22 December 2017

22nd of December

Manuscript Advent Calendar

Love, Actually

(Click on the picture for a larger version)

This short, squat vellum quarto (c. 15 × 13 cm), AM 325 II 4to, from the beginning of the thirteenth century is not much to look at, but it has an importance for the history of Old Norse-Icelandic literature far out of proportion to its humble appearance: it contains the only extant copy of the work known as Ágrip af Noregskonungasögum (A short history of the kings of Norway), the earliest surviving vernacular text dealing with the history of Norway, thought to have been written around 1190.
Although the manuscript itself is without doubt Icelandic, the original of which it is a copy must certainly have been written in Norway.

In general, Ágrip’s style is rather awkward, often bordering on incomprehensibility. But given the fact that it represents one of the earliest attempts to write a continuous narrative in the vernacular to have survived, such awkwardness is perhaps not surprising. There are, at the same time, many passages that suggest a fair degree of stylistic awareness on the part of the author, who was clearly a man of some learning. Snorri Sturluson, himself no mean stylist, appears to have been impressed enough to have taken over several passages from Ágrip more or less verbatim in his Heimskringla, most notably the episode in which King Harald Fairhair is bewitched by the Lappish princess Snæfrid.

The text reads:

Jólaaftan, er Haraldr sat at mat, þá kom Svási fyrir dyrr ok sendi konungi boð at hann skyldi út ganga til hans, en konungr brásk reiðr við þeim sendiboðum, ok bar inn sami reiði hans út er boð hans hafði borit inn. En hinn bað hann þá eigi fyrir flví at síðr [í] annat sinni ok gaf hónum bjórskinn eitt til, ok kvað sik vera þann Finninn er hann hafði ját at setja gamma sinn annan veg brekkunnar á Þoptyn, þar sem þá var konungrinn. En konungrinn gekk út ok varð hónum þess játsi, at hann gekk yfir í gamma hans með áeggjan sumra sinna manna, þóat sumir letti. Stóð þar upp Snjófríð, dóttir Svása, kvenna vænust, ok byrlaði ker mjaðar fullt konunginum, ok hann tók allt saman ok hǫnd hennar. Ok þegar var sem eldshiti kœmi í hǫrund hans ok vildi þegar hafa hana á þeiri nótt. En Svási sagði at þat mundi eigi vera, nema hónum nauðgum, nema konungrinn festi hana ok fengi at lǫgum. Ok hann festi ok fekk ok unni svá með œrslum, at ríki sitt ok allt þat er hans tígn byrjaði flá fyrlét hann ok sat hjá henni nótt ok dag náliga, meðan þau lifðu bæði, ok .iij. vetr síðan hón var dauð. Syrgði hann hana dauða, en landslýðr allr syrgði hann villtan.

Or in translation: 

On the eve of Yule, as Haraldr sat at table, Svási came to the door and sent word in to the king that he should come out to him. This request angered the king, and the same man bore his anger out as had borne the message in. Svási asked him nevertheless a second time and also gave him a beaver skin and said that he was that Lapp whom the king had allowed to set up his hut on the other side of the hill at Þoptyn, where the king then was. The king went out and he agreed to go to Svási’s hut, egged on by some of his men, though others tried to dissuade him. There Snjófríðr stood up, Svási’s daughter, the most beautiful of women and offered the king a cup full of mead. He took it and with it her hand, and suddenly it was as if fiery heat entered into his flesh and he wished to have her that same night. But Svási said that this should not be so—except against his will—unless the king betrothed himself to her and then wedded her according to the law. And he betrothed himself to her and wedded her and loved her so witlessly that he neglected his kingdom and all that beseemed his kingly honour, and he stayed by her almost night and day while they both lived and for three years after she died. He mourned for her, dead, but the people all mourned for him, bewitched.