Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1981, Page 241

saga had “been constructed as a deliberate reply to the French ro-
mance.”15 Paul Schach concurs.16 Analogues to the abduction and resto-
ration motif from the Harp and Rote episode in Tristrams saga are found
in the romance Jarlmanns saga ok Hermanns'1 as well as in the early
Icelandic saga devoted to a famous skald, and named after him, Kormåks
saga.18 The ambiguous oath motif found its way into one of the Family
sagas, Grettis saga, in which it plays a prominent role in the section
known as Spesar påttr.19 Particularly prevalent are variations of and
analogues to the Hall of Statues episode in Tristrams saga. In addition to
Rémurtdar saga keisarasonar, mentioned above, reminiscenses of the mo-
tif of creating an effigy of the beloved occur in Pidriks saga - in three
different pættir: Velents påttr, Herburts påttr, and Irons påttr - as well as
in the fourteenth-century romances Jarlmanns saga ok Hermanns and the
younger Mågus saga.20 A study of the various motifs from the Tristan
legend that became an integral part of the late medieval Icelandic roman-
ces illustrates “the diversity with which situations and motifs are bor-
rowed and adapted from one saga to another according to the need, the
skili, and the caprice of the individual author.”21
Albeit not as generously as Tristrams saga, the other Arthurian roman-
ces also contributed motifs and situations towards the formation and
character of a corpus of indigenous Icelandic romances. A study of the
late medieval Icelandic romances is an exploration of literary interrela-
tionships.22 Since a strict chronology for the indigenous romances cannot
be established - any more than for the translated riddarasogur - we
usually cannot ascertain whether an Arthurian motif derives directly
from one of the translated romances, or a literary borrowing is second-
ary, through another indigenous romance. Whatever the case may be,
15 Schlauch, Romance in lceland, p. 151.
16 Schach, “The Saga af Tristram ok Isodd, ” MLQ, XXI (1960), p. 352; the same, “Tristan
and Isolde in Scandinavian Ballad and Folktale,” SS, 36 (1964), p. 281.
17 Margaret Schlauch, “Arthurian Matter in Some Late Icelandic Sagas,” Bibliographical
Bulletin of the International Arthurian Society, 17 (1965), pp. 89-90.
18 Schach, “Some Observations on the Influence of Tristrams saga ...,” pp. 101-05.
19 Schach, “Some Observations on the Influence of Tristrams saga ...,” pp. 111-21; Leach,
Angevin Britain and Scandinavia, pp. 187-89.
20 Schach, “Some Observations on the Influence of Tristrams saga pp. 93-99.
21 Schach, “Some Observations on the Influence of Tristrams saga ...,” p. 91.
22 See, for example, Einar 6l. Sveinsson, "Viktors saga ok Blåvus. Sources and
Characteristics,” in Viktors saga ok Blåvus, ed. Jonas Kristjånsson, Riddarasogur, II, pp.
CIX-CCIX.
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