When a King of Norway Became a King of Russia: Transmission and Reception of Hrómundar saga Greipssonar in Scholarly Networks of Early Modern Scandinavia¹

Introduction

In recent years, the reception of Old Norse-Icelandic literature has seen an increasing amount of scholarly attention, which has manifested itself in a series of publications spanning from Northern Antiquity: The Post-Medieval Reception of Edda and Saga (Wawn 1994) in the early nineties, to the intensification of the interest in the past decade, for example, Studies in the Transmission and Reception of Old Norse Literature (Quinn and Cipolla 2016), The Legendary Legacy: Transmission and Reception of the Fornaldarsögur Norðurlanda (Driscoll et al. 2018), and most recently, The Vikings Reimagined: Reception, Recovery, Engagement (Birkett and Roderick 2020). The scope of reception studies stretches across various disciplines and topics, from early modern historical writing and National Romanticism, through transmission and adaptation histories of various works, to artistic influences of medieval literature on modern culture. The present article focuses on the early modern transmission and reception of a single literary work, which has hitherto received little attention in the scholarship.

While studying Old Norse-Icelandic literature and manuscripts, scholars tend to focus either on synchronic or diachronic analysis, but in recent years, merging the two approaches has become increasingly popular. Among the recent studies that have in some way crossed boundaries of traditional analysis, we can mention, for instance, studies by Aðalheiður Guðmundsdóttir (2001), Massimiliano Bampi (2018), Silvia Hufnagel (2016; 2018), Tereza Lansing (2012; 2016), Philip Lavender (2014; 2019), and Hans Jacob Orning (2015; 2018). These and similar studies have clearly demonstrated that the application of interdisciplinary approaches to literature benefits our understanding of the circumstances of the creation, dissemination, and historical reception of literary works. It expands or even changes the ways in which we interpret literary works in their historical contexts. The present study approaches a single Old Norse-Icelandic saga from such an interdisciplinary perspective, crossing the borders between history, literature, and manuscript studies, and extensively drawing from transmission history, material philology, and reception studies.²

The case study presented in this article is based on an analysis of the oldest witnesses of a single Old Norse legendary saga, Hrómundar saga Greipssonar, which was written in the second half of the seventeenth century.³ While this seventeenth-century saga has in its own right only been sparsely discussed in the literature, the materials related to Hrómundar saga have received a significant amount of scholarly attention, mainly due to its assumed medieval origins and the genealogical relevance of the protagonist of the saga to the history of Iceland. A saga by this name is mentioned in the widely cited description of the wedding feast in Reykhólar from 1119, which appears in Þorgils saga ok Hafliða, a part of the Sturlunga compilation (Brown 1952, 18). The medieval version of Hrómundar saga has not survived, and the only evidence for its existence in one form or another is this mention in Sturlunga. The genealogical relevance of the protagonist of the saga is also made explicit in the same description; moreover, Hrómundur is also mentioned by name in Landnámabók, where he is presented as a great-grandfather of the first settlers of Iceland, Ingólfur and Leifur (Finnur Jónsson 1900, 6). The only extant medieval manifestation of the story of Hrómundur is in metrical form, rímur, called Griplur or Hrómundar rímur Gripssonar, probably written in the fourteenth century, though the earliest manuscript is dated to the fifteenth century.⁴ The prose text, which can be found in all modern editions of Hrómundar saga, is a post-medieval adaptation of the story, written at the end of the seventeenth century, and based on the rímur (Brown 1946; Jesch 1984). The earliest manuscripts of the saga appear in Denmark in the second half of the seventeenth century, which was a period of intensified scholarly interest in Old Norse-Icelandic literature in general.

The early modern creation, transmission, and dissemination of the saga is here examined in the context of the growing historical and antiquarian interest in Old Norse-Icelandic literature in early modern Denmark. The scribal networks of people responsible for the production and dissemination of Hrómundar saga include Árni Magnússon (1663–1730), the famous manuscript collector; Jón Eggertsson (c. 1642–1689), the infamous agent of the Swedish Society of Antiquities; and Þormóður Torfason (1636–1719), a prolific historiographer of the kingdom of Denmark-Norway.⁵ By exploring these scribal networks and the circulation of Hrómundar saga in its early days, the present study contributes to the ongoing discussion on the role that the corpus of legendary sagas played in early modern Scandinavian historiography (Hedeager 2004; J. G. Jørgensen 2008; Lavender 2014; O'Connor 2018; Kapitan 2019). Through analysis of the variation that appears in the saga in its broad sociopolitical context, this study explores the influence that the expectations of the audience had on the reshaping of the narrative. The title “When a King of Norway Became a King of Russia” refers to the textual variation that appears in the oldest texts of the saga, where different manuscripts place King Ólafur in different parts of Northern Europe. This variation is analyzed in light of the political circumstances in which the texts were produced and disseminated.

This study consists of three main parts. The first part gives an overview of the historical background of Danish historiography and antiquarianism in the seventeenth century, focused on the rise of scholarly interest in Old Norse-Icelandic literature, which produced Hrómundar saga as we know it today. The second part explores the seventeenth-century interest in the story of Hrómundur and presents the circumstances in which the saga was written. The third part presents a case study of the textual variation concerning King Ólafur and the geography of the saga. It explores the possible motivations for the appearance of this variation in select manuscripts, with emphasis on the individual interests of the scribes and commissioners involved in creating and disseminating these texts.

1. Old Norse-Icelandic Literature and Danish Historiography

The rise of historical and antiquarian interest in Old Norse-Icelandic literature in Scandinavia is closely associated with the political struggles between the kingdom of Denmark and Norway and the kingdom of Sweden after the Kalmar Union had been officially dissolved in 1523 and a series of bloody wars over the dominium maris baltici (Baltic Sea dominion) took place (Kirby 1990; Lisk 1967). Until the end of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth century, when Danish scholars re-discovered the Icelandic sources, Old Norse-Icelandic literature was largely forgotten in Denmark and arguably also neglected in Iceland. As Margrét Eggertsdóttir recently summarized, the impulse for the rise of Icelandic interest in their heritage came from Denmark in the seventeenth century:

In Denmark, this period is characterized by the intensified search for historical sources for the history of Denmark. As Ellen Jørgensen concluded, the seventeenth century was

It is not the aim of this study to provide an exhaustive overview of the history of Danish historiography, or of the role Old Norse-Icelandic literature played in this period, nor of the competition between Sweden and Denmark for these sources, as detailed overviews have been presented by, among others, Ellen Jørgensen (1931), Karen Skovgaard-Petersen (1993; 2010), and most recently, Gottskálk Jensson (2019). It is, however, necessary to show the general sociopolitical background of the creation of the seventeenth-century Hrómundar saga.

