Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1985, Blaðsíða 166
Le Lai de Lanval and Helga jjåltr Porissonar
By Rosemary Power
Among the works of French literature translated into Norse in the
course of the thirteenth century is the group of the lais of Marie de
France known as Strengleikar.1 The collection is found in a single
Norwegian manuscript of the thirteenth century, but one of the lais,
Guiamars Ijod, also exists in an eighteenth-century Icelandic manu-
script that is a sister text to the Norwegian one,2 and another, Bisc-
larets Ijod, was known in Iceland through a redaction entitled Tiddels
saga.3 One other Icelandic work that may be considered in addition to
the above-named is Helga påttr Porissonar, one of the Jiættir contained
in Flateyjarbok.4 The opening scene of this is strongly reminiscent of
the opening of Le Lai de Lanval.5
Helga påttr is usually classed among the Fornaldarsogur Nordur-
landa, the legendary-heroic sagas. Like many of the Fornaldarsogur, it
displays a strong Christian influence, imposed on the legendary mate-
rial. Helga påttr contains an account of the dealings of the hero with
the people of the otherworld land of Glæsisvellir, which is ruled by the
supernatural king Gudmundr. Gudmundr and his realm are men-
1 The most recent edition is: Strengleikar. An Old Norse Translation of Twenty-One Old
French Lais, ed. Robert Cook and Matthias Tveitane, Oslo, 1979 (Norsk Historisk
Kjeldeskrift-Institutt, Norrøne Tekster nr. 3).
2 Marianne E. Kalinke, “Gvimars saga”, Opuscula 7 (Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana
XXIV), 1979, 106-39.
3 Marianne E. Kalinke, “A Werewolf in Bear’s Clothing”, Maal og Minne 1981, 137-44.
4 Flateyjarbok, [ed. Gudbrandur Vigfusson and C.R. Unger], 3 vols., Christiania, 1860-
68, I, 359-62.
5 Marie de France, Le Lai de Lanval, ed. Jean Rychner (including Ianuals Ijod, ed. and
trans. Paul Aebischer), Geneva 1958 (Textes Littéraires Francis). The relevant epi-
sode is in lines 41-200.