Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1959, Blaðsíða 71
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Ogier has to be released; he is reconciled to the emperor, kills the pagan,
and returns to his native Denmark. This story is not identical with that
of the greater part of La Chevalerie Ogier de Danemarche (hooks II—
XII), but most of the details in D also occur in the French poem. Thus
this branch seems to have been a continuation of branch III.
Branch IX is the story of Vilhjålmr korneiss, i.e. Guillaume au-courb-
nez, a kind of Moniage Guillaume, but dif ferent from the existing French
versions. In the Norse version Guillaume is the contemporary of Charle-
magne, not of his son Louis70. The branch is found in both Bb and D.
Branch X is a short account of Charlemagne’s death. In D it is based on
an unknown source; instead of this Bb has inserted the account of Charle-
magne’s death given in the Speculum Historiale (above pp. 43-46).
Then, as a supplement to the saga, the Bb version has added certain
chapters, derived, through various Norse Saints’ Lives, from the Speculum
Historiale; in b and, unfortunately, in Unger’s edition, these chapters
have been included in the tenth branch (above, pp. 47-48).
Kms has been rather neglected by Scandinavian scholars, and those out-
side Scandinavia have generally been hampered by insufficient knowledge
of the language of the saga. Students of Old French literature have been
interested in Kms because it is a translation of French chansons de geste,
but most of them have had to rely on summaries of the contents of the
various branches, and very few non-Scandinavian scholars have therefore
been able to contribute anything of importance to the study of the saga.
The most important problems raised by the saga are: 1. its sources,
2. the translator’s way of dealing with his sources, and 3. the original
form and later development of the saga.
The first contribution to the solution of these problems was Unger’s
introduction to his edition of the saga (Christiania 1860). Unger pointed
out the sources of branches III—VIII and X (pp. iv—ix, xv-xxxn, xxxiv—
xxxvi), and suggested that branch I had been compiled by the translator
from various sources, because he wished to introduce all the more im-
portant characters who were subsequently to play a part in the later
branches. He compared the saga with the French sources that had been
,0 This branch has been translated by Ph. A. Becker in: Der Quellenwert der
Storie Nerbonesi. Wilhelm Korneis u. Monch Wilhelm. Uebersetzung des 9. Teils
der Kms etc., Halle 1898; cp. Le Moniage Guillaume, publ. p. W. Cloetta, vol. I—II,
Paris 1906-11.