Gripla - 01.01.1984, Blaðsíða 291

KONUNGSBÓK EDDUKVÆÐA
287
guðslukku snortinn af húmanismanum, fornmenntastefnunni, og heíur
starfsemi hans ekki alltaf verið ofmetin, en mikil gæfa varð það bók-
menntum vorum og menningu, að slíkur maður skyldi veljast á biskups-
stól og hafa forustu um mikla fræðastarfsemi. Hversu miklu meir en
ella hefði glatast, hefði ‘þessi mikli rauðskeggur’15 ekki sýnt heiðnum
fræðum slíkan áhuga?
15 Jón Helgason. Handritaspjall. Rv. 1958. 84.
SUMMARY
I
In the Codex Regius of the Poetic Edda there is a lacuna of one gathering, and the
poems that were in it have not been preserved. The most recent discussion of the
subject matter of those poems is that by Theodore M. Andersson. The last poem
before the lacuna in the Codex Regius is Sigurdrífumál, which ends there on the
2nd line of the 29th stanza, but in paper copies dating from the 17th century the
poem is longer, consisting of 37 stanzas. A different text of the poem appears in
Völsunga saga. Sigurdrífumál consists of a sequence of magical formulae and pre-
cepts revealed to Sigurður Fáfnisbani by a valkyrie who is named Sigurdrífa in the
Edda and Brynhildur in Völsunga saga. The fullest treatments of the paper manu-
scripts are those by Sophus Bugge and Jón Helgason.
Only one scholar known to the author, Andreas Heusler, has advanced the idea
(and then without supportive arguments) that material was copied from the Codex
Regius one or two years before it came into the possession of Bishop Brynjólfur
Sveinsson in 1643. No-one seems previously to have proposed a connection be-
tween the copying of a complete Sigurdrífumál and Völsunga saga.
II
Völsunga saga is preserved in one parchment manuscript, Nks. 1824 b, 4to, which
also contains Ragnars saga loðbrókar. All the paper copies of Ragnars saga derive
from this manuscript, and it is probable that the same applies to the paper copies
of Völsunga saga, but not all of them have yet been studied. Arngrímur Jónsson
lærði does not refer to Völsunga saga in his writings, but he does refer to Ragnars
saga, and evidently in the same version as is preserved in Nks. 1824 b, 4to. In 1632
Professor Ole Worm of the University of Copenhagen asked the Rev. Magnús
Ólafsson in Laufás to send him specimens of old poetry. The original manuscript
that Magnús sent to Worm is now lost, but a copy of it is extant (R:693), and also
Magnús’s own original text, which he kept (R:702). Magnús’s own manuscript con-
tains Sigurdrífumál in the version as in Völsunga saga, but Sigurdrífumál is not in
the copy of the manuscript that Magnús sent to Worm. A plausible reason for this
is that Magnús feared that he would be suspected of witchcraft if he copied Sigur-