Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1960, Page 266
250
3. In AM 576b, 4° (“Excerpta ur sogum og rimum”)8 Årni Mag-
nusson has given a brief summary of Ferakuts saga: Inntak ur Fera-
kuts Sogu. edur pættinum af Balant amiral (fol. 26). His own com-
ment on this is: Petta extract er uppteiknad ur pvi er Kulu are hefr
skrifad, a 37 blod i fol. rangt oc olæselegt oc er pattrin par med ongva
gamla nie goda Iislendsku fulir med idiotismos oc locutiones Danicas,
oc nockrum sinnum Gallicas.
The Kulu are mentioned must be identical with Ari Jonsson å
Kulu in Arnarfjor&ur9. The dates of his birth and death are not on
record, but it is known that a granddaughter of his, Gu5run f>or5ar-
dottir, hved from about 1774 to 183510. Thus it may be assumed
that Ari was born about the year 1700. Therefore his Ferakut text
cannot have been transcribed directly from I, which had come to
Stockholm not later than 1683.
We no longer have Ari’s transcript, but Årni Magnusson’s sum-
mary is copious enough to show that in principle the text must have
been identical with those of the two MSS. preserved. It is said to
have covered 37 folio pages, which might tally with the length of I.
Some of the names listed by Årni Magnusson in his Inntak suggest
that Ari’s text was closely related to the text of I.
It is, of course, impossible to decide whether Årni Magnusson’s
characterization of the language of the copy is correct. His observa-
tion that the language is not old or good Icelandic equally applies
to the texts preserved, but these texts do not corroborate his asser-
tion as to Gallicisms. Perhaps this assertion should most likely be
taken to reflect Årni Magnusson’s conjecture as to the descent of
the saga, and in that case it may be given qualified approval; but
where a determination of the immediate source of the saga is con-
cerned the assertion is misleading.
II. The Text.
Ferakuts saga seems to have been subjected to no previous in-
vestigation, perhaps because it has been taken for granted that it
8 Katalog over den Amamagnæanske Håndskriftsamling (ved Kk. Kåltotd) X
(1889), p. 738.
9 See Syslumannaæfir. . . III (1905-08), p. 450.
10 See Påll Eggebt Glason, Islenzkar æviskrår ... V (1952), p. 29 (the article
on Torfi Magnusson).