Gripla - 2019, Qupperneq 22

GRIPLA22
Title Completed
Cyrus saga Persakonungs – –
Núma saga 10-02-1891
Líkafróns saga og kappa hans – –
Flóres saga og Leó – –
Falentíns og Ursins saga – –
Ectors saga – –
Högna saga sinnisbráða – –
Okulus saga og Prúdentíu – –
Alexanders saga og Loðvíks – –
Alexanders saga blinda – –
Gríms saga Karlssonar og bræðra hans – –
Table 1. Sagas in Jóhannesson A
The title-page reads: “Gamlar riddarasögur skrifaðar af Albert Jó hann-
essyni 22. desember 1889” [Old riddarasögur, copied by Albert Jó hannesson,
22 December 1889]. This date comes three days before Christmas, the day
specified in Albert’s vow of July 1889. Variations in the handwriting, the
ink and the condition of the paper demonstrate that the first seven sagas
were written over an extended period of time, in an unknown order,
and were not initially bound into a single volume. The only dated saga is
Núma saga, a translation of de Florian’s Numa Pompilius, Second Roi De
Rome, which Albert completed in 1891. Given that Albert spent the period
1889–1893 as a migrant worker and intermittent homesteader, he probably
copied the manuscript at multiple locations.
Jóhannesson B
Albert began his second volume soon after completing his first. The title-
page is also similar: “Fornar riddarasögur og Heimskringla Snorra goða.
Samansafnað og skrifað hefur Albert Jóhannesson 1892” [Ancient ridda ra -
sögur and Snorri goði’s Heimskringla. Collected and copied by Albert
Jóhannesson, 1892]. The date of completion for the first saga, a his-
tory of Julius Caesar, is August 26th (presumably of 1891 or 1892). Like
Jóhannesson A, this manuscript begins with a series of saga texts, 33 in all.
The second half of this ambitious scribal project is a post-medieval miscel-
lany on geography and world history that is presented on its title-page as a