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AN EDITION and STUDY OFNIKULÁS SAGA LEIKARA Keren

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AN EDITION and STUDY OFNIKULÁS SAGA LEIKARA Keren AN EDITION AND STUDY OF NIKULÁS SAGA LEIKARA Keren H. Wick Submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Leeds School of English January 1996 The candidate confirms that the work submitted is her own and that appropriate credit has been given where reference has been made to the work of others. AN EDITION AND STUDY OF NIKULÁS SAGA LEIKARA Keren H. Wick Doctor of Philosophy January 1996 ABSTRACT Nikulás saga leikara (Nsl.) tells the story of Nikulás, king of Hungary. His foster-father, Earl Svívari, convinces him to stop playing with magic and try to win Princess Dorma of Constantinople as a bride. Svívari makes a secret betrothal with Dorma, contrary to her father's wishes. Nikulás then travels to Constantinople where he poses as a merchant in order to insinuate himself into the Byzantine court. Nikulás meets with Dorma secretly, and the couple escape from Constantinople. Valdimar's Scandinavian mercenaries capture Dorma by employing magic, but Nikulás re-captures his bride, also using magic. The final battle is precluded by Valdimar's accidental killing of his own mercenaries. Valdimar accepts Nikulás, and Nikulás becomes king over Constantinople upon Valdimar's death. Nsl. is an Icelandic romance which survives in sixty manuscripts dating from the seventeenth to the early twentieth centuries. Despite the saga's popularity in Iceland, Nsl. has received little attention from saga scholars. Nsl. is clearly a fictional saga, and neither the action nor the protagonist are related to Scandinavia. Consequently, scholars who regarded saga as history, as well as those who wished to define a unique medieval literature for Iceland - or other Scandinavian countries - had no interest in this saga. However, recent scholarship has discovered that sagas such as Nsl. are rich in both Icelandic and continental literary styles and motifs. Nsl. may therefore be seen as a particulariy Icelandic form of medieval romance. The present translation of Nsl. will make the saga available for further study of native Icelandic romance. Of the two redactions ofNsl., the edition ofNsl. (Nks. 331, 8vo) which is part of this study represents the longer, more popular version. With this edition, it is hoped that scholarly attention will be drawn to a saga which was read and enjoyed in Iceland over at least four centuries. Acknowledgements This edition would not have been possible without the assistance of several people and institutions. I am very grateful to the staff at Stofnun Árna Magnússonar and particularly Landsbókasafn íslands in Reykjavík for their patience with my incessant requests for manuscripts during my visit in 1992. I also wish to extend my thanks to staff af the Arnamagnæan Institute in Copenhagen for their assistance and helpful comments during my all too brief stay in 1994. The Royal Library in Stockholm very kindly sent to Leeds both a photocopy and a photograph in negative form of Nikulds saga leikara in Papp. no. 1 folio. I am obligated to Dr. Matthew Driscoll not only for suggesting Nikulás saga leikara as a topic for study, but also for offering useful comments and providing copies of various articles and work in progress. My greatest debt of gratitude is to my supervisor, Dr. Andrew Wawn; for his encouragement throughout the period of my study, and for his unending willingness to review successive drafts, and to point out different approaches, alternative readings and fruitful ideas. Keren H. Wick, University of Leeds, 1996 in memory of my grandfather, Ingvald Anders Kahlvik (Wick) TABLE OF CONTENTS Page I Nikulás saga leikara: a Summary 1 II Nikulás saga leikara's Place in the Development of Saga Scholarship 2 - Nikulds saga leikara and the History of Scholarly Opinion 2 - Nikulás saga leikara and Saga Genre 24 ra Manuscripts of Nikulds saga leikara 38 - Nks. 331, 8vo 38 - AM 658, 4to 46 - AM 585c, 4to 48 - Papp. no. 31, 4to (Stockholm) 50 - Lbs. 644, 4to 52 - Rask 32 53 rv Editorial Principles 56 V Text: Sagann afnichuláse leykare 62 VI Translation of Nikulds saga leikara 162 VII Commentary 196 VIII Select Glossary 228 IX Appendix A: The Short Redaction 238 - Description of the Manuscript 238 - Editorial Principles 240 - The Text of the Short Redaction 241 X Appendix B: Other Manuscripts Containing Nikulds saga leikara 258 XI Appendix C: Key to Abbreviations 278 XII Select Bibliography 284 1 NIKULÁS SAGA LEIKARA: A SUMMARY Nikulás saga leikara appears here in a critical edition and translation into English for the fírst time. Although this saga once enjoyed widespread popularity in Iceland, it is now unfamiliar to saga scholars. A brief overview of the plot of Nikulás saga leikara will set the stage for the study and edition which follows. Nikulás saga leikara tells the story of Nikulás, the young king of Hungary. Nikulás spends his youth studying letters and magic, until his foster-father, Earl