Related Research Articles
The Codex Wormianus or AM 242 fol. is an Icelandic vellum codex dating from the mid-14th century. It contains an edition of the Prose Edda and some additional material on poetics, including the First Grammatical Treatise. It is the only manuscript to preserve the Rígsþula.
The bishops' saga is a genre of medieval Icelandic sagas, mostly thirteenth- and earlier fourteenth-century prose histories dealing with bishops of Iceland's two medieval dioceses of Skálholt and Hólar.
Albani þáttr ok Sunnifu, also known as Seljumanna þáttr, is a short tale (þáttr) about the Irish princess Sunniva who, not wishing to marry a heathen king, flees to the Norwegian island of Selje with her brother Albanus and a number of followers. The residents of the island suspect Sunniva and her companions of killing their livestock and ask Jarl Hákon to kill these ‘bandits’. On seeing Jarl Hákon and his men approach, Sunniva and her companions retreat to their caves and pray that God will not allow them to be killed by the evil men. In answer to their prayers, the caves collapse on the group. Their bodies stay buried until discovered by Olaf Tryggvason, who has them exhumed and has a church built in dedication to them. Together with Sörla þáttr, Tóka þáttr Tókasonar, Norna-gests þáttr and Þorsteins þáttr uxafóts, the tale is part of a subgenre of "pagan-contact þættir".
Maríu saga is an Old Norse-Icelandic biography of the Virgin Mary. Because of the wide range of sources used by its compiler and the way theological commentary has been interspersed with biography, the work is considered "unique within the continental medieval tradition on Mary's life."
Kumlbúa þáttr is a short medieval Icelandic tale (þáttr) set at the end of the twelfth century or the beginning of the thirteenth. It tells the story of Þorsteinn Þorvarðsson who stumbles upon a burial cairn and takes a sword from it. After he returns home he goes to bed and is visited in a dream by the cairn-dweller. The man, who wields a huge pole-axe, demands the return of the sword and threatens Þorsteinn. Þorsteinn's wife wakes him to ask why he is sleeping so poorly but he does not tell her and goes back to sleep at once. The cairn-dweller reappears and declaims a threatening verse. However, Þorsteinn retorts with a more technically proficient verse which 'caps' that of the cairn-dweller who then leaves Þorsteinn. The following day Þorsteinn goes to look for the cairn but cannot find it. He returns home and tells his wife and other people the story.
Dínus saga drambláta is an Old Norse chivalric saga, assumed to have been composed first in the fourteenth century. The saga is noted for its scholarly, highbrow style.
Ála flekks saga is a medieval Icelandic Romance saga. It was the basis for three cycles of rímur. It has been seen as an important early witness to the Snow White folktale type.
Mágus saga jarls is a medieval Icelandic romance saga. It survives in two main medieval redactions, a shorter one from about 1300 and a longer one from about 1350, both taking their inspiration from The Four Sons of Aymon, a French chanson de geste. It is distinctive enough, however, to be reckoned among the romances composed in Iceland, rather than a translation.
Saints' sagas are a genre of Old Norse sagas comprising the prose hagiography of medieval western Scandinavia.
Barlaams saga ok Jósafats is an Old Norse rendering of the story of Barlaam and Josaphat, which is based upon the life of the Buddha. The saga exists in Old Norwegian and Old Swedish versions. These versions use different source material. The older of the two Old Swedish versions draws on the Golden Legend; the younger uses the Speculum historiale as its main source. The Old Norwegian version is based on a Latin translation from the 12th century. The saga of Guðmundur Arason records that the Old Norwegian version was translated by King Haakon the Young.
Damusta saga is a medieval Icelandic romance saga. It is noted for its inventive engagement with Continental romance-writing traditions.
Kirkjubæjarbók is an Icelandic manuscript produced in around 1500 containing female saints' sagas. It is notable for being the only extant Old-Norse Icelandic legendary which exclusively deals with female saints and for being the only extant text which contains Old Norse-Icelandic prose and poetic accounts of St Dorothy. The book takes its name from the convent of Kirkjubær, which likely held the codex until King Christian III of Denmark dissolved the Icelandic monasteries in the mid sixteenth century.
Margrétar saga is an Old Norse-Icelandic saints' saga that tells the story of St Margaret of Antioch. There are three versions of the saga based on at least two translations, and it is extant in more medieval and post-reformation copies than any other saint's legend. Its popularity appears in part to be due to the text's use in childbirth contexts, which was a uniquely Icelandic development of a popular European tradition. The date of the legend's first translation into Old-Norse Icelandic is unknown, but based on the dating of its earliest manuscripts it is taken to have occurred some time before 1300.
Katrínar saga is an Old Norse-Icelandic saints' saga that tells the story of St Catherine of Alexandria. It survives in four manuscripts from the 14th to 15th centuries, but is only extant in full in Stock. Perg. fol. 2.
