Gripla - 2022, Page 340

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is copied more faithfully. Within the summary of the story of the cross,
the tree is dropped into a bog (OIce. fen) instead of the usual lake, adapting
the landscape to a more Nordic one. Taking into consideration that the
oldest form of this Legenda version can be found in a thirteenth-century
Latin text, we should acknowledge the voguish scholarship of Haukr and
his scribes. It has been claimed that Haukr and his copyists consciously
condensed the texts in Hauksbók and that this abridgement was due to
his interest in historical content rather than artistic narrative.38 With this
in mind, we could interpret the shortening of the Cross material as a nod
to the contemporaneous historical importance of Seth’s travel narrative,
not least the medieval credence that Paradise was a literal place on earth.
Similar to – yet more succinct than – the text found in Hauksbók, the
seventeenth-century AM 727 II 4to39 written by Jón Guðmundsson lærði
(edited as text E in Overgaard) includes the full text of the Quest and then
a noteworthy summary of the Cross material. We are told on folio 12v
that Jón will include in the following a part of Setz reysu, even though it is
known throughout the land and in Adamz bók:
Læt eg hier med fylgia nockud af Setz reysu þott hun sie hier all-
vijda j landinu. Og j Adamz bók.40
After Jón is finished with Setz reysa, we find a scribal interjection once he
reaches the Cross material, explicating the fate of the three tree sprouts:
So stödu þeir þar fra Adam til Noa. F[ra] Noa til Abrahamz. fra
Abraham allt til Moyses. etc. Hier skrifa Jeg ecki meira af. þuiad
so vijda er umm þetta efni og fleira bædi i Jslenskum bokum og
Hollenshum [sic] annalum.41
38 See Sverrir Jakobsson, “Hauksbók and the Construction of an Icelandic World View,”
Saga-Book 31 (2007): 24, 29; Hauksbók: The Arna-Magnæan Manuscripts, 371, 4to, 544, 4to,
and 675, 4to., ed. by Jón Helgason, Manuscripta Islandica 5 (Copenhagen: Munksgaard,
1960), x, xii, xviii.
39 Reykjavík, Stofnun Árna Magnússonar í íslenskum fræðum, AM 727 II 4to.
40 Ibid., 12v, lines 26–27.
41 Ibid., 13v, lines 17–19.