Íslenzk tunga - 01.01.1964, Blaðsíða 82

80
ANTHONY FAULKES
Five of these — Kjalnesinga Saga, Króka-Refs Saga, Bandamanna
Saga, Hávarðar Saga, and Orms Þáttr Stórólfssonar — appear in
this MS with a text showing readings very similar to that of the
quotations in SLR. Víglundar Saga is only quoted twice, and then
apparently from memory, and the seventh, Egils Saga, has in this
MS a text of the same type as that used for SLR, though not so simi-
lar as in the case of the other sagas.
This MS is ascribed to the first half of the 17th century, but it is
probably not old enough to have been used by Magnús Ólafsson, who
died in 1636. It is probable that it is a copy of another large saga-
manuscript, now lost, which must have contained at least the five
first-named sagas, and possibly most of the sagas now preserved in
568. This lost MS must have been the one used by Magnús. It may
perhaps have been a vellum of a similar type to Möðruvallabók, since
large saga-collections on paper were not common in the early 17th
century. It is possible, however, though hardly likely, that Magnús
used separate MSS of all these sagas, but it would be a great coin-
cidence if AM 568 4to were fortuitously to contain texts of five of
these sagas with readings corresponding almost exactly with those
of the quotations in SLR.
It can be seen in the list of contents in AM 568 that originally this
MS contained Grettis Saga. Therefore it may be that the lost MS used
by Magnús Ólafsson for his quotations from this saga was part of the
MS from which AM 568 was copied.
Egils Saga was probably not included in this postulated lost MS,
as the text of this saga in AM 568 is very corrupt (as well as being
fragmentary, the MS being, especially in this part, very tattered and
ill-preserved), much more so than the quotations in SLR. But this text
is at least derived from the same copy of Möðruvallabók as that used
for SLR. Since, however, there are other MSS of Egla even closer to
the readings in SLR than 568, the quotations from this saga are dis-
cussed separately (pp. 72—79 above).
The following quotations will demonstrate the similarity of the