SAGA-BOOK - Viking Society Web Publications

278 Saga-Book of the Viking Society
afterwards Margretar saga in nomine Patris, Filii et spiritus
sancti."?
Here the power of delivering a child from its mother is
attributed to the M argretar saga, and the same property is
indicated by the fact that in AM 431 rzmo the M argretar
saga is followed by "lausn yfir j6l'5sjukri konu" (deliverance
for a woman in childbirth), sections of which are almost
word for word the same as those which are to be tied to
the thigh of the woman in accordance with the instructions
quoted by Gucmundur Einarsson. And after the text of
the saga in AM 433 c rzrno there apparently come the
same formula and prayers for deliverance as in AM 431
rzmo." In the oldest manuscripts of the M argreiar saga
there is also the promise that in the house where the story
is kept no child will be born dead or lame.
It is clear from the above that the M argretar saga was
considered to possess the power to preserve mother and
child in difficult deliveries. I do not know of this faith in
the actual text of St Margaret's life among other people
than the Icelanders, but St Margaret herself is one of the
fourteen auxiliary saints, and her intercession is particularly
invoked in childbirth. 9 Von Hovorka and Kronfeld
say that in Oberland it was believed to be helpful to put
consecrated objects under the pillow of a woman in
childbirth and to invoke St Margaret.!? and they also
make mention of a deliverance-belt of St Margaret. It
was a piece of cloth or ribbon which was tied around the
woman's loins in the name of the Holy Trinity, after
which the woman was made to push and to invoke the
70lafur Daviosson, Galdur og galdramdl d Islandi (1940-43), 128-9: .. ,
lausnarbokina mOO slnum ollum stofum, reglurn, inntokum og excipitur.
einkum aObinda petta viO lrerid a j60sjUkri kvinnu: Anna perperit .•. spiritus
sancti,
a Kr, Kalund, Alfrcebi islenzk III (1917-18), 89, 90; Hans Bekker-Nielsen,
'En god ben', Opuecula II I (Bibliotheca Arnamagnreana XXV I, 1961),52-8
(on AM 431 rarno and 433 c rzmo).
a See e.g. M. Buchberger, Lexikon fur Theologie und Kirche» VII (1962),
19; Handuuirterbucb des deutschen Aberglaubens V (1932-33),1634-5; A. Franz,
Die kirchlichen Benediktionen im Millelalter (1909), II 193-4.
10 O. von Hovorka and A. Kronfeld, Vergleichende Volksmedizin (1908-9),
II 566.