Editiones Arnamagnæanæ. Series B - 01.10.1965, Síða 16
XIV
Icelandic. No translation is easy, and even one such as
this—with no pretense at literary merit—is not an excep-
tion. I call attention to several problems, and there are
certainly others. The precise value and the interrelation-
ship of the terms mœr, jungfrú, mjóa (especially), and even
frú are not always easy to determine for the saga. Terms
for various types of medieval cloth or for items of clothing
made from them (e.g. bliat, baldrkin, purpuri) are some-
times a problem; cf. Hjalmar Falk, Altwestnordische Klei-
derkunde, Videnskapsselskapets Skr., Hist.-Filos. Klasse,
No. 3, Kristiania, 1919, especially pp. 69-71. They seem
to have caused the copyists—possibly the original trans-
lator—some difficulty as well. In spite of these and
similar problems, I hope that the translation will prove
of use to some.
It was my intention originally to provide here a fairly
detailed comparison of the saga with its French original.
After I had completed a certain amount of analysis, it
became obvious that the material would be too extensive
for inclusion in this edition. My intention now is to
publish the work as a separate volume. Naturally, some
comparison is necessary and desirable in the discussion
and evaluation of the MSS, but I should like to state
that such comparisons here are to a certain extent pro-
visory. At this point, reference may be made to Eugen
Kölbing’s article “Die nordische Erexsaga und ihre
Quelle,” Germania, Vol. 16 (1871), 381-414, and to P.
Jakob Reimer’s work Die Abhangigkeitsverhdltnisse der
Uberlieferungen des “Erec,” Programm des Gymnasiums in
Seitenstetten (Linz, 1909), 58 pp. GC includes some
comment on the subject (pp. v-vm), as well as occasional
references to lines in Chrétien.
One of the most interesting facets of the saga is, of
course, the interpolation, Chapter 10 (9 in B). GC thinks
it most likely that the material was added in the North
(p. viii). I am inclined to agree, and in an article “The