In the Hrólfssaga, it is said that Bjarki killed a dragon by plunging his sword under its shoulder. In the rímur, it is said that Hjalti killed a bear by plunging his sword into its right shoulder. This is another harking back to the Hrólfssaga. Hjalti has now become as courageous as Bjarki; he kills a live animal (instead of knocking over a dead one), and he kills it in just the same way that Bjarki killed the dragon. It can not be assumed that the author of the rímur and the author of the saga employed this manner of dispatching the animal without any knowledge on the part of the one as to what was contained in the account of the other. In fact, it is taken for granted by all writers on the subject that the later account is an altered version of the earlier account. Hence, either this episode in the rímur is modeled after that in the saga, and Hjalti is made to kill the bear in the same way that Bjarki killed the dragon, or the episode in the saga is modeled after that in the rímur, and Bjarki is made to kill the dragon in the same way that Hjalti killed the bear. Is there any doubt as to what has occurred? The former is natural and to be expected, and is probably what has taken place, because: 1. in all the versions of the story Hjalti is represented as having undergone a change that has caused him to become very much like Bjarki—"equal to Bjarki," as it is stated in the rímur, where he is represented as having killed a ferocious beast in the same manner that Bjarki, in the saga, killed a winged monster; 2. it was not unusual to represent dragons as having been killed by being pierced under the shoulder,[117] since a dragon had to be pierced where its scales did not prevent the entrance of a weapon into its body; 3. since there is no special reason why a bear, which is vulnerable in all parts of the body, should be represented as being pierced through the shoulder, the manner in which Hjalti is said to have killed the bear is evidently another unmotivated incident in the rímur that is imitated from a motivated incident in the saga.

What the author of the rímur has done to give the story the form in which we find it in his composition is quite plain. He noticed that, as the monster in the saga attacked the folds at Hleidargard, the situation was very much like that at the beginning of the story about Bothvar in the saga, where a bear is said to have attacked the cattle of King Hring, Bothvar's father.[118] But a bear is a real, not an imaginary, animal, and King Hring took a creditable part in the effort to dispatch it. Hence, this story was substituted for the story about the troll-dragon and adapted to the circumstances, King Hrolf himself taking the lead in the hunt and thus acting in a manner that seemed more to his credit than the way he acted in regard to the monster in the saga.

This story, namely that the man whose cattle have been killed by a bear goes with his men and hunts it down and kills it, is the same that we have in connection with the early life both of Ulf and of Bjarki, where the bear is represented as being the great-grandfather of the former, but the father of the latter. The bear-ancestor feature was not applicable in the connection in which the story is used in the rímur; hence, it was omitted. Now, did this story spring up spontaneously and independently in all these three instances? No, Bjarki and Ulf got their reputed ancestry from the Siward story; and this bear hunt story they got from a common source through contact with each other, or Bjarki got it from Ulf. The author of the rímur, liking it better than the last part of the dragon story in the saga, as most modern readers also have done, took it from the version contained in the saga of the early life of Bjarki and used it for letting Hjalti display his courage. As a result, he modified the story where it applies to the early life of Bjarki. He has two sets of three sons each, while the saga has only one set; and, what is still more suspicious, there is a Bothvar in each set. This is the same kind of separation or repetition as the rímur later make with regard to the dragon story, dividing it into a wolf story and a bear story. Again, as Finnur Jónsson, summarizing the account in the rímur of the death of Bjarki's father, says, "Björn forfölges, flygter ud i et skær og dræbes der af jarlens mænd på et skib (en stærk afvigelse fra sagaen)."[119] This divergence was plainly introduced to make the story different from the story that, in substance, was replaced and that was transferred to where Hjalti displays his courage. In the saga, Bjarki's mother is called Bera (she-bear),[120] not Hildr, as in the rímur; and that the name Bera is the earlier of the two there can be no doubt.

