Studia Islandica - 01.07.1966, Blaðsíða 42

40
lated works and never became fully naturalised in Icelandic
(it occurs in part IV of Karlamagnus saga, Af AgulancLo
konungi,* 1 but not in part VII, Af Jórsalaferð). The corres-
ponding French word flor (modem fleur) occurs three
times in Le Voyage de Charlemagne, once in the description
of the sleeping chamber. The vowels in purtréa and flúr
show that these words were borrowed into Old Norse from
French or Anglo-Norman rather than from Latin protrahere,
flor-, although all three words could have gone via English.
The occurrence of these three comparatively rare loan-
words in such an early text strongly suggests that its author
was able to read French and that he knew Le Voyage de
Charlemagne in the original. There would be nothing really
extraordinary in this: Sæmundr the Wise is only one of
several Icelanders who are known to have visited France
in the early middle ages, and merely by their contact with
the Norwegian court Icelanders would have had opportunity
both to read and hear French. There is even known to have
been a Frenchman in Iceland in the twelfth century: a
French priest named Ríkini is said to have taught singing
and verse-making at Hólar in the time of bishop Jón Qg-
mundarson (died 1121), although of course this was too
early for the text of Le Voyage de Charlemagne to have
reached Iceland by his agency, and the name Ríkini sug-
gests a German or perhaps Alsatian origin (possibly he was
of mixed parentage).2 It can be no more than chance that
all the known translators of French romances into Old Norse
are Norwegians. The Icelander Brandr Jónsson (died 1264)
is said to have translated Alexanders saga, but from Latin.
It is of course possible that Le Voyage de Charlemagne found
p. 116 (twice); and flúr (“flour”) in Sverris saga (ed. Gustav Indreba,
Kristiania 1920), p. 110.
1 Ed. cit. (p. 35, note 2 above), p. 200.
2 Biskupa sögur (Kaupmannahöfn 1858—79), I 239—40; cf. Al-
fræSi íslenzk II, ed. N. Beckman and Kr. Kálund (Kobenhavn 1914—16),
pp. xx—xxi.