Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.10.1979, Blaðsíða 243
217
probably dating from the 12th century, is an earlier witness to the existence of
the marchen than DrJ.
It is to be hoped that later enquiry will adduce further proof that Sapientes is
derived from the folktale of the dream-interpreting boy. An exhaustive study of
the texts of Sapientes has not been undertaken in connection with this study,
and consequently the conclusion is not offered as final.
Two versions of Sapientes have preserved the old order of events with
regard to the dream-telling incident, the early French versions K and D (See p.
206). According to the above argument this makes them the most original
extant versions of Sapientes.
It has long since been recognized that the tale of Merlin and Vortigern’s
Tower is related to Sapientes (Part III B, p. 204ff.). They are of the same
stock, but the Merlin tale has less in common with DrJ and the folktale than
Sapientes has.
A. H. Krappe’s thesis of the Merlin tale (as told by Geoffrey) as the source
of Sapientes is disproved by the folktale and the dream-telling incident. The
folktale and Sapientes share this motif, derived from their common source, but
Geoffrey’s Merlin tale does not contain it. From this it follows that Krappe’s
attempt to assign the composition of The Seven Sages of Rome to an approx-
imate date and location on the basis of a connection between the Merlin tale
and Sapientes in the A-version also lacks foundation, since Sapientes A is not
the original Sapientes. The striking resemblance, which Krappe pointed out,
between a boy’s abuse of Merlin in the playground in Geoffrey’s story and in
Sapientes A, may point to a direct connection between these stories, but that
connection does not concem the origin of Sapientes. Conceivably, the Merlin
tale may have influenced Sapientes A, and from A this influence may have
reached other versions generally assumed to be derived from A-texts, such as
H etc. “Merlin” as the boy’s name in Sapientes may have gained its wide
currency in that way. This matter has not been investigated here, but it
deserves mention that K and D agree in not calling the boy Merlin.
The last of the parallels presented above is the Turkish marchen from South
Siberia (Part III C, p. 208-211). It was brought into the discussion of Sapientes
by Krappe who considered it to be derived from a Russian text of Sapientes H,
“the Latin archetype of which had been contaminated with the episode of
Vortigern’s Tower” (the Merlin tale). It is true that the Turkish story and the
Merlin tale share some elements not found in Sapientes. But, first and
foremost, the Turkish tale is a variant (if a divergent one) of AT 671 E*. By
that recognition Krappe’s complicated assumption is to a large extent super-
seded. Yet there remain some seriously divergent features which could be
explained as the result of ‘contamination’ by the widely known Sapientes. The
soothsayers are a group instead of a single person, e.g. If this is not the case,
there is also the vague possibility that the Turkish story represents a genuinely
different version of AT 671 E* which - if its existence could be demonstrated
- would be a more plausible candidate as the source of Sapientes than the
version first written down in Drauma-Jons saga.
In sum, Drauma-Jons saga has found its place as the earliest recorded