Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1981, Side 22
trams saga, Ivens saga, Parcevals saga with Valvens påttr, Erex saga) and
three lais (Geitarlauf, Januals Ijod, Mottuls saga), or if one wishes to
distinguish further because of the ribald tone of Mottuls saga, two lais and
one fabliau.ll> We are reasonably certain - that is, if one accepts the
authority of the manuscripts - that King Håkon Håkonarson was respon-
sible for the translation of all but Parcevals saga with Valvens fdttr and
Erex saga. Furthermore, the translation of Perceval and Erec et Enide in
all probability does fail into the period of hisreign. The number of
Arthurian works that traveled to Norway during the thirteenth century is
modest, but includes some of the best French literature of the day.
French Arthurian literature was introduced to the North by way of
Norway; nonetheless, Iceland has preserved the matiére de Bretagne.
Had it not been for the extraordinary literary curiosity of Icelanders,
manifested by centuries of scribal activity that embraced copying, edit-
ing, and re-creating older texts, we would today merely have evidence
that a collection of French lais reached Norway. Icelandic scribes not
only copied and re-copied the Norwegian translations, but also edited the
texts that were to be preserved. On the one hånd, they condensed their
sources; on the other, they interpolated material which they themselves
had composed or - as was more frequently the case - borrowed from
related works to which they had access. The character of the translated
romances as we know them today was determined not only by the Norwe-
gian translators, but also by the Icelandic copyists. The role played by the
latter in forming the Old Norse-Icelandic matiére de Bretagne is not to be
underestimated. The extent of editorial intervention in the translated
romances becomes readily apparent from the substantive discrepancies
among the primary manuscripts of some of the sagas, discrepancies that
are the result of modifications - in content, structure, and style - intro-
duced by Icelandic scribes (see pp. 49-74).
The metamorphosis of the matiére de Bretagne at the hånds of Iceland-
ers was at times radical. Although Erex saga retains the chivalric spirit of
the French roman courtois, structurally the Icelandic saga is a sweeping
departure from Erec et Enide (see pp. 192-93). The Tristan legend is
Janus-faced in Iceland: on the one hånd, Icelanders transmitted the con-
tent as well as spirit of Brother Robert’s translation of Tristan in Tris-
trams saga; on the other hånd, an anonymous Icelandic author altered
the legend in a new version, in the younger Saga af Tristram ok Isodd, so
19 On the problem of a generic distinction between lai and fabliau, see Baum. Recherches
., pp. 21-30.
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