Bevers saga or Bevis saga is an Old Norse chivalric saga, translated from a now lost version of the Anglo-Norman poem Boeve de Haumtone.[1] Kalinke summarises the saga as follows:
"The work is a medieval soap opera that commences with the murder of Bevers's father, instigated by Bevers's mother, and carried out by a rival wooer who in turn is killed by Bevers. The ensuing plot includes enslavement, imprisonment, abductions, separations, childbirth, heathen-Christian military and other encounters - Bevers marries a Muslim princess - and mass conversions."[2]
Bevis saga survives only in Icelandic manuscripts. It is preserved almost intact in two medieval manuscripts, Perg. 4to. no. 6 (c. 1400) and Stock. Perg fol. no. 7 (late 15th century). It was also included in Ormsbók, a 14th-century compilation of chivalric sagas, which now only survives in paper copies from the 17th century (Papp. fol. no. 46).
Kalinke and Mitchell identified the following manuscripts of the saga:[3]
| Perg 4to nr 6 (ca 1400) | |
| AM 118a 8vo, (17th c) | |
| AM 179 fol (17th c) | |
| AM 181 c fol (ca 1650) | |
| AM 567 II 4to (14th c), vellum | |
| AM 567 VII 4to (ca 1400), vellum | |
| Bragi Húnfjörður, Stykkisholmur, MS 1 4to (late 19th c) | |
| IBR 5 fol (1680) | |
| IBR 97 4to (1763–85) | |
| JS 34 4to (1803–04) | |
| Lbs 1501 4to (1880-1905) | |
| Lbs 1502 8vo (1885–88) | |
| Lbs 2785 4to (1832–79) | |
| Lbs 3161 4to (ca 1900) | |
| Lbs 946 4to (late 18th c, 1844) | |
| Papp 4to nr 6 (later 17th c) | |
| Papp fol nr 46 (1690) | |
| Perg fol nr 7 (late 15th c) | |
| Rask 31 (18th c) | |
| NKS 1144 fol (18th c) (résumé) |