Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1981, Qupperneq 19

The other Arthurian romances supply less information than Tristrams
saga - or none at all - regarding the circumstances surrounding their
origin. Ivens saga States that King Håkon Gamli (“the Old”) was respon-
sible for having the romance translated from French into Norwegian. The
appellation “the Old” may be an indication of the approximate date of
the translation, since it was used to distinguish the king from his son who
bore the same name. Without succeeding to the throne Håkon Ungi
(“the Young”) died six years before his father, at the age of 25 in 1257.9 If
the reference to Håkon Gamli was indeed the work of the translator and
not added by a later copyist - a distinet possibility - then we can delimit
the period during which Ivens saga originated.
The translations of Chrétien’s Perceval and Erec et Enide are silent
regarding royal patronage. Nonetheless, for want of compelling evidence
to the contrary, it seems plausible to assume that Parcevals saga and
Valvens fråttr were also written during the reign of Håkon Håkonarson,
although not necessarily at his behest. The translation of Perceval devi-
ates stylistically from the other Arthurian romances by virtue of rhymed
verses at the conclusion of some chapters (see pp. 154-58). Nonetheless,
the participial clusters favored by Brother Robert in Tristrams saga are
also in evidence in Parcevals saga (see pp. 169-70, 173-74), and the saga’s
alliterative patterns are not unlike those found in Ivens saga (see pp. 159-
60). In all probability Perceval was translated by someone associated with
the Norwegian court."1
Erex saga is a different matter. Structurally and stylistically the work
deviates from the other literature which we know to have been translated
during the thirteenth century in Norway. One can argue for Norwegian
origin solely on the basis of genre and the literary climate in thirteenth-
century Norway. In the introduction to his edition of the saga, Gustaf
Cederschiold reasoned:
9 Finnur Jonsson, Den oldnorske og oldislandske litteraturs historie, II, 2nd ed., p. 948.
ln Jan de Vries had a change of mind between the first and second editions of his
Altnordische Literaturgeschichte, Vol. II (Berlin: de Gruyter). In the 1942 edition he
thought that Parcevals saga and Valvens ftåttr were translated during the reign of Håkon
Håkonarson and even narrows the date down to “um 1230” (p. 353). In the second edition
(1967) he postpones the translation to the reign of Håkon Magnusson (1299-1319), the
grandson of Håkon Håkonarson, whose German queen Eufemia was noted for her literary
interest and patronage, and adds: ‘‘Die Sprache weist durch ihre jiingere Fårbung auf eine
ziemlich spåte Entstehungszeit hin” (p. 534).
2 King Arthur
5