Gripla - 01.01.1980, Page 168

EINN ATBURÐUR OG LEIÐSLA UM ÓDÁINSAKUR
163
SUMMARY
I. Attention is first drawn to the fact that ævintýri means exemplum, i.e.
religious tale but not folk-tale. These tales (ævintýri) are Christian in content and
exist as translations, the most important collection being íslendzk œventýri edited
by Hugo Gering in 1882-3. There is a list of major publications which have
appeared subsequent to Gering’s edition but almost all of them date from the last
twenty years and a good deal of research remains to be done. Poems were com-
posed out of exempla.
n. In the manuscript AM 200, 8vo we have the first part of Gering’s exemplum
no. CI, of which he only prints the last part. This part is not in 200, a manuscript
the majority of which was written by Hálfdan Jónsson, lögréttumaður (legislator)
at Reykir in Ölfus about 1690. Árni Magnússon obtained the manuscript some
time after 1707. It contains, among other things, the main part of Tíðfordríf (1644)
by Jón Guðmundsson lærði (the Learned). Following Gering’s exempla XVI and
XVII (which are also in Tíðfordríf) are tales CI and XXVII. These exempla ap-
pear to be reckoned as part of Tíðfordríf here but in no other manuscripts. There
is in addition a short note on the spelling of this manuscript.
III. There is a brief description here of AM 657 a-b, 4to, the last part of
Gering’s exemplum no. CI being taken from it and here reprinted. Árni Magnús-
son says that the manuscript was once the property of the church in Bólstaðahlíð
in Húnavatnssýsla. A short note on the peculiarities of the spelling is also included.
IV. It is concluded here that the relationship between 200 and 657 is of such
a nature that one can be certain that the text in 200 was not taken from 657 while
657 was still complete. It is more probable that the two manuscripts have a com-
mon source. The date of the translation cannot be fixed and could be older than
the text in 657 which itself dates from about the middle of the 14th century.
V. A note on the author and his other writings is recorded here. Gering thought
that this exemplum was translated from Speculum historiale, and thus from Bede’s
Ecclesiastical History. Bede calls the main character Drycthelm and the name of
the vision comes from that. In 1922 K. Vrátný correctly pointed out the source in
Speculum ecclesiœ by Honorius Augustodunensis who was working in the former
half of the 12th century in England and Germany. His Elucidarius was translated
into Old Norse before 1200. References to and translations from the following
works of Honorius: Gemma animœ, Imago mundi, Philosophia mundi, Sacra-
mentarium and Summa totius de omnimodo historia are to be found in Old Norse
writings. A fragment of a Latin manuscript of Spcculum ecclesiœ can be found in
Oslo.
Immediately preceding the printed texts there is a list of the additional Latin
material as well as the material which the Icelandic text has in excess of the Latin.
VI. This exemplum is a leiðsla (vision) and here is a general discussion of
visions which are now generating considerable interest. They reached their high
point in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Jón Guðmundsson lærði (the Learned)
in his work Samantektir um skilning á Eddu (1641) counts both Kötludraumur and
Sktðaríma as visions. In Kötludraumur a woman is ieidd (‘led’) to the elves and