Gripla - 20.12.2004, Qupperneq 34

GRIPLA32
argue point to the work’s Norwegian origin,25 but virtually all their observa-
tions concern individual words and we have as yet no detailed study of the
work’s diction and syntax. Mention should however be made of the work of
Peter Hallberg, who has drawn attention to a number of similarities between
the style and vocabulary of Stjórn I and those of works attributed to Bergr
Sokkason or his „school“ (1973:346–353). But without further research it
hardly seems possible to draw firm conclusions. In itself it is not at all un-
likely that Icelandic and Norwegian authors of the early fourteenth century
shared the same stylistic ideals, but that is not a subject to pursue in the pres-
ent context.
Stjórn II differs from both Stjórn I and Stjórn III in being a more or less
straight translation of the biblical text, considerably abridged, it is true, but
very rarely eked out with comment, and then only of the most modest kind. It
has been suggested that a few additions can be traced to Historia scholastica
(see Seip 1957:15; Kirby 1986:56–60), but the text itself contains no reference
at all to any extraneous source.
Opinions have differed on the age of Stjórn II. Unger thought it was
thirteenth-century work, Storm that it was made in Iceland, probably in the
fourteenth century, specifically to fill the gap between Stjórn I and Stjórn III.
Seip conjectured that Stjórn II in 226 was a copy of a fourteenth-century Nor-
wegian manuscript, which was itself ultimately derived from a twelfth-century
Norwegian original (Unger 1862:v; Storm 1886b:253; Seip 1957:11,15).
Kirby has drawn attention to various small errors in 226 which he thinks are
best explained as misreadings of forms in a manuscript written in the first part
of the thirteenth century. His chief evidence is provided by a few instances
where the scribe writes „i“ for „ok“ or „ok“ for „i“ (Unger 1862:30830, 3118,
34323). The confusion must imply that the „ok“ nota in the exemplar had no
cross-bar, and unbarred forms are a feature of some Icelandic hands of the first
half of the thirteenth century (Hreinn Benediktsson 1968: pl.15 and 16). Kirby
thinks that other errors in 226, which result from misreading „c“ as „t“ and
„r“ as „c“, point in the same direction (1986:5–7). Naturally, it does not fol-
low as a matter of course that 226 was copied directly from such an ancient
exemplar: the errors in question could be carried over from some intermediate
transcript. It must equally be said that the evidence itself is far from com-
pelling, and it is perhaps only the confusion of „r“ and „c“ which can be lent
25 See Unger 1862:v; Storm 1886b:252; Seip 1957:15–17; Jakobsen 1965:92–111.