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Hollander: Jómsv. saga. 207
hafa i Jomsvikinga bardaga er raúfóttara belg muni jþadan
haft hafa. ok J>icki mer sia bezt til fallin at hirda i hueiti
(”Some, I suppose, were engaged in the battle of the Jómsvik-
ings who carried away a hide more full of holes; this one
(yours) seems to me most fit to be preserved in wheat *)
(like a woman’s skin)”), hemakes the angry (?) reply: þat
mætti enn verda minnaræfi at þu ættir eigi þessu at hrósa,
ok lat þar pa lika. (”That might yet betide in my life that
you would not have to boast of (or praise?) this — and
see then to it to be content!”) The addition of Ftb and 510
slikum sigri at hrósa is hardly an improvement: for Sigvaldi
certainly was not capable of the irony of referring to his
whole skin as a victory.
Damaging testimony has been adduced for all but H.
It will have been observed:
1) that whereever H differs from the other MSS. in
point of idiom it can be shown that its wording is intrinsi-
cally preferable.
2) that whereever H is shorter than the other versions
the latter can be shown to contain statements either super-
erogatory, or contradictory to the essential facts.
There are, however, certain passages which undeniably
seem contracted: Hakon’s struggle against Harald öráfeld
etc. (H 6, 25) which occupies considerable space in the
other redactions; the last paragraph of the first þáttr, in
which the author seems to be hurrying toward his real
story; the recital of Hákon’s later fates, on the last page of
the saga. In all these we are referred to some konungabok
or konungasçgur. Krijn’s explanation 2) that the copyist of
*) The reading of Ftb hveitimiol looks like an interpretation: bran i.e.
whole wheat (not flonr) is still used in the bath for softening the skin
(hardly to be understood as a cosmetic, cf. Dasents version in his ”Vikings
of the Baltic”).
*) 1. c. p. 12.
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