When Hrómundar saga appeared in Denmark in the second half of the seventeenth century, the Old Norse-Icelandic sources had been on the Danish historiographical and antiquarian radar for amost a century. The first known official letter concerning the collection of antiquarian materials in Iceland was issued on April 17, 1596, by Christian IV (1577–1648), king of Denmark and Norway between 1588 and 1648. In this letter, the king encourages Icelanders to make available to Arngrímur Jónsson (1568–1648) various materials that may be relevant for Niels Krag's (1550–1602) work as the royal historiographer (Laursen 1910, 616).⁶ After that point, many excellent Danish scholars looked to Iceland in their searches for sources, but not many could make good use of them, as knowledge of the Old Norse-Icelandic language among Danes was limited.

This lack of general knowledge of the language led to the establishment of the position of royal translator, introduced by Frederik III (1609–1670), the king of Denmark and Norway from 1648 until 1670. The monarch, who instituted absolute monarchy in Denmark-Norway in 1660, became a great patron of research into the past of these two countries. This research was supposed to confirm that both Denmark and Norway not only had a splendid past but more importantly that they were ancient hereditary monarchies (Skovgaard-Petersen 2001; E. Jørgensen 1931, 144). Frederik III appointed an Icelander, Þórarinn Eiríksson (d. 1659), as the royal translator of Nordic antiquities, “kongelig translatør af nordiske antikviteter” (Kålund 1900, xxxvii), and sent him to Iceland in 1656 to collect sources. Þórarinn's service was not especially fruitful in translations or directly in new acquisitions, since he died only few years after his appointment, in 1659.⁷ Shortly after Þórarinn's appointment, however, Bishop Brynjólfur Sveinsson (1605–1675) sent three parchment manuscripts as a gift to Frederik III: a thirteenth-century manuscript of Grágas (today Reykjavík, Stofnun Árna Magnússonar, GKS 1157 fol.), the fourteenth-century manuscript of kings’ sagas now known as Flateyjarbók (today Reykjavík, Stofnun Árna Magnússonar, GKS 1005 fol.), and a late fourteenth- or early fifteenth-century manuscript of two legendary sagas, Ragnar saga loðbrókar and Völsunga saga (today Copenhagen, Royal Library, NKS 1824 b 4to) (Undervisningsministeriet 1951, 11; Kålund 1900, xxxviii, xlii–xliii). In a letter dated to July 10, 1656, Brynjólfur wrote to Villum Lange (1624–1682), tutor of the Crown Prince Christian, that he was sending these manuscripts to Denmark with the intention that they would be studied, edited, and translated.⁸

After Þórarinn Eiríksson's death in 1659, another Icelander, Þormóður Torfason, better known under his Latinized name Thormodus Torfæus, was appointed by the king to translate Icelandic sagas into Danish.⁹ One of the manuscripts Frederik III had previously received from Brynjólfur Sveinsson, Flateyjarbók, was the basis for the biggest assignment that young Torfæus received: the Danish translation of all the texts preserved in this manuscript. Torfæus's translation, dated to 1661, is preserved in a magnificent manuscript consisting of four volumes: Copenhagen, the Royal Library GKS 1015 fol. (Petersen 2009, 26, 51). His translational work was not, however, limited to the kings’ sagas, as there are manuscripts preserving his Danish translations of legendary sagas as well, for instance, the impressive volume of over 470 leaves, Copenhagen, Royal Library GKS 1019 fol., which contains, among other texts, Hrólfs saga kraka, Bósa saga og Herrauðs, and Hálfs saga og Hálfsrekka.¹⁰

Torfæus's work on the translation of Flateyjarbók must have pleased the monarch, as the following year, he was appointed as the royal antiquarian and traveled to Iceland to collect manuscripts for the king. His journey proved successful, since he came back with some of the most important medieval Icelandic manuscripts, including the thirteenth-century codex of kings’ sagas known today as Morkinskinna (Copenhagen, Det Kongelige Bibliotek, GKS 1009 fol.), the thirteenth-century codex known today as the Codex Regius of the Elder Edda (Reykjavík, Stofnun Árna Magnússonar, GKS 2365 4to), as well as a fifteenth-century codex containing, among other texts, several legendary sagas (Reykjavík, Stofnun Árna Magnússonar, GKS 2845 4to) (Undervisningsministeriet 1951, 21; Kålund 1900, xli). The contents of these volumes reflect the scholarly interest at the end of the seventeenth century in certain types of Old Norse literature, particularly kings’ sagas and legendary sagas.¹¹

During his work as a royal translator of Old Norse texts, Torfæus became aware of the differences between the royal genealogies as they are presented by Saxo and their Old Norse alternatives.¹² The king commissioned him to write an account of these differences, which became Series dynastarum et regum Daniæ, first completed in manuscript form in 1664 and published in highly revised form in 1702. After the completion of this volume, Torfæus, for some unknown reason, lost his privileged position at the Danish court, and one can only speculate what influence the controversial contents of the Series dynastarum might have had on his position. After all, even almost 40 years later, when Árni Magnússon was discussing the publication of the volume with Torfæus, he considered its contents problematic and thought that it could be banned (Már Jónsson 2012, 128). In a letter from October 2, 1700, Árni wrote to Torfæus about the expected reception of the volume by the Danish audience:

Whether the contents of Series dynastarum had anything to do with the winding course of Torfæus's scholarly career remains a matter of speculation, especially since already 3 years later, in 1667, he received another appointment as the royal antiquarian. His office was, however, not renewed after Frederik III's death and he had to wait to regain his office until much later. In 1682, he was appointed the historiographer of the kingdom of Norway “Historiographus for Kongeriget Norge,” with the main assignment to write a complete history of Norway in Latin (Bricka 1887, 17:256).

It was under the auspices of Christian V (1646–1699) that Torfæus was able to continue his scholarly enterprise. Christian V took the Danish throne after his father and was the king of Denmark and Norway from 1670 until 1699. He continued his father's ideological program of emphasizing the hereditary character of Danish and Norwegian monarchies and was thus also highly interested in Old Norse-Icelandic material (Gottskálk Jensson 2019, 40). It is easy to imagine that the Scanian war (1675–1679) pushed intellectual activities to the background, as it was not until 1681 that another Icelander appeared in the Danish scholarly landscape in the role of royal antiquarian. This was Hannes Þorleifsson (d. 1682), who was appointed on June 7, 1681, and in the following year was sent to Iceland to collect manuscripts. His main assignments were summarized in six points listed in the letter of his appointment. They included preparing selected manuscripts for publication with commentaries; obtaining old and rare manuscripts (“gamle og rare Manuscripter”) for the royal library; and writing a complete history of Iceland. In the same letter, Icelanders were encouraged to make their manuscripts available to Hannes (Ólafur Halldórsson et al. 1853–1874, 1:381–3).

