SAGA-BOOK - Viking Society Web Publications

Margretar Saga and its History in Iceland 279
saintly virgin.'! But no mention is made of the book
containing her passion and in general it was the Blessed
Virgin whose help was sought for women in childbirth,
in Scandinavia as elsewhere.P It would seem that faith
in the power of the actual text of the life of St Margret in
connection with childbirth was something peculiar to
Iceland, originating in the days of Catholicism but
surviving long after the Reformation. I can at any rate
see no other explanation of the multitude of copies of her
saga from post-Reformation times. If the saga was in
fact believed to have special powers in helping women in
childbirth, it may seem strange that no mention is made
of dautt barn ne lama in the Reykjavik printing of the saga.
I can offer no explanation for this. Any attempt to do so
would of course require a preliminary examination of all
the manuscripts of the saga to see how they may differ in
this detail, and it would be desirable to consider the Latin
texts as well. I have not had an opportunity to make
such an investigation, but I have gleaned from the
manuscript catalogues what information they offer about
the other contents of manuscripts containing the
M argretar saga. Among the pre-Reformation manuscripts
three are larger collections in which the M argretar saga
appears with many other saints' lives. In one of these the
Murgretar saga is followed by prayers. Seven other old
manuscripts are fragments which tell us nothing of what
other works may have appeared with the saga, but five
others seem to have contained only the M argretar saga;
in three of them it is followed by prayers and in the other
two by the formulae for deliverance spoken of above.
The larger collections of saints' lives were probably
intended for the edification of the pious and they may well
have been the property of religious houses or churches,
but the manuscripts that contain only the saga reveal the
11 ibid. II 615.
11 Cf. E. Gotfredsen, 'Barsel', Kulturhistorisk Leksikonfor nordisk Middelalder
I (1956); v. M011er Christensen, Middelalderens Lagekunst i Danmark (1944);
I. Reichborn-Kjennerud, Var gamle Trolldomsmedisin II (1933).