Gripla - 2021, Blaðsíða 36
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into an unrelated legend.86 Undoubtedly, both texts go back to a common
source. In the same place, MS E has another anecdote about Bede’s title,
one in which the blind Bede preaches before rocks who respond “Amen,
venerabilis pater.” This is the anecdote hand I has later added in the erased
space, which was mentioned in section 5 above. In this case, however, there
is no verbal agreement with MS E, indicating that hand I used a different
source.87 The compiler of Anecdotes clearly did not intend to include this
legend: the text written by our scribe is a complete narrative, it features
Bede’s year of birth, tells an anecdote about why he is called venerabilis
and not beatus, and tells us on what day he died. The second anecdote is
superfluous and ill-fitting.
Finally, the compiler has selected a single entertaining anecdote from
St Edward the Confessor’s life in Játvarðar saga hins helga.88 Similar to the
anecdote about St Anselm, this anecdote features the protagonist burst-
ing out laughing in church after having a vision, in this case a vision of
a Danish king drowning. Some of the text preceding and following the
anecdote (about Edward’s parentage and his successors up to Henry II)
does not exactly match the saga and is probably the compiler’s own com-
position, devised from information gleaned from Játvarðar saga and other
material, such as an annal.89
86 See Mariu saga, ed. Unger, 650–52. Cf. Gabriel Turville-Petre, “Legends of England
in Icelandic Manuscripts,” Nine Norse Studies (London: Viking Society for Northern
Research – University College London, 1972), 77; Kupferschmied, “Die altisländischen
und altnorwegischen Marienmirakel,” 2:56–57 (no. 114l, “Exkurs über Beda”); Widding,
“Norrøne Marialegender,” 71 (no. 179, “I Exeter”).
87 See also Turville-Petre, “Legends of England,” 77.
88 See Saga Játvarðar konúngs hins helga, udgiven efter islandske oldböger af Det Kongelige Nordiske
Oldskrift-Selskab, eds. C. C. Rafn and Jón Sigurðsson (Copenhagen: J. D. Qvist, 1852),
14–16.
89 The year given for the ascension of Edward to the throne, 1035, is incorrect and does not
match the Icelandic annals that mention it; they either have 1042 (Resensannáll, Kon ungs-
annáll, Gottskálksannáll) or 1041 (Høyersannáll, Flateyjarannáll). See Islandske Annaler
indtil 1578: Udgivne for det norske historiske Kildeskriftfond, ed. Gustav Storm (Christiania:
Grøndahl & Søn, 1888), 17, 58, 108, 317; Flateyjarbok: En Samling af norske Konge-Sagaer
med indskudte mindre Fortællinger om Begivenheder i og udenfor Norge samt Annaler, 3 vols.
[eds. Guðbrandur Vigfússon and C. R. Unger] (Christiania: P. T. Malling, 1868), 3:507. A
plausible explanation for the error is that the compiler has confounded Knútr ríki, who died
in 1035, with his son HǫrðaKnútr, whom Edward succeeded.