The antiquarian activities on the other side of the Øresund were no less intensive.¹³ In fact, the earliest editions of the legendary sagas originated in Sweden, not in Denmark. Olof Verelius (1618–1682), with the help of an Icelander, Jón Jónsson from Rúgstaðir (1636–1679), published an edition and a Swedish translation of Gautreks saga in 1664, followed by a series of other sagas. Only a few years later, in 1667, the Swedish Society of Antiquities (Antikvitetskollegium) was established, and, as will be discussed later, the appearance of Hrómundar saga can be associated with the activities of this institution. One of the explicit objectives of the Antikvitetskollegium was to collect historical documents that could deliver information regarding Swedish history, including “gamble Jsslandska och norske manuscripter” (Jucknies 2009, 31) [old Icelandic and Norwegian manuscripts].

The establishment of the Antikvitetskollegium and the intensification of Swedish interest in Old Norse sources preserved in Iceland probably played a not insignificant role in assuring the reappointment of Torfæus into the royal service of the Danish-Norwegian king. Torfæus wrote an application to the king in which he emphasized the scale of collecting and editorial activities in Sweden:

The competition for Old Norse-Icelandic sources was in full swing when two men, acting on behalf of the competing monarchies, spent time in Iceland collecting manuscripts in the very same year, 1682: the newly appointed royal antiquarian Hannes Þorleifsson on behalf of Denmark and Jón Eggertsson on behalf the Swedish Antikvitetskollegium (Bjarni Einarsson 1955, xlii; Jón Helgason 1979, 176; Jucknies 2009, 93–6). While Jón Eggertsson managed to obtain a considerable collection of manuscripts, which he sent to Stockholm, Hannes Þorleifsson's endeavors did not bring new acquisitions to the royal collection, as he, together with the manuscripts he collected, never made it back to Copenhagen (Már Jónsson 2012, 42–3; Aðalgeir Kristjánsson 1975, 378). After Hannes Þorleifsson's death, Christian V appointed Thomas Bartholin (1659–1690) as the royal antiquarian, and under his direct influence, the king issued a Royal Decree in 1685, which banned the sale of Icelandic manuscripts abroad (Kålund 1900, xxix; Aðalgeir Kristjánsson 1975, 377–8). The ban can be seen as a response to the manuscript collecting activities in Iceland of Jón Eggertsson on behalf of the Swedes, which, as Kålund put it, “matte anses for i höj grad upatriotisk” (1900, xxix) [may be considered to a high degree unpatriotic].

Thomas Bartholin's letter of appointment issued on February 23, 1683, makes it explicit that Icelandic materials would play a significant role in his scholarly enterprise, as he had to

That same year, Bartholin met an Icelander, Árni Magnússon, recently enrolled at the University of Copenhagen, whom he hired as his assistant to translate Old Norse texts. Bartholin was also in contact with Jón Eggertsson, who at that time was imprisoned in Copenhagen, and obtained from him some manuscripts. After 1685, Bertholin also kept contact with Torfæus, with whom he was discussing various matters of his research (Aðalgeir Kristjánsson 1975, 380; Már Jónsson 2012, 52). All these men played an important role in the early dissemination of Hrómundar saga, which will be discussed in the following section.

2. Scholarly Interest in the Story of Hrómundur and Creation of the Saga

As demonstrated in the previous section, scholarly interest in Old Norse-Icelandic literature both in Denmark and Sweden flourished throughout the seventeenth century. While the most scholarly attention was directed toward the Eddas and the kings’ sagas, the legendary sagas, such as Hrómundar saga, also became increasingly sought after. From the extant scholarly correspondence, we know that, at least in Denmark at the end of the seventeenth century, there was scholarly interest in the story of Hrómundur. In 1684, Torfæus, who at that time was the royal historiographer tasked with writing a history of Norway, wrote a letter to his acquaintance in Iceland, the Reverend Torfi Jónsson (1617–1689), pastor of Gaulverjabær and a nephew of Bishop Brynjólfur Sveinsson. In this letter, Torfæus stated that he needed access to several sagas, which could be useful in his study of royal genealogies. One of the sagas he mentioned is a saga of Hrómundur Greipsson, which he had never seen: “Þvi þarft eg öbrigdannlega sógur af Harallde Hilldetón, Amlooda, . . . og af Hromunde Greipssyne sem eg hefe helldur alldrei sied” (AM 285 b IV fol., f. 13v) [Therefore I need reliable sagas of Haraldur hilditönn, Amlóði, . . . and of Hrómundur Greipsson, which I have also never seen].

Even though Torfæus lists Hrómundar saga in his Series dynastarum, as published in 1702 (Torfæus 1702, 6),¹⁴ and mentions Hrómundur in his Historia rerum Norvegicarum (1711), it is not certain at which point he actually received a manuscript copy of the saga. His knowledge of the story of Hrómundur, demonstrated in Historia rerum Norvegicarum, where he lists Hrómundur as a grandson of Hrókur the black in Book 4, chapters 2 and 14 (Torfæus 2008–2014, 1:350, 387, 511), might have come exclusively from secondary sources. Torfæus was, after all, very well-versed in Icelandic sources, as attested in the same letter:

None of these pieces of information about Hrómundur had to come directly from Hrómundar saga. The information about Ólafur being king of Denmark and his relationship to Göngu-Hrólfur could be based on Göngu-Hrólfs saga (Rafn 1829–1830, 3:363),¹⁵ while the information about Hrómundur being a great-grandfather of Ingólfur could have come from Landnámabók (Finnur Jónsson 1900, 6), or secondarily from Flóamanna saga (Finnur Jónsson 1932). Finally, Hrómundur's relationship to Hrókur the Black is also mentioned in Hálfs saga ok Hálfsrekka (Rafn 1829–1830, 2:59). Because of this intertextual context in which Hrómundur Greipsson appears, Torfæus could have equally well included Hrómundur in his genealogies without having access to any actual copy of Hrómundar saga.

At some point, however, Torfæus must have received a manuscript containing the prose version of the story, as there are two manuscripts preserving Hrómundar saga with marginalia written in his hand. Both manuscripts are today part of the Arnamagnæan collection and are held in Reykjavík, AM 193 e fol. and AM 587 b 4to, and in both manuscripts, Torfæus comments on the genealogies of the saga characters. One emphasizes the similarities between various sagas, while the other one highlights the differences.

In the first chapter of the saga Hrómundur's parents, Greipur and Gunnlöð, are introduced: “Þar bio eirn rikr boande sa het Greipr, hann atti þa kono er Gunnlöð het dóttir Hroks hins Svarta” (AM 193 e fol., f. 1r) [There was one rich landowner called Greipur, he had a wife called Gunnlöð, daughter of Hrókur the Black]. Next to this passage, AM 193 e fol. has a marginal note that concerns Hrómundur's relation to Hrókur the Black. Torfæus noted here that the account of Hrómundar saga should be compared with the account of Hálfs saga og Hálfsrekka: “confers Saga af | alfi og alfsreckum | hrokr var ein af koppum alfs er | atte brynhilde haka | kongs dottur” [compare Hálfs saga ok Hálfsrekka, Hrókur was one of the champions of Hálfur that had as a wife Brynhild daughter of King Haki]. In Hálfs saga og Hálfsrekka, the relation between Hrómundur and Hrókur is made explicit in chapter 16 (cf. Rafn 1829–1830, 2:59).

