Studia Islandica - 01.07.1966, Page 44

42
of the hall, according to various seasons. There was a
circle in the hall with a column of huge size fashioned
like a pillar in the centre ... Around it there were a
hundred pillars of becoming and fair marble, as far in
measurement from the central pillar as the large circle
of the sides hore from the circle of the hundred pillars.1
This building, like the sleeping chamber in RauSúlfs þáttr,
is much more obviously a microcosm of the world than any
of the buildings described in the French and Norse texts of
the poem. The mathematical symmetry that is such an out-
standing feature of Rauðúlfr’s chamher is more explicit in
the Welsh version (“ .. . as far in measurement from the
central pillar as the large circle of the sides bore from the
circle of the hundred pillars”). The chief difference hetween
the building in the þáttr and the revolving palace in Le
Voyage de Charlemagne is that the former revolves almost
imperceptibly according to the sun, while Hugue’s palace
whirls round with the wind so fast that those inside become
giddy. In this detail the description in the þáttr would seem
to be reverting to a more primitive form of the tradition,
where the building is more definitely associated with astro-
logical motives, although the change is a natural one, given
the different purpose of the description in the þáttr. But the
suggestion for the change could well have come from some
such phrase as that in the Welsh version: “ . .. the moon and
the stars and the constellations arranged in the firmament
so that they shone in the top of the hall, according to various
seasons.”
Not every detail that is derived from the Charlemagne
story in Rauðúlfs þáttr is preserved in the Welsh version.
The latter does not mention, for instance, that the revolving
building was vaulted. The suggestion for the inclusion of
the heavenly hosts in the scheme of decoration in the þáttr
presumably came from the description of the church in
1 Trans. J. Rhys (see p. 35, note 1 above), pp. 26—27.