Gripla - 01.01.1975, Page 168

164
GRIPLA
brœðrasögu— have demonstrated that Hrafn faithfully followed the
teaching of the Salerno school, either directly or through Montpellier,
which he is supposed of having personally visited when travelling
abroad.0 Also the popularity of the famous Regimen Sanitatis Salerni-
tanum was as great in Iceland as in the rest of medieval Europe.
One last detail: much has been written also about a curious passage
in Prestssaga Guðmundar Góða, ch. 6, where a boat threatened by
shipwreck tries to avoid the danger by so-called magical means: the
crew tries to find out whether there isn’t a man on board who knows
‘the highest name of God’ (nafn guðs it liœsta), this being in their
minds the only means to calm the tempest. Doubtless, in Northern
paganism as in other primitive religions, the strength of sacred names
must have been great.7 But as far as guðs nafn it hœsta is concemed,
it reminds us of a similar passage in the Roman de Flamenca,8 or
could draw its origin from the Latin cantilenas, so popular at the
time, since it is said of King Sverrir, in Sverris Saga, that he sung the
Alma chorus Dei during the Norðness battle in 1181.9
* *
From this brief survey of a problem which, certainly, is far more
difficult than it has been presented here, I think we may draw three
conclusions:
First, the genuine pagan feelings and survivals in the samtíðarsögur
appear to be insignificant. One remains impressed by the fact that the
authors are either perpetually trying to make couleur locale, probably
for purely literary ends, or, more precisely, are engaged in a process
of reconstruction. Their main concern does not seem to be what they
have to say, but how they should say it. And the influence of the
models of all kinds that they had at their disposal played a very im-
portant part. I think this attitude is typical of a society which wants
to create and elaborate its own past according to the idea they have
formed of it from other texts. We have to remember constantly that
® See A. Tjomsland, the introduction of Hrafns Saga, op. cit.
7 See de Vries: Altgermanische Religionsgeschichte, op. cit., § 216 and B. Grön-
dal: Folketro i Norden, in ANOH, 1863, pp. 127 ssqq.
8 P. Meyer: Le roman de Flamenca, Paris, 1865, pp. 316-317.
9 See ÍF IX, Jónas Kristjánsson’s Introduction, p. LXV.