Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1981, Page 25
lists Valvers saga among the “fabulæ qvæ mihi in chartis sunt.”25 An
analogous case is presented by Mottuls saga, a short tale that unlike
Valvens påttr has no intrinsic relationship to another work. Nonetheless,
in one manuscript, AM 588i 4to, the translation of Le mantel mautaillié is
entitled Mottuls påttr. The distinction and relationship between Ijod and
saga is just as ambivalent as that between påttr and saga. The Norwegian
translation of Lanval is a fragment: the beginning of the lai is lacking, and
hence we have no title. The work concludes, however, with the observa-
tion her lyer pessarre sogu (‘here concludes this saga’). The case with the
Norwegian translation of the lai Guigemar is similar. The manuscript
contains no title for the tale, but the Norwegian text concludes by inform-
ing the reader that the tale is called Guiamars Ijod. This same narrative is
entitled Gvlmars saga in the Icelandic manuscript. The faet that the
translation of the French lais results in a transferral of verse into prose
may account for the interchangeability of the terms Ijod and saga. Re-
gardless of the name given to the individual Strengleikar - Ijod, saga,
strengleikr - the designation riddarasogur does suggest their content, in
faet applies to the Old Norse-Icelandic Arthurian matter as a whole. The
term riddarasogur is, moreover, already attested in the Middle Ages. In
the introduction to Viktors saga ok Blåvus, an indigenous Icelandic ro-
mance of the late fourteenth century,26 the author praises King Håkon
Magnusson (1299-1319), who lét venda morgum rutdara sogum i norrænu
or girzku ok franzeisku måli (‘had many riddarasogur translated into
Norwegian from Greek and French’).27 Not only in deed - by copying
Norwegian translations - but also in word, the Icelanders fully approved
romances containing Parcevals saga and Valvens fråttr, the editor Desmond Slay also choos-
es the -en ending to expand the abbreviations of the name (Romances. Perg. 4:o nr. 6.
Royal Library Stockholm. Early Icelandic Manuscripts in Facsimile, X [Copenhagen: Ro-
senkilde & Bagger, 1972]).
25 Arne Magnussons i AM. 435 A-B, 4to indeholdte håndskriftfortegnelser med to tillæg
(Copenhagen: Gyldendalske Boghandel, Nordisk Forlag, 1909), p. 55 [in the manuscript,
fol. 170'].
26 See Einar 6l. Sveinsson, “Viktors saga ok Blåvus. Sources and Characteristics,” Vik-
tors saga ok Blåvus, ed. Jonas Kristjånsson (Reykjavlk: Handritastofnun Islands, 1964), p.
clxxx.
27 Jonas Kristjånsson, ed., Viktors saga ok Blåvus (Reykjavik: Handritastofnun Islands,
1964), 3:4-5. Chapter 79 of Bragda-Mågus saga mentions Pidreks saga, Flovenz saga edr
adrar riddarasogur (‘Pidreks saga, Flovenz saga or other riddarasogur’), ed. Gunnlaugur
Fordarson (Copenhagen: 1858), p. 177. In an inventory of the manuscripts found in Videy
monastery in 1396 we read: Riddara spgur i tveim bokum (See Lonnroth, “Tesen om de två
kulturerna ...,” pp. 21-22).
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