Gripla - 20.12.2013, Blaðsíða 84

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justina refuses, and through prayers, fasts, and vigils, she drives out the
pestilence. Realizing that he can make no headway, the demon changes
himself into justina in order to deceive Cyprian, but when Cyprian ut-
ters justina’s name, the demon disappears like a shadow. Cyprian, now
yearning all the more for justina, changes himself into a bird and sits by
her window, but by her sign of the cross he becomes Cyprian. He tries
again, but cannot get away, because he can neither fly nor jump from such
a height. justina, fearing that he may fall down and die, has him brought
down by a ladder. Cyprian then summons the prince of demons and asks
why he and his associates have been unable to bring justina to ruin. the
prince of demons replies that she made the sign of the cross, and Cyprian
then decides to convert to Christianity. the rest of the legend in Der große
Seelentrost and the Siælinna thrøst more or less follows BHL 2047, and there
is no mention of the sign of the cross found inscribed on Cyprian’s heart
after his death.
the version of the exemplum of the blaspheming boy in Der große
Seelentrost and the Siælinna thrøst is abbreviated in comparison with the
Icelandic exemplum. unlike the Icelandic version, the Low German and
swedish texts do not mention that the father was a Roman and that the
young boy was torn to pieces by demons. While Der große Seelentrost men-
tions that the father loved his son very much, the Siælinna thrøst states that
the boy was like his father and that the father had taught him to swear and
use bad language. finally, no reference is made in Der große Seelentrost and
the Siælinna thrøst to the so-called “meijstarj Bekarinar” and his verdict.
Likely candidates as sources for the two exempla would seem to be
Robert of Brunne’s Handlyng Synne or odo of Cheriton’s Parabolae in
light of Peter jorgensen’s statement with regard to the sources of the cor-
pus of the Icelandic exempla: “twenty-eight exempla are directly indebted
to the Vitæ patrum, and another fifty or so comprise a 15th-century transla-
tion from a Middle english prose Ms indebted to Handlyng Synne, to the
Gesta Romanorum, and to an expanded redaction of odo of Cheriton.”16
the Handlyng Synne is clearly not the source of the Icelandic exempla.
16 Peter A. jorgensen, “exempla,” in Medieval Scandinavia: An Encyclopedia, ed. Phillip
Pulsiano et al., Garland encyclopedias of the Middle Ages, vol. 1 (new york: Garland
Publishing, 1993), 173−174, esp. 173. The Vitæ Patrum and the Gesta Romanorum do not
include the two exempla.