Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1981, Side 26

of the interest the Norwegian court showed in Continental European
literature.
There are three other Scandinavian translations related to the matiére
de Bretagne, yet they are not strictly speaking riddarasogur, that is, Old
Norse-Icelandic prose tales of chivalry; they therefore fail outside the
purview of this study. Two of these works - Breta sogur and Merlinusspd
- derive from Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae. Despite
the faet that a major portion of Geoffrey’s Historia deals with the life and
deeds of King Arthur, the work was intended and perceived as a history
and not as a roman courtois, even though our modern historical sense
might impel us to exelaim with Finnur Jonsson that this Historia “ikke
fortjæner navn af historie.”28 To be sure, both in the Latin source and in
Breta sogur the splendor of Arthur’s court is depicted, but the person and
funetion of Arthur - as also of his knights - differ from prototypes in the
world of romance. Furthermore, certain similarities of style between
Breta sogur, at least in the AM 573 version, and some of the riddarasog-
ur, do not suffice for us to consider the translation of the Historia a
riddarasaga, as the term is defined here. Moreover, the Historia regum
Britanniae was probably translated outside and independent of the sphere
of King Håkon Håkonarson’s court. Indeed, it is not unreasonable to
suppose that Breta sogur, which exists only in Icelandic manuscripts, was
also translated into Icelandic without a Norwegian intermediary.29 The
28 Hauksbok, udgiven efter de Arnamagnæanske håndskrifter No. 371, 544, og 675, 4°
samt forskellige papirhåndskrifter (Copenhagen: Det Kongelige Nordiske Oldskrift-Sel-
skab, 1892-96), p. CV. In his literary history, Finnur Jonsson expresses himself even more
strongly: “Der er så godt som ikke et historisk ord i hele værket” (II, 860).
29 E. F. Halvorsen classes Breta sogur stylistically with the secular prose literature trans-
lated in Norway at the court of Håkon Håkonarson, and therefore considers it reasonable
to assume that the work was also translated in Norway. Finnur Jonsson, however, States
that there is no doubt that Breta sogur “har fundet vej til Island og er der blevet oversat”
(Hauksbok, p. CV). Leach agrees with Finnur Jonsson, but the reason he adduces is not
solid. He declares: “[That] Breta Sogur, at least, was translated in Iceland rather than in
Norway may be inferred from the inclusion of verses by Gunnlaug, a monk at Thingeyrar in
Iceland” (Angevin Britain, p. 133). Leach seemed to be unaware of the faet that Merlinus-
spå is found only in the one primary manuscript of Breta sogur in Hauksbok (AM 544 4to),
but not in the other, AM 573 4to. The inclusion in Hauksbok attests the editorial capacity of
the copyist and owner, namely Haukr from whom the codex takes its name, but not
necessarily the place where the Historia was translated. In his 1942 edition of Altnordische
Literaturgeschichte, de Vries suggested that the reference in Breta sogur to the Norwegian
disinelination to tolerate a British king is evidence that the translation occurred in Norway.
As J. S. Eysteinsson has pointed out, de Vries did not realize that the statement is also
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