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Overgaard chooses not to edit Sethskvæði because she posits it contains the
same Quest material from the Legenda:
This poem, which is probably from about 1600, has never been
edited and has not been included in the present edition, partly
because it does not contain any independent material of significance
but first and foremost because it survives in a great number of MSS
with varying texts, apparently being recorded from oral tradition on
more than one occasion. If an edition of the poem were to be any-
where near exhaustive, it would take up a disproportionate amount
of space and fall outside the scope of this book. 56
Naturally, the wording and content have been reworked to fit the
poetic form, so despite Overgaard’s assertion that it does not contain
“independent material,” the poetic Quest does contain unique imagery and
vocabulary, as is made evident in the transcriptions below. She notes her-
self that the poem “contains a number of details which are not found in
any Icelandic or Latin prose texts, but these details are for the most part
merely descriptive and they are probably to be ascribed to the poet.”57
Beyond enriching our knowledge of Icelandic literature, the details found
in Sethskvæði illuminate new directions in pseudepigraphal literature of the
Middle Ages. That there are a large number of manuscripts which contain
great variation reveals that there is a wealth of unique elements waiting
within the Sethskvæði manuscripts.58
The afterlife of the Quest as its own text in Icelandic literature is in line
with the structural history of the Legenda material, for the Quest portion
– although it was extensively altered from its beginning until the medieval
period – was copied more faithfully than the cross material, exhibiting
“stylistic and structural superiority” over the story of the Cross.59 That
readers appear to have been interested mainly in the Quest portion of the
56 Overgaard, The History of the Cross-Tree, XX.
57 Ibid., CXLI.
58 One notable variation found between texts is the number of verses. Both Kålund and Páll
Eggert Ólason claim that the poem has 44 verses; the below transcriptions prove that to be
not true, as poem one contains 50 verses and poem two, 40. See Páll Eggert Ólason, Menn
og menntir siðskiptaaldarinnar á Íslandi, vol. IV (Reykjavík: Bókaverzlun Ársæls Árnasonar,
1926), 623.
59 Quinn, Quest, 105.
THE “QUEST OF SETH”