Gripla - 01.01.1995, Blaðsíða 182

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GRIPLA
Sanctorum and imprints of individual manuscripts in the case of the
Latin legends, applies to Low German hagiography as well:
Die in den letzten Jahren vorgelegten und die gesamte Ueberlie-
ferung einer Legende einbeziehenden Untersuchungen haben
gezeigt, dass es nicht ausreicht, sich jeweils auf die Texte der
ASS oder auf Drucke einzelner Handschriften zu stiitzen. Die
einzelnen Legenden können bei aller Konstanz des Textes in
sprachlich und auch sachlich durchaus voneinander abweichen-
den Fassungen zeitlich und regional verbreitet gewesen sein.35
It is presumptuous and methodologically unsound to think that six-
teenth-century Icelandic versions of Low German legends could derive
only from the Passionael, simply because it existed in print.
Although the translated legends in Reykjahólabók tend on the
whole to be more dramatic than those of the Passionael, because the
third-person narrative of the latter frequently corresponds to dialogue
in Reykjahólabók, the converse occurs occasionally in ch. 13 of Stefa-
nus saga. There are not only differences in content between chapter 13
and the corresponding section in the Passionael, but also discrepancies
in style. When the emperor decides to send his daughter to Constanti-
nople to be cured, the devil himself speaks in the Passionael:
Ik wyl dyt vat nicht rumen. beth sunte Steffen to Rome kumpt.
so moet yk vth. wente de hyllighen apostele willen. dat he scal to
en komen. (xcviii, b)
In Sth. 3, the passage commences in indirect discourse but then shifts
to direct discourse, and otherwise also follows a different sequence:
þa svarade andskothen at honvm kæme þat fyrer ecki. fyrer þvi
at hann sagdizt sitt ecki mvndv vyma fyr en heilagr domr Stefans
35 Karl-Ernst Geith, „Die ‘Abbreviatio in gestis et miraculis sanctorum’ von Jean de
Mailly als Quelle der 'Legenda aurea’," Analecta Bollandiana. Revue critique d'hag-
iographie, 105 (1987), 290-91. The bibliographical survey of the High and Low German
as well as Dutch legendaries by Williams-Krapp (Die deutschen und niederlandischen
Legendare) supports the validity of Geith’s remark for vernacular hagiography as well,
and demonstrates the remarkable diversity - as yet unexploited by Iiterary historians -
of the existing vernacular compilations.