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126 Hollander: Gautrekssaga and Hrólfssaga.
intentionally out of Hrólfs dominions. — As Ranisch ob-
serves, the queen was most in the way. Ay, truly; but
then, the Hrólfssaga is just based on the death of Gaut-
reks queen!
The argument ex omisso *), that the Hrólfssaga occurs
in MSS. not containing the Gautrekssaga, but the latter
never without the former, and that, hence, the Gautrekssaga
had no independent existence, is a most unsafe one. At best
its force can be cumulative. Applying it without discretion,
we might arrive at the most absurd results. Sounder it is
to suppose that the Hrólfssaga was, or became, the more
popular of the two — naturally suiting the later taste
better — and has thus come down to us in a greater num-
ber of MSS.
To the above, chiefly negative, arguments I would add
the following considerations.
In the Gautrekssaga, it is the purpose of the author to
put the generosity of Gautrek on a line with that of two
other mighty kings of old. The Danish king is here made
to be the famed Hrólf kraki. If the Hrólfssaga has substi-
tuted the indistinguishable and stereotype Hring, it is clearly
in order to avoid the collision between two world-conquering
Hrólfs. The reverse is far more unlikely. — King Ella
of England, of course, did not need to be changed in the
Hrólfssaga.
The loss of his queen plunges Gautrek into deep sor-
row. He has his throne set on her burial mound. — In
the Hjálmþérssaga ok Ölvés 2), king Yngvi likewise has his
royal seat placed on the how of his queen 3) and lives to
*) L. c. xix.
*) Fornaldarsögur Norctrlanda III, chap. ii.
*) Nothing actually proves this to he a late motif. — Lehmann. Zfdph.
1910, 1, has examined (not all) occurrences of ’sitja å haugi’, without heing
able to shed much additional information on the subject. He is not aware
of Banisch’s observations; see below. Nor of A. Olrik’s article in Danske
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