Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1960, Qupperneq 69

61
52v, 1. 28: fria honum at pér. The reading is very doubtful. In a påttr about
Halldor Snorrason in Haraids saga hardrdda in Flateyjarbok there is the sen-
tenee: ‘Jsdå fria £>u ei honum minnr en nu fria ek {sier’ (Flat., III, pp. 430-31).
Fritzner, who renders the word as fria (not frja), translates it: grant a person
freedom or peace. In another version of the påttr (AM 62, fol.) the reading is:
‘Joa skaltv eigi mfnna frelsi gefa honvm. en ek gef per nv’.
II
Relics of Grettisfærsla were preserved orally and written down in
the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. These remains were by that
time in no way distinet from other pulur recited to children, their
origin was long forgotten, and innocent words had replaced the
obscenities of the original. The pula in question was to my know-
ledge first printed in the second edition of Jon Olafsson’s spelling-
book Spdnnytt stafrofskver (Reykjavik, 1889), and later in Olafur
Davi&sson’s Islenzkar gatur, etc., IV, p. 214. Glafur Davi&sson has
combined various texts and the variants he gives are diffieult to
follow. I have therefore chosen to print the pula afresh from the
manuscripts which he lists, and I have in addition to these used
Gisli Konrå&sson’s copy in Lbs. 2856, 4to (p. 884; written c. 1850),
and Sigfus Sigfusson’s Islenzkar pjod-sogur og -sagnir, XV, Reykja-
vik, 1958, p. 45, where the pula is printed from the memory of
Ingibjorg Isleifsdottir. The text which I have called A is printed
from IB 651, 8vo (written, according to Glafur Davi&sson, by Sig-
mundur Matthiasson (1841-1924)), variants being given from Jon
Glafsson’s Stafrofskver (JG), and from Sigfus Sigfusson’s version
(SS). Text B is printed from DFS 67, p. 428 (DFS = Dansk Folke-
mindesamling in the Royal Library, Copenhagen), written in 1850
by sera Jon Eyjolfsson of StaSur in A&alvik. He heard the pula
from his sister, Ågustina Johanna, who was then thirty-four. Vari-
ants are given from DFS 67, p. 196, in the hånd of Jon SigurOsson;
from JS 289, 8vo, in the hånd of sera Jon Nor&mann of BarS
i Fljotum (1820-77); and from Lbs. 2856, 4to (referred to above).
The variants are distinguished by the writers’ initials: JS, JN, GK.
DFS 118 contains a copy of JS 289, 8vo in the hånd of Pålmi
Pålsson. The manuscript is there referred to as JS 282, 8vo, and
Olafur Davi&sson consistently refers to it by this number (cf. Påll
Eggert Glason: Skrå yfir handritasofn Landsbokasafnsins, II, p.