Studia Islandica - 01.06.1975, Side 170

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existed a written saga of Sveinn Múksson, and in tJhe study
of the rímur from 1948 the present writer came to the con-
clusion that the poet used that saga, and that perhaps his
exaggerations were not so excessive as generally surmised.
The second chapter of the article gives a summary of the
rímur story. Although Sveinsrímur contain 23 parts, or
separate rímur, the actual content of the work may be con-
veniently divided into four sections: In the first section
(ríma 1—3) we find folk-tale material which is very
closely related to types 650 and 302 in Aarne-Thompson’s
folktale catalogue. The second section (ríma 4—12), which
concems the war between the Emperor of Mikligarður
(Constantinople) and the Saracens, contains material
typical of Chansons de geste, and the third section (rima
13—17) is closely related to the Middle English poem Sir
Gawain and the Green Knight, besides a number of Old
French poems. The latest section (ríma 18—23) is reminis-
cent of the Old Irish work Ossian in the Other World, but
also uses material of a hagiographic nature, such as the
hero’s entry into Paradise.
In the third and fourth chapters of the article, the rímur
story is compared with the French and English sources, and
then with Old Irish analogues, especially The Death of the
Giant Cúroi. It is apparent that the rímur are in many re-
spects most closely related to the older sources, that is to
say the Irish. There are, nonetheless, a mrniber of names
and characteristics which must be taken from Arthurian
poems.
The relationship between the rímur and foreign parallels
is strongest in the third section (ríma 13—17). In the latter
part of that section such similarities are fewer and more
widely spread. There are still, however, many motifs which
are to be found here in common with the foreign versions,
although in the rímur they may appear in a somewhat
changed form. The thirteenth ríma, for example, contains
an account of the abduction of the King’s daughter, and the