Tristram

5Nothing Arthurian, arguably, has been as enduringly popular in Iceland as the legend of Tristan, beginning with Tristrams saga ok Ísöndar, the Old Norse translation of the Anglo-Norman Tristan of Thomas of Britain, which, although translated in Norway, has survived, like most of the translated romances, exclusively in Icelandic manuscripts. The story gave rise to the 15^th-century Saga af Tristram og Ísodd and Tristrams kvæði, a very fine ballad recorded in the 17^th century but thought to have been composed as early as the 15^th, as well as a series of Icelandic folktales first recorded in the 19^th century. The story was also the basis for a late-18^th-century Danish novel of sentiment which found its way to Iceland, where it was translated several times into both prose and verse6.

6Tristrams saga ok Ísöndar, produced, by its own account, at the behest of King Hákon Hákonarson in the year 1226, has received a good deal of scholarly attention, both as it represents the most complete manifestation of Thomas’s Tristan extant and also owing to its (assumed) position as the earliest of the Old Norse translations of French romances. It is also thought to have exerted considerable influence on Old Norse-Icelandic narrative. Motifs ostensibly deriving from Tristrams saga have been identified in Rémundar saga keisarasonar, Haralds saga Hringsbana – which Margaret Schlauch thought “seem[ed] to have been constructed as a deliberate reply to the French romance”7 – Jarlmanns saga ok Hermanns and several other romances, and also in Spesar þáttr, the final section of Grettis saga. Similarly, the four so-called skáldasögur, or “poets’ sagas”, Kormáks saga in particular, appear to have been influenced by the Tristan story, to such an extent that Bjarni Einarsson could refer to Kormákr as “Tristan Íslands”8. Recently, however, Alison Finlay has rejected the idea that there are any narrative correspondences between Tristrams saga and the poets’ sagas9, and the whole question of the saga’s position and influence may be said to be ripe for reassessment.

7The (at least somewhat) younger Saga af Tristram og Ísodd is preserved in a single 15^th-century vellum and four paper manuscripts from the 18^th and 19^th centuries. This saga has also been the object of a good deal of scholarly attention, much of it focusing on its relation to its apparent source, Tristrams saga ok Ísöndar. Henry Goddard Leach, writing in 1921, thought it to be a vulgarisation, written for a less refined audience, “a boorish account of Tristram’s noble passion”10. Paul Schach initially deemed it “a clumsy retelling of Tristrams saga based on a faulty recollection of the original”, but later decided it was a deliberate burlesque of the medieval saga.11 Marianne Kalinke went even further, seeing it as a parody not just of Tristrams saga but of Arthurian romance in general12. I tend, I confess, to be rather suspicious of attempts to see irony everywhere, or the assumption that any two works dealing with vaguely similar subjects must be directly related to each other, and only to each other, ideally by virtue of one being a parody of the other. When I first read Saga af Tristram og Ísodd it struck me as being a fairly typical late medieval Icelandic romance, no more distorted, exaggerated or vulgar than, say, Dínus saga drambláta. In the last decade or so a number of scholars have argued for the necessity of viewing the younger Tristrams saga in the literary and cultural context of late medieval Iceland, resulting in a far more nuanced view of this highly interesting work13.

Post-medieval Icelandic romances

8In the post-medieval period – from the Icelandic perspective the middle ages end with the protestant Reformation in 1550 – a good deal of romance material, some of it Arthurian, found its way to Iceland in the form of chapbooks and popular novels14; unlike its continental counterparts, however, this material circulated in Iceland principally in manuscript, rather than in print.

9In addition to such translated material, and far greater in number, are the many original post-medieval Icelandic romances, works virtually indistinguishable from the medieval riddarasögur, but seemingly first written after the Reformation, many perhaps as late as the 19^th century. Although a handful of these found their way into print in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, here too the majority are preserved only in manuscripts.

10There are perhaps 60 such original post-medieval romances extant. I say “perhaps” because in several cases the classification may be debatable, i.e. whether a saga is in fact post-medieval: Nikulás saga leikara and Valdimars saga, for example, survive only in post-medieval manuscripts, but are almost certainly older; others should rather be classified as late fornaldarsögur, e.g. Sagan af Sigurði snarfara, which takes place in a Viking, rather than a chivalric, milieu (although the fornaldarsögur are most certainly also romances, scholars tend to prefer to keep them separate from the riddarasögur). Some, e.g. Sagan af Tryggva karlsyni, are distinguishable from what we would nowadays refer to as ævintýri, i.e. folktales, virtually only by length, folktales being shorter and generally comprising only one “move”, in the Proppian sense (Sagan af Ajax keisarasyni, in fact in many manuscripts and in the popular printed edition referred to as Ævintýri af Ajax keisarasyni, is simply a folktale). A few may well be translations, though unrecognised as such, as a good many short literary works of the early-modern period and Enlightenment were translated into Icelandic, principally from Danish, in the 18^th and 19^th centuries. In their Icelandicised forms they are often indistinguishable from the original romances and mythical-heroic sagas alongside which they are found in the manuscripts in which they are preserved 15.

