Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1981, Page 238

Arturii Angliæ Regis & ejus athletarum sc. Iventii, Parcivalis, Valveri, Ereccii &
Samsonis Pulchri Arturii & Philippiæ Hungariæ Principis, qvibus additur Mottuls-
Saga, sive historia togæ cujusdam fascinatæ.9
Henry Goddard Leach also thought that the tale of Samson belongs to
the Matter of Britain and listed the saga in his hypothetical chart of
foreign romances in Scandinavia.10 Apart from the use of familiar person-
al and place names, such as Arthur, England, Ireland, and Bretland -
names that also recur with regularity in the native Icelandic romances -
and the occurrence of motifs such as the magic mantie (Mottuls saga) and
the hunt for a hart (Erex saga), we have no evidence for positing a lost
Arthurian romance as source of Samsons saga fagra. Its content, like that
of many another late medieval romance, consists of a medley of motifs
borrowed from a number of different sources, among them Saxo Gram-
maticus.* 11 Only one motif, the magic mantie, derives without a doubt
from an existing Arthurian romance.
Samsons saga fagra augments the information provided by Mottuls
saga regarding the origin and properties of the mantie that is to be the
source of great embarrassment at Arthur’s court. Not one elf-woman - as
stated in Mottuls saga - but four are responsible for the existence of the
chastity-testing garment in Samsons saga fagra. Without taking time to
sleep, the elf-women had woven the mantie over a period of 18 years
(31:6-8). The weavers had been in the habit of stealing wool from King
Skrymir of Jotunheimr, but were caught in this act one night. To save
their lives, they agreed to weave for the king a mantie which was to
possess many wondrous qualities, primarily the ability to expose unfaith-
ful women and thieves. The latter were identifiable in that the mantie feli
off their shoulders and to the ground. The topos of the clasps breaking so
that the mantie slides off exists in Mottuls saga, in which one of the ladies
is exposed in that very manner. The author of Samsons saga fagra modi-
fied the topos, however, in that the mantie falling to the ground is linked
not to infidelity but rather to theft. Nonetheless, the reference in Sam-
sons saga to the garment’s usefulness for apprehending thieves is gratui-
9 Sciagraphia historier lilerariæ Islandicæ autorum et scriptorum tum editorum tum inedi-
torum indicem exhibens (Copenhagen, 1777), p. 101. In the introduction to the 1898 edition
of Ivens saga, Eugen Kolbing calls Samsons saga fagra a “vorgeschichte” of Mottuls saga (p.
I).
10 Angevin Britain and Scandinavia (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1921), p. 382.
11 Schlauch, Romance in Iceland, p. 97.
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