Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1959, Síða 88
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5 has only two branches, the Jorsalaferd and Runzivalspåttr. D has
translated the whole saga. In spite of this, Storm thinks106 that D is
derived from the Kms through a Swedish translation that is now lost, and
of which the existing Swedish version is only an extract. His reasons for
this assumption are that there are some Swedish forms in D107 and that
both S and D translate the word i pr 6 tt “accomplishment” as æventyr108.
Steitz109 objects that in a number of cases D is doser to the Norse text
than S is, but this objection is not valid: nobody has ever thought that D
is derived from the existing Swedish version. If a Swedish translation of
the whole saga ever existed, the four MSS of 5 which are known to-day
must all go back to a single MS, which contained a modified version of two
branches only, while D must be derived from the older, and more com-
plete version.
A fuller discussion of these problems is necessary, but the question is
of limited importance for the textual criticism of Kms, and I shall only
State my views on the validity of Storm’s arguments. Firstly, there are
Swedish forms in D (and most of them are peculiarly Swedish, and not
Norwegian). Dahlerup110 regards the language of D as “Birgittiner-
dansk”, but this kind of Danish is usually found in works translated from
Swedish111; moreover, the monastery of Børglum, where the MS of D
was written, did not belong to the order of St. Bridget. Secondly, the
word æventyr in S and D has not been satisfactorily explained112. Thirdly,
it should not be forgotten that we know that other Norse sagas reached
Denmark via Sweden (cp. the Eufemiavisor). For these reasons I am not
willing to abandon Storm’s theory for the time being.
To conclude this survey, it will be convenient to show the relationship
between the MSS and fragments in a stemma:
106 Sagnkredsene, pp. 161-62.
107 Ibidem, and cp. Brandt: Romantisk Digtning fra Middelalderen, p. 347.
108 Storm, p. 161.
108 Romanische Forschungen 22, pp. 642—46.
110 Det danske Sprogs Historie (Copenhagen 1921), pp. 44-45, and cp. P. Skifu-
trup: Det danske Sprogs Historie, vol. II (Copenhagen 1947), p. 26.
m Dahlerup, op. cit. p. 44.
112 Aebischer: Les versions norroises du Voyage etc., p. 42, assumes that the word
ævintyr has been substituted for iprott in a Norse version. This is very unlikely:
iprott is an adequate term in Old Norse.