Referring to the story as Saxo has it, Müllenhoff,[111] ten Brink,[112]
Olrik,[113] and Deutschbein[114] speak of Bjarki's going on a hunt. This
is hardly correct and requires a little attention, for, if, in Saxo's
version, Bjarki went on a hunt, the account given by Saxo is nearer to
the first story in the _rímur_ than if he did not. But Saxo does not say
that Bjarki went on a hunt. He says: "Talibus operum meritis exultanti
nouam de se siluestris fera uictoriam prebuit. Vrsum quippe eximie
magnitudinis obuium sibi inter dumeta factum iaculo confecit, comitemque
suum Ialtonem, quo uiribus maior euaderet, applicato ore egestum belue
cruorem haurire iussit. Creditum namque erat, hoc pocionis genere
corporei roboris incrementa prestari."[115] The circumstances
immediately preceding the slaying of the bear were such, that it is
highly improbable that, at that particular time, he would go on a hunt.
It will be remembered that there was to be a wedding in the royal
residence; that Agnar was to marry the king's sister; that Agnar took
offense at Bjarki's manner of defending Hjalti, whereupon a fight
ensued and Bjarki killed Agnar and his warriors. But if Bjarki did not
go on a hunt for the bear, how did he come to meet it, and in a thicket
at that? The lack of more details, the lack of motivation for going on a
hunt in the midst of, or immediately following, the stirring events just
mentioned, and utter lack of connection with what precedes, show that
Saxo, who, with this story, begins to set the stage, so to speak, for
the last grand act of King Hrolf's life, concluded to insert it at this
juncture as the most appropriate and effective place he had for it, and
then, to add a touch of realism and supply a retreat where the bear
would be unobserved by the men, and unwarned of their approach, until
they were close upon it, said that Bjarki met it in a thicket. The idea
of supplying a motive and observing such consistency as we find in
connection with the corresponding story in the _Hrólfssaga_ never
occurred to him. The author of the _rímur_ may have known of the version