Gripla - 20.12.2004, Side 12

GRIPLA10
other text (cf. the additional material in AM 226 fol ), though we shall
never know if it was.
If we assume that there were only six leaves in the last gathering, then 227
originally contained 150 folios, of which 22 (two of them doubtless blank) are
no longer extant. Árni Magnússon’s later acquisitions, fols. 68, 80–83, and
129, all bear traces of use as book-wrappers, and we can safely presume that
the lost leaves were removed to serve a similar purpose. At the bottom of fol
67v Árni Magnússon noted „Desunt . 2. folia“, which after acquiring fol 68 he
altered to „Deest .1. fol “. At the bottom of fol 79v he wrote „desunt . 6. folia“,
an entry he did not change after fols. 80–83 came into his hands.
Information about the provenance of the leaves acquired by Árni
Magnússon after the bound volume came into his possession exists in the case
of only one of them. On a slip with fol 129 he noted:
„fietta hreina blad ur Stiorn var utanum bardar Sπgu Snæfellz äss med
hendi Sr Torfa i Bæ skrifada 1644. hveria Bardar Sπgu att hafdi Doctor
Olaus Worm. og feck eg bædi flad og Bardar Sπgu af Chr. Worm
1706“. (This clean leaf from Stjórn was round Bár›ar saga Snæfellsáss
in the hand of the Rev. Torfi of Bær, written in 1644. Dr Ole Worm had
owned it, and I got it and Bár›ar saga both from Chr. Worm in 1706).
This manuscript of Bár›ar saga is now AM 490 4to, at the front of which
there is a slip, probably cut from an original flyleaf, with the inscription,
„Liber Trebonii Jonæ Islandi comparatus Havniæ Anno 1644“. Above and
below this Ole Worm inserted: „Historia Barderi Snefelsaas./jam Olai
Wormii“. As Árni Magnússon says, the saga is in Torfi Jónsson’s hand
(though Kålund does not include the identification in his Arnamagnæan
catalogue), and it looks as though he also wrote the Latin sentence on the slip
at the front. In that case, the word ‘comparatus’ is best taken to mean that
Torfi got the manuscript, presumably from Iceland, in 1644, perhaps sent by
Bishop Brynjólfur Sveinsson (bishop of Skálholt 1639–74). Torfi finished his
schooling at Skálholt in 1638, and was in the service of Bishop Brynjólfur
from 1640 at the latest. We know, for instance, that he translated the opening
of Ragnars saga into Latin for the bishop in the winter of 1641–422. It is not
2 According to a note by Árni Magnússon at the front of AM 4 fol, where the translation is pre-
served; see Kålund I 1888:8.