In AM 587 b 4to, Torfæus's comment concerns the relationship between King Ólafur and Gnoð-Ásmundur, which is compared to the account of Göngu-Hrólfs saga. At the beginning of the saga, Ólafur is said to be a son of Gnoð-Ásmundur: “er Olafr het, hann var son Gnoðar Asmundar” (AM 587 b 4to, f. 1r), and in chapter 3, he is said to have two sisters, Dagný and Svahvít: “Konongr atti tvær systr. Ønnr þeirra hiet Dagny. Enn hin Svanhvyt” (AM 587b 4to, f. 5v). In the margin of folio 5v, where the sisters are introduced, Torfæus wrote: “Svanhuita Dag|ny Systur Olafs | Kongs, Saga aff | Gaungu Hrolfi | seiga bædi Olaff | kong er þær born | hans enn ecke Gno|[d]ar Asmundar” [Svanhvít and Dagný, sisters of King Ólafur; the saga of Göngu-Hrólfur says that both King Ólafur and they were his, Göngu-Hrólf's, children, and not Gnoð-Ásmundur's]. Torfæus notes here the difference in genealogies as presented in Hrómundar saga and Göngu-Hrólfs saga, since, according to Göngu-Hrólfs saga, chapter 38, Ólafur was supposed to be a son of Göngu-Hrólfur (Rafn 1829–1830, 3:362).

From these marginal notes, it is clear—and not really surprising—that Torfæus, as the royal historiographer, was mainly interested in the genealogies of Danish and Norwegian dynasties. What is worth observing, however, is that Hrómundar saga serves as a source of historical information almost simultaneously with the appearance of the very first manuscripts of the saga. This happens around the same time as Torfæus is given the assignment of writing the history of Norway and when he writes to Torfi Jónsson that he has never seen this saga.

While Hrómundar saga is preserved in over thirty manuscripts, none of them can be dated further back in time than the second half of the seventeenth century. The oldest manuscripts in relative chronological order are the following eight volumes (summarized in Table 1): (1) Reykjavík, Stofnun Árna Magnússonar, AM 601 b 4to, written by Jón Eggertsson, and based on his life span datable to 1660–1689 (Kapitan 2018, 36); (2) Reykjavík, Stofnun Árna Magnússonar, AM 587 b 4to, according to Már Jónsson (2009, 285) written between 1686 and 1688 by Ásgeir Jónsson (c. 1657–1707) and Eyjólfur Björnsson (1666–1746). Today it is a single-text manuscript preserving exclusively Hrómundar saga, but it used to be a part of a bigger codex, which I refer to as TT XIII 4to, and which belonged to Torfæus (Kålund 1909, 78); (3) Copenhagen, Royal Library, Thott 1768 4to, according to Már Jónsson (2009, 285) written by Ásgeir Jónsson between 1686 and 1697; (4) Stockholm, Royal Library, Papp. Fol. nr. 67 written by Jón Eggertsson while imprisoned in Copenhagen between 1684 and 1687 (Jucknies 2009, 79); (5) Reykjavík, Stofnun Árna Magnússonar, AM 193 e fol., according to Már Jónsson (2009, 285) written by Ásgeir Jónsson between 1690 and 1697. This single-quire manuscript used to be a part of a bigger volume, which I refer to as TT XIII fol., and which belonged to Torfæus and contained a number of mostly legendary sagas, but it was dismembered by Árni Magnússon and today contains exclusively Hrómundar saga (Kålund 1909, 70–1); (6–8) three manuscripts in which Hrómundar saga was written by Jón Þórðarson¹⁶ in 1695: Reykjavík, Stofnun Árna Magnússonar AM 345 4to, London, British Library Add 4859, and Reykjavík, Landsbókasafn LBS 222 fol.

Textual analysis reveals that all extant texts of Hrómundar saga, as preserved in these manuscripts, are descended from a single manuscript, AM 601 b 4to, which is written in Jón Eggertsson's hand. This is the same infamous Jón Eggertsson, mentioned in the previous section, who was collecting manuscripts in Iceland in 1682 for the Swedish Society of Antiquities. Moreover, it has been previously suggested that Jón Eggertsson was the author of the seventeenth-century Hrómundar saga (Bjarni Einarsson 1984; Jucknies 2009). Given the important role of Jón Eggertsson in the creation of the saga, it seems very likely that the reappearance of the long-lost saga in Denmark had something to do with the antiquarian and historical interest in Old Norse-Icelandic sources that was so characteristic of this period. As the following section will demonstrate, the activity of Jón Eggertsson can be seen as a response to this contemporary interest.

Even though, theoretically, the possibility cannot be excluded that Jón gained access to some manuscript preserving Hrómundar saga during his stay in Iceland in 1682 and decided to copy it, it seems highly unlikely given the circumstances. After his journey to Iceland, Jón Eggertsson prepared a report of his expenses for the Swedish Society of Antiquities. This report includes a list of manuscripts he brought with him, and on this list, there is a manuscript that contained six sets of rímur. It is described as follows:

From this description, it is clear that Jón obtained a volume (which I refer to as JE 27 4to) that contained Hrómundar rímur Greipssonar, which is the metric version of the story, rather than the prose version. The volume JE 27 4to is now lost, and it cannot be ruled out that it perished in the fire of Stockholm castle in 1697, as many other manuscripts did (Kålund 1900, xxxiv). Between 1684 and 1687, Jón Eggertsson was imprisoned in Copenhagen, where he was copying various texts for his Swedish customers but also kept regular contact with Danish scholars, including Thomas Bartholin and Árni Magnússon (Már Jónsson 2012, 52, 75). Given the antiquarian interest of people such as Torfæus in stories like Hrómundar saga, it seems highly possible that Jón Eggertsson converted the rímur that he obtained in 1682 into prose, in order to meet this contemporary antiquarian need.

From the perspective of the transmission history of Hrómundar saga, it is important to observe that JE 27 4to contained, among other sets of rímur, Bragða-Ölvis rímur, which appeared in the manuscript immediately after Hrómundar rímur. Moreover, AM 601 b 4to preserves not only the best text of Hrómundar saga, but also, according to Hooper (1932a; 1932b), the best text of the prosification of Bragða-Ölvis rímur, known as Bragða-Ölvis saga. It would be an unlikely coincidence for two prosifications of two sets of rímur that appear together in a single rímur manuscript to which Jón Eggertsson had access, to also appear in a single saga manuscript written by Jón. Given the timing and circumstances, it seems highly probable that Jón Eggertsson was responsible for converting both sets of rímur into prose.¹⁹ Árni Magnússon, in fact, was convinced that Jón Eggertsson had something to do with Hrómundar saga, when he called it in his notes an “imposture” or fabrication, which was widely repeated in the later scholarship.

