SAGA-BOOK - Viking Society Web Publications

338 Saga-Book of the Viking Society
The transition to Gar. II is made with the addition of pat
er sagt einnhvern dag (VS 61/21); the end of Gor. II is
rounded off with nu lior petta, ok er beira samvista fdlig
(VS 65/3), and the paraphrase of Am. which follows has
introductory material which gives Atli's reason, absent in
the lay, for issuing the invitation to the Gjukungs, and
also a stereotyped description of Atli himself, which is
again peculiar to the Saga (VS 65/4-6).
The compiler's paraphrase of Ghv., ending at st. 19, is
rounded off with ok lykr par hennar harmtplum (VS 77/10),
and he bridges the gap between her lament and the Hamdir
material with pat er ntt at segja frd sonum Guorunar at ...
(VS 77/n ).
On two occasions the compiler used simultaneously two
different lays, each of which gives a variant account of the
same material. The lays concerned are Br. and Sg., and
Akv. and Am. respectively, corresponding to VS 57/7
61/10 and VS 65/6 - 74/16. The measure of the compiler's
ability in narrative construction can be gauged from the
skill with which in each instance he combines both the lays
into a rounded organic whole, and this is especially true
of his treatment of Akv. and Am. The narrative flow is
steady and unbroken, the seams invisible. The compiler
has left here no more traces of his combinatory activities
than he did in his fusion of the lost lays of CR, about the
number of which there has been no little dispute.
Typical of saga style is the sudden transition from
indirect to direct speech and in VS there are a number of
instances of this, introduced by the compiler, e.g. VS
17/10 (HH 48/9-10), VS 35/n (Fm. r/1-3), VS 57/r6
(Am. 16), VS 64/22 (Gar. II 39).
Also typical of saga style is the use of the historic
present, and in a number of instances the compiler has
used a present tense where his source has a past tense
(d. (5) above), e.g. (HH 8/1) gaf : gefr (VS 14/14); (Am.
21/1) vpknooo : vakna (VS 67/r4); (Am. 36/4) skilOoz:
skiljash (VS 68/r3); (Am. 46/2) heyroi : heyrir (VS 69/12).