Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1981, Page 68
might, therefore, easily be explained as accommodation to the syntax of
Old Norse, or as expression of a writer’s amplificatory techniques.14
The vellum leaf AM 598 1(3 demonstrates, however, that the seven-
teenth-century manuscripts, although rather good redactions, reflect tex-
tual attrition, and that some textual loss had already occurred by c. 1300.
The Mottuls saga fragment AM 598 1(3 corroborates the testimony of
Guiamars IjodlGvimars saga: relatively early in the transmission of the
Norwegian translations, corruption and attrition set in.
Three passages in Mottuls saga permit us to postulate an originally
longer text. The tale commences at Pentecost, and King Arthur main-
tains a lavish court. In Le mantel mautaillié we read that
A la Pentecoste en esté
tint li rois Artus cort pieniere.
Onques rois en nule maniere
nule si tres riche ne tint. (vv. 6-9)
(At Pentecost in the springtime King Arthur maintained an opulent
court. Never did a king in any way maintain as splendid a court.)
These verses are not transmitted by the paper manuscripts, but the vel-
lum fragment attests that the passage had been translated:
Å Jjeirri tid, er heilog kirkja kallar pentecosten, en Nord-
menn kalia pikkisdaga, på hafdi Artur konungr saman-
samnat hirdlidi sinu dilu at veita peim margskonar gddgæti
svå at engi konungr hélt svå rlkuliga slna hird. (p. 36).
(At that time which Holy Church calls Pentecosten, and Northmen
call Pikkisdagar, King Arthur had assembled about him his entire
court and offered them all kinds of good fare, so that no king kept as
sumptuous a court.)
The italicized words are found only in the vellum fragment.
As with Guiamars IjodlGvimars saga, so too we encounter comple-
mentary attrition in Mottuls saga. Collation of the several manuscripts is
a sine qua non if one is to reconstruct a text that approximates the
14 See Marianne E. Kalinke, “Amplification in Mottuls saga, ” Acta Philologica Scandina-
vica, XXXII (1979), 239-55.
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