Gripla - 2020, Qupperneq 136

135
marily on the Nuremberg Chronicle, namely Sebastian Franck’s Chronica,
Zeitbuch und Geschichtsbibell (1531) begins its entry by stating that Anno
Mcccxcviii war tamerlanes der groß künig der tartern oder Parthier ‘in the
year 1398 Tamerlanes the Great was the king of the Tartars or Parthians’.34
The year given by Franck matches that in Oddverjaannáll, and as can be
seen from the text below, the main points of the story of the trampling of
the maidens, along with Timur’s statement that he is the wrath of God and
the narrator’s statement that he was like Hannibal in his cruelty, make this
a very likely source of the material in the Icelandic annal:
eins mals verzug die auffgebung ein statt biß an andern tag, da
schickten sy all yr kinder vnd junckfrewlin her auß in weissen kleid-
ern, ölzweiglin vor jhn tragende, in hoffnung mit yrer vnschuld des
fürsten zorn zuuersunen. Aber er schaffet dise all mit dem reisigen
zeug zuertreppen, vnnd die statt zuuerbrennen. Als er aber von ein
geheymen seins gesinds gefragt, warumb er die grausamkeit also
geübt hett an disem vnschuldigen blüt, da hat er ym zornigklich mit
entstellung seiner geberdt antlitz, vnd mit feürschiessenden augen
geantwort Meinstu ich sey ein mensch: Nein du irrest, ich binn
der zorn Gottes vnd ein verwüstung der erden, hüt dich das du mir
hinfürter nit meer begegnest, mitt solcher frag. Die disen Tirannen
gesehen haben, sagen er sy dem wütterrich Hanibal gleich gwesen
in aller wütterey.35
[On one occasion the surrender of a town was delayed until the
second day, and then they sent all their children and maidens out
in white clothes, holding out olive-branches in front of themselves,
in the hope that they would placate the prince’s anger with their
innocence. But he caused them all to be trampled by the mighty
troop and the town to be burnt to the ground. When he was asked,
however, by a close confidant, as to why he had exercised such
cruelty upon these innocent souls, he then looked at him furiously
and with a change having come over his demeanour, and with fire in
34 Sebastian Franck, Chronica, Zeitbuch und Geschichtsbibell (Strasbourg: Balthasar Beck, 1531),
cxcviii recto.
35 Franck, Chronica (1531), cxcviii recto and verso.
TIMUR, ‘THE WRATH OF GODʼ