SAGA-BOOK - Viking Society Web Publications

350 Saga-Book of the Viking Society
fail to draw a general positive conclusion as to the care
taken by the compiler in putting together his material.
That he should come to the opposite conclusion and talk
of the compiler's indifference to consistency.w remarking
particularly on his inconsistency in subsidiary details! is
astonishing. Where is the proof of his contention?
Admittedly, there is some confusion over names in HH,
though Wieselgren does not comment un favourably on
this. Again, it might be argued that the compiler is
inconsistent in including two different versions of
Brynhild's betrothal to Sigurd - but Wieselgren gives
some praise (probably justified) to the way this was done.>
There are admittedly some structural faults, e.g. the
varying nature of Brynhild's residence, though this may
be partly due to a later interpolator.t" and some criticism
could be levelled at Brynhild's statement to Gunnar that
the fatal ring was given to her by Budli - though in the
circumstances she would hardly wish to tell Gunnar of its
true origin.
It would thus seem that Wieselgren's criticism of the
compiler's lack of consistency is ill-founded.
XIII
The compiler does not always follow the exact arrangement-!
of stanzas as found in CR. Some of the differences
may be due to his use of a lost MS of PE which had a
slightly variant arrangement, though occasionally he may
have introduced some changes himself.
He places, for instance, Fm. 22/1-3 after Fm. IS (VS
32/8-10), where it does not fit in particularly well. But
2· 0p. cit., I 14 f.
21 'Nebensachen', ibid.
"op. cit., I 51.
ea d. my edition pp. ix, xxxvi.
.. The compiler includes a number of stanzas in the original verse form,
particularly of Sd., which are also in a different order from that of CR.
Wieselgren believes it likely that these Sd. stanzas were quoted in full in
Siguroar saga in the same sequence as VS of which, he believes, Sigurba» saga,
not PE, may have been here the immediate source (see Wieselgren, op. cit.,
III 248).