Norse Romances , and: Volume I: The Tristan Legends , and: Volume II: Knights of the Round Table , and: Volume III: Hœrra Ivan ed. by Marianne E. Kalinke (review)

Abstract

78ARTHURIANA the high points, it is not always up to date. In many chapters John adopts a chatty tone (comparing Woden to a 'Premier league football manager,' Suetonius to a 'bitchy gossip columnist,' King David to a 'shifty politician'), and examples could be multiplied throughout. The odd casual ethnic stereotype will irritate a number of readers. Along with the deliberately conversational style and the light annotation comes a seemingly casual handling ofhard information, as ifremembered, but not checked. This mode of scholarship occasionally gets the book into trouble. In reference to pagan ritual intoxication, John writes 'Contemporary Christian writers called them deoflumgylde, devil's guilds' (24). There are at least seventeen instances ofthe word 'deofolgylde,' eleven of which are in /Elfric, two in the OE translation of the Ecclesiastical History, and four in the Old English Martyrology, that is, ranging over the ninth, tenth, and early eleventh centuries. Apart from the badly remembered (indeed, impossible) compound form and the tendentious translation ofgield, what 'contemporaries' are being referred to? We are not told. Similarly, in a chapter on the politics of the Benedictine Reform (Ch. 6), John means to illustrate his contention that life in the newly reformed houses of the late tenth century was harsh. He recounts the well-known story of/Ethelwold and the stew pot, claiming that one Foldbriht, later abbot of Pershore, was the parboiled Abingdon cook in vEthelwold's test of obedience. No source is given for the story, but surely this is a lapsus memoriae, since both Wulfstan ofWinchester and Aelfric, in their 'Lives of yEthelwold,' identify the monk as one iElfstan (Aelfstanus or Elstanus). Chapter 2 is structured around much-told tales. Students of literature will not wish to consult the chapter for its take on Beowulf. While Mr. John is welcome to his view that the poem is early, his reference to Busse and Holtei's 1981 study as published 'recently' leads one to suspect that this chapter had a life well before that ofthe book. And his refusal to update the considerable bibliography on the dating of Beowulf(see, especially his n. 33 and 34) is either cavalier or sloppy. The final note of this chapter, n. 38, is a self-indulgent personal narrative about how the author scored a public bon mot put down ofa 'lady' from the 'City system' in New York by drawing her attention to the difference between 'copulate' and its fourletter street partner. The note cries out for editorial excision. ReassessingAnglo-Saxon England is a provocative and often entertaining read for someone well-versed in Anglo-Saxon history. But it should be used by a neophyte with some caution. KATHERINE O'BRIEN o'kEEFFE University of Notre Dame Marianne E. KALiNKE, ed., Norse Romances, Arthurian Archives IH-V. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1999. Volume I: The Tristan Legends. Pp. x, 294. isbn: 0-85991-552-2. $90. Volume II: Knights ofthe Round Table. Pp. 329. isbn: 0-85991-556-5. $90. Volume III: Harra Ivan. Pp. 313. isbn: 0-85991-560-3. $75. This three-volume set makes available for the first time a critical edition and facing- REVIEWS79 page English translation ofeleven Arthurian romances from Scandinavia. The tales, ranging in length from 60 to 6446 lines, comprise seven translations from Old French poetry into Old Norse prose, one translation from Old French poetry into Old Swedish verse, and three Icelandic compositions from the fourteenth and fifteenth century. Two other medieval Scandinavian works touching on Arthur— Breta sögur (The Sagas of the British) and Merlínusspá (The Prophecy of Merlin), both translated from Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia regum Britanniae—are not included, as they fall outside the category of roman courtois. The first set oftranslations are associated in many manuscripts with the court of King Hákon Hákonarson of Norway (1217-1263). The French texts to which the Norwegian translators were drawn include Thomas's Tristan (Tristrams saga ok !sondar); three courtly romances by Chrétien de Troyes—Erec et Enide (Erex saga), Le chevalier au lion or Yvain (fvens saga), and the fragmentary Le conte du graal or Perceval (ParcevaL· saga, verses 1-6513), and Valvenspáttr, verse 6514 to the end); two...