Skáldskaparmál - 01.01.1997, Page 236

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Matthew James Driscoll
There are of course cases where one or another text is clearly corrupt. In 1.20,
1 W has Því var kringlótt kóngsins borð, rhyming, or rather not rhyming, with
allir áttujafht tilþess. 22, and, interestingly, the totally insignificant Stockholm
manuscript, have rewinstead of borð, which in view of the rhyme (and its presence
in two witnesses), is likely to have been the original reading, but was then changed
by someone with a better knowledge of Arthuriana.29 Similarly, W(1.44, 3) has
mjöður og milskað vín, rhyming with skálum í, while 22 has mjöður og mámasí.
It’s fairly obvious that the copyist was simply unfamiliar with mámasí, a rare
loan-word (from Latin Malmasia), and substituted instead something more
familiar, even though this resulted in an imperfect rhyme.
What the utterly worthless Stockholm manuscript presents us with is more,
very much more, of this same sort of variation. This would not be in any way
surprising if this version of Skikkjurímur had been written down from memory
rather than copied from a written text. The reasons for believing that such was
indeed the case are compelling. As was mentioned above, there is virtually nothing
left of the mansöngyar. These had no connexion with the story itself and were
often omitted in performance, the kvœðamaður and audience both being keen to
get on with the action.30 Someone who had recited Skikkjurímur a number of
times without the mansöngyar would be unlikely to be able to remember them
later. Another indication that this is a memorised text is that the order of the
stanzas is different, and about a third are lacking.31 It is difficult to appreciate just
how different the order of the stanzas in the Stockholm manuscript is. In the third
ríma, for example, we have verses 10-13, 15, the first half of 51 and second half
of40, 38, 33, 32, 26-29, 46, 44, 47, 48, 43, 45, 55, 30, 54, 56, 57, 34, 73, and
finally 58—63, after which the text breaks off. What is more difficult to appreciate,
however, is that if you actually read the Stockholm text of Skikkjurímur, that is
without comparing it to the other manuscripts, it makes perfect sense. The story
has been preserved (more or less) intact.
The third ríma describes how one after another the women of Arthur’s court
try on the mantle and are found to have been unfaithful, the mantle revealing in
29 The round table appears not to have been known in medieval Iceland; see Hermann Reichert,
‘King Arthur’s Round Table: sociological implications of its literary reception in Scandinavia’,
Structure and Meaningin Old Norse Literature: New Approaches to Textual Analysis and Literary
Criticism, ed. John Lindow, Lars Lönnroth, Gerd Wolfgang Weber (Odense, 1986), pp.
394-414.
30 Cf. ‘Sigurbjörn sleggja’ by Jón Trausti (Guðmundur Magnússon), Smásögur(Reykjavík, 1909),
pp. 69—82, at p. 74: ‘Flestir kvæðamenn höfðu þann sið að sleppa mansöngvum, og áheyrend-
urnir sáu sjaldan eftir þeim. Þeir voru oftast einhverjar gælur frá skáldsins eigin brjósti, sem
ekkert komu rímnaefninu við og ekkert gerðu annað en glepja.’
31 Although the order of the stanzas is the same in the other two manuscripts there are four stanzas
in 22 not found in W, two in the first ríma and two in the third. One of the additional stanzas
in the first ríma is also found in the Stockholm manuscript - the significance of which Finnur
Jónsson grudgingly admitted - while the two in the third ríma are almost certainly later
interpolations.