It is difficult to find a more straightforward example of reception than a comment such as this one. From this note, we learn not only that Árni Magnússon considered Hrómundar saga a fabrication, but also that it was worthless for Torfæus. This statement is especially relevant in the context of the marginalia in Torfæus's hand, which accompany Hrómundar saga in his manuscripts, as well as his scholarly correspondence regarding this saga, both of which were discussed earlier. It seems that Torfæus first asked Torfi Jónsson for Hrómundar saga because he believed it would be useful in his research into Danish and Norwegian genealogies, then got hold of the saga and commented in the margins about the genealogical similarities and discrepancies with other sagas, and finally came to the conclusion that Hrómundar saga was worthless, most likely referring to its value as a historical source.

As has been suggested elsewhere, AM 601 b 4to might have been written by Jón Eggertsson while he was imprisoned in Copenhagen, where he may have had limited access to resources, and this could explain why the paper on which the sagas are written is repurposed from some book of accounts (Kapitan and Stegmann 2019). At the same time, as Jón Eggertsson states in his report to the Swedes, there was a shortage of paper in Iceland at the time when he was there collecting manuscripts, and perhaps this is the real reason why he reused sheets of paper to write down Hrómundar saga and Bragða-Ölvis saga.²⁰ But if Jón wrote AM 601 b 4to in Iceland, we have to ask why it was not included in his report and why it was not sent to Stockholm with all the other volumes he collected. Bjarni Einarsson speculated that Jón only sent part of the manuscripts he collected in Iceland to Stockholm and kept some manuscripts “som pant” (Bjarni Einarsson 1984, 13) [as collateral]. At the same time, he does not exclude the possibility that Jón continued to collect and copy manuscripts in Copenhagen, and that is where additional volumes sent to Stockholm at a later date originated. The second explanation seems more probable, since there is no direct benefit for Jón in sending a few dozen manuscripts to Stockholm and keeping just a few as insurance.

How the transmission history of Hrómundar saga developed in the early years of its existence is not absolutely clear. But considering the network of people involved in the production of the earliest manuscripts, we can put forward a possible hypothesis regarding its circulation. Regardless of whether Hrómundar saga was actually written by Jón Eggertsson while he was imprisoned in Copenhagen, the oldest manuscript of the saga written in his hand (AM 601 b 4to) came at some point into the possession of Árni Magnússon, as it contains extensive marginalia in the handwriting of both men. As previously mentioned, Árni Magnússon was in contact with Jón Eggertsson during the latter's imprisonment, and the two men were on good terms. It is therefore easy to imagine that AM 601 b 4to came to Árni directly from Jón.²¹ What happened with the saga afterward is more difficult to explain.

As the note by Árni Magnússon quoted above suggests, Torfæus must had received a copy of Hrómundar saga from Árni himself. Both manuscripts that can be confidently affiliated with Torfæus, AM 193 e fol. and AM 587 b 4to, are closely related, and textual evidence suggests that AM 193 e fol. is derived from AM 587 b 4to. After Torfæus's death in 1719, both manuscripts came into the possession of Árni Magnússon, who in his catalogue noted that AM 193 e fol. was written “epter exemplare med hendi Eyolfs Biorns sonar komnu fra mier” (Kålund 1909, 70) [after an exemplar in Eyjólfur Björnsson's hand which came from me]. This exemplar was most likely AM 587 b 4to, partially written by Eyjólfur. Moreover, it is probably this manuscript that Árni sent to Torfæus, mentioned in the note “sú sem eg hafdi sent honum” (Jón Helgason 1980, 41) [that I have sent to him]. Eyjólfur Björnsson worked for Árni Magnússon in Copenhagen during the years 1687–1689 and collaborated with Ásgeir Jónsson on some manuscripts for Árni until Ásgeir left for Norway with Torfæus in 1688 (Már Jónsson 2009; 2012, 78–9). It is entirely possible that AM 587 b 4to was written by Eyjólfur and Ásgeir in Copenhagen for Árni Magnússon (as a part of TT XIII 4to), and that Torfæus then received this manuscript from Árni, possibly shortly after his visit to Copenhagen in 1688, and ordered Ásgeir to copy Hrómundar saga again into AM 193 e fol. (as a part of TT XIII fol.). This interpretation is in line with Már Jónsson's observation regarding some manuscripts of the kings’ sagas, where Ásgeir produced volumes in folio format for Torfæus and in quarto for Árni (Már Jónsson 2009, 294): on one hand, we have AM 587 b 4to, which is in quarto format and was most likely written in Copenhagen for Árni Magnússon and only later came into the possession of Torfæus, and on the other hand, we have AM 193 e fol., which is in folio format and was written in Norway for Torfæus.

It is hard not to notice that the time when Ásgeir Jónsson and Eyjólfur Björnsson collaborated in Copenhagen on AM 587 b 4to (1687–1688) overlaps with the time Jón Eggertsson spent in Copenhagen, either in jail or afterward, before he left to Sweden for his final months (1684–1689).²² Textually, it is clear that Hrómundar saga in AM 587 b 4to is derived from AM 601 b 4to, but it is difficult to prove that it is its direct apograph. At the same time, it seems highly probable that the exemplar of the saga copied by Ásgeir and Eyjólfur came from Jón Eggertsson, perhaps through the agency of Árni Magnússon, and thus could be AM 601 b 4to itself. These men were part of an Icelandic community in Copenhagen, and many of them knew each other personally, so points of contact existed to facilitate such an exchange of manuscripts, and the textual variation in the oldest manuscripts is so minor that it cannot exclude this possibility.

