Gripla - 20.12.2014, Page 224

GRIPLA224
throughout the manuscript. the footnotes were most likely added at the
time of writing, while the glosses are less systematic and might have been
added later. All these notes clearly indicate that the scribe, Páll Pálsson,
had other manuscripts at his disposal while working on Lbs 238 b 8vo.
the title of the hymn names the manuscript that he was copying from as
“8vo II” and also says that he compared the copy to “Lambastaðabók,” also
mentioned in the footnotes to the hymn. the very first footnote states
that the readings are taken from Lambastaðabók and footnote number 30
also mentions it, stating that the whole of stanza 15 was missing in 8vo II
and is for this reason copied from Lambastaðabók. this manuscript is no
longer preserved, and until now, very little has been known of the one Páll
Pálsson calls 8vo II.
In addition to the manuscripts mentioned, Páll Pálsson also had the
following texts of the hymn at his disposal: JS 439 8vo, JS 272 II 4to, JS
643 4to and Lbs 194 8vo. Leaves and/or notes by Páll inserted into these
manuscripts attest that he had them on hand. judging by the variants of
the longer versions of Hljómi raustin barna best in JS 439 8vo, taken with
the printed version as the base text, the hymn corresponds so closely to
the text in Lbs 238 b 8vo that it seems very likely that this manuscript is
the “8vo II” to which Páll Pálsson refers in the hymn’s title. these two
manuscripts are the only ones where the order of stanzas 8 and 9 of Hljómi
raustin barna best is reversed. these are also the only two manuscripts of
the hymn’s longer version where stanzas 2 and 3 are in the same order as in
the original Latin text, although there is an alternative numbering for these
stanzas marked in brackets under the stanza numbers in Lbs 238 b 8vo.
Stanza 14 is also missing from JS 439 8vo, at which point the footnote in
Lbs 238 b 8vo states that the verse was taken from Lambastaðabók because
it was missing from 8vo II. of all the manuscripts that Páll Pálsson had
access to, the text of js 439 8vo is closest to the hymn’s text. One of these
manuscripts, js 643 4to, contains the shorter version of the hymn and
would thus not have been very useful to the scribe. Judging by the variants
it does not seem likely that he consulted JS 272 4to at all when working on
Lbs 238 b 8vo. In Lbs 194 8vo, Hljómi raustin barna best has some similari-
ties with the version in Lbs 238 b 8vo, but it also has some variants that
are not found in any other manuscript. It also has variants that are similar
to another group of manuscripts where the hymn is relatively close to the