Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1981, Page 239
tous. Oddly enough, the mantie comes into the possession of the epony-
mous hero for the very reason that a thief and shapeshifter, Kvintelin,
steals the mantie for him. The saga tersely relates that Kvintelin, having
assumed the form of the owner’s bride, throws on the mantie and flees
(ch. 24). The mantie - contrary to expectation - does not fali off Kvinte-
lin’s shoulders, presumably because the exigencies of plot demand that
the garment reach Samson, the protagonist. Moreover, since Kvintelin
tries on the mantie disguised as a woman, the failure of the garment to
expose the thief is pardonable. The mantie demonstrates its other re-
markable property, however, when Kvintelin confers the mantie on Sam-
son. The thief arrives on Samson’s wedding day, and the saga mentions -
almost as an aside - that the power of the garment was tested. It soon
became evident that few women were innocent; the mantie fit only Va-
lentina, Samson’s bride (ch. 25).
The mantie test is hardly an essential or integral element in Samsons
saga fagra; the motif of a chastity-testing mantie is interesting but extra-
neous, a blind motif, inasmuch as it serves no particular purpose in the
development of the narrative. The author may have included the motif
and developed the history of the creation of the mantie to assuage an
audience’s desire for the novel or to express his own delight in the supra-
natural. In any case, the various passages in Samsons saga fagra devoted
to the mantie provide the author with an opportunity to exhibit his know-
ledge of other sagas and to display his ingenuity in augmenting the rather
scant information in Mottuls saga concerning the origin of the mantie. In
this respect the author of Samsons saga fagra follows the pattern of
Icelandic literary composition common among his contemporaries: he
was familiar with the popular literature of the day, both indigenous and
imported, and aware of those motifs and elements that would appeal to
the listener. From Mottuls saga he borrowed the chastity-testing garment,
expanded the information concerning the mantle’s provenance, augment-
ed the magic garment’s power, and finally explained how the mantie
came to the court of King Arthur of England - not King Arthur, father of
Samson, but rather the King Arthur famed for his Table Round. Samsons
saga fagra concludes by relating that the mantie eventually came into the
hånds of Gvimar, a Viking, who carried it off to Africa; there the mantie
remained until a lady named Elida sent the garment to England, to King
Arthur, ok rlss par af æfintyr er kaliat er skikkju saga - ‘and concerning
that matter a tale arose which is called Skikkju saga’ (47:28-32), the Tale
of the Mantie, more commonly known as Mottuls saga.
The impact of Mottuls saga on the composition of Icelandic romances
225