Árni Magnússon's broad scholarly network is probably also responsible for the arrival of Hrómundar saga in Iceland. The three oldest manuscripts of the saga from Iceland were written by Jón Þórðarson in 1695, and at least one of them can be certainly associated with the wealthy Icelandic book collector and commissioner Magnús Jónsson í Vigur (see Table 1). The manuscript in question is British Library Add 4859 (McDonald Werronen 2018), but, according to Jóhann Gunnar Ólafsson (1956), Lbs 222 fol. can also be considered as one of Magnús's manuscripts. Árni Magnússon was in contact with Magnús Jónsson and exchanged books with him, as the correspondence between the two men suggests (Kålund 1920, 243–5; Már Jónsson 2012, 101). Therefore, it is possible that Árni sent Magnús a copy of Hrómundar saga that was derived from AM 601 b 4to and served as an exemplar for at least one of the extant texts in Jón Þórðarson's hand. We know there was at least one more manuscript in Magnús Jónsson's possession that preserved a text of Hrómundar saga. In AM 211 b 4to, which contains various materials associated with Magnús's brother, Sigurður Jónsson (1643–1730), there is a note that lists two manuscripts in quarto, which belonged to Magnús Jónsson but are now lost. The manuscript described as “Onnur Sógubök M J. S. J 4o” [the second book of Magnús Jónsson in 4to] contained, among other sagas, Hrómundar saga and Bragða-Ölvis saga (AM 211 b 4to, p. 102). According to Jón Helgason (1955, 12–3), the majority of the materials preserved in AM 211 b 4to are from the years 1695–1697, while Kålund (1889–1894, 1:475) dates this manuscript to circa 1700. Given the chronology, this manuscript might be the hypothetical missing link between AM 601 b 4to and the manuscripts in Jón Þorðarson's hand. It is worth mentioning that, as Már Jónsson (2012, 101) observed, Magnús Jónsson had to complain to Árni about the fact that he provided more texts for Árni than he received in return. Árni Magnússon responded in 1691 that “þær sögur er eg idar vinsemd sendt hefi kostad mig meir enn þeir kannski trua kinnud” (Kålund 1920, 242) [the sagas that I sent you have cost me more than you could probably believe]. He is referring here to the expenses connected to hiring Icelanders in Copenhagen, such as the previously mentioned scribes Eyjólfur Björnsson and Ásgeir Jónsson. We cannot know whether Hrómundar saga was among the costly sagas Árni Magnússon sent to Magnús Jónsson, but considering the textual and chronological evidence, this appears to have been the case.

This section has demonstrated how the scholarly networks of late seventeenth-century Denmark and beyond overlapped with the scribal network of people responsible for the creation and circulation of Hrómundar saga. It has shown that various scholars in Iceland, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden were, to a certain extent, interested in the story of Hrómundur and involved in the production and dissemination of its earliest manuscripts. In the next section, the textual variation appearing in these earliest manuscripts will be analyzed in light of this contemporary scholarly interest in Old Norse-Icelandic literature in Scandinavia.

3. Textual Variation: Ólafur, a King of Denmark, Russia, or Norway

Among the oldest manuscripts of Hrómundar saga, two manuscript groups have textual variants that are interesting in the political context of Scandinavia at the end of the seventeenth century. As previously mentioned, the antagonism between Denmark-Norway and Sweden did not decrease in the seventeenth century. The competition between the kingdoms took place not only on the battlefield, but also in the scholarly arena, which included obtaining Nordic antiquities. Material and textual analyses of the manuscripts preserving Hrómundar saga can give us an interesting insight into the contemporary reading of this saga, as well as into the influence the intended audience had on the writing of the saga. This section explores the relationships between the textual variation that appears in the texts of the saga and the scholarly, and perhaps also politically driven, interest in the story told by the saga.

As discussed elsewhere, the manuscript AM 601 b 4to, which preserves the best text of the saga from the perspective of textual criticism, makes a particularly interesting case study, due to its extensive corrections and annotations, which mainly concern place names and personal names. Some of these corrections were most likely done by Jón Eggertsson himself, who consistently deleted the name of the country Denmark from the text of the saga (Kapitan and Stegmann 2019). These corrections become even more relevant for the discussion of the reception of saga literature in Scandinavia when compared with other texts of Hrómundar saga that are derived from AM 601 b 4to (overview in Table 2).

Papp. Fol. nr 67 is another manuscript of Hrómundar saga written in Jón Eggertsson's hand. It demonstrates changes in the text of the saga that seem to be anchored in the political agenda of the Swedish Society of Antiquities. Moreover, it seems possible that AM 601 b 4to served as a draft of the saga, which was later transcribed into a clean copy in Papp. Fol. nr 67. If we compare the readings of AM 601 b 4to with Papp. Fol. nr 67, there is a clear tendency for the removal of all mentions of Denmark. The first example appears at the very beginning of the saga. In AM 601 b 4to, the text begins with the words “Sá konungur rieði fyrir Görðum í Danmörk er Ólafur hét” [A king named Ólafur ruled over Garðar in Denmark]. But the phrase “í Danmörk” is a supralinear addition, which had been deleted together with the inline word “Görðum.” If the sentence is read with deletions omitted, it creates the incomprehensible reading “Sá konungur rieði fyrir er Ólafur hét” [A king named Ólafur ruled over]. In Papp. Fol. nr 67, the saga starts with these words: “Sá kongur rieði fyrir Görðum er Ólafur hét” [A king named Ólafur ruled over Garðar]. Here, the name of the country Denmark has been omitted, but the ambiguous “Görðum” remains in the text. The second example appears on folio 3r of AM 601 b 4to, in the middle of the saga, after Hrómundur has killed Þráinn the berserk, and Ólafur and his men are returning home. Originally, AM 601 b 4to read: “Siglði Ólafur kongur svo þaðann og norður til Danmerkur” [King Ólafur sailed from there and goes north to Denmark], but the name of the country Denmark was deleted and replaced by “síns ríkis” [his kingdom]. So now Ólafur is still going back to his country, but it is unspecified where it is. Papp. fol. nr 67 has a reading that is different from both the original version of AM 601 b 4to and its corrected version: “Siglði Ólafur kongur svo þaðan og heim” [King Ólafur sailed from there and home]. All the other manuscripts in this instance preserve the corrected reading, “síns ríkis,” and none of them preserve the original reading of “til Danmerkur.”

The differences between AM 601 b 4to and Papp. fol. nr 67 were very likely influenced by the expectations of the intended audiences of these volumes. Jón Eggertsson's interventions into the text of the saga suggest that he did not want to present Ólafur as a king of Denmark. While AM 601 b 4to appears to be a draft, where there is space for correction and deletion, the manuscript in Stockholm preserves a clean text of the saga, without any extensive scribal corrections and, more importantly, without any mentions of Denmark. While AM 601 b 4to is densely written with many abbreviations, Papp. fol. nr 67, with its large format, wide margins, decorated initials, and clear script, is one of the richer extant manuscripts of the saga. It is written in a clear chancery fractura script and, unlike many Icelandic manuscripts, it does not have any abbreviations. A sparse amount of abbreviation was apparently a typical feature of manuscripts that Jón prepared for the Swedes in order to make the text more legible (Jucknies 2009, 96). The lack of any mentions of Denmark in the text of the saga in Papp. fol. nr 67 supports the hypothesis that this copy was made with a Swedish audience in mind. It is easy to imagine that the intended audience of this manuscript—that is, Jón's employer, the Swedish Society of Antiquities—was not necessarily interested in histories dealing with the glory of explicitly Danish kings, but did not mind the story of some unidentifiable Scandinavian king. The initial inclusion of Denmark in AM 601 b 4to, on the other hand, might suggest that Jón wrote this manuscript with the intention of selling it on the Danish market, and perhaps this is what he did, and this is how the manuscript ended up in the possession of Árni Magnússon.