Svívari, convinces him to try to win Princess Dorma of Constantinople as a bride. Svívari travels to Constantinople where his proposal for a marriage between Nikulás and Dorma is rejected emphatically by her father, Valdimar. On Svívari's second visit, he makes a secret betrothal with Dorma's consent in the face of opposition from King Valdimar. Nikulás departs for Constantinople and stops en route at an island where he obtains magical items, including a magic mirror. In Constantinople, Nikulás masquerades as Þórir, a merchant, in order to insinuate himself into the Byzantine court. During his visit, Nikulás uses his magic to cure a mysterious illness which Valdimar's knight has contracted. Nikulás gains respect from Valdimar, but also meets with Dorma secretly. The couple escape from Constantinople through a tunnel which Nikulás has had constructed under Dorma's tower. Valdimar's Scandinavian mercenaries, Rómaldus and Birgir, abduct Dorma from Hungary by means of sorcery when Nikulás is absent. Nikulás re-captures his bride, also with the use of magic, and awaits the final confrontation. The imminent battle is precluded when Valdimar kills his own mercenaries in the mistaken belief that he is attacking Nikulás. Valdimar acknowledges Nikulás as his son-in-law, and when Valdimar dies, Nikulás becomes king over Constantinople. 2 NIKULÁS SAGA LEIKARA'S PLACE IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF SAGA SCHOLARSHIP Nikulás saga leikara and the History of Scholarly Opinion Nikulás saga leikara is the history of the young king of Hungary who weds the daughter of the king of Saxony. This is how George Hickes characterises Nikulás saga leikara in his massive two-volume Linguarum vett. of 1703-5. Near the end of his extensive catalogue of early English, French and Scandinavian manuscripts, Hickes lists approximately one hundred sagas which could be found in the Royal Library in Stockholm, then one of the principal European repositories for saga manuscripts. He presents this list without any statement that a particular saga or group of sagas is of more historical value than any other. Rather, he describes the texts as a select list of works relating to history and antiquity. Thus, a list which begins with Snorri's Edda and Heimskringla goes on to include not only Hrafnkels saga and Völsunga saga, but also Göngu-Hrólfs saga, Áns saga bogsveigis and, of course, Nikulds saga leikara. Consequently, Icelandic family saga finds itself placed alongside legendary saga and late romance - with no sense that any one genre has priority. In the early part of the eighteenth century, both Hickes and the Swedish scholar in Stockholm who compiled the 1 The folio manuscript in Stockholm which contains Nikulds saga leikara represents the short redaction. This shorter version places the princess in Saxony, whereas the longer version places her in Constantinople. 2 Hickes, Linguarum vett., n, 314: 'Sagan af Nicolase Leikara: Historia Nicolai Leikaras, a sapientia sua ita dicti, regis olim Fasti in Hungaria filii, ejusque cum Saxorum regis filia conjugii.' [The saga of Nikulás leikari: History of Nikulás leikari (so called because of fiu ^S. jt, ^ y the son of the former King Fástus of Hungary, and his marriage with the daughter of the king of the Saxons.] 3Hickes,II, 310-5. 4 Hickes, II, 310: 'Manuscripta Scandica ad Antiquitatem & Historiam Septrionalium aliorumque Regnorum illustrandam, in Regio Antiquam Archivo Holmiœ selecta.' , [Scandinavian manuscripts h ÍM«6lm(L fU antiquity and history^andother XrJWv kingdoms, selected from the Royal Historical Archive of Stockholm.] 3 list for him5 thought it entirely appropriate to list Nikulás saga leikara alongside other sagas thought to be deserving of scholarly attention. As the eighteenth century developed, the people of Iceland displayed a similar diversity of taste. Nikulás saga leikara (hereafter Nsl.) appears in sixty extant manuscripts dating from the seventeenth to the early twentieth centuries. Copyists and owners ranged from farmers to priests and scholars. However, literary scholars of the eighteenth to early twentieth centuries took little notice of this evidence of Nsl.'s popularity in the post-medieval period. Consequently, Nsl. - which in 1703-5 was seen to be on a par with other, now famous sagas - has received almost no scholarly attention. The reasons for this indifference are tightly bound up with the trends, debates and political agendas that have characterised the development of saga scholarship over more than two centuries. An overview of these issues may help to explain how a saga which was so widely copied, read and enjoyed in the farmhouses of Iceland down to the twentieth century could, for the most part, escape the eye of saga scholars. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the study of Icelandic saga literature outside mainland Scandinavia concentrated primarily on the group of texts known as Islendingasögur. From the early nineteenth century, these sagas apparently 5 Hickes, II, 310.
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