Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1975, Side 319
303
though the bishop wanted to die, he, himself, would rather live.
For that reason he bade the mountain in God’s name to be lifted
and put on top of the Saracens so that they might do harm to no
man. Having said this, the mountain was raised and placed on the
heathens so that all of them died, and the Christians were free to
travel unhindered wherever they wished.
Similar tales are known from various medieval Latin collections,
one of the closest being found in a fourteenth-century vellum man-
uscript, Arundel 231, containing the sermons of Odo of Cheriton,
an Englishman who died in 1247. In this version, a captive bishop
hesitates when challenged to move a mountain by prayer, but the
mountain is moved when his serving boy prays. In the Speculum
Laicorum and works by Etienne de Bourbon, the captured bishop
and his retinue are omitted, but the mountain, with the sultan
and his followers on it, is moved into the sea by the prayers of a
poor smith. Similar to these latter versions, but with the smith as
a one-eyed cobbler, are apologues in Harley 3244 and in a sermon
by Gaudrin (cf. J. A. Herbert, Catalogue of Romances ... in the
Britisk Museum, III, 59, 390, 462).
In AM 576c, 4to, Årni Magnusson has recorded under “Registur
uppå nockur skrifud æventir,” the following note: “Um eirn hertek-
inn biskup ok eirn smid sem med tru sinne færde eitt fiall ur stad,”
(Arni Magnussons Levned og Skrifter, II, p. 177).
The Abbot and his Foster-Father
Nowhere is this tale preserved in its entirety, but it can be pieced
together from three different manuscripts, 238 XXI, 238 XXVII
and 657b. On the basis of the various lacunae, the text can be di-
vided into seven sections with the relationships of the manuscripts
to each other shown in the following table:
I 2 3 4
238 XXI lrl-17 Irl7-lv22 Iv22-24 lv24-30
238 XXVII Lacuna lrl-lv26 lv26-29 Lacuna
657b Laeuna Lacuna 92rl-3 92r3-10
5 6 7
238 XXI Lacuna Lacuna Lacuna
238 XXVII Lacuna Lacuna 2r-v
657b 92rl0-92v33 Lacuna Lacuna