Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1961, Page 111

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there is a slight probability, however, that we have an instance of
British influence in the interpretation of the fifteen steps in the
Mariu saga. Mary Jerome Kishpaugh has shown that a feast of the
Presentation was known in England already before the Norman
Conquest, celebrated on the 2 lst of November, and called Oblatio
Sanctae Mariae. It seems to have been specially observed in some
Benedictine monasteries. Does this indicate an early, English
source of the Old Norse spiritual explanation of the fifteen steps 1
We have not been able to arrive at a conclusion. The question
whether chapters 4 and 5 of the Mariu saga are derived from a
foreign source still awaits an answer. Can anybody point to a
possible source, which has all the elements that we find in the Old
Norse text, and in the same order ? The parallels in the sermon by
John of Basle in Bibi. nat. MS lat. 17330 (from 1385), and in the
Coventry play about Mary’s presentation in the Temple are neither
close enough nor old enough to be reckoned among possible sources.
A ladder-motif (where virtues correspond to the steps of the ladder)
is often found in mediaeval literature; the exposition in Scala
Coeli Minor by Honorius (Migne:PL CLXXII, 1239, cf. ibid. 870
and Migne:PL CLVII, 859: Werner) comes rather near to the Old
Norse, but must be rejected as the source, because the order of the
elements is not the same.
Are we hoping against hope, when we ask for assistance ?