Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1981, Page 254

265.36 In these works the Icelanders’ delight in variation is evident: an-
cient motifs and situations appear in ever new guises, a result of recombi-
nation and transformation. The tendency to metamorphosis is reflected
in the alteration of matter as well as form. The fate of Le mantel mautail-
lié in the North, for example, exemplifies the transmutation of form. The
Arthurian tale of a chastity-testing mantie was translated from French
into Norwegian during the reign of King Håkon Håkonarson (1217-63).
In Mottuls saga the French verse lai assumed prose form. The work was
also known as Skikkju saga - mottul and skikkja are synonyms for ‘man-
tie, cape’ - and this title is mentioned in Samsons saga fagra. In the
fourteenth century the prose saga provided the impetus for the composi-
tion of a rhymed version entitled Skikkju rimur. Icelandic scribes pre-
served Mottuls saga in copies, some of which - slightly abridged versions
of the saga - were made as late as the second half of the nineteenth cen-
tury. Curiously enough, the content of the Skikkju rimur, which deviates
considerably from that of Mottuls saga (see pp. 216-19), is preserved also
in a prose version entitled Skikkju saga - not to be confused with the
alternate title of Mottuls saga. The text of this prose version of the rimur
can be found in two manuscripts (written in the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries respectively) located in the Landsbokasafn, the Na-
tional Library, in Reykjavik (Lbs. 1509 4to; Lbs. 2081 8vo).
Antiquarian interest was undoubtedly responsible for many a text be-
ing copied in Iceland. Nonetheless, the preservation of Norwegian trans-
lations in late medieval vellums and post-Reformation paper manuscripts,
concomitant with the transmission of Arthurian names, motifs, and even
entire episodes in the native romances bespeaks more than passing inter-
est or acquaintance with the Matter of Britain. The assimilation of the
Arthurian matter in native Icelandic compositions attests the lasting effect
of the imported Norwegian riddarasogur on Icelandic literature. Not only
the modification of the Arthurian riddarasogur in the process of scribal
transmission, but also the adoption and adaptation of selected Arthurian
motifs in the indigenous Icelandic romances are evidence of a process of
acculturation. Despite the apparently warm reception of Arthurian liter-
ature in Iceland, the Matter of Britain was subject to a critical review that
resulted sometimes in radical emendation. Modifications in content
and form of the Arthurian romans courtois ensured their becoming riddara-
sogur. When the Norwegian translations entered the mainstream of Ice-
36 History of Icelandic Literature (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press for The American-
Scandinavian Foundation, 1957), p. 165.
240