Íslenzk tunga - 01.01.1964, Page 39

the sources of specimen lexici runici
37
make contributions. Among the obvious additions made in this way
are all the quotations from the elder Edda, none of which are in DG
55, the material from Brynjólfur Sveinsson’s Conjectanea (see he-
low), and much of the material taken from the various lawbooks.
Some of the quotations from Snorra Edda and Njáls Saga are pro-
bably also among the additions, and some other minor entries. The
sources of these additions are discussed in more detail below.
Worm’s Part in the Editing of the Glossary. Worm himself
had but a very sketchy knowledge of Icelandic, and it is unlikely
that he could have made many additions himself (except perhaps
those from Conjectanea, see below), but he may have been responsi-
ble for the rearrangement of the glossary, for the translation of the
Danish explanations into Latin, and for the transcription of the head-
words into runes.
Worm’s primary interest in Old Norse was in runes, and, as is well
known, many people at this time considered that all Old Norse litera-
ture had originally been written in runic characters. Hence the title
of the dictionary. It was the practice of Worm, in his, other publi-
cations, and in letters, and of Brynjólfur, to write all quotations from
Old Norse sources in runes.
Stephanius’ Part in the Editing of the Glossary. As was
stated above, DG 55 was made for Stephanius’ own personal use, and
it was not used in the publication of the dictionary. Stephanius used
some material from the glossary for his own publication, Notce
Vberiores in Historiam Danicam Saxonis Grammatici (1645), which
was a volume of notes to his edition of Saxo’s Historia Danica. The
readings of these quotations show that they were copied from DG 55,
and not from the original glossary.9
There are 24 items in DG 55 which are not present in SLR, of
0 Stephanius’ use o{ this material is discussed hy Jakob Benediktsson, “ís-
lenzkar heimildir í Saxo-skýringum Stephaniusar,” Landsbókasafn íslands. Ár-
bók 1946—1947, 104—114, also printed in Afmœliskveðja til Halldórs Her-
nuinnssonar (1948), 46—56.