Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1959, Page 242
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jongleurs, and I do not think it would be right to attach much importance
to it. It must be pointed out, however, that in the following episodes, Kms,
while dif fering from the surviving French versions, contains details which
have close parallels in Roland traditions which must have originated in
Southern France. As M. Horrent remarks, this realistic touch is not com-
mon in the chansons de geste, and it is rather strange that both the Spanish
and the Norse version have it in this episode, for “les påmoisons de Charles
sont nombreuses” in the saga as well as in the other versions of the poem56.
Naimes’s reproach in the saga is not directly based on O vv. 2945-49,
but it may be a free rendering of the first two verses:
2945: “Sire emperere,” go dist Gefrei d’Anjou,
“Ceste dolor ne demenez tant fort.”
The real difference here is that in the saga it is Naimes who speaks. In
O and P it is Gefrei, and so also apparently in T (this version omits w.
2946-50 and combines vv. 2945 and 2951, and it is therefore difficult to
decide). But V4 has Naimes. This does not mean that there is any close
connection between V4 and Kms; Naimes is Charlemagne’s councillor
par excellence, and two jongleurs might easily substitute him for the less
well known Gefrei. But this is the second time we find the saga avoiding
le rei gunfanuner; he has also been omitted in v. 106, where V4CV7 have
him, and Kms has Richard of Normandy instead. In the second version
of the Roncevaux scene, in the version rimée, Richard has taken over the
part played by Gefrei in the assonanced version, and Naimes and Richard
are charged with the task of guarding Ganeion (C vv. 6022-26).
The rest of this laisse is omitted in the saga, and these are, indeed, the
last verses of O which have any real parallel in Kms.
XI
The fate of Durendal
Kms is the only version of the Roland story which has this picturesque
story of the fate of Roland’s sword:
Charlemagne telts one of the strongest of his knights to take Roland's sword, but
he is not able to do it. Another knight goes, but he fares no better. Then he sends
M Roncesvalles, p. 131.