Breta saga: Editiones Arnamagnæanæ, Series A

A unique edition of the Breta saga that presents Old Norse translations of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia regum Britanniae, offering a rare view of the legendary history of the kings of Britain across its multiple versions.

Between 1130 and 1138, probably in Oxford, Geoffrey of Monmouth (c. 1100-1154) wrote his major work on the British kings, Historia regum Britanniae, which quickly became very popular. As soon as the mid-twelfth century, the French poet Wace had translated and reworked this work into verse, a work known as the Roman de brut. It is assumed that Geoffrey's entire work was translated in Iceland at the beginning of the thirteenth century, and in the Old Norse tradition, it was most often called Breta sögur. In this publication series, however, it has been given the title Breta saga. In the manuscripts, Breta saga is conceived as a continuation of Trójumanna saga, an Old Norse translation of the story of the Trojan War, since the two texts always accompany each other. Breta saga is preserved in two versions, one longer and one shorter. The short version is closest to Geoffrey's Latin text, whereas the text of the long version contains interpolations that point toward Wace's French translation.

This edition of the Breta saga reproduces these four transmissions of the text. The texts are laid out in the same manner as in Jonna Louis-Jensen's edition of Trójumanna saga, with the long version of the saga printed at the top of the page and the short version at the bottom. The introduction discusses the various parts of the saga, with a focus on the translation's rendering of the Latin text and on the relationship between the two Old Norse versions.