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the bulk of his edition. Reconciling these structurally disparate versions
within the space of a critical apparatus is all but impossible, and while it is
more often the case that younger manuscripts vanish in the long shadow
of older and more “textually significant” copies of a text, very little use is
actually made of the oldest manuscripts preserving Grýlukvæði in Þulur og
þjóðkvæði.
the older of these two manuscripts is AM 147 8vo, a songbook writ-
ten in 1665 by Gissur sveinsson (1604–1683).13 A second, closely related
songbook from the late seventeenth century, Add. 11.177, contains a text
almost identical to Gissur’s.14 Whereas ólafur davíðsson describes AM
147 8vo as containing only a fragment (brot) of Grýlukvæði and made no use
whatsoever of Add. 11.177,15 there is no material evidence that these texts
are defective or fragmentary, though it is worth noting that there is a break
in the pattern of repetition towards the end of both texts: neither of the
last two stanzas repeats material from the stanza immediately preceding it,
possibly indicating that the text has been abridged. nevertheless, the narra-
tive itself is internally cohesive, beginning with Grýla’s arrival and ending
with Grýla scurrying away into a passageway and vanishing from sight.
the unknown scribes of Add. 11.177 did not copy Grýlukvæði directly
from AM 147 8vo, but the manuscripts are closely related and contain
much of the same material. jón Helgason posited that the exemplar for
Add. 11.177 was a sister manuscript of AM 147 8vo.16 In 1699–1700, this
now-lost exemplar was in Vigur, where Magnús ketilsson made a copy
for Magnús jónsson of Vigur (of which only copies are now extant), but
he omitted Grýlukvæði and six other items — perhaps, as jón Helgason
suggested, because Magnús jónsson already owned copies of these poems
in his extensive library at Vigur.17 extant and reconstructed manuscripts
13 A facsimile edition of AM 147 8vo was printed in 1960 as part of the series Íslenzk rit síðari
alda. jón Helgason described the manuscript in his introduction, which was published as a
separate volume and includes a biography of Gissur sveinsson, see Kvæðabók séra Gissurar
Sveinssonar: AM 147 8vo, ed. jón Helgason, íslenzk rit síðari alda, 2nd series, ljósprentanir,
vol. 2 (Copenhagen: Hið íslenzka fræðafélag, 1960), 8–18.
14 for a detailed description of Add. 11.177 and its contents, see Kvæðabók séra Gissurar
Sveinssonar, 36–39.
15 “Hrs. finns Magnússonar í Brit. Mus. 174, 4to. ekki notað.” Þulur og þjóðkvæði, 118.
16 Cf. Kvæðabók séra Gissurar Sveinssonar, 45–49; 52–53; see also Haukur Þorgeirsson,
“Þóruljóð og Háu-Þóruleikur,” Gripla 22 (2011): 212.
17 Kvæðabók séra Gissurar Sveinssonar, 49.