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to the Breta Sogur, which work Ormsbok certainly did contain,
although the Index always cites it as Trojom(anna) S(aga) or the
like14. In this connection it is important to bear in mind that the Index
was published nine years after Verelius’ death, a factor that might
explain this type of error.
4.
Gvimars saga exists indeed - but not the Gvimars saga cited by
Verelius, excerpts from which identify it as the Norwegian Guiamars
Ijod. Not an “independent version” of Guiamars Ijod but a sister text
to De la Gardie 4-7 can be found in Lbs. 840, 4to, a paper manuscript
“skrifad ad Skarde å Skardsstrønd Anno Domini MDCCXXXVIJ”.
Among the 24 items in this large manuscript are a number of
romances, among them Viktors saga ok Blåvus, Rémundar saga
keisarasonar, and Partalopa saga. Gvimars saga has escaped notice,
at least until recently, because Påll Eggert Olason’s Skrå um hand-
ritasofn Landsbokasafnsins, vol. I, incorrectly lists the work as Grim-
ars saga15. Far from being an independent Icelandic version of
Guiamars Ijod, the saga is another primary text of the Norwegian
translation of Marie de France’s Guigemar. Despite some textual
reduction, primarily stylistic, as well as occasional misreadings, the
text of Gvimars saga contains evidence that the thirteenth-century
Norwegian translation of Guigemar was fuller and more accurate than
the extant Norwegian text of Guiamars Ijod suggests. Gvimars saga in
Lbs. 840 retains original translations from the French lai no longer
found in the Norwegian manuscript De la Gardie 4-7, exhibits greater
fidelity in translating the French text in several instances, and clarifies
a number of corrupt or otherwise problematic passages in the Norwe-
gian redaction of Guiamars Ijod. Considering that almost 500 years
separate the Norwegian and Icelandic redactions of the translation of
Guigemar, the discrepancies between the two manuscripts are sur-
prisingly few.
The text of Gvimars saga in Lbs. 840, 4to contains several notable
instances of agreement with the French Guigemar where the Norwe-
14 See EdAM A8, pp. xxiv-xxv, where another instance of confusion between signa-
tures in the Index is mentioned.
15 Skrå um handritasofn Landsbokasafnsins (Reykjavik, 1918), vol. I, p. 369.
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