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