Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1959, Síða 246
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dal did not disappear in this way that they have left out the incident of
the well64. The story of the disappearance of the sword seems to be a later
addition, made by the author of the version rimée, or of some previous
version of the poem, a jongleur who forgot that the sword was later to
reappear in the Baligant episode.
All versions of Galten follow the version rimée in making Roland throw
the sword into a brook65; then Galien arrives and asks Roland to give
him the sword, hut it is too late.
There is certainly a connection between this episode in the version rimée
and Galien and the one in Ronsasvals: one is clearly derived from the
other. The Ronsasvals version is better from the purely literary point of
view; it is natural that Charlemagne should thus dispose of the sword
after the battie. In the version rimée it is Roland who throws it into the
well, to prevent it from falling into the hånds of the Saracens, but this
explanation is inadequate: the pagans have fled, and Roland has heard
the trumpets and knows that Charlemagne is coming. Apparently the
remanieur had forgotten this. That does not necessarily mean that the
latter version is a secondary development; it is theoretically quite possible
that Ronsasvals is a later improvement of the version rimée episode. But
chronological considerations are more decisive: the Kms episode is ob-
viously more akin to Ronsasvals than to the version rimée, and we have
good reason for believing that the saga is based on an assonanced poem
older than the original version rimée. But the Ronsasvals-Kms story of
Durendal is secondary in relation to O, and, more important still, it
naturally belongs to a version of the Chanson de Roland in which the
Baligant episode had been left out, and the scene on the battlefield came
at the end of the campaign. In my opinion, the omission of Baligant is
due to the French source of the saga, and the story of the disposal of
Durendal was added by a jongleur who worked on this shortened version
of the poem. Later on, the O version and the source of Kms were com-
bined, and, since Durendal reappears in the Baligant episode, the Duren-
dal episode had to he suppressed. But the episode was not forgotten; it
reappears in Ronsasvals, which is presumably based on a version without
the Baligant episode, and, in a revised form, in the version rimée. It must
be stressed here that the episode of Durendal originally belonged to the
M See on this point M. Roqifes in Romania 66, pp. 454-55, note.
“ Galtens li Restorés, ed. E. Stengel (Marburg 1890), pp. 224-25.