Skáldskaparmál - 01.01.1992, Side 254

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Marianne Kalinke
Icelandic redaction that was being transcribed. Such is the case in the legend
of St. Lawrence, where we read in the Sth. 2 redaction that after the martyr-
dom of Hippolytus and his companions, the priest Justinus went to look for
their bodies: “En Justinus prestr kom ena somu nott ok grof likame þeira,
sem haugnir voru, aa þeim enum sama velli, sem þeir voru hógnir [Hms
431:23 ff.).21 The corresponding passage in Reykjahólabók is a seemingly
amplified version, for it additionally contains information about the body of
Concordia:
Þa kom Jvstinvs prestvr og grof likame þeirra allra er hogner vorv og aa þeim
samaa velle sem fyr seiger og vorv þeir allz .xx. Enn fostrv Ypolithi Concordia
fvndv þeir ecki þviat Valerianvs hafdi kastat hennar likam j einn divpan og fvlan
pytt er fvllr var af ohreinende og lag hennar likame þar nockvra stvnd adr enn
hann fanzt. (I, 267:4-9)
The Passionael contains some, but not all of the corresponding supple-
mentary matter:
men syner ammen Concordiam lycham konde he nerghen vynden. wente men
hadde se in ene depe schytkulen gheworpen. daer lach se ynne.22 (Cxii, b)
The above does not account for an additional detail transmitted in
Reykjahólabók, that the ditch was actually a sewer, but two of the texts
known to have been sources used by the compiler of the Passionael contain
that very matter, including the descriptive detail concerning the nature of the
ditch, namely the Verse-Passional, where we read that Concordia was “in
einen tiefen graben / geworfen, in ein unvlat,”23 and the Legenda aurea,
which relates that “corpus vero sanctae Concordiae inveniri non potuit, quia
fuerat in cloacam projectum” (p. 502).24 The conclusion to be drawn is that
additional matter in Reykjahólabók, far from being a case of scribal
amplification actually reflects the wording of a variant redaction.
A brief passage in Stefanus saga also illustrates the thesis that additional
and/or deviating text in Reykjahólabók reflects a divergent source rather
than scribal intervention. Text that appears to be scribally interpolated or
rhetorically amplified, that is, interpolated or amplified vis-á-vis that in the
other Icelandic manuscripts of Stefanus saga, actually existed in variant
redactions outside of Iceland. In an edition of the fragment AM 655 XIV of
21 C.R. Unger, Heilagra Manna sogur. Fortællinger og Legender om hellige Mænd og
Kvinder (Christiania, 1877). Hereafter Hms.
22 But they could not find the body of his nurse Concordia anywhere, because she had
been thrown into a deep ditch; that is where she lay.
23 Fr. Karl Köpke, ed., Das Passional. Eine Legenden-Sammlung des dreizehnten
Jahrhunderts (Quedlinburg & Leipzig: Gottfr. Basse, 1852), 392:82 ff.
24 Th. Graesse, Jacobi a Voragine Legenda Aurea vulgo Historia Lombardica dicta
(1890; rpt. Osnabriick: Otto Zeller, 1965), p. 502.