11The title of the present article refers to “lesser-known” post-medieval Icelandic romances, thereby implying that there are also some better-known ones, and although most of the sagas of this type remain unknown, a few have indeed been the object of at least some preliminary scholarly attention. Sagan af Parmes loðinbirni, for example, an original Icelandic “Robinsonade” set in Greenland and ascribed to the clergyman Jón Bjarnason á Ballará (1721-85), was printed in Reykjavík in 1884 and was the subject of an article by Árni Kristjánsson published in 1944 16. Sagan af Líkafrón og hans fylgjurum, which appears also to have something to do with Jón á Ballará, was investigated by the Master Class at the 4^th International summer school in manuscript studies in 2007, who intend to produce an edition, and was the subject of an article by me published in 200917. I discussed the ten sagas of this type attributed to sr. Jón Oddsson Hjaltalín (1749-1835) in my book The Unwashed Children of Eve and subsequently published a text of one of them, Marrons saga18. Margaret Schlauch mentions around 20 sagas of this type in her book Romance in Iceland19 and H. G. Leach some half dozen, though only in passing, in his Angevin Britain and Scandinavia20. Inger Boberg used nine of them when compiling her Motif-Index of Early Icelandic Literature21, four in manuscript. Otto Jiriczek mentions and cites passages from three such post-medieval sagas, all in manuscript, in his article “Zur mittelisländischen volkskunde”22. Finally, most, but by no means all, of these sagas have entries in Rudolf Simek and Hermann Pálsson’s Lexikon der altnordischen Literatur23, although most generally say little more than “Eine sehr junge romantische saga” and list some of the manuscripts in which the saga is found. It is hard to see what their criteria for inclusion or exclusion was, actually, as they have entries on a couple of sagas which are found in only single manuscripts, e.g. Sagan af Geirmundi karlssyni og Geirvaldi kongsyni, but exclude several which appear to have been relatively popular, e.g. Sagan af Guðleyfi prúða, which is preserved in at least eight manuscripts and was the basis for a set of rímur printed in 191324.

12As with the medieval indigenous romances they so closely resemble, many of these sagas make use of motifs which appear to derive, directly or indirectly, from Arthurian material. A grateful lion, mentioned above, features in Sagan af Kára Kárasyni, which in addition to surviving in some dozen manuscripts appeared in a cheap printed edition published in Reykjavík in 188625. There is also a lion, and a number of other Arthurian motifs, in Sagan af Vigkæni kúahirði, perhaps more a folktale than a late romance, which was also printed in Reykjavík in 1886 and later serialised in the newspaper Mánudagsblaðið in 1952 under the heading “Strákasaga”, (“Story for boys”); it was also the basis for a set of rímur, a specifically Icelandic form of rhymed narrative, as were most of the other late romances26.

13King Arthur himself turns up, rather unexpectedly, in one of the continuations to Sagan af Mábil sterku, a prose retelling of the medieval Mábilur rímur, themselves thought to be based on a saga which is now otherwise lost – a rather unusual one, if only for having a female protagonist27. This expanded version is preserved in Lbs 2786 4to, the third volume of a three-volume collection of sagas and romances written by Einar Jónsson (1845-80), a farmer and poet from Elínarhöfði on Akranes28. According to the colophon, Einar completed the text on 24 December 1871. The continuation is a rather overblown series of battle descriptions of the most formulaic kind. King Arthur is first mentioned in chapter 28, where he is said to be from Spain and “frægstur meðal herkonunga” (most famous among war-kings). It is suggested that he join forces with Mábil, the saga’s female protagonist, who hopes to attack the evil Queen Medía in Mikligarður (i.e. Constantinople). Arthur agrees to help Mábil if she can defeat him in tournament. After several tilts she succeeds in unseating him from his horse, and he declares himself defeated, adding that Mábil has twice the strength of the strongest opponent he has ever faced. There ensues a huge battle with Medía and her forces in which Arthur plays a prominent role; he defeats all who come against him and is instrumental in winning the day for Mábil. There follows a great feast, after which Arthur returns to Spain, having received fine gifts from Mábil. The saga then informs us that King Arthur is named in another romance, the Saga af Reinald og Rósu, whereupon he is dismissed from the narrative with the words “og er hann nú frá þessu efni” (and he is now out of this matter).

