''Mágus saga jarls'' is a

medieval Icelandic Icelandic (; is, íslenska, link=no ) is a North Germanic language spoken by about 314,000 people, the vast majority of whom live in Iceland, where it is the national language. Due to being a West Scandinavian language, it is most closely re ...

romance saga The ''riddarasögur'' (literally 'sagas of knights', also known in English as 'chivalric sagas', 'romance-sagas', 'knights' sagas', 'sagas of chivalry') are Norse prose sagas of the romance genre. Starting in the thirteenth century with Norse tr ...

. 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 ''The Four Sons of Aymon'' (french: esQuatre fils Aymon, nl, De Vier Heemskinderen, german: Die Vier Haimonskinder), sometimes also referred to as ''Renaud de Montauban'' (after its main character) is a medieval tale spun around the four sons ...

'', a French ''

chanson de geste The ''chanson de geste'' (, from Latin 'deeds, actions accomplished') is a medieval narrative, a type of epic poem that appears at the dawn of French literature. The earliest known poems of this genre date from the late 11th and early 12th cen ...

''. It is distinctive enough, however, to be reckoned among the romances composed in

Iceland Iceland ( is, Ísland; ) is a Nordic island country in the North Atlantic Ocean and in the Arctic Ocean. Iceland is the most sparsely populated country in Europe. Iceland's capital and largest city is Reykjavík, which (along with its s ...

, rather than a translation.

Synopsis

Kalinke and Mitchell summarise the saga thus:

Earl Ámundi has four sons—Vigvarðr, Rögnvalldr, Markvarðr, Aðalvarðr—and a daughter. Rögnvalldr incurs the anger of the emperor by defeating him in a chess game. The emperor strikes Rögnvalldr, and Vigvarðr avenges the insult by killing the emperor. The saga revolves around the clash between the emperor's son Karl and the four brothers, abetted by their brother-in-law Mágus who is capable of assuming various disguises. In the end Mágus effects a reconciliation between the feuding parties.

Manuscripts

''Mágus saga'' is exceptionally extensively attested: it and '' Jarlmanns saga ok Hermanns'' compete for being the most widely attested Icelandic saga of any type.Matthew Driscoll, `Late Prose Fiction (''Lygisögur'')', in ''A Companion to Old Norse-Icelandic Literature and Culture'', ed. by

Rory McTurk Rory W. McTurk is a British philologist. McTurk graduated from Oxford University in 1963. He took a further degree at the University of Iceland in 1965, and subsequently taught at Lund University, the University of Copenhagen, and University Col ...

(Oxford: Blackwell, 2005), pp. 190--204 (p. 194). Kalinke and Mitchell identified the following manuscripts of the saga:

Influence

'The origin of the older ''Mágus saga'' may be oral tradition, or it may be, as in the case of '' Tristrams saga'', that a translation made in Norway was revised in Iceland and gave rise to a new version'. As well as drawing on ''The Four Sons of Aymon'' in chs 5-22, it has striking overlaps with the '' Pelerinage de Charlemagne'' in ch. 1, the folktale type AT 1552 in ch. 2, to ''

Decameron ''The Decameron'' (; it, label=Italian, Decameron or ''Decamerone'' ), subtitled ''Prince Galehaut'' (Old it, Prencipe Galeotto, links=no ) and sometimes nicknamed ''l'Umana commedia'' ("the Human comedy", as it was Boccaccio that dubbed Dan ...

'' 3:9 in chs 2–4. The saga also draws on the Norse texts ''

Þiðreks saga ''Þiðreks saga af Bern'' ('the saga of Þiðrekr of Bern', also ''Þiðrekssaga'', ''Þiðriks saga'', ''Niflunga saga'' or ''Vilkina saga'', with Anglicisations including ''Thidreksaga'') is an Old Norse chivalric saga centering the character ...

'', ''

Karlamagnús saga The ''Karlamagnús saga'', ''Karlamagnussaga'' or ''Karlamagnus-saga'' (" saga of Charlemagne") was a late-thirteenth-century Norse prose compilation and adaptation, made for Haakon V of Norway, of the Old French '' chansons de geste'' of the Ma ...

'', ''

Hálfs saga ok Hálfsrekka ''Hálfs saga ok Hálfsrekka'' (''The Saga of Half & His Heroes'') or ''Hálfssaga'' is a legendary saga composed in the early 14th century, based on a legend that has also been preserved in the Scandinavian medieval ballad '' Stolt Herr Alf''.Mitc ...

'', and ''

Snorra Edda The ''Prose Edda'', also known as the ''Younger Edda'', ''Snorri's Edda'' ( is, Snorra Edda) or, historically, simply as ''Edda'', is an Old Norse textbook written in Iceland during the early 13th century. The work is often assumed to have been t ...

''. The younger version includes ''Geirarðs þáttr'', which draws on the ''

Gesta Romanorum ''Gesta Romanorum'', meaning ''Deeds of the Romans'' (a very misleading title), is a Latin collection of anecdotes and tales that was probably compiled about the end of the 13th century or the beginning of the 14th. It still possesses a two-fold l ...

''.Jürg Glauser, 'Mágus saga jarls', in ''Medieval Scandinavia: An Encyclopedia'', ed. by Phillip Pulsiano (New York: Garland, 1993), pp. 403-3 (p. 402). 'Parts of the material of the saga are also found in ''Mágus rímur'' and ''Geirarðs rímur'', in the Faroese ballad ''Karlamagnus kvæði'' (''Karlamagnus og Jógvan kongur'', CCF 106), and in Norwegian ballads (''Dei tri vilkåri'', ''

The Types of the Scandinavian Medieval Ballad ''The Types of the Scandinavian Medieval Ballad: A Descriptive Catalogue'' (TSB) is the designation for a cataloguing system for Scandinavian ballads. It is also the title of the underlying reference book: ''The Types of the Scandinavian Medieva ...

'', TSB D 404)'.

Editions and translations

* Gunnlaugur Þórðarson, ed. ''Bragða-Mágus saga með tilheyrandi þáttum. Copenhagen: Pall Sveinsson, 1858. (The longer version of the saga, based on AM 152, fol.) * Cederschiold, Gustaf, ed. "Magus saga jarls." In Fornsögur Suðrlanda. Lund: Gleerup, 1884. Pp. 1-42. (Based on AM 533, 4°; AM 580b, 4°; AM 556, 4°.) * Páll Eggert Ólason (ed.), Mágus saga jarls ásamt þáttum af Hrólfi skuggafífli, Vilhjálmi Laissyni og Geirarði Vilhjálmssyni, Fjallkonuútgáfan, 1916 * ''Riddarasögur'', ed. by Bjarni Vilhjálmsson, 6 vols (Reykjavík: Íslendingasagnaútgáfan, 1949–1951), II, 135–429. (Longer version, modernised from Gunnlaugur's edition.) * Dodsworth, J. B. "''Mágus saga jarls'', edited with complete variants from pre-Reformation manuscripts, with an introduction on the sources of the saga and their treatment, and notes on the later textual history." Ph.D. thesis, Cambridge, Christ's College, 1962–63. (Based on AM 580,4°; AM 152, fol.; AM 556b, 4°; AM 534,4°; AM 533,4°; AM 556b, 4°.)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Magus saga jarls Chivalric sagas Icelandic literature Old Norse literature