Ála flekks saga (English:The Saga of Blemished Ali) is a medieval IcelandicRomance saga, with influence from theological teachings, especially those ofAugustine of Hippo.[1] It was the basis for three cycles ofrímur.[2][3][4] It has been seen as an important early witness to theSnow White folktale type (ATU 709).[5]
The saga blends motifs from theriddarasögur, thefornaldarsögur, andfolk tales. As a baby, Áli flekkr, the son of King Ríkarðr of England, is left exposed in the woods but is rescued by peasants. After he marries Þornbjǫrg, a maiden king, a number of misfortunes befall him because he has rejected the love of a female troll. He is temporarily turned into a wolf; in a dream he is wounded and can be cured only by the rejected troll's brothers. Eventually Áli succeeds his father as king of England.[6]
Drei lygisǫgur: Egils saga Einhenda ok Ásmundar Berserkjabana, Ála Flekks saga, Flóres saga konungs ok sona hans, ed. by Åke Lagerholm, Altnordische Saga-Bibliothek, 17 (Halle (Saale): Niemeyer, 1927), pp. 84–120. (Edition.)
Riddarasögur, ed. by Bjarni Vilhjálmsson, 6 vols (Reykjavík: Íslendingasagnaútgáfan, 1949–1951), V 123-60. (Edition, modernised spelling.)
Six Old Icelandic Sagas, trans. by W. Bryant Bachman and Guðmundur Erlingsson (Lanham: University Press of America, 1993), pp. 41–61. (English translation.)
Isländische Märchensagas, Band I: Die Saga von Ali Flekk, Die Saga von Vilmund Vidutan, Die Saga von König Flores und seinen Söhnen, Die Saga von Sigurd Thögli, Die Saga von Damusti, Jürg Glauser, Gert Kreutzer and Herbet Wäckerlin eds. and trans., Diederichs: Munich 1998, pp. 20–40. (German translation.)
Ásdís Rósa Magnúsdóttir and Hélène Tétrel, inHistoires des Bretagnes: 3. La petite saga de Tristan et autres sagas islandaises inspirées de la matière de Bretagne, ed. by Ásdís Rósa Magnúsdóttir and Hélène Tétrel (Brest: Centre de Recherche Bretonne et Celtique, 2012), pp. 123–41. (French translation.)
Markéta Podolská, inLživé ságy starého Severu, ed. by Jiří Starý (Prague: Herrmann & synové, 2015), pp. 73–91. (Czech translation.)
Jonathan Y. H. Hui, Caitlin Ellis, James McIntosh, Katherine Marie Olley, William Norman and Kimberly Anderson, 'Ála flekks saga: An Introduction, Text and Translation',Leeds Studies in English, n.s. 49 (2018), 1-43.