Furthermore, we find in the rímur another of the characteristic traces that the author left when he tampered with the dragon story. In the saga, in connection with Bjarki's early life, it is said that when the bear was hunted, it killed all the dogs, but was itself soon after killed by the men. From this the author concluded that it was death on dogs, but could not contend successfully with men. Hence, he says, "Bjarki was told that it had killed the herdsmen's dogs;[121] it was not much used to contending with men." This statement must, therefore, mean, if it means anything, that the bear was not really dangerous to men or, at any rate, not as dangerous as one would naturally suppose. Hjalti must have known this as well as Bjarki, for it was probably he who gave Bjarki the information about the beast, as he did in the corresponding situation in the saga and in the story of the slaying of the wolf. If this was the case, the bravery that Hjalti displays in attacking the animal suffers considerably. The statement reminds us of the situation in the Hrólfssaga. Just as Hjalti knocked over a dragon that was not dangerous because it was dead, so, in the rímur, he dispatched a bear that was not particularly dangerous because "it was not much used to contending with men." In the former instance, however, the feat was not the real test of his courage; in the latter instance, it was.

In the saga, Bjarki knew that the dragon was harmless, because he had killed it; and his knowledge of its harmlessness is vital to the latter part of the dragon story. In the rímur, he is informed that the bear is not so dangerous as one would suppose. But his knowledge of this circumstance has no bearing on the story whatever; everything would have proceeded just as it did if he had been without this information. But in spite of the fact that the bear "was not much used to contending with men," "the men fled" when it "ran from its lair and shook its baleful paws." The author is evidently trying to ride two steeds going in different directions. On the one hand, he has in mind the story of the bear with which Bjarki's father was identified and which was killed by the king's men, and the story of the dead propped-up dragon, which was, of course, not dangerous; on the other hand, he wishes to represent Hjalti's feat of killing the bear, which, in the rímur, the king's men avoided, as, in the saga, they avoided the dragon, as a notable achievement.

Finally, "Hrolf and all his men" took part in the hunt; but, as already stated, when the bear appeared, "the men fled." The statement, "the men fled;" introduces a feature that is wanting in the account in the Hrólfssaga of how Bjarki's father, who had been transformed into a bear by his stepmother, was hunted down and killed. It reminds us of the situation in the saga where King Hrolf and his men avoid the winged monster by remaining indoors when it is expected. In the saga, Bjarki, of course, did not avoid the monster; but whether, in the rímur, the king fled is uncertain. He was, in any event, near enough to Hjalti to toss Hjalti his sword. Bjarki, however, must have fled; and while that would be strange under any circumstances, it would be particularly strange in the present instance, since he knew that the bear "was not much used to contending with men."

Considering the dragon story in the saga and the corresponding stories in the rímur, it is apparent that there is no comparison between them as regards skill in composition; and that, while the stories in the rímur throw no light on the story in the saga, the full significance of the rímur stories appears only when they are read in the light of the story in the saga. Therefore, when Finnur Jónsson says, "Spörger vi om, hvad der er oprindeligst, er der i og for sig næppe tvivl om, at rimerne her har af ét dyr gjort to (ulvinden og gråbjörnen), så at sagaen på dette punkt må antages at have bedre bevaret det ægte," he is undoubtedly right; but when he continues, "Dette bestyrkes kraftig ved, at dette hallen hjemsögende uhyre intet andet er end et om end ændret og afbleget minde om Grendel i Bjovulf,"[122] he is, as the evidence also shows, undoubtedly wrong.

The fact of the matter is that the account in the rímur of the killing of the bear, though brief, is so confused and indefinite that it does not bear analysis; and this is further evidence of the fact that the author of the rímur clumsily re-worked material that he found in the Hrólfssaga version of Bjarki's career, and for the dragon story, which is a good story, substituted two poor ones, namely the wolf story and the bear story.

But the troll-dragon having been eliminated and the bear story selected as the one to be used in connection with Hjalti's display of his newly acquired bravery, for which purpose it is, indeed, on account of the presence of the king and his court, more appropriate than for giving Hjalti an opportunity to imbibe secretly an animal's blood, another story had to be devised to account for Hjalti's strength and courage. The wolf was the next fiercest animal available that the author could think of. He therefore invented a wolf story and placed it first; and, as the examination of it has shown,[123] a late and very poor invention it was, bearing manifest traces of the influence of the dragon story in the saga.

Conclusion.