Gripla - 20.12.2010, Page 23

23THE FORGOTTEN POEM
version retains a Latin invocation to St Þorlákr: Sancte Thorlace, ora pro
nobis (21–22). The untranslated Latin here is no doubt to be explained by
the occasion (in the church at Skálholt) and medium (liturgy) of the utter-
ance, but it is nevertheless significant for the present study, that even in
vernacular context, liturgical Latin is felt to be the proper language for an
invocation to St Þorlákr.12
AM 382 4to, which has the Latin panegyric to St Þorlákr on the first
leaf, is dated by Jón Helgason to ca. 1350, and contains the so-called
‘B-version’ of the vernacular saga. Only one other small fragment
(BL Add. 11.242), which is dated to the middle of the 16th century, and is
likely to be a direct copy of AM 382 4to, preserves a section of the same
version. According to the B-redactor’s prologue in AM 382 4to, which fol-
lows immediately after the Latin panegyric, on the verso side of the same
leaf, this version of the saga is a revision of an older, apparently vernacular,
version of the saint’s life: “En sá góði maðr sem í fyrstu hefir söguna setta
byrjar svá sitt mál sem hér fylgir” [But the good man who at first made the
saga begins his account as follows].13 Although an older generation of
scholars preferred to date this version, on historical grounds, as early as the
twenties of the 13th century,14 due to stylistic similarities between the
redactor’s prologue and Árna saga biskups, a considerably later date is now
The fragments of the Latin vita, in AM 386 4to I, which are believed to be older than
AM 645 4to by about two decades, contain texts from Latin miracula which are earlier in
the collection than those preserved in 645, showing that the miracles were an integral part
of the original Latin vita. The vernacular text of St Þorlákr’s miracles in this oldest fragment
of the saga displays vestiges of the source language, such as the typically Latin indifference
to genealogical and geographic specificity (Gottskálk Jensson, “Nokkrar athugasemdir,”
104–105). AM 645 4to was published by Ludvig Larsson, Isländska handskriften No 645 4o
i Den Arnamagnæanske Samlingen. I. Handskriftens äldre del (Lund: Gleerupska Universitets-
Bokhandeln, 1885), to which the page numbers above and in the main text refer.
12 This Latin utterance amounts to a working of St Þorlákr’s name into the Litany of the
Saints (Litania Sanctorum), a prayer of invocation to the Trinity, including prayers for
the intercession of Virgin Mary, the Angels and all martyrs and saints. Since the prayer
functions as a register of the holy, applying the very same formula to St Þorlákr’s name
carries with it an implicit affirmation of his sanctity.
13 Ásdís Egilsdóttir, Biskupa sögur II, 143.
14 The historical terminus post quem comes at the end of the so-called Oddaverja þáttr, which
is added to the saga by the editor of the B-redaction, i.e. that Sæmundr Loptsson († 1222)
is referred to in the preterit. The þáttr may, however, be much older than the B-redaction
and it is clearly not written by the B-redactor but interpolated from another source. More
on this is in footnote 30 below.