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ideals of Christian behaviour. In the case of upper-class women, there was
also greater emphasis in early modern Iceland on women’s virtues (includ-
ing purity) as a marker of their social suitability as role models for their
community, particularly in the case of women who married clergymen.41
Just as during the medieval era, when Margrétar saga and other popular
legends of saints were translated multiple times into Old Norse-Icelandic,
early modern Icelandic audiences did not necessarily seek to engage with a
single version of a given narrative. Retellings were popular; Van Deusen’s
study concentrates on works about St. Agnes, whose legend was the
subject of narrative poems that include Agnesarrímur and the popular
Agnesarkvæði.
Like St. Agnes, St. Margaret of Antioch remained a popular subject
for Icelandic poets after the Reformation. Two rímur or narrative verse
cycles about St. Margaret of Antioch have survived: a Margrétar rímur
from 1787 composed by the poet Gunnar Ólafsson and a fragment of a
second anonymous Margrétar rímur of unknown date.42 Margrétarkvæði
(“Svo er skrifað suður í Róm”), a verse narrative based on the legend of St.
Margaret, has been tentatively dated to the first quarter of the eighteenth
century and is found in over fifty manuscripts.43 What is arguably unu-
sual about Margrétar saga is that the medieval prose version continued to
circulate in active manuscript transmission alongside younger versions of
the narrative.
Whether for use as a birthing aid or as spiritually fortifying read-
ing material, Margrétar saga is closely associated with women’s manu-
script ownership in later transmission.44 A dedicatory verse at the end of
41 Guðrún Ása Grímsdóttir, “Um íslensku prestskonuna á fyrri öldum,” Konur og kristsmenn:
Þættir úr kristnisögu Íslands, ed. by Inga Huld Hákonardóttir (Reykjavík: Háskólaútgáfan,
1996), 217–47; Þórunn Sigurðardóttir, “Helga Aradóttir in Ögur: A Lutheran Saint?”
Sainthood, Scriptoria, and Secular Erudition of Medieval and Modern Scandinavia: Essays in
Honor of Kirsten Wolf, ed. by Dario Bullitta and Natalie M. Van Deusen, Acta Scandinavica
13 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2022), 341–64.
42 Finnur Sigmundsson (ed.), Rímnatal (Reykjavík: Rímnafélagið, 1966), 1:339–40.
43 For a list of known manuscripts preserving the poem, see Kirsten Wolf and Natalie M. Van
Deusen, The Saints in Old Norse and Early Modern Icelandic Poetry (Toronto: University of
Toronto Press, 2017), 156.
44 Peter Rasmussen, “Tekstforholdene i Margrétar saga” (Specialeafhandling til magister-
konferens i nordisk filologi ved Københavns Universitet, 1977), 7–8; Margrét Eggerts-
dóttir, “Heilög Margrét í vondum félagsskap?” Geislabaugur fægður Margaret Cormack sex-
tugri, 23. ágúst 2012 (Reykjavík: Menningar- og minningarsjóður Mette Magnussen, 2012),
MAGIC, M A R G R É T A R S A G A