Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1975, Page 323
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Father may have been, it is possible that the same man may also
have been connected in some way with another Icelandic exemplum
about an abbot, namely The Abbot Tormented in the Well, printed
in Gering, I, pp. 107-109. In the latter tale, when the abbot passes
the well containing the soul of his uncle, he hears noclcurn sårligan
kryt and two lines later, penna lerist (Gering, I, p. 108, lines 27, 29),
while the abbot in the former hears, at the corresponding point in
the narrative, noclcurn lerist eda kryt 238 XXVII, 2vl0. In addi-
tion to using these two rare nouns, both tales also employ the cal-
que from Latin, hvat lengra (Gering, I, p. 108, line 18; 238 XXI, lvl2.)
If the The Abbot and his Foster-Father did indeed stem from
Bishop Jon Halldorsson, it might be expected that he would have
made young Johannes enter the same order, but the former seems
to have been a Dominican (Gering, I, pp. 84 ff.) and the latter
became a Benedictine (“black monk” 238 XXI, lv30). However,
it is questionable whether any importance can be attached to this
and, moreover, the parallel text in 657b, 92rl0 mentions only his
becoming a monk, without reference to a specific religious order.
In the actual edition of the texts below, the rendering of several
manuscript symbols is problematic. The sign for the unstressed end-
ing -ir/-er: 238 XXI has no example written out, but considering
the date of the manuscript, the abbreviated ending has been arbi-
trarily expanded -er. In 238 XXIV, the symbol of abbreviation
occurs several times after i: seigier lv4, 6, J>egier lvl8, fylgier 2rl0,
23, suengier 2vl0. Here -er would be the natural expansion and
this is also used elsewhere in the edition, although there occurs
one example of -ir written out: sualirnar 2r27. The ending in 238
XXVII is written nine times as -ir (gerir lr4, Gerir lrl4, hafdir
lr25, kenwir lv5, ]polir lvl4, dæmir 2r5, Gerir 2r26, dottir 2vl9,
Jjræyttir 2v22) and only twice as -er (fader lr24, efter 2v9-10),
hence the abbreviation has been expanded below as -ir. 657b wri-
tes out four examples (epter 92r29, hugsaner 92v21-22, skorter
92v22; minrar 92v30) and the expansion used in the edition is -er.
238 XXVII and 657b use both d and 8, but given the similarity
of their formation and the damage to the vellum, it is sometimes
difficult to decide which letter is meant. A clear and consistent