Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1961, Page 101

81
comes to Mary’s presentation in the Temple at the age of three.
He tells how Mary ascends the fifteen steps of the Temple unaided,
and then follows a fine piece of learning and devotion, in which
the author explains the meaning of the fifteen steps at some length
(chapters 4 and 5).
It would be rash to conclude that the author himself had created
the allegorical interpretation because of the faet that no foreign
source has so far been found. The staff of the Arnamagnean Dic-
tionary in Copenhagen has made an attempt to trace the chapters
in question to a Latin source, but has failed to find a connection
between Continental or British literature, and the mediaeval liter-
ature in Norway and Iceland which might explain why the alle-
gorical expounding of the fifteen steps of the Temple combined
with the fifteen Gradual Psalms (Psahn 119-133) crops up in the
Old Norse Mariu saga.
The intercourse between foreign centres of learning, and the
Norwegian and Icelandic monasteries or cathedrals has not been
fully investigated, and it is not yet safe to determine precisely how
mueh Old Norse spiritual and devotional literature owes to Euro-
pean ecclesiastical writings. New sources are still found which
illuminate the literary conditions in mediaeval Iceland and Norway,
and despite our failure in finding a source of chapters 4 and 5 of
the Mariu saga, we dåre not hail the chapters as an instance of
original Creative work by the author of the saga. May we hope that
someone better versed in Latin ecclesiastical writings of the Middle
Ages can point to a source of the two chapters in Mariu saga dealing
with the presentation of the Virgin Mary in the Temple ?
The text is here quoted in full from C. R. Unger’s edition of
the saga (Chria 1871)1:
Maria var heima uppfædd, J>ar til er hon var Jrrevetr, en ]?å var
hon fær& til musteris drottins. En ]rå er Joachim ok Anna komo
at musteri drottins, J)å settu ]rau ni9r Mariam dottur sina hiå sér
å enn neSsta pall, er upp var at ganga til musterisduranna. En allz
véro upp at ganga ,xv. pallar. En J)å er ])au hofSu um buiz ok
ætluSu meyna upp at taka, J)å var hon komin at kirkiudurum ok
haf&i gengit ån manna fullting .xv. palla.
1 7-14 (MarS). A parallel is found 346-353 (MarA).
6