Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1959, Blaðsíða 77

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these changes to an earlier form of Kms: the author of D, by the task he
has accomplished, shows that he is a person with a sense of proportion
and a firm grasp of his subject. By the very way in which he shortens and
occasionally changes the original tales, he shows sound critical judge-
ment84. Therefore, when Turpin is left alive in D, it is because the
author knew that he was going to reappear later. M. Aebischer seems to
think that a contradiction of this kind cannot have existed in the original
Kms, but the Aa version is full of contradictions and absurdities; that is
just why the editors of the D and Bb versions have had to omit e.g. parts
of branch I85.
I regard the Aa version as a fairly good, though incomplete representa-
tive of the original saga. Leaves have been lost in both MSS, and we
consequently have to rely on D for information about the contents of the
last part of this version.
The Danish version is based on a complete MS of the original Kms.
The author, being a sensible man, has tried to get rid of the contradictions
in the earlier version, and he has omitted parts of branch I because he
considered (rightly) that some of the events referred to there were the
same as those described later in more detail86. He apparently knew the
Dutch poem Karel ende Elegast, since he substitutes the name of Alegast
for that of Basin (Storm p. 163), and he has made some additions to the
story of Oddgeirr danski, taken from the ballad (above, p. 51).
Even if the source of the three existing versions of the saga was a collec-
tion of tales dealing with Charlemagne, it is quite likely that the branches
once existed as separate sagas, or pættir, as Finnur Jonsson thinks. The
saga was probably translated by different hånds, but it is again quite pos-
sible that the whole thing was carried out under the supervision of an
editor. The faet is that we cannot get further back than the original saga
of Charlemagne. The editor has had a number of different tales before
him, and the most important event in the Histoire poétique de Charle-
magne being the battie of Roncevaux and the death of Roland, he natur-
ally had to arrange his branches chronologically in accordance with this
central event. Stories in which Roland took part had to be placed before
branch VIII, tales which referred to the death of the hero had to follow
84 Cp. Steitz, op. cit. pp. 652-59.
85 Cp. Textes norrois et litt. frangaise I pp. 20 &c.
86 Steitz, pp. 658-59.