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Treatment of Sources in the Volsunga saga 329
IV
It has already been remarked that some changes may
have been made to avoid alliteration. But this consideration
was not always decisive. Nothing, of course, could
be done about the alliteration of names with each other,
if they were to be kept, but, as P. Wieselgren has pointed
out.! the compiler has retained more than a few alliterating
pairs which are not pairs of names, e.g. seg svd - svinum
(VS 16/9 : HH 34/1-2); jell - j6tahlutr (VS 58/30-31 : Sg.
23/5-6); ek gej per gull (VS 63/21 : Gar. II 25/1-2); illMgar
- d ek (VS 66/25 : Am. 13/1-2); minstu - mceltum (VS 77/7-8:
Ghv. 19/1-2).
Even more significant is the fact that on some few
occasions the compiler substitutes a word of his own for
a word that bears the alliteration - without destroying
the alliteration, e.g. cegishjdlm - pllu j6lki : cegishidlm - alda
(VS 32/II : Fm. 16/1-2); en hverr frceen maar vill je rdoa :
jli rdOa skal jyroa hverr (VS 32/28-29 : Fm. 10/1); hpggvi
pd hpjuo aj honum : hpjOi skemra hdra (VS 34/5 : Fm.
34/1-2); harbast (H pgna) hjarta: hvassastr - hiarta (VS
77/5 : Ghv. 17/9), and here the compiler has included
a third alliterating noun, the proper name Hogni, which
is not in the source. Indeed, there are instances of
alliteration seemingly retained when in fact the words in
question simply do not figure in the source, e.g. bylgjur
gnuou d borounum. (VS 15/30) is not in the source (HH 28) ;
petta it snarpa svero (VS 31/20) corresponds to minn inn
hoassa hipr (Fm. 28/3); peir vildu velja systur sitmi g60ar
gjafir corresponds to Hverr vildi mer hnossir velia (Gar.
II 20/1-2).
Alliteration need not in itself convey an especially poetic
effect and the desire to avoid it was not always uppermost
in the compiler's mind.
• In his 'Quellenstudien zur Volsungasaga', Acta et Commeniationes
Universitatis Tartuensis 34-8 (1935-6), I 149 f.