FROM THE FRYING PAN OF ORAL TRADITION INTO THE FIRE OF SAGA WRITING: THE PRECARIOUS SURVIVAL OF HISTORICAL FACT IN THE SAGA OF YNGVAR THE FAR-TRAVELLER HELGI SKÚLI KJARTANSSON The Saga of Yngvar the Far-Traveller 1 used to be classified as a Legendary Saga (Fornaldarsaga) on account of its vague and distant geographical setting and unrealistic subject matter. Lacking the mythological or epic/heroic roots of the more “classical” Legendary Sagas, it was considered late and obviously devoid of any historical value. A sort of epilogue to the saga, citing an original version by a late-12 th century author, was rejected as fanciful. When put to a proper philological test by Dietrich Hofmann these assumptions duly crumbled. What emerged as the reasonable assumption, supported by the balance of internal evidence, 2 is that the epilogue is genuine. Yngvar’s Saga was indeed written by “Monk Odd the Learned”, i.e. Odd Snorrason of the Benedictine monastery of Þingeyrar (Northern Iceland), known as the author of a Latin life of King Ólaf Tryggvason of Norway, written perhaps around 1190 and only preserved in Icelandic translation. Odd’s Yngvar’s Saga must have been composed in Latin, too, even if the epilogue does not expressly say so, the preserved text being an Icelandic translation – a rather free translation perhaps 3 – made, according to Hofmann, very soon after the original composition, even before 1200. 4 The very end of the saga (the last two paragraphs in modern editions) is an addition by the translator. He gives Odd’s book as his source 5 and mentions Odd’s letter to two prominent chieftains, Jón Loftsson (d. 1197, a terminus ante quem for Odd’s work) 6 and Gissur Hallsson, 7 who happened to be acknowledged for their clerical education and clearly were expected to check Odd’s work before its release. The translator goes on to paraphrase Odd’s account of his sources. Odd had cited three authorities for the story, all of them oral, and made sure that they in turn represented different chains of transmission. One had the story from his own father, the second from a certain Icelandic family, and the third from a trader who said he had learned it 8 at the court of the