The Relationship between Víga-Glúms saga and Reykdoela saga: Evidence from New Lexomic Methods

Víga-Glúms saga and Reykdoela saga ok Víga-Skútu each contain a scene depicting the conflict between the characters Víga-Skúta and Víga-Glúmr. Based on the similarities in wording between the episodes, scholars have concluded that the text of one saga was based on the other, but there is no consensus about which text is the source and which the adaptation. In this paper we introduce new ‘lexomic’ methods of computer-assisted statistical analysis that provide evidence that has some bearing on this long-standing problem of priority. After testing the methods against ‘control’ texts in Old Norse (texts whose sources and relationships were established by traditional methods), we demonstrate that the distribution of vocabulary in the Víga-Skúta episode in Reykdoela saga is in fact closer to that of the entire text of Víga-Glúms saga than it is to the rest of Reykdoela saga, while the distribution of vocabulary of the episode in Víga-Glúms saga is very much like the rest of that text. Víga-Glúms saga, therefore, not a separate interpolation, is the source of the Víga-Skúta episode in both sagas and thus precedes Reykdoela saga in relative chronology.