Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1959, Page 57
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of Unger’s branch X. But the scribe has added a note, at the end of
branch IX, indicating that the chapters placed at the end of the MS should
be inserted there, and that the Landres påttr should be inserted between
branches I and III29. Thus B would have the chapters in the same order
as b. But in B as it is, the Landres jmttr and chapters 1-6 of branch X
are not really parts of the saga at all, but must be regarded as supple-
ments. When the scribe added the note in B, it must have been either
because he knew b (or another MS which had the branches in the same
order), or because he had independently come to the conclusion that the
supplements ought, for chronological reasons, to be inserted in the places
indicated by him. It is natural that the scribe who wrote b, or rather, its
source, decided to incorporate the supplements in the saga, but it is highly
unlikely that a scribe would move these tales from the places they have
in b to the end of the saga. Branch II and chapters 1-6 of branch X must
originally have been supplements to the saga, as they are in B, and for all
we know they need not even have been added by the editor of the Bb
version.
Originally then, branch X of the Bb version consisted of chapters 7-8
only. This is an account of Charlemagne’s death and funeral, based on
the Speculum Historiale, and Vincent of Beauvais in turn based his work
on Turpin’s Chronicle, combining it with various other sources30. The
same two chapters are found, in exactly the same form, in the T.P.S.
(chapters 92—93, pp. 678—80). The translation is rather free, with numer-
ous additions (pious reflections, e.g. Kms p. 55420-24) and omissions, and
there can be no doubt that it is the same translation in both cases. As we
have seen earlier, the Bb version is influenced by the T.P.S., but there is
nothing to indicate that the author of the T.P.S. knew Kms Bb. Since one
work must have borrowed from the other, Bb must have taken these
chapters from the T.P.S.
The Aa version shows no knowledge of the Speculum Historiale, which
probably had not reached Norway when the branches of the Kms were
translated31. Branch IV is partly a translation of Turpin’s Chronicle, and
we should then except Aa to have had the Pseudo-Turpin account of
19 Unger, p. xl.
30 Cp. the text of the Speculum Historiale printed in Unger’s introduction to the
Kms, pp. xxxv-xxxvi.
31 The Spec. Hist. was finished about 1260, and seems to have had no influence
on Norse literature till after 1280, cp. Storm, Sagnkredsene, p. 67.