Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1964, Side 203
St. Anna i islandsk senmiddelalder
211
og bede for dem. Dette sker, de bliver frikendt og gaar
alle i kloster og tjener Gud med stor fromhed.
Disse korte resumeer af handlingsforløbet i den sen»
middelalderlige Anna*saga har skullet tjene til at vise,
hvordan man paa Island næppe mere end en menneske*
alder inden reformationens komme forstod at udnytte en
fremmed kilde til fornyelse af repertoiret i den del af saga*
litteraturen, som var ældst der i landet, nemlig sagalitteraí
turen om hellige mænd og kvinder. Genren ophørte med
at have aktuel opbyggelig betydning i den lutherske kirke,
men mange af dens ejendommeligheder — især de overí
naturlige tildragelser — genfindes gang paa gang i en anden
ældgammel genre, der skulde vedblive at leve efter tros»
skiftet: folkeæventyret.
SUMMARY
St. Anne, mother of St. Mary the Blessed Virgin, had become a
central figure in late mediaeval hagiography and devotion, and she
seems to have been especially popular in Germany. From here her cult
spread to Scandinavia, where several groups of the Madonna, Child,
and St. Anne have survived the Reformation, as has the one from
Holt in Iceland (now in the National Museum of Iceland) which was
probably made in Liibeck. From Germany came also the printed
sources of the saga of St. Anne in Holm 3 fol, the big collection
of Saints’ Lives, and it was recently discovered that the main source,
the almost unique St. Annen Biichlein in Low German (Braunschweig
1507) was also the only source of a saga of St. Anne in AM 82,8°
(on paper, 17th cent ). This version had erronously been described as
a Mariu saga, but is in fact a parallel to the fragmentary text in AM
238 fol. III that can now be supplemented, so that it is possible to
gain an almost complete idea of the composition and contents of this
older, lcelandic saga of St. Anne (from c. 1500). A summary of the
version in AM 82 concludes the paper.