SAGA-BOOK - Viking Society Web Publications

Bergr Sokkasons Michaels saga
desert .. "24 The location on the one hand in Egypt,
and on the other in the desert, occurs in separate sentences
in the Prologue to the Vita: Patrum. 2 5 A point in which
Berg's version follows the Latin more closely than the
other is in the name given to the place, Petra in Michaels
Saga and in the Latin text, Liger in the other translation.
The main difference between Berg's version and the
other two is simply one of length. He adds no new
material, but everything that the Latin allows to remain
implicit Bergr chooses to make explicit. In the Vita:
Patrum, Latin and vernacular versions, Isidore suggests
that Moses should return to his cell. Bergr adds to the
simple instruction the encouragement that he "will
conquer in the strife". In the original it is not thought
necessary to explain Moses's reluctance to obey, "noluit
abbas Moyses pergere ad cellulam suam", but in Michaels
Saga there is emphasis on his feeling of helplessness in the
face of such enemies. These additions are typical of
Berg's attempts to increase the dramatic elements in his
material, but a less explicable change is in the direction
of the windows from which the devils are seen. In all
three versions the angels are seen from a window facing
east, but whereas the other two versions place the devilhaunted
window facing west, Bergr changes it from west
to north, perhaps because he has already associated
Lucifer's realm with the northern regions in accordance
with Biblical tradition.s"
The text then covers a number of episodes in which good
and bad angels are set against each other, typical exempla
of the kind used frequently in homilies, culminating in the
story of the Irishman named Duggall (Tnugdal, Tundal).
.. "Tveir heilagir teor rneor abota nofnum bygou i Egiptalands eyoimorkum,
annarr Moises en annarr Ysodorus aboti" (Hms. I 679).
25 Hms, II 337, lines I, 13,21,33.
•• It is worth noticing, however, that when Bergr comes to the apparition of
Michael on Mount Garganus, where the Latin describes two doors leading to
a crypt of which the southern is the larger, Bergr again alters his text and
makes the northern door the larger of the two. It is perhaps possible that he
had a particular building in mind, and changed his directions accordingly.