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6 Saga-Book of the Viking Society
fantastic bridge in the Hauksbok preface to Tr6jumanna saga
(1963,5), and in Pioreks saga (1905-11, II 239), it is not clear what
the immediate source for this chapter was. The episode seems most
likely to have been put together by the author of Grettis saga. The
chapter serves to reiterate Grettir's laziness when faced with work,
and fits this into a pattern which recurs in the saga - that of Grettir
going from farm to farm, and always having to leave when his
enemies hear that he is there.
The death of I>orsteinn Kuggason is mentioned in ch. 67, with
no further details given, and he is thus "out of this saga".
Since the author of Grettis saga knew and used not only Bjarnar
saga, but also Laxdcela saga and most likely Fostbrcebra saga
(Grettis saga 1936, xxv-vi;Jonas Kristjansson 1972,230-3), it seems
probable that his source for the character of Porsteinn Kuggason
was a combination of these and his copious imagination.
There seem to be no compelling reasons for believing that there
once was a saga about I>orsteinn Kuggason. Even the editors of
the islenzk fornrit series, famous for hunting every possible source
down to the ground, usually reach a point where they can assume
no more written sources, and must assign what is left to oral
tradition or to the author's imagination. It is in these two latter
categories the information about Porsteinn Kuggason should be
placed. This is especially true of the references to him in Bjarnar
saga, a work for which almost no written sources have been found,
and for which no one has made a convincing case that it is based
on any other known sagas; but it also applies to the others as well.
Porsteinn must have been a fairly well-known character, and no
specificsource need be sought for his brief appearances in the sagas
mentioned. There are a number of characters in lslendingasogur
who are not major protagonists, but more than just names, and
who crop up in a number of sagas. Gestr Oddleifsson and Asgrimr
Ellioa-Grtmsson are two examples. Porsteinn Kuggason probably
belongs in this category. Although Nordal was full of praise for
Porsteinn's actions in Bjarnar saga, it is difficult to see what he did
that was sufficiently remarkable or extensive for a saga to have
been written about him.
One negative result does not however disprove the general
assumption that there were lslendingasogur which once existed
and are now lost. Other lslendingasogur may not be the ideal place
to look for traces of them, since it is hard to separate the "literary"
traits of a saga that was a source from the "literary" interests of
the author making use of that source. However, characteristically