Editiones Arnamagnæanæ. Series B - 01.10.1968, Side 27
XXY
A version of Historia witli a number of additions
is inserted in two 12th-century MSS of Honorius
Augustodunensis’ De Imagine Mundi (AdBA pp.
110-11). After Honorius has told that Adam was
buried on Mount Calvary8, Leg. begins (printed from
MS Munchen 22225): “Mortuo autem eo apparuit
angelus dei ferens ostrum eiusdem longitudinis ex-
panditque illud super eum ac nucleum uetiti ligni
ori eius inponens”. This is thus the first source to state
that the cross-tree originates from the forbidden
tree in Paradise9. By the time of King Solomon a
mighty tree has grown up at the place where the
pip was laid. The Queen of Sheba, who is either a
sibyl or called Sibylla10, comes to Solomon. She
has goosefeet (“Saba quoque Ethiopissa et regina
quoque et Sibilla habens pedes anserinos11”). She
worships the tree and at this point there appears
a figure who is, like Solomon’s ca'pellanusj'philoso'phus
in Historia, a mediary between Solomon and the
queen when the prophecy is to be explained. Here,
however, the mediary is said to be Solomon’s half-
brother: “Habebat autem Salemon fratrem omun-
ciolum (the other MS has homunculum) ex patre,
haut uterinum”. When the queen journeys home,
Solomon’s fratriolus (sic) accompanies her but not
before Solomon has privately urged him to find out
8. Migne, Patrologia latina CLXXII, col. 165. Cf. Wetzer und
Welte’s Kirchenlexikon I, 1882, col. 209 f., and F. Piper:
Evangelischer Kalender, 1861, p. 25.
9. Cf. Dat Boec van den Houte, ed. Lars Hermodsson in Uppsala
Universitets Ársskrift 1959, I p. 13. A bibliography is found
on PP* 159-64 of the edition.
10. On the identification of the Queen of Sheba with Sibylla,
see W. Hertz in ZfdA XXVII, 1883, pp. 19-20.
11» W. Hertz considers ibid. pp. 23-24, that “pes anserinus” is
a correction of the original “pes asinius”, made “wohl von einem
deutschen schreiber, dem aus seiner heimischen sage die gánse-
und entenfiisse der elben, die schwanfiisse der wasser- und
wolkenfrauen in den sinn kamen”.