SAGA-BOOK - Viking Society Web Publications

Saga-Book of the Viking Society
speaking loudly to alert Aron, who kills him, defenceless
and unsuspecting as soon as he sets foot over the
threshold. Then they make free with the farm for the
night. 36 It seems significant that Arons saga provides no
convincing alternative to this tale, merely saying that
Aron went there alone, and that the outcome was that
Sigmundr was killed without much ado pvi at Sigmundr
var uti staddrF' This is, moreover, the only passage in
which Sturla is more detailed than the biography.
The uncertain certainty of this relatively weak account
in Arons saga is suspect in the extreme, and gives the
impression that the author was not ignorant of the
story the way Sturla told it but was deliberately whitewashing
his hero. It is as though he were able to cope
with the minor cases in which Aron appeared less
favourably than was desired, but his imagination failed
to invent a plausible rejection of what amounted to
cowardice.
One of the best episodes in the saga is the fight which
took place at Geirpj6fsfjar