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AM 445c,I has 5 cases of explicit parasite u—sprettur (lva34), (by)lur
(2ra31), tekur (3ra30), hagur (5rb6), Ingialldur (5rbl6). Hånd 3 of AM 564a
shows one such spelling {Grimur, 7rbl0), but there are none in Hånds 1
and 2.
2.5. eng/eing.
The later form eing is consistently used throughout AM 445c,I and in
all three hånds of AM 564a.
2.6. é/ie.
There are no examples of later ie for é in AM 445c,I or in AM 564a.
2.7. Graphs for r.
2 (“r-rotunda”), which was earlier used only after round-formed letters
such as o, d, g, began to appear more and more extensively as the 15th
century progressed. At a slightly earlier period, the small Capital n, which
had previously been used to indicate a double r, gradually lost this meaning
and became more common initially.11
On f.l of AM 445c,I, r appears almost consistently after a, g, i, m, n, u,
and usually after t; 2 is constant after b, d, h, p, usual after e,/, o (and o),
y, æ, and the majority form after k, p; small Capital n appears in initial
positions (except in retta, lvb5) and occasionally in medial and final posi-
tions (e.g. fæna, lva27). Here it sometimes appears with the apparent
meaning rr (e.g. fen, lva4), but since r is often used to represent rr (e.g.
fer, lrb2), and k appears with a dot above it in one case where rr is intended
(hcena, lvb28), it is not likely that the old geminating function of n is
intended.
The “progressive” passages of the Gisla saga fragment dif fer from f.l
in making r consistent after t, usual after e, and occasional after b, æ, but
2 consistent after o and o and usual after g, p. The “conservative” passages
also show r usually after b, g, k, p, and often after d, f, h, p, y, æ, but this
comparatively early stage may be due to the scribe’s exemplar. The graph
n does not occur in the Gisla saga fragment until f.4v, where it begins to
appear in medial and final positions (the first case is aun, 4vbl5). It is then
11 D. A. Seip, in Palæografi, B (Nordisk Kultur XXVIIIB, Uppsala, 1954), pp.
142-3, says that initial n does not seem to occur in Icelandic Mss. before about
1400, but Stefan Karlsson, in Sagas of Icelandic Bishops, Introduction, pp. 17-18,
footnote 5: “Initial n crops up in Icelandic documents as early as the first half
of the fourteenth century, and the usage is quite common in the second half”.
The earliest indisputably Icelandic documents I have seen in which initial n occurs
other than in proper names are EAA7 (and photographs in Supplementum 1),
nos. 12 (written in SkagafjarOarsysla, 1339 — here only onee, in the form nikiss)
and 15 (SkagafjarQarsysla, 1341 — here there are nine cases, in the forms nettliga,
nettsyne, netligaz, nangliga, nåde, naadsmanne). Before this, initial n occurs five
times in EAA7, no. 7 (SkagafjarOarsysla, 1315), but this could be the work of a
Norwegian scribe, and the graph was already well-established in Norway (D.A.
Seip, op. cit., pp. 80, 124).