Gripla - 01.01.1995, Page 180

178
GRIPLA
approval: now the city of Rome has received in one grave two martyrs,
St. Lawrence of Spain and St. Stephen of Jerusalem.
Ole Widding and Hans Bekker-Nielsen thought that matter for a
„few minor corrections" as well as a whole chapter had been „taken
from the Passionael.“32 This is not the case. An analysis of the addi-
tional chapter in the Sth. 3 redaction and a comparison with the corre-
sponding matter in the Passionael and the Legenda aurea shows that
the chapter is a translation from Low German; like the other trans-
lated legends in Reykjahólabók, however, the source was not the Pas-
sionael but a much longer text, one that in some respects resembled
the text of the Legenda aurea.
The most striking evidence of the Low German origin of ch. 13 is a
mistake, but one that becomes apparent only by comparison with the
text in the Passionael. After the relics of St. Stephen have been placed
next to those of St. Lawrence, Reykjahólabók reports: „Sidan fara þeir
til og vilia thaka helgan domen og þrifv til serckssins. er beinenn lagv
j“ (241:6-8). If the above is read by itself, no incongruity is immediate-
ly apparent. Reference to the text of the Passionael shows, however,
that the phrase til serksins must be an error that was generated by a
Low German cognate. The Constantinopolitans do not reach for the
shirt or shroud containing the body of St. Lawrence, but rather for the
coffin, as we read in the Passionael: „vnde tasteden dat sark an“ (xcviii,
c). Although the Icelandic above was not translated from this Low
German text, its source must have contained the word sark, like the
Passionael, and the translator was led astray by it. Although sark is
etymologically related to Icelandic serkr, it can only mean „coffin“ in
Middle Low German.33 There is a second clear indication that ch. 13 is
32 „Low German Influence on Late Icelandic Hagiography," p. 251. Already in his
edition of AM 655 XIV (1952) Ole Widding had suggested that ch. 13 might be a late
interpolation.
33 In addition to the presumed mistranslation of sark with serkr, occasioned by their
similarity, the loan word stallbrodvr may also have been taken over from the Low
German source. When the devil announces that St. Stephen does not wish to come to
rest in St. Peter's in Chains in Rome, he says: „hann vill j þessv mvstere ecki vera og
hverrge nema hiai Lavrencivm stallbrodr sinvm“ (240:14-15). There is no corresponding
text in the Passionael. On the whole, the translator of the legends that derive from Low
German was quite reliable, but occasionally an error generated by a related word in Ice-
landic did occur. An example similar to the one in the second Translatio occurs in the
legend of St. Nicholas of Tolentino, where we read that the saint „bar og mikit mothlæte