Stories Set Forth With Fair Words: The Evolution of Medieval Romance in Iceland by Kalinke Professor Marianne E

Author:Kalinke, Professor Marianne E. [Kalinke, Professor Marianne E.]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: University of Wales Press
Published: 2017-04-14T16:00:00+00:00

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Icelandic Innovations

Many Icelandic romances have been transmitted in more than one version. Icelandic authors rewrote both imported narratives and indigenous compositions. As was seen in the previous chapter, the authors of the longer Mágus saga jarls and Hrólfs saga Gautrekssonar elaborated the older versions by incorporating dialogue, restructuring and modifying the plot, adding characters, and in the case of Mágus saga enriching the narrative with additional tales.

Some Icelandic redactors approached the received texts by reimagining a character and the crux of a tale, thereby shifting the focus and meaning of a narrative. This occurred in Partalopa saga and Tiódels saga, the former a translation from the French which has been preserved solely in Icelandic manuscripts; the latter an Icelandic recreation of the lay Bisclaretz ljóð, translated from the French in thirteenth-century Norway. The author of a third romance, Gibbons saga, created a hybrid by combining plot from Partalopa saga with that of a traditional tale type to produce a frame tale.

Partalopa saga underwent a drastic revision at the hands of an Icelandic redactor, chiefly through the transformation of the female protagonist. The saga derives from Partonopeu de Blois, a late twelfth-century romance, the extraordinary popularity of which in the Middle Ages is attested among others by Dutch, English, Spanish, Danish and German versions.1 Partonopeu may have been translated in Norway along with other French courtly literature, but there exists neither internal evidence in the saga nor a manuscript that might indicate where Partonopeu was translated. The translation may have occurred in Iceland before the fourteenth century,2 but the work transmitted in the extant manuscripts represents a substantial revision of the original translation.

The transformation of the female protagonist’s character in Partalopa saga at the hands of an Icelandic redactor significantly altered the plot from the very beginning. Melior, the fairy-mistress heroine of Partonopeu is the learned ruler of Byzantium, gifted with magical powers, to whom many kings are subject. In the Icelandic version, Marmoria is the similarly gifted ruler of Constantinople, but she is the ‘maiden king’ over the entire realm (meykongur yfir ỏllv rikinv).3 The meykongr figure was introduced by Hrólfs saga Gautrekssonar and was subsequently the protagonist of a number of romances dominated by a female ruler who insists on the masculine title kongr (king) rather than dróttning (queen) and who eschews marriage. Þórbjörg, the maiden king in Hrólfs saga Gautrekssonar, discussed in the previous chapter, may have inspired the transformation of Marmoria into the maiden king of Partalopa saga.

Melior, the female protagonist of Partonopeu de Blois, is a fairy mistress with magic powers. The transformation of the French figure into a maiden king in Partalopa saga has consequences for the development of the plot, which diverges substantially from that of Partonopeu. The crux of the French romance is Melior’s decision to marry on the advice of her counsellors and retainers. She secretly chooses Partonopeu, whom she has abducted by means of a magic ship and conveyed to her bed, but where she remains invisible to him. From her

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