Studia Islandica - 01.07.1966, Page 37

35
than these for reconstructing the original form of the story
are the versions in Welsh and the Scandinavian languages.
The Welsh translation survives in three very similar texts
of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries,1 although the
original translation from which they derive may have been
made much earlier. An Old Norse version (entitled Af Jór-
salaferð) is found as part VII of the great collection of Norse
adaptations of stories from the Charlemagne cycle known as
Karlamagnus saga.2 The same translation (or an earlier
version of it) was the source of versions in Danish and
Swedish prose,3 the Icelandic rímur Geiplur,4 5 and a Faroese
hallad (Geipa Táttur).-’ Except for that in Karlamagnus
saga, the Scandinavian versions, like the later French ones,
preserve the story only in a very abridged form.
There are three buildings described in I^e Voyage de
Charlemagne. Before they go to Constantinople, Charle-
magne and his men go to Jerusalem. There they enter a
church. This was a vaulted huilding with painted ceilings
and coloured decorations representing martyrs and saints
(or angels), the movements of the moon, the festivals of the
church year, and the fish in the sea.
When they reach Constantinople they find Hugue’s
magnificent palace is also a vaulted building, and this one
is circular and revolves, impelled by the wind. The furnish-
ings were of gold and inside the painted roof was supported
1 Sechs Bearbeitungen, pp. 1—18, tr. J. Rhys, pp. 19—39 (from the
Red Book of Hergest); Selections from the Hengwrt MSS., ed. and tr.
Robert Williams and G. H. Jones (London 1876—92), II 1—19, tr. 437
—449; the third text is fragmentary and has not been published.
2 Karlamagnus saga ok kappa hans, ed. C. R. Unger (Christiania
1860), pp. 466—483.
3 Karl Magnus’ Krenike, ed. Poul Lindegárd Hjorth (Kobenhavn
1960), pp. 264 ff.; Karl Magnus enligt Codex Verelianus och Fru Elins
bok, ed. David Kornhall (Lund 1957), pp. 1—42.
4 Ed. Finnur Jónsson in Rímnasafn II (Kobenhavn 1013—1922),
pp. 357—391.
5 Fœrosk Anthologi I, ed. V. U. Hammershaimb (Kabenhavn 1891),
pp. 139—152. On these Scandinavian versions and their relationships see
P. Aebischer, Les versions norroises (see p. 34, note 1 above).