Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1959, Síða 166
152
and he proceeds with the conventional set of threats and boasts. The other
French MSS have filled the gap and added a few verses between vv. 888
and 889, but Kms has taken a different course: there v. 889 is omitted, and
Malprimis’ words are spoken by “Kossablin”. The omission is a later
development, since all the pagan peers appear again in the battie, and are
killed off by their Christian counterparts in the same order as they are
mentioned in laisses LXIX-LXXVIII. Malprimis is killed in O laisse
XCVI, and he is here mentioned by the saga too (Subregant, S p. 27118,
Dubregant S3 p. 6333; Donreg B, Amreg b, Kms p. 510 note 2). It is
impossible to decide whether this omission is due to the translator or to
his source, but I am inclined to agree with M. Aebischer that the latter
is responsible16.
After v. 1144, which ends the description of the preparations for battie,
the Kms adds:
fylktu beir s!8an liSi sinu ok settu upp merki sin BbS
fyrir hverju hundraSs liSi Bb only
ok hvatti hverr annan til framgongu BbS (p. 508, note 1, lines 12-14,
cp. S p. 2701-2).
The passage is omitted in a, but the faet that it appears in S as well as in
Bb shows that it must have belonged to the original translation. There is
no trace of this addition in O or V4, and in the version rimée the prepara-
tions of the French peers are described in mueh greater detail (cp. C vv.
1543-1869). Possibly, this addition in the Kms is the germ from which
the long arming scene in the version rimée has developed. At any rate the
description resembles passages of the same kind in other chansons de geste,
and even in our poem, cp. vv. 3014-95, the arranging of the eschieles
before the battie between Charlemagne and Baligant.
O v. 1324:
Trait Durendal, sa bone espee, nue,
is translated:
— ok hefir i hendi ser sver8 sitt Dyrumdala — (p. 5116).
The difference may seem slight, but in this case it is certainly due to the
faet that the translator does not know the difference between espée and
” Rol. Bor. p. 150.