Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1981, Síða 16

were imported through the translation of a number of romans courtois,
lais, and chansons de geste. Thomas’ Tristan (Tristrams saga, or Saga af
Tristram ok Isond) and three romances by Chrétien de Troyes reached
the North: Erec et Enide (Erex saga), Le chevalier au lion or Yvain (Ivens
saga), and the fragmentary Le conte du graal or Perceval (Parcevals saga,
a translation of verses 1-6513, and Valvens fåttr, verse 6514 to the end of
the work). Anonymous lais in addition to those attributed to Marie de
France are preserved in a collection known as Strengleikar and in Mottuls
saga (Le mantel mautaillié). Beyond the Arthurian matter, the North also
became acquainted with such romances of adventure as Floire et Blan-
cheflor (Flores saga ok Blankiflur) and Parténopeus de Biois (Partalopa
saga). The chansons de geste were not slighted by the translators, who
turned their attention to Elie de St. Giile (Elis saga), Boeve de Haumtone
(Bevers saga), and to the Chansons d'Otinel, d’Aspremont, de Roland, and
Le pélerinage de Charlemagne which, together with Latin historiographi-
cal material from the Pseudo-Turpin, were conflated in one work, Karla-
magnus saga. In a class by itself stands Pidriks saga, a compilation of
tales about Dietrich von Bern that derives from German literature.
Whether the author drew on a single source - written or oral - or com-
piled his work from various accounts cannot be determined.
Literary historians agree more or less that the aforementioned pieces
of fiction originated at the Norwegian court.2 Unfortunately, only a few
of the above-mentioned works survive in Norwegian manuscripts. Elis
saga and Strengleikar, together with Pamphilus (a translation of the Latin
Pamphilus de amore) are preserved in the Norwegian codex De la Gardie
4-7 (Uppsala University Library) that dates from ca. 1270. The oldest
redaction of Pidriks saga is to be found in a Norwegian manuscript in the
Royal Library in Stockholm, Perg. fol. nr. 4. The manuscript dates from
the second half of the thirteenth century. Only three fragments of one
leaf survive from a fourteenth-century Norwegian redaction of Flores
saga ok Blankiflur (NRA 65 in the National Archives [Riksarkivet] in
Oslo). Finally, Karlamagnus saga is extant in a vellum fragment of uncer-
tain provenance (NRA 61, National Archives, Oslo) from the last half of
the thirteenth century. Certain Icelandic forms in the text suggest that an
Icelander, rather than a Norwegian, was responsible for the text.3 The
2 For a general discussion of the thirteenth-century Norwegian court literature, see E. F.
Halvorsen, The Norse Version of the Chanson de Roland (Copenhagen: Ejnar Munksgaard,
1959), pp. 13-26, and his article “Riddersagaer,” KLNM, XIV (1969), cols. 175-83.
3 Stefan Karlsson, “Islandsk bogeksport til Norge i middelalderen,” Maal og Minne
(1979), 8-9.
2