Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1959, Blaðsíða 169

155
tions and changes in the other MSS are certainly due to a desire on the
part of the remanieurs to explain what they did not understand.
The saga text does not seem to be any better than that of O. The words
elti ut alla heidna menn etc. renders, although not correctly, v. 1776. The
translator has simply thought that, since v. 1775 had already recorded the
faet that Roland had conquered the city, the pagans who s en eissirent did
so because Roland chased them out. The author of P has had the same
idea and has changed issir to enfuir.
The phrase lét suma brenna, suma hengja etc. corresponds to vv. 1778—
79 in O, but whatever the original form of those verses may have been,
they at least did not resemble the saga text.
There are three possible explanations of the differences between Kms
and the other versions in this passage: one is that the translator based his
text on another tale of the Prise de Nobles, the second, that Kms has the
original text of the Chanson de Roland, which has been changed or cor-
rupted in all the other versions, and the third, that the Kms text is based
on that of O.
As for the first possibility, the taking of Nobles is mentioned in two
branches of the saga apart from the Runzivals l)dttr. In branch I, chapter
52, Roland and Oliver are sent by the emperor to besiege “Nobilis”. The
king, Fulr (i.e. the Furre of Pseudo-Turpin), is killed, and many other
pagans as well,
----ok jafnvel f>å sera i borginnl våru, ok toku [se. Roland and Oliver) borgina ok
gættu til handa Karlamagnusi konungi. SiSan foru peir Rollant ok Oliver ok alt liS
peirra ok på gu ok perSu alian vigvollinn, at Karlamagnus konungr skyldi eigi sjå
bloSit er hann kcemi (p. 4523-27).
This is obviously the same incident as the one described in O, and the
additional details in the Runzivals pattr cannot be derived from this
account.
In branch V, chapter 9, there is another account of the fali of “Nobilis”,
but there is no allusion to the cleaning of the fields, nor to the “burning,
blinding and hanging” of the pagans. Thus the translator is not influenced
by any of these tales, nor is there any trace of the additional details in
any other French version of the Nobles episode17.
17 Cp. Aebischer: Textes norrois, p. 17, for a sumraary of the episodes in branches
I and V of Kms, and pp. 9-14, for a discussion of the other French versions of the
episode.
In my opinion, the account in branch I is derived from the existing Chanson de