Cecilíu saga is an Old Norse-Icelandic saints' saga that recounts the legend of St Cecilia. It is preserved in three manuscripts, but is only complete in Kirkjubæjarbók. The version of the saga preserved in Stock. Perg. fol no. 2 includes two Icelandic miracles of St Cecilia. These are notable for being one of the very few examples of miracles performed by non-native saints, and as an example of early hagiographic composition in Iceland rather than translations from Latin exemplars. Cormack notes that while these miracles may be late compositions, "they give the impression of being genuine records of an early cultus".
Ísleifs þáttr biskups is a short Old Norse-Icelandic narrative which recounts two episodes from the life of Ísleifr Gizurason, the first bishop of Iceland. The first episode recounts Ísleifr's meeting with St Ólafr in Norway. Ísleifr is introduced to Ólafr by Brandr Vermundarson, who gives Ísleifr a cloak previously gifted to him by the king. The second part of the narrative gives an account of Ísleifr's marriage to Dalla Þorvaldsdóttir.
Dórótheu saga is an Old Norse-Icelandic saints' saga that recounts the legend of St Dorothy of Caesarea. It is preserved only in the manuscript Kirkjubæjarbók, a codex containing lives of female saints written in Iceland around 1500. This manuscript also contains the only Old Norse-Icelandic poetry written about St Dorothy before 1500 and a Latin prayer to the saint not known from elsewhere in medieval Scandinavia.
Codex Scardensis or Skarðsbók postulasagna is a large Icelandic manuscript containing Old Norse-Icelandic sagas of the apostles. It is, along with Flateyjarbók, one of the largest 14th century manuscripts produced in Iceland. The manuscript was written in c.1360 at the house of canons regular at Helgafell for Ormr Snorrason. From 1401 to 1807 it was housed at the church in Skarð. From 1827 until 1890 it was considered lost, with its printed edition being based on copies made in the 18th century. The manuscript returned to Iceland in 1965 after being purchased at Sotheby's in London by a consortium of Icelandic banks.
Rómverja saga in an Old Norse-Icelandic translation of three Latin historical texts: Sallust's Bellum Iugurthinum and Coniuratio Catilinae and Lucan's Pharsalia. It gives an account of Roman history from the Jugurthine War to the death of Augustus. This combination of sources is unique in medieval literature. Along with Breta sögur, Veraldar saga and Trójumanna saga, it represent the earliest phase of translation of secular works into Old Norse-Icelandic.
Möttuls saga or Skikkju saga is an Old Norse translation of Le lai du cort mantel, a French fabliau dating to the beginning of the 13th century. The saga tells the story of a chastity-testing cloak brought to the court of King Arthur. It was translated, along with other chivalric sagas, under the patronage of Haakon IV of Norway. Its risqué content suggests that it was translated by clerks rather than in a religious context. Möttuls saga formed the basis for a later set of Icelandic rímur called Skikkjurímur.
References
- 1 2 Wolf, Kirsten (2013). The Legends of the Saints in Old Norse-Icelandic prose. Toronto, Buffalo, London: University of Toronto Press. pp. 20–23. ISBN 9781442646216.
- ↑ Wolf, Kirsten (2013). The Legends of the Saints in Old Norse-Icelandic prose. Toronto, Buffalo, London: University of Toronto Press. p. 21. ISBN 9781442646216.
- ↑ Wolf, Kirsten (2013). The Legends of the Saints in Old Norse-Icelandic prose. Toronto, Buffalo, London: University of Toronto Press. p. 22. ISBN 9781442646216.
- ↑ Wolf, Kirsten (2013). The Legends of the Saints in Old Norse-Icelandic prose. Toronto, Buffalo, London: University of Toronto Press. p. 23. ISBN 9781442646216.
- 1 2 3 Cormack, Margaret (1994). The Saints in Iceland: Their Veneration from the Conversion to 1400. Subsidia Hagiographica 78. Bruxelles: Société des Bollandistes. p. 75. ISBN 2-87365-006-0.
- ↑ Skórzewska, Joanna Agnieszka (2011). Constructing a Cult: The Life and Veneration of Guðmundr Arason (1161-1237) in the Icelandic Written Sources. Leiden: Brill. p. 43. ISBN 9789004194960. OCLC 891288393.
- ↑ Wolf, Kirsten (2005). "Kirkjubæjarbók: Codex AM 429 12mo.". In Simek, Rudolf; Meurer, Judith (eds.). Scandinavia and Christian Europe in the Middle Ages: Papers of the 12th International Saga Conference, Bonn/Germany, 28th July—2nd August 2003 (PDF). Bonn: Hausdruckerei der Universität Bonn. p. 533. Archived from the original (PDF) on 7 April 2017.
- ↑ Wolf, Kirsten; Van Deusen, Natalie M. (2017). The Saints in Old Norse and Early Modern Icelandic Poetry. Toronto, Buffalo, London: University of Toronto Press. pp. 13–18.