Arizona Studies in the Middle Ages and Renaissance (ASMAR), Vol. 15
St. Oswald of Northumbria: Continental Metamorphoses (With an Edition and Translation of Ósvalds saga and Van sunte Oswaldo deme konninghe)
St. Oswald of Northumbria: Continental Metamorphoses is a study of the development of the legend of St. Oswald, whose cult flourished in medieval Germany. The earliest German Oswald legend, known solely in Icelandic translation, gave rise to a conversion/martyr legend with a bridal-quest narrative and a bridal-quest romance in which the saint no longer dies a martyr. The study of the continental legend of St. Oswald is accompanied by an edition and translation of Ósvalds saga, which represents the oldest vernacular legend on the continent, and an edition and translation of Van sunte Oswaldo deme konninghe, an abbreviated Low German legend deriving ultimately from the earliest version known solely in Icelandic translation.
Reviews
The appeal of the monograph is not so much that it makes a lesser Icelandic saint’s life available in very convenient form but that it provides all the material for a reassessment of the Münchner Oswald. Twelfth-century German epic is not superabundant, and the Münchner Oswald is one of the central texts. Understanding its genesis is therefore important to all students of medieval German literature. We can live without another run-of-the-mill Icelandic saint’s life, but the Münchner Oswald is really a key text. The market for the book is therefore more in German circles than among Norsists, and it is the Germanists who will have to come to terms with the author’s arguments. If the arguments are judged to be correct, the handbooks and literary histories will have to be changed accordingly. It is also the German audience for the study that justifies the careful edition and the translation of the Icelandic text.
—Theodore M. Andersson (Indiana University)
