Skáldskaparmál - 01.01.1992, Qupperneq 268

266
Marianne Kalinke
Our image of the creator of Reykjahólabók is further rounded out with
evidence from Stefanus saga. As a hagiographical statement it is a superb
text: it transmits a copy of an older Icelandic redaction, incorporates
supplementary information gleaned from other sources, such as the New
Testament and an otherwise unknown redaction, presumably Icelandic, of
the legend of St. James the Less, and it includes an additional chapter
relating the transferrral of the relics of St. Stephen from Constantinople to
Rome, which the older Icelandic redaction did not contain. This interpolated
chapter, which rounds out the legend of St. Stephen, is a translation of an
unknown Low German source. Ole Widding and Hans Bekker-Nielsen’s
judgment of Stefanus saga to the contrary, the copyist and compiler did not
modernize the style of the older redaction, nor is the Reykjahólabók
redaction characterized by “long-windedness” (“Low German Influence,” p.
251). All matter that might give the appearance of having been created by the
compiler and copyist can in fact be shown to derive from his source(s). For
the most part, Stefanus saga is a copy of a no longer extant redaction that is
related to but also deviates occasionally from the texts in the other
manuscripts, as the roses-and-saffron dream discussed above illustrates.
The Icelandic translator and compiler of Reykjahólabók, who could be
identical with the scribe Björn Þorleifsson, is to be credited with having
transmitted not only a superb collection of continental legends deriving from
Low German texts but also copies of older Icelandic translations. These no
longer survive or their existence is in any case unknown, and it is unlikely
that all the sources of Reykjahólabók will ever be identified. In consequence,
the last great collection of legends in the vernacular, a compilation produced
when the Reformation had already made considerable inroads in much of
northern Europe, was produced in Iceland, and Low German legends that
existed at one time are known to us today only because they have been
transmitted in Icelandic translation. At the end of the Middle Ages Iceland
thus played the same important role it had in earlier centuries as the
preserver of continental literature.
Why would an Icelander have undertaken such a cumbersome and
enormous task on the eve of the Reformation. If the scribe, Björn
Þorleifsson, is in fact identical with the translator and compiler, then he
would at least have had the leisure and resources to carry out such a
monumental undertaking. He could have become acquainted with Low
German legends in the years 1504-1506, when he was in the service of
Bishop Hans Teiste of Bergen. That he acquitted himself well in that role is
attested by the bishop himself, who refers to Björn, in a document dated
January 1506, as “wort elskelig swen oc tienere.”43 In a letter of 30 May
1505, penned by Björn himself, the impact of Low German on his
43 Diplomatarium Islandicum, VIII, p. 85.