Gripla - 20.12.2010, Side 161

161
Manuscript Scribe(s), date Ends at (page/line
in Björn K. Þórólfsson’s
edition)
SKB isl. Papp. 4:o nr 4 Þorleifur Jónsson, ? ante 1640 145/13
KB Thott 1768 4to Ásgeir Jónsson, 1687 145/6
BL Add. 5317 Oddur Jónsson, undated 145/4
AM 566 b 4to Árni Magnússon (ff. 1–8),
continued by Ásgeir Jónsson,
? 1686/87 142/18
KB NKS 1149 fol. Oddur Jónsson, 1768 137/17
(and secondary copy in
BL Add. 11,126)
The Rev. Oddur Jónsson († 1814) studied theology in Copenhagen from
1757 to 1759 and remained in Denmark for another 15 years before return-
ing to Iceland to be ordained.38 His direct transcript of Fóstbrœðra saga in
Add. 5317 reaches approximately the same place as Ásgeir Jónsson’s in
Thott 1768, some half dozen lines earlier in Björn K. Þórólfsson’s edition
than the end of Þorleifur Jónsson’s M-derived text in Papp. 4. His second
direct transcript, NKS 1149, ends some 80 lines earlier in the edition, while
AM 566 b, written with the active participation of Árni Magnússon, ends
some 40 lines earlier. Though the estimation of column and page lengths
in lost manuscripts is not an exact science, a column of M can be taken to
equal between 40 and 50 lines in the edition. The figures accordingly sug-
gest that a page in M—most likely the unpro tected back page of quire
*26—existed in a poor state of preserva tion in Oddur Jónsson’s time, and
that the second column was in an even poorer state than the first (compare,
for example, the damage to f. 91v at the end of quire 11). With sufficient
effort both Oddur (in Add. 5317) and Ásgeir (in Thott 1768) could never-
theless decipher all of the first and most of the second column. Neither of
them, however, could make out the extra lines preserved indirectly by
Þorleifur Jónsson. These lines were doubtless located at the bottom right-
hand corner of the page. Ásgeir, when completing AM 566 b for Árni
Magnússon, refrained from attempting the second column; Oddur, when
writing NKS 1149, omitted the whole page.39 There is no way of knowing
38 See Páll Eggert Ólason, Íslenzkar æviskrár frá Landnámstímum til ársloka 1940, vol. IV
(Reykja vík: Hið íslenzka bókmenntafélag, 1951), 15.
39 Cf. Björn K. Þórólfsson, Fóstbrœðra saga, XIV–XV.
MÖÐRUVALLABÓ K