Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1959, Side 158
144
fjarhlutir is perhaps not the exact equivalent of eschech (herfang would
be better), but in my opinion the rendering “he (i.e. Charlemagne) won
great treasures there” instead of “his (i.e. Charlemagne’s) knights made
a great booty there” by no means shows that the translator did not under-
stand his source; and if the translator has translated v. 99 correctly, he
cannot a moment later combine it with vv. 111-12 to form the addition
quoted above. Consequently while I do not exclude the possibility that the
addition may have been made by an Icelandic scribe, I am inclined to
favour Storm’s explanation6, that the addition belongs to the French
source. Cp. also the description of the saddles, in v. 91:
Li frein sunt d’or, les seles d’argent mises.
As for the particular form in which v. 126 is preserved in Kms,
Hann vill Jwnn fund sækja ok kristinn gerast, ef fm vilt (p. 4877-8),
cp. O vv. 37-38, 84-85, 151-55, I agree with M. Aebischer7 that it is
based on a French verse which differed from that of O.
When, in v. 134, the saga has,
Nu hefir bu hér verit 7 vetr (p. 48713'14),
as a translation of En cest pa'is avez estet asez, it must be, as Stengel has
seen, because the source had-------set anz estet, cp. V4 v. 39:
In cest pars el e set agni ester
which corresponds to O v. 35:
En ceste tere ad asez osteiet:
Thus in both these cases the Ktns variant must be based on a variant
reading in the French source, readings which are not preserved in any
French MS in the places where the saga has them (but this part of the
poem is omitted in V4).
As I have just said, the list of Charlemagne’s councillors in vv. 170—
176 is omitted in the saga, and the Norse text has instead what looks like
a summary:
6 Sagnkredsene, p. 30.
7 Rol. Bor. p. 96.