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Legenda material Hier skrifast eitt Æfinntÿr.50 A transcript of the already-
discussed AM 65 a 8vo, the eighteenth-century NKS 1140 fol. entitles the
Legenda with Æfentýr af Adam; however, the table of contents calls the text
Seths-Reisa.51 Our fifth example, Lbs 791 8vo, dated to 1888–89, uses the
rubric hier skrifast dálítil saga af Adam.52 In a final example, SÁM 157, dated
to 1880–95, includes a title of the Legenda seven lines long: Dálitil saga af
Adam þegar hann var rekin ur paradis og þegar hann sendi Seth son sinn i aldin
garðin og um upp komu þess tres sem Kristur var kross festur á og fleira sem á er
vikið.53 The Legenda texts in Lbs 791 8vo and SÁM 157 are clearly related.
The two examples belong to Overgaard’s Legenda version C, which is a
Legenda text that is extensively padded with historical and biblical details,
such as the story of Cain and Abel and the story of the flood. As such, the
Quest takes up only roughly 15 per cent of the text, accentuating the curio-
sity of the choice in titles.
In his study of religious romance, Keith Busby shows that rubrics, “by
their subject and placement […] can even suggest an interpretation” of the
text in which they occur. His study shows that the rubrics secularize the
otherwise religious story in question and, in a way, even “re-write” it.54
The rubrics in our study function similarly as Busby’s example; the use of
the terms æfintýr and (frá)saga guides the reader towards exemplum rather
than a strictly biblical story, steering away from the Holy Cross as the
centre of the tale and instead focusing on the trials of Adam and Seth, the
rubric “re-writing” the tale’s main point.
Separation
The third main development is the eventual existence of the Quest as a
standalone text without the Cross. The previously discussed AM 727 II
4to can be seen as an example of this third development, as it does not
include any part of the Cross. Still, Jón lærði writes specifically that he
50 Overgaard, XLVIII; Reykjavík, Landsbókasafn Íslands – Háskólabókasafn, Lbs 1228 8vo,
128r, lines 1–2.
51 Copenhagen, The Royal Library, Ny kgl. sml. 1140 fol., pp. 39-57. This manuscript is a
transcript of the last part of AM 65 a 8vo.
52 Reykjavík, Landsbókasafn Íslands – Háskólabókasafn, Lbs 791 8vo, p. 61, lines 1–2.
53 Reykjavík, Stofnun Árna Magnússonar í íslenskum fræðum, SÁM 157, 42v.
54 Keith Busby, “Rubrics and the Reception of Romance,” French Studies: A Quarterly Review,
53.2 (1999): 140.
THE “QUEST OF SETH”