Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1970, Blaðsíða 343

317
(H9r26, H9v6, both in verses), Oo not at all, but in view of the doubts
about how far Åmi is reflecting his original here, this can hardly be taken
as evidence of any system.
4.9. Use of d.
6 does not appear at all in any of the copies of Vatnshyrna, and dd is
written out in full (e.g. staddir, H5vl3, grceddr, E39:21).
4.10. th spellings for t.
There are no sueh spellings in Årni’s eopies of Vatnshyrna.
4.11. ce spellings for e.
There are no æ spellings for e in Åmi’s eopies of Vatnshyrna.
4.12. Oraphs for eSa.
eda appears as edr in Arni’s eopies of Vatnshyrna (e.g. E33:8, H3r27);
there are no ce spellings.
4.13. The graph tn.
tn is usual for i as a whole word or word-element in the copies of Vatns-
hyrna (there are about a dozen cases of å, e.g. C2r6, H2v8, E35:20). How-
ever, the number of medial cases of tn (or less often tu) for ét is so great
as to approach the number of cases of a and ét, so that no system for the
use of eet can be observed. æt is used for the short vowel only in Hællz (C2r8),
and this may be a mistake.
4.14. Comparison of these facts with the evidence for AM 564a
and AM 445c,I shows those fragments to be orthographically more
advanced than Vatnshyrna was in their use of d for unstressed
final t, vo for vd, vær for vér and eing for eng. Approximately
equal age would seem to be indicated by the evidence for parasite
u before r, though even if the spellings showing it in the copies
are accepted as coming from Vatnshyrna, their extent is less than
in the fragments. The remaining tests, though they reveal system-
atic usages in the fragments, do not give any material for com-
parison of date.
In general, the fragments seem to be orthographically slightly
later than Vatnshyrna, although it is of course possible for ortho-
graphic evidence to be misleading as to date.
5.1. The pages of the fragments were of about equal size, so far
as can be judged from their damaged state (no leaf of AM 445c,I
has both its full height and width preserved), but this can only
be established by examining the heights and widths of their
columns.
Only two full columns in AM 445c,I retain their original heights,
which are 204 and 206 mm. The height in AM 564a varies between