Gripla - 01.01.1995, Side 142

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GRIPLA
duced form in the homiletic redaction in Sth. 15.19 Comparison of the
variants in the extant manuscripts shows that Sth. 3 occasionally trans-
mits a unique scribal error; at other times misreadings in Sth. 3 corre-
spond to those in other manuscripts. Despite its greater length owing
to interpolated material, especially the additional chapter (see IV be-
low), Sth. 3 occasionally lacks a passage from the original translation,
which is transmitted, however, by the other manuscripts; furthermore,
what appears to be scribal amplification (Widding and Bekker-Niel-
sen’s „overbrodert fremstilling“) turns out to be - when comparative
material, both Icelandic and Latin, is adduced - matter deriving from
an older redaction of the translation.
It is not the intent of this essay to account for the stemmatic in-
terrelationship of the extant manuscripts of Stefanus saga, or to recon-
struct the text of the original translation. The primary aim in this sec-
tion is to establish the credibility of Sth. 3 as a reliable copy of a no
longer extant redaction of Stefanus saga. The material presented is not
intended to be exhaustive but rather illustrative and exemplary. A
critical edition of the legend is a desideratum, as the following will
show.
Certain types of discrepancies among the manuscripts, especially
Sth. 2, AM 661, and Sth. 3, the longest extant texts, are the result of
scribal carelessness, now in the older, now in the two younger manu-
scripts. There are a number of misreadings of names in Sth. 3, for ex-
ample: „þeir menn er kranensis af þeirre borg er Krone heiter“
(219:25), which Sth. 2 (44vb25; Hms 293:5) and AM 661 (6vl8-19)
transmit correctly: „þe/r menn er kallaz cyrenensis af cirene.“ Sth. 3
transmits the incorrect Dethalia (231:28), whereas Sth. 2 (47ral5; Hms
301:21), Sth. 15, and AM 655 XIV correctly write Debathalia; similarly,
Sth. 3 writes Helagabri (228:29), but the correct form, Delagabri, is
found in Sth. 2 (46va2; Hms 299:15), Sth. 15, and AM 655 XIV. The
name Bassus is spelled correctly in Sth. 15 and AM 661 but Sth. 3,
which writes <B>alcvs (242:11), and Sth. 2, which writes Ballus
(48va34); Unger corrects the name to Bassus (Hms 307:22).
Not only proper names are subject to corruption. The word „hoslz“
in the phrase „hoslz med akre“ in Sth. 3 (221:2) is a nonsense word,
19
The fragment AM 655 XXII may be part of what was originally a homiletic text.
On leaf lr7-17 is a passage that includes commentary on the celebration of the feast that