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Hollander: Gautrekssaga and Hrólfssaga. 125
presumably, a common ancestor of AbC and L (not to be
confounded with the original version of the saga) already
contained some brief account, or hint, of Hrosskell taken
from the Hrólfssaga; and that the copyists, both of AbC and
L, independently helped themselves to the fuller account of
the Hrólfssaga which, frequently being in the same codex
with the saga to be copied, was easy enough of access.
On the subject of the quick death of Ref, Neri, and
the queen, at the end of the saga, Ranisch has the following
observation1): ”Man sieht nur zu deutlich, weshalb alle
drei dem frühen Tode verfallen. Refr und Neri kamen in
der Hrólfssaga nicht vor; am meisten aber war die Königin
im Wege, da die Hrólfssaga mit einer neuen Werbung des
Königs begann; auch war der Tod einer unbenannten Kö-
nigin schon — als notwendige Vorbedingung für die Wer-
bung des alternden Königs — in den einleitenden Worten
der älteren Hrólfssaga erwähnt”.
Again, I certainly admit that these deaths are suspi-
cious. But alas! The very look of the last lines — essen-
tially the same in all versions — is suspicious also, the end
being, indeed, the likeliest spot for later hands to insert ob-
vious explanations 2). They would be inserted, I surmise,
even if the priority of a story was entirely beyond doubt.
As to the prolonged existence of Neri and Ref, it would
have troubled the original author of the Hrólfssaga but little.
His story was set in the times of Romance, his scene is the
whole Northern world, the whole conceived in a different
key. The interpolator betrays himself by failing to grasp
that; and, prosily fearing lest the reader might ask why
Hrólf seeks no aid from his kinsmen Neri and Ref, he
hastens to inform us that they are dead. The fact is, it
looks as if the author of the Hrólfssaga had left Norway
*) L. c. xxi.
J) Cf. Finnur Jónsson, above.
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