Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1959, Blaðsíða 125

111
til hala, which has been explained by Storm4 thus: to the Northerner,
unaccustomed to the distinctions made between various kinds of horses,
there seemed nothing disgraceful in being put on a sumer, so he decided
that the disgrace must lie in the way in which Ganeion was put on the
horse 5.
In spite of the quite substantial differences in this laisse, it is still pos-
sible to divide the Kms text into lines that correspond to the verses of the
French source, and the meaning of the laisse is not materially altered,
the changes affecting smaller details only. It is significant that, in vv.
1049-58, one of the central points of the poem, there are no changes at
all, while the translator (or later scribes) left out minor details in the
comparatively unimportant account of the treatment of Ganeion.
Is there any reason for the omissions, additions, and changes in the text,
or are they just due to chance and the ignorance of the translator? In the
first place, the two examples we have chosen have already shown that the
translator is more careful with the important things than with the minor
details. Some changes are certainly due to ignorance, as in the case of the
expression a deshonor, and the translation of vv. 1826—27. But I cannot
agree with M. Aebischer that all or most omissions are due to ignorance.
Thus when he thinks that v. 1823 was omitted because the translator did
not understand it6, I would point out that words like barbe, gernun are
correctly translated in the saga rendering of v. 215:
Karlamagnus konungr hneig t>a n'3r haWe sino
oc stravk f>a scegg sitt. en beindi campa (Kms p. 55621-23, Fri).
But quite apart from such details, if the translator did not know com-
mon words like these, it is unlikely that he would have been able to
undertake the task of translating any French text. There certainly are
some words which the translator did not understand, like porz in v. 1057,
but they are usually words for things which the Norseman did not know,
and before asserting that he was unacquainted with this or that particular
word, one has to find out if he has translated it correctly elsewhere.
It seems more natural to ask whether an omitted verse contains any-
4 Sagnkredsene, pp. 33-34.
11 Cp. the treatment of the kappi Alpin in the 6lafs saga Tryggvasonar of Oddr
munkr:-----setti hann kappann ahest oc let hann horva aptr til hala (ed. Groth,
P- 311).
6 Rol. Bor. p. 197, and cp. below, p. 137.