Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1975, Blaðsíða 318
302
The chief differences in A are the following: it is stated that
no children of the nobleman are known, makes the monk a hermit,
omits the sermon at the castle, and has the earl depart the bath
naked until finding a leper with a second garment. A has the no-
bleman go immediately to the dining hall where he is brutally pushed
away, but he somehow garns admittance, sees the new “earl” and
then seeks out the hermit. Then he returns to the castle, where the
new “earl” admonishes him and reveals himself as the angel, Ga-
briel, before ascending to Heaven.
Jon Vigfusson, the scribe of 66, was not always accurate and
may be responsible for some readings in B where 238 XXIV seems
to have preserved the better text, for example:
238 XXIV, 2r9 kastalan, B hSstolinn, ok kastalann (the first word was
apparently a misreading which was oorreeted in scribendo).
2r25 hitu, B hita.
2r30 klapp hans er tomt med ollu, ‘his olapping was hollow (empty)’,
was evidently ohanged to the truism in B herbergit hanns er nu tomt
medur aullu.
2vl2 eigi hefer hann eina flik, B æigi hefvur hann utann eitt slitti. Ac-
cording to both 238 XXIV (2v7, 12, 18) and to earlier passages in B
(11. 96-98, 110), he had no garment at all, only getting his “slitti” later
(11. 138-139). The reference to his rags in B (11. 103-104) is doubtless a
case of unintentional prolepsis (the word “utan” wrongly added).
2vl9 fyrer lata, B flytia.
2v29 [m]ote, B medur.
The Killing of Saracens hy a Mountain
This tale, which has not been printed before, is mentioned neither
by Gering nor in Kr. Kålund, Katalog .... The story concernsa bishop
and his company who were captured by Saracens. As the Moslems
pushed their captives along in front of them, they said among them-
selves that they knew of no men more foolish in their beliefs than
Christians because their Gospel told them that they might move
mountains and set them in the sea if they truly believed. A smith
who was with the bishop overheard the heathens and went before
him, asking whether they had spoken the truth. The bishop said
that to be true and the smith requested of him in God’s name to
take a mountain which was not far away and place it on the heath-
ens. To this the bishop replied that he would rather die for God’s
sake than so irritate his Creator, but the smith answered that even