Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1968, Page 393
POSTSCRIPT
Dr. Erik Eggen died after he had submitted the manuscript of this
book for publication in Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana. It became my task,
as editor of the series, to see the book through the press.
Apart from a number of corrections to the language made at the
suggestion of English-speaking people, the main text stands just as the
author left it.
In Eggen’s manuscript facsimiles and text were mixed together.
Practical grounds have made it necessary to publish the facsimiles in a
separate volume. The alterations in the text and cross-references which
have thus been necessitated are my responsibility.
Eggen’s own manuscript of the transcribed melodies had been pre-
pared with great care but there were some few additions and cor-
rections of a rather slipshod nature. There is no doubt that Eggen did
not expect his transcriptions to be published in the State in which they
were. It has, however, seemed preferable to reproduce his own manu-
script of the music, partly on the grounds of economy but first and
foremost because this avoided the necessity for proof correcting by a
less competent person than the author. It is hoped that the circum-
stances under which the work has appeared will be taken into account
before judgement is passed on any defects which may have arisen from
the employment of this procedure.
Eggen’s work was, for the most part, based on photographic repro-
ductions, several of which were unsatisfactory. This has led to some
errors in the text. Where such errors have been noticed, attention has
been drawn to the faet in the treatment of the sequence in question.
The faesimile volume contains new photographic reproductions.
Eggen was mainly interested in the sequences from a musical point
of view. His remarks on the manuscripts in which they are found were
very summary. He indicated his sources by letters, the Norwegian ones
by capitals (A, B, C etc.), the Icelandic ones by lower-case letters
(a, b, c etc.), sometimes without further indication of the library cata-
logue number. The State Archives in Oslo and the National Museum
and National Library in Reykjavik have been very cooperative, both
in finding the relevant manuscripts and in lending them to the Ama-
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