Die Saga von Þorsteinn bæjarmagn: Saga af Þorsteini bæjarmagni—Übersetzung und Kommentar by Andrea Tietz (review)

More fabulous than historical, the so-called fornaldarsögur (and þættir, for that matter) have notoriously received less scholarly attention than have the Family Sagas. The book under review is therefore especially welcome, for it contains a focused commentary on a minor text within this “minor genre” (as a generic category, the fornaldarsaga is a modern invention). The text in question is commonly known as Þorsteins þáttr bœjarmagns (The Tale of Þorsteinn Farmhouse-Strength), and it relates four supernatural adventures undertaken by the eponymous protagonist, a daring marauder in the service of Óláfr Tryggvason. In the first, Þorsteinn follows a boy into a chthonic realm, where he steals an armband and an ornate cloth from an elven king. Next he encounters a mourning dwarf whose son had just been abducted by an eagle. Þorsteinn shoots the eagle in flight and catches the child out of the air. As a reward, the dwarf gives Þorsteinn a magic shirt, a magic ring, a piece of flint that makes its holder invisible, and a remarkable magic stone. The latter gift can be called upon to create hailstorms, sunshine, and showers of flame. In the third and longest episode, Þorsteinn joins the otherworldly retinue of Goðmundr of Glæsisvellir, who is riding to pay tribute to the treacherous Geirr[Image]ðr, king of the giants. With the help of the dwarf’s gifts, Þorsteinn foils each of Geirr[Image]ðr’s plans to undo Goðmundr and his men; ultimately, Þorsteinn kills Geirr[Image]ðr and incinerates his hall. In the final adventure, Þorsteinn rescues two drinking horns from the burial mound of his father-in-law, the revenant Earl Agði.

Andrea Tietz’s Übersetzung und Kommentar consists of two introductory chapters, a reproduction of the Old Norse-Icelandic story with a facing-page German translation, twenty-five pages of “Anmerkungen zum Text der Saga,” a commentary on its literary relations and principal themes, an essay on the role of Christianity in the work, and a useful bibliography. The brief “Einleitung” (pp. 3–7) situates the text within the fornaldarsaga tradition (its story is peculiar for being set during the reign of Hákon Sigurðarson in Norway) and outlines the organization of the book. The next chapter, “Saga af Þorsteini bæjarmagni ” (pp. 7–31), presents a plot summary of the saga; discusses its formal structure in terms of Bernard K. Martin’s semiotic analysis of the text (“Structure and Meaning in Thorstein Mansion-Might’s Story,” Parergon 8 [1990], pp. 69–80); surveys the broader manuscript tradition, which consists of fifty-four witnesses, and describes five manuscripts in closer detail; provides a list of earlier editions and translations; and recounts the few literary influences that the tale has exerted on later Icelandic poetry.

The text and translation occupy the heart of the book (pp. 32–71). With few emendations, each identified in a footnote, the Old Norse–Icelandic text is a reproduction of the edition found in the third volume of Fornmanna sögur eptir gömlum skinnbókum (1827), a book produced anonymously for Hið norræna forn-fræða félag. Tietz confirmed the accuracy of this edition by comparing it to the manuscripts that had served as its basis, the chief of which being AM 510 4to. The translation is trustworthy, fluent, and cautious. By way of example, here is the source text and Tietz’s rendering of a passage concerned with one of the dwarf’s magical gifts:

Tók hann þá hallinn úr pungi sinum. Fylgði honum einn stálbroddr. Hallrin var þríhyrndr. Hann var hvítr í miðju. En rauðr [Image]ðrumegin. En gul r[Image]nd útan um. Dvergrinn mælti: “Ef þú pjakkar broddinum á hallinn þar sem hann er hvítr, þá kemr haglhríð so mikil at engi þorir móti at sjá. En...