Skáldskaparmál - 01.01.1992, Page 265

Reykjahólabók
263
kan eg ecki af at seigia þviat mier hefvr eingenn hingat kvnnat skyra fraa
þeim edr þeirra vellde” (361:33-34). The only thing she is concerned about,
she says, is to deliver herself and her father from the awful plague that has
been visited upon the kingdom. Only now, after the foregoing protracted
conversation, does she finally answer George’s original question: “eg bidr
hier davda mins þar thil at dreken kemvr efter mier sier til fædv” (I, 362:2—4).
Whereupon George says - note that he is still not called Saint George - that
he intends to rescue her, provided she does what he tells her to do. The
lightly ironic and quite humorous conversation between the princess and
George is entertaining and holds the reader’s - or listener’s - interest.
The question concerning the attribution of literary responsibility looms
large, not only for the episodes adduced here but also for all the
supplementary matter in Reykjahólabók. Given the fact that additional or
diverging matter in other legends can be shown to exist in versions other
than the Passionael; furthermore, given the fact that the Passionael
demonstrably derives from originally longer redactions, both in verse and
prose, there is no reason to doubt that the legends of Sts. Christopher and
George, as well as others for which no corresponding redactions have as yet
been found, similarly translate unknown, probably no longer extant Low
German redactions. In terms of the matter, structure, and development of
many of the legends, the Low German and Icelandic compilations represent
disparate types of narrative. Although the Low German sources of
Reykjahólabók have as yet not been established - and may never be - suffi-
cient evidence can be found throughout the Icelandic legendary to support
the thesis that the translator did not create additional or deviating material.
Or, as Heinrich Giinther put it, “der Zwang des Typus hat die Legenden
gemacht, nicht die Willkur der Autoren,” so that no sacred legend exists,
“die ihrem wesentlichen Inhalt nach von ihrem Schreiber unmittelbar und
bewufit erdichtet wurde.”39 While compilers, like the redactor of Der
Heiligen Leben, will condense texts to suit a specific purpose - such as
reading in the refectory - they will not create new matter. Thus, the
dialogues and monologues, the additional or divergent scenes and episodes
in Reykjahólabók that give the appearance of having been “created” by the
translator derive from his sources, unknown though they remain. Indeed,
the aggregate of the texts in Reykjahólabók suggests that the “author” of
Reykjahólabók — the word is used advisedly to subsume the translator,
copyist, and compiler of the legends - functioned very much as a scholar and
a hagiographer.
There is ample evidence that the compiler of Reykjahólabók wished to
present as complete a record as possible of the persons taken up into his
39 Heinrich Gíinter, Die christliche Legende des Abendlandes (Heidelberg: Carl Winter,
1910), p. 177.