14Reinalds saga is, like Mábilar saga, a prose reworking of a set of rímur which were composed in the 16^th century by the poet Sigurður blindur, again on the basis of a lost saga29. It is preserved in Lbs 2784 4to, the first of the volumes by Einar Jónsson, and in four other manuscripts from the 18^th and 19^th centuries. The saga begins by informing us that Arthur was the king of Spain and lived in the great citadel of Nobil; he had been a great warrior in his early years and had fought and won many battles so that no one was thought to be his equal in valour. Arthur decides to attack the island of Cyprus. The Duke, Vígbald, defends himself valiantly but falls in the end. His pregnant wife, Alúna, is captured and taken back to Spain, where she becomes lady in waiting to Sýrena, Arthur’s wife, who is also pregnant. The two give birth at about the same time, Sýrena to a boy named Reinaldur, and Alúna to a girl named Rósa. As this character appears to have nothing in common with King Arthur apart from the name, the two are probably not to be identified.

15King Arthur also appears in Sagan af Fertram og Plató, which is found in at least 31 manuscripts, the earliest from the 17^th century, the latest from the beginning of the 20^th, but which, like most of the post-medieval romances, has never appeared in print. There are, however, a set of Rímur af Fertram og Plató by Sigurður Breiðfjörð (1798-1846) which were printed in Reykjavík in 1836 and again in 1910. There is also an older set of rímur which are ascribed to Jón Eggertsson (ca. 1643-89) but are possibly by Jón Guðmundsson (1574-1658), who is known to have composed rímur based on the saga; if these are not they, then Jón’s rímur have not survived30.

16A brief summary of the plot of the saga is given by Ward in his Catalogue of Romances in the Department of Manuscripts in the British Museum: “Fertrams saga: the story of Fetram and Plato, sons of King Artus and Queen Ingibiørg of Frackland (i.e. France), how Fertram was carried off to India by three black beserkers, and was rescued by his brother Plato”31.

17The beginning of the saga, here taken from Lbs 1502 4to, written by Magnús Jónsson í Tjaldanesi (1835-1922), is as follows:

“Artus hefr konúngr heitið mjök megtugr ok stórauðigr af þeim dýrustu gripum sem í heiminum vóru, þar með var hann vel kristinn ok öll hans ríki. Hann stjórnaði Fracklandi enu góða, ok tólf konúnga ríkjum þar nærliggjandi. Drottníng konúngs hét Ingibjörg; þat er sagt at hón væri dóttir Hálfdáns konúngs Eysteinssonar. Konúngr sat í einum ríkum ok stórum stað sem at lá þrjár rastir frá Parísarborg; en er tímar liðu átti konúngr barn við drottníngu sinni, þat var sveinn, ok létu þau hann Fertram heita.”

(Arthur was the name of a king, powerful and in possession of the finest goods in the world; he was, in addition, a good Christian, as was the whole of his kingdom. He ruled over France the good and 12 other nearby kingdoms. His queen was named Ingibjörg, and it was said that she was the daughter of King Hálfdan Eysteinsson32.The king lived in a large and fine palace which lay three miles from the city of Paris. After a time the king and queen had a child; it was a boy and they named him Fertram).

18Although hardly well-known, the saga has not gone completely unnoticed by scholars. Margaret Schlauch mentions it several times in Romance in Iceland, noting that there is a horse named Bullsifal or Bussifal, “which was once the proud steed Becephalus, belonging to Alexander the Great”, and a river in India called Assdon, which “may or may not be a manuscript corruption of Phison for the Ganges”, that it is one of many sagas using the motif of the unwelcome wooer, that Fertram becomes lost in a mist while hunting a hart, a motif “no doubt borrowed from French romances”, that Plató cuts off the head of a giant – the last of 13, the other 12 having been slain – who is about to lay a curse on him, and that there is a description of a splendid palace, reminiscent of many other such descriptions, in chapter 1 of the saga33. Otto Jiriczek notes that there is a dwarf named Litur who makes armour and a sword, the former impervious to all weapons apart from the latter, and that the ogress Hólmgríður, in the form of a dragon, raises from the dead fallen giant warriors who, though headless, immediately resume fighting34.

19As can be seen, Sagan af Fertram og Plató contains wealth of motifs, many deriving from continental sources. No great landmark of world literature, it is nevertheless a good representative of its type – doubtless the reason for its popularity in post-Reformation Iceland – and certainly not without interest.

20Although not Arthurian, another late romance, Sagan af Pólenstator og Möndulþvara, has a decided French connexion.

