility of critical study of the sagas had been seen save by a few scholars, one need not speak; but for a "Northern Editor" nowadays to treat Egil's Saga as "true, with small and unimportant exceptions", in "what concerns persons and events in Iceland and Norway", is almost laughably absurd.

The saga of Egil, a complex saga in the second phase, is founded upon various material—

1. Real traditions of Egil himself.

2. Poems of Egil; but the greater mass of Egil's verse was unknown to the compiler of the saga as we have it.

3. Landnáma-bóc, unintelligently studied.

4. Pieces out of the Lives of the Kings of Norway (not now extant in the abridged Lives of the Hemiscringla type).

These are worked up into a §I, Saga of Thorolf Queld-Ulf's son (i-xxix), founded upon 3 and 4, elaborately enlarged; and §II, a saga of Egil (xxix-xc), Scald-Grim's son, founded upon 1 and 2, garnished with a huge mass of idle bombastic stuff. §III is a late scribal Epilogue (xci-xcii).

Are's (original) account of Queld-Ulf's settlement is worth citing, as showing what a long sermon a short text may furnish:—"Harold Fairhair had Thorolf slain north in Alost at Sandness on the false witness of the sons of Hilderid. King Harold would not pay were-gild therefor. Then Grim and Queld-Ulf made ready a merchantman, meaning to go to Iceland, for they had got news of Ingolf their friend there. They lay at Solund ready for sea; there they took the ship that King Harold had taken from Thorolf when his men were new come from England, and they slew there Hallward Hardfarer and Sigtrygg Sharpfarer, that had wrought this. They also slew there the sons of Guttorm, son of Sigurd Heart, kinsmen of the king, and all their ship's crew, save two men that they sent to tell the king the tidings. They made both ships ready