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sense of ‘sacred promise’, as a great number of occurrences in Old Icelandic
religious literature (for instance in Stjórn, in various heilagramanna sǫgur
and in the homiletic tradition) show.26 The choice of a verb like OI kefja
‘to dip, to drown, to put under water’ (... ad ey skyllde optar flod koma þad er
heim kefde...) in place of OI eyða ‘to lay waste, to destroy’ (cf. our text and
Hauksbók) is also worth noting, in that it seems better qualified to describe
the natural effects of the Flood than the effective but generic action of
devastation evoked by the second verb, which is of course much more
frequently employed in Old Icelandic prose;27 but it is of some relevance
here to point out that the biblical verses in Genesis, which are the ultimate
source of our homily (Gen 9, 8–17),28 express the consequence of the
Flood for mankind and the world in God’s words through verbs meaning
‘destroy, lay waste’ (cf. lat. interficio, dissipo, deleo), so that the Old Icelandic
verb eyða in our text and the Hauksbók recension (as well as, for instance,
in the vernacular version of Genesis in Stjórn)29 proves to be much more
faithful to its textual authority than the verb kefja, and this last verb may be
taken in turn as an attempt at a slightly original ‘re-telling’ of the story of
Noah’s flood. Again, the omission of the noun ógn in conjunction with reiði
in the two other versions (cf. ogn oc reiði in Hauksbók, ogn reiði in our text)
is to be pointed out, the clause Og þessa þrefallda reidi Guðs táknar Regnbogie
echoing plainly the very start of the allegorical interpretation of the colours
of the rainbow in § 25 (Þad minner oss á ad ottast þrefallda reide Guds...). The
most striking feature of the Rymbegla version – noted by Kålund, too30
– lies obviously in the misplacing of a whole sentence (Elldslitur merker
fyrergefning synda í lyfláte, fyrer Guds saker, þar filger Ogn mikel og biartleikur
mikell) at the end of the text, it having been left out from its proper place
in § 26. Here again, minor textual variation can be found in the use of the
adverb þar ‘there’ instead of the dative of the demonstrative pronoun því,
26 Cf. Ordbog over det norrøne prosasprog, published by Den Arnamagnæanske Kommission,
København Universitet, s.v. fyrir-heit, now available on-line at the web page http://dataonp.
hum.ku.dk/index.html (access: February 2011). Occurrences of OI heit are more varied in
sense and context; cf. Ordbog over det norrøne prosasprog, s.v.
27 Cf. Ordbog over det norrøne prosasprog, s.v.
28 See below, the beginning of § IV, and especially note 32.
29 Cf. Stjorn. Gammelnorsk Bibelhistorie fra verdens skabelse til det babiloniske fangenskab, ed. by
C.R. Unger (Christiania: Feilberg & Landsmarks Forlag, 1862), 62.
30 See the following note.
THE RAINBOW ALLEGORY