Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1981, Page 27

theory that Breta sogur is the work of an Icelander is buttressed by the
faet that several references to Iceland found in the Historia - references
that might be considered uncomplimentary by Icelanders - are excised in
the preserved redactions. The most glaring lacuna occurs in the account
of Arthur’s conquest of the North, cited at the beginning of this chapter.
In Geoffrey’s Historia we learn that after his conquest of Ireland, King
Arthur “classem suam direxit in Islandiam eamque debellato populo sub-
iugavit.”30 Yet this mention of the island as well as two subsequent
references to Iceland were without comment deleted in Breta sogur. For
a Norwegian to excise an unflattering reference to the conquest of Ice-
land, yet retain such a reference concerning his own country, would be
curious. That an Icelander would omit the offensive passage is under-
standable, however. Not only patriotic pride but also an historical sixth
sense must have prompted the deletion of a remark concerning the con-
quest of Iceland and the humiliation of having to pay tribute to a foreign
power. The omission can scarcely have been an oversight, for on two
further occasions the Historia mentions Iceland, and both times the ref-
erence is lacking in Breta sogur. On the occasion of Arthur’s solemn
coronation on the feast of Pentecost, the great kings and noblemen,
Arthur’s liegemen, are summoned and Geoffrey includes a certain “Mal-
uasius, rex Islandiae” among those in attendance.31 In Breta sogur Loth,
the king of Norway arrives, as does Askeil, the king of the Danes, but no
Icelandic ruler.32 The same obtains when Geoffrey subsequently depicts
Arthur as he sets out on a military compaign, accompanied by his liege-
found in the Historia (“The Relationship of Merlinusspå and Geoffrey of Monmouth’s
Historia," Saga-book, XIV [1953-57], p. 106).
30 Jakob Hammer, Geoffrey of Monmouth Historia Regum Britanniae. A Variant Version
Edited from Manuscripts (Cambridge, Mass.: The Mediaeval Academy of America, 1951),
Book IX, 6; pp. 158 and 231. See also Edmond Faral, La Legende Arthurienne. Etudes et
Documents. III. Bibliothéque de i’Ecole des Hautes Études, 257 (Paris: Librairie Ancienne
Honoré Champion, 1929), ch. 153, p. 238.
31 Hammer, IX, 10; pp. 162 and 235. Faral, ch. 156, p. 244.
32 In the Hauksbok version we read, however: “Malvasius, Tule konungr, fat heitir nu
Island" (291:21-22 ‘Malvasius, the king of Tule, which today is called Island'). This is,
nonetheless, the only mention of Iceland in the Hauksbok manuscript. Finnur Jonsson
suggested that Hauksbok was edited with a copy of the Historia at hånd (p. CX) - which
might explain the reference to the king of Iceland in the Hauksbok manuscript, but not its
omission in AM 573. That there should have been a king over Iceland during the reign of
Arthur must have occasioned some surprise, for the scribe of AM 176b fol., a copy of the
Hauksbok text of Breta sogur, has a marginal note drawing attention to the faet that a king
over Iceland is mentioned (leaf 20r).
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