Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1959, Side 46
Chapter 2
KARLAMAGNUS SAGA
I
The manuscripts and versions
Karlamagnus saga is a History of Charlemagne, compiled from a nirni-
ber of different sources, most of which are Old French chansons de geste.
A short Norwegian fragment which has been preserved proves that the
saga belongs to the 13th century. From Norway it reached the other
Scandinavian countries, and there still exist an abridged Danish version
of the whole saga and a Swedish translation of two branches.
The text of the saga is preserved in four Icelandic MSS and fragments
of five more, one of which is Norwegian. None of the MSS is complete.
The scribes have, as usual, introduced small modifications here and there
in their copies, but with a few important exceptions the text is the same in
all MSS and fragments. The exceptions concern the addition of at least
one branch which cannot have belonged to the original compilation (branch
II), and the complete rewriting of another (branch IV) in some MSS.
Kms (henceforward this abbreviation is used for Karlamagnus saga)
was first published in 1860, by C. R. Unger, with the title Karlamagnus
saga ok kappa hans. The edition is based on all four MSS, and the text
of the three fragments known to Unger were printed in an appendix, with
the spelling of the scribes preserved. The main text has been normalized,
a faet which reduces the value of this otherwise excellent edition, since any
traces of the original dialect of the translation that might have survived
the alterations of later scribes would be obliterated in the process of “nor-
malization”.
The four main MSS are:
1. The vellum MS no. 180 c, fol. in the Arnamagnæan Collection in
Copenhagen, written, according to Unger, in the second half of the 14th
century1, or “about 1400” according to Kålund2. This is the MS called
1 Unger, introduction, p. xxxvii.
2 In Katalog over den Arnamagnæanske Håndskriftsamling, vol. I p. 148.
j