Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1959, Blaðsíða 61

47
The supplementary chapters which have been included in branch X in
b are, as has already been said, hased on the Speculum Historiale. The
text of the description of Charlemagne’s visit to Jerusalem and Con-
stantinople is also found in the oldest MS of the Islendzk Æventyri, a
heterogenous collection of legends, edifying stories of various kinds, exem-
pla to be used in preaching, etc. According to 14th century sources some
of these tales were brought to Iceland by Bishop Jon Halldorsson, the
translator of Glårus saga (which, incidentally, belongs to the same genre).
The sources of the avintyr are various well-known compendia, among
them the Speculum Historiale, and the tales printed by Gering in his
edition34 certainly did not all belong to the same collection. The MS
which contains the oldest collection of this kind, AM 657, 4to, dates from
the second half of the 14th century, and the last item among the tales
is one called Frå Karlamagnusi, which is the beginning of the story told
in chapters 1—3. The MS is incomplete, and ends with the word alt (Kms
p. 54327), but the last part of the story must obviously have existed in
the MS. The translation is free, with many digressions and additions.
Gering has used the Kms MSS to fill in the lacuna, but it is not entirely
certain that the concluding lines of chapter 3 originally belonged to this
tale, since it is based on other Norse sources, e.g. the Mariu saga55, and
not on the Spec. Hist.
The “Sallinus” story, branch X, chapter 4-5, is based on the Spec.
Histbut again with a number of additions, mainly from other hooks of
the same work. The story is not now found in any collection of avintyr,
but it might once have belonged to one, just as the first three chapters of
the branch did.
Chapter 6 of branch X is derived from various sources. The same re-
flections are found, in a more suitable context, in T.P.S. pp. 676-77
(chapter 90), and in the Mariu saga pp. 460-61, cp. pp. 211-12. The
Kms chapter even alludes to a source of this kind:
34 H. Gering: Islendzk Æventyri, Halle 1882-83. On Jon Halldorsson’s connec-
tion with these tales, vide Gering’s Varrede to the second vol., p. xxv. On the date
of the MS in question, vide vol. I p. xi.
35 Ed. C. R. Unger, Chria. 1871, p. 923, cp. Gering in Isl. Æv. II, pp. 27-28. The
name Maria Rotunda for the church of St. Mary is based on the Spec. Hist. lib.
XXIV cap. XXV, according to which Charlemagne was buried in ecclesia rotunda
beatce Mariæ Vir ginis (quoted in Unger’s introduction to the Kms, p. xxxv).