The reading “fyrir Görðum” in the opening sentence of the saga must have caused some trouble for early philologists, as the paratextual features bear witness to some of the potential misunderstandings. In Papp. fol. nr 67, there is a marginal note on folio 102v, written in Guðmundur Ólafsson's (c. 1652–1695) hand (Jucknies 2009, 81) that reads “Ólafur köngur i GardaRiki” [King Ólafur in Garðaríki], which must be his interpretation of the phrase “fyrir Görðum.” This interpretation made its way to the Swedish translation of the saga, as preserved in a manuscript Säfstaholmssamling I Papp. 6, held in Stockholm at the National Archives. There the saga begins: “En konung regerade öfwer Rÿssland, wid namn Olaf, som war Gnodar Asmundsson” [A king ruled over Russia named Ólafur, who was a son of Gnóðar Ásmundur]. Since the term “Garðaríki” was used in the Old Norse-Icelandic language to refer to areas of modern Russia,²³ it is not surprising that Guðmundur Ólafsson's marginal comment in Papp. Fol. nr 67 evolved into an explicit mention of Russia.

Because of Jón Eggertsson's intention to adjust the text of the saga to meet his Swedish audience's preferences, we have an entire branch of the transmission history of Hrómundar saga in Sweden, in which Ólafur is a king of Russia.²⁴ The influence of this transmission history continues even today: the most recent English translation of Hrómundar saga, published in 2014, starts with the words: “A king named Olaf ruled over Russia” (Waggoner 2014).

The rich variation regarding Ólafur's domain does not end here. Another interpretation appears in the postscript that accompanies Hrómundar saga in some of its earliest manuscripts. These are the four manuscripts: AM 601 b 4to, AM 587 b 4to, AM 193 e fol., and Thott 1768 4to. Even though the postscript has been a subject of scholarly investigation, mainly by Andrews (1911) and Jesch (1984), there is one aspect of it which has never been discussed in the scholarly literature: the variation concerning place names. The text of the postscript in AM 601 b 4to, folio 6r reads:

In bold font, I have marked the places where some scribal intervention took place in AM 601 b 4to. As it is visible in Figure 1, the name of the country Denmark was deleted and replaced with another word as a supralinear addition, which later was in turn deleted. This added and later deleted word is basically illegible to the naked eye. But comparison with other manuscripts preserving the postscript sheds some light on this problematic reading. Two manuscripts, AM 587 b 4to (f. 11v) and AM 193 e fol. (f. 8v), preserve the postscript, which reads as follows:

The texts of AM 587 b 4to and AM 193 e fol. are almost identical to the text of AM 601 b 4to, but due to two small changes, represented in the bold font above, they have very different meaning and different historical relevance. Instead of dealing with Denmark, these two manuscripts make it explicit that the text is dealing with Norway, as Ólafur the king of Denmark becomes the king of Norway.

The very same change appears in Thott 1768 4to (f. 268v), where the postscript is slightly abbreviated:

It is interesting to consider these changes in the context of the scribal networks that produced these manuscripts. Ásgeir Jónsson, who was involved in copying texts in these manuscripts, is known for his prolific work for Torfæus, who at that time was writing his monumental history of Norway. It would not be very surprising if, in the manuscripts associated with Torfæus, there was a slight change regarding the country over which Ólafur was ruling. After all, Torfæus is known to have been highly interested in proving the Norwegian origin of certain saga heroes who had previously been claimed to be Danish, as, for instance, Göngu-Hrólfur (Skovgaard-Petersen 2001; 2010, 33).

Was Torfæus's scribe changing Denmark to Norway because of the personal interest of his commissioner in the history of Norway? However attractive this hypothesis might seem, it is rather unlikely. The manuscript AM 587 b 4to was written partially by Ásgeir Jónsson in Copenhagen, just before he left Denmark to start his service for Torfæus in Norway, so there is no clear reason for him to have changed the reading of the postscript. Moreover, the change seems to originate again directly from AM 601 b 4to. If we compare the multispectral image of the postscript in AM 601 b 4to (see fig. 7 in Kapitan and Stegmann 2019, 143) with the text of the postscript as it appears in other manuscripts, it is clear that the correction in AM 601 b 4to must read “noreg.” Thus, someone deleted “Denmark,” replaced it with “Norway,” and then someone else again deleted it. It is possible that, at the time when AM 587 b 4to was copied from AM 601 b 4to, the supralinear reading in the postscript in AM 601 b 4to had not yet been deleted, and therefore “Norway” appears in its descendants.

We cannot be certain who added and then deleted “Norway” from the postscript in AM 601 b 4to, or when this change took place. Multispectral analysis excludes the possibility that the change was made at the same time as the other corrections were made by Jón Eggertsson, or when other additions were made by Árni Magnússon. It is, however, possible that both men could have made the corrections, just using different ink than that attested elsewhere in the manuscript, or that someone else could have had access to the manuscript before it served as an exemplar for AM 587 b 4to, or another manuscript from which AM 587 b 4to is derived. Perhaps Torfæus himself saw a manuscript in Árni Magnússon's collection while he visited Copenhagen in 1688 and made the change. This remains a matter of speculation, as it is impossible to prove exactly who deleted “Norway” from the postscript, and when.

Unlike the removal of the name of Denmark from the main text in Jón Eggertsson's manuscripts, the change of the name of the country from Denmark to Norway in the postscript of the manuscripts associated with Torfæus did not have to be a politically motivated intervention. It is possible that the change was introduced because someone was trying to connect the geography of the saga to the original meaning of the rímur on which the saga was based. As was briefly mentioned in the introduction, the seventeenth-century saga is based on the set of medieval rímur called Griplur, and these rímur do not leave any doubt regarding the realm of Ólafur; he is a king of Norway consistently throughout the poem. In the first ríma, the ninth stanza, which corresponds to the very beginning of the prose, we can read the following: “Óláf nefni eg ítran gram, er átti að stýra Hǫrðum” (Finnur Jónsson 1905–1922, 1:353) [I name an excellent king, who ruled Hörðaland].²⁵ Hörðaland (or Hordaland) is a region of Western Norway, whose biggest city today is Bergen.

In the third ríma, stanza 62, which corresponds to our second example of corruption in the place names mentioned before, when Ólafur sets back home after Hrómundur has killed Þráinn, we can read:

Even though the rímur do not make it as explicit as the saga that Ólafur is heading back home, implicitly we can assume that this is the intended meaning of the metric version.

Finally, in the fourth ríma, stanza 34, we once again have information about the origin of Ólafur´s army:

There is no doubt regarding the origins of Ólafur and his men in the rímur. He is clearly a king of Norway, coming from Bergen in the western part of the country.

