Gregorius in Schweden

Abstract

The Linköping Legendary contains amongst other texts an Old Swedish translation of the well-known medieval German legend of Gregory on the Stone. This text was translated into Swedish around 1525 in the monastery of Vadstena. In this article the Swedish translation is compared with the Middle High and Middle Low German originals. This comparison makes it highly probable that the translation was based on the 1478 Low German edition of the ‘Der Heiligen Leben’, also known as the ‘Passional’, by Lucas Brandis. Some differences between the Swedish translation and its exemplar can be explained as mistakes in understanding the Low German original.