Gripla - 01.01.1990, Síða 198

194
GRIPLA
from the eighteenth century, JS 408, 8vo. The Gothic cursive hand be-
longs to Sigurður Magnússon from Holtar in Austur-Skaptafellssýsla,
who dated his copy February 15, 1772, giving it the title: “af einumm
ágiætumm Læknara sem hiet Jönathas”.31 It is a tale about the young-
est of three princes (Jónatas), who inherits three magical gifts from his
father, a ring and brooch (which give him the love and support of all
men), as well as a flying carpet. While he is away at school his girl-
friend pretends to lose both the ring and the brooch, so the hero takes
the young lady for a ride to the end of the world on his carpet, in-
tending to leave her there. She, however, pulls the rug out from under
his plans and returns home to live like a queen. Jónatas attempts to
make his way back home and contracts leprosy by swimming across a
lake and by eating apples, but he is healed by water from a second
lake and apples from a different tree. Taking samples of each with
him, he encounters and heals a king seriously ill with leprosy. Jónatas
is then allowed to sail to the place of his schooling, where he disguises
himself and establishes a reputation as a doctor. Meanwhile, his for-
mer girlfriend has contracted leprosy and has him summoned to her.
He extorts a confession from her, offers the wrong medication, which
causes her a painful death, and returns to his homeland to live happily
ever after.
The tale sketched above is indebted to a rímur version which was
composed prior to 1600 and extant in one vellum manuscript (Sel-
skinná) from the end of the sixteenth century and in three paper
manuscripts from the seventeenth through late-nineteenth centuries.32
The composition itself is divided into three cantos, each written in a
different meter: the first two in four-line stanzas, ferskeytt and staf-
hent, respectively, and the third in braghent meter. Each ríma begins
with a mansöngr of 9, 10, and 6 stanzas, respectively, with the total
number of stanzas in each ríma being 63, 63, and 66. In content, Jóna-
31 Páll Eggert Ólason, Skrá um handritasöfn Landsbókasafnsins, 3 vols. (Reykjavík,
1918-37), III, 698. The “saga“ occupies all of pages 161 through 172, with 28 to 32 lines
per page, and quotations here are by page and line number.
32 AM 605, 4to and AM 612g, 4to: Kristian Kálund, Katalog over den Arnamagnæan-
ske hándskriftsamling, 2 vols. (Kobenhavn, 1889-94), II, 10, 19. Lbs. 990, 4to and Lbs.
2033, 4to: Páll Eggert Ólason, I, 412-413; III, 271. Quotations are by ríma and stanza in
AM 605, 4to and, where necessary, by line number after a period.