Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1959, Blaðsíða 73

59
and in the second part of Ogier, the hero is an oid man, and nothing is
heard of Roland, who is accordingly dead.
Unger’s introduction and Storm’s book are by far the most important
contributions to Kms scholarship. Most of their conclusions are still valid,
and it is a pity that Storm’s book in particular has not been studied with
the care it deserves by certain later scholars. His discussion of the problems
is occasionally too short, for he cuts through unimportant details to the
core of problem in a way which cannot be imitated to-day, when so much
more has been written about the matter. Unger and Storm were pioneers,
and with their common sense, their profound knowledge of the ancient
languages and literatures of the North and their sound training as
historians they achieved results of lasting value to Old Norse scholarship.
Finnur Jonsson’s comprehensive survey of Old Icelandic and Old Nor-
wegian literature73 also includes a discussion of Kms. But it is of course
difficult to be an expert on every aspect of this literature, and Finnur
Jonsson was not particularly interested in the European and romantic
part of it. Therefore the translated sagas get less than their fair share of
the pages dealing with the prose literature. His discussion of Kms (vol. II,
second edition pp. 962-68) is mainly based on Unger and Storm. Because
of certain obvious contradictions between branch I, chapters 43-59, and
other parts of the saga, he concludes that these chapters cannot have be-
longed to the original Kms. In the same way he thinks that the last part
of branch III, which is found only in Bb, must be a later addition (p.
964). Both assumptions are based on the supposition that the original saga
was a well-ordered and harmonious composition. The original Kms, in
Finnur Jonsson’s view, consisted of branch I (without chapters 43-59)
and branches III-VIII. Then chapters 48-59 of the first branch were
added, and then chapters 43-47 and branch IX: this is the version from
which D and Aa are derived. The author of Bb “has used a MS which con-
tained branch IX (i.e. a MS of the original collection in which branch IX
had been added, but not chapters 43—59 of branch I), and to this have
been added branches II and X” (p. 968). As will be readily understood
from what has been said previously, Finnur Jonsson’s theory adds new
complications without solving any problems. There is nothing except the
evidence of one incomplete MS, a, to indicate that the Aa version never
13 Den oldnorske og oldislandske litteraturs historie (Copenhagen 1894-1902,
three volumes, second edition 1920-24).