Gripla - 01.01.1982, Qupperneq 189

AN OLD ICELANDIC DIALECT FEATURE 185
(6) Document no. 420 in DI VII. Issued in Skriða, Fljótsdalur,
Múlasýsla, eastern Iceland, in 1498. Contains liækiar dal on the verso
page, written with the same hand as the recto page, or with a simul-
taneous hand. The manuscript is AM Fasc. XXXIII 28. As the docu-
ment belonged to the archives of the Munkaþverárklaustur, Eyjafjörður,
Eyjafjarðarsýsla, northern Iceland, and concerns the transfer of some
land from the Skriða monastery to Munkaþverárklaustur, the document
and its verso page may have been written by a scribe pertaining to the
latter — northern — institution.
(7) Document no. 111 in DI VIII. Issued in Helgastaðir, Þingeyjar-
sýsla, northern Iceland, in 1506. Contains liækiamote in 123.17 of the
printed text. The manuscript is AM Fasc. XXXVIII 4.
(8) Unpublished document. Issued in Saurbær, Rauðasandur, Barða-
strandarsýsla, western Iceland, in 1578. Contains saurbiæg, briansliæk-
ar. The text of the document is preserved in the Arnamagnæan apograph
no. 4885.
(9) Unpublished document. Issued in Hof, Höfðaströnd, Skaga-
fjarðarsýsla, northern Iceland, in 1598. Contains stranga liækiar. The
manuscript is AM Fasc. LIX 23.
(10) Unpublished document. Issued in Skarð, Skarðsströnd, Dala-
sýsla, western Iceland, in 1612. Contains saurbiæiar sveit. (The Saurbær
referred to here is in Dalasýsla, western Iceland.) The text of the docu-
ment is preserved in the Arnamagnæan apograph no. 5278.
Conclusions concerning the documents. All in all, ten documents
have been shown above to contain instances of iæ-spellings. The oldest
document of this kind dates from 1344, the youngest from 1612. Two
of the documents were issued in the fourteenth, four in the fifteenth,
three in the sixteenth, and one at the beginning of the seventeenth
century. Six of the documents were issued in northern Iceland (in Þing-
eyjar-, Eyjafjarðar- and Skagafjarðarsýsla); (2) and (6) are not necess-
arily northern in origin, but they do display strong ties with the north;
(8) was issued in Barðastrandarsýsla, western Iceland, and (10) in
Dalasýsla, western Iceland. (Barðastrandarsýsla and Dalasýsla are both
in the Breiðafjörður region.)
Thus the impression is that the iæ-spellings of the documents are
basically connected with the north, and to lesser extent with the Breiða-
fjörður region. The impression could be wrong in view of the circum-