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ÞJÓSTÓLFS SAGA HAMRAMMA
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neither a signature nor a source quotation. The contents of this volume
comprise a treatise on runes by Björn Jónsson á Skarðsá (1642), a
Ráðning Brynhildarljóða, and a commentary on the Völuspá. Evidently
the source manuscript disappeared sometime before the end of the
nineteenth century, for it was not recorded by Kálund in his catalogues
of Icelandic manuscripts in Copenhagen.10 Whether this loss or mis-
placement was due to Adeldahl cannot be stated with certainty, but the
connection arouses suspicion. Moreover, in Nks. 1778b, 4to, from the
same group, three out of the four sagas there have no source given,
and it is known that all three also disappeared from the source manu-
script AM 109a, Svo.11 This latter manuscript was once handled by
Adeldahl, for he copied Hálfdánar saga Eysteinssonar from it as Nks.
1756, 4to.
Two additional manuscripts have not been included in the above 36-
member control group because they are so problematic. The first, Nks.
1585, 4to, does not quote a manuscript source, and the flyleaf states
that the original was not from the Arnamagnæan collection, but rather
“et til laans bekommet Manuscript fra Island in 4to” (‘a manuscript in
quarto on loan from Iceland’). Although all but five pages are written
in Adeldahl’s hand, the title page bears the name M. Magnusen! The
signature is identical to that found on many manuscripts housed in the
Royal Library and most likely belongs to Markús Magnússon, an Ice-
landic student in Copenhagen at the same time as Adeldahl (1771-
1779).12 The hand not by Adeldahl deviates somewhat from Magnusen’s
usual orthography, although it very probably represents his hasty
cursive, a variety of which appears on Nks. 1789, 4to, Nks. 1790, 4to,
and slightly less hurried on Nks. 1776, 4to.
The second problematic manuscript, AM 839, 4to, has been attri-
10 In Kr. Kálund, Katalog over den Arnamagnœanske hándskriftsamling, 2 vols.
(Kpbenhavn, 1889-94), II, 571 is listed a Tractatus um Runer, ms. Steph. 21, from
the first half of the 18th century, and in 1963 a fragmentary commentary by Björn
Jónsson á Skarðsá on Heiðreks saga, a versified riddle, a Radning Brynhildar lioda
and Vr Harbardz liödum were transferred from AM 164, 8vo to their original, late
17th-century AM 167a-b, 8vo. If the latter manuscript was the source of Nks.
1886, 4to, it should be noted that much of AM 167a-b, 8vo was copied as Nks.
1891, 4to by Þorlákur Magnússon Isfiord around the same time.
11 Ibid., II, 397.
12 Islenzkar ceviskrár, III, 472-473. Islenzkir Hafnarstúdentar, p. 118.