The Icelandic Canadian - 01.12.2008, Page 23

Vol. 62 #1
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
21
while others used Icelandic, their native
tongue, for the same purpose. According to
his thesis, the two languages, Latin and
Icelandic, were placed in a contrastive posi-
tion for a short period of time, which
meant that, in written form, they had to
compete with each other. This was in other
words a contest in which Icelandic won an
easy victory. However this may have been,
it should not be overlooked that despite the
elegance of this idea or thesis, the fact
remains that from the time the Icelanders
put quill to vellum to write the first book in
a Scandinavian language, Icelandic and
Latin remained in a complementary posi-
tion in Iceland for many centuries. The
writing of this particular book, which
became the forerunner of other books,
began in the winter of 1117-1118 at which
time portions of the Laws of the Icelandic
Freestate were put down on parchment at a
farm in northern Iceland. Later, it most
likely came to be known by the name
Gragas (Grey Goose) and appeared in a
two-volume English translation as part of
the University of Manitoba Icelandic
Studies series in 1980 and 2000. As to Latin
influences on its origins, suffice it to say
that, in the beginning, Icelandic scribes had
to make do with the Latin or Roman alpha-
bet in their vernacular writings, to which
they gradually added a few runic charac-
ters.
Through the Latin language the
Icelanders were able to stay aware of and
identify at least some of the cultural
sources and trends in Europe that would
work to their benefit. Through the same
language, as I mentioned earlier, they also
created an interest in their own heritage
and made it known far beyond the shores
of their homeland. I have already referred
to the works of Arngrfmur Jonsson as an
example. To this I must add that as early as
the 16th and 17th centuries, quite a few
Icelandic classics, poetry as well as prose,
were translated into Latin, remarkable
undertakings which then were continued at
varying intervals. Special mention should
be made of Njal’s Saga, published in 1808
in the Latin translation of Jon Johnsonius.
In passing, it may also be pointed out that
Latin translations of medieval Icelandic lit-
erature have often proved helpful to trans-
lators of Icelandic Sagas into the modern
languages. The late Professor Lee M.
Hollander of the University of Texas in
Austin, a noted scholar in the field of Old
Germanic languages and one of several
translators of Njal’s Saga into English,
freely acknowledged his debt to the Latin
translation of the saga which he often con-
sulted when in doubt about the the mean-
ing of a word or a phrase in the original
text.
Also, a most intriguing instance of this
interplay between Icelandic and Latin is the
fate of the ancient Saga of the Skjoldungs, a
legendary account of the origins of the
Danish dynasty, who traced their lineage to
the god OSinn. In the early 17th century,
Arngrfmur Jonsson the Learned translated
this remarkable saga from Icelandic into
Latin, or produced a summary of it in that
language. This was most fortunate indeed,
since, some time after the Latin translation
appeared in print, the original Icelandic
manuscript was lost. Without the Latin
version the divine origin of the kings and
queens of Denmark would still be uncer-
tain, if not totally unknown. It is doubtful,
however, that with the passage of time, the
Saga of the Skjoldungs remained popular in
Iceland. Perhaps people in that country
found it difficult to believe that the Danish
monarchs, who had become their over-
lords, could possibly be the descendants of
divine beings. This may in turn explain
why one of the original written proofs of
such dignified beginnings was thrown by
the wayside somewhere in the mountains
of Iceland, and also why a derivative
account in Latin would never be accepted
by the Icelanders as valid documentation.
In 1982 an unusual circle was complet-
ed when Arngrfmur Jonsson’s Latin trans-
lation of Skjoldunga Saga was published in
an Icelandic translation by Professor Bjarni
Gu3nason. Thanks to the Gu3nason trans-
lation people in Iceland can now read the
saga in their own language with true
delight. With all political ties with the
Danes severed more than sixty years ago,
cruel exercise of Danish power in their
country is long since forgotten. Her
Majesty Margrethe Alexandrine Lorhildur