Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1957, Page 364
344
NOTES
actum consimilem adjunctum habent”. This is certainly not, how-
ever, the original text, since both B and C have a different end-
ing. B has: . adjunctum habere deberent, nimirum Skalid
Helga j)aått”. C on the other hånd has: “. . adjunctum habent,
hic insero Skalld Helga joatt eritque" (the last word is certainly
to be read thus and not eritus, as Jon Helgason has it, op. cit. 15 ;
the ligatures for -us and -que are often deceptively similar in C) ;
the end of the sentence in C should undoubtedly have been com-
pleted by the heading “Cap. VIII”, and the whole read thus:
“hic insero Skalld Helga Joatt eritque Cap. VIII”. This is with-
out doubt the original form of the sentence (cf. above, p. 335),
for in this way we can explain the faet that ch. VIII (in A) is
not presented as a separate chapter in B, while the reference to
what was intended to be ch. VIII has in C (and the translation)
become the indication of a new chapter, though, significantly
enough, without a chapter-heading (the title in the translation,
“Vr Skaldhelga Fætte”, must result from a misunderstanding of
the remark in C quoted above). As Jån Helgason has already
pointed out (op. cit. 14-15), AJ certainly had it originally in
mind to include a version of Skåld-Helga joattr as his ch. VIII,
but this was not available to him when he sent A to Denmark,
and he therefore allowed the reference to it to be dropped, and
the “tertius actus” referred to thus became the following narra-
tive (ch. VIII). Later AJ gave up the idea of including a sum-
mary of the joåttr—presumably he never got hold of the tale—
and the form of the final remark in B probably then represents
his last word on the subject, whether it was expressed in this way
by AJ himself or by the writer of B. C, on the other hånd, has
preserved what we can with reasonable certainty regard as the
original wording. From this it follows that we have reasonable
grounds for concluding that C goes back to a copy of the author’s
own manuscript which was older than B.
That B cannot be dependent on the copy that was the ultimate
original of C is seen at once from the readings peculiar to C
which also occur in the Icelandic translation; they are cited
above. In addition, there are the facts we know concerning B’s
provenance (see above), which make it probable that B1 comes
direetly from the author’s autograph copy. B has moreover some