Where does the appearance of Denmark in AM 601 b 4to originate from? As with any study of transmission history that tries to connect textual transmission with material artifacts and historical events, we can only speculate. If we assume that the saga in AM 601 b 4to was based on a written version of the rímur, perhaps even on the actual manuscript that Jón Eggertsson found in Iceland in 1682 (JE 27 4to), then it is possible that the text of the rímur in that manuscript was really “näumlega lesenn, og ei sem skilianlegust wmm landa edur stada heite swm” [barely readable and not at all clear concerning some of the names of countries or places], as the postscript of the saga suggests, and that this is where the confusion originates from. Even though JE 27 4to was sent to Stockholm in 1683, Jón Eggertsson might have written the saga from memory, as a summary of the contents of the rímur, but he still could have remembered that the copy he saw was in a bad shape. This hypothesis is impossible to prove or disprove, but judging by the poor condition of other manuscripts that preserve Griplur, there is a good chance that the one that Jón found in 1682 was also not in especially good condition.²⁸

In this context, it is also important to mention that Árni Magnússon is known to have ordered plot summaries of various sets of rímur from his acquaintances, when he was interested mainly in the contents of the story. In one of Árni Magnússon's letters to Magnús Jónsson from Vigur, Árni asks Magnús to send him a copy of Yngvars saga víðförla and a copy of Þóris háleggs rímur, but he wants a copy of the rimur only if their contents go beyond the contents of Áns saga bogsveigis; otherwise, he does not care (“þa skeite eg ei um þær”) about the rímur (Kålund 1920, 242). Árni also asks for summaries of contents of other works, mainly rímur, but not for copies of them, as he is clearly not interested in their literary form. Therefore, we can assume that some of the prosifications of the rímur that are extant today are scholarly summaries of the contents prepared on the requests of men like Arni. Aðalheiður Guðmundsdóttir (2001, l) suggested, for example, that the text of Ormar saga preserved in AM 601 a 4to might be such a summary prepared as a direct response to Árni's request. Given that Árni Magnússon and Jón Eggertsson kept in touch during Jón's imprisonment, it cannot be excluded the Hrómundar saga is also one of these prosifications.

Discussion and Conclusion

This study has traced the creation and earliest dissemination of Hrómundar saga Greipssonar in prose, in the context of scholarly interest in Old Norse-Icelandic literature in Denmark in the late seventeenth century. It has merged philological and historical approaches to literature in order to illustrate the relationship between contemporary political circumstances and the transmission and reception of texts. Through the presentation of the historiographical and antiquarian activities in Denmark and their close relationship to the political situation at that time, as well as through the analysis of textual and physical features of the manuscripts produced at that time, this article has placed a literary work in the hands of real people and thereby has shed light on their interests and reception of Old Norse-Icelandic texts.

This study has demonstrated that it is unlikely that the appearance of the long-lost saga of Hrómundur in Denmark at the end of the seventeenth century had nothing to do with the scholarly interests of people such as Torfæus, the royal historiographer of Norway, who at that time was given the assignment of writing a complete history of Norway. Torfæus explicitly asked about Hrómundar saga in one of his letters dated to 1684, in which he stated that he had never seen this saga, but it could be useful for his work on Danish and Norwegian genealogies. In the same year, Jón Eggertsson, the sole scribe of two of the saga's oldest manuscripts, was imprisoned in Copenhagen, where he produced transcriptions of Old Norse-Icelandic texts for the Swedish Society of Antiquities and was in contact with, among others, Árni Magnússon, at that time an assistant of the royal antiquarian Thomas Bartholin. Only 2 years earlier, Jón Eggertsson had obtained in Iceland a manuscript preserving Hrómundar rímur, which he sent to Stockholm in 1683. In 1687, he completed a clean copy of the saga in Papp. Fol. nr 67, which he sent to Sweden shortly after. Somewhere between these two events, but most likely when he was imprisoned between 1684 and 1687, he also wrote AM 601 b 4to. This manuscript, which later ended up in the collection of Árni Magnússon, can be considered a draft of the saga preserved in Papp. Fol. nr 67. Moreover, it could have served as a direct exemplar for AM 587 b 4to, which was written in Copenhagen shortly before 1688 and preserves a text of the saga that is clearly derived from AM 601 b 4to. Later, AM 587 b ended up in the possession of Torfæus, who commented on the genealogies of some characters in the margins and commissioned its transcript, today AM 193 e fol. It seems possible that around the same time, Árni Magnússon sent a copy of Hrómundar saga to Magnús Jónsson in Vígur, and this is how Jón Eggertsson's adaptation made its way to Iceland, where it was copied by Jón Þórðarson not less than three times in 1695.

By analyzing the circumstances of production of particular manuscripts with their textual variation, this study has demonstrated that there is a clear split in the transmission of the story of Hrómundur, which originates from the earliest days of the saga's existence. On one side, there is the Swedish tradition, in which Ólafur is a king of Russia. This originates first from Jón Eggertsson's careful removal of any occurrence of Denmark from the text of the saga to meet the expectations of his Swedish audience, and second from the misinterpretation of the reading “Görðum” as “Garðaríki,” which resulted in “Rÿssland” appearing in the Swedish translation of the saga. On the other side, there is the Dano-Norwegian tradition, which lists Ólafur as a king of Denmark or Norway and is closely associated with Torfæus, Árni Magnússon, and their scribes, all working directly or indirectly for the Danish crown. The change from Denmark to Norway seems most likely to be caused by the attempt to reverse the corruption of the name of the country in relation to the rímur, in which Ólafur is consistently presented as a king of Norway.

The examination of the early transmission history of Hrómundar saga gives us not only an insight into the early dissemination of this text, but also reveals the main interest of the scholarly audience in the seventeenth century. Torfæus, who actively sought to obtain a copy of Hrómundar saga in 1684, and who finally got a copy probably around 1688, after all this effort ended up considering Hrómundar saga as worthless for his historical research, as the note by Árni Magnússon suggests. Based on this and on the scope of the marginalia written by Torfæus that appear in the extant manuscripts, we can conclude that his scholarly interest did not lie in the literary work and its aesthetic and entertainment value, but in its historical and political relevance. The interventions into the text of the saga regarding place names, as well as the genealogically focused marginalia, give clear indication that these sagas were valued more as historical sources than literature. They were to be used to build the narrative of the legendary past of Scandinavian countries, in works such as Historia rerum Norvegicarum, which makes extensive use of sagas such as Hrómundar saga. How much of the material used in Historia rerum Norvegicarum has a history similar to that of Hrómundar saga remains a question for another study. Nevertheless, there is a clear relationship between the form in which Old Norse-Icelandic texts are preserved and available to us today and the intended audiences of the various versions and adaptations of these texts.

Notes

Works Cited