Sigurðar saga fóts

Sigurðar saga fóts is a medieval Icelandic romance saga.

Synopsis

Kalinke and Mitchell summarise the saga thus:

In the absence of King Knútr of Sjóland, King Ásmundr of Húnaland betroths himself to Knút's daughter, Signý. Meanwhile another young king, the fleet-of-foot Sigurðr of Valland, obtains the father's promise of Signý. During the wedding feast Ásmundr disappears with Signý by means of trickery. Subsequently both royal suitors duel. Sigurðr loses, but Ásmundr gives Signý to him nonetheless. Ásmundr now woos Elena, daughter of King Hrólfr of Irland. After having been defeated in battle, Ásmundr is rescued by Sigurðr and wins Elena's hand.[1]

In the summary of recent scholarship by Hall and others, 'Ásmundr’s decision [to give up Signý] can be read ... as demonstrating with unusual starkness the superior importance in much Icelandic romance of homosocial relationships over heterosexual ones. These recent discussions give Sigurðar saga a certain paradigmatic status.'[2]

Sources, date, and influences

The intertextual connections of Sigurdar saga fots, originally published as Alaric Hall and others.[2]

The saga seems both to have drawn on and to have influenced other texts, making it possible to situate its composition between about the mid-fourteenth and the mid-fifteenth century.[2]

The saga was versified as a set of rímur (Sigurðar rímur fóts og Ásmundar Húnakonungs) already in the earlier fifteenth century,[3] and was the basis for three later rímur, composed by Gunnar Ólafsson (in 1758), Jón Hjaltalín (d. 1835), and Árni Sigurðsson (in 1827).[4]

'The first half was also versified as a Faroese ballad (Ásmundur Aðalsson), probably in the fifteenth or sixteenth century: this is attested in one of the earliest Faroese ballad collections, Jens Christian Svabo’s, from 1781–1782, and widely thereafter.'[2]

In 2010 it gave its name to the novel Sigurðar saga fóts: Íslensk riddarasaga by Bjarni Harðarson.

Manuscripts

Kalinke and Mitchell identified the following manuscripts of the saga:[1]

Editions and translations

For the earliest rímur based on the saga:

For the Faroese ballad based on the saga:

References

  1. 1 2 Kalinke, Marianne E.; Mitchell, P.M. (1985). Bibliography of old Norse-Icelandic romances ([1st ed.] ed.). Ithaca: Cornell University Press. p. 100. ISBN 9780801416811.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Hall, Alaric; Þorgeirsson, Haukur; et al. (2010). "Sigurðar saga fóts (The Saga of Sigurðr Foot)" (PDF). Mirator. 11 (1): 56–91. Retrieved 15 January 2016.
  3. ↑ Rímnasafn: Samling af de ældste islandske rimer, Finnur Jónsson ed. (Samfund til udgivelse af gammel nordisk litteratur, 35), 2 vols, Møller: Copenhagen 1905–1922, ii 288–325.
  4. ↑ Finnur Sigmundsson, Rímnatal (Rímnafélagið: Reykjavík, 1966), pp. 423–24.
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