21There are 11 manuscripts preserving texts of the saga, as well as four sets of rímur telling the same story, the earliest from the 17^th century, and evidence for a further two sets of rímur which have not survived35. As all of the extant manuscripts of the saga post-date all but the very youngest set of rímur, it seems not unlikely that the saga is derived from one them – indeed, in the oldest dated manuscript of the saga, Lbs 1657 8vo, written in 1822-23, the scribe, Þorsteinn Gíslason á Stokkahlöðum (1776-1838), adds in a colophon that his text is “snúin úr rímum” (derived from rímur) – but precisely from which rímur remains to be determined36. The rímur, in turn, presumably derive from a saga of which no other evidence remains.

22The plot is as follows: Pólenstator is the son of Hinrik, the Christian king of Poland. Möndulþvari, a worshipper of the god Makómet, is king of France. He decides to conquer the Christian world, starting with Poland, and sends a letter to Hinrik, telling him he must abandon his faith and surrender his kingdom to him. Hinrik considers this option but, advised by his son, decides to stand his ground. Pólenstator himself takes the message to Möndulþvari, whom he finds at prayer. After delivering the message, he hews the head off the statue of Makómet to which Möndulþvari had been praying. Outraged, Möndulþvari vows to pay him back for this insult, and the following day a fierce battle begins between the two sides; after a month of fighting, Möndulþvari, who has suffered the greater losses, retreats but manages to capture Pólenstator and take him back to France. Elinborg, Möndulþvari’s beautiful daughter, is impressed by the young prisoner, and begs that his life be spared. Pólenstator manages to get in to see her in her skemma (bower) by assuming the identity of the eunuch who is set to guard her. Love quickly develops between the two. Pólenstator manages to escape with her to his father’s kingdom, where she receives baptism, after which the two are married. The wedding feast, which lasts a fortnight, is attended by the kings and queens of England, Denmark and Spain and many other fine people. Möndulþvari discovers what has become of his daughter and mounts an attack on Poland with a huge army. Pólenstator meets him with a small force of 100 men and a fierce battle ensues, which ends with only the two protagonists still standing. Finally, Pólenstator is able to cleave Möndulþvari in two. He returns home and is praised for his victory. He and his wife live happily ever after. They have three sons, who all become famous men.

23The names of the protagonists vary a great deal in the various witnesses. Pólenstator’s name appears also as Pólostador, Pólistator, Póloster or Pólínalandsvörður (i.e. Poland’s protector), in some cases with the explanatory note that “hálft nafn hans [var] dregid af landsins heiti, enn hálft þýdir frelsun” (“half of his name was taken from the name of the country and the other half means liberation”)37. The extremely curious name Möndulþvari – a möndull is an axel or the handle of a quern and þvari a wooden staff or long-handled spoon – also appears as Möndulfari, a name also found in the Kappa kvæði of Steinunn Finnsdóttir38 and in Eiríkur Hallsson’s Ýmis rímur39, both from the 17^th century, or about the same time as the earliest set of Rímur af Pólenstator og Möndulþvara. In Old Norse mythology, as attested in the poem Vafþrúðnismál and in Snorri’s Edda, Mundilfari, or Mundilfæri, is said to be the father of Sól, the Sun, and Máni, the Moon; the name may mean “he who causes periods of time to move”40.

24The saga is mentioned by Schlauch, who summarises the plot, concluding that “Nothing could be more conventional, or more faithful to French modes – save that here it is the French themselves who are represented as idolatrous heathen”41. Leach mentions only the rímur, which he lists under “Fourteenth-century importations into Iceland”, noting only that in them “the Franks are still heathen”42.

25One rather interesting, if not altogether favourable, comment on this saga – which clearly enjoyed some popularity – comes from the scribe of one of the manuscripts in which it is preserved, now SÁM 74, which was written in 1888-89 by Guðbrandur Sturlaugsson á Hvítadal (1820-1897). Following the text of the saga Guðbrandur, in whose hand are preserved texts of dozens of romances of precisely this kind, has written: “Það er sannliga sagt að þetta er sú vitlausasta liga saga sem jeg hef sjeð” (“This is truly the most imbecilic lygasaga43 I’ve ever seen”).

26Professor Finnur Jónsson (1858-1934), no great fan of the romances, likened their use of motifs to a kaleidoskope, in that ”hver gang det rystes, kommer nye sammenstillinger og nye figurer frem, men bestanddelene er de samme” (every time it is shaken, new configurations and patterns appear, but the component parts are the same)44. The analogy, although hardly meant as praise, is not inapt. But as I have tried to show, the component parts are many and various, and the configurations can often be diverting.