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Updated: May 1, 2025
In view of the fact that the troll is a troll-dragon, that the eating of its heart associates the episode very closely with the similar episode in the Volsungasaga, and that the rímur magnify Hjalti's strength by saying that it is equal to that of a troll, it is hypercritical to say that the saga here contains an incongruous element.
Axel Olrik, who, more extensively than any other writer, has entered into the whole matter, of which the problems here under consideration form a part, does not think there is any connection between Beowulf and the Hrólfssaga. He regards the stories in the Bjarkarímur of Bjarki's slaying the wolf and Hjalti's slaying the bear as earlier compositions than the corresponding story in the Hrólfssaga.
And when, both in the term "gylden hilt" and in the word "Gullinhjalti," the hilt of the sword is made prominent, it is due, in the one instance, to the fact that nothing but the hilt remains; in the other, to the fact that the word "hjalti" is just the word that the author must have in order to explain the origin of Hjalti's name.
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.
The Bjarkarímur are, therefore, at this point a later composition than the corresponding portion of the Hrólfssaga; and this fact affords further corroboration of the idea that the stories in the rímur of Bjarki's slaying the wolf and Hjalti's slaying the bear are later than the Hrólfssaga's account of Bjarki's slaying the winged monster.
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