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Kålund’s dating of aM 696 VIII and IX 4to to the fifteenth century
has since been revised, and the Ordbog over det norrøne prosasprog, citing a
personal communication from Stefán Karlsson, now dates the fragments
to 1500–1550.14 Stefán Karlsson also noticed that the fragments were
written in the same hand as aM 661 4to, a manuscript of Stefanus saga.15
this identification gives us a possible clue as to where the scribe of our
sermon was working. the copy of Stefanus saga in aM 661 4to begins:
“Hier byriar vpp savgv vírdulígs herra Stephani prothomartírís. patroni
Snoksdals kirkiv.”16 It was presumably this introductory statement that
led Árni Magnússon to conclude that the manuscript “hefur, óefad, til
forna vered eign Snoksdals kirkiu.”17 this seems a reasonable inference,
since it would be odd for the scribe to mention the church of Snóksdalur
if he were not connected to it in some way. It is likely, then, that aM
696 VIII and IX 4to were written in or around Snóksdalur in Dalasýsla,
or at the very least somewhere in the diocese of Skálholt, to which the
church of Snóksdalur belonged. Árni Magnússon does not record how he
acquired the two sermon fragments. He received aM 661 4to from Árni
Hákonarson from Vatnshorn in Dalasýsla (ca. 1660–1690), with whom he
studied in Copenhagen,18 but there is no indication that aM 696 VIII and
IX 4to share that provenance.
corresponding to the lacuna in the Icelandic sermon. If all of this material was adapted by
the Icelandic author, more leaves must be missing from the inside of the gathering.
14 See the catalogue at http://onpweb.nfi.sc.ku.dk/ms/coll4.htm, accessed 20 June 2018.
15 Marianne E. Kalinke, “Stefanus saga in reykjahólabók,” Gripla 9 (1995): 134 n. 7.
16 Kålund, Katalog, vol. 2, 74 (item 1654); recorded in the apparatus of the edition of Stefanus
saga in Heilagra manna sögur, ed. C.r. unger, vol. 2 (oslo: Bentzen, 1877), 287.
17 Árni Magnússon, Arne Magnussons i AM. 435 A-B, 4to indeholdte Håndskriftfortegnelser,
med to Tillæg, ed. Kommissionen for det arnamagnæanske Legat (Copenhagen: Gyldendal,
1909), 12; recorded in Kålund, Katalog, vol. 2, 74.
18 Árni Magnússon, Håndskriftfortegnelser, 12; Jonna Louis-Jensen, “Árni Hákonarson fra
Vatnshorn,” Sagnaþing helgað Jónasi Kristjánssyni sjötugum 10. apríl, 1994, ed. Gísli Sigurðs-
son et al., vol. 2 (reykjavík: Hið íslenska bókmenntafélag, 1994), 515–25; Páll Eggert
ólason, Íslenzkar æviskrár frá landnámstímum til ársloka 1940, vol. 1 (reykjavík: Hið
íslenzka bókmenntafélag, 1948), 47. on other manuscripts received from Árni Hákonarson,
see Sture Hast, Pappershandskrifterna till Harðar saga, Bibliotheca arnamagnæana
23 (Copenhagen: Munksgaard, 1960), 140; Jón Helgason, “Sylloge sagarum. resenii
bibliotheca. Vatnshyrna,” Opuscula 8 (1985): 50–1; and Jon Gunnar Jørgensen, The Lost
Vellum Kringla, trans. Sîan Grønlie, Bibliotheca arnamagnæana 45 (Copenhagen: reitzel,
2007), 191–95.
FRAGMENTS OF AN ICELANDIC CHRISTMAS SERMON